23. A Student's Duel (Patreon)

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Chu Zileng had been deprived of her twin brother, Zilong, for three long, intolerable months. There were times that she wanted to curse the boy and his damnable talent, but getting promoted to the Starry Waters's inner sect was always a forgone conclusion, and what they'd both strived for. Together.

It was rare enough that there were two talents in a family - even among cultivation legacies like theirs, the likelihood of a younger sibling having a talent for cultivation was barely above the population average. As far as Zileng knew, her and Zilong's younger brother, Zhufeng, was no more a cultivator than the cooper or the fisherman. Their mother was a mortal once more when he was born. He lived a commoner's life with their mother somewhere down in Yamadrok Village down the coast from Lake Lhim City.

But Zileng and Zilong were cultivators and, even if Zilong was always the more talented one, Zileng was no slouch. She would become an inner disciple, and she would see her brother again.

It had been four months since Zilong broke through to the third realm - truly, a joyous day for the twins - and four weeks later he'd been elevated to the inner sect - just as great a joyous day. Zileng assumed she'd see Zilong after that. After all, most of the instructors and mentors to the outer sect disciples were inner sect members. She saw them all the time.

Zileng had been fine for a few days. The whole first week was tolerable, really, with her still coasting on the sublime high of her brother's accomplishment. She understood that he was probably busy with important inner sect business, but when her brother didn't meet by the courtyard fountain, as they'd agreed to do prior to his going into the inner sect, she became worried.

"Brother Zilong is cloistered," Core Disciple Jamyang told her when she asked.

"For how long, senior?" Zileng had asked.

The answer was that it was hard to say. Apparently, new inner sect disciples could cloister for a year or more before their duties allowed them into the outer sect or the world beyond. Zileng wished somebody had told her before her brother ascended the stairs and into the great mystery that was the Starry Waters inner sect.

But what could she do? Instead of mewling like a child, Zileng had doubled her dedication to cultivation, accruing contribution points and purchasing cultivation aids of questionable quality, just so she would have more of them. She powered through the nausea and headaches the impure aids often caused and broke through to the third realm a mere two months after her twin brother, and then… nothing.

She asked her… acquaintances… about it. She didn't have many friends? After all, why did one need friends when one had family? Family was like friends but better. Friends with benefits. Yes, that was a good term for it.

"I dunno, Zi, who can say what the sect elders think?" Junior Brother Amba said - a fat lot of help he was. Zileng suspected the boy would forever be mired in the second realm, so it mattered little to him.

There werethird realm cultivators in the outer sect, but most of them remained there by choice, too tied to families and other worldly concerns to fully commit to the sect's teachings. Zileng was committed to her dao, though, and she would see it through. With her brother. The only problem was that elevation to the third realm wasn't enough. Zileng needed the support of a core disciple.

Why wouldn't they elevate her?

"You impress on many levels, junior sister," Core Disciple Jamyang had told her. "But they are lowly levels, the accomplishments of low cultivators. You may have broken through to the middle realms, but your accomplishments trail your cultivation. Show that you are deserving of elevation, and I will vouch for you."

She clasped her hands and bowed to her senior. "Junior Sister Zileng thanks her senior sister. How shall I prove myself most deserving."

The older woman contemplated the question for a minute before responding: "The best test of mettle is to pit skill against skill. Defeat five different third realm cultivators in student duels, and I shall gladly vouch for you."

Thus did Zileng begin her campaign of combat - she would challenge an outer sect member who she thought she could beat, and they would face off in the practice grounds. The sect rules on student duels were quite regimented - usually, they were held around noon, in between morning and afternoon duties, when the inner sect instructors were bored and more than willing to bet one another on outer sect student duels. The rules of the duels were as follows:
1) Any student who refuses a duel forfeits, unless they have dueled against a person within or above their realm in the past week, in which case they may claim the right to recuperate.
2) The recipient of the challenge may set the terms of the duel: whether weapons, charms, potions, etc. were are allowed.
3) A senior disciple of the inner sect or above must be present to officiate the duel. The officiant's word is final unless overturned by a sect elder or master for good reason.
4) The loser of the bout forfeits one half of their contribution points and one half of their unused cultivation aids, a number not to exceed fifty contribution points or five cultivation aids of the victor's choice.
5) Causing severe injury or death results in a forfeit, plus coverage of the injured/killed combatant's medical or funeral needs. At the officiant's discretion, reckless or foolish behavior may disqualify a combatant from this consideration.

Her first match was against Liu Baofen, who had only just broken through to the third realm after a decade in the second. Thus, she had much experience on Zileng, technically-speaking, but had always been a half-hearted disciple, more interested in wandering into town and nattering with the bureaucrats and their spouses than advancing her cultivation. She'd only even advanced due to the gift of cultivation aids from some minor city magistrate.

Zileng had beat the woman soundly and delighted in helping herself to finer cultivation aids than she had ever known, including two shimmering blue pearls - Lake of Stillness pills designed to help water qi cultivators take advantage of high levels of ambient qi, such as Lake Lhim's natural qi vent not far from the sect.

Liu Baofen was the entirety of the low-hanging fruit as far as Zileng could tell. She fought two more hard-won battles against other cultivators, the ambitious and talented Moonpool Zhan and the solid and stubborn Nin Faneel. Zileng would have to enjoy the contribution points she won, because she got no cultivation aids from either - they'd wisely consumed whatever stash they had prior to the fight.

After recovering from her bout with Nin Faneel, Zileng made the disastrous decision to challenge Tenzin Lobsang, who she'd always thought of as ponderously slow, both in mind and in motion. He was one of the outer sect disciples, seemingly stalled in the third realm, who had absolutely no ambitions whatsoever.

Instead of collecting contribution points or attending lessons, Lobsang preferred to meditate in the sun, or else plod down the one thousand one hundred forty-three steps from the sect and fish out in Lake Lhim's jade-green waters. Sure, he'd been in the sect for twenty years or more and did enough menial work to keep from being kicked out, but he was hardly a cultivator these days. How hard could dueling him possibly be?

Very fucking hard, it turned out. Maybe the man had been cultivating every day as he fished. Maybe he'd been practicing his forms and techniques by moonlight. All Zileng could say was that, when she woke up in the infirmary, the witnesses to the fight could confirm that she'd been subjected to no fewer than three techniques that weren'ttaught in the outer sect, one of which had slammed her into the ground with a giant fist of literal water. And the best half of her paltry remaining cultivation aids had been commandeered by the cultivator-fisherman.

"I don't think I've ever seen anybody get beat so fast without a realm difference," Junior Brother Amba said later, after she was finally out of the medical hall. "Do you think we could get him to show us that watery fist technique?"

"You aren't even in the qi refinement stage, junior brother," Zileng observed.

"Second realm cultivators can learn techniques. They just aren't as good," he replied with a shrug. "Let me know if you find anything out about it and I'll do likewise…"

"Yes, sure," Zileng said absently. She very much doubted that Amba would be able to tell her anything that would help her. Most of his sect work was as a scribe-assistant to the senior disciples, taking notes or transcribing lectures for dissemination. However, her doubts proved unfounded.

"Did you hear, senior sister?" he asked her one cool but sunny morning.

Zileng was in the middle of her morning stretches and barely bothered to look in the young man's direction. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific, junior brother."

"A noble's coming to the sect! Today!"

"We have many nobles in the sect," Zileng said. "Dozens of them." It wasn't particularly unusual to see them about the outer sect with their blue-striped sashes indicating their station. They tended to get special treatment and were known to lord their status over the commoners, but they were uncommon enough - perhaps one hundred of them among the two thousand five hundred outer disciples - that Zileng didn't often encounter them.

"Not like this. She's the first daughter of a daimyo!"

Zileng's eyebrows went up - that was something. The possible scion of a major clan coming to the Starry Waters sect so far from home? She could only imagine at the upbringing of a young woman such as that - the soft, easy life of a noble cultivator. She'd probably been sent to kick some discipline into her pampered rear. She would have received all the cultivation aid she could want and experienced none of the hardship…

"Do you know what realm she is?"

Amba scratched at his bushy black hair. "Assessed at early third, if I recall. Why?"

Zileng didn't even bother to answer. She was off, feet pounding along the sunbaked stone as she made her way to the sect entrance.

Just in the nick of time, too! As she dashed past the meal hall and through the windswept alleys, she saw Core Disciple Khando leading a quartet of cultivators up from the ghost city below, and she knew immediately which girl the noble was… beautiful and stylishly-dressed, she was also the only cultivator who was winded in the slightest from the climb.

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"I challenge you to a student's duel!" the girl shouted, squaring off so close we might have been literally nose-to-nose if I wasn't a few inches taller than her. Wayinside my personal space.

Her breath smelled faintly of cabbages.

"Um," I said. "Not cool. First, I don't even know you. Second, I just got here. And third, I just climbed up a bunch of steps with a g-" I stopped myself - I needed to maintain plausible deniability about having carried my disciple up more than half the steps. "-iant sleep deficit. I'm not fighting you."

The girl snorted in anger before turning toward Core Disciple Khando, clasping her hands, and bowing her head ever-so-slightly. "Senior brother, is it not the rule that any outer core student who does not accept a duel is subject to automatic loss of position and cultivation aids?"

Khando's broad lips twisted with a hint of a smirk. "That is, indeed, a rule, Disciple Zileng. A forfeit counts as a loss and brings with it a transfer of half of the student's contribution points or fifty points, whichever is less, and one half of that student's accrued cultivation aids, but no more than five. All this is true, provided that the student has not accepted and fought a duel within the past week… which Lynn has not."

"That doesn't even make sense," I objected. "If somebody loses a duel, doesn't that mean they need cultivation aids more than the other person?"

Khando just shrugged. "It makes little sense to burn incense for chickens, nor to waste cultivation supplies on the hopeless."

The super tense aggro girl nodded resolutely. "Very well, I shall arrange for an outer sect member to officiate at noon on the morrow…"

"Nonsense, junior sister!" Khando chuckled affably. "I see no reason why we cannot proceed presently. I shall be your officiant. That is, assuming Lynn accepts the challenge?"

"I mean…" I glanced to Ichika who nodded… I had no idea what the nod meant. That I should go with my instincts and refuse? That I should go with her instincts and accept? Or was it just a casual 'sup, sistah' nod? I had no idea… "It's not to the death, is it?"

"It is not to the death," Khando said. "Should you be injured, you will receive the outer sect's finest healing services at Disciple Zileng's expense, and you may set the terms for the duel, such as whether weapons are to be permitted…"

"No weapons," I said quickly. "I've still got gross, gooey baby hands from getting them frozen and shattered, so no anything…"

"A test of martial dao alone, then. Very well. You accept, then?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess I do."

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The combat arena for the outer sect was a big stone courtyard lined with obelisks buzzing with qi and a few rows of stone bleachers beyond. A trio of boys - young men, I guess - were huddled up in a little triangle talking amongst themselves. When they saw us approach, they scrambled to their feet and bowed to Khando. I guess being a core disciple was a pretty big deal.

"Can we watch, senior brother?" one of them asked.

"Naturally, junior brothers," Khando said, "In fact, I encourage it. Observe the match and I shall answer one question from each of you afterward. Situate yourself wherever you like on your half of the arena and begin in five…

I quickly jogged out to one side of the courtyard - a thin, dark line in the stone indicated where the two halves were delineated, each about the size of one side of a tennis court. Based on the way that Zileng girl had paced up to the line and was currently situated in a combat stance and glowering at me, I did notwant to be near her for starters.

"…Four… three… two… one!"

"Ah!" I shouted - what happened to zero? Did they even know about zero here? I had no idea.

I didn't have time to ponder it, though. With a shout, the girl scampered across and toward me, and I quickly backed away…

Fine, I ran away. ButI stayed in bounds! The fact that, whenever I got near the edge of the court I felt an uncomfortable buzz of qi probably meant that something bad would happen if I overstepped the boundary.

My opponent was shorter and broader than me, and she bulldozed forward like a rampaging rhino. A rampaging rhino with years of training in the martial arts. She was fast, too - she ran at least as fast as I could, but I seemed to have the advantage in raw agility, pivoting and changing direction just fast enough to stay away from her.

"Lynn! Calm down and use your brain!" Monkey Yang shouted.

That was good advice, though it was hard to be calm while being chased by an angry (for some reason) third realm cultivator. I pivoted and pushed off the ground, leaping into a new direction just as Zileng had me cornered. She snorted in annoyance and spun about, her slippers scuffing to a stop upon the dusty stone. We stood there, facing one another from about twenty feet apart. A malicious grin crept up her face and she swept both hands in an odd crescent pattern, qi pulsing up from within her.

Her hand shot out. I didn't know what she was trying to do, but I was sure it wasn't good. I dove out of the way just in time to see a glowing, pale blue sphere the size of a softball shoot out of her hand. Even though I dodged, the ball curved perfectly, slamming into my side and tossing me like a ragdoll.

Pain and moisture bloomed across my ribcage. As I tumbled through the air, I wondered whether all that moisture was blood, but no - it was cool, soaking through the fabric of my cute harlot robes as the air went cloudy with the spray of tiny droplets. The impact pushed me back into the invisible barrier at the outside of the arena, which stopped my momentum like the elastic ropes of a pro wrestling ring.

It also zapped me like one of those electric cattle fences. Ouch!

"Ow!" I struggled to my feet just in time to be clobbered by another ball of glowing water. It knocked me into the stony ground, and I rolled end over end before rolling to my feet just in time to intercept a charging Zileng.

I leapt clear over her… no, I flipped clear over her, one of my still-developing hands planting on her shoulder as I vaulted through the air. It was pretty smooth if I don't say so myself.

Then Zileng's hands clamped over my wrist, she dropped her stance, and she flipped me right back over. My back hit the ground hard enough to crack the dusty granite of the court. I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a sledgehammer of a punch, the goo around my still-regrowing hand providing enough lubrication to slip out of the girl's solid grip.

I spun to face her, dodged a kick, and then blasted qi out of my dantian. My opponent either sensed something coming or got lucky, because she dove out of the way just in time, the energy of my qi shooting off into the force field of the arena.

"What in heaven's name was that?" Khando exclaimed.

"Mistress Lynn's dantian beam!" Hana replied. "She's going to teach me when I reach the second realm!"

I leapt over a sweep kick but didn't think to dodge backward, which was a mistake. Zileng's palm shot out in some kind of empowered technique that sent me flying right back into the zap barrier around the arena's perimeter. I guess my dantian beam had weakened the thing because it wobbled like jello, parts of it flickering in and out of visibility, and I could feel the qi of the big obelisks surrounding the field flickering in and out.

Khando placed a palm over one of the obelisks, eyes closed in concentration as he recharged its energies. "Continue," he instructed.

We didn't need to continue for long. The flickering barrier dropped me like a surprise album release. I splayed out, ready to roll back to my feet, when an elbow dropped into my middle back hard enough to whoosh the air right out of me as something ruptured internally. I'd probably be pissing out blood.

I reflexively cried out in pain, and as I coughed up air and bile and struggled to a sit, I felt a familiar pulse deep in my dantian.

"Lin… no…" I croaked.

"Do you yiel-" Zileng's question was cut short with a cry and a burst of solar qi. It flared several more times in rapid succession.

"I yield! I yield!" Zileng's shouted, the panic clear in her voice.

"Stop! For the love of heavens, stop, spirit!" Khando shouted, qi pulsing out from him.

"Ow! But… but she hurt my sister," Lin stated petulantly.

I rolled to a sit, wiping the blood with the back of my hand… my slimy, regrowing hand. I think I got more slime on my face than I got blood off my lips. "Did… did we win?"

Core Disciple Khando's glowering face softened when it became clear that Lin was cowed, her glowing aura flickering as she cowered before the powerful cultivator. He let out a disgruntled snort. "You did not win - your stated rules for this duel were 'no anything', which includes bonded spirits…"

"She'sgot a bonded spirit?" one of our spectators gawped. "How does a third realm get a bonded celestial spirit?"

"How do youknow it's celestial, Hong? You're barely second realm…" another said.

"I mean… the blinding bright sunlight?"

"Yeah, true… I know what I’m gonna ask senior brother now… how to get myself one of those!"

Khando helped me to my feet, his calloused hands warm but as firm as granite. "So I lost…" I winced, rubbing at my back where the crazy-ass girl had pile-driven me. "So… what does that mean? Am I…" I gulped. "Am I expelled from the sect?"

Khando chuckled. "Hardly! You aren't even in the sect yet. Since you have no contribution points accrued, Zenli cannot claim any from you. If your spirit had persisted in its spiritual attacks, the cost to rehabilitate junior sister might have been exorbitant, but I suspect her current qi strain is nothing that a few hours' cultivation cannot cure… on which point, you are not yet a sect member, but I request that you yield half of whatever cultivation aids you have to the girl…"

I looked at Zileng as she struggled to her feet, face pale and wavering as she stood as she recovered from Lin's attack. I didn't want to give her half of my spirit herbs. But I kinda felt bad for her - she looked to be on the verge of tears. "Does… does this mean this doesn't count toward my five fights?"

"It will count toward your fights," Khando assured her. "Lynn is very much third domain, even if she's not yet of the sect - a matter that we will rectify shortly. Well, Lynn? Have you any cultivation aids?"

"Lin, would you?" I gestured toward my satchel. Lin nodded and scampered over to me, giving Khando a very wide berth. Her spectral hand gradually gained in solidity until you might mistake it for real flesh, and she lifted the flap of my satchel, procuring the grand total of my cultivation aids: two springs of dried spiritual herbs. She held them flat on the palm of her hand and shuffled over toward Zileng.

"Sorry I attacked you," she murmured. "But you shouldn't have been so mean. Me and my sister, we don't even like to fight."

"I'm sure it was a misunderstanding," I said uncertainly. "Miss Zileng… I'm not sure if I'm supposed to call you sister or whatever, since I've never been in a sect before. Pick whichever sprig you like." Honestly, I wouldn't have minded giving her both sprigs since I had no further use for them… but she'd been kind of an asshole, barging in for whatever reason and demanding to fight me.

Zileng picked the larger of the two sprigs and turned it over in the palm of her hand. To my eyes and nose, the stuff just looked like a clump of dried weed along a fibrous chute, probably about an ounce and a half in total. "This lowly herb is all the daughter of a daimyo carries with her?" she asked. "Senior Brother Khando, this cannot be…"

"Take your winnings and be glad, junior sister," Khando cautioned her. "The five of us have business elsewhere. Leave us."

Zileng clasped her hands and bowed to Khando before shooting me a stinkeye. Like… what the fuck did I ever do to you, lady? And why did she think I was Ichika?

As Zileng paced off, Khando cleared his throat. "Now… if you would please follow me to the Scholars' Hall, we'll get you officially added to the rolls. You'll be pleased to know that your loss will not be recorded in your annals…"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah… awesome."

"Indeed. As far as introductions to the sect go, this was… informative, but less than ideal."