“I’m not a man for talking. I’m a man for action,” Qian said. “Clara – come with me. I need to work off some steam. How about we break some rocks and squish some bugs?”

Clara looked over at Hudson. He nodded, and they took off down the ravine at a run.

“Do you really want to talk, or are you going to challenge me to a fight for leadership of my group now?” Hudson joked, remembering Clara’s comments and bet during the daily challenge that morning.

Suzume lifted an eyebrow. “Straight to the point, perceptive, and surprisingly traditional. I assume Clara has actually been teaching you about S.E.C.T.”

Hudson looked at her briefly in confusion. “Wait – are you serious?”

“About being the ‘leader’ of a rag-tag group of misfits? No,” she replied. “But fighting you to test your strength – I am very serious. Deadly serious.”

Suzume walked to a spot three paces in front of Hudson, in the center of the ravine path.

“Why?” Hudson asked, still confused.

“I am a descendant of one of the oldest Japanese clans practicing onmyodo – the Yasunori clan. We were pursuing the secrets of immortality long before S.E.C.T. was formed by interloping westerners, drunk on stolen power.

“I tell you this because I want you to understand that my clan respects many kinds of strength: intellectual strength, physical strength, cultivation strength. Personal strength and strength of resources. Strength of arm, and strength of heart.

“If I choose to ally myself with you, there are consequences to that decision, inside the trial and outside of this trial. When I stand before my grandfather, the head of my clan, I must answer for the decision I made today.”

Crazy S.E.C.T. members and their desire to fight. Hudson was a stranger to their world, but he was in their world now, and playing by different rules.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“Some would say you are arrogant to think that you can,” Suzume replied. “But I know you mean no insult. It is not arrogance that prompts you to speak thus. It is ignorance.”

Suzume was finished talking. She bowed slightly at the waist, but her eyes never left Hudson’s. She held her bow, waiting for Hudson to return it.

Hudson sighed, and pulled the silverine claw out of his palm gently and tucked it inside his tunic. Suzume did not have a weapon, and he sensed that this was a spar; a test to measure him, and not a fight to the death. Using a weapon himself would not be in line with the spirit of the fight.

He didn’t trust her, that was for certain, but he had started walking down the path of working with her. He could at least see where that path led.

He returned the bow, dropped into a fighting stance, and started his breathing technique. Suzume did the same, but did not attack right away.

The moment stretched into seconds, but Suzume still made no move to begin. She had challenged him to a spar, so had expected her to attack first. He kept his attention focused on her hands and feet, looking for the moment when she would attack.

He almost missed it.

She went from perfect stillness to a perfectly executed roundhouse aimed at his chest in less than the span of a heartbeat. He reacted abruptly, dodging backwards, the air from the passage of her foot brushing against his chest. She was fast. Very fast.

Hudson increased the tempo of his breathing technique and stepped in for a counter-attack of his own, starting with a low crescent kick before snapping his foot higher. She read him easily, weaving around his kick to throw a straight punch from the side.

Back and forth, they traded punches and blocks, neither gaining an upper hand. Suzume was fast, and her form impeccable, but Hudson could keep up, if barely.

Suzume punished a poorly-timed attack from Hudson with a knee kick counter, the muscles in his leg cramping from the blow. He barely dodged a follow-up crescent kick, but took a full side kick to the solar plexus.

He staggered backwards several steps, his breathing technique disrupted temporarily.

“Again,” Suzume said, switching her stance to one with open palms. “If you lose an arm, you can continue fighting or retreat. If you lose control of your breathing, you have lost completely.”

Hudson nodded. After centering himself, he amped his Engine Breath technique to 75% of his max, and exploded forward. Suzume was fast, and her technique perfected over many years of constant training. Hudson realized that the only advantage he had was in the powerful amplification his cultivation technique provided. That, and unpredictability.

Suzume dodged his straight punch, throwing a shuto – an open handed strike – at the side of his neck. Hudson had anticipated the dodge. He had noticed that Suzume far focused on strikes to the upper body and head. Her style was vicious.

Trusting in his intuition, Hudson ducked immediately after his punch. Suzume’s open hand grazed the top hairs on his head, and he landed a one-two punch to her ribs.

“Risk-taking,” she mused, before attacking again, this time opening with an aggressive ax kick.

Normally, Hudson would be hesitant to block this type of kick; his inclination, from years of karate practice as a non-cultivator, was to dodge the strike. Instead, he decided to trust in his new-found strength, and see what it could do.

The powerful kick landed heel-down on his left forearm. The gravel beneath his feet crunched and split, absorbing the force of the strike. Hudson remained standing, successfully stopping the blow. The grin was wiped from his face, however, as Suzume immediately hooked her heel inside of his block and pulled herself into the air, both of her feet now level with Hudson’s head.

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Her stomp kick missed his face, but connected with his shoulder, knocking him flat to the ground.

He had never seen or expected a move like that; a non-cultivator could never pull the entire weight of their body up five feet with just a single, fully extended leg.

The sparring continued, each taking and receiving blows in turn. Hudson lost count of the number of hits he received; his arms, legs, and torso taking on a patchwork of bruises. Hudson gradually became more accustomed to his own strength, and also grew to appreciate the new range of possible fighting techniques that cultivation unlocked.

Suzume never indicated they should stop, even after a rough tumbles of her own, and Hudson was unwilling to be the first to raise the point. He felt that asking to stop would somehow convey a loss.

He also had a sneaking suspicion that he wished to confirm.

“You’re holding back,” he said simply, after blocking a succession of lightning fast kicks.

She paused in her follow up, lowering her fists to her sides. “And are you not as well?”

“True, I can unleash more power with my cultivation technique, but that’s not exactly what I mean…” Hudson said. “It’s more like…” He sighed.

“Thank you for teaching me.”

He had noticed that the mistakes he made were tested again a few minutes later. And for every insight he gained or risk he took that paid off… she continued to challenge him further. Even the times when he succeeded in landing hits, she was never truly surprised by them.

She nodded, closed her fists together in front, and bowed slightly. Hudson hastily returned the bow.

“We may stop here.”

She turned to look at the alien night sky, resting her hands in the small of her back. “You have a loose foundation and bad habits, but are quick to learn. You take unnecessary risks, but have good instincts for creating opportunities. You learn from pain, but do not let the fear of it influence your actions.

“My grandfather insists that to truly know someone, you must fight them to the death.”

She turned back to Hudson and smiled wryly. “A friendly spar is hopefully sufficient enough.”

“For what?” Hudson asked.

“To understand you. To take your measure,” she replied. “To know if you are worthy of partnership.”

Hudson felt the urge to feel defensive; to retreat and demur. It was uncomfortable to be evaluated and judged. Beneath Suzume’s calm, logical demeanor, however, he sensed a predator waiting to strike. A vicious panther, patiently waiting in the treetops for the perfect moment.

Perhaps he had learned as much about her character as she had about him during their long sparring session. Now was not the time to appear as prey.

“Do you know how long I have been cultivating?” Hudson said.

Suzume shook her head.

“A little over a week.”

Suzume showed no outward sign of surprise or shock; she would make an excellent poker player. “The ambient qi here and within the trial grounds is much higher than that of Earth, but I will concede that is… very rapid advancement.”

“Ten days ago I was a normal person. Knew nothing about S.E.C.T., nothing about cultivation at all, before I accidentally discovered a breathing technique and was subsequently kidnapped and brought to this trial.

“I’ve been struggling to learn things you have grown up with your entire life, but I am learning quickly.”

“Quick growth comes with drawbacks. There are no shortcuts to the dao.”

“See? I’m not even sure what the dao is, but I’m certain that I’ll learn,” Hudson said. “Yes, I actually agree with you, there are drawbacks. I just don’t know what they are yet, and they are not as important to me right now as other things.”

“If that is not important, then what is important to you, Mr. Appleseed?”

Hudson thought for a few moments before responding. It was a serious question, and deserved a serious answer.

“My own life. The lives of my friends. To get out of this messed-up trial.”

“Your new-found cultivation? Would you give that up?”

He looked down at his hands, and at the blood dried in the palm of his hand. Would he give it up? This new source of strength? And go back to being “normal”?

“No,” he said quietly.

“Then you must fight for it.”

“Yes.”

“And kill for it,” Suzume prompted further.

Hudson knew she likely saw him as weak. The typical philosophy of the S.E.C.T. members was survival of the fittest. He didn’t believe that, but he was realizing that the world of cultivation was much more raw and primal, and that the niceties of civilization and ordered societies didn’t matter much against a punch with the strength of a nuclear arsenal.

“Not for my own gain,” he finally said. “But to protect myself and others? Yes.”

“That will have to do,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can work with that, at least for the time being, and it is more palatable than the alternative. I am increasingly unable to work with George and some of the others in our group.

“He was bad before the trial, but things have gone sour very quickly – in no small part due to you and your actions. ”

“You asked me what’s important to me. What is important to you? What is it that you want?” Hudson asked.

“To grow stronger,” she said simply. “That is the point of this trial, after all, and the reason I am here.”

“What about Qian?” Hudson asked. “And the others?”

“Qian is the same as me; he will follow my guidance. He prefers action over thought, to a detrimental degree. Most of the others just want to gain in strength as well. George lost a lot of loyalty the moment he left Guo dying in this forsaken place. It’s one thing to follow someone’s orders when the threat of death is low, and benefits continue to accrue. It’s another thing to know that you are expendable in service to someone else’s strength.”

Strength. It all came down to strength – personal strength, personal advancement – for these S.E.C.T. members. S.E.C.T. obviously had different factions and different clans, and different power structures outside of the trial. The relationships established outside of the trial were fracturing; proof of that was this entire conversation with first Qian, and now Suzume.

Hudson realized that some of his goals were not aligned with Suzume or Qian’s. They might have a common problem in George, but Hudson also saw the trial, and even S.E.C.T. itself as a problem. The S.E.C.T. members were only defecting from George because of their selfish interest in growing their own personal strength.

His heart rate began to increase, and his face began to burn. His repressed anger rose up; his rage at being kidnapped and brought into this cultivation world against his will, and fury at the callous injustice he’d been party to.

“I know that your strength is important to you,” Hudson said, staring into Suzume’s eyes directly. “I don’t have any issues working with you, either. You have already shown me more respect than I ever expected from anyone from S.E.C.T.

“But…I want to make this clear. Your own strength, your personal growth – I don’t care about that. That is not important to me. And I will burn this trial down around me to protect what is important.”