Year 663 of the Stable Era,

  Twenty-second day of the eleventh month

  Further into the 5th Inner Hour

  He’d done it!

  He’d done it!!!

  He’d won!

  Against all the odds, he’d managed to overcome a technique!

  A proper one too! Nothing at all like that idiot that had blindly thrown fireballs everywhere!

  He’d won. But it had cost him far too much. That was a sobering realization, that almost made him stumble as the reality of his situation finally hit him.

  His dantian felt tapped, like every empty wine bottle of a long dinner after Lee Han got his hands on it. Just utterly, thoroughly drained, with only air to fill it. His ragged breaths brought both immense relief and despair with each inhalation, as the mountain’s stoic qi filled the void left inside himself.

  So close to the southern slope it had a soothing tone, as the lush fields that provided so many ingredients to the Alchemy Division tinged it with the taste of medicinal potential. It was a heady, woodsome sensation, of the sweetness of green sprigs and crisp growth. It balanced the austere aura of cold stone and clear spring water that suffused so much of the rest of the peak, allowing each breath Chao Ren took to sooth the raw walls of his meridians.

  It was infinitely invigorating, on the first few breaths, to feel himself fill out. The emptiness left by his exertion reduced by heaping handfuls. But as he took more and more in, and his remaining fragments of qi began to coalesce within his dantian once again, he became aware of his immense emptiness. It was a shadow of his former self, most of his carefully packed reserves used up by his last exertion. His once dense qi was now loose, tainted by its dilution with the very qi that was giving him the strength to take every step.

  His chest throbbed as he restarted his elemental cycle anew, sparking fire and forming metal to reform his internal balance. He patted a hand to his chest, doing his best to massage the tender muscles as he once again lamented his situation.

  He’d taken far too many physical injuries. Enough that he could feel his qi cultivation suffering from it. His entire upper body bore the bruises of the ant’s aggressive assault, sore from the countless impacts of its four furious fists. Both Shifu Yeung Lin and his fellow disciples had warned him of this. The compounding point, when injuries started to feed each other.

  In pristine shape, a cultivator could typically use one pillar to support the other.

  Qi could be used to sustain the body in trying times, and the body in turn could be relied upon to draw in greater and greater quantities of qi. Three pillars, raised together in unity, could withstand any challenge. But now two of his pillars were currently leaning dangerously on the third, and it was all his mind could do to avoid letting them collapse under their own weight.

  Meditation could allow himself to restore some of the damage as he rebuilt his refined qi reserves, but with the rounds as short as they were…

  No, there was not going to be enough time to simply whip himself back into fighting shape, no matter how perfect his recovery was. He’d have to settle for the best he could manage; balancing how he prioritized the injuries that would most impede his ability to further recover against those that would cripple him the most in the next round. The rush of battle and his near victory was still carrying him, but it offered little comfort to truly treat his condition.

  The difference a technique had made had simply been too great to easily overcome. He’d barely been able to keep up thanks to his foundation, but his current state was a testament to how even the most diligent of foundations meant little if it had nothing to support.

  He could understand why Shifu Yeung Lin was probably right that it would be a benefit later in his cultivation.

  He really did.

  It would be an invaluable strength, once he’d taken more steps on his journey to becoming a true cultivator.

  But now, in the present…it just meant that he was weaker than his peers. No matter how ephemerally short this moment might end up being in the face of his future lifespan, the days when he would be able to look back on it with any fondness might as well be an eternity away.

  “You’re match two in the next round,” the disciple managing the door told him as he approached, and Chao Ren managed to nod at her before she opened the door to let him in.

  The waiting room was quiet when he stepped inside, but no less thick with tension despite the fact that it contained only a single other cultivator. A fellow member of the Teal Mountain Sect: Ru Li. His opponent in the last round, should they both prove victorious in the next. He was meditating with his back to a pillar in the center of the room, his eyes flickering open for a moment as Chao Ren entered.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The muscular cultivator had already closed them again before he’d had a chance to consider whether he should wave or bow to greet his fellow disciple, so he settled for a faint nod of acknowledgement as he passed him by. As he did, he was able to get a good view of just how pristine Lu Ri’s condition was, at least superficially. Only a minor nick or two on his robes, and no overt injuries save for a half-healed scrape along the heel of his left palm. A concerning state of affairs, if they were to meet in the final round of the bracket.

  Chao Ren remembered a bit about Ru Li. He was from the same crop of disciples as him, assigned under some other master that had clearly allowed his already impassioned pursuit of the martial disciplines to flourish.

  Not that there could be any doubt of that if he was also still in the tournament. The cultivators that had made it this far all clearly had a strong foundation in the physical disciplines, as his last opponent had proven so clearly. He couldn’t quite remember if his specialization was purely the path of body cultivation or if he practiced a weapon, but as Ru Li’s hand bore a storage ring and his sides neither sheath nor scabbard, either could be the case.

  Still, there was no point in wasting his thoughts wondering about such a thing. There were good odds that he wouldn’t even be his opponent in the next round, and his time needed to be spent worrying about the things that he could actually change.

  Chao Ren made his way back to his favorite corner at the back of the room, holding back a grunt of pain as he used his staff to lower himself into a lotus position. His back ached, but the cool stone was pleasantly relaxing to the touch, so he . He took a breath as he tried to settle himself, letting the room’s qi flow into him as he turned his attention inwards.

  It was thicker than before, more concentrated now that so many other cultivators had left, but its clear, crisp taste had been marred by their passing. There was a frantic tone to it now, the sharp sensation of dread married to the frigid taste of fear. More akin to dire straits in a deep winter than the refreshing taste of a late-autumn spring.

  So much more noticeable than before, now that it was being filtered through so many fewer cultivators. More emotions to throw through the elements, each one a sensation that he was already trying to push out of his own mind.

  It stung Chao Ren’s lungs and heart as he drew the breath into his dantian, only the barest wisps of his own refined qi left to begin the process. It took five sluggish breaths before he was able to feel the elements begin to right their balance, the process slowly smoothing once he began to fall into the familiar rhythm of his cultivation.

  Eventually though, a trickle of qi began to trickle into his dantian, and he felt his sore muscles begin to relax as the yawning pit of his qi-starved existence began to truly fill. Still far, far slower than even his most training-exhausted state, but it would start to speed up as he gained momentum. For as long as that would last.

  Still, it was a relief to be free of his qi-less state, as each subsequent breath took him further and further from it. It had left him weak in ways that he’d forgotten he had been before he’d reached the Refining stage. A memory of before, that he would prefer to only encounter in reminiscence.

  He still had time to recover. There was a twenty-minute break between the rounds and only one more round before his own, so he was barely going to be able to scrape the edge of what could charitably be considered fighting shape.

  If he could clinch the next round he would be able to pocket a healthy handful of spirit stones for his trouble. And a few pills as well, depending on how the judges evaluated his performance. A poor prospect, compared to the reward for making it to the final round of his bracket, but a solace if he failed now.

  A treacherous, treacherous, solace. One that almost threatened to seduce him with its paltry rewards for paltry efforts.

  Gah, it had been such an aggressive move to force the match with qi the way he had. It had left him weak enough that doubts like that were starting to creep in. Doubts that made him realize how hollow his confidence had been. Techniques though…the difference they made was simply too great. Even with his fundamentals as polished as they were, he didn’t have a chance without one.

  If the ant guai had been even a little more experienced with theirs he doubted that he would have been able to lay so much as a finger on them. His encounter with the fire throwing idiot in the first round had simply blinded him to that reality. A flamboyant technique, in the hands of a hothead more concerned with savoring the thrill of a live target had been ineffective at best. But even a simple movement technique, in the hands of a cultivator that had put some modicum of thought into its use?

  With a little more skill they could have worn him out through a battle of attrition, or have even dodged his last desperate attack before it landed. His toes clenched against his lucky red socks as he clawed at the thought in the back of his mind, letting his Twin Minds technique handle his cultivation as he did.

  Yes, it had been a victory of luck rather than skill. Luck that the matchup had been so close. That his opponent was either inexperienced or overconfident enough to lose by such a narrow margin of their exchange.

  If he wanted to win the next round, he’d need more than just his fundamentals. Especially now that he knew that his qi simply wouldn’t be enough, and that his physique was equally lacking. He needed that sort of edge. He needed…

  His hand drifted to his storage ring, and he made a decision.

  His recovery would slow if he used his Twin Minds technique to split his focus, but he needed to take a risk if he wanted to have any hope of reaching the top eight and the prizes that came with such a ranking.

  If he could figure out how to use even the most basic aspects of one of the Five Elements Unification Technique, his chances would improve. Not dramatically, but enough to tip the scales of battle in his favor. Even just a tiny bit, but enough to outweigh the benefits a scrap of extra qi could offer.

  His mind quickly calculated the odds. He would lose a bit of qi, but it was far from a significant chunk. Likely a third of what he would otherwise recover, at the very most. Even less, if he refrained himself from making more than most essential practice attempts. He could work with that.

  With the barest wisp of qi he activated his storage ring, tapping out the manual for the Five Elements Unification Technique. It came easily, as it was the last thing that he had stowed in it, and with shaking hands Chao Ren spread it open on his lap. His eyes darted back and forth across its careful characters, his mind ablaze with thoughts as he took another deep breath of qi.