“Sage Ket, we have come bearing gifts!”
“Come, let us drink some wine together!”
“We should discuss life!”
“I am here to introduce my second daughter, as promised!”
“We need to discuss the trade routes.”
“Sage, it’s time for the yearly gathering!”
The small group of opulently dressed man all stare daggers at each other. Keeping his face straight at the obviously contradicting opening statements, Ket is pretty sure that every faction head had assumed they would begin negotiations. But then again, judging from the mass of well-armed guards, soldiers, and other fighters in full battle regalia backing the small group of leaders, this is more meant as an attempt to strong arm him. The small group of leaders all try to enter through the doorways first, kicking away the splinters of the broken doors.
Then inspiration strikes. All of these people want something, obviously. Ket quickly tallies the amount of resentful, grateful, and mean glances that each important figure sends to the others. This allows him a vague image of what is at stake here. The leaders of crafting factions send negative signals to the heads claiming to want to discuss social events or happenings. The service-oriented faction heads send withering glances towards the people claiming to want to talk about marriage or trade.
Ket smiles beatifically as he continues to breathe in the steadily growing stream of power pouring into the room. He is pretty sure even the most novice of cultivators would be able to sense the increase in power caused by the recent completion of his grand power-gathering design, but none of the leaders even bats an eye. Looking over the nervously fidgeting soldiers standing in the hallways, Ket sees that only the pompous bastards are this oblivious.
“Welcome to my humble abode. Please, what can I do for you?” Ket pulls on them. He is not sure how to describe the feeling, but as he once explained to Tess, he can somewhat push or pull on the individuals in front of him. Seeing the obvious divide between the crafter and service factions, Ket decides to push the crafters, while pulling on the others. The people responsible for running the various aspects of the town smoothly have been annoying, sure. But Ket is less willing to forgive the people that have been actively blocking and sabotaging his construction efforts.
The results are immediate and rather drastic.
“What do you think you are doing, boy?”
“We are merely here to offer our services, sage Ket.”
“You will stop sowing dissent in my crafters, one way or the other!”
“We were hoping that you’d grace my second daughter’s name day celebration.”
“Stop flooding the market with your inferior products, you scumbag!”
“Our humble house was hoping that you’d accompany us on a hunting expedition.”
The fact that one half of the bustling group now sports flattering expressions, while the other half nearly explodes with anger is not a result Ket expected, at all. Suddenly, things make sense, though. His whirring mind speeds up as the finely ground dust of his qi trickles through his brainpan, following each curve of thinking stuff and fold of interwoven neurons. The people that he had a bad impression of, retained that bad impression. Not a single person he had initially perceived as a scumbag changed their tune later on. Instead, all the people that he somehow liked for one reason or another turned out to be rather sympathetic.
The growing underground resistance of builders, construction workers, and other craftsmen and women are all people that seemed sympathetic at some level. All of those people are working for him, even now. Thoughts explode inside Ket’s mind as he realises what he has been doing this entire time. Even the maidservant that came to deliver the message around a month ago while on her period is a shining example of this bias fulfilment. He had felt sympathy for the woman. He had sent her secret messages after those events, and through the qi-powered communications they had had, she had basically jumped ship. Now she is his most staunch supporter, and he has been having a hard time ignoring the obvious signals that she has been giving him. Looking at the door Shadi has left through earlier, things suddenly make sense.
Has he been doing this all the time, already? Pushing and pulling, that’s how he described his metal control to Tess. Has he been exerting this attraction and repulsion force on others this entire time? The amount of self-fulfilling prophecies Ket has seen fulfilled is vast, he suddenly realises. Each and every person he judged as good or bad, those snap decisions have turned out to be entirely correct. Shadi had initially just seemed another pawn of high society. The small spark of pity he had felt allowed that mask to fall away. He had even given her a personal gift, for fuck’s sake.
“I am sitting in the chair that you all have given me, this great honour that is bestowed to me. I would love to visit sometime soon, your bathes and masseuses need no further introduction. I have not sown a single seed of dissent in your rank. I would love to come, but tasks of lesser importance but earlier making have my attention, alas. Show me a single product of mine that is inferior to a similarly priced product of yours, and I will give you all my stocks of those items. I would love to join your hunting expedition, but unfortunately, lesser but earlier tasks bind me.”
Ket pulls out all the stops. The people he found the lesser of two evils earlier, he now sees as his best friends. He pulls them into his bosom, embracing their generous natures and welcoming spirits with open arms. He shows them all the proper signals of brotherhood and comradery, both in minute gestures and in the cadence of his voice. The leaders that shouted at him in anger are now less than dirt, so far below his notice that becoming angry at the cretins would be giving them too much honour. Then, in a flash of inspiration, he delivers the final blow. “And concerning the division of power in this wondrous city, I believe that an outsider like me does not have a clear enough image of all the factions. I fear that my meddling will only make things worse.”
Then Ket bows, angling his hands and head at the aspects of servitude, lowering himself even though he is located higher than the people standing in front of him. Then Ket pushes their will to fight. The desire to let go of inhibitions, to just punch your problems in the face, he wills it higher.
Ket sits back, pondering the mysteries of cultivation. The leaders devolve into a brawl shortly after. Ket carefully takes this newly discovered ability of his, the power to just push and pull on anything, no matter its physicality, and examines it closer. He observes passively as the crowd behind the faction head’s joins in, starting a second and larger brawl. Ket pushes down the desire to kill until even the thought of striking to kill is no longer possible in weak minded people. He drives the will to fight nonetheless.
Observing the resulting chaos, Ket gives the signal to his people scattered in the city. What had once been an unlikely contingency plan goes into effect – specialized groups of infiltrators, trained by material delivered by Ket himself, spring into action. Mansions are robbed, the people living in them none the wiser. As the highest people in power smack each other about, their fortunes and power bases are stolen from under them. The soldiers and guards employed by the houses have long since fallen behind the common cultivators, their tendency to depend on their superior gear and fighting techniques preventing them from cultivating with all their heart.
The crystal hanging above the centre of the city will give everyone a very small connection to Database. Even though the connection has been pretty spotty over the past few weeks people have managed to learn the basics nonetheless. The crystal hung dull and lifeless for hours at a time now and then, initially giving Ket quite the scare. The message that all is well, and to expect more brief interruptions as the owner and administrator of Database goes through their own troubles had put a rest to that snag in Ket’s plans.
The rest of the evening is rather uneventful. The fight eventually winds down, the relatively weak constitution of the leaders, soldiers, and servants not letting them fight for too long. They all slink away on
e by one with their tails tucked between their legs. Ket is pretty sure that there will be hell to pay in the morning when everyone has slept on it. Luckily for Ket, he won’t be around by then.
Surrounded by people that are dancing to his pushing and pulling will, employing the suction force of a city-sized energy attraction formation, Ket manages to build his own foundation. The second he feels the last piece of the puzzle slide into place, he calls up his own connection with Database. He will explore the definition of attraction later. He isn’t even sure whether this pertains to mere magnetic attraction, or whether the social rules he has been learning have evolved into something more, but he will find out later.
Selecting ‘YES’ on the prompt that Database displays inside his mind, he passively observes his point total deplete nearly entirely. Then, he is gone. The cost to teleport himself to Tess’s location might have been steep, but Ket is sure that that’s where he wants to be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Reciprocation 2
Tess smiles at the dwarves. Every single one of them has tears in their eyes, most of them noisily blowing their noses in grimy rags. “I will miss you guys. Now scram!”
“Mistress… Don’t leave us!”
“Come now. Even good things must end.”
“But, you haven’t tasted my latest dish yet, that will make you stay, surely!”
“Why must the legs leave us!”
“One must cool the forge once a month in order to clean it, at the minimum.”
“Shut up, you old bint. Go fondle books!”
Tess keeps the strained smile on her face long enough for the large gaggle of short people to exit. The moment the guards leave her quarters by shutting the doors, she sits back on her large chair. She could call it a throne, it is that large, but she doesn’t like calling it that at all. Resting her feet on the slowly snoring cat at the foot of her seat, she kicks the black being in the ribs. Her tired, yet still softly smiling, expression cools into a severe one as she peers into the big cat’s eyes.
“You are not going to slack off. I might be gone for a while, but that just means you have more chances to earn beatings, am I understood?”
The big and fluffy being immediately tries to hide it’s poofed up tail while nodding furiously. Tess keeps staring at the large beast before smiling and scratching it between the ears. It first seems to fall into a trance, before the rumble coming from its own chests seems to shake it from the daze. The beast then hisses at Tess, before immediately fleeing by sinking into the shadows.
Tess smiles to herself as she sees the fruits of her labours in action. The contrast between the strict and indulgent actions she just performed cause another strand of her qi to settle in her body. The ball of blackness that is her pliant cultivation base rests behind her navel for now. Tess puts a hand on her stomach while looking at it with a contemplative expression on her face. Then, she takes a deep breath and sits back down, now totally alone.
She is about to start when she hears a single knock coming from the door. Her first reaction is to scold the one intruding on her private time but immediately relents on that plan after sensing the aura of her visitor. “Come in.”
An aged dwarf steps in, his wrinkles belying the spring in his step, the fire in his eyes making him look a hundred years younger. “Are you about ready, lass?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure I’ll be back at some point, though. It’s just…”
“Aye. If not your heart, I hope that we have earned a bit of your love.”
“That you have, you old coot. Please take care of that annoying feathered coward for me.”
“I’ll just send the bookkeeper at her if she refuses to go out hunting again.”
“That would be animal cruelty; no need to go that far.” Both girl and aged dwarf chuckle at that for a bit.
“Here, I wanted to give you this.” Pulling a small object from the inside of his coat, he walks closer and hands it over.
“This… is this what you’ve been working on for the past week?”
“So I have. May it serve you well.”
Tess unwraps the clothbound object, uncovering a simple dagger in an elegantly stitched, embossed, and burned leather sheath. She pulls the blade free partially, an odd shimmer at the edge showing that the simply wrought knife is anything but simple. “I will keep it well.”
“That’s all I can ask. See you later.”
“No need to get all emotional. And stop denying your own cultivation base, you crazy coot.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Take care now.” The man flees before Tess can devolve into yet another lecture about how he should take qi and cultivation a bit more serious. Tess throws a half-hearted qi-dagger at the man, hitting the door the moment it closes behind the town’s leader.
“Alright. No need to get sentimental yourself now.” Tess inhales fiercely through her nose, making a rather unladylike sound. The next thing she does after exhaling is slapping her cheeks with both hands before sinking into the shadows.
She has felt herself hanging over a precipice for a few days now. All the meat she has been scarfing down has not only put a bit of unwanted flab on her stomach, but it also caused her cultivation base to skyrocket. This progress had stopped a day or two ago. The solid ball of her cultivation base feels like a rock now, its previous liquid malleability transformed into a hard-to-manipulate solid. She can still pour power in and out of the thing, but the contrast between the previous fluid way she could change its shape and its slowly hardening rigidity has Tess worried.
Worried enough that she has decided to do that closing-up thing Teach sometimes talked about. The only closing up anyone she knows has ever done concerned Danarius and Ares, or any other mad scientist in an inventing frenzy, forbidding anyone from entering their labs. Not a single person that she knows has been spending large amounts of time locked inside a room just to focus on their cultivation. But Tess feels like she needs to.
Just to unwind from the constant social happenings that have been going on in and around the village. Even though she still would like to have a talk with Teach, one that will involve a lot of knives, she has started to enjoy her stay here. There have been negative aspects to the entire situation, of course, but those are largely overshadowed by the spirit of the people here. The small folk have managed to worm themselves into her heart, their hardworking spirit and largely honest temperament endearing them to Tess greatly.
The mayor is the best crafter she has ever seen, period. The old man has a way with metal that she finds truly impossible to describe. The cooks are even now busily looking for new ways to improve their craft. The miners are all enthusiastically searching for new ore as they employ qi in order to do so more effectively.
The only faction of workers that have needed to reinvent themselves are the smelters. The fact that even the most unskilled worker can use their personal qi to filter metal from ore has forced them to reinvent a lot of things. This unskilled worker won’t be fast, and won’t produce metal of high quality, sure. But even a low tier qi condensing cultivator can replace an entire team of people manning a smelting oven. But, Tess told them of certain data in Database, and those people have been inventing all sorts of new and interesting ways to lay structural qi into metal, saving the smiths a lot of their power.
The other aspects of life have both changed and stayed the same. All crafts not related to metal have stayed secondary in everyone’s eyes. There has been an uptick in the general quality of chow, fuelled by Tess’ large demand for good-tasting food, but that’s about it. Neither spinning, weaving, sewing, woodworking, nor any other craft skill whose main focus isn’t metal has become any more popular with the general populace.
She did try to orchestrate a trek to the supposedly nearby dungeon, but the large amount of powerful beasts roaming the wilderness had forced the entire expedition to return after only a day of travelling. Tess could have made it, she is pretty sure, but the group of dwarves would have
sustained a large number of casualties. Her plan to bring back more books to foster enthusiasm for professions other than the metallurgic crafts failed with that retreat.
As Tess floats through the shadows, phasing through the cave-like town, she looks back at the two months spent in the place. It has been oddly peaceful, she reflects. The preceding months spent with Teach all had this underlying tension, a surety that shit is about to go tits up, but only Teach knows when, how, why, and where. This tension had been great for forcing growth, as even the most relaxed of scenarios all had this edge to them, but it wasn’t great to work on yourself.
Even the meals all had this competitive edge. The best dishes were always snatched up first, and Tess is sure that the infuriating man always placed any person’s favourite dish on the opposite end of the table. Just chilling with the energetic short folk had been kind of stressful but on a level much less existential. There had been a comforting sameness to the entire village after a week or two of learning how things are run.
Her weird form of a gutcore might not be as mentally enhancing as anything Ket or Teach have cooking inside their heads, but it still enhances her mind enough. She had only needed to hear someone’s name, profession, or familial situation once. This allowed her to get to know everyone within two weeks.
“I’m indulging them!” Tess accidentally blurts out her sudden epiphany. Halfway to the forge, the wrinkled face of the major twists in a complicated expression. The rest of the people that heard the exclamation dismiss it as another of the weird things that have been happening since they got introduced to qi. An aged woman looks at the book she is clutching with an equally complex set of emotions on her face.
The Dao of Magic: Book IV Page 29
