Jon doesn't hesitate to sit, and though he's skimmed over the rooms they passed through with interest, his eyes are on the sword the second they enter the room. It doesn't shock him that that's what Shen Qingqiu brought him here to see; from merely stepping in the room, Jon can tell that there's something to the weapon, though he can't quite place it.
The explanation clarifies that easily, and the exposure of the blade doubles down the point - no cursed artefacts here, but something so palpably powerful even still that it gives Jon pause.
Jon's brows shoot up with interest, and, almost cattishly, he sits up and leans forward, doing all that he can to get a better look at the weapon. He's never been someone who has an interest in weaponry, but the power behind this one is so tangible that it snares him instantly. He can barely decide where to begin asking questions; perhaps one is more important than others, in determining what sort of questions he can ask.
"Wow, this is..." He starts, but he can barely decide what word to settle on, but it's clear that he's quite impressed. "Is Xiu Ya--- sapient?"
Shen Qingqiu grins, pleased as anything by Jon's reaction. He'd been a little worried that he might try to touch the blade, which he can't imagine would go well for his friend with how much negative energy has infested his body and mind -- but Jon merely watches, wide-eyed and appropriately awed.
"Not in so many words," he says, sliding the sword back into its sheath and putting it down to prepare the tea. "It can't think like we do, it can't analyze things or make decisions any more complicated than whether to let someone wield it or not. I'm probably lucky in that respect," he notes with somewhat angry embarrassment, the same tone that always shows up whenever he talks about the System and the way it unceremoniously plopped him down into someone else's life. "If it were sapient I doubt it would have accepted me so easily when I became Shen Qingqiu. But it's...it's alive nonetheless, in the same way that a temple or library might come to life after being filled with concentrated thought and devotion. It has a soul."
His head hangs slightly as he admits, "It shattered when I broke my golden core...In a sense we died together. I never expected to see it again."
Jon listens attentively, and only when the sword is sheathed does he move to gingerly pick it up - though he barely lifts it off the table, simply turning it over to have a better look at it. Even from within the sheath, there's an unease that comes to lifting it--- but a different unease, than when he's handled the strange, cursed objects that wind up in Calloway's Curios. An energy that doesn't seep into his palms, sinking like a poison, but rather, it cuts, like a light spilling into a dark room.
He doesn't care for what that might say about him, as opposed to the sword. He sets it down softly once again.
"It's quite a stroke of luck that it came back to you, then," Jon notes, watching Shen Qingqiu prepare the tea. "It's--- I've never seen anything like it, personally. I mean, it's fine craftwork, I'm sure, but--- that's an incredibly tangible energy it's got. Such a thing could have been terribly dangerous in the wrong hands, I'm sure."
Which makes Jon all the more fortunate that Shen Qingqiu didn't have it during their first, less-than-pleasant run-in...
"I feel extremely fortunate," Shen Qingqiu agrees. "Even if Calloway did make me pay out the nose to get it back. Foolish man. It's not as if anyone else would have been able to wield it even if they cared to pay his price." Well, maybe a teenage Luo Binghe...he'd no trouble using Xiu Ya to cut Shen Qingqiu's bonds, that time they'd been kidnapped by a Skinner Demon. It must have recognized what a good little disciple he was, loyal despite the terrible way the original goods had treated him.
"The energy you're sensing is concentrated spiritual qi," he explains, setting Jon's cup of tea down in front of him and taking his own place at the table, cup in hand. "Collected in the bedrock of Cang Qiong Mountain by its own natural feng shui and the results of centuries' worth of righteous cultivators making it their home. On Wan Jian Peak they carefully study and manipulate that energy, winding it into ever tighter spirals until it coalesces into a form like that of solid metal. They refine it further until it takes on the shape of a sword, and from there a sect disciple or honored guest may pull the sword out of the mountainside and call it their own." He smiles over the rim of his cup. "It's one of our sect's most precious techniques, and it can't be replicated anywhere else in the world."
Jon holds his cup and nods along as he listens; it's a hell of a thing to imagine, really. It's strange to think that, just a few years ago, he might've ascribed something like this to metaphor stemming from some combination of long-standing tradition and religion. But here it is, undeniable and directly in front of him. (Even if it is in front of him, his mind still strains to process the creation of such an object. After all, the items of his own world, imbued with the evil that they were, seem to have either attached themselves to mundane items, or seemingly come into existence on their own. The ability to see such a thing happen actively, however...)
"To be honest, I'm shocked that Calloway could pull such a thing here, and that it's energy didn't--- reject that pull," Jon muses. "Maybe however he's finding these things is inherently neutral, though? I suppose it's not worth looking too hard at something so beneficial, though. It doesn't feel like it's been altered at all since you've last seen it, as well?"
"I'd be able to tell if anyone had tampered with it," Shen Qingqiu agrees. "We share a bond, Xiu Ya and I -- a part of my soul lives within the sword, and it within me. Although..." He grimaces, setting down his own tea cup. "It is a little odd to see it again in one piece. The last thing I remember before dying was Xiu Ya shattering in my hands, as I fell from that roof...a side effect of my own self-destruction. Did someone reforge it, I wonder? Or perhaps it too has enjoyed a resurrection."
He shrugs. "In any case, I have a theory about the items Calloways finds -- namely that they are somehow tied to us off-worlders. Of course he pulls in a lot of random junk, but have you noticed that many of the truly powerful objects have some personal ties to someone already living on the island? Certainly this is the first time a cultivator's sword has appeared in his shop -- Oh!"
He interrupts himself with a grin. "There was another thing I got from Calloway's...one minute while I go get it." He rushes out of the room, returning with a small...plasticy...item in hand oh god it's a Funko Pop. It's a fucking Funko Pop, and Shen Qingqiu brandishes it in Jon's face like it's an idol made of solid gold.
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Date: 2024-11-06 01:04 am (UTC)The explanation clarifies that easily, and the exposure of the blade doubles down the point - no cursed artefacts here, but something so palpably powerful even still that it gives Jon pause.
Jon's brows shoot up with interest, and, almost cattishly, he sits up and leans forward, doing all that he can to get a better look at the weapon. He's never been someone who has an interest in weaponry, but the power behind this one is so tangible that it snares him instantly. He can barely decide where to begin asking questions; perhaps one is more important than others, in determining what sort of questions he can ask.
"Wow, this is..." He starts, but he can barely decide what word to settle on, but it's clear that he's quite impressed. "Is Xiu Ya--- sapient?"
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Date: 2024-11-06 03:49 am (UTC)"Not in so many words," he says, sliding the sword back into its sheath and putting it down to prepare the tea. "It can't think like we do, it can't analyze things or make decisions any more complicated than whether to let someone wield it or not. I'm probably lucky in that respect," he notes with somewhat angry embarrassment, the same tone that always shows up whenever he talks about the System and the way it unceremoniously plopped him down into someone else's life. "If it were sapient I doubt it would have accepted me so easily when I became Shen Qingqiu. But it's...it's alive nonetheless, in the same way that a temple or library might come to life after being filled with concentrated thought and devotion. It has a soul."
His head hangs slightly as he admits, "It shattered when I broke my golden core...In a sense we died together. I never expected to see it again."
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Date: 2024-11-11 06:11 pm (UTC)He doesn't care for what that might say about him, as opposed to the sword. He sets it down softly once again.
"It's quite a stroke of luck that it came back to you, then," Jon notes, watching Shen Qingqiu prepare the tea. "It's--- I've never seen anything like it, personally. I mean, it's fine craftwork, I'm sure, but--- that's an incredibly tangible energy it's got. Such a thing could have been terribly dangerous in the wrong hands, I'm sure."
Which makes Jon all the more fortunate that Shen Qingqiu didn't have it during their first, less-than-pleasant run-in...
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Date: 2024-11-12 05:43 am (UTC)"The energy you're sensing is concentrated spiritual qi," he explains, setting Jon's cup of tea down in front of him and taking his own place at the table, cup in hand. "Collected in the bedrock of Cang Qiong Mountain by its own natural feng shui and the results of centuries' worth of righteous cultivators making it their home. On Wan Jian Peak they carefully study and manipulate that energy, winding it into ever tighter spirals until it coalesces into a form like that of solid metal. They refine it further until it takes on the shape of a sword, and from there a sect disciple or honored guest may pull the sword out of the mountainside and call it their own." He smiles over the rim of his cup. "It's one of our sect's most precious techniques, and it can't be replicated anywhere else in the world."
no subject
Date: 2024-11-27 01:23 am (UTC)"To be honest, I'm shocked that Calloway could pull such a thing here, and that it's energy didn't--- reject that pull," Jon muses. "Maybe however he's finding these things is inherently neutral, though? I suppose it's not worth looking too hard at something so beneficial, though. It doesn't feel like it's been altered at all since you've last seen it, as well?"
no subject
Date: 2024-11-30 09:36 am (UTC)He shrugs. "In any case, I have a theory about the items Calloways finds -- namely that they are somehow tied to us off-worlders. Of course he pulls in a lot of random junk, but have you noticed that many of the truly powerful objects have some personal ties to someone already living on the island? Certainly this is the first time a cultivator's sword has appeared in his shop -- Oh!"
He interrupts himself with a grin. "There was another thing I got from Calloway's...one minute while I go get it." He rushes out of the room, returning with a small...plasticy...item in hand oh god it's a Funko Pop. It's a fucking Funko Pop, and Shen Qingqiu brandishes it in Jon's face like it's an idol made of solid gold.
"Look!" he says gleefully. "It's Luo Binghe!"