v6c9: He’s a Fun Guy

After breakfast, we did our usual morning exercise routine. It was a little weird to have some people watching us so intently. They would occasionally make whispered comments to Gramps, and I overheard one of them mention the ‘interesting invigorating technique’ Big D could use. Still, even with the small distractions, it centered me and set me up for the day.

Today, after the stress of yesterday, would be kind of a free day for everyone. The little minor chores we had to do could be knocked out in perhaps half an hour, with the longest thing being cooking and cleaning up after the meal.

It was cold and blustery out today, so most people started gravitating towards the greenhouse. Elder Shou moved as fast as he could while still being within the bounds of propriety, followed by his wife. Meimei was just after them, Zhuye on her back. Xiulan had the go board under her arm, talking with Ri Zu and Xianghua. Gou had his woodworking tools, as well as the board for his model village, while Bowu had the smallest pill furnace I had ever seen halfway assembled, chatting away with Huo Ten. I had made an offhand comment about model trains last week, and that had suddenly morphed into them making a scale model of a village complete with a working locomotive.

Which was awesome as hell. I had always loved those model trains.

Noodle was with Yin, the latter with one of Meimei’s story scrolls and a pitcher of water, clearly intending to simply sit on the hammock most of the day, acting as the greenhouse’s sun. Yun Ren clearly had the same idea, the man scrolling though his recording crystal and making some kind of slideshow.

Big D, the Torrent Rider, and Shaggy Two would be off into the forest for training—the young man was practically skipping along, clearly pleased that his master was back in his natural form and on his shoulder.

Babe would be, as always, practising the blade, the ox already in deep meditation beside his plow.

Washy, Chunky, and Peppa had decided on a walk, while the last two, Tigu and Delun, would be carving ice sculptures.

Gramps, Minyan, and Ge brought up our rear, all three of the old monsters discussing… our workout routine?

They were clearly deep in conversation, and Gramps looked quite proud of himself.

The greenhouse, as always, was a lovely temperature, and while the others spread out, I found myself once more beside the root I had found in my first year here.

Elder Shou was already staring at it, a formation floating in the air around it. He had an intense look on his face as he nodded to himself. Elder Yukong was beside him, and she would occasionally hand him a slip of paper that would disperse into another formation.

“How is it looking, Elder Shou?” I asked him.

The man turned to me and he brightened. “It has revealed some of its secrets to me. It’s a subtle, shy child, but careful observation has borne fruit. Here.” He swept his hand through his formation, which suddenly turned into what looked like a graph, with peaks and valleys I could barely make sense of, but one thing stood out to me.

“The fire is fading?” I asked. Shou grinned.

“While the primary aspect of this Spiritual Herb is fire, that fire is actually in the process of being eclipsed by earth. It’s just starting, and I nearly missed it.”

Meimei hasn’t been complaining about the smell as much recently, I realized, before refocusing on Shou.

“Do you think it would complete a full cycle?” I asked.

“A full wuxing cycle? That is an interesting hypothesis,” Shou said, stroking his chin. “And something to consider later. There are several Spiritual Herbs that do this, but its shape is not correct for any herb I know that does, and I have memorized every Spiritual Herb in our archives, and added one myself.”

I whistled, impressed because there were probably millions of Spiritual Herbs in those archives. The Founders had scoured the whole continent, collecting knowledge. And if he still didn’t know what this thing was…

“That is not to say the fully-grown variant of this herb has not been recorded, however. Some change drastically upon reaching maturity, and we might just have this Spiritual Herb’s final form recorded,” he finished. “I’ll go through the Founders’ personal notes, just in case there is something I missed. This is such a fun mystery.”

I smiled at his tone. “Well, here’s to figuring this little guy out. Would you like to see how I’ve been taking care of him?” I asked.

Shou stepped back. “I heard you invented your own technique,” Shou declared.

“Yes, a formation… or rather, multiple formations smashed together.”

At that, Elder Yukong perked up.

I proudly showed them my favourite technique. I could infuse my Qi into our crops asleep by this point—literally. I had done this formation every single day, hundreds of times per day, for three years.

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“I see, I see,” Elder Yukong said. My formation was decompiled in front of her, in strands of glowing light as she examined it closely. She had taken one glance, copied it, and then took it apart. Expanding somebody else’s formation was supposed to be hard… but well, nobody told Elder Yukong that. “It’s absolutely and utterly amateurish. I can see where you welded the techniques together. There are clear points where one’s Qi is wasted. Its construction is a mess. If you do it wrong it’s going to melt whatever you try to infuse.” Yukong’s voice was clinical as she… critiqued my work.. I chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of my head. After all, all of those things were true.

“You conceived this formation from scrolls in the library?” she asked.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I replied.

She considered my words. I braced in anticipation.

“For your level of education, this is fantastic work. The formation bridges, while amateurish, are inspired, and it looks like you’ve been smoothing them out over the years.” She turned to look at me with a slight smile. “Do you want to know the reason we give our Outer Disciples that Qi infusion technique?”

“From what I’ve learned from the scrolls Lu Ri gave me… I’m guessing so that some of the disciples, annoyed by its inefficiencies, to specifically go looking for a better way to grow the Spiritual Herbs?”

It made sense for a sect founded by scholars.