Chapter 344 All Play and No Work...
There was no shortage of recreational activities in the True World Sect. The members were generally encouraged to partake in a round of fun daily, since, according to the Sect Leader, "All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy." No one knew who Jack was - the pioneer who spearheaded the daily recreation initiative - but everyone was overwhelmingly grateful for his contribution.
The True World Sect's recreational hall and sports fields catered to all imaginable forms of entertainment one could think of. You could spend hours exerting yourself physically with the myriad of sports options like handball, football, and volleyball, or mentally with the plethora of board games and tabletop games.
In fact, those weren't the only options available. The Sect encouraged its members to be creative and encouraged the development of new recreational activities that could help refresh a bogged-down mind. One of the results of this initiative was the game of Hover-Sack. It was a game devised by the twins Casey and Lacey, and it involves kicking a small bag filled with sand - barely the size of a closed fist - and stopping it from touching the ground for as long as possible. It is less a competitive sport and more about teamwork, coordination, and overall "coolness" as flashy passes, awesome manoeuvring, and extraordinary recoveries are encouraged.
The game didn't require much space to play, was fairly simple to participate in, and didn't have stringent requirements (all you needed was the sack), thus it quickly spread within the Sect. Nowadays, most members walked around with a Hover-Sack in their jacket pockets so that they could challenge other idle members to an impromptu game of Hover-Sack in the wild.
On this particular day, which happened to be a few days after Shuri's breakthrough celebration, four members of the True World Sect were playing a rather long game of Hover-Sack with intense focus and gusto.
"Do you think we'll ever achieve a breakthrough?" Kevan pondered as he skillfully tapped the sack with his heel, sending it diagonally to the recipient standing opposite him, Revian.
"Why not? Shuri did it, why can't we?" Revian answered a second later, catching the sack with his knee and letting it drop to his ankle, where he held it for a beat. He passed the sack to his other leg and sent it to his right, to Lacey. The girl received the ball with a stoic expression, expertly catching it with the back of her right heel and yanking it backwards, causing it to follow a parabolic path from over her hand and landing at her prepared left angle in front of her.
Kevan looked towards Casey to his left, who was ready to receive her sister's pass and said, "I mean, it's kind of different with her, right? She has... a background (for lack of a better word). She has the magical techniques and cultivation methods from her family that helped her in this."
"Besides, she's smart and capable. I don't think I can match that," he added before passing to Lacey to his right - his cheeks blushed "But it was all worth squat until she became a part of the True World Sect," Casey interjected while handling the sack. Three taps later, it was on its way to Kevan, "It must mean something!"
Kevan grimaced as the sack followed a low trajectory and squatted to catch it before it hit the ground.
"Besides, she's smart and capable. I don't think I can match that," he added before passing to Lacey to his right - his cheeks blushed lightly as he said this.
Revian shook his head and reminded, "We don't have to rush. Sect Leader Larks said that finding our pace is key. Doesn't Senior Brother Markus say it all the time? 'Talent can give you a leg up, but it isn't anything that can't be bridged with the right amount of hard work.'"
"Sounds like a load of copium if you ask me," Lacey expressed before doing a backflip and sending the sack high up into the air.
"What in the world is that?" Revian shot back in confusion, though his attention was trained on the sack returning from the peak of its trajectory.
"Didn't you see Huron's most recent comic?" Lacey responded while scratching her head.
"She's talking about the one with the anthropomorphic frog locking himself in a room filled with an incense burner labelled copium," Kevan explained. "It's a play on the word opium, and how the drug is used to escape reality. You imbibe copium to ignore or downplay the severity of a problem by relying on overly optimistic beliefs."
Revian let out a small celebration as the sack landed successfully on his left knee, which he transitioned into a three-tap manoeuvre, "Wow! Huron's works have been becoming increasingly abstract ever since Senior Sister Jean left for her trip. It's like he isn't trying at all."
After a simple pass to Casey on his right, he pointed out, "Anyway, what we really need to break through is inspiration - something that we can dig deep into and internalize."
"It can't be THAT easy!" Kevan challenged, which was affirmed by the sisters who nodded along.
Revian snorted, expressing light scorn, before saying, "It isn't. Didn't you hear a word Senior Brother Markus said in last week's 'Theory of Cultivation'?"
Kevan's face turned red with embarrassment before he blurted out, "I didn't! I had food poisoning and was bedridden for the whole week! It was horrible!"
"Oh, shit!" Revian sputtered, causing Kevan to return a challenging growl and an angry stare. "*cough* I mean, how did that happen?"
"My parents sent me some homemade delicacies from our hometown. Turns out, we cannot substitute the Red Mint from our town with the local variant..." Kevan explained while rubbing his forehead.
Casey passed the ball to her sister before probing with a discomfited frown, "I hope you aren't talking about the Incontinentia Plant that Matron Reva uses to make laxatives..."
Kevan grimaced loudly and confessed, "My parents didn't know about the plant's side effects when you heat it and extract its oils! Luckily, they didn't eat any of the delicacies, or else all that would remain of them would be dried husks."
Revian received Lacey's pass and emphasized a key point, "But the dosage shouldn't be high enough to cause you such problems. After all, you're in the Middle Stage of the Mana Condensation realm."
"My mother lost her sense of smell some time back... Our food is either bland or heavily flavoured - there is no middle ground." Kevan said with a low and defeated mumble.
Revian let out a two-syllable, "Damn!" and continued, "Just how much of the Plant did she use?"
"The Plant only faintly smells of mint. So she added it until she smelt the equivalent of ten mint leaves," Kevan explained.
"My goodness! That's at least ten entire Incontinentia Plants!" Revan calculated quickly, his mouth widening in shock.
"More like twenty... My mom's condition..." Kevan corrected.
"How the hell are you able to walk and sit?!" Casey blurted out.
"It was embarrassing, man! I lost all control of my anus and kept leaking all over the place," Kevan expounded. At this point, he himself was questioning why he was explaining his humiliating condition in such great detail.
"Can we please stop talking about this shit," Kevan blurted out, only to receive a round of chuckles and suppressed laughter from his companions. "*cough* I mean, can we get back to the important matter! Advancement-"
"You shouldn't chase success, chase excellence," a sombre and elderly voice interrupted Kevan, originating from behind him. "Once you achieve excellence, success follows immediately after."
Kevan swallowed a dry mouthful of air as he turned around and gave a deep bow to the strongest individual in the entire Sect.
"M-Mage Nara," the rest followed and bowed, allowing the sack to finally hit the ground.
"You four have been playing that game for an hour and a half," Mage Nara said while shaking his head with a disappointed expression. "What's the point of discussing success if you're just going to waste your time in these fruitless endeavours."
"There's some benefit in distracting your mind," another voice argued, as Senior Sister Marie stepped out from behind her Master. "Distraction leads to inspiration."
"Correlation does not imply causation," Mage Nara corrected.
"Agreed, but it is correlated nonetheless," Marie stood her ground with a raised finger.
"Don't play semantics with me, girl," Mage Nara growled.
Marie ignored her Master and gazed with intense focus at Kevan. But she was immediately interrupted with a sharp slap to her head by her Master, "I thought you said you wouldn't use it anymore?"
"Just trying to distract myself," Marie said through her teeth while rubbing the back of her head.
Mage Nara let out a disdainful snort and pushed his Disciple onwards and away from the trembling foursome who were still in a ninety-degree bow.
"If I tell you that you will advance, will you stop working?" Mage Nara said as he paused in his steps.
"S-Sorry?" Kevan sputtered.
"I can give you an answer to your first question. I can tell you all whether you will break through. I can tell you when you will break through. But in doing so, will it make you work harder or turn lazier?" Mage Nara reiterated.
Without waiting for a response, he concluded with the statement, "If I tell you that there is success on the horizon, you will work at a leisurely pace as you know the goal is nigh. If I tell you there is only failure in your path, you will give up altogether. You can try and convince yourself that you won't let the knowledge of the future affect you, but it will - that is human nature. In the end, you lose more by knowing than you do by remaining in the dark."
The foursome watched the receding figure of the Tesseract Transformation Master and his Disciple. Casey leaned forward and picked up the Hover-Sack and pushed it back into her jacket pocket.
"I'm going to the Library," Casey proposed calmly.
"Let me join you," Lacey added.
"I think I have some reading assignments left in the backlog. Make it three," Revian said while following the twins.
"W-Wait for me!" Kevan yelped a second later, after returning to himself, then rushed after the trio.
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