Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

here in the monastery. In the beginning, he had wanted to learn the art along with the novices, but after several painful nights in the infirmary, he realized that martial arts weren’t for him. His muscles weren’t made for what the monks called a form of some kind of Tun-Chi or Te-Chi.

After that, he asked the elders to give him some kind of a job to do, but the broom kept falling out of his hands and only scattered more dust; the pots in the kitchen were constantly spewing black smoke; and the food was either too salty or undercooked, and, in general, inedible. Deciding not to despair, he continued looking for things to do, but no matter what job he was given, everything either fell out of his hands, broke, went spoilt, or was simply lost somewhere.

The worst thing, however, was that no one ever blamed him for anything. He would’ve fine if they shouted at him or scolded him for his clumsiness, but no one so much as frowned. Everyone helped him as much as they could and kept telling Ash that he was yet to find “his way,” whatever the hell that meant.

That was how he got to the point where he did what he did best, but also the thing that he couldn’t stand — study. Sitting on a rock that hung over a chasm, he listened to the world, in a lack of a better explanation. After all, that was how the palace tutors believed that that was the best way to quickly learn the meaning of any Word. It turned out that they weren’t being paid a ridiculous sum of money for just acting smart.

“It’s getting late,” Jing-Jing said. He had a habit of pointing out the obvious, which annoyed many people, but amused Ash.

“Oh, it really is!” the mage replied, acting surprised.

Jing-Jing took two long pipes filled with a special kind of tobacco from the folds of his robes and handed one to the young mage.

“Cut it yourself?” Ash asked, inhaling the fragrant, gentle smoke.

“When the mind is restless you often find yourself wishing to do something with your hands.”

“What bothers you, brother?”

Tiny figures danced in the air, their dresses and bodies made up of curls of smoke. If there was one thing Ash had liked about the palace life, it was the balls. The most exquisite and breathtaking balls took place in the palaces of Mistrit. It was a pity that he’d never witness them again.

“You, my dear friend,” Jing-Jing replied and blew a ring of smoke that enclosed one of the dancing couples in it.

“Don’t worry about me.” Ash smiled, watching the figures try to escape from the monk’s trap.

“Let me worry.”

The mage shrugged and swung his legs above the chasm. Anyone afraid of heights would faint just at the sight of him sitting so high up.

“I don’t understand your desire to become a monk.”

Ash didn’t answer, continuing to smoke, enjoying the rare, fragrant tobacco that couldn’t be found anywhere else outside the mountains.

“If you take the tenure,” Jing-Jing continued, seeing that Ash had no intention of answering, “you’ll lose all of your power as a mage! Why in the seven hells would you do that?!”

The mage smiled to himself. It was nice to have someone who genuinely cared about him. Jing-Jing had inspired him to take care of the novices as best as he could. And he did a good job at it, too! If... we ignored the fact that he was a frequent participant in their silly pranks.

“Tell me, my wise monk friend, how often have you done things you truly wanted?”

The monk thought about it. Ash knew that he wanted to respond him with wise words along the lines of “sometimes I do what I want, but I usually do what I have to do,” but the monk surprised him by answering truthfully.

“There are things that meet my desire, and there are those that arise from my duties.”

“Pragmatic as always.”

“A worthy man must have three things — a sharp mind, a sword, and wisdom.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Ash waved his hand, as if he were chasing away an annoying fly. “I remember Liao-Fen’s words as well as you.”

“However, I think I didn’t answer your question.” Jing-Jing shook out the tobacco from his pipe and filled it with fresh leaves. “I can’t tell you what I do more often, what I want or what I should.”

“I can.” Ash sighed.

He closed his eyes, listening to the cry of the mountain eagle. The king of the sky was flying dozens of leagues away from the monastery, but his voice was clearly audible even from this distance. He was a living personification of power and defiance, but at the same time, of loneliness, because no one else flew as high as him.

“That’s why I want your rosary.”

“Hangchou’s,” the monk corrected him.

“Yes, those.” Ash nodded. He didn’t even want to bother trying to twist his tongue to pronounce the name.

The two sat in silence for a while, enjoying the tobacco and the mountain scenery. Perhaps we could describe to you the beauty and expanse of the Eastern continent, but if we did, you’d no longer be able to look with awe at any other mountains. So just take our word for it — there was no more beautiful and majestic sunset in the world than that that could be seen from the Mok-Pu monastery.

“The abbot is waiting for you," Jing-Jing finally said.

Ash nodded and left. He went up the tricky passage and found himself in the courtyard where students usually trained. The Eternal Blossom Tree, whose name couldn’t have better described it, was also here. It was small like a weeping willow, but different from it in that it had white leaves that circled the trunk all year round. All three hundred