35. Weakness

  I landed in the mansion that had been constructed for me outside of Resh Fali. I had reduced my aura significantly, but was still met at the door by several silver ranked attendants who welcomed me to my new home. I showed them the respect I felt they deserved by inclining my head.

  “Who funded the construction of this place for me?” I questioned the gray-haired man who presented himself as their leader.

  “Lady Tonilla gathered the funds from several prominent families and merchants,” he explained promptly.

  “I wish for names, so that I might thank them individually. Through letters, of course. I understand that my aura makes many nervous to be too close to me. I thank you for your bravery in coming out to meet me.”

  “It is nothing,” The man assured me. His name was Kortonphil, but shortened it to just Phil. Phil had been a mortal servant until the world had changed five years ago, then he had picked up a pamphlet that taught the Peach Blossom Dream and had quickly cultivated his body to the silver path.

  That he had chosen to remain a servant after reaching that rank spoke much to his mindset, although admittedly his chosen lord was rather more impressive than the simple merchant he’d worked for before.

  He spoke jovially with me a we explored the mansion, joking and telling me stories of how his life had changed. How he had recently bumped into a man he recognized as being a powerful cultivator from before the quickening of Atla and for a moment expected to die, only for the silver-ranked cultivator to bow humbly and apologize for the inconvenience.

  I nodded and spoke of my own difficulties, of managing the vast powers arrayed below me without micromanaging and getting lost in the minutia. He commiserated and vowed to do what he could to assist me in his small capacity.

  Once he had finished the tour, he showed me to the study, where copies of reports from the alliance were stacked according to dates going back to before my absence. I sighed and got to work.

  I was surprised at just how much had happened in my absence. Very little of it required my input at all, Di Ram had been an excellent leader and I approved of almost all of his decisions. The ones that I questioned were judgment calls which I would back him on simply to avoid undermining his authority, for although some detail or another stood out to me, they were ultimately not worth driving a wedge between us in the eyes of the public.

  So I signed off the reports as reviewed and the requests as approved, moving up to the current day as quickly as I could.

  “Father. Father. Father!” Atla said, manifesting in the room and bugging me until I acknowledged him.

  “Yes, Atla, what is it?” I asked.

  “The Majeeshans are itchy,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I mean, the little ones aren’t so bad, but the big ones are itchy,” he said.

  “That’s probably the fact that their Qi was built using Majeesha. She’s an older world who’s been awake for longer than you, but you’re far more powerful. In many more ways than one. She is focused only with making things stronger than they already are,” I explained.

  “But I worry about that too,” Atla pointed out.

  “Yes, you think about it. But you are so much more than that. Let me ask you a question that I asked Majeesha a thousand times and got no answer. Why do you want things to be strong?” I questioned.

  “So that when it comes time for them to fight for their lives, they can,” he answered promptly.

  “Why?” I persisted.

  “Because it would be sad if they simply accepted their deaths,” he answered.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Why?”

  “Because I helped raise them, and even if they die to feed something else, it’s not easy watching my work just vanish like that,” he said. “The predators need to eat too, and I love them as much as anything else. But they should have to be strong enough to eat the strong things that they feed on, and the things that they eat should be strong so that only the strong predators can eat.”

  “That’s a very good circle of logic for you to be following at this point of your development as a world, I think,” I told Atla. “You’re invested in the lives that make you your home in a way that Majeesha was not. When she saw something weak die, she simply dismissed it from her consciousness. You look at the role that it played in your ecosystems and wondered whether or not its death was necessary.”

  “I do?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ve noticed it in you from when you were very young. Death makes you sad, even when it’s necessary.”

  “Yes, it does,” he agreed. “But nothing lives forever. I think someday, even I will die.”

  “Perhaps,” I admitted. “But not for a very, very long time. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “But father, I’ll live longer than you.”

  “And when I’m gone, you’ll find a new Xian Lord who you’ll make strong,” I assured him. “But let’s not mourn me yet! I have a few hundred thousand years to live I think, with us bound together as we are.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Oh, did you know that puffer fish quills are tipped with poison? They don’t just scare their predators away, they’re deadly too.”

  “Wow, that’s incredible,” I said.

  “But they still get eaten.”

  “What kind of predator eats them?”

  “Humans,” he said. “You humans eat just about anything.”

  I grinned. “I need to focus on work for a while. Why don’t you go play with the girls?”

  “Kay,” he agreed, vanishing to go play with Hien Ro’s daughters.

  A few hours later, Mai Mai appeared. Without saying a word, she served me tea, putting the cup in my hands as I read the last of the reports.

  “I missed you, Mai Mai,” I told her, looking up at her as I sipped her tea. “Not just your tea. You. I’m sorry that my cultivation drove a wedge between us.”

  “It is the way of things,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “On Welpas, it was often only the strongest of the servants who were deemed worthy to serve the strongest of the ascendants. After seeing your strength, for the first time, I understand why I was relegated to serving new arrivals.”

  “You are strong, Mai Mai. I can see it in you. It is a kind, patient strength that does not break when it is bent, but bows with the wind and endures the storm,” I assured her.

  “But the reeds are still cut when the scythe is taken to them,” she said, shaking her head. “I must reach the golden path or higher if I am to stand at your side, and I must guide our child down the same path if she is to know her father. Unless you were to stop seeking power, then I fear I will be left behind.”

  I sipped my tea, then shook my head. “I see the strands of fate, Mai Mai. The only way that I can foresee to keep the things that I love is to become strong enough to stand between them and the scythe that others would bring to the field I have planted. I could have abandoned this world before I met you, but instead I chose to fight for it. That has left it marked in the eyes of my enemy. So no, I will not stop.”

  She nodded. “Well then, I guess I’ll just have to try harder to catch up to you,” she said.

  I sighed sadly, then took her hand in mine. “I wish that there was a way that I could cheat for you,” I said. “But stepping onto the golden path is not just about strength. It is about forming your identity core, the true you. The you that has walked your path up unto this moment, and combining that with the you that will walk the golden path forever more. You do not change, and yet the change is irrevocable. Do you know what my revelation was?”

  “No,” she said.

  “That I couldn’t do what I thought I had to do. I couldn’t sever my ties with Hien Ro, with my other disciples, or with the world of Atla. When I realized this, I stepped onto the Golden Path. My weakness gave me strength, and with that strength I paved the road to a future where we might have a chance to withstand the darkness I see coming for us.”

  She thought for a moment, then swatted my shoulder. “How is that supposed to help me?”

  I shrugged. “I know. My truth was acknowledging my weakness. Perhaps your truth will be acknowledging your strength.”

  She sighed and sat in my lap, and I got very little work done after that.

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