Sen stared down at the scroll in front of him. In a bid to undercut Master Feng’s implied assertion that he had too much to do, Sen had sat down and written out a list. It included all of the things he considered important both for the imdiate future and for the eventual outbreak of the war. Even for a man who was used to working hard, almost around the clock, the list was daunting. It truly was more than he could handle. Any one task on the list would be simple and easy. The sa was probably true of any ten tasks on the list, but the list was much, much longer than that.
There were things on that list that he’d been aning to do for a year or more. For example, he’d always ant to set up a way for the nearby towns and villages to alert them if a spirit beast attack ca. At the ti, it had just seed prudent. Now, it was critical, and it had been all but forgotten. He thought there was a ready solution to it, but it needed more testing. Until he was sure it would work, sanity demanded he look into more mundane options. More recently, he’d ant to establish a system to ensure a regular back and forth of communication between himself and Grandmother Lu. He’d been in and out of the capital often enough that he’d been able to get updates in person, but that wouldn’t always be true. If he ever had to leave the sect to participate in fighting for any length of ti, he needed the line of communication in place.
He’d ant to look into the possibility of having more core cultivators from other sects co and serve as teachers. Not indefinitely, but perhaps for six months or a year. Long enough to help refine the students’ fighting skills or provide so alternate perspectives on specific affinities or even crafts. He was still hesitant about bringing in people from sects, and he’d have to make sure his expectations were very clear. Even so, he thought that it would offer more benefits than risks. That had never been more than an idea in his head that he would get to when he had ti. The absurdity of that was starkly displayed before him as a giant list. He didn’t have the ti and probably wouldn’t have it for years to co.
That was excluding all the things he ant to get done in pursuit of his own cultivation journey. He'd written out a separate list for those tasks. He was still training with Fu Ruolan, although training was probably a strong word for it. He could shadow travel almost as well as she could. The gap in skill was small enough now that she’d even admitted that there wasn’t anything else she could tell him. The rest was a matter of ti and practice. He’d have to find his own insights to refine his use. They had ultimately gone back to alchemy. Instead of teaching him, though, she had been pushing him to understand what he did better. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was hoping that he’d be able to teach her a little piece of it or if it was simply to make him better. It’s probably both, he thought.
That made him feel a little guilty. He’d been wandering around with that Shadow Gate Manual since he got back and had barely looked at it. His interest was as strong as ever, there just hadn’t been ti to give it the focused attention it needed. A manual like that wasn’t sothing he could digest in an evening. It would likely take months of intense study to truly understand what it contained. Or, if he devoted what negligible ti he did have, it would probably take years. Knowing that, the right move was probably to hand it off to soone else with a strong shadow affinity. The manual would be of interest to Fu Ruolan. He didn’t even need to ask her to know that. But he was loathe to hand it over before he’d gotten a good, long look at it. He recognized the selfishness of that, but selfishness was inescapable as a cultivator. You didn’t give away resources you could use willingly.
Then, there was the fire-attributed ginseng he’d found beneath the forr Xie manor. He’d mostly resolved to give it to Auntie Caihong. That had as much to do with getting it out of his possession and into the hands of soone who could truly defend it as it did with her alchemy skills. Except, once he did that, he’d just knew that he’d be forced to explain it to Fu Ruolan. He also knew that, no matter how good or reasonable the explanation, she’d be hurt. It would be complicated pain too. That was an emotional knot he didn’t know how to untangle because only so of it would have to do with him. The rest of it would be tied up with Fu Ruolan’s relationship with Auntie Caihong. That was a problem he had no intention of getting involved with because it really wasn’t his business. Unfortunately, all of that ant he kept putting off giving Auntie Caihong the ginseng.
Beyond that, he still needed to maintain his practice with his martial forms. Realistically, he should be practicing with Master Feng every day. It was quite probably the only way he was going to improve unless he found one of the people that Master Feng considered an equal to teach him. A task that would inevitably involve a journey he couldn’t undertake anyti soon. Not before Ai assud control of the House of Lu, probably. There was also the matter of developing his own spear style. Uncle Kho had said that everyone did it, but Sen felt like not doing it was ignoring sothing that might be both helpful and potentially life-saving one day.
He had been a little surprised that he hadn’t gotten to a similar place with the jian. He’d always considered himself more of a swordsman than a spearman. He’d even asked Master Feng about it. The elder cultivator had seed intrigued but had no definitive answers.
“Cultivation is a personal journey, Sen. What you get and when depends as much on you as anything else. You may just think that you haven’t gotten everything there is to learn yet from what I taught you. Then again, maybe the universe is holding it back for so reason. There’s no way to know.”
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Not that Sen was entirely sad about that turn of events. If that chance did exist, he feared it would just be one more thing he felt bad about not pursuing. Sen couldn’t help but feel a little angry about the lists. So much of what was on them were byproducts of him rushing or, more truthfully, being rushed through his advancents. He should have had centuries, even millenniums, to pursue so much of this. He knew that he could have happily spent decades or even centuries pursuing alchemy alone. It would have been a pure pleasure to take that ti to learn from Auntie Caihong and even from Fu Ruolan. He would have given almost anything to be able to do nothing but practice with the jian for a hundred years. How much could he learn from that? He didn’t know, but it would have been glorious to find out.
All of that rushing made it extrely difficult for him not to worry that his foundations were weak and shallow compared to what they ought to be. It didn’t matter how many tis Master Feng assured him that his foundations were very solid, that fear haunted him. He knew that another tribulation was coming for him soon. He knew it would be terrible. If soone’s foundations were going to crack and fail, that was when it was most likely to happen. They were often the most pressure a cultivator was ever put under, save for the most extre life-or-death situations. Even those deadly situations often paled in comparison, because it was difficult for one cultivator to put that kind of pressure on soone else’s foundations while fighting. Any of the nascent soul cultivators he knew well could probably pull it off if they faced off with soone at a lesser cultivation level, but why would they?
Sen let out a little sigh, picked up his tea, and leaned back in his chair. He frowned at the cold liquid in his cup and used a bit of fire qi to warm it again. His gaze drifted back to the lists on the table. His grand plan to prove Master Feng wrong had utterly failed. He didn’t need just one reliable person. He needed five of them. He wished he could recruit Bahn Huizhong. He genuinely liked that man. Sen even thought it wouldn’t be that hard to trust him. They shared a similar view of the world. They even seed to analyze threats in a similar way. He just doubted he’d ever be able to pry the man away from the Vermilion Blade Sect for the dubious honor of joining a sect that barely qualified as a sect. Then again, he supposed it never hurt to ask. The worst that would happen is that Bahn Huizhong would say no. He probably wouldn’t even be offended if Sen couched it in the right way.
That was sothing for tomorrow, though. The lists were a problem for today. He sipped a bit more of his tea and then pulled out yet another scroll. He started copying over items from the first list. Not absolutely crucial things that needed to work out. Just things that Sen wanted done and handled with basic competence. He copied over ten items and then hesitated. Maybe one thing that was more important, he thought. It can be a test for her. I’ll task her with the town expansion. It was complicated, and probably not sothing she could get done entirely by herself, but that was part of the test. He’d see if she was willing to delegate responsibilities appropriately and seek help when necessary. He looked the list over a few tis and finally had soone send for Sua Xing Xing.
He put away his list of personal goals and tasks. Then, he made a fresh pot of tea. The stuff in his cup hadn’t been bad, but it was old enough that it tasted a bit stale. He snorted to himself. He had co a long way. There had been a ti when he never would have tossed out tea just because it was a little stale. It would have seed unconscionably wasteful. No, he thought. I’d have considered wasting any kind of food an unforgivable sin. He still struggled with that when it ca to actual food, but tea was just far enough from being solid food that it didn’t make him flinch to pour out an old pot.
Sua Xing Xing arrived faster than he expected which made him wonder what she’d been doing beforehand. If she’d been teaching, it probably should have taken longer. He decided it probably didn’t matter. He had asked her to co, so he shouldn’t complain that she was prompt about it. She looked a little uncertain about the summons but seed to calm when he just gestured to a chair. He let her pour out the tea for them, which seed to calm her more. He honestly didn’t know why that seed to matter so much to so many people, but he supposed it didn’t hurt him to let her show him respect by pouring the tea. Once they both had a cup, he didn’t waste ti.
“It has been suggested to that I am not making good use of your talents,” said Sen.
Sua Xing Xing froze, the teacup halfway to her lips. He could almost see her mind working as her eyes moved back and forth a little like she was searching for so unseen person. He wasn’t sure exactly what she thought he ant, but she blushed a little which told him that she had the wrong idea about it on so level. She regained herself and took a sip of the tea before she reacted.
“I see,” she said in a neutral tone. “And what have you concluded about that?”
“That perhaps I’ve been…harsher with you than is entirely appropriate. So, here,” said Sen, handing her the scroll with the short list on it.
She set down her tea, took the scroll, and unrolled it. She studied the list, her face still fixed in an almost blank expression.
“Patriarch?”
“Moving forward, those are now your tasks. I don’t have the ti to manage them myself, and they need to be done. You may use mbers of the academy to assist you, within reason. You may draw on sect funds up to fifty gold taels. Speak with Li Beihe to get the funds on an as-needed basis. If you require more, speak to . We’ll discuss it.”
Sua Xing Xing shot out of her chair and seed to be fighting the urge to smile. She bowed low, the scroll clutched to her chest like she feared she might sohow lose it if it left her hands.
“Thank you, Patriarch. I will not fail you in these tasks.”
“Don’t thank . Thank Feng Ming.”
She straightened fast and her expression turned to sothing Sen didn’t recognize. It wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite horror but probably had a familial relationship with both.
“I… I wouldn’t dare,” she said.
“You should. He’ll probably think it’s hilarious. It’ll an that he was right, and I listened when he told so.”
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