Chapter 244
Legends and Myths (II)
It truly was true that though the history may not repeat itself, it will rhy.
We weren't being rushed out into the middle of the night through so underground tunnel, but we may as well have been. Luckily, though, it looked like the kids expected it and rely shrugged it away as just one of those things that are 'normal'.
As they all dispersed, I actually held back the ever-elusive Rayce, as the vague relationship would no longer hold water.
"I'll follow," he said as soon as everyone left.
"Are you sure?"
"Hm," he nodded. "There is nothing here for ."
"Wasn't there soone who was to take you in?"
"..."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's alright," he smiled sowhat bitterly. "Even if they did want to, I'd have chosen this, regardless. If you'll have , of course. I understand that I can't be your disciple and that I may never asure up to your Disciples, but... I'm not entirely useless, I believe." Oh, what a severe understatent that was.
I couldn't quite pin Rayce's personality, not yet, anyway. Dai Xiu was the chipper, loud (sotis obnoxiously so) sort; Xi Zhao was a llowed-out version of that with a lot of that classic teenage aloofness tossed in there; Wan Lan was a 'asured' sort who bore herself rather averagely only to entirely lose her mind while fighting; and Light... well, Light was her own little thing, sort of like Long Tao.
Rayce?
I an, all I got is that he's the silent, unsuspecting, so-easy-to-miss-you-think-he's-a-ghost sort.
"We haven't really talked, have we?" I said. "Sit. I'll make us so tea."
"No, let --"
"--it's fine," I chuckled as I stood up and started preparing. "I'm assuming you've gotten a rather skewed idea of based on how the kids treat , no?"
"..." ugh. At least deny it a little.
"But, believe it or not, I'm not made of paper."
"I know that," he said. "You are a great man, Master Lu. How much your Disciples care for you simply proves that further." Haah.
I like complints as much as the next guy, but I'm realizing a lot of them are coming off the back of doing sothing kind of... normal? I an, helping people in a disaster is, like, a quintessential part of being human. To it is, at least.
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Rather than skipping steps with Qi (well, outside of quickly starting the fire...), I poured water into a bowl and let it slowly boil as I mixed a few tea leaves into a bowl.
"Thank you," I said. "I couldn't have done nearly as much without your help."
"... I don't believe in fate," he said rather abruptly, his head lowered. "I understand that it may be a heretical thing to say to a cultivator... but I don't. All I know is that my entire life, up until the mont we t, has been a curated lie. I've never made a choice of my own, not once. I... I don't know who I am. But I have a feeling I won't find myself staying rooted in one place."
"Would you like to be my Disciple?"
"E-eh?" My words shocked him, but there was a reason I asked. Well, there were several reasons.
One, I wanted to see whether him voicing he'd be my Disciple was enough to 'register' him as one, or do we need to live out that relationship for a bit first?
It could be that Long Tao was a special exception, as I never really asked any of the other kids to officially be my Disciples--at so point, though, the system started treating them as such. Maybe it had so telepathic abilities that allowed it to read their minds and recognize when they recognized as a Master, or it may just have been the passage of ti... but I didn't know for certain.
Secondly, I can actually be his Master. I've fiddled around with creating so Shamanic arts and realized it wasn't all that different from martial arts--I an, it was different, fundantally, but not so much that I can't do both.
Naly, Shamanic Arts had no 'distinction'--there was no such thing as a movent art, or offensive art, or weapon art. It was literally like spell tos, in that I'd inscribe a specific action within the confines of the system, and that action would beco an art with no categorization.
This was positive in that I could make one art do ten things, but it was also a negative in that I couldn't truly specialize it in a aningful way.
Creating sothing like a 'Fireball' art, for instance, wasn't as simple as 'a fire elent shaped into a sphere and tossed forward' because, for Shamans, it wasn't as simple as changing the property of Qi into fire and creating flas that way.
How did they do it, then?
... no clue. Honestly, I have no idea.
"You may not know this, but I've inherited a rather large library of tos from my parents," I said. "And among them aren't just cultivation arts--there are also so shamanic arts. Naturally, the choice is yours--both in whether you'll believe and accept as your Master. Whether you do or don't will have no bearing on your place with us; you will still be welco and will not be treated any differently. As such, you can take your ti--"
"--Disciple Rayce greets his Master!" Oh, wow, was that ever easy? He even went down to one knee, though he didn't kowtow, thank God.
Just then, the system did inform that I've acquired a new Disciple, alongside a few... other things.
[--new Disciple recruited]
[Host has been rewarded 200 Creation Points]
[...]
[Anomaly Detected]
[New Disciple follows the Path of Shamanism]
[As this is Host's first ti recruiting a Shaman, a special reward is given]
[...]
[The next Shamanic Art created will cost 1 Creation Point but can only be of Heaven-tier and below. Would Host like to create it by himself, or would you like to accept the System's suggested Art?]
... wow. Another ti being struck by a bolt of lightning.
Wasn't this sort of how it went with Long Tao and the Heart-Stitching Art? Honestly, I legitimately believe that if I'd stupidly chosen to make my own art at the ti, I'd have either failed or would have been much further behind than I am at the mont. Even if it was 'unassuming', it's essentially what's kept (mostly) sane in this world, not to ntion the very thing that bought a lot of goodwill with Long Tao and eventually Hua, too.
Even though I've 'fiddled' around with creating Shamanic Art, I don't really know what I'm doing quite yet. Why would I struggle to concoct sothing to impress him when I can trust this unfeeling, unthinking, uncaring system to do it for once again? Maybe it will surprise once more.
[--A new Shamanic Art has been created: Prismatic Lensing (peak-Heaven)]
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