I gave Nyan back the sight through the eye I gave to her. In return she taught me to see the Chi that flowed in the world. She was a water spirit, and water chi flowed through her. She taught me to work with water chi and I found when I drew upon it that I could make my body “softer”, it offered a way to move with the forces of the universe rather than resist them. She showed me how water could be used to heal if you had the ability to direct your chi outward into the bodies of others through the mana gates in your hands. I could now see the flow of chi through my body, but my body was a spiritual creation, not really flesh so my channels were not truly formed. I had the pathways between throat and belly, I could draw in chi, turn it into my own mana, and manipulate it in some ways. I could feel it making me stronger, faster, and aid in my recovery, but I lacked the system of channels to do anything with it.

You were supposed to arrive at a spiritual body at the end of your path of cultivation, with a fully developed system of mana channels and something called a mana heart to allow you to resonate with the chi flowing in the outer universe, and thus bend it to your will. Nyan could not teach me how humans built their system, she was a spirit, and her body and soul already resonated with water element and spirit.

I began as a dead man, so getting my cultivation screwed up was not surprising. Still, I knew where there was a human witch to help guide me on the way humans were supposed to do things. Everything was fixable.

The sun was in the sky, birds were singing, I could see the flow of chi in the world around me, I could sit and contemplate my naval and draw it in to my body, make it swirl around and stuff like an actual ass cultivator. Yes sir. I was well on my way to being a hero out of legend. Lets remember those thoughts. Lets let them roll around for a while, and cherish the sound of a god’s laughter in my back brain. Yes, my own god is laughing at me, and a band of demons joined right in, like everyone gets the joke but me. That would be because I was the joke, or about to be one. I was headed to the village I totally didn’t murder everyone from, almost certain that I had a handle on the whole demon situation and ready to track down my local village witch for a little learning about how magic works for human beings here. I hit the trail from where I got sacrificed, twice to be picky, and followed the wide and totally clear path of a hundred terrified peasants back to their village running from, well, me.

I wasn’t trying to make any particular speed. The sun was shining, I had become a cultivator, the local witch was halfway friendly, what was the rush? I heard the laughter of the crows from the trees around me, and they were all leaving their trees and flying like a shot towards the sleepy peaceful village I was headed for. Here is an important thing that I already knew, but was somehow overlooking in the absence of sounds of gunfire that my previous live had tricked me into expecting, when every carrion eating bird in the forest suddenly decide to head like an arrow towards a sleepy village like they are headed to an all you can eat buffet, they are. I strolled, actually whistling for a time before the sounds that I was hearing started to bother me. I couldn’t really place them, then the ones I could place started adding up. The shouts of men killing each other, and the screams of women who can’t believe men could be like they frequently are.

I broke into a run and was on the wrong end of the village before I could smell the burning thatch, before I could make out clearly the sound of steel hitting flesh, the screams of the wounded, the begging of those who haven’t figured out yet that mercy is what the dead got let me know the sleepy village I was headed towards was more than half way through sack by bandits. They had a palisade, but as farmers, they had it open unless they knew they needed it closed, and from the sag in the gate on the end I was entering through, I am not sure they could have closed it if they had warning. They hadn’t. Some of the villagers were trying to run out the same gate I was running through, cowardice is a valid peasant survival strategy. Some were not fleeing, and were trying to fight the good fight with farm implements against sword and spear, with courage and desperation against the callous willingness to kill anyone who has something you want. Calous willingness to murder when coupled with any amount of training in fighting generally trumps good and kind people who are not comfortable with violence. I had the strength of demons in whatever passed for flesh in me at this point, and I couldn’t get out of breath as I really don’t use the air for much more than something to make noise with and bring chi into my body.

I caught the first bandit, a cheap iron pot helm on his head, and a leather jack with steel scales sewn in it deflecting the knife the farmer was trying to stab him with. The bandit’s axe chopped down into the farmer’s neck where it joined his chest and red life shot in a fountain like a vampire’s wet dream. The bandit was laughing when I hit him. My fist hit the side of his helm and I felt my knuckles split as the crude iron rim burst my flesh, but the sickening deformation of his head as the helmet flew off let me know he was dead. I ripped the axe out of the farmer who would be a while dying, but was going to get there, and I threw it with all my strength at the bandit in the fancy armour on the horse and it hit the steel back plate of his half plate and sunk in to the axe’s eye, the wooden shaft shattering under the force that drove iron axe head through better forged plate, killing the bandit leader.

I slipped in the mixed shit and mud of the village, off balance from the throw,, and the sword that should have taken off my head just trimmed my hair a bit. The man had cleared a dozen yards between us in a single step and moved his sword in a blur too fast for me to see, let alone avoid. It was stupid luck that had me falling when he reached me. Whatever he did, he couldn’t change it when his target moved. He didn’t change his point of aim when I fell underneath his attack line. I could see his eyes widen as he realized he was going to miss me, but he kept executing the attack like a robot executing a command or a martial artist doing a kata and realizing the room is six inches smaller than his last strike requires. I didn’t give him time to figure his shit out, I was at his ankles so I grabbed them. I surged upright and forward, carrying him up and back and directed his armoured head into the ground with as much extra assistance as I could manage. His neck made a very disagreeable sound. I could see the chi in the man when he did whatever he did to cover a dozen yards in a step, and it filled both his arm and his sword, like some sort of magical programmed attack. Had I been standing, I would have died. My strength, didn’t matter. My base speed, didn’t matter. This was a world of magic, a world of chi, and if I didn’t learn to fight with it, I could be killed by literal bandits, let alone actual professional warriors.

I got a little angry. The only other man in armour had a spear and was running towards me. I didn’t know how close he needed to be to use whatever chi powered magical attack he knew, but I wasn’t willing to find out. I was a good bare fisted fighter, good with a knife, I was amazing with a rifle or pistol, none of which was going to keep me alive with a spear through me. I had been speared once this lifetime, and it sucked. As our last armoured bandit closed, the list of things that I had from my own world that did not apply was long, but there was one skill I had that would work. It wasn’t the sort of skill that you should be proud of, it was, on the face of it, not even really a combat skill. It wasn’t really even a legitimate sport. It was, however, going to save me.

I ripped off the head of the bandit I had just broke the neck of, and I hurled it at the incoming chi powered spearman.

“Dodge this you filthy casual!” I screamed as one half plate helmet, complete with bandit head, hit the incoming spearman like the ball of a civil war cannon and caved in the lower portion of his breast plate, taking his right leg off at the hip. Dodgeball, it is more than just good Phys Ed fun, it is a life skill.

There were only about twenty bandits in the group, and only three of them were cultivators, the three in the half plate armour. The mortal’s, the ones who were just regular raping and murdering thieves lost most of their will to fight when I killed all three of their tough guys. I had to run past the peasants they killed, the one they were trying to rape, and the burning houses to reach them. By the time I did reach them, I was out of mercy. They had no chi techniques to make this fight spiritual, they had no training and discipline to make this fight a battle. They were just terrified bags of screams and blood that screamed and bled as I worked out my rage at being a complacent idiot and strolling around whistling when good people were busy dying. I worked out my fear at realizing that I was helpless against cultivation trained warriors by ripping the limbs off even more helpless non demon powered mortal bandits.

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I turned to face the village, they did not see me as a saviour. They cried out in fear and ran to slam the doors that didn’t save them from the bandits, but I couldn’t exactly blame them. I hadn’t made a very reassuring showing. I stripped the bandits of clothes and gear I could use. All the weapons were crap, except one really nice spear that had chi gathering to it like smoke to an intake fan. It was long, heavy for a normal person, but with my strength it was comfortable. It’s steel was black as night and I swear did things to light. There were small wings behind the head, like you might use to stop a charging boar on a hunting spear, only they looked wider than those on a hunting spear. There is probably a reason for them, I guess I could ask the guy I played dodgeball with, but he stopped screaming fast when his leg came off and his organs blasted out the holes in his lower armour.

Feeling tired and defeated I went to knock on my local witch’s door.

I knocked, and she met me at the door, not opening it farther than needed to face me.

“Hello Soo Ling Laing, so, the ritual worked. I am totally not going to turn into a demon and eat the village!” I said giving my best smile and putting all my charm behind the greeting.

She swayed like my breath was bad enough to make her pass out, but then made a strange sign with her fingers. When she did a blur formed between her and I and it pushed me back a step. She glared at me.

“Do not try your tricks with me, demon bound. I will not give up my will to your voice, no matter how much chi you put in it. I defy you, I cast you out.” She made that sign again, and a second ripple in the air forced me back another step.

“Ah, shit. Look Soo Ling Laing, I was trying to be charming because I am standing here covered in bits of dead guy when all I wanted to do was get some advice about cultivating, now that I can see chi and stuff. I wasn’t trying to charm you. I sure as hell wasn’t letting any of my demons do anything. I have two of them totally whipped since you helped me with the ritual. If I accidentally tried to use magic on you, I swear upon the Hanged One that I did not do so on purpose. If you let me in to talk, I swear upon the Wise Counsellor I will take nothing but your advice, and I will pay for it with good coin, and leave when you tell me to.” I said, trying my best to salvage a bad situation.

She glared at me. “Who are all these different gods you swear by, I have heard of none of them among the Celestials.”

I shrugged. “They are all just different names for the same guy, Odin, the one I brought with me. Look, he is really big on hospitality and would never let me harm my host, so I promise if you let me in to talk I will leave you the coins these guys had on them when I killed them. I thought I had this chi thing figured out now that I could see it, but it turns out the one thing I thought I knew how to do, fighting, I also can’t do without chi here. I don’t know how to do that, and if I don’t figure that out first I am going to get killed the next time I piss off someone who knows one end of a spear from the other.”

Soo Ling Laing was willing to accept idiocy as a valid excuse from me; I had proven credentials there, and let me in. We ate good stew and better dumplings, while I told her about the weeping woman Nyan who I traded an eye for knowledge of how to see chi, and how to cultivate. Then she shared what she knew about fighting with chi.

“Bolverk, you know I am a witch. I never wanted to walk the path of the immortal. I use chi, but not in the body. I use it for medicine to heal, for charms to protect, and when I need to, for curses to avenge, but I don’t use it in my body. That is a cultivator thing, and cultivators use chi for many things that affect the physical world. They can use it to infuse potions, transform things with alchemy to make pills, infuse it in objects to enchant, affix it in formulae to make arrays, shape the very elements themselves to cast spells, or they can use the same process that shapes spells to write that spell in the body, to infuse the power of the elements and chi in the flesh to move like wind, strike like thunder, channel the strength of the mountain, or flow around your strongest blow like water. They call these, techniques or arts. Some are movement arts, some are combat arts, some are elemental arts, but those cultivators that know a few can cut down any mortal without them. Those that know a dozen, can wipe out a hundred normal men, and those that know a hundred can cut down a hundred lesser cultivators.” Soo Ling Laing said.

I thought about what I saw, and what she said. These techniques or arts were like magical spells, or single command programs. In our own magical systems we made runes, just simple symbols that channeled a bit of power, yet if you layered them properly, you could write a stave, a complex spell using those simple building blocks. If that is how they built their magical arts, like a computer program, those that held a few techniques were one trick pony’s. Figure out a counter to their trick and you could kill them. If they had a dozen? Harder. If they had a hundred, then if you programmed properly, they would execute the best technique for the situation and you would be chopped to pieces before you even notice they reacted. I shuddered. Chi powered combat drones. Not really very magical.

I thought about it for a bit. Kata, or the martial art basic instructional dances were like that. Basic programs teaching all the basic stances, strikes and blocks. They taught the body how to react to the point of instinct, to the point of reflex. Army training was all about reflexes, because reflex was faster than the whole observe, decide, react cycle between eye, brain, and body. It was a good basic training system, but that is all it was. A starting point for training students. That isn’t where the arts came from, they were developed by fighters, and it isn’t were they stopped, they were surpassed by combat artists.

“So, before the sects, the great cultivation academies and schools wrote all this stuff down and made manuals, where did it come from? I mean, we got cultivation from some hero conning the weeping woman out of her eyes so we could see chi, who did we steal the martial arts from?” I asked, because it totally felt like something we reverse engineered from someone else’s genius.

Soo Ling Laing tapped my spear and said, “Well that one we got from the ogres. That is the mating spear.”

I looked at the spear, and there were indeed figures on the spear that seemed to be two horned and naked figures, a male and female, fighting with a spear. I took it for just art. Now it seems I needed the back story. “Mating spear?” I prodded, needing more.

“Yes, the male Majin are evil ogres who master magic of illusion and prey upon humans. The female Oni are powerful body cultivators whose spears can stand against any demon, or monster, save the great dragons themselves. To mate, a male Majin must take a spear like that and journey to the Mountain of Maidens and challenge one to single combat. If he bests her, or at least pleases her with his skill, strength, and valour, then they will mate for a year and make a child. If a male it goes with the father, a female it goes with the mother. Many years ago, the First Emperor sought out the Mountain of Maidens to beg from them instruction in their spear arts. He claimed to have come because he was overcome with love for the spear maiden, and would not leave unless she either killed him, or he won her heart. She did not kill him, and they fought for twenty one days, each day he would lose again and again until at last he learned her spear techniques and at last won his first victory.” Soo Ling Laing said softly, sipping her tea.

I sighed. The First Emperor. That guy again. I had a feeling this did not end in a wedding. “And did he marry her once he had proven to be her equal with the spear?” I asked.

Soo Ling Laing shook her head. “He stabbed her in the throat, stole her enchanted spear and left to build his army.”

I nodded. I kind of figured it ended up that way. Well, given a choice between a civilized scholarly system of martial arts run by a cult that believes heaven itself is another layer of bureaucracy, or nine foot man eating amazons who have reason not to trust human men, there really only is one choice. I turned to Soo Ling Laing while picking up a spear that was apparently carved by one of the male Maijin for an unsuccessful booty call and asked. “So, which way to this Mountain of Maidens?”