V13 Chapter 69 – I Know You’re Insane

Sen had been told that some cultivators approached taking pills or elixirs for advancement with a great deal of ceremony. He could not, for the life of him, understand why. It wouldn’t make the pill or elixir work better. The efficiency of those all came down to the alchemist. He conceded that, maybe for qi-condensing cultivators, it helped to prepare their minds. For a nascent soul cultivator, though, they should already be well aware of what could go wrong and have long since come to terms with it. So, once Xu Xiao Dan was far enough away, Sen didn’t perform an extravagant ceremony. He simply sat down on the ground, took a few breaths to shake off any vestigial anxiety, and swallowed the pill. After that, he just waited for the pill to start releasing the power it contained.

Despite his calm, Sen expected the process to be very painful. After all, the whole point of body cultivation was to create tangible, meaningful changes to his body. He also knew better than most that the body didn’t want to be changed. It wasn’t meant to be changed. This approach to cultivation was, precisely because of those changes, even more of a challenge to the heavens than spirit cultivation. Spirit cultivation revolved around the dantian, which was built to grow over time. That growth wasn’t necessarily easy or fast, but it did seem to be a natural part of its function. The changes that body cultivators went through stood in stark defiance of the natural order. So, pain was to be expected.

However, when the pill hit his stomach and power poured into him, there was none of the pain that he expected. He couldn’t feel his body at all, in point of fact. Instead, Sen found himself standing in sand. That pale sand stretched as far as he could see in every direction. Frowning, he tried to reach out with his spiritual sense, but it didn’t react. It was as though he’d been made mortal again. He felt a brief moment of panic before he suppressed it. This wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in a situation like this. Although, the last time it happened, at least there had been a chair. Knowing there was nothing else to do, Sen waited. Unfortunately, he struggled to grasp how long he had waited. Was it minutes? Hours? There was no means to tell except what his instincts told him, and they couldn’t seem to decide.

“Are you going to come out?” he asked.

There was a lengthy pause before someone chuckled. Sen looked around, but he couldn’t identify the source of that sound. It had seemed to come from everywhere. Before he could grow too irritated, some nearby sand started to shift. He watched in curiosity as it swiftly transformed from a pile of loose grains into the figure of a powerfully built man. Then, a bit like a dog shaking off water, the figure shook off what appeared to be a thin coating of sand. The man brushed away a few loose pieces of sand before he turned his attention to Sen. It was jarring because Sen couldn’t sense anything about the other man, if he even was a man.

“There was some debate about whether you’d get this far.”

“Was there?” asked Sen, who remained uncertain about how best to approach the situation.

“Indeed. The consensus was that you’d abandon body cultivation in favor of faster growth with spirit cultivation.”

“I don’t know why anyone would think that. Why needlessly surrender power that can be claimed?”

“And is that what you want? Power?”

“Not especially,” admitted Sen. “The circumstances are such that I need it, but I don’t want it.”

“I see,” said the figure.

Sen hesitated. Then, he reflected on the answers he’d given. Something was off. Those answers had been too honest. He examined his thoughts and feelings. There didn’t seem to be any unnatural pressure on them. That only left a few possibilities.

“Am I in the presence of a god?” he asked.

The figure sighed and said, “I didn’t think you’d figure it out that fast. And after all the trouble I went through to hide it. Bringing you here. Only sending a projection of myself. How did you figure it out?”

“I’ve learned to guard my words in recent years.”

“That’s it?” asked the god. “That was enough for you to figure it out? Most mortals aren’t that wary.”

Sen lifted an eyebrow at that. He hadn’t thought of himself as a mortal in a while, but maybe a nascent soul cultivator looked mortal to a god.

He shrugged at the god’s comment and said, “I’d argue that mortals need to be warier of their words than anyone.”

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“Perhaps they do at that.”

“So, is it you?” asked Sen, wondering if he was finally going to get an answer to a question that had burned in him for years.

“Is it me, what?” asked the perplexed god.

“Are you the one who has been pushing my advancement forward so relentlessly?”

“Oh. No, I’m not responsible for that.”

“Do you know who is?”

“I do, but you’ll have to seek that answer elsewhere. I can’t tell you. Well, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I won’t tell you. The answer cannot benefit you now. It would only distract you with new questions that you also couldn’t get answered. Better to just leave you with the question you’ve learned to ignore.”

Sen wanted to be angry at being denied this information but couldn’t muster the feeling. He’d lived without knowing for this long. What was a few more years or decades? Nothing to a cultivator. At least, that’s what he told himself. Honestly, though, he’d have been more shocked if the god had answered the question. That would have been too helpful.

“In that case, why are we here?” asked Sen.

“That’s a question I will answer. We’re here so I can decide if you go any farther on the path of dual cultivation.”

The words were light enough, but a feeling of dread settled in Sen’s stomach. He suspected that if this god decided he wouldn’t progress anymore, it would mean very unpleasant things for him.

“What does that mean?” asked Sen.

“Dual cultivators are rare. Dual cultivators who make it as far as you have are rarer still, and for a good reason. If you reach the peak of the mountain as a dual cultivator, you’re going to ascend with a great deal of power. Not enough to threaten any true powerhouses, admittedly, but enough that you could become a problem. One of my tasks is to determine if you’re the proper sort.”

Sen had several questions, but he started with what was probably the least important.

“What’s a powerhouse?”

He thought he actually had the general meaning, but it didn’t seem wise to continue a conversation with a god without a firm grasp of his meaning.

“I guess you don’t have that word here, do you? It just means very powerful people.”

“And a proper sort?”

“Well, there’s ambition, ruthless ambition, and then there’s pure insanity. The first two are fine. The last is something best kept leashed.”

“And do you think I’m insane?”

“I know you’re insane. You’re a cultivator who climbed from a mortal to the nascent soul stage in spirit and body cultivation in a couple of decades. The pain from all those tribulations should have stopped you cold a while ago. But here you are. Only insanity can account for it.”

“Or desperation,” countered Sen.

“Desperation is madness. Desperate people will do almost anything. Including things that they would never do if they weren’t desperate.”

“I suppose that’s true,” admitted Sen after several moments of reflection.

“But that’s not the kind of madness I’m talking about. I’m talking about blood sects that rise through the sacrifice of others. Demonic cultivators who trade away parts of their souls for power.”

“What about those who just enjoy killing?” asked Sen, trying to understand the morality that this god was alluding to.

“No. The Jianghu is the Jianghu. Killing is required. We can’t be angry if some people find out that they like it. After all, death is just death. The souls of dead cultivators and mortals will reincarnate, unharmed, if they’re cut down.”

Sen grimaced at those words. Part of him knew that it only made sense for gods to see things that way, but he couldn’t do it. If Ai died, he would not care that her soul was going to reincarnate. He reconsidered that thought immediately. He’d be relieved about that, but it wouldn’t change much. After all, she wouldn’t be Ai anymore. She wouldn’t be his daughter anymore. That pain would never leave him. He suspected that his grief would be terrible if Shui or little Zhi died. He wasn’t quite as close to them, but he’d still murder anyone who had a hand in their deaths. You’ve said it yourself enough times, he thought. Cultivators are not gods. You shouldn’t expect to think like one.

“You disagree?” asked the god.

“I don’t see the world that way,” answered Sen. “Maybe I’m not old enough, yet.”

He suspected that Master Feng did, in fact, see the world in much the same way. He had his favorites, but that was it.

“No, I expect you're a thousand years too early for that. Which is part of my conundrum. You’re not even close to finished becoming the person you will eventually be.”

“Which means?”

“You could still go bad. Not that we stop the evil from ascending, but we do try to limit their strength. That means that I have to guess what kind of person you’ll become and make my decision from there. Worse, I can’t even rely on the answers you give. What’s true for you now may well become false in a few centuries.”

“Am I truly so weak in my convictions?”

“No. You wouldn’t be standing here if you were. But you’re also in the middle of a crucible. It remains to be seen what will be burned away and what will remain.”

“So, what will you do? Guess?”

The god actually laughed at that.

“Gods don’t guess. I can’t see the future, not exactly, but I can divine certain probabilities based on a great many things.”

Sen lifted an eyebrow as the god stared at him intently.

“And?” Sen asked when he couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

“So impatient. It’s not as easy to do as I make it sound, and you’re rather unique. Your karma is tangled by more than what’s happening in your world. It's obscuring things. It seems that you have at least one destined appointment yet to keep. Interesting,” muttered the god, seemingly more to himself than to Sen. “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to trust my instincts on this one. There are no obvious signs that you’re heading toward utter corruption. It seems that you’re going to keep moving forward.”

Sen frowned and said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” agreed the god with a genial smile. “Well, that’s almost it. You still have to survive.”

“Oh no,” said Sen, before a world of agony crashed down on him.