Year 658 of the Stable Era,
Twentieth day of the tenth month
Forty-four minutes after the start of the 3rd Inner Hour
How the fuck had he lost? Chang Hui swore to herself, staring at Guan Tie’s collapsed form.
This was supposed to been as simple as a flip of the hand. Li Gho had done well in the first round, claiming a win over that Gao Oma at the last second with a spectacular application of technique. That had been the hard part. Hui had counted Guan Tie’s win as a sure thing, the one certainty she had in this entire gamble.
And yet, despite his collection of titles. Despite his reputation as the prodigy of his generation. Despite his centuries of experience, he had lost. And to some random general disciple no less.
Hui prided herself on her ability to calculate the odds. Her foremost pillar was that of mind, and she was well into the Mind Coalescing stage. She could see through the cultivation of most cultivators of a lower stage, as well as many of her own peers. Sure, it was harder to discern such exact details with cultivators above her level, but she could still spot someone concealing their power with greater frequency than most.
Li Zhan’s cultivation had been nothing outstanding. A middling level of body and qi, especially for his age. Even in battle it had been unremarkable, barely matching his opponent’s might each time their blades had met.
And yet, despite the vast difference in powers, he had won. Not through impressive techniques or unusual powers, but through swordsmanship and swordsmanship alone. His sword had simply always been in the right place at the right time, his blade always cutting Guan Tie’s attacks at their weakest points. It had simply been a difference in their experience, but that should have been impossible.
Impossible because Hui knew exactly how much Guan Tie trained.
The man—for all of his lackadaisical bluster and infuriating drawl—trained to his limit every day. He used those ridiculous bangles of his to practice his qi circulation during his idle moments, and he hid training manuals inside the pages of those pulpy novels that he could so often be seen reading as he lounged around the sect. His casual demeanor was a luxury, not an indulgence. Something he allowed himself only because of how he worked to retain his place.
And yet the members of this dilapidated club were much more than they appeared. Even Li Gho, a strong prospect of her generation despite her humble position, had somehow been pushed to the brink by her young opponent.
There were definitely secrets to this club that Hui hadn’t been able to tell at first glance. Secrets that she would preferred anyone else have discovered before her. She had really stepped on the dragon’s tail this time, and she would have to do her best to overcome its bite.
Her future depended on it.
There was one ray of hope, she thought, as she secured her abacus by her side. There were good odds that Li Zhan was their ringer. An experienced cultivator like Guan Tie, who had been bribed to work for this club as a mentor and bodyguard. His actions indicated that he was an ascetic, clearly far more enamored with his martial arts than his cultivation, and a good mentor given their youngest member’s performance.
Their leader, the strange cultivator that had continued practicing drills as the others had watched the matches, could simply be an eccentric heir. One with the spirit stones to buy whatever he needed to lure the mysterious Li Zhan to his side. Given his appearance, his cultivation, and his sword, there were reasonable odds of this. At least 1:1.5, 1:2.63 if the state of the building was deliberate.
It was, however, her only hope of victory.
Chang Hui was not much of a fighter. She had participated as much as she was required when she was a disciple, repelling monstrous beasts and fighting over relics in the great wastes between civilization, but the focus of her cultivation had never been the application of violence. Her techniques were scholarly in nature, which is what had allowed her to reach a position where she could most efficiently acquire the resources needed to properly support her growth.
Cultivation was all about the proper use of time, and it was simply more efficient to use her wits to acquire resources rather than waste time hunting for the heavenly and earthly treasures. There was simply too much chance involved in such endeavors. You could easily spend months or even years tracking down a mystical herb only to discover that it was completely useless to anyone who wasn’t cultivating a poison body or a combustion technique.
Or it could only be used to make ink, and only for formations relating to the weather.
Or it was an excellent ingredient for weapons, but only if you could find a shard of some other rare material whose recipe had been lost in the Immortal Era.
Or it was an unbelievable cultivation resource that could improve your mental strength twofold, but only once your cultivation reached the Mind Materialization stage because attempting to consume it prematurely would liquify every single one of your organs in an instant.
You could always attempt to sell such a treasure off, but even once you got back to civilization, after fighting off ancestors’ knows how many scavengers and lowlives, you’d still have to track down someone who’d actually want to buy the damn thing. The merchant clans always took their cut for searching if you didn’t want to do that yourself, and you’d have to spend all that time negotiating price.
And then there were the endless tests your prospective buyer would perform to convince themselves that they weren’t purchasing damaged goods, and that you would also have to do to ensure that you weren’t getting scammed.
There were always auction houses, but with what they took from you coming and going you were almost better off cutting off your own arm to save them half the trouble.
No, far better to just stick with spirit stones. They were universally accepted for most transactions, and they could buy whatever was needed for the few that didn’t.
Her hand touched the sheath of her Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword for reassurance as she took the stage, stepping past Guan Tie as she did.
“We’ll talk about your performance later,” she muttered mentally, her words a whisper on the tip of his mind.
“Just be careful boss,” he replied, his voice falling on her ears alone as he used his vocalization technique to direct the sound. “He’s tougher than he looks.”
She let out an audible sigh at that. As if she wasn’t aware of that by this point. She’d just have to let her weapons and cultivation do their work. In some ways, it was another bitter irony to her situation.
She always relished setting the odds for a foolish heir relying on such things to carry them through, and yet here she was, for all her planning, forced into that exact situation. Her odds were poor, but if there was one thing that her cultivation was good at, it was tipping the scales.
“Chang Hui, third stage Cultivator of the Southern Peaks Gambling Hall,” she announced, bowing slightly at her waist as she performed her salute. Across the flat stone of the training field, her opponent reached into his sleeve. He produced a familiar wooded token, which he read quickly before returning it to its place, turning back to Chang Hui as he did.
“Baikun Feng, Body Moulding Cultivator of the Sword Intent Club,” he declared, completely unashamed of the fact that he had just had to consult his sect issued identification to remember his own cultivation.
As he drew his sword Chang Hui’s hands blurred, forming the signs to activate her battle techniques.
Teal Mountain Sword Style: Third Revision Flying Swords Technique.
Twin Minds Technique: Looking Forwards While Looking Back.
The Twilight Bookmaker’s Art: Evening Odds.
The Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword drew itself from her back as a pair of far cheaper jian slid from her waist, the trio of blades raising themselves into position—the shorter blades defending her on either side as her prized sword tipped its point towards her foe. Her abacus began to click at her side, its pale purple stones sliding back and forth in a live tally of the odds. 1:3.8. Not a strong start.
Baikun Feng regarded her stance curiously as he approached, the sword in his hand one of extraordinary mundanity. Simple steel, that of an ordinary mortal, and a poor one at that. Usually there was at least a trace of an earthly treasure in a blade, as mortal smiths often used even the faintest trace of the least sought cultivation resource to elevate their blades. But his blade had none of those, its luster that of charcoal and iron.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Even that Li Zhan fellow had at least used a cloudsteel blade, a material more fitting of a cultivator.
“What a pathetic blade,” Chang Hui smirked, her tongue lashing out in harmony with her mind. While most cultivators were unable to touch the minds of others, they still trained in methods of resisting such intrusion. They were hard arts to master, however, and a sharp word easily poke a weak point for her to take advantage of.
“My sword is my sword,” Baikun Feng replied sharply, deflecting her words with ease. “I shall use it until I master it.”
His mind was like a blade. Too smooth to grasp, too hard to break, and so sharp that Hui felt she would be torn to shreds if she tried to force herself against it. Its refined structure was abnormal for a martial cultivator, whose mental forms usually resembled themselves or vague geometric shapes. She’d have to make do with his surface thoughts then.
“A laudable goal,” Hui replied, electricity running through the Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword as she tightened her grip on it. “If only your blade lasted as long as your resolve.”
She swung her sword as she spoke, striking at his pathetic sword as she did. He might have gotten this far reinforcing it with sword qi, but such things had a limit. His qi might equal hers, but the power of her blade would make all the difference. She’d split his sword to pieces, and let his shattered pride perform the final strike on his dao heart.
Feng met her strike calmly, his sword meeting hers midway with barely a spark. The threads of electricity parted before it as they met, cleaved as easily as the surrounding air. He gave her a disappointed look as she stared on in shock, his expression unchanging as he deflected the rest of her flying blades.
One split in half, a diagonal blow that bisected it into uneven twins, while the other collided with the ground as Feng contemptuously batted it aside with his sheath. He returned it to his belt as Hui forced some space between them, anxiously inspecting her sword.
It was undamaged by their clash, and as she channeled more qi through it, entirely intact. And yet so was Feng’s, not even a scratch despite meeting her divine blade as if they were equals. Hui’s mind whirled with the possibilities, as its twin took in the situation. Feng was pushing the attack, and she felt for the beads of her abacus with her qi sense as he did.
The odds were 31:25:44. His horizontal strike was most likely to strike her in the chest, with the odds decreasing for her left shoulder and thigh respectively. She adjusted her blade as his drew closer, only for the beads of her abacus to click furiously as she did.
14:65:21. It wasn’t her chest anymore, now it was her thigh, the previous low option. She lowered her blade as fast as she could, barely managing to deflect the strike as it grazed her leg, cutting the corner off her robe as the beads continued to click with growing intensity.
Feng’s sword swept back as she desperately tried to match him, the beads of her abacus ticking as rapidly as a rainstorm against a roof with each move they exchanged.
The Twilight Bookmaker’s Art could barely keep up with it. It was Hui’s most refined technique, formulated by an ancient cultivator renowned for his ability to perfectly predict his foes’ every move. It used a combination of experience, divination and her opponent’s thoughts to calculate outcomes, allowing her to know the likelihood of their next moves.
It would give her at least a second’s advantage over her opponents, between the moment they committed to an attack and the moment it struck. But Feng’s attacks were simply too adaptable, too quick to respond. The moment she made any movement, no matter how slight, he would reconsider his own again, optimizing his attack against her defense. It was putting her technique into a constant state of flux, as it struggled to keep up with the sea of shifting possibilities.
Hui grimaced as his blade tore another line through her robe, barely slowed as it cut through the entire length of her last flying sword. Her qi seemed to make no difference in the face of his blade, its sharpness eclipsing anything a mortal implement should be capable of. Her left hand forced itself into a hand sign, rushing through the activation of her technique as she feinted an attack.
The Twilight Bookmaker’s Art: Tipping the Scales
Seven beads of concentrated spirit stones shattered in her abacus as Hui drew in their energy, twisting fate to ensure that her opponent fell for her deception. Feng’s sword rose in anticipation of an overhead slash that would never arrive, only for its tip to flick down like a bead of dew, tapping aside her stab as he struck her head with his pommel. Hui reeled from the blow, barely raising her sword as Feng struck past its guard, his blade weaving around the jagged edge of her Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword as it cut the tip from her index finger.
She swore at the pain, forcing her qi towards the wound to draw it closed, only for the bleeding to persist. No matter how much qi she drew into it, the wound remained, defying any attempt to deny its existence.
But that was impossible, no injury was ever permanent for a cultivator.
But then, some techniques could allow wounds to persist longer, didn’t they, her second mind corrected. Perhaps her opponent practiced one. They weren’t uncommon among sword cultivators with sadistic tendencies.
Hurriedly, she tore a strip from her robe, bandaging her finger as she held Feng at bay with her flying sword technique, her Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword soaring with a clap of thunder as she pushed enough qi into it to make the air vibrate with each swing.
Feng met each strike with the same disappointed look, until after the third he simply slashed his sword through the air between Hui and the blade. Her sword immediately fell to the ground, its point gliding through the stone like tofu until it stopped at its hilt, only a sliver of the blade visible.
Hui tried to pull it to her, but it remained stuck where it was. She gestured to it again, and then again, but still nothing happened. Her hands formed a rapid series of signs as she tried to reform her Third Revision Flying Swords Technique, but try as she might, her sword remained, as if it was cut off from her technique itself.
Baikun Feng sighed as he looked wistfully towards his companions. “It would seem that I drew the short straw today. There’s nothing to be gained from this.”
“You…dare?” Hui gasped, pulling the Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword from the ground with her good hand. Her improvised bandage was doing little to staunch the blood, and it painted a crimson snake as she traced her fingers along the side of her sword, angling its tip towards Feng and flooding it with qi as she activated the technique forged into its blade.
A bolt of lightning leapt towards her foe, thick as her chest and with the head of a snarling python. The air crackled with the smell of ozone, filling in the split second it took to cross the space between the two cultivators. Feng beheaded it in a single slash, barely looking towards it as he split the lightning in twain before its twin could join it. A moment later thunder finally arrived, its crash only serving to mourn its kin and muffle the sound of Hui’s jaw hitting the floor.
That was impossible.
Nobody his stage could be that quick.
And with that sword, which was…
It was still intact.
How?
How?
How could this be?
Hui’s mouth opened and closed as Baikun Feng was declared the victor, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. She remained that way even as Li Zhan stepped into the arena, taking her sword from her limp, unresisting hands.
***
“Damn,” Guan Tie said, swallowing a lychee. “Now that was impressive.” He passed the carton of fruit back to Gao Oma, who took it with shaking hands. She was still trying to process Senior Baikun Feng’s last move.
He had just split lightning.
Lightning.
One of the fastest elements, the one that the heavens themselves wielded above all others when striking down cultivators.
It was a powerful thing, and the Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword was famous for its ability to be able to cut through it. A feat that her Senior had just replicated with nothing but his sword intent and a mortal’s blade.
Oma coughed as she distractedly bit into an unpeeled lychee, spitting the fruit into Senior Li Zhan’s bucket. This was all getting to be a bit too much for her. First, the famous Guan Tie had taken a seat next to her, offering to share snacks with her as she watched her Senior beat up his boss, and now this. She really didn’t know what to say about any of this.
Who would?
“It…certainly was,” she eventually replied, nervously taking a sip of water to refocus herself.
“Splitting lightning… you don’t see that sorta thing every day,” Guan Tie laughed, clapping her on the back. “Not thatcha see lightning all that much to begin with!”
“Ah…yes,” Oma replied hesitantly. “Are you sure that your friend is doing alright?” Li Gho was currently in the process of trying to pick up Chang Hui, furiously bandaging her finger with a length of enchanted bandage. Li Zhan had begun to tap at the Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword with his hammer, nodding to himself as he worked his way down the blade.
“She’ll probably be fine,” Guan Tie said, flicking a peel into the bucket. “Now, if she’d bet the sword for the orb? Well, she’d be as livid as a loong with half its whiskers plucked when she came too. But she was smart enough to just make it a loan for a loan, so once her pride patches itself togetha she’ll be alright.” Oma remained silent on that last part, knowing all too well how permanent such ‘light injuries’ could be.
“So, what did you need to borrow the artifact for?” she asked, as Senior Weijian Mei tapped at the side of her jade orb. She began watching a recreation of the last match with excitement, her intense green eyes following each move with such intensity that Oma felt they were going to cut the device in half.
“Ah. It’s some sorta big important thing that the Southern Peaks needed for the upcoming Heavenly Pot or whatever,” Guan Tie shrugged, popping a pale fruit into his mouth. “Apparently there’s only like a few of ‘em and they cost a fortune, so she was real desperate to get her hands on it.”
“Do you mean the Heavenly Wok Competition?” Oma asked, turning towards him excitedly. “The one that Li Yueling’s going to be competing in with his Black Iron Plains Blade?”
“Dunno,” Guan Tie shrugged again, passing her a crumpled poster that he’d swiped from a desk.
Oma’s eyes lit up as she scanned the page, taking in the surprise guests. There were more knife masters in it than she had expected from the first advertisement she had seen for it, as it had mainly focused on spirit chefs known for their impressive pots and woks. She might have to take the time to attend it after all. It was rare to see such a display in person.
“Do you mind if I keep this?” she asked.
“Sure,” Guan Tie replied. “I don’t need it.”
“Hey Senior!” Oma called, making her way over to Li Zhan. “You need to see this!”
Guan Tie smiled to himself as Gao Oma waved the poster in Li Zhan’s face, the stern cultivator intently listening to both her and the blade in his hands. His loss aside, this had been a good day.
He’d learnt a lot and, once he had the time to meditate on the matches he had fought today, he would be more prepared than ever for the Anything-Goes Martial Arts Tournament. He’d have to stitch a few new ribbons to replace the ones he’d broken today, but he already had some new ideas for talisman combinations to try so that was hardly a problem.
Learning from defeat, that was the key. He’d never reached his previous record of undefeated wins if he hadn’t, and he wouldn’t be able to reach it again if he didn’t. He’d train harder, correct the mistakes he’d made, and then resume his cultivation better than ever before. Just as soon as he got a drink in him to dull the massive headache he’d been nursing since his fight.
Still, I think it was a fun little slice of the different lives of the Teal Mountain Sect's members.
If you've been enjoying the story so far, a follow, favorite or review is always appreciated. It's been at least 10 chapters since the last time I remembered to say this, so its about time to put a bit of promotion in I think!
