"Tell me what shadows move behind your eyes, XJ-V."

He sat, legs crossed, in front of Master Longhua, practicing the breathing exercises that meant nothing for one who had no organic lungs at all.

"Master," he replied. "I see nothing."

One of Longhua's long-lashed eyes opened.

"A stone cannot simply grow eyes through will alone," he said.

XJ-V reeled back and opened his eyes, looking into the old, wrinkled face of the old one.

"It is through will alone that I sit here now," he said.

"Wrong," Longhua chided, appearing behind the Cog and administering a stout kick to his metal back.

"Master!"

"This is how a stone must be disciplined," Longhua said, stroking his long beard and staring with narrowed, mischievous eyes at his new student.

"What is my mistake?" XJ-V demanded, rubbing his back. In the small of his mind, his thoughts were now set aflame. Longhua had done just as Mah-Jung had. He had been before him in mediation and then, with a single blink, practically standing on his back.

"Your belief that a stone may throw itself," Longhua said calmly. "Your stubborn refusal to see what is right in front of you. Your insistence on only observing and, by so doing, only ever observing – never learning. Should your Master continue?"

XJ-V looked into the eyes of Longhua, seeing experience there beyond mortal years. Both in this world, and the place beyond it.

"There is something I have learned," he said. "There is something that is hidden from me. Something these eyes cannot see. I would know what it is."

The Master of the Eternal Dragon considered this with another twirl of his beard. His hand flew to the pocket of his robe and produced a small, carved hooka pipe.

"So," he said, sitting cross-legged once more and lighting his pipe with a click of his fingers.

"Perhaps you do have eyes after all. Not eyes that can see, but eyes that can wonder at what lies beyond them."

XJ-V watched his Master in silent contemplation. Through the myriad of calculations his mind made, and through processing all the subtle facial expressions the Master was exhibiting, he tried to understand what was happening in the old man's head. But it was useless. The inner machinations of his mind remained elusive, as did all, it seemed, that XJ-V wanted to know.

"Master," he said steadily, fighting the burning within his metal chassis. "I believe it was Prophet Ai-Lee who wrote the words 'All living things are endowed with the essence of the Dao. Place trust in that, and even the lamest turtle can be guided to water."

The Master drew deep on his pipe and blew out a small circle of smoke. "It remains to be seen if you are truly living or dead, Disciple."

Before XJ-V could interject, the Master waved his hand limply over the smoke puff he had released. Between them both he weaved the smoke into a line of shimmering ash and began to form shapes from each little thread. XJ-V watched in awe as the Master of fire created six distinct images before his eyes:

One: a coiling dragon.

Two: a tiger with its hackles raised to strike.

Three: a bent reed beside a water hole

Four: twin snakes curled in embrace

Five: a crescent moon, dark as the night it brought with it

XJ-V was so entranced by the hazy images that swam before him that he barely heard the Master's next demand:

"Tell me what you know of the Qi."

XJ-V answered without hesitation: "The Qi is the essence of the Universal Dao that permeates our world. It runs in the veins of all living things."

Longhua considered this answer. "A textbook response. You know the word, you know the meaning, but do you know how it feels to harness the Qi? Do you know what it is to feel it coursing through your body and the bodies of your Brothers? Do you understand how the Qi can be shaped?"

XJ-V thought before he spoke. The answers were things he could guess at, but he knew Longhua well enough to know that the Master didn't want guesses or approximations. Such things showed brashness. Instead, the Master wanted truth from him. Simple, pure, and unrefined.

"No," he replied.

The Master smiled. "An answer that belies more wisdom than you might think, my Cog Disciple."

Longhua swept his palms over the assembly of wisping emblems he had formed.

"Consider the Sects of the Cultivators," he said, running his fine fingers through each image as he remarked them. "Each patron spirit is an entity that learned to use its physical body to channel the Qi and breathe life into our world. Once, we men worshipped the Old Gods of the Qingua Dynasty. We believed that ultimate power took on forms like ours. In the wake of the Sundering, as we watched the Gods fall and take our earth with them, we realized our folly and communed only with the spirits of the land – the true patrons of all who walk upon this earth with a soul in their chest."

The eyes of Master and eager student locked for a moment across the smoke-filled room. Longhua could see the desire within XJ-V's burning eyes.

Desire to know, he thought before he continued. Merely to answer your question? Is your ambition really so mundane?

"The Eternal Dragon," he said, his fingers stroking the smoky torso of the first creature with pride. "An ancient being who first breathed deep of the Qi and gave the world fire and its sister aspects: ambition, passion, industry, power, and illumination. A force of creation and destruction in equal measure, for there cannot be life without death."

His hand swept over the hackled tiger next.

"The Waiting Tiger. A powerful creature who stalks the long grass of the desert oasis. A being who channeled the Qi into its claws, and learned to temper power with patience. The tiger's element is lightning – for its strikes are fast and beautiful. Its aspects are speed, ferocity, patience, and symmetry. A patron to all who would hunt and stalk, for only the patient hunter catches his prey."

XJ-V thought of Brothers Kai-Thai and Fai-Deng of the Tiger sect. How either of them embodied these ideals, the Cog did not know.

"And the others?" XJ-V asked. "I only have only seen the colors of two Sects within Ramor-Tai's walls."

Longhua nodded sagely. "Tigers and dragons have long been companions since even before the time of the Dynasty. The Eastern Rim of the Wasteland has always been our home. To seek the other Sects, one must brave the winds of the Wastes, and travel to the other corners of our world."

A question burned in XJ-V's mind, then. His chest leaped with the need to ask it, to plead for his Master to tell him who, if any, had ever done such a thing. Had there ever been a Master of all Sects? Surely such a man could rule the heavens anew…

But he bit his steel lips and allowed his Master to continue as he passed his hand over the image of the reed.

"The Bending Reed," he said. "The Sect of the South, who abide by the will of the plant closest to the raw source of the Qi in our world. The reed is pliant, easily manipulated by the winds of the earth. And yet, it grows. It remains firm, and stalwart, even in the face of unrelenting force. The reed represents the element of water, and embodies the virtues of stoicism, tranquility with one's environment, and connection with the earth. The reed does not bend the Qi, but bends with it, for working with the world in harmony is the only way to maintain peace."

Next, the Master came to the snake-pair.

"The Twintailed Snake, who moves unseen in the West, who strikes its foe from a distance and was the first animal to crawl upon this earth. It is both there and not there, striking when its enemy is most unprepared. Studying. Calculating. Finding weaknesses. The snake is the earth itself – cunning, devious, unfaltering, and yet alluring. For the world of man is an unforgiving place that must be contended with on its own terms.

And the Waning Moon," Longhua finished, running his hands over the darkest of the smoke-clouds. "The celestial body that rises and falls in the North. The entity that gave us darkness, and the end of all things. None can escape the dark shadow of the moon. It embodies futility, the urge to despair, inevitability, and destiny. For the only truth of mortal life is that all things must end."

The Master waved his hand over all the symbols of the Cultivators, carving through them so that they all coalesced into one unified whole.

"These entities were the first to harness the Qi," he explained. "They showed us how to commune with the Dao and, in so doing, achieve harmony and balance in our world. But one must not think of their Sects as 'factions' or 'clans'. The walls and distance of the Sects do not divide us. It is the teachings of the spirits and the prophets that allow us to see these beings as aspects of the world and of our own consciousness. Though each Sect may have its own martial techniques and Cultivation disciplines, we all seek the same goal: total connection with the Qi."

XJ-V listened with open eyes, watching the smoky forms of each sect dance around each other in a spiral that, when it disappeared, he found himself longing for again.

"You wonder what it is that allows us to move unseen," Longhua said, watching his new student's eyes intently. "You want to know how your Brothers can play tricks on your eyes, and how even you, with your all your adherence to logic and calculation, cannot follow them."

XJ-V had to admit that he was stunned into silence by the Master's reading of his desire. No more would he doubt the old sage sitting in front of him. The difference in perceptive power between them was such that it would have brought tears to the metal man's eyes.

"Yes," he said in all but a whisper.

Longhua nodded. "Then you must learn the answer to your question," he said. "You must learn to see the flow of Qi in the world, and within your own metal flesh."

XJ-V could barely keep seated as he leaned forward and asked "How?"

And his Master, with a subtle smile, told him:

"The only way a Disciple can," he said. "You are going to make tea."

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