“Metal Brother!”

“Clockwork Cultivator!”

“Nae, nae – Cog Cultivator!”

“Yes – that has a far better ring to it, does it not?”

The walls of the Eternal Dragon commune were filled with cheerful voices.

Voices that the quiet form of XJ-V could barely believe were raised for him.

“To the good cheer of the newest among us!” Mah-Jung was saying upon the long table XJ-V was seated at, with the red-faced Feng-Lung beside him. “KAMPAII!”

“KAMPAI!”

The Disciples each raised a glass of Cit’ru – the rice wine native to the vineyards beneath Ramor-Tai, sequestered within the hardworking Melia village – and toasted his formal inauguration as a Rank 1 Corporeal Temperer.

A Corporeal Temperer.

A Cultivator…him!

The thought still hadn’t truly sunk in.

“I told you, did I not?” Feng-Lung said beside him with a mousey hiccup! “I told you you would find a place among us.”

“No thanks to you, Feng-Lung,” XJ-V replied with a nervous smile. “You did not tell me the Master’s test would be so…grueling.”

Feng-Lung raised his hands in defense. “The quest for tea is different for everyone, Brother Cog. But not matter how much we suffer, no one has ever made tea that satisfied Master Longhua.”

“How can one create a brew that will placate the stomach of a dragon?” Mah-Jung jeered from on top of the table. “They say the first dragons to cross the skies of the earth had five stomachs within their long bellies.”

“And within each one burned an undying flame,” Feng-Lung said with a drunken smile.

An undying flame…

XJ-V looked to his brothers who danced or clinked their ornate, elaborately carved glasses together.

“Why do you all indulge in this revelry?” he asked Feng-Lung, busy at work devouring his fifth helping of spirit tonight. “Does the mind of the Cultivator not require focus?”

“Ah, XJ-V,” the youth replied. “The Cit’ra is a spirit of the earth just as all things are. Like all liquids, it is closer to the Qi of the Universal Dao than we shall ever hope to be. Pure. Raw. Evergy.”

“Energy which now flows through my veins!” Mah-Jung said, somersaulting through the air and landing on his tiptoes to a round of applauses from his brethren. “Behold, brothers! By the end of this night, I, Mah-Jung of the Eternal Dragon, shall be a Master of the Drunken Dragon style!”

XJ-V couldn’t help but feel himself taken in, starting to clap along with the partygoers. He had expected all the men here to be the stuffy or arrogant young Masters-in-training he had heard about. His memory banks were filled with images of young men who, from the age of sixteen, played at being just as unmoving, unblinking, and as unfeeling as their masters. But such men forgot what it is to live. Youth is a gift that must be enjoyed. That is why the Master Cultivators were all so old. With age, comes experience. With experience, comes introspection. And with introspection, comes wisdom.

“Brothers!” Mah-Jung cried out to his baying crowd. “Our guest of honor is too busy thinking again! Let us lift him up to the heavens. Let him taste of the Dao with with!”

Amidst his lame protests XJ-V felt himself hoisted up by five of the young Disciples, Feng-Lung among them, who spun him until dizziness overtook him the likes of which would dull the senses of the most debauched drunkard.

Outside, however, a chill fog gathered at the edges of the commune door, and one student stood, fists clenched, peeking in at the celebrations with hateful, envious eyes.

“Enjoy your petty victory while you can, Cog,” Fai-Deng of the Waiting Tiger murmured. “Soon, you will fall beneath my claws.”

…

When the party had finished, and the young Cultivators retired to their chambers for the night, XJ-V told his companions that he would walk the walls of Ramor-Tai to clear his head.

“But you have not even tasted of the sweet liquor of life, Brother!” Mah-Jung protested.

“Let him be,” Feng-Lung said. “He has just learned he is one of us. We must leave him to meditate as only he can.”

The youth led the Drunken Master away with a nod to XJ-V who smiled back at him. He was lucky to have such support amongst the Sect Disciples. Indeed, though Feng-Lung was the youngest of their order, he had proven to be a fast and loyal friend these past few months. XJ-V understood that humans often repaid such friendships in kind. He also understood that most kindnesses humans did were often done with their own self-interests in mind. So, as he stepped outside the Eternal Dragon commune and took in the chill night air, he found himself asking, What is it you have to gain here, Feng-Lung? Why befriend a Cog like me, even when your fellows did not believe I could ever be one of you?

He watched the clouded skies move with strange, uneven grace, seeing small patches of lightning scratch themselves into life within them.

Why believe…

XJ-V had learned much in the last hours. He had learned of the fears that were buried deep within his heart. He had come to understand the deep shame that twisted all his convictions into misshapen messes of their former selves. He had also learned just how little he knew of the Sects, and of this world itself.

His reality had only ever been Hensha. His memory banks told him only snippets of information about Cultivation practices and Martial Techniques associated with each Sect. But he did not know their true purpose. He did not know their place in the wider world of the Wasteland, or why Longhua had looked with such melancholy upon those deep, dark waters that he said were composed of heaven’s tears as it died in the Sundering.

The Sundering – that too was an event he had precious little knowledge of. It had not been something his Creator had evidently thought he should know, otherwise it would have been installed in his memory banks.

Then there was the fact of the High Eagle’s appearance in his dream-vision that had seemed far more lucid than Longhua implied. The face – far too real. The pain – far too powerful. The Master had told him such visions were merely projections of Ai-Lee’s Grove meant to test the traveler. That, by choosing to become one with the source of the QI, XJ-V had rejected his fear and guilt.

But the Cog was not so sure. After all, it was power that the Eagle had offered him…power that he could have…no…that he wanted to take. Even if he did stop himself, there was a truth in the fleeting desire to accept his label as a tool of war that could not be denied, no matter how many cheers of acceptance he received from his new Brothers here.

But by far the biggest thought that preoccupied his consciousness now was what Longhua had meant in his final statement to him in the Grove:

There is a soul within your chest. Now, we must see if it truly belongs to you.

It was a statement that had both evoked his excitement and his trepidation. He had only wished to know if there was a soul within him. It had not occurred to him, in all his burning desire to unlock this mystery, that it might not belong to him at all.

Was such a thing even possible? To be imbued with the soul of another?

The Master had locked himself away in his chambers in the aftermath of his Awakening. He had told the Cog to come to him in the next morning for his first, real delve using the Qi that now flowed within him – his first ‘Dao Walk’ which all Cultivators used to enhance their Anima Cores and, by so doing, their rank as a Cultivator. The Master had told him to spend the night in quiet contemplation or in revelry with his Brothers – the choice was his. But, in truth, he had been impatient to know more.

It is funny, he thought, looking into the uncaring skies above Ramor-Tai. I came here seeking the answer to one simple question. Now, with the answer in my heart, I am merely faced with more questions that demand my attention. More mysteries that must be solved…

His reflections were then rudely interrupted by the familiar sensations of something furry brushing against his leg.

He did not assume a battle stance. Instead, he sighed, and looked down to see the little fuzzy fox-spirit of Ai-Lee’s grove looking up at him with an impish, teasing, and all too-human smile.

“Arha comes to see her friend! The metal man who cannot bend.”

He stared at the little creature’s fuzzy face, and at least a solid minute passed where both spirit and machine said nothing at all.

“You…you have followed me.”

The three-tailed fox nodded like an excited child, yipping and jumping up at his legs.

“Is that…allowed?”

The mischievous fox smiled up at him.

“Arha’s sisters do not care. They can be such a stuffy pair!”

“That’s not what I mean, spirit,” he said, bending down and stroking the little creature’s chin. It purred like a domestic kitten. “Are you supposed to be out here in the mortal world? Why would you leave the comfort of your grove?”

At this, the little fox bristled, straightening up and sticking its long, twitching nose in the air.

“Cultivators are such bores. Arha would not scratch their doors. But metal man is cool and new. Young Arha has chosen you!”

XJ-V frowned at this curious turn of events. He had heard that some spirits attached themselves to a mortal who took their interest – generally doing so out of a desire to help, hinder, or simply to pass the time. Immortality was probably conducive to an increase in one’s boredom.

A Cog with a pet spirit, he chuckled inwardly. Whatever will the Disciples sa-

“Hey!”

Arha had begun teething on his left foot.

“S-stop that!” he cried. “Why are you-“

“Arha knows of what you seek. There is no need to be so bleak! If knowledge true will bring you glee, then you must go to the library!”

“The…what? Wait –“

The spirit flipped on its side and rolled away, leaving a trail of dust in its wake. XJ-V watched it go with no small degree of consternation, before he saw it turn its head back towards him.

“Alright,” he said with another heavy sigh. “I will follow you, spirit Arha. But on one condition.”

She twitched her ears at him.

“Cease your rhyming. It is becoming tiresome.”

The young fox looked at him with total surprise etched across its face.

“You do not enjoy Arha’s rhyme? Why, good XJ, 'tis a crime!”

Something about his stare must have gotten to her, for she then flashed him a small, timid smile, before setting off again with another, barely audible word to her new companion:

“…Okay.”

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