Chapter 4

Danny stared at the shouting fairy that had suddenly reappeared. “One second. I leave for one second and you found a way to screw it all up. Are you happy?” The guide was fuming. Danny flinched.

“I just wanted to—”

“Just wanted to what? Go on.”

“I thought I could find another way. A way besi—”

“Well you found the other way, native. Instead of letting the System do everything behind the scenes and keep it all nice and tidy, you took it all into your own hands.” The guide’s voice dripped with venom. “The System was made millions of years ago and countless generations have followed the rules. What makes you so much smarter than them?”

“I didn’t think—”

“No. You didn’t think.” The guide let out an exasperated sigh. “What tier was it?”

“The manual? Uh…”

“If it’s at least A tier it might be salvageable.”

“It was…” Danny stammered.

“Spit it out, native.”

“D tier.”

“D tier.” The guide echoed. “D tier? Oh, Titania this is…”

“Well, it said D minus tier.”

The fairy looked at Danny. “I don’t know why you are so set on dooming yourself, but you are doing a great job so far.” Danny opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn’t find any words. “I need some room to think.” The guide said. He flew out of the prayer chamber. Danny suddenly felt very exhausted. His clothes were putrid, his entire being felt drained, and the increasingly familiar feeling of embarrassment rose to his face. Wordlessly, Danny stood up and went down the opposite hallway, toward the dormitories.

___________________________________________________________

Aspen pulled a manuscript off the shelves. The light from the nearby floating crystal was illuminating the pages, he found the moonlight insufficient for the task. “They even strip down the light crystals.” Aspen scoffed. He put the book back. He had spent hours searching the library and only had a few texts to show for it. “Of course he chooses a staff.” Aspen reached for another book. “A cultivator too, just my luck.” He put it back. Aspen considered the interaction earlier. “I was pretty heated back there…” He trailed off as he tried another manual. He nodded as he added it to the collection he carried with him. “At least tomorrow will be a new day.” A ray of sunlight began to creep through the library windows. “Today will be a new day.”

___________________________________________________________

Danny woke up with a start. He had been having another nightmare and gasped when he saw the flying fairy hovering near his face. Aspen’s expression almost looked…soft. Worried. But in a blink, it was back to the same semi-scowl that he wore when Danny first met him. Danny figured he must have been imagining things.

“Here.” The fairy tossed five books onto Danny’s chest. “These are all of the manuals about staff fighting styles that were in the library. Pick one and meet me in the courtyard.” Danny looked through the stack of books and read the titles. [Raging Titan Shatters the Mountain], [Forms of the Living Catastrophe], [Weeping Willow Dances on the Wind], [Bulwark of Skeope Ti-Wa], and [Staff Striking Techniques]. The last was a little on the nose like someone had run out of good ideas for a name or something. Danny had already seen the first two and was pretty sure that they were not going to work for him. He did his due diligence and read through the summary on the front page just in case. He was surprised to see that most of these techniques were A Tier, according to whatever ranking system the sect used.

Raging Titan and Living Catastrophe were immediately nixed from the list. These manuals were focused mainly on hitting and hitting hard. Especially Raging Titan. It was all about using brute strength to overpower defenses and strike at an enemy’s head or body with as much bone-shattering force as possible. That did not sound like Danny’s cup of tea. Living Catastrophe was about wide, sweeping attacks and meant for taking on multiple opponents at once. Danny had no dreams of being a one-man army, so that was another easy “no.” Upon further consideration, he put Staff Striking Techniques in the “no” pile as well. While this manual was very general, it again focused on offense and ending a fight swiftly using the reach and leverage of a long weapon. Danny could appreciate the methodologies, but they felt at odds with not only his preferences but also the description of his staff and cultivation method.

Weeping Willow and Bulwark were the most suitable. Both focused on a defensive fighting style. Bulwark initially drew Danny’s interest with its “nearly impenetrable defense,” but it was designed for a race called the Skeope. They had a special racial ability that allowed them to absorb impacts and then redirect the force into their strikes. This technique had only one attacking form and it was reliant on using the stored damage from the Skeope’s ability to do any real harm. Danny figured he could make it work if he combined it with some of the forms from the Staff Striking Techniques manual, but the last fighting style looked far more promising.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

To start with, [Weeping Willow Dances on the Wind] was the sole S Tier manual of the five. It emphasized fluid movement, flexibility, and the redirecting of force. The manual was inspired by the way that the namesake tree would behave in a storm. Bending, but never breaking. The only downside was that the manual was notoriously difficult for even talented pupils to learn, let alone master. Danny wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was better than the young talents who had tried and failed to practice the style, it was just the perfect fit. Rolling with the punches, but never giving in. That felt like someone Danny wanted to be. The imagery of a tree in the wind also spoke to his Gentle Body, Heavenly Soul. No violent giants or natural disasters wreaking havoc, nothing relying on alien powers. A man, his staff, and the wind. Danny liked it. He picked it up and set the others aside.

___________________________________________________________

“Again.” Aspen commanded. Danny sunk back into the starting form of his Weeping Willow Dances in the Wind style: Sun Rises on the Willow. His stance was a relaxed crouch, a slight bend at the knee. Danny held one hand on the lower third of the staff, the other hand at the center, holding the staff forward and diagonally up and to the side to defend his body. This was the standard guard position he was to take at the start of the fight and when he was probing his opponent. Danny moved to the second form: Coming Storm. Danny shifted his weight to his back foot and crouched low, bending at the knees, as if intercepting a heavy hit. Snapping branches: Danny pushed down on the front of the staff and brought the back down in a diagonal swing. A counter-attack. He then followed it up with a horizontal attack. Weaving Willow: Danny shifted backward again as if leaning away from an invisible attacker. Sharp Northern Bite: A step forward and thrust, striking at the gut, groin, or knee of his phantom sparring partner. With a small adjustment of his feet, the thrust left him standing back in the guard position of his first sequence. Back to Sun Rises on the Willow. This was the first sequence of the Weeping Willow Dances on the Wind.

“Your feet are too close together when you step into the combination of form three, you are leaning too far into the thrust and getting off-balance, and every time you lean on your left leg you tense up.” Aspen critiqued. Danny felt like no matter how much better he got at the stances and transitioning between them, Aspen always had something he was doing wrong. It was demoralizing. He sighed in disappointment as he returned to the opening guard. At least Aspen will have dinner ready in another hour or so. They had started practice at noon, the sun was just now beginning to set. Aspen would call it and serve up a meal as it got dark, usually. Sometimes he made Danny practice in the dark. “Good training,” he called it. Danny hoped this would not be one of those evenings, his stomach grumbled in agreement. “Enough.” Aspen said. “Form Two: Rising Tempest.”

___________________________________________________________

A rustle in the undergrowth caused Danny to pause his work. He was currently setting a snare at a nearby rabbit run. Aspen had shown him how to find the little passageways that indicated their frequent passing. He had already fashioned the small loop on one end of the wire. Danny had also made a circle, about palm size, with that loop as the fastener. He had been in the middle of setting the snare where the rabbit would hop through when he was interrupted. Danny shakily picked up his staff. His eyes darted around, seeking any sign of another of those things. He was tense. Every part of him was dreading a confrontation. It never came.

Danny breathed out a sigh of relief. It must have been an animal or something, Danny figured. He went back to setting the trap. Danny didn’t like the thought of trapping the animals in the woods, but Aspen assured him it would be a quick death. Death by choking from a metal wire didn’t seem all that quick, but Danny decided to remain blissfully ignorant. He finished fastening the snare. It was the third one. Aspen had told him to set at least five, and the sun was beginning to lower.

Danny had spent the morning going through his staff forms under Aspen’s direction. Then came the survival lessons. Making fires, finding water, identifying plants, trapping, it was all-encompassing. Aspen had told Danny that the location that people would be teleported to after the Tutorial was random. He might not have anyone near him for miles. So Aspen was teaching Danny all he needed to know about survival in the woods and beyond. It made sense to Danny, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t grueling.

The sun-up to sun-down training was exhausting. At least it gives me something to focus on. If I had time to think I don’t know…Another rustling came. This time Danny rose in a stance, staff held out in front of him. He saw a streak of orange shooting around the shrubbery. Danny stood in the guard position for longer this time. Slowly, he lowered his weapon. Whatever it was seemed as unwilling to fight as he was. Danny picked up the two coils of wire he had left. I better get these set as soon as possible. Not much daylight left.

___________________________________________________________

Danny settled into a meditative pose, shaking himself free of all the distracting thoughts swimming around in his head. Since opening the Heart Gate, Danny had a larger capacity for Qi in his core. Interestingly enough, it didn’t take him any longer to fill his core either. It seemed that his ability to draw in ambient Qi went up proportionately to his ability to hold it. At least for now. The manual recommended wearing away at the remaining gates over time. When he opened the gates, a portion of the impurities were disintegrated by the pressurized flow of Qi, but most of them were not. A remaining portion was expelled through his pores and orifices, but a substantial amount would be combined with the blockages in his other gates, making each gate progressively harder to break open. His next goal was to open the Gate of Breath, and the body gates in his shoulders. And the body gates in his hips. All at once. The Gate of Breath would supposedly allow Qi to interact with his spirit. The body gates in the shoulders and hips would increase the strength and endurance of his limbs. He didn’t quite understand why the gates affected his body in the way they did, but the manual hadn’t failed him yet. He gathered from the manual that there were two main paths when opening gates. Most started with the opening of all of the body gates then moved on to the spirit gates, and the other vice versa. The simultaneous opening of gates was almost entirely unique to the Gentle Body, Heavenly Soul method.

It was apparently pretty intense. He would notice substantial jumps in power every time he broke through the remaining gates, at the cost of increased difficulty. The only reason it was even possible was because of the effect Karma had on cultivation, the crux of the Gentle Body, Heavenly Soul technique. By doing the right thing, acting selflessly, and refraining from excess violence, Danny could gain good Karma. Being selfish, exploiting others, and wanton bloodshed would yield fell Karma. Good Karma made cultivating easier, fell Karma made it harder. Pretty simple. However, too much fell Karma and cultivating ambient Qi would be impossible. One would be totally reliant on killing monsters, or people, and absorbing their collected energy to grow. It was a good thing Danny had chosen a weapon that could be used non-lethally. The manual assured that defending oneself was Karma neutral, and could be Karma positive if he showed mercy to his enemies. However, killing them after they had been neutralized as a threat was a no-no in generating good Karma. It was kind of like he had his own set of kung-fu Ten Commandments to follow. Danny didn’t mind, he wasn’t partial to the idea of leaving a tide of blood in his wake anyway. As he thought of these things, his cultivation session came to a close. Despite all of the energy he had gathered being used up, Danny felt satisfied. This was the one thing about Aspen’s training boot camp that he didn’t mind.