But he was no fool.
Grasping ahold of that desperate moment of wonder temporarily free of pain’s grip, psyche snaking into his divine artifact, pulling out one of his pristine, completely untapped beast cores.
And before the pain could roar and crash into him as he blinked his eyes open from that heartbeat that had lasted an eternity, a single night, an instant, his fist was already clenched around that precious, deadly beast core, daring in the height of agony that which had almost destroyed him when he had been pain free and utterly focused.
But now, gasping for breath, dying moment by moment as the flesh sloughed off his frame, he had nothing to lose.
You have embraced Lesser Beast Core! Your peripheral channels have already suffered major damage! Saving throw versus explosive death made! You have successfully boosted Eternal Fox one thousand-fold! You sense the storm of Light Qi surrounding you!
And Alex laughed as he tapped into the mad maelstrom of power roaring from within, thanks to his core, and from without as his heightened body and mind drank deep of the storm of Light Qi now howling around him. Howling as much from his mad gambit as the storm all around.
He walked a tightrope across an endless chasm as hideous forces sought to destroy him utterly.
All this he endured as he pitted wild Qi against immutable toxin, playing them against each other in the most vicious of balancing acts as he struggled desperately for control over the yawning chasm of his own death.
Which he had apparently fallen into countless times before.
Alex breathed deep, snarling as the pain howled through his soul. Eyes leaking blood and wrath refused to blink, refused to surrender.
Willpower check made!
Alex at last wrenching the now precariously-balanced Qi to serve his own ends, to heal his ravaged body, accessing pristine Dark Qi from the beast core as well as the swirling storm of Light Qi all around, desperately repairing sloughing flesh and ash-laden meridian channels just as fast as his ultimate nemesis was working through his poison to rip them free.
And somehow, Alex knew it was not enough.
There was more.
Desperate eyes weeping blood and pain searched futilely for what he sought, then he found it.
The obsidian pillar his master had gone to great pains to point out to him, to explain its indestructible nature with the slyest of smiles.
Alex chuckled bitterly, already knowing what he must do. What he must endure.
You have successfully channeled White Crane kung fu!
You have struck unbreakable object! 3 knuckles bruised!
You have struck unbreakable object! Shin saves versus bruising!
You have struck unbreakable object! 2 knuckles burst!
Alex screamed as pain flooded through him, desperate to channel and cycle the storm of Light Qi externally through White Crane just as he did so internally through Eternal Fox, knowing that, somehow, doing such in concert was vital to his survival.
If he was to survive at all.
So he forced bloodied and broken hands and bruised shins to slam endlessly against the unforgiving obelisk, until the thud of his tortured flesh became the thrum of stone forced into an inexorable rhythm, Alex’s tormented body somehow enduring yet another hellish burden, the thousand-fold rate of heightened cultivation healing his ruptured flesh almost as fast as it broke.
And somehow, with each blow, with each elbow cracking painfully against stone, with each finger rupturing against futility, a tiny flicker of his enemy’s death was pounded away with his killing blows.
And when the pain got so bad Alex could barely think, he did the only thing he could.
Transcending his own limitations, allowing his mind to slip free for precious seconds, he tasted the nature of the storm all around him.
Not just a storm of endless Light Qi, but a powerful maelstrom of sea blue Qi of hurricane proportions.
The wildest energies of Heaven and Earth, a mad maelstrom of Qi Alex was desperate to harness, needed to harness, if he was to have any hope of survival at all.
You have had a breakthrough! You now sense the flow of Qi around you clearer than ever before! White Crane kung fu now synergizes perfectly with Silver Swan kung fu! White Crane kung fu has achieved Adept Rank 5!
Save versus Sudden Death made!
Soul corroded to 75% planar resonance! Physical Body has suffered additional Severe Wound!
Yet even as Alex channeled the terrible, wondrous Qi trapped in storm and stone, even as he grew in ways striking and profound, he knew it wasn’t enough.
Even as his limbs cracked and broke and reforged themselves ever stronger against the indestructible obelisk of perfect blackness, Eternal Fox rejuvenating his body at an inconceivable rate as his blows rained like the howling storm upon the stone, it still wasn’t enough.
Even as he felt death’s hoary grasp claw for his heart, echoed in the mocking spiritual laughter of his enemy in the ether, Alex knew he needed more.
So much more.
Needed to transcend in ways striking and profound. To accomplish that which before he had thought but a far-off dream needing years of study and the synergism of countless arts and paths before he had a hope of finding a cycling pattern that could possibly account for all eight of his affinities, shadowed by the darkness surrounding them all.
And in that terrible moment of epiphany, Alex suddenly understood what he had to do, his laughter equal parts desperation and hope, somehow drowning out the mocking cackle of his enemy whose forbidden alchemical death curse was clawing away at Alex’s very soul.
Pushing himself in ways terrible and profound, his trembling claw of a broken and bleeding hand, reforging itself even as he gazed upon it, Alex reached into his divine treasure and pulled out a second beast core as the storm all around him continue to shriek and howl, blinking away the torrential rain as his enemy screamed his hate from beyond the gate he could no longer even see. Alex chuckled softly as his pain transcended past all familiar limits to an exquisite agony he last recalled when waiting for death to claim him, a lifetime ago.
“Only this time, I can fight back!” Alex roared into the night, shaking his reforged hands, sensing Eternal Fox on the cusp of yet another breakthrough, terrible and momentous as he could imagine, tasting some miraculous insight just on the cusp of his awareness, transcending the strangely familiar pain as he embraced his trial once more.
His fists and feet lashed out in a furious assault, the sound of his spinning heel and reverse roundhouse kicks now echoing through the compound as he channeled the force and fury of the torrential downpour through his body, his meridians, his very soul, complimenting and synergizing with the swirling storm of Qi at last.
Water and Air synergized into a hurricane of devastating force, and not even Alex had expected the crack of lightning exploding from impact, only grateful that, somehow, the combined wave of Qi-enhanced force had protected his limb in a sleeve of blue-white Qi in the instant he had thrown his blow, as if he was channeling his deadly Adderstrike in that moment of pristine understanding, before doing all he could to capture the feeling a dozen times over, each strike identical to the one before.
Yet it was more than the storm he channeled. More than the Air and Water and Lightning he was somehow channeling as well. It was the poison burning through his veins that he slowly made his own as minutes transformed to endless hours and unbreakable stone slowly began to crack and crumble before Alex’s endless onslaught. It was the Earth from which poisons had been grown, the Wood corrupted by foulest hatred, the arsenic metal used as a catalyst for the hot Fire Qi of the soul Alex could sense glaring with pristine hate from beyond the gates, eager, so very eager for Alex’s death. Wood, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water, Lightning, Air, Spirit. All eight of those elements had fused with Alex’s very soul.
And as night transformed to day and became night once more, Alex, who had transcended pain and simple momental awareness, now echoing the state of mind that had compelled a
thousand breaths into a thousand years of wisdom, was struck by shadows of ancient insight as he forged those eight elements into a divine whole, pure and pristine and beyond what countless years of careful scholarly study could have taught him as he transcended all previous limitations and cleared his seventh meridian gateway in a magnificent flash of light and spiritual energy.
Only then did he pause his furious assault upon the pillar before him, upon the pillars of his own mind, fingers and feet, perpetually damaged even with his slowly evolving shield of Qi while striking, whole once more as he spared one single glance for the hot-eyed man spitting and cursing and screaming such vitriol, knowing his enemy could see Alex just as Alex could see him. Their spiritual link, forged in the crucible of mutual hatred, was absolute and profound.
Lai Leng’s eyes widened. He screamed and stepped back as he sensed Alex standing tall despite his horrific ordeal, before flashing a coldly satisfied smile. “You should be dead, worm! For what you did to my son, you should be burning in Hell! I care not if you’ve managed to claw at life so desperately that you are paroled for a few final hours. It is only a matter of time before you finally succumb. My poison burns through you even now!”
Alex slowly nodded, hand extracting as if from the very ether a greater spirit core. “I know.”
He wasted no further words on his enemy, the man suddenly screaming as if he understood, Alex refusing to hesitate for a second longer as he embraced madness once more. It did not matter that he had already cultivated at a thousand-fold beyond any mortal rate for a night and day and night again, breaking through to seventh rank basic cultivator. He knew he would be allowed no rest, no mercy, forced to forge a channel between his two most vital meridian gateways as exhaustion and agony and the darkest of poisons clawed at his soul, if he was to have any hope of survival.
Laughing at the madness of it all, a planned thousand hours of diligent study and research as he struggled to find the absolute best pattern so perfect it could hold even a divine cultivation base, had to be forsaken forever.
He had to embrace his own sense of self, all that he was and all that he would ever be. He had to understand himself utterly in that moment if he hoped not just to achieve a perfect cultivation base, but if he wanted to survive at all.
Of course he knew that what he was doing was sheer folly.
All that he had accomplished so far that night was thanks only to a wild mixture of insanity and inspiration, somehow channeling the force and fury of a howling storm he intuitively knew had a surface area greater than the entire northern hemisphere of the planet he had once called home, balancing on a tightrope of oblivion.
For only a single heartbeat did he hesitate, knowing absolutely everything he had accomplished that night, his very survival, hell, the very storm that should have washed Yidushi out to sea, were all utterly, unquestionably impossible.
He sensed his enemy’s sudden surge of fierce hope.
His momentary taste of a skeptic’s fear had almost been enough to destroy him forever.
He flashed a fierce smile at his enemy, refusing to hesitate even an instant longer, squeezing tight the massive greater spirit beast core he held with a roar. He was flooded with an inconceivable tidal wave of pristine power as he pummeled the obelisk before him with what was now inhuman speed and strength, enduring the agony as he fought for his final breaths in a terminal ward a lifetime ago, desperate to forge unbreakable links between space and time and the final gasps of a dying boy, and the rebirth of the young man now fighting for his very existence, howling against his own death as he pounded the pillar before him with everything he was or had ever been.
Forging an unbreakable link between intention and action, thought and completion, the heart and the soul.
A link comprised of exquisite harmony, forged in the fires of ultimate conflict, a furious crackling stream of potential. Wild, pristine, and inconceivably destructive, for all that it contained the very seeds of existence itself.
And even as he pushed his body to his absolute limits and beyond, within his mind he took the training even further, recalling each and every lesson regarding spear, dao, and fangtian ji he had learned while mastering three different martial arts in a transcendent epiphany. Even dancing upon the extremis of insight and agony, he sensed the chuckling ghost of WiFu pushing him endlessly forward, quite at home in the depths of delusion, granting him those flickers of insight that allowed him to synergize his martial arts with the weapons he had striven so hard to master.
“That’s right, little fox,” whispered an ancient memory of WiFu. “Adderstrike allows for the deadliest of thrusts, your costly secret weapon. White Crane allows you to bat aside opposing blades as you wind and bind your weapon against their own, and Silver Swan channels the force of the crashing sea, such that your cleaving blows tear through all resistance.”
“But what about the spear?” asked Alex, panting after their dozenth, or perhaps hundredth bout as beast cores and reserves burned away, Alex’s outer body seared by fire and pain and poison, forged in fire into a weapon that would surprise all his foes. His instructor was as merciless and focused as Elder Panheu himself. But every time his opponent spun his blade free of Alex’s with swirling Light Qi, or smashed through his defenses with Silver Swan blue, Alex thought he better understood how to do the same.
“Thrust and cut, wind and bind, cleave and slice. With dao and fangtian ji, your synergism is complete,” explained the ever-smiling Inspector, hat dipped at a rakish angle. “Yet your master’s favorite weapon is ill suited to embracing the force and fury of the waves. Save as a staff, and there it will have no equal when you dare to embrace the tsunami in all her glory.”
And Alex immediately understood. Golden Realms kung fu was powerful in the thrust with Adderstrike, expensive as the technique was, and White Crane was adept at winding strikes that batted opposing weapons and shields aside as one thrust for the kill. But the thrust itself was based on the cultivator’s own strength. And for the waves of deadly force that Silver Swan invoked, the thrusting spear was all but worthless, save when channeling all his force and fury while swinging his spear like a greatsword, sure to trip any foe or shatter the bones of even the strongest Bronze. Yet those fearsome sweeping blows were also where the dao and the fangtian ji, with their deadly cutting blades, truly shown in all their glory.
Even as Alex’s body howled with agony, his mind took fierce joy in all the ways he was growing, whipping his fangtian ji forth in twisting strikes and deadly cleaves, understanding his chosen weapon through the lens of three synergized techniques as the agony that had tormented him since his trials began at last translated into a profound understanding of himself and all his potential.
Congratulations! You have achieved Rank 7 Basic Cultivation! Your Perception has increased 2 points to 15. Your Willpower has increased 2 points to 16. Your Qi Pool has increased 2 points to 16.
White Crane kung fu is now Rank 6. Silver Swan kung fu is now Rank 5. Countless duels with your mentor in oblivion's shadow have taught you to fight for your life like never before!
Eternal Fox body cultivation technique is now Rank 7. Breakthrough made! You may now use Eternal Fox as a Light Qi cycling technique! All mortal cultivators may use this technique to transcend to Bronze, no matter their element!
Eternal Fox body cultivation technique is now Rank 8. Breakthrough made! You may now use Eternal Fox as a Dark Qi cycling technique! Note. Synergism of Dark and Light Qi means kitsune cultivators with affinities to Fate, Shadow, or Destruction may use this technique to advance their cultivation base!
Eternal Fox body cultivation technique is now Rank 9. Breakthrough made! Pristine Form discovered! Your transcendent understanding of the flow of Qi allows you to instinctively neutralize complex Qi interactions responsible for all acids, alkalis, and poisons. Each level in Eternal Fox body cultivation technique allows you to resist an additional 10 points of damage per second.
You have successfully saved versu
s Final Oblivion!
Your soul was put in peril by Advanced Alchemical Death Technique!
You have countered Soul-Reaving technique by successfully forging your soul into your cultivation base! Pristine Soul allows for pristine cultivation base. You intuitively sense the connections between Mind, Spirit, and Body.
You have forged your first core meridian channel. Transcendent grade achieved! This channel is capable of supporting all cultivation bases!
Warning! Your soul is now eternally linked to this form. Should you perish and lack the will to reforge yourself from the River of Souls, your death will be absolute and eternal. (The path of Rebirth and Renewal has ended for you. The twin doors of Divinity and Oblivion now await you!)
Congratulations! You have transcended to Pristine Bronze! You have 6 points with which to reforge your body and soul. Note: you have chosen the physical path. Your body shall be the vessel through which you exercise your will. All journeys are possible, but the pristine path is clear. For 2 points you may increase any Physical attribute by 1 Bronze rank. For 1 point you may increase any Spiritual attribute below 20 by 1 point.
The voice of his interface washed over and through him. Alex, eyes closed, luxuriated in the wonder of suddenly being free of that awful searing pain that had been eating away at his very soul.
He had slowly come to understand, in part with the help of his tremendous reserves of Dark Qi, how to reclaim all that killing intent and the elements it was comprised of into one terrible, glorious whole; fusing it with all the other elements of his being and forging his first core meridian channel, using even the damage to his flayed soul to anchor that first channel in a way that somehow transcended his own comprehension as it kissed perfection. And perhaps, as much as the last message had terrified him, that was exactly what he needed to do if he was to have any hope of ever ascending to Silver or Gold, let alone Jade and beyond.
Absolute commitment, knowing he could never turn back, was the price he must pay if he would reach the upper echelons of cultivation, and whatever lay beyond.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3 Page 37
