Cog Cultivator (Xianxia)

[IronLung]

Synopsis

"It is said he walked through fire and rain"

Ramor-Tai monastery is the haven of the Wasteland - the place where heroic Cultivators can hone their skills through meditation and martial tournaments. For decades this place has stood as a bastion of humanity against the storms of war that threaten to engulf what remains of the world, though the Disciples of each Sect have agreed to a strict pact of non-interference with worldly affairs.

So when a man made of steel comes to knock at their doors one morning, he is met with shock and suspicion.

Jade-skinned beauties? Godlike powers? The ability to command the heavens themselves? These common dreams were not the desires of the machine-man. All he cared about was learning, understanding, and harnessing his Qi. All he wanted was an answer to the question: "Do I have a soul?"

His name was XJ-V. This is the tale of his legend.

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Chapter 1 - Man of Stone

It is said he arrived through fire and rain.

Like all legends, this is only half true. Indeed, the Ramor-Tai monastery had been wracked by terrible storms all day, but fire was not raining from the skies.

The fire came from his eyes.

The Disciples watched him as he approached up the mountain pass, having braved the ten thousand steps. He was clad in a torn leather cloak that hid his face from their young eyes. One man ran up to grab his arm and turn him away at the gates, before realizing too late what he was.

"A…Cog!"

The young Disciple was answered by the neon blue lights of the robot's eyes looking right at him, and he stumbled away in fear, allowing the stranger to pass.

When the shambling automaton came into the monastery courtyard the murmurings of the Disciples echoed like the songs of frogs in the ponds, each one of them wondering why a grey-skinned Cog had come among them, and why the thing's eyes blazed with such intensity.

"We would be better to kill it now!" one of them cried.

"No," another responded. "You know how they speak of the men of stone – they are battle-ready machines powered by demons. Let the Masters deal with him."

Feng Lung, a promising new student of Master Longua, saw the Cog approach his Master's quarters as he was finishing up his evening meditation.

"Cog…" he murmured. "Y-you cannot go any further!"

The young Feng lifted his arms and spread his feet, assuming the Prancing Crane technique his Master had taught to him. It was an ancient technique known to Cultivators throughout the Eastern Rim, and most – save the insane - would never dare to look upon one who assumed the stance.

But the Cog simply looked up, nodded at young Feng, and opened his metallic mouth to ask a simple question.

"Is your Master home?"

Feng was taken aback. He had never heard a Cog speak before. Indeed, he and the rest of Ramor-Tai had only heard rumors of the men of stone who lived on borrowed time, their hearts beating with infernal magic that was an affront to the Qi of the Universal Dao.

But its voice was not necessarily unpleasant. It had a metallic tint to it – like the robot was speaking through different shaped teeth.

For a moment, Feng allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. His Master had taken great pains to try and iron it out of his soul, but it was a character trait he simply couldn't leave behind. Even as a young boy he had been fascinated with catching the tails of cats in his home village at the foot of Ramor-Tai mountain. He had become so good at it that, when the Cultivators from Ramor-Tai had come passing through for their weekly supplies, his mother had practically forced him on the men as a new student. He had been overjoyed to be accepted into the Sect of the Eternal Dragon under the tuteledge of Master Longua. His Sect was most famous for its calm, controlled, and virtuous warriors.

These memories brought a smile to his face. He lowered his stance, shook his long orange sleeves free from rainwater, and addressed the Cog like an equal, even as he knew the other Disciples were looking at him like he was talking to a ghost.

"Master Longua is in meditation right now," he said.

The Cog nodded again and started to walk right past Feng.

"Hey!" he shouted. "You cannot disturb-"

The look the Cog gave him as he tried to reprimand it chilled Feng to the bone, and so he bit his tongue, cursed his silly childish curiosity, and allowed the robot to pass through the carved jade doors to his Master's study.

I wonder what the Cog wants with the Master? He thought as rain pelted off his bald, tattooed forehead. He did not have the look of an assassin, or a trader. So, what then?

When the Cog pulled back the heavy stone door of Master Longua's meditation chamber, he was struck by the darkness of its interior. A series of candles lined the floor, dimly throwing soft shadows across the ground, and the most prominent feature was that of a long-bodied dragon at the far end of the room – it's lithe form curled into a spiral that ended at its head. Beneath the dragon's watchful gaze, sat a man withered by time and combat. He was a man with a long, wispy beard that lay gracefully over his slowly moving chest, and complemented the snow-drop white of his flowing, wide-cuffed robes. His face was wrinkled like a prune, and yet the fierce intensity that shone in his eyes when he opened them was more than a match for the robot's blazing gaze.

Both the old master and Cog met each others' stares, and the latter slowly came forward and knelt before the man.

Rather amused, Master Longhua snorted at the creature.

"What is your name, man of stone?"

The robot answered, "XJ-V"

A name of form and function, the Master thought. A name bestowed by man.

"Why have you come before me?" he asked. "What is so important to a being such as you that the meditation of a Cultivator can be interrupted?"

Much to the Master's surprise, the Cog bowed his head low and placed his palms on the floor before him.

"Master Longua," he said. "I have come to learn."

The Master stroked his long beard with a thin, but firm, hand.

"There are many things one can learn," he said. "How the wind blows through the water bank and ruffles the reeds, why the ox does not complain as it moves the farmer's load, how the dung of cows can give rise to new life. These things can be learned by observing the world. You possess eyes, do you not? Go out and seek what knowledge you desire."

The Cog's servos stuttered as his head shook abruptly. "These eyes can't find what I'm looking for."

Master Longua grew impatient. "So, you are like the brash young men who come to us from the tiny Clansteads at the foot of our mountain? Or those who walk through the Wastes with hopes that our Sects shall show them what their heart's desire: jade-skinned beauties, power to pierce the heavens, respect of all who who are left in the world?"

When the Cog did not respond, Master Longua scoffed.

"Bah!" he said. "You are a thing made of this earth with earthly desires, then," he said. "Go back to the Wastes where you belong."

But the Cog did not move, even after Master Longua's thinly veiled threat.

Hm, the old Master thought. He does not show fear. But that may be because he simply cannot feel the emotion.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked the Cog.

The robot did not shake his head, but he did answer.

"What I seek is not a thing of this world," he said in his metallic voice. "It is the answer to a question."

The Master of the Eternal Dragon pondered this.

"A man of stone comes before me seeking an answer he does not know. He will be disappointed to learn that answers from the mouth of a Master of the Internalized Ego are not easily bought."

"My creator," XJ-V said, unperturbed. "He told me you were the only one who could know the answer to this question, Master."

Longua watched the metal man's features grow serious. Strained – like he was in some kind of emotional turmoil. He had been trained, then to mimic the emotions of humans, perhaps as a defense mechanism. The Master would not be so easily tricked.

Still, if only to satisfy his creeping curiosity, he would know what it was the Cog sought. Perhaps his chipper young student, Feng Lung, was beginning to rub off on him.

"Well then, man of stone who comes seeking answers, tell me: what is your question?"

XJ-V lifted his arm gently and brought it to his rickety grey chest, where internal servos and pistons churned together to give him life.

"Does this chest contain a soul?"

Master Longua saw the earnestness in his face as he spoke the words. He felt the keenness of his voice and saw, even through the blinking lights that served as his eyes, the desire that lay at the heart of this man of stone's entire being. The Cog's will had such strength that Longua noted how the candles began to flare up behind him, bathing him in an infernal, otherworldly light.

An evil light.

The Master closed his eyes for a moment and sucked in a small puff of air. When he opened his eyes again, he fixed the Cog with the stare of a tiger.

"You dare come before me unannounced and demand an answer to a question you do not even understand," he said. "How could you, a beast of metal and lights, know what it is you ask?"

The Cog's eyes narrowed. "I must know the answer, Master."

"Do not call me this!" Longua bellowed, his voice reverberating off the walls of his chamber and causing the roaring flame of the candelights to rise to the ceiling. "You are but a replica of a man. What do you know of the soul?"

"I – I come to learn." the robot replied. "My creator told me you would teach me if I showed the proper respect. Am I not doing this?"

Longua spat. "Respect?" he scoffed. "Another word that means nothing to you. You are like a child blundering around without understanding anything you do. Your 'creator' was mistaken. You shall learn nothing here."

The Cog made to stand, his fists clenched. "Master, I cannot go back out there. I have turned my back on this world. It is the world of the spirit that I must enter now."

Longua's fiery eyes met the internal fire of the Cog's passion and found themselves unimpressed. He was a machine. A tool of war – nothing more.

"No," Longua said, raising a single palm to silence any more protests. "You are not worthy. You have no patience. No control. And no idea of what it is to suffer in this world as we mortals do. Until you understand such things, the world of the spirit will always be closed to you."

And with a single fluid motion, Longua flicked his hand in the Cog's direction and sent him spiraling out of the room in a gust of air. The Cog landed on his back outside the chamber and watched as the carved doors locked themselves behind him.

The rain beat against his grey forehead. For a moment he just sat there, watching the doors to his destiny close themselves shut.

"I did tell you so," Feng Lung said from behind him. "The Master of the Eternal Dragon Sect does not admit just anyone to our ranks, even if they are a Cog. I think you should head back do-"

Once again, the Cog's piercing eyes met Feng Lung's and the young Disciple shifted uncomfortably away from the machine-man. He decided he would simply go back to his rice paddy and get on with his life. Let the Cog stew away in anger. Let him beat against the bars of the Master's chamber if he wanted. It would be wasted effort to destroy the beast. Like all children, he would eventually just get bored and go away.

But XJ-V had other ideas. He stood, his tattered cloak hanging limply from his thin, skeletal shoulders, and clenched his fists.

He had come all this way and endured too much to be turned away here and now. The desire to learn the secrets of this place was too strong within him. The fact they held the key to the locked door within his heart was too tantalizing to just walk away from.

If Master Longua wouldn't accept him willingly as a student, then he would have to be forced to.

 

[Godfire]

Interesting. I thought he will mediate on the spot for days to come untill the master accepts him.

 

[crissthethief]

You might aswell post this on space battles

 

[IronLung]

You might aswell post this on space battles

Click to shrink...

I have! You can find it there if you wish

 

[IronLung]

Interesting. I thought he will mediate on the spot for days to come untill the master accepts him.

Click to shrink...

Check the next chapter to see just how right you are.

 

[Godfire]

Check the next chapter to see just how right you are.

Click to shrink...

No chapter 2

 

[IronLung]

The next day, students Fai Deng and Kai Thai of the Waiting Tiger Sect noticed something strange as they walked the grand courtyard before Master Longua's chambers.

"That statue over there," Fai Deng inquired. "Is it new?"

His companion wondered over the inspect the thing – for it was indeed and intricate, if rather crude, replica of a monk in the common meditation pose of the Eternal Dragon: leg's crossed, hands together allowing the thumbs to touch, the tips of the toes to press themselves gently together to allow Qi to flow through the body's channels organically. In truth, the statue seemed the very picture of peace.

But when he made to touch the thing, it's eyes flew open to bathe him in an otherworldly sapphire light.

Kai Thai stumbled back as he realized his mistake.

"That's not statue, Fai," he told his friend. "It's a Cog."

"Ah!" Fai replied. "So, this is where the blundering bag of bolts has been hiding. Why are you sitting here in the rain, man of stone? Doesn't your kind rust and die when the heavens weep?"

The Cog said nothing. It simply closed its eyes and returned to its silent meditation, its limbs repositioning themselves so that they resembled an exact replica of Master Longua's style.

"You should have the decency to speak when spoken to, machi-"

Kai Thai pulled at his friend's sleeve to calm his growing anger.

"Let's leave him be," he said. "Remember the teachings of Master Chun: the lion's claw does not strike at the wounded doe. In doing so, he expends energy that would better be served in feeding his family. Let us attend to our stomachs my brother, and let the machine man be a statue!"

"I doubt this man of stone even knows the concept of hunger," Fai replied, but he followed his friend towards the communal canteen for some food while the rains continued to pelt down upon the dry earth of the monastery, and the silent form of XJ-V who sat there, motionless.

Ironically, the Cog agreed with the sentiments of the young man who had quoted his Master. He too was a patient creature. In his memory banks he recalled some meagre droppings of his creator's words of advice – one of them being that the old Masters of Cultivation Sects often wished to see their Disciples show initiative to prove themselves worthy of being taught. XJ-V recognized this when Longua threw him out in the rain. He had not wanted a pupil who seemed so brash and arrogant as to presume he could simply be taught by demanding an answer to a persistent, frustrating question. Instead, XJ-V would make the Master take him on by exercising one of the Eternal Dragon Sect's greatest virtues: patience and endurance.

You have no patience. No control. And no idea of what it is to suffer in this world as we mortals do. Until you understand such things, the world of the spirit will always be closed to you.

That is what the old Master had said. XJ-V's memory was crystal clear on that. At first he had grit his mechanized teeth in consternation when Longua had so cruelly discarded him. How could the Master upon this high mountain know the suffering of those people who languished out there in the wasteland, in the ruins of the old Dynasties, where marauders, bandits, evil spirits and rival armies made constant war upon each other and the innocents who were caught in between? Had he ever been out there himself? Had he ever been to Shala-Tor where the rain is the color of blood? Or to Xi'Maan where the marketplaces were gilded with gold for only the rich and wealthy? Had he heard of the Divine Order that had made it its mission to banish all technology from the world?

XJ-V shuddered at that last thought and spared a moment to look at the wiring visible on his skeletal hand.

No, he thought. This was not the right attitude. The ways of the Master's Sect had to be obeyed. If he showed that he could obey them without question, the Master would surely take him on as a Disciple.

And so he sat before the chamber of Longua in the rain, feeling his metallic skin crisp and rust with each passing minute as the heavens cried harder. If the Master wanted to see patience and suffering, he would see it every time he opened his doors to this dying world.

…

On the fifth day since the Cog had begun his vigil, Feng Lung was busy gardening in the monastery rice paddies when he was suddenly seized by a spirit of mischief.

He looked from his toils to the meditating machine still sitting before Master Longua's chamber.

I must understand what it is he thinks he is doing, the young Disciple said to himself.

He wandered over to the robot and looked down at the creature's rusting form, seeing the patches of copper that had begun to gnaw away at his grey skin.

When the robot opened his eyes, he regarded Feng Lung silently.

"Cog," the Disciple said. "What is it you are doing here?"

The Cog answered calmly, again closing his eyes and reassuming his meditating posture.

"I am meditating," he said.

Feng Lung stifled a laugh. Meditating? How could this machine's mind take in the mysteries of the universe? How could he balance his core, or strengthen his Ego. How could Qi flow through one who did not have a spirit?"

Not wishing to appear rude, Feng Lung simply coughed and asked, "Cog, my name is Feng Lung."

The machine did not stir.

"I – it is customary to respond to a name being given with a name in return," Feng Lung stuttered, trying to sound as much like his Master as possible.

The Cog responded without opening his eyes. "This unit is designated XJ-V."

Designated… Feng-Lung mused. It even talks like a machine.

"You should say 'My name is XJ-V'."

One neon eyeball shot open.

"This is how humans speak," Feng Lung explained.

The robot's eye flickered. "I am not human."

"And yet you come here where there are only humans and expect to be treated like one," Feng Lung said with a little mischievous laugh. "Is it any wonder the Disciples are afraid of you?"

The Cog, for the first time in five days, began to look around and notice his surroundings, seeing the colorful Sakura blossoms that lined the courtyard and the apprehensive forms of the Disciples of each Sect who moved from place to place through the monastery, most of them casting bewildered or bemused looks his way.

"The lion does not heed the opinions of the fleas," XJ-V replied cooly.

Feng-Lung was taken aback. The words were taken from the teachings of Ming'Bao. His was a dangerous philosophy to follow - one of pushing against the world, not living with it, and one the heretical leaders of the so-called Divine Order of the Wastes had popularized in recent years. How the Cog knew these words, much less their meaning, was anyone's guess. But one thing was certain: he clearly did not know that they were words born of arrogance. Words that would buy him no respect, here.

Feng-Lung decided to change the subject.

"What do you know of Cultivation, XJ-V?"

The Cog straightened his back and fixed both his eyes on Feng Lung, now.

"In this realm," he began. "There are six known stages of Cultivation.

Corporeal Tempering
Mental Mastery
Core Regulation
Anima Banishment
Ego Integration
Soul Actualization

Each stage is subdivided into nine sub-stages or 'ranks' which focus on building the flow of Qi within the body, channeling this source of Divine energy and harnessing it in battle or in contemplation of the Universal Dao. It is believed that the most potent of all Cultivators can even break through the Sixth Stage of Soul Actualization and achieve immortality, or ascend to the realm of the spirits themselves, thereby adding their own essence and knowledge cultivated in life to the Universal Dao."

Feng-Lung listened to the Cog rattle-off these words with unblinking eyes. When he finished, the young Disciple rocked back on his sandals, and whistled.

"You speak like you have already trained in the arts for decades," he said. "Why come here at all?"

The Cog's shoulder shifted. "I do not know the ways these things are learned."

In the face of Feng Lung's blinking eyes, XJ-V elaborated, "My creator installed much knowledge into my memory banks, but not the ways to unlock these secrets. It is like being shown many doors but being given no keys to open them."

Feng-Lung nodded. "You know the words of the art and the names of its stages, but you do not understand them."

XJ-V winced at the statement. But he could not correct the young Disciple.

"I see now why Master Longua rejected you," he said. "In a sense, you are like a blind man. You must be guided down the right path."

The young Disciple sat across from XJ-V, who at first interpreted the movement of the man as an attack. Slowly he relaxed as the Disciple sighed.

"But perhaps the path of the Cultivator is not for you?"

XJ-V bristled. Why was this young man sitting with him? He was distracting him from his mission, and now the other Disciples were beginning to point and laugh at them both.

"This is the path I must take," he replied. "I must know the answer to my question."

"Which is what?"

"Does this chest contain a soul?"

Feng-Lung rocked back again, sucking in air through his mouth and stroking his chiseled, thin jaw.

"…I have often asked myself the same question."

The way the Disciple muttered this to the sky instead of to XJ-V made the latter stutter abruptly.

"But you are a human," he said confusedly.

Feng Lung smiled and crossed his legs, slowly assuming the meditation pose of the Eternal Dragon.

"Well," he said, ignoring the question implicit in the Cog's statement. "If you are going to be as stubborn as a rock, you should at least learn to meditate like one. Look here," he reached for the Cog's hands and rearranged them so the metal fingers locked perfectly together. Then he quickly moved XJ-V's claw-like feet so that his long nails intertwined so it was difficult to see where one leg began and another ended. He sat back after this, shone a smile of satisfaction at the Cog, then stood up and dusted his robe off.

"Now you look like a true Disciple of the Eternal Dragon, XJ-V," he said. "Even if the Master will never accept you, you can at least look good when you fail."

The young man chuckled as he walked away, waving goodbye to the machine-man who stared after him. The rain continued to pelt down on his head, and as XJ-V watched Feng dry himself off from the entrance to one of the monastery communes, he felt surprised to find a smile forming on his lips.

"I will prove you wrong, Feng-Lung," he said, bowing his head and closing his eyes again. "Just wait and see."

 

[CmirDarthanna]

Chapter 1 isn't threadmarked.

 

[IronLung]

Chapter 1 isn't threadmarked.

Click to shrink...

Fixed.

 

[Yeetboi]

Not much of a fan of xiangxia stories, but the premise is very interesting. Does a machine have a soul? So many written works sought to answer that question, many did in their own unique ways, I wonder how you'll do it?

 

[IronLung]

Not much of a fan of xiangxia stories, but the premise is very interesting. Does a machine have a soul? So many written works sought to answer that question, many did in their own unique ways, I wonder how you'll do it?

Click to shrink...

I'm happy to see you've made an exception for this one. Stories I love are always about physical and spiritual journeys. I intend for XJ-V's to follow the same pattern.

 

[IronLung]

Weeks went by without a single ray of sun.

The ground of Ramor-Tai was thoroughly fertilized. It would be a good harvest year for the farms on the side of the mountain – those held together by Disciples versed in Earth Realm martial techniques.

Even with the constant rains, the monastery was a beehive of activity in these days, as the Sect members prepared for the coming Dragonboat festival. It was one of the only times villagers from the Clansteads below were permitted to enter the monastery grounds – a weekend of celebration and welcoming for all those the Sects had helped protect. The villagers would bring food, precious stones, and good cheer for their eternal guardians, and so a general mood of good cheer prevailed even under the dark clouds of the Wastes.

But there was one individual who did not observe the preparations.

His name was XJ-V.

Caked in rust and grime, the Cog sat cross-legged before Longua's chamber without so much as a stir, still in the exact same pose Feng-Lung had left him in. A few times the young Disciple had returned to speak with the metal man, to offer him congratulations on holding out this long, to chat about the weather and the mundane goings-on of monastery life that the Cog was still not permitted to enjoy. These conversations, however, were one-sided in nature.

Until the young Disciple asked the Cog if he would finally give up his futile vigil.

XJ-V smiled through lips caked with rust.

"You will see," he said. "Master Longua will see that I am capable of learning. He will find me worthy."

Feng-Lung would scratch his head but calmly saunter away back to his daily farming or Cultivation practices within the dry walls of his chambers. And yet, whenever he began his evening meditations, he would often find his mind distracted by thoughts of the metal man still waiting out there, waiting for an invitation that would never come.

On various occasions Master Longua had exited his chamber to instruct his Disicples and aid in their training. All these times he did not even pay the Cog any heed. He simple walked right by him as though he was a statue, and upon his return to his chambers he would slam the door shut behind him.

But Feng-Lung noticed, as only a student of the Master of the Eternal Dragon would, the slight knitting of Longua's great white brows when he returned after his daily exercises or guided meditations. He noticed, as he toiled away in his patch of the rice fields, that there was a distinct change in his Master's demeanor these days. The old man would sag his shoulders just before closing his doors shut, and when he re-emerged the next morning, he would display a slight tick of consternation only momentarily before acting aloof and beyond this thing that lay before him, slowly dying out in the rain.

Whatever the Cog thought about all this, Feng-Lung could only guess at – for how can a man know the mind of a machine? Still, even if his Master was barely affected by this metal man's antics, Feng-Lung could not say the same of himself. He lay in his bed most nights now, thinking about XJ-V outside, stuck in perpetual meditation without the ability to connect with the Universal Dao. A man of stone who's closed eyes showed him nothing but darkness.

For the first time since his induction into the Eternal Sun Sect, Feng-Lung's young mind was fixated on something of the world, not questions of the spirit.

Just what on earth did this metal man think he was doing?

…

The day of the Dragonboat festival finally arrived.

The courtyard, normally a place of quiet reflection, had become a hub of celebration. Red lanterns beamed from all corners of the communes, and the villagers who were permitted entry each wore threadbare robes of crimson inked with either the sigil of the Tiger or the Dragon, to show respect for each of Ramor-Tai's Sects. They offered gifts of flowers or food to the Disciples, and bent their backs when the Masters sallied forth from their chambers to meet them.

Among them was Master Longua, who was performing his classic routine of Fire-Spinning with his most promising Disciples. Among them was Feng-Lung, too preoccupied with ensuring he did not mis-step during the dance to focus on the pleasures of the festival itself.

He followed the movements of his Master in the courtyard, spinning wildly, letting the wreaths that lined the cuffs of his robe flow like the great wyrm of their Sect. The villagers sat on the monastery's steps with reverence, chewing on crusty bread loaves, drinking freshly poured citrus juice or baijuu, and watched the dazzling performance of golden men spinning before them.

And then, at the pinnacle of the act, they unleashed their flames. Each of them was a master of the Dragon's Tooth – an Earth-Grade martial technique that their Master had honed in them since they first learned to sense the Qi that flows in all things, and to project their own energy as fire.

Feng-Lung and the other Disciples surged forward, drew deep the air of the monastery, and delivered a series of jabs into the air that sent dazzling wisps of golden fire billowing into the skies, combining at their apex to form the face of a snarling dragon.

Then the Master came forth to add his own Dragon's Tooth technique to their creation, summoning a gout of flame that shot through the dragon's mouth and licked at the feet of the villagers. It was a flame powerful enough to sear itself into the brains of the spectators for years to come. This festival served two purposes, Feng-Lung recalled: to celebrate the Old Ways of the Qingua Dynasty before it was sullied by the winds of war, and to show the people of the villages below that Ramor-Tai was still more than capable of defending itself.

After the performance, Feng-Lung accepted a begrudged congratulations from his Master (most praise from Longua was begrudged) and decided to share a drink with his brethren in the Waiting Tiger Sect.

"Fai-Deng!" he called to one such warrior drinking baijuu by the courtyard edges. "Why do you look so glum? Join the festival, brother!"

Fai-Deng looked up at the chipper student of the Eternal-Dragon and sniggered, barely acknowledging his friendly greeting.

"You Dragons might love your fancy lights, Feng, but we of the Waiting Tiger are a little more practical than that."

"Oh, don't listen to him!" another member of the Waiting Tiger, Kai-Thai, broke in from above them both, jumping and gliding through the air with the grace of a mother heron. He landed next to his depressed-looking brother and threw his arm around his neck, pushing his heavy-set red face right next to the sullen head of Fai-Deng. "This one is simply in the throes of passion. Brother Feng – I tell you - he is in love!"

Feng-Lung looked over Fai-Deng's disgruntled features. His grimace and twitching eyes told him he could barely stomach having his brother near him, and the fact that he had come to the festival wearing the tight-fitting, broad-shouldered fighting gown of his Sect did not speak to Feng-Lung of love. It spoke of a lust for violence.

The warrior pushed his brother away, his red face stretching into a snarl.

"Knock off your idle fancies!" he yelled. "The heart of a Tiger has no room for love!"

Kai-Thai was not to be put off. It seemed to young Feng that he was, by this point, quite drunk himself.

"I tell you brother, you cannot see the light that flares in your eyes - the fires that would put even the great dragon Longua to shame! Feng-Lung, if you so swear yourself to secrecy, I shall reveal the name of my brother's affection. The being whom he so lusts after. The being who tempts him from the path of the Cultivator! I shall tell you, as a sign of friendship and good faith between our Sects who share this most sacred of homes."

Feng-Lung laughed inadvertently, which only served to anger Fai more.

"You have met a lucky girl from the village, Tiger-Brother?" he jibed, playfully elbowing Fai as he sat beside him.

Feng-Lung, however, was never the best at diffusing an awkward, or tense, situation.

"Don't touch me, either of you!" Fai roared, dashing his cup against the steps and drawing frightened looks from the villagers around their perch.

"No cause for alarm, good people!" Kai chuckled, waving his short-sleeved arms at them. "The heart of a Tiger beats with passion tonight! It is a night of joy and love for all!"

Amidst the cheers and cries of 'Kampai!' from the placated villagers, Fai began to stride off away from the celebration.

Kai bumped into Feng and hung from his shoulder, calling to his departing brother's tense back.

"Are you going to see your lover, angry tiger?" he called. "You should at least powder your snout first! Come, I have a bow that will fit your tail perfectly!"

"QUIET!"

Feng looked down to see Fai's bandaged hands had balled into fists, and he stepped back, looking with horror at Kai who did nothing but continue his incessant chuckling.

"Or what?" Kai shouted back. "You will tickle me with those kitten claws?"

"Brother Kai…" Feng said. "Do you think it wise to provoke a tiger whose fangs are bared?"

Feng knew the strength that dwelled within the young Fai-Deng. As a 2nd rank Body Temperer, Fai had access to most of his Sect's Earth Grade martial techniques, including the aptly named, and justifiably feared, Lightning Claw strike.

Feng watched in mute horror as small arcs of light danced up the tensing Tiger's curled fingers.

"Oh, we have nothing to fear from this kitten!" Kai jeered. "Especially not one who is in love with a rock!"

Feng watched Fai-Deng's eyes glimmer with hate, his chest puffing out with the desire to strike something dead.

"Do you know, brother Feng, that the man of stone has been all this kitten has talked about these last few weeks? He watches him as he eats his noodles, he speaks of how he wishes to dash his metal head against the wet stone of old Longua's chamber doors, and I wager he even dreams of the metal man most nights. Oh, it is love, I say. I say again, Feng-Lung, it is love!"

"I bear that thing no love, insolent wretch!" Fai roared. "I would see him destroyed for the mockery he makes of our order! How can you stand to let him be – this – this demon born from the evil dreams of mankind?"

For a moment, Feng-Lung reared back. It was as though Fai was asking him this question specifically, and the young Disicple found that his tongue stuck in his mouth.

"Oh, does it not sound like love, Feng-Lung?" Kai continued. "Maybe our brother should confess on this night? It is Dragonboat festival, after all."

Fai-Deng's eyes glimmered with evil mischief, then, and his mouth opened in a snarl that befit the animal spirit of his Sect.

"Oh, I shall confess to him, alright," he growled. "I shall confess to him that his time is finally out. I shall be the deliverer of his end!"
And he sprinted towards the end of the courtyard where the Cog still sat, leaving Feng-Lung and Kai-Thai to run after him.

"Brother!" Feng shouted at the stumbling drunkard beside him. "What have you done?"

"I?" Kai-Thai replied with surprise. "Why, I've sent a kitten to kiss a stone, haha!"

Feng-Lung rolled his eyes and left the imbecile behind. Perhaps he could catch the sprinting tiger before he did something he would regret. If he had thought to stop for a second, he would have pondered why, exactly, he was so intent in not seeing the robot harmed. For if anyone's brain had been dominated by thoughts of the Cog these past few weeks, it had been his.

XJ-V, he thought. You should have run when I told you to!

 

[Arrorn]

Liking the strory so far. However, your threadmarks are out of order.

 

[IronLung]

Liking the strory so far. However, your threadmarks are out of order.[/QUOTE

Thanks. I'm new to the site but to me it reads 'Synopsis + chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3'. Is there something I'm missing?

Click to shrink...

[Edit] Nvm got it!

 

[Godfire]

Interesting story. Does the Cog really see darkness when it closes it's eyes? Does it's brain really can't comprehend the vastness of the universe?

Continue to suprise me, dear author.

 

[IronLung]

When XJ-V heard the sounds of commotion nearby, he did what he had been doing for the past month: nothing at all.

Then an impact on the back of his head brought him out of his meditation. He looked at the ground to see a pebble shatter beside him. A pebble which must have been thrown with some force.

"Cog!" someone shouted behind him.

XJ-V was going to tentatively assume they meant him.

But he didn't turn to face his interloper. His memory banks told him that many Disicples were often tested and taunted by spirits of the Wastes – distractions meant to lure them out of their silent Cultivation and take them down an evil path. He smiled to himself at the thought. If dark spirits had come upon him trying to meddle in his training, then that meant he had a soul worth meddling with, surely!

"You will answer me this time, machine!" the voice roared. "Or you will die!"

XJ-V's auditory sensors picked up more voices approaching from the end of the courtyard. But in the flurry of fireworks and excitement from the festival that was ongoing, their words were lost.

What wasn't lost was the sensation of fury billowing up in the boy that came within XJ-V's field of view. Even with his eyes closed, the Cog could feel the youth's anger.

Anger at what? The weather? The celebration? XJ-V had assumed all humans enjoyed this so-called Dragonbo-

"Open the evil lights you call eyes, wretched thing!" the boy demanded. "I command you!"

XJ-V heaved a heavy sigh before he did as he was big, fixing his eyes now on one of the boys who had come upon him two weeks ago and decided to leave him be. This one had a puffed-out chest like a rooster baying for combat, and the rain had matted his embroidered gi that bore the symbol of a tiger poised to strike.

XJ-V looked him up and down.

"You are not Master Longua," he said.

For whatever reason, this only seemed to antagonize the boy further.

"Of course not! I am Fai-Deng of the Waiting Tiger, Second Rank Body Temporer Cultivator and Master of the Tiger Sect's Earth Grade Martial Techniques! You will address me with the proper respect!"

XJ-V blinked up at him.

"Bow, machine!" the youth's voice boomed. "Bow!"

"You are not Master Longua," the Cog repeated. "He is to be my Master. It is to him I must bow, and no one else."

The boy practically shook with rage, now, and XJ-V simply returned to his mediations.

Feng-Lung and Kai-Thai had by this point caught up to the commotion, and through panting breath Feng cried out to his brother of the Tiger.

"Fai! Think what it is you do!"

"QUIET!" the enraged beast spat, pointing a steady claw at XJ-V's nonchalant face. "I will have satisfaction from this one. He mocks me – us – with his silence! Does he not see that Longua will never take him as a pupil?"

XJ-V shifted slightly. "Master Longua," he corrected.

The three looked at the rusted, dulled metal of the machine-man's limbs as though he had just unleashed a spell of havoc, and then Fai-Deng's face took on a shade of rogue that Feng-Lung had never seen before. He began to move to halt Fai-Deng before this business got any worse.

"I say, Feng-Lung," Kai whispered beside him. "Is this what they call 'foreplay'?"

Fai rolled up the sleeves of his Gi and jumped on the spot, balancing on the soles of his naked feet.

"I challenge you, Cog," he said. "Argi'Mona – my tiger claws against your metal hands. Do you accept my challenge?"

Feng-Lung staggered back. His worst fear had just been realized: Fai had called for a duel of honor between him and the Cog. Argi'Mona was a practice as old as the old empire itself. A sacred tradition passed down from generations before the Wasteland was born. It was a compact between warriors – a sign of mutual respect that precipitated hostilities. A fight which would be sanctioned by the spirits of the land.

Feng-Lung felt the Qi gather between the two warriors. Fai's swirled round his fists and his heart, telling Feng all he needed to know about his motivations and desires in this moment.

But the Cog? Well, there was nothing that could be seen at all. Not even a speck of the Divine energy shone in him. Feng didn't know what he was thinking in the moment.

Then the robot rose his head to meet Fai's eyes, and made his response:

"No."

Kai burst into raucous laughter.

"W…what did you say to me?" Fai barked.

"My heartrate detector suggests that you heard my reply."

"Hah!" Kai shouted. "It looks like a rejection to me, Brother! A sad thing to see on Dragonboat, but, alas! The heart of the metal-man does not yearn for you!"

Feng-Lung saw the fury bubbling beneath Fai's eyes. By now, there was a sizeable group of villagers and Disciples that had gathered around the courtyard. Feng even spotted one of the grand Masters of the Tiger clan, wise Yoma-dur, looking on the proceedings with curious eyes.

Feng-Lung gulped. It was obvious Fai wasn't going to let this go.

"Come, come brother!" Kai shouted as he took a step towards the youth. "Let's away to the Tiger commune for some baiju. They say the answer to a broken heart lies at the bottom of a bot-"

Kai's sentence was interrupted by the gale of force that broke through the air, coming down on XJ-V's rusted torso.

"Haaa-YUH!"

With a stab of lightning coursing through the veins of his bulging arm muscles, Fai sent the robot flying across the courtyard, pieces of his metal chest shattering and leaving a trail of glass and rust in his wake.

"You will fight me, Cog!" Fai then roared, crouching into the Tiger stance. "Or you will die!"

As a crowd now gathered to watch the spectacle unfold, Feng-Lung stood in horror as he looked at XJ-V's body – thin whisps of smoke had begun to steam from his wounded chest, and his limbs twitched with simulated pain.

Then the moment passed, and with a roar of thunder from the weeping heavens above, XJ-V calmly placed his skeletal palms on the ground and rose.

He staggered, fell forwards, and then straightened up, the crowd murmuring stuttered oooohs and aaahs! With the Cog's every labored movement.

His eyes sought out their opponent, and when they found him, Feng-Lung could swear the Fai's firm feet trembled for a fleeting instant.

"Come on then, you husk of bolts!" he spat, all saliva and rage and madness. "Strike at me!"

The Cog swayed, as though he was buffeted by the winds that were whipping up around all of them. The dark clouds of the wasteland gathered, snuffing out all promise of light from the fires of the festival. Now, the only lights were XJ-V's blazing, neon eyes. They were the eyes, Feng-Lung thought, of a spirit locked within a cage.

"I will not fight you," the Cog said. "The rock does not bend for the raging storm. It remains firm."

The crowd sent up a cheer of 'Kampai!' at the robot's statement, taken from the prophet Ai-Lee of the Eternal Dragon Sect himself. How the Cog knew of the wise prophet's words, Feng-Lung could not discern.

But more surprising were the churning of the Cog's chest servos that had started twitching with life. From the hole punched through his chest, the crowd saw an otherworldly light blaze and flame, like an eternal fire burning within an infernal engine, and the Cog's metal flesh began to knit itself back together as though it had not just been punctured by the Lightning Claw strike.

"Ho-ho!" Kai muttered beside Feng. "Look you, Feng-Lung – he shows our brother that his lashing out has done nothing at all!"

Fai looked on with tensed up fists, his legs beginning to shake with anticipation.

"Guess I must simply break all of you then!" he roared.

In an instant he stormed towards the Cog, practically flying, trailing an arc of lightning behind him as he channeled the Thundrous Charge – another Earth Grade Technique that put him right in the face of the Cog in a split second. His feet landed before their target, formed a crater in the earth, and his fist reeled back to deliver a Lightning Claw right at the Cog's face.

Then, with a distinct fizzle of dying energy, the light vanished in the courtyard.

Feng-Lung and Kai-Thai looked with disbelieving eyes at their Brother's hand caught within the Cog's skeletal fingers. The power that once flowed through his mighty veins was instantly nullified, and the crowd reeled back to see the Tiger thrash around like an injured fish while the Cog merely looked at him, unblinking.

"Wh-what have you do-!"

A rush of air, a flash of steel, and Fai-Deng's chest was punctured by the Cog's left jab. He doubled over and would have fallen had it not been for the Cog's metal kneecap which met his descending chin.

"OW!" Kai-Thai shouted like a gleeful child. "A sound blow!"

"This is not a tournament match!" Feng-Lung chastised him.

Fai-Deng was sent reeling back, touching his bloodied jaw in disbelief as he looked back at the straight-backed Cog.

"You – you dare draw the blood of a Disciple of the Tiger Sect?" he asked the metal man's nonchalant features. "You dare draw my blood?"

Both his hands balled into lightning-coated fists which flew towards the Cog's cheeks. The robot simply shot out his arms and grabbed both fists, extinguishing their fire like a candle being snuffed out, and administered a swift headbutt to their owner's already busted face.

CRACK.

"Another good strike!" Kai-Thai cheered, his fist pumping in the dead air of the courtyard. "What a bloody kiss our brother has been given!"

"Brother," Feng-Lung protested. "I do not believe you are taking this serious-"

"ENOUGH!" Fai bellowed, turning now to the crowd and screaming at those who cheered to see him battered and bruised. "I WILL KILL HIM!"

He came at the Cog again and again, his fists two glowing pools of sparks dancing through the night sky only to be rebuffed again, and again, and again.

By the point of his fourth assault against the Cog, the latter needed only to swipe his fist away and twist his arm.

"AH!"

"Yield," XJ-V told his prey.

Feng-Lung watched as Fai spun the Cog round and managed to get his foot behind his ankle, throwing them both to the ground and slamming his fist into XJ-V's jaw.

"I. WILL. KILL. HIM!"

He raised his fist in the air and brought it down on the robot with the fury of a thousand stampeding oxen, only to find his fist had been enveloped by the Cog's hand again. His technique – completely nullified.

"How…" he whispered to the twitching, jawless machine. "HOW!?"

In response, a stab of light pierced through the courtyard, sending both combatants spinning out of control. XJ-V landed in the crowd's right flank, while Fai ended up at the feet of both Feng-Lung and his brother on the left.

Where both combatants had once stood, a shadowy figure garbed in flowing white robes floated down to touch the ground.

"This contest is over," Master Yoma-Dur of the Tiger said.

The crowd bowed their heads as the Master made his will manifest, raising a single finger to repair the broken brickwork of the monastery courtyard. The ground knit itself back together like a wound being stitched up by an expert surgeon.

"N-no!" Fai-Deng shouted. "Master, I will have my satisfaction! I will have that metal monster's head! I will -!"

A swift kick from Master Yoma's sandaled feet winded the boy, and he collapsed into his Master's arms like a child tired from too much play.

"Mewling kitten," the great Master sighed. "You have been chasing your tail tonight."

His eyes then flit towards the innocent-looking form of Kai-Thai, who hid his baiju behind his back.

"You had a hand in this, I am sure."

"Good Master, please," Kai protested. "This tiger is nothing but his brother's keeper."

"And his brother's tormentor," Yoma chided. "But enough of this. Come. We shall retire to our Sect commune and speak no more of this nonsense. Let the Brothers of the Eternal Dragon have their courtyard back."

And with a respectful bow to Feng-Lung, the Master led his students and the crowd away. The young Feng was left speechless, trying to understand the madness that had just gone on. No doubt the villagers around him were feeling even more puzzled than he.

But there was no sight more puzzling than what next occurred before Feng-Lung's eyes. He watched as XJ-V moved, refusing any help from the crowd, and limped back to the exact same position before Longua's chamber doors where he had sat before. His form seemed heavy. Haggard. As though the combat was finally catching up to him, but more surprising was the face of Master Longua himself as he moved past the metal man to enter his chambers.

Feng-Lung had not even known the Master was in the courtyard on this night, never mind that he must have watched the fight take place.

But far from seeming impressed, the old Master of the Eternal Dragon simply opened the door to his chambers, took one look back at the supplicant Cog he was forced to see every morning, and sighed.

"An engine made for destruction," he said. "Nothing more."

With that he closed shut his doors, leaving the Cog shrouded in darkness and rain again.

 

[Bashaar Ali]

"An engine made for destruction," he said. "Nothing more."

Click to shrink...

So he just should have taken the potentially fatal beatings? Is it just me or is this guy being a tad unfair? To me it seems he is biased against the robot because he isn't human.

 

[pink_boy]

Pretend Wise men who know nothing

 

[Yeetboi]

Well it worked a bit! Just uh... I don't know the formula to calculate how many battles it takes to fully jumpstart a soul. So I'll say like... Bout seven more?

 

[IronLung]

Feng-Lung breathed deep the flaring fires of the Dragonpyre Hearth.

"Very good," his Master told him. "Again."

The Disciple closed his eyes and tensed up his stomach muscles, feeling the air travel through them and with it his Qi. He could feel it building in his gut, in the core of his being, and he swept his feet wide and opened his arms to direct the flow of energy down to his fists.

"Good," Master Longua whispered. "Now, hold it."

Feng-Lung's brow tensed, sweat pooling just above his shaven eyebrows, gently running down the dragon tattoo that adorned his forehead.

Hold…he counseled himself. Hold the Qi within you. Feel the essence of the Dao enter your body and elevate your senses. Feel your muscles quicken as it pours through them, and let your veins be filled with fire.

Fire.

"Good," Master Longua said again. "Now, follow the flow of Qi. Let it run where it must."

Feng-Lung obeyed the words of his Master, divorcing his mind from his body and letting his mind commune with the Qi. It was said that those Cultivators who had mastered the Body Tempering Stage could sense the Qi in all living things, from the lowliest twin-tailed Marshmouse to the greatest Stix bison with its three heads and stomachs. It was said that they could even tell where spirits would manifest in the land. But such feats were nothing but idle fancies to young Feng-Lung, who had only barely entered the Second Rank of Body Tempering last spring.

Feng-Lung felt the essence of the Dao flow freely within him, and he knit his brows in concentration as he closed off his Chakras and let the power pool at the base of his open hands.

"Focus," Longua said again within the Hearth, where all except the flickering candles were quiet as a crypt.

Master Longua often spoke of how their Sect valued not only the fire born of dragons but the spiritual attributes associated with that same element. Ambition, determination, passion, desire – these things were the Di'ama of the Eternal Dragon Sect – the characteristics Disciples were most expected to express. Some of their most famed Cultivators – those who had existed in the Qing Dynasty before the Sunder-Year, had displayed all these characteristics in their purest form. Some of the Internalized Ego Grade could even divorce their souls from their bodies entirely, living as pure, sentient flame. Technique and temperament went hand in hand with the teachings of each Sect.

Feng-Lung, however, had been slow to learn. It had been his desire alone that had spurned him on these past six years, and desire alone which compelled him to continue his training even against the odds. His Anima Cores were fewer than most of the other Disciples – being measured at a mere 83 compared to the average of 90 and above – but still, this had not deterred him. As a child he had only ever woken to the dark skies of the Wastes above him, and it was nothing but pure bliss to be able to set them alight with a flame borne from the energy of the Dao. It felt like he was breathing life back into a world many had already given up for dead.

And so, closing off the rest of his Chakras, he breathed again, felt the flow of Qi within him slowly build up and surge, turning first to hot steam, then to a billowing, raging bonfire beneath his heart.

"Now," Longua whispered from behind him. "Let it fly."

Feng opened his eyes the instant he heard his Master's words, and with one single, fluid movement of his arms, he threw a punch that released all the Qi energy from his body.

It took only an instant for the burning carmine flower of holy fire to erupt from his closed fist, sailing free through the air before slamming into the Master's waiting hand.

His fist closed round the firebolt while Feng-Lung looked at his firm, smoking hand.

"A fair strike," Longua said, opening his hand and showing his Disciple the small threads of crimson that were slowly sinking into the groves of his palm. "You show much better control than before. Your fire burns brighter every day."

Feng-Lung bowed low, keeping his orange robe tightly wrapped to his chest where his heart was throbbing. Every time he performed the Dragon's Talon, he felt how close to death he was – how, with one simple lapse of concentration, the trapped Qi could erupt beneath his ribcage and sear away every bone in his body. It was not unheard of for Longua's failed students to suffer self-immolation in the early days of their training.

Their bodies were not buried on the monastery grounds. There was no need, Longua said, to honor impotent ash.

"You will begin practicing the Second Tier Earth Grade techniques of the Dragon tomorrow morning," the Master said as he patted Feng on the shoulder. "Meditate this evening upon the descending sun, and let your head hit your pillow when the moon rises. When the light of new morning hits your forehead, you shall rise as a Fourth Level Corporeal Temperer."

Feng tensed up at his Master's praise, drawing a look of curiosity from Longua.

"You do not enjoy hearing your Master congratulate you on your progress?" he asked, running his fingers down his beard.

"N-no, I mean, yes Master," Feng replied hurriedly. "I am forever grateful for your guidance. It is just…" he stammered, and then felt the edge of Longua's palm strike his shoulder in a blow that nearly cut off his windpipe.

"Come, Feng," he chuckled. "I have told you never to conceal your thoughts from me. In time, you know I shall pull them from you. But I am not a dentist, my Disciple. Would you treat me like one?"

"No, Master! Of course no-"

"Then tell me what troubles the mind of my most promising new pupil."

Feng tried to hold his Master's gaze, wondering how he could look in those dark, piercing eyes, shrewd beyond the wiliest cat Feng had chased in his youth, and tell their bearer what he needed to say.

But his Master had him now. There was no escaping his all-seeing gaze.

"The Dragon's Tooth," he began, tentatively. "The Spiral Dervish, the Coiling Tail Strike, the Whirling Slash…I have learned these techniques and know them now as an extension of my own body – the vessel for the Qi of the Eternal Dao."

Master Longua nodded, urging his Disicple to continue.

"But…does it always feel so…volatile?" he asked. "With every move I make, every strike I perform, I feel the power of the flame that roars within me and I…I feel…"

"You feel afraid."

Feng-Lung bowed his head in shame. Now he had disrespected not only his Master, but himself, in the hallowed halls of their Sect, no less.

"Good."

Feng's eyes shot open. His brain could not process that his Master had said the word.

"Master?"

"Do your talons clog your ears, Feng-Lung?" Longua laughed. "I said 'good'."

"I do not understand, Master."

"Feng-Lung," Longua began, revealing his old, ashen hands from beneath his shimmering cloak. "Look at the hands of your Master. See where the dusty remains of a thousand flames have seeped into my palm. Look where the threads of living death have traveled through my fingers and blackened their tips. Do you think I have never felt fear?"

Feng bowed his head again even if his mind struggled with his Master's admission. That the old dragon could actually feel afraid of anything seemed an impossibility as detached from reality as the Cog that dwelled outside. What need the dragon fear of the world beneath its feet?

Then again, Feng-Lung had never ventured outside the bounds of Ramor-Tai or the five villages at the foot of the mountain. He had only heard tales of the Wasteland and of what stalked around the ruins of the Old Dynasty. Perhaps there was more truth to them than even his Master would allow him to know.

"My Disciple," Longua said. "Think of fire."

Longhua indicated a burning brazier to their right, and with some subtle movements of his fingertips he drew a thread of the pliant flame in a spiral around his hand.

"Fire is wild," he continued as his student looked on. "It can only be harnessed, never controlled. The Qi allows us to give it form, but our bodies are at its mercy. He with the strongest Animus can project the greatest flame, but he puts his own body at risk in the process of giving it life."

The crimson threads of flame danced between Longhua's aged fingers like harmless ribbons, even though Feng-Lung could tell that, with little more than a twitch of his hand, those same ribbons could burn him to a crisp.

"To hold power within your body," Longhua said. "To wield flame not as a weapon or a tool, but as an extension of yourself, that is where fear lies. As it should."

Longhua let the flame return to its brazier with a swift, fluid flick of his forefinger.

"It means you are not stupid, my Disciple."

Feng-Lung placed his hand on his chest, honoring his Master's praise, this time, with a deep bow. Yet something still troubled him beyond his own trepidation regarding his techniques.

"Master," he said tentatively. "Why do you not admit the Cog to the Sect?"

A long, unbroken silence followed, where Feng-Lung instantly chastised himself for asking the question. Feng knew that, when his Master said nothing, it was more an indication of righteous anger than when he rebuked his Disciples physically.

"He has a flame that burns within him," Feng-Lung explained. "I have seen it."

"Have you?" Longhua replied. "You have sensed the Qi in him? You have seen the Universal Dao travel through his steel limbs?"

Feng-Lung hesitated. "I – I have not, Ma-"

"Then why do you ask questions you know the answer to?"

Feng-Lung looked up at his Master then, facing his knitted brows and twisted features. There was anger there, yes, but there was something else too. He could feel it in the tiny fluctuations of the Master's Qi flow.

"He can fight, Master," he said, pressing his case despite the odds stacked against him. "He subdued Fai-Deng of the Waiting Tiger without issue. This you saw with your own eyes."

"A screaming tiger is not a threat to his prey," Longhua scoffed, already beginning to turn away. "He kills himself and goes starving."

"I could not have done this thing," Feng-Lung responded with passion. "Master, I only wish to know why you will not give him a –"

"A chance?" Longhua roared, fanning the braziers in the hearth with his rage so that their flames flew to the ceiling and bathed the Master in the lambent red of the underworld. "Listen well, Feng-Lung – a Master does not take chances on evil when he can see it plainly before his eyes! What you see within the machine is not born of the spirit. It is a thing of this realm – this barren earth we call home – and that is all it shall ever be."

Feng-Lung watched his Master's face take on the appearance of a warrior spirit of the Wasteland – something that was ready to face one of the Old Gods themselves if he had to. He saw the spirit of the Cultivators of the old Dynasty – those who had ruled before the Sundering and who, Feng-Lung knew, all the current Masters were descended from.

"I do not understand, Master!" Feng-Lung asked. "If he wanted to destroy us, why does he not simply attack? Why does he come alone?"

Feng-Lung waited for the sting of his Master's fire to sear his face and scar him for his insolence. But, when the strike never came, he couldn't help but press on:

"He waits for you out there, Master. He waits with the patience of one who would obey your every command. He desires no power, no glory, and no material gain. All he has is a question that he must answer. Does prophet Ai-Lee not say that knowledge is the most noble of all pursuits?"

Feng was then shocked to see the anger in his Master's eyes suddenly abate, like a burning tree falling into stagnant water. Longhua sighed, deeply, exhaling a gust of smoke in the process, and looked upon his Disciple with weary, clouded eyes.

"You are too young to remember the Old Dynasty," he said. "Back when Gods danced among us, and this world belonged to men and men alone. There were many Cultivators then, and even more Cogs, and they served Emperor Qing in a Dynasty that lasted for a thousand summers. But when the Sundering came about, the machine-men did not stand beside us."

Feng saw his Master look away, immersed in memories the young Disciple could only imagine. Even then, he could not conceive of the horrors of that event – the Sundering. The day when the light of the world died away, when the Gods were cast down to battle upon the earth and left nothing but ruin in their wake.

"We barely survive to carry on the legacy of the first Cultivators," Longhua continued, staring up at the frescos of the coiling Eternal Dragon with sorrow. "It is the legacy of man. Not of machine. A man has the guiding spirit of the Dao within him. A man is molded by his circumstances. A man is chosen by what remains of the heavens. A creature composed of steel and lights has none of the aspects of man. He is clockwork and purpose – and that purpose is always to conquer. He cannot seek the Dao, for the Dao does not see him."

Feng-Lung was touched by his Master's words, looking on as the old man began to ascend the steps to the courtyard and retire to his chambers. It was not what he said that affected him so, but the way he uttered the words

"Enough," he said. "The sun is descending."

But young Feng-Lung's curiosity was matched only by his brashness.

"Master," he said. "Are you afraid of him?"

The young Disciple watched the aged Master of the Eternal Dragon stiffen for a moment before his shoulders sagged and fell, and when his Master did not even turn back to address him, Feng wished he had stopped his mouth before it ran away from him.

"That will be all, Feng-Lung."

 

[Ethan Eldritch]

This is amazing! Thank you for writing this!

 

[IronLung]

This is amazing! Thank you for writing this!

Click to shrink...

It's comments like this that make me continue. Thanks!

 

[The Stormbringer]

Ohoho, this is very fun and interesting. Not just the characters but the world building. I look forward to future updates! Thank you for writing and sharing.

 

[Yakubi42]

This is really good. I'm usually not into cultivation stuff but I'm digging this. Maybe I have a thing for "Outsider to Cultivation Baffles Everyone With Their Bullshit." Would explain why I like this and Beware of Chicken so much.

 

[IronLung]

Ohoho, this is very fun and interesting. Not just the characters but the world building. I look forward to future updates! Thank you for writing and sharing.

Click to shrink...

More to come next week!

 

[IronLung]

This is really good. I'm usually not into cultivation stuff but I'm digging this. Maybe I have a thing for "Outsider to Cultivation Baffles Everyone With Their Bullshit." Would explain why I like this and Beware of Chicken so much.

Click to shrink...

This makes me want to write a Chicken vs Cog fight.

No. Cock vs Cog. Thats the chapter title right there.

 

[IronLung]

Autumn arrived with bitter cold, signaling that the harvest was done.

It was a time of reflection for the Cultivators of Ramor-Tai. The Waiting Tiger's Sect's Mental Masters could often be seen out in the fields, Master Yoma-Dur directing the flow of their combined Qi and channeling it into the fields for the next harvest season. The hearts and minds of the Tiger Sect Disciples were attuned deeply to the skies, and they saw the torrential rain that had buffeted the Wastes recently as a sign that they were to be blessed by the Dao this year when the time for the Grand Tourney came about.

Inside the monastery walls, the Disciples of the Eternal Dragon spent their hours in meditation and long study, huddled around the lights of their hearths or swapping tales of their Dao-walks with their fellows. Deeper, in the very heart of the monastery's depths within the mountain itself, the few Cultivators who had attained ninth-rank Anima Banisher status dwelled in absolute silence and darkness. This time of year was particularly taxing for the small group, whom Feng-Lung had never even met in his six year stint at Ramor-Tai. It was said that the turning of the season brought vile Yaoguai that tried to tempt these Disciples from their mediations, and young Feng-Lung often found himself sparing a thought for them on these cold nights, as the world of the Wasteland teetered faced the onset of winter.

"They are braver than I could ever be," he said aloud to his silent companion in the courtyard. "To complete the final rank of the fourth Cultivator grade, it is said that a Disciple must spend ten years of their mortal life immersed in nothing but the dark, their bodies sustained by only the tiny threads of Qi energy they can tap into through the Universal Dao. Those that emerge do so with the promise of becoming a Master of the Sects, and are granted a vision of the future by the spirits that watch over the monastery."

He looked at XJ-V - so quiet, so resolute, still - and nudged the robot playfully.

"I think you could do it, my metal Brother," he said with a warm smile. "After all, Cogs need never eat a single meal."

"We have our own burdens Feng-Lung, I assure you."

The reply was a surprise for the young Disciple. Feng-Lung had taken to joining the Cog in his meditations, finding the machine's company strangely effective in enabling him to enter the Dao for longer periods than he was used to. He told himself that his keeping the robot company was merely a by-product of his desire to grow as a Cultivator. But in truth, he couldn't even convince himself of that fact.

And he certainly wasn't doing himself any favors with the Master, who had begun to emerge every morning and cast Feng-Lung the same dark looks he would normally reserve for XJ-V.

He looked at the Cog's rusted limbs – by this point the machine's grey skin was totally replaced by a sheave of inky brown.

"I am curious," he said, shuffling closer. "You came from the Wasteland, didn't you?"

XJ-V's eyes opened slowly, like the Cog was awakening from a groggy dream.

"I was made in a place called Hensha," he replied. "It lies to the West, not far from the foot of this monastery."

Feng-Lung's eyes sparkled with sudden hope. He'd never even heard of this settlement.

"What's it like?" he asked. "Are there people there like you?"

"Like me?"

"You know – Cogs."

XJ-V lowered his head. "I do not remember."

A series of disbelieving blinks met the Cog's admission.

"My memory banks have no records," he explained. "No images I can connect to this place. Only a list of major settlements and factions in the Wasteland, some rudimentary knowledge of Cultivation practices and basic lore, and the question I must answer."

"You don't remember your home?" Feng-Lung asked, leaning forwards.

"'Home,'" the Cog said, as though the word was foreign to his tongue. "My home is here, Feng-Lung."

"But you weren't born here."

"I was not 'born' at all."

"You know what I mean, you sneaky-machine!" he jibed. "Hensha is the place you were made. You know that, right? So, it must be your home."

The Cog considered this. "It is not where I could find the answer."

"Doesn't matter," Feng-Lung replied confidently, like a child knowing it had won an argument and beginning to celebrate prematurely. "Home has nothing to do with purpose or answers. It's about family."

"I have no family," XJ-V replied. "I am a unit of one."

"Ah! Do not quote the words of prophet Ai-Lee at me, XJ-V. Your mind is so focused on philosophy that you have ignored basic logic: Your name is XJ-V. That means you must have at least four other brothers."

XJ-V was struck by this idea, and when he turned his head slowly to face Feng-Lung, the latter was not scared to admit that he recoiled slightly at the searing power still blazing behind those neon eyes.

"Brothers?"

"Of course," Feng replied nonchalantly. "Your creator must have made a bunch of you. Maybe they're even waiting for you in Hensha right now."

XJ-V blinked once at the youth and then turned his gaze towards his rust-covered fingers, still intertwined in the Eternal Dragon meditative pose Feng had fixed them in when he first came here.

"This is a possibility I had not considered," he admitted. "There may be other models made in my image who are also seeking answers to their own questions. Perhaps they have even fulfilled their purpose already."

"I wonder if they were all given different questions," Feng-Lung mused. "Perhaps your Creator was a mad scientist on a quest for domination of the Wasteland, and sent one brother after the location of a great arsenal of Old Dynasty weapons, or sent one to find the names of the leaders of all the great Houses and Warlords of the Wastes so he could lay waste to them all. Perhaps he asked another to count the grains of sand in the desert -hah! Can you imagine, XJ-V? A Cog like you resigned to such an embarrassing task?"

While XJ-V couldn't refute that this was a possibility, the conversation had taken a turn strange enough for him not to continue it in this way.

"You have an active imagination, Feng-Lung."

"I get it from my mother, I think," the young Disciple said. "She was a painter – well, she probably still is. I do not know for certain."

XJ-V registered longing in the Disciple's voice.

"Where is 'home' for you, Feng-Lung?"

The youth sighed as he replied, looking at the walls of the monastery that hemmed them in on all sides.

"Marsul," he said. "It's a tiny hamlet at the base of the mountain. Our main export was wheat and barley for the traders that came from the other villages, and of course for Ramor-Tai. Only a hundred or so villagers in total. It was a small place, but it was peaceful. Fish in the riverbed were plentiful, and there were always cats to chase."

"Why do you say 'was', Feng-Lung?"

The youth seemed surprised, as though he hadn't even known he'd spoken of his home in past-tense at all. "Ah, well…it is behind me now. My mother – she always said I had a spirit of mischief trapped in my body – she wanted me to come here and have a better life. A life of purpose. She pleaded with Master Longhua to accept me as a Disciple when he and his tradesmen came to the village six years ago. I was the only child who had exhibited signs of being able to sense the Qi. Often, I would chase the cats that exuded the largest essence, thinking I might absorb it into me."

Feng-Lung chuckled at the memory.

"I never did catch one," he said. "Those creatures are slippery beasts."

XJ-V frowned at the face the Disciple made then. The memory seemed like a pleasant one – fond recollections of a youth's home – but the boy's face belied that. He studied the cracks in the walls of Ramor-Tai with a sudden longing, almost a kind of quiet desperation.

"You wish to leave this place," XJ-V said.

Feng-Lung recoiled. "N-no! I – I am forever grateful to the Master for his tutelage. Here, I get to be part of an order that once stood fast against the demons of this world. To be a Cultivator is the dream of any mortal. It elevates us. It puts us on a path to the stars."

XJ-V's eyes studied the youth, and the boy's inability to meet his gaze in that moment told him all he needed to know. But he did not push him. The patient hunter does not harry his game.

"It is just…" Feng-Lung continued after a time, making sure none would hear his admission. "We – the Sects – are supposed to be the defenders of humanity. And yet we sit here doing nothing but meditation. Walking in the Dao. Wandering in the realms of the spirits. We do these things while a world burns out there."

XJ-V registered swelling anger in the boy's furrowed brow.

"You must know about some of it," he said. "The bandits, the raiders, the people who will stop at nothing to make this world a worse place than it already is. Now, we have this so called 'Divine Order' perverting the teachings of the prophet Ming'Bao and crusading across the world, conquering villages, forcing them to submit to their barbaric ways, crushing all technology in their path. They are setting this world on fire all over again, and we sit here and stare into darkness."

There was a question implicit in the boy's words that XJ-V would not answer. Feng-Lung wanted to know if he knew of the Order. He chose, in that moment, to change the subject.

"You have told me a secret thing, Feng-Lung," he said. "I am thankful to you for this."

The youth's voice caught in his throat. "I…yes," he murmured. "A secret thing which I hope will be kept between us, XJ-V. The last thing I need is the Master knowing I have doubts."

"If the Master is as wise as I have heard," XJ-V replied. "Then he probably already knows this."

"Maybe," the young Disciple replied. "But then why does he not chastise me, or remove me from the monastery?"

"Perhaps," XJ-V replied with a slight smirk. "Because doubt is human."

Feng saw the smile on the Cog's face and was stunned into silence. For a moment both metal machine and man of flesh held each others' gazes and saw something of themselves in the other.

"I will tell you a secret thing of mine," XJ-V suddenly said. "I do not believe Master Longhua will ever accept me."

Feng-Lung's eyes wavered. But he did not look away.

"Then – why do you stay here?"

"It is as you say, Feng-Lung," XJ-V replied. "All out there wish only to make this world a worse place to live. I do not wish to die. But if I am to expire here, then such is the will of the Dao. But I will not return to the Wasteland. If there is a chance to be welcomed as one of your Sect, then I shall grasp at it, however fleeting it may be."

Feng-Lung hesitated. He knew that in this moment he should say something affirmative, to praise the Cog, to somehow show that he was on his side here. If he was being honest with himself, he had enjoyed the company of this metal Brother more than his fellow human Disciples in these past months.

But his mouth ran away from him again, and he had only one thought burst through it:

"What dangers are out there that one such as you need fear them?"

XJ-V closed his eyes and resumed his meditation, then, and the youth was left with an answer that both satisfied his curiosity and struck fear into his heart:

"More than you know, Feng-Lung. Be thankful that your Master and Brothers within these solid walls care for you. For the Wasteland does not."

(If you have been enjoying Cog Cultivator, consider supporting the story on Patreon for access to advance chapters)

 

[The Stormbringer]

Ohh, some lovely foreshadowing about the Wastelands, eh? I like it. And I hope our Cog friend here gets the recognition he deserves soon!

 

[IronLung]

He was running.

The charred twigs of the bamboo forest whipped against him, slashing across his face with strikes that would have scarred a human being.

Behind, he could hear the vicious barks of hunting dogs, and the sounds of their soldiers' boots pounding into the ashen earth beneath them.

The skies were streaked with poison – the result of the fumes they'd poured into the city. He looked frantically at his surroundings and saw only fire – the bamboo trees turned to burning braziers that lit up the dark.

His lame arm dragged limply behind him. Logic dictated that he should tear it off and leave it for them to destroy. But the whims of his Creator took precedence. He had to make it to Ramor-Tai. All of him had to make it.

A sudden flash of brilliant light, and he felt his lower body stutter and crumble beneath a torrent of bullets. Above, there was a spotlight trained on his skittering form. He was little more than an insect beneath their sight.

He felt the hand of one of their Xu'jan grab his shoulder. He turned, seeing the boy's drawn blade, and let the sword embed itself in his gut. As the soldier smiled a mad, joyous smile, he brought his fist across his face in one solid blow that detached the mortal's jaw from his face. Blood spewed from the open wound where the boy's neck once was, and his body crumbled to the ashen ground.

He looked down at the bloody face of the boy. He couldn't have had more than sixteen summers on his back.

He kept running.

He can hear the screams of the villagers now. Those who were being dragged from their burning homes and taken as slaves. They would be reeducated in the convents he had heard his Creator speak of before he had eyes to open and see them.

His mind told him to keep moving. To run. To survive. But something in his chest heaved with sorrow. The city burned. Hensha burned. His Creator…burned.

At the edge of the city's ruined perimeter walls another spotlight shone on his neon eyes, and he saw five more soldiers approach him bearing blades that shone with the killing light of the Order. The first one he caught and broke his arm with a single strike. Another he disarmed and smashed his head against a crumbling stone in the ground. The third came at him with a wide stance that he swept through like a snake, bringing both his legs round the youth's torso and cutting off his air supply before he finished the boy off with a jugular blow that closed shut his eyes forever.

More spotlights shone on him now. The ones who had burned the village had caught up and surrounded him.

So he shoved through the last two boys, feeling the sting of their blades as they nicked his calf servos, and threw himself down the side of Hensha's sloping hill into the dank ditch below where they had thrown the dead and the dying. Cog bodies mingled with human limbs all around him. He was adrift in a sea of death.

A flurry of arrows pierced his metal back and he started swimming, frantically pushing himself through all the pain and the sorrow that tugged at the raging flame beneath his breast.

And as he swam, he saw his shadow appear in the rippling waters filled with blood.

The High Eagle. Looking down at his worm from on high.

He could feel the burning eyes of that man looking down at him from the ridgeline above. He could feel those eyes digging into him with such intensity that he dared not look back. Seeing that man's face was the first time he had ever registered fear and he knew, without a doubt, the reason his Creator had built the emotion into him. He still remembered the flowing, pale-white robes of that man as he entered the village ahead of his troops. He remembered the insignia he wore upon his sleeve - the same insignia flying from the banners of his soldiers: the image of a golden eagle, razor-wings raised, perched atop a monument of metal skulls.

And the Eagle's voice, like the piercing tips of that predator-bird's talons, shot through his head as he made his escape.

"No matter where you go, machine, we are all connected."

…

XJ-V opened his eyes to the rain-soaked image of the Ramor-Tai courtyard.

His body was shutting down. He knew that now. The rust had by this point seeped into his vital systems and started to corrode his servos, eating away at his mind and causing glitches in his memory and auditory receptors. Even now he still thought he could hear the voice of the High Eagle in his brain, and he even chanced to look behind him, thinking he could still feel the searing heat of the Order's killing lights.

The raging engine within his chest compelled him to activate his repair protocols, which it had kept intact as a failsafe measure in case of desperate need. But XJ-V ignored the blazing red warnings that flashed before his eyes. He had spoken the truth to his young companion: if he was to expire here, then it was the fate the Dao had chosen for him.

Still a small fragment of his mind wished to have another day on this earth. To see the sun rise over the monastery walls as one of the Disicples – as a Brother – that was the thought that kept his back straight – that forced his hands and feet to remain locked in their meditative positions. He had demonstrated patience, had he not? He had known suffering – Master Longhua must know that. Yet, at the back of his mind, he knew there was something else the master had required of him. There must have been something he was missing…

Creator, he thought, knowing perhaps it was the last thought he would have. Why have I been forsaken?

Perhaps the holding of a soul was not something a being could ever know…

Something moved out of the corner of his eye that gave him cause to start, and he looked at the tiny trough of Chrysanthemum flowers that sat beside Master Longhua's chamber door. Two creatures dwelled between the flower stems: a butterfly with yellow-black wings and a spindle-legged spider, the former of which was currently writhing within the web of the latter. XJ-V watched as the spider slowly crept towards its prey, every tiny movement of its legs calculated and masterfully attuned to the threads of its web, honed through years of evolution. The butterfly, meanwhile, thrashed around in futility, suffering the same plight of its species' own evolutionary shortcomings.

Both creatures played their parts like beings pre-programmed – without emotion or real intelligence. There was nothing but innate drive within them both. For the spider – the need to consume. For the butterfly, the need to be free.

For the first time in almost a year, XJ-V started moving.

He crept slowly, like a ninja in the night, until his face was level with the spider's masterfully crafted web. The creature tested the strength of its creation with one pincer-like leg, and felt the frantic vibrations of its captive as it thrashed pointlessly against its prison.

Without a single thought behind the action, XJ-V stretched out his fingers.

The spider recoiled, seeing a third party intervene in its hunt, but XJ-V's reflexes were quicker. He plucked the butterfly gently by its wings, tore through the web, and came away with the tiny insect now calmly resting between his thumb and forefinger.

XJ-V looked down to see that the spider had merely began to rebuild its broken web again. He turned his attention to the butterfly's tiny form in his hand. So small. So fragile. With a single movement he could end its life if he so wished.

He let the thing go and watched it flutter to rest on the tip of his rusted fingernail before flying off into the dark skies of the Wastes, against the raging rainfall.

The Cog sighed abruptly, catching his chest sagging to see the thing go, and realizing that he had broken his stoic meditation. He threw his head to the storm-streaked skies and laughed – releasing a pitiable, guttural sound that barely traveled.

Only then did he see that he was being observed.

He turned, dimly sensing movement behind him, and looked back towards Master Longhua's chamber door.

The Master was staring right at him.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

XJ-V's grime and rust-covered form to a moment to even register that the Master was really there before him, never mind what he was asking.

"The butterfly," the Master elaborated, looking upon the Cog with a strange mix of curiosity and apparent consternation at having to repeat himself. "Why did you set it free?"

XJ-V blinked his blazing eyes up at the Master.

"I do not know."

The Master kept his gaze steady, letting the rain mat his old, pristine beard while his hands remained at his sides.

"You have given me the answer to a question," he said in a voice that was barely a whisper carried on the still winds. "Though not, I think, the one you presume to have answered."

XJ-V's sensors must have been betraying him, for her could swear that the sides of the old man's mouth curled up in what looked like a smile.

"Perhaps, in turn, I can give you an answer to yours."

The Master simply walked away up the steps to his chamber after that, throwing open one of the ancient stone doors and leaving it ajar.

"Longhua…" XJ-V began.

"That's Master Longhua to you."

The Cog double blinked, feeling the rust that lay heavy upon his chest quiver in anticipation.

"Does this mean you shall train me?"

And without looking back, Master Longhua of the Eternal Dragon Sect gave an answer that had cost eight long months:

"Yes."


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[The Stormbringer]

LET'S GO! The first trials and tribulations have been completed! More background and world building too!