v4c43: Perserverance

Shao Heng of the Shrouded Mountain Sect faded in and out of consciousness.

He remembered the moment the Wolf had ripped into his leg, tearing it from him in his nightmares. He could feel it attached to him in his moments of awareness. He should be dead, broken into pieces. But he lived.

Shao Heng drifted, comfortable. The beast was dead. He lived.

 

He did feel a bit empty. Like there was a void in his chest, where there should be fire. But with his recent battle, his Qi was most surely depleted.

 

Sleep claimed him once more, his eyes closed and he drifted, happy he was still alive.

 

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Shao Heng came from a long line of cultivators.

 

They were not anything special. They were not some grand clan. The most notable of their line had entered the Spiritual Realm.

 

They lived in a compound within a little walled town, in the territory of the Shrouded Mountain Sect. Shao Heng spent his days training, and ranging across the mountains. It was a simple life he had as a boy. Or as simple as the life of a cultivator could get. He spent most of the time with various cousins, sparring.

 

“The only goal a cultivator should have is to challenge the heavens,” his father would say often. Heng always found those words boring. Uninspiring. There had to be more to life.

 

One day, it happened. The attack. The event that changed Heng’s life. The details were hazy to him. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened afterwards. But he remembered the pale face of his father as he staggered back into town bleeding, shouting for somebody to send a transmission to the Shrouded Mountain Sect.

 

And then, he remembered the walls crumbling. A Spirit Beast assaulted the town, roaring its fury. It shattered the walls, blowing through nearly an arm’s length of stone and iron like Heng remembered charging through the walls of a snow fort.

 

He remembered the screams and the terror. But most of all, he remembered the bolt of lightning. It crashed to earth in front of the villagers. A cultivator had arrived. Heng remembered the man drawing steel, a confident smile on his face, as more lightning bolts smashed into the ground around them. Another man and a woman, more cultivators.

 

And just like that, they were safe. The cultivators moved so fast they disappeared, and slew the dread creature.

 

Heng remembered watching the party, as they celebrated the death of the creature. He remembered seeing the first man, the first cultivator to arrive, with a pretty village girl on his knee. He remembered his smile, the firelight reflecting off his handsome face.

 

He remembered the look in people’s eyes as they stared at Shrouded Mountain Cultivator. The awe. The same awe Shao Heng felt.

 

“Master Cultivator! How does one get as strong as you?” somebody asked him.

 

“Perseverance! The true essence of cultivation is never giving up!”came the boisterous reply. He remembered the man catching his eye and winking.

 

That, Shao Heng knew in his heart, was a hero. It was so much better than the boring preaching about challenging the heavens. He wanted to be that man.

 

He later learned that the man was an outrider from the Shrouded Mountain Sect. The mortal chief talked about how lucky they were that they lived in their territory.

 

And so Heng found his purpose.

 

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When he next awoke it was to a gentle brush of fingers on his wrist, the healer obviously checking his pulse. But it felt… off. Not as acute as it should have been. He should have been able to feel even the individual ridges on the Spiritual Doctor’s fingerprints.

 

But he couldn’t. It was disconcerting. And even more disconcerting was when warm broth was coaxed down his throat. It tasted like chicken soup, but this too was different in a way. In some ways it was the best soup he had ever had. But in others, there was an essence in it he could barely feel that he should have been able to.

 

He reached for his depleted Qi, but the world faded before he could feel anything.

 

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Heng staggered through the mountain storm. The Shrouded Mountain only accepted the best of cultivators, so he had to get stronger!

 

There were rumors that these mountains grew Frost Bells in the depths of their caves. One hadn’t been seen for years, but if he could find one, it would most certainly help with his cultivation!

 

So Shao Heng went looking. He scoured the mountains. He braved every danger he could. His father was happy Heng was suddenly so dedicated, but to hells with that. He was going to be a hero.

 

And when he found it—a softly glowing plant in a cave—he was elated. A Frost Bell. With this.. With this, he truly would be able to be a hero like his hero.

 

Shao Heng sat beside the plant. He did what the scrolls told him he should do. He meditated, in the Qi filled place, holding the Frost Bell in his hands.

 

It did not want to be refined, this plant. It’s Qi surged and strained his meridians. It felt like he was freezing over. Three days passed, as he meditated. But the true power of a cultivator was never giving up, as his hero had said. Shao Heng didn’t quit!

 

It took him two more days. But when he stepped out of the cave, he was at the Third Stage of the Initiate’s Realm.

 

He jumped up and roared with victory. He had done it! He smiled down at the flower, intending to press it, or keep it somehow, but what greeted his eyes was a withered husk.

 

When he tried to touch the plant, it disintegrated into nothing.

 

He shrugged and walked out of the cave. He had a spring in his step. He was going to be a hero! An Outrider of the Shrouded Mountain Sect!

 

His father was pleased at his advancement. His mother was as well… until they were alone. She screamed at him for an hour straight about telling people where he was going, and hit him over the head with her beautiful silver hand, but not even her howling could dampen his spirits.

 

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The third time he awoke, he noticed the noise. Or rather, the lack of it. Everything he could hear felt muddled and indistinct. He had prided himself on his hearing— the best in the Outriders. Nothing had been able to sneak up on him in nearly twenty years, even Spirit Beasts a full realm above him.

 

Two people whispering beside his bed should have been heard as if they were shouting. But instead, he couldn’t make out a word.

 

He reached for his Qi, as much as he could, but nothing answered him. He still must have been exhausted from his battle, but normally he could feel something.

 

He began to feel a bit concerned as the darkness came again.

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He poured his all into his cultivation. He fought and trained until he shit blood.

 

And then one day his father called him and his cousins up, to stand before their little clan.

 

“What is your reason for cultivation?” he asked them all, Shao Heng at the front and center.

 

“To be a Shrouded Mountain Sect Outrider, and protect the villages!” Shao Heng’s voice cut through the chorus of “Challenge the heavens” from the rest of his family.

 

His father was aghast. The rest of the clan laughed.

 

“That is fine, my son, but your first goal should be to challenge the heavens. Everything else is secondary.”

 

Shao Heng thought that was stupid, and said it to his father’s face.

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It wasn’t very smart of him.

 

The next years sucked. His father didn’t pull his punches at all, and the lectures got worse.

 

Every time his father asked, he belted out the same answer.

 

Shao Heng didn’t quit. It made him stronger, until his father was the one who gave up.

 

Four years of shit later, he felt strong enough to approach the Shrouded Mountain Sect.

 

He still remembered vividly that first day. The wealth. The power that the Mountain, the heroes, seemed to radiate.

 

The initiation was grueling, but Shao Heng never faltered. He made it through. He tasted the flesh of Spirit Beasts and drank wine that his town could never afford. He passed the test to join the Outriders with flying colours. And though Jian Li Wei, the Master of the Outriders, seemed like kind of a dick, it didn’t matter. He was here.

 

And his good fortune continued. For the leader of his small squad was the man who had saved his town. His hero.

 

It was great! They learned how to do things the Shrouded Mountain Sect way, and fought a couple of weak Spirit Beasts. But one night, while out on patrol, his hero asked him a question.

 

“So, what is your goal in life, Junior?”

 

Shao Heng gave his answer.

 

The man chuckled. “A good goal.”

 

Shao Heng asked his hero what his was. “To challenge the heavens, of course!” was the reply.

 

Shao Heng paused. If his hero said it… then that was probably a good goal.

 

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And thus began his service of being an outrider. He traveled the length and breath of the Howling Fang Mountains. He grew in strength, becoming more than some mere man—becoming instead a true cultivator.

 

There were good times. He fought Spirit Beasts. He saved people, and saw them look at him like he had looked like his hero. The promotion he got, second in command of the squadron. The fine beard he grew.

 

There were bad times. The day he heard news of his hero dying in battle against a Tyrant Frost Wyrm. The day he learned of his mother’s death… and realising he hadn’t seen her for over twenty years. The day he traded pointers with a younger disciple and lost so badly he was in the Medical Pavilion for a week. The constant vigilance he had to have when one of his subordinates wanted his place on the Outrider Squadron.

 

Yet still, Heng enjoyed it, even as the luster wore off. Even as he saw death and destruction, and learned the brutal politicking of the Sect.

 

He enjoyed it, save for one thing. He had stagnated. Stagnated at the Second Stage of the Profound Realm. For ten years he had been stuck there. It felt like a weakness, and strength was above all.

 

A cultivator’s main goal should always be to challenge the heavens.

 

That was one thing everybody knew. So Heng… slacked off a little in his duties sometimes. He needed something. Something to push him past where he was. Every spare second was spent cultivating and looking for resources. When he got to the next stage, he would start being as vigilant as he had been.

 

Shao Heng didn’t quit. They needed him to live longer, so he could keep protecting them, right?

 

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Four years later, his squadron got called in. A King Frost Wolf was close to the Sect and in his squad’s sector. Rampaging. Slaughtering. How had it been missed?