Chapter 18- The Education of Saints

“Congratulations on achieving longevity. May you find the immortality you seek.”
The White Peacock appeared in human guise, emerging from a cloud of rainbow colored smoke. He was a tall man, with long upswept eyebrows, an elaborate hairpiece made of ivory studded with gems, and a robe of white silk that subtly displayed such a bewildering array of textures and gradations that the eye could become lost in its folds.
Tian had the sudden feeling that he had never before seen a true immortal. This is what a true immortal expert looked like. Starsieve looked practically homeless in comparison! He shared a glance with Liren and they cupped their fists and bowed in unison.
Silently. Because they might have just broken through to the Heavenly Realm, but rules were rules. The White Peacock very slightly nodded, and said “For the duration of this conversation, you may speak as you will. Were you instructed to join Little Heaven on her trial?”
“No, Grandmaster, we were not. I wasn’t intending to come at all, until she found me and invited me.” Tian answered. Liren nodded along.
“The same is true for me, Grandmaster. We were both otherwise employed before she found us.”
The expert looked them over, and hummed slightly. “No, I don’t believe in that sort of coincidence. Not with the foundations you two plainly had. Foundations that were deeper than they seemed. Dog Nose, drag your raggedy ass out here for your grandfather!”
“Old bird, are you tired of having feathers?! I’ve never slept on a peacock feather pillow, but I’m game to try!”
A voice echoed faintly in the air, followed by a rainbow arching high above before plunging down into the garden. The new arrival, who Tian firmly did not think of as “Dog Nose,” wore the blue and white of the Ancient Crane Monastery, a spectacular jade dragon hair pin, and carried a waist pendant so enchanted it gave Tian a headache just looking at it. Tian didn’t have to be told who it was. He clasped his hands and bowed deeply.
Keeping his mouth shut. Again. He had bad luck with the “talking” thing, and his mind was still lost in that all consuming, all creating void of his vision. There was a lingering feeling of being the tiniest piece of something so big, the little piece had lost all understanding of what he was. Despite that, two mighty ones, who were also part of the big thing, were mad at each other, about him. Much too difficult, much too complicated for a little bit of nothing like Tian.
“Sending your juniors up the mountain to endure a tribulation is a new one, but fine. I’ve looked out for the birds and beasts hanging around your sect for so long, I can tolerate a few humans. But do you have any idea how much thise… precocious youths just cost me? I’ll tell you right now, my arrangement with the Human Emperor doesn’t extend that far!”
“Not nearly as much as you have earned. Standing as dao protector for the ascension of not one but two sanctified body immortals? Who seem to be making a decent bid for being true saints, I might add. Go try to scam someone else, Old White, I’m not buying.”
“Merit is good, but do you know how many spirit stones I just burned? To say nothing of the cracks on my poor turtle shell! I’d be lucky to get another hundred years out of it. Where am I going to get a replacement for it, eh? From you?”
Tian firmly tuned out the quarreling seniors. He tried to recapture the memory of what he just went through. His mind skittered away from trying to recall the dreadful gates sealing his fingers. Something about them was too wrong, too unnatural to stay fixed in his mind. Instead he thought back to the great void. It should have been terrifying, but it wasn’t desolate. It was comforting. He was finally seeing something true, and real, and wonderful, even if he didn’t understand what it actually was. It felt good to experience that ultimate reality, even if the sudden absence of it pained him.
There was a moment of quiet. Tian glanced up to see the two elders glancing down at him.
“Just so you know, Disciple Tian, while we aren’t reading your mind, your shen is spilling out everywhere, amulet notwithstanding. So while I don’t know exactly what you are thinking, I can feel it. And the word you are very carefully not thinking of is ‘Performative.’ I see you are still struggling with the concepts of deference and reverence.” The man with the jade dragon hair pin said.
More or less confirming that the sect master, or someone working for him, had replaced Elder Rui for at least their last meeting. Which was worrying.
“Maybe it’s just you. He has been extraordinarily obedient and respectful for his teacher here.” The White Peacock smirked, his eyes narrowing and carrying a certain glint in them.
“No doubt.” The Sect Master growled. “That’s why I let Rui turn him loose. Venerable Pursilane is a true expert who supports her juniors mightily, so long as they are properly reverent. And she has ways of motivating reverence.”
“Who?” Tian blinked, doing his best to look abashed. The Peacock wasn’t looking abashed at all. He was smiling like a man watching a treasured flower bloom.
“What? Why are you smiling like that?”
“I’m afraid Daoist Pursilane isn’t taking students right now. She and Daoist Warsong have concluded their long dance, and finally married. They are currently on a tour of one hundred kingdoms to celebrate. The rumor going around the Holy Land is that she’s already pregnant.”
“Pregnant? She’s a plant, how can she be pregnant?” The Sect master looked as bewildered as Tian felt.
“The medicine Dao has never been a strength of mine. You could always ask the boy’s teacher.”
“Why? Who’s teaching him?”
The peacock’s smile grew ever more brilliant.
“Wait. If Warsong is also gone, who is teaching Disciple Hong?”

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An interesting thing, in a day full of interesting things for Tian, was learning that there was no upper limit to how brilliantly a super-expert like the White Peacock could smile. He was haloed in a nine-colored rainbow, and his smile still beamed more brightly than all of it.
“Disciple Tian, report!”
“Reporting to the Sect Master, I have the honor to study under Venerable Voidcatcher. Sister Hong studies under the honorable Venerable Merciless.”
Another very interesting thing was that a super expert like the Sect Master could be flabbergasted. Tian would have thought such seniors had seen everything. This really was a day full of revelations.
“Merciless. You put-” The Peacock cut him off with a raised finger and a raised eyebrow. The Sectmaster amended what he was saying. “You permitted a person who wants to purge the sect with blood and fire after the mountain reopens to study under Merciless. She has been quietly cataloging every crime and atrocity that went unpunished that she can find in the disciplinary squad archives. Even things that weren’t, strictly, crimes, or were privately settled between the parties.”
“What a heroic youth you have raised. Truly, a moral exemplar.” The Peacock produced a banana leaf fan and started fanning himself. “A bit hard on the sect, what with needing to rebuild your numbers, securing your borders and gathering all the resources you are now doubtless desperately short of, but I have every confidence you will be stronger for it in the end. Or you will drive away a sanctified body immortal whose bidding fair to be a true saint. I’m sure some other sect will appreciate her more.”
“Oh, I’m sure we will have no trouble gathering resources, now that the single most ungovernable brat in the sect has studied under Voidcatcher! And before you say anything about how obedient he is, why don’t you ask that old… venerable… what he thinks about his new student?”
“No need, he’s already told me at length. It really cheered me up to hear someone cornered Voidcatcher with a promise to use his teachings as they saw fit. If he wasn’t so superstitious, I think he would have sent your boy Tian back down the mountain months ago.”
The Peacock gave Tian a speculative look. “Incidentally, is he any relation to-”
“Yes. Though the… threads… have been severed decisively and repeatedly.”
“Shame. I always like the Xia. Well. One of them, anyway.”
The Sect Master exchanged a long look with the White Peacock, sharing something the juniors weren’t permitted to hear.
“Congratulations on breaking through. Usually there is a whole ascension ritual. Most people find it very meaningful. Unfortunately, circumstances don’t permit it. On the whole, I think you have probably found the day moving enough as it is. Here- your new uniforms, some pills and spirit stones as part of your reward, some basic life-skills spells, and…”
He paused, struggling for a moment. “And since the usual educational methods aren’t working, I’m going to just directly say it. The true cultivation art of the Ancient Crane Monastery is called the Skytreading Art. It specializes in qi and shen cultivation, particularly shen, and can be considered top grade amongst the kingdom dominating sects in our region. Your vital energy cultivation arts can be upgraded if necessary, but Advent of Spring was one of five cultivation arts Senior Brother Myriad Blessings created to fill the gap left by the Skytreading Art. Disciple Tian is set in that regard, at least, and Disciple Hong’s body cultivation art seems to suit her well.”
Tian’s eyes opened at that.
“The Skytreading Art is, yes, the technical manual that accompanies the philosophical teachings of the Ancient Crane. It is also, yes, reserved for Direct Disciples. You both had true revelations of the Dao, and you are certainly qualified to be direct disciples… up to a point. The Skytreading Art is transmitted orally. From Master to disciple. An unbroken, direct, chain of inheritance, stretching back to the foundation of the Monastery, binding past and future. If you do not properly learn the correct methods, qi and shen cultivation can be fatal. Mental derangement is considered a light consequence.”
He made sure they both understood, before moving on. “Hence the immense importance placed on filial piety. The teacher is transmitting a path to true immortality and immense power. Power that an unfilial disciple might one day turn against them and the people they care about. Equally, the disciple is trusting the teacher with their life and their future.”
He stopped, then gave Tian an expectant look.
“Faith. The chain of filial piety is built on the faith of both parties in the other, that they will act virtuously.”
“In very short, yes. And don’t think I don’t hear the little barbs dangling from the words “faith” and “virtue” there. It’s one of the reasons we use the term “filial.” It’s what is supposed to be the relationship between parent and child. The parent looks after the child when they are young, and the child looks after their parents when they are grown.”
Tian nodded slightly. “And I have never known my birth parents. But I know Brother Fu’s care very well. It would be difficult for me to sincerely offer that level of love and affection to a stranger. Though truthfully, I am astonished that there is any question about my loyalty to the sect.”
“There isn’t, or at least, not in the sense of betrayal. You have, however, been abundantly obvious about looking towards the door if you didn’t like how the reformed sect shaped up. I would be really letting down my teachers if I taught our core art to someone I knew might well leave, and soon. So what do you propose I do? I am reasonably confident in finding a master for Disciple Hong. Her drive has always been reforming the sect. In fact, I’m planning on giving her some real responsibility in the Disciplinary Squad. In a few centuries, she might even be running it. You, on the other hand…”
Tian silently admitted the Sect Master had a point. Though only a point. A very, very small, very pointless point. His head was spinning with the after effects of the breakthrough, the visions he saw filling his mind. This all seemed so… petty. “Sect Master, respectfully, aren’t you overthinking it?”
The White Peacock made a sudden choking noise, but when everyone glanced over, he looked blandly indifferent to the conversation going on around him.
“I am… familiar… with your idiosyncratic take on respect. Elaborate.”
“Just reform the sect into something respectable. I’d never leave then. You can just teach me the art yourself, no worries about father this, master that. I will put whatever you teach me to good use.”
Liren appeared to be suffering some sort of post-break-through spasm. He would have to examine her carefully later. A suddenly, powerfully attractive thought.
“Did I just say all that for nothing?”
“No, it was quite informative. At least for me.” Tian shook his head. “It just complicates things too much. Not one person’s loyalty is unconditional, regardless of what label you slap on the bonds. Student and teacher, master and disciple, father and son.” Tian started pulling books from his storage ring and laying them out on the ground, pointing at passages as he went.
“I was told to study ethics and how humans live together, so I did. I read everything very carefully, many times. I think about it a lot too. They all said that people are scary. None of them have ever been completely reliable. Who hasn’t betrayed someone at some point? Even if it’s just by accident, or following a different philosophy.”
Yes, some kind of post break through spasm. And there seemed to be something wrong with the White Peacock too. Horrible.
“The strongest ties aren’t family. They are affection and interests. My relations in the sect are full of them. You know me. When have I ever given the sect less than my all? I will still love my brothers, still respect my father, still care for my juniors, even if I don’t pretend an unreliable person is my second father or first mother. I will still carry the teachings of the Ancient Crane to the next generation. I will still honor the supreme virtues, and strive to live up to them. If you think I should learn, teach me.”
“I wouldn’t dare. You have already learned too much.”