On Wings of Qi: Chapters 14-19 (Patreon)

Chapter 14

The six months following the final tournament to the death, which was also the day the Indus Sect was wiped off of the Battle layer and the Inheritance as a whole, was a whirlwind. The progenitors of the Inheritance removed the battle requirement for all people inside the Inheritance. That left people able to travel the layer at their will, as was originally intended. They also removed the need for all members to be in a Sect.

Roughly ninety percent of those formerly of the Gentle River Sect joined the Dragon Dancing Sect, but the rest of those members ended up joining The Scholars. Roughly two months after that fateful day, a third of the scholars and a quarter of the Dragon Dancing Sect, mostly made up of former Gentle River Sect members, split off and formed the Steadfast Mountain Sect.

The Steadfast Mountain Sect’s primary focus was growing steadily, rather than explosively like the Dragon Dancing Sect, or exclusively through research like The Scholars. They were generally pretty peaceful, so we didn’t worry about them.

One of the most interesting things that happened was that the progenitors of the Inheritance released those on the Academy layer from the restriction on coming back to visit the Battle layer. Naomi and Taka’s parents, all four of them, came down and showered their children with praise. It was heartwarming to see how much love and admiration they had for their children. While it was nice for a while, eventually I started to feel unwanted, like I was a third wheel.

I didn’t really know how to act around parents. My grandfather raised me, but he was more of a teacher than a parental figure. That isn’t to say that he didn’t love me, because I know he did, but I knew the stories he was telling me were mostly to help me become a better person, not just because he wanted to entertain me. Maybe I was just being sullen or envious, but my heart hurt a bit when I saw the crinkle of Naomi’s father’s eyes as he gave her a hug. Keiko joined me in my melancholy, her father may have loved her, but he wasn’t at all the doting parents, not like Taka’s parents.

We ended up talking to Sensei about family and how we could be better parents, should we have kids, because neither of us really knew what to do. After we spent a couple days talking with Sensei, we both felt better about the prospect of children, though we had no plans of that kind at that time. We wanted both Keiko and I to be as strong as possible before we had kids, within reason of course. The stronger Keiko was, the stronger our child would be born. The stronger our child was born, the safer they would be and that was something that was of paramount importance to Keiko and I.

Ellie did her best to keep Keiko and I cheerful. She would fly patterns around us and try to trip us when we weren’t looking. Her antics made both of us smile, but it was only surface level joy. I could see that the mirth wasn’t in Keiko’s eyes and knew I was the same. We spent hours playing qi games with her, getting her used to using her wind qi alongside her normal metal qi and water qi. She took every bit of teaching we could give her and soaked it up like a sponge. Sensei told us that was because she was a Rainbow Coatl and they were masters of all eight types of qi.

***

All of the cultivators who came down from the Academy layer to teach were insightful, but with Sensei’s help, Keiko and I didn’t really need them. There were a couple of tricks that we picked up, mostly concerning paired cultivation, but in the end, we already had a great teacher, nay, a great Sensei.

Just for the record, he did not laugh at that joke. Keiko laughed, but she made terrible jokes regularly and I was not flattered.

Three months after everything happened, the progenitors of the Inheritance asked Keiko and I to make our way to the center of the layer. There was an administrative building there. When we arrived at the administrative building, there was a shining golden door that snapped into existence just as we were about to enter the building normally. When we realized what had happened, we were already standing in the same room we’d found ourselves in after finishing the trial of the Dragon Dancers. Everything was the same, including the progenitors’ projections standing before the couch. Keiko and I didn’t hesitate, we moved over, bowed, and after they waved in response, sat down on the couch together.

The male progenitor smiled, “Thanks to the pair of you, we’re back in control of our Inheritance and have plenty of energy stored up to survive for thousands of years doing that. Assuming you two don’t die in that time, at which point your souls will be pulled in here, so as to not be lost. If that happens, you’ll become similar to what we are, but you have significantly more agency than we do. The stronger you are when you die, the more control you will have in here.”

His partner bumped him in the shoulder, disrupting his train of thought and stopping his line of conversation. She turned and chuckled before addressing us, “To be clear, we want you two to live a very long life and outgrow this place, but will make sure you’re safe no matter what.”

The male progenitor shook his head, grunted, and ran his fingers through his hair, the spectral equivalent he had of it at least, “Sorry about that, when you’ve dead as long as we have, that’s where your mind tends to linger. As for the world of the living, we’ve got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news for you. Which would you prefer?”

Keiko answered without hesitation, “Bad news first. I hate being on a high and getting that feeling smacked out of me.”

I nodded in agreement, that was the worst.

He laughed, “That’s the same way I was, but this one,” he nudged his wife, “always wanted the good news first so she could cling to it when the bad news was announced. To each their own.”

His wife slapped him playfully before addressing Keiko and I, “So, the bad news is that we don’t have any powerful treasures to give you two from our stores. If you want them, you’ll need to make it to the fourth layer of this Inheritance, but even we can’t break the rules we set in place at the founding of this place, so you both need to make it to the rank of King to enter there. Honestly, there are very powerful items in there, but with your trajectory as cultivators, you would outgrow them relatively quickly, as quickly as you can do anything as Kings, but I digress.

We could provide you with cultivation manuals, but you already have the best one of those that we had, not that we actually could’ve offered it to you if you hadn’t passed the trial of the Dragon Dancers. Same rules… can’t break them. We also would love to just give you guys advice, but you’ve already got an Emperor level spirit as a teacher and he’s around you all the time. He’ll be able to understand your cultivation better than we can, even though he obviously wasn’t a paired cultivator, there just isn’t that much of a difference between us and regular cultivators, so his advice will be incredibly effective. Along with the manual from the trial you endured, you won’t have any questions about your cultivation that we’d be able to answer that you don’t already readily have an answer available to.”

Her husband patted her on the shoulder, seeing as she was a bit upset at what she was having to say, “She’s just sad that she couldn’t help you two more. There is one thing that we can do for you, if you’d like.” His eyes gleamed, which was strange to say about a projection, but he pulled off.

Keiko nearly lurched off the couch in her haste to bow, “Tell us, tell us everything you know.” She took a deep breath as I pulled her back toward the back of the couch, “Okay, what was it you wanted to tell us?” She did her best to sound posh, but the thread of desire running through her voice didn’t lend it to that.

“It’s about an item you two carry, we sensed it the moment we became aware again, right after those two spirit orbs were shattered. You’re carrying the Stellar Cube, are you not?” He looked at Keiko and I expectantly, which was a bit unnerving. The progenitor of the Inheritance we were in was staring at us and we didn’t know why, not really.

I shrugged, “We do, what do you know about it?”

Chapter 15

The pair of them laughed, long and hard, before eventually wiping away phantom tears from their phantom eyes.

The woman spoke up, “Seeing as we were the last pair to actually activate the thing, we know a lot.”

Sensei gasped, but Keiko I just nodded along, it made sense to us seeing as it ended up in the treasury of the Inheritance of the Lovers, Elliott and Chandra probably got it from the Inheritance the Eclipse, though they couldn’t actually use it.

Sensei sputtered, “You two are the ones who used it last !? Am I correct about what the first golden panel says? It requires someone less powerful than a Saint to touch it to activate it, correct?”

She nodded, “That’s correct. My husband and I found the Stellar Cube, though we didn’t know its name at the time, as Body cultivators, we weren’t even paired yet, though once we bonded our Lower cores, the first panel lit up. It requires paired cultivation to activate, no one else even stands a chance, considering how powerful it is.”

Sensei let out a sigh of relief even as Keiko and I stared down at the bag at my hip.

I held up a finger to pause the conversation as I pulled out Sensei’s pot and put it on the table in front of Keiko and I. It was only fair to make it so that everyone was visible while speaking.

Sensei spoke again, “Thank you, Steven. It’s nice to be out of that bag in here. Before I couldn’t get out and couldn’t talk to you. Anyway, so the Stellar Cube requires paired cultivation to activate. That makes a lot more sense than what the scholars I’d read about said about it.” His voice sounded wistful, “My wife was the real scholar of the Stellar Cube, but from all the times she decided to rant to me about its potential qualities, I know a bit. What about the second panel, the first black one, need to open? I thought I could read it, but I wasn't 100% sure. I thought it said ‘Survive an Ancient Evil’ and it’s lit up for them now.”

The female progenitor’s voice was melodious when she spoke again, this was obviously something she was happy to talk about, “The second face does indeed say to ‘Survive an Ancient Evil’ like you thought. You two must have encountered something that could be considered an Ancient Evil. I know that when we triggered that panel, it was when we escaped from an ancient necromancer back in our home. They had only recently surfaced, but they were older than the city they entered, which was already considered incredibly old.”

I looked at her expectantly, “Where did you call home? I’m curious. Also, what happened with the necromancer?”

She laughed, “Rushmon, it’s an enormous city far to the north…”

I smiled, “That’s where Tim and Juan are from. I’ve talked with them about it at length in the past few weeks. The city is huge, but there’s a district where no one goes because people never come out.”

“It does my heart good to know that our old home is still standing, though you answered your other question. My husband and I trapped him in that district with a powerful formation before we created this Inheritance. He can’t leave, but others can still get in.”

“Interesting, we’ll have to stop by and talk to Tim and Juan about it again sometime.” My grin matched her own, “Back to what we were talking about before though, what about the third panel of the Stellar Cube? What does it say?”

The woman smiled, “You should pull out the Stellar Cube, I doubt you’ve looked at it recently.”

I complied, but when I pulled out the Stellar Cube, there was something different about it. The third panel, the first of the silver panels, was lit up.

Keiko and I stared at her in shock, why hadn’t we thought to look at it? It kind of made sense, in the past few months we’d been dealing with Keiko’s inability to use any type of qi but universal, which was throwing a bit of a kink in all of our plans. She wasn’t really able to use qi projections at the moment, beyond basic qi threads that she used for formation building. In fights, she was down to just melee, which wasn’t always the safest place to be. I was having to rotate back from my normal defensive position to be more of a range combatant and it was not comfortable. Keiko was reveling in it, so I guessed that was good.

The woman shook out her hair, “The third panel reads this in an ancient language only used in Rushmon, ‘Only in death can truth be found.’ Which the two of you recently experienced, in a fashion.”

I stared at her for a moment before realization dawned on me, I turned and shook Keiko’s shoulders, “It was when your cultivation base blew up! When those Indus Sect bastards blew up your lower core and nearly killed you…” Keiko shook, even as we both turned to look at the woman again.

She clapped, “That’s exactly what triggered it. The destruction of one’s lower core is almost always fatal. You can survive your heart core being destroyed, though you can’t really survive your brain core being destroyed and maintain who you are, but the lower core is essential to life. My husband’s lower core was destroyed in a manner very similar to what happened to Keiko, but he and I were both scions of a massive Sect in Rushmon, so when it happened that Sect’s formation master, an Imperial grade formation master, produced a formation inlaid stone that formed a new lower core for him that he had until the day he died and never suffered any ill effects besides pain when he over used his lower core. That didn’t really happen after he became a Duke, but it was still a factor we had to consider. After activating the third panel on the Stellar Cube, its special effects started to come into play.”

Keiko looked at her expectantly, “Well, spill! What does it do? Will it make us stronger? Can it give my use of qi back?” She said that last bit jokingly, but I knew that she was self-conscious about it.

The man shook his head sadly, “I’m sorry my dear, but while it is incredibly powerful, it doesn’t have that ability. The Stellar Cube comes from another world, and it maintains its ties to it. The world it’s tied to has incredibly dense qi, maybe something even more than qi, but I can’t speak to that. Either way, with three panels activated it should produce an effect that purifies and enhances the qi around it whenever not in a spatial storage container. Simply remove it from your spatial storage device and all of the qi within one hundred feet of it will be significantly enhanced, which is the best way I can think to call it. Suffice to say, cultivating within its radius will be incredibly helpful to you two and to anyone you two happen to be traveling with.”

She looked at Ellie, where she was sleeping around my shoulders, she had come to do that a lot, “It would be helpful to your daughter as well, she has a long road to go, but she only has three more types of qi to gain access to and master before she’ll be a force to be reckoned with. She’s not weak now, but she isn’t any stronger than a Sage, probably more like a very strong Saint right now.”

My shoulders slumped, “I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but that will be useful. We had something called the Centering Lotus… but I may have used it as a pill furnace to reforge Keiko and my bodies. I was told that it did not survive, so it’s nice to have a replacement already. Four months without it and we were really feeling the pinch, our cultivation had slowed. It would only have gotten worse when they left this place. Is there anything else it can do?”

Sensei spoke up, “What else do you two know about the Stellar Cube? Also, how do they activate the fourth, fifth, and sixth panels?”

The man shrugged, “My wife and I only got the fourth panel activated, though that happened near our deaths. We were very old at the time. We didn’t really have time to explore its usefulness at that point, seeing as we were trying to find a way to build this place, but we did find that after the fourth panel activated, we were able to sense the position of Ley lines significantly easier and its radius went from one hundred feet to ten thousand feet. Close to the center of the area, whether it’s with the hundred-foot radius or ten-thousand-foot radius, the stronger the effect of the qi amplification is.”

The woman continued from where her husband had left off, “The fourth panel reads as follows, ‘Weep not for what is lost, but look to the future. Those who chart their own course write their own destiny.’ We’re not exactly sure what triggered it, but we noticed it had activated when we were doing an inventory of the things we were going to be storing in this Inheritance. The last time we’d seen it was nearly one hundred years before. You see, we were Emperor cultivators and didn’t really cultivate much after that point in our lives. Even when we did, we didn’t feel the need to pull out the cube to act as qi amplifier when we did so. Both of us were stuck as Emperors and weren’t able to find the nirvana-like state needed to break through the next level. Sorry if that doesn’t help.” She lowered her head before her husband put his arm around her comfortingly.

“Once the fourth panel activated, we both felt a connection to that other world, to that other type of energy coming from that other world. We were never able to actually touch it, but the mere idea of it is what gave us the idea we used to perfect this place. I’ll spare you the details, but there’s a lot more going on in the background of this Inheritance than you’d expect. Unless you’re a Grand Master or better formation master, everything I’d say would be gibberish.”

Sensei started to speak, but cut himself off. He knew he wouldn’t be able to understand. Even though he was technically a master ranked formation master, everything he learned was from his wife. Unless she was there to explain it to him, there wasn’t really much he would be able to do with whatever information he could have gleaned.

The woman looked up at Keiko and I again, having regained some confidence from the presence of her husband, “That’s all we can do for you, we don’t even know what the other two panels say. The language on them was ancient even in our time and we weren’t able to find a way to translate it. Those languages may not even be from this world, let alone our time. Then again, we never did spend much time anywhere but Rushmon and Sunset Island, though we did stop in on the land of the Empire every now and again. All I can say is that you should travel the world in search of answers, they aren’t likely to be here or in Rushmon. All we know is that when all six panels open, your connection to that other world is going to be strong and what comes through it is going to change your cultivation forever. Every other feature the Stellar Cube has helps cultivation, I can only imagine that the effect will be even stronger once more faces activate. If I had to guess, once the fifth panel activates, you could probably cover this entire island with its effect, probably even overlapping the edges of it a bit. Before you ask, that’s hundreds of thousands of square miles, so that’s something to keep in mind.”

I could feel our time with them was growing short, so I asked him one more question, I was always a glutton for punishment, “There’s a very high likelihood that there’s opposition waiting for us on the other side of the gate leading to Sunset Island, is there anything you can do to help us with it?”

I hadn’t talked about it with Keiko, but I could feel it in my bones that Kabis was going to be waiting for us when we exited. The way he fought, even with our increased strength from everything that had happened in the Inheritance of the Eclipse, we didn’t stand a chance against them. There was something wrong with him and I was scared of what he might do to Keiko, Ellie, and anyone else we brought out with us.

The man’s face grew stern, “We can only see within fifty feet of the entrance and I can tell you that there is a man sitting on a throne formed of metal qi and dark qi. He hasn’t moved from that spot since we became aware again, but he’s moving in his seat and will randomly throw spikes of metal qi at the barrier that would have shattered anything that wasn’t tied directly into a ley line like that barrier is. The amount of qi he outputs, he may technically be a Duke, but his qi output is greater than that of your average King. If you fight him head on, you will die. Be stealthy, be smart, and come back to visit us. I wish we could give you some way to come back to us safely, but you’ll just have to find your own way. I assume you got to this island in a fantastic way, so maybe use that again.”

Keiko and I could feel the dismissal, so we stood up, and I grabbed Sensei’s pot.

Before I put it away, he spoke one more time, “Thank you for taking care of Elliott and Chandra, they always spoke very highly of you and it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ll do my best to keep these two safe, but there’s not much I can do when they’re as crazy as they are.” Sarcasm hung heavy in his voice, even as I slipped his pot back into the bag at my hip with a grin.

Keiko and I bowed.

“Thank you for your time, despite not being given anything physically, you’ve given us more than enough to think about that I will remember this day for years to come, and I know Keiko will as well.”

Keiko nodded and we bowed once more before walking toward the glowing golden portal that had been sitting there behind the couch the entire time we’d been talking.

Just as we were about to cross the threshold, I heard one more thing from the man, “We know that time was different in here up until recently and that those among the Academy layer are from the past, relative to now. We’ll do our best to inform them of what you three have decided as to the sharing information from that time. Most of them aren’t going to choose to leave this place, but we’ll send those we find trustworthy to the place you call Sun’s End. In the times to come, they’re going to need strength more than ever before if they’re going to survive the times to come. There was a prophecy about when we would wake back up, but we didn’t ever think it would happen so we didn’t lend it much credence. It talked about the changing times and the need for strength. I guess this is that time, so walk in strength.”

Keiko and I turned and bowed once more before walking through the golden portal.

Chapter 16

Two months later, six months after the death of Alayna and the freeing of Bortus from the anchor that was Alayan, he stood with Keiko, Aria, Gong Jin, Naomi, and Taka before the portal out to the normal world. All of us were apprehensive, though most of us were in a state of fear, Naomi and Taka couldn’t help but vibrate at the idea of seeing the outside world for the first time.

She couldn’t help but squeal, “I’m going to get to see the actual sun! Do you know how excited I am about that? I’ll tell you, very! I can’t wait to pick berries in the sunshine and use them to make jam that I’ll use to make sandwiches that I’ll eat in the sunshine! It’s going to be amazing.”

Taka looked just as excited, he was even muttering to himself, “I’m to get to see so many different magical beasts, it’s going to be awesome. I bet a thousand feet from this portal I’ll see something I’ve never seen before. I hope I brought enough notebooks, I raided an entire Scholar warehouse of them, so I should be good for at least six weeks.”

He apparently wasn’t talking quiet enough, because the rest of us laughed. He didn’t even spare us a glance, seeing as he was looking through his spatial storage devices, counting notebooks at the time.

I patted the pair of them on the shoulders, “You’re gonna love it out there, but before we can go and enjoy ourselves, we have to deal with Kabis.”

Those of us who had seen Kabis before explained what we knew about him to the rest of the people standing with us by the gate. He was very strong, much stronger than a Duke cultivator should be. He could use dark qi, which Keiko and I had learned from the progenitors of the Inheritance recently. He was the leader of a tribe of cannibals, though most of them were dead at that point. All in all, he was a very scary person and we still didn’t have a good plan to deal with him.

Strike that, Bortus claimed he had a plan, but he wouldn’t tell us what it was. For some reason that gave me bad vibes, but there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. He was his own man and was entitled to make his own decisions for the first time in a long time. I just hoped we’d get some more time with him, because the last six months with him had been awesome. He reminded me so much of my grandfather that I ended up telling everyone a ton of stories I’d heard from him and we had a great time. I hadn’t felt so close to my grandfather in years and I was loath to lose that feeling.

We lined up in pairs, with Bortus standing at the front by himself. Keiko and I tried to insist that we should be the ones who led, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He kept talking about how his plan required him to be the first one through and we weren’t able to dissuade him.

There was nothing to do but leave, so that’s what we did. The seven of us all sprinted through the gate as quickly as we could and the scene we saw outside the gate was shocking.

There was nothing left, gone was the village we’d tried to sneak through before and in its place was a crater littered with spikes of metal qi of varying sizes. It looked like Kabis had gotten bored in the months he sat in his chair, because of the way all of the spikes were angled, it was clear they all came from the metal throne he was sitting on as he stared at us.

He clapped when we arrived, which threw me for a loop.

“Oh good, you guys didn’t wait too long in there. I was starting to get hungry,” he licked his top row of serrated teeth, “I’m gonna dine well tonight. You will perish in flame! You and all your kind!”

I would’ve laughed if Kabis wasn’t absolutely terrifying.

Bortus screamed out to us even as he charged towards Kabis, “Scatter! Head to the place you talked about that was connected to the tree.”

I watched as he pulled out an enormous greatsword that rivaled the size of the Dawnblade, though his blade was a radiant silver with a deep black spine, rather than the radiant gold and scarlet of Keiko’s weapon. He whirled to attack Kabis and that monster caught Bortus’ slash with two fingers on a single hand.

He laughed and there was no soul in it, only darkness, “Where’s your partner? I heard all about you from my agents, you’re Bortus, but where’s Alayna? Did the little present I sent her way finally drive her crazy?”

He paused a moment before laughing maniacally, “I see it did! I’m glad I didn’t waste it, I can only make so many of those.” With a twist of his fore and middle fingers he snapped Bortus’ greatsword, which I knew to be a master-crafted blade made out of mithril with a core containing the six primary qi types of beast cores, each serving to enhance its physical durability as well as striking power. Kabis completely dismissed its existence, snapping it like a dry twig.

Bortus roared, “Get outta here kids, I can handle him for a little while. Go!”

The problem was, no one that he was talking to was a good listener, so we didn’t. Instead, we all wordlessly agreed that we were going to try and help Bortus fight. Each couple was going to work with their specialty to try and wear Kabis down to the point where we could kill him. Aria and Gong Jin produced large quantities of Dawn qi and Arctic qi respectively. They gathered as much as they could, but didn’t throw those blasts until everyone else was ready. Naomi wasn’t much for qi constructs, so instead she crouched and drew her enormous bow while Taka pulled together a large wood qi construct that I knew would form a vest of brambles that would dig into its target.

Keiko and I had a bit of a problem, we hadn’t actually tried Dragon’s breath since she had lost access to elemental attributed qi. We decided that there was no time like the present and the results were surprising. I focused on generating as much Inferno qi as I could, sticking with what I knew while Keiko focused on pulling as much universal qi she could, which was a lot. Universal qi was incredibly easy for her to generate and it was almost like her lower core was as large as mine was when it came to her storage and generation of universal qi.

The two Sage couples realized what we were doing and attacked Kabis with all they had in an attempt to buy us the five seconds we needed for Dragon’s Breath. Bortus joined in, pulling out a set of formation flags and throwing them with his offhand to surround Kabis. A second before our allies’ attacks were going to hit Kabis, he reached out a hand and gripped Bortus around the throat and lifted him off the ground. Before he could speak, our allies’ attacks struck.

Naomi’s arrow streaking through the barrier generated by Bortus and significantly increased in size while not reducing at all in speed. The attacks from Aria and Gong Jin streaked through the same barrier and got the same treatment, rapidly growing in size, though the purple barrier seemed to grow weaker when that happened. In a feat of teamwork, Taka’s wood qi bramble vest passed through the barrier a tenth of a second behind his counterparts’ strikes and the depletion of the barrier. Those formation flags burned as the barrier faded.

I have to say that the effects of those qi attacks were impressive and the same can be said for the arrow. The problem is, none of them did anything to Kabis except make him take a half-step back when the physical force of Naomi’s arrow knocked him slightly off balance. That was enough to shake his grip loose on Bortus’ throat, seeing as the arrow would hit him right in the elbow, but it didn’t even break his elbow.

Keiko and I knew we only had one shot, so we took it. We combined our Inferno qi and universal qi and the results were spectacular. The beam of qi looked like pure Inferno qi, but it was significantly stronger than any Inferno qi had ever generated. I felt my connection to it and knew that I would be able to control it better than the previous versions of Dragon’s Breath we’d used in the past. I focused the beam directly on Kabis’ left arm that he was raising toward Naomi and Taka.

Our beam struck just as tiny metal spikes were starting to form across the tips of all five of Kabis’ fingertips on that hand. The Dragon’s breath sliced his arm clean off, eliciting an enormous, if distorted, roar. It didn’t sound human, that was for sure. There was something wrong with him and we saw a black goop start to flow out of the wound, even as his arm started to regrow. Keiko and I didn’t stop there, we guided the Dragon’s Breath to bisect him directly in half from his left shoulder all the way down to his right hip, but the black goop simply sealed him up again, leaving no discernible effects from us bisecting him.

I yelled, “Why would you die?!”

Keiko and I were spent qi wise, at least for the moment, but Keiko’s physical strength was enormous, so she swept me up under her arm and charged down the blast crater toward where we’d exited the tunnel system.

Keiko weaved as she ran, dodging flurries of metal qi spikes, each the size of a bo staff that came from Kabis. We nearly avoided getting struck by half a dozen of them before they suddenly slammed into the barriers Bortus had placed.

She messaged me, “If he won’t die, there’s nothing we can do. We have to run.”

I could feel Ellie tighten around my shoulders, but she was shaking in fear, it was so bad that she couldn’t even talk to us as Keiko pumped her tiny legs and ran for all she was worth. Toward the tunnel at the end of the ravine leading to the former Indus Tribe village.

I didn’t have to turn around to know four of our companions were following us, but the fifth wasn’t.

I heard gurgling noises coming from Kabis and knew that we’d done some damage, but that we hadn’t been able to finish him off. I couldn’t resist looking over Keiko’s shoulder and what I saw broke my heart.

Bortus had thrown out seventy or eighty formation flags in a small circle surrounding him and Kabis. I watched as he smiled and waved at me from a thousand feet away as he triggered the formations, sending a thousand attack formations inward as he detonated his cultivation base.

The bright white light radiating off of Bortus was contained within the barriers that he had thrown down and I knew that that was why he’d put them down, in addition to blasting Kabis. He didn’t want us to get hurt with his final attack.

I sobbed as Keiko ran and just as we were exiting the clearing I looked back and thought I saw that there was something moving near where Bortus had sacrificed himself, but I was sure it was just the aftereffects of the blast. I was confident that he had succeeded in what he’d tried to do, he’d protected the young people in his care and that was the kind of man he was.

We finally made it to the caves and ran quite a way down them before stopping where we each sat with our backs against the walls while trying to come to grips with what had just occurred.

Naomi and Taka were beside themselves, they kept muttering about “Uncle” and “Why would he do that?” As well as other things like that even as they held each other tight.

Aria and Gong Jin were in a similar position against the wall, but their reaction was different. Aria was just nodding along with Gong Jin as they talked about how Bortus had died a true fighter and a great ally. They talked about how their respective Clans would honor him always for his sacrifice.

Keiko and I were both distraught, but we channeled calming energy and settle Ellie down because she was absolutely a wreck. She cried about how she had felt Bortus die, that it felt different than other people dying when she liked them so much.

She shook in fear, “He is wrong, I was too little to feel it before, but he is wrong.”

As she curled around my shoulders even tighter, shaking all the way, I asked her what she meant, “What do you mean?”

I wanted to know what she meant, but she wasn’t able to explain. It was some kind of feeling she got because of what she was and all she knew was that Kabis was wrong and that she was glad he was gone.

Keiko and I took a few minutes to calm her down enough that she could fall asleep. After that, I sat with Keiko in front of me with both of my arms wrapped around her. She started to cry and I did my best to console her, even as I joined her.

Chapter 17

We all sat like that for a while, but eventually we knew we had to get going. We had a long way to travel and we wouldn’t be going the same way we came.

We revealed our magical map to our allies, most of them having seen it before, and pointed at how we were going to be taking the other half of the ring of tunnels to get back to Sun’s End, doing our best to throw everyone off our “scent” by not at all going above ground until we got close.

Just two days into a trip we knew would take at least six months, Naomi and Taka started complaining about only getting to see the sun for a few seconds while fighting Kabis. I reminded them of who we had just fought and how strong he was and that he may or may not have followers still out and about who wanted us dead. That mollified them for a time, but after checking out our second waystation two months into the trip and finding no one, we finally resolved to allow them up into one of the canopies of the waystation so they could see the sun again. Their reaction made it absolutely worth it.

Naomi just stood there like a sunflower and sucked it up while Taka immediately got distracted by a bird sitting six feet from him that he had never seen before and whipped out a notebook to detail everything he could about it.

Two months after we stopped to give Naomi and Taka a better taste of the sun, we ran into something unusual, but exciting.

We were checking the second to last waystation on our way to Sun’s end, having checked three others since re-entering the complex of tunnels. We had just walked up to the formation that would open the door.

Ellie noticed it first, “I think people are here, is that normal?” She looked at Keiko and I expectantly with her head cocked to the side.

Keiko and I exchanged a grin, even as Sensei started laughing mentally to the three of us.

It was at that point that I was really glad that Keiko and I had already explained Sensei’s situation and that there was a potential for his descendants to be within, but we didn’t mention Miriam, Clyde, or little John. We promised we wouldn’t, and we would be keeping that promise unless we had a very good reason to break it.

I pointed at the formation by the door that I knew would open the entryway, “Sensei’s going to open this up for us like he has the others, but there’s a good chance there are actually people inside this one. I’d ask for you to be on your respective guards, we have no idea if someone else might have been able to make their way inside.”

Aria and Gong Jin took up flanking positions around where the door would open and Naomi and Taka both stayed back against the opposite wall, though they had their weapons drawn and seemed ready to use them.

Keiko and I stood in the center, waiting for Sensei to open the door. A second later, he did just that. When the wall of the cave slid open and revealed the staircase, we were surprised to see two guards standing with weapons drawn in the entryway.

I could tell from their cultivations that neither of them was stronger than the Brain level, so when Keiko blurred forward and grabbed both of them and slammed them into the ground, they had no chance of resisting her.

She spoke quietly, almost tenderly, to them, “We’re here to visit your family and we mean you no harm. If you keep fighting, I’ll break both of your arms. Am I clear?” She didn’t grin or sneer, but I could tell that she was reveling in using her still-new-to-her strength.

The guard who had been leading the pair stuttered, “H–h-h-how did you open the door? Even most of our family can’t open that door.”

The other guard remained completely silent, but I thought I detected the distinct smell of urine on him, it seemed Keiko had literally scared the piss out of him.

I walked up and gently pulled Keiko off of the pair before speaking to them calmly, “Please just take us to your patriarch, or matriarch. We have a few things to tell you.”

After a bit of hemming and hawing, the leader of the pair, whom I learned was named Eric, led us up the stairs and into the largest of the seven waystations we’d visited. The main room had to have been at least a hundred and fifty feet across and I could tell that there were numerous rooms encircling it from the doors in the outside wall. In addition to that, the central trunk was wrapped with a staircase that led up to an additional loft area that I later learned had even more living spaces and rooms.

All around the room were little family units that were cooking, playing, or teaching their children. Eric ignored them, even as they shied away from us, as he walked with a purpose toward the staircase that took us around the central trunk and up to the loft.

On the second level, there were far fewer people, but a lot of their cultivations were higher. Whereas down below, we hadn’t seen a single Brain cultivator besides Eric, even his partner was a Meridian cultivator, up there there were four Saints just sitting around a table playing Restore the Balance. There were a pair of Sages sitting on the balcony looking out over the rest of their family members below. They spun around and I was shocked at how much the woman of the pair looked like Miriam, the family resemblance was apparent and Sensei nearly whooped out loud when he saw her.

He quickly messaged Keiko and I, “Do you see what I see? She must be related to Miriam, which means she’s related to me!”

I chuckled internally, but didn’t reply.

Instead, I inclined my head to the pair of Sages on the balcony, “My name is Steven Roh and this is my wife, Keiko Roh. Our daughter Ellie is around my shoulders. In addition to our family, we bring with us Naomi and Taka, who I don’t believe have a family name yet,” I glared at them for a moment before turning back, “We also have Aria Dawnrise and Gong Jin Moonbeam with us.” I pointed out our companions as I went. “We’re here to meet you for one, and let you know who you are for another part.”

The woman who could’ve been Miriam’s sister smiled and it was obvious that it was a natural reaction for her, because the smile lines around her eyes were deep, “It’s wonderful to have you here. It’s been many years since an outsider managed to gain entrance to our little corner of the island and it’s the first time they’ve ever done so without our guards being able to stop them. As you’ve already given me your names, my name is Juniper and this is my husband, Raymond Torak. We are the current leaders of the Torak family.” She waved over to the side and I noticed that six chairs had been arranged in front of them, as well as an odd wooden structure that almost looked like a training dummy.

Ellie immediately figured out that it was for her to drape herself around and she did so with a satisfied trill, “This is great, you should make one of these for me Dad!” She crawled around the perch so that she was facing directly toward Juniper and Raymond, who smiled back at her.

I glanced back at my companions and all of them nodded their assent before I turned back around and nodded toward Juniper, “Thank you for the seats, we appreciate your hospitality.”

As we all went to sit down, younger members of the Torak family sprang up and guided the seats behind us so that we were sitting arrayed in front of the people in charge, it almost felt like they’d practiced it, but that wouldn’t’ve made any sense seeing as it was likely very rare for them to have groups of visitors like that.

Juniper spoke after the children scurried off, “I apologize for my husband’s silence, but since an accident twenty years ago, he’s been able to speak. We’ve developed a language of hand signs, but I’ll do my best to convey what he wants to say to your group. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

Keiko bowed to her, “That is completely understandable and totally acceptable, I’d even go so far so that it’s wonderful. It shows a great deal of love toward someone to develop an entirely new language for them and that is completely awesome.” Tears welled up in her eyes and I was totally shocked. Keiko didn’t cry at the drop of a hat, she got mad at the drop of a hat, but she didn’t get sad that fast. It took me a few moments to realize that she saw herself reflected in Raymond’s disability, her inability to generate attributed qi weighed on her, even though she didn’t bring it up much.

I slipped my arm around her and gave her a hug before Juniper started speaking again.

“When you love someone, you’ll do anything to help them. Though I can tell that the six of you are no strangers to that concept. The six of you all paired up and your gorgeous lady of a daughter stares at the pair of you so lovingly, Steven and Keiko. I can tell that you understand what it’s like to have a loved one need something and you know it’s your duty to help find whatever that is, no matter how difficult it might be.”

She intertwined her fingers with Raymond, who flashed a quick set of hand signs at her with his other hand, which made her blush. She swatted his hand playfully and flashed another series of hand signs at him before turning to address us, her blush slowly fading.

“As I was saying, it is truly wonderful to have you here. While it’s great to meet you, you said something about telling us who we were. What did you mean by that?”

I could practically feel Sensei vibrating, even though that was totally impossible, but I figured it was time to get him into the mix, “I’m not the best one to explain that, but I have them with me if it’s okay for me to bring out an item. It’ll all make sense once I do so.”

After they nodded their assent, I pulled Sensei’s pot slowly out of the spatial storage bag I stored his pot in on my hip. I gently placed his pot down on the small table that was between Juniper and Raymond and Keiko and I.

Sensei’s voice rippled out from his pot and his joy was palpable, “My dear Juniper, you are absolutely radiant and I hope Raymond knows how lucky he is.” Juniper blushed again and this time it didn’t fade as quickly, it seems that she was used to it from her husband, but a stranger doing it threw her for a loop. “My name is Granville Torak and I…”

Juniper cut him off, “You’re our Ancestor, to almost all of us here. How are you still around? Wait, is that the pot from the end of the Inheritance of the Pot? You finally found a disciple!” She stood up and cheered, “The Ancestor has returned and he’s brought his disciple to meet us!” She yelled out over the balcony down to her family members below and even from the balcony all of us could hear the rest of the people cheering.

I was surprised at how quickly the shock faded from the pairs’ faces, they were much more adaptable than the last few people we’d shown Sensei to and I thought well of them for it.

Sensei whispered mentally to Keiko and I, “I’m a bit taken aback, I didn’t expect them to know who I was. I had a wonderful speech prepared, just in case this ever happened, but they kind of blew me out of the water here. I’m just letting you know where I’m at mentally. I hope you can help me smooth this out, because right now it’s very awkward.”

I felt bad for him, I’d had speeches prepared for things before and not had those events go as expected. Heck, I was supposed to give a speech on our final day of training back in Roh City, but that didn’t happen because some elder’s kid wanted to do it. It was what it was, but no matter what I felt Sensei’s pain.

I mentally whispered back, “I understand. I’ll do my best to smooth things over if I see you get caught in a bind.” I could tell that he was contented at my answer by the soft humming coming from him.

Juniper and Raymond danced around for a moment before realizing that the six of us weren’t jumping around. She quickly smoothed out her short silver skirt and her petite white and gold blouse before sitting down as properly she could, though her hair was still askew after her hands had blown through it in her haste to cheer. Raymond sat down next to her and his smile could have lit up the room when he looked at his wife. His love was obvious and I noticed him plucking at his leather breeches and finely tailored black shirt as he settled in next to his wife.

He and I exchanged a glance and both nodded, even though we couldn’t speak we understood each other. Our wives were both excitable and it was our job to go along with them for the ride until we had to get them level again.

Jennifer smoothed out her hair self-consciously before speaking again, “Sorry for the outburst, but our oral traditions spoke of a time when our Ancestor would return and he would bring with him a disciple who would lead us out of these waystations and back into the world. There aren’t that many specifics in the teachings passed down, but those were pretty clear.” She blushed again quickly before shaking her head, “We’ve been waiting for you for so long Ancestor… I couldn’t believe that I got to be the matriarch who announced your return to our family. Whatever you want us to do, the Torak family is yours to command once more.”

She started to slide off the bench she was seated on, but Sensei stopped her, “Please, stop. I may be your Ancestor, but I’m not in charge. You are. I am merely a spirit passing through, guiding the young souls who helped free me from the prison of my own design. Now, they may actually have something they’d like you to do and I’d appreciate it if you could help them out. They may not be blood related, but they’re as much family to me as anyone nowadays.” I felt the warmth in his tone and knew that Sensei really liked us, maybe even loved us, and it was something that I reciprocated wholeheartedly.

Having arrested her slide to the floor, Juniper hastily smoothed out her skirt again before sitting closer to her husband, “If that’s the case, Steven, Keiko, the Torak family is yours to command. What would you have us do?”

I was a bit taken aback, but after a few seconds, I rolled with it, “There are a couple of things I’d like you to do, but I have a couple of questions for you first. If that’s okay with you?”

She nodded and waved her hand as if to tell me to ask away.

I smiled, “Besides the people in this waystation, how many members of the Torak family are on this island? Have you found others and integrated them into the family, or are these merely those with pure enough Torak blood to be allowed to stay here?”

Juniper quickly shook her head, “I think you misunderstand what we do here. This is the central location for the Torak family, but there are dozens of other enclaves throughout this island. With our access to the tunnel network, the Indus Tribe never stood a chance at finding us and even the clans of your two fellows forgot about our existence in recent memory. To those clans, we’re merely stories they use to scare their children, not they needed any more stories to scare children with the Indus Tribe around, but from the few members we’ve integrated into the family from those clans, that’s the gist we got. I’d say there are three or four hundred Torak family members throughout the island. Some of them are from one of the other groups living on this island, we make sure that we don’t intermarry too much, following the instructions passed down by your great-grandson when he realized that we no longer had a means to leave the island.”

Sensei gasped, but Juniper kept going, “The family’s final airship left just six hundred years after you sealed yourself away, Ancestor, there wasn’t enough room on it for all of us, so roughly half of the family elected to stay behind. They liked how dense the qi was here and knew that we were tasked with protecting this island, should it ever come under attack from outside forces. However, that was back in the days when we had Dukes among our ranks, but none of us have reached that level in nearly eight hundred years.

“We never had any totem earrings to get into the Inheritance of the Eclipse, but we guarded it nonetheless until the Indus Tribe took over our settlement a few hundred years ago. Since then, we’ve done our best to keep the Indus Tribe in check, but it hasn’t been going very well.” She hung her head in shame and Raymond rubbed her back soothingly.

Sensei broke the tense silence, “My dear, the fact that so many of my descendants have survived until this time, even after dealing with the Indus Tribe for so long, has me full of joy. I’m just so excited that you exist and I want you to live out your lives as happily as possible. Whatever my great-grandson asked you to do, while I appreciate it, consider it done. From this day forward, I want my family to enjoy their lives, not live for others. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t help others, but don’t do it to the exclusion of yourselves.”

Juniper stared at Sensei’s pot open mouthed for a while, before finally snapping it shut and looking back at Keiko and I expectantly. I got the impression that she wanted us to continue so she could think a bit while we talked.

Keiko squeezed my hand, being careful not to break it with her immense strength, “We are currently on our way to Sun’s End, the final refuge of the Dawnrise clan. There would be plenty of places for your family to live if you wanted to move there. I know they would welcome cultivators of your strength, especially if we were the ones who brought you. Actually, considering Aria’s with us, you should have no problem. Isn’t that right, Aria?”

Keiko looked back expectantly at Aria, only to find her nodding vigorously, “Sun’s End would be incredibly grateful to have cultivators as powerful as you two, let alone the four Saints I saw playing that game back by the stairs, to join the Dawnrise Clan living there. I’m not exactly sure what name they’ll actually be using, seeing as the Dawnrise Clan and the Moonbeam Clan should probably have merged by now. We didn’t really talk about what they’d be called after that happened, but I digress. Anyway, if you would join with the rest of us on this island, we can deal with the remainder of the Indus Tribe and take this place back for generations to come.” Aria’s voice broke near the end and when I looked back to check on her, she waved me away. Gong Jin took her tiny hand in his enormous paw and gently patted it.

I turned back to Juniper and saw her rapidly flashing hand signs at her husband. It was rude to interrupt, so I waited until she turned to look back at me before speaking again, “We’re not asking you to abandon your lifestyle out and about the island, that wouldn’t be right. What I am asking is that maybe you use Sun’s End as your home base, rather than this waystation which I didn’t get the impression was large enough to house all of you comfortably. From those I saw downstairs, you’re probably sleeping two or three families to a room, assuming I’m correct at how many of you are actually here.”

Raymond’s eyes shone as he nodded, but Juniper looked apprehensive. She looked from Raymond back to me, “Our family has traveled the island unhindered for 10,000 years, it’s going to be a big adjustment to stop using the waystations as our bases. We’ll consider it though. Can you give us a few days to think about it?”

She looked at me hopefully and her eyes shone with need, for time, for a chance to talk things over with her family, and to think about how that would change their lives.

Who was I not to give that to her?

I smiled, “Of course you can have a few days to think about it.” Juniper sighed in relief. “I do have one more question for you though, seeing as I only actually asked the one before. Do you know anyone named Miriam?”

That name banished any shred of doubt from Juniper’s face for a moment, “Do you know where she is? My sister has been missing since we were children and I spent the better part of a hundred years searching this island for her.” She gripped Raymond’s hand tightly, “Tell me she’s okay… please?” The hope and longing in her voice coupled with my own confusion made me squint over at Keiko. She looked at me like she had no idea what was going on and when I turned around to look at our companions, none of them knew what was going on either from the looks on their faces.

Just as I was about to ask what she meant, Sensei spoke up again, “What happened to separate you from Miriam?”

Juniper wiped the tears from her eyes, “We were just ten years old and we were out searching for berries. We weren’t supposed to be out and about, but we wanted them for dessert. A massive Great Iron Bear came up behind us and Miriam led it away so I could get away safely. I never saw her again after that. Our mother and father went out to search for her, but they never came back either, so I assumed all three of them were dead after a few months and moved in with our aunt and uncle after that. From your question, I’m assuming she’s alive. I’m just glad to hear my sister’s still around. Where did you find her? I hope you don’t mind me asking.”

Sensei’s voice was tender, “Dear girl, why didn’t Miriam know I existed? When I revealed to her who I was, she was shocked.”

Juniper’s eyes shone, “She was always a great cook, even as a child among adults, but she wasn’t much for studying. We only started learning about you in her schooling a few days before she went missing and she probably forgot all about those in the hundreds of years since. To find out that my long-lost twin sister, who I’ve believed to be dead for the last three hundred plus years, is still alive, today is a miracle. That’s on top of the fact that our ancestor arrived, bringing with his disciple… it’s almost too much for me to bear.” Her body shook with emotion and she threw her arms around Raymond and hugged him tight.

I smiled, “Your sister is living with her husband and grandson on the other side of the island in one of the waystations.”

She shook her head, “That explains why we never found her. Our mother was the only one with pure enough Torak blood to open up a particular waystation, that must be where she went. She was so excited when she figured out that she could open it up when she opened her lower core at age ten, which was pretty normal for us at that point. Our family alchemists were always quite adept at aiding the younger generation. Nowadays, we don’t have a ton of alchemists, but we still have a few. Anyway, I’ll have to make my way over to see her before too long, it’d be great to meet up with her again.”

While Sensei and Keiko continued chatting with Juniper, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Raymond couldn’t speak. I knew that if it was something physically wrong with him, that I would be able to help repair his vocal cords with either alchemy or Arctic qi, but I’d need to find a way to breach the subject with him so he didn’t freak out when I tried to invade his body with my qi.

In the end, it was Ellie who ended up catching Raymond’s attention. She flew off her perch and after a quick circle of the loft, landed on Raymond’s lap and looked up at him expectantly.

She chittered curiously before speaking, “Is something wrong with your froat? I can try to fix if you want.” He just looked down at her in wonder and slowly nodded his head. She trilled happily, “Okay, don’t flinch!” Without waiting for response, Ellie launched herself straight at his throat, which would’ve gotten her killed if I hadn’t quickly deflected the knife hand from him.

I held his hand tightly, “She’s trying to heal you. If you hurt her, I will kill you. Are we clear?”

He slowly nodded, even as the rest of the room went quiet after seeing what was going on between Raymond, Ellie, and I.

Ellie messaged Keiko and I, “There’s a whole lot of damage in his throat, I think he might be using something like a shout as an attack, because a lot of this damage is from the inside. I still think I can fix it, but tell him to stop doing that. He’s not strong enough yet to do that kind of thing. Even babies like me know not to hurt yourself attacking people, that stupid.”

Despite myself, I giggled and had to quickly reassure everyone that I wasn’t laughing at the situation Raymond was in.

“She said she thinks she can fix the damage, but that she thinks most of the damage was internal. Did you use some kind of qi infused shout as an attack?”

He turned one hand sideways in a fist and nodded it up and down, which I took to mean yes.

“She says you should stop doing that until you get stronger. You were tearing up your throat and there’s a lot of scar tissue for her to deal with in there because of it.”

He sat like that, with Ellie latched onto his throat, for a while before I walked over and threw some of my own Arctic qi behind Ellie’s to help heal him. Ellie took my Arctic qi like it was meant for her and greatly increased her healing rate. Once twenty minutes passed, she finally dislodged from Raymond’s throat with a sigh.

She quickly slid up my side and around my shoulders before resting her head on top of my own, “You’re fixed. You might find it hard to talk for a while, but that’s just because your vocal chords haven’t been used in a while. You’re totally healthy! I even fixed the meridian in the back of your neck, which was blocked by a buildup of fire qi. It was tasty.” She let out a small burp.

Raymond opened his mouth to speak and, while words didn’t come out, a squeak did and that was enough for the rest of the Torak family to lose their minds.

Chapter 18

The party the Torak family threw that night was absolutely incredible. The food was good, though I did help cook it so I may be biased, and the company was phenomenal. Before dinner, they convinced everyone to join in on a Restore the Balance tournament. While Naomi and Taka took to it like fish to water, Aria and Gong Jin took to it like fish to a desert. They decided that they were better off talking to the group of Saints, who had originally been playing Restore the Balance when we arrived, about integrating in with their respective clans for most of the night.

The Restore the Balance tournament ended up with Taka against me and two Torak family members who I later learned were their ringers at the game. We were playing the full eight elements, so skill was the name of the game and the two Torak family members completely destroyed us. They ended up in a very close first and second place to my distant third and Taka’s even more distant fourth. Sensei admonished me for not winning and I complained to him that he’d never taught me how to play. He admitted that I was right and promised to teach me the game later so that I wouldn’t embarrass him by losing like that again.

That night, after the festivities, Juniper led our little group to one of the larger rooms up off of the loft proper. She opened the door and waved us into a relatively plain room, but it was large enough for the six of us to stay comfortably. We set up like we would when we were camping, with Keiko and I in the center where we produced the Stellar Cube. We all sighed in satisfaction with the increased mana density around us.

After doing that, Keiko and I practiced our Dragon Dance while the rest of our group stayed over on one side of the room for a little while so we could finish cultivating before going to bed.

The next day, Raymond asked in a hoarse voice if we had noticed anything strange the night before. I told him that I had an item that increased the qi density in the air around me, not telling him what it was, of course, but I didn’t hide that it was me who caused the oddity. He merely nodded and said that he was grateful for it. With the meridian the back of his neck cleared, he was able to finish the technique he’d been working on for a while and was excited to be able to draw in qi through all his meridians again.

After a lunch of Great Crag Cat that I prepared for everyone, Juniper walked over to join Keiko and I.

“We’ll be leaving with you today. Take us to Sun’s End, take us to our new home.”

Matter how many times I asked her if her family needed more time, she insisted that they didn’t. She told us that she was sure that the Ancestor and his disciple wouldn’t lead them wrong and that now was as good a time as ever to rejoin the world with the Indus Tribe in shambles.

When I asked her what she meant, she told me that the Indus Tribe had been acting erratic for months and that they were growing more restless in the mountainous region. That got Aria and Gong Jin’s hackles up and they insisted that we leave as soon as possible. Less than an hour later, the six of us were headed out the entranceway to the tunnels and ten minutes later, we heard the pitter patter of feet following us, though they never got within fifty feet of us. They were giving us a healthy gap so we could converse without feeling like we were being listened in on, though it was obvious that they could hear us from that far away. The illusion of privacy was appreciated, even if there wasn’t any actual privacy being granted.

We traveled like that for another month, traveling much more quickly than we had before in an attempt to reach Sun’s End as quickly as possible. When we finally reached the exit that was just five ravines over from where Sun’s End was located, we heard the sounds of battle in the air and I could’ve sworn I heard Old Ironbellows screaming out commands, but he was miles away, so that wasn’t very likely.

Aria looked me dead in the eyes, “That was Old Ironbellows. Sun’s End is under attack, we need to get there as soon as possible.” She looked at Gong Jin, who nodded, and when she looked back at Keiko and I, we were ready to run with her. Naomi and Taka were in a similar situation.

Ellie trilled from around my shoulders, “Let’s do this!” With that, the six of us took off at a run, leaving a hastily scrawled note behind about going to join the battle a few ravines over. We told them to follow the sounds of battle to find where we went.

***

In hindsight, we should have told them exactly where to go, because when we arrived at the scene of the fight, we didn’t have any of our backup with us. We were six cultivators, rolling up on a battlefield full of hundreds of enemies and dozens of allies. The good thing was, we outclassed most of our enemies handily. Despite the few cultivator demons, those paired cultivators who had consumed their partner’s cores, we were more than up to the task of defending Aria’s home.

The fight was brutal and I was stunned to see how absolutely monstrous Old Ironbellows was in a fight. If I could have, I would’ve just watched him and taken notes. He whirled around the battlefield, shouting out orders and dealing out pain in equal amounts, the first with his words, and the second with his massive smithing hammer that I had been correct about thinking was more like a warhammer than a smithing hammer. Anything that got touched by his hammer died, whether by blunt force or by being burned alive by the Dawn qi that radiated off of it. He was like a one-man wrecking crew and when Aria fell in lockstep with him, it was a beautiful thing. Everywhere he wasn’t, she was. Eventually she saw that her brother, Kuzco, was having issues and when she spun away from Old Ironbellows, Keiko and I stepped in and did our best to not slow him down.

With Keiko’s freakish strength, she whirled the Dawnblade around like it weighed nothing and she sliced through Indus Tribe member after Indus Tribe member like a scythe through a wheat field. In the end, I figured that was what was what she needed to make her happy, she needed to feel powerful. So, I just provided range support for that fight. I shot darts of Inferno qi and Arctic qi in an attempt to keep her from getting surrounded, but she didn’t really need my assistance. At one point, one of the Saint demons surged in and tried to grab a hold of me, so I belched out a blast of Inferno qi from deep inside me, which quickly turned him to ash. His pair of short swords dropped to the ground with a clatter as his ashes scattered in the wind.

Across the battlefield from Keiko and I, I later learned that Gong Jin had joined up with Aria and Kuzco and the three of them tore through almost a third of the assembled Indus Tribe by themselves. With Aria and Kuzco’s Dawn qi providing offense and Gong Jin’s massive hammer providing clearance for them when they needed it, in addition to his healing ability with Arctic qi, they were a force to be reckoned with. Sensei only had me help them once and that was because there were three Brain level demons running toward them at one time. All it took was a quick trio of darts of Arctic qi at their feet to slow them down enough for the trio of Sages to take care of their attackers and they were damn good at it.

Fighting alongside Old Ironbellows was a trip, hearing him command the Sun Guard was inspiring and I hoped to be as good a commander as him one day, if the need arose. There were no wasted commands, every single thing that came out of his mouth was necessary and his flow in battle adapted to allow for Keiko to integrate into it. He went from whirling about like a monster to delivering precise blows whenever Keiko was about to be struck. I didn’t feel needed in their portion of the fight, but I was happy to be able to assist everyone else around me because of that fact.

Later on, when we were discussing the fight, Old Ironbellows told me that was what he was expecting from me. He wasn’t expecting an alchemist to be a frontline fighter, so he was happy to see that I was performing the role he was expecting from me. One thing he said stuck out to me.

“Alchemists are different. I can tell from the way you fight that you are one now, which is amazing and I’m very happy for you. The thing is, you have to fight like one. I could tell from the way you watched me fight that you wanted to be doing what I was, but that’s not what you’re for. Your job is to support those around you and, if need be, wipe out those attacking them with prejudice. I liked your flame belch, it was good use of your Inferno qi and is probably relatively sustainable for someone used to working a pill pot or furnace. Use that, don’t just fight with the Duskguard because you think you’re supposed to. Use them when they’re needed, but don’t feel tied to them. They’re tools, not a part of you.

“I saw you fighting mostly with your legs, which is one of the reasons the Duskguard are a good fit for you, but don’t be afraid to throw a punch here and there, no one’s expecting that when they see you kicking all the time. In summary, you’re an alchemist, take advantage of those skills and fight like you did today, helping out your allies while debilitating your enemies. That’s the way you’ll make the biggest impact.”

I was totally stunned and it wasn’t until two or three months later that I really came to terms with what he’d said and internalized his advice. I’d struggled to find my place on the battlefield. I wanted to be Keiko’s defender, but she didn’t need defending, especially not after the event with her lower core. Now, she was far stronger than any opponent we’d ever fought, minus Kabis, at least physically speaking. She didn’t need me standing out in front of her blocking while she attacked anymore and I was going to have to get used to that. I needed to focus on efficient use of qi and making sure that I served as a good distraction to allow Keiko to do what she did best. There was no shame in it, but it was a big adjustment. Throughout the following years, I still had issues, lapsing back in old habits, but it was when I acted as support for her that I truly shone in combat and eventually that’s all I did. I still doled out damage, but I was primarily concerned with making sure that Keiko was able to shine, like the war angel she was.

***

The arrival of the Torak family on the battlefield spelled the end for the remainder of the Indus Tribe. Juniper and Raymond fought like graceful dancers, interspersing bursts of wind qi and metal qi and I’m pretty sure I saw light qi and dark qi used as well, though at the time I thought I could’ve been wrong. When I asked them about it later, they told me that I was actually correct in what I saw. They were very careful to always pull the same amount of both light qi and dark qi and, despite not being paired cultivators, they fought in sync and always made sure to have each other’s backs.

The time following the end of the battle was rough. Aria and Gong Jin wept at the bodies of their friends and clan mates who had died before we had arrived. We later found out that the Indus Tribe had been attacking Sun’s End for six months at that point and we figured out later that it was probably triggered by us destroying Kabis. With their command structure destroyed, they resorted to what they did best, brute force.

Leaving Aria to grieve with Gong Jin and Ironbellows, Keiko and I introduced Juniper and Raymond to Kuzco, who did not look good after the fight. His clothes were torn and the armor beneath them was damaged, that’s not to say that he was physically unharmed. He had a broken arm and was walking with a limp when we found him.

I put a hand on the shoulder of his broken arm, causing him to wince in pain, “That was a hell of the battle. I hope you’re feeling okay,” I squeezed his shoulder a bit, causing him to wince again. “I’m just messing with you. You want us to heal your arm?”

He looked at me strangely, “There’s no need to trouble Miss Keiko with my injuries, our healers back in Sun’s End are quite adept, especially after we integrated with the Moonbeam Clan. One of them can even use Arctic qi, though not much at one time.”

I chuckled, even as I pulsed Arctic qi throughout his broken arm through his elbow meridian, “It’s no trouble. I already did it and you can’t stop me. Anyway, these are Juniper and Raymond Torak.” I pulled my hand away from his elbow and saw him flex it before taking off the sling he’d been wearing. “Anyway, they’re the leaders of the Torak family and we brought them with us. We brought them with us because they’re looking to move into Sun’s End if you’ll take them.”

Kuzco looked at me, shocked, “Why would they want to move to Sun’s End? This isn’t even a place we want to be, let alone somewhere someone else would want to be. What’s the angle?” He was always shrewd, not willing to take things at face value and it made him a better leader.

Before I could respond, Juniper walked up and reached out her hand for Kuzco to shake, which he hesitantly did, “The Torak family has guarded this island for as long as anyone can remember. Our family used to have contact with both the Moonbeam and Sunrise Clans regularly, but not in the last seven hundred years or so. We saw that the cultivation of your clans was declining and were worried that it would affect us, so we retreated from interacting with your clans. We see now that we were wrong to do that and because of our selfishness, more of you fell prey to the Indus Tribe than should have. For that, we are deeply sorry.”

She and Raymond bowed deeply for a moment, before straightening up.

Kuzco looked at me with one eyebrow raised, “These two serious? We have no records of a Torak family, or Torak Clan, what are they talking about?”

Raymond cleared his throat, “To be clear, we are the Torak family, not the Torak Clan. We are all descendants of our great Ancestor and his grandson asked that we defend Sunset Island from threats without, not within.” In contrast to his wife’s high soprano, Raymond’s voice, now that his vocal cords had been healed, was the deepest bass I’d ever heard. It was so deep that Sensei told me it would probably be called basso profundo in most musical circles.

Kuzco looked at me again, this time while glancing back and forth from the Torak family pair and I, “To be clear, they’re telling the truth?”

I nodded, “It’s all true. They’re here to join up with the amalgamation of clans you already have within Sun’s End until you guys can spread out over the island like you should once the Indus Tribe is gone. I don’t think there are very many Indus Tribe members left, so they’re not much of a problem anymore. We also helped kill Kabis,” my face darkened and I felt tears starting to form, but I fought them back. “It was at great cost, but we managed to pull it off.”

I took a deep breath before releasing it slowly, “I’ll leave these two with you to discuss logistics. I need to go find my wife and spend some time with her.” I clapped him on his newly healed arm’s shoulder before quickly walking away toward where I knew Keiko would be.

I found her standing among the Sun Guard, where she was discussing combat tactics with the former Crone, Althea, who had apparently joined the Sun Guard like Aria had insinuated that she should. She was happy to talk with Keiko and Keiko was pleased to see that the misogynistic assholes who had been part of the Sun Guard had either been demoted or removed entirely. Apparently only one member of the Sun Guard had been forced to leave and it was the person Keiko and I had humiliated before leaving Sun’s end for the first time. No matter how many times Old Ironbellows beat it into him, he insisted that women were weaker than men and eventually he was kicked out of the Sun Guard.

Chapter 19

The combination and cohabitation of the Dawnrise and Moonbeam Clans went about as well as could be expected. By the time we all made it back to Sun’s End, they hadn’t quite combined wholly yet, but they were well on their way to doing so. Due to the fact that the Dawnrise Clan was significantly larger, mostly due to not having been hunted nearly to extinction by the Indus tribe, when we arrived, Kuzco was in charge of the group as a whole, though Rongo Jin, Gong Jin’s father, was acting as his second. In theory, that’s how things were.

In reality, Kuzco made decisions for the Dawnrise Clan and Rongo Jin made decisions for the Moonbeam Clan. It’s not to say that the two were at odds, far from it, but the fact that they both maintained control over their respective clans meant that there was a real sense of division between the two clans. There were some forces within the clans who were pushing for unity. From the Dawnrise Clan, Old Ironbellows was willing to teach any and all comers as much about smithing as they wanted. From the Moonbeam Clan, Gong Jin’s sister, Luna Jin, was a staunch advocate for the combination of the clans. She went around town, doing her best to help the two clans mesh, but it was slow going.

Keiko and I stayed in Sun’s End for three months to cultivate. The problem was, no matter what we did, Keiko still couldn’t produce any attributed qi. It didn’t hurt anything in her day-to-day life, she could still access her spatial storage devices and other things like that, but she could no longer produce Arctic qi, so the way she fought was no longer sustainable by herself. She couldn’t heal her wounds mid-fight, so she had to rely on me to do so. I was happy to do it, but it rankled her that she had lost the ability to fight as she wanted independent of me. On the other hand, my use of Arctic qi grew increasingly adept as I learned to use it to speed up the cooling of pills in a way that made even Sensei jealous. He explained that because I could cool down pills so rapidly, with a type of qi significantly colder than regular ice qi, I was able to form crystalline structures significantly easier than a normal alchemist.

One night, just after I finished making a number of alchemically strengthened copper plates for one of the formations Keiko was working on, Sensei and I fell into an old conversation, but with a new twist.

He started, “As far as alchemists go, your toolbox is about as deep as any Expert, anybody up to the Master level would be ecstatic to have access to the tools you do, that’s not even taking into account my pot. My pot alone would make Grandmaster alchemists sick with envy, but your techniques and your ability to use Inferno qi and Arctic qi take you a whole other level. Therein lies danger.” His last statement hung in the air solemnly as the silence grew louder.

Eventually, I couldn’t take the silence and gave him what he wanted, “What do you mean, Sensei? You and I made sure that my foundations were sound, we did everything right. Where’s the danger?”

From his tone, I could tell that if Sensei had a body, he would’ve frowned, “You’re right, your foundations are rock solid and your techniques are phenomenal. The problem lies in that you’ve never had to deal with other alchemists before. You’ve never had one of your pills go up for auction and seen it outsell someone of a higher station than you and had to deal with those consequences. You practice alchemy at a level higher than anyone of your cultivation level should be able to and, if you’re not careful, it might get you killed. Alchemists are jealous bitches, if they see something, or someone, they find to be a threat, they will use every weapon in their arsenal to remove it, with prejudice.

“Based on the timeline you gave me, the entrance to the Inheritance of the Lovers should be reappearing in this region in two months. I can only assume that the entrance and exit points will be the same. Once you go back there, I don’t see the pair of you staying there for long, if at all. To be clear, that’s exactly what I want you to do. I want you to go out into the world and experience it, rather than staying in an incubator like unhatched chicks. Once you enter the regular world, you won’t have any backing, so you’ll need to be very careful about what you sell and who you sell it to. If an Expert grade healing pill shows up, it’s not going to be the end of the world. Those were relatively common in my time, though I bet even now they’re not incredibly rare. However, if you produce and sell an Expert grade Foundation Building pill, with all the types of qi contained within it, small wars could start over it. Any ruler worth their salt would want their children to be given those to give them the greatest chance at growing in power rapidly, despite starting at a higher state of cultivation than a weaker cultivator.”

As I finished putting away my tools, I thought about what Sensei had said. You’d be surprised how many knives, measuring tools, crushing implements, squeezing implements, and pestles and mortars it takes to be a good alchemist. After I finished cleaning up, I sat down with Sensei’s pot in the little one-room house that Keiko and I shared. She was out working with the Sun Guard, she did that a lot when she got frustrated, so she was there a lot during those three months.

I spoke softly, “You’re right, Keiko and I are frogs in a well, never having seen the wide world outside and there is every opportunity that we are going to run into difficulties along the way. I’m going to sell a pill that you and I both didn’t think was all that special to someone and they’re going to call it some kind of massive treasure, I know that’s going to happen. What we need to be cognizant of is the fact that there’s nothing we can do about it. Unless I restrained myself to only selling basic healing and bone strengthening pills and powders, eventually I’m going to make waves. We’ll just have to trust that with the three of us putting our minds to it, we can come out on top, no matter what happens.”

He and I sat in silence for almost two hours. My thoughts ran wild about the possibilities of going out into the world-at-large and really making a show of it, really trying to make my mark. I thought about how Keiko and I could make our little shop and sell alchemical cultivation aids and formation-based cultivation aids, along with other stuff. It was a happy thought, but Keiko and I were roving souls, it would take many years before we settled down.

I also thought about our friends, Naomi, Taka, Aria, and Gong Jin. They were originally planning to leave Sunset Island, but there was no way we could bring them with us. We only had the single token for the Inheritance of the Lovers and we didn’t have a means to get another one. Even if we went into the Inheritance, battled our way to get into the first level of the vault and got another one, it still would be at least two or three years before we could make it back to the island to gather one of our pairs of friends. Even after that, the other pair would be left alone on the island.

To top it all off, after months of arguing between Kuzco and Rongo Jin, the old chiefs decided to allow Aria and Gong Jin to act as co-chiefs, seeing as their interests would always be aligned. The couple balked at it at first, but in the end, they loved their people and knew that they could help them more as leaders than they could as warriors. Old Ironbellows stepped back up to run the Sun Guard, though he grumbled about it nearly non-stop.

Their sudden ascendance to the rank of co-chiefs left Naomi and Taka to their own devices. However, the pair of them were enjoying the freedom of being able to run around and explore Sunset Island. The pair of them hadn’t spent more than two or three days in Sun’s End since they’d arrived and they were actually just about to leave to take Juniper to see Miriam soon, in the next week or so. They were so happy to explore and enjoy the land around where they grew up that, when we broached the subject of leaving, they didn’t even want to go. They were happy where they were for now and just hoped that we’d eventually come back to see them again.

It may be sad to think about it, our friends didn’t need us there and Melody and Roderigo did. Without Keiko and I, I was worried to hear how they would have gotten on by themselves in the Inheritance of the Lovers. I left them with enough meals to serve the Disciples for almost a year, but we’d been gone longer than that and I could only wonder what else they might have gotten up to in that amount of time.

In the end, it was the look on Keiko’s face when she came back from sparring with the Sun Guard that told me everything I needed to know. She wanted to leave Sunset Island, however possible, as soon as possible. We had talked about it before, but our conversation that night was very revealing. It was after dinner and after our time spent practicing our Dragon Dancing cultivation method, which still astounded me in its complexity and beauty, that we spoke.

We had just settled in on the couch before the fire when she broached the subject, “I want to leave. I want to get off this island as soon as possible.” She scratched Ellie’s head frill where she sat but aside from the couch, curled up into a tight coil. Ellie trilled happily as she dozed post meal. “While we gained a lot on this island, we found an amazing cultivation method, Ellie came into our lives, and we met a bunch of wonderful people… We even rediscovered two new types of qi and found Sensei. In addition to all the other stuff we did, it took something huge from me and I can’t get out of my head. I…”

I pulled Keiko in tightly to my side and breathed out heavily, “I know. I’ve been wondering for months what might help get you out of your funk, not that it’s not justified, but I couldn’t come up with anything. No matter how many of your favorite foods I made or different things we tried with just the two of us… you might’ve been happy in the moment, but you were miserable afterward. Frankly, this island is beautiful, but it’s not home. Home is wherever you, Ellie, Sensei, and I are at any given point. We could be in your father’s compound in Roh City, or we could be in the farthest northern wastes, surrounded by enemies. No matter what, as long as the four of us are there, that’s home.”

I turned to look at Keiko and saw her eyes glistening with tears even as they rolled down her cheeks. She reached up and kissed me tenderly for a moment before pulling back.

Her voice was pregnant with the motion, “You would give up everything on this island to leave with me? We’re basically revered as gods here, what with us being prophesied and everything, we’d want for nothing here. Would you give that up?” She looked me straight in the eyes.

My eyes shone with a mischievous gleam, “In a second, without hesitation. We could leave tonight, make our way to the edge of the island and jump on a boat for all I care, though we would have to find one of those before we did that, to be clear. Whatever it would take to make you happy again, I’d be willing to do it. Sensei and I talked about it a little bit and we agreed that we should probably move on. He’s worried about what’ll happen in the open world, but he thinks that we need to see it, to become a part of it.

“Roderigo and Melody should be arriving on the island in two months, that’s more than enough time for us to navigate to where we appeared on this island. It’s conveniently marked on our map, I checked. Here’s my proposed plan: We go to where we appeared on this island, go into the Inheritance of the Lovers for a little while, make sure Sensei gets to talk to Elliott and Chandra,” Sensei sniffled a bit, which I ignored out of respect, “and then do whatever they need us to, before going wherever we want to. I don’t care if you want to go back to Roh City, no matter what, anywhere will be better than here as long as you’re happy.”

She just stared at me, her eyes glazed over with affection, love, and trust. Through our emotional connection I felt waves of those emotions as well as a bit of fear, which was healthy. We were talking about leaving someplace safe to go to someplace potentially dangerous. However, the most prevalent motion was that of wanderlust, the desire to travel and find new things. I realized then that I had felt it rushing through her for months and because I was so engrossed in learning more about alchemy and cultivating, I hadn’t even thought about trying to figure out what Keiko was feeling. I knew I’d have to be better than that, Keiko was supposed to be the emotionally dense one, not me.

As we sat there, staring at each other for a moment with our hands intertwined, Sensei spoke softly, “Thank you.”

It may have been short, but it was sweet and it contained everything it needed to. Keiko and I knew how Sensei felt. He was very excited to find out that he had descendants left but the fact that he could speak with his son and daughter, even just one more time, he wanted that desperately.

We sat there for a while before going to bed and just before we went to sleep, I whispered one more thing to Keiko, “Tomorrow, we’re going to tell everyone that we’re leaving and the day after, we head out, no matter what happens.” I felt her shiver with excitement, even as she fell asleep in my arms, satisfied that she would finally get what she wanted, a fresh start.