“Tell that to Puren,” the Silver elder snorted, before cracking the tiniest of smiles. “Good luck with your continued ascension. I must confess to being curious as to just how many rules you can bend without snapping them entirely.” He turned to Cheng Lei, dipping his head. “Remember, your Ruidian second still owes us a full tier, and you owe us two.” He paused thoughtfully. “That is, unless you can actually manage gold. And what a sight that would be.”
Double Xu rumbled with laughter. “A most entertaining evening! And my offer still stands. If the life of a ruthless, self-serving cultivator having to pound his fellows to dust to get anywhere doesn’t appeal to you, you could have millions of brothers and sisters in arms as an officer of the imperial legion. Not to mention a starting bonus of, say… twenty spirit pearls for each of you that wanted to join. And hell, I’d even let you all join the same unit! And like I said before, we do have the best scholars anywhere, who truly have no greater interest than helping you forge the strongest Bronze cords possible with the most suitable cycling techniques we can find for you. No games or holding back resources for petty, egocentric reasons, either. On that, you have my word.”
Alex blinked, humbled by just how profound a statement that was. He went so far as to bow his head. “In another time and place…”
Double Xu smirked. “I’d expect no less from you, son. I’d know you were trained as a soldier’s brat, even had you not said a word. You move like a man well-versed in Golden Realms kung fu.” He frowned, tilting his head. “And other techniques as well.”
The Silver Elder nodded, peering at Alex so intently, it was all he could do not to flinch. “I detect at least two killing arts in his stance and posture. Perhaps three. It will be interesting seeing him fight in earnest.”
The soldier gave a sad shake of his head. “What a fine officer he would make. Imagine him inspiring and leading an entire platoon of gem masters. The havoc they could generate on the battlefield!”
Alex flushed. “I’m not actually a gem master...”
“I know that, son. But it makes no difference. You’d inspire them, and they’d follow your orders, and that’s all that matters in war.”
He then chuckled, giving a bemused shake of his head. “But you’re dead set on seeing if you can actually ascend to Silver. And who can blame you? My offer still stands, even if you all find yourselves tumbling down in a glorious splash, with twenty spirit pearls to your name and no need to worry about falling Bronze ranks in standing for at least a couple of you.”
Alex matched his smile, bowing low once more. “We thank you for your hospitality, and your offer. Now let’s see if we can entertain you at least a bit longer this night, while we strive for Silver.”
With those words, the four quickly made their way for the golden steps only barely visible through the steamy fog at the far end of the basin, as the gasps and sobs of at least one additional cultivator grateful just to have made it to this final Bronze plateau faded behind them.
8
“Cheng Lei?” I… I don’t think I can handle this.”
Zhu Bi’s ragged words earned her nothing but a hard-eyed frown from the man she was so clearly smitten by. Cold blue eyes in proud aristocratic features pinned her own.
“You can do this, Zhu Bi. You will do this. For the sake of your clan. For the sake of yourself. How many years have you instinctively flinched from the harsh glares and mocking leers of lesser men? Why would you consign yourself to sink to their ranks in perpetuity now, when you are so close to ascension? So close to achieving all your dreams?”
Zhu Bi seemed to wilt, sobbing once as she fought not to curl into a ball, her hands desperate claws on the pitiless golden step before her. The stairs were now steeper than they had ever been before, at least for her, and how odd it was that she was pressed so firmly against her champion, as if she leaned on him, not for moral support, but because gravity literally pushed her into him and she would be sent flying off the golden staircase altogether, were her champion not to brace her so.
A champion who now gazed at her with such frigidity, such scorn, that she would obviously do anything to evade that searing contempt.
Even if it meant scaling yet another golden step at an impossible angle, her hair streaming back as she gasped for breath, fighting against a terrible current that Alex felt only the barest whisper of.
Cheng Lei beamed a proud smile as he quickly ascended the next step, while a sobbing Zhu Bi curled against him, too exhausted to move, at least for the moment.
Yet her tears stilled the moment she gazed into his once-more gentle blue eyes, his brilliant smile causing her to grin with relief in turn. “I understand that this golden stairway has a most remarkable property, my friends.”
“Really,” said an exhausted Yingpei Lin, trembling and shaking as he leaned against his friend Alex, as affected by the terrible gravity and current as poor Zhu Bi was, though he was obviously determined to keep pushing on, to join his friends to the very end, as he had put it more than once. “Do tell, honored Cheng Lei. We are all ears, I assure you.”
Zhu Bi flushed at that, before chuckling ruefully, her own fox ears firmly focused on the man holding her fast so she wouldn’t fly completely off the staircase. “Yes, please. Something to avoid having to take yet another nightmare step, at least for a few seconds.”
Cheng Lei chuckled softly, shaking his head. “But that’s just it, my dear Zhu Bi. It’s all about taking these steps. Enduring the bitter. Pushing yourself with every fiber of your being beyond what even you thought possible. Because long before it was used as a tool for measuring an aspirant’s caliber, long before strictures were put in place to make the revealing of secrets learned here forbidden to all who fail to achieve a ruler’s rank, this golden staircase and the ethereal river running through it were used as tests and training grounds for the original masters of the sacred library, which was the first structure of Royal Phoenix Academy, and still serves as it’s crown jewel.”
Yingpei Lin whistled. “No kidding. So, these torturous steps are just as ancient, or might even predate the academy itself, I take it.”
Cheng Lei smiled. “Correct. What’s more, if one makes a truly thorough study of the texts, teasing out the hints and riddles hiding so many wondrous secrets, one discovers that this channel of Heaven and Earth spiritual energy does more than simply try to force us off the steps, that this golden stairway is more than a means of traversing the mountain at right angles to all known points of the compass.”
All of them gazed at the young noble with bated breath, hanging onto his every word.
The handsome young scion grinned. “It is said that these steps have the potential not just to serve as a trial of strength, but as a path to transcendence as well.”
Zhu Bi frowned. “What does that even mean?”
Alex felt a shiver race down his spine, gazing at Cheng Lei with wonder. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” He couldn’t be sure, but he could sense how the river of spiritual energy wasn’t just crashing around his friends, but to a certain extent, was flowing through them. Winnowing away any blockages and widening the channels of its flow. And far from crumpling under the currents, for all that they struggled just to endure, Alex noted how his friends seemed almost to glow. As if blessed with added vigor. Or perhaps…”
Cheng Lei grinned. “That’s right. Here, in this border between Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld, the mystical river flowing down these steps has the capacity to not only wash clean the detritus clogging your meridian gates, but to actually expand your channels, should you be willing to endure the river’s ultimate challenge, pushing yourself beyond even gravity’s well.”
Zhu Bi paled with awe and wonder. “I… I can feel it. A clearness to my thoughts, an awareness of my body like never before.” She gave an exhausted chuckle. “Even if I’m forced to feel my own pain, my own exhaustion, to a degree I was never had to endure before this day. A mixed blessing, I think.”
&n
bsp; Cheng Lei solemnly shook his head. “Not at all. Entirely a blessing. So push yourselves like your very existence depends upon it, my friends. For perhaps it does. And should you actually make it to Silver… it will be because you had the grit to endure the crucible of the stairs and truly ascend, even if you would never have been capable of the feat otherwise, no matter how many decades or centuries you studied and trained.”
Yingpei’s eyes widened with wonder. “Wait. Honored Cheng Lei… are you truly saying that we are expanding our meridian channels, permanently strengthening our foundation, just by enduring this crucible? That the phylactery of infinite potential which every greater alchemist searches for, that which will allow the most learned and disciplined of all cultivators to transcend their earthly limits, is tied to the trial every supplicant in the entire city can dare, if they simply have the wit to?”
Cheng Lei chuckled softly. “You have the right of it, my friend. Truly, a priceless prize placed before the world entire, and few, very few, out of a city of twenty million, even think to endure the trials. It is even further hidden in plain sight, as almost all who do brave this staircase are oathbound never to reveal a word of their experiences, not having the benefit of thousand-year-old texts they swore no oath at all not to reveal the secrets of.” He raised one thoughtful finger. “Of course, there is a catch.”
Zhu Bi’s ears wilted. “Of course there is. There always is.” She gave a bitter chuckle. “When is anything in a cultivator’s life actually this easy?”
“Easy?” quipped Yingpei Lin. “We’ve never struggled so hard in our lives!” He then smirked at Alex and Cheng Lei, both standing tall despite their slight shift forward, for all that the he and Zhu Bi were putting so much of their weight on their companions.
“Except for you two. Not even geniuses, but monsters, the pair of you,” the young merchant declared. "Zhu Bi and I are in danger of being flung completely off this mountain, and I barely see a hair fluttering out of place on the pair of you!"
Alex grinned, taking it as the compliment he sensed his friend intended, though Cheng Lei’s brow furrowed momentarily, before he smoothed it once more.
“In any event,” Lei continued, “there is a catch. For cultivators looking merely to test themselves, the cost is small. The spiritual energy itself cushions your eventual fall when you ascend beyond your mortal limits, hence the pools waiting to catch us at each level. But should you dare ascend to the point that the river is actually reforging your meridians, reshaping your very soul to a heavenly ideal…”
“Oh no,” Zhu Bi whispered. “We’ll go flying right off, gravity so skewed, we’ll soar at right angles to the heavens for all time.”
“Correct,” Lei said.
Zhu Bi’s eyes bulged. “I was joking! You were supposed to laugh and say, ‘no, silly, it’s not that bad, but it will be a bad fall!”
Cheng Lei shook his head. “Now you know the secret origins of shooting stars. They are cultivators who dared the heaven’s secrets. Dared too much, and were eventually struck from one of the Pillars of Heaven, which, as you can see by the brilliant and strange starry night sky above our heads that looks nothing like our own, this school currently resides upon.
“Those poor souls who dare the pillars and are found unworthy, or simply lack the strength and Qi to hang on, are doomed to blaze through the night skies between both worlds at such speeds that they eventually catch fire, their Qi and bodies blazing with purifying spiritual energy. Though, conjecture is mixed as to whether they are awarded by the gods with easier ascension in the next life for their boldness and daring, or cursed and trapped in purgatory as eternal food for Shui Jun, the divine serpent that guards the River of Souls. That was a matter of heated debate between scholars, even a thousand years ago.”
Alex snorted. “Knowing them, it’s probably the latter. Fortunately, no one has to worry about Shui Jun for a while.”
Alex blinked in the sudden dead silence, three pairs of eyes locking onto his own.
“What?”
“Alex?”
“Yes, Zhu Bi?”
“Who are you, really?”
Alex sighed, looking down at an awe-struck Yingpei Lin. “I’m the guy keeping this merchant from becoming a shooting star. So let’s quite wasting time and hit that next step.” He gave his friend an encouraging clap on the back. “I guess the expression Silver or Death really is apropos here, no?”
This earned him a pair of horrified glances, kitsune and merchant both scrambling up the golden steps with renewed fervor, Cheng Lei chuckling softly as they proceeded forward, and Alex pretending he hadn’t said way too much just then.
“Alex, friend, I don’t suppose you can perhaps help me up just a tad?” gasped a desperate Yingpei some moments later.
Alex gazed sadly at his friend, the young merchant's clawed hands fighting for purchase as he slowly slipped free, Alex doing absolutely nothing to assist, save stand as a motionless bulwark, refusing to break the rules when he sensed that the cost would be far starker than Yingpei realized. “Your grip is weakening already, and you’re only three steps away from Silver? What a shame.”
“Alex?” His friend’s voice rang with a panicked timbre.
“Well, it’s obvious. All that effort I spent in saving you, certain you had it within you to succeed? Wasted. Your word? Worthless. Your father will probably be sobbing at the heavens when he sees your screaming remains blazing through the sky.”
“Alex!”
“It was the Yingpei compound, right? It will be a hard thing explaining how his son’s soul is now drowning perpetually in purgatory, guarded by a jade serpent now no larger than my finger, but considering how weak and pathetic your own soul is, she might just be able to manage it. Your father will mourn, I’m sure, but he’ll get over the loss of someone so weak and forgettable as yourself.”
“How dare you!” Yingpei roared, hands gripping the golden step with renewed fury. “That’s how you feel about me? If I weren’t dangling from staircase, I’d…”
“Shut up and move, idiot!” Screamed Zhu Bi “We do it on three! One… two…Go!”
She howled like a banshee and Yingpei roared, the pair of them making a final desperate scramble up the remaining three steps into Silver’s basin, gambling every last ounce of their strength as Alex and Cheng Lei dutifully kept behind them, before two soft splashes made it clear that the pair had finally made it, diving into the basin as gravity returned to normal for them once more.
The look of awe on the pair of cultivators there to greet them in the glorious pool lined with gold and lit by a thousand mystic lights, was a sight to behold. A silver-eyed woman, ebony hair done up in ringlets held by pins of ivory and silver, garbed in an elegant silken qipao depicting a blazing phoenix soaring across the heavens, displayed an impish smile, for all that her features were ageless and her aura held the weight of centuries. The man beside her was stooped over with inconceivable age, his faced lined with the weight of countless years, yet he radiated a vitality only a cultivator could possess, no matter that he looked as frail as twigs at risk of blowing away in a breeze.
“Why, I do believe all four children have managed to break through, Elder Ru. How remarkable.”
The elder grinned. “So true, Chun An. So very true.”
Zhu Bi looked on in awe, as did Yingpei Lin, the pair trembling and shivering with exhaustion and, Alex was almost positive, enlightenment as well. Both fell to their knees and bowed their heads as low as they could without submerging their faces in the basin, clearly awed by the power and potency radiating off the pair of elders; at least one of them just a half-step away from Gold, Alex was sure.
If anything, the lack of festivities and tables piled high with gustatory delights or servants eager for the company of a powerful cultivator all brought home just how momentous their accomplishment truly was.
As if reading his mind, Elder Ru's grin widened, revealing the gaps in his smile, and Alex was somehow certain that all the Wa
ter Qi healing magic in the world wouldn’t alleviate time’s passage in that regard. Yet Alex had no doubt that the elder cultivator wore his flaws with pride, showing the world at large just how far he’d stretched his mortal years, perhaps far beyond what even Silvers should hope to expect. “No grand celebration here, worthy disciples, though you are always welcome to attend the feasts below, as is your right.”
Chun An welcomed them with her smile, radiating a warmth and brilliance like the morning sun. “Instead, what we offer is far sweeter,” she said, holding up 2 talismans shimmering a brilliant silver with streaks of mother of pearl. Upon each was a single golden rune. “For two of you have achieved the first rank of silver ascension, and so will be afforded all the rights and privileges you have earned with that most remarkable feat, including noble-ranked cultivation chambers and leatherbound books and quills for your use that none may challenge you for. In addition, you will be awarded a silver chest exactly two by four feet square. Anything placed within this box is sacrosanct, and may not be challenged for, unless faced with a Gold or higher-ranked opponent.” Her smile softened into one of sympathy. “Everything else can be gambled or fought for, and it is very possible for you to fall very far indeed if you play the fool, contrary to the savvy players you four have proven yourselves to be so far this night.
“Additionally, you have earned the right to a personal consultation with our preeminent librarian and scribe to ascertain your strengths, foundation, and cultivation base, and to help determine what would be the ideal cultivation manuals for your perusal.”
She chuckled softly at Zhu Bi’s awed gaze. “Yes, it’s true, my dear. What you most desperately hope for is a reality. For being one among the tiny handful of kitsune who actually dared the golden steps and achieved Silver, you have earned the right to study under Princess Cui Lei herself, should she find you worthy. Though her Divine tomes are now considered the property of the Emperor, to be read and used by no one save herself and the Emperor’s chosen, she is permitted to teach select kitsune disciples she chooses from this college, who swear an oath to serve her and the Emperor before all others.”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior’s Path Page 9