Year 658 of the Stable Era,

Fourteenth day of the tenth month

9th Outer Hour:

Cracked Peak Mountain was the fifth peak to have been integrated into the Teal Mountain Sect, and was in many regards one its most dangerous. While the rest of the peaks housed civilization, in the form of training facilities, administrative buildings, businesses, and residences, Cracked Peak Mountain contained only wilderness. Carefully cultivated wilderness, but wilderness nonetheless.

Its fractured surface was a mosaic of different climates, ranging from thick forests and open plains to cold tundras and even a small desert. Each area stood apart from its peers, both in appearance and distance, the deep cracks that gave the mountain its name dividing each environ into distinct plateaus.

The Teal Mountain Sect took great effort to maintain as wide of an assortment as they could, to better prepare their disciples to be able to use their techniques no matter the circumstance. A cultivator that could only utilize their techniques on the even surface of a dueling field was of little use to the Sect, and so the fields served as a proving ground to rehabilitate such hothouse flowers.

Today, Yeung Lin had reserved a forested field for his Practical Application of Defensive Formations class. The students had spent the first half of their year together leaning how to improve the efficiency and speed of their deployments, and now was the first time many of them would put their new skills to the test.

He hoped that the ‘many’ would be fewer students than last year. He had made sure to increase the frequency with which he had given them the advice to ‘practice deploying the techniques in spars’, but he was unsure it was changing much. Perhaps next year he should simply add it to their required workload.

But then he would have to revise the curriculum, or it would cut too much into the time they needed for their own cultivation methods, and that always ended poorly. Yeung Lin had found out long ago that his students were more likely to do the work he assigned them if it was in manageable quantities, and so made sure to carefully ration the assignments he gave. If he were to add early practice spars to the curriculum ahead of the Cracked Peak lessons…

His finger twitched as he resisted the urge to call forth his notebook. He was on his flying sword. It was neither the time nor place, and he would rather not spend another century rehabilitating his image if he hit another ferry. Instead, he forced himself to be content with making a mental note of his revised plans for the lesson.

He hated mental notes. Some cultivators prided themselves on their ability to store entire libraries in their heads, but Yeung Lin had always felt that it was a wasted effort. One could learn so much more in the time it took to commit even a small shelf to memory, and such recollections often became muddled with age. The written word, on the other hand, was immutable, and could preserve his ideas for as long necessary. He could also think faster without all the puffery that the average tome possessed clouding his mind.

As he approached the mountain, he spotted the ferry his class was on bobbing its way up the clouds, having been instructed to depart on time should he run late. It was a small, single pilot craft, with a flat bottom and pair of bright red sails sewn with silver signs of power that glowed as they caught the wind. With a burst of qi his sword sped up, gaining on the craft until he was neck and neck with it. Hopping onto the deck, he sheathed his sword as his disciples eagerly greeted him.

“Greetings shifu!”

“Good morning shifu!”

“Good morning class. I trust that you are all prepared for today’s lesson?” Yeung asked, appraising his students as they nodded and made affirmations. Many wore bags and satchels, slung over sides so that their contents would be within easy reach. The few that could afford spatial pouches wore them on secured belts, and he was pleased to find that all of them had followed his advice about maintaining backup bags. One even wore a quiver at his side, filled with carefully rolled flags.

He was glad to see that Yifan Chang hadn’t been dissuaded from practicing his family’s Flowing Flood Flag Formation technique. Flag formations could be quite difficult for second stage cultivators to learn, as in addition to their bulk components they also required far more delicate control than other techniques of their level, so his decision to carry on his family legacy despite this challenge was quite commendable. Such resolve would be a great asset when he began to codify his Dao, so long as it didn’t bend.

“Very good. When we arrive, you will have a stick to prepare yourselves. After this time, I will begin my pursuit. Your goal is to evade my pursuit and survive for as long as possible. You may use any means available to defend yourselves, short of techniques that use your lifespan. This is a training drill, not a life or death encounter, so I will not tolerate such waste. To ensure an accurate test of skill, I will be restricting my cultivation to that of a second stage cultivator for the first half of the exercise, and will raise it as time progresses. Do you have any questions?” Yeung Lin gave the class a moment to raise their hands before selecting a student.

“Disciple Yifan Chang.”

“Will there be any water sources at the arena?” Chang asked, adjusting the banner tied to his back. His main techniques required a substantial supply of the stuff to unleash, and until he reached the Golden Core stage he would be quite unable to produce enough with just his qi.

“I cannot say,” Yueng Lin replied, treating his class to a smile. “Part of this exercise is to adapt to unexpected environments; if I were to give you the lay of the land in advance, it would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Disciple Qiai Mei."

“Will you tell us what the ‘special prize’ for being the last one to survive is?” she asked. Most of the other disciples lowered their hands at this question.

“I suppose I could...” Yeung Lin dragged out the words, deliberately stroking his bare chin as if carefully considering whether he would answer. He let his students hang onto his words for two, then three long moments to whet their appetites before finally answering. The anticipation always helped whet their enthusiasm for the answer. “The winner’s prize shall be lunch at The Crab’s Den. Bowl of Special Soup included.”

Many of the students sighed at this, doing their best to hide that they had started as groans. The Crab’s Den, while a fine enough eating establishment, was far from the peak of spirit cuisine, much less the peak of its own peak. Its menu had a distinct leaning, and while spirit crabs were a luxury item in many other areas, the Teal Mountains were lousy with them. Most disciples tended to gorge themselves on the delicacy for their first decade in the Sect, turning themselves off it for the next five.

Yeung Lin had never quite experienced this phenomenon himself, as he endeavored to keep his diet as varied as possible. However, as he knew that few disciples had such discipline, he added his usual sweetener to the pot. “You will also the privilege of my company for the duration of the lunch, as well as my undivided attention.”

That got their attention. Private lessons were a privilege usually reserved for inner disciples and those that could afford the steep price instructors charged for their time. After all, while an inch of time could buy an inch of spirit stones, even a ton of spirit stones could never buy another inch of time. A chance to learn directly from a senior- well, soon to be senior instructor such as himself was a rare learning opportunity for them.

As the disciples began to mutter amongst themselves, the ferry arrived with a light tunk against the dock.

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“Well, with that our time has begun,” Yeung Lin said, conjuring the image of a large hourglass with a quick gesture. With a flick of his wrist, the glass flipped, the fake sand tumbling against the illusion of glass. He drew a restraining talisman from his pocket, smoothed it out, and placed it against his chest. “Your time starts now. If you have any other questions, you may now ask them at your own risk.”

At this, the disciples scattered, leaping from the boat as they made a mad dash for the woods. As soon as he was sure they were out of sight, Yeung Lin drew his notebook from his storage ring and began to record his ideas for a revised curriculum. As he was halfway through figuring out which homework to cut to make room for extra practical assignments, he was interrupted by a loud cough.

Looking up, he spotted one of the disciples piloting the ferry raising a fist to her mouth for another, looking pointedly at the timepiece in her other hand as she did. Yeung Lin quickly put Yin and Yang together, relocating to the dock so that the two could move on to their next appointment.

After another 7 minutes he dissolved his long-halted hourglass, trading his notebook for a long staff of lacquered polar pine with a banner-wrapped end as he began to advance down the dock. A heavy belt soon followed, festooned with holstered spikes and pouches containing other essential formation tools. It was only fitting that he match his students’ resources, lest they blame equipment for their defeat and learn the wrong lessons.

He was wondering what sorts of tricks his class would use when he stopped the first, a pair of nails stabbed into the pilings at the end of the dock.

A hand’s breadth long, and as wide as his smallest finger, they were engraved with thin lines of power that merged into the shape of an eye at the nail’s head. If he crossed the space between the two points, it would detect his presence. A very simple detection array, but one well suited to the task of alerting its maker that he’d begun his hunt.

“Good use of the Sentinel’s Eyes Formation, Chu Min!” Yeung Lin called into the woods, leaning around the side of the dock. With a flick, he dislodged the rightmost nail with his staff, careful to not bend it as he did. While a two-point formation was relatively easy to deploy, their simplicity made it just as easy to disarm. “Next time I would recommend positioning your markers along the poles, they are too easily seen when simply lodged into the side.”

“Now, as for the rest of you…” his thoughts trailed off as he approached the woods, before suddenly lunging to his left, pole sweeping down to strike the grass with a sharp crack. With a pop of qi, the concealment array broke, revealing a short disciple rubbing his knuckle.

“Now, what is it that you’re always saying, Sun Xiu? Lin asked, tapping the disciple on his head with his staff.

“That it’s always darkest beneath the lighthouse,” his student answered ruefully, rising to his feet. He began to gather the stakes he’d planted in the ground, eight long lengths of lacquered willow painted in reds and blues. “I really thought that would work. If I slipped your notice, I could have simply bided my time while you went after the rest of the class. But I guess I wasn’t thorough enough to fool shifu’s eyes.”

“It was a bold move,” Lin responded, “I must give you credit for both your ingenuity and your execution. It was bold of you to stake everything on a single formation, especially so near to the entrance, and your control of the concealment array was exemplary for your cultivation level. However, there was a single flaw in your plan.”

“And what was that, shifu,” Xiu asked, curious to learn his shortcoming.

“You should have set your array out of sight from the dock. I spotted you setting your formation when I left the boat.”

“Aiya,” Xiu said, slapping his head

“Indeed,” Lin said, “one must be careful to not forget the forest for the trees. A technique, no matter how refined, is only useful when used properly. Meditate on this, and other methods you could have used, while you wait for the rest of your peers. It will be good for you to exchange tales while you wait.”

As his disciple returned to the dock, he turned once again to the forest, eyes sweeping for any sign of passage. He found several more detection arrays; several more two-point arrays of varying widths, and a dozen single-point arrays. It was a risky decision to deploy so many of the later, as they took substantially more qi to place.

This was because they lacked the ability to establish a flow, something that even a two-point array possessed, albeit in a limited manner. While a multi-point array could imitate a cultivator’s meridians, drawing in ambient qi into the paths between points sustain itself, a single point array could only make use of the qi they were supplied with.

Their potency was limited by both this and their craftmanship, making them ideal for quick deployment, but a poor choice for prolonged use as they would wear down with time. While the test was too short to expose this weakness, it could result in Chu Min learning bad practices. He made a mental note to have a talk with her about it as he knocked Wei Lu out of a tree. His concealment formation had been far more rudimentary than Sun Xiu’s, as there was a noticeable distortion when viewed from below.

After another half an hour of hunting, he located Tongqian Mei, followed by Lee Xin barely a stick later. Both had opted for the same method as their predecessors, though Lee Xin had included a small barrier formation to imitate the hardness of the boulder he was pretending to be.

It was a shame that so many of his disciples were opting for concealment arrays this time around. Perhaps he should have made the rules favor engagements over being the last survivor. He’d modelled this exercise off one that he’d come across in the archives, one that had been used by a predecessor during the sect’s 2188th admission test. The method was only a century old, so it shouldn’t have been that far out of date.

Perhaps the method of winnowing simply didn’t translate as well to arrays. He’d have to give it a few more years to see. His sample size was simply too small to give up on the first try.

Now, with two students found, that only left five out of the seven to find. No, he thought, snapping his fingers, six out of eight to get. Ah, that was clever.

He continued deeper into the woods, following the trail of single-point detection arrays until he eventually came across a clearing. There, in the center, sat Chu Min, seated in the center of a barrier. Four stone statues were positioned around her, each bearing the likeness of cardinal beasts.

An onyx turtle and snake to the north, white marble tiger the west, a cinnabar phoenix to the south, and a teal jade dragon to the east. They, in turn, were surrounded by six evenly spaced jade spheres, each the size of two fists, and carved with an intricate series of glyphs.

It was a potent twofold barrier formation, one that he assumed that she had established in parts. The Four Guardians Cardinal Barrier had likely come first, with the secondary barrier being placed while he hunted her peers. The characters on the spheres were designed to reinforce other formations, rather than establish their own, so it was highly unlikely that they were the source of this barrier.

“Shifu,” she greeted. She gave him a bare nod, the closest as a bow that she dared without disrupting her focus. A ten-point formation was pushing her limit, and with all the arrays she had set to gauge his approach, she needed every drop of focus she could muster. It was far from being perfectly integrated with the land, and while she had been sure to place it at the nexus of the clearing’s qi, it was far from enough to sustain itself without her direct involvement.

“I must commend you on the craftsmanship of your anchor spikes. Their inscriptions are excellent quality, although I fear that you may have overdone it with the quantity.” Yeung Lin twirled his staff as he spoke, testing the barrier with a few experimental jabs. It withstood them without so much as a flicker.

Gripping his staff in two hands, he channeled his qi, taking his time threading it through his arms and empowering his staff before finally driving it down in a singular slash. The outer barrier made a sound like half-shattering glass, cracks spiderwebbing through it before the inner barrier surged forwards, golden qi interposing itself in the gaps. As he watched, it melded with the outer barrier, until it returned to its barely translucent sheen.

“Excellent!” Lin commended, scrutinizing the barrier for any remaining cracks. “You’ve managed to assume the role of the center quite well.”

“Thank you, shifu,” Min replied, doing her best not to show how much that had taken out of her. The flow of the array was still sluggish, unable to fully sustain itself off the land’s qi, and she wasn’t sure how many more blows like that she could take. She was glad for the breeze. It was helping her keep calm.

“Well, I see that you have force handled, now, let’s try something else,” Lin reached towards the end of his staff, loosing his banner. With a few more twirls it was fully unwound, an azure triangle waving proudly in the breeze. White and yellow stitched characters covered its surface, tracing spiraling patterns designed to best channel his qi. He began to circle the barrier, the tip of his staff tracing two conjoined circles as he did.

As Chu Min watched the hypnotizing pattern of the cloth spin round and round, he drew three anchor spikes from his belt and threw them into the ground around himself in a triangular pattern. With the barest glow he activated their power, forming a three-point strengthening array. With another twirl of his banner his array grew, the spinning flag becoming a fourth, focal, point of the array.

Qi swirled, drawing up through the ground, through his body, and through the flag in turn. With a final swish, the flag flashed from right to left, sending a gust of wind through the barrier, and the westmost jade ball bowling forwards.

Chu Min realized what was happening too late. As she desperately tried to form the gestures for an immobilizing charm, it had already knocked over the marble tiger. Their anchor points disrupted, the inner and outer barriers fell, and as they did, so too did Yeung Lin’s staff against Min’s head. A gentle tap, and she was out of the running before she could even finish the words needed to stop her wayward sphere.