Cultivating Chaos 4 -ch10- (Patreon)

Hui made a clawing motion with her hand cloaked in black Qi. Nine of the guards who were dressed in the colors of the Hand fell. Their bodies torn to shreds under Hui’s attack.

“Ha! Your weapon is more skillful. With each exchange she becomes sharper and more deadly,” Hui proclaimed and turned to look at him. There was a bright smile on her face and odd glitter to her eyes. Then she fully turned to face him squarely.

The way she was positioned, her gaze, how she seemed to be waiting, he realized she wanted praise. Praise and likely reassurance that she was useful.

Just how damaged are you, Hui?

How badly did Shen treat you? I know he more or less left you, but there’s clearly more to it than just that. More to it and I don’t want to ask at all.

“You are indeed a wonderful weapon, and an even more important person to me,” Ash said, hitting the words with an over emphasis. He wanted to make sure she heard it exactly as it was said. “You’re important. Hui, is important. You won’t be cast away even if you weren’t skillful. Even if you weren’t getting better.

“Any support at all is worthwhile. You don’t need to qualify it or quantify it, Hui. Even in your old self with only a half working Dantian, you’d be worthwhile even for what support you could give. We all play our part.

“The talented, the untalented, those with Dantians or without. We all have our part to play for our friends and family. In the Sheng alliance, you’re worthwhile as you are. You won’t be cast away if you suddenly stop improving or don’t grow any stronger.”

Hui blinked slowly in a way that reminded Ash of Moira.

Her eyes dropped down to Ash’s boots and stayed there.

With a small flick of her hand black-Qi welled up quickly from the corpses she’d made and zoomed to her hand. It all vanished into her palm.

“I’m… thank you, Ashley. I’m very pleased to hear that. Hui is happy. Very happy,” Hui murmured. There was a sincere if modest smile on her face. “I know that you’re… helping me. Fixing me. Investing in me. That you probably spend a lot of time considering how to… how to help me. I’m smart enough to know that you’re doing all this. In fact I-you-that…”

“Say what you wish,” Ash encouraged. He was slowly picking over the corpses and collecting anything of use. They’d left their meeting with the city-lord and began working at clearing the city of the agents of the Hand. “I won’t spurn you or think poorly of you. Be direct with me.”

“I’m intelligent. Highly intelligent. Brilliant, even! I was often told that I’m a strategist. I came from a small noble family that didn’t produce cultivators. I’m a genius seen once in hundreds of generations,” Hui blurted out. It was almost as if her lips were moving too fast for her tongue to keep up given some of it sounded mumbled. “I know what you’re doing to build me up and I just… I want more of it. I crave your attention and reinforcement.

“I’ve never had… had anyone tell me the things you do. I’ve always been pushed to do more, to be more. Never told that I was already enough.

“So… thank you. Thank you and please… please continue to reassure me. To cherish me. Treasure me. Make me feel valued. Please don’t stop.

“I know it sounds pathetic and-and-and self-serving, but please keep doing it. Hui wants more. I want more. I want to develop plans and strategies just so you praise me more.”

“Ha, you broke her. Sounds like she’s never been given positive reinforcement. This is a good development though. I need someone else I can rely on for strategy and it does seem like Hui might have that capability. Well, if she goes back to a normal mentality.

“So keep breaking her!” Locke crowed. “But uh… don’t … bed her. No bedding anyone other than me. I want to be your only wife. No more harem. Just me.

“Oh, and Tan woke up. He got a little feisty until I flicked his forehead. It left a good lump. He now understands what’s going on. Song’s still asleep after Rou healed her and is recovering. Our dear Qi-Healer is dozing. I don’t think she slept well last night considering what you did to her.

“I’m still kind of mad about the fact that you chose her over me, but I might forgive you. If you treat me good tonight, that is. Otherwise, nothing else going on here.”

“Of course, Jian Hui, Sheng,” Ash allowed, reaching up and patting her on the back. “Next stop is the ‘mansion’ that Hand lived in. You ready to do some more work?”

“Hui would do anything for you, Ashley!” promised Hui, her head snapping to the side and her eyes locking to his own. There was an inner-glow there that he couldn’t help but see. She was actively cultivating at all times. He often could see one eye glowing with life-qi, the other swirling with a dark pool of death-qi.

“Then off we go,” Ash remarked and began walking again. This was the last location that they’d needed to check.

Exiting the barracks courtyard Ash stopped at the front gates. Looking back over his shoulder, he realized that maybe this was a perfect opportunity for him.

“Hui, what do you think about me opening a sect here. Using it as a base of operations,” Ash questioned. “I don’t plan on staying in the prison. I plan on leaving. Though… there’s no reason not to leave a mark here. A sect set up to help protect citizens and provide a foundation for people to grow positively… that’d be a good thing to leave behind here.

“That assumes we’ll be here long enough to do that. Though from what we’ve found out, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to escape this place easily or swiftly.”

“Yes! Yes. You should make a sect here,” Hui agreed, now looking at the barracks. Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head slowly to one side. “Once we know how to break out, we can surely figure out how to break in. If we restrict the access to the sect in this way, we will have a security that no one can touch.

“If we’re careful with the naming of the sect, collecting pledges, being diligent with our rules… we could operate without anyone ever knowing where we work out of.”

Ash had no idea how to get any of that going.

“Hui wouldn’t mind handling all of this for Ashley,” offered Hui before he could ask. “Hui would… would feel very pleased if you gave this task to her. To give her such trust and responsibility.

“Hui would only-would only ask that you continue to stroke her ego! To pet her and reassure her and treasure her. Please feed Hui’s sense of self. That’s all Hui… I… want in repayment.”

“Done,” Ash said, then turned away. They needed to go clear the mansion. They could come back later and begin setting up the sect.

“We should call it Reset,” Hui announced, moving up to Ash’s right side. She was uncomfortably close. To the point that their shoulders touched with every step. “As in starting again for a new life. To be a new student even if you were a master elsewhere. A new start for everyone. Its appropriate.”

New life or new student.

Huh.

Yeah.

I could see that working out.

“Hui can also corrupt it later so that it is the sect of the Sheng Reset,” admitted Hui. “Where when one joins and becomes Sheng, they may begin again. They can reset their past and become new.

“Just as I did. I shall be the prime example. Hui shall hold herself up as the ideal to this new sect. Hui is Ashley’s and will be known to all.”

“She didn’t say weapon, that time. Just that she’s yours,” growled Locke. “You’re not allowed to bed her. Never. No more women. Less women. No more harem.

“Just me. Just Locke Sheng, and Ashley Sheng. I’ll… no. No.”

Kinda thing that pandora’s box is already open and gone, Locke.

Locke grumbled about that, but didn’t argue with him.

***

“I like it,” Rou said and looked to Ash.

It’d been a single day since Hui and he had cleared out the barracks. Coming back with Rou and Locke after having completely cleared the city out of the agents of Hand.

“This’ll be a good place to put down a sect for now,” Rou continued, then began walking forward through the gates. “It’s big enough for our needs but not too big. Have you decided how you want to handle things?”

“No. Not at all. I was just going to shove all that at Locke and Hui,” admitted Ash, looking to the two women in question.

“That’s fine,” they said in unison, then looked to one another. Then they looked at Ash.

“I’d suggest not having an inner or an outter portion,” Locke offered. “Just ranks base don ranks. There’s no reason to have anything other than merit and results being our criteria.”

“I disagree but only partially,” Hui interjected. “They must have the right morality and belief. A code of conduct must be adhered to and built into the sect. Something everyone is held to. Or we’ll end up with people who would bring us ruin from the inside.”

In other words… people like Shen.

Who had their own code of conduct that didn’t match the sects at all.

“Okay, that’s fair. Yes, I agree, Hui. That’s a valid point,” Locke relented, then put an arm around Hui’s shoulders and pulled the other woman close. “I think between me being an evil nasty bitch that just wants to min-max the shit out of everything, and you being the same, but with a moral compass, we can really build this all up.

“Because we’re building it up… for Ashley. Right?”

Hui had looked recalcitrant up until Locke mentioned Ash’s name. Then she nodded her head and put her arm around Locke’s hips.

“Yes. Hui and Locke will handle this for Ashley. We will work closely and build this all up for Ashley,” Hui stated, staring into Locke’s face with wide eyes as she spoke.

“I… yeah, she’s cracked,”Locke confided to Ash with a mental chuckle. “She also tried to cultivate through me, realized she couldn’t, and stopped. Only you work as a glorified filter, my Chosen One.”

As if she herself realized what she’d done, Hui gently pushed off from Locke and went straight to Ash. He was reminded of the fact that Hui was as tall as he was when she stepped up to him.

She picked up his arm, put it around her shoulders, and put her arm around his waist. Her left hand came up and grasped his own, her right hand planting firmly to his hip.

Immediately he felt her pushing Qi into his hip and being drawn from his left hand. Thankfully she’d made sure to repeat their previous method. Giving him life-qi and draining it from him and converting it to death-qi.

“Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate you helping me,” whispered Hui, watching him from only a few inches away and facing him head on. “Hui feels much better when you help with cultivation. It comes back pure and clean.”

Ash only nodded his head while Rou and Locke stared at them. Rou seemed amused but Locke had the jealous look of a woman who wanted to tear Hui’s eyes out.

“Locke Sheng, your lesser would ask for your forgiveness in being so brazen. Hui felt a bit lost and harmed after taking in so much death-Qi and needs help,” Hui said, her eyes finally breaking away from Ash flicking to Locke. “Also, I would like to make a suggestion and gather your own opinion on it.

“I believe we should invite two types of people into the sect. Those with a valid Dantian who wish to become a cultivator, and citizens with the right mindset to become the best that they can. If we learn to make Qi enhanced weapons, as well as armor, and provide them to these people, they could combat cultivators to a degree.

“Even I had to be careful when facing them in numbers. If they trained in martial arts specific to someone without a full Dantian, an art designed to kill a cultivator, we would have great flexibility.”

Locke’s face had shifted from jealousy to surprise when Hui asked her for forgiveness. That’d given way to extreme curiosity and interest as Hui had finished her suggestion.

“Yes! We could easily do that. We wouldn’t be able to teach them in our transference way, but we could teach them none-the-less,” Locke agreed, her eyes unfocusing as she gazed off into nothing. “Really, we shouldn’t be teaching many people by transference at all. We’ll be better off training people in a general set of basic moves, cultivation, and abilities. Then slowly shuffling people around into different schools inside of the sect.”

“What schools would we want?” Rou asked curiously. “Not to mention, we may not be here that long. I know Hui suggested being able to come back, but there’s no guarantee on that.

“Should we be investing this much into it? Should we be planning on settling in rather than getting out quickly?”

“I don’t think we’ll get out quickly,” Ash admitted. “I think we should set up the sect as if we’ll be here a while.

“As to the schools… the final result would be the distance and type. Wouldn’t it? Short, medium, long. Then by martial, magical, or utility.

“Everything else is mostly matters of ‘flavor’ and that’d be dictated by what we taught them and who the instructor was.”

“Instructors… that’s half the problem, isn’t it?” Rou inquired. “I mean it was instructors who left me to my fate. Weren’t they? You’d collected that first batch of people to be part of the Sheng alliance.

“We were all told to stand in a group by you and no one… no one stopped you. The instructors did nothing as we were worth nothing to them. I had nothing to offer them to stop you. You could have taken us all away, done terrible things to us, and then just… kept going.”

Ash couldn’t argue that. The instructors had certainly been a problem all on their own.

“That’ll be the code of conduct and pledge on their cultivation,” Hui stated while pulling on Ash’s hip. Making him as close pressed to her as he could be. “We won’t just accept anyone, we’ll pick and choose. Those we pick, those we choose, will need to swear by their cultivation, Dao, and pledge to the sect itself. Not Ash, but the sect. That way if we leave, it can still continue on without him.”

“Okay, I get that. I like that. But… how do we make a sect be something that can be sworn to? What is a sect if not the sect leader? They could swear to a code of conduct but… there’s no one to hold them to it,” Locke countered.

Everyone stared at one another with that statement.

Ash liked the suggestion himself, really. Instructors were indeed part of the problem. Nor did he think he could get people to change.

Most especially in a prison.

So how could they solve the issue.

How does one build up a sect that has a core that can be inviolable, something to be sworn to, and defend itself? It’d have to be something like, Locke but… she’s unique.

“Mmm. Why thank you, my Chosen One. I know I rocked your world last night, but I’d be happy to do it again tonight,” purred Locke.

Ash wanted to respond to that but he didn’t trust himself. Instead he kept his focus on the problem at hand. On somehow creating a core that couldn’t be shifted.

Then Ash realized that he’d already seen such a thing.

That there was already such a design that was made, then ruined by another.

“The jade vault of the Jade Fist,” Ash murmured.

“Oh,” Rou said, her head snapping up. She clearly knew exactly what he meant by that.

Hui wouldn’t though.

Looking to the beautiful and broken cultivator Ash saw she was once again hard staring at him. As if he were the only answer to any question she had.

“They had a vault filled with living golems made of jade,” Ash explained in as direct and simple way as he could. “If we did something similar, but gave it more… power, more autonomy, they could be the center of the sect.

“To work to assist the sect leader, but also so long as the sect leader abides by the pledge. It becomes a two leader system. I think that’d work. What about you all?”

“Seems like a good end goal,” Locke agreed. “Though honestly it sounds like worries for another time. The idea of you not being the sect leader seems… ridiculous.”

“Hui agrees,” stated Hui.

“I… yes, that’s valid. What if the instructors were like the jade vault?” Rou offered. “The instructors could be impartial, law abiding, and given their own code of conduct.”

“In time they’d likely become Martial Spirits,” Locke mused. “Especially if I suspect what Ash was going to suggest to make his own version of the jade vault.”

All three women turned to Ash.

“I’m going to make golems,” Ash said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ve got the materials, the time, and the drive. Just have to figure out what the best way to do it is.

“Probably going to make a lot of failures but, well, lots of time. We’ll be spending a lot of time just sitting around letting our prison sentence tick down.”

“Sounds like you’ll need a workshop here in the sect. The sooner you get those… golems… working, the better,” Rou pointed out. “I’ll also need a medical ward. I should open a clinic to begin treating the people of the city, too. No charge, of course, since all it does it cost me qi. I’ve got that on tap due to my dear cultivator taking good care of me. Though I won’t refuse any payments they give me, I just won’t be asking for them.”

“Speaking of, do you have any idea of how much Qi we have stored in the hall?” Locke asked, moving over to a guard post. She tapped the wood with a finger.

“No?” admitted Ash honestly.

“If we were to judge what Hand gave you, and how much you took from him in the end, you’re likely richer than anyone else in this prison,” Locke continued. She frowned and picked a fingernail at the wood. “To be fair, we traded a lot of transference papers over to the floating boat for gear. What they couldn’t offset, was all Spirit Stones. Then there’s what I took from the Realm Lord’s storage when he died.

“Not to mention what we started with and… well… everything else. Or the fact that you constantly gather Qi. To the point that even while feeding myself, Rou, and Hui, you still are storing Qi.”

“Oh. In other words… the snowflake has become an avalanche, coming down the mountain,” Ash summarized.