Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS
“We’ll make her an Elder,” I decided.
Rachel nodded in agreement.
“It’s best not to give her too much authority, but a spirit refiner can’t be anything less than an Elder.”
“You’ll keep an eye on her?” I asked.
Hearing this, she gave me an incredulous, side-eyed look.
“I watch everyone, Cyrus. At all times.”
”By the way,” I asked, choosing to change the subject, “why were you being so harsh with her? It felt as if you spent the entire interview trying to anger her.”
Rachel shrugged, an unreadable expression on her face.
“She's known for her recklessness, so I wanted to test her self control. If she was too easily angered, that would limit her usefulness to us.”
“I suppose," I replied. "Though I suspect that her temper was never the problem.”
“It was easy enough to test,” she said, shrugging as if it was a minor matter.
This was not the first time that Rachel had acted needlessly antagonistic, for reasons that almost felt like excuses to me. It was hard to tell whether she was telling the truth in this case, or whether it was simply a justification for her actions. Either way, I would need to stand on Rachel’s side regardless if this caused problems. Our partnership was more important than any deal we might make with Karie Hadal.
Still, if this happened again, I thought, we might need to discuss the matter.
“By the way,” Rachel added, drawing me from my thoughts, “you seem to have forgotten one major issue.”
I frowned, unable to recall anything in particular.
“What would that be?” I asked.
“She's currently an outlaw due to the incident at the forward base. Pretending we were somehow unaware would be an effective defense if the Staiven arrive, but this presents a wrinkle nonetheless.”
As she spoke, I did remember hearing about that matter in one of Rachel’s daily reports.
“How much focus do they seem to be on this matter?” I asked.
“Given her identity, not much. Sirena’s halo seems to be protecting her. Of course, if she were to stumble into one of them, or her enemies bribed the right officer, that might change.”
“So long as we’re careful, that won’t be an issue,” I said, and my closest ally did not disagree.
After asking Rachel to inform the others, I quickly made my way to the training room, looking forward to what came next. It had been days since the attack on the Celan headquarters, but even then I had not satisfied my desire for battle.
Moreover, Karie was a spirit refiner. I had only sparred with Jihan once, and this would only be my second battle with someone of my level since my advancement. If I was being honest with myself, I would have to admit that I was looking forward to it.
Entering the training hall, I saw the Hadal daughter idly glancing around as if there was something interesting to see. Perhaps she was interested by the mundanity of it, entirely lacking in ornamentation. Sensing my approach, Karie turned and met my gaze.
She certainly took after her mother, I thought. While she did not by any means look like a younger version of Sirena, the similarities in their appearance clearly indicated their close relation. Karie’s lengthy flaxen hair was expertly tied in a highly complex braid, framing her face, which contained a refined set of features. Speaking objectively, Karie could be considered a traditional sei beauty. It was a shame about her personality, however. Though it had not been immediately obvious through my personal dealings with her, based on my understanding of Karie Hadal, she was quite poor at managing interpersonal relationships.
“Did you finally decide?” she asked.
“We’ll accept you, of course,” I replied. “We’d be foolish to turn down a willing practitioner of your caliber, no matter the circumstances."
She smiled, a look that almost seemed like arrogance manifest.
“A wise decision, Riverfiend.”
“You’re free tomorrow, right?” I asked.
The woman’s eyebrows slightly narrowed in surprise.
“What are you wanting to do?”
“We’ll discuss your duties after I test your skills.” As I spoke, I steadily approached her, setting myself up around fifteen feet away as I analyzed the relaxed resting position she was standing in. At first glance, she seemed vulnerable, but upon closer look it became clear that she was prepared to switch to a proper martial stance at any moment.
“Would you prefer to use training weapons, so as not to dull your blades?” I asked, glancing over to a rack of blades that my disciples commonly made use of. This room was exclusive for my disciples, which is why it was currently empty.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“There’s no need for that,” she replied, speaking brusquely. “Honestly, I doubt that your training blades can handle my energies.”
It was a fair statement, and I preferred to use my own weapon as well. As for potential injuries, I discarded that issue altogether. I had confidence in both my ability to restrain my weapon, and my ability to dodge attacks. At worst, I felt I might suffer some scratches.
“In that case, let us see how much has changed,” I said, slowly stepping towards her as I unleashed my energies. Cerulean miasma began to wash through my meridians as my movement technique activated, blazing along with the storm in my heart.
I waited for her to draw her blades, and then dashed towards her, rapidly switching between the stances of my sword art. It still needed modifications in order to perfectly suit my current physique, but the art was still good even in its imperfect state. Karie was forced to take a step backward, parrying my slashes as a green mist began to form around her.
As my strides took me into the emerald haze for another series of blows, I felt my movements begin to stall, as if weights had been attached to my arms and legs. My movements slowed, but their ethereal nature was unchanged, and the pressure I was causing her continued.
Each movement of Karie’s blades was perfectly placed, and the force behind each swipe was harder than I could fully withstand, but I had the advantage in both speed and agility, and I knew how to use it. Each exchange of blows was to her slight advantage, as both her blades and her mist sapped away at my velocity, making it much easier for her to deal with my fusillade of strikes.
Like our previous battle, what felt like a lifetime ago, we fought in near silence, each too focused on our own movements to spare the brainpower for speech. I ducked backwards as she tried to provide pressure, attempting to step past my guard.
The lost energy, I soon learned, was a bigger problem than I had anticipated. My movements were slow, their effectiveness limited, and the faster I attempted to move, the swifter my blows, the more energy she received with which to bolster both her defenses and her counter-attacks. Her fighting style was quite well developed, and to a certain extent countered my own. Still, I was confident in the fighting style developed by the Downpour Sect across generations.
My heart of rainfall raged harder, providing a powerful burst of energy that fueled a sidestep past her blade, and a perfect opportunity to drive it up towards Karie’s chest. Instead, I moved to slash her side. Her other sword quickly pulled back, just barely deflecting my sword with a powerful swing that caused my arms to vibrate from the force. My sword only sliced a thin graze down her side, and I was forced to take another step back to avoid a thrust from her other sword. Had I gone for her vitals, I idly wondered, how might that exchange have gone differently?
We kept moving in this manner, our steps like a dance as the two of us circled around one another in hypnotic patterns. Karie’s twin blades dove towards and against me in rhythm, while I continued an endless flowing spiral of shifting forms, even utilizing my ability to ripple and shift the shape of my flesh to my advantage, lengthening and shortening my wingspan as needed.
In a real fight, the ‘dance’ would have fallen apart much more rapidly, but neither of us went for truly lethal blows, nor took huge risks. There was no reason to go all out in this sort of spar. It was better to use this as an opportunity to work on the basics. I shifted from the third form with a parry, took a step into her guard with the fourth, and shifted back to the first for another slash towards Karie’s center of mass.
To my surprise, the suppression from the coiling mist suddenly increased, allowing her a chance for a riposte. One of her blades defended against my sword, while the other grazed my arm, drawing a single bead of blood. She could have aimed for my gut, but chose not to, which I was forced to acknowledge.
After this second blood, I grudgingly decided to end the spar. It had been an effective exercise, and I appreciated the diversion. Despite how short the fight was, I already felt as if I had identified several new inefficiencies in my movements that could be addressed. My movements need to be more illusory, and the flow between stances more fluid and natural. Finally, I needed to practice on being conservative with my stamina. If I could not achieve a rapid victory, my odds against a genesis practitioner of a similar level would slowly dwindle.
I would have to find time to fight with Karie again. As a genesis practitioner, she was the perfect wall to beat against, as it seemed that her ability to forcefully slow my movement made her a perfect practice partner. Moreover, I knew that she would not be the last genesis practitioner I needed to deal with.
After all, there were spirit refiners in the clan’s Ceirran faction.
Having stepped back, I took a soft breath and met Karie’s gaze.
“We can stop here. Any further and we might have had more severe injuries.”
She nodded, slowly breathing in and out as the verdant mist surrounding her slowly began to fade. Her breaths were heavy, which I found slightly odd, due to the fact that she had not seemed to be out of breath during the duel. I wondered whether she was simply trying to reset her mind in some way.
I noticed that her sword was slightly warped, as if it had been pummeled and lightly melted. Moreover, the effect only seemed to occur starting at about halfway down the length of the blades. Had my own sword been mundane in origin, I wondered whether it would have a similar appearance as well.
“Do you know how to teach?” I asked suddenly, to her surprise.
Karie paused, giving me an odd look as if she had not heard me correctly.
“What?” she asked, taken aback.
“Your cousin killed the teacher for our genesis miasma disciples, and we need someone to take up the role.”
“I see. I’ve never taught before,” she said, teeth slightly gritted. I wondered whether she found the idea demeaning.
“You can learn.”
“I-”
I met her eyes and cut her off, my voice calm and level.
“Nothing in this world is free, Karie Hadal. You would do best to learn that lesson as soon as possible. I’m not sure what you would prefer to do, but this is what the sect needs at the moment.”
Karie sighed, as if for the first time she was truly coming to terms with the nature of her situation.
“...I can learn,” she said. “But I will not be able to teach any of the clan’s exclusive techniques.”
I nodded approvingly. This was the right attitude to have.
“That was expected. The limits of what you can do will be enough.”
I planned to seek out ways to acquire the clan’s secret techniques for the disciples at a later date.
Canvasian Honor Duels: [Contrary to what is claimed by popular culture, there is no tradition of an ‘honor duel’ for martial artists. Duels have been fought to assert dominance, for betting, for challenges to authority, and as proxies to reduce losses as part of a larger conflict, but the idea of challenging another practitioner purely because of such nebulous concepts as honor is more myth than reality. There is, after all, rarely a need to make conflicts into a one on one fight. The concept of these duels, as portrayed in popular culture such as Canvasian martial arts films, originated from the mortal culture of Bounty in the mid 1500s. The practice originated with the Tovus, in fact, and spread among the farsei inhabitants due to cultural exchanges, though the practice lost a certain amount of popularity following the later colonization of the continent by Sunlit Hall in the late 1500s. Despite this, the practice lives on in mortal-produced media about martial artists.]