"Some martial artists are naturally blessed and gifted. Other martial artists are diligent and hardworking. Even less martial artists lust for the thrill of battle and the rush of combat. But, disciples, the most paramount of these are the martial artists that enjoy challenge and striving, and wield their weapon so that others need not raise it at all."

  From the Sermons of the Conquering King

  Xing's eyes widened, but her muscle memory took over. A beat late, but enough to apply the deflection. She lifted her blade just as Koago's horizontal slash cut from her right to her left. She raised her blade to meet it with her bladeflat backhanded, supported with her left hand.

  Koago commanded: "Crossing Sword Rhetoric!"

  And Xing did so. She converted her blocking position by stepping forward, crossing her legs—an untrained person would trip, but she was a performer and light on her feet—and sliding the blade flat up the length of the blade, and then going incredibly close so that Koago could not parry the incoming slash up.

  But he did anyway, somehow. He twisted his bladegrip into a heaven grip—his forehand up—and as he did he twisted his body while pushing the exposed bicep of Xing. As he pushed, he swung.

  Xing grunted as the blunted edge draw a purple bruise across her midriff—bare due to her new training clothes, and because she preferred not to wear too much cloth in the midst of the sewltering heat of Jeng—and the force of Koago's Ardor sent her hurtling backward, tumbling to the soil in front of his house, which was situated in the middle of the Ustrinnattha Forest to the far south of Selorong. This meant the sound of her body slamming against the dirt was not heard by anyone but heaven and the Adamantine of Endings.

  Wincing, Xing pushed herself to her feet. "Ouch. That fucking smart."

  Koago smiled. He sheathed his blade, and then tossed it casually to the side. It dissipated in a sheath of stardust. "And even that maneuver has its own counter. As all things have its own negation."

  Xing nodded. "Right." She performed the salute to Koago—Diamat Sword only has salutes, no bows—but then performed the heart reverence to her master afterwards. "Thank you for the lesson, master."

  Koago smiled again. Crows feet blossomed like lotuses from the corners of his eyes. "We should get some food. You should get some rest."

  They trained for an entire three months. The majority of it being sparring, training, and new moves for the Dialectical Materialism Sword. The minority was spent learning about the Realms Belligerent, the most powerful sects, most common sects, and all that. In truth, mostly knowledge that ultimately left Xing's head as soon as it entered.

  She did remember one thing that Koago had said: "All sects of Post-Calamity have survived either by being xenophobic hermitages or by sucking up to the neoliberal overlords that have become the rulers of the world, with their influence spanning the entire Utter Islands. An empire in all but name."

  Xing had seen them. They didn't have imperial troops and soldiers, no—they had paramilitary mercenaries, adventurers-for-hire, and hired blades to do their bidding. All working for the ultimate goal of profit. Under neoliberal capitalism, there is only one underlying ultima: that all of reality is governed by overwhelming progress and profit, self-benefit.

  She'd never had to tussle with them, fortunately. As long as they could pay their tax, the merchant class allowed them in their communities, towns, and cities. It definitely helped that her father was particularly good at cozying up with the bourgeoisie and the bureaucrat capitalists that ruled much of the political landscape of the Post-Calamity, save for the Ocean. But she'd seen these paramilitary mercenaries and adventurers at work—trained with the best of the best money, working for agency corporations that train them for adventuring before taking a cut of their work for the rest of their lives... These were the new knights, new samurai, new maharlikas—new man-at-arms that could change the tide of the battlefield, and they danced along the invisible strings of capital and profit.

  Of course, training in a martial art also meant cultivating the Lightness technique. This one was exceedingly easy for Xing, as she could already control minute amounts of her Breath when performing her high acrobatic dancing motions. "I'm glad Dialectical Materialism Sword has a technique such as the Lightness Technique," said Xing once as she used her Lightness to glide from the ground to the top of a bamboo pole, and then balance perfectly upon it.

  Koago watched her keep that standing position for a full minute, before nodding with a satisfied grin. He then said: "Well, in truth most martial arts will teach you this. The ability to control one's own Breath allows one to perform Lightness as a consequence. There are some martial arts that I know of that don't really emphasize it, however. Such as the Mountain Cleaving Greatknife of the Bloodcrusted Steel Sect and the Black Mace of Metom taught to the Mendicants of Black God Metom."

  Xing had seen a mendicant of the Black Mace of Metom before. They traveled wrapped in black raiments. Male mendicants tended to be completely covered, with only their eyes able to be seen, while women mendicants only covered their chests and legs, and had everything else bare, with their hairs always dyed black and never to be tied. They all fought with either a whip, a warhammer, a mace, or a gun.

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  "Don't emphasize it? What does that mean?"

  "Well, as we go down the masteries of the Dialectical Materialism Sword, I will teach more advanced Lightness techniques in tandem. The ability to flicker forward, to control your Breath so that you float down harmlessly, like a feather, and the ability to leap after having already leapt. Mountain Cleaving Greatknife, for example, only really teaches rudimentary Lightness like the farstriding techniques, and perfect physical equilibrium and balance, and not more of the ability to double or triple jump."

  Xing had seen normal farmers double or triple jump before, while traveling, when they had to reach fruits from high trees. "Can anyone cultivate Lightness in this manner?"

  Koago nodded. He summoned two more bamboo poles, and then he leapt on top of one and balanced on it. He gestured for Xing to follow suit with the opposite pole. She did so, gracefully and without much effort. He said, when she had settled into the One-Legged Egret Stance: "It must be said that to control Breath is something anyone can do, but it requires Discipline and it is far more difficult without a teacher. As with all things."

  Xing tapped her chin. "Has nobody thought of creating cultivator armies?"

  Koago bit his lip. "They have. We have cultivator armies right now. It started as a trend during the First World Revolution, where the wars were fought between powerfully armed armies and people armies mass-trained and mass-cultivated. It was the reason why the First World Revolution was a success—mass cultivation. Unfortunately, the neoliberal forces and the imperial forces are all stealing ants. They promptly copied what the Revolutionary Armies and the People's Armies have done and, well... warfare in Post-Calamity is dominated by small skirmishes between cultivated soldiers."

  "I see." Xing looked up at the sky. An eagle sang its song. "Will we ever know peace?"

  "We will," said Koago. "For a time. It is the fact that war's negation is peace, and that is inevitable for war. But all things are contradicting. And insofar as all things contradict, there will be a spin. And a spin means there is a cycle. And this world is cyclical."

  "Is there no succor?" asked Xing, crossing her hands in front of her.

  "For a time, there will be," said Koago. "But that is why we ultimately teach mass-awakening. So that everyone can free themselves from the coil of reincarnation and cycles and become Omniscients. That is what we mean when we say: 'Until all the hells are empty. Until all beings are free.'"

  Xing balanced on the bamboo pole, deep in thought. She hadn't thought to have had her ideals challenged in this way. Though, at that point, she never thought about it too hard. How could she? They were living performance to performance. They could hardly think about other things for the time being. It was a mercy to even be able to have dinner at the table without having to have to perform for it the day before.

  Or... perhaps that was just her. The old cooks and the caretakers of the houses always talked about things that Xing had thought were far above her intelligence-grade. I'm just a kid. I shouldn't be thinking about those things! That was what she was thinking whenever she had to be faced with those kinds of topics. She was simply not interested.

  But all those old maids and old cooks were dead. Along with the rest of her family. And now she had to face an entirely new world atop that. She had to face the greater truths of the world, now laid bare. The many veils—of childhood, of work, of survival—lifted from her eyes to let her see a destroyed world beyond any reprieve.

  Hell, though it was ubiquitous and everybody knew about it, she hardly knew the details of the First and Second World Revolutions! This was a point of shame for her, and so she kept quiet about it. But she was quickly learning just from her master. She silently thought that Koago already knew implicitly that she didn't know much about the matter, as any question she asked he would inevitably, judglessly answer.

  "Master," asked Xing. "What is the state of the world now, then?"

  Koago exhaled, and he lifted off of the bamboo pole and hovered slightly above it. He reclined into a relaxed position and he did not fall. He did not flip. The invisible air became his comfortable chair. He looked up at the sky, which was quickly turning indigo, as Night's Fair Maidens doused the orange horizons with paintbuckets of dark violets.

  "The scholars and everyone else knows. We are in Post-Calamity, after the Calamity of the Second World Revolution."

  Xing pouted, put both her hands behind her. "Guro, what is the Calamity?"

  Koago licked his lips. He thought for a moment. A long moment. A moment longer than any would have needed. Perhaps he wass eeking the right way to say it, or perhaps he was trying to hide something from Xing. He said, finally: "The United Union of Peace—that's the international political entity that has the most sway over the entire world, by the way, and is headed by the Confederation of Ressen-Nalenji. You see they... developed a weapon so potent that it sear away at an Ardor level, completely dissecting atoms until they were nothing but the electromagnetic light that is Ardor. The Ultima Bomb. And they used that twice: once to strike down Heaven, which was split into two factions—the Revolutionary Sympathizers and the Gods of Peace. And the second time, the last and final time ever, to bomb the Lotus Throne, to stop the Revolutionaries from reaching it and changing the tide of history forever."

  Xing had only heard about the Lotus Throne in stories, radio plays, and stage plays. More importantly, one of the stage performances they learned to do was the retelling of the 'building' of the Lotus Throne by the First Wizards. But she had never actually learned what the Lotus Throne was. "Guro, forgive me for all my questions."

  "No problem at all, my disciple. That is what I am here for."

  Xing gave a tight lipped smile. She said: "But what is the Lotus Throne?"

  "Another long discussion," said Koago. "But atop the mountain of Kij Dakmala, there is a giant lotus machine fixture. There one can sit upon a throne of Lotus. And by doing so, reach the highest heavens, or manipulate the forces of the Earth."

  "What is it? Is it truly a throne?"

  "I suppose it would be wiser to say that it is a weapon and a vehicle all in one. It is through the Lotus Throne that we can reach the higher strata of the atmosphere, where the heavens lie."

  "The heavens lie..." Xing looked up and pointed. "Up there?"

  "Aye. They reside in different dimensions so they are imperceptible unless you are brought to that dimension. As there are 108 Hells, so there are 108 Heavens."

  "All 108? Up there?"

  "No," said Koago, looking to the constellations. "Only the first 36. The next 72 are scattered across the void of the Cosmos. Other galaxies, stars, supernovas, constellations, planets..."

  "I see..." Xing looked up at the stars as well. "There is so much of the world I am still yet to know."

  "You will know it as we go," said Koago. "You have no choice, my dear disciple."