Chương 2: Wandering Bulb

Rowan The morning sun beat down on the mountain path. Rowan ran down the steps, panting. He had seen a group of armored cultivators at the base of the mountains by the Eastern Gate. The Eastern Gate was the entrance to the Sect that outer disciples used. Qi Refining cultivators who left the mountain would generally fly. Luckily, the group still seemed to be chatting with the gatekeeper. Rowan took the stone steps that lead down the mountainside two at a time until he reached the gatekeeper as well.

"Hello, Old Hesser!" he greeted.

"This disciple requests-""Sect Token?"

"I forgot it," Rowan said, his face reddening.

"I need to catch up with those guys up ahead."

"For what?" Old Hesser flicked the end of his mustache.

"You never leave the sect except to visit your mother. Did they steal something from you?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Rowan said, attempting to walk past him.

"I heard they were going out to the Wilds. I have a mission." He waved the smudged rice paper job posting. He leaned against the door, catching his breath.

"Remember your token next time!" said Old Hesser. There was a surge of qi and a wave of force swept over Rowan, pushing the gates open and tearing the flimsy job posting in half. As the gate closed behind him with a heavy thunk, Rowan grabbed the halves before they floated away in the wind and ran down the main street. The main street, which bisected not only the Sect District but all of Righteous Mountain City, was lined with mortal shops as far as the eye could see.

The most important businesses were just outside the Eastern Gate. Most prominent amongst them was Lothesby Emporium, where thousands of silver taels changed hands day to day. Beside it was Decatour Teahouse, which dealt in notarizing contracts between cultivators and the sale of information. The district near the sect was always spectacle of colors and sound.

A carriage pulled by a three-eyed horse stopped at a nearby restaurant, and a contingent of white-robed individuals with flat white caps strode out imperiously. There were stores selling qi tools, ingredients for alchemy, and astrolabes for star-reading. Women in red silks cooed at him from a balcony, waving dancing ribbons. Large banners advertised the biggest attraction in town - the only Dragon Forge for thousands of miles.

Rowan barely paid any attention to the chaos, focused on the group speeding ahead towards the Southeastern Gate. Somehow, he caught up to them.

"W-wait!" Rowan panted, sweat dripping down his back.

"Can I join you, fellow disciples? I also have a mission in the Wilds!" He presented the two halves of the job slip to the bewildered group. His sweaty hands had rendered the slip wet and unreadable. He dried them against the side of his robe, staining them with ink.

"Who are you? Where's your armor? Your weapon?" a man asked as he looked Rowan up and down, perplexed. Rowan blinked and the faces of the group finally registered. He'd seen them before - who didn't know them? They were the fiercest fighters among the outer disciples. The group called themselves the Formidable Five. All five of them were in the middle stage of Qi Condensation. They had long made a name for themselves as beast hunters.

None of them were really in the running to be promoted to inner disciples, despite their decades of experience. Some of them were still trying. He cursed internally. Did Senior Sister Verrine set him up? Why would these all-stars even give him a second glance? Before he could respond, the sole woman of the group looked down her nose at him.

"Aren't you Pyrus Helsing's son? Everyone knows he fell into demonic cultivation and slaughtered his family… How far does a pear truly fall from a tree?" Another man laughed derisively.

"Hey, kid, you aren't trying to lead us into a demon den, are you?" Rowan balled his hands into fists, crushing the torn slip between his fingers.

"My father was a hero."

"We're not looking for a fight, kid." Their leader produced a pair of long silver needles, flicking them with a thoughtful twang.

"I still remember being a new cultivator to the sect with little support and a besmirched name. You can follow us if you want, but don't expect any special treatment." A horse-drawn carriage flew between them in a hurry. Rowan instinctively jumped backwards. The dust kicked up by the horse stripped the torn mission slip from his fingers and it sailed upwards and away. Rowan gave a halfhearted jump, attempting to grab it again, but the slip danced out of the way and out of sight. The group chortled at him.

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"You're a cultivator," said the man with the needles, which he'd pocketed again in the din.

"You don't move aside for anybody. You don't owe anything to anyone."

"Whatever," said the woman, her back already turned.

"You can't keep up with us anyway, Helsing." She pressed their mission slip against the grain of the gate. The paper darkened like ink soaking through, and then it was gone. The ground shook as it creaked open with a crash so loud that it caught the attention of all the mortals on the street.

"Good luck!" some of them shouted at the group. Rowan touched the rosary wound around his wrist, trying to soothe his nerves. He was better off with a competent bunch that disdained him than a friendly group who didn't know their way around. Once the Southeastern Gate was fully opened, the woman checked his shoulder as she strode into the forest. The rest followed. For the next hour, Rowan did struggle to keep up, even though it seemed like the older disciples were hardly trying.

They hadn't run into any beasts yet, but the forest itself seemed like it was trying to hurt him. A tree root would suddenly appear, knocking him to the ground. Or he'd walk into a face full of sticky spiderwebs. The Wilds had long been known to be inhospitable to humans. It was a miracle that a city could have been built beside Righteous Mountain to begin with.

Rowan had heard that the Mission Board for the inner disciples often had tasks to maintain the city's wards, to ensure that none of the plant or animal life grew over or under the city's walls and cracked its foundations, physically or spiritually. He made sure that he was never too slow to lose sight of his sectmates' backs, pushing himself to the limit. Just as he was about to catch them for the third or fourth time, however, an errant tree branch slammed into his forehead, narrowly missing his eye.

He had been running so hard that it knocked him off his feet, leaving him on his back as his feet kicked up mud into the foliage. His forehead felt wet as he sat up and shook himself, staring through the undergrowth. The sound of distant laughter ahead confirmed that the group had heard him fall. He wiped his forehead, returning a rivulet of crimson between the whorls of his fingers. Rowan cursed and stood, flicking the blood onto the ground. Just then, he saw a flash of green in the mud.

A clump of drooping leaves burrowed through the ground, straight for him. He scrambled back. A rotund white vegetable emerged in front of him, flying straight up into the air, from stem to bulb to root - two feet high - before landing on the ground. It rolled itself onto where he'd bled, basking and soaking its roots which were thorny and sharp and beaked. Could it be…? The job posting had included a drawing of the Wandering Bulb spirit herb, but he didn't know its exact dimensions or coloring.

But if this was the herb in question, he couldn't let it get away. This might be his only chance to capture one. When it had licked any trace of blood on the ground dry, it sidled up to him slowly. Rowan held himself still as the golden-brown root crept at his face slowly, headed for the open wound on his forehead. In a flash, Rowan struck, grabbing the plant by the stem. It was faster than him. It recoiled back, roots askew.

A root caught the edge of Rowan's palm and it tore through his skin, peeling off a sliver of flesh. Rowan cursed again as the root dove into the mud, until only its green head was visible. The vegetable shot into the bushes. He looked around, his stomach sinking as he realized the Formidable Five had vanished. The only thing to do now was to follow the Wandering Bulb. He pulled at his qi, willing his wound to close, but he only felt a slight tingling.

Instructor Sutter had promised this was the easiest way to heal yourself in a pinch, but Rowan had yet to form his Qi Sea. He'd never found success with healing himself and he didn't find it now. Rowan stormed after the retreating blob of droopy green leaves poking through the forest floor with all his might. He pounded through the undergrowth as the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes turned into hours.

The few times he'd come close to grabbing it as it started to tire, it turned around and bit him, finding new energy from drinking his blood. The shadows of the trees began to change positions, and the sun set. The deep yellow glow made it easier to see the Wandering Bulb, and if Rowan ignored the burning in his legs, he was almost certain that the bulb was beginning to slow to a stop.

It seemed to be taunting him, moving around the same set of trees in a circle, popping out of the ground to swipe at him, hoping for another meal. Rowan had been struck repeatedly as the vegetable toyed with him, but with some more thought into his movements, he'd felt himself adapting to the bulb's action. In time, he realized he hadn't been bitten in hours. Right as the setting sun turned blood red, the Wandering Bulb frantically flew into the air. Rowan could almost sense the qi in the plant excite.

The spirit herb sped off in an entirely different direction, headed against the setting sun. Rowan chased after it. This second wind the plant had found would be its last. As he moved further and further east, Rowan could smell night, a faraway rainstorm, and the curious smell of iron. He tore past the brush, deftly avoiding oversized spiders and dodging branches with deft flicks of his body as he closed in on the flagging green stems. The smell of iron grew stronger.

Suddenly, the Wandering Bulb popped out from the forest floor yet again and stopped. Rowan stuttered to a halt with a splash, threw his hands out and grabbed the feebly struggling plant by its stems. A splash? Rowan looked down, and in the pale moonlight, he realized he'd stepped into a shallow creek of a dark, oozing liquid. Along the bank of the thin, shallow stream, dozens and dozens of Wandering Bulbs, dancing in a river of blood.

The bulb he'd been chasing the entire day gave a halfhearted jerk, falling from his nerveless hands. He followed the river with his eyes, past a copse of trees, to a ramshackle little hut. Against the hut's door was an unrecognizable bundle of flesh that hung a foot above ground. A pair of long needles glinting silver in the moonlight pinned the corpse through its eyes against the door. Blood flowed from every orifice, joining the stream that gushed out from beneath the door.