“Well that was an interesting lunch,” a bemused Qing Wu noted a bit later, the pair on the wagon roof, now absent any weapons of war but with the very comfortable addition of what was effectively a movable canvas tarp acting as an umbrella as his mentor took his ease and summoned a rotating spike of ice.
Alex nodded. Ya Ling had been full of questions, and Alex could only say so much without lying, something he was reluctant to do. Yet now it was Alex who was full of questions, gazing with no small amount of wonder and awe for the glittering spike of ice the wujen before him manipulated so effortlessly.
An art he had never heard of, making use of techniques that had somehow been forbidden to him, under the countless times he had come before. Yet now, to his amazement, he felt a freedom so alien to him, with all ancient strictures lifted, that it was as humbling as it was exhilarating.
Just knowing that if he dared walk the path now coalescing before him, even a wujen’s arts could become his own.
He shut his eyes, finding it far easier to focus on the weave of spiritual energy with Qi Perception and a touch of Soul Sight working in odd tandem, doing his best to sense the weaves of spiritual energy under the manifestation. Qing Wu’s encouragements and gentle explanations went in one ear and out the other. All of Alex’s focus was on sensing the flow of Qi allowing the older cultivator to manipulate this miraculous, alien element, and make it his own.
Qi Perception at -5 to skill check (alien art): failed! You have no idea how your would-be mentor is manipulating and fusing multiple elements into one!
“Alex?”
“It’s alright, Master Wu. Could you show me that technique one more time? I’m sure I’ll get it soon.”
Qing Wu laughed at the sheer absurdity of the statement. “Alex, it takes the best of students weeks if not months to learn even a single spell. I’m well aware that all you can hope to gain now is a familiarity for the feel of the spell and the theory behind it’s manifestation.”
Still, the wujen was good-natured enough to repeat the demonstration, not once, but half a dozen times. And then a dozen more. Each one was slowly, carefully, summoned and built from streams of ethereal chilly energy that Alex was awed by and could sense peripherall but couldn’t wrap his metaphoric fingers around, no matter how hard he tried.
It was only when Qing Wu’s bemused smile turned to a slight grimace that Alex snapped out of his obsession, his desperate need to observe, absorb, and learn what he could, realizing that what he was doing was pushing a fragile, damaged Silver to endanger his most precious gift for the sake of Alex’s own hungry need to prove himself with outrageous feats yet again.
While putting another man’s cultivation at risk. A man who was clearly feeling strain beneath his smile, who would no doubt be glaring with outrage at any other student demanding such strenuous demonstrations, did he not feel the obligations of both a life debt, intellectually and emotionally, but golden bonds of karma as well.
“Master Wu, forgive me! Please, take your ease. This foolish student forgets himself in his eagerness to learn,” Alex said with breathless worry, when he saw the painful furrowed brows as Qing Wu dared to coalesce his energy once more.
Qing Wu’s features instantly smoothed to perfect tranquility. “I hope that gave you a sense of the very basics of the wujen’s art, Alex. Sensing the flow of Qi not within one’s body directly, but rather within a matrix of carefully constructed spiritual energy that you then release with your will. Using the forces that shape our very world to shape the world in turn!” He gave Alex’s shoulder a friendly pat. “I can sense your dedication and desire to learn, even from here. But by all means, rest, Alex. Rest and meditate upon our demonstration, and we’ll continue your lessons on the morrow.”
Alex swallowed, quickly nodding his head. “It will be as you say, Master Wu. I will stay out here and meditate upon our lessons… and make use of the little that I know as well.”
This earned a polite eyebrow. “You already know a wujen arts?”
Alex bowed his head. “The elemental shield, Master Wu. On the off chance Ya Ling’s enemies try another hit… best I polish the skills I have already learned, as best I can.”
The wujen grimaced, before giving a slow nod. “Arts that exquisitely straddle the line between Body Cultivator and so much more. Yes, by all means, Alex. Practice for as long as your focus remains clean and sharp.” The man sighed. “I fear we will need to make use of your own talents yet again before this journey is done. Let’s just hope it’s after we find a fortunate encounter or two within the desert rifts.”
Alex quickly nodded. “I agree completely, Master Wu.”
The man gave a distinguished dip of his head, every inch the proud, powerful Silver. It was only the slight tremble Alex sensed when he gently assisted the man down the hatch and into the heart of the massive covered wagon that gave him away.
As did Reny’s voice. “Qing!”
“It’s alright, my dear,” he said with a placating smile, patting a furiously blushing Alex’s shoulders. “I but demonstrated my arts for our student. No undue strain, I assure you.”
Alex wilted under Reny’s glare. “I’ll get back up there and keep an eye out for trouble,” he said, desperate to escape the woman’s gaze.
“You were being a fool!” Alex heard her hiss, once he was topside once more. “Straining yourself when you already pushed yourself so far.”
“It was hardly a strain, beloved, I...”
“Shut up and rest. You know the rejuvenation techniques you should be embracing. The same one’s I’ve had Ya Ling practice whenever she’s not making eyes at that foolish boy! I’ll make you both some stew.”
Alex spent long moments castigating himself, before shaking his head, and letting it go. He certainly hadn’t meant to cause his mentor any undue strain. He had simply forgotten for a moment just how fragile the man now was, so used to masters that were leagues beyond him in wisdom and power both. Of course, what he found most humbling of all was how that ephemeral, elusive manipulation of what his minds swore was Water, Earth, perhaps Metal as well, was in fact something entirely different. Fascinating and infuriating, and, as much as he hated to admit it, utterly beyond him.
He couldn’t help but give a rueful chuckle as he took in a lungful of warm desert air, smelling crisp, clean, with a hint of fiery sand. He gazed up at the glorious blue sky, the sun’s warm golden rays a gentle balm caressing his skin that eagerly drank in the golden light.
He closed his eyes, savoring the moment, letting it soothe him. He’d do his best to make up for his lapse to his friends below, later. Now it was time to take stock, embrace his strengths, and accept his flaws. He recalled all too well how quickly body cultivation techniques came to him, before recalling a truth that had profound revelations. For all that he had grown by leaps and bounds at Royal Phoenix academy, and had made excellent use of instructors, students, and his sworn foes to hone the edge of his killing techniques, when it came to actually learning new techniques, he had almost always had the benefit of cultivation manuals rich with with the spiritual imprint of those who had come before.
Whether it was the four basic elemental shields and strikes he had learned, advanced White Crane techniques, or even Dark Qi and Silver Swan, all of it had been enhanced by the spiritual imprint of masters who had come before. Including himself. The bottom line was that yes, he had made incredible strides as a cultivator, and almost all of it had been with the help of his Spirit Qi, allowing him to ride on the metaphoric mental shoulders of so many geniuses that had come before him.
Not to mention a thousand years of being forged between heaven and hell, helping to refine WiFu’s own art… and his own. Because really, how much of his so-called flashes of genius and remarkable insight were ultimately just ancient memories finally trickling back into his thick skull?
He gave a rueful chuckle. His time on Earth, comparing himself to his parents who truly were paragons in their respective fields, made it clear that, while bright, he was no genius. It was his experiences, hideous and wondrous as they were, over countless lifetimes, not to mention his odd Spirit Qi gifts that allowed him to commune so well with cultivation manuals, such that the memories of former masters quite literally became his own, that had allowed him to excel so far, so fast.
That, and claiming the potency and soul stones of his enemies. He quickly shook that grim thought away, focusing on the point of it all.
That as gifted as he was at arts limited to elements of body cultivation, he had never before, not in this life or any other, dared a wujen’s path. At least, not that he knew of. In fact, he was almost certain of it. For only in this, his fresh start, his second chance at eternity, perhaps, was he free of strictures that had haunted and hindered him over countless lifetimes when he was little more than a piece upon a divine gameboard ruled by tricksters and spiteful gods.
Only now was he truly free.
“Free to walk a path I have absolutely no background or experience in,” he said aloud with a rueful chuckle as the desert winds caressed his locks of golden hair. “Free to stumble, make a fool of myself, and who knows? Maybe actually learn the basics at the same humble rate of any other aspirant hoping to make even average marks at the academy his recruiters are so eager for him to attend.” He couldn’t help quirking a smile at that, before wincing as he forced himself to appreciate the full ramifications of his situation.
“Which means I’m free to struggle as the average oddball student with an eccentric background at an academy that might be leagues above corruption-riddled hell-holes where only favored young masters with ties to the wealthy, politically powerful, or families already in the academy are able to lord it above everyone else. Instead, the school will cater to the top half, quarter, or whatever fraction are truly gifted future wujens. Which means that, as an average struggling student who doesn’t have a thousand years worth of chopped up memories guiding him along this new path, I still won’t be counted among those young geniuses. I will be struggling right along with all the other new-bloods grateful just to get past the front gate.”
He gave a rueful chuckle, finding himself oddly excited to embrace yet another academy arc.
He crossed his arms, and lied down on the gently swaying wagon, and spoke his thoughts aloud. “But the best thing about truly being free, being no one’s pawn at all, is that I can just say ‘no.’ Nothing stops me from just joining one of the smaller ‘feeder schools’ allowed to exist only so that Silver Sands academy has to keep itself relatively honest, so that the cream really does rise to the top, not just a bunch of nepotistic inbred assholes, for the benefit of both the prince and the city.”
He smirked at the thought of Reny and Qing Wu’s expressions would be, if he made it clear that he intended on turning down their supposed invite. “I’ll make it clear that I know the score, and I’ll bet gold any of those smaller schools would be grateful to have me. I’ll promise to do my best to trounce the competition, or at least put on a good showing on the martial front, if they’ll promise to teach me what elemental techniques they actually do have access to. And since I actually managed to reforge a variant of an eight-element cycling technique so fast that Qing Wu actually thought I was a genius and not just a lucky fool with too many memories haunting his dreams… and since I don’t have to worry about forging the perfect foundation any more, there’s no need to struggle desperately, endlessly, trying to get access to ancient tomes the gods themselves did all they could to keep from my grasp.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He shivered in sudden memory of the dream, or perhaps nightmare, of a whirling super-cable that was somehow forming its own event horizon surrounded by an accretion disk of countless millions of spirits being torn and shredded to oblivion far beyond the stars… and right around his soul.
Shuddering as he glimpsed a flash of memory. Not his own, but his master’s.
The terror of a goddess, beseeching her nemesis. An impossibly beautiful woman that fox had once loved and lost, a thousand lifetimes ago.
“You must, WiFu. You must help us trap him! We know what he is, you fool! You can hide it no longer. You can deny it no longer. You forged a god of Death! After a thousand shattered lives, you turned that mockery of a disciple into a monster!”
He came to himself moments later, fingernails indenting halfmoon cuts upon his palms, hearing nothing but the sound of his own hitched breath, the pounding of his heart… before he shook those black thoughts away. Taking deep breaths of desert air, opening his eyes to savor the warm, welcoming desert sun caressing his skin… pushing all dreams of darkness and oblivion away. Focusing on what mattered, savoring every day as it came, savoring this new life, a glorious fresh start… and cleansing his mind of memories that had no place in this life, free of the bitterness and strife that had come so close to destroying him.
A lifetime ago.
He forced a pained smile that soon became genuine. “At least I’m no longer desperately looking for the perfect path for breaking through to Silver and Gold. I’ve found my path. I think. Now it’s about learning whatever techniques I can to best manipulate all the spiritual elements I have access to. And in that regard, there’s nothing wrong with learning a multitude of skills, refining the best, and doing my utmost to excel. I don’t need the best school in the land to achieve that. I just need a sect with friendly teachers and access to even a half-decent library of techniques, and that will set me in good standing, perhaps for years.”
He was humble enough to accept his obvious flaws, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take comfort in his strengths. It might take years for him to actually learn any aspect of a wujen’s arts. Yet now was the perfect time to master those things he was good at, the accomplishments that were truly his own.
He took deep, slow breaths, cycling his Spiritual Energy, focusing on his newly forged eight twined element technique, almost perfectly mirroring one of the three tri-state degenerate matter cords that were the foundational building blocks of his own future ascension. As the blazing morning sun reached it’s zenith, and everyone save him had long since retreated to the comfort of their covered wagons for a midday nap, Alex felt the flow of spiritual energy cycling through his meridian channels grow an ever deeper hue. The colors grew rmore vibrant, the potency more intense as Alex worked at turning a moment’s insight into a foundational technique that might serve as the springboard for all that he might hope to experience or accomplish in this, his first life free of divine machinations, living each day exactly as he chose.
Congratulations! Hours of practice and singular focus has earned you Rank 3 in Desert Fox Cultivation Technique!
Alex couldn’t quite hold back a grin. For all that he couldn’t even sense let alone hope to manifest any sort of ice spike or other exotic technique, when it came to manipulating the classic eight elements, he was forging in hours would should be taking him months, at least. He knew that better than anyone. Just as he knew he could be doing so much more. That he was so much more than just a newly wakened innocent in a world he hardly understood. That all the trials and tribulations he had undergone, the sweet joys savored, the bitter tears shed, had meaning and relevance far beyond an evening’s fanciful tale.
All he had to do was think back upon all the revelations he had forged, training by Panheu’s Side. So many skills dealing directly with the manipulation of Light or Dark Qi, or skills so powerful that they forced his Lower Dantian to actually shift alignment in order to better channel that violent potency, might be temporarily or forever sealed away. But the memories and insights he had gleaned were no less real, because of it.
And one memory he recalled with surprising clarity, was the look of awe and wonder the two girls who meant so much to him had given him, seeing him on the cusp of a true breakthrough. Combining the five major elements into a shield of spiritual energy. He had been so close, he could taste it. Before deliberately easing back and denying himself that breakthrough, and the weakness that would come later, having to survive one perilous encounter after another in those heady days where he had been hated by so many gods and tyrannical nobles, all so eager to see him dead.
Thank god, or one particular god of mischief, that he was free of their games at last.
But that tickle in the back of his mind, that sense of a revelation almost embraced hadn’t disappeared, or been barred from him.
If anything, he felt it, on the cusp of actualization, stronger than ever.
And as opposed to a mere five elements… why not all eight? All eight that he understood, anyway. Eight elements that were literally a part of him, and had been, for millenia.
As for what he needed for guidance?
That was as simple as the eight streams of interwoven spiritual energy now saturating and energizing every cell within him, thanks to Desert Fox. A cultivation path that might do far more to rejuvenate than simply fill his spiritual energy reserves. But that was a task for later.
For now? It was all about forging an elemental shield worthy of the headstrong former Silver that had once dared to challenge Golds.
Wood would be the basis. The deepest art, tied to a forest whose lush, endless woodland valleys were impossibly far away from here. A sentient forest that bore the marks of his madness, desperation, and folly. Enchanted woodlands upon which he had gifted and anchored an entire newly forged world. The reviews might be mixed, but if the potency of the humble disc of wood both perfectly still and spinning at impossible speeds that he gripped like a buckler in his hand was any indication, he was most definitely still in the plus column, at least as far as that ancient forest, symbiote and anchor of an entire reality, was concerned.
His Silver tier Forest of the Grove shield skill might be locked away, but his basic tier shield had more woodland potency coursing through it right now than he had ever channeled through anything in his life.
And that was just the beginning.
For as the glorious sun caressing the dragon’s blood pounding through his veins heralded, the next element was Fire. Coming to him with a fierceness and potency beyond anything he could have imagined before. Bright and fierce, enhanced manyfold by the base of impossibly potent Wood Qi. Burning without consuming. Two parts of a whole.
For long moments he gazed at the fire, feeling his spiritual energy slowly but steadily draining, knowing there was another step to take, a step he had once so clearly visualized… but in its original form, Fire had been the end, not so near the beginning.
But that was okay, he realized, as the desert sands whipping down below coalesced into a strikingly beautiful figure flashing him a winsome smile as she formed right in front of him on the wagon rooftop, wearing nothing but the most diaphanous of gowns, her jian sparkling in the air as she leaped and spun through a graceful series of moulinets.
“I think it’s about time we had that rematch, don’t you, hero?” Ya Ling, clearly a Desert Cultivator, said with a teasing smile before putting her sword down and slowly approaching him, freeing a glorious cascade of silken curls from the lilac ribbons that had bound them. Her olive cheeks flushed as she gazed boldly at him with smoky eyes hungry for so much more than a match of sword versus spear.
Alex’s eyes widened, struck by sudden epiphany even as Ya Ling blinked and stumbled back, as if only now registering the fearsome heat of the shield of Wood and Fire he dared.
“Giving will and life to the sands themselves. Earth and Spirit, unified. Perfect! Thank you, Ya Ling!” Alex said the words in a heartfelt rush as the girl’s frustrated gaze turned to a look of wonder when Alex’s shield began to grow. The fierce corona of fire became a tight band of superheated sand shimmering with a will all its own, moving with currents motivated by the fires underneath, just like earth itself shook and flowed from the fiery depths below.
And above those currents of Earth and Spirit was a whirling storm of ocean water or the nearest equivalent, filled with metal rich salts of the exact same consistency as the Enhanced Salt Water shield Alex had forged the other day that most definitely did not strain his Meridian. Best of all, said Water, just like the stormy seas, served as a perfect connection and extension of the Air and Wind infused clouds howling overhead, crackling with lightning that conducted quite well in the metal ion enriched water. Like creating electricity from water racing over oxidized metals, physics, metaphysics, and positive cycle elemental manipulation of spiritual energy had all joined together in a harmonious whole.
Wood and Fire, Spirit and Earth, Metal and Water, Air and Lightning. Forging altogether an eight element shield that had Alex cackling with delight, and Ya Ling gazing at him in awed disbelief.
Congratulations! You’ve had a Major Breakthrough!
You have successfully learned Prismatic Shield at Rank 1!
This Elite Silver Tier technique is capable of warding almost any elemental attack, all elements synergizing and reinforcing one another!
Qi Drain: Significant!
Note. Cost to summon and maintain is Rank dependent. Degree of resistance, damage mitigation and absorption, is Rank dependent.
Note. Desert Fox Cultivation Technique (A Prismatic Cultivation Technique) reduces Qi Pool drain with increasing mastery of this cultivation technique.
“Alex! What the hell did you just do?”
But Alex was no longer paying attention to anything or anyone but the shield of blazing potency before him. Doing his best not just to imprint the glorious flow of exquisitely balanced and synchronized spiritual energy, but to understand as well its similarities and contrasts to the Desert Fox prismatic cultivation technique he was using to draw spiritual energy from his environment as a whole.
Eventually he had to close his eyes as he sensed his Qi Pool steadily depleting and growing dizziness overtake him… before choking back the nausea and focusing only on the sweet streams of power roaring through his meridians, and how to channel that flow right back out into the shield itself.
He wheezed for breath, gasping as his muscles burned with exhaustion. Or perhaps it was depletion so bad he feared he was about to black out… until with a sudden revelation he felt a burst of strength, as the very spiritual energies he cultivated buoyed him up, channeling the swirling storm of Qi right into the shield he desperately strove to maintain. And with that singular revelation, the most basic twist to his technique, his shield was no longer depleting him directly. It had somehow become a continuation of the circuit. An extension of Desert Fox. An external representation of the potent storm of spiritual energy now saturating him, body and soul.
You have successfully expounded upon your breakthrough! You have successfully discovered to harmonious interlinkages between Prismatic Shield and Desert Fox!
Primsatic Shield is now Rank 2 and may now be used at significant reduced cost!
Desert Fox Prismatic Cultivation Technique is now Rank 4!
Warning! Prismatic Shield is now invariably linked to Desert Fox! Prismatic Shield Rank may not exceed Desert Fox Cultivation Rank!
You are now suffering from spiritual energy depletion.
You are now too tired to think straight.
“Alex? Alex!”
Alex blinked and groaned as he collapsed, never having felt so depleted, or glorious, in his life. Almost as if he had surrendered to a certain Desert Wujen’s clear enticements, even if that would have resulted in growth of an entirely different sort, he thought with a smile that had poor Ya Ling’s cheeks blazing. Because he wasn’t stupid. Ya Ling was as fierce as she was strong, as beautiful as she was sensual, and if his heart wasn’t already spoken for, he’d happily fill her nights with a desert storm she’d never forget.
“Alright, Alex. That’s quite enough. Poor Ya Ling’s a brighter shade of red than your pale skin should be, after so many hours in the sun! What were you thinking, boy?”
Alex blinked back to a semblance of awareness, only now catching sight of Reny’s stern, matronly countenance, and a cheekily grinning Qing Wu. - Wait. Did he just say all that out loud?
“I do believe our dear boy has had something of a breakthrough! No doubt humbled by my absolute mastery over ice, he felt the need to prove himself in whatever way he could. And how marvelous a feat his creation truly is! At least the bit I saw before it sputtered out of existence. And if that boy’s not suffering a Fool’s Folly right now, then I’ve never had a Sage’s Insight myself!”
Ya Ling’s embarrassment instantly morphed to intense curiosity. “What exactly is a ‘fool’s folly,’ Uncle?”
“It’s what you get when you push yourself too hard, in desperate search of breakthroughs that a little time and patience would probably earn you anyway,” said an exasperated Reny, cutting off her now pouting husband. “Come on, let’s get this young fool to bed and count it a miracle, or good Fire Qi manipulation, that I don’t have to cover him in burn ointments as well.”
Alex, for his part, was hardly paying attention to their words, focusing only on the brilliant swirling disk of elemental Qi blazing in his mind’s eye, both an exquisitely complex construction that served as the culmination of multiple basic techniques learned at Royal Phoenix Academy, and the simplest of extensions of the prismatic cultivation technique that he had now claimed as his own. He was desperate to hold on to his epiphany for as long as he could, before sleep claimed him at last.