It has been a long time since Shin Ren’s been in a fight. What, a year? His master would “spar” on occasion, but it was a monthly event if it happened at all, and he remained on the defense at all times.
Now that he thinks about it… the last people he really fought were those of the Clear Spring Stream sect. Fei Sark was the only name he knew of those that he…
Well. He doesn’t know what he did, except that there was fire, pain, and blinding, screaming light.
Still, he hasn’t forgotten his techniques, and he’s far more powerful than he used to be. It’s not exactly fair to use his true cultivation on this level, his proto-Nascent Soul enough to put him on a level above any Core Formation cultivator without tremendous skill or luck, but using either one of his still-forming cores as his central focus should put him on an equivalent level with his opponents to ensure a fight that is fairer.
So it is that Shin Ren approaches the fighting halls with a bitter taste in his mouth and thoughts of how to properly hold himself back on his mind.
All the silence of the majority of the Academy is unmade here. The number of libraries and arenas is supposedly inverted in the other schools, making the Soldier’s Academy hold the highest number of places to duel and spar on the campus, and their popularity is reflected easily. While the focus of most is to join different lectures given by one of the many Imperial masters, their schedules posted month by month and often coming with the promise of merits, specific tasks, and unique enlightenments, there’s nothing that truly catalyzes a warrior’s education better than combat.
In the spirit of this, Shin Ren sees more people on the walk into the closest training hall than he has in the last week of visiting the libraries. There are a riot of colors, many of the students honored to wear the Academy’s uniform, while others stick to their original sect colors to honor their history and families. There are brilliant greens, bright yellows, dark reds and blues, vibrant purples and oranges, and even on occasion the gold trimming that denotes a sect chosen by the Emperor for their loyalty and service to bear its colors, all blending together as people chat and smile. There are some who are clearly pretending, rivalries just under the surface, but the majority of the cultivators here are friends who have climbed the Academy together over years, or have close alliances outside the schola, and their voices are light with leftover adrenaline and the joy of a good spar.
Shin Ren can’t help but smile. Even in his own sect, there’s never been quite the same energy. While it’s true that he’s an outsider like most third-ringers, and that any place of the Academies can be a den of vipers and politicking, there’s something almost pure about seeing friends gather after a good bout, even if he’s not directly included.
He makes his way past the cliques and little groups and steps up to the board denoting which training halls are free, and allowing sign-ups.
The thin crystal that makes up the flat plane of the sign-up board glows faintly to a cultivator’s senses, an incredibly minute amount of Qi flowing through it to shift the words on its surface. A map of the area around the central pillar of the Academy and the training halls that surround it updates live with which rooms are free, which services are online, and which areas have waiting lists. Reaching out, he touches the bottom of the screen at a blank spot, where his name appears in glowing lines at the point of contact.
How the artifact recognizes him, he’s not sure, but it makes for an added note of convenience to the magical nature of its function. He watches as a dozen rooms come alight as they are freed up and claimed almost instantly, most of them smaller training rooms.
There are exactly one hundred and thirty three chambers around the central pillar and staircase. One hundred of them are smaller areas secured by arrays to simulate certain minor effects, block damage from the conflict occurring within them, and record the fights for playback, making for ideal spar and duel rooms. The other thirty three stand out as big, bright cubes on the board before him, the waitlists for them much longer. The larger rooms have the capacity for a dozen cultivators, their arrays advanced enough to warp the terrain and simulate whole environments, allowing for advanced training against false opponents, harsh environmental conditions, and more. One can buy priority placement or more time with merit tokens from strong testing or gifts from lecturers for completing work for them, though there’s an upper limit, ensuring that everyone can get a chance if they sign up early enough.
Less than moments after the sun has risen, there’s already a two hour wait for the next larger room.
Shin Ren places his name at the bottom of the list, his “account” empty of merits to raise it higher or buy more time, and contents himself with waiting.
He sits off to one side, attempting a bit of meditation in the central area and hallways of the training chambers as he waits, slowly tuning out the sounds of conversation all around.
The Corpse Aflame is a bit agitated. It’s been a while since they genuinely destroyed something, and the prospect of an area where he might let her loose and actually use her skills over the Smiling Noble’s more subtle techniques has her flickering like a smolder preparing to burst into life. The Smiling Noble, meanwhile, is experiencing an almost opposite reaction, the heat haze of his presence diminishing as he shies away from any actual work.
It makes for an interesting blend. They’re both a part of him, but they’re not him, neither one as fully formed or real as he is. Perhaps there are techniques that can change that, make them become wholly new beings capable of operating independently, but for now, they’re more like… proto-people. Not children, they lack too many elements to really be comparable, but not a fully fledged conscious being, either. At their most “awake”, they can speak in full sentences and communicate directly, but for the most part, they speak to him in pulses of intent and ideas, only rarely adding words to them. It makes for an interesting cultivation method. There’ll be time to further “his” cultivation later, adding to his Nascent Soul once more and finding better, compatible techniques for his growth, but for now, focusing on them and adding to their complexity and the durability of the strangely shaped cores they have is the best path forward, and the one that allows him to ideally stay a bit under the radar a little longer.
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His meditation is interrupted as he hears someone rather close to him repeat a phrase a few times.
He blinks as his eyes open, quickly awakening his senses to more than just potential danger and turning to see a large, jovial looking man smiling down at him, his grin wide and toothy.
“I thought that was you! Shin Ren! It’s been too long, honored brother! I had thought you gone forever from my sight, and it brings your brother joy to see you once more!”
Shin Ren blinks as recognition flashes to life behind his eyes.
“Gou Mai?” he asks, a bit incredulous.
Gou Mai laughs, one hand slapping a meaty thigh. “Who else might it be, honored brother? I know you were gone a long and painful year, but I hope that whatever tribulation troubled you has not removed the face of this honorable Gou Mai from your memory!”
Shin Ren can’t help but grin. “It would need to be a powerful mental technique indeed to erase such a striking figure, honored brother.”
This time Gou Mai’s laugh is more of a cackle, loud enough that a couple people turn to look at the two of them. Shin Ren pays them no mind, hopping to his feet in a single movement and clasping his old friend’s arm in a warrior’s grip.
“It is good to see you well, brother,” Gou Mai says, returning the grip with vigor. “It may have been a few years since last we stood side by side, but my dao heart was still moved at the news of your vanishing so many months ago. I knew deep down that none could impede my senior brother, but it is always good to have confirmation, no?”
Shin Ren grins, but there’s a note of bittersweetness to Gou Mai’s comment about how long it’s been since they stood together. They’re both young for cultivators, both yet to reach thirty years, but Shin Ren’s growth eclipsed Gou Mai’s not long after they both entered the academy. Gou Mai is a member of the Rumbling Mountains sect, an old and noble group that is, unfortunately, in the third ring. He and Shin Ren both arrived for their first year at the Academy half a decade prior, but when Shin Ren sped through Core Formation into the Nascent Soul realm, his friendship with the fellow third-ringer from nearly the opposite side of the world was left behind for the sake of his advancement.
Gou Mai must have noticed some of the look on Shin Ren’s face, clapping a hand onto his shoulder.
“Now, none of that sourness, brother! What is time to a cultivator’s lifespan? Whatever tribulation has set you back to your lesser brother’s realm, I know in my heart of hearts it will be overcome and broken upon your anvil. Though I cannot say I am not the smallest bit grateful, if this temporary new step in your path brings you back to within my view.”
Shin Ren smiles at that, some of his doubts dispelled by the direct but kind words of his friend. “It shames me to say, brother, but I… well. The last year has been severe enough that I did not even consider the staunch ally I had left. The Academies themselves were far from my thoughts over this last tribulation, and it shames me further that I did not seek you out on my return.”
Gou Mai rolls his eyes, bright yellow against a tan-skinned frame and curly brown hair. “None of that, you dolt. There’s no shame in advancing, especially not at your pace! If this one cannot keep up, he will simply have to make up for it with a breadth of experience on his climb.”
Shin Ren cocks an eyebrow, laughing softly. “That… is a view I have come to agree with quite a bit, actually.”
Gou Mai laughs heartily, slapping Shin Ren on the back as he throws an arm over his shoulder. “As I thought, my honored brother knows wisdom when he hears it! Though I see you’re still as uptight as ever. You know there are places where you can get new robes in town, right? And perhaps spend a night or two actually relaxing for once, now you’ve gained the wisdom to admire the “breadth of experience” that life can bring!”
This time Shin Ren can’t help but sigh, ever so slightly. The smile on his face remains, but this is an old discussion with his friend, and with his new mission, one that he’s even more staunchly firm in the face of.
“While I agree that more experience leads to a greater foundation, I am not usually referring to women of the night and cheap booze when I think of good building blocks.”
“And that, my friend, is where your lack of vision hinders you! Is not the best cultivation that which requires challenge? And is not the reward for a good, strong challenge a joy to grab hold of? There’s nothing wrong with a celebration here and there!”
“Judging by your waistline, I doubt that your celebrations come only after challenges.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. You see, even a celebration can be challenging! The pursuit of new experience and finer things is in and of itself a struggle against the might of the heavens, as all good cultivation should be!”
Shin Ren can’t help but laugh. “So you’re saying that throwing a party and indulging yourself is enough of a challenge that afterward, it’s only right to throw a party and indulge yourself?”
Gou Mai pats him on the back. “Precisely, brother. Now you begin to grasp enlightenment.”
Shin Ren shakes his head, but he’s smiling nonetheless. How long has it been since he’s had a genuine conversation like this? With someone he cares about? It’s been years since he’s seen Gou Mai, but it’s a surprise he’s happy to experience. Apparently some fate or path agrees with his choices to keep his weaker cores as his focus and limit himself to the Core Formation floors of the Academy for now, if it’s brought him back into the range of someone he could consider a brother.
And despite his teasing, Gou Mai is a true cultivator, through and through. He’s here, after all, in the Imperial Soldier’s Academy and strong enough to have reached the highest floor of the Core Formation area of the pyramid before hitting thirty. In the third ring, he’s still a prodigy, and even amongst the second ringers, he’s kept a respectable pace of growth. It’s also interesting to see him now, with new perspective. For all his celebrations, he is a cultivator of the Core Formation realm: if he wanted to, a simple use of his Qi could burn away a hundred times as many calories as he could gain from his love of food. Hell, it’s hard for cultivators to get fat to begin with, simply due to the fact that the higher they advance, the more their bodies are refined to reflect their inner beliefs and cultivation, and Gou Mai doesn’t cultivate a food-based technique. Perhaps it’s just that he genuinely likes looking a little plump his cultivation shaping him to that ideal. He’s not too tall, and not too fat, the muscles beneath making him into a soft, huggable bear of a man with an almost paternal paunch.
“Tell me, which room are you going to? This honored brother will be more than happy to join you for a spar if you’re so inclined!”
Shin Ren shakes his head, though not without a bit of regret. “Apologies, brother, but I’m waiting to use one of the grander rooms for a bit of private cultivation. Despite the loss of my original Nascent Soul, my new one is still on its way to beginning to form, and some of what I’ve gained from my new perspective needs some space to be used properly, that I might better learn and impress the lecturers.”
Gou Mai sighs. “Ah, Shin Ren. Always the dutiful student! If not for the fact I’m so obviously more alive than any one of these other fools, I might even think your path had merit. Here I thought that your wisdom had grown, but it turns out you’re the same old hard worker as always.”
Shin Ren chuckles. “I am indeed still a hard worker, honored brother, but I do not think I’m the same as I was. You’re welcome to watch some of my training if you wish to see what you’ll be up against, next time we spar.”
The offer of a spar is enough to light up Gou Mai’s smile once more, and he gives a hearty chuckle. “Very well then! This honored brother will be more than happy to see how his former senior has found a new path.”
Almost as if on cue, the feeling of something lightly tugging at his Qi lets Shin Ren know that his time in the room will be ready in just a few moments.
“Well come on then. Let me show you what I can do now.”