Chapter 8 - The Heights of Power (Patreon)

According to Wei, Zhujiao has now achieved a minimum level of competence when it comes to moving through the forest. Coming from the gruff older man, that’s shockingly high praise, and as he basks in the accomplishment Jin retreats into a sullen silence.

The reward for good work is, of course, more work, and so they start to roam deeper into the forest where the larger animals can be found. Zhujiao is given a basic bow, a single arrow, and a mission to hunt a deer within a week.

He’s never so much as held a bow – in either life.

Jin takes great delight in watching him struggle with the bow, especially when it takes him ages to find the stupid arrow. Zhujiao quickly learns that aiming at anything further away than twenty meters or so will only result in a long and frustrating search.

It takes him three days before he can get even remotely close to hitting a deer. His hands ache from gripping the bow too tightly, and his legs are sore from creeping through the dense foliage.

It feels like he’s making frustratingly little progress, but he’s aware enough to realise that he’s doing reasonably well for a complete beginner. He learns to split his focus, keeping his Qi cycling endlessly in his dantian. It helps steady his aim and sharpen his focus.

Jin starts trying to throw him off, deliberately stepping on twigs and dried leaves to alert his prey and spoil the shot. 

Wei lets Jin’s antics play out, a silent spectator to their dynamic. He offers no advice, no reassurance, just watches with a critical eye. When Zhujiao complains, he simply says that a good hunter knows that there will always be factors outside his control, and that he must simply adapt.

By the fourth day, Zhujiao learns to anticipate Jin’s interference. He waits for the moment Jin makes his noise, using the split-second distraction to aim and release his arrow. It’s not perfect, and he still misses more often than not, but his shots are getting closer. The deer are starting to stay within range a little longer, and Zhujiao feels a flicker of hope.

It’s his final day before the deadline. He’s only just realised that Wei hasn’t actually said what will happen if he fails to bring down a deer, but he knows that the sting of failure would be worse than anything Wei would do.

Maybe that’s the point.

He’s learned to take religious care of his arrow by now. Losing at a target is almost physically painful, and before he takes any shot, he weighs the odds of hitting his target against how long it will take to find the arrow again. 

Half the time he decides against taking the shot at all. It’s taught him patience, if nothing else.

He’s standing at the edge of a clearing, bow in hand, arrow nocked. A deer grazes in the centre, unaware of his presence. Zhujiao takes a deep breath, steadying his aim, ready for Jin’s interference. His muscles tense, eyes focused, waiting.

Before he can take the shot, even before Jin can make a noise, something else startles the deer. 

It raises its head, ears flicking, and before he can process what’s happening, the deer bolts – not away, but towards him. Zhujiao freezes, the deer’s sudden movement throwing him off. It crashes through the underbrush, speeding past them, driven by a fear more intense than his clumsy attempts at hunting.

Jin’s laughter dies in his throat, replaced by a startled silence. Even Wei looks taken aback, eyes narrowing as he scans the forest. The forest is quiet and still.

No. 

The forest is silent. 

Zhujiao feels it before he registers anything else—a wave of Qi so powerful it hits him like a physical force. It’s not just an awareness; it’s an overwhelming, suffocating presence that makes his knees buckle and his vision blur. The Qi is dense, potent, and terrifyingly large, pulsating through the forest with a raw, untamed energy that leaves him gasping for breath. It’s as if the very air around him is vibrating, each particle charged with an energy that thrums against his skin, sending shivers down his spine.

His senses are flooded with it, every nerve in his body screaming in response. It’s not just the intensity; it’s the sheer scale of it. This Qi dwarfs his own by magnitudes, a mountain to his molehill, and the disparity is enough to make his head spin. It feels ancient and primal, carrying with it a weight of ages and a power that speaks of something far beyond his understanding.

He instinctively yanks on his own Qi, pulling it tight and squashing it down as much as he can, prey cowering before a predator and hoping not to be noticed.

He’s dimly aware of Wei and Jin running beside him, of the branches slapping at his face and the underbrush snagging at his feet. The majority of his attention is behind him, on the Qi that feels like the sun to his sense, massive and terrible.

It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

They don’t slow in their mad dash until they reach the edge of the forest. Breaking out into the sunlight feels like emerging from a nightmare, the bright skies and fresh air quickly calming racing hearts.

He realises that he has no idea what Wei and Jin felt back there – as far as he know normal people can’t sense Qi at all, but he has to imagine that they felt something.

Wei takes a deep breath, straightening and pacing in a small circle.

“W-What was that, master?” Jin asks, too shaken to bother with his usual smug facade.

“Spirit Beast,” the man replies tersely, ignoring his student’s gasp. “I’ll need to inform the council about this. They may need to send a runner to the Blooming Lotus Sect to ask for aid from the cultivators.”

It’s clear that Wei isn’t terribly pleased by this turn of events, but considering Zhujiao’s eyes are sharp enough to catch the slight tremble in his hands, the older man is clearly more rattled than he is letting on and knows that there are few other choices.

“Both of you take the rest of the day off,” Wei continues, already striding off towards the town, “Tomorrow as well. We’ll reconvene the day after, but chances are we’ll need to avoid the forest until the cultivators can come and take care of everything.”

Zhujiao watches him go, mind racing. He realises now that he’s massively underestimated what it meant to be a cultivator. The stories he’s read, the tales of great warriors and mystical powers were nothing compared to the reality of that presence.

It’s inspiring.

His Qi cycles through his body, reinforcing it and enhancing his physical senses to almost painful levels.

It’s not enough.

Nothing is, compared to what he felt. Not terribly surprising, really – now that he’s had time to reflect on what he felt, it’s clear that the beast was at a higher realm of cultivation than he is.

He’s not entirely sure how he knows that, but somehow he’s absolutely sure. It’s like there’s a qualitative difference in the Qi itself, one that he doesn’t understand but stands out anyway.

By contrast, his own Qi feels thin and weak, barely a whiff of energy. He needs to advance, for the first time realising why the cultivators in the stories pursue advancement over everything. Having witnessed the heights of power, how could he do anything else?

Unfortunately, his newfound determination does not translate to a surge in ability. He’s tried on three separate occasions to build a big enough bonfire to accumulate enough fire-aspected Qi to break through the bottleneck to the Third Stage of the First Realm, to no avail.

Worse, he legitimately can’t even imagine finding any other source – once upon a time, he might have thought about hunting down a Spirit Beast for its core, but having witnessed the actual power of one, he now realises the futility of trying. 

He surges to his feet in a single move, even his meagre Qi reinforcement enough to make the motion look effortless. Something has to change for him to advance, but the only thing he can think of is either heading to a city and hoping he can purchase what he needs – and there’s no way in hell he could afford it – or head to a Sect and try to join.

Some part of him rails against the idea though, feels that if he has to rely on a Sect then he’ll never progress further than they want him to. If he doesn’t seize power with his own hands, can it be considered his power at all? 

He sags, sitting back down on his bed. Either way, the issue won’t be resolved any time soon.

Zhujiao is out in the forest alone for a change. Wei has spoken to the town council and they have sent a runner to the Blooming Lotus Sect, as predicted. Until the Sect sends some cultivators out to deal with the problem, members of the town have been advised to avoid the forest.

He’s never been particularly good at following advice.

Besides, with his Qi senses he’ll be able to detect a Spirit Beast with plenty of time to make a run for it. In theory, anyway. Sure, he may have missed the last one, but in fairness he wasn’t exactly keeping an eye out for it.

Besides, over the last few months he’s gotten used to the forest, finds the gentle rustle of the trees calming. It’s almost a form of meditation at this point, slipping through the underbrush while trying to be silent.

He pauses periodically to stretch out his senses, feeling the familiar pulse of Qi in the forest around him. His awareness expands, reaching out to the very edges of his perception. His range and finesse have both improved, though it does take all of his focus to reach out this far. The forest is alive with the subtle flickers of energy from small animals and the steady hum of plant life.

Nothing unusual.

But then, before he can retract his senses, at the very edge of his range he detects two blazing presences. One feels like heat-rage-smoke, while the other is movement-sharp-cold. The impressions are distinct from the townspeople he’s practised his sensing on, and he knows immediately that they are both Spirit Beasts, less potent than the one from before but unmistakable in their strength. 

He jerks in place, poised to sprint away, but a spark of curiosity has him hesitating for a moment. The two presences are almost on top of each other, flaring in a way that whispers combat to him, though he doesn’t know where the impression comes from.

He knows that even if they’re less powerful than the beast from before, they’re still undoubtedly strong enough to kill him in an instant, but…

They are pretty far away right now. 

He’s not entirely sure what his range is in meters, but when he really stretches he can manage a fair portion of the town, so he should have plenty of warning if they start to come his way…

He crouches down behind a tree, knowing even as he does that it’s a stupid move. If Wei learns about this he’s going to be running through the forest every day until his legs fall off. He can’t help it though – this is the first opportunity he’s ever had to feel how Qi is supposed to be used.

His focus narrows as he stretches his senses further, feeling the pulsating presence of the two Spirit Beasts. The impressions are chaotic and hard to follow – he gets flashes of heat-rage-smoke flaring violently, movement-sharp-cold flickering from place to place faster than he can properly track. 

From this far away, it almost seems like a dance, but he knows that either one of the beasts could snuff him out in an instant.

When the fight ends, it happens so quickly he almost misses it. The sharp-cold Qi surges forward as the rage-smoke flickers for a moment before flaring so high it’s blinding. 

The sharp-cold presence vanishes, and while the rage-smoke presence remains, its Qi feels like embers, flickering and growing weaker by the moment. It’s clear that the fight has taken a heavy toll, and the once-powerful Spirit Beast is now barely clinging to life. Its Qi fades rapidly, the once-fiery presence growing dimmer and more diffuse until it, too, begins to vanish.

Zhujiao retracts his senses, blinking as he opens his eyes. That was… terrifying, really, a sign that even the weaker Spirit Beasts in the forest are more than enough to kill him. He rises from his crouch, turning to head back to the town before hesitating, a really stupid idea coming to mind.

The Spirit Beast that won the fight at the cost of its life… was fire aspected. Meaning that there’s a fire-aspected beast core just… sitting out there in the forest.

He knows it’s a stupid decision. He should head back to town, find Wei, and inform him of the fight. It’s important information, after all. 

But the thought of a fire-aspected beast core sitting out there in the forest, unclaimed, gnawed at him. The opportunity to advance on his own terms, to grasp power without relying on a Sect or others, was too tempting to ignore.

He took a deep breath, feeling the residual flickers of the Spirit Beasts’ Qi dissipating in the air. The rational part of his mind screamed at him to turn back, to return to safety. He knew that if he could sense the fight, chances were other Spirit Beasts could too. He might not be the only one drawn to the core.

“I’m an idiot,” he groans, clenching his fists and setting off deeper into the forest.

He clutches the core in his hand, feeling the heat of its residual Qi searing his palm. It looks like a chunk of crystal, and if not for his Qi senses – and the fact that he pulled it from a Spirit Beast – he would assume it’s worthless. 

He’d barely had time to pluck it from the remains of the Spirit Beast before he’d felt several weaker Qi signatures begin to converge on the location. Apparently, the forest held far more dangers than he had ever known.

As he races through the forest, prize clutched tightly against his chest, he draws his Qi inwards again. He has no real idea if his makeshift stealth technique is working or not, but as he mimics the stillness of the world around him the signatures he can feel in the distance slowly begin to drop away.

He slows a little to let his heart rate settle. The core, smooth and pulsing with a rhythmic warmth, feels almost alive. It’s like holding a small sun, more energy than he’s ever felt up close. If he can use even a fraction of this Qi he’ll be able to break through to the next stage for sure – maybe even two or three stages at once!

First though, he needs to actually make it home. No use in counting chickens before they hatch and all – he forces himself to focus with an effort of will and resumes moving through the forest. It might just be the adrenaline, but he feels downright giddy, already dreaming of what the next stage is going to feel like.

Nothing can go wrong now.