Year 658 of the Stable Era,
Fourteenth day of the tenth month
10th Outer Hour:
“An admirable job, Disciple Chu Min,” Yeung Lin commended, rerolling his banner with a quick spin of his staff. “A coupled barrier was a good solution to the limitations of time, if not one without flaw. Can you tell me what your mistake was?”
“It was my decision to use spheres over spikes, wasn’t it shifu,” Chu Min answered, gathering up her fallen artifacts. “If they couldn’t hold their position when you broke the barrier. I chose them over spikes because they could be used on more terrains, but it was clearly a mistake.”
“Not quite,” Lin replied, shaking his head. “While conventional wisdom is that spheres are for sand and snow, they are fine for soil and grass. No, the flaw in your barrier was that you did not limit on the flow of air properly.”
“Wait, so your attack…”
“Was a purely physical gust. My qi moved it, and my formation guided it, but it contained not a trace of my qi,” Lin said. “A body cultivator could do the same with a punch, should they possess sufficient control.”
“So then why did you choose to deploy a formation, shifu? Didn’t you teach us that knowing when not to use a formation is one of the true skills of a formation master?”
“To teach you, of course,” Lin replied, “If I used force to overcome your formations you would learn its weakness. By using a formation, I have also taught you a new technique.”
“Ah,” Chu Min said, nodding her head. She wasn’t quite sure what method he was describing exactly, but nodding always helped.
“It was also unwise to simply rely on your defenses to hold me off. While a suitable option for awaiting the arrival of nearby allies, your inability to react to threats would grant your opponent too much time to find an alternative method of breaking your defenses. Consider meditating on solutions for these flaws after you collect your things,” Yeung Lin said, heading deeper into the wood. Unlike Chu Min, the remaining two students had left no formations in their wake, instead focusing on subtlety and speed to keep their distance from their pursuer. They had done well to conceal their qi, but their practical skills were a bit lacking.
After a bit of searching, he managed to locate a pair of footprints in the loam. A few yards away he spotted a trace of the same loam on the side of a tree, several feet from the ground, and his pursuit began. As he followed the trail, he felt his sense grow sharper, the first binding of his restraint having finally worn off.
He had only one more hour to find the remaining pair, but with his senses returning it would be an easy task. His eyes began to catch the signs of their passage with greater ease, broken branches and errant footprints sticking out with increasing clarity. His strides grew, each bound taking him further and further as his advantages compounded.
The two were together. Before he hadn’t been able to tell, but with his senses back to those of a cultivator at the peak of the Second stage he could now see that some of the left footprints were slightly thinner than the others. A partnership was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Prizes tended to turn cultivators against one another, so it was refreshing to see that some of his students had managed to form such a bond.
As he began to consider the types of combined techniques they might utilize against him, he felt a twitch of qi just north of him. It was slight, just the barest wisp of a taste of water, but he could just make it out with his limited qi sense. Licking a finger, he held it in the air as he imbued it with a touch of qi, reciting a charm that he’d learnt from an old well digger in the Silver Sands Desert.
Like many mortal spells, it lacked the power of a cultivator’s arts, but Yeung Lin always found that that limitation led to ingenuity. With a final word of minor power, like was drawn to like, and the tip of his finger twitched slightly in a direction slightly west by northwest. With a practiced motion he let a needle of qi follow the pull, allowing it to draw two inches closer to its destination before he caught it with his will. The well digger had simply chased flying drops of spittle, but Lin found it much more productive to use it as a compass.
Between his new guide and the trail, his pursuit increased in speed yet again. He leapt between the trees, dodging the doublebacks and decoys, the undergrowth offering little more impediment than the clouds in the sky. He knew he was close when he spotted the first array in the distance, a curved four-point variant of Sentinel’s Eyes Formation. Slipping around the far edge of the array, he ducked below a mundane tripwire as he spotted a glen ahead. A good redundancy, even if it could have been better hidden.
With three swift leaps he climbed one of the many trees of the grove, sharpening his vision as he took in his student’s fortifications. Yifan Chang had wasted no effort with his preparation, having deployed all seven flags of his Flowing Flood Flag Formation. A ring of water circled the two disciples, leisurely flowing in time with Chang’s flag dance. He was conserving his energy, maintaining just enough momentum that the water could rush towards an approaching threat, but moving slowly enough to avoid exhausting himself.
Yeung Lin was surprised to see that he had managed to find a sufficiently large water source to make use of the technique, as he was sure that this area lacked any ponds or lakes, but the five colored array at the center of the water’s source answered his question. Qiai Mei was a student specializing in the arts of the five elements and had set a twofold transmutation formation. Earth had become metal, and in turn, water, carving a crater from the clearing with its removal.
As he quietly cut a branch from a tree, he made a note to patch that up later. He would have to pay a fine if the training area was too damaged, and he’d rather not incur the expense. But that was for the future, while the present called for action. Tossing the branch into the air, he swiftly circled the clearing, keeping his cover in the bushes as the branch began its descent. He pulled a trio of anchor spikes from his belt as he did, spacing them between the fingers of his left hand as he waited for the branch to land.
It didn’t take long for gravity to do its work, and before it could even land Yifan Chang was already reacting, his flag signaling a preemptive counterattack. Two tendrils of water lashed out, one stabbing forwards as a thick tendril as the second slashed a thin horizonal cut designed to intercept an opponent’s attempt to dodge the first. Qiai Mei called out as he did, her senses clearly the sharper of the two, yelling a warning to her partner.
“It’s a trick!” she cried, eyes darting around the clearing as she reached for her belt. Her hands had barely touched the totems within when Yeung Lin struck, his staff shattering their perimeter barrier like a ripe melon. As he closed in, reducing the distance between them at alarming speed, she desperately threw the contents at him. Her other hand rapidly moving through the signs to activate them, qi surging, tongue dancing through the chant without skipping a beat. “Seeds of mountains grow, rise to heights unseen!”
Five stones flew through the air, their inscriptions glowing a bright white as the characters of power carved upon them surged. The ground rose to embrace them, a jagged wall of rough stone and dirt the height of three men springing up with a speed that would make even the fastest spirit bamboo envious. It was a rough formation, born through power and inscription, bereft of any consideration towards position and alignment, but it was enough to buy seconds.
As Yeung Lin shattered it in turn, his staff breaking the half-real defense into a shower of earth and qi, Yifan Chang turned, the ring of water surging back in a second counterattack. The name of an attack rose from his lips as he did, water forming the rough shape of a dragon, mouth open as the waves roared onwards, intent on swallowing its foe whole. “Flowing Flood Flag Technique: Devouring Dragon!”
With practiced ease Yeung Lin threw two of his grasped anchors into the ground in one motion, each a foot to the side of his shoulders. His staff struck forward as it unfurled, flag flowing free as the character for barrier glowed faintly atop its finial. His qi aligned across the three points of his array as a wedge of barely translucent force formed, cleaving the dragon in twain as the wave broke against it.
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Yifan Chang was quick to respond. His flag whirled as he moved through the stances of familiar forms, performing a maneuver that his family had developed long ago to counter such barriers. Again, a technique sprang from his lips, a declaration of power to strengthen his attack. “Flowing Flood Flag Technique: Confluence Crush!”
The diverged flows reconvened, forming back into a single stream behind Yeung Lin, a dozen beams of water lancing towards his back as it did. Again though, their instructor was quick to react. Before his words had finished leaving Chang’s lips, a third anchor was already sunk into the ground, the head of the flag tipping back as it did, parallel to the new addition. Four points, now a trapezoid, flared with power as he added to the shape of his barrier. The water bounced off, flowing back to Yifan Chang as he reformed his ring, readying himself for a
Qiai Mei was in awe at the ease of the transition. The geometry of the barrier had flowed like water, an elegant melding that had maintained stability at every turn. There had barely been any fluctuation with the addition of the new point. It put her improvised barrier to shame, that he could retain such finesse at such speed.
“Excellent, excellent,” Yeung Lin applauded, catching his staff in his elbow to free his hands for clapping. After a short round of applause, he pulled another pair of anchors from his belt, the first reinforcing the same point as his flag so that he could free it from its position without disrupting his barrier.
“A quick response to a decoy, and good use of a prepared barrier. Your throw could use a bit of practice, but your inscriptions were excellent. And as for you, Disciple Yifan Chang; your attacks are much more refined than when we first met, but the same cannot be said for your control. Two large attacks, in such quick succession, must surely have taken something out of you, especially so soon after setting up such an array. You must be more conservative with your qi.”
“Yes shifu,” Chang replied heavily, unable to hide much of the exhaustion in his voice. The two attacks had indeed drained a large portion of his qi. He had hoped to score a hit against their teacher by pressing him with speed, but their difference in experience was simply too great. If he wanted to stand a chance he had to act now, before Yeung Lin’s restraint loosened any further. While he still had the advantage in power.
“Hold him off while I ready my array,” he whispered to Qiai Mei, his flag spinning a slow circle above his head. She nodded in affirmation, quickly deploying another series of statuettes from her belt as the spin of his flag grew in speed. She chanted the incantation for a barrier of force and fog as the river ringing them began to pick up in speed, matching the ever-increasing pace of the flag.
“Excellent teamwork, the two of you must have spent quite a lot of time practicing it,” Yeung Lin commended, tossing his last anchor into the air. “However, there are gaps between your shield and sword.”
Qiai Mei activated her barrier, a curtain of fog sweeping towards their teacher as Yifan Chang’s flag swooped down, forcing the last of his qi and strength into his technique as the flood surged forwards in a spiral of compressed water. A move he had refined more than any other in his arsenal, its invocation drawing forth its true power.
“Flowing Flood Flag Technique: Rapid Rapids!”
As the anchor landed behind Yeung Lin, completing the pentagram, he plunged the butt of his staff into the ground, chant flowing as he spoke, “As all flows with yin and yang, let it turn once more, again.”
Qiai Mei gasped as she heard it, desperately redirecting her qi, but it was too late. Yeung Lin’s transmutation formation had already activated, shifting the already twice-transmuted water’s fragile form further along the cycle of elements. The blast of water rippled as it changed from clear liquid to pale pink peach petals, the change spreading from the tip of the charge to the entire ring in the blink of an eye.
As Mei began to chant the activation for her transmutation array to attempt to reverse the change, Yeung Lin spoke quickly, fingers snapping as he chanted the words to an old country charm he’d learned on the Northern Continent, striking the moment her defensive barrier was down. “Pick up posts, fill in the holes, do it all as fast as moles.”
Three of the posts of the transformation array popped from the ground, holes neatly filling with freshly turned soil. Qiai Mei gaped in surprise, while Yifan Lin forced his way out of the pile of petals that were now burying him. As Mei reached to her pouches for another set of totems, Yeung Lin’s staff caught her in the side, knocking the qi from her lungs. He tapped her forehead gently with his staff, eliminating her from the contest as Yifan Chang barreled towards him.
With a crash their flags clashed, Lin blocking one, then two of Chang’s strikes, before retaliating with a sweep towards his leg. Yifan dodged by leaping back, banner raised as Yeung Lin spun the tip of his staff, flag billowing in his opponent’s face. As Yifan Chang traced a defensive pattern with his own, waiting for the next blow to come, Yeung Lin’s fist struck him from the side. He had dropped his flag, choosing instead to use it as a decoy for his true attack. As Chang spun, a kick swept his legs from under him, and he went sprawling in the pile of petals.
By the time he’d recovered his senses, his teacher was on top of him, fist halted an inch from his face.
“I yield,” he said, raising his hands. His shifu helped him up, handing him back his flag as he did.
“A good show until the end,” Yeung Lin said, clapping them both on the shoulders, “though I cannot fault you for your panic. Experience is the only true way to learn that the only preparation for the unexpected is the preparation to adapt. Can you tell me what went wrong with your plan?”
“We relied too much on transmutation,” Qiai answered, combing petals from her hair. Yifan plucked one from behind her ear, and she blushed a bit as she continued. “Transmuted elements become more mutable the more they’re changed, and my array didn’t account for fixing their state.”
“Very good,” Yeung Lin replied, tossing her a minor Qi Recovery pill from his ring. “Anything else?”
“I shouldn’t have dropped my barrier so hastily, it let you disrupt my anchors,” she answered.
“Very good,” he replied.
“What was that spell shifu,” Yifan Chang asked, bundling his flags, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Oh, it’s just a minor charm I learnt from a lazy farmer with a little talent for qi,” their teacher replied, as the two gasped. To think that such a devastating counter was a mortal technique, rather than that of a true cultivator. “Ah, now don’t make those faces. As I’ve said before, there are no weak techniques. Any cultivator can learn this technique with ease, but few choose to do so, much less master its applications. After all, can you truly say that you would seek out a technique for quickly removing fences?”
The disciples shook their heads.
“I thought not. I would recommend that you consult the Manual for Common Mortal Techniques and Charms in the library when you get a chance. There are many techniques among them that you might find worth using, given the circumstances.” He snapped his fingers again, and the remaining petals flew off their robes, gathering themselves up with the rest of their ilk before settling in the crater of the glen. “And failing a combat application, you will find that many make for excellent party tricks.”
“So as the elements dance, let them rest again anew,” Yeung Lin chanted, his Five Elements Transmutation formation pulsing one last time as the petals returned to their former earthy form. Removing the restraint from his chest, he folded it up before storing it in his ring. With a gesture, his anchors flew back to their places on his belt, and it too returned to the ring in exchange for a pair of message talismans and a pen.
On one he wrote a quick message to the groundskeeper that he had repaired a hole in the ground, though it was currently bare, and on the other he wrote a request for the ferry to return to the training ground. With a breath of qi, the two messages were off on their way, and his students finally asked the question they’d been holding back.
“So are we the last ones shifu,” Yifan Chang asked expectantly.
“We must be, he removed his restraint,” Qiai Mei added, “right, shifu?”
“You’ll have to see,” Yeung Lin said with a wink, and with a sigh the two followed him back to the entrance, well used to his habit of enigmatic affectation.
As they came in sight of the dock, they heard Sun Xiu loudly announce their presence to everyone. “Look, there’s Yifan and Qiai! Looks like teach decided to walk them back together.”
“Guess that means I owe you lunch,” Wei Lu grumbled.
“So, is Aijiao Jingyi still out there shifu? Lee Xin asked, peering into the woods. “Or is she also with you.” The aforementioned student was well known by the others for her stealth techniques, as well as her propensity for sneaking up on others.
“You’ll see,” Yeung Lin said, settling down to write in his notebook. As he recorded his notes on their performance, the students talked among themselves, excited to hear how the latest returnees had fared against him. After three sticks the ferry finally returned, slowly bobbing down through the clouds. Yeung Lin slid his notebook back into his storage ring. As it landed next to the dock, he turned towards the rest of his students.
“Everyone, please give a round of applause to Disciple Aijiao Jingyi, winner of one free lunch at The Crab’s Den, for her outstanding use of a confusion array.” The rest of the students looked at the pair of pilots in confusion, before the array was lifted, and they were able to once again recognize the last member of their class. There was a clamor as they all began to speak at once, some in outrage at her trickery, others in praise of her technique. With a cough, Yeung Lin silenced them before he continued.
“Next time we perform this exercise, I will add a rule against leaving the training area, but this time it is only right that I reward such ingenuity.”
“When did you figure it out shifu,” Aijiao Jingyi asked, clearly curious at how well she’d managed to fool him.
“It took a little bit of time, but once I thought of the number of students I had I was easily able to shake it,” he answered. “Your timing for its activation was perfect. Matching it to the activation of my restraint, at the moment my senses would be the weakest, was an excellent touch, showing a mastery of the principles deploying such arrays. Enough to earn another twenty minutes for your lunch. Now, as for the rest of you…”
The remaining students waited on his next words with bated breath.
“…I expect a four-page essay on what you would have done differently during this exercise by our next class. And no extra-large characters this time, Disciple Wei Lu, or it will be SIX pages next time.”
As the rest of the disciples groaned at their assignment, Yeung Lin departed on his flying sword, bound for his next class. At the back of the class, Aijiao Jingyi quietly pumped her fist once at the back of the ferry.