He needed to practice enduring the agony of Dark Qi survival. Not just for minutes, but for hours at a time. Without blacking out, without losing focus.
He had endured that agony for an extended duration only once, swimming at the slowest of paces or just floating in the depths, exerting himself as little as possible that terrible day the crown’s deadly assassin had tried to take his head. Now he needed to get so good he could not just survive in stillness, but actually thrive doing whatever it was that he needed to do.
Like an out of shape bookworm finally deciding it was time to endure the bitter and strengthen his deficiencies. Of course, jogging would be an agony for that man. The most grueling of chores.
Alex could only hope that over time, he would grow to find the training he must endure as invigorating and satisfying as running was for him now.
Because if he could achieve that degree of Metabolic Mastery, whether or not it showed up as any increase in Rank, or its own separate skill, then he would truly have achieved something he could be proud of.
And he would be earning every iota of improvement, daring to walk a path of cultivation that, in terms of hardship, had no equal. But the rewards for success? He could only imagine what wonders awaited, should he actually break past Rank 10 in a divine cultivation technique.
He blinked, surprised to find himself on his knees.
“Alex!”
“Move, woman. His training is no concern of yours!” Sha Shou hissed, Ehuang immediately lurching back.
“This one apologizes for offending you, my lord,” Ehuang all but sobbed.
But the guard didn’t bother waiting around for a reply, his knuckles once more tormenting Alex even through his armor, forcing him to hasten his pace, quickly rushed past busy caravanners wise enough to pay absolutely no attention to his situation as he lurched toward the hammocks under his wagon as Sha Shou expertly disarmed him and plucked off his helmet, tossing it in the wagon and Alex in the nearest cot.
“Here and here alone is where you will sleep. And you had best not stumble back like an idiot after our next session, Ruidian, or you’ll wish you have never dared the night watch,” Sha Shou hissed, but Alex was already out cold.
9
When Alex woke up the next day it was with a wheezing gasp, spending long moments easing his racing heart as nightmares of being strangled alive faded to the ether where all such dreams belonged. When he finally collected himself, he clenched his fists against the wave of visceral horror flooding through him, for just a heartbeat, when he thought of facing Sha Shou’s ice cold stare once more.
Then he took a deep breath and visualized himself being measured under Master Panheu’s pitiless gaze, all too easily able to imagine what the man would think of Alex flinching at the task before him, feeling more resolved than ever to do whatever he needed to do in order to forge himself into a cultivator able to survive any hardship and get the best of any foe.
When Alex presented himself before a frowning Sha Shou that night after completely ignoring the concerned words of Master Yan and Fangsu both, the brooding man favored him with a surprised sneer that was almost a smile. “You actually dare to stand before me, eager for your next lesson in pain, puppy? You sure you don’t want to scurry back to Captain Dui Zhang with your tail between your legs?”
Alex gave a deferential bow of his head. “I welcome whatever lessons you would impart upon this lowly guard, so that I may better myself against all foes that wish only to kill me.”
Sha Shou’s eyes widened ever so slightly. His mocking smile turned strangely approving. “Good. First things first. Get to your post where everyone can see you. Then come find me when the last crimson light has faded from the forest canopy overhead. Only then will we see about forging you into a killer worth his coin. And I won’t tell you to feed yourself or wipe your ass, but if you lack the common sense to grab a bowl of stew before you begin your shift, that’s on you.”
Alex saluted. “Understood, sir. I’ll begin my watch.”
And much to his satisfaction, he was able to sit, eat, and just absorb the ebb and flow of the camp, enjoying the moments of peace as he cultivated with his senses sharp and eyes open, ready for trouble he already knew wouldn’t come that night, the forest’s sleepy rustles making it clear that any threats were a long way off.
And just before he was about to spring from the wagon and report to Sha Shou, Ehuang was suddenly sitting before him, today with a white rose tucked behind her left ear, flashing him a shy smile. “I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble last night.”
Alex grinned. “No, not at all. I’m sorry my commander snapped at you. I would have said something, but I was too exhausted to move.”
Her eyes widened. “Saints mercy. You weren’t joking, were you, Alex?”
Alex blinked. “Come again?”
“Your tooth, it really did heal.”
Alex shrugged, not quite sure what to say.
Ehuang’s warm shapely hand, no less sensual for its strength, tentatively clasped his own. “I’ve been meaning to say, thank you for the bundle of flowers, Alex. They really are lovely, and more than one farmgirl has asked if you came from a gathering clan, to know where to find those hidden blossoms most people never seem to see.”
Alex shrugged. “I just have good eyes for pretty flowers, I guess.”
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“Are you...?” She bit her lip, pretty brown eyes gazing demurely down at their clasped hands. “Are you really forbidden from, well, knowing a woman?”
Alex sighed, gently squeezing her hand. “I’m afraid so. At least for now.”
“Not all cultivators are like that. I, um, I kind of know that. But it sort of didn’t work out. You know?”
Alex nodded. “Relationships are tough. Especially if you and your significant other come from very different backgrounds.”
Ehuang chuckled throatily. “Isn’t that the truth. And to think, now it’s me doing the chasing.”
Alex smiled. “And when the right man captures the heart of the beautiful, smart, warm-hearted woman sitting beside me right now? He will be embracing the sweetest chapter of his life, I have no doubt of that.”
Her cheeks flushed as she looked away, but Alex saw the edge of her smile as she brushed back her hair with her fingertips and gazed at the heavens.
“Boy, do I wish that were true.” She sighed. “I’m already twenty-one, Alex. I’m lucky that women live long and age well in my family, and I can promise any man that seeks my heart beautiful children, even if I’m not, well, a cultivator, or particularly gifted at anything save understanding my flock, and taking care of the people I love.”
“But isn’t that the most important thing of all?” Alex asked. “Being there for those that need your love? Just knowing when your husband or child needs a hug or a soft soothing voice to get them through whatever nightmares haunt innocent sleep or a bloody past? Don’t sell yourself short, Ehuang. I think you’ll make the right man pray to the gods every day in gratitude for giving him a wife who understands his heart, and takes care of his family so well.”
Ehuang gasped. Alex turned to her just as soft lips brushed against his own, before she pulled shyly away, leaping off the wagon. She gave him a final wave, tears in her eyes, before striding quickly out of sight.
Alex sighed and shook his head, scanning the perimeter one final time before leaving his post for trials of a different sort.
“And still you dare to stand before me, as if you were truly one of us. Are you ready for your lesson, Ruidian?”
Alex, already stripped of his armor, bowed before a smirking Sha Shou, ignoring the soft chuckles of the pair of night watchmen gazing at the pair, still in their jet-black lamellar armor, jian straight swords and wicked-looking daggers at their hips, glaive-like polearms, almost but not quite naginatas, held casually by their sides.
“I am ready, Master Sha Shou.”
The man smirked. “It is good you understa
nd your place, supplicant. I will deign to teach you another lesson in the arts of pain and mastery, of sensing the weak points of your foes and destroying them with your knowledge.”
He held his hand rigid, fingers slightly cupped for an angled spear hand strike that could hit with full force without snapping finger joints, much like one would do pushups on fingertips, only his thumb was held close to his palm. Then, faster than Alex could blink, though he was doing his best to read his opponent, Sha Shou lashed out, hand spearing forth to strike yet another vulnerable meridian point in Alex’s neck. And it was only because he was already rolling with the blow and had invested so much of himself into developing his peripheral meridian network that he wasn’t on the ground gurgling and thrashing.
As it was, he was still stumbling back, gasping for breath until a few quick seconds of Power Healing had him perfectly whole once more.
“He’s actually still standing. Not completely pathetic after all,” opined one of the cold-eyed guardsmen behind Alex.
Sha Shou smirked. “Good. Now, show me you understand that strike. Hit me... now!”
Obediently Alex lashed out, already knowing what was coming, dutifully crying out when his fingers were abruptly wrenched back but not broken, his cruel mentor tsking and shaking his head. “Faster, Alex. Your aim is accurate this time, else I’d wrench your arm clean out of your socket before popping it back, but you must strike faster!”
Alex dutifully bowed his head, carefully not pointing out that it was a dozen times easier to parry the exact blow that you knew was coming.
Instead, he endured every blow his master lashed out with spear hands, knuckles, and knife-hand strikes, showing Alex the sheer power of stiff-armed round house blows that were, in fact, chops striking with the bottom knuckle of the forefinger.
In MMA, any stiff-armed hooking blow was sure to be countered and the executor punished, to say nothing of the fact the strike as Sha Shou delivered it was probably illegal in most circuits. But if it actually hit with full force, an opponent would be stunned with his carotid artery spasming from the impact. And with a slight shift, it could hit the spine to deadly effect. Excellent strikes in a world where cultivation pathways lent themselves to body cultivators with drastically different strengths, inhuman resilience versus supernatural speed, so strikes that would normally be easily parried might make it through, and blows that would normally cripple a mortal might have no effect on a cultivator following a path of inhuman resilience.
Hence why Sha Shou had mastered striking techniques that might have looked overly flashy to a professional fighter in Alex’s day and age, right before ending that professional fighter’s career, if not his life, with a single blow. Alex’s dark mentor hit with speed and force that must have been deep into Bronze, striking vulnerabilities and pressure points that would be capable of killing almost anyone and injuring even the toughest of tanks, if he struck true.
So Alex begrudged his sadistic teacher the lessons in agony not at all, happy to pay his mentor in grunts and cries and groans, savoring the sweet golden euphoria of deadly wisdom in return. As one night bled into another, Alex forced himself to endure, even embrace, those lessons in pain, slowly growing along paths other cultivators focusing only on honorable fights and cultivation never would.
But that was not the only way he pushed himself, when the laughing trio, taking such joy when he fell to the ground an exhausted wreck oscillating between desperate gasps and Dark Qi metabolism, would finally let him lurch back to his hammock, with their mocking words following his stumbling feet.
“You’re welcome to join us again tomorrow night, Ruidian, if you have the stomach for the lessons we have to teach.”
And no matter how much he wanted to cry out, stumbling into his hammock, and taking not one but two full hours enduring the most agonizing of experiments before surrendering to exhaustion, he always did come back, his three fellow night watchmen seeming to admire his moxie just a bit more every evening he dared present himself before them, Sha Shou’s lessons becoming less an exercise in torment and more true instruction, as if the man couldn’t help but be intrigued enough to truly teach Alex the dark lore he had mastered so well.
And through it all, Alex forced himself to endure further trials of his own, embracing Dark Qi metabolism the moment he crashed in his hammock, for first five minutes at a time, then ten, then fifteen, gasping frantically for breath as his spasming muscles and organs switched from Dark Qi to aerobic respiration once more. Alex knew he was deluding himself, thinking that it was actually becoming easier by the fourth night, even as he increased the time he held his breath to half an hour, then a full hour by the seventh night. Yet if nothing else, by week’s end he truly had improved in shifting from Dark to Light metabolism, as he now liked to think of it, gasping like a bellows for only ten seconds as he embraced sweet oxygen once more.
And he endured that agony that had slowly transformed into the hot, hard, but somehow satisfying endurance trial that now mimicked the challenge of jogging for an hour of a time in the old body he once had. A mortal high school athlete at the peak of health, right before his body betrayed him and he was frozen soon after, to wake up a thousand years later living a life beyond his wildest dreams.
It was only when one hour of holding his breath and living on Dark Qi alone had flowed into two with no increase in the strain he felt, now the equivalent of hiking up a steep incline that caused his thighs to burn, but that he felt he could endure all day, that he got the message he could only hope for, satisfied with his own sense of his personal transformation.
Congratulations! You have gained new insights into Dark Qi Mastery. You can now shift from Dark Qi metabolism to full aerobic respiration with only five seconds of incapacity! Power Healing will accelerate this one full magnitude. You are no longer at risk of dying, should you lose consciousness while embracing Dark Qi metabolism, so long as vital organs are repaired. Normal breathing and heartbeat will return naturally. Your neurological discomfort has decreased dramatically! Your nerves are now highly adapted to Dark Qi metabolism.
You are now Rank 3 In this specialized application of Eternal Fox Unified Cultivation Technique!
And that was also the night Alex finally got the nod of genuine approval, utterly free of mockery, he hadn’t ever expected to see from his fellow night watchmen.
“I believe this fool’s actually getting the hang of the basics,” said one of the pair who had never bothered revealing their names.
Sha Shou had nodded. “And he’s a natural healer, or he would surely be dead by now.” He chuckled coldly. “A lovely situation all around! Our delightful little Ruidian mascot can now growl like a proper hound. But what good is a hound that can’t utterly subdue his opponent? Come closer, mascot. It’s time we taught you the true art of choking out your foe.”
Alex had forced himself to smile. “It will be my pleasure, Master Sha Shou.”
Or that’s what he had tried to say, his master streaking forward at a speed no Bronze could hope to match, abruptly jerking Alex off balance, stretching Alex’s body backwards and leaving him without any leverage at all, the man’s steel-like arms expertly wrapping behind his neck.
Dark Qi Metabolism engaged!
But Alex was no fool. After a few frantic moments of frantic slapping and elbowing, he allowed himself to fall limp, his mentor then placing his body upon the ground with surprising gentleness, lightly slapping and massaging the arteries his deadly choke had pinched off, Alex then dutifully wheezing and gasping for a period of seconds, earning delighted sadistic smiles from the men around him, who, oddly like little boys who both love and loved to torment their pets, seemed both pleased that he was okay, and happy to have seen him struggle.
“That was a Hadaka Jime, disciple. Now I will perform it again, slowly, and you will sense how my forearm masters your throat.”
And he did perform it, several times, seeming to delight in Alex slowly losing consciousness even as he calmly gave Al
ex a dozen tips and pointers, shifting his forearm and then his grip entirely, showing him increasingly deadly variants while doing so, Alex picking up far more than his dark mentor perhaps intended, the three men laughing amongst themselves and talking freely about the best ways to kill Alex when he was collapsed upon the ground before his throat was massaged once more. And it said something about how vicious their lessons were becoming that the ruthless man actually consented to rub some of his totally unnecessary healing ointment, just to make sure Alex’s throat didn’t swell up from the constant abuse and he die in his sleep the next day.
And that had been just the first night that week.
The intensity of the abuse, or training if one wanted to put it kindly, only increased as the nights went on. Alex never complained, no matter how much he spasmed and shook, learning near a score of ways to trap his foe’s limbs and effortlessly twist joints to the breaking point, and most especially the best ways to force his opponent off balance and choke the life out of him with Kataha Jime and a half dozen other variants from the back. To say nothing of multiple one- and two-handed chokes he learned to execute from the front, useful to know despite the disadvantages of one’s opponent still having use of their arms. Because the moves came into their lethal own when combined with grappling, such as with Jigoku Jime, or what his darkly chuckling master also referred to as a hell strangle, Sha Shou happily demonstrating the technique over and over again with one hand and leg controlling Alex’s desperately struggling arms, the other leg and hand squeezing the life out of his throat.
Much to his master’s dark amusement, Alex not only survived, but thrived as yet another deadly week under the dubious care of his mentor came to an end, Alex enduring pain and lessons both, further improving his Dark Qi metabolic mastery and doing his best to absorb all the lessons Sha Shou was ever more free with imparting to him, the night watchman’s sole act of kindness each night being slathering the healing ointment upon Alex’s neck that his Biochemical Mastery could now replicate at will.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5 Page 18
