Chapter 9-253 - The State of the Nation (1/2)

When the information conference ended, all three of us were mobbed. I got the scholarly folks and the spellcasters, naturally enough; Sama got the hardline martial artists and the people who wanted to become Forsaken or Sources, and Shvaughn got those interested in becoming Warlocks... and women who wanted to become Amazons.

She was a Warlock Grandmaster, but it actually fell to Master Fred to call up the Place Spirits of Taiwan and the seas around it to empower the first Warlocks eager to make more contributions. Just the introduction of Citybound was going to make a huge difference, both because they could sense the state of the city... and because they could get stronger, to defy the Powered who were running things wrong to benefit themselves.

I quietly brought in both Windgraf Mochtal and the Angelos to sponsor new Stormbound, Heavenbound, and some Firebound, with other Firebound also swearing to the Spirits of the volcanoes on the island.

I also brought with me some very appreciated steel for making weapons and armor, and a full 20x20 Tapestry full of useful trade stuff (and maaaybe a few luxuries) that could be used to start the Leveling process.

When they learned vivus burned Cultivators and fed all that power back to the Land, clearing out that stinking Qi field, their enthusiasm to make and Name Weapons spiked quickly, previously brushing it off as just more Western magic. Of course, learning they earned much more Karma when they killed undead in one of the many Shroudzones on the mainland with vivus, and such didn’t come back, also helped.

After all, they had a lot of Leveling to do!

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“Hong Kong isn’t dominated by Cultivators?” I was actually surprised to hear that.

Master Gong Yuang had quickly ended up as our attaché, and given his silver Aura, I was happy to let him do so.

Master Go Man, his pride thoroughly crushed after getting pummeled by Sama and Shvaughn both individually and as part of a group, still represented a very martial faction, and was very interested in getting stronger. If that meant changing the path he was on, so be it. He had been forcibly introduced to the fact that the power of his techniques, although very useful, didn’t mean he was even that difficult to beat.

Masters Chin Chiun and Fang Anna were with Sama, being interested in both recruiting more Forsaken and the Lesser Dragons. Being Forsaken couldn’t benefit from the gods either; the atheist Ghost Leopard master was plenty happy to recruit more people who could kill people who used chi or magic without having it themselves, and Fang Anna simply wanted people, especially women, able to protect themselves.

Master Gong unfurled a map in front of the dozen of us here, painstakingly drawn and updated from records; part modern survey, part hand-drawn. I considered it coolly, looking it over and deciphering the symbols clustered all over the bloody place.

There were over twoscore Shroudzones, including whole sections of the Great Wall of China, the City of the Dead near Beijing, and whole swathes of the Yellow River and Central Plains.

China had a long and bloody history, and it had not improved at all in recent times. There was a Zone nearby, but not in Shanghai, which I tapped and raised an eyebrow.

“The undead were driven out of Shanghai by the new Powered before a Shroudlord, what you call a Dark Minister, was first anointed by the dark clouds. The martial artists of the city kept the undead at bay with Wards and combat, but were not prepared for the treachery of the Cultivators. Over half of the defenders died, and the rest were driven from the city bloodily. The Cultivators maintain the Wards, and are strong enough to face off against what undead pass them, but Shanghai is now theirs,” Master Go Man grunted, his eyes flickering to the past, his voice holding hidden pain and anger. “The Cultivators who come to raid us generally come from Shanghai, seeking Powered souls to fuel their Cultivation more quickly. The Daoist scum sacrifice any Powered born among the population to get stronger, and so rise in strength very quickly. Our presence here is like the smell of honey to them, and they never stop coming.”

“Somewhere between ten to twenty percent of humanity can practice the Cultivation technique of the Daoist Creed,” I informed them. “While only a tithe of those can actually develop strength... it is still a greater portion of the people than are born Powered, and naturally they don’t have to wait so long to get stronger.” My eyes returned to Hong Kong. “What is going on there?”

“The Buddhists have come up from the south,” an Amanan Priestess named Song White spoke up calmly. “The southern lands have long been part of the Buddhist faith, and when this developed, they embraced the Mandate enthusiastically. The people are basically mindless drones under the control of the Buddhists now.”

“It is not truly a Buddhist thing. In the greater realm of Creation, it is called the Nirvanic Enlightenment... which is to say, not enlightenment at all, but obedience to the Nirvanic Ideal. It is a corrupted force of the powers of Axiom, not very different from the Daoists, merely in a different direction. Some worlds call it the Buddhist Mantra instead, but it is all the same: subjugation, obedience, sublimation. The Enlightened of the Mantra are no more human than the Daoists,” I stated for their benefit. “Perhaps their power looks holy to the uninitiated, but I do not doubt you have seen the corrupt stasis at its heart.”

Heads nodded all around. Some of the strongest Wu Jen, Shugenja, Sohei, and Priestesses of the country were with me now. They had felt my power tapping the threads of magic, and didn’t need to be further shown that I was strong... and I was already not human.

I had noticed that the rise of the Daoists had forcibly broken many of the older traditions of the Chinese. The Daoists preyed upon Confucian ideals, the obedience of lessers, and similar notions. As a result, the Powered tended to rebel against such things that shackled their own ambitions. Among other things, it meant that many of them often chose their own names, their status as Powered making them different from their ancestors, and knowing that their children couldn’t inherit their power, passing on their heritage became a thing of ideals and ability, not bloodline.

“The Buddhists and Daoists cannot co-exist, of course,” Master Gong added on. “They seek to recruit the very same people, looking for those with suitable meridians. Naturally those who are under the Enlightenment cannot become Daoist Cultivators, and even their subjugated Powered lose all their potential.”

“Ho, snatching their food and forebears away beneath their noses. The area is split between them?”

“There is a significant force of Powered based in Hong Kong itself, as opposed to the rest of Guangzhou. They organized fairly quickly and with great discipline, and have a greater Western influence,” Song White said for all of them, the Chinese looking somewhat uncomfortable. “There are far more spellcasters in Hong Kong than there are among our people, and they work in concert with the Schools there to face down all the Daoists. With the Buddhists ready to sweep in at any show of weakness, the Daoists have not dared gather in sufficient force to crush them, but they have managed to isolate them from the rest of the world. Without access to technology or much food, their situation is dire, but they have managed to hold on until now.”