“Ming, Skunk! Where are you fools?” Words uttered by a scowling man holding a lamp, glaring into darkness. “It’s shift change! The rest of us want our—”
His words were cut off when the light from his lantern flashed off of brilliant steel and the wild-eyed countenance of a creature he had no name for, the whisper of an ancient tale his mother had once rocked him to sleep with flickering across his mind for only a heartbeat before we was struck by blinding pain so horrific that all he saw was a shocking blaze of red. As if his skull had been cleaved right open.
And then he fell with a splash into ice-cold waters, and felt nothing at all.
A storm of retribution flowed through the passage, washing all resistance away.
A shower of blood and shattered steel scales emerged into a massive warehouse filled not with dozens of soldiers. Just a single Silver-tier cultivator radiating power and confidence, now gazing his way.
The man was casually leaning against a hardwood post with a pair of dao at hips sheathed in spirit beast hide, as was the rest of his powerfully built frame.
The air rang with the echo of mocking applause. “So, the mysterious Ruidian ghost that has disrupted multiple operations in a surprisingly short period of time is more than rumor and excuses to cover for utter lack of discipline and shoddy execution. Excellent!” The man’s mustachioed upper lip curved into a smile. “It means a few less heads will have to roll as an example to others. Always refreshing when fate so often arranges things in the opposite direction. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Did you know?”
The man sneered, eyes glittering cruelly. He was no fool. Of course he knew exactly what Alex meant.
The decrepit wooden warehouse rang with the man’s oddly melodic laughter. As if he were a charming bard with his flawless, perfectly symmetrical Han features, twinkling eyes, and brilliant smile. Not an absolute psychopathic monster.
“Know? Of course I know. Foolish boy. How do you think so many were lured free of their mother’s street stalls? Their father’s secure compounds? Enticed by rickshaw and sedan to ease their feet after a long day studying within Wanshu’s pathetic excuses for institutions of cultivation, mathematics, arts, and the drivel they dare to call higher learning? Believe me, all it took was a single whisper, a gentle caress, and they were eager for far more carnal lessons, which each and every one of them took to with delightful gusto. Proving just how fit they all truly were to serve their betters!” The man roared with laughter. “What, you think yourself some hero out of a dusty tome? Fool! You will find no pure virgins to seduce in this corridors. For I have plucked the first blushing petals free of all the delightful roses that will soon be forced to wilt under the desert sun for the pleasure of my master’s eternal army! And you, outsider, will now pay the price for daring to interfere with—”
His words were cut off with an angry hiss when Alex roared and charged, fangtian ji whirling with a deadly storm of furious currents, fit to wash any foe to oblivion.
Yet save for a contemptuous smirk, the predatory Silver did naught but weave aside with chilling grace as Alex’s fangtian ji exploded against the wooden slats covering a foundation of brownstone that erupted in a crater, showering them both with stone shrapnel.
The man’s sneer turned to a half-smirk. “Good, good! I welcome a challenge beyond breaking the hearts of so many sweet young fillies before lashing them tight with ropes of despair! The look of heartbreak in their eyes is my inspiration, as is the fury in your own!”
And indeed Alex felt both frustrated and humiliated when his impossibly fast opponent seemed to flicker, lancing Alex with multiple whipping cross-cuts when Alex dared to take the offensive lashing out with a series of windmilling strikes that would have cleaved right through lesser men.
Strikes that his sneering opponent effortlessly weaved past, fire kissing Alex’s forearms, both forearms, when he dared to over extend, before he could snap his fangtian ji back in mid-guard, hissing when he felt the curious awful burning crawling up his arm, his interface blinking with alarm that he understood all too well, when he began wheezing for breath.
You have been struck with Black Asp Poison!
Your diaphragm has been effected.
Vitality has been lowered!
You have saved versus Cardiac Arrest!
You have failed to save versus nausea.
You have failed to save versus (mild) disorientation!
Biochemical Mastery engaged.
Power Healing engaged!
The man mocked Alex with his too bright smile. As he momentarily seemed to double and fade in and out of Alex’s struggling perception. “Ah… I see it’s already working. Wonderful! You may call me Mongoose, foolish dreamer doomed to die of the most bitter of brews. And what shall I call you?”
“Alex Hammer Highblood!” he roared. “The one that will see both you and your ultimate master drowning in the black waters of oblivion!”
Alex knew damned well that any proper JiangHu agent or spy of any sort would call him the world’s greatest fool, revealing such truths in waters as dark and treacherous as this. Yet riding the storm howling through his soul, now forced to fight poison’s treachery that could so easily drown him, demanded a truth transcending so many games he and his ancient master had played so many times before.
As he dared to embrace the shrieks of impossible currents, dared to force the accretion disk of a super cable whirling around a singularity that defied both quantum physics and all astrological constraints to spin about at ever greater speeds, pristine resolve and acceptance of who he was, what he was, were just two of the foundational blocks upon which his fate and future now rested.
And if that meant acknowledging names whispered in his ears by ancient guardians of Death, flashes of memory painting a childhood far more unorthodox than he had ever realized, mixed bloodlines that went far beyond disparate cultures a continent away… a world away… the pitiless crucible of evolution, his own ascension, demanded nothing less than the bitter truth.
His truth.
Wherever it may take him.
No matter how much blood he had to shed to get there.
Perfecting techniques that were the echo of all he was or had ever been as he charged his sneering foe with a furious barrage of cleaving blows and windmilling strikes, earning nothing but mocking smiles from an enemy far faster than any he had fought in ths lifetime… even as his arms burned with snapping rebuttals that left his foe’s blades crimson with his lifeblood.
And he, wheezing for breath as he was infected by multiple additional poisons for which he had no name.
As had happened over countless battles before.
Over countless lifetimes before.
And as always before, even as his foe laughed, and mocked and taunted… calling him a fool, a dreamer, doomed to die choking on his own vomit... just one more Ruidian whose head would be put on a pike for daring to act above his station…
Alex felt ancient memories and the crucible of ancient battles reforge him anew.
As the storm within his soul grew to unparalleled heights.
As biochemical mastery slowly but surely, as he wheezed and struggled for breath, made those poisons his own. Just one more bucket of potent brew filling the endless seas crashing through his soul.
As it had countless times before.
For death’s waters would not be denied.
No matter how many times panicked gods clawing at dreams of divinity had abjured him before.
He would rise again.
He would always rise again.
For the River of Souls, that which the gods feared above all else, were now his eternal domain.
Abruptly Mongoose hissed and retreated with an odd look coming across his smug, flawless features with which he had, by his own unforgivable admission, doomed and damned countless scores of innocent girls. Yet his sudden hesitation was something that the tiny corner of Alex’s mind not focused on slaughter thought strange, for Mongoose was the one who had scored yet another blow with his monstrous Quickness, hammering home the merits of speed above all else, which Alex already knew all too painfully well.
His forearms were stinging with yet another crimson splash of blood, pattering across the ancient wooden boards. Boards that, remarkably neither of their impossibly fast footsteps, pivots, and stamps were shattering, both of them having clearly learned Lightness techniques from one Cultivation path or another.
“Your wrists should be stumps! I cleaved right through your flesh, I can cut through steel like water! You should on your knees, choking out your lungs while dying of bloodloss, you appalling monster!” Mongoose hissed, eyes glaring with actual offense as Alex took advantage of the moment to breathe deep of the howling winds and exhale the pain and bitterness welling up from within.
Potency Mastery (still) in effect! You are regenerating 4 Qi Per second!
You have saved versus Crippling Blow!
You have saved versus Lethal Venom!
You have achieved 54% Immunity to the effects of multiple Qi-based toxins!
You have suffered one additional Medium Wound.
Power healing engaged! Pulmonary swelling reduced to insignificance.
You have successfully healed multiple wounds to wrists and forearms.
Yet even as Alex felt the tingling abate, Mongoose’s look of furious contempt turned to one of growing alarm, sheer outraged disbelief. Alex’s continued survival, his refusal to fall, was clearly getting under the man’s skin, matter how effortlessly the psychopathic playboy dodged past Alex’s windmilling strikes that tore through the floorboards with explosions of shattered stone and floorboard splinters.
Elemental Mastery skill check made! You have avoided Peripheral Blast. The elements know their master!
Mongoose’s eye flickered to his own impossibly sharp blades of crimson steel. Blades Alex could sense were sharp enough to cut through the highest quality armor, even in a mortal’s hands.
Yet in the hands of this Silver-tier speed cultivator…
“No! You dare to mock the Crimson Path! There can be no redemption for you, only death! It matters now your odd Ruidian resistances to Blackroot Venom if I tear out your throat!” Mongoose roared, flinging himself right for Alex as his blades seemed to blur, flashing for Alex’s eyes before darting low for a wicked disemboweling cut… his arrogant threat but a feint.
A feint which Alex had understood before his opponent had even sprung forward. Flowing in a liquid medium that the atorm knew so very well.
Yet even knowing he would soon be experiencing bitter sharp PAIN once more… Alex took full advantage of his weapon’s six foot long haft and widely spaced two-handed grip, assuring him a reach and leverage that his foe couldn’t break through by might alone.
Yet when the wild-eyed Mongoose snarled and threw Water into the mix to force himself past Alex’s guard, roaring and propelling himself forward… it was his eyes that widened with surprise when the shockwave of his blows were leveraged aside by the howling winds of the storm.
Soul Sight Perception Check: Success!
You have dared to duel a Silver Tier expert for the duration of a dozen lethal exchanges!
You recognize Water’s rhythm in the fluid mastery of your enemy’s tactics.
You have claimed the endless pounding waters as but one element of the Storm you seek to master!
Techniques modified by Silver Tier attributes and Rank 10 skill with your chosen weapon.
Soul Sight Modified Storm Swan has successfully bested Rank 4 Poison Waters Kung fu!
Your opponent’s Rank 3 Quickness FAILS to counter the wrath of the storm!
Storm Swan Kung Fu has crested Rank 3!
The Speed cultivator was looking at Alex with unguarded disbelief when he found himself cartwheeling through the air in the instant it took Alex to trap the water’s currents in whirlwind eddies and propel the water through the howling winds of his fury, the tumbling cultivator crashing in a stunned heap in the far side of the warehouse for just long enough to gaze at Alex with something surprisingly close to fear.
All the more so when Alex took another deep breath, flashing his glaring opponent a shit-eating grin, no longer feeling that debilitating pressure in his diaphragm at all.
Biochemical Mastery has achieved 100% Immunity over 4 additional Qi-Based Toxins!
You may now generate these toxins at will! (Note. Temporary penalties from mineral depletion may ensue.)
“No, No!” Mongoose hissed, as an ugly red glow began to come over both body and blades. “I have achieved the fourth Circle in a master’s art! There’s no way you could match me! I have scored your flesh a dozen times, infected you with so much poison you should be on the ground, squeezing your own swelling throat! There is no way you could know my art, an art which I have used to poison the blood and rip open the bodies of countless upstarts like yourself, who thought themselves better than me!”
And that was when Alex truly sensed his peril. Eyes widening as he lowered his balance and turned every iota of his focus on the foe before him, feeling ever more attuned to the howling storms of his life, the currents of his soul, and the bitter flow of his enemy’s arts then he did at that moment, realizing much to his dismay that their duel had just begun.
So why was he smiling so fiercely?
Soul Sight made it clear that his opponent had just lit the fires of his soul at both ends.
The wild storm of bitter hate before him had just ballooned in both ferocity and peril.
Even if it was doomed to snuff itself out, should it fail to take out Alex in time.
One way or another, one of them was going to fall over in death before this night was through.
Mongoose saw something in Alex’s eyes. A wariness, a caution, that filled him with manic glee. “Yes, yes, you sense it! Don’t you, you foul abomination? Sense that your death is inevitable. Sense that I will strike you with such quickness and ferocity…”
Alex’s instincts screamed, leveraging his fangtian ji in long guard an instant before his opponent seemed to appear right before his eyes, twin dao shrieking through the air, lashing out with a blistering series of cross-cuts that would have sliced open both sides of Alex’s throat, had he not shifted his weapon in time with the storm’s currents, keeping his foe at bay for the precious split second between life and death.
“I will tear out your throat!” Mongoose, now in his face, roared, just as Alex managed to leverage himself away once more, the howling winds all that allowed him to wind his fangtian ji in position to counter another half-dozen flickering mirror image assaults, his old master’s White Crane arts incorporating so well with Wind and the howling storm that it was the only reason why Alex wasn’t spewing far more blood from a ripped jugular and pierced heart than he could possibly hope to regenerate before his foe finished him off for good.
As it stood…
You have suffered three additional slashes to your left forearm!
Prismatic bones RESIST all efforts to break through!
Forearm pivot and Golden Realms anatomical lessons mean you are only suffering MILD Impairment to your grip!
Strength check made!
You manage to hold your weapon securely as you spring back from your foe!
It had been nothing more than a flicker of instinct, as fast as his opponent’s impossibly deadly flickering dao, shifting his grip so only the outer ridge of his forearm was sliced… where tendons and ligaments were protected by the angular pivot alone. As horrifically sharp as his foe’s dao were, they were still stopped cold after slicing skin and drawing a few drops of blood, cracking against the bone so close to the surface on that part of the forearm.
Yet still, he knew it a lucky miracle that Mongoose’s weapon hadn’t successfully flicked open the undersides of both his wrists.
He knew it, and he knew that a sneering Mongoose knew it as well.
Alex did his best to center himself. To feel his footing upon the wooden floor boards through his ancient, thin-soled leather boots.
His eyes then widened with desperate hope as he felt an ancient connection, long dormant, renew itself once more.
Yet he knew better than to be distracted by his foe’s mocking laughter as he licked Alex’s blood off the edge of his blade and winked so mockingly, his speed now so monstrous that even with Alex’s connection to the howling storm, sensing the flow of bitter waters that was Mongoose’s spirit, it was still all he could do to shift and pivot his weapon in time to meet his foe’s furious barrage while juggling the needs of his own internal imperative.
Understanding so much as his wild-eyed opponent met his gaze and smiled, Alex shivering as he shifted his grip, left arm perhaps a bit too forward as he prepared for a stop-thrust of an attack…
And his opponent moved so fast he seemed to disappear once more.
“NO!” Alex screamed. Biting back a shout of pain clawing at his throat as, this time, his foe’s weapon slid past the howling storm to tear right through multiple tendons of his left wrist.
The pain hurting even worse than he had feared.
Biochemical skill-check: Critical Success!
Quickness check: FAILED! Your foe has CRIPPLED your left forearm! You are no longer able to hold your Fangtian Ji properly!
Fangtian Ji switched for dao!
You are attempting to retreat!
The air rang with mocking laughter as Alex’s heart pounded with something perilously close to fear.
No matter how desperately he tried to master his environment, no matter the flare of hope he had sensed upon seeing a single budding leaf upon the lintel of an upstairs window through which the moon shown so brightly and full… a single miscalculation, daring to underestimate his foe’s quickness for even an eyeblink, had just cost him an agonizing wound, severed tendons snapping back deep in his forearm as his hand clawed itself, horrified to realize that his injury would take much more than a split second to heal.
“That’s my blood! My blood upon your blade! You’re a monster. A monster!” Alex shrieked, letting his voice break as Mongoose’s eyes grew wild with fiercest glee, elongated tongue taking such joy in licking his blade clean, no matter how much Alex screamed in protest.
“That’s right, little fool. My blade drinks your potency whenever I draw your blood. Could you not feel it?”
Alex’s face scrunched up in visible dismay, features one of absolute terror as he forced himself to nod, allowing his foe to savor the inevitability of this moment, his steps becoming plodding, assured. Mongoose loving so deeply the sound of his own voice that he hardly seemed to notice when his lightness technique left him, the creek of ancient floorboards becoming the dull thud of flattened roots and living soil.
The man hardly seemed phased at all. Laughing like a madman, eyes wild with glee, Mongoose was shivering with delight. “And I taste your power, mongrel. So rich. So sweet! Water, Earth, and so much more! Lightning, of all things! An imperial element! How GOOD it will be to claim your head and give it to my—”
Mongoose’s eyes widened in surprise, before his brow furrowed in consternation as a hunched over Alex focused only on retreating, on giving his foe the whipped-dog look he so craved seeing in all his victims, whether in the bedroom or on the battlefield. For Soul Sight Perception made it clear that Mongoose craved absolute dominion in all things.
But arrogant as the man was, he was clearly no fool.
His eyes bulged in sudden alarm when he wheezed for breath, movements far jerkier than they were just seconds ago.
“Poison!” He snarled, glaring Alex’s way as he stumbled for only a heartbeat against a support post now budding with fresh new leaves reaching toward the moon, high above.
It chilled Alex to see his foe’s momentary look of alarm turn not to dismay, but to fury.
He didn’t need his interface screaming warning to know that the Black Widow Venom, his strongest Silver Tier toxin this time around that he had infused in the blood of his left arm like a sacrifice, foolishly underestimating just how deep his foe’s blade would cut, had failed to cripple his foe. Instead it had enraged Mongoose, his soul burning ever hotter as he attempted to consume both poison, and Alex, in a desperate bid for survival.
“You fall now, Ruidian mongrel!” The man’s scream stretched the length of the warehouse now rustling with leaves that did little to muffle the madness of the furious Silver, darting forward so fast that he almost seemed to teleport.
Yet when he roared and slashed with blades now glowing red with infernal fury, he did naught but tear out chunks of living wood from the tree the post Alex had been leaning upon had become.
For where his foe was darting around with Quickness perilously close to Gold…
Alex had teleported away in the only way Rank 2 Silver would allow.
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By embracing his newly blossoming environment, and putting the very same skill that his survival had depended upon just days ago to the test once more.
Communion with the Eternal Grove has borne fresh fruit!
New shoots have sprung from ancient wood for a promise you are determined to keep.
If you survive!
You are now surrounded by at least traces of living greenery once more.
Bullrush!
You have successfully dodged Killing Blow!
“Impossible!” The furious Mongoose roared, snarling and glaring like the demonic cultivator he was increasingly looking like, as flawless features that could only be called beautiful warped and twisted with nodules of hate and corrupted Qi. His once pristine physique knotting with powerful cords of muscle that gave him a hunched appearance, but didn’t detract from his beastly Quickness in the least.
“Where are you, you mongrel wretch? I will find you! I will kill you!”
A desperately panting Alex allowed himself a single grimace of a smile as he choked back the pain of reconnecting tendons and sinews severed by bitter black steel and darkest curses that it still took Alex long moments to cleanse with Biochemical Mastery and Prismatic Fox Restoration both.
Painful, agonizing seconds that his foe put to dark, methodical use. “You summoned this forest, did you not, worm? Well I will chop it down, burn it all down with you in it!”
The air filled with the sound of tainted steel tormenting wood Alex had given so much of himself to gift with life anew. Yet the outrage he felt was a trap, he knew it, biting his lip as he glared at his wrist and FORCED it to heal… choking back a sob when his mastery over his own life currents allowed the last of the tainted steel shards to spurt free of his wound, and then he was whole once more.
Exhausted, overwhelmed, on the cusp of a Fool’s Folly, but whole, once more.
Yet it was all he could do to keep his focus, his balance, to close his eyes even as the tree he now crouched within began to vibrate with the furious chops of the madman below. Forest Sense now pinging him and the fallen trees around him that were still alive, despite their torment, and that’s all Alex needed to know.
Bullrush!
Bullrush!
The forest heeds your cry.
You are one with the storm!
Alex wasted no time on gloats or declarations as he ported behind his foe in the blink of an eye, his fangtian ji whipping through the air. And there was no denying its presence, crescent axe heads howling with the storm as he embraced that attack that had forged and defined him on so many battlefields.
Of course his foe with monstrous half-step Gold quickness could sense it, twisting around what was no impossibly fast, glaring at Alex with what were now lined and wrinkled features filled with furious hate and impossible shimmering power, making it clear that both of them had been holding back, as the man’s blood-red blade blasted into Alex’s chest, in the same instant he leaped away.
Before stumbling with surprise, only then seeing all the roots that had wrapped about his feet.
And that was all the time he had before Alex’s weapon tore through him in an explosion of flesh and bone, ruptured curses, and blackened steel.
BLACK SWAN!
You have critically struck your foe!
You have been struck in turn by HeartSeeker!
Tainted steel FAILS to pierce Prismatic Bones!
Fatal HeartSeeker Blow reduced to Light Wound & temporary -1 to Strength checks (damaged muscle).
Alex was struck by such monstrous force that he was sent flying back by a blow that should have shattered his solar plexus and pierced his heart… but was stopped cold by one gift that his foes hadn’t been able to take away with his rebirth. The very gift that assured that the next time he slipped into those eternal waters completely, he was doomed to sink all the way to Shui Jun’s coils once more.
Yet the look on Mongoose’s warped, hideous features made clear the benefits of accepting that particular doom.
“You should be dead. I should have cleaved your heart in twain!” The doomed cultivator snarled, discarding the hilt of his shattered dao and doing all he could to stand up once more… and failing utterly.
Alex forced himself back to his feet, the storms now howling in his soul so discordantly that he felt like he would topple over at any moment. Then he did topple over as Mongoose chortled and wheezed with laughter.
“My poisons have effected you at last. You are doomed, fool. Doomed!”
Alex snarled, forcing himself upright once more. Knowing damn well that his brilliant stream of insight, becoming absolutely one with the storm for so long and pushing himself hard enough to take on, at least for a time, an elite Silver-tier killer who had come so close to spelling Alex’s doom, had pushed him over the edge. He was no longer in equilibrium, having pushed his Sage’s Insight far harder and longer than he otherwise would have dared.
Forced to take on the man sneering his hate even now, features visibly warping and crumbling as he pushed ever more of his essence into trying to heal the massive rent Alex had torn into his abdomen. A blow that would have cleanly bisected any less nimble foe.
As it was, the snarling Mongoose was desperately scrabbling in a hip pouch for what Alex guessed was a bottle he was intimately familiar with, only for his eyes to widen when he removed nothing but leaves and bitter thorns.
“No… no!”
Alex forced a cold smile as he desperately focused on controlling the ever wilder storm, in desperate need of rest, yet there was no time. No matter the consequences, he had to see this through. Mongoose’s eyes grew wild with animal terror, frantically chopping at the roots that had entwined so rapidly about his legs with his one remaining dao, before switching focus with a whimper to hack at the viny like roots now probing the man’s very entrails as Alex’s lurching walk became a stumble, fangtian ji raised high.
“NO!” The desperate man screamed, raising one limb now infused with so much of his essence blazing away to nothing in a furious bid for survival… Only to lose both limb and head as Alex lashed out with an attack so in tune to his soul that even upon the cusp of a Fool’s Folly, his swing was perfect. Slicing through flesh, bone, and a retributive collar in a flash of lightning that tore through them both as Alex stumbled to the ground, the storms within his soul now so violent that he could no longer stand on his own two feet as his foe’s spirit managed one final shriek before toppling right into the River of Souls as his body was consumed by an absolute storm of vines.
Alex then found himself hurtling into tumultuous currents of his own as he was flooded with all the locked potency of his latest kill.
Congratulations! You have successfully Decapitated your opponent!
Spell Cleave successfully Ruptures Retributive Ward!
Experience Earned!
A flood of additional messages washed over him then, but all he could pay attention to was the sense of himself being hurtled at impossible speeds through the endless reaches of space, eyes blinded with a the reflected glare of a singularity that sucked all light and heat at its core, even as its accretion disk flared so bright it was blinding. Now spinning so fast that it rang with an eerie endless note as countless filaments were drawn into that disk. What was, in fact, the impossibly potent super cable now shrieking with so much potency locked in the form of momentum as it continued spinning around what would one day be a core like no other.
Alex had pushed himself so hard, racing along the Path of Peril with such furious intensity that he found himself once more gazing down at all the endless potential of his soul.
And all the horrors that lay within.
Yet he sensed as well the terrible, glorious potential before him, as well.
His Sage’s Insight had been sufficient to allow for the evolution of multiple skills, replaying battles so recently won and endured countless times as his body rested after his insights and epiphanies, a whole new art springing from one of his greatest masterworks. Storm Swan and Silver Swan differing only in that Wind and Water now twisted together in a mad glorious helix all their own…
Yet he sensed as well the potential for more.
So much more.
A hundred million pathways forward… fuel to ignite and catalyze even a god’s dimmed core.
Which, of course, he was the farthest thing from.
Yet those insights, the transcendent communion between mind and body as he became one with the elements, his elements, forging himself into his own pristine ideal along the Path of Peril, over and over again, constantly, was enough… more than enough to fuel a second evolution within his Super Cable.
For it was mastery as much as power that would propel him forward from this point on.
And he would do it, one tiny Silver step at a time.
It was all his soul could endure. And only after pushing himself to master his skills… to master himself, to grow in ways sublime and profound, as he did every time he managed to survive odds that should have seen him dead.
He was forever chasing a Sage’s Ascension before oblivion consumed him once more.
And finally he was wise enough to appreciate, in that terrible moment, just how dreadful and glorious a path to power it truly was.
Risking himself in the crucible of conflict in ways that no other member of his pantheon could possibly conceive.
Turning his greatest weakness into a furious strength.
His was a path that would either see him dead in a shockingly short period of time… or roaring to Gold at an inconceivable pace.
Either way, his choice was made.
Countless insights, epiphanies, and breakthroughs all channeled into greater mastery of himself.
Greater mastery over the impossibly vast singularity-spanning accretion disk of a super cable that, simultaneously, was no wider than his soul.
But there was a price to be paid for daring to ascend so quickly, no matter how unorthodox his origins.
Even as it spun, Alex sensed the faint discordant notes within his cable, within himself, that desperately needed to be harmonized. So he paid no attention to his body now surrounded by impossibly thick thorn covered brambles somehow filling the entire warehouse, as if the forest or the memory of that ancient woodland knew he needed safety and shelter.
He was now utterly and completely vulnerable to his foes.
Should Nili fail to eliminate any final fleeing agent, should any hidden foe successfully traverse the blooming warehouse and find his prone form…
And it didn’t matter one iota as Alex did his best not to be swept away by the massive singularity he sensed was just a single nightmare away from forming, struggling not to be consumed by his own mad daring, refusing to see any path forward save ascension, right here and now, just days after his first Silver-tier breakthrough, upon the pyre of his recently slaughtered foes. And if he failed to harmonize his super cable in time… A cold chill wracked his soul even then. Suddenly, for the first time, the very first time, having a tiny bit of sympathy for the gods that were so utterly opposed to his very existence, as he sensed the nature of the streams of endless potential flooding his super cable with such potency. A flood that only grew as he continued to forge and hone his abilities, and himself.
It was a truth he tried so hard to push away, yet was reminded of every time his third eye was pointed inward.
Countless millions of souls.
Every one to have fallen when an infernally tainted gate was destroyed, a malicious god critically maimed, and nearly two hundred million lives, many of them exceedingly powerful cultivators, lost in a battle between Fox and General that was just one of innumerable battles through countless ages.
Souls that were inexorably drawn to the pristine dream of his core.
Souls that had given him the power to break free of a trap worthy of the gods.
Power that he must now do all he could to channel into pristine advancement, lest he be destroyed by his own daring, and take a sizable chunk of this desert realm along with it.
And that final flickering thought more than any other forced Alex to focus on his own growth, his own forced evolution, to review the flow of combat and his growing mastery over the Storm that was now incorporating ever more elements of his being as discordant notes shifted to pristine perfection once more, his soul stabilized, his potency harmonized.
Even as his mind flickered with awful visions of Nili on a desperate, futile quest to sniff out all the rats before they could warn the nest, only to be trapped and cut down by Dongfang Hong’s gloated forces at the last possible second, just before they flooded countless underground tunnels and took over the entire city by storm.
Thousands dead as the night air rang with the screams of the vanquished and the fires of the fallen.
All of his friends shrieking for mercy, Sunlay looking the farthest thing from a noblewoman and very much like a panicked girl as she gazed his way with panicked eyes before she was ritually disemboweled, her head stuck on a pike as the grunting pigs below ravished her corpse.
It was a nightmare he desperately pushed aside, focused only on maintaining inner harmony, channeling the furious surges of potency he had catalyzed by walking the Path of Peril yet again...
Until at last he received the notification he had become increasingly desperate for, struggling to harmonize his cable, fearing his hunger for advancement had just doomed an entire city… a single mistake costing him absolutely everything.
When the pressure left as abruptly as pulling himself free of nightmare.
Dread turned to wonder in the blink of an eye, as he locked in all his gains with a Super Cable stronger than ever. More harmonious than ever. Far less likely to erupt with absolutely catastrophic results…
And one step closer to achieving the glorious heights of Gold.
And finally being strong enough to protect all his friends.
Or so he could only hope.
You have dared to push yourself to unfathomable heights, just days after breaking through to Silver.
Congratulations! Absolute annihilation has been avoided!
You have successfully achieved Rank 2 Silver as a Disciple of the Boundless Path!
He could sense it then, the flood of endless potential to shape and redefine himself and his abilities as his Massive Silver Super Cable shifted to a higher order quantum state, the physical manifestation of the boon his soul had already quantized.
His mind flashed over the battles he had fought just in the last couple of hours, reviewing every strike, counter, and riposte. Feeling the flow of every Qi Discipline he had used to survive the increasingly perilous encounters. Until the final battle where he had truly been forced to push his foundational abilities to the utmost, holding off only on a handful of attacks.
It would be so easy to enhance and strengthen his connection to the Storm, the flow of Air, Water, and so many other elements in blows and counters he had embraced while fighting for his life against the foul predator who’s beauty had faded so quickly to reveal the twisted ugliness hiding within. So too, his communion with the endless forests of a lifetime ago had proven vital. Who knew what glorious breakthrough awaited at Rank 10 of what was now effectively Forest Flight and Bullrush linked together? And Black Swan. So close! A Rank 10 epiphany would have profound effects on just how far he could push that gloriously deadly skill, he was sure of it! And Wind Walking at Rank 8… With two more ranks, would he fly as fast as the phoenix? Doom Blade, his enhanced Wind Blade capable of fifteen feet of bone-sheering deadliness in Dark Qi-Rich environments, Lightning Blast… so many skill begging for the next evolution! So many worthy places to put his points. All it took was just a couple of points carefully placed in a few choice skills that would allow him to achieve breakthroughs that would be borderline transcendent.
And yet somehow he found it within himself to avoid plucking free the delicious fruit begging to be harvested, no matter how sweet its bounties would truly be.
Not when he could turn his focus instead to nurturing the roots and foundation of his abilities… strengthening them in ways that might make all the difference in the battles to come. Because as unspeakably deadly an edge as Rank 10 in Doom Blade might grant him… skills, unlike Silver tier Attribute gains, could be learned and honed with time, and patience. Even if it took closer to months or years than the days or weeks lex had needed to first ascend those increasingly challenging ranks.
Yet the wisdom that had stayed his hand upon achieving Rank 1 in Silver was just as true now as it had been then. He had absolutely no idea how much Gold or Jade tier ranks might cost him. It might require every point he had banked. So best to strengthen his foundation and increasing his Attributes right now, as best he could, so he didn’t end up stunting his growth, unable to meet the requirements for Rank 5 in the next tier of attributes when he finally broke through. Assuming he could ever break through.
Yet regardless of the uncertainties of Gold… his next move was clear.
You have successfully invested 8 of your 16 points in enhancing Strength/Vitality/Quickness!
And much as before, he received an additional welcome message.
Finesse has gone up in sync with other 3 major physical attributes!
Alex ignored the pounding of his heart, as much soul as physical body, all his focus on the final eight points rattling like dice, eager to be released into the world.
So he placed them exactly where he prayed they’d do the most good.
Knowing he was taking a gamble, and eager to see the result.
You are attempting to ascend your physical attributes a second time in a single level-up!
You are now attempting to place 8 of your 8 points in enhancing Strength/Vitality/Quickness!
Alex felt a shiver of wonder. Because far from the fierce struggle of resistance he had feared, wondering if he would, in fact, be a fool to force that growth… his spiritual body and the shell housing his soul drunk in the potency greedily. Filling him out, his potential out, exactly as it had before.
You have successfully enhanced 3 key physical characteristics! - Symmetry has been achieved! Finesse has increased one additional rank!
Yet even as the messages washed over him, Alex saw it all so clearly. Felt it all so clearly. Reliving his duel with Mongoose, seeing the striking difference his enhanced attributes made.
What had seemed devastatingly fast the last time he had replayed the frenetic pace of combat now slowed in his mind’s eye, his foe’s imperfect form and minute over-extensions were suddenly plain as day to see. Alex was able to pivot his fangtian ji past his foe’s guard with surprising ease, lashing out with a devastating barrage of cleaving strikes so quickly that his weapon effortlessly danced about his foe’s desperately flailing blades, moving as gracefully, as lightly, as a perfectly balanced reed in Alex’s hands.
And no matter how many times Alex replayed the battle, the results were the same.
His foe dead by his feet before he even had a chance to evolve into that hyper-powered monster Mongoose had become during the latter half of their actual battle, burning away the wick of his own cultivation potential in a desperate, furious bid to take Alex down.
And there too was a crucial lesson that he was determined to take to heart.
It was only because he had pushed himself, honing his arts in the crucible of battle against fearsome odds, that Alex had been flooded with the revelations and potency he needed to evolve and transcend, as perilous as it was so soon after his first Silver-tier ascension. Yet he was also humbly aware of the just how close he had come to embracing utter folly once again. For despite his own bitter struggles and all he had accomplished and endured, a single one of Dongfang Hong’s elite units had come painfully close to killing him.
No matter his latest explosive surge of growth, he’d be a damned fool trying to take on half a dozen, let alone a full score of Silver-tier monsters if there were multiple Speed Cultivators who could also channel the elements among them. So he’d have to come up with an effective plan, divide and conquer, and strike so fast and hard that his enemies would have no idea what had hit them. Whether or not it worked… it was his best shot at surviving any engagement with them, short of fleeing the city altogether
At that moment he could appreciate what a hotheaded idiot he had been, even if a gloriously heroic one, charging into Dongfang Hong’s hidden base so blithely. He no longer had access to his Chamber of Doors. He couldn’t teleport out or divide the field of battle to suit his needs. So many things could have gone wrong. His saving grace was that his foes had themselves been quite sloppy, easy to divide and conquer, having no reason to expect a homicidal Silver dead set on purging them all. So too, he was surprisingly easy to underestimate, seeming nothing more than an unusually fit Ruidian, the potency he radiated perhaps being mistaken for a gem master, before they saw no gem upon his brow when his hair blew free of his forehead with the desert breeze which might give them a moment’s relief, not even thinking him capable of serious cultivation till after he had taken their heads.
Even if it brought him only a second’s advantage, his race, deceptively powerful frame, naked brow and guileless gaze had still proven to be a remarkable edge.
Yet things could have so easily ended on a tragic note for him, and joyous victory for his enemies.
All it would have taken was for the overconfident Strength Cultivator he had fought to be a Deep Silver Speed specialist instead. Maybe one well used to working with Wujen buffing them and hindering their enemies. And as unlikely as that combination might be, even if there were a dozen or more Rank 1 Silver Strength cultivators for every Rank 2 or 3 Speed Cultivator, If he wasn’t careful, the next time he was facing Dongfang Hong’s elites… that might be exactly the match he would face.
Alex sighed, taking a moment to internally acknowledge both his accomplishments and his follies, before putting all such gloomy thoughts away, pulling up his character sheet, and savoring just how far he had come.
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Alex Hammer
Class – Cultivator: Disciple of the Boundless Path
Rank 2 Divine Silver Cultivation Achieved!
Physical Characteristics
Strength – Silver Rank 4 (140)
Vitality – Silver Rank 4 (140)
Quickness – Silver Rank 4 (140)
Finesse – Silver Rank 3 (115)
Spiritual Characteristics
Scholarship – 14
Perception – 19
Willpower – Bronze Rank 2 (25)
Qi Pool – Silver Rank 6 (190)
Health Points: 1540 + 170 = 1710
Ascension Points Banked: 0
Perks
Insightful – Rank 2
Charismatic – Rank 3
Lesser Shadow Affinity
Increased chance of cultivation breakthroughs.
Draconic Ancestry.
Greater Wind Affinity
Beast Core Mastery
Ascension Points Banked: 4
Favored Skills
Golden Realms Kung Fu – Rank 10
Wind Crane Kung Fu (Bronze Tier) – Rank 8
Storm Swan Kung Fu (Silver Tier) – Rank 3
Poison Spitting – Rank 6
Stealth – Rank 4
Lock Picking – Rank 5
Qi Disciplines
Barrier of Silence – Rank 3(9) (+6 bonus due to Greater Wind Affinity!) - Now it incorporates Earth.
Enhanced Water Shield – Rank 10
Enhanced Water Strike – Rank 9
Black Swan – (Wind/Water/Steel/Dark Qi) – Rank 9
Thorn Shield – Rank 5
Shield of the Burning Grove – Rank 2
Oak Strike – Rank 5
Fire Shield – Rank 4
Flame Fist – Rank 6
Earthern Shield – Rank 4
Stone Fist – Rank 5
Avalanche – Rank 1
Enhanced Wind Qi Deflection – Rank 6
Wind Blast – Rank 3
Enhanced Wind Blade – Rank 9
Doom Blade – Rank 7
(Dark) Storm Shield – Rank 8
Enhanced Storm Strike – Rank 9
Lightning Blast – Rank 3
Doom Strike – Rank 4
Dark Qi Absorption – Rank 5
Piercing Strike (Spell Cleave) – Rank 10
Forest Flight (Spring Leap – aka Bullrush) – Rank 8
Wind Walking – Rank 8 (Silent Steps/Lightness Technique)
Water Walking – Rank 8
Note.You are currently unable to use Prismatic techniques until harmony with enhanced Wind Affinity has been achieved!
Prismatic Shield – Rank 6
Prismatic Strike – Rank 6
Qi Perception-linked Disciplines
Artificer – Rank 8
Find Weakness – Rank 7
Qi Perception – Rank 8
Soul Sight – Rank 7
Spiritual Teacher (Student) – Rank 8
Forest Sense – Rank 8
Alchemy – Rank 4
Desert Sense – Rank 2
Additional Abilities & Techniques
Full Regenerative Capacity
Gift of Tongues
Biochemical Mastery – Rank 8
Desert Fox Cultivation Technique – Rank 6
Prismatic Fox Restoration Technique – Rank 8
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