“And what then of [Insight]?” they would ask.

  To which my reply was baseless.

  “And what then of [Control]?” they broke again.

  To which I said - “[Control]? Why must you attribute but one facet of a being to these Divine measurements? The Heavens are not so limited.”

  I note now, that Jinglui was not a patient man. Nor did he share the same passion for this undertaking as many others did.

  Proving vocal, and brutish in each instance of his self-fuelled haste.

  Murmurs - hearsay and speculation - would oft fly from my bloodied lips in these moments of his rage. “For a [Spirit Serpent], it is the coil of its tail. Its cultivator, the flex of their limbs, and the crook of spine without breaking. The dexterity of fingers. Yet Qi must too bend. It must flow through [Channels], and wind at the will of its host.”

  To which he would reply - “A broad river cannot be be crossed with a bridge so thin.” A saying now much engraved in each knuckled depression that aches as I move this very quill.

  - “The Enlightened Bandit, a Memoir,” by Sixth River Chieftain, Gu Feiyang.

  Such a return on his efforts had Fu draw the barest hint of a smile. The memory of the previous day’s achievements culminating in the fluidity of his current attack.

  On this second rotation of his body, he delivered his foot into the chitinous helm of the [Spirit Beetle], having it rock to the side.

  To be able to move so acrobatically caused a disconnect between mind and body, and as such it had held him from the acknowledgement that his [Ink] had granted in the small hours of the morning.

  With [Initiate] prowess in the [Wind Phantom Strides] however, the leaping horizontal spins and the bizarre angles of his kicks were now close to second nature. Allowing him to land with feline grace, only to begin his sequence anew.

  The chain forked, snapping into a tunnel of rope and metal, both lashing out at the forced-back beetle and providing a seamless entry for Hushi. Though his speed was much improved after this latest [Meridian] was cleansed, Fu tracked only a blur of teal.

  Had the [Conception Root] still empowered his mind, Fu mused he might see more, but the clarity it had granted through some residual energy was now gone. Having fulfilled its intended purpose.

  Fu sprung back on his hands, completing the second set of his latest form. A cessation of motion that was the end of each step, likely an intentional pause that would allow the martial warrior that used it to determine their next direction. As such, when he returned to ground, Fu landed upon a single leg, sweeping the ground with the other.

  Hundreds of the [Spirit Beetles] remained beyond the beast that Hushi currently harvested, a change rippling through them. A glow of Qi released upon the unfurling of their wings, one that birthed a pungent gust of off-white air as they lifted into a unified flutter.

  Both Bond and cultivator tore backwards, and Fu moved to the closest debtor, still scraping at the wall.

  “Climb higher,” he said. “These beetles push the Blight further up the wall.”

  The debtor slipped his chisel through a loop upon his chest, his haste having several fragments of crystal fall below. “At once, senior,” came the reply, but in the time it had taken for the man to ascend but two paces, their foes’ Qi released.

  This off-white wind roared.

  Some horrid wave blasted the Bastion’s wall to carry- to carry nothing.

  Fu had guessed wrong, having thought his enemies to possess an [Air Affinity]. In the place of Blight, arcing bolts manifested, staking themselves into the stone. Vibrating pillars of light that drove so far into the wall that it cracked upon impact.

  Mid-flight, a draw of force pulled Fu back like the suction of a returning tide.

  He crumpled down, folded, but not out. Legs splayed in a previously impossible stance that had him almost split. The same suction occurred all over the wall, not limited to just those below the [Formation Realm].

  A hand tore up the rear of his hanfu, and Fu stabilised as he was hoisted.

  “The [Dao of Heaviness],” barked Dun, his erstwhile comrade. “Tempered with [Lightning Qi]. Gao Fu, cover the fleeing debtors.” The short exchange of words ended with his departure, having him join with another pair of cultivators.

  Fu had a sense that this wave was unlike the others. Denser, and fraught with a peril that had the Nineteenth spur into greater action than he previously witnessed.

  “Hushi, let us skirt the edges for those who are lost,” he called, already in motion.

  And so his flight ensued, driven by the stellar increases that his attributes had undergone. A flip, and a leap, followed by only two or three paces between each. Never over-extending nor stumbling on his way further down.

  In his sight the Blight the crept ever higher, twenty paces below, with the [Spirit Beetles] flitting in loose formation just above. Shrouded in fog save for the frantic beating of their parchment-thin wings.

  Not all of their number ushered in this storm of [Dao] and Lightning, and Fu saw several bombing the wall to trap those he might protect.

  Such blows will break me. Even with my [Resilience]. I am far less sturdy than the Bastion walls.

  In a modest count of seconds, Fu approached the first of his wards, a woman, scrambling as fast as her arms would allow.

  Slow, in the eyes of the closest beetle.

  “Leap!” he bellowed, lashing out with his chain in freeform style. The head rushed to strike the approaching creature, bouncing from the armor upon its face. Stalling it but a half-second.

  Before it ploughed straight through the woman to turn all that she had been into crimson paste.

  He grimaced at such violence, halting his descent for a single heartbeat. Such a display was repeating all along the facade, and none possessed any time to reflect on it.

  Tightening his grip upon the securing rope, Fu bounded horizontally, setting his gaze on the next debtors. A pair, beset upon by a similar number.

  [Half Cloud Step] suffused him with [Air Qi], conjured by his command, and as it did his leaps scaled to another half as far as previous. He wasted no time on calling out, instead directing his energy towards his chain.

  A jerk, and a snap that had it form a threaded cyclone, jetting Hushi clean through the middle.

  His Bond propelled into the closest of two [Spirit Beetles], and grappled into a full rotation with one, fluid motion. Where he ripped free both of their internal wings, casting them into the Blight-rich abyss below.

  Fu arrived a moment later, inverted to plant an axe kick into the first struggling insect. Dooming it to plummet. Yet from this he pushed off, a single burst of strength from his heel that tumbled him atop the second’s hardened back.

  With just a single wing to keep it aloft, the creature thrashed. Its trajectory now drawn to the wall before it.

  The [Might] of its legs carved gouges from the stone as the cultivator rode it into impact.

  “Climb,” he ordered, sparing no more attention for the debtors. “Swiftly!”

  The [Spirit Beetle] battered its head around, a stump upon its centre sparking brilliantly with Qi. Each hair upon Fu’s body rose, inconsequential against the weight that now smashed into his chest.

  Air was driven from his lungs, and [Lightning Qi] surged through his body to burn robes and skin where stump met flesh. The beetle trampled, pinned him against the wall, and dragged him north to south.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  But Fu’s [Resilience] was not so low as to die from just this. [Air Qi] birthed a platform beneath his foot, allowing his knees to draw to his chest. To fold, and release a shove so powerful that the beetle launched free.

  A space too far for it to return to the wall.

  “More than two are…” Fu rose, coiling the rope around his wrist for stability as he breathed. “...before us, Hushi.”

  Affirmation came as Hushi dangled near his shoulder, sporting a litany of scrapes across his arms. In tandem, they spiralled up, a tug seeing fit to have both ascend in acrobatic fashion. This ropework was now second nature, and it shortened as he grasped more.

  A minor source of pride, how he had seamlessly blended-

  “Gao Fu, strike without such fanciful movement,” urged a cultivator overhead, anchoring herself to dispense her wisdom. Even it came informally. “It’s to be expected that you’d wish to use newfound techniques. But you are [Initiate] in it, and it’s clumsy.”

  Chao flew by, fleet, though slow enough that Fu caught his half-grin in passing. “Where’s your usual bite, Yu? Gao Fu, it’s ostentatious, and it’ll get you killed. Best saved for a weaker foe, yes?”

  A moment later, and his words drifted down to have Fu’s cheeks slightly redden.

  Yet this was wisdom, not insult, and so he nodded. Leaping to support his comrades as Yu beckoned him forth.

  ??

  “Again,” came the command, and Fu once more enacted the first set of his [Wind Phantom Strides]. Chainless.

  Three more times was he ordered to do this, and three more times did he begin to question what it meant to possess [Prowess].

  It was not Chao, nor Dun who directed this impromptu bout of training, though it was done at the former’s behest. A half hour after their watch had ended, and the usual tending of wounds had concluded, an [Ink] coated woman had roused him from his cultivation.

  Hers was a display of the [Mind] path, with intricate vortices of ice-blue about her forehead, framing a soft and mirthful visage. “You see there, Gao Fu,” she took great delight in saying. “The core must tighten!”

  Fu landed upon three limbs, just catching himself.

  But before he might query, Ruyi set off in demonstration. “Half rotation here, not full as you have been doing.” Perhaps others might have assumed a rudeness in her manner of speaking. Direct, and unhesitant.

  Fu thought it an effective method of teaching.

  He tried again, enacting the kicks that accompanied each hypothetical chain until he reached the point of contention. Bounding, whirling, and… Fu landed abruptly. “Slowing myself to hold in a mere half is difficult.”

  Ruyi paced along the crenelations, a [Spirit Grasshopper] moving in parallel atop each. A beast of [Air], much like Hushi. “Therein lies the reason for practice. [Initiate] is but the first step upon the boundless road to martial mastery. What you do now is flail like an ape in mockery. Seek to remedy that with repetition. Slow your pace, heighten each leap. These two factors should be the crutches to support your growth.”

  “Gratitude, Senior Officer,” he said. A rare occasion where the sentiment wholly reflected what left his mouth.

  “Sister Ruyi,” she cautioned back. “Length of term is all that separates us. Beside this, you are of the Nineteenth. Now, our meal awaits.”

  Fu clasped his hands, with Hushi as his mirror, and watched her go.

  Until Ruyi stopped, casting a look over her shoulder. “Gao Fu, your own will grow cold if you just stand there. Are you not coming?”

  ??

  Always was Fu content to listen. The pleasantry of swapped tale and shared laughter brought a warmth to him, even if his time for such things had passed long before Mei, and longer yet, before the birth of his children.

  Jing had often dragged him to some fireside pit, a jar of half-drunk wine beneath his arm to serve as their ingratiation with whatever woman he was currently chasing. Cheery, despite how most attempts at courtship ended in failure upon the release of his colourfully tinged breath.

  A bittersweet memory, bringing Fu to parse his lips.

  This scene was not so different. Those within it… the stock of these people was the difference between Heaven and Earth.

  Formidable, one and all.

  Yet the expressions were familiar enough, the provided mirth that he too indulged in, the very same. Remove the myriad [Spirit Beasts], or the weapons upon hips and belts, and Fu mused that perhaps the differences were less vast than he had imagined.

  Bringing forth a guilty smile.

  “The tale amuses you, Gao Fu! Here I’d thought you had no tongue!” Hushi wriggled beneath the douli, stirred by this man’s booming voice. “Why not share your thoughts?”

  A round of murmurs passed through the crowd. Good-natured, as best Fu could tell.

  “My grandmother once said that two good talkers are not worth one good listener,” he said, smiling warmly. “But in this last moment I am neither.”

  The first man, a handsome, if ogrish fellow struck out in laughter. “Chao,” came his call. “You said he had a dryness to him.”

  “That he has, and a talented lech at that! Ruyi, Xianyi, hide your fish, for you may fall prey to his charms!”

  Of the women counted among their current collective, Fu found he recognized both. Though only the latter seemed displeased at her mention. A look he recalled she had sported as they travelled together as fellow Hopefuls.

  Chao interceded before further comments flew forth. “The Green Blight Bastion is to host a guest this coming week. An Inner Disciple, Senior Cheng Rao.”

  A chill ran up Fu’s spine then. He knew fine well who this man was, even before any explanation could be offered. So too, did his douli quiver.

  “He is to preside over this [Season’s] Placement,” continued Chao. “And whispers from the other Brigades grow loud over it. Uncommon, to have a member of the Sect’s peak force enter a [Mystic Realm] such as this.”

  Another set of murmurs sounded, all in the affirmative.

  “Xianyi, Fu, this will be your first Placement. Auspicious timing indeed. The tradition of visitors brings about great reward. Far more than the base Contribution Points earned in regular times. All of the Hopefuls are indeed favoured by the Heavens,” said Dun, chiming in from behind the central gathering.

  “As we all are,” added Riyu, ushering in a consensus of nods.

  Earnest words. Has news not travelled of this Senior’s violence? Do I place him as the killer without due cause?

  Fu wondered on their reactions, and if any views might change upon learning of his experience while delivering the message.

  It will do no good that I can see.

  To keep from dwelling on unbidden memories, he queried the Placement. For, like many things, it was but a name to his ears.

  “The tournament that allows us to progress. You’ve not heard of this, Gao Fu? That’s surprising. It’s been upon the lips of many for several days now,” said Chao. “Outwith the [Mystic Realm], disciples collect Contribution Points through duelling one another. However time here’s precious, and the walls would be emptied if that tradition was carried out. To balance this, Placement serves as a [Season’s] worth of duels all at once.”

  “We are to duel?” asked Xianyi.

  “And to be rewarded.”

  The female Hopeful scowled. “With progression?”

  Insightful, Chao looked between the Nineteenth’s most recent additions. “Dun, think back to earlier, when I caught not one, but two of your debtor’s baskets?” He said this as he rose, beginning a wave that had all the surrounding cultivators copy, stow their bowls, and settle into the lotus position atop their bunks.

  Save for Dun, who yawned, stood, and beckoned Xianyi and Fu to follow him through the barracks door.

  His ursine [Spirit Beast] clamped tight upon his ankle. When all three were settled at the edge of the nearest courtyard, he began to speak. “Fourth Officer Chao’s duties are now my own,” he said, formal without the tone to accompany it. “An overdue initiation.”

  “Overdue as we are mock disciples?” asked XIanyi.

  “Indeed. You are irregular in the Sect hierarchy, thus many benefits are held back.”

  “The training, and Scroll Hall,” noted Fu, pensive. “Brother Dun, should we not wait for Zang Ce?”

  Disparity between the expressions shown then had Fu confused.

  Placation perhaps on one, and a lack of interest on the other. “Zang Ce? He was ill suited for his duty in the Brigades. A true debtor now.” Dun clasped his hands behind his back. “The [Green Blight Valley] is comprised of eight Bastions. This much you should know. Five are occupied by allied forces, while the others are mired in [Spirit Beasts] and Blight.”

  Xianyi was first to nod, shifting her cropped hair where sweat had it matted. Revealing the severity of scowling features beneath.

  “Fortune touches those that fight on the extremities, for this is where the strongest beasts roam. [Formation Realm], with a range of early to peak. To travel inward you would see a reduction in strength, and the cultivators placed there would mirror this. It is the strongest that are afforded the opportunity to be stationed here, and Placement is what dictates this.”

  A certain distaste lingered in Fu’s mouth to think of Zang Ce. Whether it was due to his departure having escaped his notice, or the act itself, however, he could not say. “The strongest beasts produce the strongest [Spirit Cores]. This is the benefit?”

  For the first time, Dun’s brows raised. “You are an adaptable pair,” he said. “Though I am sure most forget how distant you might have been from cultivation before your joining. Yes, [Spirit Cores] are an answer. But opportunity here often lies beyond the material. True flames do not gain rise from shallow heat, Gao Fu.”

  “I began my journey at the peak of opportunity then,” surmised Xianyi. “I am grateful.”

  “Nineteenth, and remind yourself we are of [Winter]. As is held in tradition on the outside, those under the [Tyranny of Seasons] are in reflection within the inner Bastions. Come [Autumn], we too will rotate,”

  Xianyi’s lips thinned. “Then Eighteen others stand above us.”

  “Placement is adequate to judge this, I would not dwell upon it lest it serves as motivation. The higher numbered Brigades face sturdier, and more plentiful [Spirit Beasts], as their sections and ranks denote. Fighting where the [Dao Field] imparted by the Blight is thickest.”

  Another term that I do not know.

  “A [Dao Field],” said Fu. “The net of a [Dao Principle]? Cast wide?”

  “As you say, Gao Fu. In theory. But this is the [Trial] component of the [Mystic Realm] that you will have read upon your entry though the [Paifang]. We cannot adequately measure the Heavens, nor the wonders they inflict upon the land. Though scholars try. It contains the [Dao of Pestilence], with an accompaniment of [Nurture] and [Hunger], and is why the beasts act as they do, and in such regular tides.”

  The reason for the growth upon the walls that the debtors harvest.

  Fu baulked at the… audacity the Cloudy Serpent Sect displayed here. To him, this was no [Trial], and to the unfathomable cultivators above him it was a-

  “A farm. The Sect laughs in the face of the Heavens,” said Xianyi. But these words were prideful, and through them, her chest puffed higher.

  Dun’s Bond stirred then, stalking higher up his body to crest his shoulder. Juvenile, or infantile in size. “A half hour has passed, and we must leave our conversation short. [Mind Qi] waxes once our fellows have entered their vessels.” The last comment had him depart, promptly, leaving Fu to wonder if it was intended to be an explanation.

  Regardless, the pair now stood quite alone. Her [Spirit Beast] obscured, much like Hushi. Hers was a face that looked to be digesting this recent information. One Fu thought better of interrupting.

  In place of speech, he palmed the wall. And minutes later, Xianyi placed him at her side, tracing the serpent inlaid in her skin. The [Three Eyed Spying Array].

  “Senior Cheng Rao. To you and I, Gao Fu. He will be of a stock we have known.”

  And with such little given, Fu understood. “The Nineteenth are kind. I-” He weighed Xianyi before continuing, for this was among their first dealings. “[Winters] had me aboard larger vessels. With enforcement of rank, and all that entailed. Clear, at first. Then as storms raged and beasts struck, it became as muddied water.”

  “Or [Karma] thrusts fortune on us for all that the Sect has taken,” she said. Hushed.

  They fell into silence, comfortable, Fu felt, despite how novel a meeting this was. Both taking to gaze, or muse, over the setting darkness.

  “Two breeds. Those who forge their own hardship, and those that inflict it. Though better titles exist, I am sure,” Xianyi broke, making to leave with only a blessing in her wake. “Train well. Fu.”

  Hushi spooled down as her footsteps grew distant. Routine, and expectant of the practice they were to begin shortly. “Two breeds,” Fu echoed, finding space to right his footwork. “You have thoughts on this, Hushi?”

  The octopus returned nothing, impressing only impatience.

  Yet a whisper did rise, and Fu heard Grandmother Hua in his ear. A memory to give an answer to this passing theory.

  The name for those that he and Xianyi, and myriad others had met. Be that beneath their boot, or at the end of their rushing palm.

  “Coddled,” he whispered, drawing his fists high to begin.