He rubbed his eyes, scowling up at a grinning WiFu who, with a wink, pointed at the board displaying the deepest secrets of pristine cultivation in chalk, of all things, before his bemused gaze hardened, eyes firmly on Alex’s own.
“And this is one test you don’t dare skip.”
An icy shiver raced down his spine. “I’m not sure I understand, master.”
WiFu gave a curious tilt of his head. “Did you not just spend the last three weeks attempting to unravel the mysteries of cultivation? Unlocking the crucial secrets to a foundation so strong that any weight of power could rest easily upon its footings?”
Alex blinked and nodded, fuzzy recollections turning to pristine clarity. “I... yes, I was, sir, but I hit upon a snag.”
“A snag?”
Alex nodded. “I think I understand the progression now. Every cord, or meridian channel, is comprised of fibers wound into threads that are then wound into strands. And for the greatest of all possible foundations, you need twelve at each level, so that the final cord contains 1,728 fibers of elemental power. Only then will you have the strongest foundation possible.”
WiFu flashed a congratulatory grin. “Well done, disciple. You’d be surprised how many cultivators lose sight of the grand picture. Of the very few who even have the potential to break through to Silver, almost none worry about securing foundations strong enough for Gold, let alone Jade. Most barely transcend a single sphere by the skin of their teeth, courting their own destruction, and they know it, so badly did they strain themselves just to advance that far, before turning all their focus into mastering specialized techniques, their goal then to become the deadliest Bronze, or Silver, that they possibly can, not even daring to dream they could ever ascend any farther.”
He eyed Alex up and down before giving an approving nod. “Whereas you have forgone studying the dozens of tempting body cultivation techniques and Qi powers nestled within those tomes of Silver and Gold, interested only in what matters: forging a foundation worthy of the highest reaches of ascension. With that noble goal in mind, you have managed to avoid distraction, no matter how wondrous an edge some of those techniques would have given you in even your most recent fights, and focus only on first principles. Well done!”
Alex nodded. “I can always study all those fascinating techniques later. Once I’ve secured my foundation. But WiFu, that’s the problem. The final step, as revealed even in my memory of the divine treasure I gave to Liu Li, shows me only how to use that cultivation base to advance to the farthest reaches of Jade.”
WiFu nodded. “Yes, Alex, it does.”
“But WiFu, it doesn’t show me how to actually ascend to, well...”
“Godhood?” His mentor favored him with a curious smile. “Is that what you thought this was all about, Alex? Elevating yourself to such a transcendent state?”
Alex felt his cheeks flush, feeling strangely embarrassed. “I thought, well...”
“That you could actually join my family’s ranks, one day?”
Alex winced. “That does sound preposterous, speaking as someone with only a single Bronze cord.”
WiFu nodded. “It does. Now let me ask you this. Should you actually manage to break through to Jade, how is this not the fulfillment of all your hopes and dreams?”
Alex blinked. “I’m not sure I understand, I thought...”
WiFu sighed, gazing at him almost sadly. “Alex. You would dance on the very stage that the most powerful cultivators in history stride upon. You would be the equal of emperors, the fiercest wujen, the mightiest warrior kings. Or at least, you would finally be playing on their level, able to ascend ever further, as they do, upon the path of Jade. And who else but you has discovered the secrets to eternal youth? Who else but you, Alex, has managed to pull themselves free of the perilous clutches of the River of Souls, not once, but thrice?”
Alex felt a chill with those words, recalling how close he had come to drowning before the ghost of his father had pulled him to shore. Before finding it was his own body and bitter memory alone. But hadn’t he been hurt, severely, when he had first been thrown in?
WiFu flashed a knowing smile. “That’s right, Alex. You pulled yourself free of the river yet again.” He then smirked. “Though not quite.”
Alex swallowed. “What do you mean, not quite?”
WiFu sighed. “You do know you’ve been dancing between life and death within the topmost tier of the Netherworld, do you not?”
Alex felt an icy chill down his spine. “Um... no? I didn’t know that? I thought I was just, well...”
“In the bottom layer of a magical dungeon, like within your favorite childhood games?” WiFu shrugged. “Close enough. And your delusion did allow you to flow into the hunt you so desperately needed to embrace, to stay mortal for as long as you have. So perhaps it was as much truth as delusion. At least for you. And that’s really all that matters, in the end.”
Alex frowned. “What exactly are you saying?”
“What I’m saying, Alex, is that right now you’re already walking on the path of heroes and legends. You might one day become one of the deadliest pieces on the board, and my brothers can’t stand it! What does it matter whether or not you can actually ascend the heavens, when you can stride the world as a nearly immortal Jade?”
WiFu flashed his gentlest smile. “I much prefer the mortal realm myself. It’s where you and I have always had our grandest adventures, after all.”
Alex blinked and swallowed. “So, my Divine paths...”
“Are just that. Worthy of the gods themselves, and powerful enough to raise a once powerless Terran to the cusp of Jade and beyond. A Ruidian who, even as a Basic cultivator, discovered the secrets to defeating disease and decay, amassing secrets all the emperors of a world the size of your Jupiter would wage inconceivable wars just to claim for themselves.” A firm, powerful grip rested on Alex’s shoulder. “A Ruidian so strong that he can pull himself free of the Eternal River’s grip, so long as death’s insult is not too great. A Ruidian, who, should he transcend to Jade, will be just one step below his rulers in heaven, respected and revered by all those mortals who would dare to glimpse the power you might one day become.”
WiFu then flashed a mischievous smile. “To even think of ascending to the peak of cultivation, from Jade to outright transcendence, would be very foolish indeed, Little Fox.”
Alex flashed a rueful grin. “When you put it like that, maybe it’s not so bad if I can’t actually ascend to, well...”
“Heaven? Endless hunting grounds and a majestic glittering city in the cloud tops, full of stuffy lords of this and that, who enjoy pulling puppet strings because they’re too lazy to do anything themselves?” WiFu chuckled softly. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. There are hidden valleys in the mortal realms with hunting every bit as good. And if city living with the wildest entertainment and tastiest food is what you’re after? Believe me, there’s far more fun to be had for both of us in the Sacred Cities down here. Why do you think we built them, after all?”
Alex, heart racing with newfound excitement despite the mild letdown, nodded his acceptance. Things were the way they were, and who would know better than the patron god of chaos and transformation what was and was not possible?
“Alright,” he acknowledged. “I just need some time to make absolutely sure I’m on the right path and then, well, I guess it’s time for me to take that next step.”
WiFu’s glittering eyes pinned Alex’s own. “Your plan is a sound one, Alex, but time, I’m afraid, is not something we have a lot of, right now.”
Alex’s heart began to pound. “Wait, the sanctuary I’m sleeping in! Is it not safe?”
“Oh, it’s quite safe,” WiFu sadly assured. “What’s not safe are the wild boons within your own mind.”
Alex blinked. “What exactly are you talking about?”
Then Alex felt it. At first, it was a near euphoric rush, the swell of experience earned from a righteous kill, or claiming
the essence of a beast core directly. Then the trickle became a flood, and Alex suddenly felt a strange sort of pressure that filled him with a growing sense of dread.
The last time he had felt this weight upon his soul was a thousand years ago, back when absorbing multiple elementalist cores had nearly destroyed him, body and soul.
“WiFu, what’s going on?”
Alex’s soul quailed when he heard the ugly chuckle permeating a massive heavenly chamber he had last caught sight of as a spirit by WiFu’s side. Only now he was still in the sacred garden, jolted out of his sleep by the shooting agony inside his skull. But the voices roaring around him were just as visceral and terrible as he remembered.
“Another card for your favorite piece, WiFu!” declared none other than Long Wang. “May this finally be the end of that vile abomination!”
WiFu’s cool words could be heard transcending even Alex’s sudden screams. “You would enact Calamity, in addition to Pariah, brother? All in the span of a single moon?”
Mocking laughter could be heard from a deity whose voice Alex had only heard once before. “And this will be one calamity your piece cannot avoid, WiFu. For it was his choice to claim it in the first place!”
WiFu hissed. “So. The great general has taken a side at last.”
Laughter answered Silver Fox’s remark. “What side is this, WiFu? I do naught but grant your piece a priceless gift. That which he desires above all else. It is his choice what he does with it.”
“May it destroy him!” Long Wang roared. “He was thrown straight into the Netherworld, and still I can all but taste his breakthrough. He should be dead! Long dead! No matter how long he has served as your pawn, no mortal can survive there without infernal curses or divine blessings securing their path. He should have died, just like every other fool who has ever dared passage to that realm!”
“No mortal is to be allowed transcendent cultivation,” declared General Shalu. “You know this, WiFu. You have always known it! So it is only fitting that his own greed, his own desperate grasping hands, should plant the seeds of his own destruction!”
“Oh, you fool, what did you do?” Even through his agony, Alex was shocked by the horror in WiFu’s voice.
“I did naught be remove your own impediments, Fox! Your disciple was foolish enough to aid Panheu in claiming Zhang Yi’s pawn’s immortal cultivation core. So be it! Panheu has had his advancement, and we all know the doom he has danced with in mortal flesh for far too long. It is only fitting if his lackey should claim all that Panheu has not dared to! It is balance! It is reciprocity! It is within my power to enforce, when Calamity is in play!”
“I didn’t place that stricture,” said WiFu, his voice deadly cold. “Zhang Yi himself did.”
“It does not matter!” roared Long Wang. “So what if we uncollared your pawn? Now he is free to experience limitless power... and be destroyed by it! As he should have been, countless years before!”
Other words were said then, WiFu more alarmed than Alex had ever heard in his life, but none of it mattered. None of it even registered when compared to the all-consuming pain that had become his existence.
If the potential of all his kills were like stars of wondrous potential flickering in the night skies of futures unknown, looking with his mind’s eye at the source of his agony was like gazing at the sun. Glorious, deadly, and blinding all at once.
What had been a safely stored, if potent, bundle of experience had somehow awakened to its true potential. A cultivator’s immeasurable potential over scores of lifetimes was now being held in a fragile vessel that had only just achieved Bronze, let alone Silver or Gold.
And Alex only appreciated in that moment the terrible brilliance of his enemy’s plan.
Of course he could use that experience to transcend. The exact twelve string pattern he would need now blazed with pristine clarity in his mind’s eye. He had more than enough experience to forge it, though flawed he feared it would be with the agony coursing through him. But that would only channel a fraction of the power now screaming through his soul.
He was more than certain he could forge his entire set of Bronze cords, though he feared greatly flaws and kinks in his weave that would then doom him when he desperately strove to transcend to Silver, which entailed counter-twisting his entire series of Bronze cords to form his first massive Silver cable, one of many he would one day forge into being to contain a future Golden core.
And just one major flaw, let alone the dozens that hideous agony would invite, might doom even that first Silver cable, crumbling his foundation, leaving his soul bare and vulnerable before a furious storm of erupting potential that would blaze through him like a sun.
You have embraced Power Healing!
For better or worse, his own innate gifts brought him endless agonizing seconds transforming into minutes as his flesh cooked and seethed with uncontrolled power, whereas any other low ranked Bronze would have already burst into flame, as Alex desperately strove for some sort of answer that did not lead to his hideous expiration, beyond what he suspected even his ability to step out of the shallows of the River of Souls would allow him to recover from.
It seemed like that bastard of a god General Shalu had known just when, where, and how to strike, to see his opponent utterly destroyed.
A foe Alex had never even known he had, waiting in the wings for just the right moment to slam down his deadly card, burning with bilious hatred for the interloper who dared even to exist. A state of mind Alex knew he should already be used to, but somehow was not.
For some reason, he kept wanting to think better of people.
And what a fool that made him.
Even as he choked back agony and frustrated fury in equal measure, his mind flashed upon the last time he had experienced such searing pain.
Carrying a pristine skeleton, bones glittering with an impossible shimmering matrix of inky blackness and brilliant luminescence, shimmering like a rainbow, and yet no color at all. Crystalline in its purity, and utterly transcendent.
The fragile body of a child, locked in a hellish cage eternally fried by enough radiation to disintegrate even mortal bones.
Alex had felt the same agony and the same fury as he did now.
Only he suddenly felt wonder as well, struck by a sudden epiphany.
A moment of sublime understanding.
Recognizing at last where he had seen something that flashed just like that lost child’s bones.
His own singular meridian channel, a chaotic flood of Dark and Light Qi tied together in one dichotomous strand of harmony and chaos, creation and destruction, flickering between states as fast as thought.
Only the bones of that child had been far more than that. Alex had sensed an infinitely complex structure. As if each bone had been made of not just a stabilized maelstrom of Dark and Light Qi, but of countless ordered filaments all forged into one whole. Like cells aligned into a rigid composite.
Or countless threads within winding cords perfectly contained in a pristine structure, for all that each individual strand blurred and flickered between harmony and wild disarray as fast as thought. Dark and Light, order and chaos, countless filaments bundled together in one pristine whole.
Focus holds! You have successfully saved against Final Oblivion!
Alex took a deep, gasping breath, feeling as if every cell were screaming for relief.
Had he not endured a similar experience flooding his hypoxic cells with pure Dark Qi inside an amoeba that had almost spelled his destruction, Alex had no doubt he would have surrendered to the hideous pain roaring through him, struggling desperately at rapidly stringing together wild flawed cords that would doom him, all in a futile attempt to relieve the terrible pressure that seared his soul without end.
But endure he did, flashing a rictus of a grin as he was forged in the crucible of his own agony, his own transcendence, to such a degree that even Panheu would have been proud, Alex visualizing with pristine clarity a shimmering cor
d of power comprised of no less than 1,728 strands of Qi cycling between Dark and Light so fast it shimmered and blazed, like a wave function forever on the verge of—but never quite—collapsing, forging a sublime energy state that was simultaneously Dark and Light, all twelve Qi elements existing as one.
Shimmering just like the bones of an ancient child, caged and abandoned endless years before.
Insight check made!
His mind racing at speeds once beyond his comprehension, Alex scanned the entire massive cord, looking for a single flaw, recalling all the insights he had learned, balancing so many strands in perfect harmony. When, if done correctly, attraction and repulsion would be in perfect balance, and after the first few were laid, the remaining strands should snap into place.
1,728 strands shimmering and flashing between Dark and Light, destruction and creation, all in perfect synchronicity.
His structure was flawless, so far as his mortal eyes could detect.
An achievement of sublime transcendence surpassing even the agony and triumph he had experienced while neutralizing Doom Venom and ascending just over a month ago, it would have been so easy to lock that cord into place, then and there.
But Alex refused to do pain’s bidding.
Forcing himself to slow down.
To recall all he had seen, all he had done, all he had experienced, even as the pressure of that pristine Golden core screamed for release like never before.
Yet this wasn’t the first time Alex had been enraptured by torment, ancient sealed doors of memory unlocking to pain’s bidding, bringing to the fore just the barest hint of the sublime agony he had endured for a thousand years, seeking a divine cultivation path.
Recalling his insights, what he had learned, the harmonious balance Long Wang and WiFu’s combined cultivation paradigms had brought together.
No matter the agony he endured, his work was far from over.
And so, he forced himself to construct a third cord comprised of yet another twelve fibers, each comprised of yet another twelve threads. Yet this time he followed the pattern he had conceived in his vision of the library within each thread. Eight strands of creation: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, along with Lightning, Air, and Spirit, entwined with a single thick strand of pristine Dark Qi.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 45