Ki'el spent the rest of the day studying Sobon's interaction with this Lai Shi Po very carefully. Sobon, as was her way, was subtly humiliating and humbling everyone by at once working on her qi cultivation, creating incredible works of qi inscription, and also giving a lecture, often on unrelated things all at once.
This Lai Shi Po, who Ki'el was admittedly not fond of, was at the very least a match for Sobon's ability to see through to the heart of things. As Sobon's words danced in and out of Ki'el's ability to understand, Lai Shi Po followed her master's words like a hunting hound--perhaps not following behind at every single step, perhaps not getting close enough to pounce, but seeming to never lose track of where her prey was going.
Lai Shi Po had disguised herself as a beggar--no, she had been content to be treated by the whole world as trash, while being a master herself. In so many ways, she was and wasn't like Sobon. And it seemed that she wanted something from Sobon. What, Ki'el wasn't sure, but the girl felt like she was poised to lose something.
And so as Sobon spoke effortlessly about a variety of topics too difficult for Ki'el to understand, she at least tried to remember things that seemed like she may need to know them later. She didn't understand when Sobon spoke of (Chemistry) and how the world was made of (Elements) with various properties that were connected to how Aether interacted with them. It went beyond things that were solid and liquid, including the wind and flames, and other things... Sobon spoke so briefly about so many things that Ki'el struggled to keep perspective.
And yet, she consumed the knowledge as much as she could. It was difficult, but she focused intensely. She had once in her life regretted letting Sobon leave her alone, and now her master was speaking of needing to leave again.
Sobon spoke about how (Reactive elements) and (stable elements) and (heavy elements) and (light elements) all interacted with the (exotic field) of aether, and how (space) and time could be described by special mathematics. Lai Shi Po seemed to rankle at some of those ideas, especially something that Sobon said about space behaving like a surface. Ki'el wasn't sure what that meant, but she paid attention to it.
Sobon created a ring that warped space in a strange way, and gave it to Lai Shi Po. While she studied it, Ki'el watched Sobon, noting that the woman was creating tools to do her tasks more quickly--tools to forge sand into quartz rods, and to engrave those rods with properties. She moved to sit next to Sobon, and her master favored her with a smile, although she continued speaking about various things to Lai Shi Po, she let Ki'el study the tools, and the resulting rods.
Ki'el knew that the inscriptions were profound, and beyond her ability to truly understand, but she did her best to memorize them. She noted when the same symbol was inscribed with different intent in different places, and where different glyphs had similar intent. And when Sobon crafted another rod, one very different from the rest, and concealed it within her space ring immediately, Ki'el noticed, but gave no indication. She wasn't sure if it was Sobon being sneaky, or just not speaking about every last thing she was doing.
By mid afternoon, Sobon moved them all--except for Lui and Lady Fau, and Lord Shida and his men--to a nearby mountaintop which was apparently uninhabited, and there, Sobon began constructing something. She had created another, larger space-warping ring, and when she pinned it in place with several aether rods and activated it, the ring began to create a phantom space above their heads. More rods were used to reshape and reinforce the concealed room that was being constructed, and then finally, Sobon looked at Lai Shi Po, and then at the rest of them.
"If you want to spar... trade pointers as you said, we could do it now, or we could wait. By tomorrow morning, I will have another Spirit Bone prepared, and more as we wait..."
But Lai Shi Po shook her head. "The guardians from the Lai family will find me before then. And while I am more than happy to keep your secrets, Shiva Alassi, they will not. I have many times pressured them into silence over small matters, but even then, the guards always report to the Elders. The only way to keep things that they hear safe is to convince the Elders of the Lai family to keep their silence, and they will exact a heavy price."
And so Ki'el and Mian sat and watched as Sobon and Lai Shi Po floated deep into the center of this hidden mountaintop space. Sobon deployed more gem rods, ones that Ki'el noted would create a barrier between them when they were activated by intent. These she used to keep Ki'el and Mian safe, and to keep the entrance shut--however, the barriers let the two of them watch the battle to come with no restrictions.
Of all things, though, Ki'el was worried that Lai Shi Po would be unable to stand against her master. The woman had been arrogant, but her qi core was unreadable--or rather, Ki'el was by far not stupid enough to trust what the core displayed. Although it read as Gold 3 stars, it might as well have called her Iron or Bronze for all that it was an obvious lie.
"A warrior who creates weapons," Lai Shi Po said, and her voice was eager. "It means a warrior who writes weapons into being by script alone. I must see it, Alassi, at any price." From some hidden space ring or artifact, Lai Shi Po withdrew her first weapon--a greatsword ten times too large for a woman like her, one a massive mountain of a man would have struggled, even with two hands, to wield. But the smaller woman barely had to touch it, and it hovered with her eagerly, a sheen around the cutting edge of the blade singing.
"Since I am not yet back to my full strength, I hope you will forgive me if I use these two as stand-ins for my spirit bones." Sobon produced two more quartz rods. "These should be my right humerous and left radius, if I had the time."
"Spirit bones... Attuned bone tissues? I do not care. And don't speak of things that will distract us."
"It's simply inconvenient. I had hoped that by the time I needed them, I wouldn't need tools." Sobon released them from her hands, and both rods glowed.
Lai Shi Po swung her sword, and Ki'el understood the wave of intense qi that was released to be very close to the purity of Sobon's techniques--and for the first time, she realized that it might be a much closer match than she had assumed. Because the wave of qi was flavored with air--but Lai Shi Po's cutting wind qi was profound. It was not some fool's attempt to combine two unrelated things, but a study on how they were the same, and how their differences could reinforce one another.
Sobon's fake right bone raised, and with a speed Ki'el had never seen, aether lines traced themselves in the air, forming a great circle of power, with several smaller circles of similar but just-smaller size behind. With her perspective, from below the battle, Ki'el could see that the attack didn't come close to breaking Sobon's defenses--in fact, it never came close to reaching them. A cup or net shot out from the circles, catching and funneling the wind qi away before the circles, and the cup, vanished.
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Something shifted in Lai Shi Po. Ki'el thought that it was the spirit that had been guarding her, who now allowed the woman to release more of her qi pressure. Lai Shi Po shifted her oversize sword and thrust, creating an impossibly dense stab of pressurized wind qi that hesitated a moment before leaping forward.
Again, circles appeared and vanished, and the enemy attack never got close, and again, the other woman's spirit shifted, more qi leaking out.
"Since you're taking your time," Sobon said, "let me show you what kind of attacks my defenses were meant to handle."
Ki'el wanted to flinch, to look away. She knew that just witnessing what came next would hurt. But she forced herself to watch, as Sobon's fake left bone glowed, and more and more circles appeared in midair, and all of the qi in the entire arena seemed to flow into a spear of light that was held between them. Ki'el watched, unable to breathe--she'd felt these effects before, when Sobon had shattered a man unbelievably far beyond herself. Only this weapon, Ki'el thought, was focused, the many rings stabilizing the result, thinning it. Intensifying it.
Lai Shi Po, from where Ki'el could see her, both threw several defenses out to limit the blow, but also made every effort to dodge it. Based on the way the rings shifted, Ki'el thought that she still only escaped because Sobon willed it.
The aether wave released by the lance of light and qi erased all concept of Ki'el's own existence for a time, even though it was pointed away, and even though she was prepared, and even though the barrier before her darkened for a moment just at that moment. Ki'el grasped her cycles and flooded herself with aether--but it was worse this time, she realized, because the intense, destructive aether had nowhere to escape to. Instead, it impacted a barrier that Sobon had left over the edge of the space, a barrier which held against that impossible piercing force, and the spent aether of both flickered in the space, feeling chaotic and fundamentally damaged from the interaction.
Ki'el made a note to ask Sobon about that, later.
But Sobon gestured, and the space seemed to suck qi from the surroundings again, and the destructive qi faded. Lai Shi Po had... apparently not been completely blinded by the immense power, although she did seem to lose control for a moment. Next to her, Mian had braced himself fully, covering his eyes with his arms, but he seemed still to be in shock.
"That is..." Lai Shi Po's voice sounded stressed, and with a growl, she fully unveiled her spirit, producing a vibrant red gemlike core--and allowing the spirit that had been tightly tucked in around her core to move freely. "That is... a fundamentally profound technique."
"It is a weapon," was all Sobon said. "And it is the sort of weapon that should never be seen or understood by anyone who would misuse it."
"And created entirely with qi constructs. I imagine this isn't the limit of this technique? If correctly designed?"
Sobon... was silent. For long enough that even Lai Shi Po seemed to sense the strain in the atmosphere, and she lost whatever frivolity she had in her posture.
Finally, Sobon spoke. "A 'correctly designed weapon' based on these principles, Lai Shi Po, could end worlds. This is not a guess or an estimation. It is not merely fact or spiritual truth. It is history.""
"There have been worlds, Lai Shi Po, where people did not treat the existence of such weapons as the threat that they truly were. They believed that such weapons could simply be designed, but never built, or built, and never used. That believed that the threat of a weapon would suffice to rule. But once a threat existed, another threat rose to counter it. Weapons that were never meant to be designed were built. Weapons that were never meant to be built were used. And civilizations and worlds ended."
"I could design and build a weapon to end this world. I will not merely never build that weapon, I will never design it. The threat of such a weapon is never enough. If I possess the world's greatest spear..." Sobon dismissed the rings, which had been hanging there ominously beside her. "They will come with a million lesser spears, and I will need to chose between using that spear once, and suffering a loss. And if I use it once, I will use it twice."
Lai Shi Po, though, waved her hand as though clearing away smoke. "Yes," she said, "I understand the point of having profound designs and never using them. I had my own, if nothing so... grand. But we are not done yet." From her space artifact, Lai Shi Po withdrew a flaming spear, one whose tip Ki'el could not even look at, because it pierced not only her eyes, but her spiritual senses, with its intensity. When the woman spoke, Ki'el felt the woman's words were garbled. "I still need to see if this suffices to break your defenses!"
Instead of his defensive right bone, Sobon summoned up a ball of destructive aether with his left bone, and when Lai Shi Po threw the spear, Sobon nimbly placed the destruction in front of it, the rings that had produced the ball also containing it completely. Whatever profound effect Lai Shi Po's weapon might have had if it struck, it was like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean for all that it affected that sphere of destructive energy.
Still the woman produced another weapon, and tried to teleport behind Sobon, but Ki'el could feel Sobon's phantom wings suddenly flare into existence, and the blade stopped. Sobon's right bone shined, and rings snapped into existence around Lai Shi Po, barriers suddenly separating her from her weapon, and flinging the two apart.
"Do you consider that I've 'traded' enough 'pointers' with you yet?" Sobon's voice sounded annoyed. "Or are you going to continue trying to sneak up on me?"
Ki'el's eyes shifted away from Lai Shi Po, seemingly imprisoned, but she didn't detect the other threat until one of Sobon's righteous rings snapped another barrier in place in midair, and the form of Lai Shi Po faded and was replaced with her spirit, while the woman herself reappeared in the new barrier.
But Lai Shi Po growled, as though she were a beast, perhaps one much like the fox spirit that she was working with. "I came all this way," she snarled, something deep and frustrated. "Dealt with so many idiots on the road, and I'll have to deal with the damned Lai family again, all for... what? To be told that my brilliant mind is unneeded in this world? That my weapons and my shields cannot match those of the gods?"
Sobon studied the woman, and after a moment, Ki'el noticed her casting another aether effect, but then she shrugged. "Lai Shi Po," she said, "what does 'myth' mean to you?"
The smaller woman startled, confused, and didn't answer.
"I ask because someone asked me the same question," Sobon said, "and although I feel like my answer was good, it wasn't really my answer. It was an answer of my people. I simply... wonder what you would say, if someone of profound power asked you the same."
"Myth..." Lai Shi Po spoke the word, as though it felt oily and disgusting in her mouth. "Isn't that a word used for people who cannot face the truth? For people who believe foolish lies while never being willing to accept the harshness of reality?"
For whatever reason, Sobon sighed. Ki'el, from her vantage point, could see the intense reaction crawl over Lai Shi Po, as the woman realized that her answer was wrong, but Sobon didn't correct her, didn't try to teach. Instead, she just... looked away.
Disappointed, Ki'el realized. Whatever Sobon was looking for, he did not find it in Lai Shi Po.
And so, Ki'el found herself considering the question very seriously, although she was sure that she didn't understand it. And although she several times found herself thinking much the way Lai Shi Po did--that a myth was something only believed by a fool--she refused that answer every time.
She was still thinking deeply about it when Lai Shi Po and Sobon stopped talking, and they all left the expanded space. And when two very serious looking guards appeared as though from nowhere, and Lai Shi Po said some mollifying words to them about having made a profitable trade. And as the day ended, and Ki'el returned home, she rolled the question around in her mind.
Although she was entirely uncertain what the right answer was... she decided on one thing. A myth was something made in ignorance--and everyone was ignorant of something. And she considered that, and why Sobon would speak of it with a woman who might gain the power to end worlds, and Ki'el felt like there was an answer there, but she didn't quite understand what it was, or why.
Although she slept restlessly, when she awoke, she felt comforted by the question, believing without a doubt that Sobon did have an answer to such a profound question, and believeing that was meaningful in and of itself.