Chapter 33 (Patreon)

“Now it all makes sense.” I felt a faint sadness, an uncharacteristic melancholy, and an irrational sense of hurt. They spoiled the satisfaction I should have taken in the rather profitable deal I’d just struck.

Phenex and Li Fang had left my property, though they wouldn’t be gone for long. We’d agreed on treatment for his Knight, so the Chinese woman, at least, would be back many more times. Under my pointed gaze, Tsubasa heaved a series of long-suffering sighs and went back to studying the scrolls I’d assigned her. That left me enjoying the student council president’s company in the gazebo, just the two of us.

“Are you upset?” Sona-san looked at me with gentle concern. “Because of what Li Fang’s master did to her?”

“What?” I surfaced from my little swamp of melancholy and gave a quiet laugh. “No. That unworthy wretch and his former disciple have almost nothing to do with it.”

“Really? I thought you’d begun to feel sorry for her. You even seemed to soften toward her.” She gave me one of her lovely, composed smiles. I also caught a hint of disapproval in her voice.

“In a way, you’re right, Sona-san.” I nodded thoughtfully as I refilled both our cups. “My opinion of her has changed a little. Of course, she still bears responsibility. Master and disciple choose each other, and Li Fang made a mistake when she chose a vile scoundrel. On the other hand… she’s young, and young mortals often judge people by their reputation in their own little corner of the world. Perhaps Li Fang sensed something wrong with her teacher but convinced herself it was nonsense. After all, he was a Great Master, and plenty of worthy people sang the praises of his power and skill.”

I wasn’t lying. Many lives ago, I’d fallen into the same trap myself. Of course, that wouldn’t stop me from curling my lip at other people’s mistakes. Hypocrisy? In a way, yes. But also… high standards, perhaps? I’m a talentless fellow who never reached the True Heights, despite the enormous advantage I possess. And I judge people who make the same mistakes a mediocre failure like me once made. A former failure, mind you. It’s disappointing to watch young, promising practitioners of the martial arts I love so much commit such foolish blunders.

“Besides, when it comes to betrayal, the worst thing you can imagine is a knife in the back from those closest to you. Your mother and father. A beloved, powerful uncle. Your beloved younger brothers or sisters. For a cultivator, a treacherous master belongs on that same list. A disciple is terribly vulnerable to their master. Everything—from the rules of schools, sects, and clans to plain common sense—tells a novice to trust their teacher even more than themselves.”

I knew what I was talking about. I’d had many masters. When I failed on one Path, I chose another. Joining a sect devoted to that discipline was a good way to begin. With luck—or after several lifetimes spent studying the Path I’d chosen—I might find a master willing to take me on as a personal disciple. And then, yes, even I, for all my pomp and arrogance, would swallow my pride and bow my head before my master, respectfully absorbing the wisdom of yet another Path.

I trusted my masters and often placed my life in their hands. For someone with my particular traits, that wasn’t especially dangerous. For other cultivators, though, such trust was an act of absolute faith in their teacher.

“Quite often, on the path of cultivation, a young man or woman finds themselves wandering in the dark. Only a mentor’s steady, confident voice can guide them through. Wise counsel, a firm hand… a fatherly kick in the right direction. We practitioners feel… should feel, must feel safe in our master’s presence. We must trust him as we trust the Heavens, more than we trust our own parents. Not every loving parent could put their son or daughter through the harshest trials to temper their character and make them stronger. A master has to.

“He may do it with sympathy in his heart, with merciless coldness toward his student, or while mocking the young ignoramus. But when it comes to personal disciples, a teacher is a master craftsman forging his greatest weapon and passing on his Legacy. Mentorship is the sacred act of passing on your mastery. To some, it matters more than continuing their bloodline.”

“Hmm…” She studied me with her beautiful violet eyes, wearing that familiar calm, faintly weary look. “I see. That makes what Li Fang’s master did seem especially vile.”

“Exactly.” I smiled at my Mistress. It felt good to talk to someone who listened. Simply listened, without the fanatical devotion of disciples or the “boundless wisdom” of fellow cultivators. “Masters have killed me in past lives. For all sorts of reasons: disappointment in me or my actions, accidents, trials I failed to survive. There were betrayals, too. But methods like those Li Fang’s master used were always… foul. As I said, they reek of weakness. A senior who resorts to such tricks might as well shout that he lacks the strength, resolve, or courage to strike a junior down openly.”

“And what if the junior had powerful backers?”

“That situation wasn’t very common. Novices from great families were usually trained at home. An emperor’s son, for example, would rarely go off to study at an outside sect that wasn’t particularly powerful. But there were ways to handle it. The most obvious was the distinction between inner and outer disciples. Anyone who might one day become an outsider was kept out of the inner circle. So even if a disciple proved disappointing, the sect could simply kick him out. He knew none of its great secrets or closely guarded techniques, so he couldn’t leak any unique cultivation practices. That was all.”

“So a disciple like that was forever stuck in a secondary role?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Being an outer disciple wasn’t a life sentence. If an adept progressed well, they often caught the eye of someone important. It might be a senior master from their own sect, who would offer to take them on if they swore certain oaths. These weren’t mere promises or contracts some clever lawyer could find a loophole in. The oaths placed a seal on the disciple’s cultivation, and often on their very life. The usual terms included loyalty to the sect and master, a ban on sharing secret techniques, and so on.

“The oaths could vary. The master might come from another sect or even be an independent cultivator. Sometimes an adept—even that emperor’s son—became the disciple of someone so powerful that, if they fell out, the master could easily kill even a member of the ruler’s family. And if the emperor objected, the cultivator would simply ‘replace’ the entire dynasty. No fuss.”

“That wasn’t Li Fang’s situation,” Sona-san said with a smile.

“Right. Her teacher was a greedy weakling who fancied himself a clever mastermind. In truth, the old man was a two-bit schemer. Forgive my language, Mistress. From the start, he should either have forbidden his disciple to reincarnate—which would have been difficult, since her school had no rule against it—or simply accepted that his plans would never come to pass. Taking revenge on the girl… that petty, base, grasping, envious spite marks him as a nobody.

“And yes, in a way, I do feel sorry for Li Fang. When I pulled the imp out of her, I saw her in her Inner Sea. She looked like a frightened girl, struggling in a panic to survive a storm caused by the removal of an utterly mindless creature—one that wouldn’t have threatened any reasonably experienced practitioner. Seeing her like that is, in a way, what’s troubling me now.”

“Did you start feeling sorry for her?”

“Ignorance isn’t grounds for condemnation unless it comes from a disciple’s laziness or stupidity. Of course, to earn my wholehearted approval and recognition, Li Fang would have had to achieve greatness entirely on her own. But that’s a utopian dream of a perfect cultivator born with enlightenment raised to the power of infinity. In truth, the case of the Phenex clan’s Knight taught me something important about this world’s cultivators. I hadn’t gone out of my way to learn about the Enlightened Shaolin or Great Huashan. Experience told me that sooner or later, the knowledge would come to me. And it did.”

A sad sigh escaped me. The Earth I’d been born on this time promised interesting battles and a wealth of new knowledge. But my brothers and sisters on the path of cultivation had disappointed me utterly and irrevocably.

“It turned out to be simple. The practitioners here… they’re young. Absurdly young, and therefore weak. Human history in this world is incredibly short. If I remember right, an ancestor of modern humans picked up a stone tool about three million years ago, while modern humans have lived on Earth for roughly three hundred thousand years. I… can’t really blame them for how little their martial arts have developed. The cultivation worlds I’ve been born into were almost always immeasurably old. Their first sects and clans had spent millions of generations developing their Paths.

“Some cultivators could easily live those same three hundred thousand years. And the Great Immortals, the ones who shook all Nine Heavens, could celebrate a nice round five-millionth birthday. Why, I once overheard two old friends talking. One had just emerged from fifty thousand years of secluded meditation. The other wasn’t impressed in the slightest. He wanted to know what arrays his friend had used for soundproofing, and where he’d found such a quiet region—somewhere ‘all those idiots’ wouldn’t shake the mountain ranges and cloud-piercing peaks while the Venerable One meditated.

“He only meant to go into seclusion for a short while himself, ten thousand years or so. He had a young wife, you see, and she’d soon miss her husband’s attention. Then she’d come and flatten whatever mountain range he’d retreated to.”

Sona-san laughed, the sound musical, and I couldn’t help smiling myself. The story sounded made up, but every word of it was true.

“So the other cultivators on Earth…”

“I’m afraid I’m unlikely to learn anything useful from my local brethren,” I said, confirming the thought she hadn’t quite finished. “And if Li Fang is to be believed, I’m probably already stronger than any practitioner in this world. As for knowledge, there’s even less to hope for. I might pick up some extremely primitive secret—something on the level of fire-hardening a stick to make a spear. Interesting, certainly, but to someone living in a digital age, that knowledge would be little more than an amusing curiosity.”

“Now I understand what’s making you sad.” My Mistress looked at me with understanding and touched my forearm, offering comfort.

“Only a little.” I bowed my head in thanks, realizing how much I appreciated her support and the light touch on my arm. “There’s plenty that’s new to me in this world, no shortage of strong opponents, and a wealth of knowledge. Besides, nothing stops me from following my Path at my own pace. Someday I might found a martial arts school. I might even aim for a sect and take my seat as its founding ancestor. Raising the martial arts of this world to new heights would be a rather… pleasant goal along the way. It would flatter my vanity, and it’s a worthwhile, constructive pursuit. Provided you have no objections, my Mistress.”

“Of course I don’t. Though…” She hesitated, thoughtfully winding a lock of hair around her finger. Then she gave me a sly smile, her violet eyes glinting. “We’ll have to discuss who gets into your school’s inner circle and who has to settle for being an outer disciple.”

“Of course.” I nodded to my Mistress in understanding. Sona-san had grasped the point at once. She was the princess and heir of a Great House, after all.

“By the way, are you free this weekend?” she asked suddenly, her gaze flicking away.

“For you, I’m free every day.” I gave an easy shrug. There was no need to spell out the details; my Mistress knew exactly what I meant. “Have you decided to take the clan somewhere after all?”

“No. I mean, yes, we’ll do that too, but our… office party—with the kendo club, by the way—is a little later. This weekend, you and I are going to visit your parents. Please pick a day that suits them.”

“Um…” Now it was my turn to hesitate. “All right, Sona-san. But may I ask—”

“We’re just visiting.” The tips of her ears turned a charming shade of red, and her violet eyes looked everywhere but at me.

“As my Mistress wishes.” I inclined my head, mildly puzzled.

“Remember the priestess you asked about? The one who came to the Academy?”

“Yes. You said we’d talk about it later.”

“It has to do with her. Or rather… with your parents. That is, with your mother’s situation… Um, well…” It was strange to see the usually calm, sensible girl stumbling over her words. “Anyway, we’re going to visit!”

“I see.” I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to embarrass her any further.

Well… saying I didn’t understand was going too far. I was puzzled, though.

“What do you think?” The blond man in a burgundy suit sprawled on the sofa in his living room.

“Venerable Taro is definitely not who he claims to be,” Li Fang said with certainty, understanding what her Lord was asking.

She sat close beside Riser Phenex, rested her head on his shoulder with a soft sigh of relief, and closed her tired eyes. He immediately slipped an arm around her, holding her gently, affectionately. The Chinese woman felt as though she were tucked beneath the wing of a strong, caring eagle, safe as a chick from all the troubles of the world.

“Hmm?” Even without words, Li Fang understood the question. She didn’t open her eyes, but sensed her Lord raise an eyebrow and smile.

“He can’t be a young man who hasn’t even turned twenty,” Li Fang clarified. “He might be an ancient elder hiding among humans. Or a master of the dark paths who seized Chiba Taro’s body. Perhaps he’s the reincarnation of someone powerful from the past. His skills are… too great. Everything I saw, understood, and heard tells me that Lady Sitri has someone extraordinary in her service. What he considers ordinary, scarcely worth mentioning, would have been a Revelation with a capital R to my former master.”

“And that bastard’s got some nerve.” Li Fang opened her eyes a little and saw her Lord grimace. “He’s as greedy as ten of your teachers put together.”

“Forgive me…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He gave her forehead the lightest of flicks—barely more than a gesture. “If you trust this Chiba and believe he can help you, I don’t give a damn who he is or what the treatment costs. All those treasures are dust compared with your lives. I can put up with that… Venerable One’s mockery. It won’t put my flame out. Besides, some of what he said… gave me something to think about.”

“You mean…”

“My fiancée.” Phenex nodded. “And my little sisters, my older brothers, and accidents. Speaking of fiancées…”

Riser looked toward the teleportation circle as it began to glow. A flash later, his Queen and his younger sister, who served as a Bishop in his peerage, appeared in the living room.

“Sis, Yubelluna. How did it go?”

“Fine.” His younger sister glared at him. “I thought you two were at the doctor’s, but apparently you decided to sit here cuddling while Yubi and I handled the talks with your fiancée!”

“We just got back.” Riser grimaced again.

“No luck again?” Yubelluna asked, giving Li Fang a sympathetic look as she settled into an armchair.

The Queen’s deep—very deep—neckline immediately caught her Lord’s eye. His sister gave a disapproving snort and sat down on the other sofa.

“No, quite the opposite…”

“Then why the long face?” the youngest Phenex asked.

“The negotiations were a little more complicated than I expected,” Riser admitted. He left it at that; Li Fang already blamed herself for the trouble her Lord had gone through, and he didn’t want to upset her again.

“I told you to behave yourself around Sitri!”

“That’s not the issue,” he muttered. Ravel might be his baby sister, but she had a good head on her shoulders. And yes, if he’d followed her advice not only at yesterday’s meeting but during today’s visit to the Sitri heiress and her peerage, Li Fang’s treatment would probably have cost him less.

“Then… is it really that bad?” Yubelluna’s concern sharpened into alarm. “My Lord, what’s wrong with Li Fang?”

“If only I could explain something I didn’t understand a damn thing about…” Phenex sighed. But when he saw the worry in his Queen’s eyes, he hurried to reassure her. “Li Fang can tell you about her health herself later. The important thing is that the healer who serves Sitri can fix it. He’s already… performed some of the procedures. Yubi, I’m telling you now: you can’t accompany Li Fang to future appointments.”

“But—”

“No,” Riser said firmly. Seeing the beauty’s face fall, he softened at once. “You’re too sensitive, and medical procedures rarely… make for pleasant viewing.”

“I understand.” The Queen brightened immediately and turned a smoldering, lovestruck gaze on her Lord. Then she moved from the armchair to the sofa beside Li Fang and pulled her into an embrace, practically burying the girl in her impressive bust. “Was it that awful, my little one? Was it unpleasant? Did it hurt?”

“Oh, for Devil’s sake! Why don’t you ask her to point out on a doll where he touched her?” Ravel rolled her eyes. “You can coo and cuddle later. Big brother, enough with the lovesick-fawn looks, at least while I’m here.” She rubbed her thumb against her index finger. “First, how much? Second, why are you so unhappy? And most importantly, third: tell us more about the treatment.”

“The treatment will take a long time. Up to ten years…”

“Ten years?!” His little sister’s eyes widened, and his Queen gasped. Li Fang lowered her head sadly at their reaction, which Ravel noticed at once. “No, all right. Ten years it is. That’s not so terrible. What matters is that Li Fang can be cured. That’s better than listening to those tedious old men bleat on.”

“Let me finish. Don’t interrupt. The treatment takes a long time, but Li Fang should be able to fight again in about six months.”

“Oh, then it’s hardly a problem at all.” Ravel exhaled in relief and leaned back against the sofa. “Especially since Rias agreed to postpone the friendly match indefinitely.”

“How did it go?” Phenex asked.

“Surprisingly well.” The youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Phenex adjusted her drill curls, which were practically her pride and joy. “Your fiancée said a servant’s health was a good reason to change plans. No mockery, no insults. Though that boy, the Pawn, burst into tears again when he saw Yubi and me. He’s cute enough, and athletic, but a little… off. Yeah. Oh, and the tea at the Gremory place is incredible! They say you can get it from Sitri, so… while Li Fang’s being treated, could you ask how we might get some too?”

“What is it with you lot and that tea…”

“You just don’t appreciate it. You drink it and hand out the usual polite compliments,” his sister scoffed. “Coffee this, coffee that. Sure, it’s fine now and then, but the girls and I would much rather sit down to some really good tea.”

“Fine, I’ll ask. But I’m sure it’ll be expensive.”

“Why?” Ravel narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Did you actually follow my advice and not act like a big shot?”

“What does that have to do with it?” Now Riser rolled his eyes. “It’s just that the same guy who’s treating Li Fang makes the tea. And he’s greedy as… as…”

“Right. Stop dodging.” His little sister narrowed her eyes further. “How badly did you screw up?”

“Ah… A liter of my blood, ten kilos of gold, fifty kilos of jade, fifty metric tons of red marble, a hundred cubic meters of mahogany, and a few other odds and ends. Well… three vials of unprocessed Phoenix tears, too. And the supplies for Li Fang’s medicines.”

“Wha—WHAT?!” Ravel stared at him, while the Phenex Queen’s jaw dropped. “Big brother… what on earth did you say to Sitri?”

“To her? Absolutely nothing,” Riser said, certain on that point. “It’s just…”

“My treatment is very complicated,” his Knight whispered.

“Ahem, ahem.” Ravel stopped glaring accusingly at her brother. “Well, if that’s how it is, there’s nothing to be done. Sit tight, Riser. I’ll fetch an axe and a jug.”

“What for?” her older brother asked, watching her go.

“To drain that liter of blood out of you.” Ravel looked back at him in surprise. “Or did you think I hadn’t noticed Li Fang covering for you? Did you think I’d squeeze three goddamn vials of tears out of myself for free? And don’t think you can dump it all on me this time, either!”

“Tch…”

Phenex clicked his tongue and leaned back against the sofa, giving his Knight a reassuring wink and his Queen a dazzling smile. His little sister had seen through him at once, of course. As for the axe, that was just a joke.

“Ha ha,” he laughed, rather uncertainly. Almost nervously.