Chapter 550: Wine Night

Jack, Vivi, and Ebele were having a picnic on a lush hill. This wasn’t Jack main body, of course, but they shared a soul. He knew that the main body had just reentered the universe.

“How’s school going, Ebele?” he asked.

“It’s perfect!” she replied, stuffing herself with brioche bread. Crumbs rained on the blanket below. “My friends are all doing as great as I am, so we can be in the same classes. Norton got into coredust, however—I can see how it gives him energy, but relying on that it feels wrong.”

Jack chuckled. “Back in my day, we used coffee,” he said.

“Not everyone has the expensive coffee you use, dad. The regular kind just doesn’t affect cultivators.”

“It does if you drink enough.”

“Don’t encourage bad behaviors in your daughter!” Vivi said, her mood vibrant. “Focus on your studies, Ebele, but don’t forget to have fun. It’s equally important.”

“If not more,” Jack said.

“If not more,” Vivi agreed. “Forging a great self is better than excelling in your studies. It’s the foundation of everything.”

“I know. You’ve only told me, like, a thousand times,” Ebele complained.

Jack smiled. Since he shared memories with his main body, he could easily feel the difference between a warmongering, power-thirsting life and this simpler one. Both filled him equally. Of course, having memories and living them out wasn’t exactly the same, but he was so glad he’d made this clone.

Being with his wife and daughter every day—or whenever she took a break from the Academy—was a blessing in and of itself.

I just hope, he thought, looking at the blue sky, the dream doesn’t shatter tomorrow…

“Hey, Vivi, Ebele,” he said. Both women turned to look at him. “I love you.”

They blinked in surprise, then smiled sweetly. “I love you too, Jack,” Vivi said. “Both of you.”

“Me too,” Ebele said. Thankfully, she was past being a teenager, so associating with her parents came easy. Jack smiled at their affirmations. He opened his arms wide, embracing them both.

“Did something happen?” Ebele asked as she hugged him back.

“Nothing happened and nothing will,” he replied. “While I’m here, you’ll always be safe.”

“Um…” Ebele said. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled. They didn’t know about the final battle happening tomorrow. They didn’t need to. He would protect them… No matter what.

***

The night was breezy. Stars shone over the New Cathedral, shedding their light onto the top of the main temple, which the Arch Priestess had graciously offered to Jack and his friends. They could have drunk their wine between the clouds or in orbit, but there was a different joy to occupying the top of a tall building.

“To friendship,” Jack said, raising his cup. “The only constant of the cultivation world.”

“I thought the only constant was benefits,” Min Ling said.

“Only if you suck.”

Everyone laughed, cheering and then downing their cups.

“I like your universe,” Strawpin said, looking up at the stars. “Our sky is just gray and red. Not…this.”

Starhair wrapped his arm under her, Strawpin leaning in. “Every world is beautiful,” he said. “For example, your world had you. All the stars in the sky couldn’t compete with that.”

She giggled, while Fiend Prince snorted in laughter. “Can you believe this guy?” he said. “He was just a nobody before, and the moment he found a girl, bam! Prince Charming.”

“At least I’m trying. You were an average dude, then you didn’t find a girl, and bam! Still an average dude.”

“Hey! I’m a genius, you know! The first disciple of Jack Rust!” Everyone laughed over his words. “Why are you laughing? Ohhh, is it sparring time yet?”

“No sparring this time,” Jack said with a smile. “We’ll have plenty of fighting tomorrow. Tonight is for relaxing and enjoying life.”

“That’s true,” Brock said. “Let me change the subject, bros. How’s everyone feeling?”

They looked at each other. “Right now?” Min Ling asked.

“Now and always.”

“I’m apprehensive,” Starhair said, his arm going slack around Strawpin’s shoulders. “I feel we’re on the cusp of a massive breakthrough. If we can just survive this war, everything will be great…but can we? A single battle will judge the universe’s doom or endless prosperity. I know I won’t play much of a part, but after spending time with all of you, I can’t help feeling involved…and it scares me.”

Jack gazed softly over his cup. “You’ve changed a lot,” he said.

“I had to. Can’t keep pissing myself every time an Overlord looks at me the wrong way.”

They laughed again.

“It’s not a single deciding battle,” Heavenly Spoon said. He had broken the back of his chair and reattached it in a laid-back position, letting him lounge. A small silver spoon stuck out of his cup. “It’s the accumulation of all our efforts over the years. Every choice we’ve made, every danger we’ve overcome, and every opportunity we’ve grasped with our two hands. We didn’t know at the time, but everything led to this deciding moment. It’s a relief, in a way. Compared to everything we’ve already done, our performance in tomorrow’s battle matters little. The result is almost predetermined. We just have to play it out.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Fiend Prince said. “I understand you’re trying to compose yourself, but that is not the way of my Dao. Everything in the past only prepared me for this moment. I was sharpening my claws, and now is the time to use them. My performance matters.”

“I side with Fiend Prince,” Min Ling said.

“And I with Spoon,” Starhair said. “What about you, Jack and Brock? You’re the most accomplished individuals here. What do you think?”

Brock raised his cup and took a big sip. “I disagree with all of you,” he said. “The performance of any individual is unimportant. It is our cumulative bro experience that matters.”

Everyone gawked for a moment, then laughed. “That’s so Brock,” Min Ling said. As if drawn by an invisible power, all eyes slowly turned to Jack.

He’d been content to sit in his corner and listen to his friends speak. Sensing the attention on him, however, he smiled. “I’m just happy to be here,” he said. “Sure, I relish the opportunity to fight at the highest level. I’ll try my hardest and break myself to protect the world and my daughter. However… I can’t help becoming emotional. Less than thirty years ago, I’d never even heard of the Dao, and I spent my days studying biology and teaching undergraduates in a lab.”

“What’s undergraduates?” Min Ling asked.

“What’s a lab?” said Fiend Prince.

Jack laughed. “The point is,” he said, “back then, my world was so deceptively small. I could only see the tiniest corner of the tiniest corner of the universe. Even after the Integration, I remained a frog in a well for a long time. D-Grades were gods to me. I’d sworn enmity against C-Grades, whom I couldn’t even fathom defeating at the time. But I kept adventuring, and my power kept rising, and eventually I stand here, at the top of the world, drinking wine with people who could have made all my past problems disappear with the wave of a hand. I stand side by side with Archons, and tomorrow I’ll fight a war that the Animal Kingdom, my former nemesis, didn’t even qualify to participate in.”

He shook his head, wetting his lips with wine before he spoke again. Everyone waited.

“It feels surreal,” he finally said. “Like it’s all a dream. Me, just taking a stroll through the different power levels, living one fantastical adventure after another. I get emotional every time I think about how far I’ve come. I feel like it’s taken such a long time, but it’s only been, what… Thirty years?” He thought about it. “Okay, nevermind. That is a long time.”

“Only to you,” Starhair said, winking at Jack.

“How do you convince yourself it’s real?” Spoon asked. “If everything feels like a dream, how do you know it’s not?”

“Because of the pain. Pain and loss. They make it real.”

“Welp, that took a dark turn,” Strawpin said. Next to her, Starhair shrugged.

“I liked it. Jack for Arch Priest.”

They laughed again. So did Jack, the weight over his shoulders slowly dissolving.

“So, tell us about that,” Min Ling said, leaning forward and wagging a finger between Starhair and Strawpin. Her eyes held a tipsy light. “How did that happen?”

Starhair began. “Well, you know how bees fly from flower to flower? Sometimes, they—”

Strawpin slapped his shoulder. “We stayed in the Dark Canal for fifteen years,” she said. “One day, I asked Dave here—”

“Your real name is Dave!?” Jack interrupted.

“What about it?” Starhair asked back.

“I expected something better. Destructus or Gorgon or something. Dave the Long Hair Archon sounds silly.”

“Everyone has a normal name beneath their titles,” Spoon said, laughing. “Mine is Jonas—I think I’ve told you before. It’s not like we know we’ll become great when we’re born, and we can’t have everyone going around with epic-sounding names. You don’t want your coffee served by Ostenslor, the Destroyer of Worlds. Better Jeff, or Tiffany, or Sop. Part of the reason why we all use titles is that Sovereign Jonas does sound silly.”

“...Why am I still Jack?” Jack asked.

“Don’t worry bro. I also use my real name,” Brock said.

“You can make your own titles whenever you want,” Starhair said. “Of course, they’re usually created for you by everyone else, but I guess you haven’t lived long enough. Archon Fist sounds great.”

“Too similar to Archon One Fist.”

“Then Archon Punch. Or force him to change titles—you’re better.”

“Can I be Elder Big Bro?” Brock asked.

“Sure. Who I am, the title police?”

“I also use my real name,” Min Ling said. “And I still want to hear the story of Starhair and Strawpin, by the way.”

“Oh yeah,” Strawpin said. “Well, as we were just sitting there for fifteen years, I asked Starhair if he wanted to be my sex partner.”

“So romantic,” Spoon said with a laugh.

“It’s not over!” she complained. “He said no at first because, in his opinion, being straightforward was “weird” and “creepy.” So then we had a silly courting dance where we went on dates and stuff. He kissed me behind the Hall of Trial’s silver stele. That’s also where we—”

Starhair coughed, growing slightly redder in the face.

Strawpin continued. “Anyway, that’s how it went. Everyone else really looked forward to us becoming a thing, for some reason, but I think it’s just because our names start with the same letter.”

“That’s not the reason!” Fiend Prince said. “We wanted you to become a thing because you’re the hair duo.”

“I have nothing to do with hair,” she complained.

“Your straw looks like hair.”

“I like your hair,” Starhair said.

“And I like yours, sweety.”

Brock tilted his head. “Weird mating rituals,” he said.

“What can you do? Cultivators are weird like that,” Strawpin said.

“It’s a shame the Arch Priestess couldn’t join us,” Jack said with a sigh. “Too busy.”

“Where did that come from?” Spoon asked. “You fancy her?”

Jack realized nobody knew about Brock and the Arch Priestess. “She’s just young, like us,” he lied. “She would have fit in.”

“She and I do the sex sometimes,” Brock said, oblivious to everyone’s shocked glances. He looked around. “What?”

“You and the Arch Priestess!?” everyone said at roughly the same time.

“Yes. Why? Am I too handsome?”

“That’s not the point!!”

“Should you just be saying that?” Jack asked.

Brock shrugged. “It’s not a secret. Besides, these are our bros.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Everyone still reeled from the revelation. Jack started pouring more wine into their cups.

“We should take care not to get too drunk,” Spoon cautioned. “It’s a big day tomorrow, remember? Jack has to beat up the rival genius, and then we go to war. I wonder if Hero’s having wine with his friends right now.”

“I don’t think he has any,” Jack said, still refilling the cups. “Didn’t strike me as the type.”

“Hmm. But every hero has a sidekick, right?”

“Not if you can’t stomach sharing the spotlight sometimes.”

“Jack’s right,” Min Ling said. “I was talking with some of our subterfuge experts the other day. They regularly tap into the Immortal army’s off-the-records communications. Apparently, Elder Hero is a mega dick.”

“How so?”

“Some guy from the other side put it nicely. He said, and I quote, ‘Hard to live with a hero-complex princess.’”

“What does that mean? I’m a princess,” Strawpin said.

“You are?”

“Yeah. My father runs a small kingdom in the Outer Provinces of our world.”

“Oh. Then excuse my indiscretion, Your Highness.”

“Now what’s that supposed to mean!? I’m as monster as the rest of you!”

Everyone laughed again.

The wine cups emptied, then were refilled. The pitcher kept going down. This was the highest grade of liquor, with such potency that one drop could intoxicate all fish in a lake. Even these high-level cultivators were affected, their conversation bouncing around all kinds of topics, ranging from funny, to ridiculous, to inappropriate. Brock regaled them with details on how he and the Arch Priestess courted each other. In return, Strawpin was all too eager to discuss her and Starhair’s love life, which made the man go beet-red.

“Some things never change,” Jack said with a chuckle.

Only now did he realize how desperately he’d needed this. Even the most dedicated cultivator remained a person. Without unwinding, he’d eventually break like a string left taut for too long. This simple break, a night chatting and drinking with friends, completely unknotted and upgraded his psyche. He was ready to face the world tomorrow—quite literally.

They still had a battle to prepare for, however. A few hours later, after everyone had relaxed and enjoyed themselves, Brock was the first to stand. “We should go,” he said. “Going into battle unprepared would be a shame.”

“You’re usually the one who starts the drinking,” Jack said.

“Yes, but I’m responsible.”

Jack laughed, then stood as well. “Brock’s right,” he said. “This was fun. Let’s do it again tomorrow night?”

Everyone smiled as they followed. “You got a deal,” Min Ling said, swiping the table, chairs, wine, and cups into her space ring. Everyone bade goodbye with smiles and promised to repeat this outing tomorrow. No one mentioned the alternative.

That night, for the first time in untold years, Jack slept. He’d never woken up more refreshed.

“Are you ready, bro?” Brock asked as they finished breakfast. The armies were assembling outside. The air smelled of war.

“I am,” Jack said, walking out the door. “It’s time to finish this.”