Gleam Karma Cultivator Isekai

Warmth washed over Chance, and he realized his eyes were closed. He opened them as a gentle breeze brushed past him – so light that he could barely feel it. All around him, an endless sea of knee-high wheat rustled in a field lit in a golden glow.

The sun hung in the sky overhead, unburdened by clouds. Even the sky had taken on its hue, changing from blue to a warm, pinkish orange. Chance blinked as drowsiness threatened to set in.

“Again? Seriously?”

“I guarantee that this hasn’t happened to you before.”

Chance turned to find Lucy standing behind him. He blinked, upon closer inspection realizing that while she strongly resembled the cultivator, her hair was black instead of graying and the lines of age on her face were nowhere to be found. This woman looked to be roughly thirty, and could have been Lucy’s daughter.

Pete’s warning about the nature of a cultivator’s age ran through Chance’s head and he inclined his head respectfully before quickly raising it again. Showing respect was one thing, but he wasn’t going to let his guard down either.

To his relief, his purple, thorny bracelet still sat on his wrist. Whatever Lucy had done, she’d allowed him to keep the weapon.

“I meant appearing somewhere I don’t recognize,” Chance said. “Could I ask you name? I’m Chance. Lucy sent me here.”

“I gathered,” the woman replied, rolling her neck and yawning. “And I’m Lucy. A part of her, at least. You know what a fragment of will is?”

“A clone?”

“It’s a tiny portion of Essence. It exists to execute the will of its owner at the time of its creation.”

Chance’s mouth formed into an ‘o’. Despite not technically being Lucy, he decided to keep thinking of the fragment as her just to make things easier for himself.

“Lucy made you specifically to train me?”

Lucy snorted. “No. She made me to train. I’d imagine she looks a little different than I do, right?”

“A bit older.”

“What, does her hair have streaks in it or something now?”

“It was pretty much all gray and white.”

Lucy’s eyes widened and she let out a whistle. “Oh wow. It’s been a while. Few hundred years at the minimum, since I – she’s never been a big fan of any appearance changing items.”

“You mean she isn’t immortal?” Chance asked in surprise. A swaying stalk of wheat tickled his arm and he yanked it back before he realized it was just a plant.

“No, she is,” Lucy replied with a shake of her head. “But the kind of Karma we cultivate ages us. She’s been spending a bit too much and paying to little, but I don’t blame her. I’d do the same.”

“That was kind of a given, I think.” Chance chuckled. “So… you’re here to train anyone that she sends?”

“Well, I was originally here to train myself,” Lucy replied. “I – we – were working on developing a fighting style. After spending years learning different forms of martial arts, Lucy got herself really set on a particular style, but it didn’t match her personality very well. Thus, I was created. My job was to constantly practice and try to evolve the style into something that worked.”

Chance’s eyes widened at the implications of what Lucy had said. People who were strong enough to make fragments of themselves could literally just set them on a task and forget about it.

How many fragments can someone make at once? This is ridiculous. Even if it’s just a few, there are so many things I need to do in a day. I could have an insane amount of free time to practice or cultivate if I just made clones of myself do all the other work.

“Cultivation is a path to power,” Lucy said, reading Chance’s eyes. “But making fragments is not easy. It’s not what I’m here to teach you either.”

“Right,” Chance said. He brought himself back on topic and cleared his throat. “So… did you succeed?”

Lucy gave him a bitter smile. “No. I did get a very solid grasp over a fighting technique, but by the time I did, Lucy had advanced so much that she’d developed her own independently of me, and my new technique was worthless.”

Chance winced. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I was too. Unfortunately, Lucy is a little scatterbrained. She completely forgot about me for a few hundred years. I–” Lucy cut herself off and drew in a slow breath. She let it out through her mouth and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. My purpose was to learn this fighting style, and I did. She hasn’t trained with me since then, nor has anyone else. You’re the first.”

Chance’s eyes widened. “Me? Why?”

“Probably because she felt you’d be a fit,” Lucy replied, giving him a one-shouldered shrug. “Or you were dispensable enough to sacrifice. One of the two. Honestly, I thought she’d just gotten bored and forgot me.”

“For my mental health, I’m going to hope it was the first one,” Chance decided. “And time doesn’t pass here?”

“It does not,” Lucy confirmed. “This isn’t really happening. Your body isn’t here – just your mind. You won’t gain any muscle in this place, nor will you be able to cultivate. But you’ll remember what happens.”

“That seems like a good tradeoff.”

Lucy grunted. “Only if you don’t break.”

“What?”

“Never mind that,” Lucy replied. “I’m going to attempt to teach you the fighting style that I developed. Learn it. Maybe then my work will at least be of some use.”

Chance gave her a terse nod. “Okay. I’ll gratefully accept your tutelage, then. How do we start?”

“A demonstration,” Lucy replied, lowering her stance. Her shoulders hunched and she took a step forward, swaying like one of the wheat reeds in the field surrounding them. It almost looked like she was stumbling instead of walking, but she crossed the distance between them with surprising speed, throwing her shoulder into Chance’s chest.

He rolled with the blow, shooting up to his feet, watching in disbelief as Lucy essentially lurched and tripped around the clearing like a drunkard. Every move she made looked like an accident at first, but as she repeated them, Chance realized that they were deliberate.

Wheat brushed against Chance’s back as he backed up, not letting Lucy get too close to him. She hadn’t tried to attack him again, but he preferred a little distance to observe her movements before they fought any more.

Another realization stuck Chance. The wheat around her wasn’t moving at all. As Lucy stumbled and tripped around, her body twisted and bounded past every single stalk without so much as brushing them.

His eyes widened. “I’ve read about this. It’s drunken martial arts.”

“That’s the basis,” Lucy said, coming to a stop and straightening back up. “And this will be the first thing you learn. The true form of this technique is far more than what you see here, but staring at the peak of the mountain too early will only cause you to trip on a pebble.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.” Chance tried to copy the stance that Lucy had taken to start with. She walked over to him, adjusting the positioning of his legs with her foot.

“You need to flow,” Lucy instructed. “Every movement must lead into the other. Don’t overcommit yourself to anything, and be light like the wind. Heels off the ground, stand on the balls of your feet. It doesn’t have to be much, but just enough that you can move faster.”

Chance adjusted his weight and felt an almost instantaneous improvement in his posture and reaction speed. Lucy adjusted his arms and shoulders as well, then moved him into the next position.

Over the course of the next several hours, Lucy walked in a circle around Chance, modifying every single move he made. What she had made look effortless turned out to be anything but.

Hours stretched into, well, time. Chance had absolutely no idea how long they spent training the basic steps of the form. The sun hanging in the sky above them never moved an inch, and the rest of the world remained equally static.

Even the wheat that he mistakenly crushed underfoot sprung back up as if he’d never been there. It was as if nothing he did in this world had any influence on it. And, strangely, that same rule seemed to apply in the other direction as well.

No matter how long they trained, Chance didn’t get tired. He didn’t get hungry or thirsty, and there was precious little to distract him. On the occasions when his mind did drift, Lucy immediately smacked him on the back of the head, bringing him back into training without a word.

At some point, the choppy movements started to grow smoother. They still weren’t anywhere near what Lucy could do, but Chance could feel himself shifting from one stance to another with only a little friction between each step.

“Good,” Lucy said, stopping Chance midway through a move. He lowered his arms and straightened back up as she appraised him.

“That’s it?”

“You’ve barely even started,” Lucy replied. “But you understand the concept enough that you’ll be able to practice it in real once you leave this world. That’s all that matters. Now we can move onto the next step. You’re doing good so far. Keep it up.”

Chance nodded. Lucy showed him a series of new movements, though they didn’t look all that different from what he’d already done, he mirrored her anyway. After correcting a few mistakes, Lucy allowed him to continue.

And so they trained. Time became a strange, foreign concept, and Lucy didn’t give him a single break – not that he needed them. Every instant was spent training. Every time Chance grasped the basics of the specific movements she was training him on, Lucy transitioned into a new one.

As their practice went on, she explained the purpose of certain steps and stumbles, with Chance as the punching bag. She showed him how to redirect an attackers force and how to keep his balance when under attack.

Aside from their initial conversation, Lucy didn’t allow him to speak of anything other than training again. Every time he went to ask her a more general question, it was dismissed and she intensified the difficulty of their exercises until he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

Even though injuries didn’t seem to exist in this world, Chance could still feel pain. It just faded almost instantly, leaving him with nothing but its memory. That let Lucy show him every strike and blow exactly how they were meant to be, rather than held back to protect him.

It wasn’t comfortable, but it worked. At least, Chance felt like it did. It was hard to tell. Despite his growing, if basic, understanding of the combat style, once he conceptually understood how it worked, he stopped improving and Lucy moved on.

Eventually, the endless training came to a pause. Lucy stopped Chance and gave him a slight nod.

“You have learned the physical movements that I need to teach you,” Lucy said. “Now we can begin working on the true manifestation of this style. If it fits you, you will be able to understand it. If not, then hopefully the lessons you have already learned will be of use.”

Chance nodded, his mind too focused on training to ask any more.

“You must incorporate your Essence into your movements. Not by physically moving Essence from your Gate into your body – that will probably kill you if you do it properly, and that would be a technique. This is not a technique, it is a fighting style. And, as such, your goal is to embody your Essence, not utilize it.”

“You mean I have to fight in a way that fits Karma? I’m not quite sure I understand,” Chance admitted.

Lucy lowered her stance again, a smile stretching across her lips. “Not yet. But if you can, you will. Defend yourself.”

Then she attacked.