Chapter One – Wu Ying
Dying soon after achieving immortality would be ironic.
Cold wind from the north blew against Wu Ying’s tanned skin, his long hair flowing around him and brushing his cheeks. Green and brown silk robes flapped in the gusts as he drifted alongside the massive golden yellow and sky-blue dragon that accompanied him in the cumulonimbus clouds, his skin prickling from the cold and increased humidity.
It was quiet up here, their ascent having taken them above even the fowl that crisscrossed the Middle Kingdom, journeying from pond to pond as the seasons turned. From up here, he could see the distant deserts in the west, the beginnings of the redolent and green south and the rolling hills and the mountain range he had so recently left behind. Everything except the woman, the lover that he had abandoned after achieving that final goal of all cultivators.
Immortality.
It had been necessary, to escape the clutches of the self-inflicted injury of shattering his path. It had been his goal, ever since he resolved to become a cultivator. To walk ever onwards, to see what the world—both mortal and immortal—might hold, to achieve peace and tranquility by joining the greater Dao. That great way that guided all of existence.
A long-held dream. Achieved, but not without cost. A lover abandoned, friends parted from, family discarded. All that he had ever known gone as he undertook a new adventure. But not for long—not as he held onto the promise to help them climb, to bring Yang Mu to his side.
Immortality alone would be all too lonely.
“Tell me Cousin Long . . .” Wu Ying noted the amusement in the dragon’s voice. He understood well enough, for it was arrogance itself to name himself a dragon. His only excuse was that he had inherited that name, rather than having chosen it. “This is your first time traversing the heavens, is it not?”
“Yes . . . cousin.” Wu Ying hesitated to use the term, uncomfortable at such a degree of familiarity. “I am newly ascended. Is it possible to see them, as a non-immortal?”
“Only for the fated.” Large, wise yellow eyes turned to stare at Wu Ying as he rose. “Though you tried, once before, to join our kind. To defy the heavens and become an immortal yourself.”
Wu Ying inclined his head. Wind and fire, grappling a tyrant and bringing weapons to bear, holding one other aloft as they fought for the fate of countries alike. Tightening the embrace, as heavenly tribulation arrived and struck down, heavenly lightning lighting up the sky, burning both of them.
His next words were soft, filled with regret and memory alike. “A failed attempt. A foolish one.”
“A ruse.”
“Yes.”
“Arrogant, to make the heavens themselves your pawn.”
What could Wu Ying say to that accusation? Nothing.
The silence lingered till the dragon grinned wide, showing dozens of incisive teeth, each half the size of Wu Ying. “You will fit in well in the court, then.” Those words, supposedly a compliment, sent a shiver through Wu Ying. “You would do well to be careful about defiance, though. The native Immortals find Ascendants like you all too dangerous.”
Wu Ying blinked, turning over the thoughts of native Immortals and Ascendants, mortals who had defied the decree of heaven itself to rise up and join their ranks. He recalled a lesson, one so often repeated he could still hear the voice of his teacher resound in his head.
“Cultivation is rebellion!”
As the words faded, as the full implication of the words sank in, Wu Ying awoke to the world around him with a start. Only to realize that the dragon had sped up, leaving him behind.
Pushing himself, the newborn Immortal took after the dragon, swimming after it as it flew through the air, the fabric of the world straining around them both.
***
Travel as an immortal was strange, for they journeyed not just through the physical dimensions of the Middle Kingdom but upwards and sideways as well through a secondary dimension. As though the worlds and the heavens were dough balls, pulled apart and stretched, solid portions on each end and a thinner space in between. Across these lanes of reality, the pair traversed the sky, Wu Ying straining to match the speed of the serpentine figure ahead of him.
He could sense without effort the way the dragon had created a bubble of air around them, a moving sphere of power that carried them forth through these dimensions. Instinctively, Wu Ying knew that falling out of the sphere into the strained space between dimensions would be dangerous. His body, his soul, too new to handle the realities.
The winds—his friends, his companions, they of his wind-aligned immortal body—whispered new secrets now, of lands he had never imagined, of vistas that stretched for countless li in directions he had yet to traverse. They spoke of islands filled with succulent immortal peaches that floated on the backs of massive turtles. Told secrets of immortal trysts on the back of slow-moving elephants who carried entire mountains on their backs and hid masters of untold power. Of numerous heavenly realms, where clusters of immortals resided in mountainous cities and abbeys. Most of all, of palatial palaces that floated in heavenly realms.
The winds poured their energy into him, sweeping him onwards, doing their best to aid him. Little as it might be, for though they could enter the bubble of power that the dragon wielded—carry news and information that flooded Wu Ying’s mind and sent it spiraling—they had no authority within.
No, what effort there might be to keep up as they crossed untold li with each breath, that was entirely up to Wu Ying. So newly ascended the scars from battling the very fires of heaven had not even crusted, he pushed himself. Breathing strained, threatened to grow ragged. Muscles—physical and spiritual—were stressed, precious immortal chi pouring from him with each moment.
All the while, passing beyond his grasp lay entire realms of immortals. Hundreds, thousands of them, more than he had ever imagined—could ever have imagined. So many, and none of them ever daring, ever willing, to set foot on the Middle Kingdom where mortals struggled, fought, and died.
On and on, the dragon swam. Dozens of realms passed, lands and their markings passing below, flashes of a world brought to him on gusts of wind. Forest fires, churning seas, exploding volcanoes and the unrelenting cold of the north all mixed with the scent of incense and burnt offerings, of wood-fired stoves and floral bathwater.
Little enough distraction, as muscles protested and will faded till he lagged behind. Unable to keep up with the dragon before him, he brushed against the edge of the bubble once, and then again.
Cold air became a void that sucked away not just heat but chi alike. He cried out in pain, a low noise deep in his chest, but he pushed on. Forced himself forward, digging deep into that farmer’s stubborn will, the one that refused to give up no matter the drought, flood, taxes, or weevils that came.
Onwards, stubbornly until he caught up for a brief moment, only to lag again.
Time immeasurable passed, a period that might have been but a single day or a year, all of it engulfed in the throes of exhaustion and pain and the need to push, push, push on. When body and soul could no longer bear the strain, and he fell behind again. For the last time.
Only to be caught by a sinuous body, bearing his weight. Pulling him forward, until they passed through another barrier, another dimension, and another. Moving faster than ever, such that the ground they had crossed before was miniscule.
Such was the difference between them that his greatest efforts was but a minor exertion by the other. Recovery came, slow, as his mind churned through that new understanding, as he soaked in the whispers of the wind. Until the dragon, twisting in a rising spiral, tossed him into the center the tendrilled face gazing upon him.
“Weak as a newborn. Flighty as my other cousins. A dangerous time for a new Ascendant,” the creature rumbled. “Now, come.”
“We go? Where, cousin?”
“Nowhere.” A harsh bark of laughter, the rumbling voice growing incensed. “Do you seek to meet the court dressed as you are?”
Wu Ying hesitated, suddenly aware of what he wore. He had not changed out of the robes he had worn after ascending—simple ones that were neither his finest nor most protective. He was not even wearing the scalemail armor he had acquired long ago beneath the robes, though a part of him wondered how much defense such a mortal working might offer.
After all, they were mortal made. Wu Ying found himself in the unusual circumstance of realizing that he was once again, poor. It had been many years since such considerations had impacted his mind, but ascending to the immortal realm meant that all his clothing, all his jewelry and equipment that he had not given to his lover or kept for himself, were no better than rags to his peers.
“Thank you for reminding me.” Wu Ying touched his robes, recalling what he had, then hesitated as he cast his gaze around him to the wide-open vistas.
“Your position is not uncommon,” the dragon rumbled. “Though most would at least dress in their finest and cleanse themselves.” A slight beckoning of power brought a dense and heavy rain cloud closer. “I would not have you shame us, no matter how distant the connection.”
“Thank you, again.” Wu Ying tugged on the cloud, pulling it free from his companion and bringing it to protect his modesty. It was, in truth, entirely for peace of mind as their layered spiritual senses could tell every breath, every shift of movement effortlessly.
Sometimes, it was the form of the matter that mattered more than the reality.
As an immortal, manipulating the various elements of the world was so much easier—such that rejoining the water vapor to condense into droplets required only a minor output of chi. A good thing too, for his store of immortal chi was near gone. What little he had regained while being carried was but a drop compared to the vast oceans held within his companion’s dantian—their core.
As he washed in the water, forming a simple barrier of wind, water and light, he continued the conversation. “May I know how I should name you?”
“This one has many names. Many titles.” His companion was languidly circling the rain cloud as though he expected Wu Ying to run. “So many that it is easy to forget. Formal, informal, familial and public; so many words to designate an individual, but what is a name?”
Ignoring the philosophical musings, Wu Ying replied, doggedly, “Then, perhaps, the one you most prefer.”
In the impromptu rain cloud, Wu Ying grimaced at the dirt and blood that came off the cloth he used to wash himself. Accumulated sweat, the debris of thousands and thousands of li splashed across his body, and more came off with each swipe. Trudging through a mystic realm and being tested by the lightning tribulation of heavens had caused some degree of distress to clothing and skin alike.
At least he was not bleeding any longer, nor exuding the impurities that made up his formerly mortal form. Having risen through the many stages of cultivation to become an immortal, he had cleansed his body of the majority of the impurities long ago. Such Body Cultivation was a long, agonizing process, but it had toughened mind and body alike.
“If you must have a name, then call me Xuan Shui.”
Literally translated, mysterious water—a fitting name for the dragon that had appeared out of nowhere to abscond with him. That had dragged him away as Wu Ying had attempted to consolidate his cultivation after his recent rise to immortality.
“Is this then your role, cousin? To greet newly ascended immortals?” Clean as he could be without taking a proper bath, Wu Ying began the elaborate process of dressing. Underclothes for his robes were the start; enchanted silk from Yunnan taken from worms that had fed upon empowered and ancient mulberry trees were the first layer. Each handful of fabric cost a half dozen spirit stones alone.
“Not at all. I took particular interest in you,” Xuan Shui said. “I am not the only one.”
“Me? Why? I am no one . . .”
“So they all say, yet few have dared to play games with the heavens themselves.”
Wu Ying eyes narrowed a little behind the rain cloud. Xuan Shui had acted as though he had not known of his past. “Attracting so much attention, it might concern one.”
“Then one would be correct.”
“Ominous.” Wu Ying slipped his hands through the outer layer of robes, tying off the inner ties on the left to begin. Curious to see if his companion would elaborate as he hoped.
Once the inner tie was secure, he layered the next side of the robe over, fastening that side to the right external ties. Next, he extracted his belt and added it to the ensemble, making sure that his sword—Ren—sat right, along with his pouches and other accessories.
Most times, individuals could get away with only securing one or two ties in daily life, but as a cultivator, the sheer physicality of motion—flying around on the back of the wind for example—dictated the use of as many fasteners as could be reasonably accommodated for modesty’s sake.
He was readjusting the placement of his sword when he stopped. Left hand gripped the jian’s sheath, the straight sword a little thicker than the gentleman’s weapon that were popular in the south. Ren was closer to the soldier’s version of the jian than the dueling weapons so favored by most cultivators, but few of those cultivators were as involved in martial matters as Wu Ying.
Few had his gift, either.
“Weapons, cousin?” Wu Ying asked.
“Do not unsheathe them in the court unless you seek to emulate the Great Sage Equal to the Heaven’s Themselves[1],” Xuan Shui said. “Mayhap one day, you might repeat his great actions, but right now, you are weaker than a newborn kitten.” Wu Ying snorted, though compared to the dragon, perhaps he truly was. “You may carry your jian, though . . .”
“Though?”
“We should go soon. It would not do to keep them waiting.”
Frustration bubbled up at the hints given and never fully revealed. Politics—court, sect, cultivator—had never sat well with him. He had never desired to partake in them, and all these hints were but another form of politicking. A testing, a questioning.
Of what, he did not know.
Wu Ying thought deeper over the last few minutes as he finished smoothing out his clothing. Then he dismissed the cloud and chased after the dragon who now swam through the skies at a more sedated pace.
The sprint, the forced exhaustion of soul and chi. Stopping to dress, the authoritative summons. Commentary on his clothing, but mortal . . .
All to remind him, rebel or “Ascendant,” he was but at the bottom of the rung, the lowest of the low.
A newborn immortal, with neither the strength nor ability to contend against others. What he wore, how he approached the Heavenly Palace and its denizens, would dictate his reception. The weapon by his side would mark him as a warrior, the lack of jewelry and other adornments as someone lacking in resources.
Callouses on his knees, on his feet and hands showed that he was one who worked with his hands and valued it sufficiently that he had kept such marks, even after manifesting as an immortal. His footwear spoke of one who had traversed countless li, and while he did have court shoes, he would not change his out.
After all, as much as this presentation would be a test of him, he too could judge those he was to meet. Truth be told, Long Wu Ying had his own points to pick with the immortals that ran the thirty-six heavens. After seeing so much largesse and worlds of splendor and bounty, he was eager to speak with the Emperor and his bureaucrats. The sufferings of the mortal realm, overseen by the immortal stood stark in his thoughts.
Still, such thoughts and recriminations of actions taken—or not—fled from his mind when he caught sight of the Heavenly Palace. While he might have glimpsed the numerous palaces of mortal kings in his time, none of them would stand as a candle to the glorious, blazing sun that was the structure before him.
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