A young sword-cultivator splashes into an icy sea. The 200-foot-fall was high enough to turn the water below into concrete. High enough that it would have killed or seriously injured a regular man, and high enough that it hurt when the cultivator hit the water, his body seeming to sit on its surface for a fraction of a second before sinking into its depths.
The man was knocked out for a few seconds, but managed to come to, and swim back to the surface. The icy brine shocked him awake. He tried and failed to fly away. He was injured, and it seemed like his cultivation was at least partially sealed. Fortunately, he still had his storage pouch on him. One of the spares that he’d gained after hunting down and killing some of his so-called brothers in arms, who’d tried to kill him first.
There weren’t much in those pouches. His sect-brothers hadn’t been wealthiest. Besides the spirit stones they’d been given as payment for their attempt on the young man’s life, they had little in the way of fiscal and practical wealth. Luckily he’d been able to find an element-talisman that allowed the young man to create a sort of mini-iceberg, or ice-platform.
The young sword-cultivator passed out as soon as he clambered onto the ice-platform. Praying that the platform didn’t melt before he woke up. Thank goodness for small miracles, he didn’t drown and the ice-platform didn’t melt. In fact, he woke up and found himself floating towards an island. When the current changed, and the direction the platform was floating changed, he was forced to leave the platform and swim towards the island.
The sword-cultivator would always remember the ache of his muscles, and the burning in his lungs, as he swam for safety that night. He was forced to swim for many, many, miles to reach that island. Pouring out the last of his body’s energy and blacking out the moment he’d safely reached the shore.
When the young cultivator woke up next, he found a trio of monstrous hermit-crabs trying to divvy up his body. Thankfully they were too weak to actually cut through his skin and flesh. Only managing to bruise him with their pincers. The young man killed the crabs and scored himself a meal. After finding some dried grass, and twigs, further up on the shore, it wasn’t hard for him to use a fire-starter art to cook them.
The young man would spend the next three years trapped on that island. Fishing and living off the fruits that grew on the trees in the island. Doing whatever he needed to do to slowly recover, before finally building a raft that would carry him part of the way through the ocean, until he got close enough to the continent to fly the rest of the way.
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The sword-cultivator eventually returned to his home in southern-tip of the Frost-Soul Continent. It took several years to get there from where he’d gotten lost on the Evergreen continent. As he was making his way home, a single thought kept rumbling round and round in his head. Eventually, the young man returned to his home in the Glorious Sword Mountain. A sect of sword-cultivators like himself.
He hadn’t been sure what kind of welcome he would receive but it seemed the fates remained kind to him. The foe who’d tried to arrange his death had failed in breaking through, and was crippled by the accompanying tribulation-lightning. Losing his cultivation meant losing much of his status, which kept the sect safe for the young sword-cultivator to return to.
The young sword cultivator found his master and told the old man all that he’d been through. The old man sighed, and informed the young cultivator that the thoughts he was thinking, and the feelings that were washing over him, were indeed correct. He had gotten extremely, and incredibly lucky,
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“Calm, Caution…and humility…These three things are what ‘you’ taught me senior…And the lesson you taught me that day has served me well all the days of my life…” said the sword-cultivator. No longer a young man.
The fellow’s name was Yang Ning, and after 200 years or so, the man had become an elder of the Glorious Sword Mountain. Now he was here for…actually, I didn’t really know why he was here. He said that he just happened to be touring the continents while looking for something that would inspire and/or aid his next breakthrough. He apparently thought of me and came to say sorry for being a rash dickhead and trying to attack me. I’d honestly kind of forgotten about the guy, and he’d been zero threat to me at that time, so it was pretty easy to forgive the guy.
“Uh…It’s cool guy…You seem pretty decent, and I know better than most that people can get pretty crazy when their blood is up…Consider it water under the bridge,” I said.
“Thank you, senior…Again your magnanimity overwhelms me,” said Yang Ning. Cupping his fist and bowing.
“Er…right. Anyway, do you want another pot of tea? Or did you have somewhere you needed to be? It’s totally cool if you’ve got someplace to be,” I said. Not so subtly hinting that I wanted the guy to leave now.