Sourcebinding Long Stair

"Wake up, child. Come on, wake up."

"This is no place to sleep."

Xilian stared blankly at the sky.

The sky looked like a corroded sheet of lead, dark and oppressive. Bright lightning seeped between the clouds, accompanied by an unending rumble.

After more than ten seconds in a daze, Xilian realized he had survived the strange, maddening depths of the sea. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious before floating back to the surface.

His arms and legs lay spread wide, like a shipwreck survivor tossed about by the waves.

"Oh, you're awake."

An aged voice sounded beside him. Xilian turned his head and saw an impossibly old man.

The man's bald head was covered in brown spots and scars. So little fat remained on his face that his skin seemed stretched directly over the bone.

Hunched over and leaning on a cane with trembling hands, he stood atop the churning sea in a purple scholar's robe.

Xilian's whole body tensed.

"Haha, don't be nervous, child. I'm alive, not some creature of Chaos."

Noticing Xilian's unease, the old man pinched his withered arm. "I'm just a little short on flesh, so I look like a skeleton."

He hooked his cane around Xilian's ankle and pulled him closer, chattering away.

"I saw you float up unconscious. A creature of Chaos attacked you down in the deep sea, did it? You're lucky to have survived."

Xilian noticed that the old man wasn't standing on the water. Beneath his feet was a cracked crystal stair.

"Stairs? What is this..."

Xilian looked beyond him.

Crystal stairs of every height and size dotted the surging sea. Each refracted a faint, cold light and bore fine cracks across its incomplete surface.

Some joined together, some had shattered, and some were no more than fragments suspended in the air. Others climbed all the way into the depths of the lead-gray sky.

As his gaze rose, the shadow of a gigantic tree slowly took shape deep within the clouds.

It surpassed everything Xilian had ever imagined as "huge." Its spreading branches seemed poised to hold up the sky.

Its leaves swayed gently in the wind, clear as crystal. As they touched, they rang with bright, pleasant notes that came together in a wordless lullaby.

The lullaby swept over the sea, and even the restless, towering waves grew a little calmer.

The giant tree's roots wound like pythons beneath the surface, stirring the stillness of the seabed.

As the roots moved, they lifted broken pieces of crystal into the air. The pieces reassembled into new stairs, filling gaps in the path to the clouds.

Over and over again.

Xilian tried to get a clearer look, but the tree was too far away. Rising mist cast a blue-green haze over it, blurring its outline.

"When I first woke from my Soul Dream and saw that thing, I made the same face you did."

The old man chimed in at just the right moment, his tone wildly exaggerated. "It's enormous... isn't it?"

"Yeah," Xilian agreed. "It really is... enormous."

"That's the Secret-Speech Sage's Miracle Creation, the Whispering Tree. Look there. Those things its roots are dredging up from the seabed are fragments of the Sourcebinding Long Stair."

The old man pointed his cane into the distance, introducing the sights like a tour guide.

"If you'd woken in the Silent River, you could see it more clearly."

His gaze returned to Xilian. "But I never expected you to wake directly in the Origin Sea. Are there no scholars in your city back in the real world? This is a serious failure on their part."

The thought of such negligence made the old man indignant on Xilian's behalf.

"There are no scholars where I live." Still floating in the sea, Xilian shook his head. "It's a remote town that's been cut off from the outside world for more than twenty years."

The old man frowned, making him look even more gaunt. "The Outer Flame Frontier?"

"Yes. The farthest edge of the Outer Flame Frontier. Go just a little farther, and you'll reach the Dark World."

"My heavens..."

At that, the old man looked stricken. He crouched with the help of his cane and reached out to stroke Xilian's forehead.

"It can't have been easy, child."

"It wasn't too bad. Just a little dangerous."

For the moment, Xilian felt sure the old man meant him no harm. He asked a question of his own.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Randolph Frank, of the Modian Society," the old man introduced himself.

The Modian Society was a Transcendent organization founded by the Secret-Speech Sage, one of the pillars supporting the Civilized World.

"Why are you here?" Xilian asked. "I thought only newly awakened people like me came here."

"Once a Transcendent grows strong enough, they can cross the Spirit Realm and reach the Origin Sea."

Randolph smiled and waved his cane. "Like this."

He drew a few idle circles in the air. Soon, a root rose from beneath the sea, swayed from side to side, and waved at Xilian.

"My work is to dredge fragments of the Sourcebinding Long Stair from the seabed, purify and repair them, and rebuild the path of the Fated Paths."

Randolph lowered his cane. "Ordinarily, though, I almost never meet anyone else in the Origin Sea, let alone someone like you who has just woken from a Soul Dream."

He struck the crystal stair beneath his feet hard with his cane for emphasis.

"The Origin Sea is a surreal world of images. There is no past or future here, no near or far. Only the present."

Xilian nodded, though he understood only part of it. He shifted his position and tried to climb onto the stair beneath Randolph's feet. Once he set foot on it, he would have entered the path of the Transcendent.

Randolph looked down at him from the stair with a smile.

"You'll have to manage this yourself, child. I can't help you."

Randolph pulled open his scholar's robe, and the smell of blood washed over Xilian.

The flesh of his abdomen was long gone. An empty cavity lay there instead, his ribs and spine plainly visible, with only scraps of flesh left in the gaps.

Randolph rummaged around where his organs should have been. After a long search, he scraped out a little flesh. A root rose from the sea, carrying two fingernail-sized crystal fragments.

The flesh acted like glue, joining the two fragments. Randolph then fitted the larger piece into the stair beneath him.

Xilian stared at it all. "What are you doing?" he murmured.

"Repairing the Sourcebinding Long Stair."

Randolph seemed to think nothing of it. He slit his wrist and squeezed it again and again, drawing a little blood from his withered body to pour into a crack in the stair.

"Oh, you mean why am I repairing it this way?"

Randolph came to his senses and looked embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry. That's what happens when you get old. My mind isn't what it used to be."

After a moment of silence, he spoke with startling cheer.

"I'm going to die soon, child. It's not just my age. My body has reached its limit."

Randolph spoke slowly, though his hands never stopped working. "I could lie comfortably in bed and wait for the night I fall asleep and never wake up... but I don't like that kind of death."

"I have no property to pass on, no children to leave instructions for. I devoted my entire life to repairing the Sourcebinding Long Stair.

"So I will follow the sacred tradition and give it the last warmth I have."

Randolph's voice dropped, solemn now.

"Bind the Long Stair with flesh. Build it with blood. Hold it up with my body."

Xilian wondered if he had heard correctly. "You're killing yourself."

"Calling it suicide is rather shallow. I'd call it... a sacrifice." Randolph glanced at Xilian. "I thought I would die quietly, like the others. I never expected to meet you."

"Is this a miracle?"

"No. Just fate. Fate moved the currents and brought you to me."

Randolph brushed a hand over the stair beneath his feet and looked up. "It also brought me here just as I finished repairing it."

The last fragment, bound with blood and flesh, fitted into the stair. A soft white light rose from it, and the blood and flesh within the crystal crystallized, leaving no visible difference between them and the rest.

"See? For scholars, becoming one with the Sourcebinding Long Stair is a happy thing."

Randolph gazed tenderly at the stair beneath him. In the soft light, his skeletal figure looked remarkably peaceful.

"Old friend, it's time to say goodbye."

Randolph raised his cane. Its spiraling wood slowly unfurled into a winding root. Another root emerged from the sea, touched it gently, and the two grew together.

"I will forge my body into the Sourcebinding Long Stair, and you will return to the Whispering Tree."

With that done, Randolph asked Xilian, "I haven't asked your name. Who are you?"

"Xilian Soflova."

Xilian gave his name without hesitation.

"Oh? Soflova." Randolph's eyes lit up. "Is the Fated Path you're about to take the Torchbearing Path?"

Xilian felt utterly seen through. "How did you know?"

"It's simple. Your surname... What a string of surprises. I never thought your people were still around. I assumed you had fallen."

Randolph made a curious guess. "You said you live close to the Dark World. Is the Sunflower Clan planning another Expedition?"

Xilian shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Randolph looked deep into Xilian's eyes and found no sign of a lie.

He shook his head sadly. "So you really have fallen."

Randolph let the subject drop. He stepped back to clear a wide space on the stair, crossed his hands over his chest, and bowed slightly to Xilian.

"Child of the Soflova family, please step onto the stair beneath my feet. I repaired this foundation stair. It would be an honor to see it support the birth of a Torchbearer."

"The honor is mine, Mr. Frank."

Xilian gripped the edge of the stair with both hands and tried to push himself out of the sea.

Almost at once, he felt the sea resist him. It was as though invisible hands tugged at every part of his body, trying to keep him in the Origin Sea.

Strangely, the growing pull brought him no fear or anger. It even felt warm and gentle, like a mother stubbornly holding on to her child.

"I'll take care of myself," Xilian said instinctively.

Reluctant as she was, the mother let go.

The resistance vanished. Xilian rose from the water, and when the last drop fell from his body, he stood fully free of the Origin Sea, facing Randolph.

Randolph stared in astonishment. He had never expected Xilian to succeed so easily, but before he could say anything, a howling sea wind swept in.

He turned. A towering wave rose from the sea.

Still reeling from his surprise, Randolph found himself fearing for Xilian. This was no Silent River. The Origin Sea's turbulence could be deadly.

Randolph braced himself, ready to help Xilian.

Yet Xilian remained calm in the face of the sudden danger.

He looked down at his left palm. The Ouroboros Mark still glowed like molten gold, but this time it brought none of the burning pain he had felt before a creature of Chaos. It was warm, like sunlight falling across his hand.

"It's all right."

Xilian did not know whether he was speaking to Randolph or to the Origin Sea.

The approaching wave swiftly weakened. By the time it reached Xilian, it was only a spreading ripple. All around him, the surging sea had somehow grown still, disturbed only by rings of ripples crossing one another.

Randolph stared at the extraordinary sight. A long time passed before he could speak.

"Did you do that?"

"I don't know." Xilian shook his head, then answered earnestly, "Maybe."

Randolph thought for a long while before giving a helpless smile. "Well, the Soflovas have always had miracles at their side."

"Not fate this time?" Xilian joked.

He looked around curiously. "Does this mean I've finished advancing? How do I leave?"

"No. There's one last step."

Randolph shook his head and gestured around them. "Haven't you noticed? All the other stairs float in the air, but the one under our feet is still half-submerged."

He stepped forward and jumped into the sea without hesitation. Spreading his arms and legs as Xilian had done, he paddled clumsily a few times and laughed from the heart.

"We come from the sea, and in the end, we return to it."

Xilian considered his words. "So what comes next is the final step of your sacrifice?"

"Yes."

Randolph swam forward and wrapped his arms around the stair beneath Xilian's feet.

"Is there anything you'd like to say before you go?" Xilian asked.

Randolph did not answer. He plunged beneath the sea and vanished.

Xilian searched for him, but wherever he looked, he saw only blue depths.

Just as his worry mounted, the stair beneath his feet shuddered twice and began to rise. It lifted clear of the sea and stopped in midair.

Through the transparent crystal, Xilian saw a pair of hands holding it up.

"Something to say before I go?"

Randolph raised the stair with both hands, lifting it away from the sea.

"Child of the Sunflower Clan, if you accomplish great deeds one day, tell everyone that Randolph was the one who lifted you up!"

With a hearty laugh, Randolph's head bowed. His body sank little by little into the sea. Only his withered hands remained raised above the surface, turning inch by inch into crystal and merging with the stair...

Holding it above the sea.

Xilian looked again at the tiers of stairs suspended over the water. Beneath each was some trace of a body, their forms all different. They were the scholars who had sacrificed everything to the Sourcebinding Long Stair so that their power might be passed on and civilization might endure.

Xilian looked up. Stair after stair climbed onward, vanishing into the lead-gray gloom.

When he closed his eyes, he saw a torch blazing in the darkness, shining on all things like the sun.

No one gave Xilian an answer. No one whispered to him. Yet the instant he saw the torch, he knew its name.

A great creation of the master of the Torchbearing Path, one that anchored the existence of the Expeditionary Pathfinders.

The Miracle Creation, the Immaculate Torch.

Its light shone upon Xilian, so bright he felt he might melt into it.

Someone spoke to him. The voice sounded at once like a whisper and a chant, like a man and a woman, a child and someone at the end of a long life.

The voices spoke together.

"Blessing upon you—Cultivation of Ten Thousand Forms."

Xilian woke in the real world.