Contrary to Yang Xiu’s expectations based on Master’s previous announcement, the Trials Pagoda sent a request to him to approve attempting a trial to improve her shield technique instead of simply immediately okaying it. Master, however, apparently did give his assent because the next thing she knew she was standing in a room that was unfamiliar to her. The floor was covered with some sort of springy material, and one wall was filled with mirrors.

Other than her and the mirrors, the space was completely empty.

A gangly man with long bushy hair and an equally unkempt beard appeared, wearing a dirty grey cultivator’s robe. Overall, his appearance was more someone she would have expected to see begging for food on the streets of Sixth Flawless Flowing City than a powerful expert martial artist. The only thing that gave her pause was that she couldn’t sense his cultivation level.

“Take the shield,” he said.

“What shield?” Before the last word was fully formed, a triangular shield about the width and length of her torso popped into being at her feet. “Oh.”

It was laying face down with two leather straps for her arm on top. At first, she thought it was made of metal, but when she bent to grasp the straps, she realized that it was actually constructed of a thin layer of ice.

Interesting.

Yang Xiu hadn’t known exactly what to expect from the trial, but she’d thought that it would be something like how she normally trained her shield technique. Either Kang Lin or Yang Ru would throw weapons or qi at her while she tried to form her shield quickly enough to block it. The method had worked well enough to get her to Small Success, albeit slowly.

Apparently, the Trials Pagoda had a different approach in mind as it was supplying her with an actual shield made of ice instead of relying on her to conjure one.

As she slung her arms through the leather straps, she expected the ice’s cold to sting, but it didn’t. In fact, it didn’t feel cold at all. The entire weapon was room temperature.

“Get ready,” the man said. “A large sphere will be shot at you from that aperture.”

Before she could ask the obvious question, a hole about the diameter of Yang Ru’s head appeared, hovering in the air at about chest height several yards away from her. On the other side of the hole was … nothing that she could make out. Just a grey void.

“The sphere will be both fast and powerful,” he said. “Prepare yourself. I will count down from three.”

Given the distance away and height of the aperture, she hastily placed the shield in front of her chest and, she thought, readied herself.

“Three. Two. One. Go.”

She didn’t even see the sphere. She didn’t really even feel the impact. One instant, she was standing, ready to receive the blow. The next, everything went black.

Literally everything. There was nothing around her but blackness. And not in an it was dark or she had her eyes closed and she couldn’t see kind of way, either. It felt like she was the only thing in existence.

“You have died,” the man’s disembodied voice said. “Continue the trial or quit?”

Uh.

On one hand, she didn’t even know what happened, so how could she fix it? On the other, she wasn’t one to give up so easily.

“Continue.”

As soon as the word left her mouth, she was back in the room.

“Prepare yourself,” the man said, once again standing in the room with her. “I will count down from three.”

Yang Xiu took a deep breath and took her preparations much more seriously. She dropped her back leg and really braced herself. The entirety of her not inconsiderable strength was focused on blocking the sphere.

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“Three. Two. One.”

She used her perception skill and focused on the hole. The shot wouldn’t take her by surprise again.

“Go.”

Her concentration and resolve succeeded. Somewhat. In that she actually felt the sphere make contact, blowing right through the shield and her chest and coming out of her back.

The event only lasted a fraction of a second, but it hurt. A lot.

Then, she was back in the black space.

“You have died,” the man’s disembodied voice said. “Continue the trial or quit?”

There had to be something she was missing. The trial couldn’t be unwinnable, but she didn’t see how she could stop something so strong that it could pass through the shield and her body without being hindered in any way and so fast that she couldn’t even see it move.

She gritted her teeth. “Continue.”

The next six times, she did the exact same thing. Braced herself. Studied the sphere as much as she was able. Experienced brief, blinding pain. Died.

After eight failures with no sign of a way forward, she began to feel just a touch of despair. Maybe the trial was too tough for her. Maybe she should just quit. Tell Master. Ask his advice for the next time.

And completely waste the opportunity for today’s trial for the entire sect by failing.

Master would be so disappointed in her. Not that he’d say anything. In fact, he’d probably console her. But she would be disappointed in herself, so he would have to feel the same way.

That line of thought did raise an interesting question—what would Master tell her to do? As she stared into the infinite blackness, she pondered the answer.

He’d say to work smarter, not harder.

No. He’d said something like that before, but it didn’t fit the situation exactly. She did need to work smarter, though. That was the key. How to work smarter.

He’d say, if you can’t win, cheat.

No. That wasn’t it. He always said that he cheated, not that his disciples should.

He’d say, go back to the root cause.

Yes. That was the answer. What was the root cause of the problem?

Easy. The sphere was too strong and too fast. So she should … slow it down and make it weaker.

No. That didn’t make any sense. The purpose of the trial was to improve her shield.

Yes. Something about the exercise was supposed to improve either her technique in using the shield or her knowledge of it or, most probably, both.

So what was she supposed to learn?

The shield couldn’t stop every attack.

That lesson made sense. If Master attacked her, his qi would shred her shield like it was wet paper. She didn’t see how that helped her.

From the man’s instructions, he seemed to fully expect her to be able to block the sphere. But that made no sense. It was too strong and too fast.

Could she modify her shield? That idea was worth a try, and for the next five attempts, she tried adding her qi to the shield, managing to add some ice in the center so that it was a bit thicker.

The sphere was not impressed.

Okay. That didn’t work. So what could she try next?

After a bit of thought, she circled back to the root cause. She refused to think that the trial was designed to teach her about futility or to give up, so there had to be a way to stop the sphere. With her shield.

Or, rather, with the shield provided by the trial.

“Continue,” she said.

Yang Xiu found herself back in the room. Again. She’d honestly lost count of how many times she’d died by that point.

“Prepare yourself,” the man said. Again. “I will count down from three.”

“Wait for a moment. I want to study the shield.”

The man didn’t say anything, but neither did he begin counting.

Yes! Maybe that meant she was on the right track.

She turned the shield over so that the straps rested on the floor and ran her fingers over the ice.

It was slick, more slippery than anything she’d ever encountered. Master had introduced her to the idea of friction and had explained to her that her qi aspect was probably pretty close to an ideal frictionless surface. He’d laughed after saying that and claimed that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if it actually was frictionless.

Then he’d laughed out loud and said something about a spherical horse*? It didn’t make any sense to her.

The point was that the shield was so slippery that everything that touched it should slide right off it. That was basically the idea that she held in her mind about her qi aspect. Absolute slipperiness. Even other forms of energy, other forms of qi, should slide right off.

So why wasn’t the sphere sliding off?

Because it couldn’t. It was hitting a flat surface straight on at incredible speed with incredible force. Any inclination that the sphere had to slide to one side or the other was overwhelmed by the force pushing it forward.

Or something. She wasn’t very good at what Master referred to as physics. He’d said that it wasn’t his area of expertise, either.

The takeaway was that she couldn’t help but be curious about what would happen if the shield were angled instead of flat. It was worth a try, right? Worst case scenario, she’d just die. Again.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Proceed with your count.”

She angled the shield about thirty degrees.

“Three. Two. One. Go.”

No blackness. And nothing hurt. She glanced behind her. A portion of the room’s wall was just gone.

“Congratulations,” the man said. “You have passed the trial.”

*In the version of the joke that I heard, there was a trainer at a local racetrack that was tired of losing, so he brought in three experts to help him get better performance out of his horses. The first was a scientist. He studied what the horses were eating and proposed a new diet. The second was a statistician. He studied all the races and the factors impacting each one. He advised the trainer to run his horses on a muddy track as they performed better than average in those conditions. The third was a physicist. He said, “In the case of the spherical horse…”