Cultivating Plants

Depending on the sharpness of one's senses, the first thing one would detect would be the loud chants and cries. However, he first noticed the sweet smell drowning the whole place. It was a tender and faint smell, but he still recognized it. The pestilence that rotted the mind.

"I'd prefer if you didn't sniff my home." A scraggy voice announced.

"If you made it more homely, I could think of it as a home at some point." He spoke. "But it would certainly take a while."

The voice sighed and revealed his form from the shadows. It was an old man, frail, but oddly lucid. "Every time I feel I hit gold with this gamble, you have me second-guessing myself."

"We are two then." He harrumphed.

"You are the one who searched for us, you have no such right, Hassan."

"A man may second-guess himself as much as he wants and be of no consequence. The problem only starts when his only action is guessing himself." Hassan walked toward him.

"That much is true, but I'm not here for philosophy. What about my men?" The old man pointed at the origin of the noise with his head.

"Your patience is thin, and this endeavor is meant for years, Grandmaster." He knew better than to anger a master assassin. Frail as all of them may look, they had the potential to be as dangerous as the oldest of sultanzade. "There hasn't been much change, Nurture is a practice about numbers and time, a growing orchard, more of a background task."

"If your imperial magic is a background task, which is the main one, then?" The old man grunted.

"This." Hassan theatrically extended his arms at the underground opening, which revealed a set of training grounds with hundreds of trainees. "Building one's body, learning discipline, knowing how to kill."

"My people know how to kill."

"Not in this way." He smiled. "But it's true the combination of Nurture and Enlightenment provides many new possibilities. As long as your people keep away from the sense stance, of course."

"Why is that specific stance so problematic?" He had already explained to the old assassin all he knew about Nurture, but some knowledge only became visible when put into practice. "That only boosted one's senses, right?"

"Exactly. There lays the problem, Nugar." Hassan nodded and the old man frowned. "Your assassins already have keen senses, and whilst the sense stance heightens them even more to unprecedented levels, there are some… side effects."

"Which?" Nugar taciturnly asked.

"Drugs, what else?" The former emir snickered. "Their systems become too keen to them under the sense stance, making them haywire like actual drug addicts. The greater their Nurture, the more pathetic beings they become."

"Hmm…" The grandmaster scratched his goatee. "Now I would like to experience myself. This could be a key component to Apotheosis."

"Bah!" Hassan protested. "You and your Apotheosis! If you all weren't so hellbent on your mysticism, Aaliyah wouldn't have been able to hunt you down as she did."

"There are traditions for a reason, young man."

"Yes, to exploit the dimwitted." Hassan squinted at him. He had been a governor once, for him tradition was just a form of control. The culture people boasted so much about was the very shackles that held them down without revolting. "But beyond that, the assassins have demonstrated competency in all stances, especially stealth and agility."

"Isn't that last stance useless?" Nugar inquired.

"Yes." The young man didn't sugarcoat it. "But it has its uses. Being able to deform one's bad at quick speeds at melee range allows you to attack from impossible angles or even redirect blows away. The advantage you assassins have is that you are more tolerant to the damage and discomfort the stance inheritably inflicts as your minds are ridden with so many calming agents that you won't pass out from the pain."

"I'll try to make use of them, then. Any tool can become a weapon, but not every weapon can become a tool."

"Wise words," He blankly stated, not paying much attention. The grandmaster tended to use too many reiterative expressions that brought nothing to the conversation. "Beyond stances, women assassins are progressing better with their Nurture, but that was to be expected."

"How's that?" The senile man asked, oblivious that this was their third time having this conversation.

Hassan sighed. "Women are just better at Nurture, don't ask me why. Aaliyah used to say that it's because of their life-giving nature, but anything that comes out of that woman's mouth should be picked up with a grain of salt. Anyhow, the superior progress of the females isn't solely due to their nature, but also their assets."

"It seems the courtesans are pulling their weight then."

"Yes, your many street whores are useful for the endeavor as unlike many others, they can reap an unlimited amount of people without raising suspicion as there will always be a man desperate enough, but Loyatan societal structure is being quite a nuisance at that."

"Now you are blaming my country for your faults?"

"It is your country's fault," Hassan stated deadheartedly. "Your cities are too small to gather enough vitality for more than a handful of people, and the autonomy between regions too high to move easily between them."

"That's your fault for thinking Loyata is a nation in the first place." Nugar snickered in amusement. "We are just… what's the word again? Coalition, yes. We are a coalition against you, warmongers. We would have remained divided in peace if there wasn't a scourge threatening us at the south."

"How lucky that we are dealing with such scourge now."

"Indeed. Indeed." Nugar's eyes locked with the training assassins. "I have done everything in my capabilities to weaken Ydaz, but I'm not sure the forces you are training here will be enough. If what you have told me is true, we will need a master assassin for each sultanzade and three grandmasters for Aaliyah alone."

"And I doubt that will be enough." He added with a whisper. "But of course, we will not be fighting all sultanzade at the same time. Your specialization, that of the assassins, is picking the correct battlefield. A skill most valued in war."

"Are you saying I should send masters at the Sultanah? I fear that would be just gifting capable men to the jötunn."

Hassan recognized the creature Nugar spoke from Loyatan folklore, though, unlike many real and tangible monsters of the night, the legendary giants were just that, fiction. That didn't mean Loyata didn't have monsters of their own. He had been informed that some assassins fought against ice dwellers as the sheer brutality and uncanny ability for stealth of the monsters made for a pyrrhic matchup for the assassins.

"Now, now. I have devised a tactic for assassins to survive even the meanest of Aaliyah's attacks."

"You've piqued my interest. Speak." For the first time, the old man actually sounded commanding, but most importantly, powerful. As if his mind was finally in place.

A hashashid. Hassan realized this a long time ago.

"First, Aaliyah won't be using the strength stance against assassins. Too much of a peril for little gain. I presume she will be boasting defense and sense – she can use two, as I have briefed you – to fight the assassins. Maybe she will use speed and flowing from time to time, but don't expect her to show any of the other. And of course, those two stances will only be substituted with sense. She will never lower the defense stance, so the only way to hurt her is…"

"With poison," Nugar interjected.

"Wrong." Hassan snapped his fingers at him. "Defense also provides against poisons. That's why most assassinations against sultanzade fail if they are awake, they can just switch to defense and protect themselves against most poisons depending on their Nurture. No," he swayed his head, "the only way to kill Aaliyah is from exhaustion."

"Exhaustion? You are joking."

"I'm being quite serious." The young man replied with his eyes locked on the training assassins.

Their training was quite diverse as some simply built muscle or endurance through repetitive exercises, whilst others were allowed to spar between each other with weapons. As deadly as the assassins were, most were incompetent civilians who were carried by the abilities provided by Enlightenment. But the ones who had real skill in them… were scary.

He normally forbade assassins to use their abilities during training as the objective wasn't to kill their partner but to acquire mastery of their bodies, but those who were higher up on the echelons of the shadowy organization were ruthless with their skills. Teleportation, telekinesis, invisibility… those combined with Nurture and the right mindset were tools far deadlier than working on their lonesome. And that was just a handful of their repertoire.

"Aaliyah," Hassan started, "cannot be killed by poisons or blows. I doubt asphyxiation can even work as the recovery stance would probably allow her to survive without air for days. No. To kill her we need to chip at her. It will require multiple days, perhaps the whole campaign, of constantly trying to kill her and impeding her from falling asleep. The moment her Nurture diminishes and she cannot regenerate her vitality, that will be the moment to strike. This will not be an assassination as you know them, but a hunt. The greatest hunt to ever be devised, as we aren't dealing with prey, but an apex predator. Chasing down the game is but the first strategy of hunting."

"Let's assume that series of tactics work, which to be honest, it's a better plan than anything we have devised on our own." It didn't surprise the cultivator that the assassins had planned to try to kill Aaliyah. That was the common mental exercise for sultanzade, after all. "What's that tactic to survive her strongest attacks that you've hyped up?"

The sultanzade smiled. "The defense stance will be useless against Aaliyah as a single punch from her – even without the strength stance – will be fatal. We will have no assassin with enough vitality to wield a durable enough defense stance to do so, ever. And teleportation… your shadows won't help you either, Aaliyah's mind is too fast for eyes."

"Then what?" For an old man, you surely don't have patience.

"Agility."

"The useless stance?"

"The one and only," Hassan smirked. "That's why I am training the highest-ranking assassins here on the stance. Though only because it's one of the few stances that actually require training. Being able to practically liquify their body will allow them to dissipate the damage far more efficiently than soaking it up with defense. It's not a perfect solution – heavens no – but they might survive a single hit from Aaliyah. Who knows, if we are lucky, maybe even two."

"You are telling me that all this training amounts to surviving a single punch?"

The cultivator's visage darkened. "We are not dealing with 'punches' here, but death sentences. Aaliyah could wreck this whole installation with a stomp, if we obtain a single assassin here that can survive one hit, then I will very well call this operation a success. Remember, the idea is to not get hit in the first place."

"It's always ups and downs when I speak with you." Nugar sighed.

"Surely you must enjoy them." He added with contempt. "How many grandmasters will we dispose of for the moment of truth?"

"Not as many as I would have enjoyed." The assassin admitted.

"How's that? Surely everyone will be willing to slay the Heavenly Descendant."

"No, all grandmasters are on board, it's not that. It's that the Grandmaster of Sadina has died a few months ago from a failed Apotheosis."

Hassan frowned at having his previous emirate, his rightful land, being mentioned. "I doubt having one less grandmaster is going to pull us down this much."

"Fool!" Nugar suddenly snapped. "Umar was without a doubt the most powerful assassin the world has seen so far! His mind remained in the world a whole minute after death, do you even have the slightest idea of what that implies?"

"No, I do not. Don't talk to me like that." Hassan responded nonplussed.

"Bah!" The old assassin grunted. "I'll not bother explaining it to you then, only know that if one person could kill Aaliyah-al-Ydaz in a one-on-one in Khaffat, it was Umar."

That is, indeed, troublesome. The sultanzade didn't voice out his thoughts. And was this ostensibly one-army man living under my territory all this time? It seemed impossible to him, the assassins he had contacted during his reign didn't show the prowess or the mettle to be commanded by such a legendary figure.

"Let us only hope that his presence wasn't needed." Nugar buffed in a defeatist tone.

"Hope is for the weak and the unprepared."

"We will never be prepared if our foe is the Sultanah of Ydaz."

"That is the truest statement you have uttered, my friend." Hassan closed his eyes and deflated, his shoulders slumping down. "But if our readiness proves enough, then I'll rule the land and you may benefit from it."

"I'm still doubtful of how far your help will extend."

"Then why are you helping me?" The sultanzade snickered.

"There are gains for us if Aaliyah were to die, regardless of your continued help during a future reign or not."

"Fret not, this all started because I was willing to help you from the beginning." His expression soured, siding with the assassins was what got him here in the first place. "And now I'm going to put an end to it."