Book 2: Chapter 2: Frustration and Uncertainty

Book 2: Chapter 2: Frustration and Uncertainty

A seething mass of frustration shuddered and thrashed inside Sen’s chest. He had been so close. All he had needed was a few more seconds and then it would have been obvious to any cultivator what was happening. As far as Sen was concerned, that gathering mass of qi should have been enough to alert that stupid girl that she shouldn’t interfere.

“Damn her!” he raged.

A pressing desire to go find that girl and trade pointers until she was bloody and unconscious took hold of Sen for a moment. He indulged the fantasy, ever so briefly, then ruthlessly suppressed it. If something like that was going to happen, he would have done it in the moment. Yet, while he could suppress the impulsive desire to act, he couldn’t suppress the anger, not entirely. It just sat there inside of him with nowhere to go, and no convenient targets on which to vent it. If he’d still been on the mountain or even out on the road, he could have gone out and simply found some big rock to destroy. This close to the city, he didn’t expect that the guards would look fondly on him destroying things. Besides, something like that might draw more attention he didn’t want.

As he considered it, if he’d gone out into the wilds, it was possible that some spirit beast in an equally foul mood might have tracked him down. He found that idea less palatable. He’d let the sect girl, both of those sect girls go, precisely because he didn’t want to kill without a clear and pressing need. Monumental frustration, while certainly compelling in its own way, wasn’t actually a reason to kill a person or a spirit beast. So, he simply had to bear it until the anger and frustration died away or a situation where he truly had no choice but to fight presented itself.

In the area, at least, he had a working knowledge of the threats out in nature. He might not enjoy it, but he could reasonably survive in the wilds for a long time. What he did know about those kinds of threats elsewhere was theoretical and based on conversations with people who could, quite frankly, shrug off things that would crush Sen with ease. No, without a good working knowledge of those threats as they applied to himself, or a guide he could trust, Sen couldn’t know if he was advanced enough in his cultivation to even survive the experience of traveling elsewhere. Given that Sen’s supply of trust was running especially low, that left him operating in the general area for the time being.

“Where should I go? What should I do?” he asked the expanse of water before him.

The enormity of it all finally settled on Sen. He was out in the world. He was alone. More importantly, this is what his life would be for centuries to come. While cultivation mattered to him, he’d recognized that it wasn’t truly an end in itself. It was a process, a journey, to get someone to somewhere else. More importantly, it was a very long process. Sen needed to find something else, some other goal, or purpose, or even just a list of random tasks to give his day-to-day life some kind of focus. Just as importantly, he needed to decide where he would do those tasks or pursue that purpose. He looked over his shoulder at the walls of Tide’s Rest and actually felt the snarl that twisted his lips. It might not be the fault of the city itself, but Sen’s experience with the local sect had soured him on the place. It seemed almost inevitable that he would bump into other sect members, and he, unfairly or not, didn’t trust any of them to behave like people he wanted to know. Having decided that staying in Tide’s Reach wasn’t an option helped give Sen a feeling of momentum.

“If not here, then where?” he mused.

Pulling out the map that he had so carefully marked and the notebook with all those names in it, Sen focused on finding the next place he would go.Witness the genesis of this narrative, streaming from Nøv€lß¡n★