Unintended Cultivator

When Sen went inside to have a meal, he found both Master Feng and Uncle Kho inside. He narrowed his eyes at the two. There was something about the way the two men carried themselves that made Sen feel like they had been waiting for him. Despite the feeling he couldn’t shake, the three shared a quiet meal. The closest the conversation got to anything important was Uncle Kho asking if Sen had finished the scroll.

“No, uncle. I’m nearly done with it. Do you need it back?”

Kho waved a dismissive hand. “No. No. I just need to decide what I’ll have you read next.”

After the meal, Sen took some food out for the ghost panther. He absently tossed her pieces of food, but his mind was focused on that ball of energy inside him. It had helped him finish the run, but he knew he didn’t understand it. Part of him wondered if he should ask Master Feng about it, but he wasn’t even sure what he would ask about. All Sen really knew was that he had, or thought he had, some kind of energy inside him. If he was wrong, he’d look foolish in front of Master Feng. If he was right but couldn’t describe it well enough, he could still look foolish. He decided that he’d play with it on his own for a while. It didn’t seem like it would hurt him, so Sen didn’t see any harm in putting off a conversation about it. As if to encourage him, the big cat looked intently at his stomach before vanishing back over the wall to go and do, Sen came up blank. He had no idea what the beast did when it wasn’t at the manor. Struck by curiosity, Sen went looking for Master Feng. He found him in the library, looking at a small book.

“Master?”

Master Feng looked up with eyes bright. “Yes, Sen?”

“What do you think the ghost panther does when it’s not here?”

Master Feng blinked several times. He had clearly expected a question from Sen, just not the one that Sen had posed. Feng shook his head a little and got a thoughtful look on his face.

“I honestly don’t know, Sen. I assume that she has a den somewhere. Spirit beasts like her often protect a territory where there is something of value, or at least of value to them. She must hunt. She can’t be thriving just on what she gets from us. Of course, this is all just guessing on my part. Why do you ask?”

“I see. Have you thought about giving her a name?” Master Feng asked.

“I,” Sen frowned. “I guess I thought she probably already had one. I just don’t know it because I don’t speak ghost panther.”

A huge smile split Feng’s face, and he let out a good-natured laugh. “I never thought about it that way. If she’s half as smart as she seems, you’re probably right. You should try asking her. Maybe she’ll figure out a way to tell you.”

Sen thought about that for a moment and nodded. “I will. Thank you, master.”

“Is there anything else you want to ask me about, Sen?”

Sen hesitated. Master Feng had opened the door for a question. As much as he wanted to ask, something in Sen’s heart said to wait. There was plenty of time to ask questions if he couldn’t figure it out on his own.

“No, master. Thank you for your wisdom and your advice.”

Sen thought Master Feng seemed disappointed, but the cultivator didn’t press the issue.

“You cannot learn if you don’t ask questions," said Feng. "What kind of master would I be if I didn’t answer them as well as I can.”

Sen bowed and retreated to his room. For a time, he just sat and considered his experience during the run. Those bursts of energy were helpful, but not being able to know how much of a boost he’d get from any given poke at that ball inside of him made it of questionable value. If he was just tired, it was great. He couldn’t rely on it in an emergency, though. As an experiment, Sen poked at the ball again. He felt that surge again, racing up and down his body. Then, it wore off. He poked it again. The same thing happened. He tried poking it from a different direction, only to get the same results. Sen sighed. If this thing was going to be anything more than an occasional convenience, he needed it to work more reliably. He tried coming at the problem from another angle. It was shaped like a ball. What do balls usually do?

Sitting up straighter, Sen reached inside himself and tried to spin the ball like it was rolling forward. For a second or two, it seemed to work. Energy flooded into those channels and made him feel stronger than he’d ever felt. When the energy tried to find its way back to that ball, though, it got stuck in those same channels. The pressure seemed to build and build inside of him. Sen's whole body tried to curl in on itself. He struggled to take a breath. Reaching out with his mind again, he stopped that rolling motion. Slowly, the pressure receded. Sen didn’t need another try with that method to know it wasn’t good for him.

While Sen waited for everything inside of him to feel like it should again, he reconsidered the ball shape. If rolling wasn’t the right approach, was there some other way it could move? Sen thought back to all the times he’d seen kids playing with balls. They threw them, caught them, and he’d even seen kids hit them with sticks to send them flying. After a while, his mind wandered, and a memory of a different toy gave him a new idea. He’d once seen a little boy playing with a top. It would sit there in place, spinning and spinning. Sen had thought it seemed like a boring toy, but maybe that was the answer. Taking a deep breath just in case the same thing happened, Sen made that warm ball spin inside of him.

This time, the energy flowed freely, racing through those channels inside of him. A feeling of strength and power like he’d never known nearly overwhelmed him. The energy almost crackled inside of his muscles and bones. His vision got better. His mind became clearer. Sen peeked inside of himself to look at that ball. It seemed that, once he’d started the proper motion, it was content to keep spinning. Yet, even as he watched, the amount of silvery mist inside of the ball seemed to lessen and thin out. He didn’t understand why, not at first, but he supposed it must be like some kind of pot. It could only hold so much. When he sent it into those channels, he used some of it up. Reluctantly, Sen stopped the ball's spinning and let the energy in those channels pool back into the ball.

Part of him was disappointed in the results for a little while. It was more useful now than it had been, but also didn’t look like it would last that long. Once he thought it over for a while, he grew less disappointed. Everything had limits. After all these months, he was a strong runner. He suspected he could run for several miles. Eventually, though, he’d grow tired, and his muscles would refuse to carry him any farther. That limit didn’t make running a bad thing. It certainly did not make the muscles in his legs a bad thing. If he wanted to run farther, he needed to run more. Build up to it. Maybe this new energy worked the same way. That left him with a new problem. How could he train this energy to become stronger?