It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman drawing a massive phallus in a field will be accosted by undesirable men. The little-known first draft of Pride and Prejudice there, but Lydia Bennet was an absolute fiend for a bit of taboo sketching and look at the trouble it got her into.

It was the smell of them that brought me out of my artistic reverie more than anything else. It was one thing to intellectually know people in the dark ages had wildly different hygiene standards, but quite another to be confronted by that much intense masculinity wafting your way. As a connoisseur of many a sweaty dance floor in my youth, I immediately categorised it as Lynx Cornwall.

“Morning, dearie,” a grime-encrusted face was mooching my way. I somewhat regretted using up the designation of Dick #1, as that would have been the perfect title for this vision of loveliness. However, never one to dwell, I settled on calling this example of alpha-male, ‘Tosser’.

Despite centuries of evolution, it was amazing that I could have come across this guy on any Saturday night. That either said very little good for mankind or, more likely, was a searing indictment of the places in which I had chosen to hang out.

Probably a little from column A, a little from column B, if I’m being honest.

“Whatcha doing?” asked a slightly less offensive specimen behind Tosser. He was every version of Wingman I’d ever come across. He was not quite bold enough to push himself forward, but he was entirely happy to join in once the fun began.

“Immortalising my boyfriend’s junk for eternity. He’s just popped out to sharpen his massive sword. You?”

Tosser’s lips actually moved as he tried to parse the sentence. “Ain’t no one else about. We looked.”

Awesome. Because if there’s one thing you want to be certain of when meeting two extremely strange men in an isolated field is that they’ve checked for witnesses.

“He likes you.” Wingman was fully embracing his role. “Likes your hair.”

“Thank you. Merlin grew it for me last night.”

If I’d hoped dropping his name would have changed the dynamic of the situation, I was disappointed. Tosser and Wingman just leered blankly back at me. I sensed they were both possessed of a resting moron face.

“Be easier if you don’t struggle. Me first. Then him. If you’re still alive, then me again.” Never let it be said that Tosser did not have a way with the ladies: that was quite some patter.

“As tempting as that offer is, I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn it down. You see, I’m a cultivator, and I, quite literally, will tear you a new one if you come anywhere near me.” I turned inside to my artist’s studio and quickly cycled my Qi into my fists.

It was at this stage I made two unwelcome discoveries.

Firstly, Tosser and Wingman clearly had absolutely no idea what a cultivator was. If I had thus hoped to send them running in fear from my presence, I was to be somewhat disappointed. That, however, paled into insignificance to my realisation that painting a giant cock and balls onto the ground apparently takes up a lot of Qi.

Like pretty much all of it. There was barely the tiniest dollop of paint on my palette.

Tosser grinned and swaggered towards me. As he licked his lips, I was reminded of Jabba pulling Leia close to him in Return of the Jedi. Judging by the amount of drool, I might not quite be Carrie in a gold bikini, but I was undoubtedly the tastiest thing this guy had seen in a while.

I backed away whilst trying to come up with a plan. Both Tosser and Wingman were, for all their various hygiene problems, built like the proverbial shithouses. The wolf I had killed earlier would probably have thought twice about taking on either of them. Both … I was in trouble.

See this as an opportunity.

“Welcome back, Big M. Do you have any fireballs handy?”

Regrettably not. As discussed, I can shape the direction of your Qi, but I have so little of my own I doubt I could give him as much of a sunburn at the moment. You, however, are very close to a breakthrough.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I think that’s precisely what these guys have in mind.” I was uncomfortably aware that Wingman was flanking me, leaving me with very little room to manoeuvre between the two of them.

You’ve reduced your available Qi down to critical levels, which is the perfect opportunity to force yourself through a threshold. As you become more powerful, reaching this state of spiritual exhaustion becomes harder and harder, so you should take advantage of it.

“Any chance of some pointers before, you know, my rape and murder?” Tosser feinted a dart forward, and I stepped back, almost falling into Wingman’s grasp. I spun away, and we continued our slow circling. I was running out of time.

You should seek to perform a Qi-empowered fighting technique. If you enact it correctly, that should be enough to force a breakthrough at your low level.

“Excellent. I’ll get right on that. One Qi-empowered fighting technique coming right up.”

You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?

“Not the faintest. But, please, take your time.” Tosser grabbed at my arm, but I was able to twist free and lashed out with my foot to force him back. Wulfnoð’s body was significantly more toned than my own back in the modern world, and I was satisfied by the wince of pain that flashed across his face when I connected with his shin.

“Bitch. You’ll hurt for that.”

“And there was me thinking this was all going so well. Merlin now would be a great time for some inspiration.”

If my two assailants were perturbed by me speaking out loud to an invisible wizard, they did not let it impinge on their plans for the evening. Suddenly a series of images started cycling through my mind. They were all visions of me delivering different attacks – I assume Qi-empowered fighting technique – upon Tosser and Wingman. As I watched a truly kick-ass version of me perform them, I also seemed to instinctively know the names of each of them: [Falling Ice Tree], [Rising Tiger Moon], [Blade of Cyan Grass]. While they all reduced my attackers to blubbering wrecks, they also looked epically complicated to perform.

I watched myself going through these elaborate combinations, and I looked pretty awesome doing them, but they didn’t seem like anything that I was likely to enact in the near future. There’s an attack that Chun-Li does in Street Fighter 2 where she spins upside down and helicopters across the screen, kicking her opponent in the face as she goes: that looked easier to achieve than most of the moves Merlin was showing me.

“That’s great, Big M. But is there not anything that actually follows the law of physics? I’m not sure I get many shots at this.”

The images continued to flash past me, hundreds upon hundreds of possible techniques that I would have needed more flexibility than I’d ever been able to achieve, even at my most adventurous.

And then, suddenly, there was one that I sort of recognised.

Well, not quite. What Merlin was showing me was an elaborate kick, magical blast, and complicated body twist routine. Still, I definitely had seen something not a million miles away from it used before to good effect.

As Tosser moved towards me, I felt there was nothing to be lost in putting the technique into action. It was hardly going to make the current situation any worse.

I lashed out with my right foot and caught him square in his happy – or, I guess, not so happy – place. As he doubled over in pain, I replaced the magical blast in the middle of the technique by giving him the bird with both hands.

As if that was some sort of trigger, that seemed to be the signal for the last bits of my Qi to begin swirling around my body at great speed. As it did so, I half-turned, wrapped my right arm around Tosser’s neck and tucked his near arm under my armpit. Then, as the swirling of my Qi reached a fever pitch, I jumped into the air, then fell on my arse, pulling his head downward to smack his jaw against my shoulder.

Three things then happened in pretty short order.

Firstly, as Tosser’s chin connected with my shoulder, it shattered with a very satisfying crunching noise. Think stepping onto a floor of bubble wrap. In clogs. After a bad day.

Secondly, purple light bathed me, lighting up the surrounding field like a beacon, and I felt my palette of paint fill back up to the brim: there was much more there than there had been previously. I also felt the words [Unknown Technique created] resonate across my very soul.

Thirdly, and finally, Wingman made his first good decision in a decade and set off running as fast as he could away from me.

Well. That was unexpected.

“You’re telling me. What happened?”

I think you took the essence of the [Dark Kestrel Strike] and perverted it into some sort of ungodly version which you appear to get to name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone with your lack of … foundation crafting their own technique in such a fashion. You live and learn.

“Have you done it?”

Obviously.

“A few days after becoming a cultivator?”

No. It took many years of patient study and –

“So, I did it quicker than you and under less auspicious circumstances.”

I would not put it like quite that -

“It doesn’t matter how you’d put it. It’s how I’m going to tell it. Yes, I just came up with it off the top of my head. I know, faster than Merlin, too. Who would I have thought it? Quite the prodigy, am I.”

Have you quite finished?

“Probably not. How do I name the technique?”

Perhaps you should think about it first? Techniques are hugely influential in the way in which cultivators are viewed. We might be able to overcome any number of perception challenges if we can leverage an appropriately impressive -

[Can of Whoopass] technique named.

“Don’t worry. I figured it out.”

You could not help yourself, could you?

“And that’s the bottom line. Because Morgan said so.”