Stormy Mountain Sect Chapter 15 (Patreon)

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

I received back Homecoming from my editor last night, so this will probably be the last Stormy Mountain Sect chapter for a bit. Now I’ve got to finalize Homecoming, get the hardcover and paperback ready, and click publish. Then it’ll be time to start on Elemental Gatherers Book 8!

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

I woke to the first bell refreshed and ready, full of peace. I lay and smiled for a minute, then vowed to always cherish Nuan. “She’s too good to me,” I whispered, then rolled out of bed. One massive benefit to being a cultivator was the utter lack of soreness from the prior day’s exertions.

I checked my schedule for the day. Third bell Physical Cultivation, I’ll need to ask where the Body Refinement Training Field is, I thought, then laughed under my breath. “Let’s do this!”

I spent ten minutes cultivating next to my plants, feeding them a few drops of blood each before flushing them with Growth Qi. It wasn’t enough to finish any of my tendons, just making a bit of progress towards the long tendon on the side of my right thigh.

A quick breakfast followed, Spiritual Oats and some Beast sausage. Cian told me how to get to the Training Field when I asked. “You’d better hurry, though,” he said. “It’s about half a bell’s walk to get there.”

“Thanks!” I said, finishing quickly.

“Make sure you have a lot of water!” He called after me as I rushed off. I jogged past where all the domiciles were and found the path split. I turned left, taking the path down the side of the mountain. Two switchbacks later, I saw a massive open field. At least two hundred different people were running, sparring, or slowly working through a martial form. That I could see, anyway, as the environmental wards that kept the living area dry were weaker here. The storm overhead was reduced to a light rain, chilling me from my exertions.

When I approached the entrance to the field, an older Outer Sect disciple waved me over. “Here for Introduction to Physical Cultivation?” He asked.

“Yes, senior,” I said with a small bow.

“Good. To the left, you see the four other saplings standing around uncertainly? Go there. Elder Strong will be along at the bell.”

“Thank you, senior.” I hurried to follow his instructions. No one I recognized was here, all of the boys waiting too nervous to respond with more than half-hearted shrugs and their names when I introduced myself.

We waited there for another twenty minutes, more new Sect members trickling in. Fionn arrived just a minute before the bell. “Marc!” He exclaimed and hurried over to me. “Uh, are you okay?”

“Yes,” I said with a grimace. “Elder Grainne healed me enough that a night’s rest was enough.”

“Was it worth it?”

I thought for a second. “I’ll be doing it again, if she’ll let me.”

“Wow.” Fionn shook his head. “Thank you for your help in class.”

I nodded, “You are welcome.”

“Alright, quiet down!” A voice boomed across us. A mountain of a man strode over to us. He was at least seven feet tall, with shoulders that strained against his tunic. Long, shaggy blonde hair hung in a loose ponytail behind his head, framing his strong, gruff face. He looked us over critically, a frown dominating his expression, then he nodded sharply.

“All of you here are in Body Refinement,” boomed Elder Strong. “What does it mean to Refine?” No one answered, too intimidated by the bellowing elder to speak. He waited for a second, then answered his own question. “To Refine is to make more valuable, more useful! To separate out the dross of the mortal world and forge yourself anew! Why do we start with Body Refinement?”

“Uh, to build a foundation for future advancement,” I said, starting quiet but getting louder as I finished the sentence to his encouraging nod.

“Good, Marc,” Elder Strong said. He smirked at my surprise that he knew my name. “Now, each of you has at least made it past Skin Refinement. Your Skin is stronger, tougher, but only by a small amount. Do you know why?” He only waited a second. “It is because you have not trained your skin to be tougher! Refinement can only refine, it does not create new. The more you work out, the stronger your body is before advancing, the better results you will get!”

“Elder Strong!” A young woman yelled, a concerned look on her face.

“You did not do any harm by advancing quickly,” he answered her unspoken question. “It will be more difficult to train your body to the same level it could have been, but …” he smiled evilly at us, “that is why you are in this course. Now, run!”

I took off, heading down the side of the field. Fionn yelped and followed me, only for Elder Strong to roar, “When I give a command, you will follow it immediately. Go!” I glanced over my shoulder to see that Elder Strong had pulled a switch from somewhere, and he smacked a young man across the back. “Faster!”

I stretched my legs, but running was not something I really did a lot of as a farmer. After a few minutes, I was starting to pant. I slowed down, focused on breathing properly. This is Physical Cultivation class, so I should be able to cultivate, right? I tried to drop into a cultivation trance, but as soon as I succeeded I tripped over my own feet.

“Get up and run!” Elder Strong yelled, appearing next to me as if he’d been there the whole time.

I jumped, pushing myself to run faster for a bit to get away from him, before settling into a pace that I could continue for a while. I tried again, dropping out of the trance before I did more than stumble.

“Don’t drop so deep into the trance,” Elder Strong said, again appearing next to me. “And don’t slow down. Focus on just breathing right, until it becomes automatic. Let your body absorb the Qi and do with it what it wills. You do not need to direct it, not yet at least.”

“Thank … you … Elder,” I panted. It took me twenty minutes, three smacks across my shoulders to speed up, and four tumbles before I was able to maintain a breathing pattern in accordance to my cultivation method while running. I could see the Qi around me, Water, Earth, Wood, and Air most prevalent though dozens of other colors drifted in small amounts.

I absorbed it all without consciously grabbing at it. As my muscles contracted, my lungs pumping, Earth and Water Qi soaked into them. My speed didn’t change, but the burn in my legs dissipated quickly. My muscles were already Refined, but I could feel a minute change with each breath in.

We ran for an hour. Fionn passed me as we both pushed ourselves around the border of the Training Field. I plodded along, never slow enough to get whipped once I’d figured out the trick to moving cultivation, but not fast enough to earn a break or praise. Elder Strong had congratulated me on succeeding, but others, especially a young woman named Min who streamed past me at least five times. Considering the nearly mile long perimeter of the field, To even match her for a second would require me to sprint as hard as I could, while she just kept going.

“She’s … a noble,” Fionn panted, seeing my gaze. “I heard a rumor that she is already done with Blood Refinement.”

“Is that … what we get … from Blood Refinement?” I asked.

“No idea.”

“Stop and gather around me!” Elder Strong yelled, loud enough that I could hear it from the opposite corner of the field. None of the other people responded, though, as I dodged around a group slowly mimicking an instructor.

After a few minutes, the twenty three of us were loosely lined up in front of him. I tried to stand straight, only to shift to the side as I breathed quickly. “Excellent work,” Elder Strong said quieter, his voice seeming to start from right next to me. “All of you figured out how to cultivate and run at the same time. Now, you will perform push jumps until I say stop.”

“Elder, uh, what are push jumps?” I asked, seeing the confusion on several other’s face.

“Watch,” he said, then proceeded to bend down. He put his hands onto the ground just below his shoulders, jumped his legs until he was stretched out with his arms still straight up and down, then he let his body drop. When his chest was an inch over the ground, he stopped his motion and then straightened his arm. He then jumped his legs up next to his hands and explosively jumped straight up. When his feet landed, he repeated the motion. “Now, go!”

I copied his moves while maintaining the breathing pattern, or at least I tried. When my feet jumped backwards, the stretching of my body made me breathe out sharper than I wanted. The sudden loss of Qi intake, along with the exhausted state of my body without Qi support, had me drop to the ground.

I groaned and struggled to get my hands back under me, pushing up and then jumping. It took me a few minutes to get the breathing pattern back while doing the push jumps, and by the time I did my arms were noodles and my lungs were on fire. Even with Qi flowing into me, I didn’t recover. I just stopped getting worse. Each push jump was a struggle, but I refused to stop, refused to give up.

Only vaguely did I realize that there were only three of us continuing. Min was a machine, while another young man was dripping like I was. His hands showed the calluses of someone who worked for a living, and I knew that he felt the same way I did. If you gave up, if you stopped working when you needed to, your farm would fail and your family starve. You didn’t have a choice, you just kept going.

Finally, my arms just gave up, and I collapsed. A weight that I hadn’t noticed pressing down on my body vanished, and I could breathe better again. A minute later, and my arms stopped spasming, Qi refreshed my muscles and removed the pain. “Your tenacity will take you far,” Elder Strong said quietly, his voice for me alone. “Now, pull as much Qi as you can into your muscles. You have plenty of space to enhance yourself. Your Growth Affinity is perfect for pushing your body to the limits of what it can truly do.”

I nodded, struggled into a cross-legged sitting position, and started to cultivate. This time, I directed the Qi into my muscles again, rather than into my tendons to work towards advancing. Each mote of Qi reduced the exhaustion I felt. I could feel my muscles getting stronger, minutely though it was. My self perception had never been better, the strain of cultivating and exercising enhancing it.

A flood of Qi enveloped me, and a quick peek showed me that Elder Strong had pulled out a four square foot sheet of metal with a Beast Core imbedded in the center. A film of Qi surrounded our group, holding in the discharge of the Beast Core. Every one of the students was cultivating. Another thirty minutes passed before Elder Strong spoke again. “You have all learned the very basics of cultivating while moving and enhancing your foundation, at least at the Body Refinement stage. Many sects are dismissive of this stage of cultivation, pushing their disciples to advance as fast as possible. The Stormy Mountain Sect will be the strongest sect in the kingdom because our foundation is the strongest. You are our foundation, and so we will enable you to grow strong.”

He paused for a second, then continued, “Even after Core Formation, as you work on carving runes into your Core, your body will be the basis upon which you project power. Your meridians determine how much Qi you can channel, and their strength requires that your body be refined to the best of your ability. Push yourselves just like you did today, enhance your body and increase the refinement you achieve, and make yourself the strongest you can be for your advancement. Here at the Stormy Mountain Sect, we expect you to push yourself as hard as you possibly can. I will see you in four days. You will do better than you did today, or you will suffer the consequences.”

With that last ominous warning, he strode away. The fifth bell sounded soon thereafter, and I struggled to my feet. “Lunch?” I asked Fionn, who was still laying on his back, his breath coming in gasps as he tried to hold his breathing technique.

“Give me … a minute,” Fionn panted.

I nodded and started to stretch, remembering my dad teaching me how to keep myself limber after a long day harvesting wheat. My tendons screamed at me, but they quieted quickly under the trickle of Growth Qi that my body seemed to be generating. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. Especially as Growth Qi was generated by everyone around, their body’s Growth in strength and capability enough to catalyze its generation from the Wood and Water soaking through us.

The rain dripping on me had gone from being uncomfortable and something to ignore and push through, to being a comfort that kept me from overheating as I pushed myself past my collapse point. I stood and stretched my arms out, just enjoying the cool mist that sapped the heat from my limbs.

Finally, Fionn struggled to his feet, and staggered over to me. “Lunch?”

“Lunch,” I said.

“What’ve you got after this?”

“I signed up for a work assignment at seventh bell,” I said. “Going to work on an Elder’s garden. Pay was twelve credits an hour.”

“Nice!” Fionn said. “I’ve got two hours of cleaning at the Administration Building at half that rate.”

“I’m sure that your job will be much easier than mine,” I said with a laugh. “The administration worker laughed at me when I signed up for this one.”

“Well, based upon your performance here, you'll be fine.”

I turned at glared at my new friend, who just laughed at me more.