Gleam Karma Cultivator Isekai

Chance’s footfalls echoed through the cracked alleys of the Old City. Several jagged tears ran through one of the new shirts he’d bought, from where a warped Soothound had managed to catch him.

The Old City had run him ragged this time, sending several dozen of the larger Soothounds him at once. If the square they’d been fighting in had been a little larger, they probably would have just swarmed him. But, due to the tight quarters, the monsters were practically tripping over each other as they tried to get to him.

Even though he was walking away victorious, Chance couldn’t shake the dissatisfaction hanging over him.

If I can barely handle a bunch of Soothounds, how am I supposed to do anything against Yamish?

He shook his head, lost in his own thoughts. A passageway opened up before him, leading into Gleam proper, and he started down it. Chance was so distracted that he didn’t spot the person standing at the end of the path until he was nearly upon her.

Chance nearly leapt a foot into the air as he finally spotted an older woman leaning against a wall, a large wooden tankard full of frothy beer in her hands. Tangled, gray hair hung low over her shoulders and her clothes were stained.

She cast a lazy glance in Chance’s direction, and the two locked eyes for a few moments. Chance swallowed. The last thing he needed was for someone to start wondering why he was walking through walls.

Maybe she’s too drunk to notice?

The woman raised the tankard to her lips and took a long swing from it. She belched, lowering it and wiping her mouth with the back of a sleeve.

“What are ya staring at, kid?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Chance said, rubbing the back of his head with an awkward laugh. “I was just walking, I guess. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

The woman hiccupped, then took another drink from her tankard. “Convenient. Mind helping me to the tavern? I got lost.”

“Sure, if you can tell me where it is. Are you sure you should have any more to drink though? You might get sick,” Chance said, taking a step toward her. If she hadn’t seen what had happened, there was no reason not to help out.

Chance paused, his eyes catching on the tankard. It was still full. The woman’s head lolled to the side.

“What are you waiting for? Help me out here, it’s probably just around the corner. I just need a bit of support getting there.”

“I’d love to help,” Chance said carefully. “Could you just tell me why you need to go to the tavern first?”

“To get drunk, you blithering idiot. Why else?”

“Why would you need to go to a tavern to get drunk when your tankard doesn’t seem to run out?”

The woman stopped moving. A small grin tugged at the corners of her lips and she straightened up, pushing away from the wall with no effort.

“Keen eye you got there, kid.”

“Let’s just call it lucky,” Chance replied. “Is there something you want with me?”

The woman let out a bark of laughter. “Want with you? That’s one way to put it. I can’t be the first to make it, can I? The trip here took so long.”

“The first? Of what?” Chance watched her for the slightest sign of aggression, but the woman seemed content to just stand. Unfortunately, she was also standing directly in his path back to Gleam. He could always retreat back into the Old City if things got hairy.

The woman cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe I am. Huh. That’s a first. I try to make it a point not to be timely.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Chance discretely sent Essence into his third eye. He paused. There wasn’t a single thread of Karma attached to her. As far as he knew, it was impossible to be completely free of any debt – unless she wasn’t free at all.

“You’re a Karma cultivator.”

“What did I tell you? Astute,” the woman praised, raising her tankard to him in approval before upending it down her gullet. She let out a satisfied sigh, lowering it to reveal that it was still filled to the brim. “You figure that out on your own?”

If I’m telling someone else about Yamish, it definitely isn’t a random woman I ran into in an alleyway.

“Does it matter much?” Chance asked, deflecting the question. “Why would you seek me out, though? Just curiosity?”

The woman snorted. “Haven’t you noticed, kid? Things are drawn to you. Well, not you in particular – all Karma cultivators have a pull. Call it luck or whatever you want, but we’ve got a pull. When a new cultivator of our path shows up, the peanut gallery pops up to take a look at them.”

Chance couldn’t see any real aggression in her posture, and he allowed himself to relax slightly as well.

“If you don’t mind me asking – why? Something tells me you’ve come from farther than just the neighborhood. That can’t just be to satisfy your curiosity.”

He was graced with a wide smile for his question. “If you don’t have a teacher, than I’ll be happy to pass along a little nugget of my own wisdom. Nothing in this universe is free. For every great boon, there is a great payment. For every victory, you must sacrifice. You get the picture, yeah?”

“If nothing is free, why are you giving me advice?”

Her grin grew wider. “Because it’s a lot easier to pay the prices of the universe when you’ve got a whole bunch of expert manipulators of it standing at your side. Karma cultivators seek each other out to establish Karma. We command incredible power, but the cost is that we have to tear it from the universe’s unwilling hands. That tends to lead to pretty big payments, if you get my picture.”

“So… you’re here to form an alliance with me?”

This time, the woman burst into laughter. “Not in a hundred years, kid. Your power is a fart in a hurricane. But – maybe after a hundred years – you might be useful. Then, when the universe decides it’s my time to pay up, I’ll come knocking on your door.”

“That’s… an interesting way to do things. So all the Karma cultivators help each other out?”

Her smile fell. “No, not all of them. But hey, you’re still around, so evidently your power wasn’t a big enough pull to get any of the real nasty bastards around. No need to worry about them now.”

“Right,” Chance said slowly. He glanced around, then sat down on an old wooden crate. It didn’t look like this conversation would be ending anytime soon. “I think I follow, then. I’m not sure I’ll be alive long enough to help you, but if I am, and you haven’t done anything reprehensible, then I’ll try to help pay you back. I assume things have to be in balance, though, so am I just supposed to answer one of your questions in return?”

“If I only showed up to get a question answered, you wouldn’t be much help at all when the time came,” the woman said with a chuckle. “You don’t have a teacher, right? I’ll step in. For a bit, at least. Teaching is a lot of effort, you know.”

“I don’t doubt that. Does that mean there are a bunch of other Karma cultivators headed toward Gleam as well?”

“It’s possible, but probably not. Especially not if I was the first to find you,” she said with a shrug. “As I said, I’m usually really late at these things. If nobody popped up before me, your arrival on Centurion wasn’t powerful enough to draw anyone too significant. Don’t let it get you down. It’s for the best.”

Chance nearly told her about Yamish on the spot, but he held his tongue. The woman seemed nice, but Yamish had too. For that matter, he still wasn’t even certain that the Old City wasn’t lying to him. He resisted the urge to tug at his hair in annoyance.

Why can’t everything just be easy?

“I’m Chance, by the way. We haven’t introduced ourselves yet.”

“Lucy. Pleasure, Chance. You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m going to forget your name. When you get to my age, you meet too many people to keep track of them all – especially when most of ‘em will be dead in a few years anyway.”

“That’s a bleak way to look at things, but I get the feeling you’re a lot older than you look.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes. “You got a lady friend, kid?”

“What? No.”

“I couldn’t have guessed. You have such a way with words,” Lucy drawled. She took another long swig from her tankard, then let out an impressive, five second long belch. “Right, boy. As much as I’d like to sit around here and talk, I can’t stick around for too long.”

Chance blinked. “What? I thought you came here specifically just to do that.”

“I came here to offer you a bit of training,” Lucy corrected. “Not to become your permanent mentor. A mentor relationship is much more work than teaching you a few tricks. No offense, but I can’t afford to take a weak Karma cultivator under my wing indefinitely. There’s too much risk.”

“I see. So you’re just going to teach me something and leave?”

“Exactly. If it saves your life down the road, I’d say that’s a pretty big boon, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s clever. Yeah, I see that. I can’t object either, I need all the strength I can get.”

“Very good,” Lucy said. “I can tell you’re already a Rank Two.”

“You mean a Squire? Yeah. I reached it pretty recently.”

“How’s your grasp over your Essence?”

“I think it’s decent enough,” Chance replied. “I don’t really have anyone to properly compare myself to, but I think my cultivation is going well.”

“What about techniques and physical combat?”

“I’m lacking there, and more than a bit,” Chance admitted. “I’ve got a technique book, but I haven’t read it yet. Didn’t feel right.”

“Oh? You’re already reading currents?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Listen to your instincts. If you don’t think it’s time yet, then it isn’t time. There could be a whole slew of reasons why, but they don’t matter. Physical combat, then. I can tell from the way you carry yourself that you’ve got no real training.”

“I’ve fought a bunch of monsters.”

Lucy cocked an eyebrow. She took a swig from her tankard, then flung it at his head. It struck him in the chest, sending him staggering backward as he tried to catch it – but the tankard was nowhere to be found. When he glanced up, the woman was holding it once more.

“Pathetic,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “You’ve got some instinct, and you’ve managed to survive against some weak enemies, but that’s not the same as real training, boy.”

“I can’t argue with that. But we don’t have much time, you said it yourself. Time is one thing we can’t exactly account for.”

“Free lesson number two – anything in this universe is possible if you can pay for it,” Lucy drawled.

“Your first lesson was that nothing comes for free.”

“Good. You’re learning. Now tell me – what are you willing to pay?”

Chance dug through his pockets. “Uh, I’ve got about fifty gold and some pills. Healing, cultivation aid, and a bunch of monsters in orbs.”

“I don’t want your garbage, boy. Are you going to offer me your underwear next?”

Chance hid a grin. “Is that going to help?”

Lucy paused, then burst into laughter. “I didn’t expect that from you. I took you for a shy prude.”

“Being polite doesn’t make you shy.”

“Well, no matter how polite you offer them, I don’t want your underwear. Maybe we can talk again in two hundred years, if you’re still kicking around. But when I ask for payment, there’s no amount of coin you could cover this with.”

“What is it, then? Time? I’m not particularly rich there, I’m afraid. And neither are you.”

“Wrong. I’ve got time, there’s just no good reason for me to waste a lot of it on you. But your time – I’m more than happy to spend that.”

“I’m not sure I can afford to. There are things happening in the near future that could put me and my friends in a lot of danger,” Chance said carefully. “I don’t think I can afford to disappear or anything like that. They’d also worry about what happened to me.”

Lucy put a hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. “Statistically, they’ll be dead in a hundred years. You’d be better off sacrificing a few years now to get a chance to survive. You can always find new friends.”

Chance shook his head. “No thank you. That’s not how I want to leave. I don’t care what might happen. I’m going to do my best to live how I want to. If that ends with me dead, then so be it.”

“The bold words of a child, but I won’t be the one to crush you. How much weight do you put behind that dream of yours?”

“It’s this or nothing. I won’t let this world change me. I’ll change it.”

Lucy snorted. “Everyone wants to think that they matter. Sure, kid. You won’t make it long with an attitude like that, but if you’re confident in your words, I’ve got something that might help you out. You won’t lose a wink of time either.”

Chance paused. He’d fully expected Lucy to leave after that last statement.

“And what does it cost?”

She smiled. “Willpower, mostly. If you screw up, it’ll be pretty bad. You won’t die, but there are fates worse than death. But, if you’re going to get anywhere as a cultivator, you can’t shy away from risk.”

“I’ve learned that,” Chance said, trying to read her face and failing miserably. Despite her apparent age, there was something off in the woman’s eyes. They were flat and distant, like she was talking to a mildly amusing animal rather than another human. “Can you tell me what it is?”

“A fighting style. It’ll treat you well if you can master it, and it’ll break you if you can’t. Pretty simple. This is my last offer, though. You aren’t worth any more, kid.”

Chance chewed his inner cheeks. Sure, the offer was tempting. But Lucy had told him herself – nothing came for free. The stronger something was, the more it would cost. This opportunity sounded pretty convenient, and that probably meant it would be anything but.

“It won’t take any time?”

“You’ll leave this alley right after I leave, whether you pass or fail.”

Chance’s lips pressed together and he gave her a curt nod. “I’ll do it, then. I need the power.”

“I thought as much,” Lucy said. She reached into a sleeve and pulled out a small, gold stone. She flicked it through the air and it struck Chance in the forehead. There was a brilliant flash, and the world peeled away like petals of a blooming rose.