“Was what would have happened if the former headmaster had proven utterly unreasonable. Jidi was determined to stop Dragon Academy’s so-called cleansings, even if it killed her, or every homicidal cultivator she could get her hands on. Fortunately, my clever kitsune was able to appeal to the man’s better instincts, and reach an accord that benefited everyone.”
“Better instincts?”
“Greed,” Ning Jing said. “A hell of a lot better than him surrendering to his genocidal urges. And after giving the headmaster the tome he needed to fully ascend to Gold, he was not such a fool as to risk the cultivation base he had sweated blood for, by breaking his oath to the head of Yidushi’s Jianghu sect.”
Jidihu grinned at that.
“Anyway, the deal struck was simple enough. Jidihu keeps the kitsune out of his sight, tends to all their instruction and needs, basically running a miniature academy within the academy, and she receives a generous bribe, or I guess we’re calling it a stipend these days, in gold and cultivation pills every month. The girls all graduate with official Dragon Academy diplomas, and old stick-in-the-mud can pretend he’s a virtuous saint without ever having to lay eyes on a single member of WiFu’s tribe.”
“But what about your daughter?”
Ning Jing smirked. “Yes. She is kitsune. And before this day, anyone who deduced that secret would have died by my hand. Of course, no one ever did, save the boy before us, and we already know he’s a hell of a lot more than what he seems.”
Alex winced at that.
Lady Feng Huang was still favoring Alex with the strangest look. “But his tome...”
“Is not Gold,” Jidihu insisted. “Trust me, I would know.”
The cultivator paled. “But that means...”
Jidihu flashed a brilliant smile. “I believe what we are seeing, for the first time in any of our lives, is a genuine Jade tome. The province of only the most fortunate of kings and, of course, the just and noble Emperor of countless billions who rules over us all.”
Alex held Jidihu’s gaze. “I make no claims that this is any sort of Jade tome.”
“Of course not, Alex, and neither will anyone here. For if any king knew the worth of that which was in your possession, let alone the imperial family...” A hard smile caused every girl to pale before her. “And my kin, disciples, and colleagues will all give their cultivator’s oath this instant, that not a one will ever speak or write a word about this tome to anyone outside of our group, lest our Alex declare otherwise, even should our hero deign to let us savor the wondrous secrets held within his priceless artifact. Because should we make one misstep, should anyone indifferent to our cause or kind learn of our prize, our lives would mean nothing. If even one duke or king learned of this wonder who had no interest in enticement before using force, we could soon find ourselves at the receiving end of ten million spear points aimed for our hearts!”
And it said something that everyone immediately bowed their heads in deference to the cultivator’s oath. Even Ning Jing. Even Jidihu herself.
It was an alarmed-looking Qie Qie who spoke first. “But if Alex truly has such a wondrous prize, surely the dark sages and wujen employed by powerful rulers would have heard even your soft whispers upon the wind. Rulers like the Sovereign Princess of our entire province who I can’t believe we race towards even now! And our revered ruler is but one piece in her king’s court, and our king himself, master of well over a hundred grand cities with a billion souls under his command, even he lives and breathes at the emperor’s whim! I fear, Lady Jidihu, that powerful forces might seek to claim Alex’s prize, even now.”
Alex swallowed, gut clenching in a tight knot, all too able to imagine Jidihu’s disappointed expression, and Ning Jing’s furious one, when he dispelled their elevated hopes. But he would allow no misunderstandings, close kin to deception that it was, before asking for Yinzi’s parents’ consent. Besides, best to pop certain fears before they could be allowed to fester.
“Well, the good news is you don’t have to worry about any wujen spying on us,” Alex assured, gazing up at the wondrous cathedral of overlapping branches their carriage passed under, warm shafts of golden light flashing like a thousand twinkling stars wherever they struck the cover of his rather large tome.
Qie Qie furrowed her delicate brow. “Alex, how could you possibly know that?”
Alex shared a smile with Jidihu. “It’s because this oversized carriage we’re all riding the roof of so comfortably isn’t exactly riding along the actual Trade Road between Yidushi and the capital.”
“What are you talking about? Of course we are!”
Hao Chan flashed a brilliant smile, instantly getting it. “Oh! Like when you and me and my cousins were heading to Yidushi! All those weeks stretching like months or, let’s be honest, years. Days without end, until end they did, at which point they felt no more real than a dream, even if I remembered every bout, every lesson you taught me, every moment of that day with a perfect clarity I’ve never experienced before or since.”
Alex smiled. “Exactly.”
Hao Chan frowned, twinkling amber eyes revealing a keen mind behind the strikingly beautiful exterior. “But this time there is nothing infernal about this journey, is there? Yet with any conduit involving spiritual powers we need another balancing force.” Her eyes widened, suddenly getting it. “That means...”
Alex grinned, kissing her cheek. “You got it. We’re using the realm of the Fox, Shadow, WiFu’s domain, as our third balancing force, and we, creatures of the mortal realm, are shooting through a storm of power as if we were in the eye of a hurricane.”
Hao Chan gave him the strangest smile, hand gently clasping her cheek where he only realized now he had impulsively kissed her. “But Alex, how do you know all that?”
Ning Jing and Feng Huang were favoring Alex with odd stares again, and Jidihu herself gave a respectful bow of her head. “I myself would like to know that, Disciple.”
Alex blinked, realizing he himself wasn’t entirely sure, but the moment he had wondered about it, it had seemed such a logical alteration of the configuration that had occurred purely by chance with the vile former merchant Hao Zei that Alex was 100% certain he was correct, confirmed by Jidihu’s bemused smile.
Alex’s eyes widened, instantly understanding. “Hao Chan and Hao Yin explained our carriage ride, and you found a way to replicate it!”
Jidihu chuckled softly. “As if a mere kitsune could possibly be capable of such a feat. And even if I were, I would need a saintly artifact to make it work, and I promise you, I wouldn’t even dare to touch one.”
Alex shook his head, realizing he was getting distracted. He solemnly bowed before the pair of Silver cultivators. “Lady Jidihu, Madame Ning Jing, I fear there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. The tome in my hands is no ancient Jade artifact. I doubt any king even knows of its existence. Rather, it is the treatise I myself wrote, and with your permission, I would like to be able to use it teaching Yinzi my techniques. Dare I say it, I think they might help her.”
Lady Jidihu blinked, momentarily nonplussed. “This isn’t a Jade artifact? Then that means...”
Perception check failed! You don’t see what’s coming! Quickness check failed! You don’t even have time to blink!
“How dare you!” snarled an enraged Ning Jing, suddenly confronting him, the deadly Silver moving so fast Alex had no time to blink, wheezing desperately as one steely hand lifted him up effortlessly as she glared into his startled eyes. Alex was all too painfully aware that one misstep, and she could tear out his throat. Effortlessly, at that.
“How dare you insult and demean my technique, an art I spent agonizing years mastering, shaking your head like the most condescending of bastards, as if I would ever do anything to hurt my own child!”
Her nostrils flared. “And I swallowed my words, smiled through my bile, so convinced that you might have some redeeming treasure that would make your insults worth the bearing, my ex-wife betting our very
lives on it, only for you to confess to having nothing at all, save your own towering ego! Do you actually have the unmitigated gall to think I would allow you to experiment upon my fragile daughter with a newly-risen Bronze’s pathetic excuse for a technique? You’ve made a mockery of my daughter and my patience as well!”
Alex clenched his jaw, fury burning through his fear. Eyes hot with wrath too long suppressed blazed. He knew she could kill him in an eyeblink. It was stupid beyond words to think he might possibly be faster.
But he no longer cared.
“If you’re truly stupid enough to think I’d do something to hurt Yinzi? Squeeze. Maybe you’ll kill me, and maybe you’ll touch nothing but air. And I won’t even take your fingers, or your heart. Because you’re the mother of my friend, and it would kill me to betray her like that. But I will leave this caravan of fools and never look back!”
Ning Jing’s eyes widened; her lips tightened in mounting fury.
“Mother, what the hell are you doing?” Yinzi screamed. “Don’t be stupid! He saved our lives! He saved your life! It doesn’t matter if even Golds respect you, those chimes were keyed to your weakness! How did our enemies know how to prepare for you? How did Alex know to grab and spirit them away, first thing? I don’t care if he’s arrogant, he’s my friend! And he doesn’t care that I am the way that I am, even when others do everything they can to avoid me! Besides, if his technique was weak, how the hell did he fly through the air? He killed two Silvers before our very eyes, Mother!”
“Ning Jing. Do not make an oathbreaker of me.” Words cold and hard cut through the air, uttered not so much by Yinzi’s benevolent second mother as by the head Jianghu assassin who had once given even a Gold headmaster pause.
All the girls could feel the change too, Qie Qie visibly flinching, more than a few falling to their rumps, a trio of nervous tails hiding themselves underneath silken dresses. Of course, most of this Alex sensed through his Qi Perception, now so exquisitely fine-tuned that he was able to get a near perfect sense of everyone’s movements, gestures, even anxious shifts in facial expressions, as well as their precise location upon a carriage-top racing through endless forests that existed here along the outskirts of reality, Shadow, and the Heavens above, and nowhere else.
His eyes were fixed upon the clenched jaw of Ning Jing, his own heart hammering as the blood swelled in his skull, waiting endless moments for her to ease her grip or embrace her fury, in which case he truly would slip out of this existence, perilous as he suspected it was, careening along the bleeding edge of reality. And though he would one day make his way to Baidushi to claim Hao Chan when he made Silver, he silently swore to himself he would be done trying to work within the system, done playing the idealistic fool.
A cold part of him wondered just how effective he might be, taking over one nameless settlement after another, molding an empire comprised of countless small towns and cities whose rulers would be bound by cultivator’s oaths to him and him alone, slowly forging himself to Silver by dint of blood and battle and the quantized potential of every cultivator and spirit beast to fall to his blows, effectively leveling himself up in an orgy of slaughter and mayhem, until one day the named cities themselves would bow before the ruthless Ruidian who had made an army out of countless settlements beneath an arrogant empire’s notice, smashing their pride forevermore, turning their contempt to cold fear.
No need to worry about karma. He already knew this was the last life he would ever live.
Alex, completely unafraid, smiled, letting Ning Jing see the darkness in his gaze, a heartbeat before he blinked out of their lives forevermore.
Before stumbling back to his feet, a snorting Ning Jing stepping back. “The boy might be a fool, but he has fire in his soul.”
Jidihu grinned, cold twinkling eyes making it clear she had read Alex’s dark train of thought as if he had made his bloody declarations aloud. “Of course he does. Had there been any doubt, neither I nor Panheu would have bet our fortunes upon him.”
Alex coughed and rubbed his neck, glaring at Ning Jing. “I’ll give you that one for free. Next time you strike me in anything but practice, we’re done.”
Ning Jing smirked. “Don’t press your luck, boy.”
“Thank you for your forbearance, Alex,” soothed Jidihu, a face filled with a mother’s gentle concern gazing at his own, even as her offhand squeezed Ning Jing’s wrist so hard the steely Silver actually paled. “Am I correct in assuming the tome you forged contains the technique you used to heal yourself so efficaciously during those matches you were forced to fight for Lai Leng’s pleasure?”
Alex jerked a nod, flashing a fierce smile. “Former Lai Leng. He’s a crumpled husk of a broken soul, doomed to live a thousand lives lower than the basest mortal, and his son’s meridian gates were all corroded by Dark Qi before being fried to ash. I doubt he’ll be cultivating again anytime soon. Perhaps ever. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer duo, if you ask me.”
Amidst horrified gasps and disbelieving looks when Alex coldly revealed what he had only hinted at before, Jidihu’s eyes twinkled with genuine merriment. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Alex couldn’t help smiling back. Puppetmaster she might be, but Alex held genuine affection for the woman, appreciating both her ruthlessness and the love she felt for those she had claimed as her own.
“Alex?”
“Yes, Jidihu?”
“Is there any risk?”
Alex smiled, grateful for her trust. “I’ll be honest. This tome was forged in a fit of madness and divine inspiration in a place that might or might not be divine, imaginary, or even exist.”
Ning Jing snorted. “That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
Alex swallowed the smart retort on the tip of his tongue. Ning Jing was Yinzi’s birth mother, after all. If anything, he was grateful her killing fury had transformed so quickly to mocking tolerance. And she had every right to protect her daughter from charlatans and fools.
He bowed his head in deference to those truths. “What I can tell you, Lady Ning Jing, is that no one with less than seven intact meridian channels that are perfectly formed without a hint of warping or mutation would I ever permit to read this tome. In short, only those who have the potential to achieve Bronze should even dare.”
Qie Qie blinked. “What happens if someone who doesn’t have the potential for Bronze tries to read it?”
Alex locked gazes with his friend. “They die.”
Qie Qie paled before chuckling softly. “For the son of a merchant, you’re not exactly selling it, Alex.”
He shrugged. “I’m not trying to. I’m just being absolutely honest. Besides. I already know that Yinzi has seven pristine meridian channels, all of them already cleared of all blockages, and she is just a half step away from Bronze.” He gazed down at his tome of starlight and darkness. “In truth, any cultivator with even a single intact meridian channel can learn this art, if taught at a gentle pace by another. But to truly master this art, to dare use this tome and embrace its secrets as I have transcribed them, imprinting my memories as if they were your own, learning dozens of times faster, and more thoroughly, than you otherwise would… seven intact meridian channels, are needed, even if it’s just potential. Whether or not any have even been cleared is irrelevant. And I think, perhaps, the solution Yinzi is looking for… that all the girls under your care are looking for, Lady Jidihu, can be found within these pages.”
Alex took a deep breath. “But I can’t swear to it. I can just say that anyone willing to study this manual will learn the secrets to healing almost any injury, given enough time. And of course, from there, he or she can teach the basics to any cultivator with any skill level at all. Though without a pristine tome like my own or the benefit of a sacred carriage ride or studying under someone with the Spiritual Teacher skill… it might be quite some time before they ever rank up. Still, the potential is there.”
Lady Feng Huang’s eyes widened. “The potential for any cultivat
or to learn the secrets of full body regeneration? A healer’s art?”
Alex frowned. “More like they will be able to heal any injury unusually quickly. Torn flesh and broken bones will heal far quicker than you’d expect, but they will need time to recuperate, just like anyone else. Of course, it heals damaged organs as well, and all injuries are free of scarring, two things the body is not normally very good at. It’s only as one gains increasing mastery that you can use spirit pearls or beast cores for quick power healing that might prove useful during lulls in, say, a battle or an arena match.”
Despite his caveat, the Silvers were still gazing at his tome with something close to awe. “He speaks so casually of something that should be the province of trained Silver healers alone...” whispered Hao Chan’s instructor. “And usable by any basic cultivator? I would say that’s absolutely impossible, except...”
“Except you too saw the fights,” said Jidihu. “You saw what they did to Panheu’s pawn. You saw how quickly he healed. How eagerly he and Hao Chan sparred against each other full force, and without regard to injury. How toughened and calloused their flesh already is, as if they had trained in Golden Realms for years. You know as well as I what all that means.”
Lady Feng Huang shook her head in disbelief. “That this brilliant fool actually discovered a healing art that anyone can use…”
Jidihu nodded, turning to her erstwhile lover.
Ning Jing paled, before eventually jerking a nod. “Alright,” she said, suppressing a grimace. “But I want to take a good hard look at this cultivation manual before I let my daughter glance at a single page.” Her gaze was almost challenging when she glared Alex’s way, grabbing the tome from his unresisting fingers. “Assuming you don’t object?”
Alex took a steadying breath as Ning Jing glared at the book, powerful arms flexing like steel cables, yet completely unable to crack open the impressive volume now in her hands.
“I would have only my allies and friends glean the secrets within those pages,” he said, speaking past her suddenly rekindled glare. “And only those who have sworn never to reveal my secrets to outsiders without my consent. And since you’ve already made those oaths, and I do hope that one day we might at least be allies if not friends… yes. You have my permission to open up that tome and study the secrets within.”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 7