Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

The next morning, I felt energetic, empowered by the temporary peace I had felt the previous night and my newfound freedom from pain. Formless miasma traced its way through my meridian, a sensation which just felt right to me, having been that way for most of my life. After waking up, I cleaned and dressed myself, my mind coming up with plans for what my next moves should be.

While the crack in my dantian had been repaired, the work had inevitably been slightly less than perfect. The gap had been plugged with an artificial compound, and the effects were not quite as good as the natural material. For me, the largest impact of this was just slightly decreased stability in the condensation of miasma within the dantian. I could feel that a good portion of the time I had remaining had been shaved off. My tight schedule had been cramped even further, and I had not yet found a single one of the three treasures that I needed for my advancement.

That line of thought gave me an idea, and my eyes flashed to where I had hidden Rachel’s conduit.

“Hey, Rachel, has Nahalken found anything yet?” I asked.

Rachel appeared out of nowhere in her human form, wearing a white sundress accented with jewelry that had blue stones on it.

“Do you mean the treasures? Not yet, as far as I know. In a backwater like this, there’s little chance of acquiring what you need. The only treasures that really qualify are Staiven eyes.”

Upon hearing there was little chance of finding what I needed here, I gave Rachel a glare. She looked away awkwardly, remembering that she had baited me here by tricking me into thinking that I could find such treasures. I sighed.

“I guess I’ll tell the Silk Palace to look for more information on Ester Perivar. That lead might get me two of them, if we’re lucky.”

Rachel nodded.

“I’ll tell Eli what I’ve already found about the matter, though it isn’t much. Whatever is going on with this Perivar, it’s being kept quite secret. There’s no mention of him or any experiments in any databases I have access to.”

I frowned.

“Do we need to break into a government building to get you access to the right database?”

“Maybe, but I believe it may be best to see what your subordinates can acquire first. Breaking into a government building will prompt a great deal more reprisal than even stealing from the Celans did.”

I nodded slowly, as she did have a point. Still, my gut was rigid, warning me that I was running out of time. I needed to progress or I would fall to insanity yet again. This time, I would be unable to save myself.

“I suppose that makes sense. What do you think we should focus on in the meantime?”

Rachel hummed a bit to herself as she considered the matter, some odd melody that as expected, I couldn’t recognize.

“Expansion and growth, I suppose.”

“I was thinking the same thing. It’s high time we announced our existence to the neighborhood and began recruitment.”

Rachel nodded, and her mouth shifted into a subtle smirk that annoyed me for some reason.

“I’ll take charge of recruitment,” she said. “I get the feeling that might not be your strong suit.”

I bit back an urge to retort that her abilities were clearly not ideal either, given how she was largely at fault for Hestky’s betrayal. The thought made me realize that I had grown a bit more comfortable with her after our conversation the night before. She reminded me a bit of my happier days in my youth at the Downpour Sect.

We quickly marched out of the finely furnished sleeping quarters I had taken for myself as part of my right as sect leader, entering into the Redwater Sect at large. The room had formerly been Hidoro’s, and after a good cleaning, I found it suitable for my own residence. It was by far the most comfortable sleeping quarters in the entire building.

Rachel followed behind me, her hair and clothes morphing into the form she typically used when dealing with Seiyal. It struck me then that her emerging from my room might cause rumors, but found myself not particularly caring. This sort of rumor would not cause any damage to my reputation, so I did not particularly care about it. Though… I glanced at Rachel, and, noticing my glance, she cocked her head curiously.

“What is it?” she asked.

I supposed that she must not care about such rumors either, so I let the matter go.

“It’s nothing,” I said, returning my attention to where I was going.

While I had been too busy dealing with my injury to notice, the former office building that had been the headquarters of the Redwater Gang had come a long way. The peeling wallpaper had been replaced, and art had been placed on it in visible locations. I could tell that it was cheap art bought from starving artists or pawn shops, but it would do. As I had told my new subordinates after founding the sect, the bare minimum of presentation was all that mattered at the moment. Influence and personnel were far more important considerations for us.

The construction and redevelopment inside of the sect had finally been completed a day or so before, and I could vaguely remember that I had told Kein Huang to make all the existing disciples go to Cinto for a ‘refresher training.’ In theory, they should be doing such training through the Steel Palace, but I had yet to assign a palace leader for it, and so it was still fully under my personal control. We had yet to start recruiting new disciples anyway, so I imagined Cinto couldn’t be all that busy yet. I decided to head to the Charging Puma, just a few blocks away, to see how the training was going.

As I walked through the halls of the sect, servants and disciples bowed to me as I passed, a mixture of fear and respect prompting them to do as they had surely been ordered to by Kein. It felt good to see it. While I didn’t personally care how these people saw me, discipline and respect was the backbone of a sect, and if the sect leader was not treated properly, it meant that the sect was in dire straits.

To my surprise, before I even left the building, I found them training in one of the larger halls of the sect. The room had once been filled with cubicles, I recalled, but now it had been emptied, and the tiles stripped off the floor to reveal the hard metal underneath.

When training mortals and those in the foundation refinement realm, floor mats were generally used, at least on the station. Back home, we had simply trained in the mud of the Downpour Sect’s grounds. The reason for these choices was twofold. One part of it was to reduce injury on the fragile bodies of the new practitioners. The second was that martial artists who were that weak were often children, and so injuries would feel cruel. Higher class martial artists were granted fewer considerations.

The idea was that one should train on the type of terrain they were most likely to fight on. On the station, that meant hard metal flooring. Sure, there would be slips and injuries among the incompetent, but that was the price of effective training. While they recovered they could do labor with the servants. Their bodies were tough enough that there was no chance of them being crippled by the injuries unless real, metal weapons were used. Of course, we used those too at times, under supervision.

I smiled at the pleasant thoughts of the past as I watched over thirty former gangsters stand in formation, shifting between forms that I recognized as genesis based techniques. After recognizing the techniques, I frowned. It was clearly an inferior variation on the martial arts of the Hadal Clan. While it was enough to serve a sufficiently talented practitioner through the core formation stage, they would always be weaker than a Hadal Clan practitioner at the same level, and none of the techniques would qualify to serve as the seed for a core. Perhaps this was the best that the unaffiliated denizens of the station knew? I would have offered to teach them better techniques, but I did not know enough about genesis techniques to actually improve their efforts. I would have to see about acquiring some better ones at some point in the future.

The disciples failed to notice me, engrossed in their own efforts. I could tell why as I saw Cinto wandering the lines, smacking those who made mistakes with a training cudgel she held in one hand. Watching the silently enraged looks of the disciples, I nodded approvingly. While it could be harsh, it was certainly the proper way to train a disciple. My own master had done the same to me. The anger would drive them to improve, or it would drive them to flee. And if one of them decided to flee, they would serve as an excellent example for the rest.

As the set of stances finally came to an end, one of the disciples finally noticed my presence. His posture immediately straightened, bowing in greeting.

“Sect Leader Yu! Vice-Sect Leader Rachel!” he called, respectfully greeting me.

This brought the attention of the rest of the disciples, who all quickly did the same. Their discipline was commendable, far more than I would have expected of mere gang members after only a week of time in a sect. Perhaps Hidoro had demanded similar social considerations of them?

I nodded to them in response, and they relaxed their posture, eyes glancing at Cinto who was walking over. As she arrived before me, she clasped a fist in her other hand and bowed to me.

“Greetings, Sect Leader Yu.”

She turned to Rachel and bowed again. I waited for the two of them to exchange their own greetings before I responded.

“Greetings, Palace Leader Sakie,” I said. “How has the training been going?”

She glanced at the horde of former gang members, and then back at me.

“It’s been difficult, but their abilities have already shown signs of improvement, particularly a few more talented members. They all certainly listen better than they did as a gang.”

I smiled.

“Good. Would you consider them ready yet?”

Cinto frowned, nibbling on her lower lip as she considered the question.

“Ready for what, sir?”

“To properly protect sect interests as we expand.”

“I would say that we have more than enough to protect our own territory, but if we wanted to expand further, we would need to either purchase or conquer it from another gang’s territory. I’m unsure if we have enough high-level combatants for that, sir,” she said frankly. “There will almost surely be casualties.”

I frowned, not pleased by the words. I would have to talk to Kein and Eli to see if any of the surrounding gangs would be an easier target than Cinto expected.

“I see. Is there anyone in the members present who you think can take over your role of ensuring their daily training.”

Cinto’s eyes flickered uncertainly.

“Sure, I can choose one. Is there a reason you would like me to?”

I flashed her a grin.

“I need you to work with Rachel. Begin organizing and implementing a recruitment plan. Don’t start it until we finish discussing the matter of announcing our existence. I’ll wish to discuss that with Kein as well.”

Cinto bowed again, and I left the room again, heading to deal with my other concerns. Rachel gave me a small wave as I turned, before she turned back to watch Cinto handle the large group of disciples.

Energy still roared through my veins. I felt ready to fight another enforcer, much less simply have the energy to delegate all the tasks to my subordinates. At that moment it felt like both the sect and the larger plans that it was a part of had a very high chance of success.

Miasmic Treasures: [Also known as natural treasures or spiritual treasures, this term refers to physical structures that house vast quantities of miasma inside of them. As miasma is inherently unstable and warps everything around it, such structures have yet to become something that can be created through science and technology alone, at least not with normal materials. These treasures, despite their name, cannot actually form naturally, only in places where the natural order has been altered in some way. On Canvas they can be found inside the bodies of certain beasts created by the ascendant Tovus, often named with an appellation of fiend, such as a junglefiend or a riverfiend. Ascendants and Osine are said to be the only forces capable of creating them, and they can also sometimes be found formed within areas that have been affected by powerful, large scale warpings, or near lesions. In addition, the eyes of the Staiven race slowly form into these treasures as they age, which can result in their murder in certain, more dangerous areas. Miasmic treasures are quite rare, and as they are required for high level advancement in the Seiyal progression system, as well as necessary for the use of certain advanced technologies, they come at a very extreme price. It is said that the ascendant Ceirra creates a certain amount of miasmic treasures yearly to give to her followers in Sunlit Hall, which is the main reason that force has far more high level practitioners than other martial organizations.]