It turned out that Auntie Caihong did have a solution, mostly because Uncle Kho was always interested in reading about new things. As a nascent soul cultivator, he was far more likely to stumble across ancient and hideously fragile scrolls and manuals. The solution wasn’t simple, though. It was a multistage process that called for fairly complicated alchemical concoctions that had to be applied in specific ways. For Uncle Kho, that ant carrying around so very specialized and one-of-a-kind equipnt that Auntie Caihong had made for him. As well as carrying around the alchemical liquids. Not much of a challenge for anyone with a storage ring, but vital for the process. Of course, that assud that one person with one main qi affinity would be handling the work.
Sen had a small army of cultivators. He drafted so of the less disappointing alchemists to handle making large batches of the recipes Auntie Caihong had given. At least, he did once he’d made them himself and knew what they should look like. Access to all those cultivators also allowed him to avoid the problem of the equipnt. He had air cultivators and water cultivators who could apply the things the alchemists were making without needing to bother with the equipnt. He knew they wouldn’t do the work perfectly, but it’s not like he was hoping for so specific scroll or manual. Anything they managed to save would be interesting from a historical perspective, even if none of it was of practical use for cultivators.
Master Feng and Uncle Kho had warned him that cultivation had advanced a great deal. They did, however, add the caveat that there were many lost techniques. Sen’s takeaway was that he should temper his expectations. They might find sothing impossibly valuable, but it was more likely they wouldn’t. He didn’t really care about that. This was the first ti in longer than he cared to consider that he had sothing to think about other than the war. His fixation on the project also gave everyone who had been fighting with him a little ti to rest. He’d been pushing them hard for a long ti now, so he felt they’d earned a short break.
His near-constant presence at the ruins did have one pitfall. It left the small handful of nobles who had survived his purge in a state of uncertainty about their imdiate future. Sen knew he should care about that, but he just couldn’t muster the interest. The second he allowed anyone to speak to him about sothing like that, he’d be dragged into the posturing and vying for position that happened every ti he took over a new city or country. He’d created a power vacuum. Everyone left who’d had a speck of power under the dead queen would want to fill that vacuum. He’d have to deal with that problem, but it could hold for a few days.
Of course, that was an issue centered on the nobility, politicians, and wealthy rchants. Once the common people in the city figured out that the army and new cultivators weren’t about to go on a massive killing spree, life mostly returned to normal for them. Sen had imposed incredibly strict rules about how his people could behave in the places they captured. He enforced those rules ruthlessly. After he’d executed a few dozen people who couldn’t seem to grasp that, yes, those limitations applied to everyone, the problems had largely stopped.
Not that he could prevent every soldier or cultivator from doing sothing stupid. But there were lesser punishnts than death that could be doled out. He’d discovered that cultivators who spent months managing latrine pits for the entire army nded their ways. He left the generals to handle punishing soldiers for anything that didn’t warrant death. So of that was practicality, but so of it was also a ans of making the generals enforce a moral code on everyone, including their favorites. The one ti a general had tried to let a favored subordinate escape punishnt, Sen had transferred the punishnt to the general, several lashes, and had it carried out in front of the entire army.
He was fairly certain he’d made an enemy for life out of that general, but doing it that way had given him a reputation as soone who was strict but fair. Sen wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessnt. He tried to be fair, but fairness was one of those things that depended on the eye of the beholder. What he considered fair and what others considered fair were often at odds. It seed all too likely that the mortals he’d conscripted into the army didn’t consider their punishnts fair. Assuming that any remained who still drew breath. He hadn’t asked about them recently.
All the sa, he wasn’t about to turn his nose up at that unexpected benefit. If the soldiers considered him fair, it also ant that they were less likely to question unpleasant orders. No matter how hard he tried to minimize it, every battle ca at the cost of lives and injuries. He shook his head and forced those considerations away. That was why he was in the ruins. To give himself a brief reprieve from the need to obsess about all of those things. He looked around at the cultivators doing their best to restore the scrolls and manuals. They didn’t need him there. He knew it. If anything, his presence was more likely to cause mistakes than to prevent them.
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Instead of pointlessly monitoring other people working, he went looking for Master Feng. The elder cultivator had been spending most of his ti in the ruins. Most of the ti, he seed to walk without purpose from one end of the once-thriving city to the other. Occasionally, though, he’d stop sowhere and stare for hours with distant eyes. Sen assud he was trying to rember details from a childhood so far into the past that it was hard to imagine. Checking his spiritual sense, it seed that Master Feng was in the middle of doing just that. He hadn’t moved in a while.
Sen decided to walk to where his teacher was, mostly as a way to avoid using more qi than necessary. His reserves were recovering, but it was a far slower process as a nascent soul cultivator. It was a bit chilling to realize that if he’d tried sothing like dragging a city out of the ground as a core cultivator, it wouldn’t have just failed. It would have failed, causing massive destruction in the region, and it would have killed him. A potent reminder that just because sothing could be done, it doesn’t necessarily an it should be done. Then again, that tug hadn’t shown up until he had the necessary power, if only just. He found Master Fend staring at one of the larger and more ornate stone buildings in the ruins. It was on Sen’s list of places to investigate, but he hadn’t gotten to it yet.
“Runchu,” said Master Feng.
“What?” asked Sen.
“The boy I befriended. I finally rembered his na. It was Runchu.”
“I see. Did you rember your na?”
“In point of fact, no,” said the elder cultivator with a wry smile. “I think it’s because I’ve been thinking of myself as Feng Ming for so long that it’s hard to think of myself as anything else. Feng Ming the cultivator isn’t really anything like who I was as a boy. Sothing I suspect you’re coming to grips with now.”
“I am,” said Sen. “Or, I’m trying to. I do things now, and, sotis, it’s almost like I can see myself from when you found . He would hate .”
“I recall that you had so very specific opinions about nobles. I imagine an emperor would be even worse.”
“So much worse. Then, I rember that those were the opinions of a child. A very angry, very hungry, and very uneducated child. So things only beco clear with ti and experience.”
“That’s sadly true,” said Master Feng. “It’s also true that ti and experience can cloud things for you, too.”
“Oh?”
“Take the building,” he said with a gesture. “I can tell you it was important. I can even tell you that my mother worked there. I can’t tell you why it was important, or what she did there. I can make guesses that would probably be accurate, but I don’t actually know. It’s oddly frustrating. I can probably tell you everything there is to know about wind qi, but I can’t tell you what she did to buy us food. That might make the most unfilial son in history.”
“Most people don’t have to rember those things thousands of years later.”
“That’s true. I’m not sure it’s an excuse karma will accept, but it is true.”
“You’ve been talking a lot about your mother, but not your father.”
“I had one. Beyond that, I can’t tell you a thing. I don’t think he was there. Maybe he left. Although, I don’t get the sense that I was angry about it, so maybe he died when I was young.”
“I wish I could say that I’m alright with not knowing anything about my parents, but it’d be a lie. If I knew that they died, I could be fine with that. I could mourn in peace, because I’d know that they didn’t abandon . But for all I know, they left to die and went on with their lives. They might still be out there sowhere. I might have t them and never even knew it.”
Master Feng gave Sen a long look before he asked, “And what would you do if they were alive, and you did et them?”
“Honestly, I’d probably kill them.”
Master Feng shook his head and said, “You don’t know yourself as well as you should. You might want to kill them. Anyone would in your situation. But you’d wouldn’t do it, not unless they’d done sothing terrible to soone else.”
“How do you know that?”
“Sen, I’ve known you for most of your life. Do you think I don’t know what makes you angry? You can be offended. I’ve seen that happen. When it does, you’re perfectly willing to punish soone. But enough rage to kill? You only get that way when soone is hurting the weak. That is, in my opinion, your essential character. It’s a little misguided, at tis. The weak can be just as evil as the strong. Sotis, they’re worse. That’s sothing experience hasn’t taught you, yet. But you reserve that anger for people you think truly deserve it.”
“And you think my parents wouldn’t, if they’re alive?”
“Oh, I absolutely think they’d deserve it. That’s why I’d kill them without a second thought. I’d feel quite satisfied with myself, too, but we’re talking about you. You wouldn’t kill them because you don’t see slights to yourself in the sa way see slights to others. You’re more forgiving about it because you think you’re strong enough to take it. Which you are. It’s one of your strengths, and one of your weaknesses.”
Sen sighed and said, “Can’t sothing just be a strength? Just this once?”
“You young people. Take it from an old man, that’s not how it works.”
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