He didn’t forget the keg, of course. For that, he’d lit up a brown flame beneath the barrel’s ironlike wood. Both the barrel and the contents heated up, and Cha Ming began the tiresome process of separating the well-mixed alcohol using the gravity generated by the brown flame. To his relief, it wasn’t an inseparable mixture, just a very tedious separation.
Cha Ming opened his bleary eyes as he regained consciousness. A small rainbow fish was nudging his cheek. He recognized the fish. “Yu Gen,” he said, lifting his hand and stroking the rainbow fish. “How are you doing these days?”
“Pretty good,” the small rainbow fish said. “We’ve all been very busy. Master Sun has a very important task for us, and we dare not slack off. We fear his big stick.”
A full school of younger fish, who kept a safe distance behind Yu Gen, nodded in unison. They eyed Cha Ming curiously from behind the smaller but braver rainbow fish, who had always been the friendliest of the bunch.
“If you’re working hard, then I can’t slack off,” Cha Ming said, pushing himself up. He swept the dirt off his robes and used qi to purge the rest. He looked around for Sun Wukong but failed to spot him. “Where’s that dirty old man gone to this time?”
“Master Sun said you could find him on the north end of the garden,” Yu Gen said. “Our work will keep us busy for some time. Go on ahead without us.”
Interesting, Cha Ming thought as he left the fish for the white space beyond the garden. I wonder what he’s got them doing.
Before long, he passed over the edge of the garden and into the empty whiteness of the Clear Sky World. The soil ended abruptly, and from the side, it looked like the entire garden had been uprooted like a tree, with a rather large shovel.
“Took you long enough,” Sun Wukong said, appearing beside him. He took a drink from his small keg of liquor.
“I might not be as strong as I was on Jade Moon Planet,” Cha Ming said, “but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with higher regenerative abilities than me on the Ling Nan Plane.”
“Is that what you think?” Sun Wukong said. “You’re gravely mistaken. There are thousands of demons out there with better recovery powers than you. Dozens of devils on this plane alone. In Haijing City, there are at least a hundred body cultivators that could put you down without breaking a sweat.”
Cha Ming gulped. “Isn’t body cultivation difficult?” He’d expected the demons, but the devils? And even normal cultivators?
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Sun Wukong said. “Devils are mostly body cultivators. While your Seventy-Two Transformations Technique is strong, devils and angels are naturally stronger than you. You’ve chosen the neutral path. The easy path.”
“But why would the path of devils or angels be stronger?” Cha Ming asked. “I just don’t understand it. I’ve heard others speak of balance, how fortune and power are opposites. Currently, good-aligned people are favored by providence, but devils by power. If that’s the case, why are angels also stronger than neutral cultivators?”
Sun Wukong chuckled. “You’ve felt it, right? Your body, your affinity with the elements. Everything got stronger when you received what you call half an angelic endowment, right?”
“That’s right,” Cha Ming said. “Even my flames got stronger.”
“Thank the painter for that,” Sun Wukong muttered. “If not for that blessing, we’d still have years ahead of us in flame practice. It’s not actually wood that you’re worst at but flames. Even with half an angelic endowment on a flame-aligned path, you’re only barely better at controlling fire qi than wood qi. But let’s ignore that for now.” He summoned five sigils in his hand. They morphed into the five elemental sigils that Cha Ming knew too well. “Recognize them?”
Cha Ming nodded. “They’re like I remember them. Only…” From what he could see, there was nothing wrong with the characters. They just seemed… dull. Lifeless, even. “They’re missing something.”
“But what if I do this?” Sun Wukong said. He clenched his fist, and suddenly the dull sigils burned brightly. New feelings overwhelmed Cha Ming. He felt the burning rage of flame. He felt the cold indifference of water. He felt the calm rebirth of wood. He felt sharp, surgical failure. Finally, he felt unrelenting, unbowed, unbreaking earth. The sheer determination of the fifth character caused Cha Ming’s jaw to slacken in awe.
“I showed you mine, now show me yours,” Sun Wukong said.
Right. These were Sun Wukong’s emotions.
Cha Ming gulped. He summoned the same five sigils, but despite being identical in form, they differed greatly in feeling. His own characters screamed balance. A man crumpled before pulling himself together, stronger than ever. A man overcame the ocean called life and fate, breaking through crashing waves to swim ever faster. A man sharpened his dull blade with the whetstone of experience. Hope was kindled amid the loss of a lover. Only wood was empty, out of balance with the others.
“They don’t only feel different; they are different,” Sun Wukong said softly. “Those four flames are stronger because you’re stronger as a person. Feelings have weight since they’re the manifestation of your Dao. Angels have strong feelings, as do devils. Everything they do, everything they are is stronger than a lukewarm mortal who doesn’t take sides.
“In this generation, devils are stronger because they are persecuted. Their feelings are stronger because it’s the only way they can survive in a world that’s overwhelmingly prejudiced against them. Angels, on the other hand, just haven’t had to deal with the same pressure. They’re stronger than those who haven’t chosen a side, for sure, but they’re not like devils. They’re like…”
“A blade that hasn’t been oiled or sharpened,” Cha Ming finished softly.
“That’s right,” Sun Wukong said. “But back to the main point. You’re not as tough as a lot of people on this plane. Haijing is full of strong body cultivators because they’re descendants of a god. They’re
