In the end, Wu Ling selected only one book to add to the center shelf. ‘Carving’ was a skill he’d have to learn and practice before he could learn ‘Inscriptions’ which sounded incredibly useful for unleashing the power of his calligraphy. He almost added ‘Acting’, after all, he had enough experience all these years pretending to be a woman and when combined with his skill at painting it opened the door to Disguise Arts that promised actual shapeshifting abilities! At the moment, however, it felt a little bit like a trap or at least a distraction from his immediate goals. In the future, he was certain that it would be useful to cultivate that kind of soft power but right now, what he craved more than anything else was the direct ability to smite his enemies with his own strength.
For that, he pulled out the book on Painting and the section it held about painting beasts into existence. After hearing Master mention Guardian Beasts he’d thought that the term applied to any beasts that he could paint into existence but it turned out he was greatly mistaken. A Guardian Beast was a specific beast that he’d need to paint on the wall of his Inner World alongside his eighteen-petaled lotus. The benefit was that he could summon his Guardian Beast from his inner world at any time and he could keep it beside him for as long as he had the energy to empower it. He could even sustain it indirectly by feeding the beast spirit crystals rather than using his own energy to maintain it.
According to the manual, the more detail he invested in the painting, the better and more lifelike the results would be. Further, he could revise the painting over time to help the Guardian Beast grow along with him. The book cautioned against being too ambitious when painting his first beasts. It warned that the larger his depiction was, the more energy it would take to manifest and that if he painted something too grand he risked creating a Guardian Beast that he’d never be able to summon until his cultivation caught up with the ambition of his creation.
Finally, he could paint multiple Guardian Beasts, as many as he desired, creating a veritable pantheon of strong protectors for himself, but until his cultivation progressed substantially he wouldn’t be able to manifest more than one guardian at a time. Still, one would already be a powerful force multiplier for the unarmed Wu Ling!
Paging through the manual for ideas he considered a number of powerful beasts. The day’s encounter with the Red Tiger’s Den made him briefly consider some form of tiger before discarding the idea. As an early-stage Aesthete, he didn’t have nearly the energy reserves to summon a massive tiger. All he could manifest at this stage would be a mewling tiger cub and that wouldn’t have the effect he wanted at all. He also considered a venomous snake like a viper or asp, something that was small but incredibly deadly. A snake, however, particularly a small and venomous one, felt more like the tool of an assassin like the ones who populated the Dark half of the Bamboo Silk House and he had no desire to acquire such a profession.
“I need to strike at my enemies and also to defend myself from them, but do I have to do both at the same time?” Wu Ling looked at his lotus painting and the other artistic expressions around the room. He’d made the decision to embrace duality in his cultivation path. Fire and water, dream and nightmare, attack and defense… Sun and Moon! Conjuring a pad of paper and a charcoal pencil for sketching, Wu Ling let his inspiration guide him as he considered one Guardian Beast to embody each of the symbols he’d embraced at the end of his awakening. Once he was content with his idea, he turned the wall and conjured a set of paints to begin his painting.
On the right side, he began painting in bright golden tones, focusing on getting the structure right while leaving space for the blues, reds, and oranges that would follow as he wreathed the emerging creature in flowing flames like the halo of the sun. It took him over an hour to produce a painting not much larger than his two hands together but he was very happy with the result. Following the instructions in the manual, he pricked his left hand and used the drop of blood that welled up as his final bit of paint to write the Guardian’s name - ‘Hou.’ “What better Guardian to smite my enemies than the Golden Crow who clutches the sun itself in his claws?” Wu Ling said with a smile. Holding out his hand, he called to the newborn creature, saying its name and beckoning it forward. With a sharp cry and a burst of flame, Hou pulled itself free of the wall it had been painted on, flying gracefully around the room several times before landing on his outstretched palm and cawing happily. “You’re going to help me get into all kinds of trouble aren’t you little friend?” Wu Ling said with a smile. “Don’t burn anything in here, but keep me company, it’s time to paint your little sister,” he said, waggling a finger in stern warning before scratching the back of the little bird’s head. One day, he was sure it would grow into a mighty and resplendent beast but at the moment it was absolutely adorable!
Moving to the left of the lotus, Wu Ling began to paint again, this time working in cooler colors, light blues, and misty silvers along with crisp pure white. As he had with the Golden Crow, Wu Ling left space to fill in details surrounding his next Guardian Beast. A pile of soft-looking snow formed under the beast’s large paws along with an icy frozen pond before it and several small icicle-covered flowers that grew around it. In the end, he was left with an even cuter Guardian than Hou - A Silver Snow Rabbit. Drawing another drop of blood he named this Guardian ‘Yue.’ This time, he didn’t even have to speak her name or call her out before the eager bunny wriggled free of the wall and sprung into his arms, snuggling up against his chest and eagerly rubbing her head against his neck in affection. “Oh, Sister Xiang is going to love you isn’t she?” Wu Ling said, grinning ear to ear.
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Emerging from his inner world, Wu Ling blinked several times and stretched his slender limbs to shake off the stiffness that accumulated with hours of meditation. By the time he’d finished painting his guardians, the sun had already dipped close to the horizon and a rumble from his stomach reminded him that while he’d become a cultivator, he hadn’t shed enough of his mortality to go without food.
In their small kitchen, Wu Ling assembled a simple dinner for himself and his mother. After reading about how useful it could be to study cooking, he couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed at his meager cooking skills. The damage done to his mother’s wrists made it difficult for her to hold chopsticks or spoons so he’d taken to preparing rich soups with a swirled-in egg, broken rice, and finely diced vegetables that he could serve to her in a ceramic mug with two handles for easy drinking. For special occasions, he was always happy to help her eat but his mother felt happier with the semblance of normality that came from being able to have a meal with him without being fed like an infant.
“Mother,” Wu Ling called as he entered her room with a portion of soup for each of them. “I brought dinner. Do you mind if I ask you about cultivation while we eat?”
On her bed, Wu Ningli’s eyes slowly regained focus as she withdrew her attention from the distant things she’d been focusing on before she smiled at her son and gestured for him to join her. “Of course, you can ask me about cultivation,” she said with a warm smile. “Didn’t I tell you that I would be happy to help you progress as an Artist? What would you like to know?”
Over the course of their meal, Wu Ling explained his encounter with the brutes from the Red Tiger Den and his desire to build personal strength so he wouldn’t fall into such a passive and tenuous position again. He even summoned Hou and Yue to show her what he had accomplished so far. “I feel like this is a start,” he said, “but I’m not sure where else I should be focusing.”
“I think you’re starting from a sound position,” Wu Ningli said after several moments of consideration. “Your painting provides you with a method of offense and defense and for a first-stage cultivator, that’s frequently sufficient, at least to start with. If I were to make any suggestions about something else, I would recommend that you find a dance teacher if you haven’t already.”
“Dance? You think I should learn sword dancing?” Wu Ling asked, wondering if his mother was hoping that he’d follow in her footsteps.
“I would be proud and honored if you decided to learn sword dancing,” Wu Ningli said with an honest smile, “but that’s not why I recommend you learn to dance. Movement around the battlefield is an important skill to learn and while you have gained a method of offense and defense, you should also consider how you advance, retreat, and evade. Dance can help you with those things. I would teach you myself but…” her voice trailed off as she gestured to her crippled feet.
“It’s okay Mother,” Wu Ling said, reaching out to hold her hand. “I’ll find a way, one step at a time, and one day, I’ll find a way to heal your limbs so you can dance again,” he promised.
Later that night, in the heart of the Red Tiger Den, a phantom drifted through the walls and protective formations of the sect as though they didn’t exist. Within the private meditation chamber of Sect Master Ra Tul, a towering Warrior over two and a half meters tall sat atop a luxurious meditation cushion. No disciple or Warden of the sect would dare to disturb the powerful man as he soaked in the rich energy from his most recent hunting trophy yet the phantom paid no mind to the burly man’s cultivation as she slipped behind him and placed a ghostly blade against his neck.
“Sect Master Ra,” she whispered, pressing the blade deeply enough into his neck to spill not only a thin rivulet of blood but to put pressure against his very soul! “Your disciples have made a grave error.”
The sect master’s eyes shot open, revealing jade green irises and cat shaped pupils that were wide in shock and fear. “Which disciples offended you? I’ll discipline them at once,” he promised, speaking softly lest the motion of his throat cause the blade to sink deeper.
“I don’t know,” the phantom said as though she was making idle conversation. “It was some of your boys who felt they could take advantage of young women. They should have left my child alone!”
“Child? You, you have a child? Who in their right mind would create trouble for your child!” The sect master’s mind spun and his tongue completely got away from him. Of all the demons to provoke, who had brought this one to his doorstep?
“You’d do well to keep that information to yourself,” the phantom said, pressing deeper with their blade. “Clean your house Sect Master Ra, or I’ll do it for you,” the phantom whispered before fading away as though she had never been there to begin with. Only the shallow cut on Ra Tul’s neck attested to his late-night visitor.
A few minutes later, once he had stilled his racing heart and applied an ointment to the wound on his neck, the sect master stepped out of his meditation chamber and grabbed the collar of the Warden outside the door. “I just had a visitor while I was meditating,” he growled. “A visitor who slipped right under your nose! If you want to survive the night, wake every Elder, Warden, and Disciple of the Disciplinary Hall at once and bring records of every member of the sect accused of bullying women with their cultivation in the past six months, no, the past year! Tonight, there will be a reckoning!” The sect master’s voice rose in volume with each sentence and by the end, his shout could be heard throughout the sect.
The Warden had no idea who had slipped past him but all he had to do was look at the recently treated wound on the sect master’s neck to know that someone had provoked the kind of disaster that could doom the sect!