Druidic Cultivation | Twenty-Nine

Feng Nian cradled his face and stepped off to the side, at a loss for words for one of the first times in his life. He’d been silent before and he’d sulked in the past, but never before had he been unable to actually formulate words to express his emotions, he’d always just elected not to speak them aloud. Now, after being struck by his father so publicly and decisively, he had nothing he could say, so he just sat there with his swollen cheeks in either hand. 

“You, Feng Jiao. Come up to the stage with me. I’d originally intended to wait until after the food to award your prize, but it seems as if there are those here who remain unconvinced. I, Feng Nan, patriarch of Southfeng, know better. For you to cheat, I would have had to fail in my protection of the event. I did not fail.” It seemed to all present that Feng Nan was truly offended than any doubted his ability to detect cheating. It wasn’t that the gathering thought him unable, they just couldn’t believe that a young, ten-year-old boy managed to defeat a beast that was near core formation. 

After the shocking display of speed and strength, however, the children were convinced. Before, they too believed that the young boy couldn’t possibly be ranked higher than a step one mortal awakened. Since basking in his combat reflexes, swift strikes, and excellent mobility in battle, they couldn’t help but wonder just how far along his cultivation was.

Jiao did not pay any attention to them, however. He choose to silently ascend the stage under the jealous and admiring gazes of his peers. As he stepped up the wooden stairs, he couldn’t help but reflect how often he’d been doing so recently. ‘Is this what hallowed cultivation is?’ he thought to himself, ‘A never ending series of stairs and stages with no end in sight. Ascend one stage and bask in glory just long enough to reach the opposite side and discover a new set of steps?’

What he didn’t realize was that a never-ending universe of stairs and stages was a perfect analogy for the road of hallowed arts.  It was an infinite highway with several entrances and exits, as well as parallel roads. Each path could share almost everything or almost nothing in common. In fact, the only thing that every single path of hallowed arts would share in common is that there was no end. 

Jiao mounted the stage and walked to stand in front of Feng Nan. Like many others, he was able to sense that the man’s anger wasn’t truly about a load of children doubting his ability. He was angered with his son’s losing of face, losing of the competition, and most importantly, that he’d lost while cheating. Feng Jiao was not the only one to connect the conveniently poisoned blade wielded by the son of the event’s host to the change in competition. Feng Nan had attempted to launder city taxes into an expensive reward for his own son, and was now being forced to give it to someone else. 

“State your name and which branch family you hail from for all to hear. Each Feng here should know the origins of the man who defeated them in fair competition.” 

“This man’s name is Feng Jiao, first son of Feng Zhipei of Crouching Grass Village, and hopeful of the God Tree Grove.” Feng Jiao bowed once to Feng Nan then once to the crowd before proclaiming his name. At this point, thanks to the ranting and raving of Alchemist Zhurou, it was very unlikely that those present hadn’t taken notice of his name. Even still, Jiao declared his name as well as the Crouching Grass, the village who’d raised him, and the God Tree Grove, who Jiao intended to join for a long time, to bring them honor.

“Very well, Jiao. Here is the copper-grade Inventory Ring that was promised to the victor.  I’m sure that, as everyone can see, you are a good seedling. I can see that in your future, you will bring much face and honor to our Feng Family. Keep up the good work and I guarantee that your branch of the family won’t remain a branch family for too much longer. Now, I also promised a request of me, tell me what it is that you would ask of me?” 

The request as one of the traditional rewards of these annual competitions. Usually, the winner would use this time to request a recommendation letter for a sect they’d been unable to pledge, or maybe a weapon from the lord’s armory, or even advice on Feng family martial arts. Things that were not of a specific monetary value, but would make for good rewards anyways.

“City Lord Feng, if it would not be too presumptuous of me, I would request the ability to name my own retainers. New retainers.” Instantly the crowd was struck into silence. The retainers of the Feng family had all stretched back for hundreds of years, having been allied with the Fengs since the inception of the clan. Each one of them had performed meritorious services for the good of the Fengs before eventually being accepted as a retainer family. To name one’s own retainers was a slap to their history as well as the Feng family’s judgement.

Naturally, Feng Jiao had his own reasons for making such a request. He knew that Feng family patriarchs had the ability to bestow retainership to servants who had performed great deeds, and that this request was not outside of the power of Feng Nan. He’d long since noticed the absence of retainers in his household, and was able to determine the reasons for himself. 

His mother had given him a multitude of platitudes to stop him from asking questions about it, but he was able to figure it out from other statements she’d made. Things like ‘don’t consume any meals that were not prepared by myself or our servants’ or ‘don’t go anywhere with your cousins or their retainers without asking permission first’. When those statements were tied back to how he’d arrived in the world, inserted into a poisoned and dying fetus, he could sense the wisdom.

His mother had once been one of his father’s retainers, before he’d fallen in love and married her. Even after marriage, he’d kept several retainers around to help him manage the city for his mother. When his mother had been struck by lightning, it was those retainers who’d helped care for Weifeng Xue. When the poisonous black blood had begun to seep from her pores, it was those same retainers who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to cover it up.  An investigation was launched and the official reasoning for the attempted murder was ‘jealousy of Weifeng Xue’s jump in station’. 

Two of the three were executed for attempted murder and the third managed to escape under mysterious circumstances. Feng Zhipei had instantly kicked the rest of the retainers out of his household and hired trusted friends from his past adventures in his sect. Only they, those who’d bled with him and struggled with him, could be trusted around his family. Unfortunately, the friends he invited back did not have children of their own, at least none close to Feng Jiao’s age, to raise alongside him. Thus, Feng Jiao had gone retainerless. 

“This is a very big request you make, young lordling Jiao. Then again, to have advanced so far at such a young age, yours is sure to be a bright star in the night sky. Why should you not have the ability to elevate some beside yourself as you rise to prominence?” Feng Nan swiped his hand and three rings appeared in his palm. They were a dull metal that may have been bronze or dark iron, and rather simplistic in nature. The only thing adorning them was the Feng Clan sigil, a fiery bird with a squirming snake within its talons.

“These rings mark one’s family as a retainer of Feng. You should not sell these rings under any circumstance, nor should you gift them frivolously. To bestow this ring to someone, you much mark it with both your blood and their own, binding the two of your bloodlines for life and connecting them to you. Their parents and siblings will be considered the beginnings of their retainer family, but no other previous generations. Only the bearer of this ring, and their progeny, will be entitled the monthly payments and honors that come as a retainer of the Fengs. Their monthly stipend will be subtracted from the tithe owed from the Crouching Grass, so your grandmother can pay them it directly.

“This favor I will do for you, Feng Jiao, so don’t forget the generosity of Feng Nan and Southfeng when you rise in this world. If that’s all, go to your family now. They are sure to be proud of your accomplishment.” Feng Nan could tell that Jiao would do well in this life. He’d heard negative things about the Crouching Grass branch family in the past and could only hope that the Feng family hadn’t treated them too poorly. One way or another, he could tell that Feng Jiao would outgrow the Feng clan, and he did his best to sow the seeds of goodwill early on.

By directing a bit of his Qi into the copper ring he now wore, Feng Jiao was able to imprint the storage treasure with his own energy. Afterward, with a single thought, he managed to suck in the three copper vassal rings he’d been given into the inventory ring. He stepped off the stage even as he began to store all of the belongings in his bad, followed by the bag itself, into the ring. The weight didn’t disappear, but was cut in half and equally distributed over every inch of his body rather than just his back. 

Jiao managed to spot his father behind the crowd and give him a nod before turning and walking elsewhere. He did not go back to his family right away as Feng Nan had suggested, but decided to seek out the Alchemist and see what he could get for the rest of the organs he’d harvested. Although his family wasn’t poor, he was leaving for his sect soon and decided that more funding on his road of hallowed arts would never be a bad thing. On top of that, there was the strange liquid he wanted to identify. 

He managed to spot Alchemist Zhurou a bit farther away, looking mournfully down at the decrepit boar corpse.