Right. He had Sun Wukong’s crown. With it, he could improve either his strength or his mental capacity. The only problem was that he didn’t remember how he’d used it last time. Gingerly, he reached out for the crown. He was wary, since he’d seen the effects using starlight had had on the inkborn. He fumbled around, but his gut told him to think about what he wanted.
Right. Intuition. I want to think faster, he thought. He urged the crown, and as he did, his thinking quickened. His clone must have had the same idea, as they both began fighting at a breakneck pace. A single piece of their mind took over fighting, and both of them began to think through their options. They needed to fight, yes, but they also needed to discover a solution. Also, they had finite energy stores. The battle would continue until both were exhausted. It also didn’t help that if either of them slipped up, the other clone would gain the advantage, so to ensure that didn’t happen, a good twenty percent of both of their minds were dedicated to fighting.
Right. Time to decide. Technique or concept? New concept is no good. Needs inspiration. The Sage constellation might make hints easier to discover, but he could not create something from nothing. An entirely new concept lay beyond him.
That left improving techniques or working at fusing concepts. Which one should he attempt? In theory, the quickest to improve should be a technique. Concepts were profound things that required the right inspiration. If he hadn’t accumulated enough experience, all efforts would be in vain.
But concepts are the base, the Sage said. Go for the base.
He followed his intuition. The crown on his forehead glowed brightly as his thoughts sped up again. So, too, did the crown on his mirror opponent’s body. Their bodies and a portion of their minds fought with varying amounts of strength as they performed calculation after calculation.
Three concepts. Why is it so hard? He lacked the necessary elements for further fusion of concepts on the creation axis. Earth, metal, and water were what he had to work with. He had a base for his structure in the form of sand. He had structural reinforcement via metal. What would water give him? Could he form a slurry? No. That wouldn’t be stable.
Think. Think. Think.
His thoughts sped up to the point that words became pictures. They blurred as he watched in the theater of his mind. He not only thought through each idea, but also acted upon them in his own personal mental arena. So much could be done with extra mental power. He’d never known it was possible. At this moment, he was somewhat regretful of having chosen the Sage instead of the King.
No time to doubt myself. Back to work. As he sparred his mirror in the outside world, he sparred himself in an arena of his own making. He experimented with slurry, with mud, with constructions like water wheels and plumbing and magnificent edifices. He had many building templates to choose from, but none of them seemed appropriate, for they were static.
Then it clicked. What was water without movement? Intuition prodded him further along this train of thought. Water required movement. Hydraulics? Yes and no. Static hydraulics were useless. Something like plumbing? Flexible plumbing, maybe.
Close, he thought. Ah. What a fool I am. Living bodies. Veins for transferring power and substances. Movement when essential. He just needed to figure it out.
Think. Think. Think.
Having found the right path, Cha Ming’s mind became a blur. He thought so fast he saw stars in his vision. He began assembling a puzzle with stone as the base, reinforced by metal, lubricated, guided, and controlled by water wherever required. So perfect was the creation that he was tempted to stop there. He’d gained inspiration on the concept of hydraulic construction, after all.
Not good enough, he thought. You can do better. He continued playing. Assembling and disassembling. Why stiffness? Why should construction be solid? It should be solid when you want, and fluid when you don’t, right? Like a body.
Pieces began to move again, and soon, he developed an entirely different framework. One of earth and metal that flowed like water. It also used water when required, and even slurry, and materials of all forms. When solid, it would make the strongest pillar. When fluid, it could serve as muscle. With it, he could form the perfect golem.
Okay. This concept of fluid construction is good. Work with this. He began taking apart the technique that was most obviously applicable: Temple Sand Clone. Sand is no good. Fluid assembly. Why use one element when you can use all three? Wait, doesn’t that just mean Clockwork Nightmare is basically the same technique but more solid? It is, isn’t it? He didn’t dwell on it. He was thinking fast. Too fast.
Tier three in two different techniques. Not bad. You can do better.
“Careful, young one,” said the voice of a woman.
Ignore the voice. You can do better. Better. Faster. Stronger. Cages of ink? You can make fluid construction in an inky variant. You can make anything. He broke down the technique and rebuilt it. Done.
I should probably stop, a piece of his mind said. It was his intuition.
Why stop? another piece said.
Why am I fighting myself? Cha Ming realized.
“You’re running out—” a voice said, but it was drowned out by mental chatter.
I need to get out of here, a piece of Cha Ming realized. Escape my thoughts. He felt his body getting overpowered and cut apart. Wait. I’m still fighting. He was out of control, and he was losing the battle in the arena. Okay. How do I get out?
This way, a small voice whispered. It was a piece of his mind that was unaffected by the King constellation. It was protected by a familiar item. A simple bracelet woven from cloth by Clever Dusk. It sheltered this small portion of his mind and kept it from being overwhelmed by the rest of his mind.
Power is best served in limited doses, don’t you think? the small piece of his mind said.
Agreed, said another piece. Can you get me out?
As long as you learned your lesson, the voice said.
Cha Ming followed the voice. It led him down a tricky pathway. His mind had broken up into even more pieces as it diverted all its attention to finding and stamping out the rebel that he was. Outside, his body was dying. And no wonder. This self, his true self, had been improving. He’d dedicated more thought to research. His mirror opponent, having not improved, suddenly thought it wiser to fight when his opponent was distracted. It was a basic mistake. A test of wisdom.
Are you sure this is the way? Cha Ming thought. They entered a dark room filled with stars.
This is the King’s crown, said the voice. A stone crown appeared in the room. It shone with all the light it could muster. You are too weak without your other thoughts. They rebel. The only way is to slow your other minds. Break the crown.
But—
Break it! the Sage within him yelled.
Cha Ming gritted his teeth and realized what needed to be done. The piece of his mind summoned the Clear Sky Staff. It was a mental projection, nothing more. But it was a soul-bound artifact, and it could break even the most priceless of treasures. He hefted it like a club and smashed the glass case containing the Monkey King’s crown. His mind wailed as the stone object cracked, and he doubled over in pain.
I’m dying, Cha Ming thought.
Keep going! the Sage said.
He picked himself up despite the pounding on the room’s mental door. He struck it again, and this time, fissures appeared all over it. His entire mental prowess converged on this location and tried to hold him back.
Break your limits.
But I’m a thought, Cha Ming argued.
Do it, you idiot! the Sage yelled.
So he did. Wings erupted behind him, and his power mounted. He couldn’t hold this for very long, but it was enough. The club of a Clear Sky Staff fell upon the King’s crown, and it shattered. Cha Ming screamed as he was forced out of his mental theater and reappeared inside his physical body—minus the crown. It lay there on the ground, drained and broken. What had transpired in the mental realm had happened in the physical
.
“No wonder the builders get so damned despondent after using their constellation too much,” Cha Ming said. He spat blood on the ground and brought his staff up and onto his shoulder.
“You lose,” his mirror opponent said.
“I disagree,” Cha Ming said.
“You’ve lost,” the clone repeated. “Your crown is broken.”
“I’m afraid not,” Cha Ming said. “Temple Sand Clone,” he continued and summoned three golems of sand, metal, and water. Two of them joined him and fought off his stronger clone. He had a king’s crown after all. The clone panicked and activated Thirty-Six Heavenly Transformations. Cha Ming did the same, and his temple guardians grew stronger when he did so.
“We’re still evenly matched,” his clone spat.
“Not even close,” Cha Ming said. Inky lines appeared all around the clone and snapped together as solid bars.
“How?” his clone asked, shocked.
“Power transfer through fluidity,” Cha Ming said. “My Temple Sand Clones can use my qi.” His clone had painted the bars as they had fought.
“Of course,” said the clone. “How could I be so foolish?” The last of the bars appeared, and a monstrosity of solid ink came crashing down, engulfing him. The clone yielded and disappeared, and the Star-Eye Ancestor began clapping.
“You found a way,” she said.
“One of many, I’m sure,” Cha Ming said. “Nice work with the mind trap.”
“What’s the point of a test of wisdom if you don’t learn a lesson?” she asked coyly. “I take it you did?”
“A frightening one,” Cha Ming answered. His mind could be his own worst enemy. “It’s funny, though.”
“What?” she asked.
“Puzzles,” he answered. “Concepts. It’s only now that I see it. The same components seem like they should come together in the same way every time. But introduce another element, say, water to earth and metal, and the entire puzzle changes. It’s like a recipe when you add a new ingredient. Or a song when you add an extra note. Or a story when you add an extra character.”
“Funny how that works,” the Star-Eye Ancestor said.
“It seems I’m going to have a hard time without a crown,” Cha Ming said.
“Harder than most, I’m afraid,” she answered.
“But you planned that too, didn’t you?” he asked.
“It was one of many roads,” she said. “Not everyone walks the same path, Cha Ming, and you have free will. You simply made your decision.”
She took out a vial. It was clear and green and contained a thick liquid filled with life essence. “If you had ended this trial with the crown, I would have reinforced your path of stone,” the Star-Eye Ancestor said. “It would have happened had you settled on a more rigid and safe concept. Your stubborn will would have pulled you through. As for this Cha Ming? He is more yielding. He requires flexibility. He requires wisdom.”
Cha Ming picked up the vial. “I sense something my body needs.”
“Marrow from a tree of life,” she whispered. “In this case, the most crucial part of it. From my personal tree, I might add. It does not gift the user with anything but choice. It imprints what it touches. You will need it for the next trial.”
The vial shattered. A single drop expanded once, twice, a thousand times. It shot into the voids in his bones, and in an instant, they were filled with life. Newborn life—innocent and perfectly malleable. With it, his inner universe began to move. It began to expand. Like the stars in the sky. His vitality stores began to increase one small piece at a time.
“Huh. Small world,” Cha Ming said.
“What’s that?” the Star-Eye Ancestor asked.
“Phoenix blood is next,” Cha Ming said. “Is this just another road I’m meant to travel on? Is this all fated?”
“There is always a choice,” the Star-Eye Ancestor said. “Remember that it was your actions that prompted the Clockwork Ancestor to empower your bones and give you the chance at change.” She tapped him in the forehead, and he saw that she was right.
He saw a future in which he amassed a fortune and assembled the neutral form of the Seventy-Two Earthly Transformations Technique. He saw another where he abandoned it. He saw himself destroying the Inkwell Plane in his rage, while he saw his other self filling the gaps as it broke. He saw himself wielding gray mists that mended worlds. He saw himself using the same mists to destroy them. And in the back of it all, he heard the chuckling of an innocent girl, watching him. It was a game to her, and though he didn’t know her, he felt her warmth. To her, he was all that mattered.
It happened in a lifetime. It happened in an instant. Cha Ming’s awareness snapped back to the present. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
“What could be,” said the Star-Eye Ancestor. “I do not know what you saw. That is beyond me. Strange, that a life should be so far beyond my touch.” She then looked down through the wooden floor, past worlds, toward the only world that mattered to him. “You’d better hurry, Cha Ming. To succeed, you’ll have to struggle far harder than any king or queen that has come before you. Without a crown of your own to start with, and given your lack of demonic heritage, your path will be harder than my own.”
“Thank you for your help,” Cha Ming said. “I’ll keep your lessons in mind. I’m not sure why, but I feel there are many layers to this trial that I don’t yet understand. Hints at a story that I haven’t been reading.”
“That, little boy, is called intuition,” the Star-Eye Ancestor said. “Run along now, child.” And he did. He ran with winds of creation at his back. He was creating his own future. Creating himself. Creating futures that hadn’t been there moments ago.
Chapter 32: The Builder’s Legacy
It was only a single staircase. A hundred steps after a million of them. It should have been easy, but the air felt heavy as he climbed. Cha Ming’s strength was recovering, slowly but surely. The air in the Tree of Life was thick with both heaven-and-earth qi and vitality in addition to a great deal of demonic energy he couldn’t use. As for his soul, it was recovering. Faster than it would have on the Inkwell Plane. The heaviness came from above, preventing him from reaching the top of the tree.
He climbed, and as he did, he admired the jagged splinters in space that made up the starry sky. The Tree of Life’s branches reached out to many realms, joining them in this central location. Perhaps it was the weight of so many worlds that made this place so unbearable, or perhaps it was the pillar of light at their center. Both he and Huxian reached it at roughly the same time.
“You made it,” Cha Ming said.
The young man, Huxian, grinned. He’d definitely grown up since they’d ascended. Demons, unlike humans, manifested their mental age in their appearance. They wouldn’t grow up until they sufficiently developed their mental state.
“I was more worried about you,” Huxian said. “I have cheats, remember?”
“Yeah, it’s unfair,” Cha Ming said. He’d almost lost himself in the previous trial, and he knew this next one would be just as difficult.
“It’s now or never,” Huxian said. He clenched his fists and stepped into the pillar of light. It carried him upward gently, and when he stopped, he began to scream. A crushing pressure came down on him, and even the residual energy frightened Cha Ming. It was starlight. The pillar was concentrated light from all the assembled constellations.
Cha Ming stood there for a moment before he, too, stepped in. It picked him up and suspended him, encapsulating him. The pressure mounted gently at first, but it quickly climbed and became unbearable. He’d expected something like this, however. This was a test of will. What better way to test one’s will than with pain?
The light pierced his body like a thousand needles. It destroyed him, but simultaneously, it healed him. It did nothing for his constitution, however. His body had already been tempered in Grandmist.
No. This light was there to hurt him. Physically, it healed him as much as it harm
ed him, but it did so in a way to inflict maximum physical pain. Soon, he was screaming just as Huxian was, and the noises faded into the background.
You need not care for your friends while you are here, said the Star-Eye Ancestor. She floated beside Cha Ming’s still body. Time does not pass here as it does elsewhere. Here, you will soak yourself in the light of the stars. The longer you can endure, the more you will benefit. But before that, tell me: Why you are here?”
You know the answer, Cha Ming said, unable to move.
But I want to hear it, the Star-Eye Ancestor said.
To prevent war, Cha Ming said. I came here for the strength to challenge a king.
He is no king, said the Star-Eye Ancestor. He is but a chieftain. And he is strong compared to you.
How much stronger? Cha Ming asked.
You would not last a single minute, she answered.
And with a crown? he asked.
It’s no use talking about that, is it? she said. Just remember what you came for. It will help when things get hard. As long as you bear it long enough, the starlight will imprint on your marrow. There is an order to all things, you see, just as there is an order to the crown you build. Yes, you will build a crown. A new one, just for yourself. You will build it one piece at a time with no help from an ancestor. A tall order, even for a Godbeast.
And with a crown, I can win? Cha Ming asked.
You won’t win without one, she answered. See? I told you reasons matter. Then she looked at Huxian, who was also curled up in pain, and she answered his question without his asking. Your brother cannot build a crown. He does not have the same foundation. He has no ancestor’s blessing, no marrow to guide him.
Then why is he still here? Cha Ming asked.
To endure, she said. The longer he endures, the longer he can absorb the strength of the stars. He is consuming it as it destroys him, so that he can gain strength for not only himself but his friends. The work of six demons done by a single individual. Admittedly, his order is as tall as yours. If he manages to last long enough, they will all reach the late-initiation stage.
Crown of the Starry Sky: Book 11 of Painting the Mists Page 55
