A breath of air blew through the courtyard of the Jade Blossom School. The gleaming white marble steps in front of us led up to a green and gold gate in which hung brass-bound wooden doors. I stood at the front of the party, Sage and Grandpa behind me, with Bill and Bob bringing up the rear.

Between us and the doors were three men and two women arranged in an arrowhead formation.

The man at the point of the arrow wore long flowing white robes and a red sash. His jet black hair was long too and hung loose past his shoulders. His jade eyes narrowed as he took in me and my party.

"How dare you profane these halls?" he demanded. "I, Master Li of the Jade Blossom School, will teach you to respect your betters. Any of my students could beat you with no more than a single pinky. The students at my school have trained for years even to have a chance of advancing to the first rank. And you, you outsiders without a trace of cultivation in your bodies, you dare come here and ask us for our most sacred treasure. I tell you no. The Elixir of Heaven shall never be yours."

"Yeah, okay, I guess that's our answer." I unslung the grenade launcher from my shoulder and raised it casually. "Time for Plan B.” I fired off a shrapnel grenade.

The grenade arced over the head of Master Li and his disciples. It landed below the gate. The disciples turned to look at it for a moment, as if waiting for the delayed explosion.

Master Li's mouth gaped open. He pointed at us. His sleeve was ridiculously big, hanging from his wrist in a long silken loop. "Fallen Leaf disciples, end them!" he shrieked.

The woman to his right stepped forward and beckoned one elegant, golden-clawed hand. A bevy of students wearing gis with orange sashes appeared in the courtyard to our right.

"Did I just not notice them?" I asked Grandpa. He was, after all, our team ninja.

Grandpa shook his head. "Pretty sure they just spawned in. How long’s the fuse on that grenade?"

"About another two seconds.”

Sage cast Mucking Out the Stalls under the Fallen Leaf disciples' feet, just as our fragmentation grenade went off in a thunderous roar. The grenade sent a wave of shrapnel down the stairs, clinking to the ground close to where the cultivators stood. A blast of air ruffled their robes, but did no damage.

Master Li howled. "Students of the Flowing Wind, attack!"

The man to his left stepped down, and a squad of blue-belted ninjas appeared on the other side of our courtyard.

"Bill, Bob, let's clean these up!" I shouted. I lobbed my second grenade at the gate and stowed the launcher in my inventory. Then I Quick Drew my gun and fanned down the hammer.

Six shots left the barrel so close together I could barely hear the individual retorts. I didn't bother to aim, just pointed in the direction of the blue-belted ninjas. I was shooting flechette rounds. As soon as they got within ten feet of a person, they exploded into a dozen heat-seeking darts each.

The ninjas stumbled back away from us as Bob and Bill went to work. Bob used his Babel spell to disrupt their coordination, then followed up with Lost in Translation.

He'd picked that up a couple of missions back. It was a nifty little spell that caused enemies to go into an enraged state for thirty seconds. They'd attack whoever was nearest.

I made sure to stay away from its area of effect. The disciples tore into each other like a pack of angry tigers. Speaking of angry tiger, my attention was diverted as Master Li swore an oath to the heavens and called upon the patron spirit of the Jade Blossom School.

I would have assumed their patron spirit to be something floral in theme, but apparently it was a heavenly tiger. Li reached heavenward as a bolt of lightning dropped from the clear sky to the ground where he stood. I blinked away the after image. An enormous white tiger, tall as a man, stood in Li’s place.

"No fair!" Sage shouted. "He’s tripled his hit points!" She and Grandpa had made quick work of the Fallen Leaf ninjas and their mistress. Only two of the ninjas still stood. Sage had her t-shirt cannon pointed at the ninja mistress, who was lying on her face in the courtyard with Sage's boot on her back.

"Just try it," Sage purred. "I'll wrap you up before you can say 'Pressed Cotton.'"

Grandpa had used his ability to teleport behind an enemy and deliver a [Crippling Blow] to great effect. He and Sage had only taken a couple of points of damage each.

I turned back to my side, but Bob and Bill were cleaning up the blue ninjas. Only the tiger and his two disciples remained.

It also left my other grenade. I had been counting down the seconds. The fuses were longer than I liked, since theoretically someone could have picked it up and thrown it back at us, but we were working with the materials we had.

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"Brace!" I shouted as the second grenade exploded. This one sent flame rocketing down the steps. The blast wave knocked one of the two remaining senior disciples off her feet.

I charged over, activating my Fastest Gun in the West ability to cover the distance in an eye blink. She had taken a lot of damage in that fall.From her knees, she raised her hands heavenward, praying the spirit of the wind to intercede.

No time for that, with a giant tiger only ten feet away. I emptied six rounds into her, reloaded, and dumped another six. She fell forward onto the steps.

"Looks like lead beats jade," I quipped. I was hoping to earn a new skill from the system based on my scintillating wit. It hadn’t happened yet.

I ducked as the tiger leapt at me. The last disciple glanced at the scene before promptly skeddaddling up the steps. I swore. "Get him! I'll keep the tiger busy! Don't let him get to the vault!"

The two grenades should have gotten the ironwood doors open. From our earlier scouting of the Jade Blossom School, we had learned all about its defenses, most notably the ironwood doors. They were impenetrable by normal means. Blades would only scratch them. Fire would do little more than mar the surface.

We conducted experiments on similar boards. The knife's scratches were just enough to get under the outer coating. Then apply an alchemical solution that would burn hot enough to make the ironwood literally explode.

My first grenade had scratched the door in a hundred different places and applied the solution. The second one was full of thermite. I knew it had worked because of the explosion of ironwood that had knocked the disciple at my feet off her balance.

Bill, Bob, Grandpa, and Sage scrambled up the steps past me. Meanwhile, the tiger prowled in the courtyard below, lashing its tail. I didn’t know whether it still had Li's intelligence, but even a stupid tiger is dangerous.

"Well, Master Li," I said, choosing rounds from my gun belt and loading my gun manually since I apparently had the time. "You haven't been very friendly to strangers. Your sect could take a few lessons on hospitality from, well, basically anyone else in all of history. We tried asking nicely, you know. We needed that heavenly elixir, and we told you so. But you didn't have to lose your whole sect over it. Pretty sure those vaults are brimming with cultivation treasures and growth items. This isn't the first Wuxia mission we've faced, Brother Li.”

The tiger yowled at me.

"Yeah, well, I'm not sorry. From what I can tell, you guys are just the book one assholes. If it hadn't been us, it would have been some other adventuring party come to blow your school up and steal all the treasures. Nobody here looks like a protagonist to me. You’d probably all be stuck on silver, or whatever is your third level up, forever."

I aimed my gun. The tiger crouched to spring. I fired an incendiary shot as the animal leapt into the air. My bullet struck it in the chest and lit the beast's fur on fire. It took 15 points of damage right away.

I had been putting points into my strength on my last couple of level ups, and my bullets were starting to pack a punch. Of course, the tiger was level 8, and I was only level 4, so this might take a little while.

I ducked and the flaming tiger sailed past my head. It hit the steps hard. I fired another round into its flank. This one we had made special from materials we had gathered earlier in this mission. It was brass wrapped around a heartwood core, and the sage who had helped us with the recipe guaranteed it would do extra harm to a spirit animal.

Sure enough, Tiger Li went down to [350/500] hit points. We only had two incendiary rounds, and I was holding on to the other one for emergencies. I fired a couple of truesilver rounds. They’d been more effective against the werewolves we had encountered in the previous mission, but the tiger didn't seem to like them.

In chat, I asked, How's it going?

Found the Tears of Eternal Youth and the Elixir of the Heaven, Grandpa reported.

There's so much good stuff here! Sage said. I could imagine the excitement in her voice. I found a sack of holding and I'm stuffing everything into it!

Sage, your inventory is infinite, I replied as I threw a couple of fragment rounds at the tiger. I reloaded and then booked it across the courtyard as the tiger charged at me, snarling.

I ducked behind a pillar. It overshot and slammed into a wall. I fired six rounds into its flank, then used my [Roped Into It] ability to throw a line onto the top of a pillar and shimmy up it.

I perched on the edge of the parapet surrounding the courtyard. The tiger was at a bad angle now, but I'd be able to get him as soon as he moved.

Who cares about my inventory? That's boring. This is cool, Sage said. I found a flying carpet!

Great. Get on it and come pick me up, I replied. We're on a timer here. The Great Son of Heaven is dying, and if we don't get the elixir back to him by sunset, we'll fail the mission.

We're on it, Grandpa assured me.

The tiger yowled. It began to claw at the column I had just climbed. I used Trick Shot to put a spirit poison round into it and was gratified by the dismayed yowling. The tiger's health ticked down.

We're on our way, Grandpa said. Heads up. We're coming out fast.

I'm up on the wall to the left. The tiger's just below me. He's angry, but not dead yet.

Understood. A moment later, my party burst out of the ruined doors and flew down the steps past the bodies of the fallen members of the Jade Blossom School.

Literally flew. Sage was sitting at the front of an 8x10 Oriental rug that hovered about four feet off the ground. She whooped and hollered as the rug answered her bidding. Grandpa was behind her. Bob and Bill hugged the back of the rug, curled up like pill bugs.

"Come get me," I shouted.

"We can't. It only goes this high," Sage yelled back.

"What kind of stupid flying carpet is that?" I stood up and checked the distance. Time for a Tarzan moment. I used my Roped Into It skill again, lashing it to a pillar on the far side of the courtyard. Thirty feet was the extreme range. Then I sprinted to the edge of the parapet, threw myself off, and cancelled Roped Into It at just the right moment.

I tumbled into the middle of the carpet. Grandpa caught me. "Finish off the tiger!" I yelled at Bill and Bob, but they were too busy trying not to fall off.

We zoomed out of the doors of the Jade Blossom School. "I can't believe we failed to kill the sub-boss!” Sage shouted over the rushing wind.

"Well, we'll lose a lot more if we don't get back to the Emperor's Son in time," I said. "So, just keep flying!"