Luxire Worse
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Dao of Fuck Off Chapter 2: Tea and Herbs
🕑 Added 2024-07-29 23:47:00 +0000 UTC“I must say, little Guang, you have a clever method to yourself.” Elder Tong spoke as I poured the tea. “To hear the rumors, you’re the most devoted outer disciple the sect has.”
I smiled at the jab. The art of politicking was so strange here. “I’m sure the rumors see me favorably more for my meal habit than any particular devotion. I am only doing my filial duty, after all.”
“Hm. That is likely enough, I suppose. Rare is the man who doesn’t hold a fondness for a nice meal.” he smiled easily.
He still hadn’t mentioned why he, an Elder of the sect, had deigned to visit my humble shack beyond having heard that I grew some respectable tea for a near-mortal. Other than inviting me to treat him like any other guest, cueing me that I wasn’t immediately in trouble.
I sat opposite him and we spent a few moments savoring the tea. I was quite fond of it, hence why I grew it, so it was almost easy to relax in spite of the demigod in front of me.
Almost.
“This tea is quite well prepared, little Guang.” he gave a mostly straight compliment. “If you were to pursue the courtly arts I suspect you’d become quite respectable at them.”
“I thank you for the confidence, Elder. I do try to avoid sullying the face of those associated with me, despite my meager aptitudes.”
“I hear you’ve taken to calligraphy as well. May I ask for a demonstration?”
“Of course, dear Elder. Though I must confess I have decidedly more passion than talent.” I answered as I rose to extract my kit. “Would you like a particular word, or whichever thought comes to me?”
“Oh, whatever you’d like to write is fine.”
I nodded understanding and set to mixing my ink. I hadn’t lied about my passion outstripping my talent, but I also hadn’t mentioned that my talent and skill could likely never surpass the joy of mixing powder into ink and creating a dollop of shared understanding with it. Every little motion, tedious at first but refined through obsessive practice, was in a way an act of creation, of tasting the divinity of heaven and letting a sliver of its beauty, however dimmed, shine into the world.
I watched the last drop of ink fall from my brush and splash into the scroll as my attention returned to the common world and the fact that in my clear minded trance, I’d written the word ‘tea’.
I waved a small fan over the word to speed the dryness and presented the scroll to the congenial Elder, whose face lit up in amusement and something I didn’t parse as he accepted it.
“I see how you mean that your passion eclipses your skill!” he laughed. “Should your skill ever match that passion, I fear our enemies will fall to scrolls instead of fists.”
I blinked at the completely genuine compliment. “Is there such an art as to let scrolls hold a place in battle, Elder?”
“I do not know of one that works directly as the scroll, but there are several arts that use scrolls as a medium. You may wish to start with the art of talismans when you can afford the manual for it.”
Holy shit, actual council from an Elder. My torso was parallel to the ground before my awe was fully formed. “Disciple humbly thanks Elder Tong for his gracious advice!” I uttered with more sincerity than I’d felt since being recruited.
“It was merely a passing thought, though I am glad it appeals to you. My friend Elder Raka has been bereft of apprentices for the art for far too long. If you develop the basics and succeed in becoming an Inner Disciple, he may finally choose to take one on.”
“Even the thought of the opportunity is an honor. Disciple will train dutifully.”
“Good! I look forward to seeing your progress. Especially if your tea improves apace.” He stood, gathering up the scroll I’d gifted to him, and stepped to the door before smiling and departing with a simple “Good luck in your spars.”
I sat back down, positively giddy from the interaction, and reviewed his words carefully to see if there was any more wisdom to be gleaned from the talk. Insight had always hidden in the strangest places, after all.
Then, several minutes later, a simple thought surfaced. One borne of my prior life and its difficulties.
‘Why would I feel honored by him telling me that my plan is solid?’
Because I already had my eye on the Talisman arts. My plan included a few more practical body arts to lower my loss rate in the constant spars before saving up for it and a primer on material refinement.
But I very distinctly felt an abnormal -to me- gratitude for his stray thought. That he admitted held ulterior motive, albeit one that supposedly benefits me more than anyone else in the equation-
Oh. Well shit.
I added a manual for a mental defense art to my priority list and made a note to catch more rumors about Tong and Raka.
---
You know how sometimes people are subtle about getting in your way, and sometimes they aren’t? I don’t really mind either of those.
But when they think they’re being subtle by, say, helping multiple fellow disciples of my rank develop techniques to wear me down with daily challenges? That bugs me.
I mean, increasing the sect’s strength is a plus until I can flee, so I don’t object to it, but ever since I reached Body Reinforcement Rank 5, Hu’s croney has been determined to learn everything he can about my fighting style after his gaggle of morons realized that I’m not just scarfing down spirit stones to cultivate. And they think they aren’t being obvious about sharing their old manuals with anyone willing to fight me. It’s just disappointing.
Especially when I’ve been punching up literally since week two. Not always, or even particularly often, winning, but every one of my spar challenges has been to someone at least one rank higher than me. The fact that my herbs and scrolls make beating me give a nice profit means that almost nobody begrudges my methods and that I’ve always received plenty of challenges, but daily is a bit much.
The rumors are funny though. I’ve overheard everything from my being supported by a secret master seeking to infiltrate and destroy the sect to my being the Sect Master’s secret bastard son. The idea that I was just naturally good at cultivating had been brought up, but apparently that didn’t cover my breadth of aptitude in most folks’ eyes.
I’d bothered to try explaining that violence is so intrinsic to my soul that getting in fights several times a month was relaxing, but that fell on deaf ears for the most part. Something about no demonic qi in my techniques.
The truth about my accelerated growth, as far as I could tell, was just that I didn’t pick fights with the heavenly dao. Sure, I defied its decree that I was but a mortal man to tend the land simply by cultivating. But I still tended the land, nurtured my plants and peers, and took time to enjoy the world around me.
Much as I’d thought in my youth, Heaven wasn’t wrong or jerkish in its decrees. I just disputed a handful of them in as civil a fashion as I could. Like the mortality thing.
As a result, I had a much easier time interfacing with the world’s ki and molding it into qi. I’d compared my methods to several of my dinner partners, and the difference was glaring to my eye, but almost invisible to theirs.
The fact that I also hijacked my ‘farmer’ role as a method of cultivation, pulling ki through my herbs as they grew, stimulating their receptivity and fuelling my growth simultaneously was something that baffled most of my peers with its net-positive effect compared to their method of pulling ki out of their herbs when they tried.
Ultimately though, it wasn’t my problem if people couldn’t understand my methods. Normal cultivators hid their techniques from view so that nobody could copy them. Mine being incomprehensible in plain sight was just a skill issue on their part.
“Brother Guang!” rang out from the gate to my garden, distracting me from my introspection. Martial brother Kesa was waving me over, so I strolled over with a casual greeting.
“I hear you volunteered to assist on a beast patrol!” he practically bounced in excitement. “Did they accept you?”
“They did.” I chuckled. “I’ll mostly be cleaning the beasts and carrying camp equipment, but after my showing against senior Tun the squad head decided I wouldn’t be too much of a hindrance.” Tun had taken offense that I’d dare to volunteer when I was two ranks below him and he’d been turned down, so I offered a challenge so he could teach me my mistake. I’d managed to eke out a win with a lucky moment of disorientation as the sun glinted off a bit of armor behind me into his eyes allowing me to gut check him and let a medic practice on a bruised liver.
Last I’d heard, Tun was taking my acceptance into the patrol surprisingly well.
“That’s awesome big bro! Please tell me you actually have a plan with this.”
“Of course I do!” I recoiled in faux offense. “It’s a rather boring plan though. I just want a look at how beasts fight and are fought. I’ve got the feeling that I’m missing something crucial in my understanding of fighting for survival and I suspect I can glean it from wild beasts fighting to survive.”
“Really? Just more understanding cultivation?”
“It’s what I do. If I get a cut of the exchange points, that’s a nice benefit too.”
“Not going to try setting up a sales racket or something?”
“And invite ire? That’s a ridiculous idea. The voluntary sales are more than enough for me.”
“See, this is what I don’t get. How the hell do you cultivate while being satisfied with things?”
“Simple. I’m not satisfied with my cultivation. Everything else is superfluous.”
“But you don’t value spirit stones.”
“Aids are superfluous.” I shrugged. “I’d much rather develop the ability to grow without depending on them than rush things and risk finances having a hold over me.”
“And you don’t dream of finding a great inheritance.”
“The one who left the inheritance walked his own path. Why shouldn’t I walk mine?”
“And I’ve seen you scoff at treasures.”
“Only the poorly used ones. I’m quite fond of some of the weapons I’ve seen.”
“That! That right there!” he jabbed an irritated finger into the fence. “Treasures so valuable I can only dream of holding them, and you’re ‘fond of’ them! What is so different inside your head that you can talk of things that might as well be legends as though they’re on the same level as our group calligraphy night paintings?”
I searched his face for a moment and saw true frustration with my flippancy and prowess. A reasonable frustration, given that I’d completely eclipsed him despite his head start.
I flicked the latch of the gate open and waved him in. “Come, let me show you part of it.”
I led him, suddenly eagerfaced, to where I left off watering my herbs and sat down, gesturing him to sit as well.
“This is a completely standard Yellow Spring herb.” I gestured his attention to the plant. “I’m told the alchemists use its leaves as an aide to capture impurities in their work so that the pills themselves are formed of the purer essences of the other ingredients. From one perspective, this plant that I’ve taken time and effort to grow is doomed to a short life of exploitation and suffering as its properties are twisted to serve the purpose of an entity that it couldn’t properly comprehend if it had a mind. From another, it’s entire existence is dedicated to earning me a single contribution point and what happens after is immaterial.”
I smiled at the look of surprise on Kesa’s face that something as mundane as a plant’s fate could sound important.
“But I don’t like either of those views. They’re limiting, awful. Poisonous. Instead, when I consider the fate of this plant, I look to the use it will be put to. It will help in the creation of a pill. That pill, then, will carry in it a piece of this plant when it is consumed. Not a material piece, but a sliver of the effort I pour into the growth of the plant. And that pill? Why, that pill might be the cure for a brother’s poisoned wound. Or a healing for a sister’s ruptured lung. Possibly even something that aids one of the Elders. And then that sliver of my effort lies within them, helping them in their duties and their path to the greatness that they and the sect can reach.
“So I tend to this plant dutifully. Not for the contribution point, but for the contribution itself. In the same manner, I tend to myself without concern for my immediate conditions or results, but with my eye turned forward. For if one of my plants could conceivably lend my diligence to even the Sect Master, how much further can my diligence travel within myself?”
Kesa stared at me with awe. “So you cultivate so easily and don’t look at treasures because you keep your eye on a future where you surpass everything?”
“Indeed. Only one eye though. The other watches for traps that would cut my journey short like a caterpillar would cut the path of my herbs short.”
Even though he was already sitting, there was the distinct feeling of him sitting down with force as he started to meditate on the perspective I’d shared. Then I whacked him upside the head.
“Out of the garden for cultivation. You still drain my plants.”
He grinned sheepishly as he rubbed his head and ran to the gate and had the presence of mind to latch it before sitting and cultivating right in front of it.
I shook my head with a chuckle and returned to watering the plants and ‘discussing’ my life. I still couldn’t ‘hear’ Heaven’s part of the discussion, but I’d tested several tiny adjustments to my cultivation routine, and talking to/at Heaven like we were buddies actually correlated to increased efficiency. Whether because there was a causal link or because it settled my mind, I wasn’t sure. But when ‘the things that happen’ was the best lead I had on what Heaven’s reply was, I trusted my data.
