The next day, we walked to the back mountains, a place so full of dangerous monsters that not even the sect elders would willingly go there. It was on the other side of the outer sect grounds, so there was time enough to once again run into Li Qiye and Li Xiaoyao, perhaps by fortuitous chance, or perhaps by Natsuki's choice of path. It did not matter. Either way, how could I let them live? Natsuki may not have seen what they had done, but I knew she would not forgive them if she had. If she could not kill them, then I would do it in her place. For her sake, and for mine as well, I killed them both: first the younger, whose soul shimmered with the teals and oranges of disgust and fear, and then the older, who tendered a soul finally— finally— deep blue with sorrow.

Some hours later we found ourselves in a clearing in the depths of the mountains.

"Come," Natsuki instructed. "Let us begin the first lesson. Unsheathe your sword and attack me."

I had some reservations about attacking someone who had nothing in her hands other than those black gloves she always wore, but I knew Natsuki's power, so I did as she said.

I stepped forward and swung my sword at her.

She caught the blade of my sword between two fingers, then sent a sliver of qi into it, forcing it to explode into a hundred pieces that clattered to the ground like fragments of glass.

"The tools with which you fight carry the weight of your life. If your leg fails, you die. If your arm fails, you die. If your sword fails, you die."

She pointed at the fragments of my sword, scattered upon the grass.

"Is that sword strong enough to hold up the weight of your life?"

I... shook my head.

"Then do not rely on it." She pulled an oddly-decorated sword-hilt from her sleeve and tossed it to me. "Create your own blade from the qi running through your body, so that you and your blade are one, so that you cannot imagine a difference between your blade breaking and your heart stopping. If you can imagine the difference, then that difference will kill you."

I held the sword-hilt in my hands, and drew a wisp of qi into the shape of what might be called a blade. But it was weak, and it was fragile, and it was nothing like the flaming saber that Natsuki had not wielded against Lianying, and when I looked up to Natsuki, she only shook her head.

She swung her hand, and without even touching my wisp of a blade, split it in two.

"I have just broken your sword. Yet you seem unfazed. You do not understand the weight that your sword carries." She put a finger to her chin and frowned. "My understanding is that humans are creatures of reason only ever tangentially. Then, if you cannot understand with logic, perhaps it would be more effective were I to explain via intuition instead."

She stepped forward half a foot, then delivered a lightning-fast side kick to my right leg. I felt something crumple, and suddenly missing all sensation but pain in that leg, I collapsed to the ground.

"Natsuki..." I groaned, and I could form no thought beyond those words.

"The leg is the most important limb in the body. With your legs alone you can kill your enemy, but missing even one leg you will certainly die. Like thus."

She raised her foot, then brought it down like a lightning-bolt over my throat, striking in my heart only an absolute certainty of death. I closed my eyes—

Nothing happened.

I opened my eyes— and I was once again standing with the sword-hilt in my hands, now no longer feeling the pain. Instead, it was the knowledge of the feeling of pain, the knowledge of the feeling of death, that rose like thick morning fog in my consciousness.

"Do you understand? If your sword breaks, you should feel only immeasurable pain and an absolute certainty of impending doom. That is the weight of your sword."

I grasped the sword-hilt tighter. I could still feel it! The memory of the pain and the certainty, the weight! I knew those feelings well. Every time I had ever been beaten by Jiang Hanfeng, or Long Guoqiang, or Wang Wujiu, I had experienced those feelings. I embedded those feelings, enclosed them within the qi I let burst forth from the sword-hilt, and this time it formed a solid blade of grey qi, wisps of qi skittling off it like embers.

I sliced the materialized qi blade through the earth, leaving a clean cut in the dirt. It was not nearly as strong as Natsuki's flaming sword, but it was—

"Good. Now let us proceed to the next lesson." As Natsuki took four steps back, a sheath appeared at her right hip, from which she pulled out a sword-hilt of her own that she set alight in teal flame. "To fight is to stake your life. If you wish to survive, you must put the weight of your life behind every strike. It is one thing to hold a sword, and another to swing it. Show me that you can wield that sword without letting it scatter into the wind."

She stepped forward and swung her sword down, and I raised my sword to block hers. Her sword cut cleanly through my sword and my arm in one strike.

"It is not only your attack, but also your defense that must carry the weight of your life. If it cannot, you will die."

She swung her sword through my neck, and I—

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I opened my eyes.

"Again," she said. She stepped forward and swung her sword down, and I raised my sword to block hers. I fortified my sword with qi, and it did not shatter under hers. For a moment our swords screeched against each other— and then she pulled hers back and stabbed me through the heart.

"You are staking your life, and so is your opponent. If you show them weakness, you will die. If they show you weakness, you must kill them."

I opened my eyes.

"Again," she said. She stepped forward and swung her sword down, and I raised my sword to block hers, this time holding a stacked defensive stance, with the hilt almost right above my head and all the muscles in my body forming a single line pointing in the opposite direction of her sword's movement. I blocked her sword, and then I stabbed forward, towards her throat. She stepped off-line and thrust her fist all the way through my abdomen.

"Every attack you make is an opening for your opponent. Likewise, every attack your opponent makes is an opening for you. Only when you understand this symmetry can you find the space in-between that allows you to kill."

I opened my eyes.

"Again," she said. She stepped forward and swung her sword down. I stepped off-line and swung with a Zwerchau cut towards the side of her head, thus defending and attacking at once. She drew her sword back, locking mine into a bind, before spinning its false edge over and stabbing towards my skull.

—An opportunity. I could get there faster.

I snapped my wrists, sending my blade cutting right through her forearms. Her hands fell to the ground, along with her sword, which ceased to burn.

I stepped back, suddenly horrified at—

"Good," she said, and then her hands vaporized into a black mist which recongregated into their original form at her wrists, as if I had never cut them in the first place. She kneeled down and picked up the sword-hilt. "In a swordfight, the three major targets are the the head, the chest, and the hands. If you hit the head or chest, then your opponent dies. If you hit the hands, then they can no longer fight. Now let us proceed to the third lesson."

----------------------------------------

We passed several hours training thus, and then it was midday, late enough that my stomach began to growl. I felt like I had lived through a thousand deaths at Natsuki's hands, and yet it was not the pain but the enlightenment that I remembered.

"I will go hunt some food," Natsuki said, resheathing her sword-hilt. "Chunxue, now would be a good time to study that painting you bought." She pulled the scroll from her sleeves. When she unfurled it, it spread out wide and hung there in the air, and then she disappeared off into the trees.

I sat in front of the painting. It depicted a great tsunami crashing along a shore, swallowing up boats and houses and people alike. It was, in fact, an incredibly ominous painting. After all, it displayed human civilization being mercilessly crushed by terrors of nature far beyond their comprehension. It was difficult to find something that one might call beautiful or even sublime in this painting.

I sat there for some time, utterly confused, until my eyes finally wandered to the title of the painting, written in small and fading letters on the side.

A View of Mount Caojin-Baigen

I froze. Mount Caojin-Baigen? I knew of the name— it was one of the great volcanoes on the Huoshanlong archipelago. But... that was not the subject of this painting, was it? This painting was about a tsunami...

I examined the painting closer, and only then did I notice, in the hollow of the tsunami's highest wave, half-hidden by the ocean mist, the shape of a mountain in the distance. It was not large— it was smaller than even the boats caught up in the tsunami's rolling waves. But it was there. Mount Caojin-Baigen. It was there.

"From a thousand miles away, even Mount Tai seems smaller than a pile of dirt..." I muttered.

This made some more sense. I felt some of the Dao intent of the painting leaking into me. When wielding a sword, one must only see the enemy before them. Though Mount Tai may be far greater in size and power than a mere human being, it carries no weight in the moment of combat.

If this painting depicted any other day from this same location, it could be said to be a painting of Caojin-Baigen. But as it were, for those of us humans who could not help but fear tsunamis, it was a painting of the tsunami.

I meditated on this interpretation for some time.

—Suddenly, I heard a monster's cry shaking the trees not far behind me.

I stood and pulled out the sword-hilt Natsuki had given me, lighting a blade with materialized qi. A giant ape, some twelve meters tall, with fists that crushed stone as it moved and with teeth yet covered in the dripping blood of its previous prey, leaped out of the trees, landing in the clearing. It identified me and roared.

I did not flinch. I simply waited. I waited for an opportunity, the way Natsuki had taught me.

The ape, even further angered by my impassiveness, leaped forward with its fists raised, ready to crush me to a paste under its weight!

—Here was my opportunity!

I stepped back only ten feet, and the ape's fists slammed into the ground right in front of me. I jumped onto its arm and dashed up it, then— before it could recover— I leaped off its shoulder and cut through its spinal cord at the back of its neck!

The beast collapsed, dead, and only then did I see Natsuki leaning against a tree not far away.

"Good," she called out with a dull smile. "That is the temperament you must have. Decisive in both defense and offense. However, you must be even more aggressive. Rather than make your opponent miss, it is better to kill them before they can strike. This is a good start."

"Oh, uh, thanks," I said, my cheeks reddening. "Um... are we going to eat that?"

"It is possible to test monster meat for food safety, but the necessary equipment does not exist in this era. Thus, you will eat its core, but your lunch will be this." She pulled out a wild chicken from behind her back.

I tilted my head. "Is there really a point in me eating a monster core? Since my meridians are closed anyways..."

"Chunxue, I have a sense of what prevents you from cultivating. It is not that your mana vectors are closed, but rather that your body does not synthesize internal mana in your nucleus. This is quite common among normal humans. Thus, what you must do in order to more efficiently use my power is make your mana channels wider and stronger, which is one thing that monster cores can help you with."

"Wait, so my meridians aren't closed...?"

"They were, but when you first used my power, they opened. If you do not have internal mana, it is not easy to tell whether mana vectors are open or closed, so you may not have noticed."

Nodding slowly, I went over to the monster and cut out its core from its dantian, which I ate along with the chicken, and I felt, ever so slightly, like Natsuki's power ran through my body ever so slightly smoother.