Nietzsche had traveled far among the many city-states of the continent and lived through many wars. After he became a grand mage, he watched a great many more of them with something close to cold-blooded detachment, secretly compiling icy, extraordinarily detailed casualty statistics—and in doing so he found a problem no one had noticed.
First-rank warriors in long campaigns that ground on for many days seemed to suffer a rather high casualty rate: lower than ordinary soldiers, yes, but markedly higher than second-rank warriors, a disproportion quite out of keeping with the difference in their strength. In one war involving tens of thousands of men, for instance, Nietzsche tallied casualty rates of thirty-five percent among the ordinary soldiers of both sides, twenty percent among first-rank warriors, only seven percent among second-rank warriors, and a mere five percent among third-rank warriors.
The result was plainly abnormal. As cultivators of combat arts of the same tier, first- and second-rank warriors did not differ all that much in strength, and differed even less in fighting technique. The Old Madman went on to study the question closely, hunting up battlefields everywhere—wherever there was large-scale bloodshed, that was where he went, like a man who thirsted for blood.
By degrees he noticed a detail: many first-rank warriors who had mastered their strength quite well were prone to falling "ill" in drawn-out fighting, plagued by every sort of injury and ailment—even old wounds from long ago flaring up again—and in the brutal conditions of a battlefield this was easily overlooked and never looked into. If men like that, with exceptional will and a strong constitution and a bit of luck besides, pulled through, they almost always advanced to the second rank.
Following this thread, the Old Madman did more research, and found that before advancing, second-rank warriors were invariably troubled by the state of their constitution. Most people took this for a normal part of combat-arts cultivation: an ordinary man's constitution could not adapt to such extraordinary power, and one simply had to persevere in training with an iron will until reaching second-rank attainment, which strengthened the body enough to bear it.
The view was not wrong, but no one had noticed the unusual regularity in it. The Old Madman summed up a rule instead: this was a trial that combat-arts cultivation must inevitably meet, showing itself as every latent injury and ailment in the body breaking out at once. If the constitution was poor, one failed the trial—but on a battlefield the situation was far graver; there it was no longer merely a matter of failing a trial.
Those first-rank warriors who plunged into battle and charged straight to the front lines were naturally not men of high station, but commoners lucky enough to have cultivated combat arts and then been conscripted to the front. They had to be where the fighting was fiercest, and they needed military merit to change their standing, so the higher casualty rate drew little attention.
The Old Madman called this trial "purity of the body." Thinking of the various trials one must face in cultivating divine arts, he guessed that something common and regular must lie behind them all, and he told his student Bel everything. Now, through the research results Bel had sent back, he had awakened in Amon the power of one body with two faces—and in this boy he had found exact confirmation of it.
Only once the Old Madman had finished did Amon see it all clearly, and his worry over his own condition dropped away; after all, he was not meeting this trial on a battlefield. Then the Old Madman spoke again: "You must pass this trial before the disaster comes. I was still fretting over whether there would be time, but you've already taken this step—that takes a good deal off my mind."
The Old Madman had brought up the disaster again, and Amon could not help asking, "What disaster is it, exactly? Wasn't what happened with Ma Qi disaster enough?" A neighbor he had known since childhood killed before his eyes, the uproar it stirred up in the town, the weeping and dread of Ma Qi's family—in Amon's eyes, that was already a disaster.
The Old Madman shook his head. "It's not yet time to tell you. As for you yourself, what you will soon face is another disaster. The day you leave Duke Town is close at hand."
Amon was startled. "Leave Duke Town? The town's own laws forbid it! And I'm not even a grand mage yet... And what about my father?"
The Old Madman sighed. "Don't worry over these things; worrying does no good. Everyone here has his own destination, and you have your fate. In truth, from the moment you mined the Tears of the Gods and that Fayol declared you had secretly offered it to the goddess Isis, you were destined to receive the kingdom's punishment."
Amon did not understand. "The kingdom's punishment?"
The Old Madman sneered. "Dasti and Xiaogu will naturally pretend they knew nothing, so that no blame attaches to them—it was you who secretly offered the Tears of the Gods to the goddess Isis! ...But Maria should have reached the Isis Temple by now and become the holy maiden, and the tale of how she came by the Tears of the Gods in Duke Town must have become public."
"The Hatti Kingdom won't protest openly, and it has no way to pursue the matter, but there will surely be those who resent it in secret. A miner dug up the Tears of the Gods and did not report it as the law requires, but secretly offered it to a temple of the Eju Empire—that is serious! If no one is punished, how is anyone to be stopped from doing the same again? If Rod-Dick can't be punished, can you not be punished?"
Amon's brows drew tight. "How will the kingdom punish me?"
The Old Madman: "They'll find some other charge—breaking some law or some divine decree—and you'll be beheaded. Otherwise how would it serve as a warning to anyone else? Any idiot could work that out!"
Amon sucked in a cold breath. "Beheaded! When?"
The Old Madman: "Rod-Dick hasn't even left Hatti yet, and I fear the news has already gotten out. But to deal with you they must wait until the holy maiden's accession is announced, then send an envoy from the royal capital—two months or so, all told, and that's soon! ...But don't worry about being beheaded. I still have some old friends here, and I'll arrange your departure beforehand. From now on, make your preparations for a long journey, and tell no one!"
Amon's face turned frightened, and even a little lost. "I'm really going to leave Duke Town? Leave my father, and you..." He was only a youth who had never once traveled far from home, and hearing the news so suddenly, for a moment he did not know what to do with himself.
The Old Madman patted his shoulder. "Child, you'll grow up one day. Did I teach you all this only so you could be a scribe in Duke Town? The world outside is vast—don't forget your promise to me: to unlock the secret of the gods. ...As for this place, I'll arrange everything. Once the storm has passed, you can come back."
Amon: "I can come back, then. Mm, that's good! But I..."
The Old Madman cut him off.
"But there is still so much you haven't learned—isn't that it? I will write down everything I know, as much of it as I can, and leave it to you; the rest will be entirely up to you.
I don't only want you to unlock the secret of the gods—I want you to prove this path with your own hands, and that is why I don't want you to go astray. My own path went astray; even becoming a ninth-rank mage was likely the end of the road for me. Now I must remind you of three things.
You must remember them, and do not ask why."
Amon was somewhat dazed. "Tell me. I'll remember them!"
The three things the Old Madman charged him with were very peculiar—
First: however powerful Amon might become, he should as far as possible refrain from killing directly. It was not that killing was forbidden; it was that direct killing should be avoided whenever possible, and there is a great difference between those two. And if he must directly harm anyone, any living being at all, then for the same result he should use the least force he could.
Second: however great the disaster he lived through, he should as far as possible keep people from hating him. If the direct hatred of certain people could not be avoided, then he should make more people grateful to him, and revere him from the depths of their hearts.
Third: if those two things ever brought him confusion, or ran counter to the choice his belief demanded, or left him no choice at all between life and death—if he must kill directly, must let people hate him—then he could set them aside, and need not torment himself over it.
Remembering the three was easy; understanding them was not. Amon blinked and thought for a long while, and since the Old Madman would not let him ask why, he asked something else instead: "You want me to avoid killing directly, so why did you kill Ma Qi yourself that day, and with no small amount of force at that?"
Something deep and helpless came into the Old Madman's eyes. "These are the things I hope you will remember. As for me, it no longer matters! ...Child, do these three points feel at all familiar to you?"
Amon shook his head. "I can't place it. This is the first time I've ever heard them."
The Old Madman: "It's the first time I've told anyone, too. They were mentioned in the message Bel sent back, though he never explained why. ...Amon, leave me that branch of yours for a few days; I want to work it over again."
The Old Madman had changed the subject. The "branch," of course, meant Amon's rod of top-grade refined iron. Amon gave the stick to him, and when he got home and thought over what they had talked about that day, he was not only deeply worried about the coming disaster but also stirred by a faint, inexplicable curiosity and longing.
He quietly made preparations for the long journey, though in truth there was little to prepare. He did not yet know where he was going, and what weighed on him more was what would become of his drunkard of a father once he was gone.
The Deep Blue Water Heart he must certainly take with him; the other twenty godstones he meant to leave behind, and they would be enough for his father for several years. The Old Madman had promised to look after matters here, and since he could come back anyway, there was no need to worry too much.
The three things the Old Madman told him to remember had been mentioned in Bel's spoken message—yet the last time he recalled that message, they had not come up at all. It seemed the Old Madman had not told Amon the whole of it, at the very least. What else is he holding back?
A few more days passed, and Amon's "illness" was over; every complaint had faded away as naturally as it had come. That evening, sitting at home, he felt for no reason he could name that every muscle and every pore in his body was utterly at ease, that even each breath was a delight. This was a body that truly belonged to him; only now could he wield the power awakened in his blood without the slightest awkwardness.
He had passed the trial of "purity of the body," and his combat arts had advanced to the second rank. Yet by the Old Madman's account, at this point Amon ought instead to go on and cultivate second-rank divine arts. He had meant to head for the Black Fire Thicket; since that was so, he went by the Old Madman's house on the way, wanting to tell him the news and ask how he should now go about cultivating second-rank divine arts.
When he reached the gate of the Old Madman's courtyard, however, he felt that something was off about the place: a formless force seemed to stand in the gateway, barring anyone from entering. Amon had barely touched that force when he heard a voice as though right beside his ear: "Mr. Nietzsche, is the one outside the child you spoke of?"
It was an old man's voice, and not anyone from the town. Right after it, Amon heard the Old Madman's voice reply as though it too were at his ear: "Yes, Gelie. That is Amon."
So the Old Madman had a guest, and his name was Gelie—a name Amon had never heard before. Amon heard only that one question and answer, and then there was no more sound, while the force at the gate showed no sign of opening to let him in. Clearly, whatever the Old Madman and Gelie had to discuss was not for Amon's ears, nor was he to go in and disturb them. Amon, knowing better than to intrude, stood quietly at the corner of the wall outside the courtyard and waited.
He had no idea what the Old Madman and his guest were discussing. After a while, Amon suddenly heard Gelie's voice again, raised in great agitation: "Nietzsche, I ask you not to blaspheme against the gods in my presence! I have my convictions, my faith, my principles—the prophecy of that great disaster, say no more of it!"