Unintended Cultivator

Sen sat with his legs crossed and eyes closed. The sun would rise soon, but it wasn’t up yet. It was a quiet time when the night creatures had retreated to their lairs and nests, yet before the day creatures had roused themselves to go about their sunlit activities. He let that gentle hush wash over him and through him. It was an indulgence in serenity that he rarely allowed himself, but given what was about to come, he felt he’d earned this indulgence. He was aware of the pill in his hand. Its actual weight was negligible, especially to someone like him, but it still felt like it might drag his hand to the earth. It had been a long time coming, that pill, the last one in the Five-Fold Body Transformation.

“Where did you find a breath mint?” asked Laughing River. “I didn’t think this world had those.”

Sen’s eyes snapped open.

“Where did you come from?” Sen demanded.

“Over there,” said the elder fox with a vague gesture.

He hadn’t even felt the nine-tail fox approaching. That was enough to fill Sen with dread. Was his spiritual sense slipping? Then, the fox’s words hit him.

“What’s a breath mint? Wait, that doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, this pill isn’t a breath mint. This is for my body transformation.”

Laughing River eyed the pill in Sen’s hand dubiously. Then, so quick Sen couldn’t stop it, the fox plucked the pill from his hand and popped it into his mouth. Sen shot to his feet, expecting disaster. The fox seemed to consider the taste for about five seconds before nodding.

“Yep. Definitely a breath mint.”

The final bolt of tribulation lightning flew. As the unadulterated wrath of the heavens connected with him, sought to unmake him, tried to drown him in an ocean of torment so all-consuming that no mortal mind could contain the experience, something changed. He felt it inside of what was left of him, which he knew was little more than bones surrounded by burned and desiccated flesh. There was a surge as some last bit of alchemy was ignited. It seized the remnants of the celestial power that still coursed through him and around him. It converted that divine qi into something he didn’t even begin to understand. As consciousness threatened to overtake him, Falling Leaf stepped into view above him.

“Have you considered using a lightning rod?”

“I…” Sen mumbled, barely able to put one thought in front of the other.

“I mean, I guess facing that lightning head on probably sounds all macho, but it makes you look like an idiot. You can make buildings with self-regulating temperatures, but you can’t think your way around a little lightning? That just seems really implausible.”

Sen glared up at the woman.

“Everyone knows you have to take the lightning.”

“Oh please, when have you ever done anything because everyone knows it?”

“Who are you? Falling Leaf would never talk like this.”

“Plot goblin.”

“A what?”

“I’m a plot goblin. I show up at super inconvenient times to mock characters about obvious holes in their reality. It’s really a pretty sweet gig.”

***

“Well, aren’t you just as charming as the first time we met,” said Lu Sen.

A slight blush of embarrassment rose in her cheeks, but Li Yi Nuo regrouped quickly.

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“You sent me to the far side of the kingdom for nothing,” she said and poked the man in the chest. “Kho Jaw-Long wasn’t there.”

Bahn Huizhong almost choked at that sight. Clearly, the man had more tolerance than most patriarchs, but there were always limits. Again, the man surprised him. Instead of striking Li Yi Nuo down, he gave her an intense look.

“You shouldn’t touch me anywhere you wouldn’t like me to touch you.”

Li Yi Nuo looked momentarily startled before she thrust her chest out at the man.

“Show me what you’ve got, big guy,” she challenged him. “If you have the nerve.”

Bahn Huizhong seized the back of Li Yi Nuo’s robes and started to drag her away. Damn fool girl is going to get us both killed, he thought. He glanced back to see Lu Sen giving them a halfhearted wave.

“Thanks for visiting,” the man called after them.

***

“Okay,” said Sen. “I think it’s probably about time for your writing lesson, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“You go find Uncle Kho, and I’ll make us something very yummy for dinner later.”

“Okay!”

She held out her arms for a hug which Sen dutifully provided. Then, she ran off. Li Yi Nuo looked like she was about to start firing questions at him, but Ai’s voice floated back to them.

“Come on, birds!”

From the nearby trees, what Sen thought had to be at least a hundred birds exploded into motion and flew after the running child. Li Yi Nuo seemed to forget all of her questions as her eyes followed the birds. Bahn Huizhong slowly rose to a standing position, his expression a mixture of uncertainty and surprise. He opened his mouth to ask a question when every one of his senses started screaming at him that he was in immediate peril. Before he could so much as move, the sun was blotted out and darkness fell over the entire compound as a vast form swooped by overhead. Li Yi Nuo let out a choked scream, and Bahn Huizhong was only barely able to restrain his own terrified outburst.

“What was that?” he asked.

Lu Sen glanced skyward.

“Oh, that’s George. Best babysitter on the continent. I have no idea how Auntie Caihong found him, but he’s great. Works cheap too.”

“Cheap?” asked Li Yi Nuo in a stunned voice.

“Yeah, I just feed him people I don’t like.”

***

Sen watched the work with curiosity. He’d seen smithing a few times but rarely had the chance to simply stand back and watch the process for more than a few minutes. There was something almost hypnotic about it. His enhanced senses were able to distinguish the way the smiths varied the force of their hammering just by the distinct sounds the impacts made. He marveled at how they knew when the metal had cooled a bit too much and reheated it, only to draw the red, glowing metal back out and continue their work as though they’d never stopped. He was simply stunned at the men working the bellows to bring up the temperature to a precise spot and keep it there.

The most impressive thing, to Sen’s mind, was the sheer endurance necessary for the work. While his own body cultivation would likely make that element almost trivial, he knew full well that it wasn’t trivial for mortals. Watching them keep going for hours on end like machines made of flesh was a testament to their strength and focus. Still, there were limits. One by one the apprentices and then the master stopped moving. Master Feng looked up from a block of metal he'd pulled out of a storage ring.

“Why did you stop?” he asked the blacksmiths.

Sen frowned, stood, and walked over to one of the apprentices. He gently prodded the youth, who fell limply to the ground. Sen looked at the other two motionless people.

“They’re dead,” said Sen. “Hearts gave out, I think.”

“What? Not again.”

“Again?” asked Sen.

Master Feng ignored him and bellowed a single word, “Kho!”

A few moments later, Master Kho appeared in the smithy. His eyes took in the smith before he shook his head.

“This is the last time, Ming. It’s not good for them,” said Uncle Kho.

“I know. I promise this is the last time.”

Uncle Kho walked over to each smith in turn and put a hand on their chest. Sen felt a brief surge of lightning qi, and the smiths were each, somehow, restored to life. Sen gaped at the scene before he warily asked Uncle Kho a question.

“Uncle Kho, why are you making zombies?”

***

Sen glanced down at Ai, who had rested her head against his chest. She wasn’t asleep, but she looked like it wouldn’t take much for her to get there. He stroked the back of her head, and her eyes popped open.

“Did you keep all the yucky bugs away while I was gone?” he asked.

She straightened up and her eyes glittered with excitement.

“I did! There was one super yucky bug.”

“A super yucky bug?! What did you do about it?”

“I got my big bird to eat it.”

Sen’s eyes narrowed a little at the talk of a big bird. There hadn’t been a big bird when he left. He looked over at Auntie Caihong who wore a very un-Auntie Caihong look of sheepishness.

“I tried to tell her it’s not a bird, but she didn’t really understand,” said the elder cultivator while not quite meeting his eyes.

“If it’s not a bird, what is it?” asked Sen in a tone of forced calm.

“It’s a dragon.”

Sen lifted his free hand to rub at his eyes.

“Of course, it’s a dragon.”

***

“This one barely even qualified as a book in the series,” complained Fu Ruolan.

“What?” asked Sen. “How do you figure? I had tons of character development.”

“The main character barely appeared.”

“Barely appeared? I’m in practically every… You meant you, didn’t you?”

“Of course, I did,” said Fu Ruolan. “Everyone knows the readers love me best.”

So ends Unintended Cultivator Volume Nine. Sen and company will return in Unintended Cultivator Volume Ten.