by Charles Dean
Huh? Lars didn’t know what to make of the skill and stared at the message for a moment. A single drop of rain is but a sound?
“Oh, come on, boy. Don’t make that face. If you’re to be around my son, I need to know you’re not a bad influence like the last friend of his was,” Nathaniel said, laughing. “All that talk about being the baddest there was, but he cried like a little baby goat under the knife.”
Lars’s eyes shot up. “You killed his last friend?”
“Me? Oh, by the gods, no,” Nathaniel replied with a laugh. “I had someone else do it for me. And I didn’t do it just because he was a bad influence: it’s because he took something that was mine.” He said the last words with an ear-to-ear smile that Lars found inarguably creepy.
“Well, since you like me, there’s no chance you like me enough to pour me a drink? All this talk of violence and tests has me parched,” Lars said.
“Right this way. You’re the guest of honor after all,” he replied, showing Lars into the main hall.
Lars was used to eating at his own home. His mother had one of the local villagers cut and smooth two giant rocks for their seats. They hadn’t been comfortable. In fact, they had sometimes bothered his rear as he sat on them, but they had been sturdy and had never given him any issues. The table had been—well, at first it had been—a poorly made four-legged, square wooden one that he and his mother had tinkered with over the years, adjusting the lengths of the legs and replacing boards on its top until the entire thing was one that they had made. It had been a good table, well made and sturdy, but neither it nor the chairs had ever been anything that a person would show off. They had been practical and reliable. Those were the only compliments you could give to the furniture Lars had spent every day eating on with his mother.
He couldn’t help but think about it as he stared at the long rows of beautiful, mirror-smooth black tables that were laid out across the floor of the room. Every several feet, there was a hole in the middle of the tables where a large bowl sat with coals inside it and a grill cover across the top. Above each bowl, there was a long metal cylinder that extended down from the ceiling and spread out as it came close to the bowl, like a funnel. It wasn’t hard to figure out the purpose: it was to catch the smoke. To further this end, Lars saw that the roof slanted upward into a sharp peak. Instead of the sides being sealed, though, they were wide open, so if smoke escaped the cylinder that was supposed to catch it like a little chimney, it would still go out the sides of the building.
The stark contrast between these beautiful tables with the perfect built-in grills and well-made chairs with small pillows and the ones he grew up with was gut-wrenching. Yet, despite how much better they looked, just staring at them made him long for home. They made him wish he was back with his mother, chopping wood and scrambling to make a fire big enough to cook the meal in their ugly black cast iron pot before the rain came in and quenched the flame. It made him long for the cold, hard feeling of the cut rock chair as he joked around with his mother, eating a soup made from whatever was so old at the market the vendors would practically give it away while calling it a sale. He would trade this decadence in a heartbeat to see his mother’s smile.
“Lars, my boy, are you okay?” Nathaniel asked, shaking Lars’s shoulder roughly.
“Yeah . . . umm . . . sorry, I was just taken aback by your setup,” he said with a smile. “I haven’t seen something like it before.”
“Oh, the little table grills?” Nathaniel laughed as he secured his arm around Lars and forced him to walk with him to the nearest table. It wasn’t something Lars could resist. Be it strength or size or just the forcefulness of the gesture, Lars lost in all respects as he was dragged to the table and plopped in the chair in front of one of the grills. “Aren’t they a beauty? They were top of the line before all the damn houses with any money decided that food should be prepared in the backroom and that servants should be out of sight and out of mind. What’s the point of having a servant if you can’t see them? Jobs are always done by people, and if you don’t see the work, you’ll never appreciate or understand the labor.”
“That’s . . . interesting,” Lars said. He’d have to take Nathaniel’s word for it though. He had never had any servants at all, so it wasn’t like he knew whether or not a person could be numb to appreciating the quality of something simply because he didn’t see the craftsmanship in it.
As if he were calling out for help, Lars looked over at Desdemona, who was still by the door despite Lars having been forcibly seated.
“Servants eat at the back table near the door after they bring us the meat and our side dishes,” Nathaniel said.
“Ah, out of sight, out of mind,” Lars said with a smile.
“Clever, but a cunning tongue is just as likely to get you in trouble as a flimsy sword.” Nathaniel shrugged. “And you, we have a guest over, and I haven’t sat down yet. Why are you seated?” Nathaniel asked, looking over at his son.
“Sorry, father,” Matthew said, quickly standing up and bowing deeply toward Nathaniel.
“Enough of that. Not in front of the guest,” Nathaniel said as he plopped down next to Lars.
“Yes, father,” Matthew said.
“Do you guys not usually have guests?” Lars asked.
“He doesn’t have any friends, the cur,” Nathaniel said. “Always chasing that damn Mishil.”
“Right . . . and he’s not your only son, is he?” Lars asked as he saw several other people around the table besides Matthew whom he didn’t know at all. “I heard you had others.”
“Working,” Nathaniel answered quickly. “They’re on missions, bringing glory to the Neukdaegalbi name. The only one that’s still around here is that one.” Nathaniel stopped to point at a boy that couldn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen years old, yet despite his age, he was already a Stage 3 Qi-Gathering Cultivator. His eyes were much more like his father’s than Matthew’s. His ears were sharper and more pronounced, his tail was longer, and even his arms were hairier. It was plain to see that he had the better blood. “Matthew’s younger brother. Unlike Matthew, he’s a purebred wolf. No maid mixed in that one.”
Blood this . . . blood that . . . Lars couldn’t imagine what it would be like if his mother had talked about him that way. The world had, but she hadn’t. She was the safe bastion that kept him warm in a cold world. Damnit, get it together, you moron, Lars chided himself as he realized he was starting to get too emotional. His head was clouded with thoughts that he had managed to suppress the entire day—thoughts that he had managed to suppress as best he could from the moment he left his hometown—but here in the presence of a family with such a weird and warped dynamic, every difference painted a picture of his mother, every similarity filled in the details of the painting, and everything that his home never had gave contrast to the picture until his memory of her was all that remained.
You’re going to have to get used to the idea that she may be dead, so . . . you know . . . I’m not going to stop you if you want to grieve. I’m sure we’ll live, somehow. We always do. So if, you know, you want to . . . well . . . Screw it. I’m out. I got nothing for this.
Thanks . . . Lars sighed. Even if she hadn’t said anything helpful at all, the fact it felt like she really tried meant a lot. It was unusual for her, but this situation was unusual for him too.
“Yeah, I sighed too when the little one popped out,” Nathaniel remarked, misreading Lars’s reaction. “Kept thinking, man, if he had just come out a little sooner, I coulda saved more cultivation resources for him. But that damn mother of his made two weak bloods first instead. I just count the blessings from the gods that they had proper ears and not”—he glanced over at Lars’s ears—“those.”
“Thanks.” Lars frowned. His mother had always told him lying was the beginning of evil, but after seeing what it was like being around the densely honest wolf pack, he felt a few lies, or at the very least a few omissions from the truth, might not hurt anyone presen
t.
“Hey, it’s not your fault you were born like that. You should blame either your mother or your father, whichever one cursed you with such lacking features,” Nathaniel said as he patted Lars on the back. “Not that it matters now, right? Yesterday is yesterday, today is today, and a good slab of wafer steaks will make you feel right at home.”
Lars looked over at Matthew while he was being patted on the back. Matthew, his brother, the others around the table—everyone was quiet. The whole dinner felt like it was just a soap box for Nathaniel to talk while everyone else politely bowed their heads and waited.
Well, he is a Stage 4 Qi-Condensing Cultivator. He could kill everyone at this table as easily as a farmer’s scythe could reap stalks from the field.
Lars smiled. So . . . we should mess with him, right?
Yeah, I’d like that, but you’re not getting another quest out of me. I have to save one in case you come up with a more humorous way to punish people than getting them to slap themselves.
I’ll work on it, Lars promised as he looked over at Nathaniel, a giant that could probably crush him with a pinky. “It must be hard for you too.”
“To have tried so many women and gotten so few decent offspring?” he asked. “It could have been harder.”
“I mean, you said that, if I haven’t turned out right, I should blame my parents. If you keep trying, and only a few come out right, which is more likely . . . that it’s you or the mothers?”
“Careful, boy,” Nathaniel warned, but he didn’t pause what he was doing as he began to lay out thin strips of what looked like beef onto the grill in front of him.
Lars pressed the question. “Even if it is the mother’s fault, you’re the one who picked them, aren’t you?”
You’re getting awfully close to saying something that might get you killed, aren’t you? Men are sensitive about this stuff. I think. Maybe? You’re a man. You should know.
Nathaniel nodded. “True enough. But as sure as their blood turns out weak, my heart is too. Gotta want what you gotta want, right?”
“Ha! True.” Lars slapped his leg as he faked a laugh. “And my brother,” he continued, putting an arm on Nathaniel’s shoulder the same way he had done to Lars earlier. “Must be a damn shame when you live your whole life seeing the world one way only to find out it’s wrong from some little twerp barely old enough for hairs on his chest who showed up unannounced and enjoyed your hospitality.”
“You think I’m wrong?” Nathaniel’s face turned flat as he looked at Lars. His eyes moved from the arm Lars had put on his shoulder to Lars’s eyes, back to the arm, and then back to Lars’s eyes again as if he was deciding what to do. “You, grass that hasn’t grown enough for the cows to eat, think I’m wrong about life?”
“And I can prove it,” Lars declared with an ear-to-ear grin as he started to revel in what was about to happen.
“How?” the man’s stern face somehow got even flatter, almost as if it had been run over by the wheel of a carriage.
“You view me as weak. You see me as bloodless, incapable of ever becoming as strong as your youngest son, right?” Lars asked.
“Right.”
“You think that if my master sees that son of yours, Matthew’s younger brother, she might take him instead of me as her apprentice, don’t you?”
“Of course. That’s the way of the world.”
“You think this because I’m, what? A Stage 2 cultivator? That is something you must all think, right?”
“Right,” Nathaniel answered. There was no deceit or lies from the man.
“Of course, I’m stronger. I’m younger and already more powerful than you,” the kid chimed in, smirking. “My blood is the better between us, and any fool could see that without even knowing your strength.”
“Is it though?” Lars asked. His smile didn’t fade as he put that single point into Fortitude, raising it from 79 to 80.
Congratulations. You have reached Level 3! You have been awarded 10 unassigned affinity points.
“What?!” Nathaniel’s jaw nearly fell off his face. “How did you . . .”
“What? Magically jump up to a higher Qi-gathering stage?” Lars laughed before turning to Matthew’s younger brother. “Or . . . did you really think Hsein Ku would make a mistake and that you, a child, were actually stronger than I am?”
“I’m sorry, father. I had no idea,” Matthew quickly interjected before his brother could respond to Lars’s taunt.
Nevertheless, the kid sneered haughtily, scoffing at Lars despite the impressive display. “You’re still only even with me, and I’m still younger than—”
Congratulations. You have reached Level 4! You have been awarded 20 unassigned affinity points.
Lars’s level went up again as he dumped another 80 points into Fortitude, raising it to 160.
“Is the difference between us not clear now?” Lars asked the younger brother, turning his attention and focus to the annoying child who thought he was better than others just because he was stronger. “All your markings, your pure blood, your heritage as a great cultivator—do you think it amounts to anything when I, just an average, tailless, earless man with no discernable bloodline to cultivate am stronger than you?”
“It’s . . . It’s not possible! It’s only because you’re older than I am! If I were your age, I could . . . I could be Stage 4 too!” the child declared.
Lars couldn’t help but laugh in the kid’s face. He was finally, albeit far too late and with someone not at all connected to the issues, getting a small amount of revenge for all the judgemental nonsense he had been forced to endure growing up.
“Oh . . . you think Stage 4 is the limit?” Lars cackled, his staccato laugh ringing out and bouncing off the walls and high arched roof of the building. “Come now, brother, do you still not understand? Do you not know your place yet? Your view of the world, of cultivating, of power . . . is all wrong. You’re a kid dreaming of dragons while never having seen their maw.”
Congratulations. You have reached Level 5! You have been awarded 40 unassigned affinity points.
“What in the Abyss of Sineui?!” Nathaniel cried.
Lars took in the silence that followed, looking left to right as he stared at all of their faces. He had no more points to dump into stats. The trick was over, and he couldn’t boost himself again, but it seemed like jumping to Level 5 had been enough. Every single person in the room was staring at him as if he were both a deity and an abomination, their brains broken as they tried to process what had just happened.
He was, by all accounts, someone who should never have power. He looked like a no-blooded weakling; and yet, here he was, right in front of them, with power that most people could only dream of at his age. To further complicate matters, he had just jumped three Qi-gathering stages in a row—in the span of a minute—right in front of them. Lars didn’t know much about cultivating, but he knew that even a “minor breakthrough,” as it was often called when someone went from one Qi-gathering stage to the next, required the cultivator to center himself, meditate, and sometimes spend several days in isolation during the critical phase. He had not only done none of that, but he had even calmly taunted a child while the jump happened.
Such a break in their understanding of cultivation should have cracked their brains, and if Lars was right, they’d instead choose to believe that the truth was closer to the concept that Lars had been hiding his actual Qi stage. It would be easier for them to process. It would still be nearly impossible, as it was something that Lars had never heard of as being possible, but it would still seem more probable than what had actually happened—that Lars had really made a series of breakthroughs right in front of them and jumped from Level 2 to Level 5.
“ . . . I see.” Nathaniel finally broke the silence. “I thought myself the wolf, but here you stand, one in sheep’s clothing, sitting at my table and breaking bread with me as you slap my face with the truth.”
“I had to,” Lars said, watching a pie
ce of meat that looked like it was going to burn soon. “Because the first time I said that Matthew was a fine son, you didn’t believe me.”
“Ignorance made to turn brother against brother and now father against son.” Nathaniel frowned, lowering his head and scratching at his chin as he sat there quietly.
They all stayed quiet. Even if Lars had shattered part of their understanding of cultivation, he had done nothing to the social order of things. The whole room, which had been filled with laughter as they all matched Nathaniel’s guffaws, was now as quiet as a funeral procession. Every eye was on Nathaniel as they waited to see what he would do next.
You know, I wanted to say that meals at your mother’s were better since the company was interesting and easy to talk to, but I really can’t right now. That despair and confusion in his eyes as he tries to rethink every decision he has ever made in his entire life, questioning what he might have done right or wrong, whether those weak-blooded kids he likely stuffed in the mercenary company as cheap labor might have actually been “good” investments . . . It’s great. Not as delicious as that face slapping or that tteokbokki, but still great.
Yeah. Lars smiled. I’m enjoying it too. He just wished that, for a moment, he could have used a parlor trick like that to smack the smirks off of the kids that had looked at him like wasted space when he was younger.
Chapter 7
Name: Lars
Level: 5
Power: 320
Speed: 729
Fortitude (HP): 320
Resistance: 320
Unspent: 0
Elemental Abilities
Wind Qi: 270
Earth Qi: 152
Ice Qi: 144
Fire Qi: 143
Water Qi: 115
Metal Qi: 49
Toxin Qi: 32
Wood Qi: 16
Unassigned Qi: 85
Abilities
[10] Advanced Reading Level 2 [7,947/2,000,000 Words Read]
[10] Knife Hand Level 2 [1/10 Unaware Combatants Killed]