Five months had passed since the Incident of the Forty-Foot-God-Fish.
Five months.
In that time, Kalagar S. Sully, the Level 0 Immortal Fraud, had done the one thing he was truly, foundationally good at: he adapted.
The panic was gone. The abject, existential terror that had defined his first few weeks on Gaia had finally—finally—receded. It was replaced by a kind of weary, academic, and almost fond exasperation. He had accepted his new, insane reality. His old life was a closed book, a memory from another, dustier, quieter world. This this glowing, sentient, god-like pagoda, surrounded by a legion of overpowered, emotionally volatile fanatics who worshipped him this was his life now.
He had accepted it. And in acceptance, he had found a new, strange, and highly-conditional form of 'peace'.
His new, immortal, divine-fish-powered body had also, inconveniently, adapted. The incessant, vibrating, manic energy had subsided, settling into a calm, perfect, ageless vitality. He no longer needed to sleep, but he still did, purely out of spite and for the simple, human comfort of the act. He had, in short, become what he had always been: a recluse. Just a very, very well-rested one.
The mountain itself had adapted around him.
The "Sect Hall" was no longer just a pagoda. It was a fortress. Boro, in a fit of five-month-long creative-frenzy, had upgraded everything. The stairs Kalagar had once stumbled on were now self-heating, rune-lit, and, Kalagar suspected, sentiment-aware, as they were always perfectly clean just before he stepped on them. The library, Elara's domain, was now a work of art, her [Akashic-Mandate] having turned his chaotic shelves into a perfectly-indexed, cross-referenced, and conceptually-linked archive of 'Primordial-Earth-Wisdom'.
The "Samsara Grove" was no longer a "jungle." Lila and Sylvie had "balanced" it into a place of terrifying, serene, and perfect beauty. The glowing silver trees grew fruit that could cure minor illnesses (Lila's) and existential despair (Sylvie's). The singing mushrooms had, thankfully, been politely-asked to "hum" instead, which was a vast improvement.
Valerius, the Void-Swordsman, had even, finally, stopped making the air "hiss." His practice had become so refined, so subtle, that he no longer tore reality; he just edited it. He would 'un-zip' a rock that was in the way, and 're-zip' it 100 feet to the left. He had become, Kalagar noted with a dry, academic appreciation, the world's most terrifying landscaper.
Kalagar S. Sully, Master of the Made-Up Sect, was sitting on his top-floor balcony, a cup of (miracle-apple-leaf) tea in his hand, and he was whittling.
It was the one hobby he had managed to keep. The one thing that was his. He had not taught it to them. He had not lectured about it. He had, after the "Bad Doodle" incident (an event his disciples now referred to in hushed, traumatized tones as 'The Incineration of the First-Form'), just done it.
And for five months, his disciples had, miraculously, respected that.
They
respected it
by watching him.
All of them.
He looked up from his (still rather lopsided) wooden bird.
Down in the Grove his five disciples were sitting. In a perfect, reverent, lecture-hall-style semicircle.
Lila. Sylvie. Boro. Valerius. Elara.
They were all watching him whittle.
They had been doing this every morning. For five months.
They would not ask. They would not interrupt. They would just watch. Intensely.
As if as if he was performing a divine-surgical-procedure.
Kalagar sighed.
The "Old Kalagar" would have screamed. He would have thrown the wood, locked his door, and had a panic-attack.
The "New Kalagar"—the adapted, immortal, well-rested, and utterly-resigned Kalagar—just sighed.
He put his knife down.
He put his lopsided-bird down.
He looked at his five, god-like, utterly-insane students.
"Alright," he said, his new, resonant baritone carrying effortlessly across the clearing. "Five months. You've been staring. I I give up."
The five disciples visibly-lit-up.
He was going to teach!
The Divine-Art-of-the-Not-Doodle! (as Boro and Elara had secretly named the lost, holy, burnt 'Bad Doodle').
"If if you are all so desperate to learn whittling" Kalagar said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "then fine. We will learnwhittling."
This was the new him. The easy-going him. He was choosing to engage. This this was his comfort-zone. A simple, practical, craft.
He was, finally, going to teach them something normal.
"Get wood," he commanded, already regretting it. "And a knife. A small, simple, non-conceptual, non-void-steel, non-sentientknife."
They scrambled.
Boro produced six, identical, perfectly-seasoned, flawless blocks of pine-wood.
Elara produced six, identical, perfectly-balanced, non-magical *iron whittling-knives.
(She had, Kalagar realized, indexed his 'intent' and commissioned a local blacksmith three months ago just in case)
He just took the knife. He took the wood.
"Fine," he said, his voice flat. "Sit. Sit. All of you. Here. On the porch."
Like a pack of over-eager, demigod-level kindergarteners they scrambled onto the porch, sitting cross-legged, vibrating with anticipation.
He handed them each a block of wood, and a (normal) knife.
"Right," Kalagar said, taking his own. "The 'lesson'. This is a block of wood. We are going to remove parts of it until it is not a block of wood. We are going to make a bird. A simple, wooden bird."
He held up his own, lopsided work-in-progress.
They all gasped.
"The Arch-Form" Sylvie whispered, her eyes wide.
"He kept it!" Boro murmured, his voice thick.
"Just stop," Kalagar said, his immortal-patience already wearing thin. "Just carve. Try. Now."
It was, he would later reflect
a disaster.
In a way he truly had not anticipated.
They couldn't do it.
They his five, comprehension-genius, god-level, reality-bending disciples
were
TERRIBLE
at whittling.
Lila was first. She held the wood. She held the knife.
And she asked the wood
"Mr. Wood?" she whispered, her [Anthem of Life] glowing "Would you like to be a bird?"
The wood, of course, did nothing.
"It it is sad, Master," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "It it likes being a block"
Kalagar just stared. "Lila, for just cut it."
Sylvie was next.
She did cut it.
One single perfect, divine cut.
And the wood
grew
leaves.
"Master," she said, her voice a chime, "it it missed its tree. It it is re-balancing"
Kalagar's eye twitched. "That is a plant, Sylvie. Not a bird."
Boro snorted. He was an Artificer. He understood form.
He drew runes.
On the wood.
[FORM = BIRD].
[MATERIAL = PINE].
[COMMAND = *BECOME*].
He slammed his hand on it.
The wood shuddered. It groaned.
And it exploded.
Into a cloud of sawdust.
"The 'conceptual-parameters' were structurally-incompatible" he mumbled, his face red, his tusks covered in sawdust.
Valerius
scoffed at all of them.
He was a Master of the Blade.
He held his normal, iron knife.
He closed his eyes.
He un-zipped the air around the knife.
zz-zz-zz-zz-zz-zip!
He missed.
He un-zipped his own
*block of wood.
It split into *two, perfectly-clean, void-seared blocks.
"This mortal steel is imprecise, Master," he growled.
And Elara.
Elara, his scholar. His hope.
She was not cutting.
She was staring.
She was indexing the wood.
[Subject: Wood, Pine. Status: Block. Potential: Bird? Spoon? Firewood? ERROR *Indeterminate*]
"Master," she said, her brow furrowed in agony. "I I cannotcarve it. I I do not know its Final-Truth. What what if it is destined to be a spoon? To carve it into a bird would be a lie! A conceptual-heresy!"
Kalagar S. Sully
broke.
He laughed.
It was not a sane sound. It was the *barking, hysterical, immortal-gasp of a man who had *truly, finally given up.
His five disciples flinched.
He was laughing!
The Lesson was so simple and they had all FAILED!
"Stop!" Kalagar gasped, wiping a tear from his (perfect, immortal) eye. "Just STOP! All of you! You you're allWRONG!"
He snatched his own, (lopsided, half-finished) wooden bird.
"You're alloverthinking it!" he said, his new, "easy-going" nature finally finding its voice—the voice of a *truly, truly done-with-this-nonsenseprofessor.
"You!" he pointed at Lila and Sylvie. "You're trying to ask it! You're trying to grow it! It is a dead block of wood! It has no opinion!"
"You!" he pointed at Boro. "You're trying to command it! It is wood, not a golem!"
"You!" he pointed at Valerius. "You stop un-zipping things that are not reality!"
"And YOU!" he pointed at Elara. "It is not 'destined'! It has no 'Final-Truth'! It is a BLOCK OF WOOD! Its 'Destiny' is what you make it! You all have failed the [Mandate of Free Will]lesson!"
They all froze.
He he was right.
This wasn't a new lesson.
This was a test on a previous lesson.
The Oracle's lesson.
[The Mandate of Free Will].
Kalagar held up his ownblock.
"You do not command it. You do not ask it. You do not un-zip it. You do not worry about its 'destiny'."
He took his (normal, iron) knife.
He looked at the wood.
"You just look," he said, his voice finally calm, finally in control.
"You look at the wood. You look at the grain. The woodtells you what it can be. It guides your hand."
He made a cut. A *simple, clean, non-magicalshaving of wood curled away.
"You are not creating a 'bird'," he said, his voice quiet. Profound.
"You are finding the bird that is already
"inside."
"You are removing all the parts
"that are
"'not-bird'."
He stopped.
It was silent.
He had just plagiarized Michelangelo.
And it was *the most profound, actual philosophical-lesson he had ever given.
And his disciples
were
vibrating.
[System: Five (5) Disciples are attempting to comprehend [Lesson: The 'Not-Bird' (The Art of Subtractive-Refinement)]]
[Comprehension: UNIVERSAL SUCCESS!]
[A new, UNIVERSAL, Top-Tier Art has been comprehended: [The Art of Subtractive-Refinement]!]
It clicked.
Elara gasped. 'Removing the 'not-bird'' It wasn't art. It was [Conceptual-Refinement]! It was philosophy! To find a truth you must remove all the 'not-truth' (the lies).
Lila and Sylvie gasped. 'Removing the 'not-life'' (the blight). 'Removing the 'not-balance'' (the chaos).
Boro gasped. 'Removing the 'not-form'' (the raw-material).
Valerius gasped.
'Removing**
the
'not-void'*
They all looked at their blocks of wood.
And
Valerius lifted his normal, iron knife.
He closed his eyes.
He did not un-zip.
He tapped the wood.
And *all the parts of the block
that were 'not-bird'
dissolved.
Into a *fine gray dust.
Leaving behind
a *perfect, flawless, mathematically-impossible wooden-bird.
It looked like *it was flying.
Lila touched her block.
It did not grow leaves.
It shed.
It shed all the 'not-bird' layers.
And blossomed
into a *tiny, perfect, living hummingbird
*made of singing-wood.
Sylvie touched hers.
It died.
The block died.
It turned *to ash.
And from the ash a *perfect, silver-white, phoenix
was reborn.
Boro stared at his.
He saw the 'True-Form'.
He picked up his knife.
And carved.
Once.
A *single, perfect, IF-THEN cut.
The block split open.
And inside was a *tiny, perfect, *geared, clockwork bird
that began
*to sing.
And Elara.
She looked at hers.
She wrote one word
on the block.
The word
was 'TRUTH'.
And all the 'lies' (the wood)
flaked away.
Leaving behind
a perfect, glowing, conceptual-crystal bird.
It was the [Akashic-Index-Entry]
for
'Bird'.
Kalagar S. Sully
looked at their five, perfect, divine-level
'first-try'*
creations.
He looked
at his
lopsided, half-finished, actually-whittled
bad-bird.
His new, easy-going nature
was sorely
tested.
He sighs.
A *long, slow, immortal sigh.
He dropped his bad-bird.
He stood up.
"Class dismissed."