17. Expectations

  “Yes Ma, I earned the coin working. No I didn’t steal it,” Toorah said, sidestepping his youngest sister’s attempt to tackle him as she suddenly realized that he’d come home.

  “The sect has kicked you out, you know. It was announced six days ago that you have neglected your duties and were no longer welcome. We had to go and carry your stuff home before they threw it out,” his mother scolded.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he said. “But I saw an opportunity and I had to take it. I’m working as a translator, and with the waygates open I’m busier than ever. I can only visit because my employer took three days off, but otherwise I have been working steadily. That’s why I can afford to bring so much coin home.”

  She studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Well, I suppose that if you’re working in the city, then things are alright then. I wish you would have left word before you left, I was worried so much.”

  “Ma, I’m a silver-path cultivator. You don’t have to worry about me so much,” he objected.

  “That only makes things worse! What if you get in over your head challenging some spirit beast or steal the heart of a young mistress and start a thousand year grudge! You know how those things happen to people like you!”

  “Those are just stories, Ma. Being a real cultivator is nothing like that,” Toorah objected as his sister tried to tackle him again. He scooped her up and examined her.

  “And you need to start cultivating soon,” he told the four year old. “Come here and I’ll show you how to start, okay?”

  “Kay,” she agreed, but not before she managed to get him engulfed in a hug.

  “There is something though,” Toorah said before guiding his little sister outside. “Um, there’s a tournament coming up. I don’t think I’ll do very well, but I was thinking I’d enter.”

  “You what? ” his mother exclaimed.

  “It will be fine. You get disqualified for killing your opponents, so it should be safe,” he said quickly. “I don’t expect to do too well, I’m not that experienced in fighting. But I was thinking that maybe the family would like to come and cheer me on.”

  His mother scoffed. “And who would tend the fields?”

  “Mother, I just gave you enough coin to buy the village itself,” he objected. “You can afford to hire a field hand or two.”

  “Harumph,” she said. “Go teach your sister how to cultivate and I’ll think the matter over. Don’t think that I’ll be signing any papers saying you can participate, and if I find out that you forged them then—”

  “Ma, the tournament doesn’t ask for parental permission,” Toorah said, his face turning crimson. “That would be humiliating. I wasn’t asking you to approve, I just thought you might want to be there.”

  “And see my favorite son get his face beaten in?”

  “I don’t think Poul is entering,” Toorah said.

  “Hah! Go teach your sister.”

  Sitting outside on the rickety porch, Toorah spent a few minutes looking out over the fields where he’d grown up working and playing as he guided his sister through the breathing exercises that his master had taught him. He nodded, pleased with himself as she began to sweat out small amounts of black impurities, just like she was supposed to at this stage.

  She kept her focus inward for an impressive ten minutes before realizing that she stank. She ran inside to demand that her mother give her a bath, while Toorah continued to look out at the fields.

  Nervously, he stepped out, and began practicing the techniques that his master had described to him five years ago. He had attuned himself to Earth and Fire, both because those were the easiest elements to obtain and because he’d thought at the time that they fit his personality. So as he summoned pillars beneath his feat and launched whips of fire through the air, he thought again of Master Little Bug.

  The Worldfather.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Toorah shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t tell anyone that, of course. Nobody would believe that a weakling like him was a direct disciple of the Worldfather. He would just get laughed at and called a liar.

  It didn’t matter. It was true.

  And even if he didn’t win the tournament, he would do his best to make his master proud.

  He’d thought, before the vision at the crossroads, that Little Bug had forgotten about him. That even now, his master was continuing to watch over him from a distance was both profoundly touching and humbling to him.

  “I don’t know if I can win,” he said as he went through the kata his master had shown him with an earthen spear in one hand and a scimitar of flames in the other. “But I can try my best with all I am.”

  The earth shook as his sudden epiphany pushed him to the cusp of the golden realm. He stopped what he was doing, sat, and spent three hours meditating, trying to recreate the feeling.

  But he fell short.

  Rather, it wasn’t time yet.

  But he’d touched on the edge of it and knew what the golden path felt like now. He grinned.

  It was probably for the best to hold off on advancing until after the tournament anyway. He was only fifteen years old, and some of the golden path entrants would have centuries of experience.

  Yeah. It was better to wait.

  Like his master said, the best things come to those who wait.

  ~~~~~~~

  The part of me that wasn’t kissing Mai Mai was busy looking for the best place to plant tea trees. While I had startled a few people by using the waygates to cross over onto the western continent to shorten the distance considerably, the location that Atla had picked out was still several hundred kilometers away, and while I could have made the trip considerably shorter, I wasn’t in any hurry. I passed over the ocean onto one of the uncharted islands, almost as large as Nonpo.

  I scanned it quickly and was surprised to find it uninhabited except for a species of boar, the king of which was in the golden realm, several species of birds, and a monkey king who was fighting with the boar when I arrived.

  I flared my power and slammed into the earth between the combatants. I looked between them sternly.

  “Hello. What seems to be the cause of this disagreement?” I asked.

  “Monkey invades my territory,” the boar declared.

  “Pig eats my fruit,” the monkey said.

  I nodded. “Well, it’s not really my place to get involved in your disputes. However, I will be establishing a tea plantation on this island. I will be sending several of my subjects to do the farming, and they will be under my protection. As you two are the reigning local landlords, I wish to inform you of this decision I have made as Worldfather. Do either of you object?”

  I asked this question while my power was on the cusp of the platinum realm.

  The monkey and the boar exchanged looks.

  “I do not object. I will instruct my progeny to leave your subjects alone so long as they remain on the land you stake out,” the boar said.

  “Will they eat my fruit?” the monkey asked.

  I tugged a little harder on my power, borrowing some from Atla.

  “I do not object,” the monkey said. “I will leave them alone.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “I apologize for interrupting. Pleasant dueling.”

  With that, I flew away to find the ‘absolute perfect spot,’ which took only a few minutes with Atla chattering in my ear about how perfect it was. Once I’d found it, I quickly built the foundation for the waygate and waited for my other self to finish kissing Mai Mai and do the same in the Di family compound.

  About an hour later, I formed the connection and allowed this part of me to dissipate while my other self walked through to the island paradise with Mai Mai. She spent a few minutes looking around. The battle between the island’s kings hadn’t resumed, and my true self and she spent several hours exploring.

  Mai Mai was delighted that I trusted her with the entire plantation project, from finding the workers to selecting the best places to plant the trees to everything. And with the waygate, she would never be too far away.

  We returned to Resh Fali after exploring the island for hours, arriving just as the sun was coming up in the city. We watched from the top of the Di family compound until my mother appeared and scolded us for being out all night and setting the city ablaze with rumors of our date the day before.

  She reminded me that, as far as the public was aware, I had a child with one woman already, and while it wasn’t unthinkable for me to take both Taimei and Mai Mai as concubines, I shouldn’t damage the reputation of honorable young women if I could avoid it.

  Both Mai Mai and I were blushing at the tongue lashing we received by the end of the conversation, and we reluctantly allowed ourselves to be parted.

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