Clear Sky

by Patrick G. Laplante

  Once they were three feet from the edge of the stage, Cha Ming overcommitted a punch with his right hand, an opportunity which Gong Lan quickly grasped by attempting to throw him off the stage, using the Circular Softness movement technique. Smirking, he maneuvered around her with his Ghost Steps, using his elusive technique to outplay her circular movement. In the middle of their exchange, he suddenly struck out with a sword finger, and a second, and a third! These were quickly dodged in succession, and she took advantage of the last sword finger to grab on to his wrist to attempt to throw him off the stage once again.

  As he flew above her head, Gong Lan seemed very pleased with herself. This expression quickly disappeared as she felt her hands being pulled forward. She gasped as she saw that both of her hands, which had been used to throw Cha Ming, were now wrapped in thick vines that she had no way to break.

  Instead of being thrown off stage, Cha Ming swung off toward the side and continued to pull, using his momentum to tug her forward and off the stage. She landed in a rather embarrassing position.

  “Winner!” exclaimed Elder Huang. He was quite surprised by this reversal, and this fight looked a lot more like an exchange at the fifth level and higher. The elder fondled his short beard, appreciating the new batch of good seedlings.

  Cha Ming gave Gong Lan an apologetic look as he left the stage. Meanwhile, she gave him a pouting look and limped toward the medic tent, rubbing her bottom and looking very aggrieved. Cha Ming instantly became the object of public persecution; he was slandered as heartless, cold, and ungentlemanly.

  Massaging his temples, he thought, Am I just supposed to stay there while she throws me off the stage because she is pretty? She stepped on stage! Shouldn’t she accept this risk in competing?

  In the stands, Hong Xin was still waving her makeshift banner and seemed to have been joined by a group of young girls who were clearly less than pleased with Gong Lan and her popularity with the boys. This made the jeering teenage boys even more furious.

  The matches continued as before, and Cha Ming won another two matches without having to reveal any trump cards. He had made it to the finals!

  Despite his easy wins, Cha Ming did not get arrogant. After all, even a tiger should use his full strength to catch a rabbit. He walked up for his last match after being called on stage.

  By now, the audience had figured out that Cha Ming cultivated at least two elements, possibly three, to create an allied metal-water-wood combination. This type of combination was sometimes employed by healers to provide themselves with some level of offensive ability, as metal combined well with water. Only at this stage of his cultivation, he would not be able to fully utilize this advantage. Cha Ming was seen as a calm and composed youth. Conversely, his opponent, Feng Ming, seemed to be quite brash, finishing all his matches very quickly. His hair was short and wild, and the skinny youth literally wore silk pants. They bowed to each other, smiling.

  “I would never have thought that we’d meet again so quickly. I haven’t had to take anyone else seriously, and it’s nice to be able to fully exert myself.” The youth smirked, hoping to throw his opponent off with an arrogant front.

  Cha Ming calmly smiled. “Likewise. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  As soon as Elder Huang announced the start of the match, Feng Ming charged at Cha Ming, while the latter quickly circled around him using his Ghost Steps. Feng Ming would occasionally launch probing, fiery punches, which Cha Ming would dodge effortlessly. Cha Ming tried several times to trap Feng Ming with vines, but he burned them away quickly. Cha Ming became confused. While Feng Ming was very aggressive, his elemental attacks were quite weak.

  He must have something hidden, he thought. And then it occurred to him—he was part of the twenty-eight new students that had a dual affinity!

  As they continued their exchange, Cha Ming had been forced to the edge of the stage. He darted to his right to avoid being cornered, but as he did, a wall of earth popped up. Cha Ming gave his opponent a meaningful look. After all, Feng Ming had managed to get this far in the arena battles without exposing his second affinity. This was very similar to what Cha Ming was doing with his water, earth, and fire elements.

  Trapped between the wall, Feng Ming, and the edge of the stage, Cha Ming turned around to confront Feng Ming. Once he turned around, he saw a fiery sandstorm heading his way, threatening to push him off the stage.

  “Dual-element fire-earth technique—Desert Sandstorm!” shouted Elder Huang. “This is a very qi-intensive technique, utilizing roughly forty percent of one’s earth qi and twenty percent of one’s fire qi when cultivating both elements. It will be very interesting to see if Cha Ming can wiggle his way out of this one! This is a trademark skill of the Feng family in Green Leaf City, and it is not taught to outsiders!”

  The announcement was isolated from the stage for the sake of fairness in the competition. After all, they did not want the competitors to obtain any extra information until after the competition ended.

  While this technique caught Cha Ming by surprise, he was quite grateful that he’d held back his other techniques. The first thing he did was generate a strong frost cloud to protect himself from the heat. He then quickly summoned three consecutive walls of earth. While walls of earth were stationary, their defensive power against something like fire, water, or other earth techniques was quite extraordinary. This was also one of the reasons why Cha Ming had picked this particular technique—very high defense, low qi cost. Another disadvantage, of course, was that these walls were stationary, but looking at the pale Feng Ming, there was little doubt that he did not have enough energy for a follow-up attack.

  Ducking behind the multiple layers of earthen walls, he sheltered himself from the blast. The first two walls crumbled, and the sandy storm buffeted the last remaining earth wall. Hot winds blew past Cha Ming but were quickly absorbed by the surrounding frost cloud. Cha Ming then quickly darted from behind the wall and threw out a few bursts of flame at the exhausted Feng Ming, who flew to the ground and shouted mid-flight, “I concede!”

  A medic shot onto the stage and started treating him on the spot. It was truly an intense battle.

  Down in the elders’ seating, the two teachers who had been discussing his techniques were quite shocked. They thought they had narrowed him down to having cultivated three elements, an aspiring spirit doctor. They had no idea he had been holding out the entire time.

  Some teachers were looking at Du Cha Ming curiously, while others were looking at Feng Ming admiringly—what a powerful attack for the second level of qi condensation! Elder Ling was also seated there, smiling and rather satisfied. It looked like five-element cultivation suited the crafty Cha Ming rather well, and it was the correct decision to let him pick the technique despite the failure of his predecessors.

  Before Cha Ming stepped off the stage, Elder Huang congratulated him and handed him a bag containing one hundred spirit stones, the reward for the year’s freshman competition. In addition, he produced a jade containing a thousand contribution points. Once the jade touched Cha Ming’s, it burst into a thousand green lights and was absorbed into Cha Ming’s original jade.

  The monthly arena battles continued, but Cha Ming was quite tired and walked away laughing with the happy Hong Xin and her new group of lady friends. After recovering and taking a bath, he joined everyone for supper. Feng Ming and Gong Lan joined him and Xin for supper—they were both new students and hadn’t yet had the time to make many new friends. People in the cultivation world often made friends through fighting. Gong Lan no longer looked so aggrieved and wore a sweet smile on her pretty face.

  What a quick recovery, thought Cha Ming. This young lady will likely be able to manipulate the boys at the academy quite easily in the future.

  Hong Xin was also quite happy because she finally had another girl to spend time with.

  After staying up late celebrating all night, Cha Ming fell directly into his bed. He didn’t cultivate that night, as he wa
s quite exhausted. For the first time in a long time, Cha Ming went to bed with a smile.

  Chapter 10: Five Fingers

  It was the first day of autumn. The green maple leaves that adorned the many trees in the city were now bordered in red and gold, one of the natural wonders of Green Leaf City. While the city did not experience winter like the snowy countries in the north, the temperature would always dip low every night, leaving a fresh layer of frost on the already beautiful scenery. The leaves would never completely change to red and gold but would maintain this color throughout the winter.

  Cha Ming had recently broken through to the third level of qi condensation. After enjoying a quick breakfast, he met Feng Ming out at the cultivation pavilion. Despite his appearance as a silk-pants young master, Feng Ming was always hard at work. He and Cha Ming would usually spar against each other every day, and once Feng Ming got used to Cha Ming’s plethora of cheap techniques, they were evenly matched.

  Paff, paff, paff. The sound of wood clashing on wood echoed out through the empty courtyard. Cha Ming had used his gains from the freshman tournament to purchase a low-quality spirit weapon and a corresponding weapon art. There were many types of weapons to choose from. Swords were the most common, followed by sabers, spears, and bows. There were also many unusual weapons such as whips, bolas, needles, and daggers. Cha Ming eventually settled on the staff. The staff was a very flexible and fast weapon, but conversely, a heavy staff could be used with devastating brute force.

  Feng Ming was currently using a wooden sparring sword. He had a real spirit sword, but he wasn’t at a level where he felt comfortable sparring against Cha Ming without severely wounding him. In this current match, they had limited themselves to movement techniques and weapon arts. These techniques did not require any qi, and they were very useful for any battle, whether it be a long or short one.

  The battle ended with Feng Ming’s loss. Cha Ming had used his superior technique to deflect Feng Ming’s training sword, throwing him off balance. He then followed up with three quick strikes to Feng Ming’s wrists, forcing him to drop the sword.

  “You went easy on me,” Cha Ming said, shooting his handsome friend a grin.

  “That’s what I’ve been saying the whole time!” moaned Feng Ming. “You can use your own spirit weapon and I can’t. It’s completely unfair and against the natural order of things. Really, I should just fight you with a big bag of money. I’d smash you to death with that!”

  Feng Ming was always like that, looking for any excuse to avoid taking blame for his losses. The young man had very thick skin and would often use shameless feints to squeak out victories. He would exaggerate his victories and downplay his losses. Cha Ming didn’t mind, but he still intentionally played into Ming’s bait.

  “Of course, how could Ming the Great possibly ever lose a fight! Oh wait, I remember the time that I won that fight at the freshman competition without any weapon advantage…”

  Cha Ming rolled his eyes as he wiped the sweat off his brow. He then fastened the wooden spirit staff to his back while Ming put away his training sword in his bag of holding.

  “That was pure, blatant, dishonest trickery! Not a fair fight at all! At least if I fought you with a giant bag of money, I would be honest about it. I mean, I wouldn’t tell you the weight or anything, but I’d at least show you the bag before I beat you to death with it.”

  Feng Ming belonged to a wealthy family. Their family owned many businesses in town. His uncle was a well-known alchemist, and alchemists were in very short supply in such a small city. His father, on the other hand, was a centurion in the royal army garrison in Green Leaf City, a figure that even the city lord dared not offend. His older brother was also a captain in the city guard and occupied a similar position to Uncle Hong. He didn’t dare speculate how many “facilitating payments” Ming’s family had accumulated over the past few decades.

  The laughing duo had sparred until mid-afternoon, after which they made their way back to the residence to meet the girls for an early supper. As they were walking back, they noticed a figure dressed in black, walking the opposite direction, on same narrow pathway as them. The man looked like he was at most eighteen, and his long black hair accentuated his pale, gaunt face. He walked forward as if every student on campus was beneath his notice. As Feng Ming was about to force his way forward and initiate a collision with the rude student, Cha Ming’s hand darted out and pulled him off to the side. The figure in black paused just after passing them and shot Cha Ming an apathetic look. After a few seconds of observing Cha Ming, he continued his previous, hauntingly slow pace.

  “Why didn’t you let me teach that arrogant brat a lesson? He’s definitely around our age, how much stronger could he be?” Feng Ming was incensed, and he was used to strutting around town in a domineering fashion.

  “You should consider being less of a bully. Just now, you almost kicked a very thick steel plate.” Cha Ming, seeing Ming’s puzzled look, continued explaining. “Yes, that young man was definitely only a year or so older than us. However, if you look more closely you’ll notice that out of the corner of his black robe there was a golden glint. When he turned over, he exposed a golden badge with the number eight on it. That means that not only is he an eighth-level student, he’s also a fifth-grade talent. The school only has a handful of them, and I’m sure he has a lot of influence in town.”

  Feng Ming’s face paled. No matter how powerful his father and uncle were, they would need to curry favor with this individual for the sake of their respective organizations. He kept quiet all the way back to the residence.

  Cha Ming was currently walking outside through the frosted woods. The woods near the school were divided into areas of varying safety; the safest area was a very large park which contained a multitude of winding stone trails. Lonely benches had been placed every few hundred meters.

  He had picked sunset to take his walk. This was the time when the green, red, and gold colors in the leaves would appear in their greatest contrast. Trees, mountains, and rivers—these had been Cha Ming’s favorite sceneries as far back as he could remember. His favorite paintings always contained one, two, or three of these elements. While spring was his favorite season due to the feeling of hope in the air, fall was definitely the most beautiful season.

  Cha Ming walked for a few hours, slowly but surely. Every once in a while, he would grab a red or gold tinged leaf and admire it, sometimes sitting down on a nearby bench. The park reminded him of modern parks. Lanterns lit up the road as far as the eye could see. The lanterns were powered by spirit oil, which was produced by crushing, refining, and mixing spirit stones with other ingredients. By the end of the process, the spirit oil had no other use but lighting, and the school did not need to worry about theft. The spirit oil would absorb sunlight in the daytime and recharge, only needing to be changed out every few decades or so.

  The latest leaf he had been admiring was unique among all of the other leaves he had found. It was not only green and tinged in both gold and red, but it also had blue and brown patterns running through the leaf. The brown patterns seemed to outline a sharp mountain, while the blue pattern emulated a stream running through the mountain. The leaf itself looked like a perfect sunset in the forested mountains. He found himself lost in thought. When he finally came back to reality, he noticed the surrounding woods were covered in darkness. Not a single light could be seen in the distance. He refused to believe that all of the lights would malfunction at the same time.

  He frowned and continued walking down the path, which he could barely see. Eventually, he noticed a single lamp lit near a park bench. An elder with white hair and a white robe was doing what he had been doing previously, admiring a leaf he had picked off a tree. Cha Ming approached the elder slowly.

  “Young friend, do you know why mankind has five fingers?” said the elder softly.

  Cha Ming was surprised, as he was quite sure that he hadn’t made any sounds while approaching. Nevertheless, after hearing
the question, he could not help but ponder on it.

  “Is it not purely coincidence, and did we not evolve from other creatures?” said Cha Ming carefully. The elder chuckled, replacing the leaf on the tree. The leaf merged perfectly with the tree, and in fact turned even more healthy and green than it had been before.

  “Many in this world would consider what you said heresy. Some would say that mankind was created by the gods, and others would attribute this to the Jade Emperor. Few people know that in other worlds, mankind did in fact evolve from other creatures by pure chance. But these worlds are very far removed from our own.” The elder then paused, stroking his long white beard.

  “In this world, mankind was directly created by Nuwa1. The five fingers were by design, to correspond with the five great gifts that she gave mankind after their birth. She made mankind using her clay and blood. Through this clay and blood she granted mankind with affinities for the five elements that she used to create their life. At the end of their life, they would once again return to these five elements upon their demise, and their souls would go to the netherworld to be reincarnated in the Yellow River.”

  Cha Ming was quite surprised at the man’s words. It seemed like he was aware of other worlds, and Cha Ming had experienced first-hand his own rebirth through the Yellow River. Was this man a god?

  The white man looked at him, still stroking his white beard, nodding his head as though he had come to a decision. He then opened his mouth and said softly, “You should have some kind of paintbrush on your person. May I see it? Don’t worry, I won’t take it from you.”