“I need to get stronger,” he whispered to himself, clenching his fists. “So much stronger!”
He had been a fool to put off purifying his final gate for so long, cleansing it free of all blockage, no matter how massive, no matter how long it took. He had been a fool to fear flipping into his ring in the one safe place he had, his master’s residence.
He had thought he was safe. Thought he had all the time in the world.
What an idiot he had been.
He had enemies who wanted him dead. Bronze at the least, Silver almost definitely.
And here he was, a weak, basic cultivator, easily bested by an arrogant tyrant and his cronies in the heart of what was supposedly the most elite cultivation academy for thousands of miles in all directions.
His next step was obvious.
No matter what it took, no matter what sacrifices had to be made, he needed to ascend to Bronze as fast as he could.
Only then would he have a ghost of a chance of surviving all those who sought his destruction.
Pausing only long enough to dart back to the scene of the farcical duel and, much to his humiliation and grief, hide away his own lifeless limb, he spent a long, desperate hour darting from shadow to shadow, slowly making his way back to Elder Panheu’s compound.
As stealthy as he tried to be, sneaking back inside, Panheu was there, gazing back at him, somehow sensing his humiliation.
One raised eyebrow and he confessed to what had happened as succinctly as he could. “I was forced into a duel by an old enemy I knew from before. I lost. He claimed all my credits. All the work I did this week did nothing but make my enemy richer.” Alex trembled with sudden intensity. “I need to get stronger, Elder Panheu. At all costs, I need to get stronger!”
At this his master flashed a shark-like grin. “Yes, you do! Yet I can see you’re unwounded, save for your pride and the fear in your eyes. That’s unworthy of you, Alex. Utterly unworthy! Now grab your training spear and channel that terror you felt before your enemy’s cold smile, the humiliation you felt at being bested, into iron-hard focus as you master all the techniques I have showed you! You can sleep when you’re ready to drop from exhaustion, and not a moment before. Far better sore muscles than a tormented mind.”
Alex blinked, then nodded, suddenly in complete agreement. Because if he didn’t do just that, he’d burn with humiliation and impotent fury all night. And that was more than he could bear.
At first, he could summon nothing at all, consumed with humiliation and terror he now felt in his bones as Lai Wei’s mocking laughter seemed to pierce his very soul.
Before being abruptly yanked off his feet by a master glaring at him with a cold indifference that Alex found far more terrifying that Lai Wei’s savagery.
“Master, what are you doing?”
Alex gasped, choking back a desperate cry as Elder Panheu dangled him effortlessly over the rocky cliff edge adjoining his property, Alex forced to gaze down at the waves sparkling in the moonlight far below, the distant cry of seagulls louder than the wheezing keen he choked back.
“Are you truly such a coward, Ruidian? After all you endured, laughing in the face of death, you would demean yourself now, after being bullied and beaten in the most amateur of ambushes? Tell me, Alex, have I misjudged you so utterly? Are you truly worth nothing more than the tens of thousands of pathetic Ruidian pirates who drowned in this very sea, a thousand years ago? If that’s the case, just say the word, and I’ll set you free of all humiliation forevermore.”
Alex was only momentarily frozen with mindless terror, seeing his own death in his master’s pitiless gaze.
But only if he failed him.
Only if he failed himself.
“No!” Alex roared, his awful dread turning at last into pristine hate. Not at Panheu, but toward himself, unable to bear the thought of Lai Wei’s mocking laughter so unmanning him that he would let his enemy’s mastery over his soul shame him before his mentor’s eyes.
He then channeled that resolve where it belonged, closing his eyes and visualizing that battle once more, this time with his dao moving at deadly speed to match his enemy’s own, tearing open the surprised fool’s throat before Alex butchered every single one of those mocking cowards.
He flashed a bitter smile.
It might take him ages, but if he managed to burn through his blockage and somehow forge a viable technique combining eight elements before breaking through to Bronze, if he managed to master every trick the cold-eyed Silver who was presently dangling him over the cliff’s edge had taught him, he would make that hot fiery dream of vengeance come true.
He would destroy his enemies, reclaim himself, and burn away his mindless panic with furious resolve.
He smiled into Panheu’s cold eyes. “I will train with such focus even you will be amazed at my growth. I won’t rest until my enemies are dead by my feet!” he roared, completely unafraid.
Panheu’s ice-cold countenance instantly transformed into an approving smile, effortlessly tossing Alex behind him. “Well then, student, rejoice! You have before you all the tools you need to rise like the phoenix from the ashes of your own bitter failures! And the sour fruits you savor as you flail yourself to redemption shall aid you in growth like nothing else you have ever experienced before!”
Silver Swan finesse check made!
Dizzy as he felt, tossed end over end, Alex somehow managed to land perfectly on his feet, finding yet further use for the exotic, showy, and in the right circumstances, utterly devastating techniques favored by Hao Chan with her acrobatic kung fu style.
For a heartbeat, he visualized her perfectly in his mind’s eye, recalling how he had hesitated in showing her even the slightest hint of affection beyond that of devoted kung fu brother and friend in the weeks they had forged such strong bonds challenging each other and taking on the primal world all around them, suddenly feeling the complete and utter fool.
Her teasing gentle smile flashed across his mind’s eye at that very moment. What, only now you can admit you fell for me? he could almost imagine her saying, realizing that right now, he dared fall in love with no one, weak and vulnerable as he was.
With that resolve, and his body still crackling with the energy of an entire spirit core channeled into a single hour of intense cultivation via his Eternal Fox body cultivation technique, now so powerful it had allowed him to regenerate the tear in his abdomen, a dozen crippling slashes, and his entire missing hand, it was nothing to rehearse his master’s spear techniques over and over again until long after the midnight hour, pausing only after the brilliant moonlit night was replaced by the first golden rays of the morning sun.
A bitter, triumphant smile caressed his lips when he finally had the breakthrough he was desperate for with the first false light of dawn, having felt for just a handful of heartbeats the swirl of stormy Light Qi spinning around his ever-winding spear with such power that he couldn’t help but imagine it knocking aside any foe trying to block or bind his shaft. But only after practicing the same handful of White Crane spear thrusts Panheu had demonstrated a thousand times over.
Only then did he allow himself to collapse in a stupor, too exhausted even to dream, let alone ruminate over his bitter defeat, promising himself only that he would do his best to master spear and dao both, and his halberd-like fangtian ji as well.
He groaned softly once he closed his eyes, Lai Wei’s mocking laughter and Sheng Jie’s vindictive smile as he slammed his heel into Alex’s ripped-open abdomen, nearly killing him, being the last sights and sounds to flicker across his mind as oblivion claimed him at last.
11
“So, anyone hear what happened to that foreigner? No one’s seen him for days.”
“I hear it was too much for him and he fled the school, tail between his legs!”
Laughter echoed along the corridor as Alex slowly made his way to the last class of the day, four days after he had been left broken and battered by his enemies. He flashed a cold smile as a familiar voic
e filled the training hall with mocking laughter.
“That fool dared to challenge one of his betters, and was crushed for it!” said none other than Sheng Jie. “I hear he was permanently maimed and fled the school like the sobbing coward he is,” he went on to say with particular relish, his underlings chuckling and sharing dark grins as the class entire asked for details.
Of them all, most were fascinated by the tale Sheng Jie began spinning, painting Alex in a particularly foolish light, heard secondhand, of course, or so the noble scion claimed. To be fair, more than a few students furrowed their brows in doubt, or shook their heads in mild disappointment, Alex having earned at least a modicum of respect by virtue of his skills and diligent practice, forging himself to be more than the base slag of his origins, as they had put it; a soldier’s sentiment Alex approved of enough that he only smiled when given the backhanded compliment.
Only Qie Qie was looking on with pale-faced horror, before quickly lowering her head, so none could mock or shame her for daring to care about a foreigner, even as a genuine friend. And Alex knew it had been hard for her, turned down at the gate and not knowing why, her plaintive questions regarding a missing Alex rebutted by Panheu himself, while Zhao Doushi ruthlessly forged Alex into a steel blade worthy of being wielded, as he put it, hammering Alex with training dao and spear both every morning and afternoon he was there, seeming to take particular delight in savage rebuttals that left Alex a throbbing mass of bruises when their training was done.
Alex would have thought him a savage, save for the hard-eyed nod and smile he’d give him after every training session. “I think you might actually have some potential, Ruidian. But I don’t expect to see a single one of those mistakes on the morrow.” And Alex would nod his head, doing his best to visualize the pristine fluidity of his mentor’s motions and mimic them perfectly as he performed forms until late in the night.
Though he hated to admit it, the fearsome intensity of the last four days had helped Alex advance like never before, having tasted mortal peril more than once at Lai Wei’s hands and, to a lesser extent, Zhao Doushi’s as well. Alex knew the man would no longer pull his blows if Alex royally fucked up, knowing Alex knew that too, both of them knowing Elder Panheu had all but declared that his newest disciple only truly learned on the precipice of utter annihilation. And much to Alex’s chagrin, his rapid progress with the dao, already well into rank four, seemed to indicate that his master was right.
All of them had agreed he would make his entrance today only in this, his final class. Alex flashed a cold smile as Sheng Jie’s nasally voice washed over him, Alex firmly in the moment once more.
“And that’s when that pathetic excuse for a worm begged for mercy, kowtowing before all of us, pleading for us to forgive his unworthy carcass!” Sheng Jie gloated to his simpering fans and the class at large, forgetting his original premise of the tale being secondhand. “And when we told him he was to strip naked and flee this academy forevermore, he accepted! Sobbing for the shame of his own existence, desperate only to live, willing to accept any degradation, so long as he was permitted to leave with his life. Even castration!” he said with particular relish.
The entire class gasped at this.
“He should have killed himself or fought to the death, rather than accept such degradation. How pathetic he was!” hissed one student.
“Why the hell did he accept a duel to the death?” asked another, shaking his head. “How foolish.”
Master Pan had furrowed his brow, looking incredibly solemn, not saying anything, though his hard eyes were gazing intently upon his gloating student.
Qie Qie was clenching her fists, glaring daggers of hate at a suddenly discomfited Sheng Jie. “How could you know this, Sheng Jie? How could you know any of this? Were you there? You just said you heard this secondhand, because death matches are forbidden if not formally made with a full moon waiting period for cool heads to prevail before any such duel! But the way you say it, the way you describe it, you were there! Witnessing a murder!”
Sheng Jie paled and swallowed before puffing himself up, pinning Qie Qie with his haughty glare. “And why should you care about the fate of a lowly Ruidian? Do you actually favor that trash?”
Multiple students tittered at the accusation, but Qie Qie slowly shook her head, showing no flush of embarrassment, no weakness. “No. Another has claimed my heart. But I do claim him as my kung fu brother. He gave me more of a challenge than you ever had!”
This earned a few chuckles and approving nods her way, Sheng Jie paling with sudden outrage.
“And I would know what happened, and what your involvement was!”
“Kung fu brother? He was no such thing! He was a worthless, cheating Ruidian full of tricks and mockery, just like the fox we all know he favors! Silver Fox is a bane to this city and always has been! His chaos causes nothing but social unrest, insurrection, even rebellion. But all that ends with this age, mark my words! Ruidians and kitsunes don’t belong in this city, and the sooner we get rid of them all, the better!”
Qie Qie paled at those words. “Is that really what you think?” she whispered, eyes wide with bitter disappointment as she met Sheng Jie’s furious gaze.
So hot was the nobleborn, he didn’t even sense the sudden change in mood, the uncomfortable glances sent his way, fellow students deliberately turning from him, as if wanting to distance himself from his blasphemous words.
“That bastard Ruidian’s just the first piece removed from the board, Qie Qie! Just the first! Don’t you get it? It’s a new dawn! A purer age! It’s high time this school purged itself of the foul remnants of its origins and became a school glorious in its purity, like the academy forged by Cui Long’s descendant in Baidushi, capital city of all of Cuijing!”
Qie Qie looked aghast at Sheng Jie. “Are you truly so stupid? Don’t you even know who the Sovereign Princess’s niece is?”
Sheng Jie’s face blotched with fury. “Don’t you dare insult me, you puffed-up Bronze commoner! Your Ruidian toy got what he deserved, and if you don’t watch yourself, you will too!”
And perhaps he realized even he had crossed a line, Master Pan himself furrowing his brow, when sudden clapping could be heard echoing in what was now dead silence, over twenty pairs of eyes now spinning around to confront the source, more than a few blinking in surprise at the sight of a grinning Alex making his way across the training room.
Qie Qie’s grin lit up her face. Alex gave her the warmest of nods.
A stunned Sheng Jie stumbled back, face taking on a sickly pallor. “You’re… no. You cannot be here. Your hand… no, it’s impossible!”
Alex chuckled coldly. “What’s impossible, dearest Sheng Jie? Your wonderfully creative narration? Your inspired storytelling? The pack of lies you spewed like vomit before everyone here?”
Sheng Jie trembled, literally stumbling to the ground.
The entire class was speechless.
Alex’s cold laughter washed over them all. “Here you are, preening like a peacock before your fellows, bragging about your disdain for all kitsune, all Ruidians, relishing your made-up fantasy about my supposed tragic fate. Well, I too can tell a good tale! I could tell the tale about a pack of cowards who cornered a student making his way back to his master’s residence, using Qi-projected voices to mimic his own. A voice that challenged none other than Lai Wei to a match with live steel! All of you gloating about how you could give a cultivator’s oath before any proctor that your victim had said those words aloud, having pre-planned your ambush and attempted assassination, bold as brass, without a single sliver of reluctance, mocking the edicts of Dragon Academy!
“I could tell a wonderful tale about how you hid behind your master Lai Wei like a yipping dog while a Bronze Fire cultivator forced a duel upon a lowly novice, disemboweling his victim and cleaving off his hand!”
Alex smiled into the breathless silence, savoring the look of horrified disbelief in Sheng Jie’s eyes.
“I
could even spin a wonderful tale about how you gleefully kicked that disemboweled cultivator desperately holding in his own guts with your foot, savoring his shrieks of torment, hungry for his death by your blows, before Lai Wei himself pulled you off, assuring you that the sorry victim would be dead soon enough, and if you did it his way, you all would be free of blame.
“And like the pathetic lickspittle you are, you did just that! Yipping for your master’s approval, caring nothing that goading your master into striking me violated his own uncle’s oath for his clan to never interfere with me or mine in any way!”
Alex smiled into the breathless silence. “And I could tell you that my master found me on the verge of death, desperately trying to collect my own entrails in the rain before taking such pity upon me that he invested his most sacred healing treasures into saving my unworthy life.”
He captured everyone’s gaze. “But I will make no such declaration! Because at least one of those statements is completely false!”
Faster than Sheng Jie could blink, Alex was looming over the trembling cultivator, glaring into his eyes. “But I will say this. Sheng Jie is a worm and a coward! The lowest of the low! Contemptible filth, unworthy of this school!” declared a fully armed and armored Alex, patting the dull practice blade he had sparred with for countless grueling hours over the last four days with both of his mentors, pushing himself so hard even they had favored him with their half-mocking smiles of approval.
“Upon my word as a cultivator, I declare this fool lower than the muck at his cowering feet! And if Sheng Jie disputes my assertion, he is free to refute my declaration in the only arena that matters, the crucible of blood and steel!”
The entire class looked on in surprise, mock horror, and furious whispers, clearly enjoying the drama unfolding before them.
“Well, fight him, Sheng Jie!” hissed one of his former cronies, now glaring at the man trembling before Alex. “He just insulted your entire clan. If you’re any kind of leader, you have to accept his challenge!”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3 Page 18
