Chapter 106
The Art of the Toothpick
Nascent soul realm cultivators don't sleep. They don't rest. Their mind was no longer a mortal mind, and their body no longer a mortal body, so everything that occurs to the body during sleep is under their conscious control. Give them a few moments of peace, and they can quickly wash away their fatigue. However, Tobias still preferred to sleep.
Sleeping and eating kept him grounded, attached to the mortal world. It made it easier for him to ignore the urge to disappear into the wilderness and become one with nature, to forget his attachments and just be at peace.
However, due to the injury he had given himself, for the first time in over a century, Tobias had to sleep. Fragments of the dao of slashing were stuck inside his skull, unable to escape. They kept trying to slash away at his brain, but were too weak and undirected to seriously harm him. Instead, they made it impossible for him to focus.
In his current state, he couldn't expel the wayward dao or restore his dao to protect himself. All he could do was wait for the dao to weaken with time, and that required sleep. Sleep would encourage his body to heal, changing his dao and wearing down the slashing dao faster.
Tobias stumbled through the door into the small one-room hut the pavilion had supplied him with and waved his hand before the painting on the wall. Inside the painting was a painted world, a pocket reality crafted from dao. It was a gift from Peace Master So for ascending to the nascent soul realm, and it was one of the last ones in existence.
Reality shifted, and Tobias found himself outside the small house he had called home for more than a century. His home away from home sat beside the river, providing a gentle ambience of running water which complemented the scent of mountain air and wild flora.
Tobias stumbled through the door.
Lung Mei was already in bed reading beside a lamp. They had spent years sleeping in the wilderness, and she was accustomed to his presence, but the smell of blood would always rouse her attention. Her head snapped towards him as he entered the bedroom, and Tobias felt her aura engulf him.
She threw aside her blanket and leapt to her feet. "What were you thinking, Master?" She shouted, face twisted by concern.
Tobias groaned as he lowered himself to the floor where she'd prepared his bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. "Prodigies usually get themselves killed because they never learn to cultivate properly. Hun Fen won't even last that long without me showing her how dangerous her tricks are."
"Master, you didn't have to go this far."
"She's more capable than anyone I've ever met and as curious as any child her age. I know you were watching at lunch, so you saw what I saw."
Lung Mei reached over and placed a hand on his forehead, pushing her aura through his skull. "What I saw was a mortal goddess, but did you have to do this? She's not even your disciple."
"Yes."
"You almost died." There was a petulant whine to her tone.
"It was the only way I could be certain she wouldn't try to do what she was going to do or ignore my advice in the future. Hun Fen is destined for immortality."
"All prodigies are."
"No, they're not. Prodigies have the potential to reach immortality. Some find their way there. Most do not. That little girl is destined for it. Everything I know and have seen tells me that she will never experience chi deviation."
Lung Mei frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Prodigies usually forge their path blindly. Hun Fen has a deeper connection to dao than anyone I've ever seen. It guides her actions and gives her insights far beyond what she should be capable of. Those insights will guide her to immortality. She will never walk blindly. She will never make the mistakes that others will make."
Lung Mei removed a cloth from her storage ring and drew water from the air into it before beginning to wipe his face. "You have too much faith in her, Master."
"It's not faith. It's curiosity. I have the deepest understanding of cultivation and dao in the cultivation world, but that understanding is tempered by those whom I have studied. In one day, Hun Fen has forced me to reevaluate everything I know about the limits of an individual's potential and how we interact with dao."
"You can do everything she can do and more."
"She has an instinctive grasp of what has taken me lifetimes to understand."
Lung Mei finished wiping away the blood and stared into Tobias's eyes with childish petulance. "Master, I don't like it here. Can we please go somewhere else?"
Her words were childlike and petulant, not matching her age, but Tobias was used to that.
Lung Mei didn't like sleeping alone. She didn't like going out after dark. She didn't like to eat her vegetables, and she still thought boys were yucky.
She was essentially a child.
Tobias had been trying for decades to trigger some form of puberty, hoping that it would help expand her mind, but nothing had worked. It hadn't worked because she didn't want to grow up. She wanted the height and the reach, but none of the mental and hormonal changes that accompanied them. Her dao had shaped her body around these wishes, changing her in some ways, but not in others.
"Do you no longer want a sister disciple to train with?" Tobias asked.
Lung Mei pouted. She'd been wanting a sister disciple for decades, but no one was appropriate. "Yes, but not her. She's too good. I'll never keep up. I don't want to be around someone like that."
Tobias smiled. "Other cultivators look at you the same way as you look at her."
Lung Mei smiled. "Yes, but that's because you're the best master ever. And she's the best disciple. She'll always look down on me."
"She won't look down on you. She'll look up to you."
Lung Mei frowned a very childlike frown. "Are you sure?"
"Her control over dao is impressive, but she knows nothing about cultivation. Besides myself, no one outside The Three Kingdoms knows more than you do."
Tobias wasn't exaggerating. Over the decades, he had taught her everything he knew about alchemy, gathering, formations, spirit beast taming, and cultivation. That understanding had come from the Cultivation and Science Academy's brightest scholars. It was millennia ahead of what anyone out here understood.
Lung Mei frowned. "So, she will understand dao better than I can, but I'll know more about cultivation."
Tobias nodded. "You'll be able to help each other."
Lung Shi flopped onto her back. "That might be nice."
"So, we can stay?"
"For a few more days, I still need to beat up the man who humiliated her."
Tobias frowned. "You had all afternoon."
"You said I couldn't beat him up where anyone could see me do it, and he was never alone. He was always with people, and I'm not beating someone up while they're relieving themselves. That's disgusting."
"I have a dancing lesson tomorrow morning. I want you to come with me."
Lung Mei groaned. "Dancing is boring."
Tobias stifled a yawn. "If you don't like it, you never have to go again. You can go try to beat him up in the afternoon. I'll even distract his patriarch for you."
Lung Mei's face lit up. "And then I can beat him good."
***
Lung Mei was jumping up and down with excitement as they left Blossom Won's classroom the following morning. "She was so pretty. Did you see the way she turned her ankles as she dipped? I had so much fun, Master."
Tobias smiled and ruffled her hair. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."
"It's like fighting, but without all the hitting."
Tobias nodded. "Are you going to come to the next lesson?"
"I'm going to come to all your lessons. Are they all as fun as dancing?"
"I enjoyed my fan lessons, but I don't think you'll like my next lesson."
"What's tomorrow's lesson?"
"Tea ceremonies."
Lung Mei screwed up her face and patted the back of his hand. "You can go to that one alone."
Tobias chuckled.
Lung Mei looked around and used the shrouding technique he's taught her. "Don't forget you promised to visit Patriarch Ming and distract him for me."
"I'm going right after my lesson with Han Fen, so you better get into position."
Lung Mei leapt onto the nearest rooftop and began racing across the city. His disciple had a strong sense of justice. It was something he had nurtured in her, but her young mind warped his teachings. There was nothing he could do to stop her from getting revenge for Han Fen. She always snuck off whenever he told her not to, but she would limit her retribution if he told her to.
Her mother had shaped her personality in a way that made violence a part of life. Tobias wasn't sure that he could change that even if she matured. Cultivation shaped you. It made you better at what you did. Lung Mei was exceptional at fighting and did not suffer any of the stressors that came with it. She had no issue with conflict. Emotions and making friends were a much bigger problem for her.
Tobias planned to fill her with divine pills when he returned to his family. The divine dao would purify her of her negative traits and strength the positive. The will to fight wasn't negative, nor was her sense of justice, but her urge to fight was.
The lessons the Blossoms taught would also hopefully make her softer, more willing to have gentle fun.
Tobias smiled at the memory of the tears that had rolled down her cheeks when Blossom Won hugged her at the end of class. Lung Mei had always been standoffish and reserved with other women when they tried to hug her because of her mother, but she had melted into the woman's arms and held on for dear life. Tobias wouldn't be surprised if she stayed just for the hugs.
Han Fen was sending dao slashes against the heavens with a toothpick when Tobias walked into her mother's courtyard. He watched in silence, seeing how long it would take her to notice his presence. Each dao slash was perfectly precise, but she was using a new toothpick, not the one he had given her.
There were a few reasons for that.
One could have been she'd dropped or misplaced the other one, but Tobias could see that wasn't the case through his aura. The likely reason, judging by how strong her dao slashes were, was that she had grown too strong for the focus. She had caused it to explode.
It was nearly two minutes before she noticed his presence.
Han Fen frowned. "Teacher should have told me he was here."
"You should have been paying attention to your surroundings."
Han Fen walked over and bowed.
Tobias returned the bow.
Han Fen held up the toothpick. "I broke the one you gave me and had to get a new one."
Tobias pulled the stool on the veranda to him with chi as he walked over to a sunny spot and took a seat. "How did it break?"
"I'm not sure? I was making stronger dao slashes before my morning lessons when it exploded."
Tobias held out his hand for the toothpick. Han Fen placed it in his hand.
Tobias held the toothpick up between his fingers. It was time for another lesson. "Do you think I could kill a bull with this toothpick without dao?"
Han Fen nodded.
"Could you kill a bull with this toothpick without dao?"
Han Fen shook her head.
"When I hold this toothpick, it is a mighty weapon, because I am mighty. The dao within this toothpick changes merely because I hold it." Tobias pulled her training sword into his hand and handed it to her. "Do you think you could kill a bull with this sword without dao?"
Han Fen slowly nodded. "I would have to do my best and be very lucky. It wouldn't die quickly either."
"Do you think any of the other girls here could do the same?"
Han Fen shook her head.
"Then this sword in your hands can be as lethal as this toothpick is in mine."
Tobias passed her the sword and then slashed the sky with the toothpick, projection a dao slash that was at the limits of what the toothpick could support. The slash made an audible hum as it cleaved through the sky, powerful enough to kill a foundation realm cultivator.
Han Fen's eyes widened. "How did you do that? Mine wasn't even close to that strong, and the toothpicks exploded."
"Toothpicks?"
"I mean toothpick."
"Lying to me will only slowdown your progress, Han Fen. I don't care that you broke the toothpick I gave you. It was supposed to break."
Han Fen frowned. "It was?"
"Yes. The dao of slashing exists within a toothpick, but it is weak. When you try to project more than can exist in the toothpick, it will break. My intent was to see how long it took you to exceed the limitations of the focus. It was always meant to break."
"I broke hundreds, before I figured out how to only make the dao slashes just strong enough so they wouldn't break."
"That was going to be your lunchtime lessons, but since you've already worked it out. I'll answer your question. When you create a dao slash, you are projecting the dao within the focus you are holding onto the world around it. You are moving it from one place to another. When you try to move more than what exists in your focus, the focus will be damaged."
"So, because you're more powerful than I am and the toothpick is more dangerous in your hands, the dao of the toothpick grows stronger, which lets you project more powerful slashing dao from it without it exploding?"
"Exactly."
"But I can produce dao slashes that would be able to kill someone with a toothpick?"
"Dao takes everything into account. If you snuck up on someone while they were sleeping, you could kill them with a toothpick. So, the fact that you can kill someone with a toothpick is part of its dao. If you put it in a baby's hands, it would not be."
Han Fen paused. "If I know more about hurting people, would it change the dao of the toothpick?"
"Yes."
"If I get better at producing dao slashes and can defeat someone stronger with a thousand cuts, would this change the dao of the toothpick?"
"No. Our ability to harness dao does not change the dao of the focus. I believe that this is because it would cause an infinite feedback loop."
"A what?"
"Think of it like this. If you could kill a spirit beast with a thousand dao slashes from a toothpick. And the dao of the toothpick could be influenced by your ability to utilise the dao within it. You would not need to use one thousand dao slashes to kill the spirit beast, but one stronger dao slash. And if you could kill that spirit beast with one stronger dao slash, then you could kill an even stronger spirit beast with one thousand of those dao slashes, which would then mean you could kill that spirit beast with one dao slash. If this kept happening, then a toothpick like this one would be able to cut the whole world in half."
Han Fen nodded like it made sense to her, but it was obvious she didn't completely understand. "How strong can the dao of a toothpick become?"
Tobias swung the toothpick at the heaves, creating another dao slash. There was no hum, just a loud whistle as the violent dao cut the air in two. The slash would have torn the entire compound apart if Tobias had directed it in any other direction. It would kill Patriarch Ming.
Hun Fen's mouth dropped open.
"That is the very limit of what a toothpick is capable of in my hands, and in order to do that much, I have to be able to reinforce it with my chi."
"So, I'll have to become a cultivator to turn a toothpick into a deadly weapon."
"Everything in a cultivator's hands is a deadly weapon."
"Even a flower?"
"Even a flower."
Han Fen giggled. "I will defeat you with my greatest weapon. This tiny flower."
Tobias laughed, finding her stance more amusing than her words. She had thrown one hand on her hip and was holding out an imaginary flower.
"Does being able to project all the dao within your focus help in some way?"
"It helps you understand the limitations of your focus. It gives you deeper insight into its dao and your connection to it, showing where the dao of your focus ends and where your influence begins. It also teaches you to control your ability to influence dao. Projecting all the dao within your focus and no more requires a great deal of control. When I watched you practicing, I could see that you were not projecting everything you could."
"That's because they kept exploding."
"That's why they're the perfect thing for you to train with. Once you have mastered the toothpick, we'll move on to mastering the next object I gave you."
"Will I have to do this for everything?"
"No. Once you master the skill, you will be able to pick up any object and know how much dao of slashing you can project."
"I'd rather learn how to do stronger dao slashes."
"This skill will let you know how much room you have left to improve with a focus. If you can't tell what your focus can project, then one day you will swing your training sword and break it."
Han Fen immediately clutched her wooden training sword to her chest, hugging the present from her mother tight. "Do you have any more toothpicks?"