Luxire Worse
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Dao of Fuck Off Chapter 1: Settling In
🕑 Added 2024-07-29 23:46:24 +0000 UTC“Guang Jinsheng, reporting for duty.” I announced to the administrator who’d taken several minutes to acknowledge my arrival.
“Ah, I was told you’d be getting promoted soon.” she smiled easily. “Brother Gao Li will be happy to hear that you didn’t get yourself killed.”
I held my bow politely as she spoke. I may be on the ladder, but I’m literally at the bottom rung, so defaulting to being dutiful and polite was still my best course of action.
“Clever too.” she added after a moment. “I think you’ll do well here. Stand up, let’s get you settled in.”
I stood and followed as she started walking. “So, my name is Fan Ju, your martial sister and senior. Respect me as such and you might have a pleasant time settling in.”
“Understood, senior Fan.” I answered easily. Being polite was my entire thing in structured society.
“Good. Now that you’re a disciple of the sect, you have some privileges. First among them, you get a hut in the ki-heavy hills of the outer sect. That’ll make it much easier to make progress than that dingy mortal shack you’ve been struggling in.”
Struggling? Oh dear, I may have built my own maguffin.
“Next, the real goods of the sect are available to you at the exchange office. Pills, spirit stones, manuals, ingredients, the works. Don’t expect to afford anything good any time soon, but it’s stuff worth working for, not that trash we give to mortals.”
Noted. Fan Ju is not a cheap dinner partner. If one at all.
“Third, you’ll get an allotment of points every month based on the work you do. Sit around cultivating all day and you’ll only get 5 at your level. Chores that seniors need done and don’t trust mortals for will earn you more, as will turning in materials that you gather or create. Well, that’s if you can make anything useful. Don’t try wasting old Go’s time with mortal trinkets.”
“Hm.” I bothered to vocalize. It served as an acknowledgement and an indication that I had further questions without overstepping my place.
One that she noticed, smirked, and continued right on talking through.
“Last, twice per month you can challenge any disciple of your cultivation rank or higher to a spar. You’ll get your ass folded like laundry to start off, but it’s a great way to learn how others fight and to start developing your own style. Winner gets a cut of the loser’s allotment, so if you want the results of your hard work, you’d better win at least a few of your fights.”
Ah, that’s why payment for things were held off. They want to discourage us from focusing in noncombat disciplines by holding our pay hostage. Draconian, but comprehensible.
“Of course, this all comes with added responsibility. Foremost, you will obey any command issued by a sect elder without hesitation if you like your skin. Second, you will avoid embarrassing yourself and the sect. That means no getting caught scamming the mortals, no offending other sects’ disciples without cause, and no showing weakness to anyone. If you can’t handle that, you’re expected to have the good sense to stay within sect grounds until you’ve got the fortitude. Understand?”
“With only one pertinent query, yes.”
She smirked in surprise at the sudden audacity. “Ask.”
“Regarding other sects’ disciples. What is the strength of their typical belligerent?”
It was a treat to see her face brighten at the question. I guess most people don’t do recon this early.
“They typically start picking fights starting at the Qi Condensation Third Rank, so while you’re weaker than that, stay here. I’d say the strongest ones that still pick fights are around Soul Core Sixth Rank. After that I’ve only seen them act on personal grudges.”
“Thank you for the clarity, senior Fan. What compensation would you like for the valuable auxiliary information?”
A wicked grin split her face. “I’m going to like working with you, brother Guang. I typically charge 10 points for accurate hearsay, but I’m willing to drop your fee to 5 because it’s your first day as a disciple.”
Nothing quite like highway robbery to make me feel at home. The info was probably free for the asking elsewhere.
“I appreciate the consideration, senior Fan. But to devalue information that helps me maintain the dignity of the sect would leave a poor taste in my mouth, so please, accept the full price.” I replied earnestly as I pulled ten tokens out of my pouch.
To her credit, she balked at my apparent gullibility for a full third of a second before graciously accepting my reasoning. From then on, her explanation of the duties and opportunities presented by them was far more detailed, and I politely followed her lead on not mentioning it. She even followed up on my earlier interest in the exchanges and the difficulty in learning to create something worth exchanging for points.
Pills were far and away the most popular item, but the requirements to learn from the sect alchemists were stringent and required years of study to even be considered, so that was set aside. Herbs were reasonably easy to grow, given an understanding of tending to ki-receptive plants, and were often in predictable demand, so I decided to put my farm life to work with some of the space I had to work with.
Weapon and armor crafting was something that held some esteem and was easier to break into than alchemy, but the mundane equipment wouldn’t fetch much and I’d have to produce quite a bit of it to be trusted with the good materials. I decided to put in the work to learn, of course. I wouldn’t be me without a crafting fascination.
But the non-combat art that I chose to pursue most fervently was Calligraphy. Specifically, senior Fan mentioned that a well-practiced calligrapher could imbue teachings and understanding directly into their work, and other cultivators could feel the ‘intent’ and learn from it.
If there’s one thing that defines my soul more than the violence and the demented need to push boundaries, it’s being able to understand and convey things. So picking up the art of teaching by ink resonated with me on a level usually reserved for crippling people.
---
Things went quietly for all of a week. Which, y’know, is still really impressive.
Then a senior brother by the name of Hu Kong accosted me as I was leaving the first available lecture on the basics of calligraphy.
His taunt opened with a fake congeniality and “You do know that to imbue an intent you have to have a profound understanding of the matter, right?”
“I have been informed of the difficulty on this path, but I do thank you for confirming as much. Caring seniors like yourself make missteps far more rare.” I answered, as humbly as I could. He was a known bully just judging by the gaggle of others behind him, and the compliment confused them all for a moment before they laughed, realizing that I take the sect as more valuable than my own power.
“I’m glad that junior Guang sees my intention clearly!” he pulled an obvious line of bullshit. “Might I ask what intent you plan on starting with? I might have some pointers for comprehending it.”
“Certainly, senior Hu. For the immediate I will be focusing on becoming adept at the art itself so that my body has a foundation for me to work from, of course, but I suspect that I’ll start practicing the intent with something like ‘Farming’ or ‘Meal’, as those are subjects that I can claim to know a little about.”
“Good thinking, starting with what you know!” he clapped my shoulder. “But I’m afraid that those won’t be of much value at the exchange office. We of the Yellow Fang value combat intent far more, on account of the beasts and our rival sects. So what scroll do you think you’ll be exchanging for first?”
“Ah, thank you for the advice before I wasted senior Go’s time!” I played up the earnest junior trope for all it was worth. “Most of my existing combat understanding is of trapping and fleeing. Does senior have a suggestion on how I might develop an appropriate understanding?”
Seeing the openly malicious smirks on all of their faces made me wonder if there wasn’t more of a need for ‘Bluff’ or ‘Acting’ tutorials.
“I do indeed! You see, the month is almost up, so my friends and I have already used our challenges for the month. But you’ve still got both of yours. So if you’d like some friendly pointers, you can challenge us to a spar to help develop your understanding of combat.”
“Ah, and the contribution points you’d be awarded for defeating me would serve as a payment for your generosity. Brother Hu is certainly wise. If it would be no trouble to delay, I should like to drop my equipment off at my hut before you leave me too sore to carry it.”
“That’s no trouble at all!” he answered after a flash of irritation crossed his face. “We’ll be waiting here for another while yet.”
I bowed in gratitude -more to the sect rules on plundering than the idiots obeying them- and dashed off to leave my calligraphy kit safely in my hut. I didn’t have much worth plundering, but a freshly stocked kit was liable to have a decent resell value.
On my way back to Hu’s ambush, because experience is valuable even if it’s agonizing, one of my former servant friends caught up to me panting “Don’t. He’ll just break your bones for fun.”
“Ah, brother Kesa! I know.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “But better to greet it with dignity than wait until he can challenge me, right?”
“What?”
“Come now, you figured out how I’m responsible for us getting here, right? Having my bones broken is just another uncomfortable step along the path.”
His face lit up in realization that I was actually the rock monster and that I was done hiding that approach.
“Just do me a favor, will you?” I asked with a grin.
“Sure, what?”
“Carry me back if I pass out. I don’t actually have a plan here.”
“What!?”
“He’s Rank 8. I don’t have any reason to expect that I can out trick him.”
“You’re going to try, right?”
“Well, yeah. It’s a spar to learn from. Trying tricks is the entire point.”
He just blinked at me like he was just realizing that I’m crazy. Better late than never I guess.
Returning to Hu, I waved to him and cheered “Good news! I found an old friend willing to help me back to my hut, so I can risk both challenges today!”
The moment of shock from everyone was wonderful, but not as nice as Hu’s face when he realized that I had to be able to stand to offer the second challenge, so he couldn’t just cripple me outright.
Not that he didn’t make me regret cheating him of the bullying he wanted to do. Under the guise of teaching me about different approaches that could be used for a simple punch, he pummeled me until I couldn’t stand back up.
Then, after a breather, I followed through on my promise and offered my second challenge to one of his croneys that didn’t put on any pretense of trying to teach me beyond saying that he would help me understand ‘Pain’.
When I woke up, Kesa informed me that I’d gotten a few solid hits in, myself and that the Rank 6 croney took it personally that my reflexes could touch him despite being a Rank 1 in the Body Reinforcement tier.
Which handily explained my broken legs. Apparently the guy would have gone for my arms too, but a senior instructor ‘happened’ to walk by and he didn’t feel like risking retribution for continuing to attack with me being unconscious.
The rules may have created a cripple-happy hellscape, but they did a decent job of keeping the worst at bay. And we had medics too. For a small fee of 100 points, to be paid from my dispensations, I had a wonderfully gruff senior brother come along and make sure my legs were set properly and that I knew what not to do to aggravate them.
The charge even included him coming back every week until I was cleared to walk again, which was far more than I expected to receive, but it did reveal why cripplings were so broadly encouraged.
The Yellow Fang Sect wanted trained surgeons and healers, and the rest of us were training material.
An ass-backwards way of going about it, but one that probably made sense with the larger scale politics I hadn’t finished learning about yet. After all, I wasn’t strong enough to risk visiting my folks yet, so I had time to map the sect politics before the inter-sect politics.
The surgeon confirmed as much when I asked during his last visit, with the added point that the Sect Master had realized the value of healers in a war some 300 years ago and had been hiding that he was training them up so that none of the rival sects would find it suspicious. When I asked about qualifications, he chuckled and said I would know if I met them.
From then on, it was a fairly peaceful couple of years. I got back into meal sharing almost as soon as my herbs matured. I had a noteworthy green thumb if my abrupt paying off of the medical bill was anything to go by. I was able to get the hang of imbuing intent into my work by cross-referencing the teachings of Calligraphy and Smithing, to the mild surprise of a few of the instructors. And I chose to only challenge within two ranks of myself to avoid getting my ass folded so hard.
Because as much as I learned from the experience, gotta say, still not a fan.
