The Magistrate: Chapter 140 (Patreon)

Chapter 140

Tobias found himself in what would have once been a familiar armchair. However, that familiarity was now gone, taken away by the march of time. A fire crackled before him, giving off the faint smell of oak smoke, another once familiar odour, which was now little more than a distant memory. Books covering every subject on Earth that had once taken his fancy filled the shelves around him, spanning everything from science to interior design. It was there as a physical representation of the knowledge he'd pursued. A testament to a life well lived.

This room had once been Tobias's study. This chair had once been his favourite chair. The hints of leather, woodsmoke, and scotch had once felt like home. Now they were nothing but a memory.

Tobias looked down at the wine stain on the rug from a late-night discussion with his wife. She had fallen asleep while listening to him talk about the history of the diamond industry. She had been holding her drink when her eyes fluttered closed, and he hadn't been quick enough to catch it before it fell. He'd never had the stain removed, because to him it was a sign of their love. That they were always willing to make time for one another, even when exhausted. His wife had hated it.

None of the old pain was there when he looked at the stain now. They had lived a good life together. They had raised wonderful children. They had known love, happiness, and companionship, and this was all you could really expect from a good marriage.

Tobias turned to his left when he finished his musing, remembering the last time he was here. He recognised the familiar face in the chair next to him. He hadn't seen that face in centuries. It was so very, very Caucasian. So different to the world he'd found himself in.

His old self, from his first life, looked at him and sighed. "Others might be here shortly."

Tobias frowned. "Others?"

His old self nodded. "Think of me as the Ghost of Christmas Past. I'm the man you were, before this life began pulling you in another direction."

Tobias looked at his past self, trying to understand the game he was playing. They had met in this room once before. They shared a scotch. They had talked about old times. And then they had parted.

Tobias had never expected to meet him again.

Especially not while undergoing enlightenment.

This time Tobias looked deeper than the surface. Piercing the past self's dao. He peeled back the layers, seeing his old self, before cultivation had led him down another path. When he'd gone deep enough, a heavenly aura appeared around his past self.

Tobias tried to look deeper, but could not pierce the heavenly barrier, even with his extensive knowledge and power. "You're not a figment of my imagination, are you?"

His past self chuckled. "No, but perhaps you're a figment of mine."

Tobias chuckled with him. "I think I would know if that were true."

His past self shook his head. "You didn't even know how far your cultivation had led you astray until a moment ago. You thought that you had grown more powerful. And have only just realised you have grown more limited. A wiser man would be questioning everything about themselves in this moment."

Tobias frowned, because his suggestion didn't feel entirely true, even though it was accurate. "Perhaps, perhaps not. What are you?"

"I'm the part of you which the heavens protected after they trimmed away your less desirable traits. Once upon a time, we were one and the same. You sat across from me in that chair and poured me a drink, and I gave you a little life advice. Now, it's like we're strangers."

Tobias felt the same way, but he didn't consider it a problem. "Lifetimes of challenges separate us. I look at you and remember how limited your understanding of the world was. How confusing it all seemed. How desperate you were to make sense of it all. The problems you still must face seem so simple now."

His past self smiled. "And yet which of us is more at peace with himself?"

Tobias paused and considered the question, knowing within moments it was the old man sitting before him. "I've gone astray."

He nodded. "You have, and it's what's been holding you back."

Tobias's frown deepened. "Holding me back?"

"You aren't ready to undergo enlightenment. Instead, you are once again comprehending your dao. Perhaps if you do so successfully, this will turn into enlightenment."

"Where did I go wrong?"

His past self shrugged. "I don't know you anymore, so I can't answer that question. That's for you to decide."

Tobias stared at his old self. "You aren't much of a liar."

His old self smiled. "That's to be expected. I haven't had as much practice as you. So, let's say instead that you're asking the wrong question."

"What's the right question?"

"The right question is: when did I start seeing you as a stranger?"

Tobias considered the question. "I imagine it wasn't all at once. It was a series of decisions I made which you didn't recognise. Eventually, they grew so frequent you no longer knew me."

His old self nodded. "History taught us long before our second life that the good do not fall from grace with a single step, but many small steps which lead them from the path."

Tobias looked back over his life, weighing his decisions and their consequences, but couldn't see a pattern that made sense to him. Where had he gone astray?

"Would you like some advice? Of course, you would. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here. Your problems began when you started viewing yourself as a magistrate. This thought corrupted your dao. Until that moment, being a magistrate was your profession. It was how you remained safe and made a living. However, after that moment, being a magistrate changed from being a hat you wore to who you were, which wouldn't matter as a mortal, but as a cultivator, it had the power to change your dao. You didn't notice the changes at first, but over time this thought shaped you. It manipulated your actions. It changed you from Tobias to the magistrate who sits before me. A man who cannot help those in need, because they were outside your purview as a magistrate. A man who couldn't see how far astray he'd gone. Not until…"

Tobias sighed. "Not until Hun Fen spoke to me the way I spoke to Elder Xi all those centuries ago."

His past self nodded. "You taught her well. She recognised your inner conflict. And then she made you question it in a way that would wake you up. So why don't you answer the question you asked yourself and tell me what sort of magistrate you want to be?"

Tobias sighed. "I don't think I'm qualified to answer that anymore. I think that's why the Ghost of Christmas Past is sitting beside me."

"Now that's the man I remember."

"What sort of magistrate do you want me to be?"

His old self smiled. "I want you to be a magistrate who leaves his work at the door. A man who, when he's with the woman he loves and those he cares about, is just himself. A man who can lay down his mantle and pick it back up. To use a phrase our wife once loved, I want you to stop being a workaholic."

Tobias erupted in laughter. His chest shook, and his shoulders bounced as his face contorted with amusement. He could remember his wife saying those words time and time again. It was a thorn in their marriage for years. And it took her more than a decade to get the message through to him. But once it final did, he never went back. He never placed his work before his family and friends. Not in that life at least.

Through his laughter and memories, Tobias's dao changed, trimming some of his negative traits and making him closer to the man he had once been.

His old self smiled as his weathered Caucasian features were replaced by brilliant white skin and mixed Caucasian and Asian features so perfectly symmetrical that they seemed to defy possibility. A face fit for a heavenly being.

The Tobias of a moment ago stared back at the Tobias he was now. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present."

Tobias continued to laugh away the negative traits that had corrupted him. As he did, his mind shifted, separating himself from his cultivation. He still walked the path of the magistrate, but it was a mantle he could take off and pull on as necessary. It was not at the core of who he was.

Eventually, Tobias's laughter petered out.

His present self waited patiently.

Tobias smiled at himself. "You're not what I expected."

His present self smiled back. "And what exactly did you expect? One moment you were chastising your disciple and the next you were here. That doesn't exactly leave time for reflection."

"I mean, I didn't expect you to be me."

His present self continued to smile. "I'm not you. I'm who you were a moment ago."

"You know what I mean."

"I do, but I don't think you know what you mean. Or perhaps you have forgotten the significance of what just happened. Cultivators in our realm are on the road to becoming absolutes. We are beginning to find it impossible to change. We are our dao. And I am a magistrate. While you are a man who works as a magistrate. You have the freedom to be yourself. I have the freedom to be myself within the confines of what a magistrate is."

Tobias looked at his present self, peering through his dao to see the heavenly aura that he could not pierce. As he looked through the layers, he couldn't help but notice the corruption of his path. The knots in his dao. The parts of him which had become twisted and in conflict. The knots prevented him from seeing clearly, from being the man who he had been.

His present self smiled. "It's hard to see your faults when they are leading you astray, but in hindsight they are obvious." His present self reached out to his aura, poking each knot. "I couldn't see these without your help. Thank you for that. Now that I can, I'm shocked by how many blind spots I have. How many internal conflicts I have within my dao. How broken I am without even knowing it."

Tobias nodded, swallowing his shock, unable to understand how he had been so blind.

His present self continued to poke his knots until his hand came to rest on one of the smallest. "Now this is a beautiful mistake. I've tried to mix the dao of beauty and the dao of justice, but beautiful justice cannot always exist, so my daos conflict. They prevent me from making a decision. They stop me from interfering when I could otherwise help. It shows me that there is no off switch for me. No way for me to leave the magistrate behind. And because of something so small, the people of the city out there had to suffer."

Tobias stared at the knot in horror, understanding the power it had over him, and why he hadn't been able to see it. It had corrupted his mind completely, and it was one of the smaller knots.

His present self continued to smile. "Seeing this has opened my eyes to my failings. It has shown me where I've gone wrong. And it makes me want to be different. Not in the way you are different, but in another way that is more profound. I want to be a magistrate who does not think in absolutes. Who does not apply the same rules to every problem. I want to be a magistrate who is always searching for a solution, not one who tries to fit the problem into the solution they have found."

Tobias felt another shift within himself. One he did not fully understand. This time there was no laughter. No feelings of amusement or joy. However, clarity and regret entered his mind, showing him his past failings.

The thought that he was a magistrate had been an absolute, and that absolute had corrupted him absolutely. It had twisted his dao until he could not see with clarity. And it was not the only absolute thought in Tobias's head. Tobias had never compromised when it came to his disciples. He had never compromised when pursuing the dao of beauty. His actions were the actions of one who walked only one path, and they walked it absolutely.

His present self's eyes shifted, not ageing, but growing in experience and understanding. His robes transformed, becoming swirling patterns of light and darkness. There was a weight to him which had never been there before.

The new version smiled like the others. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Future. I am what you could become if you continue down this path."

Tobias looked at his future self, trying to peer through his dao, but immediately ran into a wall that his perception could not cross. When he shifted his gaze to his robes, his head began to swim.

His future self reached out with his aura and gently shut down Tobias's vision. "You have not reached a place where you can cross the veil of time. You are still walking the linear path."

Tobias blinked away tears, unable to stop himself. "Are you claiming to be me from the future, not an interpretation of what I will become?"

"I am you from a future. Not all futures, because time is constantly in flux. Our decisions change where we are going and where we have been."

Tobias rubbed his temple to help his vision clear. "That doesn't make sense."

"You are cultivating your way to immortality. You are attempting to cement your place among heaven's laws. Forget what you know about time and consider what you know about cultivation."

Tobias raised an eyebrow as his vision cleared, not liking the indirect answer. "I never expected to become someone who offered mysterious advice."

His future self chuckled. "I remember when I sat where you sit. When I heard a proclamation that sounded like the old masters of my youth from a version of me who claimed to be from the future."

"And what did this future you say to you when you questioned his phrasing?"

"It is for your protection and mine."

"Are you real?"

His future self shook his head. "I am a possibility. I am where you might end up if you continue down your path. However, I have sat where you sit. And experienced what you experience. I am not the first iteration of your future self, but the last. I am a thousand mistakes. A thousand attempts to find what you need. And I am what you will settle on."

Tobias found himself disliking this version of himself. "And the advice?"

"That's our way of bending the rules. We are not teaching you anything new but making you see what you already understand in a new light. So, consider what we have said."

Tobias paused to ponder the meaning behind his future self's words. The act of cultivating was to turn yourself into a universal constant, a law like any other. It was to form an existence which could exist beyond this realm.

Tobias found the answer was obvious when he thought about it. "A universal constant does not come into existence. It has always existed, only grown stronger. You are not crossing the chasm of time. You are changing your dao, therefore changing your past, present and future of that constant."

Future Tobias nodded. "Do you understand the significance of me being here?"

Tobias nodded back. "It means I have the potential to reach a point where I can influence linear time. Otherwise, you could not speak to me like this. And the only reason you would be speaking to me now would be because you are not happy with who you have become."

His future self shook his head. "It's not that I'm unhappy with who I've become. It's that I'm unhappy with who I was. Not the man you are now, but the man you will become between now and when you become me."

Tobias stared at his future self, weighing his words against what he knew. His previous conversations had felt off, but this one was sending up flares and sounding alarms.

If speaking to yourself across time was possible, Hun Fen would have done so long ago. And she wouldn't need a master to guide her, because she would be able to guide herself. And if she couldn't guide herself, then the man sitting before him was lying to him.

Tobias finally understood what was happening.

And what he was speaking to.

Tobias let himself relax into his armchair. "You almost made me falter. Using the dao comprehension aspects of my enlightenment to interact with me was a cunning choice. However, trying to hide my inability to read your dao by claiming to be speaking to me from across time was foolish. Especially when I have a disciple who should be able to do so if it is possible. You're nothing, but my heart demon come to lead me from the path of enlightenment."

His future self's features twisted, becoming harsh and angular and taking on a demonic light. His skin changed to a blood red, and his teeth grew serrated tips. Pointed ears replaced rounded lobes as fingernails turned into blacken claws.

Tobias smiled as he looked upon his heart demon. It had grown significantly stronger and smarter since they had last met. "You are my regrets and insecurities. The weight of lifetimes of bad decisions. You are the manifestation of the negative traits I just lost and have previously removed, and because these traits were part of my dao, you have more weight, more substance, more ability to lead me astray. You almost made me believe that my problems in this life would follow me into the next. That I was fundamentally flawed and that a thousand attempts could not fix me. But others have gone before me, and they were not so well prepared."

A pair of horned sprouted from the heart demon's head, and he sneered as his voice grew deeper. "Is that hubris I smell?"

"No. It's confidence. But many mistake one for the other. The difference between these traits is one's knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge. I know I'm not perfect. But I'm aware that I'm more knowledgeable than any cultivator who came before me. And whatever failures I have as a man and a cultivator will not prevent me from moving forward. And whatever gaps I have in my knowledge, while potentially problematic, will not make me look back with lifetimes of regret. So, kindly step aside, and allow my enlightenment to proceed."

"And if I don't?"

Tobias smiled back, puckered his lips, and blew him a kiss, unleashing the dao of beauty on his heart demon. The creature did not have a beautiful existence and could not have one. The dao of beauty burned through its form, leaving a piled of ash in its place.

Tobias smiled as he heard the door to his study unlock. Tobias reached out with his aura and turned the handle, pulling it open, knowing answers lay beyond.

A realm filled with light waited on the other side, and the study began to dissolve as Tobias went to greet the Ghost of Christmas Future.