The Third Realm - Chapter 18 preview (Patreon)

Routine was important when training a novice, but so was alteration of routine to ensure muscles and mind did not grow too anchored. Morning began with a run, one that traversed the narrow pathway up and down the canyon walls, from one edge to the next before returning in a long circuitous route. Rather than have Shi Min chase Wu Ying, the wind cultivator chose to practice his own control, sending a small shuttlecock bouncing through the canyon walls and forcing the teenager to follow.

It was good training for Wu Ying, extending his control of the wind that far. If anything, his greatest problem was that the wind had little desire to be controlled as it found the game alternately entirely hilarious and amusing – sending Shi min skittering p rocks and down tight canyon walls after the shuttlecock – and boring, having completed its moments of whim and whimsy.

A full two hours later, the boy stumbled back to quaff a full jug of water before being directed to stretch himself out and then relax in the medicinal bath. Pain eroded at Shi Min’s control as the herbs soaked into his skin, his breathing deep and hurried as he panted away. For an hour, he soaked before he was brought outwards to complete the basic stretches and then a meal of demonic wolf meat, stored and pickled vegetables and rice was consumed before a short period of rest and cultivation was enforced.

“Too slow. Run faster, tomorrow,” Wu Ying chided the boy when he had finished his cultivation. “Do not just run but practice the Wind Steps.

Shi Min nodded dumbly, not daring – yet – to talk back to the exacting taskmaster that Wu Ying had become. They had neither the time nor the inclination towards coddling, not with the boy’s future and life at stake.

Only when Shi Mind had cleared his mind did instruction in the weapon arts begin.The jian was a gentleman’s weapon, one of subtle nuances and maneuvers. Positioning, feints, control of the blade and distance between oneself and their opponent was all part of the art. Without the basics, even the most powerful sword form was but a a child’s mud painting of the sunset in a water-logged field.

It was in the basics that Wu Ying trained the boy relentlessly.

“Lunge. Reset. Lunge.” A scabbard, bereft of the weapon it once held was used to adjust the other, lifting the lead arm an inche here, the back arm a half-cun there. A knee was occasionally added to push bodies inwards to close a line or a hip pushed forwards to transfer weight. Alterations of a cun or two, again and again.

“Lunge. Hold. Correct your form.”

A push here.

“Recover. Correct your form.”

A pull there.

“Lunge. Hold. Correct your form.”

Pressure on the knee.

“Again.”

And again. Till hours later, the boy was allowed to relax, collapsing on the spot as muscles – traitorous muscles – twitched and spasmed from exhaustion.

“Cultivate your sense and consider your mistakes.” Wu Ying remarked, before he too took his own seat to do the same.

In teaching, he understood too his own mistakes. The minor corrections he made on the other highlighting other areas he had found wrong in his own stance. In showing, in aiding another, he grew.

“Take the first form.” Wu Ying murmured when they were done. It was not his form, but the boy’s.. He would watch, he would learn, he would correct the other’s basics. As for the heart of the form, he would find it – for was that not what the Heart of the Sword was for too?

Training, hours upon hours, before it was time to bathe, exercise tired and receptive muscles, consume additional sustenance and then repeat one’s forms, till sleep called once again and the cycle could begin anew on a new day.

***

Winter arrived with a vengeance within weeks, the pair of cultivators routine ruined by snow and ice one fine day. No longer did Shi Min crawl, stumble and run across loose rocks and sand but instead traversed snow and ice, falling and scraping his hands raw, nearly plunging to his death more than once as the cold North wind laughed at his fortune.

More than once, Wu Ying gently sent the wind to nudge the boy back onto the right path, to offer him unseen purchase when he required it. There was tough training and then there was murderous training – and while the line between the two was slight in their case, he hoped to stay on the right one.

With winter taking its place, the pair took longer on their morning runs, their cave a warm respite where cultivation, cleansing and forms were trained all hours of the day. Only when Wu Ying was sufficiently satisfied with the boy’s basics did they begin sparring, shifting formats.

Memories flooded Wu Ying, of days and hours training with his own father in the early morning hours or during such cold days in the winter – though their winters were much milder. He ran through the options, from ful speed, full contact battles to more cautious probings, single movement rote battles, to paired motions and even slow work, where opponents fought and moved at a fraction of their speed.

Each format offered different advantages. Slow work focused upon positioning and reading an opponent, of finding that golden move which allowed one to strike, dodge and position oneself advantageously against one’s oponent’s own retaliation.

Turn based, single move sparring forms focused upon optimal motions, lines of attack and weapon positioning. If you chose to step, you were not blocking. If you chose to strike, you had to control your opponent’s sword. Or risk being struck in turn. It taught patience and positioning, caution and defense, an elegance of motion that most new fighters lacked.

Full speed sparring mimicked combat, but it was ruinous upon body and weapons. It was the least useful for their purposes, for much of its advantageous could be replicated using blunted tips and slowed motion, allowing one the full extension of motion, the sensation of pushing bodies off-line or forcing one’s opponents to avoid your weapon.

But without restraint, sparring with full contact with weapons saw but injuries and the true height of Mount Tai. Yet it was required, to allow the boy to control his nerves, to calm his breathing when the adrenaline pounded, to face the blade as it spun through the air towards one’s pupil, knowing one’s end was near.

And then learning to move, even when failure was all but guaranteed because to fail to do so was to give up. In the trying, success could be found, no matter how slim.

Lessons taught at the end of a blade, by father, by son.

Through the long winter months, the pair trained. And words were sparingly exchanged, outside the bounds of their training.

“Expert… Why do you do this?” Shi Min asked, one long winter night. He had a bowl in hand, heaped full of rice and vegetables and, of course, the never-ending supply of demonic wolf meat it seemed. Though the boy could have sworn he had tasted other meat too, in previous meals.

“Hunger must be fed. Or else how is the body to develop?” Wu Ying said, purposely being obtuse.

“Not the meal. The training. The herbs…” he gestured backwards. “My father might have been a poor cultivator, but even he taught me about Body Cultivation. It is too expensive for one such as me.”

“Yet, you soak in it every day.”

“That’s my point!” Shi Min said, exasperated. Then, belatedly, added. “My apologies, Expert.”

“And my point as well.”

Narrowed eyes, at the damn evasion. Shi Min’s lips thinned, but he gave up. It was always like that, after all.

Then it was another day and the boy threw himself into all those lessons, into the baths that scoured his flesh and bone and meridians, tearing them apart and rebuilding them, refining him in minutes and then hours of agony once more.

Another night, another day and across their blades.

“Those forms of yours, a family style?” Wu Ying asked as he idly parried an attack, shifting Shi Min’s arm a little to better the angle.

“My father’s.” Shi Min ducked his head low. “He was, we were, once a cultivating family. My great-great-great-grandfather a scion of the Wudang sect. Then, he left, for he fell in love.” Wu Ying nodded. The ascetics of Wudang would not be willing to accept such an occurrence. It was not their way. “He took with him what he learned and trained his son. We were – are – caravan guards, traveling where work takes us; but we trained. Over time, the style changed, adapted.”

“There is some skill in there. Otherwise, imperfections.” Wu Ying watched as the boy did not bristle at the mention. A lack of pride or just understanding?

“I want to be worthy of it. To be a true cultivator,” Shi Min whispered.

“That path for you is blocked,” Wu Ying said, mercillesly as he caught an overhand strike and kicked the boy away.

Tumbling head over heels, the boy rolled and alighted to his feet. The kick had been focused on pushing – energy imparted after contact had been made – and so he was not injured beyond minor bruising. “I cannot be an immortal. But being a cultivator is more than that! To be worthy of blade and honour, of the respect given. I want to protect, rather than take.”

Wu Ying nodded, then flicked the tip of his blade to the boy and back to himself. “Then you have to grow stronger.”

The wind took Shi Min’s whispered words of resolution to him as the boy charged forwards.

“I will.”

***

Days of routine, of training. Shi Min stretched and exercised and ate, feeding spiritual herbs and chi into his very bones to give himself an edge.

And not once did Wu Ying push him, not once did he chide the boy.

Yet, he too trained and cultivated without stop. The winds howled outside the cave, throwing snow and sand without end, birthing whispers of angered ghosts and spirits to the nearby villages. He flowed through the motions of the Long family style and the other sword manuals he studied, integrating their motions into his own body, into his new understanding of the jian.

At times, he discarded his weapon, choosing instead to form the sword from chi and body alone. The Heart of the Sword required no weapon to be used, for one became the jian. Hands as sharp as a razor-edged blade, body as tough as steel and as flexible as a blade. Whiplike in motion, deadly in its stillness.

A winter, of quiet cultivation, of desperate training and progress.

When the winter winds began to die and the snows began to melt, Wu Ying stared at the boy as he woke and nodded to himself.

It was time. Time for a final test.

A final lesson.

***

Up above on the bare cliff, footing treacherous as snow, melted and then reformed in the night to become slick ice. The pair flowed upwards through the narrow passageway, the boy having adapted and taken to the Seven Winds with alacrity after so many months of constant, abusive training.

Wu Ying took position on the crackling ground, slushy snow breaking under his weight. He could have floated above it, would have normally. No heavier than a feather on the snow, but this was a test for the child. He suppressed his cultivation, his skills all the way down to the start of the Energy Storage stage. His aura did not need suppressing, he did that automatically; but the rest…

Shi Min took his place across from Wu Ying, his father’s sword in his hand finally. The first time he held it since they had begun training, his fingers finding the familiar grip with ease. Wu Ying tilted his head to the side, watching as the boy shifted his stance without thought a little to adjust for the different length, different weight of the blade.

So close… another six months of training and he might have achieved the Sense of the Sword. As it stood, the boy had the Greater Achievement of the Sword already, progressing from the Minor Achievement he had when Wu Ying had first seen him.

The boy had a gift, not a bright burning one like Pan Chen but a slower, quieter one that might carry him far given enough guidance and training.

Not the heights of cultivation, of immortality for this child. But not everyone had to climb those heights. Not everyone should.

After all, cultivation at its height, at its apex broken the very bounds of the Heavens, shattered their precepts to enforce their ascendance upon their order. In the wake of transformation, chaos arrived; and with chaos, loss and pain and transformation.

Heaven’s wind howled, whispering rules and requirements, cold and cruel laws that sought order before justice, with only the barest margins given to mercy and kindness. And in that gap, a darker, cloying wind arrived, one that smelled of the dark, deep places of the Earth, of the musky smell of a well kept compost pile. It murmured of change, of the necessity of transformation, of chaos…

Before it disappeared, driven away by a sudden gust of the Heavenly wind and the approaching tip of a sword.

Wu Ying turned, ever so slightly, letting the blade pass by his face. His hand came up, a pair of fingers pushing against the edge and travelling backwards, never allowing the blade to push against his fingers. A tricky technique, the bare-handed block.

Then, Shi Min was before him, recovering close and sweeping his blade backwards, spinning the blade around the back and around his head as he built speed. Only to be met by a single step, elbow flaring upwards to strike and throw the boy backwards.

Shi Min stumbled away, recovering in a series of quick cuts to protect himself against a potential counter-attack that never came. He stabilized himself on cracking earth, as the crisp air of shattered ice drifted through the air and glared over the tip of his sword at Wu Ying.

“Are we not practicing swords?” Shi Min challenged.

“We are practicing survival,” Wu Ying murmured. “We are testing your gains. Never forget that the blade is but a tool. The weapon is yourself.”

Then, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, he withdrew his own jian. The tip rose and retreated, beckoning the other.

The clash of blades that followed was an energetic and violent affair, one bereft of the extensions of chi blades and the expulsions of sword intent that was so common among his most recent battles. The wind was still around the pair, only picking up at the edges as his request; neither aiding nor hindering his opponent. Their struggle was mundane, all too mortal and reminiscent in a way that brought a grin to Wu Ying’s lips.

There was a beauty in the simple clash of steel, where neither chi or sword intent marred the intentions of the other. Here, in the passage of blade and the crossing of forms was a conversation of blades that stripped away outward pretenses.

A thrust – desperate need.

A twist of the hand – casual disregard.

Forward recovery – aggressive demand.

Angled, triangle step sideways – measured refusal.

Sweeping shoulder cut – violent entreaty.

Angled parry to drive tip into blade – careful agreement.

Forms played across the landscape as the pair fought, the Dragon parts the Painting meeting Grass sways across the Land, the Cloud Hands circular deflection beaten aside by the Tree trunk Falling. Across the clifftop they fought, feet stamping onto crackling ice, snow and hidden rocks flying through the air as they battled for supremacy.

Shi Min had grown, all so much. His stances were firmer, his grip both tighter and more flexible than ever. His basic forms, while not perfect had improved that the widest, largest openings had shrunk such that Wu Ying had to work to find the gaps. Blade tips teased and whispered, as he offered pointed rebuke and the boy learnt.

Till finally, sensing the cultimation of their conversation, he chose to end it. The same way another teacher had once ended their own – bloodier – battle.

A retreating parry, to give him space. To give the child time.

A lunge, that carried him forwards, the Sword’s Truth exploding forth as he crossed the distance.

The boy’s stumbling retreat, as careful and considered strategy fell apart under one last lesson – that strength, at its extreme, had an intensity all of its own.

Blade tip arched forwards, piercing hasty defense, pushing flat of blade against body as arms collapsed backwards. Shi Min’s blade edges pressed into clothed flesh, dimpling skin before the pressure was relieved just as suddenly, forcable momentum continuing to be transferred to send the boy tumbling head over heels to fetch up near edge of the cliff.

Long silence, as the boy groaned in cold and wet snow, before he clambered to his sodden feet, sword held in hand at guard. Only to find Wu Ying standing, sword sheathed, winds swirling around him carrying traces of the fading winter and hints of the coming spring.

“Thank you for your instruction, Expert!” Shi Min intoned, ritually as he bowed low to Wu Ying. Rather than raise his head though, he kept his head lowered, sword held backwards along his arm in front of his head.

“You have studied well.” Wu Ying said. “Rest. Mediate upon the battle. Tomorrow, we meet your assailants and you have your honour to regain.”

A slight shudder form the boy, as he thought of what awaited him. Wu Ying watched as he fought down the fear, the atavistic knowledge of his potential death. He watched the internal struggle, before the boy accepted his fate, chose to face his challenge head-on rather than beg him for aid.

Shi Min straightened and then bowed again. “Thank you, Expert. For everything.”

And then, as requested, he walked to the cliff edge to begin the long trek back to their abode. Already, Wu Ying could see the boy’s mind turning to the fight ahead, to readying himself for the battle. He could not help but approve.

Even as a part of him wished for it to be different. But all seasons pass and the wind could not stay still. It would blow on, ever onwards. And so, too must he follow.