More and more of them went by till the sixth chosen had a winged three-eyed tiger which drew the most amount of attention before it was overshadowed by an amazing 6 stars of a true genius! A few of the elders conversed, nodding their heads in excitement and obvious approval. Kimarya heard kids around her saying, “That Alastair, he actually has such amazing latent talent in combination with that dreadful three-eyed winged tiger. He will surely be a pillar of the village and clan!”

Kimarya decided to go next, so she wouldn’t bring up that much attention. She walked forward and noticed that everyone had a strange reaction to her, but she just ignored it and continued walking till she was in front of the stone with the elders nearby. She looked up at the elder named Shamaner, who looked back with a light smile and nodded for her to put her hand on the stone.

*******************

For all my life I was a tree, just a normal tree till that day where I was burning to death until I heard the thrumming of a heavenly Dao. It was a sermon sung by stars, its reverberations permeating through all the trees, the animals, mud and stones. A sermon talking of a magnificent and extraordinary Dao.

My greatest plight and salvation came from a little round stone that fell from the sky. That landed in my trunk, that only brought me burning pain. And I would have most certainly been burned to mere ashes and embers had it not been for the fierce and horrifying storm that kept those fires from growing uncontrollably. Even with the luck of having a storm raging to combat the fires, it still burned me down to a mere stump. But as a tree kin and child of the forests, my tenacity is strong. Even from a not very thick branch, I could still have hope for rebirth.

After escaping that calamity and almost passing on, there was a mysterious stone that was still lodged inside of my trunk. I heard this whispering; it was the whispering of the cosmos; it told of a sermon; that was transmitted through an indescribable humming that resonated with me and somehow made me grow strongly. This stone vibrated so strongly that it was even breaking my growing around it and thoroughly making it harder to cover it, but the sermon made my life force burst out of all limitations I had as a simple mango tree.

Being a tree, we always had a limited amount of awareness of our environment. Time flows differently for those of the tree kin. Before, the only thing that mattered was the connection to each other, this connection always let us know of the dangers any of us faced, whether a more successful nest of termites pop up, or sky fire strikes one of us with more rings in their trunks.

It all just started with my asking of questions rather than always hearing and or exchanging info about my health. I asked, “Who am I?” The sermons and the stone were deeply imprinted into my mind and body. As the years passed and I grew more and more, it’s perpetual thrumming made it so my roots had a barely discernible vibration that it only showed evidence of itself when I drove my roots deeper into the earth. Rather than always going around stones, I wanted them out of my way and so I pushed them. My bark grew strong and very dense, my thoughts came faster and clearer.

I stopped asking who I was, started listening, I stopped talking about myself and just felt with all of my senses, and unlike before, I remembered everything even after a long while. I began to always surprise myself when I had new knowledge of things. This made it better for listening to other things because I could comprehend. I listened to the winds and said “Hello!” I listened to the rain and asked “How are you?” I noticed the creatures living on and around my bark and enjoying my fruits, and told them, “I’m here!”.

I followed the water landing on my leaves and down my branches and trunk as it made its way flowing down into the ground, following my roots before leaving me and melting deep into the earth that holds me. I told it “Thank you.”

I became more aware as this Dao told me of all things in the world. It told me of humans, both mortal ones, and cultivators. It said I could become one, but at that moment I didn’t yet have an answer nor reason to want to be one. At least until I saw my first human. They noticed my fruits on the floor, but climbed up and plucked several before going back down and leaving.

With time, I was just happy and content, always watching the humans who passed by increasingly often around me, as well as always listening to the teachings of the Dao. Soon new kinds of humans came. The teachings told me they were cultivators; they were capable of climbing or even jumping up to my highest branches with such ease to pick some of my fruits. I came to learn that these were the famed cultivators that I learned about who delved into the profundities of the natural and unnatural world.

This went on for a while till one day one of the cultivators decided to sit down and cultivate under my leaves and was alarmed as they realized comprehension of natural laws was drastically much easier and they stayed there meditating for days till weird manifestations occurred around them. She had long hair and small frame and wore these robes. Her hair and robes fluttered, yet there was no wind flowing. After the manifestations stopped, they rose and left. After some time, they came back with two more cultivators and surprisingly didn’t go for my fruits but just sat under my leaves and just meditated, the two new arrivals almost immediately after closing their eyes found it incredibly easy to go into a profound state where all of their previous shortcomings and questions were easier to solve.

They stayed there for days and left, but every once in a while they would come back to cultivate under my leaves and I soon grew accustomed to this. Other times they searched around the area talking of treasure but after a while found nothing but realized the area of effect was around me and continued with their new routine of meditating under my leaves.

One day the first cultivator came back. She was with this older person with a powerful and intimidating aura, as if a sword in a scabbard who could explode with incredible strength. She addressed that person as Elder, apparently; they were here to investigate. The person even dove into the ground in their examinations! But eventually, they ended up where I was and murmured, “This tree is very slightly vibrating, maybe it got connected to a very minor energy vein in the earth or just maybe encountered some sort of fate where it may even come to life!”

Not long after they left, this elder brought disciples to the tree every often, to preach under my leaves the teachings of the Dao. Sometimes they even brought odd plants to cultivate around my trunk and even treasured soils to help me, which made me very happy and also made me grow very strong.

I always listened and paid attention to everything, even to the times a lone disciple decided to come at night to practice as they moved around chanting scriptures of different teachings.

One day during a very crowded preaching of the Dao, I finally couldn’t help it. I had so many questions as to where they went, other natural Dao’s, and even the very rare mentions of mystical creatures that the Dao spoke of. I wanted to experience it all and knew it wouldn’t happen if I stayed like this, no matter how content I was. I wanted and needed more.

So I said yes, I wanted to be a hum!

At that moment, hymns sang out from thin air, random lights flashed about, even the shy spirits came to bear witness to what was happening. My whole self was shrinking into itself. My roots quickly returned to me from rich mineral grounds deep below. My leaves let go and fluttered in the air, my branches shrunk into me till I was a wooden, humanoid figure.

Soon my skin formed, my organs appeared, and blood was born in my veins. The most wonderful moment was when my heart, yes, my heart first started beating! I was alive; I was a human and I could become a cultivator!

I slowly raised my head and realized I had curly green hair on my head and smiled, not just with my being, but with my face, which also had lovely facial muscles beneath it. I first tried to speak, but felt an ache and realized my lungs had no air. I took a deep breath, breathing in and even smelling the wonderful air, and spoke for the first time, awkwardly at first, but I said “H-he-heelloo, m-my Naaame i-is Shawmaner!”

*****************************

Kimarya heard murmurings like “She’s still a mortal and hasn’t cultivated.” Others saying, “She’s a special case, she has no soul, incapable of even understanding cultivation. It’s a miracle she even survived and much more so if she actually obtained an Ancestral Spirit.” With a sad shake of their heads. Some even found her misfortune amusing and were ready to enjoy the show.

She ignored them and placed her right hand on the stone that quickly grew warm and started humming until suddenly, images started manifesting around her. There was a silhouette of a large humanoid creature with long arms and hair all over.

Everyone was surprised, those that sneered before blanched in shock before regaining their confidence and saying “Sure it’s not something pathetic, guess she wasn’t as dumb and knew she had no potential and chose some bloody Demonic Ape, stupidly cutting off her future wings, they don’t even have a redeeming power. So besides having quick and easy power, it’s the same as closing off your future for quick strength. Bet she won’t even get higher than three stars in aptitude. She may have instincts but that doesn’t mean she has any aptitude for cultivation, heh!”

Kimarya ignored this and kept her hand on the stone that grew hotter and soon around her a star formed, then another and they kept appearing till there were a jaw-dropping seven stars glowing around her! The stars even had multiple colors!

At first, there was silence, some of the crowd even started to grow excited till they realized that the elders weren’t smiling and some of the not so smart ones finally understood why, her Ancestral Guardian Spirit was a Demonic Ape, this meant that nearly all chances of future success were nearly zero. Her future growth was severed, as if cultivation didn’t have walls and points of extreme difficulty, added with the calamity of growth barriers that Demonic Apes had. This could only be the cruelest joke ever.

Some elders sadly shook their heads. How could this happen? Such a demonic level of aptitude just for it to be wasted because of an erroneous choice in an Ancestral Spirit Guardian. It could be worked around even if it was a speed based creature. Even a flying bug would have been better. Even they had higher chances of mutation and atavism than Demonic Apes.