Tsering

**Tsering** (ཚེ་རིང) is an Akashic Vajrapani, originally raised in a now forgotten Karmachakra temple of Padma Shunya. She was an aspiring acolyte, just begining her path to the Akashic life, interrupted when a manifestation of destruction by vengeful members of The Eight Courts of Crimson, specifically the Court of Fire, descended upon the temple. She is one of the two survivors of that event known to them as the Night of Bloody Snow. She survived the encounter thanks to a visitor to the temple named Fenghuang, who saved her from being consumed by the avatar of destruction. She became a student of Fenghuang, who did know Akashic teachings but was not a Akashic herself when other Karmachakra temples rejected her pleas for shelter or her requests to learn under them. This led her down a path to becoming a Vajrapani under Fenghuang's teachings, as well as other Vajrapani across Asia, until the two parted ways in bad terms by the turn of the 20th century. While Fenghuang joined and led the Snake Tong, Tsering wandered the world, trying to write wrongs and prevent atrocities such as the one from Padma Shunya from happening again. While the path to enlightenment is unreachable for her as she proclaims, Tsering continues to walk down that road while correcting injustices wherever she finds it. A formidable warrior, she is what many think of when the word "Vajrapani" is uttered.

## Background

### Early Life

Tsering was born to two attendants in Padma Shunya Temple in Tibet. She spent her youth helping her parents work on the day to day tasks at the temple and aid the monks by keeping their meditation rooms clean and making sure everyone has enough meals for the day. It was a humble life, but she grew devoted to the way of the Akashics the more she learned by listening in on the lessons given to the initiates. She aspired to be like the monks, striving for enlightenment, and was able to become an initiate by her 20s. But before she could learn more from the monks of Padma Shunya, tragedy struck. The Temple refused to provide ancient scrolls to the Crimson Court of Fire, arguing that such knowledge must not be given to a destructive group such as the Court of Fire. Insulted, they unleashed an Avatar of Destruction, an entity made to destroy everything in it's path. It was a cold winter night when a red mist of malice surrounded the temple. The population stood scarcely a fortnight against the mass of writhing crimson flesh that formed from the mist and flooded the entire temple. She saw her parents and the other attendants consumed helplessly, the guardian monks fruitlessly trying to fight off the tidal wave of destruction, and the upper-ranking monks who bothered to surface from their meditations believed the attack to be nothing but demonic visions sent to distract them from meditation. They died where they sat on their silken cushions. She watched in horror as the monks to whom she had served tea and nettles in her childhood were consumed and became part of the wave of flesh. Paralyzed by fear as the wave of slaughter was about to descend upon her, surrounded and no place to run to, Tsering closed her eyes and accepted her fate,

But she felt no agonizing pain, no gnashing teeth or fleshy mass melting her skin, she opened her eyes to the sight of a lone woman standing in front of her, creating a circle of energy that redirected the flow of the mass away from them. It was a guest of the monks who arrived a day ago. Before she knew it, Fenghuang carried her and with a single jump, they broke through the ceiling and escaped the temple. She and Fenghuang watched from a distance how the mass swallowed up the entirety of Padma Shunya. It only took a few moments for the mass to disappeared as abrupt as it descended upon the temple.

### Fenghuang's Tutelage

With no where else to go, Fenghuang decided to help her find refuge in different Akashic monasteries, but every door they went to rejected her pleas for shelter and further tutelage in the Akashic ways. The isolated nature of each Karmachakra temple meant that news travelled slow, and the fact that Fenghuang was known to many Akashic abbots to be untrustworthy made it hard for them to believe that Tsering was the sole surviving initiate from Padma Shunya. The rising conflicts in the outside world also made the Karmchakra more and more isolationist. Rather than leave her abandoned in the snowy doorsteps of the last temple that pushed her away, Fenghuang got into a heated exchange with the abbot, and then decided to take Tsering under her wing and told her words that continued to echo in Tsering's mind to this day.

*"I was once taught by Kindred of Akasha hundreds of years ago and so I will teach you what I learned from them, But they weren't the Karmachakra who you worship like the ultimate paragons of virtue. You saw how detached they are that they refuse to help their own in need. They chastise me in front of you for being too attached, too controlled by emotion. Yet what I have is freedom. They say I let anger lead me to conflict and violence, but they are too blinded by their rigid morality. Anger and discontentment are the fuel for nearly all change in humanity. Yes, it can mean rage and senseless barbarism, but it can also mean rightful indignation in the face of injustice. Righteous anger can can root out corruption and give the resolve to break the chains of tyranny. Reaching enlightenment will not be possible for me or you by just letting go of everything, from love, from anger, from what makes us human. I'll be your teacher, you only need to say the word."*

Throughout the 19th century, she remained by Fenghuang's side, a nomadic lifestyle of travelling across Asia and even into Europe. Fenghuang was true to her word and thought her the Akashic knowledge she has learned across the centuries and how to channel magic the Akashic way. Even with below average potency for magic, Akashakarma and Fenghuang's teachings of "The Way" have turned her into a formidable warrior. Before she knew it, she became a Vajrapani, a sect that her old monk teachers warned her about. For decades, she, Fenghuang, and a small retinue of other followers of her master, fought off enemies from the Court, which she still despised, to Martyrdom Inquisitors or Grand Order Veil agents that sought them out and attacked them, or simply got in the way of Fenghuang's travels and quests for artifacts or ancient knowledge.

Fenghuang instilled in her the idea to never disregard her feelings and emotions, simply control them to allow her to act and speak with clarity. Something that made Tsering realize the feelings of attraction toward her teacher. The more she saw Fenghuang as a woman as well, and not just her savior and mentor, conflict within her began to brew. But the innocence of love and its troubles were quickly tossed aside when she also realized that she and her teacher disagreed when it came to correcting injustices. At first, she let it go, thinking Fenghuang was still cursed with the inability to help every person they came across, topple every tyrant, extinguish every crime lord. But the more she spent time with Fenghuang the more she realized that her master was a woman who could definitely do all those things, but simply refuses not to. What once were simple discussions while drinking tea turned into passionate debates. Over the course of the 19th century, Asia was wracked with conflict, from European Colonialism to the tyranny of the native rulers. Tsering brought up that she followed Fenghuang not just because she mentored her but because she genuinely wanted to help in her goal of creating Utopia, creating a place without injustice. She stated that there were injustices everywhere and that their combined strength should be used to topple the tyrants and invaders that plagued places like China, Fenghuang's own homeland. But Fenghuang remained resolute in her stance.

*"Yes. I am not blind to what is happening in the world. I despise it. And believe me when I say that using all of my power is not enough. Yes, we can dispose of the corrupt governor here and kill a bandit lord there, but it will all be but an impermanent solution. We get rid of the tyranny of the Qing, and they will be replaced by squabbling warlords or worse, the western vultures who will divide the Middle Kingdom. And if we were to incite rebellion and were to set up a government of our own, we will be faced with the challenges of corruption from within, and said vultures waiting for us to make a mistake. This world has followed a Flow that I cannot and will not stop. Open your eyes and see, Tsering, a world ruled by nations who declare themselves as "Great Powers" and the "Civilizers of the Orient" will be a waste. The Utopia we build will be far away from this, be it physically or by time. For now, we bide our time and build up what we need. Yes, we can still correct injustices along the way, but realize that we cannot save everyone. You have every right to see me as cold and pragmatic for this, and if you are already, then you have become a better Akashic than I ever will be. I pick and choose my battles, you seek out everything to make things right. I am humbled before you."*

### Parting and Solitary life

That was the final discussion that they had about this, and Tsering realized there was no changing her master's mind. By the time Fenghuang and her companions decided to go to the Philippines and finally ascend to the next step of her grand plan, Tsering stayed behind in Asia. The sadness in Fenghuang's eyes were burned into her memory as they parted. Tsering realized that she can't rely on others too much, and she must take it upon herself to correct the times she and her teacher ignored injustices in the past. For the next century, Tsering further wandered the world alone, combining the teachings of Fenghuang with what she learned in her travels. She met other Vajrapani, some as fiery as her, but she never stayed with them for too long. Further meditation and training allowed her body and soul to age more slowly, and by present day, she looked no older than she was when she and Fenghuang parted. The drive for longevity was fueled by her seemingly never-ending quest for justice. But the last century was a journey for her, in both mind and body. The wars and disasters that passed shaped her worldview even further. Earlier into the 1900s, she saw the world ravaged by war twice, and while she did try her best to help everyone she came across with, be it healing them or providing them food and safety, she realized she had a long way to go. Nations paid in the deaths of hundreds of men as the price of a mile during the Great War, she saw how ideology resulted in the purges in Europe and Russia that escalated into the most destructive conflict man has seen. She was there when she saw the bomb drop on Hiroshima and was too late, if only her premonition made her act fast enough and intercept that Sleeper's Avatar of Destruction before it landed. When she saw another manifestation of death that took the lives of hundreds of thousands in a matter of seconds, she realized that the people of this world has followed a Flow where they can no longer fully stray from, or be redirected from. Her old master was right, she figured. But instead of spiraling into a pit of despair, it merely bolstered her resolve. To save this world was improbable, but not impossible, and an old proverb from the monks of her home temple echoed in her ears. "To enlightenment might seem unreachable, as humanity itself is imperfect, but is there not beauty in trying to overcome what we might think as evil and imperfect nature?"

By present day, Tsering returned to Tibet, creating a small hermitage for herself in the mountains as a resting spot and a base. She still continues to hunt down criminals, monsters and abominations that threaten the safety of Sleepers, rogue magi that have malicious intent, and especially keeping an eye out for magi from the Crimson Court who could be planning atrocities again. Over the course of the 1900s and the 2000s, she also saw the rise of the organization that her old Master cultivated into an influential power in the Asian side of the magi world, and she has debated time and time again of reuniting with her old teacher due to several encounters she had with her during certain incidents. Despite their disagreements and the contempt she held for Fenghuang for refusing to use her powers and influence to stop injustices in a larger scale, she still held respect for her and to this day still harbors a love for her old master. But over the course of the century realized that this was not some youthful affection or a bout of lustful desire, this love stemmed from her desire to see Fenghuang be safe, see her be happy, and see her millennium-old goal finally come to fruition. It was this that made her almost join the Snake Tong. But in the end she stopped herself out of principle, as the Snake Tong represented her master's philosophy of passivity when it comes to fighting the very sources of injustice. She realized that she can still make a difference alone, and continues to live this solitary life of vigilantism. She has occasionally teamed up with people she deemed trustworthy and allied with those who are trying to prevent atrocities, be it Snakes, Marytrs, Veil, independent magi, and even Eight Court members. But once the trouble is over, she does not overstay her welcome and merely retreats to her solitude.

## Personality

Tsering is a woman with a deeply grounded sense of devotion and purpose, shaped by her upbringing in the Padma Shunya Temple and her subsequent journey with Fenghuang. Born amidst the tranquil halls of the Padma Shunya Temple, her early life revolved around simplicity and devotion. As she helped her parents with the temple's day-to-day tasks, she found solace in the sacred lessons meant for initiates, nurturing her curiosity and hunger for knowledge.

Tsering's path took her across continents and through centuries, fighting alongside her mentor and other allies. But amidst the battles and the tutelage, she couldn't escape the internal conflict that arose from her admiration for Fenghuang and their differing approaches to justice. With each passing decade, Tsering's resolve was further tested, bearing witness to humanity's most destructive moments. The atrocities of wars and the devastating power of nuclear weapons seared her soul. Still, she clung to her idealistic vision of a better world, fighting against injustice wherever she went, healing and helping those in need.

Despite her strength and the wisdom accumulated over centuries, Tsering remains human. Her heart still feels the ache of a long lost love, torn between her desire to be by her side and the conviction to follow her own path, even if it means going alone. The scars of time have given her a seasoned perspective, making her cautious and selective in her battles. She understands that while she cannot save everyone, she must try to bring light to the darkness wherever she treads. She accepted that the Flow of the world might seem unchangeable, but she clings to the belief that even small acts of kindness and justice leave a mark in the Akashic Records.

In the quiet solitude of her mountain hermitage, she found solace in a peculiar habit of smoking home-made cigarettes. Crafted from a mountain flower once cultivated by the Akashics for its aromatic properties in meditation, she had taken to smoking these rolled leaves as her own unique aid to introspection. The ritual of lighting up the cigarette became a moment of respite, where the fragrant smoke wafted around her, momentarily calming her turbulent thoughts. Yet, she recognized the irony in her indulgence, finding serenity in something that was originally meant to foster clarity. Her self-awareness of this contradiction only deepened the sense of imperfection that resided within her and reminds her that she is indeed still an imperfect human, but she must continue to strive for betterment.

Another aspect of her personality that showcased her human vulnerabilities was her self-destructive tendency to put others' safety above her own. This was a direct result of her adherence to the Akashic, specifically Vajrapani principles, where she held herself to the highest standards of protecting the innocent and confronting any threat, regardless of the personal risks involved. Her fierce determination to safeguard others sometimes led her into dangerous situations without a second thought for her own well-being. Friends and allies during her time with Fenghuang were aware of her selflessness and would often caution her against recklessness. But she couldn't shake off the deep-rooted conviction that her life was expendable if it meant sparing others from harm. It was a constant internal struggle, knowing that she possessed valuable knowledge and abilities that can be used for continuous aid for the oppressed and the innocent, yet being willing to risk it all for the sake of a greater good.

At the core of Tsering's being lies the Akashic simplicity and pacifism she learned during her early years at the Padma Shunya Temple. The teachings instilled in her a reverence for life and a commitment to non-aggression. She embraces the notion that violence should be the last resort, and she strives to find peaceful resolutions whenever possible. This commitment to pacifism is not to be confused with total non-violence, for Tsering is acutely aware that evil and malevolence sometimes demand a forceful response. She recognizes that there are situations where her abilities must be used to confront and stop those who bring harm to others. Her principles impel her to be a protector, a shield for the innocents. She treads this thin line with great care, knowing that violence can beget more violence, and that the path of a warrior is fraught with moral complexities.

The conflict between her pacifist teachings and her duties as a guardian weighs on her soul, but she has learned to navigate this moral conflict with a sense of pragmatism and discernment, something she regretted getting angry at Fenghuang in the past. She seeks to minimize harm and wield her powers judiciously, always striving to find alternative solutions to conflicts. Yet, when pushed to the brink, she will unleash the full extent of her formidable abilities to safeguard the vulnerable and defeat those who perpetrate injustice.

Tsering's adherence to Akashic principles, coupled with her commitment to protecting the innocent, weaves a tapestry of convictions within her. She has come to understand that life rarely adheres to rigid philosophies, and instead, it requires a delicate dance between ideals and realities. Its through this dance that Tsering navigates her path, walking the line between pacifism and action, seeking to make a positive impact in a world that often resists simplicity and peace. And as she journeys forward, she carries the weight of her choice. Her life was punctuated with encounters that left their mark on her soul. She carried the memories of those she had lost in battles, each loss a reminder of her limitations and the haunting question of whether she could have done more. The weight of these experiences tempered her idealism, but it never extinguished the flame of hope that burned within her.

Tsering's journey is an ever-evolving odyssey, fueled by her empathy for others, her sense of duty, and her desire to be the change she wishes to see. Though she may walk the path alone, she carries the imprints of those she loved and lost, shaping her purpose and guiding her actions in her quest for justice and enlightenment. And as she gazes upon the world, she holds on to the hope that her enduring efforts will one day leave a lasting impact, no matter how small, in the tapestry of Akasha.

She has made and lost friends over the centuries, and has made peace with the fact, except for the sole surviving friend she had for the longest time, Fenghuang. Tsering's feelings toward her former mentor and savior continue to be multifaceted. The emotions she harbors for Fenghuang are deeply rooted, shaped by their shared history and the enduring bond that was forged during their time together. Tsering's feelings for Fenghuang are marked by a profound affection and admiration. Having been saved from certain doom by her mentor, Tsering developed a deep sense of gratitude and respect for Fenghuang's abilities and wisdom. She admires the strength and wisdom of her former teacher, viewing her as a figure of great power and influence. Alongside admiration, Tsering harbors feelings of disappointment and disagreement with Fenghuang's ways. Tsering remains critical of Fenghuang's unwillingness to use her immense power and influence to create a broader impact, especially now where Fenghuang can be considered a "great power" in the world of magi. Whenever they did meet up again, Tsering is unable to show any other feeling than resentment or hesitation. As she saw her mentor not changing much, she wanted to talk to her more, but something within her holds her back from professing sentiments outside of hostility or reservation.

## Ablities

### Akashakarma

The Akashakarma refers to the impressions all beings make upon the fabric of the Tapestry of Existence with their actions. The Tapestry is also known simply as "Akasha" by the Akashics, while others call it the Akashic Records. Akashakarma is the passive (Yin) principle of Akashic philosophy, similar to the Taoist Wu-wei.

Tsering has honed her mind and body to the point where she can sense and even influence the Akashakharma with willpower and magic, despite her average potency for magic. The Akashic Record can be sensed the most by the ones who empty their own selves from egoism, sharing their the thoughts of the others and understanding, and influence the forces around them, Tsering is no exception. This gives her supernatural pre-cognitive abilities such as enhanced physical capabilities without using spells and heightened senses, especially during combat. Combined by her martial arts training with Fenghuang, she is a formidable fighter. She has also developed healing capabilities, closing wounds and purifying bodies from disease and poison. But what makes her and Akashic fighters deadliest is the pre-cognitive abilities developed from studying Akashakarma. As if seeing glimpses of possibilities and futures from Akasha itself, Tsering can predict actions of enemies during battle, easily avoiding or blocking their attacks. But her most prominent ability with pre-cognition is this six-sense that she feels whenever something drastically dangerous is about to arrive, influenced by her survival of her home temple's destruction and also throughout centuries of training and mediation. It is usually heralded when she suddenly says to herself mentally that "she has a bad feeling about this".

As for general magic, she has learned about it with her time with Fenghuang as a way to learn about what possible enemy magi could wield, Tsering rarely uses magic outside of Akashic techniques. She has used Bounded Fields to keep places hidden in times of danger.

### The Way

Also known as "The Path", "The Dao", or "Do". The Way is considered the main instrument that an Akashic can use to hone their mind and bodies as well as to utilize magic. In its very essence, The Way is a meditative martial art, transcending mere combat applications. The Way also emphasizes many non-violent principals and can be used in (and improved through) anything from household chores to creative arts. Tsering practices The Way through exercise and meditation, and has gained expertise in the Eight Limbs of the Way, which are:

**Dhyana**: The limb of meditation and awareness

**Prajna**: The limb of ethics and compassion

**Karma**: The limb of attentiveness and devotion

**Sunyakaya**: The limb of the "Empty Body", of silence and listening

**Dharmamukti**: The limb of the "Clasped Hands", of physical confrontation and evasion

**Shastamargat**: The limb of weapons, of precision and tools

**Tricanmarga**: The limb of "Inner Struggle", of balance within the self and knowledge of one's place in the cosmos

**Jivahasta**: The limb of the "Healing Hand", of medicine and healing

### Martial Arts

The limbs of weapons and Clasped Hands (Dharmamukti and Shastamargat) greatly influence Tsering's techniques in combat. Training with Fenghuang has made her precise and pragmatic in a fight, taking the shortest course to stop a dangerous foe while also making sure it either disables her target or providing a painless death if necessary. Using a combination of martial arts techniques thanks to the "Forest Fist" philosophy by a companion of Fenghuang who Tsering also befriended in her youth, she picks up the techniques from different styles that she deems useful for her own personal style.