He turned around, meeting her awkward gaze. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”
She angrily shook her head. “What you are is an idiot. I’m going to bed.”
He shook his head ruefully at her angrily clenched fists as they returned to the wagon.
“I think you better stay down here tonight,” she said at the top of the wagon ladder. “And Alex?”
“Yes, Chan?”
“Thank you.”
23
Silver Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 2!
Soul Sight is now Rank 2!
Spiritual Teacher is now Rank 3!
Golden Realms Kung Fu is now Rank 5! Adept status achieved!
Finesse is now 15.
Quickness is now 15.
Vitality is now 16.
Congratulations! Thanks to your constant training and use of body cultivation techniques, you have permanently gained 1 point of Impact Resistance! No resilience techniques known. You have taken your first step in forging a new body cultivation technique. Details: unknown.
Perhaps it was awareness and the struggle against the odd tension they felt during any period of rest that had them all training so intently, growing so rapidly as they lost themselves in a dream of movement and mock battle, a constant flood of Heaven and Earth spiritual energy flowing through them, their meridians awash with Qi like never before as time flowed by at a dizzying pace. Seasons in days as each day seemed to stretch for an eternity, all of them balanced on the precipice between illumination and destruction, the peril perpetually below them pushing them to excel as much as the brilliant blue heavens above.
Even as Alex felt lost in a profound, golden insight that stretched endless days or weeks, it did not affect the flow of movement he embraced, flowing away from Hao Chan’s sweeping kicks before sending her crashing to the now-reinforced carriage rooftop with a sweeping hip throw, smiling only long enough for her to spring to her feet, cheeks flushed with exhilaration, eyes smiling so warmly at him before feinting with a roundhouse that became a hook kick with a fluid adroitness that left him a bit awed even as he grunted with pain, almost certain forearm bones had cracked under the force of that blow he was caught too flat-footed to roll with, before her follow-up roundhouse sent him crashing to the ground.
Shared expressions as much grimaces of pain as warm smiles were exchanged as they lost themselves in what was now their shared body cultivation technique before they grinned with relief. Their increasing skill and the storm of spiritual energies flowing through them during their strange journey had them healing injuries in minutes that would have taken weeks otherwise, were they mortals who could never dare the Heavens.
Their beautiful dance of battle and death had only grown in intensity and ferocity as they mastered their training area so well that they could now fight with near-perfect abandon, the pair having only fallen off twice in all the endless weeks of their training, both times managing to land with a roll, knowing instinctively to protect their necks and roll free of the slow lumbering carriage wheels, both thankfully free of any serious injury, for all that Hao Yin had gasped with horror.
And though Hao Lin had slowed down, something in his gaze had sent a cold bolt of dread through Alex’s stomach. Realizing that Hao Lin, for all that he lacked a cultivator’s gifts, was the navigator leading them down this miraculous river cutting through the Dao of endless possibility, as they all grew like they never had before. But the cost of stopping before nightfall… so perilous even Hao Zei roared when Hao Lin dared even slow down, as if he too was beginning to understand, the man flashing Alex the coldest of smiles whenever they stopped for the night.
“It is good you train my daughter as you do. Forging her into a prize even the most jaded of witnesses would hunger for,” Hao Zei had whispered the night before, Alex forcing himself to choke back all contempt, and respond with the faintest of nods.
The merchant had laughed. “Ah… how you hunger for her. I know you hunger for her, just as I know you will do nothing! For if you dare...” Eyes flashing with darkest heat had promised horrors unimaginable, even as his ugly voice whispered, “Train her just as you have, boy, and I will be pleased.” Then slamming the carriage door shut, leaving Alex with much to think about as the night hours wore on.
It was all too obvious Hao Zei understood the significance of this trip too.
Understood, and profited from it, just as Alex, Hao Chan, and both of her cousins did.
Of all of them, only Sun Sun did not, seeming weaker and more drawn every day.
“Alex! Are you alright? Is your wrist feeling better?” asked a brilliantly-beaming Hao Chan, shaking him from his reverie.
Alex quickly nodded, dispelling the gloomy turn his thoughts had taken. “I am and it has.” He caught her gaze then, giving a slow nod of approval. “Every day you continue to surprise me. Even now, when I feel connected to my art like never before, flowing with a grace that would have awed my former master, you continue to surprise me.”
Hao Chan’s warm smile only grew. “I know. Every day I’m amazed by how fast I’m growing into my potential. Alex, I can even feel my own art roaring through my blood now!” She shivered with awe. “Even though I’m just a basic cultivator, and can only hope I’ll ascend safely to Bronze one day, sometimes when we lose ourselves in our training with the shafts of sunlight caressing us as the trees rustle overhead… I feel it. I feel it like a roaring storm, or the waves crashing against the shore. It’s those moments when I grab hold of that sense of it that I dance. I fight, like never before.” She licked her lips, shaking her head. “I… I’m sorry I can’t put it better than that.” Her brows furrowed in concern. “Alex?”
But Alex could say nothing, struck speechless with awe as he sensed the flow of Qi roaring through her, sensing her connection to her Dao and the spiritual energies now flowing so effortlessly through her meridians.
Seeing it at last, clearer than he ever had before.
A virtual sea of Qi they sailed through, of an intensity he had only before seen in Master Liu Jian’s alchemy lab. Only these were wild streams and strands of power and potential, and it was only their transcendent states of motion, of battle, of deepest meditation and physical cultivation, that allowed them to dip into these wonderful waters of insight and Qi.
And Alex was amazed to sense Hao Chan on the verge of another breakthrough, though he felt a sudden chill of apprehension, finally understanding the cost of their phenomenal rate of growth.
Even as their minds flooded with the potential of countless seasons of deepest study, so too, seasons were lost from the coils of their lives, their mortal shells not entirely able to balance the perilous precipice their souls walked, for all that they blossomed with the golden transcendence flooding through them.
Only Hao Lin seemed immune. Still a boy of fourteen, for all that his eyes held a fae insight that would make one think the lad was as much spirit as man, a soul both ephemeral and wise enough to skip but lightly upon the seas of Qi pounding through the rest of them.
Alex’s eyes widened, catching the faintest shifts in Hao Chan’s supremely beautiful features. More exquisite than ever before, blossoming with both a dancer’s and a cultivator’s strength and vitality, but somehow, Alex could tell, the Dark Qi of change had kissed her form as well.
But lightly. For Alex had taught her to harness what so many thought of as waste, to push the cells to ever greater heights of recovery, even as it ever so slightly aged them.
Alex blinked. Puzzled. If anything, his friends should look even older than the handful of years he now sensed their strange trip should have taken from their lives, for all that the stronger a cultivator got, the more inured to aging they supposedly were.
And all of them were still on the lowest of rungs.
Alex knew this.
But the brilliant glow to the blushing cheeks of the girl before him belonged to a nineteen-year-old. Not a girl in her early twenties, which should have been the price they had paid.
But they hadn’t.
They hadn’t.
Alex gasped, quickly raising his hands as his friends looked on, sensing their concern. But they had the grace to instinctively step back. Sensing that he was on the cusp of something significant. Something momentous.
They had only aged a year. A single year for the exquisite dancer he was in so much danger of falling for. A single year for the beautiful colt-like kitsune who looked less like a frightened girl and more like a beautiful young woman coming into her prime, every day.
Why hadn’t they aged more?
A trembling hand reached out to stroke Hao Chan’s cheek. She did not protest, merely leaned into his touch as Hao Yin covered her mouth in a breathless ‘oh’ of surprise.
And Alex smiled as a sudden flood of insight washed over him, understanding at last.
Insight gained! You have achieved Rank 5 in the Eternal Fox Body Cultivation Technique!
They had learned to direct the flow of Dark Qi within each of their cells. That was the secret. That was the key. And Alex thought he understood. That which normally had no direction, no focus, would destroy from within like a jammed piston at the end of a combustion chamber. When wear and tear and gunk prevented the release of the hot buildup of gases, or in this case, Dark Qi, the engine would quickly break down, the pressure destroying it from within. But when it had direction, a focus, when the engine, or in this case, the cells, were restored to the absolute peak of condition, the Dark Qi could flow forward with deliberate directed purpose, harming nothing in its wake.
Alex swallowed, sinking to his knees, heart roaring with insight.
“Alex, what is it?” asked an anxious Hao Yin.
“Shush, cousin! Can’t you tell? He’s having a breakthrough!”
Alex shook his head, realizing his earlier understanding had been imperfect. Using Dark Qi along with Light to regenerate the cells did not have to age them. Of course it had, ever so slightly, due to their imperfect technique, but as their skill had increased, their sense of the flow of Qi throughout those tiniest structures of the body, their growing ability not to repair just the grossest of cell ruptures, but the tiny organelles themselves, had improved to a phenomenal degree. No matter that Alex alone understood the true depth of the transformations, due to his unique origins.
And as their mastery over Eternal Fox had increased, his strange cultivation technique had blessed him with its most powerful secret yet.
Insight gained! Soul Sight perception check made!
Alex looked up, catching Hao Chan’s gaze. “You’re close to another breakthrough, aren’t you?”
His kung fu sister flashed an excited grin. “I am, Alex. My fourth meridian is almost clear!”
Alex smiled, turning to Hao Yin, amazed to see how close she was to blossoming as well. And why not? Every day she trained diligently with them, practicing the handful of strikes Alex had taught her against the pell now mounted just beyond the ring, gaining strength, speed, and grace that would have been utterly profound in any other circumstances save their own.
And healing all her bruises and cuts just as diligently as her cousin did, her shins, fists, and forearms now almost as tough as Alex’s had been, just a few short weeks ago.
Because not only could they use his body cultivation technique to heal, they could recover from their never-ending training so fast they could build muscle, bone, and callouses, only to push themselves immediately after fully recovering in minutes what might take days for a normal athlete to recover, allowing for months’ worth of conditioning to occur within the tiniest fraction of that time.
And they had been at it with furious, never-ending intensity, for weeks. And their growing mastery over themselves and their bodies had the added benefit that they could wait to relieve themselves until it was convenient for them, the girls going together only after Hao Zei and Sun Sun had turned in for the night, Alex having his entire shift to do what he must.
But he now sensed his cultivation technique was capable of so much more.
It was perhaps a measure of his trust that he didn’t hesitate to summon both quill, ink, and paper, knowing he could write it so much faster in his ring by visualized pen or will alone, but the one thing he didn’t dare was to enter the ring while they were moving. Not for this journey, anyway, somehow dreadfully certain he would be lost somewhere in the endless seas of time.
He shook the troubling thought away, desperate not to lose his vision, knowing he’d have plenty of time to polish it all in his ring when they stopped for the night.
And as his frantic notes calmed to something his friends could understand, as he slowly put together a chart with piece after piece of summoned parchment only globs of summoned paste kept together as the breeze rustled their hair, the girls gazed at his slowly emerging chart with something close to awe.
“Alex! This diagram. It’s… you’re showing the flow of our body cultivation technique, right?”
Alex smiled. “That’s right, Hao Yin. Here’s the flow of our Qi through our cleared meridian pathways, however many we have, and from there, flowing through the peripheral meridian channels all of us have, infusing deeper and deeper into our cells like arteries, vessels, and capillaries. And here,” he said, pointing to an adjoining diagram, “is how our cultivation technique effects our cells, how that dark tingle you feel combined with the brilliant white glow is what we tie into extremely tight cords of focused potential.”
Hao Chan’s brow furrowed. “But Alex, that looks like my master’s cultivation tome. Purifying and cycling Qi… the way it shows all those different bands of color, and why are there nine? The meridian channels, all of it… I’m sorry, I’m just so confused. It doesn’t look anything like the meridian cultivation or the body conditioning manuals my master keeps in his library. It looks, well, like an odd combination of both.”
Alex grinned, smiling pointedly at an oddly-blushing Yin. “That’s because it sort of is both. Your cousin, if you couldn’t tell, is on the verge of a breakthrough.” He caught Hao Chan’s eyes. “As are you. And what technique have we been practicing for at least seven hours every day when not fighting for all we’re worth?”
“The Eternal Fox,” Hao Yin whispered. “My namesake.”
Hao Chan’s eyes widened. “You’re right! Blast it all, you’re right!” She winced. “I truly hope I haven’t messed up my own cultivation, shifting focus like I have.”
Alex laughed. “Have you ever felt stronger or better in your entire life?”
She flashed a sheepish grin. “No, Alex, I never have.” And something in her gaze made him flush.
He quickly turned back to the diagram. “Anyway, as for the different colors, this shows the flow of all the different elements, as I understand them, but you can just think of it as Light Qi. I forged it so it works safely as a general technique… and Dark Qi, which, even if most cultivators have been taught to see it as nothing but waste, you can still use.”
Hao Chan nodded solemnly. “I know, Alex. And after all these hours we’ve spent, I can finally feel that dark tingle you spoke of… feel it working through me.” She flushed, then frowned. “But didn't you say something about it aging us faster?”
Hao Yin’s eyes widened. “Wait, you forged it? The entire technique? Your master didn’t teach it to you?” She winced. “I thought that was impossible! Before he gave up on me, my former master used to say that any treatise written by someone who hadn’t reached Silver would doom us to the same fate. And you’re, well, you’re just a basic cultivator like us. Not even Bronze. You haven’t even finished clearing your meridian channels, right?” Then she chuckled softly. “Of course, I was already doomed, and I can at least meditate upon the Eternal Fox without feeling like it’s tearing me apart from within.”
Alex flashed a sheepish smile. “You could certainly say my ultimate master did inspire me, Yin. And Chan? About the aging thing? I was wrong. Partly. When first mastering this technique, your body will age slightly before learni
ng to channel and process what was formerly just thought of as waste that before you did everything you could to expel. Eventually your control over Dark Qi will grow to the point that peripheral damage is nonexistent when properly focused, doing nothing more than allowing your cells to heal more quickly and smoothly than ever. To function more efficiently.”
He swallowed, holding her gaze. “It’s the Qi of motion, decay, and transformation. And when you have your next breakthrough in this art, I think you’ll find that the Qi of transformation can transcend even the Dao of decay.”
Hao Chan froze, gazing at Alex with something close to Awe.
Hao Yi gasped. “Alex! Are you saying it will make us, well...”
“Immortal?” Chan whispered.
Alex chuckled softly. “I’m just saying that it might, I think, slow down the rate at which we age.” He paused thoughtfully. “Maybe to the point where we don’t age at all.”
Hao Yin squealed. “But Alex, that’s a Gold technique! Maybe more than Gold! Even cultivators that ascend to Silver don’t see a thousand years. You need Gold to achieve that! And every technique my master spoke of to motivate me before he gave up on me… every mention of curing diseases or discovering the fountain of youth… I’ve never heard of anything like this!”
Hao Chan nodded solemnly. “Even my mentor made it clear that chasing youth was a fool’s dream, that aging naturally slowed as we ascended the ranks of cultivation, as long as we practiced our arts every day without fail.” She gazed down at Alex’s hastily constructed diagram upon which he was scribbling added notes and expanding at that very moment.
“Somehow, I feel like your revelations are breaking all the rules.”
Hao Yin grinned, ears twitching. “As they should.”
It wasn’t until their carriage had finally stopped for the night that Alex put his quill down, smiling at his cramping hand before sending a tingling pulse of healing energy that rejuvenated it within seconds.
Alex beamed with pride at the results of his revelation, though he knew he’d spend many hours in his ring tonight redrafting and polishing his work until he felt it worthy of the cultivation manual he was carefully making in honor of his patron.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reforged: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 2 Page 30
