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Chapter 46: Heaven's Fated Archery Practice
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With a lighter heart Shae quickly reported back to Mistress Ping that no scouts were missing. With her mind clear of the earlier morning's worries she focuses on her training by sprinting between Long's position and the caravan. Only taking a break every third trip to check on the scouts.
Frustratingly she didn't feel that the short sprints pushed her limits as much as she hoped. She felt it, of course, but she wanted the monk's qi practice to do more. After a lap of considering her options, she decided not to mess with the existing practice. I'm sure they'll have something similar and better at the sect, and personal trainer equivalents to give me better advice.
Eventually, Mistress Ping had her recall all the scouts and Master Long for lunch. On the trip back, he asked, "How many laps have you done?"
"Err, uh, I forgot to keep track." She ducked her head slightly in embarrassment.
"Oh? Do you need this ignorant old fool to tell you? I'm sure I can remember the count." He kept his voice low so scout Tunai didn't hear him.
Shae smirked, then shrugged, "Eh, I could guess, and it's not that important. What would be more helpful, is if I'm slowing down or not."
"Ahhh. A wise distinction. Given your qi, you might even be speeding up."
"Ehh!" She almost missed a step. They were running, but at a normal pace that the other scout woman could keep up with. Shae heard a snicker behind her, likely directed at her stumble.
"Well of course." He continued. "On a completely unrelated note. Did you make any progress on the gold qi?"
She looked up in time to see the smirk flash across his face, or maybe he waited for me to look. She steadied her breathing, "Yes, no thanks to someone. I have a firm grasp of most of..." She coughed and looked backwards at the trailing scout. "Well, it'll take more deliberate thought to feel out the rest of the pattern, but I feel comfortable with that bit now."
He radiated smugness, even through his stony mask of control. "Congratulations. Would you have anyone to thank for that?"
She took another deep breath of the forest air. "If anyone, Apollo. She talked to me after a certain unhelpful someone left. Though, we talked more about other things so I shouldn't credit her too much."
"But you did talk about that with someone..?" He almost sounded whiny, though his intention was probably more in line with teasing the young woman beside him.
Shae released a sharp breath of air then inhaled deeply and quietly hissed her words. "No, Master Long, and if you keep pushing I'm going to yell and swear at you again." She took a slower breath, controlling her annoyance with him. "Early on, when I was on the mountain with Elder Ghon he had an enlightenment. Probably a small one for him. Just prior, we had been talking, and I had told him to do something innocuous: keep the campfire going. Because he would always let it go out without feeding it more wood."
She took another breath, then a second at finding herself slightly winded. Any qi in her channels did not really help her breathing. "From my perspective, I was some distance away, I saw him feed the fire another log then almost immediately receive enlightenment." Another breath. "And yet, he completely refused to give me any credit for helping him." She let the implication present itself to him.
Long waited, perhaps expecting more, then nodded. "It's possible he was thinking of something entirely separate from your conversation or the fire."
"Yes." Shae agreed.
"I see the situation as different. Our conversation was directly related." He declared like it was an indisputable fact.
She glared at him for a breath, "Related, yet provided me nothing. And don't claim you had some hand in me opening my mind to think more about it, Master Long. I didn't need some vague push, I haven't been struggling with this for months or even weeks. I've had a very busy week, singular, the time I've been able to calmly meditate on my progress could be easily counted in hours. This was not something you did, this was inevitable." She quickly took a few deep breaths, recovering from the rant.
Long remained silent.
"And I didn't even have an enlightenment. Why are you trying to latch onto such minimal progress?"
"Didn't you? I may be old but my senses detected a trickle of enlightenment qi from your campsite last night."
Shae shrugged. "That's vague. Doesn't even mean it was the right timing; I was thinking about much more than just that. Ask Apollo, she was there too. I didn't notice it, maybe it was hers."
"Hmm. I suppose I'll have to ask. She should be back by now." He grumbled.
A cough sounded from behind them. They both turned to see scout Tunai right behind them. "Well, this is awkward." She said in a voice that wasn't hers.
"Oh!" Shae gasped, her face brightening into a smile.
Long frowned. "When did you get back?"
"About an hour ago." Apollo said.
"See any monsters on the road?" Shae asked.
The woman that looked like Tunai opened her mouth like she was going to quip back, but froze instead.
"You didn't check, did you?" Long asked.
She coughed. "The... spiritual tool was harder to use than expected."
Long waved a hand, "Shae already knows about my sword. You could return it now?"
Both women forced a cough.
A beat later, Apollo cleared her throat, "We'll need to stop to do so. To return the collateral, specifically."
"Hmm. Yes." Long agreed. "Another li and we'll be at the next scout group and water stop. Wise Shae, if you would?" He gestured at the path ahead.
She was confused briefly, then sped up to a fully powered sprint.
The two seniors were unbothered by the change in speed and continued the discussion while Shae focused on running.
"So, the enlightenment qi I sensed?" Long started, glancing at fake Tunai.
"There was heavenly qi about, a very small amount of it." Apollo answered.
"And who...?"
"Her, of course, mine wouldn't have felt like that."
Shae focused forwards, but creased her forehead in confusion.
"So it was unusual?" Long asked.
"Not terribly unique, I've seen a similar reaction before, when a cultivator was enlightened within a shielding formation."
"Ahhh!" Long spoke the syllable like he understood her.
They paused a beat, enough for Shae to get annoyed. "What? Seniors?" She spat out between jumps.
"What? No, I think my next question would be: when?" Long chuckled.
Shae shot him a glare and saw Apollo matching it.
"I think she wants it explained more, Master Long."
"Oh I think she can think it over and understand it in her own time." Long chuckled to himself again.
Shae couldn't be bothered to resist her anger, she was focused on running. "Busy, running. Asshole Long." She cursed out at the top of a jump.
She felt a mist of water pass behind her neck, and two bursts of qi with it.
"Hey!" Long protested.
"She's right, Long. She's running because you asked her to, just so that you can get your sword back sooner." Apollo scolded.
Long coughed loudly, but remained silent.
"Ugh. I'll fill you in later, Shae." The other woman said. "As to when, it was at the end of the night after I pulled my qi out of the area. And after you slowed your cultivation considerably, Shae."
Shae spared a few heartbeats of thought for what she was doing at that time, and remembered cleaning up her Dantian into its new planetary form. "Hah!" She laughed out, then gave a thumbs down to the side Long was on and blew a raspberry. "Pfthththth!"
"Heh." Apollo chuckled. "I think you're out of luck, Master Long."
"Well, we don't know for certain unless we know what she was comprehending at that moment." He sounded a little disappointed.
She repeated the thumbs down, and gave her best impression of a game show's incorrect buzzer noise while throwing intent into it to show just how wrong Long was. "Ehnhnhnhnhn!"
A breath of silence passed then Long quietly said. "Well, you didn't have to be so crushingly brutal about it."
Shae smirked and Apollo laughed out loud for the next half li.
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When they arrived at the water stop Long and Apollo hung back at the road. Shae hesitated enough to watch the exchange.
Apollo casually tossed Long's sword at him from her spatial storage. Then held a hand out and gave Long some very specific instructions. He hesitated then nodded.
With an outstretched hand and a bit of concentration, he summoned Apollo's sword from his spatial storage directly into her hand. She turned it over, examining it, then nodded and stored it away.
Shae's confused look back at the pair got a few chuckles out of Apollo. "Just a slightly cursed sword." She said with a smirk.
"You said it wasn't cursed." Long looked concerned.
"Now remember, I'm disguised as Tunai!" Apollo said with a wink and started past them towards the clearing around the well.
Shae checked her waterskin and found it mostly full. "We're waiting, scout Tunai." She called after the woman.
Long's mood swiftly improved as he let out a hearty chuckle. "Well done, hope she lets you get away with that."
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"If she wants to be a scout, she can do a scout's job." She shrugged. "Speaking of, couldn't you or her range out much further on that? It'd save us a lot of trouble scouting." She pointed at his sword.
"We could. Though it might not help, and might just bring more attention to us. Spirit beasts are not stupid. Unless desperate, the weaker ones stay away from the road. Knowing they can get picked off easily. The stronger ones know how to pick off a scout or two. Most of what I am doing is watching the scouts, not the path ahead."
Shae frowned and made a low noise in her throat, "Bait? Not sure I like that."
"Good, you shouldn't like it. The scouts know how it works, and get a good bonus for this last leg to the sect. If we had more suited cultivators, we would use them, but the guards protecting the caravan are more important than scouting the path."
She kept up a frown for a beat then inhaled sharply in understanding. "If the beasts are smart, they can also pick off caravan members."
"Precisely. Losing a scout that signed up for the risk is not the same as losing another that expected to be protected. It's a brutal calculation, but the reputation of caravan safety relies on it." He shook his head slowly. "Talk to Mistress Ping if you want more unfortunate examples of the same. It's a harsh world out there, we do our best to make it seem liveable."
Shae's frown was more conflicted now. "I noticed fewer farms recently. How do they manage?"
He shrugged. "Poorly, I'd imagine. That is one area where I will admit ignorance. From what I've heard most do not have cultivators. I'd guess they would attract more predators than what they scare off. Formations is my assumption, but that's not my field of study." He looked up and pointed towards the clearing. Signaling that the other scouts were coming. "Past the next town you'll find no farms at all, the qi wilds around the sect are not a safe place for mortals."
She had a follow up question, but decided to save it for later when she saw the others. Two more scouts joined them on their return.
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Shae took a break after lunch to practice some archery. The caravan wasn't trying to cover extra distance today, so they were taking a longer lunch to let the animals and people rest.
While practicing she received a number of recommendations from passing cultivators, most were unsolicited and unhelpful. She got the most help from Guard Shu near the beginning, as she had asked the woman to help her set up a target range.
Then a quarter hour later Tunai showed up and proceeded to give her a thorough lesson in the bow. She quickly realized it was Apollo again and thanked the woman thoroughly.
After whipping Shae into proper form for practice. Apollo did the next most helpful thing, which Shae could only describe as zeroing her bow's sights.
"Good bows have fairly consistent arrow speed across them, something to do with air resistance." Apollo shrugged away a longer lecture. "The important part is that the path of the arrow is predictable, both for you and your enemy. For a beginner, how the arrow falls in flight is as important as wind direction." She demonstrated it with one shot and was going to do more when Shae interrupted her.
"It's fine. I understand the concept. The arrow falls at the same speed regardless of the speed fired." Same as bullet drop, she thought to herself. While she wasn't a gun-nut, there were things you picked up through exposure, especially in North America. "I wanted to mark a spot on the bow for reference, but I can't trust my own accuracy to set it up."
"Hah hah hah! Wonderful!" Apollo laughed. "It usually takes so long to explain that to newbies." She flicked out a small knife and went to mark the bow before looking up at Shae, "May I?"
Shae nodded, "Please do."
Apollo smiled and went to work. Another quarter hour passed and Shae had a properly ranged bow. "If you get taller it will shift, mind you." Apollo warned. "And of course, this relies on you holding proper stance and form. Though you shouldn't need it past small success."
The younger cultivator examined several new notches along the bow's top arm, right above the grip. Then wrapped colorful thread around two of them. The lowest was five sets of paces, and had a green thread. The highest was two square sets of paces, and now had a red thread.
The first making was based on what they had marked out for her target practice. Shae had tried practicing at fifty meters, but a meter was longer than a pace, and her pace shorter than most. So she hadn't been particularly accurate and overcompensated by adding more. Thus one of the first things Apollo did was move the young woman back half a dozen paces to where she said five sets, or sixty paces, was.
Two square sets was then 288 paces, and very much outside Shae's accurate range. Though, Apollo said the bow was still reliable at that distance, and complimented the make of the bow and the arrows. "Quite good for mortal craftsmanship." Were her words. Shae accepted them with a genuine smile.
Only two more marks sat between the threads. One square set and one and a half. Shae nodded in understanding when Apollo explained why they were not marked at even thirds between the other two. "Even if the lower mark was six sets, they would not be evenly distributed because of how things fall. Do I need to explain more?"
Shae shook her head. "No, I already understand acceleration. Err, the rate at which things speed up during a fall." She corrected her use of English with a brief explanation.
"Heh, don't know the word? I suppose most mortals wouldn't need the specific concept. It's called gravity." Apollo spoke the word clearly so Shae could hear it.
"Gravity wasn't what I said." She shook her head. "That's the force itself, I just meant the rate of change. Maybe it's something like speed-multiplier? Though, speaking of the word for gravity, I always expected that to be fall-force or something." She had combined two pairs of words in a similar way to how much of the language was structured.
Apollo shrugged. "It's a bit of an outlier, I think there's more history to the word than many concepts get. Maybe another lost soul brought it over."
Shae nodded. "Could be, that world has many many languages. It could easily be from one of them."
"Ours has quite a few as well. But on the topic of language, you seem to have a much better grasp of this one than the usual peasant, and of reading and writing. I assume you can write more than just your past language?"
She nodded. "I was a slow learner when I was a child. Learning a new language like that is hard when you already know one. Yet, once I got started, the new words seem to stick in my memory quite strongly."
Apollo smirked. "The first Empress's claim was that the language holds power to aid learning."
"Oh!?" Shae perked up. "I've not heard much about the first Empress. Do you agree?"
Apollo shrugged. "It's hard to deny. And more difficult to prove. With the existence of intent, someone dropping foreign words into conversation can still be understood. For example, I mostly knew what you meant without your explanation. You can put a lot of intent into your words when you try." She smirked at the end.
The young woman considered the idea. "Long said something similar this morning. Though, I'm not sure I could understand someone else's intent that clearly."
"Heh, well, it's easier with divine senses, and practice."
"Hmm." She frowned. "I do need to work on my senses. Is there a way to practice for obtaining divine senses?"
"Heh. A question well worded. Not reaching too far above yourself. Mostly you should progress your regular qi senses. But for intent specifically? Hmm, you could make a practice with that campfire formation."
"Oh? That'd be convenient."
Apollo wobbled a hand. "You'd need to be able to mix them up. So you'd want good talisman paper and ink for flash-cards." She mashed the last two words together too much for Shae to follow.
"Fla-ards?"
"Flash cards." She repeated.
The younger woman paused, "Oh! Flash-cards."
"Heh, well, we usually don't emphasize speed that much. Accuracy is more important, same with the bow. Though, if you hold a few arrows like this." She held the fletching between her knuckles, the arrows sticking out of her closed fist like claws. Then showed she could still nock and fire with that hand. "Then you can..." She fired off the handful of arrows in quick succession.
"Oh! That's smart." Shae gawked.
"Heh, it requires a lot of practice to do well. You should still work on accuracy at distance. But this trick can scare off a weaker animal or spirit beast if they get too close."
"Thanks so much, Senior! You're so helpful!"
"Heh, you're welcome. Expect more pressure from the martial teachers at the sect, though. I'm being quite soft on you."
"Should I ask why you are being so helpful?"
"Only if you want me to stop." She grinned. "Hah, kidding. I expect that campfire formation to be quite helpful. Many people underestimate the distraction comfort provides."
"Distraction?" Shae frowned in confusion.
"As they say, a distracted enemy is a dead one."
The young cultivator paled.
"Hmm? Oh, don't worry that much. I'll mostly be using it for myself."
"But... " She gulped. "Wouldn't that mean you're distracted? And would you really use it to...?"
"Kill someone?" Apollo chuckled. "You're so naive it's cute. And maybe a little worrying. To explain: if someone sneaking up on me thinks I'm distracted then advantage me. If they don't notice the formation: they'll be more affected by it when they do strike, advantage me again. It might even save me more often than I can use it offensively." She smiled warmly at the young woman.
"Ah... Oh," she mumbled, turning away slightly to look into the middle distance.
The woman still disguised as scout Tunai set a hand on then squeezed Shae's shoulder lightly. When she got her attention she distracted Shae with the explanation, "So for the flash cards..."
The basic idea was to refine her intent into the formation such that it didn't combust or warm like fire, but rather had a very specific intent in the qi that wouldn't be noticeable unless you could feel the intent itself. "...Usually they are made by experienced seniors, but you can also use it to train your intent." She continued. "The hard part is getting materials good enough that they will last more than a few minutes. Regular paper and ink will... fall apart or burn under the high qi density that will build up."
Shae frowned at the end of the explanation. "What do you mean fall apart? I've used that formation on regular wood and dirt and not noticed anything."
Apollo shrugged. "I'm no formation Master who could explain it properly. As I understand: over the short term it's not usually noticeable."
"So if I only need it for an evening, paper would be fine?"
"If you are comfortable with them spontaneously exploding, I suppose."
"Uhhh, why would they?" The young woman paled.
"As your formation works now, it keeps sucking in fire qi. When the formation symbol breaks, the intent will also break and all that fire qi will do what fire qi wants to do." She made a bursting motion with her hand and a whooshing flame noise with her mouth.
"Oh." Shae froze in thought. "So how do they make normal formations, or talismans?" She kept staring up to the side, scrunching her face into concentration and confusion.
Apollo waited then said. "I believe they do have some way of controlling the amount of qi. A different formation symbol perhaps?"
That broke Shae out of her thoughts. "Oh. I suppose. Hmm. I think I could have the circle around the symbol block the qi too. But then they would need to be manually charged, right?"
Apollo shrugged again. "It's your formation, I don't know exactly how it works."
She frowned in response. "Yeah, neither do I, but it can't be that complicated, right?" She sighed and took another shot with her bow. "Guess I'll have something to test out tonight."
"Mhm!" Apollo agreed. "And practice another square set of bow shots."
"Uh, another?" She whined.
"If this was the sect, it would be a cubed dozen." Apollo warned with a raised eyebrow.
"Ah, um, okay." Shae conceded with hunched shoulders.
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Shae missed the timing on when the scouts left because she was wrapped up in archery practice. She was doing as Apollo suggested and taking a solid 144 practice shots. The tail end of the caravan passed her as she was on her last set.
Apollo had left earlier, after making sure Shae was taking her time and using proper archery stance and form. Having her repeat sets when her form was too sloppy, even if the arrows hit the target. That was most of the reason why it had taken so long.
The older cultivator also hinted that her disguise would change to something less recognizable this afternoon.
After she fired the final shot, she relaxed and waited. Just in case Apollo wanted to step out of a shadow and have her repeat the set. She had taken extra time to ensure her form was perfect on that last set, just in case the woman was watching. Or Long. Shae realized with a shudder. He would probably be even stricter.
She cleaned up her target by throwing the rotted chunk of log deeper into the woods. She felt her accuracy had improved, though it was a short distance. She wouldn't make any claims about her skill, yet.
On her way back to the front of the caravan, she swung by Mistress Ping for the list of scouts. She was quite sure they had been replaced for the afternoon. Ping confirmed that had been half the reason for calling them back over lunch.
"I'm not sure about this Apollo. She hasn't checked in with me yet. Will she make reports this afternoon?" The caravan Mistress asked.
Shae shrugged. "Did Master Long? I can probably pass along the word, if you have specific requirements?"
Ping gave half a frown and considered it. "Well, so long as she is doing the job. I suppose I don't need to know that she hasn't seen anything." She sighed. "Long did mention that one rot-dog, but not until you all returned from lunch."
"Err, sorry. I should have mentioned that, I did see when he killed it." Shae hunched her shoulders.
"Hmm? You did mention it, don't you remember?"
"Uhhh, not really? I guess I was rather distracted after it happened. Not because of it, Long and I had an argument."
"Oh? And you stayed out to scout with him anyway?"
"Well." The young woman rubbed the back of her head anxiously. "I wasn't doing a lot of scouting, just running along the road for the exercise."
Ping shrugged. "That's most of the job, if you ask many. And you kept track of the scouts, once I snapped you out of your funk, at least. That's rather helpful: it takes some of the work off my plate, and lets them stay out longer." The older woman patted Shae's shoulder. "I'm fine if you want to keep that up, or just hang out with Apollo as a message runner. She'll probably have news as fast as the scouts." She chuckled and shook her head with a solemn grin.
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