He came upon a cavern ringed with steel pillars. Faceless pillars, perfectly smooth, making a pentagram—as though meant to summon some deep-earth demon.

  The bulk of their power wasn’t shown. To the eye, they were dormant. But to the soul, they were a vast angry sea, a sea of raw force scouring the craggy steel-stone walls.

  Those pillars hid something profound.

  He felt the forces acting on his body the moment he stepped foot there.

  He was surprised to realize he knew this power.

  This was magnetism.

  It reminded him of his time ages ago in that steel canyon up near Portland. The one with the lightning-birds, where he’d settled down and meditated, and unlocked the secrets of the magnetic fields.

  But that’d been just one field.

  Here he was drowning in them. Fields stacked over each other, weaving through, fields coming together like so many rivers, impossible to count. All he could feel was the sea.

  And at the heart of it all coiled a single spark of flare. Coiling in the very center, scorching the cavern walls gold-white.

  …This heat was something else.

  Zane was used to taking heat, and in seconds he started sweating. Only those pillars kept the walls from melting.

  Besides Noughtfire’s, he was sure it was the fiercest flame he’d ever felt.

  Just one strand of flare did the work of a sun.

  It came down to the field.

  This ultra-dense magnetic field juiced up that flare—he wondered if it worked like a domain, stacked on top of it.

  For a while, he watched the flare swirl, a bit struck.

  Magnetic fields were core to flares; he’d felt it in Noughtfire’s demonstration months ago… now that he stood in the midst of it, it was clear what that flare was.

  It was the fury of the sea made manifest.

  If he could take this sea within himself and channel it—use it to boost up his domain and all his fires with it…

  That was the next level. He was sure of it.

  He took a step toward that flame—but ran up against a wall of force. He blinked, took another—but got stuck. The sea was fighting him. With every inch closer, it fought ten times harder, it felt like.

  But his whole body was made of metal and this power… It felt like he was fighting his own muscles.

  That flare called to him. He could feel that was where the sea raged fiercest.

  But he had to get there first, and though he thought he might be able to get there with brute force, if he really tried, that wasn’t really the point, he felt.

  It wasn’t a test of body. It was a test of soul.

  He sat down, closed his eyes, and let it crash over him, crash through him—he found himself in a familiar spot.

  It was time to make in himself that raging sea.

  He got going, feeling out those lazy ebbs and flows. He'd been wondering when those Steel Laws would come back around. It was like back in the old days—some good old-fashioned comprehension.

  All was quiet. Just him, the beating of his heart, and a secret of the universe to unlock.

  He’d kind of missed this.

  ***

  Hours passed like this. He felt wave after wave crash over him, and he made them his own. His base knowledge of Elemental Steel made things go faster. It didn’t take long to shake off the rust. The first layer came the slowest, but it couldn’t have taken more than half a day.

  When he was done, a field pulsed out of him, fighting the cavern’s. Not much so far—just a layer of rippling force bolstering his domain. He was pretty happy with it, though.

  He wasn’t sure how many it’d take to make the full sea.

  …Quite a while, probably. He’d need thousands of those fields, maybe tens of thousands. Noughtfire gave him three years at most to finish it—and that was accounting for him being Zane.

  He decided he’d try for half that time.

  He left the cavern that day satisfied with his progress.

  ***

  Liu Yi led his troop at a brisk march, all the pride and fury of a scorned young master bare on his face.

  Today would be about sending a message, just like Mother said.

  Already he was imagining it. Zane gasping at his feet, sniveling. He’d give the big man a kick, break a rib or two. Maybe his nose, too, just to drive the point across. He imagined making Zane beg, right in plain view of all the shopkeepers, and felt a prickling of angry joy.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Beside him, the hunchback giggled, breaking the daydream.

  Liu pursed his lips.

  He didn’t know why Mother insisted on keeping the man around. There was something not quite right about him, not quite human. He practiced undead laws. It was said he ate of the flesh of corpses, and didn’t feel pain, and had never cried, even as a baby.If Liu was honest, the man unsettled him a little.

  Soon they were up on Market Street again, and the hunchback was nearly giddy. In the waning light, their shadows loomed the length of the street.

  Liu Yi strode in like he owned the place. He singled out the nearest peasant.

  “You!” he said, pointing straight at the blacksmith. Did his voice sound a bit higher than usual? He tried pitching it down a bit. “Where did that ‘Zane’ fellow go?”

  He was pleased to hear this time it came out nice and imperious. “Speak. I, Young Master Yi, demand it!”

  But what was with the look on the peasant’s face? It was almost—

  The blacksmith spat on him.

  Yi gasped, wiping at his cheek. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. Then—“How dare you!”

  “Sod off,” snorted the peasant. “Weren’t you the boy who pissed his breeches trying to beat up that Zane? Why’d I help you?”

  Yi spluttered.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen. He glanced around and was horrified to find that all down that street he saw the same look.

  A few snickers down the street. “Zane,” said the peasant. “Now there’s a man. You might’ve come down our street acting all haughty before, Liu Yi. But all I see now’s a little boy. Run off to mother, piss-boy.”

  Liu Yi flushed. “You impudent little—I won’t sit here and take this!”

  He raised a hand, about to slap some respect into the peasant.

  But the Hunchback got there first.

  He clobbered the man so hard blood splattered half the street. Then he shrieked, kicked once—knocked out a row of teeth—and kicked again. He kept kicking until the man went still.

  Blood got over Liu Yi’s face, over his hands. He looked at them, mouth open.

  “Didn’t you hear the young master?” sang the Hunchback. His lazy eyes rolled over the street. “Where’s this ‘Zane,’ hmm? I won’t ask twice…”

  This time, they got their answer quick.

  As they made for the mountains the Hunchback got a look at the expression on Liu’s face.

  “You thought that was bad, Young Master?” the Hunchback giggled. “Wait till you see Zane, after I’m through with him! We’ll toss his body in the main square. We’ll carve out his eyes. We’ll take off his manhood, just as he took yours. Then not a soul’ll remember what he did to you!”

  He seemed to enjoy Liu’s queasiness. “I—” said the Young Master. “Well—that all seems rather…a bit much—”

  The Hunchback cocked his head. “Didn't you say you wanted to break him?”

  “Well…yes, but—”

  “Then come along! Daylight’s fading… and we’ve got a very big man to hurt.”

  He bared rotten yellow teeth.

  ***

  when Zane tried to teach techniques, it didn't go very well.

  Most of it came down to how he fought. When he performed a Skill, he just did it. Even he wasn’t sure how most of the time. It just felt right.

  Reina said he had a one-of-a-kind intuition. She thought it couldn’t be taught.

  Which made teaching others a bit tricky.

  He was somewhat dubious when he sat down with Jin on a stone island at the center of the valley of waterfalls. He did owe the kid a try.

  “Show me that punch of yours,” he said. “The tiger thing.”

  Jin leaped to his feet. He was so eager he fell over himself and splashed into the water.

  He did manage the Skill after he scrambled back up, though.

  “Crouching tiger’s fist, fist form!” he shouted and struck.

  A ghostly tiger flickered over him. And after he punched, claw marks glowed on the stone.

  Zane watched this cross-legged—not with his eyes but with his soul, feeling out the essence flows.

  Jin looked at him hopefully. “Senior Zane? What do you think?”

  The pathing wasn’t great. That was the first thing, the way essence flowed through the body. There were many ways qi went from the core to the fist. Many routes, passing channels, and nodes. Which they used, in which order, mattered a great deal.

  In great factions, this wasn’t an issue. All the popular Paths had tried and tested Skills, theory-crafted for millennia. They’d squeezed all the efficiency out of those.

  But this…

  This would need some work.

  He took a bite out of one of Evan’s cookies and thought about what to do about it.

  He was out on his lunch break, halfway through making his second magnetic layer. He figured he could squeeze in a quick tip with the kid. He found Jin already out there waiting, camped out on a rock. Jin had beamed—“Mas—I mean, Senior Zane! I brought rice buns!”

  The kid was persistent, you had to give him that.

  “Let me give it a try,” said Zane, and stood.

  He closed his eyes, made some minor adjustments, and threw a punch. He tried to match Jin’s force and speed—he did it very, very slowly. After that last scuffle, he was pretty sure this much would be fine.

  Sure enough, no world-tearing. Just a tiger’s roar as he threw the punch.

  “That’s the Tiger’s Roar!” gasped Jin. He was so surprised he almost fell into the pond again. “But only the Third Form’s meant to be able to do that…”

  He looked in disbelief. “Senior—how did you do it with just the first form?!”

  “By doing it better,” Zane informed him. He went back to it.

  That one had been a decent try. But now he had a feel for it. Now he knew what it needed.

  He let his essence flow where it wanted. Core, to arms, to fist—and threw.

  This time it was more than a roar. This time the tiger pounced as his fist shot out, and the claw-marks grew to the size of men. Flaming scars lingered in air.

  He nodded.

  That would do.

  “Senior, that was Tiger’s Fury!” Jin’s eyes shone. “Only the best in the Wei family could do it—it’s my dream to do it one day—with just the first form…!”

  “Kid,” said Zane, giving him a side-long look.

  “Uh huh?”

  “You said you wanted to get strong, right?”

  “That’s right!”

  “The strongest there was?”

  “That’s right!”

  “Then you’ve got to stop being impressed by these things.”

  “…I don’t get it.”

  “These Tiger Skills,” said Zane, crouching down so they were eye level. “Don’t give them that kind of respect. They don’t deserve your awe. If you think they’re big, you’ll only ever think small.”

  “But…” Jin looked lost. “Senior—grandpa Wei took sixty years to make a Tiger’s Fury… father went his whole life, and he couldn’t. It’s the Wei Family’s heirloom Skill!”

  Zane raised a brow. “And?”

  Jin was speechless.

  “If you’re going to be the best, that’s the attitude you need to have. When you see something impressive, don’t get stuck in awe. Your first thought should be, how you can do better.”

  By the look on his face, Jin’s mind was in the middle of being blown.

  It wasn’t an attitude Zane thought of consciously, just one he held. Maybe it was his nature—he wasn’t really sure. But he did find it quite useful.

  Jin nodded slowly, and Zane got the strange sense that every word he just said, the kid would treasure forever. Another flash of Fate swirled around the kid, weirdly.

  “Okay, senior Zane!”

  He patted the kid on the back. “Now you try it out.”

  Jin did. His copycat Skill worked pretty much like Zane expected. He watched Jin running around blasting to his heart’s content. In a blink, he’d gotten one of his big life’s dreams.

  …That cheat skill was something else.

  Then the kid settled down, brow furrowed, and started punching the rock again. Practicing.

  “You did it exactly like I did,” said Zane. “You did it right. You don’t need to practice anymore.”

  “I know,” said Jin. He grinned. “Senior, I’m gonna do it even better!”

  Zane was surprised to feel proud.

  This kid was going places.