Chương 69: Morale

Plane after material plane he scoured. For something. What, we do not know. We can only assume that it has something to do with his Core Card. — He who calls himself Chi You, The Completed Works by He Shulin, foremost scholar of the Outer Realms Jianyi, still dirty and exhausted, sat in Elder Sun's study having just explained everything that had happened during the mission and his suspicions.

The elder's finger tapped ceaselessly on his desk, his face a mask, unmoving—but somewhere, very faintly, Jianyi sensed the elder's aura, straining to be released, to take all hope away from those that opposed him, that allied with the demons.

"Let's go for a walk," the elder said, getting up slowly. Jianyi followed his teacher in silence as they left the compound and walked down the paths through the inner sect. They passed the paifang and walked down the mountain in the artificially mild air on this sunny afternoon. They entered the outer sect and the elder remained silent as they stopped before the dormitories occupied by Jianyi's fellow disciples.

He thought he felt something, but he couldn't identify what it was exactly that had triggered his sense of qi. The elder slightly tilted his head, his finger drumming a beat on his palm as he held his hands crossed behind his back. Minutes passed. A few sect members passed them by, but most hurried the moment they saw Elder Sun. The recent duel had left its marks. The elder shrugged slightly, looked around until he had found what he was looking for, then resumed his calm and measured walk.

They arrived at an area of the sect that Jianyi had never visited before. The buildings were relatively large, not dissimilar to the dormitories they had just left, but maybe a bit simpler. They were still made from the same wood and had the same blue tiled pagoda roofs, but less ornamentation and carvings. Again, the elder stopped, his finger never stopping—until it did. Jianyi felt the air whipping him around as the elder vanished. He heard the sound of crashes, wood splintering, and a brief, aborted scream.

A moment later, the elder stood back by his side, his face still a mask, unchanged. His hands, though, were no longer clasped behind his back. Instead, he held a man and a woman by their necks. They looked like boneless dolls as they dragged on the floor—unconscious.

"Let's go home." While the elder's voice and face were calm as always, a feeling of hopelessness tried to worm its way into Jianyi's mind. He resisted. For now. The elder walked back the way they had come, dragging the man and woman, both wearing the simple outfit of mortal servants, dark blue cotton shirts and black pants. A pair of outer disciples came laughing down the path in their direction, but decided to rapidly move to the side, freeing the path, their laughter having abruptly stopped.

The guards protecting the paifang on the outer sect looked on wide-eyed as they strolled past. One opened his mouth, but hesitated and just bowed to the elder as he passed. The inner disciples guarding the inner sect were less outwardly impacted, but straightened even more than usual. Their leader stepped forward.

"Honored Elder, can we help in any way?" Elder Sun ignored him and kept his steady pace. They were closing in on the compound when a small speck in the air grew larger and larger, until Jianyi could identify Zhang Yongjie, the patriarch. Jianyi bowed as the man hovered above them, observing.

"Grand Elder. Do I want to know?" For the first time since the servant's dormitories, Elder Sun stopped. He looked towards the patriarch and paused.

"I am starting to wonder whether you do." Whether drawn by the commotion or something else, Minghao appeared. With a bow to the patriarch, he took the two servants from Elder Sun's hands and dragged them towards their compound. The patriarch made no move to intercept.

"It is difficult for morale when an elder is seen dragging servants through the sect, Longwei," the patriarch sighed. It was the first time that Jianyi had ever heard anybody address the elder by his given name. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"That may be so. I personally think it is much worse for… morale if our disciples get killed based on spying from demonic cultists. Wouldn't you agree, Yongjie?" The elder's voice was scathing.

"What has become of this sect? I was gone for just twenty years…" The elder shook his head, turned around, and walked toward his home. The patriarch's face remained impassive and still hovered in place when Jianyi hurried to follow his teacher.

Jianyi stared at the woman he was supposed to watch. She was maybe five years older than him, had short hair, brown eyes, and a small scar on her chin. She looked… harmless. Normal. Yet, she was a demonic cultist. She had studiously avoided making eye contact with him, sitting on a chair, arms bound, in the middle of the room in a rarely used part of Elder Sun's compound.

Sure, Jianyi had accompanied his teacher on missions to fight his enemies, and of course, he himself had been caught in the clutches of Administrator Deng, but he had never seen a demonic cultist outside of a life-or-death situation. He struggled with his emotions. The hatred for those supporting the demons who had killed his father, Jun, and millions of others seemed overwhelming.

"What are you looking at?" hissed the woman, apparently unable to bear his stare anymore.

"What…?" he had to stop himself from screaming at the woman. After a moment, he continued.

"I am looking at a traitor of humanity. My enemy. A good reminder that evil can look so… common."

"Evil? You have no idea what evil is!" she spat.

"Evil is to keep fighting a war we can never win. Evil is to conscript anyone who has a bit of cultivation talent and send them to their deaths! Evil? You have no idea!"

"Hah!" Jianyi laughed hollowly.

"Better to fight to the last man and woman against those that want to twist this plane into an Outer Realm abomination than to serve those who have come here to kill us, subsume us, absorb us. And for what? To become a demon yourself? Is that what they promised you?" Jianyi had read up on the enemy and learned quite a bit. While demons could be born, they could also be made.

In the absence of the balance of Wuxing, overindulging in any of the elements could lead to one becoming a demon if one knew the right rituals. But it typically required cultivation talent. For mortals, that path was closed.

"All I want is for all of this to end. You have no idea how bad things are for your precious Empire. You are dead, but don't know it yet. You are young, you should submit to our Lord Chi You and hope for his mercy." Jianyi was pulled into his soul space—small waves marred his usually calm spirit lake. The spear wall making up his Veil of the Immutable Will was under attack. For a moment, he thought he saw purple eyes in the distance, but the wall held.

The next moment, he found himself back in the room, Elder Sun beside him.

"Leave." With a brief glance at the woman who looked terrified at the elder, he left the room.

Jianyi entered the courtyard just as Minghao stepped away from Elder Sun, who was sitting in his usual place, drinking tea. The elder waved him over and offered him a seat.

"Come, my young friend, have a seat. These must be difficult times for you, and I apologize for getting lost in the hunt earlier, instead of taking the time to talk with you properly."

"No apology needed, teacher. That you managed to find two more cultists right away is an incredible feat."

"Hmm, it is cause for sadness, not celebration, but I understand your sentiment. But tell me, how are you?" Jianyi paused to think about how he really felt.

"I should feel sad, I know, and I do—but to be honest, the rage and… hatred," he hesitated, and looked to Elder Sun for disapproval but found nothing.

"The hatred, the wish for revenge, outweighs all else."

"Understandable. Very understandable. On the long, long path of a successful cultivator, it is unfortunately all too common to lose friends along the way. Different people deal with it in different ways. Some refuse to continue making connections with the world around them; others consciously do the opposite to stay grounded.

"I have had not a little success as a cultivator and feel confident in guiding you on the path of cultivation, but I am not the best when it comes to what some call… life." The elder chuckled with a tinge of sadness.

"Having skirted that path a few times over the centuries, though, I am fairly certain that getting lost in hatred is not healthy. You should wield your righteous anger as a weapon, but make sure that you don't become a tool for your baser instincts." It sounded logical, but Jianyi wasn't sure that it was easy to implement.

"Any advice on how to manage the rage?" The elder laughed out loud.

"I am pretty sure the patriarch would like me to practice whatever divine technique helps manage the rage. But seriously, meditation helps many along that path. You have your seated meditation to unlock your soul-powered will; you have your spear meditation… try those and see whether they help." Jianyi nodded decisively. That was practical advice he could follow.

"What have you learned from the prisoners, teacher?" The elder stroked his chin.

"I am afraid this still goes back to that fateful day with Administrator Deng and the demonic cultivator Fang Ling—even if the prisoners didn't know the names. What they did know was that the cult learned about a dual affinity core card, and after they didn't find it in the city, they decided to get close to the incoming outer disciples.

"Your friend made the unfortunate mistake of triggering their trap by boasting about his affinity." Jianyi pressed his hand against his temple. Another thread connecting him to Jun's death. He could have prevented it by warning his friends, and now it turned out that it had been triggered by his escaping the clutches of Deng and his fellow cultists. He sighed. Another thing to meditate on.

"What will you do?"

"I have a few leads that I will follow up on tonight. You can rest assured that I will do whatever it takes to eradicate every last one of them." That Jianyi had no doubt about.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"If something concrete materializes, I will take you along. For now, you should focus on your friends and your practice. Have you cultivated while on the road?"

"I did, but to be honest, not as much as I would like."

"That is not uncommon, and your cultivation technique punishes that harder than others. Make sure to spend more time than usual over the next few days. Now, I have to leave. Take care, my young friend."

"Thank you, teacher." Jianyi pulled out his spear, started his meditation, and reflected on his actions since that fateful day of his trial.