The next week went by with the droning monotony that only high summer could provide. Each morning he went to the hunters’ camp and either cut firewood, practiced with his sling-staff, or received instruction from Hunter An. After that he’d head to the horse pasture to help his brothers with herding. In the evening he’d read his lessons, play the topshur, or sneak a few moments to himself by reading the tales of cultivators that he’d bought from peddlers over the years.

  Life slowly returned to normal, even as he continued to avoid the rest of the village.

  One such morning, Hunter An placed her palm on his governing vessel, and guided him in the method to clear his meridians. It involved pulling Void qi out of his dantian, then slowly pushing it through the blocked pathways. He followed as best he could, his skin twitching at the uncomfortable feeling of something powerful and otherworldly forcing its way beneath his skin.

  “I can’t teach you any techniques, so you’ll need to either puzzle one out yourself,” Iseul said, as she pulled her palms off of his back. “Or wait until your father can find a more qualified teacher.”

  “You sell yourself short, Teacher. You’re most qualified to teach this Lee Song.”

  “No. I’m not, boy,” Iseul scowled. Song had learned over the past week that the taciturn hunter scowled a lot, even and especially when she was happy. “My martial arts’re specialized in qi materialization and manipulation – energy cultivation. You need body reinforcement arts. The most I can do is help you circulate, since that works the same for everyone.”

  Song nodded along at his teacher’s oft repeated explanation, then twitched as his qi ran into an especially strong blockage halfway down his thigh. Such blockages were called bottlenecks, and could take a cultivator months or even years to clear. Brother Juwon had spent nearly a decade trying to clear a bottleneck from his upper body’s Taiyang meridian.

  Iseul stood and stretched, then walked over to get a hot cup of mare’s milk from the pot simmering over the fire. “We’ll get you started on clearing your lower Shaoyang meridian. Most Void body cultivators I’ve heard of prefer to start with movement techniques, so it’s a safe bet. The Void Step, the Double Jump, and the Ground Contractor are the most common movement techniques, and all use qi concentrated in the legs.”

  “I’ve heard of some of those,” Song said excitedly. “The Heavenly Immortals of the Beggar Sect practice Ground Contractor, right? I’ve read that the Grand Beggar can have one foot in Chengdu and arrive in the capital with a single stride!”

  Iseul scoffed as she blew into her milk. “What Heavenly Immortals? Pretentious peacocking. That’s only a word the common folk use to describe the elders of the Orthodox Sects. Just because their ancient rituals allow for obtaining the Great Ones’ qi without any Sign, they think they’re better and closer to Heaven than us unorthodox cultivators.”

  Song considered some of the stranger Sign he’d seen, like the Yu Family’s tentacles. To the average person, the sight could be terrifying. But at the same time, part of unorthodox cultivation was learning how to leverage the gifts your Great One gave you. For example, the ram horns of his Lee Family were a powerful weapon when used properly in battle. And Hunter An used her Sign to great effect, both in hunting and in conversation.

  What would it even be like to be Signless? He sardonically considered his own worthless Sign; he practically was Signless! And not even a Heavenly Immortal title to make up for it! As his mind wandered, there was a sudden jolt in the governing vessel below his belly button and he cursed under his breath.

  “Distracted, boy?” Iseul chuckled. “Don’t let your mind wander when you’re circulating, it’ll tangle your qi. Take this chance to meditate and contemplate on what you’ve learned. I’ll be heading out to join the others by the river; they’re following some marmot tracks we found.”

  She hopped onto her horse and cantered off, leaving Song to enter meditation.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Most cultivators found inner peace within their mindscape, allowing them to silently improve their cultivation, contemplate on their dao, and grow closer to the Great Ones.

  But not Song…

  There was an odd ‘ohmm’ sound coming from the mirror when Song entered his mindscape. He found Cyrus sitting in a lotus position with his eyes closed and both hands held up in a strange ‘o’ shape.

  And he was humming.

  “You’ve come seeking knowledge, my apprentice,” Cyrus intoned. “Approach, and allow this one to instruct you in the deep wisdom of the world.”

  Cyrus was still dressed in blue pants and a finely crafted white shirt, with a stunningly bright painting of a many-pointed red leaf emblazoned on his chest. Song examined it quizzically as he came and sat before the mirror.

  “What knowledge do you have to share with me, oh great teacher?” Song asked, matching Cyrus’s timbre. There was no harm that Song could see in humouring the man’s perpetually odd behaviour.

  “One of the great pillars of reality, upon which your future manhood shall rest,” Cyrus replied. “Do you think you're ready to receive it?”

  Song leaned closer to the mirror, interested in spite of himself. “Yes, teacher.”

  “Then listen, and let your mind be opened.” Cyrus’s eyes snapped open. “Wash under your ‘pits, man. I can smell you from here and I'm on the other side of a mirror world. You run around in the sun and work with horses all day, Song. No girls are going to want to have anything to do with you like this!”

  Indignation crossed Song’s face. “I don't stink!

  “You're thirteen. If you haven't gotten the funk yet, you will soon. I learned that the hard way. Is there deodorant here? Something to apply to your armpits?”

  Song sniffed under his arms, frowning. “The Yus make a tonic, I know Brother Tae applies it.”

  “And soap?”

  “He has some of that too. I borrow it when I get really dirty. But usually I just wash in the barrel once a week, like almost everyone else who isn't Tae.”

  “Good, get some from him. Use it daily.”

  “Daily!?” Song’s face was a rictus of shock.

  “Every other day then. I'm not your mom.” Cyrus uncurled, stretching his legs out in front of him in a ‘v’ shape. “So, how’s the cultivation going?”

  Pleased with the change in subject, Song answered, “It’s going well. Hunter An is a good teacher. She says at the current rate it’ll take five years or so for me to clear my first two meridians.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  Song sighed. “A little worse than brother Juwon. I truly haven’t been blessed with talent.”

  “That’s rough. Sorry, man.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, I’m the one who’s failing.”

  “Nah, it’s a Canadian thing; we say sorry for everything, don’t worry about it. What happens after that?”

  “I do it again. To complete refinement level, I must clear half of my meridians.”

  “Ugh. How many is that?”

  Song splayed his legs out to match Cyrus’s and stretched. “The main meridians are Jue, Ming, and Shao, each of which have a yin and a yang channel. There are identical sets within both the upper and lower body, totaling to the twelve primary meridians. Teacher An has me started on the lower Shaoyang.”

  “So you’re just going to be sitting around circulating qi for the next ten years? I’ll lose my mind, Song. This is mind-numbing!”

  “That's cultivation.” Song shook his head. “At least Teacher says I’ll be joining her on hunts soon. She’s going to teach me tracking and scouting. Were you not paying attention?”

  “I, uh, may have been distracted with something else,” Cyrus said, blushing. He scratched at the stubble on his chin and looked elsewhere.

  Song’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he didn’t voice it. “Is there anything else, Cyrus?”

  Cyrus waved Song away. “No, no, you go do what you came here to do and I’ll warn you if anything comes near.”

  Song raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You can do that?”

  “Yup!”

  “Normally, cultivators are at their most vulnerable while they meditate. This is a powerful gift you’ve given me, Cyrus!” Song exclaimed excitedly. “Thank you!”

  “Shucks, weren't nothing.”

  Song took some space from the mirror and stared up at his constellation. He felt for the tangled energy coursing just beneath his consciousness, and massaged it back into a steady flow. As he did, he contemplated the mysteries of the Dark Dreamer, of that infinite mirror within the Void, and how it might all tie in with the bright stars twinkling high overhead.