Year 663 of the Stable Era,

Thirtieth day of the tenth month

The 3rd Inner Hour

"One-thousand, two-hundred, and thirty-six years ago," Yeung Lin began, before correcting himself. "No, one-thousand, two-hundred, and thirty-seven years now, I was born into this world. My circumstances were nothing particularly special. My parents were mortal farmers who, like the rest of my village, grew grain in one of the countless valleys that dot the western coast of Karano. It was far from a luxurious existence, but it was not an uncomfortable one."

As ever, Chao Ren was quick to gasp at such a detail, an action Yeung Lin was more than used to by this point.

"For while the Age of Drought was devastating to cultivators, who desperately fought for what few resources could be found in our qi-starved world, it was of little concern for mortals. The memories of lush farmlands and vast bounties of the Age of Immortals were but the myth of a fable to us."

"My ancestors had become accustomed to growing crops in qi-poor soil for a hundred generations, and while faintest of hopes of those blessed bounties returning were passed from father to son around bonfire at festivals and bedtime stories, it was nothing more than that: stories."

"We knew of cultivators, of course. Our village resided within the territory of a small group of them, far more akin to a bandit's gang or a warlord's tribe than anything you would recognize as a sect today."

"Their name is unimportant. It was barely spoken in my youth, and no record remains of it today. Such was the fate of many cultivators of that time. To struggle for immortality in vain, in the dying world the Immortals had left us."

"But at the time, they provided a valuable service. They guarded us from outside threats, those of demonic cultivator and beast alike. They acted not out of moral duty or a sense of righteousness, but out of fear that such foes would take what was theirs."

"For you see, a few generations before my birth, our village had been cursed with the blessings of qi. In times immemorial, it had been constructed over a dragon vein. A small branch of one, far from the main line of that once-great conduit of the world's qi. It had awoken faintly with the first stirrings of the world's revival, and as a result our village was now able to grow the meanest of spirit crops, even if the traces of qi they contained were barely worthy of the title. They were of exceedingly poor grade by any standard, far lower than most of you have probably eaten in your lives."

Li Lee's eye darted to the side briefly at those words, as Yeung Lin carried on with his tale.

"And so, with a dragon's vein too faint to truly draw qi from, without risking its destruction, the cultivators instead made do with what few of our crops contained those traces of qi. By those times cultivators knew better than to break a bowl after eating a single meal from it. Too many great treasures had been lost to shortsightedness and greed by that point, and even the most ignorant knew better than to spite their own future by attempting to swallow such things whole."

"They made full use of those traces of qi by refining our grain in vast quantities, concentrating it down into a distilled drink that they would use to sustain themselves. A far cry from alchemy or true spirit wine, but those were different times, and such things were close to a treasure then."

"The village elders would always make sure to take care of the negotiations far from the village, to spare us their wrath should they find the quality of the grain lacking. As a result, I never saw a cultivator myself, until the day that that man came to our village."

The disciples were quiet now, waiting for his next words with great anticipation.

"He arrived in the spring of my tenth year. His appearance was nothing remarkable at first glance. He was taller than any of the villagers, but only by an inch or two at most. His hair was a common shade of black that matched his eyes, worn in the short style favored by the farmers of our village. His clothes were cleaner than ours—plain robes a deep shade of green, like that of lush grass—but otherwise bereft of ornamentation."

"The most intriguing part of him was the things he carried. In those times storage rings and spatial pouches were rare things. Cultivators had to either develop their own methods for storing their belongings or make do with their body cultivation to carry what they owned."

"The cultivator wore many things on his back. A pipa, its once fine engravings scratched past the point of recognition, its strings ill-matched. A sword, its hilt and grip bearing its wear in place of its well-maintained scabbard. A long staff, tipped with seven jangling rings, their uneven arrangement the result of past battles. A drum, its wooden frame almost as wide as I was tall at the time, which he carried as if it was as light as a feather."

"At his hip he wore a bamboo flute. Of all his possessions, that was the one that attracted the attention of all the village children, who took any opportunity to steal glances at the cultivator when their parents weren't watching. It was a wondrous thing to behold, lacquered the shade of the night sky, perfectly smooth in a way that was unlike anything I had seen before."

"He was, if the rumors were true, dispatched to our village by our erstwhile protectors because they had detected a demonic beast on the prowl. Its rampage had already claimed two other villages, and while the rest of the cultivators were preparing to fight off the threat, they had sent this one to safeguard their treasure."

"My village had a single inn, which my family supplied with grain and eggs. I don't think that I ever found myself more enthusiastic to do my chores than when I was bringing our daily deliveries to the inn in those days, as it would mean that I could catch a glimpse of the cultivator when I did. While his appearance did little to draw attention to himself, the same could hardly be said for his actions."

"He made no pretense about his power. I remember the way he whistled to call his tea to him. How with a whistle his sword flew, cutting down beast and man alike."

"When he played his instruments, the plum petals would hesitate as they fell. With each strum of his pipa and every note of his flute they would dance, forming intricate patterns of swirls and spirals, as they were carried by a wind only they could feel. Often the songs were happy, flowing like a memory of a great river or the carefree warble of a songbird. Sometimes, a note of sadness would creep into the melody, sending the leaves and petals swirling across the ground like a whirlpool before the mood finally broke and the light tone returned."

A funny thing fate was, Yeung Lin thought to himself, as he glanced over at his sapling. Though he hadn't intended on it, the seed he had found so long ago connected back to his own past and this tale. And to the future as well, in the years to come. Perhaps there was a karma to that too, in its own way.

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"The cultivator only stayed in our village for two months, before he accomplished his goal and left. The threat, it turned out, was actually a demonic cultivator, who he met in combat in the forest south of the eastmost fields. Their clash was like thunder on a calm day, the discordant sounds of his instruments barely audible under through the sounds of the struggle. Boulders shattered, trees fell, and by the time he had defeated his foe a new clearing had been formed in the once-dense woods."

"And then he was gone. He took with him only a single bag of rice, and left behind only one destroyed building and a large quantity of silver, as a tip for our innkeeper."

A few of the disciples looked a bit disappointed at the abbreviated nature of the fight, but Yeung Lin used to that sort of reaction. While they were his first direct disciples, this was hardly his first time telling this tale. He continued, subtly letting a few petals fall from his sleeves as he did.

"But even months after he left, I couldn't forget the sound of his whistle, or the sight of its deeds. I could hear its echo in my memories. In the passing winds between the flowers, and the cry of the village cock each morning. There was something inescapable about that sound, and so, in every free moment, I tried to replicate it."

"It took me many sleepless nights, as winter arrived and then fled in the face of summer. Constant practice every moment of the day, be it while I worked the fields or in my free time. Humming. Whistling. Remembering the sound, and the way that the air felt when he'd done what he'd done. My pockets, in those days, were always full of leaves, so that I would never be without when the time came."

"And then, as winter prepared for its inevitable return, after so many long months, I finally figured it out."

Yeung Lin whistled, the tune old but never forgotten, and the leaves he'd scattered rose in the air, dancing as they formed into a simple pattern of a taijitu. They spun, twisting in the pattern as he continued his song, before the last note faded and the leaves fell to the ground, still in their pattern.

He could do more now. Make the leaves dance the way that that cultivator had. Turning into the shapes of heroic men and alluring women, dancing in the most graceful of ways or engaging in epic fights. But that would not be his first technique. His humble mortal technique, the first of the many he would go on to learn.

"It was a mortal technique, crude at best, but it opened my eyes to the path of cultivation. I kept my discovery to myself for another year before I revealed it to my parents. Enough time for me to become able to perform my technique without becoming lightheaded, and to learn how to breath in the invigorating wisps of air that I would later learn to be qi. I was soon sent to my distant uncle, who knew of a small sect that had been seeking to recruit disciples near his village. I imagine that it is not particularly hard to surmise that that sect was the Teal Mountain Sect."

Some of the disciples nodded at this, Bailong Shen the most confident in his knowing acknowledgement of the last detail of his story. Chao Ren had a faintly awestruck look in his eyes, while Min Huan looked a bit confused about the message of his tale.

"If there is one thing I would like you to learn from my tale," Yeung Lin said, lilting his voice so that the fallen leaves swept themselves back up his sleeve, "it would be to not be too hasty in choosing a technique. It is easy to mistake a fleeting emotion or passion for karma at work, for all that others might brag about the fated encounters that lead to them learning the techniques that they have."

"It might be true, should you stumble upon a scroll in an ancient ruin or abandoned shelf of an inn in the woods, but here of all places there is little of that. And so, I would like you to wait and to reconsider your decisions before you choose to begin learning the techniques that you have chosen today. To see if your heart still yearns for it after your passion has cooled."

"Wait, a year and a half?" Lee Han exclaimed, quickly doing the math on how long Yeung Lin had spent refining his technique. The other disciples looked at him in shock, and then apprehension, as the thought of another protracted wait weighed on them like one of their Shifu's training stones.

"Hah-ha, no, Disciple Lee Han," Yeung Lin said, letting out a little laugh to ease the tension. Min Huan joined in a bit, followed by a few others as the tension drained from the room. "No, I would simply like for you all to spend the next week or so to enjoy the tournaments and the festivities. To keep your eyes and minds open for any techniques that might interest you or draw your attention.

"And then, on the twelfth of the month, you will tell me what technique interests you the most. It might be the technique you picked today, or it might be something you discovered from another sect, that you might not have experienced otherwise."

"Whatever you select, I will teach you. Be it from this table, the libraries, or upon a scroll that you might find through chance in the markets. Although I would recommend that you consult me before buying anything that is priced too steeply. There are many common techniques being sold at a great markup there, often under the guise of being far more profound than they are."

As expected, there was at least one gasp at this, before the disciples began to clamor over each other with questions. Yeung Lin held up a hand for silence, before resorting to a clap, after which he pointed to each disciple in turn to allow them a chance to speak without interruption.

"Disciple Xia Bao."

"Are you saying that you know all of the techniques in the library Shifu?" he asked, right hand gripping the hem of his robe.

"No, of course not," Yeung Lin replied. "I have studied all the ones on the tables to some extent, and a good quantity from the sect's various libraries, but the heavens are vast, and I am but a third stage cultivator. There is more in this world that I have yet to see than I have seen."

"How will you teach us a technique if you don't know it?" Xia Bao asked, a slight note of confusion in his voice.

"Oh, that's quite simple. If you bring me a technique I don't know, we will learn it together."

This time Chao Ren was far from alone in his gasp.

"Shifu, are you serious?" Min Huan asked, quite surprised at the revelation.

The looks on the rest of the disciples' faces echoes the question. The time of a cultivator such as himself was quite valuable, after all. He was responsible for spending time with them each week as their mentor, but the idea that he would take extra time to learn new techniques, especially ones so far below his level, was a hard pill to swallow.

"Indeed, Disciple Min Huan," Yeung Lin replied. "Whichever technique you select will be quite enlightening to the both of us, as I have no doubt that I will learn as much teaching as you will in learning. There's a certain karma to this as well. You might lead me to study an area I might never have considered on my own, and that itself is always a worthwhile endeavor."

He laughed a bit at his own shamelessness, though few joined in. After another moment, he let the next disciple ask their question.

"Will you teach us any technique, Shifu?" Bailong Shen asked, his eyes glinting with curiosity. "No restrictions, no matter how unorthodox it might be?"

"None, Disciple Bailong Shen," Yeung Lin replied, "so long as it is within your ability to learn, and that you are willing to share the method with me. I know that certain family techniques are kept quite secret, but I am more than willing to swear an oath to never share what I learn if you wish for me to aid you in learning such an art."

This answer seemed to satisfy his student, who nodded twice before withdrawing his hand. Seeing that the rest of his disciples had done similarly, the result of learning the answers they sought from their peers' questions, Yeung Lin reached into his storage ring for a small stack of jade tokens.

"Before you leave, I have one last thing for you all. The sect has allocated several seats at the Crag Fist Arena to me for my direct disciples. They are reserved for the entirety of the month, so use them well as you observe the competitions. We will not be having any lessons until we meet again on the twelfth, and I expect you to not neglect your training until then. You are also required to attend the opening ceremony tomorrow, so please arrive promptly."

With a whistle the stack of tokens in his hand flew to those of his excited disciples, who began talking excitedly amongst themselves as Yeung Lin made his way back towards his workshop. He had a lot of work to get through before the tournament started tomorrow, and he wanted to finish the first prototype of his new tea set before then. He also had to grade the tests of his sect history class, prepare his lessons for the direct disciples when they returned from their break and…oh! He had promised to meet with Lan Yun for dinner, hadn't he!

He was certain that he had made a reservation, but he had to double-check his notebook to be sure. It wouldn't do to repeat that mistake again. There was just so much to do, especially with his new duties as a Senior Instructor candidate, and it could get quite hard to keep track of it all at times.

He'd get it all sorted though. He had crafted a meticulous schedule in his notebook, he just needed to find where it was.

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