53. Forging

  I could feel the decision being made in the far off distance, one which rippled out through the entire world. Something had been decided, something had begun, something which would change the fate of this world.

  For the better or the worse? That was not mine to say, for such things are ultimately subjective. There would be those who curse the name of the Many Peak Alliance for generations to come. There are those who would rally behind it. It would cause the shedding of blood and the saving of lives.

  But while I saw the edges of certain futures shaping up, so much was out of my hands that I sometimes felt helpless. I could guide this world, or I could recuse myself from it entirely. If I were to dedicate myself entirely to cultivation, I would soon reach the Gold Path, and could ascend beyond this world at my leisure.

  Leaving behind the mess that had been created by my presence here.

  I did not feel worthy of either path, and so I strode a third. I was raising my disciples because they belonged to this world. They would have a say in its shaping. I would give them power and wisdom and hope that they used the second when employing the first, but I would not be a conqueror.

  I could be.

  I would not.

  As these thoughts rippled through my head, I watched Xol battling Yara. The jaguar dashed through the forest, zipping in and out of vision as he employed illusion techniques. Yara was focused on him, and did not see the vine wrapping around her ankle until it was too late. She was pulled off balance and--

  A spray of ice killed the vine, and she turned in time to meet Xol’s charge. The spirit beast split into three, two illusions and his true body, but she had seen this trick before and she speared the one on the left with her ice.

  A true blow.

  The ice pierced the jaguar’s hide and he limped back, studying her for a moment as the combatants evaluated each other.

  “What gave me away?” he questioned.

  “A fraction of a second before you split, you slackened your control on your intent. I could feel you intending to attack me from the left,” she explained.

  Xol tisked. “If I had willed it, the vine would have bitten you and infected you with venom.”

  “Thank you for your restraint,” Yara said.

  The two evaluated each other for a moment, then mutually dashed into the distance to resume the fight.

  On another mountain, I watched as Farun dueled Hien Ro. They both shared the fire element, and they had picked a place high on the mountain for their duel where the flames of their battles would not be likely to spread. Farun had not attuned a second element, while Hien Ro had selected earth.

  At this stage in their combat Ro’s duality was giving him an advantage in combat, as he could conjure earth to shield him from Farun’s flames and simultaneously conjure rocks as projectiles, or even unsteady to footing beneath his opponent’s feet. As they pushed further and further into the bronze path, however, Farun’s control over his chosen element would solidify far further than Ro’s balanced approach, allowing him to perfect more complicated fire techniques with greater ease and precision.

  Whether this meant that he would become the stronger combatant or not remained undetermined, but for now, he was being trounced by Hien Ro. I spent a few moments giving the duel my full attention.

  They launched at each other a wall of flames, and the flames met and clashed in between them. Hien Ro fired an earth missile at his opponent through the din, and Farun saw it and dodged. The power shifted between them and through the gap Farun sent a lance of flames at Hien Ro, bu this too was dodged.

  The ground shifted beneath Farun’s feet as he landed, and the wall of flames he’d been supporting in his defense suddenly flickered out as he lost control over them. His opponents flames, darker than his own, encroached swiftly on him as he began to reassert control, but it was--

  “Point,” Farun admitted, and the flames of his opponent backed off as they took a step back and reset. Once more they launched attacks at each other from afar as the world around them was engulfed in an inferno.

  On another peak, Polkluk dueled against Arjun. Arjun’s earth mastery proved to be a solid counter to Polkluk’s lightning, and the young man from the Raging Rivers Sect was finding it impossible to get a firm attack in while simultaneously running from the foliage and pebbles that his opponent was sending at him.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Lahri dueled Thaseus, her water countering his flames and fierce winds. Mostly. I noticed a few scorch marks on her sarong, but otherwise they were evenly matched. A state which I knew Thaseus found frustrating to no end, but such things were good for him to overcome if he were ever to find his new definition of strength.

  A flash occurred on another mountain, and I shifted my attention to the final duel that was taking place between Lukal Lukal and Taimei. I grinned as I watched Lukal Lukal wildly spinning his spear while he waited for his vision to recover. Taimei waited, then swiftly approached from the side and planted a fist right against his jaw.

  He went flying through the trees and landed awkwardly.

  “You have scored a point,” he admitted, and they waited for a moment while he recovered his vision from the bright flash so that they could reset the duel.

  When he had recovered, he made a gesture with his hand to start, and the earth around Taimei’s feet attempted to suck her in. She had been expecting this, however, and was in the air a second later. Lukal Lukal threw his spear, and she swatted it aside with her own blade. Lukal Lukal was forming another spear when she hit him in the face with another intense ray of blinding light.

  “Ah!” he shouted. “Point, Point.”

  “You should get better at fighting blind,” she suggested.

  “Between you and Xol I fear that I must,” Lukal Lukal agreed.

  I grinned and turned my attention elsewhere. My disciples were shaping up quite well indeed.

  But they had not noticed that I had been spending most of my attention on the northernmost mountain. And neither did they notice when it vanished.

  I waited, breathless, to see if the strings of space-time that I had woven together would break.

  They did not, and I stared in wonder at the box that held a mountain. I had successfully created a spatial artifact.

  I grinned. This box wasn’t worth as much as the ring that I’d been given by Pi Phon and later returned to him. The ring with a library inside. But it was worth a fair bit.

  Soon, I’d have ten of them.

  I closed the lid on the box and turned my attention back to the duels.

  ~~~~~~

  Di Ram looked at the ring on his hand. Not the one with the library on it. The other one. The new one.

  Then he looked over to where Tonilla lay peacefully beneath the sheets. While he could see the signs of her true age, she was quite beautiful, the body of a twenty-five year old, the wit of a politician, and the wisdom of an octogenarian.

  He sighed and got out of bed, pulling on trousers and a robe. He sat at the table nearby and began going through reports by the light of small spiritual stone which he had charged himself.

  He could not seem to focus.

  He was married.

  It was political. A formal seal between the Raging River Sect and the Six Mountain Sect to form the Many Peaks Alliance. But it was official, having been presided over by a golden ranked cultivator who seemed to have been genuinely pleased to officiate, for all that he was boisterous and shouting about “True love conquers all!”

  He read the reports that had been delivered from Resh Fali and sighed. The food from the southern alliance had taken off most of the pressure, and the building was underway according to the plans that he’d established before coming to Mer’cah. Everything was looking up.

  Yet he couldn’t help feeling a sense of impending dread.

  Or perhaps that was lingering jitters from before the ceremony, when he had reflected on marrying a woman he barely knew. Whose language he barely spoke, who barely spoke his language.

  Although there was one language that the spoke well enough, he reflected, recalling their time beneath the sheets together.

  He sighed and put the reports aside, then picked one of the copies that the mortals had made of the notes left behind in the library by Little Bug. They were reflections on the reflections of the founders, and he found them simply fascinating.

  “There is no part of the mountain which is more important than the base or less important than the peak. A mountain can be a mountain without a peak. A people can be a people without a ruler. It is not the base’s responsibility to cater to the peak. The peak is put in place by the base, by roots so deep into the earth that it is impossible to dig them out. To move a mountain, you do not move the peak. So it is with peoples. It is a shame that the rulers of so many lands do not understand the wisdom of mountains.”

  Di Ram reflected on the words, teasing out the wisdom and the metaphor. The original passage upon which Little Bug was expounding was about how if the peak of the mountain serves the base, then the base will serve the peak. It was all a metaphor between the relationship between those who rule and those who are ruled. But now that he ruled a people – for he was unquestionably the lord of the refugees who had come south – he saw now that rulers had far less freedom than he’d once believed.

  Quietly, midway through the reading of one of Little Bug’s notes, he came upon an epiphany and took his first step onto the Golden Path. His Qi soared to new heights, waking his wife and sending ripples through the city.

  ?