Alex blinked, rendered momentarily speechless.
He could just imagine the faces of countless millions of cynical natives forced to kowtow before the Jade Ruidian in their midst, beloved of the most powerful ruler in a realm spanning dozens of Earths in scope and size. It was, simply put, utterly beyond the pale and his ability to conceptualize.
And, he feared, it would be a trap as well, putting a bullseye on his back that any number of jealous contemporaries, schemers, and competitors would eagerly seek to strike, long before he ever reached Silver, let alone Gold.
Ancient tales were all well and good, but alerting an entire empire to his existence seemed unwise at best, especially while having absolutely no idea what the powers-that-be would think of a cultivating Ruidian that might one day be capable of Jade, or how badly he would shake the natural order of things, and how displeased this might make said Emperor.
For all that Cheng Lei gazed at the Golden door with an almost visceral hunger, Alex felt nothing but cold dread, gazing upon its shimmering frame.
At last Cheng Lei shook his head and sighed, granting his friend a knowing smile as he pointed to the other door. “And this door of midnight hue, opened by the jade crescent moon which is the symbol of Qing Bai herself, allows one to escape all fame and renown. One appears at the lip of a cave on the side of Risen Phoenix Academy’s mountain city, an area that’s always been abandoned and neglected by even the most desperate farmers and cultivators. For all that, should the crescent moon sigil be revealed, no scholarly text or treatise anywhere in the empire will be barred to us. Of course, this is based off ancient scrolls written a thousand years ago, tales that I’m sure have been forgotten by pretty much everyone save, perhaps, the elders within the school. Even so, I doubt they would be willing to hold our secrets forever. Before you know it, the imperial legions would be sending a massive honor guard of a thousand Bronze and a score of Silver to escort us safely to the imperial city.”
Alex gave a solemn nod, gazing intently at his friend. “So, we take the door of midnight hue, and the crescent jade keys we use to open the portal, we show no one, ever.”
His friend rewarded him with yet another brilliant smile. “Tempting as the golden door might be… yes, I do think that’s the best approach.”
Alex dipped his head. “Then we’re in agreement. But I think there’s far more to discover here than just jade talismans signifying our earned rank and a choice of exits. Come, Cheng Lei. We only got this far by being bold enough to face what no one else would dare, and prudent enough to see peril and opportunity for what they are. And I, for one, refuse to fear unnamed perils at the cost of priceless wisdom that could be gleaned perhaps nowhere else in the world save here, in this chamber, at this moment.”
Cheng Lei frowned in consternation before truly focusing his gaze where Alex was pointing. He blinked, his eyes alighting with wonder. “Alex! Is that what I think it is?”
Alex chuckled. “Only one way to find out.”
His friend’s hitched breath was all Alex needed to know that they had indeed stumbled upon something beyond remarkable. The massive shadowy alcoves revealed jade effigies in bas-relief the moment Alex and Lei had torn their eyes free of the radiant gold door calling out so invitingly to both of them. With an icy chill, Alex realized that he recognized those massive, larger-than-life figures. Giants of jade and gold, sparkling with spirit pearls, sapphires and diamonds, watched the intruders below with luminous eyes. Alex’s guts crawled when he found his eyes inadvertently seeking their own, and he forcefully tore his gaze away, only to gasp with wonder when he spotted the massive mother-of-pearl alcoves behind the statues, seeing at last the grandest and most wondrous of secrets in all their impossible glory.
“Alex!” Cheng Lei’s voice choked up with awe. “Do you understand what’s before us? What this alcove truly represents?”
Qi Perception check made! Artificer skill check success!
You have made contact with a Jade-caliber artifact.
Interface translation complete.
Alex jerked a nod.
Of course he did.
He understood perfectly what those runes and hieroglyphs were saying. Or rather, he did the moment his trembling fingertips dared to caress that shimmering surface.
He hissed for only a moment as a fingertip encountered one particular indecipherable rune and did not deny the price asked as he lost a single health point’s worth of blood. The entire tablet of swirls and sigils and diagrams came to life, and suddenly he understood.
Willpower check failed!
You are temporarily stunned.
Incompatibilities detected!
For what seemed a countless eternity, Alex shuddered and stared as an impossible flood of information overwhelmed his mind: ancient ideas and concepts dreamed up by men well over a thousand years ago, in a time of unparalleled strife and violence, bitter struggle, and, for some, transcendent understanding as a new Emperor was forged.
An understanding that one of their number had chosen to leave behind for the most worthy aspirants who would dare ascend the steps past even Gold’s reign.
A sacred Fire element cultivation treatise, utterly free of the countless dozens of peripheral insights and specialized applications of Qi that defined all of the Silver and Gold techniques he had spied within the handful of priceless tomes he had had available to him for too brief a period of time.
Before they had all been torn away.
By contrast, this miraculous masterwork was free of all complication, focused on one thing, and one thing only.
Teaching the secrets of a cultivation technique so pristine, so sublime, so complete, it would take a promising disciple blessed with the required number of perfectly aligned meridian channels, assuming they were both strong enough and large enough to endure the mystical steps they had climbed, all the way to Jade.
This truth, Alex had understood the moment he had seen the diagram of the exquisitely fine strands woven into threads, counter-woven into cords, and finally forged into cables so strong that even a Golden core could be compressed. He felt a frisson of wonder at his own profound insights being mirrored here, for each winding had the space and form of twelve strands, for all that only one element was visible. One Fire Qi strand and eleven invisible placeholders counter-woven and intertwined at each level of the weave, which Alex could intuit would be necessary to resonate and properly balance even a single element’s ultimate potential, when compressed by the hideous pressures which Jade would entail.
Though it lacked any sort of dual-state resonance, let alone Alex’s own triple-state degenerate matter cords, Alex could sense its terrible power nonetheless.
And he perceived how incredibly useful it would be for him in his quest to find the ideal cultivation manuals to ascend to Silver and beyond, were it not for the one insurmountable hurdle that differentiated, more than anything else, perhaps, the chasm between the Imperial and Royal clans, and everyone else.
It had been designed for cultivators with twelve pristine meridian channels, in perfect alignment with one another.
Utterly different from the seven-element configuration which almost everyone else made use of.
“Alex?”
He gasped at Cheng Lei’s concerned touch, so dizzy with insights, disorientation, and confusion due to sheer incompatibilities between his own understanding of reality and the insights the twelve-meridian channel configuration had tried to instill in him, that it was all he could do not to collapse face first in the water.
“Alex!”
Alex chuckled softly, picking himself up and waving away his friend’s concern. “I’m alright. Sorry to alarm you. I was just… a bit overwhelmed.”
Cheng Lei’s anxious gaze soon lit with unbridled wonder. “Alex! My dear Ruidian friend, don’t tell me you actually understand the treatise before us?” He chuckled approvingly before giving a satisfied nod. “It is just as I had hoped. Years of research and studying as I prepared myself f
or this miraculous trial, and not only do I find myself with worthy companions and miracles aplenty, but a fellow lost scion of our House.”
He smiled down at Alex with all the affection of a brother finding lost kin. “I knew there was something I recognized in your gaze. Ruidian blood or no, there can be no doubt of your origins now, kung fu brother.” He said the last with an amused smirk, meaning so much more with those words.
Alex only swallowed, lowering his gaze. “Alright, now you just made this awkward as all hell.”
His friend furrowed his too-handsome brow. Frankly, Alex didn’t know what the idiot was worried about. With those looks, that smile, and even half as decent of a cultivation base as Alex’s Soul Sight implied, he didn’t see how Liu Li wouldn’t fall for him.
He shook away his wandering thoughts and a faint prickle of jealousy he had thought himself long over, turning it all into a tired chuckle. “Sorry to disappoint, Cheng Lei, but as miraculous a forging as this living cultivation treatise is, it does me almost no good, save letting me know I’m on the right track in forging my own.”
His friend grew strangely still, gaze growing puzzled. “Alex? I’m not quite sure I understand. How can this masterwork treatise do you no good? And what do you mean, you’re forging your own cultivation manual? Do you have any idea what kind of folly such a claim invites in anyone who has yet to achieve even Silver, let alone Gold?”
Alex just shook his head, focusing on what mattered. “I only have seven meridians, Cheng. Not twelve.”
His friend’s frown grew as he gave a curious tilt of his head. “But Alex… no. I refuse to believe that! I was so certain you were one of my lost brothers, the way we connected ascending the steps, getting the measure of each other’s character. Helping each other when needed, and, dare I say it… even getting a sense of each other’s karmic merits.”
Alex smirked. “I doubt you’ll pick up anything karmic about me, one way or another. That aside, I know you’re good people, Cheng Lei. I know that for you, at least, it’s not an act. And I know you must be damned strong and incredibly gifted, because in this world, only the strong can afford to be as kind as you are, to reveal your emotions so honestly that it throws off your enemies, who are sure there must be artifice where there is none.”
Alex’s smirk grew. “And I can tell just by the way you’re looking at me that you know this too. But your eyes are still those of a gentle soul who came to a cultivator’s cynical savvy only later, after childhood. Which meant there had never been a period of weakness in your life, for most cultivators who achieve power are still the same self-serving shitheads they ever were, the brutal crucible of survival having forged their characters years before they had the opportunity to developed a more balanced, less cynical outlook on life. But with you?” Alex just shook his head. “You were born to power and trained to wield it from what I can only guess is a very young age. Both political… and personal.”
Alex winced under his friend’s too-thoughtful gaze, realizing he had probably said too much.
Again.
But Cheng Lei’s now jade green eyes wouldn’t let Alex’s own go. “You say you have only seven meridian channels, yet you have the strength of power and of character that would be the envy of the clan you already know I’m from. And for all my gifts, I would never have been allowed this far from home, had I not been able to judge another man’s character almost as well as you seem to.” This time, his smile was every bit as jaded and calculating as any corrupt sycophant or cultivator Alex had encountered.
Alex grinne. “You see? That’s the look one normally expects from a cultivator. Especially when he says he’s doing something for your own good.”
Cheng Lei chuckled softly. “Do you really think me such a fool as to reveal so much of myself to those who would be all too eager to slip a blade under the armor of my heart and soul?”
The prince slowly shook his head.
“No, Alex. I would never unveil myself to those from whom I needed to fear duplicity and treachery. And there’s the rub. You can never tell who truly has your best interests at heart, either here, or in the court of intrigue that consumes so many principalities and nations, or the crucible of survival where it seems academies are as happy to help psychopaths ascend as those of noble spirit and virtue.”
Alex nodded. “Exactly. So, what possessed you to bare your back to a complete unknown who was responsible for taking out at least one of your competitors?
Cheng Lei’s sad smile made Alex wince. “I think you already know the answer to that, Alex.”
Alex flushed. “Oh. You mean… that.”
His friend slowly nodded his head. “I had my suspicions. I guess I still do, really. And you wouldn’t believe the uproar still going on at the palace about WiFu’s avatar descending from the heavens, our seers screaming about the dread artifact he wielded, though the verdict’s still split as to whether he was there to save us or doom us all.”
Alex’s heart was pounding, the blood roaring in his ears so loudly that he barely heard his friend.
Lei’s smile grew amused. “Of course, there were cynics and doubters. Some believed it was staged, the Red Prince himself declaring it a trick to infiltrate Cui Zhe’s court with disguised agents. But Princess Xian Hong passed the Trial of Blood with flying colors when I made sure to personally administer the tests. And when Princess Cui Li begged her aunt not to send any strike force to find and eliminate the dangerous Ruidian that Dongfang Hong was so incensed by, yet she refused to say why, curiosity and speculation only grew.”
“Fascinating,” Alex said.
Cheng Lei’s laughed outright. “Isn’t it? I don’t suppose you have any dread fangtian ji capable of flooding an entire nation on you, by any chance?”
Alex grinned at his friend. “Oh, I wanted to travel light, so I hid it in the Realm of the Dead. Not the kind of thing one wants casually lying around, after all.”
His friend chuckled. “Indeed. And as absurd as this speculation even is, I still felt a certain shiver of curiosity when a Ruidian dared to accept the challenge of ascension. At that moment, I knew you were either a madman, or one of the very few of your kind who could cultivate.” His gaze grew solemn. “When I saw you take that first step, I sensed a flash of your potency. Of course, when you swim in the circles I do, potent cultivators are almost more common than not.”
A callous-free hand possessing surprising strength reached out to clasp Alex’s shoulder. “It was when I saw you risk your life for the sake of an idealistic merchant you hardly knew, at such odds with any other cultivator’s natural instincts, that I sensed just how powerful you must be. To be such a noble fool and still be alive, among us to this day.”
His gaze grew solemn. “It was then that I found myself intrigued by the puzzle that was the Ruidian daring to walk amongst us, whether or not there was any truth to the absurd rumors at the palace.” He winked. “And we’ll pretend you never said anything to imply they were anything but rumors, if it’s all the same to you.”
Alex let loose a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. “Sounds good to me. No reason to perpetuate rumors that don’t do anyone any good.”
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“Forgive me for asking; I’m sure it’s not even necessary, but… you don’t have any designs to do harm to Baidushi, LanTu Nation, ZhengTu Kingdom, or the Golden Empire as a whole, do you?”
Alex couldn’t hold back a small grin, but slowly shook his head. “I don’t have any plans of conquest or destruction involving any kingdoms inhabited by my friends. Not even YanTu nation, though I personally think Xian Hong would rule far better than a certain murderous Red Prince whose strike force regiments, consisting entirely of Bronze and Silver crack troops, are even now flooding the outskirts of Baidushi and—if I didn’t know better—getting ready to stage a coup, if he doesn’t get his way with a certain princess.”
He unflinchingly met Prince Cheng Lei’s troubled gaze. �
��Of course, I could be wrong. And though I have no designs of mass slaughter or conquest—how could I, as a barely mid-ranked Bronze cultivator? —you may rest assured that I will take any and every step necessary to defend myself, should any foe try to kill me or otherwise force my hand, no matter how far I have to go.” His eyes glinted with steely resolve, and far from being offended, the prince actually smiled.
“As well you should, my friend, as well you should. And I won’t even ask how you know what you know, since what Ruidian would dare the city without being at least somewhat informed as to current events? But what you say about the Prince Dongfang Hong…” He gave a troubled shake of his head. “I have a feeling that certain things will need looking into. It would be great if we could get corroborating evidence without direct confrontation…”
“Good luck with that.”
The prince smirked. “Indeed. Alex?”
“Yes?”
The young scion swallowed, his voice serious once more. “Is it true?”
Alex’s grin widened. “Is what true, Your Grace?”
His friend sighed. “Don’t make me say it! And anyway, how could you…”
But Alex had already turned away.
“Alex!”
“I don’t know why you’re wasting time chatting with me. I’m guessing this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study jade-ranked cultivation treatises which are not sealed tight in an impossible-to-access library.”
His friend grumbled for a minute, but soon enough, Alex heard the sound of magical quill against pristine vellum and had no doubt that his friend was taking notes with a care and intensity that would do any scholar proud.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior’s Path Page 14
