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

and sixty-five days this tree pleased the eye with its blossoms and the nose with a mysterious, sweet aroma.

The mage smiled. He had watched dozens of times as the older students moved through the blizzard of blossoms and leaves that suddenly became sharper than any blade. The goal was to reach the trunk without a single white spot on your robes. The tree itself was beautiful, but if you touched its blossoms, you’d immediately get stained with its pollen, which was the color of bird droppings and very hard to remove.

Around the corner was a huge metal tub shaped like sphere six feet in diameter. It’d be filled with water and the students would be asked to stand on the side. The stronger ones would last for about a second before falling. The most skilled ones could stand on the thing edge for minutes, balancing only on the big toe of their right foot.

Ash went to the central pavilion, passing all sorts of devices used for the strict and often insane exercises that the abbots put their students through. With each new step, he felt a little bit sadder. Fate was clearly laughing at him. He hated studying, but he would’ve liked to learn the arts that the monks were practicing. Alas, he wasn’t destined to learn even one move, let alone become a disciple.

Pushing aside his thoughts, he opened the giant doors, and entered the hall. His head instantly ached from the heavy smell of the burning incense. The monks seemed to have stuck incense into every crack on the wall, floor, pillars, and ceiling. The swirling cloud of smoke smelled of sandalwood and cherries.

Ash put his fist on his palm and bowed as low as he could.

“Come in,” said the abbot, sitting in a lotus pose with his legs spread so wide that Ash’s groin instantly ached uncomfortably. His jewels just weren’t designed for such a pose.

Closing the doors behind him, the mage sat down on the pillow that had been left there for him. He had never liked this place. Not because of the smoke, which made it difficult to think and see, but because of the dozens of statues of Liao-Fen that seemed to be staring right into your soul.

Gold, bronze, stone, and sometimes even iron, they occupied every inch of free space. At the end of the hall stood the biggest of them all, made of glass. Almost twenty feet tall, it propped its head on a wooden beam. During the day, whenever the sun shone bright in the sky, it’d turn the golden rays into a myriad of colorful beams, which greatly amused the children.

Ash had once wondered why was the largest statue made of such a delicate and fragile material as glass. It was until recently that he learned the rather obvious answer — symbolism. One of Liao-Fen’s wisdoms was that the “bigger” a person was, the weaker they were, because they had too much to care and fear about. The most dangerous were the “small” people, who’d do anything to live as they had nothing to lose. It was then that he also realized why all of the smaller statues of Liao-Fen were made of durable material like iron and stone.

“Giving up?”

The mage put down his staff, nodded, and rested his hands on his knees.

“My son, what it is that you are looking for in this monastery?”

“Peace,” Ash immediately replied without hesitation.

“Peace,” the old man drawled, stroking his long, almost transparent beard. Despite his age, the abbot’s hands were steady as a rock. “Do you think you deserve it?”

Ash bowed so low that his head touched the cold floor.

“I know that I did a lot of bad things, but I didn’t act on my own.”

“Those are excuses.” Ling sighed. “Listen to me, young mage, and then answer the question. If a traveler following a mountain path gets killed by a stone knocked over by a gust of wind, who is to blame? The traveler who chose the wrong path, the stone moved by the wind, or the wind itself?”

Ash thought a moment before answering.

“The wind.”

“Why so?” the old man asked in surprise. “The wind was doing its job. It blew on the entire mountain, but only one stone fell. Why is it not to blame?”

“By that logic, the knife would be to blame for an injury, and not the hand that wielded it,” Ash retorted and then twitched when Ling laughed. It sounded like a broken rattle.

“Then why not blame the man who took the knife in the first place? Why not blame the victim for allowing someone to stab them?”

“Because it’s stupid.”

“Is it stupid or is it just easier to look for the cause of your problems in someone else?”

Ash almost lashed out, but quickly calmed down, realizing what the old man was trying to say. He opened and closed his eyes like a fish out of water. But no matter how much he thought, he couldn’t find an answer.

Someone else would’ve blamed fate, the Gods, or some other higher force and nonsense, but he didn’t believe in such things. he had seen too much in his short life to think that there was such a thing as “fate.” If there were, it didn’t care about the people. And if the Gods were truly alive, they didn’t give damn about what was happening outside the gilded doors of their heavenly palaces.

“So, who is to blame? The traveler? The rock? Or the wind?”

“I... I don’t know...” Ash replied. This was the first time in his life that he had heard himself utter those words.

“Remember these words, young mage. Remember and never forget that you don’t know everything about this world and that sometimes what may seem right and simple at first, may seem so only because of ignorance.”

“Yes, abbot. I will remember,”