There were times Isuro missed the human world. Its simplicity and focus on the physical would perhaps help him rein in his marauding thoughts better. Not that it was truly another world, of course. But here, in the depth of a qi anomaly cultivated and adjusted by spirits, it would be easy to believe such a thing. It was the safest place for him, a stronghold of Jideia that no other Greater Spirit had even poked at in millennia. But he found that safety had long lost most of its desirability for him.
Isuro let out a mental sigh and condensed his presence into a physical form. While his ascendancy and the path he had walked let him easily exist without one, just a presence spread throughout qi, he had never quite lost his fondness for a body and the stimulation its senses provided. Not that there was much to take in in this place. His eyes were only greeted by a swirling mist of qi, a mere facsimile of the truly fluid, transitory makeup of this redoubt that his qi senses penetrated. His ears did not even pick up a whisper of wind.
Absently, Isuro found himself moving his fingers in a small circle that opened a hole in the swirling mist, qi condensing to take in light from a place more substantial, and quite a distance away. He had a brief glimpse of a sprawling city and a gleaming stronghold nestled beside a range of towering mountains. It swiveled to focus on the palace, the many courtyards and buildings he knew lay behind its walls, but then only light poured from the scrying window.
Of course this meager little extension of his will wasn’t able to pierce the palace’s wards. It wouldn’t even register for the wards’ monitors. Isuro shook his head at himself. It might not do any harm, but he should control himself better.
It has become frustratingly apparent that I am somewhat captivated by Inaris, hasn’t it? The thought stung his pride, but he knew it was true.
Who knew my appreciation for women would prick me so in my old age? He snorted. He knew he had always had a preference for fair girls. The little princess with her fair skin and blond hair certainly fit. He’d found her attractive ever since he really took note of her, shortly before her soul journey. But he knew that by now, it was more than that.
He stepped forward and moved himself through the mists. If he was going to brood here, he might as well do it heading back from his self-imposed solitude on the way to the gathering place.
The problem, he mused, was that Leri Inaris was interesting. No mortal had pricked his interest in centuries, and certainly not like this. Of course, she was the daughter of Rijoko. A certain spark was to be expected. She was someone who would change the world, if given a scrap of a chance. In a few short centuries or even decades, the world of mortals might be barely recognizable as the one it was today.
Although that is the problem, isn’t it?
Isuro ran a hand through his hair. The balance between the nations was precarious enough as it currently stood, he agreed with Jideia on that. Making the Empire even stronger, especially by giving it a ruler who could potentiate that increase, had a high risk of disaster. And even if my patron stands to lose as the Empire keeps turning away from him to Rijoko, that does not negate his logic, does it? Even if I do have to wonder about the risks Jideia himself is taking with this balance …
And beside all that, he couldn’t help but acknowledge that Inaris didn’t deserve to be harmed because of her Father’s actions. Or because she carried dangerous potential, if you wanted to be ethical about it. She was a brave young woman who had shown remarkable resilience, a sharp wit, and a certain spunk when dealing with spirits and his own efforts to destroy her. Which had not worked out well.
Which might be partly due to the fact that he had to acknowledge that his heart was not really in it.
Isuro stopped his train of thought as he felt a thread of qi weave from his surroundings toward him. He reached out mentally to touch it and processed the message contained within. Giving one last sigh, he snapped some of his qi, and in a second crossed what little distance remained to his destination.
A mortal might be surprised at the place’s simplicity. Though Isuro knew Jideia could have decorated it much more richly, what would be the point? It was functional, which he preferred. The only thing really marking the place were the fact that the qi inside was more strictly controlled, the large torch in the center, and the grassy lawn suspended in the mists. Furniture could be formed according to momentary needs.
Jideia stood some distance away from the center, currently alone. He had decided to incarnate as well, though not fully, and was little more than a roiling cloud of qi in humanoid shape. That form turned to meet him as Isuro approached, although he could sense the Storm’s regard from farther away.
Isuro gave a courtly bow, perhaps an unnecessary affectation but one he did not mind and might as well perform in his body. He kept his thoughts locked down tight, careful to keep any mention of Inaris far in his subconscious and his mind well ordered, its turmoil calmed for now.
Jideai nodded at him. ‘Isuro. Thanks for coming.’
‘Naturally.’
Of course, hiding like this wasn’t necessary. He didn’t think his benefactor would reproach him for his uncertainty and emotional unrest. Jideia might be many things, but he was not petty. Certainly not towards his allies. All the same, Isuro preferred not to show it.
‘I just had a rather enlightening exchange with the Sun,’ the Greater Spirit continued, his mental voice as bland as usual. ‘We will need to abate our efforts. The others are not pleased with me.’
Isuro nodded, projecting a sense of understanding and acknowledgment, distantly noting his lack of dismay at the news in his own mind. ‘I suspected that would be the case. You knew this course of action was a risk, my lord. I can’t say I have no reservations, either, as you know.’
‘You still did well enough, even if our efforts failed.’ Jideia waved a hand negligently. ‘As expected of Rijoko, of course his child is not so easily suppressed. I will not be dissuaded that simply, of course. I know I can count on you.’
Isuro clasped his hands behind his back. He felt the urge to ask that he be left out of this, to take on other tasks. It would be sensible. But something stayed him. So he simply nodded. I suppose I do not actually wish to have less to do with Inaris.
‘You are right that for now, I should focus my efforts on other pursuits. I can’t let Rijoko get ahead of me because I’m too focused on this one matter. All the same, our options have hardly run out.’
Isuro cocked an eyebrow. That sounded faintly ominous, at least for the Storm’s enemies.
‘An easy way to get at a princess is through her nation. We’ll make sure the Empire is not allowed to rise any farther. It’s about time for that, after all. And perhaps we can rid ourselves of the girl’s potential threat more easily than you thought.’
Isuro nodded again. Whatever happened, he had the feeling that things were in the grip of change, and was not quite sure where it would all end up.
‘For now, on to other matters.’ Jideia’s shape flowed until he took a seat on the ground.
Isuro joined him and listened attentively to what his patron had to say, but he could not help but feel a little disaffected. Perhaps the Storm sensed it, as he ended the conversation quickly.
Isuro felt a brief sting of relief as he left the stronghold to go talk to another spirit. He only started to feel some vigor return to his mind now.
and not quite sure where it would all end up. -> maybe “was not” ?
Is Isuro actually immortal now at stage 9, or just sharing the extremely long lifespan of being a pseudo spirit?
An interesting chapter to see things from his perspective, and it certainly makes him more relatable. Odds are still against him becoming an ally to Inaris, but his lack of effort in exterminating her has allowed her the chance she needed to grow.
I do wonder at the greater spirits obsession with the tenuous “balance” the nations have. The balance seems forced and artificial
Thanks for the correction!
Yep, Isuro's actually immortal, not going to die of natural causes. Glad you find him interesting.
And if the balance seems artificial that may be because it kinda is.
@Tejoka Interesting. I take it the greater spirits are also stage 9 and therefore immortal? Probably high/peak stage 9, but not stage 10 yet or they’d be able to leave Aran’s plane/dimension
Isuro really needs to be be more sceptical of his 'benefactor'.
Isuro ran a hand through his hair. The balance between the nations was precarious enough as it currently stood, he agreed with Jideia on that. Making the Empire even stronger, especially by giving it a ruler who could potentiate that increase, had a high risk of disaster.
Ah, yes, 'balance', the old argument for anything that says nothing. Stear in the fear of change might be a good tactic in a world where most people are quite old and already set in their ways. But 'balance' is an illusion and there always will be a point in time where it ends.
And even if my patron stands to lose as the Empire keeps turning away from him to Rijoko, that does not negate his logic, does it?
Well... It does somewhat. Isuro seems to be quite sure about Jideia not having any ambition... Which is called quite a bit in question with Jideia's words in this chapter :D
'We will need to abate our efforts. The others are not pleased with me.'
While the opinions of Jideia's peers are very important to any plans made, Jideia probably would be able to at least convince some other Great Spirits with the talk 'keeping the balance' if this really was the goal of all the efforts made XD
You mean Jideia, right? Yeah, Isuro could definitely stand to be more skeptical of his motivations, but this is the kind of thing where he doesn't want to believe his patron is wrong, because what would that make him?
@Tejoka Yes, I meant Jideia ... I copied the wrong name XD
(I've edited it)
seems kinda funny that jideia is so concerned with the balance of the world and in the next breath talks about ending one of the biggest nations on it, but if they're aligned with his enemies then tipping the balance is okay?
More or less. According to him, the Empire is upsetting the balance by rising above the rest, so he wants it knocked down so much it's struggling just to get back to normal. Of course, who knows how much of that is just rationalization or if he really thinks that way.
So, big bunch of words incoming, the culmination of me reading this whole story up to now:
I appreciate the effort you have gone into to subvert the usual xianxia tropes. I'm not very familiar with the genre, but every exposure I've had to it has involved either sociopathic "heroes" who rape, murder, torture, and enslave others at the drop of a hat so long as it grants them the tiniest iota of power... or people complaining about xianxia being made up of such characters.
That said, there are some issues in this story that seem to stem from an assumption that the reader will already know what you're talking about. It makes the story somewhat unfriendly to those who are new to the genre, leaving them confused. Several things have been left unexplained, and then had important story and plot points built on top of them. What is qi? What is a meridian, and why does qi go there? What is a dantian? What is a domain? If qi is in everything, why do people have to gather it instead of just producing it themselves? Why is it called cultivation? Why are there discrete stages of power, rather than a smooth progression?
During Inaris's awakening of her bloodline (why is this a thing that has to be awoken? Why is it not inherently "awoken" if it's already a part of her?) you had Mior claim that she has sociopathic tendencies. This has never been shown to be the case. Was Mior just testing her? Why did she not deny this?
Throughout the narrative, you have separated out some of Inaris's thoughts into italicized "thought speech." As this is a story told in the first person, such a delineation is actually unnecessary, and in fact can cause problems in keeping the tense consistent. People tend to think in present tense for things happening to them currently, and yet in multiple locations you have her thinking of the events happening to her in past tense. If the italicized text is intended to be her thoughts at the moment of the events, then it should be in present tense. If it is not then there is no need to italicize the text at all. Clear thoughts such as these should also be treated as speech -- consider telling somebody a story where you had a specific, relevant thought, but instead of telling the other person that you thought that specific thing, you just say exactly what you thought, in the middle of a completely unrelated description of events. It would sound nonsensical, wouldn't it?
e.g. "So, I was walking down the street, past the fast food joint, you know? I really want a hamburger. So I checked my pockets, but I didn't have any money, so I had to walk past, and it totally ruined my day."
See? And if the tense is changed to "I really wanted a hamburger," then the italicizing is just needless emphasis. Leaving it is essentially the same as saying "at that time, I thought in the past tense about the sensations and desires I was currently feeling."
Constructive criticism mode off, whiny opinionated reader mode on:
I really hope you don't use that stupid arranged marriage "forced to be together but look they're attractive so we bonded over being forced to be together and fell in love anyways so everything is happiness and sparkles now" trope. It's dumb, it's unrealistic, and it's completely unromantic. I mean, especially in this context, as a woman raised in the modern world Inaris would be inherently resentful towards her betrothed due to having her choice taken away from her. It wouldn't necessarily be fair of her, but emotions are rarely fair. Additionally, this prince has been raised in a completely different culture from her, and even a completely different culture from what she has recently become accustomed to -- there's going to be some intense culture shock, and each are likely to have beliefs that confuse, shock, and/or disgust the other person. Resolving those falls under the territory of "but I can change him!" An anti-romantic rationalization that has led to countless abuse victims throughout history. Or it falls under the category of "this person who was raised entirely differently from me with entirely unrelated experiences somehow grew up to have the exact same values system as I do!" Clearly an unrealistic premise.
Thank you for your feedback! I really appreciate it. I'll go over the things you've pointed out and see if I can improve them going forward.
The italicized thoughts were something I was debating including, but there are a few times where I think it's better to have a direct thought rather than indirect narration. It's supposed to be clearly separated so the narration is in past tense while the italicized direct thoughts are in present tense (unless she's considering events in the past, e.g. 'Maybe I should tell x that y said z'.) Of course, I may have messed that up or put things in a confusing way. I'll try to be more careful about that.
For my thoughts on some of the things-I think the “sociopathic tendencies “ that Inaris/Mior think she has are mostly about how callous and ruthless she can be regarding life and death considering the only memories she has are from her life on the comparatively non-violent earth rather than the constant struggling hellscape that is Aran. As she noted back during the sect arc she barely reacted to her guards having slaughtered the disciples that tried to kill her, despite thinking she really should have had more of a reaction since it was the first time people had died in front of her, and it was in a pretty brutal and messy way too. Instead of being in shock or pausing at the violence and being covered in blood, she was able to take advantage of the situation and use it as reason to dissolve the sect.
I think there have been some other parts where she thought about that kind of thing like during her campaign against the southern raiding party and how she wasn’t hesitant to give orders that would lead to casualties, even if the orders were done to try and minimize casualties. Also with her very brutal plans on getting back at people who have crossed her
As for Kajare-Inaris has already pointed out that this explicitly *isn’t* an arranged monogamous marriage. This is Kajare being married to her to be one of her consorts/concubines. Still not fantastic for a modern person since it was arranged without really asking her or giving her a meaningful choice, but not realm shattering like it would be in other novels where she might have been thrown out as a pawn in a political marriage and forced to serve under her husband’s whims no matter how depraved. This might also be a part of that sociopathic tendencies type thing with her being extremely pragmatic and logical about it and realizing it’s purely a political marriage.
@MarkofWisdom Interesting to read your interpretation of this, especially on the topic of whether Inaris has sociopathic tendencies. I didn't want to get drawn into a long discussion on it, and I'm not sure if I managed to convey what I had in mind well enough, but you point out a few things that definitely have something to do with it.