Good job Zag. Well, now you have a Dragon God Friend! There is no greater power than Nepotism! Wonder if this will count towards his Labours, giving away Divinity, like Prometheus.
Anyhow, good chappy, glad to see the pill get its ass handed to it.
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DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
Anyhow, good chappy, glad to see the pill get its ass handed to it.
- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
So, any guess as to what the consequences will be?
Not really that's not something I'm good at that said the continent is going to be in utter chaos and change especially given Zagreus has pretty much cleared the board in terms of the former powers of the continent.
- Location
- Brazil
Well, given the theory of forms was mentioned and how that relates to the Tyrant realm... maybe the way to progress there will be to somehow do acts that align yourself with an Ideal version of yourself that exists. Following your instincts (hunger) to become an Ideal and perfect version of you.
- Location
- Brazil
It is a proof of concept. The origin qi was something manifested by Wu Fou to reach Penglai, while he failed and his garden crashed it wasn't in vain. It is proof one does not need the endorsement of higher power to get a invitation to get there. While Zagreus could have tried his luck in the trial of the Star Stone is Absalom you have to remember he is in a ideological spite with Rher and Sulfur. For Zagreus it isn't enough that he successed, others should fail. To truly cultivate virtue is a act of hubris, the sin of "looking upon the face of god and decide your features would suit it better."
To cultivate a virtue, to actually cultivate a virtue, is to challenge every man that came before you in its pursuit. Challenge it, or shape yourself to it. Zagreus and Reila are shaping their souls to challenge it, to challenge Sulfur and Rher. The tyrant realm Zagreus is conceiving is a "kick the door down and invite yourself in" aproach, for somethings can't be inherited, they can only be taken.
- Location
- California
Star rail's new planet seems like it would fit Zagreus wonderfully
Rhetoric remains an incredibly powerful tool for Zagreus and he weilds it well. Zhu Kun using Star Rage was awesome and he used it to great effect.
Zagreus using Big Bang was awesome and it felt like it was inspired by a lot of stuff both Hollow Purple, Star Rage and Genesis.
The God Pill was salty about getting jumped but that it it's own fault for not having bros. Zagreus posioning the god pill the whole time was such a flex and a really clever move.
Zagreus just going here's some liquor and pills to Zhu Kun was hilarious, sure it was Nectar and the God Pill but still. Also damn Shu Kun has become something close to the Form of a Dragon, kinda like Adam Kadmon. Zhu Kun was of course curious about why he did it but Zagreus did it because he was following his virtue and testing theories.
Zagreus using Big Bang was awesome and it felt like it was inspired by a lot of stuff both Hollow Purple, Star Rage and Genesis.
The God Pill was salty about getting jumped but that it it's own fault for not having bros. Zagreus posioning the god pill the whole time was such a flex and a really clever move.
Zagreus just going here's some liquor and pills to Zhu Kun was hilarious, sure it was Nectar and the God Pill but still. Also damn Shu Kun has become something close to the Form of a Dragon, kinda like Adam Kadmon. Zhu Kun was of course curious about why he did it but Zagreus did it because he was following his virtue and testing theories.
I can't help but be frighteningly curious about how a visit to Honkai would go for Zagreus. On the one hand, Impact and the Previous Era would give him a chance to spread Hope to a otherwise hopeless situation, find some very talented students(new children to adopt),find new things to add to the ole shadow treasury, new ways to give Tsumiki a headache, and probably learn a lot of interesting highly dangerous ways to test his Fortitude. Oh and 'Science' can't forget that. On the other there is Star Rail and the sheer Chaos that would happen there. Or the current era of Impact and pick up a pet Tuna that someone lost. You know, all that is Beautiful in the world. Having said that...
This seems to be a very Authentic and Orphic way of doing things. Failed to obtain everything the world had to offer? Don't worry! Drink and Self Medicate your way to enlightenment! Or be convinced by the random drunk you met a few hours ago to do it for you! Either way the hangover will make you forget the pity-party for the after-party! *Warning: This is not medical advice, and I am not a licensed doctor of any type, practice such excess at your own risk, or seek professional help. I take no legal or medical responsibility for your decisions or resulting actions that result form acting on the above paragraph which is intended to express my opinion of ongoing themes in this story as well as for general amusement!*
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- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
That sounds awesome! I'm gonna go try it out!
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Battle Through the Heavens - 9
- Location
- Brazil
As a member of the Orphic House I understand it well, the concept of death – the state of hanging in the intersection between life and death. Especially after my time in Golarion, my body is as much teetered to my soul by negative energy as it is by positive one. To the point I can simply rest breathless like a corpse for an indefinite amount of time like a sort of hibernation if the need is dire enough.
A true blackout where I am not even allowed to dream. An unfortunate habit at this point. I thought I had left this childish phase behind but it seems that I haven't yet grown tired of gambling with my life just yet.
My consciousness returned to me slowly, another victory for Zagreus. Now if only I could get rid of that heartburn in my chest… which isn't there!
In my blind panic I rise from my slumber in a stark jump. The waking world greets me and the first thing I see is an ancient sage with a body made entirely of wood and a head and beard of leaves. The radiant aura of the man was so peaceful I could hardly call it battle aura, he had a full kit of an ancient hermit pursuing benightment. I couldn't even be surprised when the Penglai divination identified him as [Bodhisattva Ancient Tree].
Indeed, the body in front of me was just its manifest spirit. The true body was the tree he was nested on… This place, I turn my gaze, casting it adrift in pursuit of recognizable landmarks. Sure enough, it wasn't difficult to puzzle out this place: Ancient Wasteland Region. The Climate is rash and full of poisonous air and fierce beasts. An absolute forbidden land for humans and last refuge to many demonic beasts never seen since ancient times.
There are layers of the Abyss bearing more hospitable biospheres than this place. I had heard that the jungles of Gaping Maw are lovely this time of the year. That is why I can't hide my surprise that an entity like him rules this place instead of a monster like Demogorgon.
"How astonishing. To think even on the verge of death your power could extinguish the lingering animosity and negativity left by the dying Battle God that tried to consume my marrow over ten thousand years ago! No wonder that Dragon God calls you master." Said the Ent sage with sincere friendliness. "You saved me from quite a bind. While the bastard failed to kill me off, he almost killed me and damaged my spirit, contaminating me with his dying grudge. The three unwholesome roots of kleshas – ignorance, greed, and hatred – trapped every person that came near in a delusion of their own darkest desires until they become puppets… yet that subordinate of yours blasted his way through the former victims of this trap, brushed said illusion off like water running his back, ate the lingering malevolence like it was a tasty morsel, and demanded me to mend you… You can imagine my surprise."
I could help it. I simply had to laugh at the absurd story. It would have made for an excellent final labor for me too. And it was so nice to laugh without the body being cooked from the inside out as well. "I guess Zhu Kun had his fill of prisons for the next thousand years at least. Not that I expect him to stay out of trouble, his nose for treasure seems to mislead him just as often." I signed in exasperation. To think his answer for my condition would be to rush in another treasure hunt. I looked down to my chest, where a very unique orange tattoo had manifested.
I don't know how I lived so long without this Penglai identification trick – [Bodhisattva Heart]. One of the three treasures of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree. It was able to gradually replace the heart in one's body. That way, one would be able to keep one's life even if one's heart suffered a fatal blow. Moreover, the strength that this Bodhisattva Heart could provide to a person far exceeds that of that person's previous heart. Of course, the most important thing is that this item was able to repeatedly nourish one's soul and gradually strengthen it… or in my case, slowly restore my reserve of heart blood. I seem to have hit the jackpot. The Bodhisattva Heart is no lesser than the Eye of the Hurricane. A Lesser Mystery that integrates into one's body like the Six Eyes.
"You took white well to it. I tried to offer the [Comprehension the Nature of the World – Bodhisattva Enlightenment] as a bonus but you seem to already have it." Exclaimed the tree spirit as it pointed to the invisible samsara wheel carved in my chest and soul. "It was quite the fortuitous encounter on our part yet I can't say what was the luckiest one among the two of us. It might be hypocrisy on my part, but I hate greedy beings the most. Hearing your thunderous voice tormenting the selfish cultivators was a balm to my withered soul. Since you saved me as well and seems to be gathering subordinates, I would like to offer my allegiance."
"Jumping on the winning team, heh? You know what? I like your shamelessness, your old oak. There is something that I am meant to address and you might be just what I needed to pull it off."
"How intriguing. Something even a man such as yourself can't do on your lonesome? Consider me hooked… Young Master."
"Hey, where did that come from? I am over fifty- eh, I mean, I am almost two millennia old!"
"It just felt right. You simply give off the air of a young master, Young Master Zagreus. Incidentally, I don't think extra-long nape times count, nor do past lives either, and lying about your age to seem older is a clear give away to one's immaturity. If I had to guess, going by the state of your soul, I would waver you at…" the Ent sage seemed deep in thought as he brushed his long leaf beard. "Nine."
"Nine years old?!"
"No, nine months old."
"I am going to prune that face of yours until you are bald as an egg!"
While I have been on the Dou Qi Continent for a short time, some issues are self-evident, especially considering my new responsibilities as a garden cultivator. Fortunately, the primitive outlook that might make right granted me a blank check after I did the cultivator equivalent to drag my ball over the face of all the cultivators of the continent and dared them to do something about it.
Even the petty empires littering the continent know better than to tempt the fates by crossing me. One of the advantages of having a dragon god as a spokesperson. Zhu Kun is not a battle god though, so his ascension did not grant the benefits of Battle God Bloodline to his people. That has become the main issue that I have to address.
As the new Garden Master of the Dou Qi continent it is my responsibility to steward all the spirits of the world. Many beasts stumble on enlightenment yet are barred from living with the dignity that such a feat is owed due to the difficulty to reach Battle King level, enabling them to shapeshift into a human form. Even then they are still trapped in a beast like mindset due to the fierce competition between these enlightened beasts for scarce resources.
Fortunately, princess Zi Yan's misfortune with a shapeshifting herb gave me an idea. Better yet, it allows me to put to the test another theory of mine which will clear the way for the reformed Tyrant Realm – Heavenly Restriction.
Normally a binding vow with oneself is little better than a weaponized placebo effect. The only consequence of breaking it is the loss of the advantage said binding vow conferred. This led to the question, is it possible to make an inviolable binding vow with oneself? While strapping a bomb to oneself as collateral might count, at the end of the day it is still just enforcement by outside factors.
No, Toji Zenin stands as proof of how Heavenly Restriction can upend the rules of nature upside down as a real transformative force. As long as it is set properly, that is; poor Kokichi Muta was the reason I was more recalcitrant about this research than Yuki. The body horror involved simply brought too many bad memories of Termina for me to be comfortable with it. So Yuki used the possibility of helping the poor to cajole me into it.
Back then I managed to prove Heavenly Restrictions could be broken by outside factors. My energy bending managed to rebalance his body and restore him to perfect health; something his family was less than thrilled about but I could care less. That was not a life worth of a person… but it also proved that Heavenly Restrictions don't need to be left up to fate. They could be intentionally enforced by someone proficient enough in energy bending.
And part of me wonders if this wasn't the main reason Kenjaku targeted Yuki. She was the best energy bender behind Geto and me. For a crazy scientist like him she must have been like a golden goose. All secrets I refrained from sharing were there for the taking… Alas, it no longer mattered.
What was important is that I could both help enlightened beasts join civilization and alleviate racial tensions brought about by inborn differences with a single stroke. That is right, shameless stole Oda's IP and made real life zoan devil fruits! I couldn't help but remember Chopper when I saw the void dragon princess stuck in that infantile form. Wu Fou talked about how humanity was a lifeform that naturally became enlightened. Something like the human-human Fruit would be the perfect cheat to both unlock enlightenment and a form more suited for society.
This also would put everyone on the same page, so to speak. The more powerful a species is, the slower they reproduce. The inverse is also true and both would cause issues in a society. But a human lifespan and reproduction cycle are a good deal to most species, but even if they came short it had one topic which compensated it – cultivation. It would allow beasts to cultivate as men. That can't be underestimated, the monstrous biped gods of Cartage managed to destroy the Republic while cultivator Caesar was governing it! Zhu Kun might be the apex of life form but at the end of the day he is just a beast. Even if a beast god is to a human god what a beast is to a man, the inverse is also true. It is refinement and enlightenment that set humans ahead, they are the image and semblance to the divine.
The manifested proof of said conceit is the enlightened man's ability to take by force what nature didn't deem fit to grant him – to counter and balance the [Fruit of Knowledge], a [Fruit of Power]. Golarion is teeming with lycanthropic curses. From werewolves of Ustalav, weretigers of Vudra, to wererats to all civilized cities' subways. I had ample opportunity to study it. More than that, my eldritch biotechnology scavenged from the minions of the Dominion of Black allowed me to grasp something akin to the Lineage Factor, the blueprint of life itself, present in all living organisms; that which enable the mass production of Smiles and helped said abomination to more easily violate lifeforms teetered to the natural order.
Now I was using it to create a universal zoan fruit that would manifest as the most appropriate beast to the eater based on temperament, favorite climate and other criteria to balance both nurture and nature to ensure it would always be considered an advantage. Better yet, by tying it to Hunger the eater's cultivation will refine his body in line with the primeval majesty toward mythological monsters that virtuous beasts enjoy. Neatly solving the issue of pedigree which rules this world.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Now just cross my fingers and hope no greedy asshole eats both of them and becomes a chimera… yeah, what are the odds? Right?... maybe I should place some safety features in this thing. Hell, the best thing about modern capitalist society is that everything tends to be designed to be idiot proof. I am the last person who should be tempting the Fates. That is why the insight of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree was crucial to oversee this endeavor. At the end of the day I was just a horticulturist cultivator, my second-hand experience doesn't compare to the first hand one of a tree. The ability to endow specific intention to a fruit is something he knows more than me.
There is no rest for the wicked. Once I was properly healed from the strain of the heavenly flames rampaging inside me thanks to the serene power of the Bodhisattva Heart, I once more resumed my back-breaking labor. The help of my trusty Nature's Bounty I wiped the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree back to its prime.
Part of me was tempted to terraform the Ancient Wasteland Region but another saw the merit of such untamed wilderness. This was a refuge for living beings that couldn't exist in balance with nature anywhere else. Plus, this is the perfect defense against people trying to seize Fruits of Knowledge and Power. No, in the end it was decided that the Ancient Wasteland Region would stay as it is.
The same could not be said to the rest of the world. Having reached the apex of what a beast could be, Zhu Kun understood the merit of the Fruits of Knowledge as few ever could. The power of a Battle God Bloodline inevitably tins out and disperse until it disappears. This was a far more permanent solution. Even if it would cost the eater their place in the garden of Eden, her innocence and power, the long-term benefits far outstrip the costs. Indeed, neither of us would be surprised if a few thousand years from now resuming one's draconic form would be as difficult as achieving a human shape is today.
Zhu Kun graciously stepped up to the task of being a primitive ancestor that ensured his descendants would be free to be more by crushing anything that would threaten to make them less. It was a bittersweet thing, to be sure, but the most precious thing he learned in his journey might have been an introspective understanding of his own limits. His place among Heaven and Earth.
His Ancient Void Dragon tribe became a mess in his absence. Impertinent upstarts capitalized his disappearance to make fiefdoms for themselves, calling themselves dragon kings of the four cardinal directions. The Dragon God made them by example in a trashing so one sided that it didn't even merit mention; a king cobra making a meal of his lessers.
The place was truly lovely as well. It kind of reminded me of the Fire Nation, an equipment of volcanic tropical islands; reminiscent of Hawaii actually. Zhu Kun seems to feel similarly as well, his pneuma swelled at the sight of it after thousands of years apart. He was like Odysseus returning home after decades adrift from home. This, of course, has consequences. He was so stepped into my mysteries that his radiated majesty turned the place silver bright. A nice consequence of being a living [Dragon Line]. Something similar happened in Egypt with the birth of a new Pharaoh, revitalizing the pneuma of the Nile, making its flow revert course and fostering virtuous beasts.
The people of the Ancient Void Dragon tribe were overjoyed with the return of the rightful ruler. Despite the irregularities it was certainly an auspicious development. People looked at me like… well, like the higher power that I was. I had crushed and extinguished all the venerable clans, plundered their wealth and subjugated the entire catalogue of Heavenly Flames. Even if I wasn't a Battle God, Zhu Kun willing fealty to me despite his ascension was worrying in two fronts – I was his benefactor and I was still his better. An absurd yet credible fact, being a Battle God did not save the God Pill from me, after all.
There is a reason I call myself Tyrant Star. Once I stepped into the stage, I foreclosed the sky like the sun itself does – Some things cannot be inherited, they can only be taken – Under the yoke of Hope I can't help but to be too greedy. The kind of childish insolence that refuses to give up or compromise on anything. And that which does not bend breaks… or force the world to bend instead. Part of me feels like I was always meant to the Tyrant Realm, that is my tribulation earned… that is why instead of shying away from it I intend to catch lightning in my teeth.
The privilege of being in nine places at the same time ensures that I can take my time tutoring the ways of civilized society and higher culture to the people of the Ancient Void Dragon tribe at their own pace. They will be my main support block going forward after all. The tribe's innate command over lesser beasts ensures a permanent solution to the issue of disenfranchised enlightened beasts. No matter how weak, anyone with an omni-tool can access Reila's Logic network and mine my silver bright drachma. Use it to support herself and purchase services and goods. Pointing out all the advantages of civilized life was essential to cajole people used to simply taking from others up to everything they were worth then eating them into a more peaceful lifestyle.
Fortunately, princess Zi Yan's appetite proved to be the more typical approach of the rest of the clan toward food. Properly cooked meals, good drink, fancy clothes, comfortable dwellings, and great music did wonders to win them over. Abraham hierarchy of needs was a proved classic for a reason. My legitimacy came from more than the fact that I killed everyone that opposed me… even if in the end I did it, but also because I am supplying the infrastructure that underpin society.
If there is one thing I had to give to the denizens of the Dou Qi continent was that they were opportunistic by nature. Most of the void dragons wizened up to the direction the wind was blowing and how they could set things to ensure they were on top. Once I got the ball rolling things would sort themselves out by themselves. It was a pipedream to expect people raised in such a mercenary place to act out from the goodness of their heart. This realm is literally called Battle Aura Continent because strength was the only constant that ruled over it.
Reila is better at social engineering than me. Starting with the basics of the five moral foundations of care, reciprocity, loyalty, respect, and purity to establish a universal code of conduct and basic civility is already a monumental achievement worthy of a goddess. In time the Dou Qi continent will have its own set of Cardinal Virtues and its own cultivation subculture.
While things among the sapient beasts progressed swiftly the same could not be said among the human population. Ironically enough the staff of Jian Nan Academy who actually had good reason to hold a grudge against me since my actions that triggered the race to Tou Shen Mansion that destroyed their home were the ones most grateful to me due to my timely interference at the eleventh hour.
This paid dividends. Its headmaster, a powerful half-saint called Mang Tian Chi, was on a decade-long leave in order to further his cultivation. This was the only reason he wasn't present during the Venerable Alliance attack and why he wasn't killed. Even with the facility gone, with both headmaster and the students alive, the Jian Nan Academy can be reinstated… provided they find a sufficiently wealthy sponsor that is.
I didn't even bother pretending this wasn't colonization. My goal is to spread cultivation of virtue, something people are receptive to after my performance. My silky road style is a cosmopolitan approach to cultivation that thrives in a place such as Jian Nan Academy, which is famous in the mainland, being pursued by people from all over the continent.
In the Dou Qi Mainland, Academies are somewhat different from clans. If one joins a clan, he would not only be restricted by the clan but would also have to watch his every action as it would reflect back on the clan. An academy was different since all ties would be cut off after graduation, which actually works in my favor. This is similar to how outer members of Raging Heaven Cult operate, more like a loose association than a lifetime contract. Tsumiki still ventured to me often enough for me to know what to expect.
Of course, my favor came with some strings attached and enforced by binding vows. The Dou Qi Continent is still a dangerous place and it might stay so for a long time, maybe even forever to be honest. Rhetoric is such a versatile and useful tool to impart knowledge and accelerate learning that any institution of learning with a staff composed of philosophers feels like a straight jacket. Until the Academy has enough philosophers it will require my direct involvement, yes. Once more I resume my role as an educator; and here I thought my days beating impudent children into virtuous adults were behind me…
The worst was, I didn't mind. It was still counted as a positive experience compared to cleaning up after what remained of the Venerable Clans. Sometimes I really curse my ability to be in nine places at once. Due to the Battle God Bloodline the venerable clans were more like ethnic enclaves, every sect needed a servile population to take care of their needs and as recruitment pool and the venerable clans solved this issue by pushing their less talented members to these positions. Such arrangement is sustained through indoctrination, xenophobia, and a narrative of genetic superiority. Which means that I am willing to simply roll over because I won. Even after defeating their forces I still needed a solution for those blood relatives less they go underground and plot against me for the following thousand years.
The easiest way would be to simply kill them all… unfortunately this option is closed off to me by my virtuous heart… but at the same time ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves. Vae victis – woe to the vanquished. The Nihility Devouring Flame who can swallow all things once devoured the Tunnelling clan last patriarch and seized for himself their ability to devour other venerable clan's bloodline in order to preserve their own from being exhausted. That is how 2nd rank Heavenly Flame almost usurped the position of Hun Tiandi. Now I used the same power to personally extinguish every single Battle God bloodline from the Dou Qi Continent.
I am a son of Raging Heaven, after all. There is no security in a sound mind either. The prized knowledge accrued through the epochs also had to be excised. I would leave them with their lives and little else.
Pulling this off was a mess. While they had little power to resist me, they had a lot of grit and desperation, an awful cocktail. I hit all of them at the same time, setting up a customized curtain style barrier with my innate technique, manifesting as a wall of light looking like an aurora boreal. Then I set myself to the tedious task of scrubbing every single person there clean of what they held most worthy.
It was a cornucopia of Despair. A pandemonium as they fought in vain against a monster that they had no hope of overcoming. Their wales created a choir that ringed in my ear long after I was done. Their dwelling was left in ruin more by their own hand than by any action from my part. The sight of it was somehow more horrifying than cleansing by atomic fire could ever be. Their haunted gazes and shattered egos were like a vision of purgatory.
Most of it ended up being published in the Logic Consensus as well. People from across the entire continent watched in 4k what I did. Not the best way to come off as the nice guy but it certainly drives the point home. People were quickly to fall in line and start to tattle information about the fleeing ancient clansmen who anticipated my attack to flee while I was still nursing my injuries.
That is how I ended up in the Black Rock territory. An arid region full of deserts, and with Arabic architecture, clothing, and culture. The region is a cesspool of scum and villainy, over the ages countless forces struggle for supremacy without any real success. The Black Seal City looked like Old Cairo rather than anything remotely Chinese. The place was a rub of commerce, being the base of the greatest auction house of the region. A paradise for outlaws and a haven for the black market. The perfect place for a fleeing heiress, the prodigal daughter of Gu Yuan… I simply did not expect to find her accompanied by the dregs of the Xiao clan of all people.
Gu Xun Er, the only daughter of the now deceased patriarch of the Ancient clan. A prodigy born with the purest bloodline, she was a fourteen years old girl bearing the markings of a "jade beauty" – long jet-black hair, porcelain like skin, heart shaped face and onyx eyes. Despite all the gifts she had been born with, life proved hard for her as of late.
From what information I plucked from the minds of her clansmen she had been sent to infiltrate the Xiao clan when she was just a child to search for the Tou Shen Jade piece belonging to them… and promptly went native, betraying her family and warning the Xiao clan of the incoming doom soon to blacken their doorsteps as the Venerable Alliance came for the final puzzle piece… because I had forced their hands.
Most tragedies never see the light of the campfire, the Xiao clan fit is one such example. Its bloodline power had been extinct in a foolhardy ritual by its last true patriarch in a botched attempt to breakthrough into Battle God, hunted by the Soul Clan until its few remaining members were forced into hiding with the assistance of the Ancient clan who then turned on them once pity had run out and need forced their hands.
Now everything that remains of them is a gang of over dozen teenagers coming here searching refuge with their only remaining family. Xiao Ding and Xiao Li, the elder sons of the deceased Xiao Zhan who gave his life to buy enough time for them to escape… even then their prospects seem dim at the moment. The climate is rash, and people of the Black Rock region are even more wicked than in the rest of the continent. They had been robbed of everything they owned and were malnourished and weak, a capital sin in this lawless pit of vipers. If it wasn't for Xun Er they would already have been sold as slaves but even then, it took everything she had to keep their heads above water.
Poor girl was at her wits end, she didn't even notice me until I was right in front of her.
Her reaction was as expected. Her battle aura exploded from her body and her eyes burned golden as she used some forbidden technique to temporarily improve her standing. She certainly showed her pedigree yet she was still just a child and life on the run seldom gave her any time for her to cultivate. A used my rhetoric to gently extinguish her outburst like one snuff a candle… her fist was so small against my palm that my fingers were covering her forearm.
Her sudden action spurred the other children to action like a kicked anthill. Nothing of the former glory of the Xiao clan remains, their display clearly placed the lot of them as battle disciples, there was even a single ordinary boy coming my way with an improvised farming implement.
I had to give to the girl, while she struggled mightily to squeeze free of my grip, she still had the presence of mind to assess the situation and protect what truly mattered. "Stop everyone! Don't even think about fighting him! Focus on escaping! I will buy you as much time as possible!"
"No way!" Screamed the non-cultivator boy rushing me with a rusty farmer scalp. Undaunted by the obstacle to save his little sweetheart. How cute, puppy love. "I, Xiao Yan promised to my father I would take care of you as his last request! And he won't make me a liar-
"Enough." I said with a voice capable of rattling the heavens. While the cloudy night obfuscated my appearance there was nobody that would miss my voice by now. "You stop struggling too girl, these children will die without you to protect them. This is the end of the line. Cease your struggle. And that goes for you too boy, you will end up getting tetanus with that rusty thing!" I say as I summarily took it from his hands.
"Hey!" he complained but I was having none of that.
"Silence! Beggars can't be choosers and you lot are definitely in the indigent territory. Indeed, you are worth of pity. That is why I am going to fix you lost a filling meal, a washing room, and some new set of clothes. You lot will be gracious guests and accept my hospitality without complain. Then you will retire for the night and by sunbreak, when you are once again feeling like human beings, we will have a proper conversation. That is an order." I drive the point across by spreading the wings of my influence, making clear if I intended them harm nothing could protect them from me.
Bloody teenagers. It is Azula all over again, isn't it?
A true blackout where I am not even allowed to dream. An unfortunate habit at this point. I thought I had left this childish phase behind but it seems that I haven't yet grown tired of gambling with my life just yet.
My consciousness returned to me slowly, another victory for Zagreus. Now if only I could get rid of that heartburn in my chest… which isn't there!
In my blind panic I rise from my slumber in a stark jump. The waking world greets me and the first thing I see is an ancient sage with a body made entirely of wood and a head and beard of leaves. The radiant aura of the man was so peaceful I could hardly call it battle aura, he had a full kit of an ancient hermit pursuing benightment. I couldn't even be surprised when the Penglai divination identified him as [Bodhisattva Ancient Tree].
Indeed, the body in front of me was just its manifest spirit. The true body was the tree he was nested on… This place, I turn my gaze, casting it adrift in pursuit of recognizable landmarks. Sure enough, it wasn't difficult to puzzle out this place: Ancient Wasteland Region. The Climate is rash and full of poisonous air and fierce beasts. An absolute forbidden land for humans and last refuge to many demonic beasts never seen since ancient times.
There are layers of the Abyss bearing more hospitable biospheres than this place. I had heard that the jungles of Gaping Maw are lovely this time of the year. That is why I can't hide my surprise that an entity like him rules this place instead of a monster like Demogorgon.
"How astonishing. To think even on the verge of death your power could extinguish the lingering animosity and negativity left by the dying Battle God that tried to consume my marrow over ten thousand years ago! No wonder that Dragon God calls you master." Said the Ent sage with sincere friendliness. "You saved me from quite a bind. While the bastard failed to kill me off, he almost killed me and damaged my spirit, contaminating me with his dying grudge. The three unwholesome roots of kleshas – ignorance, greed, and hatred – trapped every person that came near in a delusion of their own darkest desires until they become puppets… yet that subordinate of yours blasted his way through the former victims of this trap, brushed said illusion off like water running his back, ate the lingering malevolence like it was a tasty morsel, and demanded me to mend you… You can imagine my surprise."
I could help it. I simply had to laugh at the absurd story. It would have made for an excellent final labor for me too. And it was so nice to laugh without the body being cooked from the inside out as well. "I guess Zhu Kun had his fill of prisons for the next thousand years at least. Not that I expect him to stay out of trouble, his nose for treasure seems to mislead him just as often." I signed in exasperation. To think his answer for my condition would be to rush in another treasure hunt. I looked down to my chest, where a very unique orange tattoo had manifested.
I don't know how I lived so long without this Penglai identification trick – [Bodhisattva Heart]. One of the three treasures of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree. It was able to gradually replace the heart in one's body. That way, one would be able to keep one's life even if one's heart suffered a fatal blow. Moreover, the strength that this Bodhisattva Heart could provide to a person far exceeds that of that person's previous heart. Of course, the most important thing is that this item was able to repeatedly nourish one's soul and gradually strengthen it… or in my case, slowly restore my reserve of heart blood. I seem to have hit the jackpot. The Bodhisattva Heart is no lesser than the Eye of the Hurricane. A Lesser Mystery that integrates into one's body like the Six Eyes.
"You took white well to it. I tried to offer the [Comprehension the Nature of the World – Bodhisattva Enlightenment] as a bonus but you seem to already have it." Exclaimed the tree spirit as it pointed to the invisible samsara wheel carved in my chest and soul. "It was quite the fortuitous encounter on our part yet I can't say what was the luckiest one among the two of us. It might be hypocrisy on my part, but I hate greedy beings the most. Hearing your thunderous voice tormenting the selfish cultivators was a balm to my withered soul. Since you saved me as well and seems to be gathering subordinates, I would like to offer my allegiance."
"Jumping on the winning team, heh? You know what? I like your shamelessness, your old oak. There is something that I am meant to address and you might be just what I needed to pull it off."
"How intriguing. Something even a man such as yourself can't do on your lonesome? Consider me hooked… Young Master."
"Hey, where did that come from? I am over fifty- eh, I mean, I am almost two millennia old!"
"It just felt right. You simply give off the air of a young master, Young Master Zagreus. Incidentally, I don't think extra-long nape times count, nor do past lives either, and lying about your age to seem older is a clear give away to one's immaturity. If I had to guess, going by the state of your soul, I would waver you at…" the Ent sage seemed deep in thought as he brushed his long leaf beard. "Nine."
"Nine years old?!"
"No, nine months old."
"I am going to prune that face of yours until you are bald as an egg!"
-//-
While I have been on the Dou Qi Continent for a short time, some issues are self-evident, especially considering my new responsibilities as a garden cultivator. Fortunately, the primitive outlook that might make right granted me a blank check after I did the cultivator equivalent to drag my ball over the face of all the cultivators of the continent and dared them to do something about it.
Even the petty empires littering the continent know better than to tempt the fates by crossing me. One of the advantages of having a dragon god as a spokesperson. Zhu Kun is not a battle god though, so his ascension did not grant the benefits of Battle God Bloodline to his people. That has become the main issue that I have to address.
As the new Garden Master of the Dou Qi continent it is my responsibility to steward all the spirits of the world. Many beasts stumble on enlightenment yet are barred from living with the dignity that such a feat is owed due to the difficulty to reach Battle King level, enabling them to shapeshift into a human form. Even then they are still trapped in a beast like mindset due to the fierce competition between these enlightened beasts for scarce resources.
Fortunately, princess Zi Yan's misfortune with a shapeshifting herb gave me an idea. Better yet, it allows me to put to the test another theory of mine which will clear the way for the reformed Tyrant Realm – Heavenly Restriction.
Normally a binding vow with oneself is little better than a weaponized placebo effect. The only consequence of breaking it is the loss of the advantage said binding vow conferred. This led to the question, is it possible to make an inviolable binding vow with oneself? While strapping a bomb to oneself as collateral might count, at the end of the day it is still just enforcement by outside factors.
No, Toji Zenin stands as proof of how Heavenly Restriction can upend the rules of nature upside down as a real transformative force. As long as it is set properly, that is; poor Kokichi Muta was the reason I was more recalcitrant about this research than Yuki. The body horror involved simply brought too many bad memories of Termina for me to be comfortable with it. So Yuki used the possibility of helping the poor to cajole me into it.
Back then I managed to prove Heavenly Restrictions could be broken by outside factors. My energy bending managed to rebalance his body and restore him to perfect health; something his family was less than thrilled about but I could care less. That was not a life worth of a person… but it also proved that Heavenly Restrictions don't need to be left up to fate. They could be intentionally enforced by someone proficient enough in energy bending.
And part of me wonders if this wasn't the main reason Kenjaku targeted Yuki. She was the best energy bender behind Geto and me. For a crazy scientist like him she must have been like a golden goose. All secrets I refrained from sharing were there for the taking… Alas, it no longer mattered.
What was important is that I could both help enlightened beasts join civilization and alleviate racial tensions brought about by inborn differences with a single stroke. That is right, shameless stole Oda's IP and made real life zoan devil fruits! I couldn't help but remember Chopper when I saw the void dragon princess stuck in that infantile form. Wu Fou talked about how humanity was a lifeform that naturally became enlightened. Something like the human-human Fruit would be the perfect cheat to both unlock enlightenment and a form more suited for society.
This also would put everyone on the same page, so to speak. The more powerful a species is, the slower they reproduce. The inverse is also true and both would cause issues in a society. But a human lifespan and reproduction cycle are a good deal to most species, but even if they came short it had one topic which compensated it – cultivation. It would allow beasts to cultivate as men. That can't be underestimated, the monstrous biped gods of Cartage managed to destroy the Republic while cultivator Caesar was governing it! Zhu Kun might be the apex of life form but at the end of the day he is just a beast. Even if a beast god is to a human god what a beast is to a man, the inverse is also true. It is refinement and enlightenment that set humans ahead, they are the image and semblance to the divine.
The manifested proof of said conceit is the enlightened man's ability to take by force what nature didn't deem fit to grant him – to counter and balance the [Fruit of Knowledge], a [Fruit of Power]. Golarion is teeming with lycanthropic curses. From werewolves of Ustalav, weretigers of Vudra, to wererats to all civilized cities' subways. I had ample opportunity to study it. More than that, my eldritch biotechnology scavenged from the minions of the Dominion of Black allowed me to grasp something akin to the Lineage Factor, the blueprint of life itself, present in all living organisms; that which enable the mass production of Smiles and helped said abomination to more easily violate lifeforms teetered to the natural order.
Now I was using it to create a universal zoan fruit that would manifest as the most appropriate beast to the eater based on temperament, favorite climate and other criteria to balance both nurture and nature to ensure it would always be considered an advantage. Better yet, by tying it to Hunger the eater's cultivation will refine his body in line with the primeval majesty toward mythological monsters that virtuous beasts enjoy. Neatly solving the issue of pedigree which rules this world.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Now just cross my fingers and hope no greedy asshole eats both of them and becomes a chimera… yeah, what are the odds? Right?... maybe I should place some safety features in this thing. Hell, the best thing about modern capitalist society is that everything tends to be designed to be idiot proof. I am the last person who should be tempting the Fates. That is why the insight of the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree was crucial to oversee this endeavor. At the end of the day I was just a horticulturist cultivator, my second-hand experience doesn't compare to the first hand one of a tree. The ability to endow specific intention to a fruit is something he knows more than me.
-//-
There is no rest for the wicked. Once I was properly healed from the strain of the heavenly flames rampaging inside me thanks to the serene power of the Bodhisattva Heart, I once more resumed my back-breaking labor. The help of my trusty Nature's Bounty I wiped the Bodhisattva Ancient Tree back to its prime.
Part of me was tempted to terraform the Ancient Wasteland Region but another saw the merit of such untamed wilderness. This was a refuge for living beings that couldn't exist in balance with nature anywhere else. Plus, this is the perfect defense against people trying to seize Fruits of Knowledge and Power. No, in the end it was decided that the Ancient Wasteland Region would stay as it is.
The same could not be said to the rest of the world. Having reached the apex of what a beast could be, Zhu Kun understood the merit of the Fruits of Knowledge as few ever could. The power of a Battle God Bloodline inevitably tins out and disperse until it disappears. This was a far more permanent solution. Even if it would cost the eater their place in the garden of Eden, her innocence and power, the long-term benefits far outstrip the costs. Indeed, neither of us would be surprised if a few thousand years from now resuming one's draconic form would be as difficult as achieving a human shape is today.
Zhu Kun graciously stepped up to the task of being a primitive ancestor that ensured his descendants would be free to be more by crushing anything that would threaten to make them less. It was a bittersweet thing, to be sure, but the most precious thing he learned in his journey might have been an introspective understanding of his own limits. His place among Heaven and Earth.
His Ancient Void Dragon tribe became a mess in his absence. Impertinent upstarts capitalized his disappearance to make fiefdoms for themselves, calling themselves dragon kings of the four cardinal directions. The Dragon God made them by example in a trashing so one sided that it didn't even merit mention; a king cobra making a meal of his lessers.
The place was truly lovely as well. It kind of reminded me of the Fire Nation, an equipment of volcanic tropical islands; reminiscent of Hawaii actually. Zhu Kun seems to feel similarly as well, his pneuma swelled at the sight of it after thousands of years apart. He was like Odysseus returning home after decades adrift from home. This, of course, has consequences. He was so stepped into my mysteries that his radiated majesty turned the place silver bright. A nice consequence of being a living [Dragon Line]. Something similar happened in Egypt with the birth of a new Pharaoh, revitalizing the pneuma of the Nile, making its flow revert course and fostering virtuous beasts.
The people of the Ancient Void Dragon tribe were overjoyed with the return of the rightful ruler. Despite the irregularities it was certainly an auspicious development. People looked at me like… well, like the higher power that I was. I had crushed and extinguished all the venerable clans, plundered their wealth and subjugated the entire catalogue of Heavenly Flames. Even if I wasn't a Battle God, Zhu Kun willing fealty to me despite his ascension was worrying in two fronts – I was his benefactor and I was still his better. An absurd yet credible fact, being a Battle God did not save the God Pill from me, after all.
There is a reason I call myself Tyrant Star. Once I stepped into the stage, I foreclosed the sky like the sun itself does – Some things cannot be inherited, they can only be taken – Under the yoke of Hope I can't help but to be too greedy. The kind of childish insolence that refuses to give up or compromise on anything. And that which does not bend breaks… or force the world to bend instead. Part of me feels like I was always meant to the Tyrant Realm, that is my tribulation earned… that is why instead of shying away from it I intend to catch lightning in my teeth.
The privilege of being in nine places at the same time ensures that I can take my time tutoring the ways of civilized society and higher culture to the people of the Ancient Void Dragon tribe at their own pace. They will be my main support block going forward after all. The tribe's innate command over lesser beasts ensures a permanent solution to the issue of disenfranchised enlightened beasts. No matter how weak, anyone with an omni-tool can access Reila's Logic network and mine my silver bright drachma. Use it to support herself and purchase services and goods. Pointing out all the advantages of civilized life was essential to cajole people used to simply taking from others up to everything they were worth then eating them into a more peaceful lifestyle.
Fortunately, princess Zi Yan's appetite proved to be the more typical approach of the rest of the clan toward food. Properly cooked meals, good drink, fancy clothes, comfortable dwellings, and great music did wonders to win them over. Abraham hierarchy of needs was a proved classic for a reason. My legitimacy came from more than the fact that I killed everyone that opposed me… even if in the end I did it, but also because I am supplying the infrastructure that underpin society.
If there is one thing I had to give to the denizens of the Dou Qi continent was that they were opportunistic by nature. Most of the void dragons wizened up to the direction the wind was blowing and how they could set things to ensure they were on top. Once I got the ball rolling things would sort themselves out by themselves. It was a pipedream to expect people raised in such a mercenary place to act out from the goodness of their heart. This realm is literally called Battle Aura Continent because strength was the only constant that ruled over it.
Reila is better at social engineering than me. Starting with the basics of the five moral foundations of care, reciprocity, loyalty, respect, and purity to establish a universal code of conduct and basic civility is already a monumental achievement worthy of a goddess. In time the Dou Qi continent will have its own set of Cardinal Virtues and its own cultivation subculture.
-//-
While things among the sapient beasts progressed swiftly the same could not be said among the human population. Ironically enough the staff of Jian Nan Academy who actually had good reason to hold a grudge against me since my actions that triggered the race to Tou Shen Mansion that destroyed their home were the ones most grateful to me due to my timely interference at the eleventh hour.
This paid dividends. Its headmaster, a powerful half-saint called Mang Tian Chi, was on a decade-long leave in order to further his cultivation. This was the only reason he wasn't present during the Venerable Alliance attack and why he wasn't killed. Even with the facility gone, with both headmaster and the students alive, the Jian Nan Academy can be reinstated… provided they find a sufficiently wealthy sponsor that is.
I didn't even bother pretending this wasn't colonization. My goal is to spread cultivation of virtue, something people are receptive to after my performance. My silky road style is a cosmopolitan approach to cultivation that thrives in a place such as Jian Nan Academy, which is famous in the mainland, being pursued by people from all over the continent.
In the Dou Qi Mainland, Academies are somewhat different from clans. If one joins a clan, he would not only be restricted by the clan but would also have to watch his every action as it would reflect back on the clan. An academy was different since all ties would be cut off after graduation, which actually works in my favor. This is similar to how outer members of Raging Heaven Cult operate, more like a loose association than a lifetime contract. Tsumiki still ventured to me often enough for me to know what to expect.
Of course, my favor came with some strings attached and enforced by binding vows. The Dou Qi Continent is still a dangerous place and it might stay so for a long time, maybe even forever to be honest. Rhetoric is such a versatile and useful tool to impart knowledge and accelerate learning that any institution of learning with a staff composed of philosophers feels like a straight jacket. Until the Academy has enough philosophers it will require my direct involvement, yes. Once more I resume my role as an educator; and here I thought my days beating impudent children into virtuous adults were behind me…
The worst was, I didn't mind. It was still counted as a positive experience compared to cleaning up after what remained of the Venerable Clans. Sometimes I really curse my ability to be in nine places at once. Due to the Battle God Bloodline the venerable clans were more like ethnic enclaves, every sect needed a servile population to take care of their needs and as recruitment pool and the venerable clans solved this issue by pushing their less talented members to these positions. Such arrangement is sustained through indoctrination, xenophobia, and a narrative of genetic superiority. Which means that I am willing to simply roll over because I won. Even after defeating their forces I still needed a solution for those blood relatives less they go underground and plot against me for the following thousand years.
The easiest way would be to simply kill them all… unfortunately this option is closed off to me by my virtuous heart… but at the same time ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves. Vae victis – woe to the vanquished. The Nihility Devouring Flame who can swallow all things once devoured the Tunnelling clan last patriarch and seized for himself their ability to devour other venerable clan's bloodline in order to preserve their own from being exhausted. That is how 2nd rank Heavenly Flame almost usurped the position of Hun Tiandi. Now I used the same power to personally extinguish every single Battle God bloodline from the Dou Qi Continent.
I am a son of Raging Heaven, after all. There is no security in a sound mind either. The prized knowledge accrued through the epochs also had to be excised. I would leave them with their lives and little else.
Pulling this off was a mess. While they had little power to resist me, they had a lot of grit and desperation, an awful cocktail. I hit all of them at the same time, setting up a customized curtain style barrier with my innate technique, manifesting as a wall of light looking like an aurora boreal. Then I set myself to the tedious task of scrubbing every single person there clean of what they held most worthy.
It was a cornucopia of Despair. A pandemonium as they fought in vain against a monster that they had no hope of overcoming. Their wales created a choir that ringed in my ear long after I was done. Their dwelling was left in ruin more by their own hand than by any action from my part. The sight of it was somehow more horrifying than cleansing by atomic fire could ever be. Their haunted gazes and shattered egos were like a vision of purgatory.
Most of it ended up being published in the Logic Consensus as well. People from across the entire continent watched in 4k what I did. Not the best way to come off as the nice guy but it certainly drives the point home. People were quickly to fall in line and start to tattle information about the fleeing ancient clansmen who anticipated my attack to flee while I was still nursing my injuries.
That is how I ended up in the Black Rock territory. An arid region full of deserts, and with Arabic architecture, clothing, and culture. The region is a cesspool of scum and villainy, over the ages countless forces struggle for supremacy without any real success. The Black Seal City looked like Old Cairo rather than anything remotely Chinese. The place was a rub of commerce, being the base of the greatest auction house of the region. A paradise for outlaws and a haven for the black market. The perfect place for a fleeing heiress, the prodigal daughter of Gu Yuan… I simply did not expect to find her accompanied by the dregs of the Xiao clan of all people.
-//-
Gu Xun Er, the only daughter of the now deceased patriarch of the Ancient clan. A prodigy born with the purest bloodline, she was a fourteen years old girl bearing the markings of a "jade beauty" – long jet-black hair, porcelain like skin, heart shaped face and onyx eyes. Despite all the gifts she had been born with, life proved hard for her as of late.
From what information I plucked from the minds of her clansmen she had been sent to infiltrate the Xiao clan when she was just a child to search for the Tou Shen Jade piece belonging to them… and promptly went native, betraying her family and warning the Xiao clan of the incoming doom soon to blacken their doorsteps as the Venerable Alliance came for the final puzzle piece… because I had forced their hands.
Most tragedies never see the light of the campfire, the Xiao clan fit is one such example. Its bloodline power had been extinct in a foolhardy ritual by its last true patriarch in a botched attempt to breakthrough into Battle God, hunted by the Soul Clan until its few remaining members were forced into hiding with the assistance of the Ancient clan who then turned on them once pity had run out and need forced their hands.
Now everything that remains of them is a gang of over dozen teenagers coming here searching refuge with their only remaining family. Xiao Ding and Xiao Li, the elder sons of the deceased Xiao Zhan who gave his life to buy enough time for them to escape… even then their prospects seem dim at the moment. The climate is rash, and people of the Black Rock region are even more wicked than in the rest of the continent. They had been robbed of everything they owned and were malnourished and weak, a capital sin in this lawless pit of vipers. If it wasn't for Xun Er they would already have been sold as slaves but even then, it took everything she had to keep their heads above water.
Poor girl was at her wits end, she didn't even notice me until I was right in front of her.
Her reaction was as expected. Her battle aura exploded from her body and her eyes burned golden as she used some forbidden technique to temporarily improve her standing. She certainly showed her pedigree yet she was still just a child and life on the run seldom gave her any time for her to cultivate. A used my rhetoric to gently extinguish her outburst like one snuff a candle… her fist was so small against my palm that my fingers were covering her forearm.
Her sudden action spurred the other children to action like a kicked anthill. Nothing of the former glory of the Xiao clan remains, their display clearly placed the lot of them as battle disciples, there was even a single ordinary boy coming my way with an improvised farming implement.
I had to give to the girl, while she struggled mightily to squeeze free of my grip, she still had the presence of mind to assess the situation and protect what truly mattered. "Stop everyone! Don't even think about fighting him! Focus on escaping! I will buy you as much time as possible!"
"No way!" Screamed the non-cultivator boy rushing me with a rusty farmer scalp. Undaunted by the obstacle to save his little sweetheart. How cute, puppy love. "I, Xiao Yan promised to my father I would take care of you as his last request! And he won't make me a liar-
"Enough." I said with a voice capable of rattling the heavens. While the cloudy night obfuscated my appearance there was nobody that would miss my voice by now. "You stop struggling too girl, these children will die without you to protect them. This is the end of the line. Cease your struggle. And that goes for you too boy, you will end up getting tetanus with that rusty thing!" I say as I summarily took it from his hands.
"Hey!" he complained but I was having none of that.
"Silence! Beggars can't be choosers and you lot are definitely in the indigent territory. Indeed, you are worth of pity. That is why I am going to fix you lost a filling meal, a washing room, and some new set of clothes. You lot will be gracious guests and accept my hospitality without complain. Then you will retire for the night and by sunbreak, when you are once again feeling like human beings, we will have a proper conversation. That is an order." I drive the point across by spreading the wings of my influence, making clear if I intended them harm nothing could protect them from me.
Bloody teenagers. It is Azula all over again, isn't it?
- Location
- washington
still not anywhere near bad as this xianxia world there legitmate first stage of cultivation cultivators with more arrogance than percy jackson greek gods.
- Location
- Brazil
True, the Bodisatva Ancient Tree is a genuinely cool character that enriched the setting. Using it as a one-time powerup was a waste.
The Ancient Tree is a very interesting character and I'm happy that it's sticking around to help out and be interesting.
The idea to use Heavenly Restriction is a good idea, Zagreus having issues with it due to Kokichi Muta makes sense given his past but being able to have control over it makes it very useful.
Making Zoan fruits isn't something I'd considered but it is very clever for how it'll buff people and effect society. He has the various tools to make it possible due to the research he's done and the stuff he's been exposed to. I'm curious what Form Zagreus himself would get.
Zhu Kun is putting his house in order and flexing his new status and nature.
Zagreus's society shaping is taking a bit but he's making an insane amount of progress, getting rid of bloodlines, shaping society to be better to make it so Virtues will be present and educating people to make a positive impact.
Looks like Zagreus is going to be dealing with teaching dumbass kids again he has a knack and fondness for doing so even if it annoys him sometimes.
The idea to use Heavenly Restriction is a good idea, Zagreus having issues with it due to Kokichi Muta makes sense given his past but being able to have control over it makes it very useful.
Making Zoan fruits isn't something I'd considered but it is very clever for how it'll buff people and effect society. He has the various tools to make it possible due to the research he's done and the stuff he's been exposed to. I'm curious what Form Zagreus himself would get.
Zhu Kun is putting his house in order and flexing his new status and nature.
Zagreus's society shaping is taking a bit but he's making an insane amount of progress, getting rid of bloodlines, shaping society to be better to make it so Virtues will be present and educating people to make a positive impact.
Looks like Zagreus is going to be dealing with teaching dumbass kids again he has a knack and fondness for doing so even if it annoys him sometimes.
Hmm I know it's still quite a bit away but I'm curious but are their anyway people/characters in particular that Zagreus will find or be interested in when he gets to the Percy Jackson verse? I can think of one or two such as Nico and Mr. D's twins but anyone else? Like Will or Magnus or Alabaster perhaps?
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You know I just had a thought.
We know that Xiao Yan was originally a transmigrator from a Earth.
Is it possible that he could be from JJK Earth similar to how Saito is from JJK Earth?
Xiao Yan would then actually have some idea of just who Zagreus actually is which could make things interesting.
We know that Xiao Yan was originally a transmigrator from a Earth.
Is it possible that he could be from JJK Earth similar to how Saito is from JJK Earth?
Xiao Yan would then actually have some idea of just who Zagreus actually is which could make things interesting.
- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
Even if he's not, he'll probably be the only one to recognize the Silk Road reference.
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Battle Through the Heavens - 10
- Location
- Brazil
Between my time as the warden of the Avatar gang and my tenure as a teacher in Jujutsu Tech I have raked over two decades as an educator. It is the second most defining occupation I performed after being a grave keeper. Humans are born whole but unconscious and as we form an awareness and construe a person as we grow it is possible to lose our way. That is why the perspective of children is so valuable – not because it is fresh but because it is a return to form. They hadn't quite mastered how to lie to themselves as adults had. Invaluable insight to anyone searching to realign oneself with their center, their Self.
Western methodology tends toward a decadent totalitarian dogmatism in the pursuit of purity of form. The nihilist born modern hedonism states that nothing is true and everything is permitted holds as its one sacred commandment the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Be it physical or spiritual… external or internal. That is how people – especially those who are eternal slaves of other's good opinion of them – can come up with the idea that they are owed validation from others. That when the voice of the innermost core screams at the top of it lugs one is betraying the highest aspirations of his soul, he pursues external acknowledgement to sooth his guilty conscience.
This is perhaps the greatest disparity in mindset, between ancient Greeks and the modern west. The Greek ethos operates on beliefs and assumptions with regard to aesthetics and ethics for which they had no rational basis for. Socrates, as the most rational of the Greeks, exposes this "great problem" and thereby condemns the existing social order of Greece like the gadfly that he is. He ventured single handed to disown the Greek character with utmost superiority and rigorousness, everything that spring "only by instinct". Beholding its insight and inferring from this an inner perversity and objectionableness of the existing condition. Therein lay the core conflict of the sophic realm, with the least and most Greek of all Greeks.
Dionysus, despite being a god of the marginalized and foreigners, also holds as his purview the very core of Greek identity – the sacred right to lie. What does it matter whether the cup is horn of ivory if it doesn't prevent a true son of raging heaven from enjoying its content? The Iliad and the Odyssey were penned by Homer after the apocalyptic collapse of the Bronze Age to preserve the oral records of his culture. In this aspect it is the Hellenic bible… well, the first Hellenic bible (the New Testament was written in Greek by Jews to counter the Hellenic colonization caused by roman occupation so I personally count but this is a topic for another time). A depository of the quintessential hierarchy of values that defined the Greek mindset. As far as the Hellenic world was concerned the ability to read both of these texts in its native Greek was what made someone Greek.
They contained the distillation of the Greek cultural character. From the glorification and desire for revenge – something that I myself am especially… particular about – to the right of falsehood as a defining aspect of the Greek personality: deceit, disguise, and winning through clever ruse. That is where Achilles and Odysseus come in, they are heroes because they commit to their desire to be the best and win by whatever means necessary in the pursuit of glory. Graeca Fides – Greek faith, the roman's cynical view on their colorful neighbors that entered their legal lingo as an expression to a worthless promise.
And yet this tragic contradiction is what makes it real. It grounds and affirms the material world who is so often disdained for a "Ideal world" by self-righteous self-described wisemen who fancy themselves as pursuers of the "truth". It is a common vice of weak hearted men to pursuit safety in monotonous routine, that is why they tend to create systems of value and then fall in love with them, pursuing to frame all the world in it rather than accepting the possibility that men did not exist in a universe with order deprived of an all-encompassing system where each person play their part in service to the greater whole.
The mere hint to the idea that there is no divine plan to comfort us in our darkest days is terrifying to any person to ever reach such a conclusion. It threatens to upend the special place in the universe we humans intrinsically believe we have and consequently it threatens our sense of self-worth. It is nihilism, the death of Hope. What precept Rher and Sulfur advocate through their mere existence. The reason I will kill and bury the two of them with my own hands…
Anyway, even if the world is insincere it is compelling. It inspires and fosters a person's best self in a life affirming disposition when faced with adversities. Indeed, so what if truth and fiction often conjoin? If the resulting story is one worth listening to, capable of stirring the heart toward virtue, then all the better. Even the transgression I performed by taking a name from a higher power can be considered a form of prayer and worthy of forgiveness and celebration.
It is a matter of Context. It is too difficult for modern people to take away the contemporaneous colored glasses and truly understand Greekness. It is a matter of transpiration, of lived experience. That is why when I was faced with this challenge once I started to tutor Megumi and Tsumiki in cultivation as the Greeks understand it, I took what I had learned from the Babylon shard to transmit to their infant souls through my rhetoric the tall tale of the Iliad and the Odyssey in a form so compelling and extravagant in its absurdity and incorrigible irreverence that they couldn't help but picture it in their mind eyes.
And the look of outrage on their faces when they finally I always tailor the story for maximum impact with the audience, a casual feat with an orphic heart sense, will forever be one of my most precious memories. That was the spirit which Odysseus addressed himself as Nobody to the cyclops. His consummated habit, his performative excellence to be equal to his circumstance through all means within his command, his ability to be everything he desired – the virtue of Pertinacity that is admired even by the gods, they smile when they think of it. All this is the Greek ideal, integral part of its identity.
The contradiction between appearance and reality was not felt, or rather it predated a morality that imposed a chasm between the two – the binarity between ivory and horn. When Odysseus lied to the cyclops he did not lie to himself. Not a meaning defined by a what but a who, who cares to know? It is a question of eminent practicality. Lie not as a sin or crime but a clever ruse to seize victory and through it glory. The Greek race of divinity is a highest calling to a transcendental purpose achieved living a heroic life. A life judged by others to be worth hearing about. Capable of enriching listeners and inspiring others toward similar glorious heights.
They are also great icebreakers and conversation starters with strangers. That is how I ended up reciting those tales I recorded by heart to a troop of refugee children to entertain their first real dinner of the last month.
The Venerable Alliance fell on the Xiao clan with a vengeance. From the twelve survivors of the Sad sound clan the five oldest were fourteen years old. The twin brother and sister pair Xiao Yu and Xiao Ning looked like the alter ego of each other, with matching brown hair and eyes. One Xiao Mei had Pink hair and red eyes while only Xiao Yan and Gu Xun Er looked anything typically Chinese.
They had been exhausted and their morale was at rock bottom so tales from faraway land was a perfect distraction from their own problems. I had created an oasis in this arid region with pools of clean water and ordered them to wash up and change their abused rags for fresh clothes provided by my garden while I prepared a Mediterranean meal from harvest of Nature's Bounty and some dairy and meat I purchased from the Tartarus Network.
Of course, I knew better than to expect them to not take this chance to flee so I manifested some of my Monument to Ego's spirit workers to keep a look on them. A product of garden cultivation, mystic garden spontaneously manifests a unique type of spirit whose purpose is to upkeep said garden since it is an extremely complex construct that manifests its master internalized understanding of the cycle and rules of nature in a self-contained microcosm that needs constant maintenance. They are a garden master most faithful familiars, a literal emanated extension of their own will and self that is endowed with sapience.
In a sense they are similar in nature to my muse though far more fungible and capable of manifesting physically. A garden cultivator has a hard limit of fifteen such familiars at the Artform level but cultivation of virtue coupled with my… unique circumstances has made me an exception among exceptions. By multiplying it over one hundred. Normally they all have the same phenotype, as if they are variants in a Gacha game, but I have seven castes, each one associated with a particular chakra and its deadly sin that I first studied back in my time as a grave keeper. The legacy of a misspent youth devouring foreign quintessence of powerful entities. After all those so-called sins to the soul that obstruct one from enlightenment are also capital virtues for the body without which life would simply cease.
Here I only manifested a couple of worker spirits from the Heart Chakra, the literal handmaidens of the divine daemon of my heart, managers of the sin of Envy.
Lovely ladies to be around in my opinion and friendly enough to not overwhelm the skittish traumatized children while they were most vulnerable. They even helped them with the unfamiliar Hellenic attire, the only thing I can produce spontaneously from my garden for obvious reasons.
In the end the night was a success at putting them into ease and the gang ate with gusto and listened with rapture attention until the lull of Hypnos dragged them into peaceful sleep. Sure, I had lots of questions for a lot of them but those could wait. Getting a shakedown is the last thing these kids need right now. And besides, there is someone else that I can take my answers from right now.
Once everyone was sound asleep, I used my command over the dead to force the ghost of the dead battle aura cultivator residing in Xiao Yan's necklace to manifest. While the spirit's concealment was air tight it became obvious that something was leeching the boy's vitality once he started to consume my ambrosia. To begin with it was strange that he was no cultivator at all but it seems this geezer is responsible for the boy's condition. I have had the misfortune of running across enough members of the Pill clan to recognize one of its members on sight. I even knew who this person was, his white robes and long white hair is pretty iconic. Yao Chen, a man once banished from the Medicine clan who became a famous alchemist with direct ties to the Pill Tower and the Falling Star Pavilion.
Not that it matters, I don't have much patience for impertinent ghosts. For all the shade I threw his way, Griffon had the right idea about suspicious ghosts living inside family heirlooms. Needless to say that I did not trust him at all. That is why I use my Labyrinth gaze I got from my fight with Baphomet to pierce through his mental defenses and peruse through the deepest recesses of his mind… and kind felt immediately bad about it.
It turned out that Yao Che isn't that bad… actually he is kind alright. Hell, as far as cultivators go is practically a saint! He was ostracized by the Pill clan because he had a very thin amount of Battle God blood within him so he set out to prove the clan wrong and became an alchemist known throughout the central plans. Despite his shitty up bring he has a joyful disposition and playful personality that wants the best for those he cherishes… and considering he ended dead because he was betrayed by his disciple I am starting to regret how heavy handed a approached I took with him considering I am partly to blame for his current predicament.
While it is true that he siphoned Xiao Yan's battle aura, it was a set up for a fateful encounter. Yao Chen needed help to reincarnate so he needed to find someone with strong spiritual power and the qualification to become a pill alchemist. Xiao Yan just happened to be the first to trigger all boxes. While the loss of cultivation caused all sorts of difficulties to the young man, Yao Chen intended to make up for him… and then I came along.
Between destroying the Pill Ancestor avatar, causing a spiritual backlash that hit all his descendants, I also took the Bone Chilling Flame (11th) from him. Worse, Yao Chen used the Flame mantra as his cultivation method so the backlash was especially severe. I literally knocked the poor man out cold.
I sincerely felt so bad that I decided to use the power of the Emperor Flame to revive the man and give him a new body free of charge. While he once had been a battle venerated, the loss of his Essence Flame made him a somewhat anemic one.
"I… never imagined my return to life would have been quite like… that." Yao Chen said with a labored breath. While better than dead he wasn't exactly in peak condition either, having his mind violated isn't particularly pleasant either. The man was reeling from trauma and stress but all cultivators are used to pain, he composes himself and does his best to perform a proper greeting to the scary man that seized his soul in hand and breathed life back into him. "I… this low cultivator greets his senior… I… am in your eternal debt for reviving me. Though it is improper from one who has died to linger, I still had unfinished business that I had to deal with in my own hands."
"And plus, spiritual bodies are quite boring compared to incarnated flesh." I say in good humor.
Despite his precarious situation Yao Chen couldn't help but smile even though it strained him." That too. To be honest… every day felt like an empty illusion… it was quite unpleasant."
"Then you should do your best so that you don't experience it again, don't you think?"
"Does… does this honorable senior have any suggestion in mind?" Yao Chen asks the right question, catching on quickly. Good thing that he is still quick on his feet.
"To be honest my time as a wandering hero is coming to a close and as the rightful successor of Wu Fou Taoist I have the responsibility to restore the Dou Qi Continent in proper shape. But this is too tall an order for a single man, even for me. And I could use a man with your talents, Yao Chen. What do you say? As an 8th rank alchemist your talent is worth respect, even by me. Whatever goal you have in mind I can help you achieve them as well."
"That… is really generous. Forgive me the disrespect but I have always been something of a problem child and flighty wanderer so I can't just accept at face value. I need to know, what precisely would you need my help with?"
"I want the Pill Tower."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I want the Pill Tower, the institution, its members, all of it. I want it under my thumb, serving my purposes."
"Well, considering it is you we are speaking of there is no questioning what you mean. I doubt you need anyone's help if it was a simple matter of conquering the Pill Tower by force. You want to buy it… and since I had once upon a time been invited to become an elder you want me to be your direct agent there." The white alchemist concluded. As a user of Flame Mantra he can guess the kind of power I can bring to bear with all the Heavenly Flame rank calendar.
The Pill Tower is a free organization on the continent that was formed by alchemists. This faction has existed since long ago. Even the alchemist tier system was created by them. Although this organization is somewhat loose, its reputation is extremely frightening. It is likely that there are hardly any factions on the entire Dou Qi continent willing to offend them.
To begin with alchemists are considered special because of the abnormal criteria needed to become one. This gives them the position to easily gather strong allies, to the point it is the only profession more prestigious than battle aura cultivator. The core of the Pill Tower is composed of old monsters with lots of favors from powerful people.
I have a fierce enough reputation by now that goading them into crossing me is no longer a option and my virtuous heart won't let me simply walk the path of the conqueror, crushing all beneath me just because I can. Having control of the Pill Tower is essential in my quest of… let's be honest here, I am conquering the place. Unlike most cultivators who only care refine their cultivation I directly interfering with ordinary people's lives. I am painting the Dou Qi continent in my colors- hell, I might even chance it's stupid name at some point just to make a point! I am already a tyrant in all but cultivation realm and even that isn't far off.
"Very well, I am willing to bend the knee and become your subordinate… but with one condition. I need to see to it that young Xiao Yan is compensated for all the trouble that I caused him. To have one's cultivation stripped is bad enough, in our world it is the same as losing one's self-worth, yet this strength had been stolen from him when his need for it was most dire. To my eternal shame I couldn't even interfere in his favor due to the spiritual backlash from what you did." Yao Chen begged while prostrated on his hands and knees… I really lucked out it seems. This man is really compassionate; a unicorn as far as cultivators are involved.
"Aren't you exaggerating? I doubt the power of a Battle Disciple – barely a cultivator at all – would have been of any use against the Ancient clan. If anything, you saved him by making it easy for him to be overlooked." I say words that I don't mean. Not for my sake but for the nosy boy who thought he could deceive me by feinting sleep.
"I doubt he shares your sentiment. The body can die only once but the spirit can die many times over… it is a living hell. I myself experienced something similar in the Pill clan due to my weak bloodline so I can't help but sympathize."
"Yeah… about that, sorry for killing your family." I say lamely, because there is no way to apologize for something like that. Especially when I don't mean it.
"Hahaha, what was that? Is this how you deal with your vanquished foes? Well, thank you anyway even if you don't mean it… my family embarked on an evil path and were punished by it. Those who despoil have no right to avoid justice… So, do you accept my request? Will you sponsor young Xiao Yan?"
"I don't know… why don't we ask the interested party first? What do you think, boy? Do you want to take shelter under my wing? Yao Chen is all but selling the clothes on his back in order to make up to you. Even if you recently met him this opportunity can't be understated. Once a man takes another as a pupil he becomes responsible for everything that follows – every success, achievement, and triumph… as well as your failures and shortcomings.
"If you choose to go along with it then whatever labor, trial, or tribulation you face in life, I, YOUR FATHER, will take as my own in your every burden. That I swear at the shore of the River Styx." I said to him as if every word from this sacred vow was personally witnessed by The Father in Raging Heaven. The oppressive gaze of all entities of the Abyss attracted by my words shrouded the clearing we rested in the witch hour as campfire took an eldritch pallor.
Yan slowly rose from his corner, carefully untangling himself from his slumbering sweet heart. The boy was tense like a coiled spring ready to burst. His eyes assessed me and Yao with trepidation and a cocktail of resentment and hope. He was way over his head and now the most important decision of his life had just been tossed on his lap.
"Well… that is certainly not what I expected. My father is Xiao Zan though, I would rather die than denounce him." The boy said as if barking a challenge. This was something he would never give up on. His deceased father was that precious to him.
"If you were the kind to do so I wouldn't have extended this proposition in the first place. Fair weather friends are no better than sycophant and both are worthless to me. The only reason I decided to indulge Yao Chen in the first place is because you have the qualifications for it."
"Qualifications?" Xiao Yan almost snorted in self loath and derision… at the moment looking every bit the fourteen years old orphan that he was. "What am I good for? My strength, my reputation, my self-esteem, my clan… I lost it all!" The boy half screamed half whaled and only the hand of my rhetoric prevented the rest from waking with his outburst. "I am worth nothing! I am no one at all…" He said, finally succumbing to his melancholy and whipping in frustration.
It was an ugly sight. For all my years wielding rhetoric like a hammer this was the only world that I found to express the emotion such a sight stirred in my virtuous heart. To take away someone's life in a sin, in a virtuous man it instinctive stir a revulsion. Only the mentally infirm and life denying ascetic, both criminals that search to push away man from its properly place at the center can truly celebrate the extinction of life… to take away someone's life in a terrible sin, something that even I will have to pay for some day, but to take away one's faith in the beauty of life is a unforgivable crime!
This is the sin of cultivators. When standing is its own assurance of success and the cruelest of our kind only grow stronger and more terrible with time then make of old cultivators in a profession where the best and brightest die young? What is the use of virtue when it is vice that spring everlasting? Cultivation only makes a man more than what he already is, humans have such wondrous… promises slumbering inside our souls. We, every single man and woman ever to be born, bear the potential to make the world a better place if only we dare to look beyond ourselves and listen to the voice of our highest aspirations. That is what it means to be the image and semblance of the divine. In a world, this small, what excuse do creatures as large as us have to leave it worse off in our passing?
I walked toward the young boy beaten down by the senseless cruelty of a coward too pathetic to turn their fangs toward anything that could remotely threaten them and sick obsession of old men too cowardly to go to any battle without the umbrella of the ladder we call cultivation. I placed my hands over his shoulders and forced him into his feet. "And that is why you are qualified, young Xiao Yan."
The weight of my worlds was such that he was temporarily shocked out of his funk, eyes silently pleading for a lifeline. For Hope.
"When a man is born the Fates weave his future and swaddle him in it. A man's reality is fixed, that is why he has only two options: to acquiesce to their design… or to defy it. To tempt the Fates in a mad act of defiance and earn their scorn. Men cultivate virtue so that they can cast off that swaddling weave. That is why it is character that defines the measure of a man, not standing." I say as I cupped his face and locked our eyes, my heart flame was incensed by my soaring spirit.
"Do you understand me?... I want you to say it." I ordered.
"I… I do understand." He said as a boy would, only parroting his elders. He would grasp it in time, for his own sake if nothing else.
"Good. A real man carries his own weight, a better one carries on the weight of others. I never had the pleasure of meeting Xiao Zhan but the fact you love him unconditionally tells me he never looked down on nor disowned you for your misfortune but instead carried on his fatherly duties exemplary… unto death. Xiao Yan, I faced the mightiest cultivators the continent has to offer and met their hateful gaze with nothing but the disdain that they deserved… and I will remember his name long after I have forgotten theirs.
"It is an unquestionable fact that I am partly to blame for his untimely fate. What I owed him, I now owe you. A boy your age needs a hand to guide you. I'll have to suffice."
In the Dou Qi continent battle aura defines one's very value. This is an untransmutable fact to all of its denizens. So for Xiao Yan to hear the man that now stands at its very top to denounce was like a physical blow. In hindsight it was obvious, a great tension, a burden settled on his back like a yoke was finally lifted. Those were the words Xiao Yan had wanted to hear his entire life. That the stupid ladder everyone was fruitlessly wasting away climbing wasn't worth the effort.
Like most systematic injustices it is something that privately irks but one can only denounce through great courage. Courage that most never gather. While he couldn't help but cry some more his tears were no longer ugly, I heard Yan's ragged breath hitching inside of him like he was finally filling his lungs to full capacity by reaching within himself and finding strength where there had been none before.
It wasn't a cultivator's breakthrough, and no outpouring of pneuma followed. It was more mundane than that. It was far more profound.
I smiled in turn at his new disposition, flames dancing behind my eyes. "Go sleep for now. You will need your strength for tomorrow."
He firmly nodded and returned to Xun Er's side for the night.
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
This chapter ended up far longer than I anticipated. I just felt like indulging in some prose due to my recent reading content. Said that I kind of liked it. It shows the character of the characters and also shows a little more about the finer details of Greek cultivation. I never explained how Megumi could even skip the shopic realm in the first place. Once he goes breaking bad he just needed the absolute commitment to be the best there ever was to become a hero.
This also explains how modern people could even become Greek cultivators. The same way people become christians, really. Zagreus eventually penned a rhetoric augmented version of the Iliad and Odyssey that even impart to the reader proficiency in the Greek language and "logos".
Western methodology tends toward a decadent totalitarian dogmatism in the pursuit of purity of form. The nihilist born modern hedonism states that nothing is true and everything is permitted holds as its one sacred commandment the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Be it physical or spiritual… external or internal. That is how people – especially those who are eternal slaves of other's good opinion of them – can come up with the idea that they are owed validation from others. That when the voice of the innermost core screams at the top of it lugs one is betraying the highest aspirations of his soul, he pursues external acknowledgement to sooth his guilty conscience.
This is perhaps the greatest disparity in mindset, between ancient Greeks and the modern west. The Greek ethos operates on beliefs and assumptions with regard to aesthetics and ethics for which they had no rational basis for. Socrates, as the most rational of the Greeks, exposes this "great problem" and thereby condemns the existing social order of Greece like the gadfly that he is. He ventured single handed to disown the Greek character with utmost superiority and rigorousness, everything that spring "only by instinct". Beholding its insight and inferring from this an inner perversity and objectionableness of the existing condition. Therein lay the core conflict of the sophic realm, with the least and most Greek of all Greeks.
Dionysus, despite being a god of the marginalized and foreigners, also holds as his purview the very core of Greek identity – the sacred right to lie. What does it matter whether the cup is horn of ivory if it doesn't prevent a true son of raging heaven from enjoying its content? The Iliad and the Odyssey were penned by Homer after the apocalyptic collapse of the Bronze Age to preserve the oral records of his culture. In this aspect it is the Hellenic bible… well, the first Hellenic bible (the New Testament was written in Greek by Jews to counter the Hellenic colonization caused by roman occupation so I personally count but this is a topic for another time). A depository of the quintessential hierarchy of values that defined the Greek mindset. As far as the Hellenic world was concerned the ability to read both of these texts in its native Greek was what made someone Greek.
They contained the distillation of the Greek cultural character. From the glorification and desire for revenge – something that I myself am especially… particular about – to the right of falsehood as a defining aspect of the Greek personality: deceit, disguise, and winning through clever ruse. That is where Achilles and Odysseus come in, they are heroes because they commit to their desire to be the best and win by whatever means necessary in the pursuit of glory. Graeca Fides – Greek faith, the roman's cynical view on their colorful neighbors that entered their legal lingo as an expression to a worthless promise.
And yet this tragic contradiction is what makes it real. It grounds and affirms the material world who is so often disdained for a "Ideal world" by self-righteous self-described wisemen who fancy themselves as pursuers of the "truth". It is a common vice of weak hearted men to pursuit safety in monotonous routine, that is why they tend to create systems of value and then fall in love with them, pursuing to frame all the world in it rather than accepting the possibility that men did not exist in a universe with order deprived of an all-encompassing system where each person play their part in service to the greater whole.
The mere hint to the idea that there is no divine plan to comfort us in our darkest days is terrifying to any person to ever reach such a conclusion. It threatens to upend the special place in the universe we humans intrinsically believe we have and consequently it threatens our sense of self-worth. It is nihilism, the death of Hope. What precept Rher and Sulfur advocate through their mere existence. The reason I will kill and bury the two of them with my own hands…
Anyway, even if the world is insincere it is compelling. It inspires and fosters a person's best self in a life affirming disposition when faced with adversities. Indeed, so what if truth and fiction often conjoin? If the resulting story is one worth listening to, capable of stirring the heart toward virtue, then all the better. Even the transgression I performed by taking a name from a higher power can be considered a form of prayer and worthy of forgiveness and celebration.
It is a matter of Context. It is too difficult for modern people to take away the contemporaneous colored glasses and truly understand Greekness. It is a matter of transpiration, of lived experience. That is why when I was faced with this challenge once I started to tutor Megumi and Tsumiki in cultivation as the Greeks understand it, I took what I had learned from the Babylon shard to transmit to their infant souls through my rhetoric the tall tale of the Iliad and the Odyssey in a form so compelling and extravagant in its absurdity and incorrigible irreverence that they couldn't help but picture it in their mind eyes.
And the look of outrage on their faces when they finally I always tailor the story for maximum impact with the audience, a casual feat with an orphic heart sense, will forever be one of my most precious memories. That was the spirit which Odysseus addressed himself as Nobody to the cyclops. His consummated habit, his performative excellence to be equal to his circumstance through all means within his command, his ability to be everything he desired – the virtue of Pertinacity that is admired even by the gods, they smile when they think of it. All this is the Greek ideal, integral part of its identity.
The contradiction between appearance and reality was not felt, or rather it predated a morality that imposed a chasm between the two – the binarity between ivory and horn. When Odysseus lied to the cyclops he did not lie to himself. Not a meaning defined by a what but a who, who cares to know? It is a question of eminent practicality. Lie not as a sin or crime but a clever ruse to seize victory and through it glory. The Greek race of divinity is a highest calling to a transcendental purpose achieved living a heroic life. A life judged by others to be worth hearing about. Capable of enriching listeners and inspiring others toward similar glorious heights.
They are also great icebreakers and conversation starters with strangers. That is how I ended up reciting those tales I recorded by heart to a troop of refugee children to entertain their first real dinner of the last month.
The Venerable Alliance fell on the Xiao clan with a vengeance. From the twelve survivors of the Sad sound clan the five oldest were fourteen years old. The twin brother and sister pair Xiao Yu and Xiao Ning looked like the alter ego of each other, with matching brown hair and eyes. One Xiao Mei had Pink hair and red eyes while only Xiao Yan and Gu Xun Er looked anything typically Chinese.
They had been exhausted and their morale was at rock bottom so tales from faraway land was a perfect distraction from their own problems. I had created an oasis in this arid region with pools of clean water and ordered them to wash up and change their abused rags for fresh clothes provided by my garden while I prepared a Mediterranean meal from harvest of Nature's Bounty and some dairy and meat I purchased from the Tartarus Network.
Of course, I knew better than to expect them to not take this chance to flee so I manifested some of my Monument to Ego's spirit workers to keep a look on them. A product of garden cultivation, mystic garden spontaneously manifests a unique type of spirit whose purpose is to upkeep said garden since it is an extremely complex construct that manifests its master internalized understanding of the cycle and rules of nature in a self-contained microcosm that needs constant maintenance. They are a garden master most faithful familiars, a literal emanated extension of their own will and self that is endowed with sapience.
In a sense they are similar in nature to my muse though far more fungible and capable of manifesting physically. A garden cultivator has a hard limit of fifteen such familiars at the Artform level but cultivation of virtue coupled with my… unique circumstances has made me an exception among exceptions. By multiplying it over one hundred. Normally they all have the same phenotype, as if they are variants in a Gacha game, but I have seven castes, each one associated with a particular chakra and its deadly sin that I first studied back in my time as a grave keeper. The legacy of a misspent youth devouring foreign quintessence of powerful entities. After all those so-called sins to the soul that obstruct one from enlightenment are also capital virtues for the body without which life would simply cease.
Here I only manifested a couple of worker spirits from the Heart Chakra, the literal handmaidens of the divine daemon of my heart, managers of the sin of Envy.
Lovely ladies to be around in my opinion and friendly enough to not overwhelm the skittish traumatized children while they were most vulnerable. They even helped them with the unfamiliar Hellenic attire, the only thing I can produce spontaneously from my garden for obvious reasons.
In the end the night was a success at putting them into ease and the gang ate with gusto and listened with rapture attention until the lull of Hypnos dragged them into peaceful sleep. Sure, I had lots of questions for a lot of them but those could wait. Getting a shakedown is the last thing these kids need right now. And besides, there is someone else that I can take my answers from right now.
Once everyone was sound asleep, I used my command over the dead to force the ghost of the dead battle aura cultivator residing in Xiao Yan's necklace to manifest. While the spirit's concealment was air tight it became obvious that something was leeching the boy's vitality once he started to consume my ambrosia. To begin with it was strange that he was no cultivator at all but it seems this geezer is responsible for the boy's condition. I have had the misfortune of running across enough members of the Pill clan to recognize one of its members on sight. I even knew who this person was, his white robes and long white hair is pretty iconic. Yao Chen, a man once banished from the Medicine clan who became a famous alchemist with direct ties to the Pill Tower and the Falling Star Pavilion.
Not that it matters, I don't have much patience for impertinent ghosts. For all the shade I threw his way, Griffon had the right idea about suspicious ghosts living inside family heirlooms. Needless to say that I did not trust him at all. That is why I use my Labyrinth gaze I got from my fight with Baphomet to pierce through his mental defenses and peruse through the deepest recesses of his mind… and kind felt immediately bad about it.
It turned out that Yao Che isn't that bad… actually he is kind alright. Hell, as far as cultivators go is practically a saint! He was ostracized by the Pill clan because he had a very thin amount of Battle God blood within him so he set out to prove the clan wrong and became an alchemist known throughout the central plans. Despite his shitty up bring he has a joyful disposition and playful personality that wants the best for those he cherishes… and considering he ended dead because he was betrayed by his disciple I am starting to regret how heavy handed a approached I took with him considering I am partly to blame for his current predicament.
While it is true that he siphoned Xiao Yan's battle aura, it was a set up for a fateful encounter. Yao Chen needed help to reincarnate so he needed to find someone with strong spiritual power and the qualification to become a pill alchemist. Xiao Yan just happened to be the first to trigger all boxes. While the loss of cultivation caused all sorts of difficulties to the young man, Yao Chen intended to make up for him… and then I came along.
Between destroying the Pill Ancestor avatar, causing a spiritual backlash that hit all his descendants, I also took the Bone Chilling Flame (11th) from him. Worse, Yao Chen used the Flame mantra as his cultivation method so the backlash was especially severe. I literally knocked the poor man out cold.
I sincerely felt so bad that I decided to use the power of the Emperor Flame to revive the man and give him a new body free of charge. While he once had been a battle venerated, the loss of his Essence Flame made him a somewhat anemic one.
"I… never imagined my return to life would have been quite like… that." Yao Chen said with a labored breath. While better than dead he wasn't exactly in peak condition either, having his mind violated isn't particularly pleasant either. The man was reeling from trauma and stress but all cultivators are used to pain, he composes himself and does his best to perform a proper greeting to the scary man that seized his soul in hand and breathed life back into him. "I… this low cultivator greets his senior… I… am in your eternal debt for reviving me. Though it is improper from one who has died to linger, I still had unfinished business that I had to deal with in my own hands."
"And plus, spiritual bodies are quite boring compared to incarnated flesh." I say in good humor.
Despite his precarious situation Yao Chen couldn't help but smile even though it strained him." That too. To be honest… every day felt like an empty illusion… it was quite unpleasant."
"Then you should do your best so that you don't experience it again, don't you think?"
"Does… does this honorable senior have any suggestion in mind?" Yao Chen asks the right question, catching on quickly. Good thing that he is still quick on his feet.
"To be honest my time as a wandering hero is coming to a close and as the rightful successor of Wu Fou Taoist I have the responsibility to restore the Dou Qi Continent in proper shape. But this is too tall an order for a single man, even for me. And I could use a man with your talents, Yao Chen. What do you say? As an 8th rank alchemist your talent is worth respect, even by me. Whatever goal you have in mind I can help you achieve them as well."
"That… is really generous. Forgive me the disrespect but I have always been something of a problem child and flighty wanderer so I can't just accept at face value. I need to know, what precisely would you need my help with?"
"I want the Pill Tower."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I want the Pill Tower, the institution, its members, all of it. I want it under my thumb, serving my purposes."
"Well, considering it is you we are speaking of there is no questioning what you mean. I doubt you need anyone's help if it was a simple matter of conquering the Pill Tower by force. You want to buy it… and since I had once upon a time been invited to become an elder you want me to be your direct agent there." The white alchemist concluded. As a user of Flame Mantra he can guess the kind of power I can bring to bear with all the Heavenly Flame rank calendar.
The Pill Tower is a free organization on the continent that was formed by alchemists. This faction has existed since long ago. Even the alchemist tier system was created by them. Although this organization is somewhat loose, its reputation is extremely frightening. It is likely that there are hardly any factions on the entire Dou Qi continent willing to offend them.
To begin with alchemists are considered special because of the abnormal criteria needed to become one. This gives them the position to easily gather strong allies, to the point it is the only profession more prestigious than battle aura cultivator. The core of the Pill Tower is composed of old monsters with lots of favors from powerful people.
I have a fierce enough reputation by now that goading them into crossing me is no longer a option and my virtuous heart won't let me simply walk the path of the conqueror, crushing all beneath me just because I can. Having control of the Pill Tower is essential in my quest of… let's be honest here, I am conquering the place. Unlike most cultivators who only care refine their cultivation I directly interfering with ordinary people's lives. I am painting the Dou Qi continent in my colors- hell, I might even chance it's stupid name at some point just to make a point! I am already a tyrant in all but cultivation realm and even that isn't far off.
"Very well, I am willing to bend the knee and become your subordinate… but with one condition. I need to see to it that young Xiao Yan is compensated for all the trouble that I caused him. To have one's cultivation stripped is bad enough, in our world it is the same as losing one's self-worth, yet this strength had been stolen from him when his need for it was most dire. To my eternal shame I couldn't even interfere in his favor due to the spiritual backlash from what you did." Yao Chen begged while prostrated on his hands and knees… I really lucked out it seems. This man is really compassionate; a unicorn as far as cultivators are involved.
"Aren't you exaggerating? I doubt the power of a Battle Disciple – barely a cultivator at all – would have been of any use against the Ancient clan. If anything, you saved him by making it easy for him to be overlooked." I say words that I don't mean. Not for my sake but for the nosy boy who thought he could deceive me by feinting sleep.
"I doubt he shares your sentiment. The body can die only once but the spirit can die many times over… it is a living hell. I myself experienced something similar in the Pill clan due to my weak bloodline so I can't help but sympathize."
"Yeah… about that, sorry for killing your family." I say lamely, because there is no way to apologize for something like that. Especially when I don't mean it.
"Hahaha, what was that? Is this how you deal with your vanquished foes? Well, thank you anyway even if you don't mean it… my family embarked on an evil path and were punished by it. Those who despoil have no right to avoid justice… So, do you accept my request? Will you sponsor young Xiao Yan?"
"I don't know… why don't we ask the interested party first? What do you think, boy? Do you want to take shelter under my wing? Yao Chen is all but selling the clothes on his back in order to make up to you. Even if you recently met him this opportunity can't be understated. Once a man takes another as a pupil he becomes responsible for everything that follows – every success, achievement, and triumph… as well as your failures and shortcomings.
"If you choose to go along with it then whatever labor, trial, or tribulation you face in life, I, YOUR FATHER, will take as my own in your every burden. That I swear at the shore of the River Styx." I said to him as if every word from this sacred vow was personally witnessed by The Father in Raging Heaven. The oppressive gaze of all entities of the Abyss attracted by my words shrouded the clearing we rested in the witch hour as campfire took an eldritch pallor.
Yan slowly rose from his corner, carefully untangling himself from his slumbering sweet heart. The boy was tense like a coiled spring ready to burst. His eyes assessed me and Yao with trepidation and a cocktail of resentment and hope. He was way over his head and now the most important decision of his life had just been tossed on his lap.
"Well… that is certainly not what I expected. My father is Xiao Zan though, I would rather die than denounce him." The boy said as if barking a challenge. This was something he would never give up on. His deceased father was that precious to him.
"If you were the kind to do so I wouldn't have extended this proposition in the first place. Fair weather friends are no better than sycophant and both are worthless to me. The only reason I decided to indulge Yao Chen in the first place is because you have the qualifications for it."
"Qualifications?" Xiao Yan almost snorted in self loath and derision… at the moment looking every bit the fourteen years old orphan that he was. "What am I good for? My strength, my reputation, my self-esteem, my clan… I lost it all!" The boy half screamed half whaled and only the hand of my rhetoric prevented the rest from waking with his outburst. "I am worth nothing! I am no one at all…" He said, finally succumbing to his melancholy and whipping in frustration.
It was an ugly sight. For all my years wielding rhetoric like a hammer this was the only world that I found to express the emotion such a sight stirred in my virtuous heart. To take away someone's life in a sin, in a virtuous man it instinctive stir a revulsion. Only the mentally infirm and life denying ascetic, both criminals that search to push away man from its properly place at the center can truly celebrate the extinction of life… to take away someone's life in a terrible sin, something that even I will have to pay for some day, but to take away one's faith in the beauty of life is a unforgivable crime!
This is the sin of cultivators. When standing is its own assurance of success and the cruelest of our kind only grow stronger and more terrible with time then make of old cultivators in a profession where the best and brightest die young? What is the use of virtue when it is vice that spring everlasting? Cultivation only makes a man more than what he already is, humans have such wondrous… promises slumbering inside our souls. We, every single man and woman ever to be born, bear the potential to make the world a better place if only we dare to look beyond ourselves and listen to the voice of our highest aspirations. That is what it means to be the image and semblance of the divine. In a world, this small, what excuse do creatures as large as us have to leave it worse off in our passing?
I walked toward the young boy beaten down by the senseless cruelty of a coward too pathetic to turn their fangs toward anything that could remotely threaten them and sick obsession of old men too cowardly to go to any battle without the umbrella of the ladder we call cultivation. I placed my hands over his shoulders and forced him into his feet. "And that is why you are qualified, young Xiao Yan."
The weight of my worlds was such that he was temporarily shocked out of his funk, eyes silently pleading for a lifeline. For Hope.
"When a man is born the Fates weave his future and swaddle him in it. A man's reality is fixed, that is why he has only two options: to acquiesce to their design… or to defy it. To tempt the Fates in a mad act of defiance and earn their scorn. Men cultivate virtue so that they can cast off that swaddling weave. That is why it is character that defines the measure of a man, not standing." I say as I cupped his face and locked our eyes, my heart flame was incensed by my soaring spirit.
"Do you understand me?... I want you to say it." I ordered.
"I… I do understand." He said as a boy would, only parroting his elders. He would grasp it in time, for his own sake if nothing else.
"Good. A real man carries his own weight, a better one carries on the weight of others. I never had the pleasure of meeting Xiao Zhan but the fact you love him unconditionally tells me he never looked down on nor disowned you for your misfortune but instead carried on his fatherly duties exemplary… unto death. Xiao Yan, I faced the mightiest cultivators the continent has to offer and met their hateful gaze with nothing but the disdain that they deserved… and I will remember his name long after I have forgotten theirs.
"It is an unquestionable fact that I am partly to blame for his untimely fate. What I owed him, I now owe you. A boy your age needs a hand to guide you. I'll have to suffice."
In the Dou Qi continent battle aura defines one's very value. This is an untransmutable fact to all of its denizens. So for Xiao Yan to hear the man that now stands at its very top to denounce was like a physical blow. In hindsight it was obvious, a great tension, a burden settled on his back like a yoke was finally lifted. Those were the words Xiao Yan had wanted to hear his entire life. That the stupid ladder everyone was fruitlessly wasting away climbing wasn't worth the effort.
Like most systematic injustices it is something that privately irks but one can only denounce through great courage. Courage that most never gather. While he couldn't help but cry some more his tears were no longer ugly, I heard Yan's ragged breath hitching inside of him like he was finally filling his lungs to full capacity by reaching within himself and finding strength where there had been none before.
It wasn't a cultivator's breakthrough, and no outpouring of pneuma followed. It was more mundane than that. It was far more profound.
I smiled in turn at his new disposition, flames dancing behind my eyes. "Go sleep for now. You will need your strength for tomorrow."
He firmly nodded and returned to Xun Er's side for the night.
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
This chapter ended up far longer than I anticipated. I just felt like indulging in some prose due to my recent reading content. Said that I kind of liked it. It shows the character of the characters and also shows a little more about the finer details of Greek cultivation. I never explained how Megumi could even skip the shopic realm in the first place. Once he goes breaking bad he just needed the absolute commitment to be the best there ever was to become a hero.
This also explains how modern people could even become Greek cultivators. The same way people become christians, really. Zagreus eventually penned a rhetoric augmented version of the Iliad and Odyssey that even impart to the reader proficiency in the Greek language and "logos".
I could feel that you read something new especially with that nihilist born modern hedonism paragraph. I always find it really cool when authors inject things that they enjoy into their works. Like a programmer writing about coding philosophies and how they could fit in a magic system, or a history buff writing about the similarities between our world and their written world.
It's always fun.
It's always fun.
- Location
- Brazil
It's not really new. Zagreus is fighting Sulfur, ego sadomasochist evil Jesus, his story always had that kind of profile. But I was revieing some sources building Tanyia's character profile since people have the habit of misunderstand her in fanfics. The whole reason she earned Being X's atention was when she, then he, called him a demon because a truly benevolent god would never create a world with suffering. Ironicaly enough such a take, the question of suffering is the focus of both modern philosophy as well as old religion.
Dionysus was the answer the greeks found to justify it, as the god was torn apart by Titans that then became humanity he became the god of religious rapture, his manifestation indicated breaking down of the bondaries of individuality for comunal transcendence; the very ethimology of religion mean to "make whole" after all. The greeks tackled the question of suffering by affirming that this life is so joyous that it is worth living despite suffering.
In the other hand Gnosticism outright rejected this world and affirmed that the goal of spiritual pursuits was for the sake of "another world". They even says the god that created the material world full of suffering wans't the True God but Demiurgue, a evil entity, recreating Tanyia's original argument to Being X. It was a major treat to early christianity and declared heresy.
Socrates then that mentored Plato and funded metaphysics was responsible for introducing this concept that pushed people away from the material world. Friedrich Nietzsche who is "the last disciple of Dionysus" pointed him in contempt for it since the "sickness of nihilism" that was metastazing in scientific Asceticism that treaten man's mental respect for itself by taking perverse joy in destroying all meaning. Think of Rick Sanches, the guy is the living embodiment of "nothing matter, everything is permited". His intelect did not liberate him like some optimists thought science would do but instead just enabled his worst self destructive impulses.
- Location
- Brazil
why don't you suggest something? It certainly would be fun to see what people come up with.