Foundations: A Cultivation Academy Series (Bastion Academy Book 1)

by J D Astra

  I shook my head.

  “Exactly. So first we must learn to be silent, and then we can learn to focus once more.” She patted me on the shoulder, then stood. She picked up her pillow and tossed it back onto the dais, then gave me a gentle wave goodbye. “See you soon.”

  I bowed my head all the way to the floor. “Thank you, Master. Your teachings are invaluable.”

  She chuckled and opened the door. “You have no idea. But you will soon enough.”

  Then she was gone.

  I ran her last statement through my mind over and over, fixating on whatever it could’ve meant. Woong-ji had lived a lot more life than I had, so surely she had experienced and learned things I couldn’t yet fathom.

  Excitement rushed down my spine in a warm tingling that made me shiver. The possibilities of munje manipulation were within reach now. Not just munje manipulation, but the possibilities for my mind and body as well.

  I was going to eat every weird thing Mae told me to eat. I was going to meditate sixty minutes a day. I was going to push my body to the limits and rest deeply to recover it. Then I would ensure my apprenticeship and a second term at Bastion.

  I rose to my feet, leaning on my cane for support. I had to use all the tools that were given to me. If my legs were too weak today, I would use the cane today, and try without it tomorrow. Or the next day. I wouldn’t give up. A smile graced my lips as I walked toward the door to the hall. I wouldn’t be stopped, not by any obstacle. Not by anything.

  I turned the corner and met Shin-soo eye to eye. The smile didn’t fade from my lips as he sneered. “What’re you so happy about, gimp-legged ganhan?”

  I thought of several snarky replies but settled on something neutral. “There’s a great many things to be happy about in this world, even for a gimp-leg.”

  Neutral-ish.

  Shin-soo moved in closer, and the three goons behind him, the beefy Tae-do among them, circled up.

  “You should’ve just died, saved yourself the pain.” Shin-soo lifted his hand to poke my chest, and I deflected the blow with my cane.

  Shin-soo’s eyes came alive with wild insanity. “How dare you touch me.”

  He raised his fist. I sent a rush of zo to my tired muscles, increasing their blood flow, and strengthened my stance.

  “What is this?” an older voice boomed behind me. It was Master Sung-ki, the instructor who had observed me at my entrance assessment.

  I didn’t take my eyes off Shin-soo as the teacher stepped nearly between us, facing me. He looked down at me with critical eyes. “I asked a question.”

  My throat tightened with the injustice of his accusing glare. “I was departing my makeup class for the evening when Shin-soo met me for a discussion in the halls.”

  “What are you doing?” Mae whispered in my mind with frustration. “Now’s your chance to get him expelled! Get him out of the way for the rest of the semester so you can heal.”

  I gave no reply, keeping my face motionless.

  Shin-soo’s brow furrowed in confusion. Sung-ki turned to face the bully, who looked up at his instructor, confusion still evident in his eyes.

  “Why then, did it appear you were preparing to strike Mr. Law?” Sung-ki asked with more patience than he had with me.

  Shin-soo looked back to me, and I raised my eyebrows, mouthing, “your choice.” He could admit that he was about to pummel my face in and get expelled, or he could play along and see another day at Bastion. I didn’t want Shin-soo getting expelled.

  I wanted him there as a constant reminder, every day, of everything I didn’t want to be. I wanted to progress beyond him. I wanted him to watch me, a year two, looking forward, and never at him.

  “We were just messing around.” Shin-soo shrugged. “It’s a game to see who will flinch.”

  Sung-ki grunted and looked over his shoulder at me, then back to Shin-soo. “You lost.”

  Shin-soo’s cheeks blazed red, and his veins pulsed on his temples. I refrained from smiling, but only just. My pleasure must’ve been evident in my eyes, because looking at me seemed to enrage Shin-soo further.

  “I won’t lose next time.” He growled the words and stormed away, waving for his cronies to follow.

  Sung-ki crossed his arms and turned back to me. “Brawling is not allowed.”

  I shook my head. “We weren’t brawling, Master.”

  “Yes, obviously, but I know fury when I see it. You were not having a friendly game of ‘don’t flinch,’ were you?”

  Mae piped up again. “Fess up, Jiyong. Get him out!”

  I took a shallow breath, barely speaking above a whisper. “I believe you misread the encounter, Master. We were only playing.”

  His left eyebrow arched up into a sharp point. “Be aware, lying to an instructor carries its own set of consequences, Jiyong.” He moved aside, continuing on his path toward the entrance.

  Mae groaned. “Real smart, Jiyong. Now you’ve lied to an instructor, and he knows it. Not only did you pass up a golden opportunity to put Shin-soo out of your way, you put yourself at risk!”

  ‘I don’t think Shin-soo or his friends are going to turn him in. The secret is safe with us.’

  “I hope for your sake that’s true,” Mae admonished, and I sighed.

  Would lying be punished with expulsion? I thought not, but the nerves twisting in my gut told another story as I watched Sung-ki walk away. What could my lie do to my chances of becoming a second year?

  Chapter 24

  MY EYES SHOT OPEN IN the dark to harsh bleating in my ears. I sat up and scanned the room as my heart hammered.

  Mae’s voice filled my head. “Someone’s coming.”

  I squinted my eyes painfully and flopped back onto the bed. “Yeah, they’re probably walking to the bathroom,” I muttered out loud out of habit.

  “No,” Mae warned. “They are moving in stealth, and there’s at least three of them.”

  ‘How can you tell?’ I switched to my internal dialog and slowed my breathing. I strained my ears in the darkness, listening for boards creaking and air moving.

  “They’re shrouded in munje. I detected them when they entered the lodge.”

  ‘Where are they now?’ I asked as I slipped out of bed.

  “Just coming up to the second floor on the west side. They’re splitting up. I don’t think they know where you are.”

  ‘Good, we have some time.’ I moved over to Cho’s bed and shook him awake. He looked up at me with a sleepy start, and I put a finger to my lips.

  “Shin-soo coming,” I whispered.

  He sat up, his eyes suddenly wide open. I moved on to Ki-tae’s bed. I repeated the same motion and watched as Cho moved to Il-sung.

  “They’re headed for the stairs,” Mae warned as I woke Hoon, and the others climbed out of bed quietly.

  “What’s the plan?” Cho whispered as we all gathered round.

  “I’m going to blind them with a glimmer; you guys pounce.” I pointed to Cho and Hoon, then to each side of the door. Il-sung and Ki-tae I pointed to hide beside the beds to the left and right of the door, and then swallowed as I looked at my position, front and center. They all nodded, and we took our positions.

  “Twenty meters out,” Mae said, trepidation in her voice.

  I swirled yellow ry munje in my right hand, leaning into my cane with my left. I kept the spell small, but moving fast. I didn’t want to give away the surprise for the people in the hall before they turned the corner.

  “Five meters,” she whispered.

  I cycled energy, preparing another burst of ry munje to flow to my hand at the last possible second. A shadow stepped into the doorway, and I flung my arm toward them, releasing all my ry. Before the spell landed, I shut my eyes and turned away as the whole room burst to light.

  There were two angry yowls followed by a series of war cries. I spun back around to see Shin-soo rubbing at his eyes and Cho mid-flight for a tackling leap. He landed against Shin-soo with a weak thunk that made him stumble ba
ck into his other blinded friend.

  I rushed forward ready to defend my friends, but Shin-soo and the other turned to run. I followed them through the hall as Shin-soo pushed past a stunned crony who was blinking hard, their body still darkened with shadow-glimmer.

  “Get back and face me you coward!” Cho screamed after Shin-soo, but he didn’t stop.

  The other bullies bolted after their leader, not willing to face down the growing army of outer-city boys that was collecting in the hall. Perfect, witnesses. I didn’t want Shin-soo getting expelled, but now it seemed inevitable.

  Some of the outer-city boys cheered as they watched the bullies flee, coming by to pat us on the backs for our bravery. Hardly. We were just lucky Mae was there to wake me and they didn’t know exactly which room to come to first.

  “Thank you for the credit,” she said with a satisfied inflection.

  ‘How did you detect them, anyway?’

  She made a sound like sucking her teeth. “Remember how I told you that you were full of nanites like, forever ago, and how I can see them moving? Yeah, well, when a huge number of them are swarming around someone, it’s a pretty big red flag that they’re up to no good.”

  ‘How can we extend your range?’

  She hummed in thought. “Getting me more processing power will be a start, but for now, the stronger you become, the stronger I become. I’m using your facilities after all.” She giggled at the word. “Anyway, it’s still several hours before dawn. You should go back to sleep. I’ll wake you an hour early for meditation.”

  I nodded and headed back to our room as the congratulations flew. “Way to show them,” and “Stupid pungbahn,” came as readily as back pats. We bid one another good night in high spirits, and I was able to return to a deep sleep easily.

  It felt like mere minutes that later I was groggily awoken by Instructor Sung-ki. “Get up, all of you. Report to Grandmaster Min-hwan immediately.”

  “But why?” Cho asked, bleary-eyed.

  “You know exactly why. Don’t play stupid with me!” Sung-ki snapped.

  I rolled out of bed and grabbed my cane for much needed support. “If you mean Shin-soo’s failed nighttime ambush, I’m not certain it qualifies as a brawl, Master. I blinded them with a glimmer, and they ran.”

  His lip curled back. “That’s your version of it, then? You’ve lied to me before, Jiyong.”

  He turned for the door and snapped his fingers. “Now!”

  I followed at his command, not even taking a moment to change from my nightwear. More tired eyes blinked in half opened doors, and Sung-ki waved them away. “Back to bed, all of you!”

  The doors closed one by one, and I felt those old nerves tighten around my stomach once more. What in Mun-Jayu had Shin-soo said to get this reaction from the Grandmaster? We trudged along as fast as we could toward the main pagoda, where two lamps were lit at the entrance. The crickets had gone to sleep at the hinting of dawn, and morning birds were just starting their songs.

  The stone walkway was cold on my bare feet, shocking me fully awake. The other boys had wide eyes as well, and we looked between one another.

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

  “No idea,” Mae said with a hint of “I told you so.”

  ‘If you’re still angry about me lying to the professor—’

  “I never said that,” she interrupted.

  I sighed. ‘Seems like you just did.’

  My cane clopped against the polished wood floors in the main pagoda as we walked toward the back end of the school, to Min-hwan’s office. I tried not to let the knots in my stomach grow any tighter. We had not been in the wrong. We didn’t brawl or break the rules. I had used munje to light up our room when I’d heard someone sneaking outside of it.

  Mae scoffed. “Another lie, huh? That’s how this gets better?”

  ‘You want me to tell them that my magical ghost that lives in my head alerted me to their presence and I set up an ambush?’ I retorted, my brows raising with sarcasm.

  Mae sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Yeah you’re right. The lie is probably better this time around.”

  ‘Thank you.’

  We arrived at the Grandmaster’s elegant door, and I admired it. Ornately decorated with twin dragons twisting up and around each other, it demanded recognition. The wingless, snake-like dragons were studded with sharp gems along their spines, the left one red and the right one blue. Their eyes were a deep garnet and sparkling sapphire and massive in comparison to the other jewels.

  They had four sets of legs, each tipped with deadly looking talons that dug into the other’s bellies and chests. Their mouths were yawning wide as they each moved in for the kill. Sung-ki pulled the brass dragon-head handle and opened the fifteen-meter-tall door.

  “Come in,” Min-hwan said from the other side.

  We stepped through the door to a room full of its own kind of magic. Items that thrummed with munje adorned the shelves on his walls. Books, the oldest I’d ever seen, filled in between the magic items at random intervals.

  I gasped as my eyes traveled around the room. Digital tapestries hung down from every wall, illustrating some wonder of the ancients. Rocket ships that could leave the planet, distant galaxies swirling with billions of stars, underwater cities surrounded by massive old creatures.

  Sung-ki led us in and I let my gaze drift downward from the twilit ceiling to Min-hwan sitting at his desk, and Shin-soo with his back to us. I gritted my teeth and clacked my cane forward. As I stepped up to the desk, I saw blood on Shin-soo’s cheek. I looked down at him to see a puffy black eye, a split brow, and a swollen lip.

  ‘Is that a glimmer?’ I asked Mae as I scowled.

  “Please explain to me why Shin-soo has been beaten,” Min-hwan asked in an even tone.

  My voice caught in my throat as I looked to the Grandmaster. “I don’t know. We didn’t do this to him.”

  “But you did do something!” Sung-ki demanded from behind me.

  I stammered. “Yes, but he came into our lodge. I threw a light glimmer at him, and they all ran.”

  Sung-ki crossed his arms. “How can we believe you when you so readily lie?”

  My mouth hung agape, and I shrugged. “I’m not lying. He came into our lodge. Ask anyone on the third floor; they saw it.”

  Sung-ki tutted loudly. “You outer-city children will lie to protect your own, no matter your guilt.”

  Cho cleared his throat. “Don’t ask them a pointed question, then. Pull any of them right now and ask if anything happened tonight. Get their story and then compare it to ours. This way, we won’t have time to collaborate on a fabrication.”

  Min-hwan hummed. “Yes, that is a good course of action. Sung-ki, please do so.”

  “But Grandmaster, don’t you believe me?” Shin-soo said innocently with an air of disbelief.

  The old man hummed again, thoughtfully as Sung-ki left the room. “One cannot make snap decisions without adequate data. I have your story and Jiyong’s story, which is not enough information to make such a critical decision as ending a student’s future at Bastion.”

  My leg bounced weakly, and I tried not to appear nervous. We hadn’t done whatever it was Shin-soo said we had, so there was nothing to worry about. Right?

  Mae tutted. “You’ve seen how easily people with money get away with crimes. It was the same way in my time, too. The one with the biggest bank account always won the argument.”

  ‘I’ve seen justice served, sometimes.’

  She hummed. “Do you think Min-hwan is an honorable man?”

  I looked the Grandmaster in the eyes. He smiled kindly, and I looked away. ‘Yes, I think he’ll do the right thing.’

  She sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

  ‘That’s what you said last time and here we are.’

  When Sung-ki did not return in ten minutes, I took a seat on the floor and gazed around the room. There were so many amazing things to distract myself with, like tiny bots that app
eared to be for fighting, and strange glass balls with swirling munje inside.

  When Sung-ki did return, he had a less than pleased look about him. He stepped up to Min-hwan’s side and leaned down to whisper in his ear. Min-hwan nodded approval and thanked the instructor.

  “The witnesses said they heard something, but they were uncertain what it was. You are both accused of breaking curfew and entering the other’s lodge, and both have witnesses to validate your claims. Because it is not possible to make such a radical decision with incomplete information, you will both be punished less severely.”

  “What!” Shin-soo stood in a fury, his fists clenched as he glared me down.

  “Yes,” Min-hwan calmly motioned for him to return to his seat. “You will be restricted to your classes, meals, and lodges at all other times for four weeks. You will not be allowed to duel until the last week of the semester—”

  “No duels? No way! How am I supposed to rank up?” Shin-soo demanded, and the cut over his eye trickled more blood down his jaw.

  Min-hwan blinked and shook his head. “I suppose you’ll just have to do well in your classes and the final examination.”

  Shin-soo gritted his teeth and glared me down. I knew his retribution would be calculated and careful. He had blundered twice, and now he would plan. But I’d be progressing while he was scheming and dreaming of revenge. When next we crossed paths, I’d be more powerful than he could imagine.

  Chapter 25

  I INHALED DEEP THROUGH my nose and cycled more en munje as I watched the tiny blue spark zip away from my fingertip. The lightning spell was one I had only learned for jumpstarting simple machina. I had never sustained a bolt of lightning with my munje before coming to Bastion. En Manipulation I had moved on from water, straight to lightning.

  I cycled another breath through my nose and out through my mouth as I focused more en munje to the spot in my hand. Yuri had her face inches from the crackling blue energy, and I worried she might be going back to her bunk with seared eyebrows if I lost control. I wouldn’t lose control.

  I was recycling my en munje and converting fifty percent more heat than I had before my coma. Sweat dripped down the scar on the left side of my head, tickling the scabbed skin. It was almost fully healed now, as were the scars on my chest. My muscles still had a way to go, but I could at least walk without my cane.