The divine root conceives, its source revealed;
Mind and nature nurtured, the Great Dao is born (Chapter Title)
So... You're going to need a little backstory on this. The Journey to the West is one of the most well known pieces of literature ever. It was written in 7th century China by a group of people. The story is based extremely loosely off of an actual journey made by Xuanzang (The most well known Buddhist monk ever. Of all time.) Anyway, I'm beginning to read it, and I thought I might do an adaption of it for RWBY. Seeing as Sun Wukong was named after the monkey king Sun Wukong in this story. He is a main character, and is the main character for the first seven chapters.
Anyway, the story: So I'm reading the actual story one chapter at a time, and writing one chapter at a time. I am not reading ahead yet. There are places in this chapter where I take directly from the text, and places where I don't. You should be able to tell pretty easily here. It's seventh century chinese here people. The unabridged version I'm reading from I believe was written in 1839? That sounds way too old though...
I'm liberally calling this a humor because I've heard it's funny. Remember, I haven't read ahead. I added a little of my own humor in there. But really just a little. Hope you enjoy I guess...
Once there were three islands where gods and immortals were said to have been born. Upon these islands was a vast mountain range. This range consisted chiefly of one mountain: Flower Fruit Mountain. Known to its inhabitants, as home. The mountain was inhabited by plants mostly, but after a while there began to be wondrous animals such as monkeys, tigers, warthogs, pumas, even a chupathingy was claimed to have been spotted there.
But none of these creatures lived up in the slightest to the being that lived at the top of the mountain. At the top of the mountain was the most magnificent creature ever to grace Remnant with its presence. It was a rock.
The rock was 36.5 feet tall, and 24 feet around. It was perfectly round.
One day, there was a great storm, and the rock, being at the top of the mountain, was struck by lightning. The rock was split in half by the powerful lightning strike.
When the storm cleared, in the rubble of the rock was a stone in the shape of an egg. Nurtured by nature itself, the egg hatched one day, and gave birth to a monkey man. But not just any old monkey man, a blonde monkey faunus.
When the monkey faunus was born, he was born with fully developed features, and he knew how to climb and run already. He climbed a tree immediately, and when the sun shone on his eyes, they lit beams of golden light that traveled so high and were so bright, that even the jade emperor saw them in heaven.
The jade emperor ordered his servant guard, Glynda Goodwitch, to search the grounds for the source of the light.
"Your subjects," Glynda began, "have reported that the beam came from Flower Fruit Mountain just south of Mistral. It seems to have originated from a monkey faunus hatched from a stone egg. He is beginning to eat, and the light seems to be fading."
The monkey faunus befriended the lizard, the tiger, the wolf, and the leopard. He called the gibbon and the baboon his kin. At night he slept beneath stony ridges, and in the day he sauntered through caves and mountain peaks.
In the mountain there is no passing of time;
The cold recedes, but one knows not the year
One very hot morning, the monkey faunus was playing with his fellow monkeys in a stream when they decided to travel to the top of the stream to see the spring that it came from. When they arrived they saw a large waterfall.
One monkey said, "If one of us could penetrate that curtain of water and come back, we would surely hail them as a king." All the other monkeys seemed to agree, but one wasn't quite sure.
Hm. Penetrate. The monkey faunus thought. "I will do it, then you will all hail me as your king."
"Go, stone monkey, and be our king," one monkey spoke out.
"Uhh… Yeah that was kind of the idea. Alright, I'm gonna go now…" The monkey faunus said before turning and wading into the water. When he passed through the curtain of water, he realized that the inside was actually a natural grotto. The nature was intermittently interrupted by beautiful stone work benches and stoves. Beds with carved flowers were truly lovable, and the entire place resembled a home.
"Well, this is mine," the monkey faunus said, laying down on one of the stone beds. "Oh shit, the kingy thing." The king got back up and rushed back out through the waterfall to his new subjects.
"Haha! I have returned! Now you all shall call me your king!" The monkey faunus shouted to his fellow monkeys.
Each of the monkeys lined up according to their age and rank, and shouted back to him, "Long live our great king!"
The monkey faunus then changed his name to Handsome Monkey King in honor of his new accomplishment. For years he dwelled in the grotto with his monkey servants until one day, the thought of death seemed to weigh heavy on his soul. "What is disturbing the great king?" One of his servants asked him.
"Huh? Oh I'm actually pretty happy right now. I'm worried a little about the future though. And speaking of the future, you should speak in the first person. It's kind of annoying that all of you guys keep addressing me in the third person all the time."
The monkey bowed, "As always, the handsome king is correct.'
"Uh uh uh, do it again. Right this time."
"As always… You are correct?"
"That's it. Good job. You know, I do love it here. You guys are great at… Being monkeys. But I am worried about what happens later in life. When I get old start doing old people stuff. I don't want to do old people stuff, you know?"
The monkey turned to his fellow monkeys and said, "The great king is distressed. He does not wish to grow old. What ever will we do?" The monkey put his head in his hands and cried.
One large old baboon jumped up In front of the crowd and faced the king. "If the great king has become farsighted, it may well indicate his religious inclination."
"My what?" The great king asked.
The baboon ignored him, "There are only three types of immortal beings. Buddhas, the immortals, and holy sages. They live in ancient caves on immortal mountains to the west."
"Well then it's settled. I'll go west tomorrow. Someone build me a raft, and someone gather me some food, and someone get me a bamboo walking stick."
"Does the great king wish to-"
"And someone shut him up!"
The monkeys gathered the rarest of the rare fruits, the immortal fruits, from the mountains along with the strongest stick of bamboo they could find.
In the morning the Handsome Monkey King drifted on the raft until he came to a beach. On the beach were people fishing, and lots of food to go around. Of course, the king didn't want it to go around to everyone though. He approached them, made a weird face, and they all ran away. They left their food behind. "Wow, that was surprisingly easy. Stupid humans."
He caught one human and took his clothes. Once he put on the clothes, he ate some food, then trudged into the forest at the edge of the beach. He tried his best to imitate human speech, culture, and manners, but he could never get over the fact that they covered their chest with clothes. He wore a shirt at all times, but he never buttoned it up. It always allowed a large portion of his chest to be visible.
As the monkey king was walking one day, he realized that all of these people were caught up in a game for money, fame, and more greed, and none of them wanted the least bit into his plan. He wandered through big cities and small towns, but no one was willing to help him. He knew he would not find immortality amongst these greedy beings.
He spent eight or nine years on the continent trying to find the immortal among mortals, the one man who wasn't looking for power among men who were. Then he realized. The reason the one man isn't looking for power is because he already has it. He has no reason to stay around these people. He has no need to flaunt. Because he knows he's already better than these people, but just doesn't want to rub it in. That's why he has the power.
So the monkey king built another raft, and headed west again. At the docks he learned the city he was just in, and the surrounding countryside, was called Vale. And the place he would be going to next, is called Vaccuo. A place with much lushery, vast mountains, great valleys. Every kind of sight you might want.
So he drifted on a raft of his own making. He drifted to the next country over, and pondered what it meant to be immortal. All of the sudden he arrived. There was a massive mountain with thick forests at the base where he was. He was afraid of no animal so he decided to begin climbing the mountain. After a few days had passed, he reached the top where there was a small log cabin, a man singing outfront, and woods as far as the eye could see. The man was living a humble life of wood chopping. "This is it," said the monkey, "That took way longer than I expected. Although I did have a long raft trip… Maybe next time I'll just stow away on something bigger and faster."
The man heard the monkey talking to himself, and spoke to him. He asked where the monkey came from, and what he was doing at the man's house. The monkey said he was looking for an immortal, and that the man was one. He said that the man should teach him his ways, but the man countered by saying that he was not an immortal, he had merely been helped by an immortal. The monkey asked where this immortal was, and the man pointed farther up the mountain.
The monkey traveled up and up the mountain until he came upon an intricately carved door. The door opened as soon as he came to it, and a tall boy came out of the doorway. He had gray hair and a gray outfit on. "The patriarch told me to come out here, and that there was a man seeking the Way here. I assume that's you?"
"Yes," The monkey replied.
"You seem very full of yourself, why don't we have a little fight out here. No one has to know. And the winner gets the Way."
The monkey king had never turned down a duel before, but he knew this was neither the right time, nor the right way. He just needed to get through the door, and then he'd won. "I've never turned down a duel before, but not now. I'll fight you after I've learned the secrets of the Way. Then we'll have a good fight."
The man bowed shallowly and smiled, "You may pass."
The monkey went in through the door to a great grotto. There was a man sitting on a tall table at the far end of the room, and about twenty people in white robes looking at him. They were presumably his students. The man at the end of the room had red hair, and a bowler hat on. At his side was a cane with a rounded handle.
"So you want to learn the Way do you? I suppose I could always use more men."
Ok... So there was more to this chapter at the end, but it wasn't really important. If you like learning about Chinese words I guess it could have been. It was about how the patriarch named the monkey king Sun Wukong (Oriental name so the surname is first, like Lie Ren). I may include it in the next chapter.
There will be a next chapter, but depending on if you guys like this or not, there might not be more. At first I thought that this was going to be a quick thing I could just do everyday, but it's actually more difficult than that. And while it is kind of interesting and helps me understand the actual story better... If you guys don't like it, I'm not gonna do it. I giv it about a fifty fifty chance I keep doing these.
Tell me in the review section if you think I should keep doing these, and tell me if I did the blending well. Like I said, I'm trying to blend the actual text with my text and I really have no idea if it actually went well. Thanks!