'Unknown' pov
I thought this was a dead end position, so far away from the capital and the fan clan’s city Kui. I even thought it was some kind of vacation, i mean i’ve been here for 9 years already and nothing happened, i even got married too! I know i know, unprofessional, but apart from my pay coming every month, i still don’t have any orders apart from: ‘continue your ongoing task’. But the ongoing task is to watch if the heir of the defunct Righteous spear ever re-appear…
“Come on kids, it’s already late, your mom will be angry with me if you aren’t home already.” I hear Ning, my brother in law chastising my children as he brings them home. I can’t help but see that he had quite the spring to his steps as he smiles.
“Hey there brother, thanks for corralling them.” I open the door to let them in, my boy and two daughters rush in, already hanging and pulling at my arms and clothes. I stare at them with my now tried and patented dad stare, and they immediately cease, pouting at me.
“Go clean up, your mother has worked hard today so i am sure she would be delighted if you don’t worry her more than she already does. Now go.” I usher them into the wash-room, the three of them have without a shadow of doubt played by the fields, and ended up covered in dirt and dust all over their clothes.
“So? What's the good news Ning? I don’t remember seeing you this happy in a while, you are practically bouncing off the walls?" I smile as I look at him, he is positively radiant. He pauses as he looks at me a bit surprised, but nods with another gentle smile.
“It’s Huan, I don’t know if my sister told you, but she is someone we used to play together a lot when we were young. But nine years ago, she was taken during the attack. To be honest, we all thought that she had died, except for her grandfather. But nobody could tell me otherwise. The poor man lost his daughter and granddaughter at the same time.” His face turned dark for a moment there. “ But somehow she is back, and, apart from the scars and how roughed-up she looks, she seems well. Happy even. I was thinking of visiting her in the next few days, but… I don't know, I want her to reconnect with her old man in peace, you know?” He is clearly conflicted about what to do.
And so am I, Huan, that’s the name of the person i am supposed to watch for. And if I am following what my brother in law is saying, that's the person i am looking for. Shit… What do I do now? I can’t disappoint the lady, but I don't want to disturb the peace I made for myself here. I have to play this carefully, Lady Namgoong only got worse from what I heard, and I don't think she will mind burning this place down despite her husband's interdiction…
“Oh, yes. She also returned with someone, some kind of northerner lady. She seems to be some kind of healer too, or that’s what Fairy alchemist Xiaohui confirmed, despite her having a crippled constitution for cultivation.”
“Really now? A healer you say? But what’s that about her constitution?” This was getting interesting.
“Something about her being unable to generate the needed pressure to create Ki, this made fairy Xiaohui quite curious about how she healed Lu Huan.”
I couldn’t help but smile, this was going to be easier than i thought.
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Huan POV
It’s been a day since I've managed to pull Iulia out of her state of rotting torpor, her words not mine. She has been quite proactive to say the least, since that moment.
Touching my cheek, I can feel my heart beating harder as I remember what happened.
‘This, this wasn’t supposed to go like that. Why? Why does this feel harder than when I was with Wu Chang? Why do I have such a hard time being calm around her?’ I shake my head, my thoughts somehow always finding a way back to Iulia.
“Nope, can’t keep doing this. Grandfather! I am going out to train for a moment, can I borrow one of your makeshift spear?” I ask the old man as he hammers at his forge.
“What do you mean makeshift?! You want a spear? Grandpa has one just for you. Don’t you dare ask for a makeshift spear when I am your grandfather!” It is not like he is yelling at me, but the outrage was so obvious I couldn't help but chuckle as he handed me a beautifully made silver spear. The whole thing was made of one solid block of metal: on the bottom end of the shaft was a vicious looking ball of spikes, looking more like the head of a mace than anything, on the opposite end was a long and wide blade made more for cutting than stabbing. The shaft looked to be twisted, almost braided, as said braids came to form a sort of cross guard extending like wings to the side. The whole thing was about the same height as my own body, with the same thickness as a quarterstaff.
“This is the sister weapon of the one Mina and I made for Dan, in case something happened to the first. But, you know what happened. But, as you can see, this is more of a bladed staff than a spear, that’s how you mother Dan preferred. While not having the exact same reach as a regular spear, you can more easily defend yourself in close quarters, and as she liked to say: ‘With Ki, range becomes less of a disadvantage when you can cut down things from range.’ It is a bit on the heavy side, but that’s the point.” he hands it to me, and i can immediately see that. The whole thing feels to be 10kg, but somehow it feels even distributed along the whole length.
“That’s a nice weapon you’ve got there.” Iulia says as she exits her room. It's been hours since she said she needed to fix herself. I look at her, and can already see what she did: her long shaggy wild hair was tamed down, yet still had that sheen to them as before. The myriad of red eyes that sprouted from her body are now gone, and so are the oppressive red glows they emitted, returning to the prior human blue. Her once cadaverous gray skin is gone as well, her complexion having returned to the sun-kissed brown she had before.
“You decided to keep the ears and the tail?” I can’t help myself as I see her tail wagging behind her.
“Yeah, you seemed to like those, and I don't really mind them. Plus, I've found quite a few things I could do to make them more useful.” She smiles as she looks back at me.
“But we can speak about that later, for now I am more interested in that spear. Do you know how it works?” She comes closer, grandfather giving her a side eye, before rolling his eyes.
“Of course I was the one who made it.” He huffs at her with mock offense.
“Not that, I mean the inscription on it. It is not just for show, but they do need to be powered up and then attuned to.” She touches the silver spear as the indentation I felt start to glow and hum with red and purple light.
“That’s quite the work you’ve put into it, Not a single stray line. You could become quite the magician you know?” She looked at my grandfather. He looks back at her, his eyes narrowed, intrigued.
“Yes, Mina told me just as much, but I didn’t believe her back then. Could I really be one? Even at my age?” His voice sounded shaky and hurt, but his eyes had a rare intensity in them as he looked at her.
“Why, yes! There’s no age to be a magician. Plus as you’ve told us before, you were adept at this Ki business before losing your core. I still don’t know what that means, but what I do know is that you are able to feel the Everflow around us, even if more faintly than before, and your line-work is on point. Now you just need to learn the rules and what these inscriptions mean.” She shrugs and smiles happily as grandfather nods. His intense gaze softened as he sighs.
What’s a magician? “Iulia, didn’t you say that you were a painter?”
“I am, why?”
“Then, what’s a magician?” I am rather confused by the many terms she uses when speaking about her discipline.
“Oh, yeah, forgot magic users are not common here. So, it’s a bit convoluted because it’s steeped in old cultures and petty people bringing their short temper and issues into the debate. So: a painter, like me, was once someone called a sorcerer, which uses sorcery to shape the world around them. On the other hand, there are magicians, or more accurately sigilist, who use magic born of said sigils and inscriptions to do the same thing. Now the thing is, magicians are the type to be pedantic and stuffy about things like what I just said because of what made them magicians.” She sighs, there was a lot of frustration on her face as she talked about it.
“To be a magician is a sort of side-grade from being a sorcerer, in the sense that they didn’t exercise their inkwell when it opened. That makes them unable to use their emotions to fuel their spell, thus making their practice magic and not sorcery. But on the other hand, with their inkwell as rigid as it is: they don’t risk having sudden mutation like i had the other day, and their spells’ effect are exactly what their sigils correspond to, meaning that: if they know what each sigils does, they can flips and changed the nature of their spell on the fly. While us sorcerers cannot, in exchange, we are not dependent on a dictionary of sigils to do sorcery, which often result in more precise and minute effects. Really, it became much more complicated than it ever needed to be because of an extremely vocal minority of magicians who are jealous of the freedom we have doing the exact same thing.” Her eyes stared into nothingness as she talked, I could feel second hand fatigue she had from just having talked about the subject.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Please, if you really want to learn how to do magic, don’t be an ass about it.” She looks at grandpa who was struggling to hold back a laugh.
“Sure thing lass. Least i could do i guess. Got anything to start me by?” She nodded, before doing something with her hand as red fog came out of it, and went straight to her room, one of her bags came flying to us.
“Didn’t I tell you to take it slow?” I clear my throat as I send her a glare.
“Right, force of habit, sorry.” She at least has enough self awareness to look away as she takes something out of it. A large, leather-bound book.
“Here, that’s a grimoire I made as part of my study. If you have some kind of red jewellery on hand, I can enchant it to make it translate the words for you. It can be something painted red, or some kind of glass or cristal, doesn’t really matter as long as it is red, keeps the enchantment of the same school for much longer, i don’t really know why.” Grandfather Gui looks happy, taking the large book in his hand as he thanks her, returning with a red ring. Iulia promptly does what she promised, making it glow in my eyes in a similar way to what she did to my new spear.
“Thank you lass. I mean it. If I could help you and Huan with whatever I make as I learn from this, I will be happy.” I could sense that there was more to it that he said, but seeing how resolved he is, I didn’t push it. He thanked her again, and left for his forge.
“So? What do I need to do to… attune to it? “
“Yep, that’s the word. you need to pour your own energy into it for a while, covering it entirely is usually the best, the next best thing is to carry it with you for a long while and not letting others touch it. You can do both too.Once it’s done, you’ll feel like it is a part of you, like an extension of your mind and body: like how you can close your eyes and still know where your limbs are.”
“Like an extension of your body? That shouldn’t be too difficult then” After all, this is already how I feel about any spear I use.
“Anything else you can tell me about it?” I look at her, feeling my lips tug upward as her ears prop up.
“Plenty! See these two different colours? The red and purple sequences? The red one allows you to control the spear in its entirety: you can alter the weight, length, form, and sharpness, this pretty much makes it unbreakable too. The purple one allows you to recall it to you wherever it is, making you always armed whatever the circumstances are. Just so you know, this spear can easily be considered a mythical armament, the inscriptions on it are both extremely potent and synergistic, plus the spear itself is a masterwork all on its own. It’s a wonder your grandfather's forge hasn’t already been pillaged.” She says, giving the spear a much closer look.I can’t help but feel warm in my chest at what she said.
“That and the gears outside too. How the hells isn’t he in some capital or royal retinue or something?” She shakes her head as she looks back toward the forge where we can see the man himself reading the grimoire he just received.
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Iulia’s pov
“I don’t know what to tell you, Iulia. I always knew that my grandfather had these quirky weapons outside, and that they would act up in the wrong hands.” Huan shrugs as she explains.
Doesn’t really make sense to me, but perhaps it has something to do with that Ki business i still don’t understand. I will have to take a closer look at that some day.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask her as I can feel something from her body coming out.
“Well, for now, I will give it a spin. Train some forms in the courtyard and see how it feels in my hands? Maybe using it like that will help that attuning process you told me about?”
“Oh it will. Can I watch? Maybe it will help me understand more how Ki works in general.” She looks at me, her eyes brows cocked before a smirk tugs at her lips, making my heart skip a beat.
“Sure, I don’t mind.” I scream on the inside as she turns away and leaves for the door.
‘Right, you need to take your time, Iulia, don’t come off too strong, you know she struggles with trust. Slow and steady, with vulnerability and responsibility, without forgetting empathy.’ I take a deep breath, my heart still beating faster than it should.
I followed her outside to the back of the house, seeing that she had already started heating herself up, rolling her joints from head to ankles. Then she takes the spear she had planted in the grass. I walk along the house and make myself a seat out of the dirt as I watch her.
She starts with a low stance, her legs spread wide open to the front and back as most of her point of balance is on the back foot. Her knees are bent to help her get low as she holds the spear with an overhead guard, both hands holding the spear a quarter from both ends.
Then she starts moving: her back foot pushes her body forward fast, as her torso straightens like a spring, the spear glides across her hands as her shoulders and arms guide the momentum while adding to it, making the sharp tip whip forward like a snake, cutting through the air.
Then with a quick jab with the lower end of the weapon, she twirls back with a powerful stomp as the blade comes crashing down in a heavy overhead swing. Before following through with a stab using her full body weight, using her coiled back foot to propel herself forward.
With her balance now shifted forward, she turns her head to look behind and jab the blunt end of the weapon. Turning on her now back facing heel and moving her front foot to the back as she uses the inertia to point the tip of her spear forward in an horizontal cut.
She progressively starts moving faster and faster, each stomp carrying more and more weight as I can feel them from where I am sitting. Each cut and slash now sings louder as she cuts the air with increased speed, I can see her body progressively charging up with that energy of hers as the movement of her spears becomes a blur to my normal human eyes. Yet she keeps on going as calmly and smoothly as before, her hands gliding across the weapon as she brings the mace head from below, before her arms cross around her middle lines, bringing back the blades forward in another horizontal cut.
She goes on and on for a while as I keep staring at her. Then she twirls the spear in front and around her, somehow keeping the edge alignment while doing. Before planting the blunt end on the floor, cupping her hands in front of her and bowing.
That’s when I heard someone clapping their hands beside me.
“Really beautiful demonstration of your mastery.” A man, about middle age and wearing a common brown attire I've seen the villager’s around here do.
“Who are you?” Huan’s voice was as cold and sharp as her weapon was. Glaring at the man.
“Just a neighbour. I found this letter by my door this morning but I think they’ve got the wrong address. It says that it is for someone called Lady Fan Huan born Lu. I don’t know anyone surnamed Fan here, but I do know of the Lus.” He waved a sealed envelope.
“I am still Lu Huan, last I heard. But sure, thank you for going out of your way to bring it here.” The tension visibly left Huan’s face as I looked at the man. I didn’t even hear him coming this close to me. Even with my enhanced hearing. I narrow my eyes at him as I look at him and and down. I do feel a rather impressive amount of Ki inside of him, but not as dense or rich as Huan. But still much more than both guards that welcomed us when we arrived.
Huan kept her spear close as she came, taking and thanking the man once more, before looking at me as he left.
“What do yo-” I put my finger on my lips as he turned the corner, somehow his steps were still eerily silent as he walked away, kicking up rocks and dust as he left.
I couldn't help but feel uneasy as I drew a sound barrier around us, picking on the annoyance and disgust I am feeling for this whole situation. I try to make it as stealthy as possible, my ink leaving my body from my feet and into the ground, hiding my spell.
"We can speak now, I've raised a sound barrier around the two of us, hid your lips in case she can read them too." I speak to her as my voice trembles, the fear and disgust shaking me to my core.
' I could have died if he had any bad intention. I need to be more careful. ' the frightening thought goes round and round in my mind. Reluctantly, I opened back up three of the many eyes I've decided to keep, one on my right cheekbone, one on the left side of my throat and the last one of the back of my neck.
With each I could see through more colour spectrum than my regular ones, I could also see any source of energy, active and not, small and large.
"Are you alright? What happened?" Huan asks, pulling me out of my doom spiral. I can see that she took my warning seriously as she has pulled up her collar to cover her mouth.
"That man, I didn't see him getting close to me. Even with these things on top of my head. And he got more of that Ki inside of him than that Guiren guy from before and his nephew. Still less than yours though, but that doesn't comfort me much." She looks to where the unknown man left, her gaze hardening.
"What do you think we should do?"
"At least open the letter, I don't feel anything from it. So it shouldn't be trapped. Plus, he said it is for a Fan Huan born Lu. Old man Gui did tell us that he had your mother with someone surnamed Fan, didn't he? And that your mother got 'adopted' into the family as well. We should read it, with your grandfather of course." I didn't even know that she had already broken the wax seal and started reading.
"Here, read this and tell me if you can make any sense of it." she hands it to me, her face back to that cold inexpressive mask of hers, making my stomach sink.
I take the parchment letter and read it.
[To my grand-daughter Fan Huan Born Lu. It fills my heart with joy and happiness to know that you've escaped from wherever those brigands took you, and it saddens me to think of the horror you've been through. By this Letter, the entire Fan clan shall recognises you as Righteous Spear Dan of the Fan clan's daughter. Despite having been born of the Lu family, she, and now you too, are part of the Fan clan. And thus are invited to our city of Kui, along with the partner of your choosing should you already have one.
From your adoptive grand-mother: Lady Meili Namgoong of the Fan Clan]