The tall muscular form turned around to face Yu, wavy white hair down to his shoulders moving in the illusory dry breeze created by the complicated formations throughout the room.

“Sire,” Yu said with a smirk.

“Yu,” Zihao said with grin.

“Thank you again for dinner,” Yu said as she approached him. “I know you don’t like doing that.”

“Stop thanking me already. Yeah, I feel like a total ass doing it, but it works out for both of us, as you know. Suitors stop bothering you and my people stop nagging me. I’ve been told by my advisors that I don’t act princely enough, whatever the hells that means, and claiming someone as beautiful and powerful as you fits into their expectations. Your refusal and my pressure just makes it all the more…”

“Imperial?” Yu finished for him.

“Yeah,” he laughed sardonically. “Sad, right?”

Yu shrugged. “Politics is your thing, not mine.”

“You’d be really good at it you know,” he said softly. “You’re brilliant.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t start with me, Zihao. You know my limitations.”

He nodded despondently. “Sadly, I do.” Then he blinked at her and looked her up and down. “Armor?”

Yu smirked at him.

“Wait, is that your old armor? And your hook swords?”

“Yes!” Yu said with a leaping cheer. “I have my stuff back!”

He smiled, obviously happy for her. “I’m so glad your master finally caved. I just don’t understand him.” Then his smile turned a little bit… aggressive. “You look amazing. Stunning as always, but also very fierce.”

Yu laughed. “Thank you. And don’t think I didn’t notice you said ‘beautiful’ before ‘powerful’ earlier. I know you did it on purpose. It’s backwards in importance, but I welcome it anyway. A girl likes to be appreciated after all.”

“Well, I try.”

Yu slapped her hands together and looked around the room. “Ready for some practice?” Then she grumbled, “I hate the desert.”

Zihao laughed. “Yeah, not my favorite either. But you know why we do it. We have no idea what’s inside the spirit realm and you need to gain experience in every possible scenario.”

“I know, I know.” She let out a breath and started wrapping her face with a thick cloth.

One thing she’d learned about the desert was that sand got everywhere. As in everywhere. However, thanks to having her armor (and most importantly her skin-tight underlayer) back, she was actually looking forward to it this time.

“Okay, let’s get to it. Scorpions, snakes, and sandworms await!”

***

Yu’s felt her short braid whipping behind her in the strong wind as she slid down the sand dune with one leg bent under her and the other out straight, guiding her decent. One arm was out wide for balance and other, along with her face, was aimed back up the slope. Chink sounds could be heard as Yu fired one forearm-length spine after another from her hand at the approaching beetle.

Sandstorm Scarabs were a nightmare for anyone without either compressed Qi or the Ice affinity. Their armor was hard as steel and immune to fire. However, it was also very vulnerable to being shattered once frozen. Unfortunately, Yu did not have an affinity with Ice and obviously her Qi was not yet compressed.

So that left the third ultra-complicated option: Throw lots and lots of power at it and hope something worked.

She was on her fourth attempt at using her Qi skills to damage the hells damned thing. But the spines just glanced off its shell. Its eyes were protected by umbrella-like protrusions, so that left only the mouth, which just ate the thorns like they were a breakfast snack.

Yu’s slide ended when she reached a flat area between dunes. Switching up again, she released the Wood Qi, and, while running away as well as she could in the sand, sent Qi in the form of Fire Mana through her meridians. She felt its flickering burn and desire to consume as she aimed one hand down at the sand behind her and released a stream of fire.

The sand browned but did not alight. Cursing, Yu released it, frustrated with herself. She had hoped that a flaming ground might slow the scarab down some.

Of course sand can’t burn, idiot. Sand melts, not burns.

She berated herself as she continued to run, trying to come up with a way to kill the thing – or even just hurt it. All the while, she kept her left arm in front of her eyes, protecting them from the constant sandstorm sent by the beast.

Thankfully, it’s Qi skills were limited and it wasn’t particularly fast, which meant she could run away. In fact, she probably would have done that very thing if this were not an illusion. But the point of this exercise was to think as well as act, so she kept running and planning, just hoping for inspiration.

Okay, Wood skills are a bust, Lightning can’t get inside the shell, Fire is useless, Spatial can’t hurt it, I don’t have any offensive Darkness skills yet, that leaves Earth and Water. Hmmm…

Yu felt the solidity of Earth as she sent it through her pathways and a group of six spikes of compressed sand shot from near her and at the beetle. They struck and exploded into clouds of sand which caused the creature to slow for just a moment until they got swept up into the sandstorm it had created and was maintaining.

“You’re facing a heavily-armored foe with an apparent immunity to your two strongest forms of attack in an environment which favors it. What do you do?”

Zihao’s voice echoed throughout the illusory desert. The prince had been taught by experienced veterans and was something of a genius himself, so Yu generally felt herself lucky he was willing to help her train. Right now though, that voice made her growl.

“I don’t know, I’d probably run!” she yelled through the cloth covering her nose and mouth.

“Actually, that’s a wise decision. However, this is training, so you should try to figure it out. Right now you’re falling into the same mental trap you have the last two times you’ve been in environments that challenged you. Like in the snowy mountains three days ago. How did you finally succeed there?”

Yu growled again, but reflected back to that training. She had been battling a pair of grade 3 Stygian Snowcats, particularly territorial and violent felines who used the wind, snow, and ice to their advantage. She had struggled against them as well and had only come out victorious when she combined her Earth and…

Cursing at her stupidity, Yu opened her waterskin and called its contents out.

It’s a waste using my own water and I’d probably just run in the real world, but Zihao’s right. I need assume there’s going to be times I can’t run, so I’ll act like I have to fight it. And in this case, I can’t exactly pull water out of the environment like I normally would. Cause, it’s slow and, well, a desert.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

She arranged the water into a ball, skidded to a stop in the sand, turned around, and threw it at the rickshaw-sized beetle. Thankfully the sandstorm was mostly made of loose particles so a good amount of the water got through.

The moment it struck and splashed all over the creature, it stumbled, surprised. Yu immediately held out both of her hands, leaving the top half of her face exposed to the sandstorm. Out of her palms shot whips of crackling violent lightning.

Again, much of their power was reduced by the sand in the air, but not all. What made it through wrapped around the creature and unlike the first time Yu tried to use Lightning skills against it, the crackling bolts did not simply slip off and run along the outside of its shell and into the sand. This time bolts snapped and cracked along the water which had breached its nearly impenetrable carapace armor.

The result was that the scarab stuttered in its steps and started shaking. Seeing her opportunity, Yu ran towards it, letting go of the lightning and leaping over its head and onto its back.

While in the air, Yu withdrew her long-absent hook swords and turned them crescent down. She landed with a crack as the sharp tips of her mysteriously enchanted weapons penetrated its shell. As the surface of its carapace was very smooth and polished, she slid right by and would have ended up falling on the sand behind it if her swords hadn’t been embedded into it, jerking her to a stop. Climbing back up, Yu put her feet flat, and, with a growl and all her Qi-infused might, pushed the swords apart. Slowly, the carapace split, showing the softer vulnerable light-pink flesh of the beast.

Yu put her armored foot in between to keep the plates apart and released one of her swords, created a long spear of silver fire in the free hand. Screaming out her frustration, she slammed it down into the exposed creature’s soft flesh. It penetrated all the way through, stopping as it cracked onto the inner shell of its underside.

It was at that point that the stun apparently wore off because the beetle went berserk beneath her. It started spinning in circles and hopping up and down, trying to dislodge her and whatever was causing its insides such burning pain.

Then the wind picked up and compressed to close around it, causing a twister of sand and air. Yu’s hair painfully pulled at her head and the cloth that had been protecting her nose and mouth was ripped off. Closing her eyes and mouth tightly, Yu felt the flying sand burn against her face as the skin of her nose cheeks and eyelids began being slowly worn away. Her lips cracked and bled, only for those cracks to be filled with burning sand. She tasted coppery blood mixed with sand as it leaked through her torn up lips to drip onto her tongue.

Despite the burning pain her skin being worn away, Yu clenched her mouth tight and maintained the Qi of her Fire Summoning skill, never releasing her grip on the spear. She knew that as long as she maintained the flow of power, the spear of flame would stay as solid as if it were bamboo.

Yu rose to her legs while being jerked left and right with each sudden shift and jolt of the creature. She gritted her teeth behind burning lips and pressed down on the spear, increasing the amount of Qi flowing through her meridians and into her creation. Flames raged under her fingers and inside the beast, causing it to release a squealing sound so loud it could be heard even over the sandstorm.

Wrapping her whole body around the spear, Yu poured a third of her enormous Qi pool into the construct, and she felt the scarab beneath her shudder so hard she was almost shaken loose. Then it suddenly fell still and she felt it collapse under her.

Growling with the effort, she pressed down in one big push and heard a crunch as the spear exited its carapace weakened by the heat and embed into the now-melting sand.

Panting, Yu slowly opened her pained eyes. She released the Qi of her spear and the silver flames quickly sputtered out and vanished. She saw that the innumerable grains of sand that had been just been viciously twirling around her slow their spin and eventually fall back to the desert floor. The only sound remaining was a sizzling of the insides of the scarab and her own panting breaths.

Yu collapsed onto the back of the large beetle with a groan, slid down the smooth side, and tumbled onto the sand. After a moment, she managed to lift herself so her back was leaning against it and closed her aching eyes again.

“Ugh. I hate the desert,” she moaned tiredly.

Yu heard the padding of boots on sand approach and lifted her eyelids to find Zihao close. He kneeled in front of her, his face showing concern. He reached his hand out to her cheek, but stopped just short, obviously afraid to cause more pain by touching her partially peeled off skin.

“Can you heal yourself?” he asked softly but a small white pill appeared on his palm. “Need a mending pill?”

Yu shook her head weakly, sending Water and Wood Qi through her body. Slowly, she felt better as her grade 2 healing skills mended her flesh. The wounds were not actually that bad, comparatively speaking. They hurt, but she’d had way worse than sand-burned skin. Okay, maybe the skin was worn away in a few areas exposing the flesh beneath, but she’d still had worse. There was that time she had lost four toes to a giant cricket for example. Or the raptor claw through the heart. Or when she’d been decapitated by a lizard’s tail. Or… yeah, she’d had worse.

Thankfully, the advanced room’s formations prevented permanent injuries caused by the illusions.

Either way, she rarely needed those anymore. Yu could almost always heal herself without an issue these days. She certainly had more than enough Qi for most injuries. Moreover, she had the best grade 2 healing skills available for both Water and Wood affinities, so only severe wounds and a quick death, (which still happened occasionally) would trouble her.

However, her paranoia occasionally got the better of her and she also conducted an endurance challenged every now and again that required her to not heal between fights. It was rare, but she knew it was good practice, nonetheless. Honestly though, she felt those mostly unnecessary. Yu was fortunate enough to be one of the few combat-focused cultivators with Wood and Water Mana, and thus had self-healing as an option. Why wouldn’t she use them at every opportunity?

Zihao’s eyes scanned her healing face, his own relaxing. “Once enough of your Qi is compressed, you’ll be able to just power through armor like that carapace, so don’t worry. It was truly a bad opponent for you as you are.” His eyes nearly glowed in excitement. “The fact that you were able to damage it at all is impressive. And that you actually defeated a high grade 3 while still at the second stage, and not even with fully opened meridians and it being in direct opposition to your affinities… just amazing. You really are something else.”

Yu felt a blush form on her newly healed cheeks. “Thanks. As you said, heavily armored and immune to my most powerful skills.” She let out a big breath. “It’s pretty rare, not being able to use Fire and Lightning skills. I know the elders say every affinity is supposed to be equal and all that, but Fire and Lightning are just stronger offensively in my experience. At least before compression.”

Zihao joined her leaning against the beetle, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. “From a purely offensive capacity, Fire’s definitely the most powerful. Lightning’s next, although Ice is a close third. But keep in mind, that’s pretty much all Fire can do. It kills. That’s it. Lightning at least stuns. Ice slows and disables. But Fire skills are just unrestrained burning death.”

Yu believed him. He was a truly gifted Fire Mage and he had a rather powerful manifestation of his family’s Imperial Flames. It certainly surpassed her own fire affinity in pure heat output. Zihao didn’t like to talk about his father or siblings much, but he intimated his natural affinity might be the highest of all of them.

With that in her mind, Yu asked, “Have your people been able to find anything on my silver fire?”

He shifted slightly, leaning even more against her and she lay her head on his shoulder. “No. It’s a real mystery, but the archives are rather large. They’ll keep looking.”

“Shame,” she sighed. “Ah well, I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.”

“So, are you well enough for a spar?” Zihao asked, nudging her.

“Give me just a bit more time, and then definitely.”

Yu was well aware that she would need to fight people as much as she fought demonic beasts in the spirit realm. It was a real gift, being able to battle against someone as talented in combat as Zihao.

The cultivators in her faction were great sparring partners as well, and it was good practice for all parties to spar together. But Zihao was a savant, like Nian Kang from her martial class. Unfortunately, he had had to leave the sect suddenly, supposedly called away by his family under mysterious circumstances. Yu still thought about him occasionally and hoped he was well. But rather than think about someone not around, she was preparing for a spar with a… friend.

Then Yu removed her gloves and boots and tapped her wrists, ankles, and neck. Dull metallic shackles with glowing runes that had been thin metalic bands hidden by the leather suddenly grew larger and fell onto the sandy desert ground with a whoomph sounds and then sunk so deeply they could almost not be seen.

Yu sighed in relief and stretched her arms. “That’s so much better,” she groaned out. Then she mumbled, “Stupid things.”

“How heavy are those now?” Zihao asked with an astonished shake of his head.

“I don’t even know. Master won’t tell me how they work. To me they just keep getting heavier no matter how strong my body is. Anyway, I think I’m ready. And I can’t thank you enough for helping train with me. I wouldn’t be nearly as prepared for the spirit realm without you.”

“It was my pleasure and to my advantage. You would have just found someone else instead. Then I wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with you.”

“You’re such a flirt,” she laughed.

“Yeah,” he agreed unrepentantly. “Now let’s fight.”

Yu looked over and saw a familiar fire in his eyes and knew hers showed the same.