Sen had enjoyed the first few weeks on board Captain Chen’s ship. Many of the sailors were new, but he’d recognized more than a few of them. There had been a little bit of awkwardness the first few days, but it mostly stemmed from a lingering sense of awe from the men he’d sailed with before. When he’d taken over in the kitchen a few times and served them meals that included some qi-rich meat from the edible beasts he’d killed in recent times, the last of that hesitancy had slipped away. Sen had discovered that food had a magical way of easing people into a state of mental and emotional comfort. He’d been more than a little pleased to find that the same thing applied to the men aboard the ship. After that, the crew of the ship treated him like a long-lost son or brother who had come home.

He'd also spent more than a little time with the captain having wide-ranging discussions. The captain wasn’t a noble but had come from a merchant family who sent him off to sea to help beat out a youthful wildness that had gotten the man into some manner of trouble. Little had they known that they’d sent the man off to find his calling. Sen had also discovered that the man had benefitted from an excellent education. That made him an ideal conversation partner for Sen. If nothing else, the man could help fill in some of the more mundane gaps in Sen’s own education. For all that Sen wanted to get some practical value out of the trip, though, he often found himself hanging on the captain’s every word as he described some harrowing experience that nearly destroyed his ship or some far-off exotic location he’d visited.

“You’ve been so many places,” said Sen. “I was starting to think that I was well traveled, but it’s nothing compared with you.”

Captain Chen smiled at Sen, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “Well, I think I may have a few years on you.”

Sen inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I suppose that’s true. Still, you used to sail to the far side of the continent. But no more?”

“No. No more.”

“May I ask why?”

“Ha! You’re so polite to this lowly mortal.”

Sen shrugged. “I was a lowly mortal not that long ago.”

“It’s easy to forget that cultivators start out the same as everyone else. As to your question, it’s no great secret. There are great fortunes to be made by sailing to the far side of the continent, but it’s also very dangerous. There are pirates, great beasts of the ocean, and a hundred other risks.”

“Don’t we have those here?” asked Sen.

“We do, but I’ve been sailing these waters for long enough that I know where to watch out for them. Plus, a trip like that can take years. That’s fine for young men with their whole lives in front of them and nothing waiting for them at home. I have a family. I’m away from them more than I’d like, but I still get to see them. Men who take those journeys to the far side of the continent often come home to find that the children they remember are fully grown and utter strangers. Some men come home to find their families simply gone without a word,” said Captain Chen with a look of old pain on his face. “For me, no fortune is worth that risk.”

Sen nodded. “I see. I hadn’t fully considered the costs.”

The captain gave Sen a small smile. “Well, it’s a mighty cost for a mortal like me. For a young cultivator with nothing but time ahead of him, well, why not go?”

“I’ve considered it,” offered Sen. “I have some obligations that I must fulfill before I can go, but I plan to cross the Mountains of Sorrow at some point.”

The captain seemed shocked. “Overland?”

“I expect so.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

Sen laughed. “It can be, although I suspect that I’d be alright. I’m used to fighting on land.”This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Captain Chen shook his head as though Sen were a madman but didn’t comment on it. Sen poured them both another cup of tea and saw the captain roll his eyes at the inversion of courtesy. It had made the sailor deeply uncomfortable at first, but Sen simply waved it off with a vague comment about respecting his elders. The captain picked up his cup and took a contemplative sip.

“I suppose I should ask this question now since I’m not likely to ever find another cultivator who has the time for a mortal.”

“What question is that?” asked Sen, his curiosity piqued.

“Do you have a plan?”

Sen squinted his eyes at the other man. “What do you mean?”

“Well, mortals have to make plans. We work, plan for the future, try to build something to pass on, and do it with the certain knowledge that someday we’ll be gone. But cultivators live so long, I always wondered if you plan that way.”

Sen leaned back in his chair and gave the question some serious thought. Eventually, he shook his head.

“I don’t have a plan like that. That isn’t to say I have no plans, but they’re different. I plan for advancing my cultivation. That can mean anything from finding a particular ingredient to securing the appropriate manual. But I can’t say that I’m planning in terms of building something to pass down.”

“So, no family? No great love?”

Sen hesitated before he finally said, “I have family, but probably not like yours. There are other cultivators that I’m very close with, people that I trust with my life. As for love,” Sen considered the few women he’d been intimate with, “no. I’m not celibate, but there’s no great love waiting to welcome me home.”

The captain gave Sen a considering look. “You should try it. I can’t imagine you’d have trouble finding someone who was willing.”

Sen groaned a little. “Oh, there’s plenty who would be willing. The problem isn’t them. It’s me. I’m too…” Sen cut off as something moved into the sphere of his spiritual sense. “Damn it.”

“What?” demanded the captain.

“I knew this trip was going too well. You should join your men on the deck. I’m pretty sure I have to go have a fight.”

“With who?”

“One of those giant sea beasts you mentioned earlier,” said Sen.

The two men made their way up to the top deck of the ship, where the rest of the crew looked like they desperately wanted to panic. Sen walked over to the railing and stared out the water, his spiritual sense sweeping out and pinpointing the ocean-going spirit beast. Even at a distance, he could feel the beast’s anger and desire to destroy. He didn’t know what it was, having never felt anything like it before, but he decided to answer that aggression with aggression of his own. He lashed out at the beast with his own killing intent. He’d frightened off more than a few spirit beasts with it on the trip already. Still, he wasn’t entirely surprised when it didn’t work on this one. Sighing to himself, Sen summoned the heaven chasing spear from a storage ring. He’d been focused more on his jian recently, but he assumed that the spear would prove the better weapon against some massive sea creature. He gave the captain a look over his shoulder.

“I’ll try to drive it off or kill it.”

Then, Sen hardened a qi platform beneath his feet and flew off the deck on a direct line with the massive beast. While the prospect of fighting a spirit beast didn’t normally give Sen much pause, he felt nervous about fighting this one. He couldn’t get a clear sense of its advancement, which was always a little unnerving. Beyond that, his spiritual sense was muted by all of the water. While he knew that the spirit beast was out there and that it was huge, he hadn’t been able to glean a clear picture of what it actually was. He’d heard some strange stories from the captain about all of the fantastical beasts the man had seen. While those stories had ignited his imagination, they also tried to fill in for the total lack of information Sen had about what he was facing. That was not ideal because it might make him fall into a trap of wrong assumptions.

Not that it would change his mind about facing off with the beast. It was headed straight for the ship. He wasn’t just going to turn aside and let it kill all of the people who were on board. He knew some cultivators would do just that, considering it little more than a mild inconvenience. After all, it was just mortals on the ship. What were their lives compared with the value of a heavens’ defying cultivator? Sen shoved that thought aside. Being angry with other cultivators wouldn’t serve in the fight ahead. There was a part of him that still did the mental calculations, though. If everything went terribly wrong and he couldn’t save the ship, he could get to shore on his own. Once he got there, he could travel by foot. With his qinggong technique, he could likely get to the cove faster than the ship would get him there.

Of course, he wasn’t going to do any such thing. Unless the beast somehow managed to get past him, sink the ship, and kill every sailor aboard, he wasn’t about to head for shore. He knew that it was entirely possible that this exact event would have happened even if he hadn’t been on board. There was also a very real possibility that his presence had attracted the spirit beast. Even if he wasn’t responsible for attracting the beast, he was certainly the only person who could fight it. While mortals could and did bring down spirit beasts from time to time, it usually took large numbers of them working together. They’d have no chance with something as big as whatever was lurking under the water. With one last burst of speed, Sen closed the gap and the spirit beast rose to meet him with an explosion of water.