Synopsis
"It is said he walked through fire and rain"
Ramor-Tai monastery is the haven of the Wasteland - the place where heroic Cultivators can hone their skills through meditation and martial tournaments. For decades this place has stood as a bastion of humanity against the storms of war that threaten to engulf what remains of the world, though the Disciples of each Sect have agreed to a strict pact of non-interference with worldly affairs.
So when a man made of steel comes to knock at their doors one morning, he is met with shock and suspicion.
Jade-skinned beauties? Godlike powers? The ability to command the heavens themselves? These common dreams were not the desires of the machine-man. All he cared about was learning, understanding, and harnessing his Qi. All he wanted was an answer to the question: "Do I have a soul?"
His name was XJ-V. This is the tale of his legend.
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Chapter 1 - Man of Stone
It is said he arrived through fire and rain.
Like all legends, this is only half true. Indeed, the Ramor-Tai monastery had been wracked by terrible storms all day, but fire was not raining from the skies.
The fire came from his eyes.
The Disciples watched him as he approached up the mountain pass, having braved the ten thousand steps. He was clad in a torn leather cloak that hid his face from their young eyes. One man ran up to grab his arm and turn him away at the gates, before realizing too late what he was.
"A…Cog!"
The young Disciple was answered by the neon blue lights of the robot's eyes looking right at him, and he stumbled away in fear, allowing the stranger to pass.
When the shambling automaton came into the monastery courtyard the murmurings of the Disciples echoed like the songs of frogs in the ponds, each one of them wondering why a grey-skinned Cog had come among them, and why the thing's eyes blazed with such intensity.
"We would be better to kill it now!" one of them cried.
"No," another responded. "You know how they speak of the men of stone – they are battle-ready machines powered by demons. Let the Masters deal with him."
Feng Lung, a promising new student of Master Longua, saw the Cog approach his Master's quarters as he was finishing up his evening meditation.
"Cog…" he murmured. "Y-you cannot go any further!"
The young Feng lifted his arms and spread his feet, assuming the Prancing Crane technique his Master had taught to him. It was an ancient technique known to Cultivators throughout the Eastern Rim, and most – save the insane - would never dare to look upon one who assumed the stance.
But the Cog simply looked up, nodded at young Feng, and opened his metallic mouth to ask a simple question.
"Is your Master home?"
Feng was taken aback. He had never heard a Cog speak before. Indeed, he and the rest of Ramor-Tai had only heard rumors of the men of stone who lived on borrowed time, their hearts beating with infernal magic that was an affront to the Qi of the Universal Dao.
But its voice was not necessarily unpleasant. It had a metallic tint to it – like the robot was speaking through different shaped teeth.
For a moment, Feng allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. His Master had taken great pains to try and iron it out of his soul, but it was a character trait he simply couldn't leave behind. Even as a young boy he had been fascinated with catching the tails of cats in his home village at the foot of Ramor-Tai mountain. He had become so good at it that, when the Cultivators from Ramor-Tai had come passing through for their weekly supplies, his mother had practically forced him on the men as a new student. He had been overjoyed to be accepted into the Sect of the Eternal Dragon under the tuteledge of Master Longua. His Sect was most famous for its calm, controlled, and virtuous warriors.
These memories brought a smile to his face. He lowered his stance, shook his long orange sleeves free from rainwater, and addressed the Cog like an equal, even as he knew the other Disciples were looking at him like he was talking to a ghost.
"Master Longua is in meditation right now," he said.
The Cog nodded again and started to walk right past Feng.
"Hey!" he shouted. "You cannot disturb-"
The look the Cog gave him as he tried to reprimand it chilled Feng to the bone, and so he bit his tongue, cursed his silly childish curiosity, and allowed the robot to pass through the carved jade doors to his Master's study.
I wonder what the Cog wants with the Master? He thought as rain pelted off his bald, tattooed forehead.
He did not have the look of an assassin, or a trader. So, what then?
When the Cog pulled back the heavy stone door of Master Longua's meditation chamber, he was struck by the darkness of its interior. A series of candles lined the floor, dimly throwing soft shadows across the ground, and the most prominent feature was that of a long-bodied dragon at the far end of the room – it's lithe form curled into a spiral that ended at its head. Beneath the dragon's watchful gaze, sat a man withered by time and combat. He was a man with a long, wispy beard that lay gracefully over his slowly moving chest, and complemented the snow-drop white of his flowing, wide-cuffed robes. His face was wrinkled like a prune, and yet the fierce intensity that shone in his eyes when he opened them was more than a match for the robot's blazing gaze.
Both the old master and Cog met each others' stares, and the latter slowly came forward and knelt before the man.
Rather amused, Master Longhua snorted at the creature.
"What is your name, man of stone?"
The robot answered, "XJ-V"
A name of form and function, the Master thought.
A name bestowed by man.
"Why have you come before me?" he asked. "What is so important to a being such as you that the meditation of a Cultivator can be interrupted?"
Much to the Master's surprise, the Cog bowed his head low and placed his palms on the floor before him.
"Master Longua," he said. "I have come to learn."
The Master stroked his long beard with a thin, but firm, hand.
"There are many things one can learn," he said. "How the wind blows through the water bank and ruffles the reeds, why the ox does not complain as it moves the farmer's load, how the dung of cows can give rise to new life. These things can be learned by observing the world. You possess eyes, do you not? Go out and seek what knowledge you desire."
The Cog's servos stuttered as his head shook abruptly. "These eyes can't find what I'm looking for."
Master Longua grew impatient. "So, you are like the brash young men who come to us from the tiny Clansteads at the foot of our mountain? Or those who walk through the Wastes with hopes that our Sects shall show them what their heart's desire: jade-skinned beauties, power to pierce the heavens, respect of all who who are left in the world?"
When the Cog did not respond, Master Longua scoffed.
"Bah!" he said. "You are a thing made of this earth with earthly desires, then," he said. "Go back to the Wastes where you belong."
But the Cog did not move, even after Master Longua's thinly veiled threat.
Hm, the old Master thought.
He does not show fear. But that may be because he simply cannot feel the emotion.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked the Cog.
The robot did not shake his head, but he did answer.
"What I seek is not a thing of this world," he said in his metallic voice. "It is the answer to a question."
The Master of the Eternal Dragon pondered this.
"A man of stone comes before me seeking an answer he does not know. He will be disappointed to learn that answers from the mouth of a Master of the Internalized Ego are not easily bought."
"My creator," XJ-V said, unperturbed. "He told me you were the only one who could know the answer to this question, Master."
Longua watched the metal man's features grow serious. Strained – like he was in some kind of emotional turmoil. He had been trained, then to mimic the emotions of humans, perhaps as a defense mechanism. The Master would not be so easily tricked.
Still, if only to satisfy his creeping curiosity, he would know what it was the Cog sought. Perhaps his chipper young student, Feng Lung, was beginning to rub off on him.
"Well then, man of stone who comes seeking answers, tell me: what is your question?"
XJ-V lifted his arm gently and brought it to his rickety grey chest, where internal servos and pistons churned together to give him life.
"Does this chest contain a soul?"
Master Longua saw the earnestness in his face as he spoke the words. He felt the keenness of his voice and saw, even through the blinking lights that served as his eyes, the desire that lay at the heart of this man of stone's entire being. The Cog's will had such strength that Longua noted how the candles began to flare up behind him, bathing him in an infernal, otherworldly light.
An evil light.
The Master closed his eyes for a moment and sucked in a small puff of air. When he opened his eyes again, he fixed the Cog with the stare of a tiger.
"You dare come before me unannounced and demand an answer to a question you do not even understand," he said. "How could you, a beast of metal and lights, know what it is you ask?"
The Cog's eyes narrowed. "I must know the answer, Master."
"Do not call me this!" Longua bellowed, his voice reverberating off the walls of his chamber and causing the roaring flame of the candelights to rise to the ceiling. "You are but a replica of a man. What do you know of the soul?"
"I – I come to learn." the robot replied. "My creator told me you would teach me if I showed the proper respect. Am I not doing this?"
Longua spat. "Respect?" he scoffed. "Another word that means nothing to you. You are like a child blundering around without understanding anything you do. Your 'creator' was mistaken. You shall learn nothing here."
The Cog made to stand, his fists clenched. "Master, I cannot go back out there. I have turned my back on this world. It is the world of the spirit that I must enter now."
Longua's fiery eyes met the internal fire of the Cog's passion and found themselves unimpressed. He was a machine. A tool of war – nothing more.
"No," Longua said, raising a single palm to silence any more protests. "You are not worthy. You have no patience. No control. And no idea of what it is to suffer in this world as we mortals do. Until you understand such things, the world of the spirit will always be closed to you."
And with a single fluid motion, Longua flicked his hand in the Cog's direction and sent him spiraling out of the room in a gust of air. The Cog landed on his back outside the chamber and watched as the carved doors locked themselves behind him.
The rain beat against his grey forehead. For a moment he just sat there, watching the doors to his destiny close themselves shut.
"I did tell you so," Feng Lung said from behind him. "The Master of the Eternal Dragon Sect does not admit just anyone to our ranks, even if they are a Cog. I think you should head back do-"
Once again, the Cog's piercing eyes met Feng Lung's and the young Disciple shifted uncomfortably away from the machine-man. He decided he would simply go back to his rice paddy and get on with his life. Let the Cog stew away in anger. Let him beat against the bars of the Master's chamber if he wanted. It would be wasted effort to destroy the beast. Like all children, he would eventually just get bored and go away.
But XJ-V had other ideas. He stood, his tattered cloak hanging limply from his thin, skeletal shoulders, and clenched his fists.
He had come all this way and endured too much to be turned away here and now. The desire to learn the secrets of this place was too strong within him. The fact they held the key to the locked door within his heart was too tantalizing to just walk away from.
If Master Longua wouldn't accept him willingly as a student, then he would have to be forced to.
