Week 9 story: The Summoning of the Monkey King

Painting of Sun Wu Kung and the Jade Rabbit.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

As I walk into the room, I hear my instructor say, "Good morning. Here to summon another servant?"

I reply with, "Seems like it. I don't know why the head teacher keeps having me summon more servants. You'd think summing six different servants would be enough."

My instructor replies with, "She never told you? It’s because you have a high affinity with Heroic Spirits. This allows you to summon multiple servants where normally a person can have only one. In short, this makes you a great candidate to test the summoning system.”

After hearing this, I respond with, “So I’m a guinea pig?”

He replies with, “Essentially.”

I sigh, “Great. Let’s just get this over with.”

I perform the summoning procedure as usual and what appears is-

“A MONKEY!”

– I see a monkey about the size of a small man, wearing gold colored traditional Japanese clothing, and carrying a long pole.

As I’m exasperated at the sight before me, the monkey jumps into the air and does a somersault and then vanishes. I look around the room trying to see where he went until I hear a voice behind me, “I’m not just any monkey. I am Sun Wu Kung, The venerable sun, the Monkey King and the Great Saint who is Heaven’s Equal.”

As I hear this, I turn around only to find that he has vanished again. So, my new servant is Sun Wu Kung. Legends say he was an extraordinary monkey who learned magic and the secrets of immortality from a saint. The legends go on to say that he led the monkeys to great prosperity, defeated many strong foes, and gained the mystical pole Ruyi Jingu Bang. Though, the legends also say he caused a lot of trouble from many people and also ran amok in the heavens. This led to Sun Wu Kung being sealed away by the Buddha until a time where he could redeem himself. This occurred during the legend of Xuanzang and his Journey to the West.

As I’m pondering Sun Wu Kung’s legends, I hear his voice to my right, “By the way, I’m of the Lancer class.” As I turn to look at him, I’m greeted by the end of his pole which has been extended from where he stands.

I reply with, “I kind of figured that out. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you Sun Wu Kung.”

He retracts his pole and says, “How disrespectful! You dare call someone as great as I by my name?! You may refer to me only by the title Great Saint!” He puffs out his chest with great pride.

Why this little monkey! Fine, I’ll play be his rules, “As you wish, Great Saint.”

Upon hearing my reply, He replies with” Excellent! Now, let’s go! There is much I wish to do while I have this body. Firstly, we must reestablish my great monkey tribe.”

Sun Wu Kung walks swiftly out of the room before I can reply.

I sigh and say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about my future.”

Author's Notes:

I started the story by explaining why the main character for my stories are all the same. I figured I might want to do this because my weekly stories kind of play of each other. In regards to Sun Wu Kung's tale, I didn't alter any details of his original story. Instead, I wanted to focus on his characterization. This led me to writing him as having a haughty personality since that's the impression I got from the original tale. He was always causing trouble for others without so much as thinking about the consequences. Finally, I wanted to emphasize his abilities some how. This ended up taking the form of teleportation since I though that would be a close comparison to his cloud somersaults.

Bibliography. "Monkey King" from The Chinese Fairy Book by R. Wilhelm. Web Source.