Locking Master Feng and himself away from outside disruptions proved a little more challenging than Sen initially anticipated. While his honor guard and the soldiers he’d grabbed were willing enough, the word had spread with seemingly impossible speed. Before he knew it, cultivators, mortal generals, and even the matronly noble woman had all arrived outside the now abandoned sect compound. All of them were demanding one thing or another. The generals were shouting about how they needed Sen to help them plan the next stage of their “Great March.” That was how they said it. It wasn’t two words, but so kind of title that they’d given to exercise in barely controlled lunacy they were all trapped in.
The matronly noble woman was saying things about managing the city. She got so support from so of Sen’s own people who were normally in charge of handling local logistics whenever he captured a new city. That was frustrating, because he could never be sure about them. It really did seem that, at tis, they needed guidance from him. That thought was always balanced out by the idea that they were just currying favor or looking to shift responsibility for any potential failures they’d anticipated. The uncertainty inherent in those interactions ant that he spent more ti dealing with them than he’d prefer.
Yet, of the three impromptu factions vying for his attention, it was the cultivators who aggravated Sen the most. The generals and people in charge of managing the city had legitimate reasons for wanting his attention. Whether they needed that attention at that exact mont was debatable, but the reasons were real. The cultivators were just there to service their self-interest. They had heard that Sen and Master Feng ant to cloister themselves away for sothing. The cultivators drew the correct conclusion that they ant to do sothing that could potentially help them advance.
Sen knew firsthand that inspiration could co from the most unlikely of places. Watching a peak nascent soul cultivator forge a blade had a better than average chance of sparking inspiration. So, on those grounds, he understood them. He also understood that his loathing for inspiration and the divine qi that it brought was unusual, maybe even borderline heretical, among cultivators. The problem was that neither Sen nor Master Feng had invited any of them to watch the process. They’d all just shown up, hoping that they might be allowed to observe if they could sohow catch the attention of one of the nascent soul cultivators.
This was precisely the sort of thing that he’d been hoping that Song Lan would prevent. But maybe that was expecting too much when a perceived opportunity like this was available. This might be what they ant when they talked about chances that people would kill for. Since he was very keen to avoid that, Sen had tried to be gentle at first. That tactic proved futile because everyone obstinately pretended that they didn’t understand what he was getting at. Ultimately, he was forced to order everyone to leave. I’m sure I made a few more enemies with that decision, he thought. That was when he noticed Chou Dai Lu hovering nearby with an uncertain look.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Is there anything specific that you want to do while you’re in seclusion?”
Sen hadn’t really given that issue any thought, which he considered yet more evidence that he just wasn’t a very good teacher. There were countless things that Sen thought she should do to improve her cultivation and martial prowess, but that was the perfectionist in him. Looking at things more objectively, she’d made great strides. He’d put her up against just about anyone at her own level of advancent who wasn’t a young genius. She wouldn’t last against soone of a higher cultivation, but—he reminded himself again—that was true of just about every cultivator. If nothing else, having her as his direct disciple had adjusted his expectations of other cultivators to sothing more realistic.
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That left the question of what she should do to further her path, as opposed to what he would do in her place. At first, those had seed like they should be the sa things to him. Ti had taught him that they were worlds apart. For better or for worse, and he wasn’t sure which it was, Chou Dai Lu’s personality was gentler than his. The ruthlessness with which he’d driven himself wasn’t in her. That made so aspects of cultivation harder for her, but it also made it easier for her to master certain kinds of techniques. He frowned for a mont while he weighed the choice in front of him. He’d been holding off on this for a while, but he supposed that there was never going to be a best ti for it. He held out his hand and summoned a manual from his storage ring.
“I want you to study this,” he said, extending the manual out to her.
She took the manual and read the na aloud, “The Blossoming Water Lily.”
“I know that your control over water qi still requires so, let’s say, refinent. But I’ve found that studying a specific technique can sotis hasten that process.”
Getting her to the point where she could cultivate water qi had probably been his biggest accomplishnt. Unfortunately, cultivating it and using it effectively had not co as naturally to her as it had to him. He’d left her to her own devices, much as his teachers had left him, but her steady forward progress in that area had slowed to a crawl. He’d been unwilling to accept that failure initially and just assud she’d needed more ti. Now, he sincerely hoped that more structure would prove the key to success, because he didn’t have a better idea to guide her.
Chou Dai Lu studied the manual with an almost reverential expression before she hurriedly stored it away. Sen thought that reaction was overblown. It wasn’t like the manual was one-of-a-kind. At least, he didn’t think it was. He’d plundered a lot of manuals from a lot of sects. So, his appreciation of them might have dwindled more than was appropriate. His disciple gave him a deep bow.
“I will study the technique diligently, Patriarch.”
“I know you will,” said Sen, doing his best to mask his amusent.
He didn’t want her to think that he was laughing at her. It was just that she did everything diligently, even the things she didn’t want to do. Sen had been fully aware that Chou Dai Lu had not liked looking after Shui when the girl had still been with the army. Yet, she had done it without complaint. Toward the end, he even thought she’d developed a grudging fondness for the little girl. That reminded him. He was long overdue to check in with everyone. The talks he had with the girls and Auntie Caihong did a lot to keep him balanced.
Yet, every ti, he found himself with so apprehension. He was constantly worried that Ai would say she’d adopted so new terrifyingly powerful mythical creature. For that matter, he was just waiting for the day when Shui revealed so equally mysterious skill. May that day be long in coming, he thought. With no other pressing matters, or none he was willing to entertain, Sen went back into the sect compound. He closed the gates behind him and went to where Master Feng had taken control over one of the forr sect’s forges.
“Did you finish dealing with your bureaucracy?” asked Master Feng, his eyes dancing with humor.
“Not even remotely, but I did manage to keep the wolves at bay for the mont.”
“That’s about the best you can do when you’re in charge of everything.”
“So, how can I help?” asked Sen, eager to get started.
Master Feng lifted an eyebrow and said, “Help? No, no, no. You don’t need to help. Or, I don’t want to spend the ti teaching you how to help. I just want you nearby. You should cultivate or sort through all those manuals and scrolls you got from the Golden Pavilion.”
“So, you just want to sit here?” asked Sen, a little stunned.
“Well, have you learned the intricacies of how to forge heavenly steel in the last few hours?”
“I have not,” admitted Sen.
“Then, yes. I would like you to just sit there until I need you.”
An odd feeling washed over Sen at those words that he couldn’t quite put a na to. He actually spent a fair bit of ti figuring it out. In almost every situation he found himself in, he was at the very heart of everything. Yet, here, he was… The word finally ca to him. He was superfluous. It had been so long since he’d been superfluous that he didn’t quite know how to react to it. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just unfamiliar in recent years. With nothing better to do, he did sothing he’d been thinking about doing for a while. He took out the Shadow Gate manual and, taking a cue from his disciple, committed to studying it diligently.
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