So here’s the thing with anger.

It’s not that hard to maintain, Tantra just needs to remember the corpse, and considering the sight will forever be seared into her mind, she can basically get mad on command. Which is good, because she needs something as fuel for the beatings she’s been enduring.

Rakan slams his kanabō into her forearm as she hastily goes to block, she can feel her bones creaking as she is sent flying to the side, rolling on the ground before jumping to her feet.

She has exactly one instant to dodge the club coming for her face.

She boosts and jumps back, creating some breathing room that she knows won’t last for long as Rakan digs his heels into the dirt and dashes. She’s still in the air when he reaches her and drives his club into her torso, causing her to flip midair and landing prone on the ground.

Rakan digs his club between her shoulder blades.

“Never jump in a fight, kid, just makes you vulnerable.”

Tantra grumbles as she gets back up and assumes her stance, Rakan nods, then sends a vertical swing meant for her head. It’s too fast, all she can do is tilt her head to the side so it hits her shoulder instead of her skull. It lands with a heavy crunch as bones are broken and muscle is pulped. Tantra holds back a scream.

Rakan backs off and raises a brow, an opportunity to stop for the day.

She remembers the boy.

She charges him.

Rakan smiles and they continue.

-

She is pushing and pushing, holding back a torrent of blood as she forces four strands to travel through her body. Her control and will aren’t the problem anymore, it's solely her soul, it can’t handle the stress. But that’s fine, cultivations all about pushing through pain and coming out the other side stronger, she just has to keep pushing.

She can feel the blood draining from her eyes and ears as she continues to force her soul to accommodate her demands, and she is demanding. This isn’t a negotiation anymore, or cooperation, it will do as she wills or it will suffer. So far it’s been choosing to suffer, but that’s okay. It doesn’t really feel like pain, at least not how the body interprets it, so she just has to weather the physical effects and ignore the spiritual ones.

Easy.

She pushes the rope through the entirety of her intestines then starts to double back. If her math is right she should have to repeat the back and forth five times to be ready for five strings, and once she reaches five strings she can start working on intention, then her experimental technique.

Is she moving too fast?

Probably.

But that’s okay.

What’s not okay is that she’s weak.

She’s only alive because of the mercy of a child killer

A fucking child killer.

The rage simmers up again, and she doubles down.

-

One clump of motes at a time, she brings her Qi to the chambers of her heart and boosts her blood. Not exactly something special, she’s just doing it while walking, it’s another form of control exercise. She’s been dabbling but she always stops when she hits her heart.

This time sound reasoning has no presence in her mind to stop her.

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She takes another clump and boosts again, this time a few motes were caught in the muscle between the chambers and she feels a spasm and doubles over, clutching at her chest. Everyone stops and waits for her, but no one says anything.

Rakan has clear approval on his features, while Etra seems to be staring at her with genuine respect, the girl doesn’t know what Tantra’s doing, but she can clearly see how it makes her suffer. Kisrin doesn’t give her a look of pity, but it’s a close thing, he has reached three threads, recently too, so Rakan’s pulled him to the side and gave him a manual. Yorin just looks worried.

But Yorin’s a sweetheart, of course he’s worried.

Erick is sleeping on Yorin’s back so he doesn’t really contribute to the collection of reactions

She gets back up and regains her composure, joining them again on the path.

She ignores the crushing pain in her chest, and the bile reaching up her throat and pulls another clump of Qi, boosting her blood.

-

She’s doing burpees, a lot of them too.

Rakan agreed to take her shift so long as she dedicates it to training, and how she has been training. She jumps, then drops to the ground and does a push up, then pulls in her legs into a squat and jumps again. The exercise hit’s every muscle, she doesn’t know why the sect made them run instead of doing this, seems significantly more efficient.

It’s also significantly harder.

She’s only been at it for perhaps two minutes and already her body is screaming at her to stop. But she doesn't; she keeps going, keeping the image of the corpse in her mind all the while.

She was a fool, a simple, simple fool. The thought that the cultivator would kill the boy didn’t even cross her mind. Rakan’s right, her experiences so far have tainted her view of how things are, making her think that cultivators were just stronger people, despite the clear fear in the villages, despite all the stories of massacres for petty slights. Maybe only a few cultivators are scum, and the bards simply tell their tales more often than the others, but it doesn’t mean that she can be complacent with her dealings.

She is a cultivator, people are afraid of her for a reason.

So long as it’s not a culling, or anyone important, she can essentially do as she pleases. Sure she’s not that strong, if enough mortals banded together they could kill her, and only immortals can take on villages, but who would risk their lives to a cultivator when they only wish to take one or two?

Then there are people like Galigan, who could likely take on dozens of mortals at a time, who would raise their weapons at such a beast? Maybe that’s all cultivators are, spirit beasts in a human's skin.

The people were certainly more afraid of them than they were the beast tide.

Why was Galigan so fucking nice after killing a child?

Trying to console her for the cold blooded murder he committed, how does that make any sense.

So much about the interaction angers her, and she uses it to push her body to do more burpees

-

To do all this, she needs Qi, and a lot of it. Since her soul won’t provide the necessary amount she turns to gathering. Grabbing Qi from the air whenever she isn’t doing one of her many other exercises, she is not gentle with her acquisition. Foregoing finesse entirely and forcing the Qi into her core, filtering it at a speed that is clearly unhealthy.

She can feel her soul constricting, feel it slowly approaching the tipping point, but that’s okay, the more she does this the easier it’ll be, and so long as she doesn’t cross the border she won’t have to care.

It’s a funny feeling, having your soul squeezed, it’s like someone is gripping her heart, except without the pain, if that makes sense.

It probably doesn’t.

-

Yorin doesn’t like the face Tantra’s been making the past few weeks, or anything she’s been doing recently. She’s limping with her club because her knee is broken, and still she insists on sparring. That’s only the most recent injury, she's marked with so many bruises and broken bones he’s genuinely planning on staging a one man intervention.

Because no one else seems to care.

Rakan and Etra she’s not really surprised by, but Kisrin?

He’s so in love the mush and cheese practically radiates off of him, yet he’s doing nothing about Tantra tearing herself apart.

Even Erick can tell that what she’s doing is wrong, but whenever he brings it up to her she shoots him down with a glare.

A glare he hasn’t seen on her before.

He’s worried, he’s really worried, but he can’t exactly stop her, she’s not listening, and he isn’t about to force her to stop. Seems like that would take violence at this point, and he doesn’t want to hurt her, not anymore than she’s hurting herself at least.

But she needs to stop.

This isn’t how cultivation is supposed to go, not at all, this is just torture.