He Yu stepped through the formation gate that marked the edge of the training arena. Across the flagstone floor, Fang Yingjie stood as He Yu had always seen him, his arms crossed and face partially shrouded by his conical peasant’s hat. It was a rare bright day on the inner sect mountain, where the sun had burned away a good portion of the blanket of gray mist that gave the peaks their name.

Looking up at He Yu’s approach, Fang Yingjie merely dipped his chin in acknowledgment. It had been some time since He Yu had thought to purchase lessons. He hadn’t grown so prideful as to think he didn’t need them—he’d simply been preoccupied. Between the near-constant challenges he’d dealt with in his first year after advancing to the inner sect, and then Zhang Lifen’s training, and now his desperate scramble to complete jobs, finding the time had been ever more difficult.

Then there was the question of payment. He’d been feeling as though his sect contribution points had become increasingly scarce, even as the demands of advancement gave him always more to spend them on. If it hadn’t been for the payout from the attack on the spirit stone mine, he’d never have been able to afford this lesson along with everything else.

As much as he’d been feeling the pinch, He Yu felt he needed this. Sure, he’d been accruing a wealth of direct experience defending and advancing his rank within the inner sect. He’d also performed well against the mine overseer—at least as far as he was concerned. But during his cultivation, he always came away with the feeling there was more. More that he could do.

The Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace had only a single combat technique that he’d learned of. Heaven’s Descending Blade. During his tribulation, he’d seen what it could do. At a single stroke of his weapon, sheets of lightning poured down from the sky. A blinding display of power and destruction. He knew he was a long way off from that sort of feat, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d not yet brought out the technique’s full potential.

When he’d first begun cultivating the Five Crescent Winds, he’d learned the art would unlock its true potential later, when it could support other arts. Now he finally had something to support. Zhang Lifen was of no help, still absent from the sect. He didn’t quite feel comfortable about seeking help from Elder Cai, either. Even if he had the contribution points to access tutoring from an elder, Zhang Lifen had heavily implied that he wouldn’t get the sort of help he wanted from Elder Cai, anyway.

That left Fang Yingjie. Considered the sect’s foremost expert with the guandao and having mastered the Five Crescent Winds, he was the most likely person able to help. Since joining the inner sect, He Yu had learned somewhat more of the bulky, taciturn inner disciple. He had a reputation as an aggressive fighter, something He Yu’s own experience in training with him supported.

Fang Yingjie wasn’t particularly well-liked, but neither had he any significant rivals. He kept to himself and deliberately avoided getting involved in sect politics whenever he could help it. When he wasn’t cultivating or training his martial forms, he spent most of his time practicing his calligraphy in secluded gardens.

He Yu thought back to the advice Fang Yingjie had given him shortly before the tournament. To see to his own development, and not concern himself too much with the various alliances, feuds, and backbiting of others. After having spent nearly two years in the inner sect, he’d come to see the wisdom of that advice.

“Senior Brother Fang,” He Yu said over a fist pressed to his palm in salute. “Thank you for taking the time to provide instruction.”

“Of course,” Fang Yingjie replied. “You’ve grown, Junior Brother He. I had hoped we would exchange techniques once you reached the inner sect.”

This response came as no surprise. He Yu had since gotten used to the sort of training Zhang Lifen subjected him to. Although she kept her cultivation suppressed so that she didn’t immediately overpower him, it was never a fair contest. He’d expected Fang Yingjie would do much the same.

A guandao fell into Fang Yingjie’s hands as he adopted a strong, ready stance. “It is in the relationship you’ve forged with your weapon, the understanding you gained of your techniques, and the connection between your Way and your arts that you find the path forward. The wind rushes through valleys and around mountains. It pushes the clouds across the sky. How does the wind create the storm? How does it drive the rain? Should you wish to call the winds to your aid, you must understand these answers.”

He Yu gave a brief nod, showing he understood. As he fell into a stance mirroring that of his tutor, the two Fourth Realm presences crashed over the arena.

A colossus of earth towered above He Yu. Nearly twice his height, Fang Yinjie’s presence was heavy and solid. A burst of plant-life exploded from each step he took, as he advanced—far faster than He Yu would have expected. Rather than a lumbering, awkward construction, the earthen giant of Fang Yingjie’s spirit had a lightness to its movements. The plants that spread from his footsteps rapidly grew into groves of trees, their branches swaying in a wind that both accompanied and propelled his passing.

The first strike came sooner than He Yu anticipated. The Crashing Wind came down on him—a formation of the technique that carried a weight He Yu had never achieved. The Spring Rain Mirror shattered before it, and didn’t even slow it down. It was only the incredible speed granted by the combination of his movement and body enforcement techniques that allowed him to avoid the attack.

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Fang Yingjie’s guandao bit into the ground. The inner disciple—two stages above He Yu at the late Fourth Realm—pivoted, and swept his blade upward. The move tore a chunk of earth as large across as He Yu’s arms were wide from the arena floor.

He Yu answered the technique with his own. Pouring qi into the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, he thrust his guandao forward to meet the boulder. He activated the Rushing Wind. Violent currents of air churned along the length of his blade and the haft behind it. He activated Heaven’s Descending Blade. A jagged fork of lightning reached out for the incoming technique.

Earth cracked and split. Stone shattered beneath the fury of heaven and the strength of steel. He Yu advanced, blasting forward on the nascent wings of the Sky Dragon’s Flight.

Fang Yingjie thumped the end of his guandao on the ground. A blast of wind expanded outward from him, carrying with it jagged shards of earth. He Yu activated the Spring Rain Mirror once again, but only blunted the initial impact of Fang Yingjie’s formation of the Bracing Wind. He allowed the remaining stone shards to pelt him, enduring with help from the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering.

Within reach of his tutor, He Yu called forth the Sweeping Wind and activated Heaven’s Descending Blade once again. The first crackling arcs of heaven formed along the Sweeping Wind’s leading edge. As the technique gathered, it became a blade formed of heaven’s wrath, a jagged and brilliant arc of lightning trailed by a churning gale.

The colossus stood firm against the storm. The two masses of wind battled one another, tearing up the trees around the colossus’s feet as fast as they could sprout and grow. Flashes of heaven reached down to score black scars across the unfeeling stone. Rain pelted the earth and the living statue, driving a tempo like so many drums.

A fist of earth reached to heaven. Reached to the heart of the storm. It closed around something hidden, something insubstantial that He Yu hadn’t even known lurked withing the black mass of churning clouds.

Fang Yingjie ripped the heart from the storm, and threw it to the ground. He Yu tumbled back, formation enforced flagstones cracked beneath him. He’d over a dozen cuts and gouges across his body. His meridians ached, and his left eye was already beginning to swell shut. As he looked up to his tutor, he saw the damage he’d inflicted.

One arm hung at the late Fourth Realm tutor’s side, intermittent drops of blood spattering against the ruined training floor beneath him. Fang Yingjie had fewer wounds than He Yu to be certain, but he was in bad shape. His spirit flickered from fatigue and strain even as he withdrew his presence. His conical hat lay on the flagstones a few yards away, split in two and blackened by lightning where it had been rent.

Reaching out with his uninjured arm, Fang Yingjie helped He Yu up. “You have improved immeasurably.”

They made their way to a pair of stones under the shelter of the red pine boughs just outside the arena. Sitting, they each took medicine, their wounds stitching together as their meridians surged with revitalizing qi.

“Does it always require two separate activations of the techniques?” He Yu asked after a moment. That was the main thing he felt was holding him back. First, he needed to call the winds before he could Heaven’s Descending Blade on top of it. He’d have to cultivate and review the insights from the fight in order to be certain, but he didn’t think that was what Fang Yingjie had been doing.

“As you increase your mastery of both the Five Crescent Winds and you cultivation art, the use of both will become simpler.”

It wasn’t exactly what he’d asked, but it was good enough for the moment. As he’d increased his mastery of his other techniques, they’d come more easily, and so had his ability to flow between them. The strain on his meridians had decreased, and so had the drain on his qi. It had been most noticeable on the techniques that were the most difficult.

The Sky Dragon’s Flight had sent him crashing into trees or the side of the mountain when he’d first begun using it. Now? He could dart around a fight like a dragonfly hovering above a pond. The only one of his peers that had more maneuverability was Li Heng with his White Hare Dance.

He Yu’s cultivation of the Spring Rain Mirror had followed a similar path. At first, he’d hardly been able to form it, let alone use it in a fight. Since he’d come to better understand it—and by extension the nature of its water aspect—it had turned into a flexible and powerful defensive technique. It was still one of his most difficult techniques to form, but it had grown progressively easier the more he practiced with it. It only made sense that Heaven’s Descending Blade would follow a similar path.

As they recovered, Fang Yingjie spoke on the principles of that guandao and the Five Crescent Winds alike. He Yu listened and reflected. The winds could shift at a moment’s notice. In a sense, He Yu had always been much the same. Back when he still cultivated in the areas around Shulin, that had mostly meant he’d gotten distracted easily, chasing down fancies and fantasies. Ultimately, not getting very much done.

Now that served as a sort of adaptability. Like when he’d shifted his approach mid-fight against Tan Xiaoling in the tournament. Or when upon realizing that his mission to protect the mortals from his battle with the overseer had failed, he’d shifted to delivering justice for a cold-blooded murder.

It wasn’t what he’d first thought of when Fang Yingjie had first told him to become like the wind. But in a sense, that was exactly what he’d done. Zhang Lifen had repeatedly stressed that his nature and his Way influenced one another in turn, in cycle, over and again.

Looking back it, was easy to see how that had been the case. Whether that was simply the benefit of hindsight or his increased understanding of himself, he couldn’t say. In the end, he supposed, it didn’t actually matter which. The understanding remained just the same—how one acquired wisdom was irrelevant in the face of its acquisition.

It was late afternoon when they finally finished their training for the day. Although Fang Yingjie kept his cultivation suppressed to a level just above He Yu’s, the benefits of experience and a more clearly defined Way and presence were obvious. Still, throwing himself against a stronger opponent wasn’t without merit.

Fang Yingjie forced He Yu to use everything he had. It made it clear why Zhang Lifen had insisted he train at full strength—after merely an afternoon, He Yu felt as though he was on the brink of discovering new insights. When he parted ways with his tutor just as the sun dipped behind the mountains, he resolved to spend the night in cultivation. A plan that was interrupted when he caught sight of a bird construct crafted from bone and living shadow perched just inside the entrance to his home.

The message Yan Shirong had given his construct was short, and to the point. “I have learned the secrets you sought.”

Instead of heading to his cultivation chamber like he’d planned, He Yu set his feet on the path towards Yan Shirong’s home.