Book 5: Chapter 26: Celestial Vista
The impulse to start reading what Sen recognized as a full-blown, if highly condensed, alchemy treatise almost overwhelmed him. The pressure of that two-month deadline bore down on him as well, but a tinge of wisdom had crept into Sens thinking since his days on the mountain. Regardless of what his low-level panic told him, starting that day wasnt going to help. He was mentally drained from the journey and everything hed done on it. Fighting all of those spiders, to say nothing of the dragon, had taken a toll on both his qi and state of mind. It wasnt regret precisely. He didnt initiate those conflicts. He had simply ended them with brutal decisiveness. Once more, though, the scale of the death and destruction weighed on him. Sen wanted to be more than that.
So, he set aside his instincts to begin and forced himself to take the rest of the day off from everything that wasnt critical to his survival. He didnt train with the sword or spear. He didnt try anything new with his qi or cultivation. He didnt even let himself think about what Auntie Caihong had taught him. You have two months for all of that, he reassured himself. Give yourself until tomorrow morning to just rest. So, he sat beneath a tree near the galehouse and cultivated. Dinner was an extravagant affair with several kinds of meat and vegetables, a stir-fry, soup, and even some basic pastries that he wasnt entirely sure had proper names. Falling Leaf pounced on the food with a level of glee that bordered on abandon. Sen was more restrained but ate at least as much as she did. Hed need his strength.
When the day wound down, he retreated to his bedroom with the manual in hand. He put it down on a stone table hed created when it became clear that the room needed some kind of flat surface for temporary storage. A sigh of mild relief escaped him when Sen dropped onto the bed. It wasnt one of physical comfort. The bed was still stone, after all, even if it did hold a makeshift mat stuffed with wool and a sizeable pile of blankets. Rather, he felt happy to be back in a place that was his. The galehouses on the road were nice because they reminded him of this place. Coming back, though, he saw the little quirks that made this galehouse into his galehouse. There were little striations of black and dark green in the rock of the wall. There were hooks of stone that grew out of one wall where he could hang spears or swords.
He even had a beast core sitting on the stone table. It was one of the cores that had held divine qi, but the qi had been used up. Now, it was just a sphere of pure white shot through with reds and oranges that reminded Sen of sunset. They were tiny things, trivial really, but they were the things that made this place home for him, or as close as he was going to get for the next several years. Once the good feelings at being home faded into the mental background for him, though, his fingers itched to open that alchemy manual. His eyes kept drifting over to it, as though drawn by some kind of visual gravity. It took an effort of will to drag his gaze away each time. He stayed on the bed for almost twenty minutes before it became clear that no amount of positive thinking about relaxing for a night was going to help. Abandoning his bedroom and the galehouse completely, he strolled out into the night.
He did a casual sweep of the area with his spiritual sense out of habit. He was looking for spirit beasts of which he found none. What he did find was Fu Ruolan. Frowning, he made his way over to where she was just standing and staring up into the night sky. He recalled Falling Leafs suggestion that the woman might actually be insane. If she was caught in the grips of a moment of insanity, Sen should just leave her be. Otherwise, she might turn her power on him. Even at his very best, he didnt think he could stand her off for long, and he wasnt at his very best. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor in that particular case, he turned to walk away.
Did you need something, Lu Sen? asked Fu Ruolan in a calm, collected voice.
I No, not particularly, said Sen, realizing it was true as the words left his lips. I didnt even know you were out here until a minute ago.
Is it so unimaginable that I might enjoy the night air and gazing on the splendor of the heavens?
The question left Sen feeling more than a little awkward. Up until that moment, he would have considered that unimaginable. He could easily imagine her studying the stars and looking for insights. He could imagine her using the subtle change in qi that happened when night fell for some kind of experiment. The idea that she might just want to take a walk and look at the night sky seemed too mundane for someone at her cultivation level.
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It just seems too he tried to find a diplomatic way to put it.
Fu Ruolan sniffed. Mortal?
Yes, admitted Sen. It seems too mortal for a nascent soul cultivator.
And should such simple mortal pleasures be denied to me simply because Im a cultivator? Why should any of us find the beauty of the heavens beneath our notice? Do you find the sight of the heavens trivial? she asked.
Sen turned his gaze upwards and just looked at the sky for the first time in what felt like centuries. He wasnt scanning for threats or evaluating the weather. He was just looking at that impossibly vast expanse of stars. He considered the moon that hung low on the horizon. It was a thin crescent of light that looked huge, although he knew it would seem much smaller as it slid across the night sky. That celestial vista asked nothing from him. It didnt even know about him. There was a comfort in that knowledge. To the night sky, he would always be anonymous, just a tiny, frail observer that it neither acknowledged nor troubled. That was a relationship he could rely on to remain fixed and firm until the day he ascended. And it provided so much in return. The night sky would always be beautiful in its cold, eternal way.
No. I dont find it trivial, answered Sen as he stepped up next to Fu Ruolan.
The nascent soul cultivator glanced at him before returning her gaze to the sky above. They stood there like that for nearly an hour, each lost in their own thoughts and concerns. It was Fu Ruolan who finally broke the near-trance that Sen had dropped into while he stared at the stars. She turned to him and lifted an eyebrow.
Id have thought youd be elbow-deep in alchemy by now.
Sen shook off his dazed mental state. The temptation is there. I want to go open that manual this very second.
Why dont you?
Sen didnt speak immediately but gave himself time to frame the answer. Not all work is equal. Were cultivators. Were trained to push hard and keep pushing. I dont think you can advance without that mindset.
Agreed, said Fu Ruolan.
But pushing too hard at the wrong time can set you back even more. You can harm yourself. You can develop wrong assumptions. Alchemy is subtle and complex. You cant master it with a brute-force approach of constant practice. You need stillness in your mind and calm in your heart. I dont have either right now.
I see, said Fu Ruolan, revealing nothing of her thoughts. So, what will you do?
Ill sleep. Ill meditate. Maybe Ill cook us all overblown meals that we all know we dont need. Ill do whatever I need to do to find the right state of mind. Until then, theres no point in even cracking the cover open on that manual.
Fu Ruolan watched him without uttering a word for so long that Sen finally offered her a bow and turned to leave.
Lu Sen, said Fu Ruolan, halting his steps. More than one cultivator has failed at the bottleneck between core formation and the nascent soul stage because they could not differentiate between knowledge and wisdom. It is not enough to know things. If knowledge alone could bridge that gap, there would be no bottleneck. You must move beyond knowledge and into understanding. Some of that understanding is about qi, cultivation, techniques, and the like. Yet, just as much of it is about understanding yourself. Your strengths, your failings. Its also about understanding the needs of a situation.
You could have taken that manual and rushed forward. Many would have, blindly confident that they could overcome any obstacles without regard to the needs of the situation or their own weaknesses in the moment. You did not, despite the rather potent encouragement I placed in your path.
Sen frowned. A test, then?
In a way, and if you choose to see it that way. I saw it as an opportunity for us both. It was an opportunity for you to see the truth of the situation clearly. It was an opportunity for me to see if you would.
And now that weve both seen? asked Sen.
She shrugged. We both understand things now that we didnt yesterday. Isnt that enough of a boon?
Sen cocked his head to one side before he nodded. I suppose it is.
Three months, said Fu Ruolan, turning her eyes skyward again. You have three months to complete the pill.
Sen froze. It didnt sound like much. It might have sounded like nothing to someone else. Sen knew better. Two months had never been enough time to learn what that manual contained. He knew enough about what it contained to know that it would have been impossible. Three months, though? That shifted things from the impossible to the possible. Not easy. It wasnt going to be anything even close to easy, but it was possible. Sen offered Fu Ruolan another bow.
As you say, Fu Ruolan.
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