Li Heng reacted to Sha Xiang’s attack with confident and practiced ease. Smoothly stepping to the side, he avoided her blow entirely. With that same casual ease, he drew back his hand, extending his first two fingers. In the moment before his counter-attack, Sha Xiang’s eyes went wide as she realized this wasn’t someone she could just push around.
Striking out with his two extended fingers, Li Heng caught Sha Xiang in the throat. He followed up with a kick to the center of her torso that sent her tumbling across the courtyard flagstones. She recovered quickly and rolled to her feet before adopting a more guarded stance.
Li Heng stood with his side angled towards his opponent, and his right hand held behind his back. The first two fingers of his forward hand were extended and surrounded by a faint silvery shimmer. He gave Sha Xiang a slight nod, and said, “It seems I am not the one in need of a lesson, Sect Sister.” The earlier coldness remained in his words and was now joined by the clipped dismissive tone he’d used with He Yu the night before.
With no words and no preamble, Sha Xiang launched herself at Li Heng again. This time rather than dodge, Li Heng elected to deflect her attacks. As she lashed out with a flurry of blows, the noble caught each one on his outstretched fingers, pushing it away. For every attack that he deflected in this manner, the silver shimmer around his fingers grew brighter.
After deflecting a particularly vicious series of punches, Li Heng broke off from his opponent. He seemed to almost glide over the ground as he backed away, extending his fingers once again. A silver light flashed from his fingertips, and a thin beam lanced towards Sha Xiang.
Her instincts were good, so Dong Wei’s training had at least amounted to something. She managed to dodge Li Heng’s technique—if only barely—rather than try and block. He Yu watched the exchange with fascination and a heaping of envy. That attack Li Heng had used—it was the first time in his life he’d seen a real technique used in a fight.
Sure, Zhang Lifen had practically crushed everyone present at the tournament, but that had simply been a result of her overwhelming spiritual presence, not a true technique. This was different. This was the sort of technique that the immortals in the stories would sometimes use. It may be on a far smaller scale, but it was the beginning. The sort of technique that Li Heng had used was the first step on the path up the mountain He Yu had seen in his meditation the previous night. The entire reason he’d come to the Shrouded Peaks Sect summed up in a single attack.
Sha Xiang and Li Heng faced one another from a distance of about a dozen or so paces. Sha Xiang appeared to be having second thoughts after witnessing Li Heng’s technique. The noble seemed perfectly content to let her make up her mind as to her response.
Before either of the fighters could make another move, a tremendous spiritual weight crashed over the entire plaza. He Yu collapsed instantly, intense heat searing the air from his lungs. With every ounce of strength he had, he managed to lift his head in the direction of the new spiritual presence.
From the far end of the plaza, a bulky male cultivator strode towards the confrontation. He wore a pair of sect trousers with embroidery patterned like flames and an open vest, revealing a broad, heavily muscled chest. He was easily the largest man He Yu had ever seen. His sheer size, along with the furious expression he wore, would have been intimidating enough on their own.
Apparently, he’d decided that a further display of his power was necessary—he was also wreathed in living flame.
Fire danced around his head and flickered over his bare arms and shoulders. Blazing tongues licked across the flagstones, leaving small scorch marks in their passing. As he advanced, the heat burned away the mountain’s ever-present mist, allowing the clear sky to shine through for the first time since He Yu had arrived at Xu Xiang. The cultivator’s eyes were two pits of burning red—each one an ember of an endless, hungering blaze. As he drew closer, a spiritual sensation of rage and destruction came with him—an inferno that would consume all that it touched, leaving only ash.
“So this is where my students are,” he said, his voice a low angry rumble. The spiritual weight remained for a moment before finally lifting. The flames swirling around him died as his spirit retreated, and he seemed more human than he had moments ago. He Yu could breathe again, and for that alone he was grateful.
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Li Heng threw himself onto his hands and knees, touching his forehead to the ground in kowtow. “Apologies, Senior Brother Ren, this disciple meant only to protect his junior from senseless aggression.”
This must be Ren Huang then, the physical cultivation trainer. Well, he certainly looked like he knew a thing or two about physical training. He Yu wasn’t sure whether or not that boded well for him.
Ren Huang grunted and turned toward Sha Xiang who was glaring at the senior disciple with the sort of look she normally reserved for He Yu. “Was there something you wanted to say?” he asked.
For a moment, it looked as though Sha Xiang would say something. Then, she bowed. “No, of course not, Senior Sect Brother.”
“Smart girl,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Get to the training yard. You’re already late.” Then, he muttered, “Only a day in and they’re already fighting.” He turned and walked back toward the training field, shaking his head as he did.
Sha Xiang and her companion followed after Ren Huang, sparing a quick glare over her shoulder at He Yu. Once the instructor had finally left the plaza, Li Heng picked himself up from the flagstones.
“Want to tell me what that was about, little brother?” Li Heng asked. He kept his eyes locked on Sha Xiang as she retreated. He sounded as though he regretted letting her go.
“Little brother?” He Yu asked, only half seriously. More than anything, he was grateful that the noble had intervened on his behalf.
“Well, I’ve now clearly thrown my lot in with you for all the other disciples to see. Half measures aren’t becoming of a noble.”
If Sha Xiang was as intent on holding onto the events of the Shulin tournament as she seemed, He Yu was going to need the help. If Li Heng was intent on helping him, there was little reason to refuse, so far as He Yu could see. “Zhang Lifen came to my hometown and held a tournament to determine who she would invite to the sect. Sha Xiang and I were the ones chosen.”
Li Heng raised an eyebrow and gave him an amused smile. “You won a tournament? And gained the attention of the sect’s rising star in the process? I wouldn’t have expected as much from you, but I suppose that does explain your low cultivation in a roundabout way.”
“Actually, I lost in the second round. Sha Xiang was the one who beat me.”
“And that answers my last question,” Li Heng said as he started off toward the training field once more.
“What did you mean about rising star?” He Yu couldn’t have kept his excitement out of his voice if he tried. He had already been impressed with Zhang Lifen, but if what Li Heng had said was any indication, she was an even bigger deal than he’d thought.
“Zhang Lifen. Pretty much everyone in the sect knows of her. She’s considered a peerless talent. Her cultivation is actually rather low for a core disciple, but that’s exactly what makes her special. She’s incredibly young for a peak Golden Core. They say that even though she’s only barely sixty years old, she’s been half a step into the Fifth Realm for at least a decade. Shoring up her cultivation base, or so the rumors say.”
“If she’s ready to break through, why doesn’t she?” He Yu asked as they walked. That Li Heng had so casually mentioned Zhang Lifen’s age wasn’t something he was quite ready to think about. He knew well from all the stories that cultivators often looked much younger than they actually were—especially the further they advanced—but he simply couldn’t reconcile that a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties was old enough to be his grandmother.
“It’s a balance when you’re a genius like her. Advancing through the first three stages is fairly trivial. Zhang Lifen reached late Body Refining when she was something like twenty years old, just for reference. For the lower realms, the faster the better. But once you reach Golden Core, things change. It’s no secret that older cultivators are stronger, even if they’ve been stuck at a bottleneck for decades. You can keep gathering qi and increasing the density and power in your dantian at the peak of a stage, but only to a point. No matter how long you stay at the peak, you’ll always gain more by breaking through.
“The more qi you manage to pack into your dantian before the breakthrough, the stronger that breakthrough will be, and the further you can go in the next stage. A cultivator who takes their time, and pushes themselves to the absolute limits will be far stronger.
“Of course, this really only matters once you’ve reached the Fourth Realm. As I said, until you’ve actually formed your Golden Core, advancing a stage is nearly always the better option. The benefits of remaining at the peak are hardly ever worth delaying an advancement.”
He Yu silently listened as they made their way to the training field. The biggest thing he took away from what Li Heng had just told him was that he needed to advance. Sha Xiang had already managed to increase the gap between them, and it was up to He Yu to close it. Sure, once he managed to reach the Fourth Realm—something that seemed a lifetime or more away—he could do as Zhang Lifen did and gather strength. But now? He needed to break through. Of that much he was certain.