Year 663 of the Stable Era,

  Twenty-second day of the eleventh month

  Far, far, far too late to back out now

  Chain cracked against the ground as Chao Ren dodged to the side. An orange spark scraped against the side of his crimson socks as he tried to martial his wits and qi, the next note of Lu Ri’s relentless onslaught already whistling towards him through the air. His tempo was faster now—a rapid beat that pushed the same sort of offensive that had just slipped through Chao Ren’s fingers.

  The momentum of the fight had slid out of reach with his staff, and now it was all he could do to avoid the slicing blades of his opponent’s superior reach. Dodging by narrow margins, taking more and more narrow hits—utterly helpless without his staff.

  His staff…

  That had been his best, and only, weapon against the chains.

  How was he supposed to fight without it?

  To overcome the staggering advantage born from the marriage of weapon and technique?

  Fight that chain. That powerful chain.

  Forged from its powerful metals, with nothing but his bare hands?

  His thoughts blurred as he put his minds together, advice running through his fingers like grains of sand. Faster and faster, as he desperately tried to grasp some solution from his memories.

  Reach is key, but don’t cling to it over opportunity.

  That was something that Bailong Shen would have said.

  Great advice if he had the option, but terrible without it, Ren thought to himself, as he caught the end of the hook just before it sunk into his wounded shoulder. The curve of the blade dug into his palm, its eye too narrow to allow him a good grip.

  With his staff he could have easily batted it aside.

  Or caught it without cutting himself open.

  Or pinned it to the ground by a link.

  No, that wasn’t helping!

  Lu Ri heaved the chain again, the hook sinking into Chao Ren’s flesh as it pulled at him.

  What did he need to do?

  What had Bao said? Play to your strengths, but recognize when you’re weaker?

  Chao Ren forced qi into his hand to strengthen it, forming a cushion that desperately resisted the chain enough to elicit a second heave as his opponent attempted to use his empowered weapon to snare him like a fish . Chao Ren waited until he was too far to stop before he let his focused power fade, just as he released his grip.

  He knew exactly how outmatched he was in a contest of strength against a dedicated body cultivator, which was why it was easy to abandon any sense of pride for such a maneuver. A line of pain shot through his leg as he barely managed to reposition himself, Lu Ri’s blade whipping out even as he stumbled backwards.

  Careless.

  Distracted.

  Too focused on one hand to consider his opponent as a whole.

  A chill went down his left side as he forced the wound shut, more of Bailong Shen’s advice already echoing in his mind.

  For defense focus on positioning. Mobility is as strong as a tight guard, and the need not resent the other.

  He ducked the blade on its return attack, keeping his hands up as Lu Ri closed the distance with a flying kick. Chao Ren slid to the side of it with a half-step, catching the follow-up elbow with a shove. He blocked another two punches before attempting to trade a blow, feinting a punch of his own even as his low kick swept towards his opponent’s inner shin.

  Again he felt the blow more than his opponent, as he was met by the now-familiar sensation of striking stone. Lu Ri’s laugh didn’t have a chance to finish before his counterattack landed, his hands spreading Chao Ren’s guard moments before his rising kneecap slammed into his exposed chin.

  His vision blurred, shaking loose familiar memories from his training as he felt his teeth clack into each other like mahjong tiles in the hands of children.

  Bad blocks and punishing blows.

  Repeated forms and repeated words.

  Shifu’s heavy stones and Bao’s refreshing tea.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Small victories and large losses, each painful lesson falling on his mind like raindrops as they gave him the strength to rise again.

  If everything else fails, just fight a bit dirty. Win’s a win, Lee Han gloated, as Chao Ren slammed his head into Lu Ri’s chest.

  A terrible move, since it sent his already rattled noggin into a painful spiral. A headbutt was almost always harmful to everyone involved, but right now he didn’t need safety. He needed to surprise his opponent, no matter how much he needed to imitate a certain boneheaded disciple to do it.

  Lu Ri gasped as the breath left his lungs with a whoosh, but his soft flesh was already stone by the time Chao Ren had managed to shake off enough of his own attack to throw another punch. He barely resisted the urge to swear as he shook the numbness from his hand, Lu Ri’s body unfreezing a moment later as he released his technique.

  Good, good.

  Not showing that weakness was good!

  Watch out for blades! Bao shouted. Parrying’s too risky, so just try and dodge!

  Chao Ren’s hand shot forwards, grabbing Lu Ri’s wrist as he flicked the blade towards him with a quick twitch of the chain. The blade took a chunk from his robe as it went wide, Chao Ren’s qi sputtering as he tried to match his opponent’s muscles. A moment later the hook clanked into it, and his eyes widened as Lu Ri caught it with a grin.

  For a heartbeat he let him go, sliding his hand up and around his opponent’s fist just before he could attempt to twist the blade and catch his own wrist with it. The hook flashed out of the corner of his eye, and he barely managed to catch Lu Ri’s other hand before it could complete its scorpion strike.

  Another slash avoided but at a terrible cost. A trap that his opponent had set for him. He was now fully committed to a contest of strength, grappling an opponent whose weapons were now both perfectly suited for such an intimate distance. Both hands full of his opponent’s as he stood locked in a desperate struggle to avoid getting stabbed or sliced.

  His fingers went white as he forced them to maintain their death grip around Lu Ri’s, knowing that even a moment’s hesitation would allow either blade countless opportunities to cut him to shreds. Each breath grew more and more labored, as both cultivators drew every last scrap of qi from the air around them to starve out the other in their struggle.

  Chao Ren had the height advantage, but slowly, inexorably, he found himself being forced to take a knee, as Lu Ri began to press him into the ground.

  His muscles burned.

  His meridians gasped.

  But there was nothing he could do.

  He tried for a throw, to turn his opponent’s momentum against him, but Lu Ri was too canny for him now. His weight shifted the second Chao Ren’s did, his left side as heavy as stone as his technique shifted his center of gravity.

  Ancestors, that technique was simply too much!

  Even without that trick, even with the full force of his qi and his staff, he couldn’t match it. So what chance did he have without it?

  If only he had a technique.

  A real one, instead of all his worthless tricks. Those paltry mortal half-things that he’d spent so much time toying with. Time that he was only aware of now that he was feeling the weight of every second he had wasted pressing down on him.

  If he had studied his manual more—read enough to comprehend the nature of the elements written within.

  If he had taken better notes, to consult when he was lost.

  Had he spent more time at Shifu Yeung Lin’s tables.

  Had he found a better book or a scroll, something more fitting of his cultivation, instead of—

  So, because it’s not in a scroll, it’s not a real technique? Doesn’t that mean you just need to write it down to make it one?

  The child’s words flashed through his mind, bouncing around his addled thoughts as he dug furiously into his qi reserves with desperate abandon. That kid—Li Ran, or Li Fan, or whatever it was—at the stall, with the others. When he’d told them Dahei’s story and shown them his tricks.

  Such childlike naivety.

  Would that he could, but that was simply not how…

  But what if…

  Was it really that simple?

  No, no matter how much he thought about it, it just didn’t make any sense.

  But it also did, in its own way.

  Could he really just…?

  But if it worked well enough for him to know how to record it, then actually writing it down was secondary, wasn’t it?

  And he had nothing else to lose.

  Not if he was going to become a true cultivator.

  True cultivation was about risk.

  About defying the heavens.

  Risking it all, to grab the reins with your own hands, no matter how much they burned you in the process.

  Chao Ren took a rasping breath that scraped the last qi it could from the taut air around him, an index finger flicking free from his grip as he closed his eyes. His dantian mixed the elements in their familiar imbalance, formed from rough handfuls of qi in his haste.

  Wood, worn by fire.

  Metal, pulled from earth.

  And a spark of flame, to ignite the two.

  Light exploded between him and Lu Ri. Bright emerald light, that raced furiously towards the brilliant white of purest jade for the split second of its existence.

  Lu Ri swore as his grip faltered, the hook falling from his hand as he tried to rub at his eyes. Chao Ren let him pull them back as he opened his own, blinking furiously to clear the spots still burning through his eyelids.

  No time, no time!

  He sprang upwards, rising like a frog from his well as he clasped his fists together. He felt the crack before he heard it, as Lu Ri’s head rocked back from the force of his double uppercut.

  No.

  Not enough.

  Not Enough!

  He couldn’t let up.

  Couldn’t let him deploy the technique again.

  Chao Ren forced himself to breathe, coughing through his exhalation as he fueled his next breath with the last of his reserves.

  Chest.

  Stomach.

  Kidney.

  Shin.

  Stomach.

  Flank.

  His fists danced between them all as he landed a flurry of blows, taking advantage of every precious second while he could. Lu Ri growled, the sound focusing his will just before jade green qi enveloped him completely.

  But that was what Chao Ren had been expecting. Waiting for it, even.

  A panicked use. An attempt to buy protection at the cost of mobility.

  He ducked down, one arm thrusting between Lu Ri’s legs as the other grabbed a shoulder. The cloth of his robes was stiff, caught by reckless overuse of his technique, ever fold digging roughly into the cuts on his hands. He was heavy too, the Teal Jade Body Technique evoking all the aspects of its namesake stone.

  Strength is about using it, not might alone, as Shifu Yeung Lin always said, as they struggled with his accursed jade stones. Those accursed, heavy things.

  But they were so much bigger.

  So much heavier.

  And compared to them, his opponent was tiny.

  Chao Ren roared as he threw Lu Ri, muscles well-used to finding the center of gravity on far mightier stones screaming in triumph as they slammed his opponent into the ground. His Teal Jade Body Technique shattered as his back met the stone, shards of crystalline qi crumbling to infinitesimal dust as Chao Ren twisted downwards. His elbow tightened into a narrow point as he dove towards Lu Ri, the last of his qi streaming from it as he threw his entire weight into a last desperate blow.