A Peasant’s Sorcery

A Peasant’s Guide To Sorcerery (Wuxia/Original)

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Commissioned by Ichypa

Wordcount: 2500

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For over a century, the sects of Murim fought against one another all across the Heavenly Realm. Battles between rival schools, fostered by immortals, flooded the land with blood. The power of the Emperor, waxing and waning with the passing of dynasties, could only hold the greatest cities of the Dynasty and leave all others at the mercy of the leaders of Sects; warlords all but in name.

Within one of those cities, a desperate plan was carefully pursued.

The creation of a divine text which could impart the greatest of sorceries upon an individual and elevate them to the very heights of magic as a means for the Emperor to bring order to chaos and bring to heel immortals and their supplicants.

The scroll would choose its user and grant them grand control over the elements, the secrets of the manipulation of flesh for the creation of powerful warriors, and rituals and techniques to seal away immortals, spirits, and monsters that plague the Heavenly Realm. Many warned against its creation, not only because of the possibility that it would fall to one not ruled by the Emperor, but of the impossibility of one individual who could use all such magics.

Still, the Emperor’s decree was followed as those words were ignored.

Perfection was necessary.

For what use was a such a powerful scroll, if it was not wielded by the perfect sorcerer?

And, so the day came when the scroll was completed and it was activated. The tremendous power it harnessed for its duty was noticed by even the meekest of immortal sect leaders, while the Emperor and his retinue looked upon the scroll as their salvation as it flew into the heavens… and flew… and flew… and flew.

Scouts under orders of the Emperor searched for it for weeks, then months, and then years.

The Emperor died.

His son died.

His son’s son died.

The Dynasty ended and another arose.

Then, another Dynasty arose.

And another.

Immortals rose to prominence one after another and the land fell to chaos, while order was swept away in favor of immortal warlords and their schools filled with aspirants to immortality.

The tome meant to provide the cornerstone for a Dynasty to bring order was forgotten as even the immortals of that era were slain replaced by those seeking ever-greater heights of power and might.

The tome waited and searched for centuries and centuries, until one day it found the perfect recipient for all its magics and might.

The demise of its creators did not matter.

The end of its intended purpose did not matter.

Only that it conveyed its magic and might to its perfect recipient.

So, it went forth after centuries to the one who could use it properly and laid itself before him.

“Look, father, a scroll by the road!”

“Well, pick it up! Even if someone threw it aside, it’s still a scroll and you know what those are for!”

“They’re for learning and using!”

“That’s right. Your grandfather was a slave, but he became a farmer. He worked, read, and learned until he owned his home… and I did the same until we owned all the land around our home! So, you’ll be doing the same!”

“Even if reading is hard?”

“Especially if reading is hard! Scrolls that are hard to read have the best secrets, so you better read through that whenever we’re done working the land!”

“Yes, father!”

The scroll acknowledged as it was taken by its chosen user, took in his knowledge, and began to compound and create the necessary texts and lessons to impart all that it could. Its reader was a mere peasant farmer, without an ounce of power, but that mattered not.

It would achieve its purpose if its reader did exactly as was written within it.

“I’ll be sure to learn everything and do everything this scroll says, father!”

“If you do, then I’ll buy us a lamp, so you can read into the night after we’re done with our fields.”

“Thank you, father!”

As the scroll compounded its knowledge and power, for the first time in its existence… it felt content and assured that it would do its duty well. Not only did it sense an open mind with an incredible willingness to learn, but that open mind was blissfully empty of many other concerns. Knowledge was all that it was for; thus, it would be given properly, precisely, and perfectly to its reader.

No missed steps. No searching for knowledge that best came later. No shortcuts.

Just the proper way for the perfect receiver.

As it should be.

…

Ying ran beneath the gaze of an uncaring, silver moon and an expanse of apathetic stars. Each of her footsteps touched upon the branch of a tree and displaced single needles and snowflakes, as her heart raced within her chest and her lungs took in the chilly air.

Pain surged from her arm, as blood poured through her grip on her wound, but her focus was upon her escape and the proximity of her oncoming foes.

With every step, her vision blurred at the edges as fear gripped her heart and throat. Sorrow filled her for promises unkept and companions she cherished, as death’s grip tightened and tightened upon her.

She was slowing, while her pursuers were gaining, and no one was coming to aid her. The local Beggar’s Sect was no more, its message for aid nothing more than a lure, and now she fled into the winter wilderness.

Poison was coursing through her veins. She could barely summon any of her power. Decades of training, meditation, and experience in battle for the sake of fighting for the weak and helpless were made moot by the trickery of immortals.

She grit her teeth as her senses screamed at her to dodge an oncoming attack, but all she could do was allow herself to miss her next step and fall onto a pile of freshly fallen snow.

Her captors landed upon blades of grass, which were bent no more by their presence than they were by single flakes of snow.

A dozen warriors of Murim, of the Chained Snakes, looked upon her through wicker helms without a word.

“Beggar Princess. You die here.” The declaration bid her to not beg and to fight with all her strength. It nearly made Ying laugh. Her body was poisoned and one of her arms bled profusely. She was barely capable of standing as she stained pure white snow scarlet. “For opposing our rule, you and your sect will be brought low wherever our Sect can reach, until you a ruined.”

Ying grit her teeth, even as rage and anger told her to lash out with words.

She knew that if she stood a chance against the shadows standing amongst the snow and trees, that she needed every ounce of strength that she could muster. So, with all the strength and will that she had left, she took the needle within a band on her wrist and plunged it into her heart.

For a moment, as her heart expanded around the needle, great pain filled her… but then her blood mixed with the concoction upon the needle’s surface in an instant and her heart contracted to push the treated blood through her body.

Power coursed through her for the gift that she and all other elites of the Beggar Sect received. The Earthly Scholar worked in tandem with the Beggar’s Sect, believing their path to be righteous, so he supplied them with medicine pills and elixirs for cultivation. However, his mastery over medicine also allowed him to craft other tools. Tools that placed a black mark on his works of charity, but allowed the Beggar Sect to deter the weaker Sects that would otherwise nip at their heels.

Those who would use it would perish, but they would perish for the Beggar’s sect while dealing a terrifying assault upon their foe.

It was called:

“The Earthly Scholar’s Final Breath! Back! Retreat!” The speaking warrior had only a moment to cry out a warning, before Ying launched herself upon him with her blade splitting the moon as she held it aloft. He tried to intercept with his own blade, only to see it hewn in half, along with his wide-brimmed wicker hat and his skull. “Kuh!”

The other warriors responded by attempting to retreat, but Ying pursued them.

She felt no pain.

She felt not madness.

She felt only soaring heights of power, as Qi flowed through her entire body, as her entire body consumed itself for one final stand.

Her sword cleaved through the blades of Murim Warriors with decades upon decades of cultivation and she ended their lives.

Her bones broke and her marrows was feasted upon by her starving body with every broken blade.

Her feet carried her with speed she never knew in her life, even as all the fat in her body was consumed with every step, as to allow her to cleave in two the fastest of her foes.

Flying blades seemed slow to her even as they coursed with the Qi and will of Murim Warriors bent on staying alive. They arced and danced in the air in dizzying patterns towards her, but they did so as though swimming through mud, and with singular swings of her sword she cut them from the air.

Red clouded her vision. Warm blood flowed from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, as her brain was forced beyond its limits and past them. Her ligaments and muscles tore as they were subjected to greater strength and movement than they could hope to withstand and with every foe she killed, Ying bled, broke, and became more and more like a living corpse.

But she did not hesitate.

One after another she struck them down. Her blade cleaved through skulls and bones and blades until shattered, only for her to take her breaking hands and curl them into fists.

But she felt not an ounce of fear.

Her skin tore against muscle enhanced by Qi. Bodies and bones that could turn aside knives and blades used by the untalented broke her bones, but yielded to her strength, as she cried out and killed her foes with her bare hands.

She continued to fight, until the last warrior sent to face her was dead and she stood alone, bleeding and broken, beneath a silver moon and an expanse of stars.

It was fading.

Her power and life were coming to an end.

But her nerves were broken, as was the rest of her body, and so she felt nothing but faint weakness as she stood beneath the uncaring moon and all the constellations of the cosmos.

In the end, even if she perished and died, Ying felt content in knowing that she at least avenged her people and greatly harmed an entire Sect.

Knowing that, she let go of what remained of her consciousness and fell upon blood-drenched snow.

As darkness and peace began to overtake her, as nothing claimed her, a light appeared in the corner of her vision just as she breathed her last.

…

Ying opened her eyes and expected to look upon Diyu and upon the hell she would have to endure, but instead looked upon curious violet eyes amidst locks of white hair looming over her.

The eyes curled and narrowed as a smile split the face above her.

“Hello! Good morning! My name’s Zhang! What’s yours?” The words were pronounced perfectly, but Ying couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow wrong. The joy and curiosity that she saw were both true, but they seemed off as well. “Hm? Hm? Hm?”

With every “Hm?” Ying’s strange savior tilted his head to and then fro, until she mustered the strength to speak.

“My name is Ying.” She forced herself to speak, even as she expected immense pain after being somehow healed from the Final Breath’s effects. However, she found no pain to come, and a moment later she raised her hands and found them hale and whole instead of broken stumps from ramming against Qi-enhanced flesh. Her world spun as innumerable questions tore through her mind and understanding. “How?”

“How what?”

Ying felt her frustration skyrocket as she held up her hands. It was obvious. She was asking why she was alive and whole after being poisoned and after administering the Final Breath upon herself.

“This!”

“Ah. Arms? Is there something wrong with them? I’m sure I put them back together properly.” Zhang hummed and reached out. Something deep within her, some sort of primal instinct, told her to not let him touch her… but she was frozen. She couldn’t move or interrupt the simple movement, while her heart thundered within her chest and her entire body froze against its will. “Let me check.”

The slim, calloused hand of the strange, ever-smiling man touched her arm.

And, Ying could only watch in horror as her arm came completely apart.

Skin gently rolled back like scrolls until her elbow. Every strand of muscle freed itself and became independent outstretched strands. Her blood vessels and nerves lifted off below the strands. From fingertip to elbow, her flesh, skin, muscle, and vessels of life painlessly disengaged themselves from her bones… which came apart themselves and floated in the air.

Through the shock and horror, Ying curled her hand into a fist and watched all the muscles and bones and tendons contract in the air, while blood flowed through her veins rapidly through her thundering heart.

“Hm. Everything looks fine! There’s nothing wrong, so that can’t be right!” Zhang’s finger left her hand and everything suddenly snapped into place. Ying stared at her hand, now whole after being not, and then turned her gaze upon the being that called itself Zhang, who had a small frown on his face. “But, if there is… we should go to town and make sure you’re okay! It’s my first time saving anyone, so I want to make sure I’m doing it right!”

The smile returned in full force and without a word Zhang got up… and the room around her came alive.

Jars flowed from shelves and towards Zhang. Walls came apart into boards of wood, before floating together and becoming a wagon by coming alive, shaping themselves into new forms, and then hardening and “dying” once again. The jars lids opened and Zhang expected each one in turn, before procuring simple rice cakes from one and nibbling upon it with a smile. Ying found herself lifted up from her bed, the blanket and bed she lay upon nude becoming the same clothes that she remembered wearing, but utterly bereft of blood.

But she paid them no heed, as Zhang whistled and two squirrels came his way… and he offered them one of the opened jars.

They squeaked at him, he smiled, and them poked each one of them in turn… and before Ying’s eyes they grew larger and larger, their fur fell from their bodies and were replaced by a different hide, while their bones lengthened, grew, and multiplied as their entire forms changed into tall draft horses for the wagon formed out of house.

Ying’s mind couldn’t understand what she was seeing, as Zhang chewed on rice cakes and walked over to the wagon, which sank upon its axels to allow him to sit and scoot over to one side of its seats.

She desperately tried to understand, until reins and harnesses formed upon the horses from thin air, and attached them to the wagon as he offered her the reins with a light blush.

“My father never taught me how to drive a carriage… so if you know how…”

Those words, above all else, caused Ying to laugh at her utter lack of understanding and comprehension at the entire ordeal before her… and take the reins as she did.

She didn’t understand, but all she couldn’t refuse, so she simply moved forward and desperately hoped that her sanity would return to her.

“Would you like a rice cake?”

Someday.