“I… I think I have a Heart Devil, Uncle.”
“... I see,” his Uncle solemnly replied. “In that case, we will have no choice but to quarantine you, Young Master. For the good of the Sect.”
“I… I understand, Uncle.” Feng bowed his head, lips trembling. “If it’s for the Sect, then I will do my duty as Young Master. Even if Father must seal me away, I will not shy from my responsibilities, and—!”
Hei Nan could not hold back any longer. Before Feng could finish, the venerable Elder burst out laughing.
“Uncle!” The boy cried out. “I’m being serious!”
“I can see that,” Elder Hei said between chuckles as he wiped away a tear. “I’m glad to see you're so committed to the Beheaded Phoenix Sect despite your young age, little Feng. But the truth is, there is no chance of you having a Heart Devil. It is just not possible.”
“H-huh?”
“Heart Devils are an affliction unique to cultivators. But more than that, they are an affliction unique only to powerful cultivators. Cultivators who have obtained Immortal status, for example.”
“Powerful cultivators? Immortals?” The boy frowned. “You mean… like Father?”
“No. Your father would not be powerful enough to have a Heart Devil.” At the boy’s dubious expression, Elder Hei laughed. “Your father is strong, but there is still a world of difference between him and an Immortal, little Feng. He is within the Fifth Realm of Cultivation, which still makes him a ‘mortal’ cultivator. An Immortal would be in the Seventh Realm at least.”
“Seventh Realm…” The boy repeated. “And only Immortals… can have Heart Devils?”
Elder Hei nodded. “It is completely unheard of for a cultivator who has yet obtained Immortality to have a Heart Devil. If someone shows similar symptoms, it is far more likely that they are suffering from some other, more minor affliction.”
The Elder poked the forehead of the Young Master. “And you, little Feng, have only just awakened your soul into the Foundation Realm less than a month ago. It is far, far too soon for you to worry about having a Heart Devil. Or ever, for that matter…”
Hei Nan leaned back against his chair. As he continued, his smile turned a little wistful. “Painful as it may be, I can say with utmost certainty that such a problem is something you won’t ever have to worry about. The aspiration of obtaining Immortality is far too grand a dream for people like us. Even the cultivators of the Inner and Core Provinces have little chance of achieving such heights, save for the most talented of practitioners. Best you put the matter of Heart Devils behind you, Young Master. They have little to do with you now, and even less as you grow older and your idle curiosities wane. Cruel as your older sister was to laugh at you, Xingyu was not wrong in saying that your question is a strange one.”
“B-but I do have a Heart Devil! I see things! H-hear strange things as well!”
Elder Hei looked at the boy curiously. “Things like what?”
“W-well, like…” The boy turned away. Was he… blushing? “There’s a… lady.”
Something flickered within the man’s eyes, too fast for the boy to catch. A heartbeat passed. Elder Hei then raised an eyebrow, a grin on his face. “Oh? Is she pretty?”
“Y-yes… wait, no! Uncle, that’s not the point!”
“How does she look like?” Nan laughed, rubbing his nephew’s head even as the child eagerly answered him.
“She has red hair! I’ve never seen someone with red hair like hers before. And she has only one eye. A green one!”
His uncle looked at him, puzzled. “One eye? Like… in the centre of her head? You have a strange imaginary friend, little Feng…”
“Not like that! She has two eyes, but one of them is missing… I think?”
“Hmm. And does she talk to you?”
“She does! She says weird things all the time. And she keeps getting my name wrong!”
“Alright,” Hei Nan laughed, before picking the boy up and settling him down beside his desk. “Well, if the pretty lady does anything you don’t like, just tell me or your father, alright? We will beat her up for you.”
“I don’t want you to beat her up… She looks so sad all the time…”
His Uncle said something, but the boy was already distracted. In the corner of the room, the same woman who had been persistently appearing ever since he awakened to the Foundation Realm was there again.
The same dead eye, always staring at him.
~~~
She was a Heart Devil, Feng was sure of it.
He had not discussed the matter much with anyone else after he turned ten. His tutors always grew annoyed when he brought up the matter of his ‘imaginary friend’, and between the frequent scolding of him wasting their time and the fact that the apparition didn’t really do anything, Feng had been content to simply let the matter lie, strange as it was.
Then the phantom weight came, appearing out of nowhere when he had broken through into the Shaping Realm at fourteen, and suddenly it was a matter he could not ignore any more. Whenever it grew too heavy, his cultivation faltered. Inaction now carries consequences beyond just suffering the presence of some discomfiting wraith.
He had scoured all the texts and documentation he could gather on Heart Devils. The Sect’s Scripture Halls were swept through for even the slightest clue on his condition or just Cultivation deviation in general. Feng even invested a sizeable fortune into trade merchants to obtain obscure texts on the subject from throughout the Northern Provinces.
There was barely anything useful, of course. Heart Devils were rare, even within the Core Provinces, and an issue solely for Immortals besides. It was a problem so far removed from the lives of Outer Province Cultivators that the mere term was hardly known at all, even to experienced Disciples.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He did, eventually, discover a way to handle that growing pressure in his chest. For some reason, engaging in charitable work and helping the mortals living around the mountain seemed to lighten the weight of his Heart Devil. Feng had no explanation for why this worked; it just did. And so he kept up the practice for years, regardless of the disapproving glances of his peers and Elders.
He had only regretted that he had not managed to find the remedy before so many lives were lost to that wretched creature. She was not one to take kindly to being ignored, and if he did not feed her whims, she would find her own prey to sate that impossible voracity.
~~~
[Fiery Comet Step]
The Young Master navigated himself to the district containing the secluded Sparring Halls of the Sect. It was there where he would complete the task his Father gave him.
Movement techniques were not rare. They were commonly the first technique taught at Cultivation Sects, and were known even to Outer Disciples. The Fiery Comet Step, in particular, was arguably the easiest movement technique to learn for new disciples.
A mere burst of incredible speed in a singular direction. Any cultivator with a bit of time, even those in the Foundation Realm, could learn the technique, although full mastery of it would be the task of an entire lifetime.
Provided, of course, that they were indeed a member of the Sect.
Within the Beheaded Phoenix Sect, knowledge of the technique was not just useful. Given the winding, mountainous terrain, the use of the technique was essential to get around the place in any appreciable time at all.
It also serves as a useful means of rooting out lazy or untalented new disciples. Any who could not at least activate the technique within the first month of their initiation would be expelled for being unable to perform their duties or attend lessons on time.
The grey sands that paved the centre of the Sect highways were the alchemical by-product produced by the many pill makers and blacksmiths of the Sect. Not only were they fire-resistant, but they also possessed a semi-sentient mind of sorts that actively seeks and smothers any flame within their vicinity. Given the pyrotechnic after-effects of utilising the Fiery Comet Step, the creation of the grey-sanded trails accompanying the Sect’s most common pathways became one of the compound’s key architectural foundations.
As the Young Master blazed his way through the monastery, he observed the other individuals he encountered along his path. Mortal servants and traders all bowed as he sped past them, their feet trudging along the sloped cobblestone paths of the Sect as they tirelessly went about their duties. Hei Feng could hear their laboured breaths as they carried heavy goods and buckets of firewood on sore backs up to the Sect’s inner compound.
The sight of their suffering brought a strange, discomforting, and wholly familiar feeling to him. He ignored it, telling himself that it was just another reminder of how blessed he was to be a cultivator.
Not just a cultivator, he reminded himself. But a Young Master as well.
There were countless benefits that the status of the Patriarch’s chosen heir brought. Being raised within the Sect meant that his meridians were able to develop in the most qi-rich environment possible within his province straight from birth, rather than having to earn that privilege by securing a place as a disciple.
His diet was also superior to that of a common villager or disciple. Pills, wine, beast meat, spirit stones, even the occasional advancement drug; it was no question that some of the best cultivation resources that the Sect could scour would be funnelled to its Young Master, the man who represented the best and brightest of the Sect’s future.
He had been fed well, raised well, even when he did nothing to earn that right, except for being born in the right place and time.
There was nothing wrong with that. That was simply how things were. All was right and proper with the world.
“So why are you not happy?”
“Be silent,” he murmured to his traitorous heart. The weight shivered in his chest, as if stirring back to life. In the corner of his eyes, he thought he saw that damnable woman of red and green, of blood and jade, again.
Always watching him.
As his concentration wandered, the Young Master made the briefest slip in control. The next activation of his movement technique had too much qi in it, releasing just a little too much light and heat.
Feng himself was barely affected, but the explosive flash was enough to startle a nearby elderly servant. The old woman was caught off guard. Her shaky footing, already compromised by the heavy basket of firewood on her back and the steep slopes of the mountain, caused her to lose her balance. She fell to the ground with a pained cry, spilling the hard-earned firewood she had gathered from the valley’s forest below as they rolled down the slope.
She had enough poise to keep her distress silent, but the look of utter dismay on her face was unmistakable.
That look soon turned to fear, however, when she looked up and saw the cultivator who made her fall standing before her. And that fear rapidly transformed to stark white terror, upon seeing that the cultivator was none other than the Young Master of the very Sect she served.
~~~
“Uncle… Is there a cure?”
“Hmm? For a Heart Devil?”
“... Yeah.”
“Well, all the books I have read on the subject seem to agree that such a task is usually impossible, save for one foolproof method.”
“Really?! What is it?”
“Silly Feng, you should already know. The Heart Devil was originally a part of you, was it not? Then all you have to do is simply defeat it, and devour its corpse.”
Mortals
A mortal refers to a person who has yet to or is unable to awaken their soul, and thus is completely unable to cultivate. The word is also sometimes used in reference to ‘mortal cultivators’, which are cultivators who have yet to break through into the Seventh Realm and obtain Immortality. Generally, however, the term is mainly directed at individuals who cannot cultivate.
Mortals are also sometimes referred to as ‘worms’, a common derogatory insult used by cultivators when addressing their serfs.
Despite the current era being named ‘the Age of Cultivators’, the human race is comprised mostly of mortals, and by a rather large majority. According to the last review of the Empire’s population ledger, within the Empire’s population of one billion, approximately only one in a thousand Imperial Citizens are Cultivators.
Moreover, only one in a thousand of those Cultivators are Immortals.
The majority of Cultivators and Immortals are naturally found closer to the qi-rich slopes of Mount Tai. Within the Outer Provinces, where the qi is poor, the fraction of cultivators is far smaller, closer to only one in ten thousand. It is no surprise, then, that the large majority of human mortals are located in the Outer Provinces.
The life of a mortal citizen within the Flesh-Grafted Empire is harsh, impoverished, and — if fate proves unkind — painfully short. These human chattels exist mostly to worship and honour their cultivated betters. They are duty-bound to support the Cultivators’ quest for Immortality in any meagre way they can, for that is the only meaning left that their pitiful existence will allow.
Most Outer Sects are expected to administer and safeguard the various mortal villages and small towns around the Province, as without cultivation, these people are woefully incapable of defending themselves from the many dangers that lurk within the Empire’s territory. All too often, whole villages are wiped out by roving bands of bandits or lone Spirit Beasts — threats that would have taken a single trained disciple to deal with. But with such vast numbers scattered across the Outer Provinces, the loss of a few dozen, or even hundreds of mortal lives is barely worth an ounce of attention to a Cultivator Sect.
Mortals spend their days toiling the field, weaving fabrics, or mining away in quarries, producing pitiful gains that are then taken by the Sects as tax and tithe. They are also often called upon to fulfil their quotas of labour each month, serving as disposable builders and workers for constructing the great works of the monastery.
It is a thankless and repetitive existence, but it is — for the most part — safe, and the common serf may at least take some pride in that their labour fuels the Imperial Dream in some small way.
If one cannot take to the Path to Immortality as the Emperor ordained, then the least a worm could do is use its life to pave the way for someone else’s.
— Excerpt from A Citizen’s Guide to the Flesh-Grafted Empire
