Unintended Cultivator

Sen stood in the wreckage of what had been pristine forest for a long time before he walked back to where he’d unleashed that odd variant of Heavens’ Rebuke. He just stared at the massive crater. It had been unbelievable when seen from the air, but the scale of the destruction was simply staggering when viewed from the ground. It made Sen wonder, not for the first time, just what it would look like if Master Feng ever truly unleashed the totality of his strength. If I can do this, thought Sen, could the world survive what he might do? He shook off that thought. The world was truly vast. It could likely endure even what Master Feng could do, but seeing this barren hole in the earth also showed him that the world was fragile. Every time Sen’s strength grew, every time he did something like this, he better understood just why it was that cultivators who reached a certain threshold had to ascend.

He was still staring at that expense of lifeless ground when he felt a group of cultivators approaching. He looked up when Sua Xing Xing and a party of familiar faces from the sect arrived at his side. The expression of shock on the woman’s face would have been funny if not for the cause. She was staring at the crater the same way he had been. Unlike him, who had sort of lost momentum after achieving his goal, she still had a purpose. She gave him an uncertain look.

“Patriarch?” she asked.

“There are beast cores to collect. Over there,” he said with a gesture.

Sua Xing Xing issued orders to the cultivators who had come with her. They all hurried away to collect the cores. The cores hadn’t really been on his mind, but it gave them all something to do other than stare at him. After a moment, Sua Xing Xing stepped up next to him at the edge of the crater. She stared down into it like she might find the answer to one of life’s mysteries in it. Sen hoped she’d share if she did discover one. When the silence finally seemed to become too much for her, she asked a question.

“What did this?”

Sen let out a little noise that couldn’t have meant anything and said, “I did.”

Sua Xing Xing looked from him to the crater and back again.

“Why?” she asked.

Sen was a little surprised that she’d asked with how formal she usually was with him, but it was probably the only question worth asking in the face of what he’d done. He made himself look up at the sky. It was mercifully free of the enormous technique he’d made. All he could see was an endless expanse of blue.

“To frighten them.”

“I imagine that it worked,” she said.

Sen glanced at her and thought she’d offered that last bit more because she felt like she had to say something rather than to get a response. Even so, he offered one.

“Oh yes. It worked.”

Sua Xing Xing turned to face the shattered remains of a vast swath of the forest behind them.

“And that?”

Sen didn’t look. He didn’t need to.

“That was to kill them.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t return after all of this?”

That question was definitely more cautious than the rest had been. It was stepping dangerously close to questioning the decisions of the patriarch. There hadn’t been a reason, not a real one. He’d just been looking at what he did. He wasn’t even really considering it all that much. But that wasn’t a good enough answer, even for him. He didn’t care that much for the dignity of Patriarch Lu, but the rest of the sect did. He racked his brain for a plausible excuse. Inspiration struck.

“I knew that people would come, and I needed people to see this. I need them to talk about it.”

Sua Xing Xing’s face lit up like she’d found one of the answers she’d been looking for. He supposed it was the sort of answer that made sense to a mind trained by so many years in a sect. He was sending a message. You can’t send a message without messengers. She, and all those who had come with her, could tell the tale of his might. What might have sounded like boasting from him would sound like news coming from them. All he’d need to do was confirm it if anyone asked. He supposed it would make him seem humble if he did it that way, even if the truth was simpler. He didn’t like telling stories about himself. It made him feel vain.

“Hope,” said Sua Xing Xing.

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Her conclusion showed more insight than he might have credited her with in other times. Just because her thinking is a bit warped by sect logic, it doesn’t make her stupid, Sen reminded himself.

“Hope,” Sen agreed.

He had been thinking something like that before his rampage. Best not to waste the opportunity. Sen finally forced himself to turn away from the crater. He’d learned whatever he was going to learn from it long before everyone else had turned up. Instead, he tracked the cultivators in his spiritual sense while they collected the bounty from the spirit beasts and made small talk with Sua Xing Xing. It felt a little wrong to discuss the needs of the sect in the wake of what he’d just done, but those needs weren’t going to go away. Fortunately, the last year hadn’t been spent fruitlessly. People had been hired. People had been recruited. The sect was nowhere near to what it might become one day, but it had everyone it needed to at least function.

That left Sen in a position to simply hear about what was needed and what was being done to address those needs. Very few things required his direct approval anymore. He was just trying to be responsible and pay attention. That reminded him of something. He gave Sua Xing Xing a long look. She still looked tired.

“You need to take a break for a day or two,” announced Sen.

Sua Xing Xing gave him a horrified look. One would have thought he’d commanded her to strip in the middle of town based on her expression.

“Patriarch—” she started to object, only to fall silent at a stern look from him.

“It’s not a punishment. You should take the time now, while you can. Sleep if nothing else. The sect isn’t so large that you can’t be found if you’re needed.”

She stared at him, open-mouthed, before a bit of vitality drained out of her face. She seemed to sag in place.

“I am tired,” she admitted.

Sen smirked and said, “Just do to your assistant what I did to you. Dump a bunch of things you don’t want to be bothered with right on her head. If she does those well, give her things to do that you need done right.”

Sua Xing Xing narrowed her eyes at him in what was clearly mock anger.

“I knew it!” she cried and thrust a finger at him in accusation.

“I should hope so,” said Sen with a nod. “I was terribly obvious about it. I might wonder about your mind if you hadn’t noticed.”

“You should be nicer to me,” said Sua Xing Xing with a vaguely haughty air.

“Oh really? Why is that?”

“Because I’m quite beautiful,” she announced with a shamelessness that left Sen momentarily stunned.

Then, he snorted.

“Does that ever work?” he asked.

“With an almost depressing consistency. Men can be very stupid about some things,” she said.

Sen considered some of his own choices over the last decade, as well as the choices of some of the people he’d met.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “We really can be. Although, I don’t think women are immune from selective stupidity.”

“Oh, certainly not,” said Sua Xing Xing with a pained look. “We’re just stupid about different things.”

While much of the talk had struck Sen as trivial, it had helped him regain a bit of mental momentum. He noted that the cultivators who had been sent out to retrieve the beast cores were headed their way. He let his spiritual sense sweep the area. They had done a fairly good job of retrieving the cores. He let them congregate around him and Sua Xing Xing to present the evidence of their hard work. He gave them a nod, which caused grins all around, but otherwise let Sua Xing Xing preside over them. She ordered them to return to the sect, and they shot off into the wilds. Sua Xing Xing waited until they were definitely out of earshot before she sighed and looked at Sen.

“How many did they miss?” she asked.

“What makes you think they missed any?”

“Enthusiasm isn’t the same thing as thoroughness,” she stated bluntly. “I expected them to take at least another hour. I can still sense a few of the cores out there, and my spiritual sense isn’t as powerful as yours.”

Sen stretched out a hand and his qi. Over the next minute, around two dozen beast cores made a small pile by the pair. Sua Xing Xing gave the cores a vaguely dissatisfied look and sighed.

“I’ll have to have a word with them about this,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” said Sen. “Let them feel good about their work for tonight. We can’t expect them to get everything right, every single time. I didn’t as a foundation formation cultivator. Did you?”

Sua Xing Xing gave him an amused look.

“I definitely didn’t,” she said. “Although, the stakes are going to get a lot higher for mistakes from here on out.”

“They are,” said Sen. “Fortunately, we can fix some things.”

Sen let his qi spread out around them. He couldn’t replace the trees that had been destroyed or the animals that had died, but he could hasten the process of repair. Bit by bit, soil was dragged into the crater from miles in every direction. He had to be careful not to take too much from any one place. Much like a body, nature’s balance was a delicate thing, and more easily disrupted than most people realized. It took quite a while, but the crater was eventually filled again. Sen collected seeds from the area and encouraged the initial growth of plants in the area. He didn’t dare do too much, or he’d starve the area of qi and other resources. With so many damaged trees and plants, though, he was able to grind them down into organic matter that could lace the soil. As those broke down more thoroughly, they would support the new growth.

Sen finally released his qi and looked at what he’d done. There was no hiding that something had happened in that area. It was enough for him that it no longer looked like a battle had happened. The area over where the crater had been was covered with a fresh spattering of green shoots. Where his various forms of lightning had bombarded spirit beasts and forest alike, most of the fallen trees had been cleared away and used. He’d also encouraged fresh plant growth in the areas where the plant life had been scoured away. It wasn’t a perfect fix but that would have called for a god. It was, however, sufficient to ensure that life in this area would not be disrupted irreparably. Sen felt Sua Xing Xing staring at him. He glanced over at her and lifted an eyebrow.

“Why do this?” she asked.

Sen considered and discarded several plausible excuses before he just told her the truth.

“Because I could.”

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