Chapter 43

The children gathered around in the empty field where the sparring practice always took place. Well, where it took place this year at least. The field that they had used last year was planted now, but this field was being left alone for reasons that only the adults really understood.

That didn’t mean that the field was completely ignored. During the spring, they had each gone through it and pulled out the rocks that had somehow appeared, stacking them in a row along the side of the field. Anything bigger than a fist was plucked out and thrown into the rock fence. The children thought that this was just to make the place safe to throw each other around in. They weren’t entirely wrong, but it was also planning ahead for when the field would be planted again.

The children were nervous. Pao had had another breakthrough, putting him in the eighth stage of the Initiate’s realm. The twins remained at the sixth, while Tan was still solidly in the first stage of the Foundation realm.

At least according to the Shen terminology. Most sects and cultivation families divided things further in order to encourage their students by suggesting that they were making significant progress. While the Initiate’s realm was near universal, it didn’t usually have ten stages, but five or even as few as three.

Regardless, the children were nervous, because they were about to spar against Wensho for the first time since they had returned. The woman smiled at her charges, a wry grin as she examined each of them. She slapped them each with a sliver of intent, just to see how they handled it.

Tan jerked in surprise as his mother suddenly became a demon. It lasted for just a second, and she didn’t change at all. But for just a second, he saw her in a light that was … absolutely impossible. Like she wasn’t his mother at all, but a dangerous woman who could kill him without even remembering his name.

He shot a glance at the other children, who were even more shaken than he was. He turned back to his mother, a hurt expression on his face.

“That is Intent,” she informed them. “In a fight against high-tier opponents, Intent is as important as Qi and technique. You have each reached the stage in your training where it is time to start training your Intent. In your duels from now on, and especially against me and my husband, you should begin to face us not with the intent to spar and get stronger yourself, but with the intent to kill.”

Tan frowned. He turned to the others, who were less confused than he was.

“You want me to try to kill you?” Tan asked, genuinely confused.

“No. I want you to train your killing intent,” she clarified. She frowned, wondering how to explain this to a child as gentle as Tan. “You’re projecting a thought, Tan. It’s not necessarily real. It’s a flash of a real thought, like when you get angry for a second before calming down again at Safron when she pulls a prank. I’ve felt you shaping your intent before. You know how to do it subconsciously. You need to master your Intent intentionally.”

The boy frowned. He glared at his mother. He pretended for a second that she wasn’t his mother and he didn’t love her and hated her and wanted to hurt her.

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“Good. That wasn’t bad, Tan,” she informed him.

He blinked in surprise. It wasn’t?

“I was just pretending,” he said.

“If that’s what it takes, then that’s fine,” she said. “Intent is more than just pretend. It’s a moment of real intention. But if you tell yourself it’s pretend, you can shape your intent to convey something without actually committing to it,” she explained. “Now, the rest of you try.”

One by one, the children scrunched up their faces and tried to pretend that they hated this woman in front of her. The one who fed them their meals and drew their bathwater and did a hundred other little things for them. The one who treated them like she was their mother, despite not having given birth to them.

Slowly, bit by bit, they learned to form intent.

“A true master can show lethal intent simply with a look,” she informed them once they had all succeeded to some degree. “And they can also obscure their intent, hiding their true intention. That’s a lesson for another day.”

Wensho smiled at them, then took a blindfold out of her pocket and tied it around her eyes. She smiled at the children, who shone so brightly in her spiritual senses. “Now then, come at me with everything you have.”

The children paused for just a second. The blindfold was new. But they quickly decided that they’d take whatever handicap she was willing to give them, and they charged in. Tan, the fastest of all of them, harried her, constantly angling around to get behind her to flank while the other children dashed in and out to attempt to deliver blows.

Wensho smiled, dedicating one hand to keeping her son occupied while keeping the other children busy with her other hand.

She was proud of them. They were growing so strong. Her son was a hurricane of blows, forcing her to dedicate a significant portion of her tactics to avoiding him. She caught his punches, his kicks, his knees and elbows and turned them all aside. He forced her to move, but she moved around the children in a constant circle.

Pao tried to take advantage of what he thought was a predictable pattern only to find her hand slapping his face and turning him aside. He landed nearby, hand to his burning cheek, trying to figure out what had happened.

Won appeared, his fists burning in flame and packing the power of his body enhancement technique, the Inner Fire. He struck hard and he struck fast, but she snuffed the flames in his hands. Compared to Pao, the earth cultivator, Won’s strength was paltry. It was more on the level of Tan, who, while strong, was not a threat to her even if she took an unprotected blow.

But he kept her occupied for a while, allowing his sister to get behind Wensho. Wensho grinned and, just at the right second, leaped into the air. Won’s fist connected with his sister’s jaw at the same moment that her knee landed in his stomach. Tan smashed into both of them, and all four children fell to the ground.

Wensho smiled, dragging a foot across the ground in a semi-circle and holding her hands in a defensive stance.

“Good,” she said. “Again.”

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