XLIV

  Reasonings

  The painting of the Black deity loomed. Even more so because I was seated on the floor.

  I eyed the wooden cup in my hands. The inky water didn’t slosh though I shook it—a property that didn’t make it any more inviting. But it didn’t need to be. The undercurrent of essence writhing underneath the surface was impossible to hide.

  I downed the cup in one go. Energy coursed through me…similar to a mountain river. One whose gushing was a quiet companion in the forest. The Everroot had been a stronger shot. But whereas the Everroot made me vibrate and unable to sit still, the water of the chalice tried to guide me into a deep slumber. In the calm, every muscle moving with my breath revealed itself to my mind. Air rustled my nostrils and reached into my lungs. And when I commanded the stream of essence inside me to move, it responded as if it was already part of my body.

  Cool, tranquil energy moved with grace through my veins and collected near my shard, where it poured into the garden and fed into Saber’s Ashenblood tree. The tree’s hunger knew no bounds. A great network of roots sucked up every drop of energy poured into the soil. When the energy was finally all spent, the ashenblood was more than halfway towards late stage.

  I stood, refilled my cup, downed it, and began the process all over again.

  The system chimed after my third drink.

  Ashenblood Tree upgraded!

  Ashenblood Tree - Middle - > Ashenblood Tree - Late

  Ashenblood skill slot unlocked.

  Ashenblood learns [Scion’s Call (Uncommon)]!

  Scion’s Call (Uncommon): The Ashenblood releases a powerful roar that disorients enemies. Fang of the Plane bonus: the Ashenblood can call a summon one tier lower than itself into battle through its will. A called upon creature doesn’t consume shard energy, but will return to the garden after some time and enter a recovery state.

  ‘One tier…’

  That wasn’t more than a harpy. For now. I could call Ashwing into battle for free if Saber reached peak, though doing so wouldn’t be smart given the stipulations.

  However, the ‘time’ probably increased based on the skill’s rank.

  I could imagine a world where the called summon would permanently join the fight.

  No. What held the skill back was that I wasn’t yet aware of what came after reaching a summon’s peak stage. They had a rarity, which I assumed could increase, but nothing in my class had offered a hint of what that process would look like.

  ‘Well, it’ll likely tell me when I get there.’

  With the amount of spirit water there was to drink, I’d be able to get Ashwing to peak, Skul to middle, and myself to middle novice within one fell swoop.

  …

  So much power sitting just outside arm’s reach should’ve sent my heart tumbling.

  I looked down and sighed, then snuck a glance at the third tier. The details of the Planestone were blurry from all the way at the chalice, but its phasing wasn’t hard to spot.

  My eyes closed. ‘three hundred and sixty.’

  That number had rung through my head more times than in my entire life in the past hour. None of the clans, not even the most holy of them, were adverse to killing. Multiple only needed the opportunity and half a reason.

  So why was the idea of killing bothering me so?

  Was it the amount? Would I have agreed without a whimper if the requirement was a hundred? What about twenty? What about one.

  My lips pursed. No. The rock in my stomach wasn’t because of the volume. There was something else.

  ‘It’s not like you didn’t kill before.’

  I slaughtered too many animals for me to count to get my summons where they were now. I’d already slain three drakes—an intelligent species just like humans. Then there was the boy on the mountaintop. And the one in the skirmish.

  A soft wind glided through the temple and ruffled my hair.

  ‘Was it the situation?’

  For all of my kills, I could argue they were self-defence. The animals were only the ones I encountered and were trying to kill me. Same with the drakes and the humans…

  I huffed. ‘That’s not entirely true.’

  The White Stalker chicks. What about those? I dragged those defenceless babies into the garden and swallowed their souls one-by-one. Did my murder of them not count because they weren’t ‘intelligent?’

  Is that why I still hesitated? Because to loosen the bowstring, to hunt down those who’d not done me any personal harm, was one step too far? Because at the end, even if it meant letting my shot at my origin vanish right in front of my eyes, I could say:

  ‘But I was righteous.’

  …

  Deep breaths escaped me. Everything was just…awful. Wrong and awful.

  “Want me to refill your cup?”

  My gaze slowly travelled up over the waves on Rin’s white robe, which twirled in tandem with her lower body. There was a soft curve to her lips.

  “…I think I’m fine for now,” I said.

  She hummed and pointed to the floor beside me. “Mind if I take a seat?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I scooped over and she plopped down. Her hair tumbled as she did so, spreading a scent of salt. It should’ve reminded me of sweat—we’d done our fair share of fighting and fleeing. Instead I envisioned standing on a shore. Sand dug into the soles of my feet, and the rhythmic ebb and rise of the tides swept away my thoughts.

  The calm that washed over me siphoned some of the tension in my chest.

  Moments passed with neither of us speaking.

  “You’re here to convince me,” I broke the silence.

  “I am.”

  She didn’t say anything else and let the silence return.

  “Not quite how I was expecting the convincing to go,” I said.

  She shrugged. “There’s not much convincing to be done.”

  My brow rose.

  “That you’re considering listening to me tells me enough.”

  …I supposed that was true. No person truly set on not killing others would even entertain such a conversation.

  I sighed. “Doesn’t it irk you?”

  She placed her hands behind her back and leaned back. “It does.”

  Though she didn’t pronounce it, the ‘but’ could be heard.

  “You’re from a minor clan too, aren’t you?” Rin said. “How many members does your clan have?”

  “A few dozen, maybe.”

  Once or twice, other members of our family visited, but I never interacted with them. Uncle Gerald’s stories were the only thing I had to go off of.

  “I guess you can get away with less when you’re the vassal of a bigger clan,” she said. “My Tidewalker clan houses a thousand people.”

  I blinked. “Your hometown must be a city.”

  “Just some huts near a shore.”

  My head tilted. Rin’s skin tone was the shallow brown of a leaf barely over age, one rarely seen on my homeworld. Whatever she saw when she closed her eyes, it was alien to me.

  “Huts?” I said.

  “Hundreds of them. All built on top of each other. Come nightfall, they look like a ball of mud. Now add the smell of rotting fish.”

  I frowned. “That’s not…”

  “Pleasant? I know. But with that many people, it gets hard to enforce sanitary rules; you can never tell who did what.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. Despite the horrid image she painted for me, she was still smiling.

  “Would you have chosen a different place to be born?” I asked.

  “Not in a million years. We’re all like family.”

  I mimicked her pose and leaned back. Her earlier comment returned to me, and I said: “Those are a lot of mouths to feed.”

  “Indeed.” Her shoulders hunched. “What about you? Your clan may be small, but surely you’ve got people counting on you.”

  Perhaps it was her own forthcoming nature which loosened my tongue, but I told her then, of my origins. Or at least my lack thereof.

  “It’s a flimsy reason compared to yours,” I said after I was done and exhaled.

  Somehow, my chest expanded more fully, like a weight resting on top had vanished.

  “Not at all,” she said.

  I chuckled. “Hundreds are at risk if you return empty-handed. My failure risks nothing but a consoling tap on the shoulder.”

  “I wouldn’t be sure of that.”

  My brows furrowed as I waited for her to expand.

  “Nobody’s origins come without strings,” she said. “We all inherit the karma of our ancestors. I know what I’m fighting for and who my enemies are. But do you? Someone or something must’ve planted that tree. Where are they, and why did they leave the fate of a child up to the universe?”

  I sat up a little straighter. From what I knew, the Womb Root was the only one of its like on our continent. So while it was possible it’d evolved through some system shenanigans, the more likely scenario was that something had planted it.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” Rin said.

  “Please.”

  She leaned forwards. “Given the stone and your class, I think it’s fair to say your ancestors were at least from a D-grade clan. Those do not abandon their young unless they’re forced to.”

  “Maybe I’m a bastard?” I said.

  “Maybe. But then why leave her near a realm that holds the heritage of her clan?”

  My gaze narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

  “But you would if you had too many enemies,” Rin said.

  “Think about it,” she continued. “You don’t get to D-grade without ruffling a few feathers. Whoever your ancestors were, their opponents were too powerful. So instead of putting you at risk, they left you in a lower realm world with enough resources to grow into your own. Even if you’d never amounted to anything, you’d have enough of a head start on your peers to live a luxurious life. And on the off-chance that you were a talent and wanted to find out more of your past?”

  “Everything is right there,” I finished.

  My chin dipped towards the floor. This story…was making a lot of sense. It’d explain the guiding voices I’d heard on my awakening. If they were the something we were speaking of, they’d left me a sacred class. A thing completely unheard of in the lower realms. The chances of me dying an early death with a gift like that were almost non-existent.

  However, if all of that was true…

  The Dawnflames were an E-grade clan, and E-grade clans already had enough resources to travel between planets.

  “What kind of enemies would a D-grade clan even have?” I whispered.

  “The kind you need to prepare for,” Rin said.

  I inhaled a shuddering breath. “Maybe…I shouldn’t chase my inheritance.”

  There was no way I could chase my past and not run into something my ancestors considered an enemy. But the amount of power I’d need to protect myself from a force capable of destroying a D-grade clan was ridiculous. Even if I decided to take shelter in another clan, I’d need enough talent to make it worth their while.

  And with that talent and power came the climb to the top, the ever-ascending staircase of cultivation, whose steps rested in a foundation of slaughter.

  “It may be too late.”

  My head whipped towards Rin. Her blue eyes were no longer the turbulent ocean waves, but the cold depths underneath it.

  “You angered the Dragonflight,” she said. “Perhaps you can still apologise. But you slaying a herald has already drawn the attention of all the clans worth their salt. There’s no telling what connections they have.”

  And any one of those could be related to a faction that opposed my ancestors. What if they caught word of my existence? Would they leave me be? Maybe. But they could just as easily dispose of me. And what if they tried to do so when I was back home? Mother would die before letting anything happen to me. So would Uncle.

  Wind whistled through the temple. It no longer borderlined on pleasant and made me shiver head to toe.

  In coming to this realm, had I sealed my fate?

  Warm flesh touched the top of my hand. I followed Rin’s arm up to her face. She was grinning. “That convincing enough for you?”

  Despite myself, I chuckled. “Too convincing. There may not be a reason for me to try anymore.”

  “Because those enemies may hear of you?”

  I nodded. As I pulled up my feet and rested my head on my knees, she continued to squeeze my hand.

  “Well, like I said, you don’t have to face the future alone. Besides, those factions hearing of you—if they even exist—is the worst case scenario. You just have to do one thing to avoid it.”

  “Which is?”

  “Push forwards,” she shrugged. “Get as strong as you can while staying as low as you can. With some luck, you won’t have to worry about anyone by the time they find you.”

  I exhaled. She was right, of course. But that was also the best case scenario. And more often than not, fate was not so kind as to wait on you.

  “How about this?” she said and raised one finger. “We’ll try it once. We’ll carefully select a target and take their tokens. If at any moment you think it’s wrong, we back out.”

  “We already took someone’s token,” I pointed out.

  “I took it. You’ll be the one doing the taking now.”

  I pinched my leg…it would be a good way to reconsider what I felt. Reflection was powerful, but there was nothing like analysing yourself in the moment. And one more group to send to their deaths wouldn’t hurt my karma—especially if our targets were disciples of questionable nature.

  Seeing the silent agreement on my face, Rin turned to the wider temple.

  “Akama, we can leave and come whenever we want, right?”

  The priest appeared in the middle of the path between instants. “Of course. Any who enter the temple can find it again. All you need to do is keep the image of the temple close in mind, and the shrine will lead you to the shortest path there. However…”

  We waited for him to continue.

  “You’ll need to reach the main temple located on the third floor to claim your higher tier rewards. The token will guide you there.”

  Of course, he only mentioned this now.

  ‘Sly fox.’

  His absence during the entirety of Rin and I’s talk was no mistake either. From his smile, he’d heard all of it. I didn’t want a spirit to know my origin story, but it shouldn’t come back to bite me since he was bound to the temple.

  “There you have it.” Rin regarded me again.

  “There’s some things I still need to do,” I said.

  “Just let me know when you’re ready.” Then she adopted the lotus position and closed her eyes.

  I followed suit. Skul and Ashwing still needed to reach the next stage, but I wanted more active practise that would keep my mind off things.

  Shard energy poured from within my core and reached my fingertips. The energy bubbled out of my skin, hovering like it always did. Envisioning the bundle of heat cleared the remnants of doubt lingering in my thoughts. I flexed my mind, and almost eagerly, the shard energy moved without me lifting a finger.

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