“Alright Long’er, why don’t you put that blindfold on, we have less than a month to get you competent enough to move around your environment without sight. I hope you realize how different this is going to be compared to your sparring with Wu Zhong, inanimate objects are not going to give you the same feeling as a weapon coming your way, so don’t be too surprised if you spend quite a while walking into things at the beginning.”

Xu Long had a serious look on his face, he had considered that, but honestly he found sparring blindfolded so easy after 6 years that he had subconsciously dismissed the early more simple challenges and had his mind on the more distant and more difficult ones. Taking a deep breath he placed his new blindfold over his eyes and tied it behind his head, under his ponytail.

“Alright, follow me Long’er, we are going to go for a walk through the forest. We'll take it slow at first.”

After Xu Long spent the first ten minutes walking into trees and stumbling on rocks he had to admit that his mother was correct, this was very different. But he soon got a handle on feeling when he was about to walk into things and moving out of the way at the last second, after doing that for a couple of minutes though, he heard his mother stop walking and turn to face him.

“Long’er you are still trying to navigate your lack of sight like you did as a mortal, by using your instincts and perception, that is all well and good and you should certainly be utilizing them and honing them further, but you are completely disregarding the fact that you are a cultivator now. Feel the qi around you, the movement of the air, the slow and ponderous life force of the trees, the rigid permanence of the rocks, all of it provides clues to your surroundings.”

Xu Long wanted to kick himself, he was so set in his ways that he had completely defaulted to his habits of the last six years and discarded everything he had learned in the last two months. Taking a deep breath Xu Long nodded his head towards his mother who he then heard start walking again, he concentrated on the qi around him as he began to follow her. It was slow going at first, he was certainly new to this, most of the last two months his sensing of qi had been focused inwards in order to aid in the mastery of the Clear Spring technique, now that he was focused outward, compared to the orderly and uniform qi that was his cultivation he found the chaotic flows of the world to be slightly overwhelming.

“Focus on the big picture Long’er, take in the whole scene, don’t focus on specifics. Think of it as you would a complicated formation that I showed you.”

Hearing his mother’s voice from in front of him, he took her advice to heart and started to let go of his need to understand what was happening with every little flow of qi around him and started to look at the scene as a whole. As was all too common, she was right, as soon as he stopped trying to understand everything around him and looked at the big picture, patterns began to emerge. First it was the trees, he noticed quickly that there were large vertical concentrations of qi flows that corresponded perfectly to the trees that he was still dodging, then he started noticing not just the flows of qi, but the absence of flows and what they meant, the more he deciphered the more excited he got.

An hour later he heard his mother turn in front of him and ask. “Alright Long’er, shall we pick up the pace?”

A big smile on his face Xu Long nodded in return.

…

Xu Xing sped through the trees of the valley, trying to lose the blindfolded young man behind her, of course she didn’t actually want to lose him and would give out the occasional yip if she thought that he was losing track of her.

The past few weeks had been a joy for the little spirit fox, Xu Long had always made time to play with her before, but never so much as the last few weeks where he had been chasing her at least twice a day, not to mention that he was actually getting better at it than when he could see, he was falling for a lot less of her misdirection ploys, and she honestly wasn’t sure if she even needed to yip so he could catch up anymore, as he seemed to be following a trail that she was sure wasn’t there in order to find her. All in all it made for a very fun filled and action packed chase. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end.

“Long’er I am afraid I am going to have to borrow you and your chase partner.”

Xu Xing followed the direction that the voice originated from and then pounced at the young man who had just arrived in front of the woman. ‘Foiled again’, she thought, as she was plucked from the sky by Xu Long, she had always struggled to sneak any pounces past him, only when he was least expecting them would she succeed.

“With the both of you leaving the valley shortly. I think it is time to tell Xiao Xing how she came to be in the valley.”

“Alright” Xu Long replied as he placed the small spirit fox in the front of his robes and petted her head gently, an edge of concern in his countenance.

“Come, we will go to your grove.”

They walked to the grove in silence, Xu Long petting Xu XIng the entire time at a slow and reassuring pace, she had a curious look on her face as she could tell that the atmosphere had gotten heavy.

After they arrived and the two had sat down at the table, Xu Long took Xu Xing out of his robes and placed her on the table.

“Long’er would you start with your story of that day, then I can fill in any incidental information that I have.”

He nodded his head solemnly, then he removed his blindfold for the first time since he had put it on weeks ago and after adjusting his eyes looked at Xu Xing who was tilting her head at him, he took a deep breath and then he began. “I was 6 years old,” holding his hand out next to him at about his shoulder height, “about his tall, and unbeknownst to me I was taking a test to determine if I was ready to learn about the world outside the valley. Long story short, I passed, and as a result found myself outside of the valley in a grand forest that even from the top of a very tall tree, about twice the size of the largest in the valley, stretched on as far as the eye could see in every direction. As I was sitting in that tree, it began, the loudest and most violently destructive commotion I have ever witnessed, it sounded like it was right next to me and yet was almost over the horizon.

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“It lasted maybe a minute, but when it was over Old Wu showed up next to me to take me back to the valley. Instead, I asked him to show me what had created that colossal scene of destruction. He agreed, and he took me over to the location straight away. When we arrived the first thing I saw was your mother, laying on the ground and looking straight at us. We talked a little, but very quickly Old Wu interjected and told her that my mother could save you. That was when I saw you for the first time, a tiny little ball of fur on the ground next to your mother’s nose.

“Your mother knew that she was dying and was obviously interested in saving your life, however she wanted to ensure that you would not be the pet of some human were she to agree to put you in our care. So she had me swear to her that I would always treat you as my equal, which I did…then she used the last of her life force to make the oath binding and placed a mark on my soul.

“Then we quickly brought you back to the valley and my mother.”

Xu Long knew that he was rushing through the tale, but he was struggling not to cry while looking at Xu Xing who was looking both stunned and sad, when he had finished his abbreviated story he looked to his mother for help to continue. When he saw his mother nod her head, he picked the small spirit fox up and held her to his chest facing his mother as he gently pet her back as his mother took over the story for him.

“We don’t know why, but your mother was traveling with you through the Endless Forest, from the Frozen North, a vast land of ice, snow and mountains to the far north that is home to spirit foxes of your particular coloring, amongst many other incredibly powerful spirit beasts. For most humans of the realm, including most Dao Seeking cultivators, it is certain death to tread there. Along the way she wandered into the territory of Old Yong, who was a malicious and very powerful old bear whose previous domain included the hidden entrance to the valley. As you may have guessed from the past tense, Old Yong died due to the fight he initiated with your mother.

“The fact that your mother could both kill Old Yong and protect you at the same time speaks volumes about just how powerful she was, I tell you this so you understand that whatever, or whomever drove your mother to flee the Frozen North with a 1 month old child is no small matter and not something that I will likely ever have the power to investigate for you.

“I am sorry Xiao Xing”

His mother paused for a second, Xu Xing just continued to stare, looking both crestfallen and overwhelmed at the same time. Xu Long held her tighter to his chest as he looked down at her, she craned her neck to look up at his face and they just stayed that way for a moment before his mother continued the account of Xu Xing’s rather tragic history once more.

“As for what exactly your condition was that required my expertise to save your life, that is something that sounds incredibly simple and yet to fix requires quite the complicated procedure. In short, your proximity to the life and death struggle between your mother and Old Yong meant that you, a barely month old spirit fox baby, were inflicted with the contamination of Old Yong’s malicious qi, and it had burrowed deep. Your mother utilized a rather powerful ward to put you in stasis, in the hope that Old Yong’s qi could be removed. Then when Long’er brought you to me I used the stellar qi from my Star Gathering Formation in order to slowly wear down Old Yong’s qi inside you so that it could be flushed from your body safely.

“This process lasted for 3 years, and had quite the unintended consequences. In a twist of fate, it turned out that you possessed quite the astonishing affinity for the stars, and thus as the stellar qi of my formation was flooding your system for the better part of 3 years, you absorbed and integrated an astonishing amount for a 1 month old spirit fox. The results of this are two fold, first, you have effectively become a new species of spirit fox, one that is born to walk the path of the stars, and secondly, you have started cultivating at an incredibly unreasonable age, even for spirit beasts, and thus you will grow at an incredibly slow rate.

“With regards to your growth, you have two options in front of you, you either cultivate as hard and fast as you like and accept the fact that this will continue to slow down your growth exponentially, or you put your trust in Long’er to keep you safe while you are vulnerable and delay your cultivation until you have grown a reasonable amount.”

Xu Xing craned her neck once again only to see Xu Long’s smiling face looking back at her, she gave a small yip. Then his mother smiled and continued after they had their little moment.

“Good, I think that is the best course of action for you Xiao Xing. Well, that brings us to the end of the story. I hope you understand why we kept this information from you until you were older Xiao Xing. It is not a happy tale and I honestly considered whether to tell you at all, but ultimately you deserve to know, even if it is painful…There is one more thing.” She looked at Xu Long. “Long’er, could you let her down.”

Xu Long looked at his mother and, understanding what she was going to do, sat down on the ground cross legged and placed Xu Xing on the ground in front of him.

“Wu Zhong collected the bodies of both your mother and Old Yong, I thought you might like to see her.”

She waved her hand to her side as a huge snow white spirit fox appeared next to her, she was still laying as she had been that day in the Endless Forest amongst all the destruction and carnage. She was curled up in a rather large ball, her chin resting on six fluffy white tails, the only difference to that day was that the blood had been cleaned up and her eyes were closed, it looked like she was merely sleeping, except for the eerie stillness that told you this was not really her, merely the shell she had left behind.

Xu Xing froze when she saw the body of her mother, then after a few a moments she slowly walked up to her mothers face, the size difference was astounding, but that was the last thing on Xu Long’s mind as he watched Xu Xing nudge the nose of her mother with her snout and receive no response in return. It was utterly heartbreaking, and Xu Long finally felt the tears that he had been desperately holding back through this entire ordeal finally fall. But it only got worse as Xu Xing started to cry with a small whimper, he wanted to rush up to her and hold her, but he knew he couldn’t, she needed to grieve however she wanted, he just needed to be there waiting if she needed him.

A few hours later Xu Xing had cried herself to exhaustion and was now sleeping on one of her mother’s tails. Xu Long looked over at his mother who was sitting at the nearby table. “You don’t need to stay Mother, I’ve got this.”

She gave him a small nod before standing up and walking to him before she bent down and kissed his forehead. “Goodnight Long’er. I love you”

“Love you too.”

After watching his mother leave, Xu Long stayed exactly where he was, sitting on the ground, watching Xu Xing, just waiting in case she needed him, he would wait here all night.

Of course that was his intention, however it seemed he was rather wiped out from the emotionally draining day yesterday and had fallen asleep sitting with his legs crossed in the exact same spot, his head hanging down rather uncomfortably. As he slowly opened his eyes and was preparing to stand up to move the stiffness out of his body, he suddenly froze still, as he looked at the sleeping Xu Xing in his lap. It seemed that she had migrated during the night and he was completely unaware. He gave her a warm smile and stayed where he was, determined not to move a muscle.