All-Knowing Novice, page 16
Fan Shun chuckled and shook her head. “Would you like some assistance? You’ve been sitting in... Actually, let me just help you up.” She walked over, or rather, she limped over, favoring her left leg. She took his hand all the same and helped him to his feet. Taryn winced after taking his first step, but he was pleasantly surprised to note that he hadn’t broken his legs in the fall. He’d wondered about that.
“Thanks for saving me,” Taryn said. It hurt him to admit that he still needed saving, even with the Mourner’s knowledge swimming around inside his head.
“You’ll never have to thank me for saving you. We’re family. Besides, I know you would’ve done the same if you could.”
“Maybe.” Taryn sighed.
“No, you would’ve. You did so last night. If you hadn’t thrown me to the ground when you did, I probably would’ve had my head taken clean off by that wolf. You saved my life, Taryn.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Taryn turned to look up at the large arachnid. Now that he, tentatively, accepted that it had no desire to harm him, it was actually rather fascinating to look at. “I wish I had my journal. Would’ve loved to sketch this.”
“You didn’t bring it?” Fan Shun asked, clearly surprised by his admission.
“No, I only brought the other journal. I never found mine. After Teng De tossed it into the woods, I went searching for it, but ended up falling into a pit instead.”
“Ah, I’d almost forgotten about that, what with everything that’s happened recently.”
“I understand... Plus you are getting kind of old.”
Fan Shun squeezed him against her body, making his ribs ache in protest. Taryn yelped in surprise and hastily apologized.
“I might be old, but I’m not that old, brat. I could still take you.”
“That’s not saying much.” Taryn chuckled.
“You know, after last night, I’m not so sure...” She helped him sit down on a nearby rock. “Be honest with me, has someone awakened your Eco?”
“What? No, of course not... Why?”
“Because that stunt you pulled last night, the one that sent you flying into a tree, that was a movement technique. You can only do that if you use Eco.”
“That’s... no, that’s... that’s not true. I couldn’t have used Eco. No one in the city would awaken me, remember?”
Fan Shun watched him for a moment, then sighed and looked skyward. “Maybe not on purpose.”
“What you mean?”
“When Gao Feng kneed you, he injected Eco into your body. It’s a common striking technique, everyone does it without thinking about it. However, and I could be wrong about this, but to my knowledge, no one’s ever done that to someone who hasn’t had their Eco awakened. And since the awakening ceremony is a way to have Eco painlessly injected into your body...”
“You’re thinking Gao Feng accidentally awakened my Eco?” Taryn blinked at her a few times, then burst out laughing. He had to stop after a few seconds due to the pain in his ribs, but he still found the situation so amusing. “I guess I’ll have to thank the jackass.” Taryn stopped laughing as a thought slipped into his mind. “Speaking of which, have you found them?”
Fan Shun merely shook her head.
“I see. So, they abandoned us?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, the Eco Beasts were already in camp. It took everything I had just to keep them away from you long enough for you to wake up. I went back there this morning, figuring you’d be safe where you were, but I didn’t find any signs that they didn’t leave the camp voluntarily. There were no signs of a struggle, no blood trails, and all their equipment is just gone.”
“Okay...” Taryn took a second to gather his thoughts. “I can kind of understand the nobles ditching us. But the Cai too?”
“Everyone. They’re just gone. It’s possible they returned after we fled, and after not finding us, packed up and left. I didn’t have time to see if everything was still there before we had to run. All I know is everything was gone when I returned.”
“So, there’s a chance they’re still alive out there?”
“There’s... certainly a chance,” she said, clearly hedging. Taryn could tell she was unconfident in her response, so he dropped the subject.
“Well, our plan still hasn’t changed, right?” he asked, unsure of how she felt about continuing their mission.
“No, our plan hasn’t changed. I memorized the map while I had it, so I know the way to the old city,” Fan Shun said.
“Good. Let’s get moving.” Taryn began to move but was stopped when Fan Shun placed her hand on his shoulder and pressed him back onto the rock.
“Not yet. I want to try something first. Wait here for a while?”
“Considering I don’t know where I’m going, I think I can manage waiting for a while—ow!” Taryn yelped. Fan Shun had bopped him on the head with a closed fist, and even now, was glaring down at him. “Yes, I will wait here.”
“Good. I’ll return as quickly as I can.” Fan Shun made to walk away, heading in the direction Taryn thought they’d come from last night.
“Okay, but if I get eaten by something, it’s your fault.”
Fan Shun stopped walking, let out a loud sigh, then started walking again. Taryn could tell he was annoying her, but he was doing his best to keep the situation light. They were alone, in a place full of Eco Beasts, and both of them were injured. A little annoyance would go a long way to keeping Fan Shun’s spirits up... Or so he hoped. There was also a chance he was wrong, and he was annoying her for no reason. In which case, he would need to apologize before she hit him again.
Fan Shun returned a short while later. Taryn wasn’t sure how long she was gone—being under a forest canopy that blocked almost eighty percent of Rala’s light would do that—but it felt like she was gone for about half an hour.
She returned with a bundle of cloth in her hand, which was dripping with blood. As she wasn’t freaking out or panicking about her hand being covered in blood, Taryn made the logical assumption that it wasn’t hers.
Fan Shun approached and dropped the blood-soaked bundle on his lap.
Taryn looked up at her without saying anything and got a raised eyebrow in return. Taryn sighed, an action that was becoming quite common for him, and unwrapped his “present.” The sight of a still beating heart nearly made Taryn jump out of his skin.
He managed to keep from dropping the heart only by the strength of his will, and even that was wanting to chuck it as far as he could.
“While I appreciate the sentiment, you didn’t actually have to give me the heart of my enemies. Pretty sure that’s just a figure of speech.” Taryn was stupefied by the heart. Not only was it almost the size of his head, but it was clearly still alive. Every few seconds it would flex, its powerful muscles contracting to pump blood that no longer existed.
“Not in my family,” Fan Shun said offhandedly. “But that’s not why I got it for you. That is a Dire Wolf’s heart, and inside it is an Eco Core much like the one we are going to retrieve, only nowhere near as powerful.”
“Oh... That’s great?”
Fan Shun rolled her eyes. “Cut it open with your dagger and take out the Eco Core. I’ll tell you what to do after that’s done.”
Taryn did as she asked. After a little bit of chipping at the mud covering him, he was able to withdraw his dagger from its sheath.
“The Eco Core is a clear sphere. Depending on the stage of this Dire Wolf, it’ll be filled with either a gas or a liquid. I’m leaning towards gas. Be very careful not to puncture it with the tip of your blade. It’s incredibly fragile.”
Taryn just stared at her.
“You’ll be fine, just cut it horizontally, not vertically. When you feel like you’ve hit a rock, stop cutting.”
Taryn stared at her for a while longer, then shrugged. He placed the blade against the side closest to him and pushed outwards; the blade sliced into the tough muscle surprisingly easily. Taryn barely had to put any strength behind it. Before he knew it, the blade slid out the other side and the top of the heart fell to the ground.
Fan Shun picked it up and wrapped it back up in the bundle.
“Dinner,” she said by way of explanation.
“Oh, is that what it is? I thought it was going to be something strange.” He shook his head and began cutting into the heart again.
He made two more passes through the heart before the edge of his blade touched something hard. “I think I found it.”
“Good. Then cut around it and we can take it out.”
Taryn angled the blade up slightly and lightly prodded until he couldn’t feel the hard object anymore. He pushed the blade through the rest of the heart, slicing it off at an angle.
Fan Shun grabbed the piece he’d just cut off and put it in the bundle with the rest of the meat.
Taryn stared at the transparent sphere in front of him: it was smaller than he’d imagined, as it fit easily in the center of his palm.
Dark blue gas floated within the sphere. Every time the sphere moved, the gas would become erratic and shift into various shapes, though Taryn was interested to note that the color remained the same.
“That looks about right.”
“What does?” Taryn asked without looking at her.
“It was a relatively young Dire Wolf. I imagine it was only two or three years old. Were it older, like the red one currently being eaten in that tree over there, then there would be some liquid in there. Unlike humans, Eco Beasts naturally transform their Eco into a liquid as they age.”
“I see... You still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to do with it.”
“You’re supposed to eat it.”
Taryn dropped the Eco Core out of shock, forcing Fan Shun to catch it before it hit the ground and shattered. “Watch it! These are very valuable.”
“Sorry. But I must have misheard you. Did you say I’d have to eat it?”
“Technically. All you really need to do is hold it in your mouth.” She pantomimed placing the ball in her mouth and closing it for emphasis.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“You’re going to tell me why.”
“No, you’re going to do it or I’m going to hold you down and shove it in your mouth. Your choice: would you rather do it voluntarily or involuntarily?”
Taryn took the ball from her outstretched hand, grumbling all the while.
“Thank you. If I’m right, and I’m ninety-five percent certain I am, then I think you’ll like what happens.”
“And that other five percent?”
“You die.”
Taryn stared at her through narrowed eyes.
“Relax, I’m kidding. Of course I’m kidding. I wouldn’t give you something that would kill you.” Fan Shun seemed exasperated that he would ever believe such a thing.
Taryn stared at her for a while longer, then cautiously placed the ball into his mouth.
“Crippling diarrhea is about the worst that could happen.”
“What—” Before he could fully open his mouth to speak, Fan Shun placed her hands beneath his jaw and on top of his head to keep his mouth from opening. Taryn tried to move, to get her hands off of him, but she held him tight and refused to let go.
“Do as I say, and I’ll let go. Okay? Like I said, I’m ninety-five percent certain this is going to work.”
Taryn once again narrowed his eyes at her. He refused to move for a long moment, then he huffed and made a “get on with it” motion with his hand.
“Do that breathing technique again. Only this time, picture the core in your mouth and imagine the gas leaving the core and settling into your body.”
Taryn grumbled internally but did as she asked. It was remarkably easy to picture something that was sitting on his tongue.
When he closed his eyes, the Eco Core was plainly visible inside his mind: he could see every line, every imperfection, and even the slight bloodstains that still covered it—though he tried his best to ignore those.
He did as she asked and tried to imagine the gas leaving the core... But it didn’t work like he thought it would. He clearly imagined the gas leaving, but nothing happened, not even in his mind.
Then he tried dissolving the ball around the gas. That didn’t work either.
Just as he was beginning to grow frustrated, he had an idea. He imagined a needle, like the kind Xia Yawen used to keep her hair up. He used the imaginary needle to puncture the core, freeing the gas inside. Once he believed the gas could escape, he once again tried to mentally move the gas from the core to his mouth.
Surprisingly, it seemed to be working.
Ever so slowly, the gas was leaving the core and filtering into his body. Something in him had an idea of what to do at that point. Taryn left the gas to drift out on its own, and he moved his focus to the ball of gas inside his chest.
Once again, with every inhale the ball of gas in his chest grew larger, and with every exhale it shrunk. On one such inhale, the gas from the core brushed against the gas in his chest and something amazing happened. The dark blue gas from the core was eaten by the light blue gas in his chest. Every time they came in contact, more and more of the core’s gas was eaten by his own.
And it liked it. Oh, how it liked it. It liked it so much, it became difficult to maintain his focus. His body felt elated at the sudden influx of foreign energy; he would even go so far as to call it blissful.
It was a struggle, but he managed to maintain his focus and allowed what he now saw as his own core to completely devour the Dire Wolf’s core.
Almost immediately after the last vestiges of the Dire Wolf was gone, Taryn opened his eyes. It was nighttime again. Fan Shun had built a small campfire six feet in front of him and was in the process of cooking the heart steaks Taryn had carved earlier: nothing fancy, just some sticks pierced through them from end to end and a simple stand to hold them a few feet above the fire.
Fan Shun heard him stirring and looked up. She smiled at him, and it was a genuine smile, one filled with warmth. “Now, you’ve taken your first step on the path of a cultivator. How do you feel?” she asked, and it was clear to Taryn that she had been eagerly awaiting this moment. But there was only one thing on Taryn’s mind right now.
“One of those are for me, right?” he asked, pointing to one of the heart steaks.
Fan Shun grabbed the one still cooking above the fire and threw it at him. “I’m serious.” She laughed.
Taryn picked up the barely cooked meat and eyed it hungrily. “So am I. I’m starving.” He opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into the tender heart. He ripped out a mouthful, and the succulent flavors of blood and Eco made his eyes flutter.
“Well, it worked. Now we get to the fun bit.”
“What’s that?” Taryn asked around a mouthful of heart.
“Learning control. Tomorrow’s going to be a good day, I can feel it. Eat up, then get to bed. You’re going to need all the energy you can get before we start your training tomorrow.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is only going to be fun for you?”
Taryn never received an answer to his question.
Chapter 15
TARYN AWOKE TO THE feeling of someone kicking his foot. He opened bleary eyes to find Fan Shun smiling over him.
“Hi. It’s time to train.”
Taryn looked around the makeshift campsite they’d built around the base of the Mokan spider’s nest; darkness still permeated the area. Silvery wisps of light filtered through the Mokan’s branches.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
Fan Shun didn’t reply. Instead, she just kicked his foot again.
“Okay, okay. I’m getting up.” He sighed and scratched at the back of his head. “Aren’t old people supposed to sleep a lot?” Taryn grumbled under his breath.
“Only the ones looking to die early. Now, I mean it, get up. Last warning.”
“I’m moving.” He rolled off his mat into a push-up position. He extended his arms smoothly—and subsequently launched himself ten feet in the air. He felt the tendons in his elbows tear at the sudden explosion of movement and yelped as he fell face-first in the dirt.
“Yeah, I thought so.” Fan Shun shook her head. “I don’t know where you learned that breathing technique, but it’s not doing you any favors.”
Taryn could barely think through the pain in his arms, but he managed to catch the tail end of what she was saying.
“What does that mean?”
“Means it’s too efficient. Most people start out slow; the clans have their own variant breathing techniques, but for the most part they all fulfill the same purpose. They are highly inefficient, which is actually what you want when you’re first starting. You want to let your body slowly adjust to the influx of Eco and raise the level of Eco within your body over the course of several weeks. You, my intelligent child, did the opposite. That breathing technique absorbs Eco at an astounding rate, faster than anything I’ve ever seen. And now you’ve got so much of it running loose within your body that it’s seeking the only escape it can.”
“By breaking my arms?”
“No, by breaking your skin. Eco flows through channels within your body. Before those channels are created, it just sits there, unused. The reason children in the core forming stage are sometimes temporarily stronger than those in the channel building stage is because they fell for the same trap you did. They have so much Eco within their bodies that it runs out of control.”
“Just...” Taryn whined as he tried to sit up. “Just tell me what to do.”
“You have to form your core. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to start measuring how high you fly. That was rather impressive for your first time.” Fan Shun grabbed the front of Taryn’s robe and helped him into a sitting position, which earned her a quiet thank you from Taryn.
Once he was sitting up, he folded his legs in front of him and carefully placed his arms in his lap. “How do I do this?” he asked. After a few moments of not receiving a response, he looked up and saw that she was staring at him with a look of expectation.
