Artorian skipped rounds and rounds of steps he would have ordinarily have loved to climb for the sake of nostalgia alone. No. There was no pleasant welcome to be found here. His feet created an indentation into the rock as he landed before ‘the gates’.
A snoozing D-rank seven kept it propped open with a foot, his round straw hat covering the snoring face. The gate itself was dilapidated. The proud cyan paint had faded, and the sun-bleached wood had chipped. What was happening?
Moro on his shoulder or not, Artorian took a powerful stance and repressed his Aura-effects so that he could use the energy elsewhere. The muscle in his body bulged and strained, his leg power skyrocketing. A calm intake of breath followed an explosive outburst of power as a spinning back kick collided with the door.
A cacophonous *gong* resounded, as if a steel beam had just struck a church bell. The metal-lined interior of the door exploded in fractured shards right off its hinges, blasting into the introductory courtyard. The heavy wooden frame skidded to a screeching halt only to catch fire from the sparks the grinding metal had created.
A fitting fate. The old man’s leg remained outstretched as he stood flamingo-planted upon the ground. The additional weight of the beast used for extra balance. The door ‘guard’ fell on his face before scrambling to his feet, ears ringing.
“Wh… stay where you are, villainous scum! There will be no entry to Master Pigong’s personal holy grounds! Students, assemble and throw this miscreant out!” The guard crossed his arms, still groggy as he found his footing. He wondered where part of the gate had gone. What was it doing burning in the courtyard?
Students stood paralyzed in the open courtyard as they watched an old man with an extremely long beard return to a standing position. They didn’t know what to make of an expert dressed in clothing made of petals, with a well-known apex predator hauled over the shoulder. They weren’t going to do an abyssal thing, and most of them crossed their arms in an ‘X’ at the door guard.
“Impudent mongrels. I, mid-rank instructor Fei-jing will remind you why you obey me and take my lessons! Chi-breathing exercises, all of you! I, the great Fei-jing, shall vanquish this…”
*Paf*! Fei-jing went flying in a twisting spiral as a shining construct of hard-light mimicking the back of Artorian’s hand swatted him through the air. The instructor’s slippers flew from his feet and landed in the place he’d been boasting. A crash informed them all that he’d smashed face-first in the nearby crates. Herbs spilled from the broken barrels, and Artorian stepped into the courtyard, calm as a fiddle now that he’d blown off a little steam.
He didn’t like what he saw. “Students?”
While he was asking a rhetorical question, the students who had gathered in the courtyard from all the loud noise didn’t understand it as such. They took it as a question to their status. Seeing as their direct instructor had just been backhanded by might that wasn't seen outside of the high-instructors, they clasped open palm-to-fist and bowed. This was not someone they wanted to cross. “Students greet unknown Master!”
He blinked at them. “None of that now. I’m but a student myself… although if this is the caliber things have sunk to, I may indeed have some teaching to do. My list grows ever longer. Where are Masters Sho-lin, Fen-que, and Diomedes?”
The highest-ranking student stepped forth. “Honored Master! This student shall speak for the class. Honored Master! Those names are not known to us!”
The frown on Artorian’s face spread, and the students bowed deeper as result with the head speaker retreating back to his position. Learning through fear? Oh, he didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. Artorian walked over to the barrels and laid the body of the Moro on top of the supposed mid-class instructor, the name of whom he’d already forgotten. He sighed and got his head in the game. When building a structure, you started with the foundation. For a school, the foundations were the students. All else could come only if you had those willing to learn.
Striding back to the bowing head student, he inspected the boy that could not be more than eighteen and put a hand on his fearfully balled fist. He hadn’t dared move while the Master approached. “Open this up and stand straight, my boy. You’re going to hurt your back. The rest of you as well. Come now. Stand and relax, this isn’t good for your postures.”
He kept a hand on the head student, the status of which he discerned by the stripes on his belt. The practice Gi was too dirty to divine rank from. It looked like they’d been forced to work in mines or something! When the head student relaxed, it was done with much confusion. The other students were wondering why they weren't being attacked.
“My name is… Artorian. Call me Artorian. Not Master. Just Artorian. I am not your better. I am only a fellow student. Now tell me what happened here in the forty to fifty years I’ve been gone, in as much detail as is available to you.”
The head student made a motion to put his palm-to-fist again, but was stopped by the grandfather. Artorian’s expression was no longer one of anger or irritation, but one of dire concerns. These youngsters were here to learn, and they’d been abused. He’d not have it.
“M…” His hesitating hand was squeezed by Artorian, who was not interested in being called by the term of their oppressors.
“Please, my boy… had he lived, I would have had a son your age. Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be for either of us. You smell of dampness, and a mine.”
Cycling Essence to his eyes told Artorian plenty. The hidden bruises on their bodies. The purple lines around their necks. The scab marks on their bloodied knees. “Tell grandfather what’s been happening here.”
With a swallow and a trembling lower lip, the boy tried to speak. The grip he took on Artorian’s inner robe only tightened. They’d been conditioned not to do this exact thing; they weren’t allowed to speak freely! They’d be punished!
The head student found his face pressed into the old man’s shoulder, the back of his skull gently held as a tapping hand brushed across his shoulder blades. Artorian looked up, speaking without pause. “Can anyone tell me the tale? Anyone?”
A hand rose in the back, and the crowd of shaken students parted. “Yes, my dear?”
The maybe twelve-year-old girl was glued to the spot from the attention. The grandfather held out a hand for her, inviting her to move. She took hesitant steps forwards, but that’s all she managed. “Could… could I ask a question?”
The grandfather nodded slowly so they could all see, and verbally confirmed the movement. “Of course you can, my dear, anytime. What is your question?”
She looked around at the other scared gazes glassily returning her uncertain stare, “That golden light… was that you? Was that Chi magic?”
The confusion was apparent on Artorian’s face. “That’s not what it’s called, but I think I understand your meaning. You meant to ask me if what you saw is a technique being used? The answer to that is yes, and…”
He stopped. They were giving him the look. The look that screamed that nothing of what he was saying was known to them. “I see… can I ask something in return?”
The girl nodded, but the grip on her practice Gi was tight.
“Would you like to see what Chi can really do?” A glint of hope blossomed in the glaze of her dulled eyes, and she nodded again.
Artorian looked down at the head student, who was ready to be let go. Care was not something he’d been afforded in a very long time. The allowance to be weak, to show it, to be allotted freedom of emotion and action was… the lad didn’t understand it anymore.
The Aura Artorian had been repressing glimmered, then blazed to life as he extended his presence out the full eighty-eight feet he could currently muster. He pressed his hands behind the small of his back and stood, letting the starlight lance the filth, dirt, and misery out of their clothes and off the top layer of their skin. It didn’t replace a bath, but it helped.
Their bruises knit; the purple lines faded to red, then pink, then n
othingness. Their pain faded and the cuts on their hands closed as they all gained a shared sense of wonder at the living sunshine before them.
When the elder eased off his Aura and dampened the shine it was giving off. A shine those within eighty-eight feet were completely surrounded by as their environment turned resplendent. Hope rekindled in each student. Now that he had their attention, without the fear, he tried again, “Hello everyone. My name is Artorian, and I’ll be staying here a while. If you’d like to learn of Chi and its uses. I will teach you.
“If you’re here for the Academy knowledge, I will teach you. If you’re here to learn anything I have wisdom on, I will teach you. Do not call me Master. For I am not your better; I am merely stronger. That does not entitle me to your respect or fear.” He smiled at the crowd, and finally his heart felt a weight drop away. They smiled back. “Now could I please be told what’s been going on? Who can tell me?”
A hundred hands shot toward the sky.
Good.
Chapter Thirty-One
The story from the students made Artorian reach maximum emotional capacity.
He hid his absolute lividity behind a fake smile, but his surroundings were heating up in response to his emotional state. Specifically, fire Essence in his Aura was reacting to him, similar to how Ember’s Aura reflected her emotional state. It was a mechanism to cope that she had taught him, and it did actually help.
The heat was the physical representation of Essence expanded into the world, and the outpour of power helped his overflowing emotions. It felt liberating to let his energy be one with his state of being, though it was dangerous to do so unchecked.
“So… if I understand you correctly… the Academy is a fancy name for little more than a labor camp. People get dumped here, swindled, and tricked to come here due to its ancient reputation. Yet the place has entirely fallen to shambles… the Masters that normally upheld the order have disappeared; one every ten years. Finally, the current Headmaster is an unsavory unknown.”
That was terrible news. From how he now understood ranks, Diomedes had been a middling C-rank, and the others had been in the low C-ranks. He’d been hopeful to have a peer to speak with… but it was not to be. Instead, there was housekeeping to do.
It seemed the current Headmaster was possibly in the C-ranks, given the explanations. Artorian deftly stepped over to the name-didn’t-matter lesser instructor, moved the Moro, and picked the unconscious man up. “Could someone state a redeeming quality of this one, or any good he’s done for you all?”
“Anyone?” The response was resounding silence. “I understand.”
Artorian tossed him off the mountain. Surprised and full of disbelief at what had just happened, the students ran to the edge to peer over it. Some saw the mid-grade miscreant break the cloud layer, gasping with hands in front of their mouths. Did… did the old man just…? The grandfather didn’t even lose his smile as he turned back to the students.
“I require some volunteers to help me with something. I’m going up, and cleaning house. I need a few students to come along and rescue the remaining students on the higher tiers. I can’t imagine life is any better for them. Would anyone-”
The entire crowd stepped forward. He hadn’t expected such a powerful group response. “All of you... ?”
The head student remained the voice for the class. “All of us. Our lives were… not worth living. That guard was there to prevent our escape, not teach us. Then an old M… Grandfather… shows up and mends our wounds. He treats us kindly, offers to teach us rather than demand we obey. Like we’re real people. People that matter. He asks if any of us want to help our friends, and for some of us, our family?”
A girl from the back punched her fist into the air, invigorated. “We have the numbers, and we’ve been praying for something like this! Someone strong!”
Glancing over his shoulder, the head student nodded in full agreement. “How could our hearts say no? What do we need to do?”
Now that the boy had found his voice, he’d turned out to be an intelligent one. Not that Artorian had ever doubted this: the people that would have been lured in with the Skyspear’s reputation would be the smartest of the bunch. They all had electricity in their eyes. Not entirely a metaphor, since a few of them all had very strong affinity channels for air and earth.
They could, with a few decades of practice, make notable lightning cultivators. “Leave the giant cat here for now. It’s not going anywhere. We go up.”
The students looked at the corpse and swallowed hard. Since even as a group they couldn’t pick that one-ton beast up, taking the Moro wasn’t even an option. Artorian had just been carrying that? He might not want to be called a Master, but in comparison to the hacks present here… he was one.
Artorian studied the path upwards that led to the Outer Pagoda courtyard. The Pagoda was located inside a cavity within the Skyspear mountain. He remembered the seas of wind chimes, and yet he couldn’t hear a single relaxing tone though the air fluttered over his robes. His feet spurred him forward without conscious decision, and it was the rustle of followers that brought him to his senses.
Instead of a sea of windchimes, there was a wave of vengeance-seeking students. It would do. He paused when he noticed how they were carrying themselves. Hunched, defeated, working hard not to garner attention. The students came to a stop when they realized he was looking at them, having stopped for an impromptu lesson.
“I need you all to stand up straight. Imagine your spine as a string. Lift it from the nape of your neck, and let the rest of your body come to rest as you let yourself back down. Let your bones do what bones are meant to; support your stance. Let your muscles do what they are meant to, rather than expend them to hold yourself up. You’re all slouching forward. Maintain this position, and it will fix your composure and stances. Your back pain will lessen, and your head will not feel as if it is an added weight. This will be useful when you learn how to walk.”
The students shared looks. But… they knew how to walk already? Maybe that’s not what the old man meant? A few tried his advice, but didn’t notice any immediate effects. Still, lessons were lessons, and this was the first real one that hadn’t been accompanied with a beating.
Artorian saw that they didn’t understand. “If your body is busy spending energy on things it’s not supposed to be doing, you can’t spend that energy on the things you want to use it for.”
He turned and showed them an example as he straightened himself. Artorian walked with his shoulders squared and his chest forward, hands behind the flat of his back for support as he reminded himself of his commander days. Without being aware, his walk evolved into a firm, imposing step. An unyielding tread that would crush and flatten the path before it by sheer weight of will.
The students followed, climbing up the winding path. They passed through wooden wreckage and ruined hanging string where the chimes used to be. Rotted by time and collapsed from neglect, they’d succumbed to the elements. Artorian paid them no mind. There was no room for yet another reason to throw people from the mountain: he already had plenty.
“Hmm. Shall I knock politely, or announce myself?” When they reached the outer Pagoda guard doors, the bulky bulwark was closed. He looked to the students for a decision, but only the latter option received any votes. They all craved more explosive destruction, and they knew they would receive it when the old man smiled a smile that was all teeth. “Announcing it is.”
The upper D-ish cultivator pressed his hand to the door. Nothing happened at first, but the students still took a wary step back. The door creaked and moaned from within as it started shaking against his hand. Pressure grew inside, and fresh branches forced entire vertical panels out of their sockets as Artorian flooded the living plants that had crept inside of the gates with life.
“Bamboo, my friend… you’re up!” The hinges burst from internal pressure. Flowers bloomed out from the wall sections as the gate crumpled and fell inwards, rotten fuel for
the plants that now consumed it as rampant bamboo further splintered the fallen doors from within.
A bewildered crowd stood behind a fat carcass of a monster. Artorian called it a monster, but it was hiding in the shape of an unfathomably… *ahem*… portly man. His fat rolls had fat rolls, and Artorian immediately dismissed physical strikes against the behemoth. He’d need a scrub bath just to get the oil removed from his fists.
“Who dares invade Master Pigong’s holy ground! Begone from the private sanctum you-” The instructor’s eyes crossed. That, or they attempted to look at the gaping cylindrical hole bored through his forehead. Artorian had shifted to a side-stance, arm outstretched to aim. Two fingers pressed together as the last vestiges of light dissipated from the tips, feeding back into his extended presence.
Artorian didn’t spare the falling corpse a word. He moved with a flutter, grasped the monster by the wrist mid-drop, and flung the ‘meat’eor off the mountain. Just as the first group had, Outer Pagoda students flocked to the edge to see the body fall. Some courtyard students went to watch the show again, but they knew the result. With a wave of his hand, the courtyard students registered their grandfather’s intent and ran to calm their Outer Pagoda family. Residents of this tier were all several years older, and many seemed to have been separated from their families.
The first group of students explained the events to the second group, but were only convinced after Artorian smiled and became a miniature sun, doing for their wounds what he’d done for the others. After the restoration, one could tell that the Outer Pagoda students wore red practice uniforms. Some even knew a few of the theorems and sayings from the wall of virtue.
That wall had recently been destroyed, and Artorian bit his lip while he faced the rubble that remained. He’d rebuild it. Artorian knew the messages on the wall by heart. He’d written them next to scores of other students a thousand times, and a thousand times again.
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 62