Forikikam is certainly…well…a city?

  She went through a lot when being transported to the sect by two disgruntled inner disciples, but that was only for the night, not enough time to truly explore. Barakan she spent little over a month in, waiting as she was for initiation. Other than that her only real experience with the civilized world was through Ralth, she wasn’t old enough to join the caravans, unlike her siblings. She has a feeling her father wouldn't have let her join one even if she was.

  Hmmm…

  She hasn’t thought about her father in a while.

  Used to be a daily occurrence, but with all that’s happened…well she has other things to occupy her mind then resentment. Does she still feel resentful?

  A cursory examination says that yes, yes she is.

  Why?

  Well, she thinks, he did take my agency.

  Fair enough, but will she feel this way forever? She doesn’t know, she doesn’t want to. She wants the memory of her father to be untainted by resentment. She glowers a bit, he couldn’t have waited just a few more years before returning to the cycle? She could’ve shown up all prim and proper and made memories past the arguments.

  They got into a lot of those, back when she first heard he had sold her off without even telling her. She only found out because one of the disciples coming to pick her up came early. It was only a few days, but each was filled with yells and curses. She expanded her vocabulary quite dramatically as a consequence.

  During all this thinking, she’s just been staring at a fountain, watching as the water trails down, only to end up at the top all over again to repeat the cycle. Is there a metaphor somewhere in there? Maybe she doesn’t know, but she’s feeling philosophical today. Perhaps it could represent life? Making our journey down to the bottom of the fountain, until eventually we stop, and are pushed back out its spout. To travel a new journey with a new life, the past washed clean and forgotten.

  Hmmmm, no, feels like she’s reaching a bit too far for that one.

  She just keeps staring at the fountain, contemplating it and its waters when a hand places itself on her shoulder. It is a large hand, and it feels like vines and roots, tangled together into a knot. She turns to see a man of green, appearance matching the texture of his hand, He’s wearing a beating robe of brown.

  “What are you thinking about, young one?” A rope tied together through bramble asks.

  Tantra thinks of bowing but…no, that's not what he asked for.

  “I was thinking about the fountain,” she says, “trying to give it a greater meaning than simply being a fountain.”

  There’s a rumble of rustling trees as he pats her on the back.

  “A contemplative day is it?”

  She nods.

  “Good, young ones like yourselves need a moment every now and then to make meaning of the mundane, good for the mind.”

  Tantra just nods again.

  “I don’t recognize your robes, or token, where are you from cultivator?”

  “The serpent’s fang, honourable elder.”

  He barks a laugh and it sounds like the whipping of ropes, “I am no elder, just a wandering nomad, taking the journey one step at a time.”

  “One step at a time,” Tantra echoes, “what brought you here?”

  The man just shrugs, “I tour around Rikidan occasionally, and this is a city in its grasp. Do I need a reason beyond that?”

  “No, just most have set destinations for their journeys.”

  He snorts, “and they’ve missed plenty of the world's wonders by being so narrow. I WALK WHERE MY FEET TAKE ME, and I’m more than satisfied with that style of living.”

  The air twists and his voice reverberates through the square. The peasants were already fairly far, considering the upper realm cultivator in their midst, but they’ve backed away further from the strangeness that came with the man's words. City folk, she’s found, tend to be less cautious of cultivators than villagers. Though there’s still a healthy dose of fear that guides them to politeness.

  Tantra blinks.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “How did you do that?”

  The man of tightly woven vines chuckles a tune of birds chirping, “why ruin the surprise? If I’ve been guided to you then you’ll figure out something so simple pretty soon. I’m almost impressed, you have such a distant soul and yet fate has deemed you important.”

  “Fate?”

  “Yep, me and fate have a bit of a thing going on, but don’t you worry about that, it isn’t anything bad. Technically.”

  Tantra has to hold back an incredulous look at the man, what does he mean technically?

  “Anyway, you said you were from the Serpent’s Fang, where, mayhaps, may that be?”

  -

  Tantra takes a deep whiff of a Qi stone.

  Smells like jack shit.

  She sighs, “this is taking forever.”

  “Then keep trying,” Rakan says, “every attempt gets you closer, whether you realize it or not.”

  Tantra grumbles but does as he says, going back to taking whiffs of the stone like a curious canine. They’ve tried all of her senses at this point, and are starting to rotate between them. Tantra suggested boosting as a solution but Rakan shot that down rather violently, stating that she wasn’t ready for enhancing her senses so dramatically.

  She thinks he’s just bullshiting to make this process harder.

  Still, she does as he says, he’s her mentor now, so if the advice is reasonable she’ll take it, whether or not she thinks it's dumb.

  Afterall, she could be wrong.

  She focuses on her stone, taking in the scent of nature and nothing else. She doesn’t really get how this is how you unlock the senses, wouldn’t she have already gotten hers if all she needed was to stare, smell, or taste Qi? She spent plenty of time in the DarkWoods afterall.

  Is it weird that she kind of misses the DarkWoods? It was her first foci, so she didn’t really appreciate the fauna contained within. Most foci are small, and don’t tend to exude enough Qi to cause any serious mutations. Hell, there’s a lot of random ones dotted along the world that produce so little they aren’t even considered foci.

  She wonders what exactly makes them different?

  No one really knows how foci work, there are theories but no evidence. The minor ones don’t give enough data to make any definitive conclusions, and to get to the centre of a major one you’d need an expedition of immortals, and they don’t tend to travel together.

  She takes another inhale of the Qi stone.

  Still nothing.

  She has to be missing something, but if she is Rakan hasn’t deigned to tell her. It’s not like she can’t sense Qi, she needs to be able to manipulate her own and gather Qi from the world. She’s tried that avenue though, tried using her sixth sense at the same time as her other five, but it just doesn’t want to connect.

  Maybe it’s some kind of technique that connects them?

  But how would she even do that?

  It’s not like she can find the organ in charge of her Qi sense and pair it to her sinuses.

  Or maybe…hmmm.

  It’s a stretch but she’s getting desperate at this point.

  She takes the Qi of her core and pulls it out slowly, Rakan raises a brow but he doesn’t stop her. She keeps the thread connected to her core, a constant stream as it travels up her body and reaches her nose.

  Okay…now what?

  She…doesn’t know, she was kind of hoping she’d smell something at this point by connecting the two but nothings happening. Rakan hasn’t stopped her though, so maybe she’s on the right track. She wracks her brain and decides on something that may or may not work.

  She molds her Qi to the contours of her nose.

  Still nothing changes.

  She grumbles in frustration, maybe the connection to her core is too weak? She bolsters it with some more Qi but again nothing. Maybe connect it to her brain as well? But she doesn’t know which part takes in scent, and it’s best not to deal directly with the mind until her roots are much deeper.

  what is she missing?

  On a whim she mimics the actions of her nose with that of her Qi mold surrounding it. Trying to take in air through the ethereal.

  Something changes.

  Just a hint of mint.

  Tantra opens her eyes and lets loose a victorious smile.

  -

  “Leeeet’s go!” a boy says, “to the centre of the DarkWoods my fellow friends.”

  “Tokar, just because the forest’s emptier than usual ‘cause of the tide doesn’t mean we’ll survive.” A girl with long black bangs points out.

  “Ranya agrees, this is a dumb idea.”

  Pinia just nods along to their wisdom.

  “Argh, you guys are so lammmeee, lame, lame, lame. Where’s your spine?”

  “There’s a line between courage and stupidity.” A voice says from behind them.

  All their eyes turn to face a servant guard.

  “Hey kids, don’t mind me, just giving some elderly advice.”

  Tokar harrumphs, “If I wanted advice from a mortal, I’d ask my parents”

  The guard raises a brow, “pretty sure I’m further on the path than you kid.”

  Ranya tilts her head, “you’re in foundation?”

  “Yup, so maybe heed what I have to say eh?”

  Tokar crosses his arms, “prove it.”

  The man raises a brow then shrugs.

  In the next moment he is beside the boy.

  It wasn’t instantaneous movement, but it was fast. Pinia might have seen every motion, but she couldn’t have trusted her instincts to react to something of that speed.

  Tokar yelps and jumps.

  “Believe me now, hmmm?”

  Tokars eyes sparkle and Pinia sighs.

  “That’s so cool! Do it again.”