Blood & Thunder: Compiled 5 (Patreon)

“This Young Mistress honors the Elders of the Indomitable Ocean Sword Sect,” Yi Zhen said respectfully as she kowtowed.

“What have you learned?” Elder Meng Jin asked, having been told about Necahual by the other elders upon her return from the capitol.

“I have witnessed Necahual in combat against both spirit beast and cultivators, while also speaking to him of his homeland,” Yi Zhen began, thinking back to the interactions she’d had with him. “His preferred means of combat ties into the necklace adorned with animal remains, I do not understand how, but by bathing part of an animal or spirit beast in his blood, he is able to take on that creature’s form.”

She described Necahual’s combat prowess in excruciating detail, covering every action, every aspect of his capabilities and thought process that she’d been able to gleam from watching him. After she finished, Elder Jin Shul stroked his beard contemplatively before speaking, “A remarkably versatile technique, especially as he is clearly able to continue to utilize his qi when so transformed. What of his contemplations?”

Yi Zhen hesitated, not out of concern or lack of desire to answer, but out of a need to determine how to phrase her answer. The elders let her have the time she needed, and after a minute, she said, “The best way I can think to answer involves both the answer to a question, and an observation that I cannot confirm but fits all the evidence I have seen. The question being ‘what is the purpose of cultivation?’”

“To defy the heavens and achieve immortality, a path that a cultivator, ultimately, faces alone,” Elder Yao Fen answered, her tone matter of fact, as if stating that water was wet.

Yi Zhen nodded, “I asked the question of Necahual on our journey back to the sect, and he gave a very different answer. He answered, ‘to serve the gods and the good of the Empire.’ To him, his answer was just as obvious to him as defying the heavens is to us. I have inquired as to the reasons behind his actions, and in the majority of his actions, he takes the actions he has out of a strict sense of duty. He explained his slaying of the young master of the Black Lotus sect as the young master behaving far below his station, and punished him accordingly.

“The observation I cannot confirm is my belief that his homeland is far more rich in qi than our own. Part of his training as a noble included overseeing his homeland’s agriculture, which the closest translation I was able to determine was ‘floating garden’.”

She continued with her description of how he guided the mortal villagers in utilizing and maintaining the floating garden, as well as how he utilized both a spirit beast and cultivator as fertilizer. The elders soon reached the same conclusion she had: if such qi rich bodies had been used in growing food for as long as even a century or two, let alone as long as this empire was implied to have existed, it would take comparatively little effort for even a farmer to ignite their dantian. Then came her description of the spirit beasts he spoke of.

“Eight spirit beasts that have reached the Heavenly Realm?!” Elder Zhao Hue all but gasped in shock.

The discussion continued, all the while, part of Yi Zhen’s mind wondered what Necahual was doing, and how he was handling Wei Lan without her being present to translate.

[hr][/hr]

“For the four hundredth time, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON, YOU CRAZY WOMAN!”

Necahual had honestly lost track of how many times he’d found the archer woman in his bed or bedroll without any clothes. It wasn’t that he was unappreciative of the sight (or feel, his mind unhelpfully chimed in) of a beautiful, athletic woman, even if her skin was paler than the northern savages he’d encountered at the nameless land crawling with tzitzimime. Were he of lower birth he’d have taken her up on her offer that first night.

But he wasn’t, Necahual was a tlahtochtitlan, of Tenochtitlan. The standards for him were higher, even now, five years after he was caught masturbating at thirteen, he could still feel the burn of having chili powder rubbed into his groin, along with the lecture that he had been given by both his father and his uncle in the priesthood. He’d been reminded of the responsibilities of his station, and what was and was not acceptable behavior.

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Necahual took in his surroundings. He’d found himself in a room filled with rolls of paper. At a table with a brush and an unrolled piece of paper was the first man he’d spoken to, Yang Zhi, upon waking up.

“Is something the matter?” he asked.

“A woman being confusing,” Necahual answered as he made his way over, glancing at what the man was painting. It was just a bunch of lines, yet the regular spacing and exacting form suggesting there was a meaning behind them.

Yang Zhi nodded, “Some things transcend time and culture, the incomprehensibility of women being one of them.”

Necahual snorted in amusement, sitting across from Yang Zhi and considering. After a moment, he asked, “Can you teach me the technique you and Yi Zhen use to allow comprehension between us?”

“Of course, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be in a strange land with only occasionally being understood.”

The technique was surprisingly simple, and in the span of two hours he was able to use it at a conversational level. It was around that time that Yi Zhen arrived, Wei Lan (dressed once again) following her.

“Yi Zhen, Wei Lan,” Necahual greeted, utilizing the technique he’d just learned.

“Huh, so that’s how the two of ya understood each other,” the former bandit said, rubbing her chin.

Yi Zhen bowed lightly to Yang Zhi before turning back to Necahual, “I have spoken to the Calpuli Elders, and it has been decided that I will be participating in a competition soon. They wish to see you enter as well.”

“Grueling Gorge?” Wei Lan asked, perking up in curiosity. “Ain’t the entry levels team based?”

The two women spoke in that insultingly polite manner women do, seemingly forgetting that Necahual and Yang Zhi were there. Knowing the language technique, the argument was quite informative for Necahual. There was a monetary prize, which would help in allowing him to establish himself. The competition was held every two years, and followed the same format each year.

The first segment, done in teams of two, had the competitors traversing the height and length of a canyon to retrieve a number of tokens, which then had to be both returned to the starting point as well as be protected from other competing teams. There were only enough tokens to allow eight teams to advance, resulting in sixteen competitors in the combat rounds.

After the teams retrieved their advancement tokens, there would be a day of rest, then a separate challenge. Necahual wasn’t able to understand the name, but any who wished could partake, and the challenge involved entering a cavern network and facing the monsters and traps within in order to retrieve different prizes. There was no ranking, the prizes you found in the caverns were the prizes you got.

Three days after that, the eight teams that passed the first segment would face each other in one on one matches. The winners of those matches would face each other, again in one on one matches, and the process would repeat until there were only two competitors. At that point, there would be a day of rest, and the final two competitors would face each other at full strength.

The potential rewards were too useful to pass up, but the important question would be who to partner with: Yi Zhen or Wei Lan?

[hr][/hr]

In the end it wasn’t exactly a difficult decision that, despite Wei Lan’s efforts, Necahual would be partnered with Yi Zhen for the first round of this competition. Admittedly, a large part of his reasoning was the fact that Yi Zhen was easily the strongest of the three of them. The fact that he hadn’t had to worry over much of her attempting to tempt him into corruption was another reason.

Necahual followed Yi Zhen to a building that looked to be some sort of administrative office. The journey from her calpulli to this canyon-side settlement had been unnervingly uneventful. He’d been instinctively expecting there to be some sort of titan show up during their two week long journey, but the closest thing that happened was one of the animals that the… mortals used for hauling carts became rather unruly, coming to a halt and refusing to move. This land was so strange, and not only for the lack of titans.

Putting aside his thoughts on how odd this land was, Necahual focused his teotl into his ears and throat. Yi Zhen would be admitted through her calpulli, but as he was an “Independent Cultivator”, he had to go through a separate admission process. The issue was that the technique that allowed him to understand the words spoken did not translate written languages. Yi Zhen had begun teaching him the local written dialect, but it was slow going. So for now, she would have to read any documents and rules in order for him to understand them.

It was aggravating, but something that he just had to deal with for the time being. The rules were straightforward: no fighting outside tournament events, no defacement of public buildings, the sort of things that tended to be the norm at ball tournaments in Aztlan. Thinking of this event in such a manner helped, it was like the grand ball games, just with fighting as the sport instead of an actual game.

As Necahual signed the form (it had taken some time for him and Yi Zhen to find an acceptable approximation of his name in their written language, and even then her fellows attempts to pronounce it was horribly mangled), he did his best to ignore the subtle and not so subtle stares he was getting. It was annoying, being gawked at like something in some tlahtochtitlan’s menagerie of beasts from beyond Aztlan’s borders, but given how he’d be doing the same if the situations were reversed, he tried not to be bothered by it. Tried.

“Anything else?” Necahual asked, eager to leave and get some food in him. Much as he longed to have more xocolatl, until he could get the chinampas developed enough to grow more trees, the flask was all he had.

“Not today, the first round of the tournament proper begins in four days, an hour after dawn,” Yi Zhen answered as they stood, returning the now signed documents to the individuals managing the administrative work.

“Have you competed in this tournament?” he asked as they left the building. Maybe he’d be able to find a merchant here offering something to provide the bland fare at the calpulli some kick.

“Three times, and I have watched it another four times. The tokens required in the first round will be revealed at the beginning of the first round. They are changed each tournament, to keep unscrupulous competitors from trying to make duplicates during the intervening time between tournaments. Last tournament it was a scroll with a section of an old poem on the inside. The year before that it was a talisman featuring lessons from ancient masters. The year before that…”

Necahual starred in surprise as the normally firm and stoic Yi Zhen began babbling like his little sister when she started talking about capybaras. It was… a little bittersweet. Seeing her passion for history made him feel less isolated, less alone, but it also reminded him that he was unlikely to see anyone or anything from Aztlan again. Yi Zhen had been a great aid in getting his feet under him as he adjusted to this land, and had he been older or she were younger, he could see his father approving of her as his bride. But he wasn’t in Aztlan. He was in this foreign Empire, far from home, alone. A stranger in a strange land.

“Necahual, is everything alright?” Yi Zhen’s question pulled him from his melancholy.

“You reminded me of my sister for a moment,” he said, leaving it at that.

She starred at him, her eyes searching his face, “If you’re sure…”

“Let’s get some food in us, do any of the merchants here sell spices?” Necahual asked, changing the subject.

“I believe Old Bao’s does, they are located in the same location every tournament. What were you thinking of?”

“The food at your calpulli possessed none of the flavor profile I am accustomed to, I am hoping that I will be able to find local substitutions for several ingredients,” he explained. He wasn’t a particularly accomplished cook, but he’d been on military campaigns before, and slave or tlahtochtitlan, you pulled your weight when it was time to make camp.

In the end, Old Bao had some spices, but they were clearly intended to be used differently than how Necahual was used to. He was used to dicing dried chilis and cooking them in the pot with other ingredients. Not turning them into a powder. Still, he could mix it in with the food he would be served at the calpulli. The heat it provided was a mild heat, the sort of thing he’d had as a young child.