“Lady Jidihu is right, Alex. You saved me, my brother, and my cousin, and we’ll always be grateful.” The young kitsune flashed a teasing smile. “If my cousin hadn’t already won your heart...” She flushed and turned away, sprinting at a pace as fast as any fox, surprising even Alex.
Lady Jidihu beamed. “Yes. She truly is fast. And for one of my kind, extremely tough as well, having advanced incredibly far as a basic cultivator, despite the fact that so many sacred texts have been hidden from us.”
Eyes flashing hate for the first time Alex had seen froze him where he stood, before the killing glare of a deadly cultivator in her prime was replaced by a gentle, motherly gaze once more. “Yet despite the fact that no true cultivation manuals attuned to my kind are to be found even here, still Hao Yin has managed to prosper with a foundation incredibly strong and free of strain.”
She squeezed Hao Chan’s hand, who suddenly winced. “A wonderful technique that has been of miraculous benefit to both of my newest charges, seeming to combine aspects of both Qi and body cultivation, capable of restoring one to the peak of health from the most devastating of injuries and, I sense, both cleansing and rejuvenating meridian channels as well. Yet whenever I ask my wards about the nature of the cultivation technique they practice so diligently, they make it clear that they are forbidden from saying a single word about it.”
She gently patted a suddenly anxious Hao Chan’s cheek. “And I truly do count myself both ward and foster mother to all the girls under my care, including this beautiful angel who I am sure will blossom into a glorious Silver in just a few short decades. So, I will never press.”
Alex blinked. One moment she had been gazing fondly at Hao Chan, and the next her captivating eyes, the exact same shade as a pristine woodland pool shimmering under golden shafts of sunlight, were locked upon his own. “Alex?”
“Yes, Lady Jidihu?”
She gazed intently at him, and Alex could all but taste the words she was about to say. “Will you teach me your technique?” With all the intensity of a cultivator at home in the company of rogues, assassins, and innocent souls, who would do whatever it took, in her smiling, gentle way, to get what she wanted.
“Not this one.”
Alex blinked. Having tasted the words on the air, for all that he hadn’t heard a sound.
But what really chilled him was who it had sounded like.
Yet his reaction was nothing compared to Lady Jidihu’s, who physically paled and trembled.
To his surprise, she just smiled and bowed her head. “I’m glad to finally meet you in person, Alex, and let me assure you, your beloved is safe, and prospers under my care.” She flashed an arch smile. “Even if her ultimate master is a hard taskmistress, she flourishes under Lady Feng Huang’s discipline, having cleared her sixth meridian channel in an astoundingly short period of time. Just as one would expect from a future Silver.”
Hao Chan blushed at the praise. “I was going to tell you,” she softly said, biting her lip. “But then we got sort of… um… got distracted.”
“And that distraction ends now,” said the kitsune in a motherly, no-nonsense tone. “You have made your decision. And it is a wise one. Blossom into Silver, then run off with your heart’s desire, equipped with all the skill and power you need to protect you and yours from all who would bring you down.”
Hao Chan gave a fierce nod. “I agree completely.”
“Good. Then that means no more visiting Alex. Because had you gone alone and unescorted...”
Hao Chan flushed. Jidihu snorted. “You two wouldn’t just lose your cultivation bases, you’d also be giving birth nine months from now, vulnerable basic cultivators struggling just to achieve Bronze, completely unprepared for the storm your lives would become.”
Hao Chan’s flush deepened. “How could you possibly… oh.” She swallowed and nodded, recalling, perhaps, the exquisite senses that all kitsune possessed.
Lady Jidihu turned to Alex. “And you. Train with all your heart and soul. Your enemies are already moving their pieces forward. Bronze cultivators will be finding pretexts to challenge you to death matches by the end of the year, I can all but promise you. If you haven’t ascended by then? You’d best flee and never return.”
Alex felt a cold chill in his gut. His worst fears suddenly realized. “Then Sheng Jie...” But of course, Lady Jidihu wouldn’t know anything...
“Was a trap. And one you almost fell into. One anyone would have fallen into. On the off chance your remarkable recuperation had transcended even the wounds you had suffered, the brittle boy you shattered would have been the perfect pretext for an ‘ally’ of his jaded family to avenge, for all that Master Yi Jia’s runner was left cold at the gate.” She bowed her head in frank admiration. “But you saw through the maneuver, and countered it brilliantly. Well done.”
Alex, however, was stunned. Both by the depth and breadth of this woman’s knowledge, and how utterly she understood the situation. Which was stupid of him, he knew.
From a mistress of spies and assassins, he should expect nothing less.
“Alex?”
“Yes, Lady Jidihu?”
“You bought yourself a month or two on the outside. At most. And that’s only if you take my counsel to heart. Now train as if your life depended upon it. Because it does.”
Hao Chan paled and trembled at those words.
“And now you see yet another reason why it’s good you’ve kept yourself chaste,” said Hao Chan’s guardian. “Had you ravished the boy, you would have both ruined yourself and doomed him to an ugly death within the year, because even I can tell this noble young fool won’t flee, even if his life does depend upon it.”
14
That night Alex spent long hours just staring at the crashing sea by the cliff’s edge in the lonely compound, forced to accept just how precarious his position truly was.
White Crane cycling technique is now at 30% efficiency! You sense the flow of Light Qi all around you more clearly than ever!
Lady Jidihu had confirmed his worst fears. Not only were old enemies hungry for his blood, they had actively attempted to maim and possibly kill him. And it hadn’t just been an attack of opportunity, but a carefully planned strike, multilayered, and using his classmate as a patsy, so even if Alex survived and managed retribution against the single pawn within his reach, this would only serve as added fuel for the pyre his enemies would soon light ablaze.
Alex gazed down at his tightened fists, losing himself in the most ruthless of cultivating meditations, forcing himself to look full on at reality in all its absolute brutal clarity, without any of the softening filters almost all mortals put into place to make the intolerable coldness of a merciless existence where the strong devour the weak into a gentle story surrounding themselves, desperate to make the unbearable tolerable, with hopes of divine succor or retribution a way to give solace and justification for all of life’s hardships and folly.
Yet, deep in his heart, despite the remarkable system of karma this universe actually embraced, Alex knew that justice was an abstract concept at best. From one day to the next, idealistic dreams and hopeful aspirations meant nothing, absolutely nothing, in the bitter crucible of survival. All that mattered was whether or not you had the grit, skill, and fortitude to survive. The foresight to avoid conflicts you had no hope of winning, and the fierce determination needed to train with absolute ruthless efficiency while gaining the skills needed to crush all those who would see you dead.
Whatever it took to survive from one day to the next was the highest truth of any mortal existence, and there was no actualization greater than one’s own survival.
Anxiety, reluctance, hesitation, fear for what he would become, all of that meant nothing. A fool’s uncertainty.
He needed to use these cold moments lost somewhere between contemplating the furious storm of Light Qi swirling around him, echoes of the icy dispassion and frigid gale-force winds racing through his own tormented heart, and take his
next steps with absolute icy precision. As ruthless and calculated as the moves in his favorite strategy games, with the furious conviction of a man fighting for his very life.
He measured his resources in his mind’s eye. Thirty lesser beast cores, having sacrificed a full quarter of his original hoard to save a fool who was being manipulated and thrown away by serpents he had thought friends, rescued by a Ruidian he despised.
It had been a move both transcendent and stupid, noble and foolish, and in the calculus of the moment, it meant absolutely nothing. Done was done. He had what he had. Thirty lesser beast cores and one greater spirit beast core with which to burn through the massive blockage keeping him from clearing his seventh and final major meridian channel. From there, he would be as powerful as he could possibly be before ascending to Bronze, a feat which would require a daunting amount of research, luck, and preparation, to somehow incorporate and collate the cycling disciplines of not just the five known elements, but three additional ones as well, a perfect mirror of Long Wang’s own divine cycling technique.
Here, like nowhere else, he knew he would be putting his experience splitting Light Qi into its concurrent elements while forging rejuvenation potions in the heart of his divine ring to good use. With enough resources, research, and luck, perhaps he would find a way forward. Yet somehow he was absolutely certain he would need a jaw-dropping stash of credits if he wished to access the library sufficient to meet his needs, not even knowing where to begin, fearing that the prejudice against him would be striking and profound, just as it had been with a clerk that even now Alex hoped hadn’t been made to pay too steep a price for Alex’s choice assignments.
Assignments Alex already knew he’d have to put aside, no matter how relatively easy the tasks would be relative to the credits he was to be paid, knowing he didn’t dare leave himself exposed before his enemies a second time.
Or if he were to venture out still, even if only to honor the handful of commitments already made… he would have to be as clever and sly about it as Silver Fox himself.
And he already knew the route he would take to earn bitter credits now. A mad, perilous move that would put him in jeopardy once more, but might just be as brilliant as it was insane, for it allowed him to control the madness of conflict, as well as hone his steel against killing intent, out in the open, where no half dozen serpents could strike him in unison from behind.
Even as he put himself out there, for his enemies to single out and destroy, as best they could.
Alex couldn’t help but feel a certain dark exhilaration at the thought of forging himself in the crucible of his enemy’s hate once more, even as he took fierce satisfaction in his own steady growth, feeling his sense of the storm of Light Qi continue to crystallize with his improved mastery of White Crane cycling technique. A true warrior’s technique that, like White Crane kung fu itself, was open to all elemental affinities, channeling as it did Qi as a whole.
Which meant that anyone who chose this path could ascend through Bronze ranks with a flawless foundation, though it would take decades.
Decades he didn’t have.
And his goal wasn’t to one day ascend to Silver as a fearsome body cultivator.
It was to synergize the cycling of Dark and Light Qi into a divine technique that would allow him to rise as high as it was possible to rise, to stand atop the peak of perfection as a giant among men.
Alex flashed a bitter smile, knowing that in his previous life, such grandiose aspirations would be tempered by most with false humility. Not for him. He had fought, bled, and killed for his dreams, and he would achieve greatness, or die in the attempt.
It was the only way he could avert that awful vision he had had of his first crush dying in ash and flame. It was the only way he could save the kitsune girl who would always hold a special place in his heart. He remembered with visceral clarity the awful visions that had struck him while balancing upon the scales of life and death: visions of a city of millions burning to ash under the onslaught of the foulest of foes. A final flickering revelation gifted by his patron god that had compelled Alex to struggle for life once more, just before he had slipped back into the River of Souls.
The bottom line was that trouble was heading for the Golden Realms.
And as absurd as the thought was in someone as low ranked as he, Alex knew he had to do everything in his power to be ready.
For the sake of everyone he cared about, he had to forge himself into a blade worthy of being wielded by his own fierce resolve, or die in the attempt.
Alex took a deep breath, feeling the storm of Light Qi flowing in and out of him, already embracing the katas of his master’s martial art, doing his best to synergize White Crane cycling technique and White Crane kung fu into one unified whole.
And then by the light of the setting sun, as he practiced his forms upon the windswept grass by the cliff’s edge, he shivered with sudden insight, realizing he had two paths he could embrace as he contemplated his beast cores.
It was a given that he had every intention of burning through his final blockage. But being ruthlessly practical, he couldn’t help considering the advantages of quickly leveling up peripheral skills that would have a vital impact upon his ability to recover, regenerate, and fight.
And now, with both Panheu and Zhao Doushi gone for the next week, according to their note left behind in his garden shed, with final words being to train hard, weed the garden, and try not to die while they were gone... he had an opportunity that might never come again.
He girded himself, knowing he was taking a terrible risk, but knowing his peril was all the greater if he didn’t push himself to excel in every way that he could.
Refusing to delay any longer, Alex proceeded to pull free a dozen training dummies, stumps of wood, even miniature boulders he had stored in his divine ring when claiming his enemy’s abandoned caravan goods, as well as objects he thought would be good to practice toughening his fists, forearms, feet, and most especially his shins against, trusting his Eternal Fox technique to heal whatever damage he might suffer.
He flashed a rueful smile as he contemplated the training circle of pain he had made for himself, and hesitating no longer, he embraced the first of his thirty spare beast cores while holding tightly to the pristine incorporation of Eternal Fox cultivation, White Crane cycling, and White Crane kung fu he had been blending together in a steady stream for the last three hours by the sea.
He had been afraid that he was perhaps wasting a core, that there was no way he could cycle sufficient external Qi to make up for the extreme internal flood he was now experiencing.
How wrong he was, now finding himself crushed not by a miniature whirlwind but a powerful cyclone of completely unclaimed Qi, wild like the sea just beyond the cliff’s edge, and it suddenly made sense why so many powerful Silvers hungered for these spots. Even should they claim just the peripheral edge of the vast ocean of Qi they could harvest, centered on the wild unclaimed sea with a basin vaster than countless Earths, the power they could tap into was virtually without limit.
Alex screamed as the storm of Qi roared through him, knowing that if his meridian channels weren’t also resonating at a thousandfold normal durability, had his Eternal Fox cultivation technique that had advanced to heal and purify meridian channels as well as strengthen the body not also been kicked into massive overdrive, his mad stunt would have flash fried him in a heartbeat.
And if Alex lost control for even a second...
Will check successful! Focus check successful! You survive in the metaphoric eye of your own storm!
He couldn’t help smirking at the sardonic quip that sounded so like a grinning WiFu in the back of his mind. For in truth, he wasn’t in the center but at the very periphery of the storm, and for all that he boiled with pure Light Qi, so much of it was wild Water Qi as well.
Which flowed through him perfectly, for Lady Jidihu’s warnings had been nothing short of the truth. His mad carriage ride between Heaven and
Hell had forged him in so many unexpected ways, and the Silver Swan technique was now as much his own as White Crane and Golden Realms, his peripheral meridians finding the blue flood of oceanic Qi soothing as he channeled the storm of power in the only way he could, such that all of those techniques would be improved in unison as he smashed his fists, shins, and palms first against padded training pells. Then, once they had all shattered, he made use of countless wooden stumps and logs also pulled out of storage, his furious fists striking as fast and hard during that glorious hour as if he had unleashed a thousand Adderstrikes.
Yet the Light Qi did not grant the instant of invulnerability that Adderstrike did. Despite this, the flood of spiritual energy provided such a massive boost to his regenerative capacity that it was more than enough to repair bones that should have been shattered to powder with his furious pounding, were it not for the storm now roaring through his soul.
It was an hour of agony Alex furiously embraced, on a razor’s edge of desperate focus, knowing that the slightest distraction wouldn’t just kill him, but would unleash a hurricane of wild winds upon the entire school.
And when the last traces of that furious storm of spiritual energy finally dissipated along with the beast cores that had fueled it, Alex collapsed to the ground, sobbing with relief, triumph, and incredible agony, only now allowing himself to cry out with pain as pulverized joints popped back into place for the hundredth time in an hour. Screaming only in that moment because he was no longer riding that storm in all its mad glory, sublimating pain to wondrous, furious ecstasy.
Now it just hurt like hell.
But the sight of devastation before him filled him with awed disbelief.
Every leather-wrapped pell and stump of wood had been pulverized to splinters, and every granite rock he had stored in his ring out of pure whimsy, just because he could, and thought they would look nice with vines hanging from them in his garden, showed chips and cracks as well.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3 Page 22