When it came to swords, there were as many ways to judge worth as there were stars in the sky. Length and width were the first and last of it, but there were also materials and enchantments to consider. Should one maximise reach, sacrificing the ability to in-fight? Add additional weight and heft, in an attempt to disarm or smash through armour? The opposite, focus on speed over blunt killing power? Or simply put a standard sharpness enchantment on a standard longsword, and leave mind games to the spellcasters?
Ban Do did not know what the mythical core realm him of the past preferred – and at this point he was halfway convinced he never would, that those memories were simply gone – but the him of today favoured a longer, thinner blade. Flexible, surprising… a duellist's weapon, more conducive to sword-on-sword battles than the bulkier, rigid things his brother preferred.
There was a joke to be made, there, but any humour dripped from his mind as he walked into the hospital room. His sect sister had been tucked away here for two weeks, and it seemed that nothing much had changed.
“Ah, Ban Do. Good to see you.”
There was Hom How, perched on a chair tall enough that his short legs failed to reach the ground, tucked into a corner amidst alchemy supplies and garbage. Always polite, even as he was surrounded by clutter, paper held in one hand and brush in the other. It was just mildly irksome how the child-like man could sense him enter the room, when his mortality should have made it near impossible. Equally irksome- no, that’s wasn’t the proper word. Equally disconcerting was the way he could paint a better portrait from memory, holding loose sheets in shaky hands, than most could with both an easel and posing subject. Looking down, Ban Do saw a menagerie of half-familiar faces. My former peers, I suppose. They escaped Salt, only to die not a month later when the monsters followed them home. Is there some sort of sick lesson, there? To his knowledge the man had never so much as held a sword, but Ban Do could easily see him with a shield in place of paper, and something short and single-edged held defensively in his brush hand.
Yes, something good for blocking. I can picture it in my head- ah, but the name escapes me. I’ll have to look it up later, or it’ll bother me all day.
Next to Hom How was Lan, his sect sister’s paramour, greeting him with a mild nod. He looked slightly better than he had a week ago, but just slightly. “Sir Do, welcome. Do you have need of anything, or are you here to witness the operation? Or just to visit?”
Now there was an interesting fellow. Meek and timid on the outside – and, mostly, on the inside as well. But there had been a select few points back on Salt where his spine had straightened, and in those moments he had become almost an entirely different person, slinging destructive spells like a martial philosopher.
Is he secretly a special operative? Or perhaps he was one, and washed out? Would he wield a hidden dagger coated in poison, or is that too straightforward? Maybe there’s no secret, and he’s just a shy man with a hidden core; a plain broadsword, enchanted to grow heavy the moment it lands. No, I’m sure there’s an interesting story there… but alas, not today. “Apologies, senior brother, but I’m just here to deliver a message.” His eyes left the two, and went to the other side of the room where three much more active figures encircled Jiendao’s bed.
Two Elders and an outer disciple. Persimmon, the venerable array master who had designed the Sixth Reality Gate Array, the Sixth Reality Purging Array, the Shuttered Gate Concealment Array, and too many more arrays and formations to name. Beside him was Aiya Yu, a much younger woman who headed the biological research wing dedicated to Salt. And at the point of the triangle, a man of profoundly lesser cultivation, nonetheless guiding the other two like a surgeon directing his assistants.
Lu, Ban Do’s teacher in the ways of consumption. A paradoxical being, who seemed a towering genius one moment and a bumbling fool the next. A blade still in its sheath. What hides underneath? The lazy waste unexpectedly thrust into prominence by good fortune, or the formerly lazy waste galvanized by hardship to become a rising star? Whether he was a tempered or untempered blade, he certainly looked the part in the current moment.
There was a reason the other two were on the entirely opposite side of the room. Waves of spiritual force arced through the air as Aiya Yu operated, the glowing glyphs of qi forms providing a more visible spectacle as Persimmon put down layer after layer of formation work over the unconscious woman’s bare stomach. And then there was Lu, adding something Ban Do could feel but not describe, his fingers twitching and his eyes glazed. With his lips curled into a grimace of effort, he would have looked almost fearsome with his wild hair and sharp robes, if not for the makeup softening his features.
“I don’t think you should interrupt them. It seems an important moment.” Hom How’s voice was childlike, as befitted his body, but there was a rare sardonic lilt to his words that only the most cynical eleven-year-old could match – and Hom How was perhaps the least cynical man on the planet. They must have been here for quite a while for him to show even mild annoyance.
“Of course, of course. I’ll just have to wait here with you, then.” He sidled into the nook, snagging a spare chair on the way. “Have they been operating for long?”
“Since last night,” Lan answered, and Ban Do’s eyebrows raised. It was past noon.
“Can senior brother Lu really keep up with those two for that long?”
At his question the scholar and artist gave each other a complicated look. Still with that same tone, Hom How spoke. “Well you see…”
Only to be interrupted. “Lu actually worked for several hours before Elders Persimmon and Aiya Yu began assisting. You’ll find he has surprising stamina when he puts his mind to it.”
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The two exchanged another look, and Ban Do was surprised again to see a spark of challenge in Hom How’s expression. Ah, I see. Sir How is concerned for Lu’s wellbeing, while Sir Lan places Jiendao’s recovery above such things. “Well, far be it from me to comment on another man’s stamina.” His chair plonked down to How’s left, between a cauldron charred black both inside and out, and a counter piled high with discarded washcloths. They should really clean this place. Or are they afraid to throw out anything, lest it belong to Elder Goldenseed? “But it seems poor manners to simply watch them work. I don’t suppose you have a way to pass the time?” Like the duellist's blade at his side, his comment slid into the unguarded section between the two’s mild enmity.
Lan adjusted his spectacles. “I have cards, if you want to play?”
A smile. “Perfect. Poker?”
Hom How shook his head. “We’ve been playing poker for days. Musu?”
A team game? Ah, I see my mere presence has already soothed any and all bad feelings. “Would we not need a fourth person for that?”
The young-looking man blinked. “We have four people.”
As if summoned by his words, something moved in the clutter of shoved-aside ingredients and equipment. Ban Do did not jump, but it was a near thing; a bundle of shredded black rags he had taken for refuse rolled off a counter, landing on its feet to reveal itself as a vague approximation of a human.
“Another one? What, is the other swordsman going to show up to complete the whole set?” The rags shifted, revealing a flat face partially covered by two bulky circles of dark glass set into darker leather.
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Ki channels were not like spiritual veins, for all that their function was similar. The most obvious difference was their physicality; spiritual veins were, as the name implied, spiritual. They had no relation to physical matter, only interacting with qi, unlike ki channels which were actual tunnels in the flesh.
They could both be likened to a second circulatory system, though Lu thought that comparison mapped much more strongly to veins than channels. The latter were almost more comparable to an extension of the digestive system, functioning as a way to expel waste ki while drawing fresh energy into the body.
Does that make my pores… Ugh, no, don’t picture it. I shouldn’t let my mind wander, especially right near the end.
But it was difficult to obey the thought, even as he acknowledged it. While he no longer required sleep the way a mortal did, both his mind and body’s stamina were far from endless. The final ideal moment to take a break had been hours ago, and in his zeal to get it all done in one go, he had foolishly blown right past it. Now stopping would mean redoing part of the work, and no amount of fatigue was worth inconveniencing two Elders in such a frivolous manner. Just one more push. Then I can go home and sleep.
Moving Jiendao’s ki channels was a finicky and laborious task, and not one he could leave to the Elders. Simply making openings in the flesh wasn’t enough; they needed to be annealed with ki as they were made, lest they set while half-done and leak ki all over the body.
So he was forced to insert his own ki into her, dissolve and replace her channels, then scrub them of his space-flavoured ki lest it clog her lightning-flavoured consumption. Does this count as dual cultivation? Surely not… Argh, no, stay focused! Focused! As he shifted her second spiritual network, he also had to tear through her spiritual veins, a process he was really hoping she wouldn’t resent once she was conscious again – hopefully only a few minutes from now.
As he went, Elder Persimmon laid down dozens of formations which melted into her skin. They would, unless Lu had taken a wrong step in formulating his cure, align her soul more strongly with her mind. Don’t doubt it now, Lu. It worked on the spirit beasts just fine, so there shouldn’t be any complications.
At the same time, Aiya Yu was doing something Lu didn’t entirely understand to her soul. That was a much more dodgy aspect to the procedure; while Lu was confident in his anatomy and at least skilled enough to recognise the bones of the mind-effecting formations, his understanding of the soul was merely above-average for his realm. Not that he doubted Aiya Yu’s abilities, but… I can’t understand even the basics of what she’s doing, so I can’t let my Comprehension fill in the gaps and cheat me through. What if I’m missing something?
Once again, Lu forced his thoughts back onto what was right in front of him rather than pointless speculation. Soul and body, body and mind, mind and soul; three connected aspects, which needed to be melded together in near-perfect synchronicity.
When he had first devised his treatment, he had focused on drawing the aspects further apart – resetting them back to how they should be in a healthy human. That hadn’t played out very well in the test subjects; only one in ten spirit mice woke up, and twice that number actually died. He had been spinning his wheels looking for a way to make it work, but Elder Goldenseed had suddenly descended like a peal of thunder, shoved a stack of notes into his hand, and disappeared as abruptly as she had arrived.
I wish she was here as well, her alchemy would be even better than Persimmon’s formations. There must be an incredible emergency for her to abandon the problem, since she was so interested in Jiendao’s illness… The Emperors’ wrath, maybe? Or another, more covert invasion? There are still those other breaches we never closed, so-
Fed up with himself, Lu slowed his motions minutely to cast a spell. Lu’s Numbing Illusion settled over his thoughts, banishing all emotion and allowing him to work mechanically, and for ten seconds he worked with almost twice the efficiency. His ki moved like a surgeon’s scalpel without the distraction of conscious thought, placing channels into pre-tested configurations to better align her consumption with her human body.
Then he ended the spell; his creation was a powerful tool, but one that was liable to backfire if used for too long or in an uncertain situation. If anything unexpected happened, there was no telling what Numb Lu’s untethered thoughts might cause him to do. He continued without pausing as the mental art dissipated, riding the wave of cold focus it had provided as one minute bled into the next, and then suddenly there were no more channels to realign.
He watched the last of the formations sink into Jiendao’s skin a fraction of a second later, and then Aiya Yu cease her soul whatever-it-was an equally minuscule moment after that.
Elder Persimmon lowered his hands, his expression becoming more present – Lu was certain he looked the same way himself, with spent effort all but pouring from his ears.
“Is-” He swallowed. “Was it successful, do you think? It worked on the mice, but with so much more complex a mind-” He cut himself off as Jiendao’s eyes, which had been blankly staring up at the ceiling, twitched.
She blinked once, then again, and spasmed with her whole body as if a shock were passing through her.
“Disciple Jiendao?” Persimmon questioned, his voice gentle. “Are you aware? Do you want us to remove-”
Her hands came up and ripped the mask supplying nourishment to her body off in a violent motion. Her eyes rolled, frantic but inarguably alive. She leaned to the side and heaved, her breaths fast and feverish. Post-treatment sickness? Well, she was in a coma for two weeks. Whatever the problem is, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to-
Jiendao heaved particularly strongly, and vomited lightning across the floor of the hospital room.