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Sky

Heaven.

It was a rather familiar story.

Xiaoshi was a young man born to unimportant parents in the town of Pale Moon. The town was so named for the moon’s odd behavior on this plain so close to the Mist Wall. Some nights, the entire moon turned a pale silver and wherever it shone all the colour was sucked out of the world, turning the entire village black and white.

Xiaoshi was a diligent man. He had to be after losing his family. His father had died in a cave-in. His mother, from disease.

He had loved them dearly. Xiaoshi remembered his mother’s enormous, radiant smile and seemingly endless stamina as she picked up all kinds of odd jobs to help support them. He never forgot his father’s calm countenance, even as he came back from another hard day in the mines, exhaustion in his features.

His parents had wanted to stop being miners, to go out into the world. They had been saving up to buy a plot of land to truly call their own.

His father told him stories of how much better life would be soon. How they would be land owners, with their own farm. They would bask under the brilliant sky, instead of being confined beneath the dirt.

Then, one day, he went down into the depths and never came out again.

His mother had tried, he knew she had, but the little nest egg they had saved and scrimped for started to dwindle when the sickness took her. Her hair had fallen out and her body became so thin he could count her bones.

“Live a good life, my little stone.” She said, her grin as bright as the sun despite her pain.

He lived only because, somehow, his mother had managed to extract a promise from the Overseer to take him in and train him in the mystic arts before she passed. He had a minor talent.

It didn’t get him out of having to help fill the increasing Pale Moon Ore quotas, nor from having to sweep the streets outside his Master’s home. But there was hope.

From when he was six, he served his Master. He did his best. He was filial. Obedient. He took his lumps from Wu, the bastard, and kept his head down.

The Overseer demanded that he grow stronger and be useful. He had been taken in; it was only right that he repay the kind favour, wasn’t it? It was only right that he was a cultivator for the Overseer’s sake.

But he was not particularly good at fighting. He hesitated. He flinched. He simply didn’t want to hurt people, and that wasn’t so bad, was it?

So he did the laundry, he helped out around the town. He practiced his techniques diligently… and his attempts at promotion were tossed back in his face.

A servant for life. That was all he would be.

The only way to advance was… well. He had seen a couple of cultivators battle in the outskirts of the town, massive boulders crushed and peals of lightning striking down as opponents dueled against each other. The eventual winner had swaggered into town, blood all over his body, and proclaimed that he, Zeng Yi, would be the first to return from beyond the Mist Wall at the edge of the world.

The dream of every “real” cultivator.

Xiaoshi thought it was a sack of crap, in his opinion. The world was so vast already. They might as well explore the entirety of the Azure Mountains before trying to figure out some other place.

So he returned to his work. His work that he began to feel distant and disillusioned with, but it was regular, and it was safe.

One day, when he was sixteen, he forgot to call Wu “Young Master.”

He was beaten for it. Severely. To the point where he nearly died. It was far beyond the normal lumps and blows that could be ignored.

Xaioshi asked for justice from the Overseer, and he received none.

“If you can not handle this much, then you are not cut out to study the mystic arts,” the Overseer decreed, his face like solid iron. Craggy and rough, and just a little bit ugly. “This is how the world works, boy.”

It ate at him as he staggered out of the palace. It ate at him as he had a meatbun and the whispers of the latest culling of the barbarian tribals reached his ears.

It ate at him as he overheard a man complaining loudly about how the quotas were increasing, only to get shushed nervously by his neighbor.

The Emperor had eyes and ears everywhere, and he didn’t take kindly to dissent.

He climbed to the top of a wooden house, and sat, nursing his wounds.

He stared at the sky where despite the smoke the stars still shone through, and sighed.

“Just... what is the point of it all?” He finally asked.

The world had no answer for him.

He stared back down at the town of his birth.

The next day would likely bring another form of torment.

He remembered his father’s stories, of stunning vistas and the smell of crops, even though he had been a miner all his life.

‘Live a good life, my little stone.’

He knew some mystic arts. He would probably be safe from the marauding Demon Beasts. To the west, the outskirts of the Cloudcatcher forest was supposed to be safe, wasn’t it?

Xiaoshi pulled the symbol of the Overseer from his breast, and tossed it on the ground.

The next day, Xiaoshi packed his meager bags and left Pale Moon Town.

He gave up upon his dream of cultivation.

To the west he travelled. He still had some of his parent’s money, and the piddling coins the Overseer had paid him. He had the strength of a cultivator, to take on odd jobs. He travelled across the riverlands, and through the lakes, until he reached the edges of the Cloudcatcher forest, the tops of the trees as tall as the peaks of mountains.

For the first time, he was content with his life’s choices.

Su Nezan sat in the winter sun beside a truly delightful young girl. His nose took in the pure scents as he basked in the company.

“And then I spiked his soap with a water activated dye so that when he went to wash off the itching powder it turned his skin pink,” the freckly woman said cheerfully.

Nezan roared with laughter at the tale. It had been centuries since he had last laughed so! Truly, breaking part of his core off was worth it just for this! The Great Fox, the bane of the Shrouded Mountain Sect, rolled onto his back and pounded the snow around him with his tail, such was his mirth.

“Dear, you should have been born one of ours,” the fox decreed as his laughter died down, shaking his head. “You are an absolute delight!”

Little Mei, who was more of a fox than his own distant kin, sketched a bow. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with merriment.

If only this technique didn’t take so long to recharge he could have experienced this all sooner! But he had spent too much of his strength at the Dueling Peaks, aiding Yun Ren. Weaving illusions over even a Shrouded Mountain Disciple was an energy intensive process at the best of times. With his Core divided, his power diminished in this form? Well, it was downright exhausting.

The fox huffed a laugh, climbing out of the snowy divot he was in and back onto the rock that little Mei was seated on, the blanket protecting both of them from the chill.

He turned his attention back to this grand Ha Qi game, where the combatants dueled on the ice. His dearest friend would have loved the game. She would have thundered up and down the ice with glee, taking on all challengers.

The ice was full of laughter and cursing as the little ones gamboled like kits fresh out of the den. Even the two Young Mistresses had joined in. Even as he watched, Cai Xiulan was in earnest combat with a pig. A pig! And she was quite skilled.

Somehow… it just felt right. Like being back amongst his own kin. They were all just so amusing!

And the fact that most of them were Spirit Beasts was just the most fascinating part!

He had been fed breakfast by a dragon, been asked if he had any requirements by a pig, entertained a rat when she began questioning the nature of his form… and shared a surprising moment of enjoyment with a boar as he welcomed Nezan. His earnestness was such a delight, the big sunflower.

His eyes softened as he watched his nephew shoulder checked Tigu, the girl spiraling away. She complimented his blow and then focused her eyes upon him with glee.

He’d have to offer them a boon, later, when the time came. He had decided now. Yun Ren would take back this fragment of himself to the main body, and then he would visit in truth.

He sighed happily as he expanded his senses, to truly take in the depths of this “Fa Ram”.

Now, not completely diminished, he could feel the power a bit more. It was faint, but it was not trying to hide from his eyes, and as soon as he had manifested outside the crystal once more, he had felt more invigorated than ever.

It was a bit strange that it hadn’t helped him while he was actively trying to draw Qi into part of his core before, but now the land would likely be able to sustain this small form indefinitely.

And something else itched at the back of his mind. Summer’s Sky had been uncaring of the circumstances, simply labeling it ‘Interesting, approval’, but Nezan’s curiosity was piqued.

“Hey! How’s the game going?” a voice called out and Nezan turned to see the Master of this land call from the forest.

The man who had laid low the Shrouded Mountain appeared from the treeline, from wherever he had gone with the rooster called Bi De. Jin had his respect, if only for making those bastards scamper about like the roaches they were.

But... there was something that did concern Nezan. Here, in the heart of this place, he could see the faint golden lines that connected the man to the earth. The entwined core, pumping and beating, yet slow and asleep.

The itching intensified as an old, old memory came to the fore and pieces clicked into place.

Pieces that didn’t make sense.

Because there was only one path that Nezan knew that would look similar… and it didn’t do this.

Xiaoshi stared out across the land that he had purchased. It felt… right. It was off the beaten path, but there were no reports of any Demon Beasts around and the people of the nearby village were kind and helpful.

He took a breath, hefted his axe, and got to work.

He cut down the trees. He diverted a stream. He broke the rocks that would impede his progress, and tilled his first field.

For the first time in his life, he was truly living for himself.

It did not take long for him to fall in love with his plot of land. Each day upon it was a blessing. He soaked his Qi into the earth, and exalted in every moment.

It was hard, hard work. But as he built his first house, and as his little vegetable garden grew tall, he took pride that he had finally started living his father’s dream.

He gave his Qi to the earth, for this blessed bounty.

In doing so, he turned fully away from heaven.

The Path of Shennong.

Nezan frowned. Could it be?

He looked at the man and the wellspring of golden power beneath their feet. It fit.

But... it was different than described.

Nezan watched out of the corner of his eye, turning his attention back to the delightful young lady eagerly describing to him the way to craft a truly virulent laxative. He committed her concoction to memory, even as his attention wandered back to the question at hand.

A long, long time ago, just after the Misty Fang had been taken and renamed the Shrouded Mountain, Nezan had happened upon a scroll. It was an ancient thing, crumbling and ruined, but within it was detailed a style of cultivation.

A cultivation that had Nezan shaking his head and saying a prayer for the poor fools upon it.

When one turns their eyes from the heavens without regret, they begin to walk the Path of Shennong. They stride alongside the first primordial being who tamed the land, who diverted the rivers and broke the rocks. The God-King of the earth, who taught mankind to farm, who invented the plow, and formed the contract between men and the firmament.

It is not a conscious choice. One can only embark upon this path without knowing they are on it. To force it or to desire this state is, by all accounts, impossible.

One must give to the earth without desiring anything in return. To venerate the very thing that other cultivators desire to leave behind.

This first stage is small, subtle, but they will see an improvement in every way within their chosen tasks… or perhaps they simply improve on their own. One can not tell.

Most cease there, with one foot upon the path the Divine Farmer walked.

Few, very few, burn brightly enough to attract the attention of an earth spirit. From a tiny thing that holds but a patch of grass to perhaps a hill or a lake, they could be looked upon and judged.

Should they be judged worthy, by the ancient contract the spirit would initiate the Pact of Shennong.

By the ancient pact, they who walk the Path of Shennong will know prosperity. Their strength is that of the boundless earth. They know the land they walk upon as their dearest friend. They will live long, prosperous lives; they know peace, the truest peace imaginable.

And then they will die, and their flesh and bones will nurture the earth.

This is the Path of Shennong. To live and die upon the earth.

It was a dead end path. There was no defiance of the heavens. There was no cultivating for strength. It was a complete submission to the Law of Earth, for as Shennong died, his corpse sprouting medicinal herbs, so too would those of the pact surely perish.

It was a path that was repulsive to any cultivator most would have fled from it even if such a state could be forced.

However… A small earth spirit is one thing. As Nezan traced the golden lines into the distance, he felt a sense of unease.

This though, this was no mere earth spirit.

How did a man ever manage to contract something so unfathomably vast? It was like asking the sea to notice a fish.

Something felt the little tendrils of light brush up against it. Caress it. A great, unfathomable consciousness paused.

These tendrils were not like the others. It could feel it. The sparks, the tastes. What it learned would later be called emotion.

It watched for a cycle, then two. It learned while soaking in the energies, as something, for the first time, seemed to be trying to commune with it.

It had never felt such things before.

Curiously, the spirit reached out a tendril to the golden light—

—and Connected.