Liu Jian, fully kitted up in battle gear, gave him a hard look before finally nodding. “You seem to have achieved passing confidence with Adderstrike, but not true mastery. I am surprised to not see you out there seeking to perfect your attacks with dawn’s first light.”
Alex grinned. “Normally I would, sir, but I sort of had a breakthrough last night, and I was working far later than I thought I was. I didn’t exactly get a good night’s sleep.”
His mentor’s eyes widened. “You are referring, of course, to better mastering the Divine treasure fortune has deigned to bless you with?”
Alex nodded his head. “It is just so.”
The older man smirked. “Well, good. I look forward to hearing all about it, over dinner. But if you're not fully kitted up and ready to go in a quarter-hour, you won't be having any of that dinner. Understood?"
Alex blinked. “Yes, Master Liu.”
“Good!” The man chuckled softly. “I think you’ll like today’s lesson, Alex. You did surprisingly well, mastering the basics of Adderstrike. Well enough that I judge it fitting to teach you the next Qi discipline every royal soldier is expected to learn before the end of his first year serving the Crown.”
Alex soon found himself on the training field once more, the soft loamy earth increasingly scuffed up by their weeks of intensive exercise, the air perfumed with the scents of honeysuckle, wild ginger, and pine. He frowned as he did his best to get comfortable with the oversized shield he had been handed. The scutum was certainly familiar from his time training with Liu Li, but it was the first time he had seen Liu Jian make use of it.
"This Qi discipline is both quite different and at the same time somewhat similar to Adderstrike, in that an immediate burst of force is applied. But unlike Adderstrike, which, though deadly, only increases your range by the maximum of your natural lunging distance, Bullrush is an excellent tool for charging enemy lines, crashing past defensive pike, and slaughtering enemy spearmen when they are caught off guard with absolutely no way to effectively counter you with their long spears when you are less than a foot away.
“Like right now,” the man said, and before Alex could even register what had happened, he had been knocked off his feet as the older man seemed to teleport a good 20 feet in the blink of an eye, his foot now on Alex’s chest.
“As you can see,” the man grinned, “it can be a very effective attack, even if you don’t hit any harder than you normally would, had you simply committed to a running charge of the same distance. But you cut out all the unnecessary space. No spear can strike that which is not there, and within the blink of an eye, you are toe to toe with enemies caught completely off guard.”
Alex whistled. “Wow! That sounds like an epic tactical move. I’ll bet it would really help our army seize the initiative. But were you serious? All royal soldiers are supposed to know this by the end of their first year?”
His mentor grinned. “The gifted ones are, at least. Sadly, not all cultivators are capable of learning even the most basic Qi disciplines. Many wait till Bronze, relying instead on their heightened strength, vitality, and quickness to give them the edge they crave.” He gave a disapproving frown. “And so many masters or doting fathers, seeking to spoil their prodigies, refuse to teach them techniques so reflective of the most grueling aspects of body cultivation, having no stomach for the bitter fruits all true warriors must learn to savor for their own betterment. Instead, they immediately teach their offspring elemental variations, gloating in their supposedly superior techniques, not even aware of the damage they have already done to their so-called prodigy’s foundations.”
Alex smiled. “I’m guessing you’re not one for taking it easy on your students.”
His mentor flashed a strange smile. “I am the most understanding of teachers. If you would like for us to forevermore focus on alchemy alone, I promise you, Alex, you will receive all the praise you could want from a gentle master, and none of the bitter discipline that would make you a cultivator to be feared by all your foes. Is that the path you wish to take, Alex?”
Alex immediately paled, shaking his head. “No, Master. If it will make me a better cultivator, better able to protect the people I care about, then do what you will with the student before you.”
It was all he could do, to not look at where a wan Liu Li was gazing at them both, having taken to meditating in the garden whenever Alex would practice, leaving him more self-conscious than ever. Of course, he couldn’t help beaming whenever he earned her smile.
Though all he seemed to earn that day was her frown when a bemused Liu Jian continued their lesson, making darting forward twenty steps to smash over targets with his shield in the blink of an eye seem so very easy.
Yet no matter how intently Alex focused, all he could manage that first day was pulling his muscles and straining his joints, falling flat on his face every time.
“You’re not focusing, Alex!” Liu Li snapped as afternoon’s light turned a burnished crimson gold. “You have to feel the Qi evenly dispersed throughout your body, not the localized burst of Adderstrike. Bullrush is an entirely different discipline. There is no crossover!”
Alex had the grace to blush and look away, determined to try harder on the morrow, despite how much his muscles and joints ached.
And for all that Liu Li's gaze was hard, muttering to herself as she helped bind sore knees and ankles, putting on her father's liniments while the elder attended other matters, he couldn't help but see the worry in her eyes as well.
“Liu Li?”
She gave a frustrated shake of her head.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “I can’t believe he’s even doing this.”
Alex blinked. “What?”
“Trying to teach you Bullrush already!”
Alex frowned. “What’s wrong? Am I that hopeless at it?”
She trilled bitter laughter. “Of course you are, Alex! What do you expect? What does he expect? He is trying to push you into learning whole-body techniques when you have less than half your meridian gateways clear! I have twice the number cleared that you do, and I still can’t accomplish Bullrush!”
Alex blinked, opening his mouth to voice his surprise, before snapping it shut, seeing the sudden vulnerability in her gaze. “I don’t blame you. It’s an insane technique. All it’s causing me is pain.”
Her lips pressed in a cold line. “Don’t patronize me, Alex. I have every intention of mastering it.” Her fists clenched tightly together.
Alex's eyes widened to see the hot tears leaking from her jade green eyes. "I should be there, training right beside you! I should be there! Only my meridians still aren’t repaired yet.”
Alex blinked. He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Liu Li… I know you’re doing all you can. I know you’ll be joining me before you know it.”
She quirked a bitter smile. “I’m trying, Alex. Even though I tell myself Father’s sacred cultivation techniques have at least kept the damage from worsening, I don’t feel like I’m getting any stronger! And now I’m so damn fragile that I don’t dare any techniques now. Maybe not ever, at least until I achieve the Bronze, and forge meridian channels of pure elemental Qi, strong enough to make up for my peripheral pathways being so badly fried by whatever the hell it is that you did!”
Alex hung his head, filled with sudden shame. "I'm sorry, Liu Li. With all my heart, I'm sorry." He bowed deeply and returned to his quarters, her pain-filled gaze haunting him, imagining her a precious, priceless work of art, forever shattered by his desperate, clumsy attempt to rescue her.
He did not bother with his ring or alchemy at all that night, not even getting out of bed when others knocked, and he could smell the enticing aromas of Liu Jian's fine cooking permeating their snug little home. He merely closed his eyes and slept, though even his dreams were haunted by regrets past and present.
And when he felt a soft hand touching his cheek in the depths of night, he froze, not daring to move a muscle, even when Liu
Li's soft, trembling voice broke the silence.
"I'm sorry, Alex. I shouldn't have said…" A soft sigh. "Alex, I was being a fool, poisoning you with my own bitterness. Father wasn't lying when he said you saved my life! God, Alex, if it wasn't for you, I would have died in that field. An overconfident, cocky fool, gored by the beasts I had so casually killed so many times before, Mother Nature's Yin and Yang and my fate balancing together in the most ruthless of equations."
Soft lips caressed his cheek. “But thanks to you, I have hope. I have my life. Every day I can gaze upon the vast, wondrous forests and breathe deep of crisp clean air utterly devoid of the city’s miasma, every day I can meditate on the simple joy of being alive, I have hope for my future. Hope for the love I might one day embrace, the family I might one day call my own. And even if it’s a painful journey, even if takes me a hundred years, one day I will get better. One day my gateways will not only heal but be as strong as steel once more, and I will finally be ready to ascend.
“One day,” she sighed. “Even if that day is not today. Even if father’s Rejuvenation Pills lack the elemental affinities truly needed to repair my meridians. At least there is hope. And it’s only because of you that I have any hope of accomplishing that at all.”
Alex, now very much awake, didn’t dare breathe a word. When her piercing gaze met his own, his heart started to race. But all she did is smile, lean over, and kiss his brow.
“Thank you for being my hero, Alex. The gods know I needed one.”
And without another word she left the chamber, the only sound to be heard moments later was the sound of his own roaring heart.
He gazed down into his ring, suddenly knowing exactly what he had to do.
And when he was in his library once more, slowly pulling down both sacred tomes gifted to him by an actual divinity, he thought he understood at last their true significance.
Even as he spent the night carefully committing to memory everything he had read before, he understood that there was so much more, so very much more to be read and understood.
Trembling hands slowly flipped pages seemingly without end, his mind increasingly confused by references to the one element he couldn’t hope to comprehend in both the Purification and Cycling tomes.
Shadow itself.
Until at last, he found what he sought. Somehow knowing that this gift, like his ring, went far beyond any standard Cultivation Manual.
He summoned forth the same fox covered spiral notebook as before, and when he moved to carefully transcribe every line he had learned in both tomes, he found to his awe and wonder that they filled the pages as fast as he thought the words, as if each glimpse of the tome was flash-copied in true living color upon his notebook.
He swallowed, shaking his head. He knew he could never take the ring’s notebook outside of the divine artifact. But if, later, he brought genuine parchment and ink… could he flash-copy it again? Would the copy remain true?
He shook the thoughts free, focusing only on transcribing the notes he so desperately needed.
When he went to his garden, he was pleased to see it blossoming like never before. The seductive scents of ripe Silverbell blossoms intermingled with the sharp tang of lemongrass, honeysuckle, peppermint, and a dozen other fragrances perfuming the air, the entire greenhouse now filled rich fecund life, brilliant flowers scattered amongst a field of verdant emerald-green foliage.
Alex's eyes lit with wonder as he found himself not in a greenhouse but within a woodland glade surrounded by towering apple trees, with actual clouds floating above, letting loose a gentle misty rain at that very moment.
Yet the true wonder that left him breathless was at the very heart of his garden.
The mass of Silverbell blossoms had doubled many times over, and somehow they had twined together around the spinning orb of crackling Dark Qi, now glowing like the most potent and glorious of suns as it floated high above on streams of ethereal power, supported by the spiritual energies that the plants themselves helped to create, the entire field of priceless, precious herbs and flowers protected under the bowers of magnificent apple trees, and Alex had but to lift a hand to find an exquisitely ripe apple, both tart and sweet, plop into his palm. And each bite of that crisp masterpiece brought to mind all the halcyon days of that final glorious summer he had enjoyed as a teenager, when he had last been healthy and whole.
“I think I’ll call these Qi-enhanced apples Calenbry Sunsets,” he said to himself, the indescribably delicious fruit a beautiful burnished red-gold hue so reminiscent of the last perfect sunset he had ever seen with his family, a lifetime ago.
He frowned then, gently dropping the apple core which immediately decomposed before beginning to sprout up as a new shoot, already poking through the priceless plants at Alex’s feet.
“But just when the hell did it all grow so fast?" Then he blinked, remembering those dreams he had been haunted by, losing himself in his garden, pushing all thoughts of despair away.
That's when he realized he had hardly been dreaming at all. Only focusing on the horticultural wonder blossoming inside his divine treasure, losing himself under its magnificent bowers and the brilliant field of blossoms before him, realizing he knew exactly where every plant was and its properties as utterly as he ever had before.
He sensed as well how exceedingly potent the plants now were, having spent so much time under a miniature sun radiating pristine spiritual energy down upon them.
Every 9 hours spent focusing on his garden was another year’s worth of compressed time, yet his garden had enjoyed decades worth of growth, the power of his own bittersweet dreams having struck such a chord with the ring's own spatial affinities that his greenhouse had somehow transcended whatever limits had held it back before.
If he had one regret, it was that he was rapidly depleting his stores of Dark Qi, the entirety barely half of what it had been just the day before.
Of course, he now had a miniature forest of what he would swear were magically delicious apples, and a field of priceless herbs as large as the training field he practiced within every day. And if he slowed the time down to simply match the rate of time outside, its default state whenever he himself was within the ring, his vast reserves of Dark Qi should still last for a good double handful of years, even with so many Silverbell blossoms converting it into beams of Water, Wood, and Earth Qi, the entire cluster of flowers now shining like the noonday sun.
He couldn’t help grinning, strangely certain that he had somehow bypassed whatever natural limits should have prevented him from drawing more energy out than he originally put in. Because he had absolutely no doubt that were he to cultivate within the ring, this miniature glade was now so rich in Heaven and Earth energy that cultivating here would be the equal of almost anywhere else he could imagine, though whether it was the equal of the most sacred cliff-side areas near Dragon Temple, he couldn’t say. It was certainly more potent than Master Liu’s own cultivation garden back home.
The former student of finance and protege of his father frowned. Such should be impossible. But of course, this wasn't Earth or even the same universe, with the physical laws that bound everything so tightly together, such that only by complexity could the sum ever be more than its parts. In terms of actual energy? That could never grow. And perhaps it wasn't here, either. Perhaps what he was doing was more like unfurling the sails of a boat constructed by his own will, taking advantage of powerful Qi winds in ways he could barely fathom, all in a desperate bid to project himself as far as he possibly could into a glorious future where he ascended to the highest heights of power.
He shook his head, frowning away his own racing thoughts.
Yes, he had stumbled upon a unique and fascinating path to power, his potential heightened in so many ways not just by this ring but by his ability to tap into its own unlimited potential.
But that was doing nothing to help the girl he felt so fiercely protective of.
He wasted no more time with his own
hunger for advancement, instead focusing only on gazing upon the herbs he knew he’d need to perform his greatest alchemy feat yet.
And after a fruitful double handful of minutes, he was pulled abruptly short.
The one herb he most needed, whose affinity was tied utterly to shadow, he could find no trace of.
And how could it be otherwise? For all that any alchemist could make use of the vital herb once it was harvested, only one with the necessary affinities could find it, and only in the dead of night.
He swallowed, shaking his head with frustration.
But it didn’t stop him from preparing everything else he would need, amazed and grateful once more by the choice he had made, gazing upon the still spinning circle of Elemental Qi in his alchemy lab, such a contrast to the orb of Dark Qi in his garden, now looking more like a rainbow than anything else.
Then he gazed down at his ring once more and flipped himself back to the outside world, wincing as he stumbled out of bed, noting the hole he had just made in the down-stuffed mattress, having naturally risen when his weight had left it.
He groaned. Master Liu would definitely put him through his paces after this.
But that could wait.
Wasting no further time, he quickly kitted up in full battle gear and headed for Liu Li's sleeping quarters.
Yet a soft tap on the door didn’t bring the face he was hoping to see.
Rather he stumbled back, shaken to the core. Master Liu's chill gaze froze his very soul.
“Why are you kitted in full armaments, knocking on my daughter's door at this hour, boy?"
Alex swallowed, throat so dry he couldn’t even whisper.
Liu Jian’s gaze hardened.
Alex’s heart started to hammer as a Silver Cultivator made his fearsome terrible presence known.
“Father, stop.” Soft words that instantly eased Master Liu’s predatory glare.
The door opened further, Liu Li's delicate hand gently pressing back her father, a feat Alex knew he'd never be able to replicate with strength alone. She turned her solemn, questioning gaze to Alex.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reborn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 1 Page 32