Daoists. This daoist. That daoist.

Pomposity, the way I see it. As if addressing oneself in the first person excommunicates oneself from the [Dao].

For the deaf, blind and idiotic. Teet-sucklers, backwater, corn-fed, nose-to-the-sky ignorant- There’s two camps of these.

The pretenders, and the true.

The One Hundred and Eight Vajra. Numbered, or otherwise.

A book is a house of gold. That lesson grows in an order of magnitude.

Yet these days the libraries and Scroll Halls of the land are saturated with flowering nonsense.

Drivel.

Between these covers, I will share the truth of daoists and pretenders alike. And perhaps, by the end, you will share an opinion with ‘this humble Sage’.

- Foreword of “Propagating Profundity,” by [Foulest Trigram Sage]

Yunhan was never one to show his displeasure so openly as he had now. But his ire frothed as such that his scarves were shed, and he bore himself in open, evident fashion. A fragmentation of shattered icicles sleeved down his [Ink], from shoulder to palm. Inlaid in onyx as his [Spirit Serpent] was, and tinged in midnight blue.

Inconsequential beneath uncharacteristic spittle, flying as if venom.

“Technique. Gao Fu. Are you addled? The [Clouded Ghost Arts] is namesake and [Heritage] both. Do you understand the importance of this?”

Fu’s scalp could descend no lower to the floor, lest he enter it. “I do, senior Yunhan.”

“Only fools think to reap without sowing. And this, it is as easy as turning a hand. Why can you still not display even [Initiate] understanding of the arts? How is training to progress if you do not establish the foundation?”

Without a displacement of air, Yunhan was at him. His wrist, a furnace, dragging Fu to his feet.

“Your cultivation has progressed,” he scoffed. “A fisherman, were you not? Is it done to plunge into waters without knowing their depth?”

In half as many seconds as steps, Fu was foisted through the sliding door. Scarce open before his arrival to the Clouded Court Squads once silent training hall. There, a collective swish of necks and robes, primed to meet the disturbance he was.

He was unhanded, but followed in knowing submission as Yunhan took to the edge of the flattened area. A glare set on Initiates that wisely scurried. Though he recalled them, dire in how he addressed the room.

“Initiates, gather.”

Tone such as this brooked no arguments. Disobedience would reward nothing from this man. As a blind man might see in him now the mountain of blades and sea of fire he embodied. The peril that he was.

Seven Initiates’ training was severed as he gathered them at a knee, with only a furied snap of eyes as Fu fell beside them.

Do my actions truly warrant a response such as this? I- I cannot guess at such matters. He speaks true. Last night should have been for the study of the [Clouded Ghost Arts].

Cursing now would bring about little change, and Fu could see Yunhan would be open to words, were he fool enough to offer them. At its base, their relationship was that of a Senior and Junior. Despite the cordially and instruction.

“Gao Fu, rise,” he demanded. “You, Initiate. You will face him.” Yunhan flashed his attention to a young man of no more than seventeen moons. Who met Fu in the center of a sand court, central beneath the rafters where many outer disciples watched.

For what purpose they were directed to fight-

Bated breath held the air still. Expectant silence, disturbed by an approaching motion from the furthest corners. A woman of the Clouded Court Squads, in matching age with the youth across from Fu.

She cut a path to Yunhan, no depression where her feet touched. Nor the sway of her [Spirit Serpents], twinned asps. One, snow white in scale, and its partner a charcoal hue.

“Brother Yunhan. This daoist greets you.”

The man visibly ground his teeth. “Sister Cai.”

“Brother would dispense his wisdom to the Initiates? It would be most insightful to see how far he has reached in seclusion,” she said. A rise to her neck had only Yunhan in her view, blocking all others in suit with her address. “A demonstration of the [Crypt Serpent Blades]? The [Frost Asp Circulations]?”

“The demonstration is a simple lesson between Initiates. My intervention comes as overseer, and instructor,” he returned, with no small haste.

“Then out of courtesy this daoist humbly offers herself as second.”

Yunhan held himself composed. An inch of scarf pulled tighter to his person. “Sister Cai is kind, as ever, to lend her aid. This initiate, Gao Fu, rushes through his cultivation without heed of technique or foundation. As an inner disciple is it not my duty to show him the error of this?”

The latter part of his words took on a- Fu was certain that it was explained for benefits beyond his own. As though Yunhan sought permission.

Sister Cai bore a loose fitting, black hanfu. Almost preposterously so, for her motions had each slender limb lost beneath it. She came to Yunhan’s side in this fashion, granting him face by offering no further words or commencement.

“We do this with traditional martial rules. Initiates, your Bonds, [Dao] and external [Qi Arts] are prohibited. Five point exchange,” said Yunhan. “Begin.”

In a movement Fu put his douli to the side, more a basket given Hushi’s presence within, and faced his opponent. A similar showing across, where a [Spirit Serpent] retreated into the sands.

The youth advanced first. A rushing style that severed the distance in three strides. Two fangs of metal, driven by a mount upon his knuckles arriving next.

Fu swept to the side, and-

His [Teal Supple Physique] put him too wide. New sensations, new feedback yet to be adapted to.

In summation, he felt as though his [Might] had soared. His raw speed and explosivity of muscle, the force generated with every twitch. It waxed despite a singular increase in value upon receiving his latest [Boon].

Not enough to prevent the next two slices. Fu was caught by shallow tips as his foe punched, grazing the edge of his dodge. He felt the blood well in minute lines on his hip, bringing him to retaliate with his own series of blows.

A striking combination from the [Wind Phantom Strides]. Clear, arching strikes with no feint. Their sole purpose to gain space. But a poor choice against this youth. Telegraphing his motions led to less distance. An appearance of daggers inside his guard.

Fu rolled back, setting his stance to the [Stifling Stream Revolutions].

Is he at a disadvantage at range, is this why he presses so close? I sho-

“Two points to the left,” voiced Yunhan.

[Half Cloud Step] would be uncontrollable. My control must return if I am to succeed.

With a toe trenched in sand, Fu showered his approaching foe. A moment’s respite in which to draw his chain, now spinning at a shortened grip.

The pair paced a slow circuit beneath this persistent hum. Fu’s hook in continual revolutions as a ward while he studied what he might.

Beneath the Clouded Court Squads uniform the youth’s [Ink] was well obscured, though at a guess he put him on the path of [Body]. His second guess - a more ingrained sort, an expectation of attributes associated with serpents.

Qi warbled in opponent, focused in juniper tones. And the daggers morphed, growing two a-piece at the youth’s knuckles to curve like an upper jaw. Ablaze with a malefic glow.

An increase to his reach is all I might know for now.

Sand exploded beneath the Initiate’s feet, propelling him towards Fu. But he lashed out his chain in horizontal snaps to counter, cartwheeling to the side. Again, he over compensated on the landing, yet at this distance he could afford a single mistake.

Fu rounded, and his hook was met with a clanging of metal. A block of crossed daggers that had his attack go limp.

The youth’s left blades made a spool of the slackened chain, and an attempt was made to draw him close with a pull. Likely a test, for the [Might] behind it was trite. Though he was left tethered despite it.

Stolen story; please report.

He made a choice to close the distance, but did so shortening the slack. Winding it in several turns around his arm and elbow until he was but four strides away, where he craned his leg up with ridiculous ease.

An overhead snap lost him no balance, and the subsequent jerk that tore the youth’s left pair free as the chain absorbed his force.

His foe rode the movement forward at a sprint.

A flash.

Fu cracked his knee up to meet an opposing kick, and a second. Three, four, descending then into a flurry. Both poised at a leg’s length. A snap, a counter.

A balance shift.

A measured blow.

A snap.

A counter.

A balance shift.

Each, Fu realised.

Where he saw open space, where his body led him by instinct and repetition of form…

The youth was there. Not a speck of entertainment nor strain held in his features. For his eyes barely moved before an anticipatory guard rose. Joints barely flexed. Positions barely switched in stance or distribution of weight.

To him, this was banal and lifeless.

Frustration came as a heat of insects. From spine to nape, and enough to redden his face more than the current exertion.

Not for loss, which would come soon enough. But for the lesson Yunhan tried to impart, and how Fu already knew it in his bones.

He was the frog, thrust from the well.

Clarifying that his intent was on the [Clouded Ghost Arts], and not solely cultivation, splitting, during his limited time-

Excuses.

The youth finished his toying, deciding by the right of all who hold skill the moment of Fu’s downfall. A snap, again. His kneecap, crumpling. A violent encouragement to the ground, followed by two rapid strikes to his back.

Yunhan’s voice overhead. “A single grain of rice does not fill an empty sack. You, Initiate, step up. Let us see it brimming.”

🀧

The extent of change from Fu’s [Teal Supple Physique] made itself clear over the span of those seven fights.

[Resilience], going unchanged.

Values as listed on his [Ink] were a half-solved mystery, given he had nothing to equate them to, or use as an accurate measure. He recalled The Enlightened Bandit, as its lessons seemed to surface in the bloated, red skin of his sorry hide.

Swollen, and set to blacken.

But he recalled them nonetheless, running parallel with Yunhan’s redundant teachings.

Attributes showed the growth of the cultivator. Dependant, and varied as they were based on one’s Bond. And these Initiates - those who had tread the path for far longer than he: both possessed greater insight into their [Arts] and forms, rewarding greater attributes in turn, and held understanding of how best to utilise these values.

Yunhan’s ire stemmed, he guessed, from the easy gain in strength that cultivation offered.

It might stem further if he was discovered now.

Fu traced from notice to notice, each a pinned parchment no wider than a palm. Hundreds, or thousands. Enough to put sections of a Scroll Hall to shame, and raised high as though reverence was expected should one approach.

After gently removing a notice from the wall, he crossed the Contribution Hall. A long, rectangular room where seven stairs took him from notices to floor, and a further seven steps to the counter where the hall’s master presided.

A greying elder, as he had come to expect of administrators. Three [Spirit Serpents] nestled lazily to his side, would about rolls of parchment as though they were branches.

“No.”

Fu had yet to present the notice. “Senior?”

The man did not bother to raise his head from whatever tome it was buried in. “You are not the first youth to try and fool this old man. Hardly cunning, no? To dither, and ply no subtlety. Are you truly of the Clouded Court Squads?” He stopped then, passing a span of ten seconds where he interred his finger into his mouth. Weaponizing the gained moisture to turn his next page. “Initiates may not volunteer for missions until their first is passed.”

A curse formed on Fu’s lips.

“Might this junior ask further?”

“Why would the Sect entrust vital tasks to those unproven? Counter-intuitive to throw the unskilled at problems that require the opposite. Now leave me, you are bleeding on my floor.”

It was enough to look once on his return journey, dismissing the [Contribution Array] as he reached his lodgings.

Hushi tapped him fondly as his thoughts stirred.

“Less than a [Season] to accumulate enough points,” he mused. “The lowest value on the mission board was for two hundred points. A report on a local alchemist over the course of two nights. Manageable, if we could accept it. Thirteen of these missions… but there are not enough days, and we have yet to pass our Initiation. Yunhan’s training also interferes, though it is necessary to complete the tasks.”

The octopus said nothing.

“Yunhan may have simmered come morning.”

Without further deliberation, Fu opened the [Clouded Ghost Arts]. He upended the Open Eye poison in the same haste, a sting to his gullet as it travelled.

Here, the poison sunk, spreading throughout his organs in a dance with the dormant Sunset Venom. He could feel both be chipped away by his [Hundred Immunities Fruit], diluted, if at a rate far slower than [Foundation Realm] tinctures.

The effects were immediate.

Pale-green wisps faded into view, dancing upon the page. Signposts, for these glowing specks had started to move in a pattern of Qi circulation.

Being no genius, Fu merely copied.

It began with the base [Qi Suppression Art]. Stagnant [Inner Qi] that was represented as a haze of wispy smoke, obscuring the diagram’s [Dantian]. But this moved, and so Fu did in tandem, trying his best to represent what was before his eyes.

The Qi was shown to flow from this central haze, or perhaps…

It is the haze that moves. No, it spreads.

Under his own suppression Fu strained with effort. Internally, the stagnant Qi would not move, and to attempt such a thing severed his hold.

He glanced at the diagram again. The image, and direction repeating as before. For three cycles he watched, noting on the third how the suppressive haze became stuck at the edges of the inked [Channels].

“Hushi- this is akin to insulation. Hay, packed into the corners of a roof to retain the heat. Yet it is Qi. We should attempt it with this in mind.”

The octopus mounted his lap, bidding him to breath. Fu entered a meditative state, steadying into a rhythmic pattern. Both hands atop arms atop his knees.

Hushi’s presence nudged against his own as their focus went internal, akin to cultivation. But they did not draw in from the ambient, rather, clamp down. Folly would come to those who think they might master a technique upon first glance.

Thus they began small.

With his Bond’s stability to aid, Fu attempted to break various parcels of his suppressed Qi from the mass. A palm, first, then a finger, and finally a nail. However, this was only met with a kind of failure as the stagnation was shown to wobble at the later.

He went smaller.

At his next inhalation, scraping a sliver free. Small notes of pressure hummed in his temples to do this, though a speck did loosen. Breath played a major role, and he found that a twist to his intake gave him the control he needed to take another. And another.

In minutes, he held a clotting of haze in his grasp, packing it against the outer shell of his [Dantian].

Cold sparked in a mirrored section of his skin as it settled. Pulling a shudder. Slowly, he opened his eyes and directed his finger to the sensation.

The air here is heavy.

Fu could not put the feel to words. At best, a fingernail of something radiated out on both skin and air. Qi, without the flavour. He shook his head, gently. The what was unimportant until he had achieved a full padding, as the diagram suggested.

Here was but a cluster of specks, and nothing to celebrate. A drop in the ocean of what he had to form. Thus he set aside the mounting headache, rid himself of thought, and set to work.

It was going to be a long night.

🀧

It was far beyond the appropriate time that the door of the training hall slid open. Of the two cultivators within at that time, neither put their attention to it.

No, Yunhan held Niharika’s wrists in a strange lock. Moving her, and adjusting her stance with no gentle hand. He swatted, and tapped, guiding her to how she should be beneath his most visible feature.

Furrowed brows.

As best Fu could judge from above.

The fisherman stole across the rafters, having ascended seconds after his entry. An arch to his soles as he made for the room’s center. His breathing was regular, yet entirely forced. A further agitant to the well of nausea in his gut.

But he went slow, there in the gloom. Multiple beams crossed the room horizontally, close enough for a single bound to carry him across. Saturated with fatigue, Fu challenged these too.

Clumsy in his landings. Silent, nonetheless. Three beams that led to two, until the last brought him above the pair.

A flash of light danced there in two orbs. Slitted things, framed in a mirage of black. More than a mere shroud.

Yunhan’s [Spirit Serpent] lounged in the darkness, rousing at Fu’s presence. The eyes swayed with no discernable outline, expanding. That began the weakness.

Without touch, Fu felt his internal temperature soar. From discomfort, to suffocation in a rising tide. A higher form of his own [Dao]. The nausea surfaced in strands of bile, acrid pockets in his cheeks, a line on his lip. Worse yet, the roadmap of swollen skin screamed under a sudden blustering, cracked dry.

Hushi subdued Fu’s thoughts of striking out with his own [Dao], or flashing [Intent].

Of course. A test.

Fu rubbed at his thumb’s nailbed, and bent his head to bow to the beast. Not a moment later, he slipped from the edge of the rafter. A lightened, supple body allowing him to touch down with scant disturbance to the sand.

Soles arched.

“Brother Yunhan,” he bowed.

Niharika leapt from her stance, driven back two steps. Where she started though, Yunhan was neutral. “The doorway is too obvious an entry, Gao Fu. Numerous vents are open now given [Summer] has begun, windows or slats. A bold choice, to make a mistake in atonement.” His [Spirit Serpent] dropped from above, hissing at his earlobe. “She says you are steady enough. [Middle] if still [Initiate].”

Fu remained bowing. “[Late], Brother Yunhan,” he said. Recalling the latest change to his [Ink].

“All I see here is the absence of what might have been achieved. To take the Open Eye poison into account, you are a day behind,” he returned. “[Late], however, is acceptable.”

The fisherman raised his head, withdrawing a slip of parchment from his pouch.

Yunhan quirked a brow, and took it for inspection. Calm in his curiosity. “A different form of late,” he said. “Why go to such trouble? You are known to these people.”

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago,” said Fu. “The second best time is now.”

Perhaps for the first time in memory, his senior allowed a smile. He held up the parchment, a seal in red ink stamped at the corner.

A merchant’s mark. More fitting proof than a name, even if known.

“Diligence or hubris, I wonder? To return without the aid of fishwives. Hah. You have learned well.” Yunhan returned the paper. “Fall in.”

Fu took his place near Niharika, dredging his feet over the sand. She dipped her head, expressing something akin to worry at the state of his body. “Sister,” he said. “Apologies. If my short-sightedness has waylaid your training. I would rectify it.”

She only stooped to the side, presenting Fu a set of bells.