3. Roommates and Rivals
Niva slowly pushed the partially enforced door open. "Excuse me, is this lodging full?" She asked as she stepped inside.
"There's one room left," replied a baritone voice.
She raised an eyebrow.
That was a heavy accent. It sounded like a mix between west- and eastern Cellian Standard. Their sentence had been short, yet Niva had trouble understanding the other party. She strode into the living room and found her answer. Sitting on a polished mahogany chair and fiddling with a talisman was the tattooed nomad she had seen at the entrance ceremony.
At least it explained the pronunciation. Many of the nomads taken in as refugees by the Empire still held onto their old wandering traits, preferring to travel continuously between the provinces instead of settling in one place.
Niva fixed the girl with a stare. Should she stay or leave? Although she had no disputes with nomads, the same couldn't be said for her friend. Then again, this was one of the last unoccupied homes. That looked decent, at least. If she left this up for grabs, she could end up in a mud stall.
"Is there something wrong?" The girl asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Forgive my rudeness," Niva quickly replied. "I got a little distracted by your markings. The bedrooms are upstairs; I take it. Which one is yours?"
"They are, yes. I took the bigger room but am open to switching if you have something to barter with."
She stopped herself from clucking her tongue, but Niva didn't miss how the girl covertly sized her up. Using the tattoos as an excuse hadn't been her wisest decision this week since she'd looked the nomad in the eyes the entire time.
"No need. I'm fine with the smaller room." The gears in her head spun to try and figure out how to best diffuse this situation. Sometimes being blunt was the best option.
"My staring contained no ill intent," she promised. "How about we start over? Niva Sangara, I look forward to getting to know you."
That got a visible reaction out of the tribe lady. "Sangara? I'm certain I've heard that name before..." The nomad shot her a questioning look. However, Niva only charmingly smiled in response. The power of her clan carried a...negative stigma. People were usually more amiable to it once they got to know her better.
Clearly unperturbed, the girl shrugged. "Tia Wilder. Nice to meet you."
They shared some pleasantries before Niva made her way upstairs to secure her claim.
Opening the door to her bedroom, the barest of commodities greeted her. A closet for her clothes, a desk that even the designer of the Imperial Palace couldn't have painted in duller colours, and a bed hopefully big enough so her toes wouldn't get cold. That was it. Meaning it positively betrayed her expectations.
When she became an inner disciple, she would see a vast improvement in the assets the sect provided for her. The Heavenly Mountain may want to appear high class to the outside world, but what did they care about some weakling outer disciples who hadn't proven themselves yet?
Not that it mattered. When she reached that point, and they offered her better accommodations, she would throw them away. Never would she allow the rot to set in, muddling her mind with futile riches. Every penny had to be spent with attention and care, every material put to some purpose in increasing her cultivation.
A completely lacklustre view greeted her as she arrived in front of the sole window in her room: more homes and the gates of the said inner sect. Quickly leaving the depressing scenery behind her, she inspected her desk. It had a single drawer painted with the drawing of a pentagram that had a circle running through its vertices.
It didn't take a genius to figure out what it was for.
It began to shine a bright blue, turning and twisting in predetermined patterns, but she frowned when it lost its lustre a few seconds later. Must be a trick to it. She would have to ask someone.
Leaving her most recent setback behind her —really, why was everything letting her down today— she tried her bed...Luneil could shove a stick up Her butt. She cursed at the Moon Deity, who illuminated the front half of her feet going over the edge.
Somewhere, faintly, she heard the most useless of rocks whisper it wasn't Her fault and that She was being falsely berated. Niva cared less than the distance she could throw Her. Her loath for the Moon went beyond logical. It was the instinctive imprint of a recently hatched chick burning into its mind, the first being it saw as its mother, recognizing it as a chosen Heavenly protector, but then inversed. Just looking at the thing made her blood boil.
The qi hidden in her veins suffused into her muscles, ready for a confrontation. But there was nothing to vent on. So, Niva calmed herself, once more reciting her goals. She was here for a reason.
Beneath the Blessed Mountain,
Sleeps a Lost Star
Key to
A Secret of Two. Reduced by one.
How pitiful, the Forsaken Sun.
Oh, it will amuse Me,
To see the face of the Crone
When Her Blood
Spills on the Kingdom.
The poem was silly and puzzling, yet she clutched onto it. It was all the Heavens deemed fit to gift her.
After she had regained consciousness, her father and mother immediately took her to meet the patriarch. She wouldn't waste any words on how he was the most powerful being she had ever met, nearly tearing up just by being near him. Still, he had assured her the rhyme was of great importance to her destiny and had sent her toward the Heavenly Mountain Sect, to the grievance and jealousy of every single other descendant of the main branch. Their family could only send one person every five years.
Niva clutched the only pure sign of affluence she permitted herself. The craftsmanship of the locket betrayed its value. Unknown silver alloy held afloat the pendant representing a wild boar that wore gleaming armour around its head and tusks. Moreover, the eyes of the beast were so well-crafted that she believed it to be alive when she stared into them for too long. She'd worn it for as long as she could remember.
Renewed vigour flowed through her veins. Sitting upright with a grunt, she broke eye contact. Sulking was a waste of her time. For better or worse, the patriarch had taken a chance on her and spent valuable resources. She wouldn't let him down or anyone else who had looked out for her.
Eventually, she found herself in the living room again, sitting on a couch opposite Tia with a bowl of food made of what she'd discovered in the kitchen. She partook of her meal in silence, allowing her and her housemate some time to acclimate to each other's presence as she went over everything that happened today. Tia's cursing prematurely pulled her from her thoughts.
The nomad had slipped, and a diagonal gash had appeared on the idol she was carving. "Can you fix it?" Niva asked.
Tia looked up, smoothening out the furrows in her brows. "Yes, but I'll have to manipulate it using my essence, ensuring not to disrupt the flow of natural energy. This project just got twice as hard," she sighed.
Niva tapped her bowl with her index finger as she took time to digest Tia's accent. "Natural energy flow? It doesn't look like a spiritual item, though," she finally said.
She wasn't stupid. All bodies —natural or unnatural— carried in them some form of qi. It formed the building block of their universe. However, most objects weren't conscious or awakened, meaning their energies lay dormant. So, this' flow' Tia was speaking off was surprising.
Tia pursed her lips in consideration. "Feel for yourself," she said after throwing Niva the talisman.
She placed her dish to the side in one smooth motion and caught the wooden figurine. Now that she had a closer look, it appeared to depict a woman firing a bow.
"Rana, mistress of the Hunt," she whispered.
"Oh, you know of her?" Tia sounded genuinely surprised." Most imperials are oblivious to our gods."
Niva would've been, too, if it wasn't for a dying tribe warrior on the battlefield repeating the goddess's name like a mantra when she and some other soldiers of Crayton had defended a settlement that the nomads were raiding. Tia didn't need to know that much, though.
"One of your people once mentioned her to me in passing," she half-lied as she closed her eyes.
Her spiritual senses heightened as one of her natural ones cut off. The entire room brimmed in her vision, but she shut that out, solely paying attention to the sculpture.
Ever so minutely, like the first droplet penetrating the breadth of a stone after the river had pressured it for years, she felt movement inside the object. Better yet, the flow responded to her inspection, branching her way as if to scout the anomaly.
Niva whistled. "A budding spirit?" she asked, throwing it back to Tia.
"Not quite," the tribe girl shook her head, her hands blurring to catch the airborne object. "Ever heard of an Everroot?"
"A type of semi-sentient tree, right?"
"Sentient in that they can feel and respond to things, but they aren't aware of being the ones doing it.
"So, although it feels like a budding Spirit entity, it's just the energy learning to interact with the world around it."
Thus, one had to be careful not to accidentally influence or even kill the 'awareness' when they invaded its home using their qi, Niva filled in herself.
She rested her head on her chin, casting a curious look at the carving. "What would it be capable of, though?"
"At best? Probably guiding you toward natural treasures. Everroots tend to send out their...roots toward them after all. Allows them to absorb their energy and prolong their lives. That's where the name comes from."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Makes sense," Niva said, producing two grain bars from her spatial ring. She motioned one in Tia's way, and the girl shrugged, turning her hand palm upward.
Instead of throwing it, Niva got up and gave it to her. "I'm going to do some evening mediation. Then, turn in. Are you making your way over to the introduction on Essence Theory tomorrow?"
"It is getting late, true," Tia said, stealing a glance out the glass door leading to their garden where the turd was lording over the sky. "But no, I'll be taking Essentials of Crafting and trying something new."
"Something new?"
"There's an Elder Monk at the sect."
Niva raised an eyebrow. Monks were as old as time. They had been the first to discover the hidden powers of qi, cultivating it to become stronger and selflessly spreading the knowledge. In a way, they were the forefathers of the entire Empire. However, in a stroke of ill fortune, their temples had resided in the centre of the territory now called the Lost Lands, outside the border cities. It's where the spawn of Corrupted Beasts had started razing and infesting the entire domain, which is to say monks were now extinct.
Or nearly extinct, she corrected.
"Mind letting me know how it goes? I'll join you another day if I may."
"Deal." Tia took a bite of her energy bar before returning her attention to her task, leaving Niva to go upstairs to finish her evening routine and settle in for some sleep.
Niva sat down on the edge of their sparring field and took a sip from her canteen.
Essence Theory had been just as she expected: an introductory course on the theory behind qi. Shoring up her foundations had helped, though. She'd progressed towards achieving the third stage of her qi gathering art after filling in some missing links, so she'd try to continue attending most of the lessons given by Elder Yonyue.
Finishing that, instead of attending another lesson in the afternoon, she and Dino had decided to scout out the competition a little and had found their way to the fields at the base of the mountain. It was a convenient location many disciples had chosen to use for their private training.
"See those two over there?" Dino asked.
She followed the tilt of his head.
A bit to the right of where they had entered themselves, a middle-stage Skin realm disciple of fair complexion with short, cropped hair and gaunt features handled a two-handed mace nearly twice his length like he would lift a spoon. The pressure coming off it was intense. Niva would bet her home —that wasn't hers alone— on the weapon having a spirit, or at least a dormant one.
The winter-coloured hair tied in a single braid of the girl opposite him fluttered behind her as she swung her longsword in beautiful arcs that left traces of fog in the air. She had skin so white Niva could see her reflection from here, and Niva didn't have to scuttle closer to sense her late-stage second realm aura on the edge of peak.
She had no idea where these two were from, but they were powerful. Together with the two quarrelling descendants, this made for at least seven second-stage cultivators in their first year. She winced at the number. That was more direct competition than she expected. So, she would have to up her schedule since there's no way she would let them hoard all the good stuff for themselves.
"Want to introduce ourselves?" Dino asked, covering what he really meant: let's request a bout.
"Which one do you want?" She asked in return.
"Flower girl."
Flowers? She peered their way again. Now that she paid more attention, she could see the nearly invisible petals of ice raining down around the girl, and Niva's breath hitched in her throat. That was the beginning of a domain, which should only be possible in the third realm. If the disciple had achieved the first steps towards it so early, it could only mean one thing, and it stabbed Niva's side, painfully reminding her of her shortcomings. Oh, she had a well of qi twice as deep as most of her peers, and she sped through the ranks of cultivation like a sailfish through the water. But it wasn't a domain. It wasn't a concept.
"Are you sure?" She asked.
"I can take her." His tone of voice brooked no haughtiness, only sheer matter-of-fact speech. "Looks like she focuses more on wide-ranging movements than powerful single-target strikes."
True. The girl favoured diagonal strokes, and Niva could almost see the imaginary streams of materialized ice wreaking havoc on a battlefield.
Thus, Niva had the hammer user as an opponent. His footwork was assured and pointed, not to mention the sheer force behind his attacks. This wasn't a stuck-up noble who reached his strength because his family fed him like a pig. Could be trouble.
She chuckled and stood up. "And here I thought this year might get boring."
Lips curving into a mean number, Dino followed her to their side. The two disciples cut off their spar.
"Finished your inspection, then?" The boy mused.
"Yes," Niva shamelessly replied, her blood boiling in anticipation. Though her mouth still tasted a little bitter at meeting so many peers or even superiors, she couldn't deny that she welcomed the challenge.
"We were hoping for an introduction." She respectfully inclined her head, which both returned.
"Dino Gaumond." He moved toward the girl first, extending his hand.
The boy rested his weapon on his shoulder and gave her the same greeting. "Guo Gu. Gu will do."
Huh, so he was a northerner. It was one of their customs to mention their last name first.
"Niva Sangara. Niva is fine."
After exchanging some pleasantries, she discovered the girl was named Zua Cyru. Their families had allied thousands of years ago, and now the two were almost like brothers and sisters. Their clans operated northeast of the border cities, mainly dealing in trading rare minerals and qi sources found in their mines, which ran deep into the frozen earth.
"Now, who may I entertain?" Gu asked, eager to get down to business.
"That would be me, good sir." Niva briefly considered whether she should use her real weapon or one meant for training purposes, but the decision was made for her.
"Perhaps blunted replacements would serve our purposes better?" Zua offered, eyeing both her weapon and that of her partner.
Interesting. Did hers have a spirit as well?
"Agreed." Gu flicked his wrists, deftly swapped his mace for a wooden one in his spatial ring, and motioned Niva's way.
She did the same, removing a spear of around 2 meters and taking a stance in the middle of the training field.
"A spearwoman, not too surprising yet intriguing. Don't see too many of those where we're from." His low voice carried the words to her ears from halfway across the field as he slowly looked her over.
The Guo, much like the rest of their region, favoured blunt weapons. Something to do with the many armoured beasts that could be encountered in their tunnels, making them disinclined to bladed armaments. Niva eyed the girl's longsword. As always, there were exceptions to the rule.
"Sadly, I can't say I see many hammer wielders myself," Niva replied, breathing out and steadying her stance. She refused to let her guard down around this man. From the moment she got close enough, she could see it in his eyes: a piercing intelligence so adept it nearly cut her.
Chit-chat died down. Well then, let's see how fast hammerman is.
Dino signalled the start of the battle. He hadn't even retraced his hand fully, yet Gu was already nearly on her, moving like lightning. His mace screamed at the air in front of it to 'screw off'. So much power was behind the swing.
She wasn't blocking this, she knew. If she wanted her arms to remain intact, that is. Instead, she redirected the attack upward with the butt of her spear, the blow nearly glancing the top of her head.
Niva took a small step forward, her thrust aiming for his upper chest, but the northerner followed his swing through, twirling with the movement and out of the way of her retaliation. His feet dug burrows in the grass underneath them as his momentum continued even after his swing stopped.
"Good reflexes," Gu said.
"Same to you, though it wasn't entirely a reflex."
Gu grinned. The Initial probe was over. In a burst of movement, the ground exploded. This time, she was ready, though. Gu flowed like a river and turned a horizontal sweep of his hammer into an overhead slam that descended on the earth with a vengeance —but she danced around his attacks, moving only one step at a time. The ground fractured under the force of the attack, and she used the hammer as a stepping stone, lunging for his throat. Gu snorted, narrowly dodging. However, she dropped her spear in one hand, grabbed the boy by the hair, and used Gu's shoulder as a base to impact his face with her knee.
She'd been internally cycling her blood and enforcing her muscles, so the impact was anything but weak. To his credit, Gu only grunted and took a few steps back, his face looking none the worse for wear.
"An unladylike retort," he complained.
"I get the feeling you and my mother would get along."
"In more ways than one," he said without missing a beat.
She smiled despite herself. Alright, you gave that one to him. She couldn't even get mad at that. He should be commended, really.
Gu drove the amiability off his face. "Then, the testing phase is over. Prepare yourself."
Before she responded, the brute was already on the move. Cheap. Complaining was useless, however. The whirlwind was upon her. Gu's hammer was a hungry tornado tearing through the space to swallow her whole. But if he was chaotic and overwhelming physical might, she was the calm and non-rippling surface of the ocean. He sent a crushing wipe toward her head, and she displaced it ever so minutely, immediately pounding on the gained momentum like a snake. But if the boy was good at anything, it was recovering from his overextensions. He had to be. Otherwise, he would never get away with using a two-handed weapon, even though he could swing it like it was nothing. His mace would still get stuck if he swung too heavily, like now. Physics was physics.
Niva stomped down on the head of the hammer, shoving it further down in the ground. Focusing for a heartbeat, she transitioned into three spear thrusts that came out so fast that she could barely follow them herself. The boy let go of his weapon completely, leaning back and deftly dodging all her strokes. Instinct screamed at her to move, so she ducked just in time to avoid his foot slamming into the side of her head. It left her in an awkward position, and she could barely raise her spear in time to protect her midriff from his spinning ankle.
She grimaced at the kick's power that sent her skidding some ten meters backwards. He didn't rush after her but made a show of heaving his mace out of the hollow soil.
"That all you got?" Gu asked.
The grin Niva shot him showed off all her teeth. "Don't blink."
Crouching low, she exhaled deeply, and her blood stilled. The world narrowed. All that existed was the enemy. Gu's eyes widened as he quickly got ready to block. But he was too late. She devoured the dis— no, there was no distance. She was here and not there. Then, she was there and not here. The tip of her spear whined, falling upon Gu like a ravenous beast smelling blood. Her upward swing smashed his weapon out of the way, breaking his stance, but her opponent was no ordinary cultivator and used the force she applied to whirl out of her reach. She wasn't done, though. Instead of letting him catch his footing, she dashed forward, pressuring him and keeping him off balance. A nasty gash on his shoulder was the reward of her tenacity. Or would have, had they used real weapons.
That seemed to anger hammer boy because his following swing didn't only crater the ground, it broke it, and it forced Niva to jump away. Some of the debris still hit her on the way out, and a substantial piece almost made her drop her spear as she hissed in pain when it impacted her wrist. Gu yelled, and his figure flashed across the sky, positively looking like a devil called forth from the seventh ring of hell at the zenith of his leap, and he rammed down on the earth like a demigod.
He'd missed her by a hair's breadth.
When the smoke caused by the damage finally cleared, both fighters stared at each other, smiling viciously.
Grandfather had been right. Coming here would push her beyond her limits. She raised her weapon, already anticipation the following exchange, and Gu mirrored her.
The already destroyed ground cracked further under the weight of her stabilizing step, and her—
An explosion to her right completely broke her concentration, and she snarled in the direction it had come from.
A girl Niva could only describe as beautiful walked toward her with practised confidence and ease. Her dark skin was smooth, and her dress was dyed in black and gold, fitting perfectly around an hourglass figure. Continuing her steps, the girl resumed clapping, and Niva only now noticed that had been the source of the noise.
"An exquisite display of battle prowess." The girl spoke, her inflexion the model of noble dialect. "Though, I beg your forgiveness, as others would also enjoy using the field."
Niva grimaced. In their zealousness, they had long crossed the boundaries of the other training sites, and she saw they were far removed from their original starting position.
"My sincerest apologies. I had completely forgotten myself," Niva bowed her head to the disciples directly surrounding her.
The group of three practitioners, two boys, one of whom was notably missing an arm, and a girl whose eyes were wholly white, smiled back at her, waving her a "don't worry."
"It was an enlightening experience," the one-armed boy spoke, and Niva once more lowered herself.
"Then, please excuse me." Niva made her way to leave, but the girl who had initially stopped her called after her.
"Pardon me—"
Niva turned. The girl stood before her, and for the first time in recent memory, she didn't look down on a girl her age.
"May I be so rude as to request your name?"
Niva cocked her head. It was an easy decision since it didn't take a genius to figure out she was of high status. The girl smiled in response and handed her a sealed envelope decorated with sprinkles of gold.
"In two weeks, after people have had the time to settle in, I will hold an unofficial gathering. I invited many talented individuals who will undoubtedly play an important role this upcoming year. Your friend is welcome as well."
She was about to say Gu wasn't her friend. At least, not yet. However, she had motioned behind her where Dino stood. Had she been watching them earlier? Niva turned the paper over in her hand, not finding any real reason to refuse.
On the contrary, this was precisely what she had been hoping for. Being on good terms with some of the more well-off disciples would open the avenue to many opportunities down the line. Moreover, though she had her personal objective of finding the 'key', the patriarch had also given her the mission to form allegiances with influential clans in the Empire. A powerful cultivator without any allies wouldn't stay one for long. Wildcards like that scared people. And people who were afraid would take crazy actions.
"I won't make a promise out of preservation, but I definitely plan on attending. Thank you."
"I look forward to your presence." The female disciple whirled around, her lengthy, obsidian hair dramatically following the twirl.
Absentmindedly, Niva remembered she hadn't asked her name, but a quick inspection of the invitation gave her the answer: Cordelia Vorbolla, Third Daughter of the Luminous Void.
She stopped in her tracks before swallowing a hearty laugh.
This would be an exciting year, indeed.