Volume 2 Chapter 18

  Three months passed for Yin. He grew in multiple ways. He grew in the way that all boys grew. He learned a lot of new things, both at the standard school classes that all disciples under the age of fifteen were expected to attend for two to three hours every day, and also things about cultivation, and things about his new home.

  He learned not to trust his stash of candied cherries for Reba in his dorm, as the other boys had no compunctions with stealing them and/or eating them. He learned that one of the older boys in the dorm had some very interesting drawings that he’d gotten from an artist from the town, although the boy wouldn’t say the artist’s name. He learned that when you do it enough times, running up a mountain isn’t really all that hard.

  He also learned that it took three months of doing that, plus a lot of extra exercises every day, in order for Elder Uto to decide that he was worthy of learning how to throw a punch.

  Unfortunately, he also learned that Elder Uto worked on his own schedule, and that schedule meant that once more when it was time to actually teach Yin something he was yanked out of bed and marched into the dueling arena in his underwear.

  He was shown six basic stances. He was told to master them, to be able to hold them each for ten minutes or more, although he only had to hold them for thirty seconds during his first lesson.

  Once he had thought he had learned the basic stances, he was drilled for twenty minutes to switch between them. He had to make the switch in under a second, then hold it as Uto roughly swatted him whenever and wherever his body was out of place or his stance was incorrect.

  He got the feet wrong the most, he learned.

  “Rippling Tide.”

  “Falling Petal.”

  “Blooming Pond!”

  “Flowing Lotus!”

  “Low Lilypad!”

  “Rising Vortex!”

  The calls came out one after another, and Yin, who had been so proud of his stamina that he had earned through so much effort, was soon flagging. Even though he could predict the order, since it never changed, he had to wait between switching stances for the old man to correct him.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Yin was allowed to return to his bed, with instructions to run the mountain again in the morning, then to promptly appear before Uto as soon as he had gotten back to the base.

  Yin ducked back under his covers without bothering to rinse off the sweat from the exercise. For the first time in weeks, he was not looking forward to running up the mountain. The strain that the stances had put on his legs made his groin hurt, and he was fairly certain that ache would stay with him for several days.

  The ache did stay with him. For two weeks. Mostly because he was never given a chance to recover. While he was allowed to drop the calisthenics portion of his workout, he was instead drilled on his stances as soon as he completed his run up and down the mountain. And then, that night, he was once more pulled from his bed and marched out to the weapons master for more stance training.

  Then, after a week of that, Master Uto began showing up at random intervals throughout the day and shouting the names of stances at him. If he didn’t respond quick enough, he was smacked upside the head.

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  After the second week, Yin was finally adjusting to this new normal when the gruff old weapons master added a new wrinkles.

  He started calling out the order in reverse.

  He started mixing them up.

  He started tripping Yin while he was switching stances, or even while he was supposed to be ‘inspecting’ the stance. As soon as Yin hit the ground he would call out a new stance, expecting the boy to get up off the ground in less than a second. When he failed to meet this deadline, he was smacked upside the head as punishment.

  After one of the practices, Yin had nervously broached the subject of contribution points.

  “Master Uto, I will not question your methods. I have heard from everyone on the mountain that you are the greatest weapons master on the mountain and I trust your reputation. However … you said that you would only dedicate two more hours to me after my initial examination. It has been much more than that. How many contribution points do I owe you, and do you have any ideas on how I might earn them?”

  The weapons master had harumphed. “Have I asked for any payment beyond what you’ve given me, you little weakling? No! I said that I would select a weapon for you and I will. But until you are worthy of a weapon I am not willing to give you one, and unfortunately for both of us that means that you’re my problem until you’re worthy of a weapon. Now if you bring this subject up again, I’ll join you the next time you run up the mountain, and you won’t enjoy the experience.”

  Yin never had the courage to broach the topic again.

  Of course other things happened during those two weeks as well. Yin proudly broke through into the fifth stage of the initiate’s realm. He approached a second name on the list that Elder Yotu had given him, a young looking man that was already considered a sect elder, and humbly asked for cultivation pointers. The man had charged him two contribution points, but in exchange he had instructed the boy to practice his Subtle and Deep Waters cultivation method while the man held a hand to the boy’s bare back, slowly correcting his internal cycling method with ever so subtle strands of his own Qi.

  It was a dangerous thing to do, allowing someone else’s Qi into one’s body like that. But the man had no malicious intent. Olin had actually recommended that Yin engage in the activity, as the young elder corrected his own technique six months ago and he’d noticed a sharp improvement immediately afterwards.

  The danger wasn’t long term, but rather it was very immediate, and when Yin survived the first session he breathed a sigh of relief. It had felt a little bit like allowing someone to move his bowels for him, but he had seen several things that he had been doing wrong, making the experience, and the spent contribution points, well worth it.

  Another event of note was that he was dragged to lunch immediately after being ambushed by Elder Uto one afternoon. He tried to protest, but the group of teenagers wouldn’t hear of it. They bought him what he asked for—he was still following the diet from the book that Elder Uto had instructed him to read—and they sat at the same table as him. He quickly grew uncomfortable with their stares.

  “So, what the heck is going on with you and Elder Uto? How did you earn so many contribution points to have him train you like he does?” one of the older boys demanded.

  “I’ve only paid him for a weapons evaluation,” Yin admitted nervously. “And now he won’t leave me alone. I do not know why, but he says that I’m not worthy of a weapon, so he must torture me forever or something.”

  The teenagers exchanged looks. “That’s it? You paid for a weapons evaluation? But he charges three times as much! Why did you waste your contribution points on that?”

  “It just felt like a smart thing to do at the time, but I am regretting it now. I fear to disobey him, but I have to admit that he is making me much stronger than I was before,” Yin admitted.

  The teens nodded. “You’re very lucky, you know. Some of the usual bullies of the sect have been steering clear of you because you have caught his attention. They’re worried that he has other juniors looking out for you.”

  “I doubt it,” Yin muttered. “If I were bullied or robbed, he would probably just laugh and say ‘of course you were, you’re so weak,’ or something like that.”

  Then he continued to eat his carefully portioned meal as the teenagers discussed how wonderful it would be to have their own personal weapons teacher from hell.

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