Initiation
You should take time to consider this, ask Liu about this spirit that he knows. But you feel, through some sixth sense, the moment slipping away. Your gut tells you that this opportunity will escape quickly and may not come again.
"How should I…" You ask, having no idea how to approach this bargain that Liu has proposed. Worship of the gods was not well-embraced in your village. Spirits were to be propitiated, yes, and beasts appeased and warded off. But the greater spirits, and the gods and goddesses of the Heavens… those were considered too great to bother with your people.
The other disciple shrugs. "Just offer it. Sincerely. You are a hunter, brother. The Huntsman knows you."
With that ominous statement sending a small shiver down your spine, you raise the talon, easily the size of a short sword, and try to project a sense of "offering." You try to imagine what this spirit might be like from name alone.
Seeing your hesitation, Liu takes your wrist. You feel something connecting him to you for a moment, a thrum of qi resonating against your skin. Not a thought, but a feeling. Red, the red of spilt blood, of eyes in the darkness, of blood coursing through veins, of a heart pounding with the thrill of the chase. The feeling of the hunt - from both sides. The feeling of heightened senses, furtive eyes darting for flashes of movement, the scent of fear on the air, the sound running as the hunted animal is flushed out. The hot thrill of chase, and the sweet feeling of success - of a blow well struck, of an arrow's course intersecting its target.
There is a channel, from you to – something. And without knowing how, exactly, you do as Liu suggested.
You offer.
And you feel the offering received.
The talon is gone, and the quiver of arrows on your back feels a touch heavier.
Reaching behind you, you feel an arrow unfamiliar to you. You draw it, and note the heavy head, made of strong, sharp-pointed steel, which seems ever so slightly crimson as it catches the light.
3 Armor-Piercing Arrows Gained! These arrows will reduce a target's Armor by 1.
Relationship up! Liu +1!
Liu claps you on the shoulder. "A fine response to your first offering, Lind. Let me know if you wish to know more of the Huntsman - there are rituals, and more, which you should learn."
The walk back to the sect gives much to think about.
—
Your journey to sleep that night comes more easily than you think. Anxiety over the next part of your journey in the sect gives way quickly to your weariness, and soon you find yourself wakening. Shao Suyin stands over you. "It is time," she says shortly.
You dress quickly - no food is on offer today. The day has not yet quite dawned, and mist spreads thickly over the town as you find yourself going to the meeting spot outside of town, near where the training grounds and cultivation classes met.
The crowd is smaller now.
You recognize some of the aspirants who have gathered. Most of those you know are here - Liu, Wu, Mehdi, Vijaya, Bai Ping, and Qian Xia. Too, you see the noble - though several of his entourage appear to have departed. Others you have seen, but never spoken to. Some, you have seen, but have changed. A few have scars. One has grown claws, another, red eyes. All have grown a little stronger, healthier, cultivation to the peak of Consecration having given them its blessing. Altogether, it appears around half of those who have come here have been found wanting.
A mask over green eyes flashes through your mind. Will the Empire really take them? For having tried and failed?
You cannot worry about that now.
There is a swirl of mist, and four disciples, two women and two men, stand before you, robes of a dark blue and burnished gold. One, with a lanky frame, piercing eyes and long, floppy brown hair raises a hand, and speaks. "We are here to oversee your induction. Follow me."
They take you forward in silence. The day seems slow to dawn today, and the mist has yet to burn off. Even the birds and the insects seem subdued, though less in foreboding, more in waiting. A few aspirants try to speak amongst themselves, but the silence is oppressive and the words and twitterings fade as they fall.
The seniors' pace seems measured and effortless, but even your long stride finds it difficult to keep up. Some of the less physically inclined disciples are clearly struggling by the time he stops, close to an hour later. With a start, you realize you have arrived close to the base of one of the sect's mountains, a journey that should have taken far longer. Some unique application of qi… are you all moving faster? Or did he somehow shorten the distance of the path itself?
The path the disciples leads you up is unassuming, marked by little more than an ancient-looking set of stone posts. Still, you feel a tingle on your skin and something in the air as you pass them by.
"Every aspirant in this sect has walked this path," says a female disciple. Her skin is albino-white, she is bald, and she wears an array of ear-studs that flicker like flames. She walks backwards with no apparent effort as you climb up the punishingly steep mountain. "From the humblest of us, to the wisest, to the boldest heroes, their true journey through the Golden Reeds began by climbing the Daughter."
As you climb, the mist around you grows thicker. You look out back at the lands of the sect and realize you cannot see them through the swirling clouds of damp. The air tastes strange here, heavy with Qi.
Perception 0 (Qi Senses) + Spiritual Prowess (3) = 3d10
9, 10, 6 = 3 Successes!
Somehow, you do not think you are entirely in the mortal world right now. You have heard stories of places that exist outside the normal world - the Ice Fairy's Palace, the Millennial Grove, the Immortal Cave in which the Man of the first legends of cultivation trained.
The other male disciple, dark-skinned and bearing a walking stick and walking with a slight limp, catches your gaze and inclines his head, in acknowledgment of your silent suspicions. He strides evenly over the trail as it goes up, up, and up.
"There are other sects with greater wealth, who hold more territory, and those who produce more vicious disciples. But of all the sects in the Emerald Kingdom, the Golden Reeds have never forgotten our purpose. Qi is a gift, granted to humanity for a purpose. True, it can make us strong, let us perform wonders, let us plumb the secrets of the universe. But above all else, ours is a trust - to use the arts of qi to defend the weak, rather than for our own advancement."
As you climb, now, you start to see shapes off the path. Statues, carved out of stone and wood, larger than life. The oldest are faded beyond reckoning, but you see men and women, mostly in robes. Some faces are wise, some stern, some joyous. Some wield weapons, some bear strange implements - is that a fly whisk? Some bear features reminiscent of animals. One is an animal, a huge bear standing of its hind legs, wearing archaic armor.
That sight threatens to distract you, but the other female disciple, bearing a short-cropped mess of red hair and bearing a sheathed sword, gestures to the statues. "To each side of you, you will find heroes of the Golden Reeds. Great warriors, wise counselors, healers, and crafters of wonders." Without turning her head, she speaks softly, with a voice that nonetheless cuts through any intervening sound. "Perhaps, one day, you will join them."
At last, the path levels out, and you pass through a massive prayer gate. Before you, you see a vast lake, fed by a massive waterfall. The peak of the Daughter stretches up beyond your sight. Behind you is swirling fog.
The brown-haired disciple makes a gesture. You feel a rumble, first in the ground beneath you, then in the soles of your feet, traveling up your feet till your very teeth seem to be shaking, and as you watch, a set of pillars begin rising out of the water, forming a pathway across the lake.
You are already feeling the effort of the climb and leaping from stone to stone is no easy matter. The stones are broad enough for many disciples to stand on, but slicked with water, and far apart enough they must be leapt rather than stepping from one to the other. There is still that oppressive silence, and aside from a few cries, there is only the lapping of the water and the splashing of something in the water, and the distant roar of the waterfall.
Despite the feeling of danger, the aspirants manage the trek. Bai Ping slips once, but you catch him before you even realize it. The senior disciples glides from stone to stone with no apparent effort.
Soon, you are standing before the waterfall. It is a vast torrent, impossibly wide and broad. The lake must drain somewhere- it could not hold such a volume of water. Or it is part of the unreality of this place.
Once more, the lead senior gestures, and the waters part, impossibly, revealing a dark cave, with another prayer gate carved above it, dedicating this place to the Goddess. It is before you, and down. There will be no returning by this path.
The first aspirant, the girl you saw on the training fields arguing with the noble and Quan Xian takes the first leap. She lands on the outcropping before the cave and goes inside.
Then another goes, and another. You turn and see Mehdi next to you. "Together?" You ask. He nods.
The two of you leap.
—
Inside, the cave is made of reddish stone. Glowing stones along the walls form a clear pathway, and you and Mehdi follow it.
You are not sure how you go, and you ignore several twists and turns, but eventually, you find a large, dimly-lit circular chamber, with a dark, glossy mirror set in the ceiling A number of reed mats are set out in a rough circle, and before each of them is cup filled with water, and a bowl set with three pills - one a dark reddish lump, one a smooth, glossy jade sphere, and a chalky, turquoise tablet.
You take your seat. Mehdi takes his seat behind you. As you watch, the rest of the room begins to fill with aspirants.
As the last of the aspirants straggle in, you hear a snap of your fingers, and a light begins to glow from the ceiling.
In the light, you see something you hadn't before. An older man, with a wiry body and features simian in a way you cannot define, sipping from a cup of tea. A man you have seen before.
He winks at you, and then somersaults into the centre of the room. "Welcome!" He cries out. "For those of you who do not know, I am the Head of this sect. You may call me Elder Lu if you wish. Others call me "The Monkey," for my handsome good looks." He flashes a smile as blinding as a summer's day before returning to a more sombre tone. "You are here, boys and girls, because it is time for you to take your place among our numbers. Each of you has caught our attention in some way and has proven to have a spirit and body of a cultivator. And now, you will be something even better - a cultivator of the Golden Reeds! Surely the Heavens have smiled upon you beyond measure."
"Our sect draws its power from the water of the mountains. The stones of these mountains are rich in qi. Some would have ordered they be mined out. But our ancient founders decided that it would be better to protect them, to let the water that fell from the sky take just a little of their power with them and flow down to all of us. For they knew the truth - power in motion is always greater than power held in stasis. Let that be a lesson for you.
In the coming months, you will have many duties here in the sect. You will be divided and set against each other, to sharpen your mettle. You will be assigned humiliating tasks below your station. You will be worked ragged. You might, in spite of everything, have fun! I certainly did." A memory flashes across his face, gone almost before it is there.
"But that is all for the future. First, I am here to administer your vows to the sect." He gestures, and an obelisk of grey stone materializes in the middle of the chamber. His demeanor, formerly irreverent, becomes more serious.
"First, you must swear your loyalty to the sect. You are joining a family, today. You will not disclose our secrets, you will defend us from attack and insult. An injury to one of us is as an injury to all of us. It is through such unity that we maintain our strength. You will have cause to be grateful for it, in the years to come. Now, swear."
You nod along with the Elder's statement, hardly surprised by this most basic of requirements. It might prove onerous in the future, but you already know there are ways to leave the sect, should you and it prove truly incompatible. At his prompting, you swear.
"Secondly, you must swear that you will not forget that the arts of qi are a trust given to us to defend the weak. No matter how great our power may be, no matter how strong your ambitions, you must not lose sight of why the arts of cultivation were given to humanity in the first place. In your time, you will encounter cultivators who have forgotten this. You will not be one of them."
"Thirdly, you must swear to grow. We cannot accomplish our goals if we prove weak - we cannot be strong if one does not seek out strength. Among you may be the next leader of our sect, and terrible responsibilities may fall to you. All of you have grown in the shadow of one such threat, and our sect's failure to meet it is part of why we find ourselves where we do. So I charge each of you - if you bear the robes of a disciple of the Golden Reeds, abandon complacency. Swear, that you will do your best to grow as strong as you can."
Your mind is full of images of what you might be - firing a bow that shatters a hillside, wrestling a dragon, appearing, like Hou Hua did, a mysterious figure to some unsuspecting aspirant. You have no desire to refuse this last charge, and so you swear.
"Wonderful!" the Elder claps his hands and rubs them. "Now, I am sure each of you has realized that there are pills before you. If you have somehow not seen a pill before, this is what they look like! Examine them closely, but not for too long. It is time. Your bodies have been Consecrated. We are going to lay your Foundations. Now, take the red pill, and make sure to breathe in the vapors."
At that cryptic statement, you take the red pill into your mouth. It's surface is weirdly warm and pliant, and the taste is oddly sweet as it begins to dissolve instantly in your mouth. By the time you swallow it, the pill itself seems to have halved in size, and your mouth feels filled with the scent of warm earth after a rain. Obeying your Elder, you breathe it in, and instantly feel a tingling spread throughout your body. You feel heavier, connected with the floor, as if the Earth were pulling you downwards. You do your best to ponder the words, but your mind is truly upon other things.
"That was a Crimson Flesh-Bolstering Pill. It will fortify your body for what you will do next. Now, take the green one. Don't spit it out. As you take it, think about the second principle."
Dubiously, you raise the green, polished marble and pop it in your mouth. As it is too large to swallow whole, you bite down. It takes some effort, but you crack it with your teeth… and immediately, a bitter, sludgy filling pours out, filling your mouth with the most bitter, horrible taste you have ever experienced. Wincing, you struggle to convince your mouth to finish crunching the rest of the pill and swallow as quickly as possible. Instinctively, you reach for the water and rinse your mouth with it.
"The poetically named Jade King's Sight. Now, concentrate on your body."
It takes a second of confused meditation before you understand what he means. As the sludge travels through your stomach, you feel it instantly spreading through your body, and with it comes an incredible awareness of self. You can feel yourself, divided what feels like a thousand upon thousandfold. Every inch of your body feels like it is buzzing. You can feel every drop of qi, the individual particles of impurity that still reside in your muscles, blood, organs, and marrow.
"Good. Now take the last, the Inner Whirlpool, and gather those remaining impurities into your centre."
As you take the last pill, you feel the queasy sensation of your qi beginning to move throughout your body, almost without your will. Qi floods into you from the pill, and it sends waves and ripples through your internal energies. It is less a matter of grasping the flow and more a matter of directing what is already in motion.
Dutifully, you resist the urge to use the flow of qi to bring those impurities out of your body. It goes against what training you have, but instead you carefully surround those bits of crude matter with bright qi, until you have gathered all that remains of them into your centre.
"Nine times out of ten, those who have been raised without a sect, clan or competent Master have crippled their advancement at the first step. You have been taught that the impurity of the world is your enemy. It is, but without a grounding in the physical, the spiritual cannot stand. Water cannot hold itself. Feel those impurities in your centre. Now, it is time for you to decide how much of them to keep."
Confusion fills you as the Elder continues.
"By now, most of you should have some inkling of where your path might lead you as cultivators. This is not your final choice, but it is a choice. You must not empty yourself completely, but you don't need much. An amount the size of a small pea would suffice.
The more of the terrestrial world you hold within your core, the more you will be rooted in it. Your body will become more of a weapon, armor, and shield. The heavier your core is in spiritual power, the more your powers will tend towards the elemental and ethereal. Neither path will be fully closed to you. There is no right answer. But you must choose now."
How does Lind build his core?
[] You will hold all the impurities you have left, grounding you heavily in the world of the physical. Your body will be strong - and may even manifest unpredictable changes.
[] You will discard some of your impurities, but not many. You will be a body cultivator, but your body will remain in its current form.
[] You will attempt to walk the middle path, and balance what you have remaining. There is too much left unlearned yet to commit yourself.
[] You will discard most of your hoarded impurity. Your spirit is a more important asset than your body, and you will cultivate it.
[] You will discard as much as you can, down to the minimum your Elder advises. You will let your spirit soar.
"How should I…" You ask, having no idea how to approach this bargain that Liu has proposed. Worship of the gods was not well-embraced in your village. Spirits were to be propitiated, yes, and beasts appeased and warded off. But the greater spirits, and the gods and goddesses of the Heavens… those were considered too great to bother with your people.
The other disciple shrugs. "Just offer it. Sincerely. You are a hunter, brother. The Huntsman knows you."
With that ominous statement sending a small shiver down your spine, you raise the talon, easily the size of a short sword, and try to project a sense of "offering." You try to imagine what this spirit might be like from name alone.
Seeing your hesitation, Liu takes your wrist. You feel something connecting him to you for a moment, a thrum of qi resonating against your skin. Not a thought, but a feeling. Red, the red of spilt blood, of eyes in the darkness, of blood coursing through veins, of a heart pounding with the thrill of the chase. The feeling of the hunt - from both sides. The feeling of heightened senses, furtive eyes darting for flashes of movement, the scent of fear on the air, the sound running as the hunted animal is flushed out. The hot thrill of chase, and the sweet feeling of success - of a blow well struck, of an arrow's course intersecting its target.
There is a channel, from you to – something. And without knowing how, exactly, you do as Liu suggested.
You offer.
And you feel the offering received.
The talon is gone, and the quiver of arrows on your back feels a touch heavier.
Reaching behind you, you feel an arrow unfamiliar to you. You draw it, and note the heavy head, made of strong, sharp-pointed steel, which seems ever so slightly crimson as it catches the light.
3 Armor-Piercing Arrows Gained! These arrows will reduce a target's Armor by 1.
Relationship up! Liu +1!
Liu claps you on the shoulder. "A fine response to your first offering, Lind. Let me know if you wish to know more of the Huntsman - there are rituals, and more, which you should learn."
The walk back to the sect gives much to think about.
—
Your journey to sleep that night comes more easily than you think. Anxiety over the next part of your journey in the sect gives way quickly to your weariness, and soon you find yourself wakening. Shao Suyin stands over you. "It is time," she says shortly.
You dress quickly - no food is on offer today. The day has not yet quite dawned, and mist spreads thickly over the town as you find yourself going to the meeting spot outside of town, near where the training grounds and cultivation classes met.
The crowd is smaller now.
You recognize some of the aspirants who have gathered. Most of those you know are here - Liu, Wu, Mehdi, Vijaya, Bai Ping, and Qian Xia. Too, you see the noble - though several of his entourage appear to have departed. Others you have seen, but never spoken to. Some, you have seen, but have changed. A few have scars. One has grown claws, another, red eyes. All have grown a little stronger, healthier, cultivation to the peak of Consecration having given them its blessing. Altogether, it appears around half of those who have come here have been found wanting.
A mask over green eyes flashes through your mind. Will the Empire really take them? For having tried and failed?
You cannot worry about that now.
There is a swirl of mist, and four disciples, two women and two men, stand before you, robes of a dark blue and burnished gold. One, with a lanky frame, piercing eyes and long, floppy brown hair raises a hand, and speaks. "We are here to oversee your induction. Follow me."
They take you forward in silence. The day seems slow to dawn today, and the mist has yet to burn off. Even the birds and the insects seem subdued, though less in foreboding, more in waiting. A few aspirants try to speak amongst themselves, but the silence is oppressive and the words and twitterings fade as they fall.
The seniors' pace seems measured and effortless, but even your long stride finds it difficult to keep up. Some of the less physically inclined disciples are clearly struggling by the time he stops, close to an hour later. With a start, you realize you have arrived close to the base of one of the sect's mountains, a journey that should have taken far longer. Some unique application of qi… are you all moving faster? Or did he somehow shorten the distance of the path itself?
The path the disciples leads you up is unassuming, marked by little more than an ancient-looking set of stone posts. Still, you feel a tingle on your skin and something in the air as you pass them by.
"Every aspirant in this sect has walked this path," says a female disciple. Her skin is albino-white, she is bald, and she wears an array of ear-studs that flicker like flames. She walks backwards with no apparent effort as you climb up the punishingly steep mountain. "From the humblest of us, to the wisest, to the boldest heroes, their true journey through the Golden Reeds began by climbing the Daughter."
As you climb, the mist around you grows thicker. You look out back at the lands of the sect and realize you cannot see them through the swirling clouds of damp. The air tastes strange here, heavy with Qi.
Perception 0 (Qi Senses) + Spiritual Prowess (3) = 3d10
9, 10, 6 = 3 Successes!
Somehow, you do not think you are entirely in the mortal world right now. You have heard stories of places that exist outside the normal world - the Ice Fairy's Palace, the Millennial Grove, the Immortal Cave in which the Man of the first legends of cultivation trained.
The other male disciple, dark-skinned and bearing a walking stick and walking with a slight limp, catches your gaze and inclines his head, in acknowledgment of your silent suspicions. He strides evenly over the trail as it goes up, up, and up.
"There are other sects with greater wealth, who hold more territory, and those who produce more vicious disciples. But of all the sects in the Emerald Kingdom, the Golden Reeds have never forgotten our purpose. Qi is a gift, granted to humanity for a purpose. True, it can make us strong, let us perform wonders, let us plumb the secrets of the universe. But above all else, ours is a trust - to use the arts of qi to defend the weak, rather than for our own advancement."
As you climb, now, you start to see shapes off the path. Statues, carved out of stone and wood, larger than life. The oldest are faded beyond reckoning, but you see men and women, mostly in robes. Some faces are wise, some stern, some joyous. Some wield weapons, some bear strange implements - is that a fly whisk? Some bear features reminiscent of animals. One is an animal, a huge bear standing of its hind legs, wearing archaic armor.
That sight threatens to distract you, but the other female disciple, bearing a short-cropped mess of red hair and bearing a sheathed sword, gestures to the statues. "To each side of you, you will find heroes of the Golden Reeds. Great warriors, wise counselors, healers, and crafters of wonders." Without turning her head, she speaks softly, with a voice that nonetheless cuts through any intervening sound. "Perhaps, one day, you will join them."
At last, the path levels out, and you pass through a massive prayer gate. Before you, you see a vast lake, fed by a massive waterfall. The peak of the Daughter stretches up beyond your sight. Behind you is swirling fog.
The brown-haired disciple makes a gesture. You feel a rumble, first in the ground beneath you, then in the soles of your feet, traveling up your feet till your very teeth seem to be shaking, and as you watch, a set of pillars begin rising out of the water, forming a pathway across the lake.
You are already feeling the effort of the climb and leaping from stone to stone is no easy matter. The stones are broad enough for many disciples to stand on, but slicked with water, and far apart enough they must be leapt rather than stepping from one to the other. There is still that oppressive silence, and aside from a few cries, there is only the lapping of the water and the splashing of something in the water, and the distant roar of the waterfall.
Despite the feeling of danger, the aspirants manage the trek. Bai Ping slips once, but you catch him before you even realize it. The senior disciples glides from stone to stone with no apparent effort.
Soon, you are standing before the waterfall. It is a vast torrent, impossibly wide and broad. The lake must drain somewhere- it could not hold such a volume of water. Or it is part of the unreality of this place.
Once more, the lead senior gestures, and the waters part, impossibly, revealing a dark cave, with another prayer gate carved above it, dedicating this place to the Goddess. It is before you, and down. There will be no returning by this path.
The first aspirant, the girl you saw on the training fields arguing with the noble and Quan Xian takes the first leap. She lands on the outcropping before the cave and goes inside.
Then another goes, and another. You turn and see Mehdi next to you. "Together?" You ask. He nods.
The two of you leap.
—
Inside, the cave is made of reddish stone. Glowing stones along the walls form a clear pathway, and you and Mehdi follow it.
You are not sure how you go, and you ignore several twists and turns, but eventually, you find a large, dimly-lit circular chamber, with a dark, glossy mirror set in the ceiling A number of reed mats are set out in a rough circle, and before each of them is cup filled with water, and a bowl set with three pills - one a dark reddish lump, one a smooth, glossy jade sphere, and a chalky, turquoise tablet.
You take your seat. Mehdi takes his seat behind you. As you watch, the rest of the room begins to fill with aspirants.
As the last of the aspirants straggle in, you hear a snap of your fingers, and a light begins to glow from the ceiling.
In the light, you see something you hadn't before. An older man, with a wiry body and features simian in a way you cannot define, sipping from a cup of tea. A man you have seen before.
He winks at you, and then somersaults into the centre of the room. "Welcome!" He cries out. "For those of you who do not know, I am the Head of this sect. You may call me Elder Lu if you wish. Others call me "The Monkey," for my handsome good looks." He flashes a smile as blinding as a summer's day before returning to a more sombre tone. "You are here, boys and girls, because it is time for you to take your place among our numbers. Each of you has caught our attention in some way and has proven to have a spirit and body of a cultivator. And now, you will be something even better - a cultivator of the Golden Reeds! Surely the Heavens have smiled upon you beyond measure."
"Our sect draws its power from the water of the mountains. The stones of these mountains are rich in qi. Some would have ordered they be mined out. But our ancient founders decided that it would be better to protect them, to let the water that fell from the sky take just a little of their power with them and flow down to all of us. For they knew the truth - power in motion is always greater than power held in stasis. Let that be a lesson for you.
In the coming months, you will have many duties here in the sect. You will be divided and set against each other, to sharpen your mettle. You will be assigned humiliating tasks below your station. You will be worked ragged. You might, in spite of everything, have fun! I certainly did." A memory flashes across his face, gone almost before it is there.
"But that is all for the future. First, I am here to administer your vows to the sect." He gestures, and an obelisk of grey stone materializes in the middle of the chamber. His demeanor, formerly irreverent, becomes more serious.
"First, you must swear your loyalty to the sect. You are joining a family, today. You will not disclose our secrets, you will defend us from attack and insult. An injury to one of us is as an injury to all of us. It is through such unity that we maintain our strength. You will have cause to be grateful for it, in the years to come. Now, swear."
You nod along with the Elder's statement, hardly surprised by this most basic of requirements. It might prove onerous in the future, but you already know there are ways to leave the sect, should you and it prove truly incompatible. At his prompting, you swear.
"Secondly, you must swear that you will not forget that the arts of qi are a trust given to us to defend the weak. No matter how great our power may be, no matter how strong your ambitions, you must not lose sight of why the arts of cultivation were given to humanity in the first place. In your time, you will encounter cultivators who have forgotten this. You will not be one of them."
"Thirdly, you must swear to grow. We cannot accomplish our goals if we prove weak - we cannot be strong if one does not seek out strength. Among you may be the next leader of our sect, and terrible responsibilities may fall to you. All of you have grown in the shadow of one such threat, and our sect's failure to meet it is part of why we find ourselves where we do. So I charge each of you - if you bear the robes of a disciple of the Golden Reeds, abandon complacency. Swear, that you will do your best to grow as strong as you can."
Your mind is full of images of what you might be - firing a bow that shatters a hillside, wrestling a dragon, appearing, like Hou Hua did, a mysterious figure to some unsuspecting aspirant. You have no desire to refuse this last charge, and so you swear.
"Wonderful!" the Elder claps his hands and rubs them. "Now, I am sure each of you has realized that there are pills before you. If you have somehow not seen a pill before, this is what they look like! Examine them closely, but not for too long. It is time. Your bodies have been Consecrated. We are going to lay your Foundations. Now, take the red pill, and make sure to breathe in the vapors."
At that cryptic statement, you take the red pill into your mouth. It's surface is weirdly warm and pliant, and the taste is oddly sweet as it begins to dissolve instantly in your mouth. By the time you swallow it, the pill itself seems to have halved in size, and your mouth feels filled with the scent of warm earth after a rain. Obeying your Elder, you breathe it in, and instantly feel a tingling spread throughout your body. You feel heavier, connected with the floor, as if the Earth were pulling you downwards. You do your best to ponder the words, but your mind is truly upon other things.
"That was a Crimson Flesh-Bolstering Pill. It will fortify your body for what you will do next. Now, take the green one. Don't spit it out. As you take it, think about the second principle."
Dubiously, you raise the green, polished marble and pop it in your mouth. As it is too large to swallow whole, you bite down. It takes some effort, but you crack it with your teeth… and immediately, a bitter, sludgy filling pours out, filling your mouth with the most bitter, horrible taste you have ever experienced. Wincing, you struggle to convince your mouth to finish crunching the rest of the pill and swallow as quickly as possible. Instinctively, you reach for the water and rinse your mouth with it.
"The poetically named Jade King's Sight. Now, concentrate on your body."
It takes a second of confused meditation before you understand what he means. As the sludge travels through your stomach, you feel it instantly spreading through your body, and with it comes an incredible awareness of self. You can feel yourself, divided what feels like a thousand upon thousandfold. Every inch of your body feels like it is buzzing. You can feel every drop of qi, the individual particles of impurity that still reside in your muscles, blood, organs, and marrow.
"Good. Now take the last, the Inner Whirlpool, and gather those remaining impurities into your centre."
As you take the last pill, you feel the queasy sensation of your qi beginning to move throughout your body, almost without your will. Qi floods into you from the pill, and it sends waves and ripples through your internal energies. It is less a matter of grasping the flow and more a matter of directing what is already in motion.
Dutifully, you resist the urge to use the flow of qi to bring those impurities out of your body. It goes against what training you have, but instead you carefully surround those bits of crude matter with bright qi, until you have gathered all that remains of them into your centre.
"Nine times out of ten, those who have been raised without a sect, clan or competent Master have crippled their advancement at the first step. You have been taught that the impurity of the world is your enemy. It is, but without a grounding in the physical, the spiritual cannot stand. Water cannot hold itself. Feel those impurities in your centre. Now, it is time for you to decide how much of them to keep."
Confusion fills you as the Elder continues.
"By now, most of you should have some inkling of where your path might lead you as cultivators. This is not your final choice, but it is a choice. You must not empty yourself completely, but you don't need much. An amount the size of a small pea would suffice.
The more of the terrestrial world you hold within your core, the more you will be rooted in it. Your body will become more of a weapon, armor, and shield. The heavier your core is in spiritual power, the more your powers will tend towards the elemental and ethereal. Neither path will be fully closed to you. There is no right answer. But you must choose now."
How does Lind build his core?
[] You will hold all the impurities you have left, grounding you heavily in the world of the physical. Your body will be strong - and may even manifest unpredictable changes.
[] You will discard some of your impurities, but not many. You will be a body cultivator, but your body will remain in its current form.
[] You will attempt to walk the middle path, and balance what you have remaining. There is too much left unlearned yet to commit yourself.
[] You will discard most of your hoarded impurity. Your spirit is a more important asset than your body, and you will cultivate it.
[] You will discard as much as you can, down to the minimum your Elder advises. You will let your spirit soar.
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