So came the passing of ten moons, and I, unworthy of progression to Inner Disciple, returned.

“Venerable Elder,” I greeted.

“The [Dao of Roots]. Hmm,” he pondered.

From betwixt his wizened fingers, a leaf did sprout. One with a withered bearing, as if parched beneath the harshest [Summer] sun.

It flew with gentle trajectory, and swept me from my feet.

Shame dealt a blow harsher than our righteous Sect’s dirt, though both were fitting to welcome the fool I was .

But the Elder continued, unveiling a twin to this leaf that repeated its flight. So too did it float, and so too did it strike, planting true upon diligent Ekaksh’s brow.

My partner, my [Spirit Ram] was changed for my prior insight.

The [Dao of Roots] entrenched in his core, each of his four legs were as trunks. Or could be, whence he chose to take his tithe of Qi to better reflect his cultivation.

There, then, he was unaltered, yet still our [Dao] would not have saved him from shame.

“Even a raindrop shatters boulders with time,” came our Elder’s words.

And my eyes were opened once more.

- “Apotheosising into Fable,” a conversation with Abundant Grove Sect Elder [Aspen Li]

This was… deeper water.

As Yi Nuo’s flags were carried into the distance by no less than sixty spectres, the strategists withdrew a set of base, if plush, chairs from on which to sit. A table came next, and an awning that blocked the lifting midday sun.

Fu accepted the poison-laced tea, and sipped it discourteously before his hosts might pour their own. The [Hundred Immunities Fruit] warned of its truth-spilling properties, and his words might have flown free were this [Constellation Seed] within him.

Beneath his sleeves, he directed the Qi to mend his wounds.

“Our own allegiances will remain buried, and names, you understand,” intoned the brother, putting a saucer to his lips. “But a man of your persuasion is well versed in affairs of anonymity.”

The rice was cooked, and so Fu only frowned. “Then you speak with an advantage. I grow tired of addressing you as Brother and Sister.” He pushed from the table, and clattered both saucer and cup atop it.

“Hold,” snapped Brother.

“Peace,” amended Sister. “If a name must be known, then call us by Star.”

“You go too far, Sister.”

“The man is bare before us, with Sect and identity revealed. Negotiations will not begin unless he is sated,” she warned. “Fu Gao, we have a proposition of great interest.”

To further his advantage, Fu made to pace.

“Twenty thousand middle-grade spirit stones,” Sister Star called, and Fu dared another step to have her following words crack. “With five thousand for your silence! Should you choose to accept it or not.”

Desperation or a lack of world experience. Well raised, intelligent, if unwise. A noble clan, perhaps, to field such an offer and with such luxuries about us.

Fu held at the awning’s edge. “The Star siblings forget about this contest. You would have me unhitch my horse from the race? [An Array in One Hand] promises treasures more than mere wealth.”

“Hohoho, is this so large a demand? Rest assured, Fu Gao, we will be the victors of this bout regardless of your allegiance. Is it not better to fly a flag from the tallest tower than have it trodden underfoot?”

“Well spoken,” affirmed Brother Star.

His sibling continued. “Now, I would ask something irreverent. From what material is your douli made? It is most perplexing.”

Ah.

“Reeds, plucked from the streams near the Third Heavenly Records,” he lied, knowing she wished to test the efficacy of her truth-poison. A pretence of barely concealed strain set his eyelid to twitch, which seemed to assuage the woman. “Know I only entertain such questions for your fee, which may raise if more of this like are asked.”

“Do you know of our true names?” she asked.

“No. Must we revisit this?”

The siblings shared a look, and their grip upon respective saucers grew lax. “Then you will seek a woman in this [Mystic Realm] by the name of Eighty Second Arunima. A cunning strategist that grows like unruly weed. Her death is meaningless with the [False Dust Life Array] in place, but your task is the retrieval of an item. A jade star, fashioned into some unruly Vajra decoration that hoops upon her nose.”

“A ring with a value of twenty five thousand middle-grade spirit stones,” suggested Fu.

“Its value is of no consequence,” interrupted Brother Star. “Only that she must not leave [A Strategist’s Folly] before it is obtained. Do we have an accord?”

Fu frowned. “On the condition that I gain a portion of Yi Nuo’s flags once her fortress is claimed, and that my payment is promptly delivered.”

“Fwah-ha,” he replied. “The assassin is bold. Very well. We will spare a clutch of spectres to have our recent acquisitions delivered. This will suffice.”

With that the conversation closed, though Fu remained where he was. “My fee,” he said, to which Sister Star unveiled a pouch.

“We await your return,” she falsely smiled.

The pouch was light, and no doubt inscribed with the [Dao]. But Fu played the part well, scrutinising his newest employers as though the contents concerned him. “It will be swift,” he said, calling a [Half Cloud Step] to blur him away.

🀦

Yi Nuo’s flags were deposited before his gaze when around half of his five thousand spirit stones were counted. It was a point of great shame for Fu as his mathematics left much to be desired, and through many recounts the passage of time could not accurately be gauged.

The flags were claimed with little fanfare, and had only his flag swell with the infusion.

He put his attention back to the wealth. “Middle-grade spirit stones. Hushi, this would put us among the richest clans in Thousand Shore City with five thousand alone. To think this number will multiply…”

Hushi’s teal arms spilled the pouch’s contents atop their wall, and with a twist of Qi he activated Fu’s ring to swallow it all.

“One is enough to feed our family for a thousand [Seasons],” he agreed, knowing well his partner’s meaning. “We should be grateful for that alone.”

When he promised to take stock of his inventory upon return to the Clouded Courts, for it was now swollen with multiple items. Stacks that would soon grow, for these mysterious Star siblings could not be the only wealthy cultivators within the realm.

Eighty Second Arunima. To expect that she holds the rank of a Vajra scion would prepare for the worst eventuality.

A rare greed surfaced.

A ponderance on his new wealth, and its relation to Arunima.

He knew the [Seasonal] stipend of cultivation pills received, in vague worth. Able to be measured in lower-grade spirit stones for [Foundation Realm] pills were as common as mud.

Here, he weighed his target’s misfortune against it. Already he had a novel sum, and was the cost of attaining more, truly worthwhile?

“Hushi, my thoughts are a pot of eels. Knotted, crossed and slick.”

[Karma] might bind him to the Vajra, as it might well have bound the Feizhou. Danger besides this. An invitation of jeopardy to his position in this contest.

With this five thousand, might my cultivation progress? Not only now, but the future, when I swallow as many pills as grains of rice?

To such an end, he adopted the lotus position. To rove in sunlight was to cripple himself, and potentially exacerbate his position further. His fortress was secure, and grand when placed against those on the horizon, insuring his plans for experimental cultivation.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

In moments his gaze went inward, to his [Dantian] and the Qi set a-whirl. The sibling’s attempt to poison him had near replenished his supply, a process finished as Hushi drew forth the ambient Qi.

Since the completion of his [Bone Refinement] his [Channels] had gone uninspected, and to sweep his inner sight across them revealed no change. The next step was great, after all, and no automatic process if his readings were to be believed.

[Core Formation].

He fled back, and drew the [Stifling Stream Revolutions] manuscript from his ring. The heavy pages flipped to one of several notches, where Fu’s index focused.

A disembodied spread of a [Dantian] covered its surface over two halves, and diagrams followed overleaf to map a formation. It addressed the behaviour of his spiralling [Air Qi], and outlined just why the technique had it move in this way.

On the page, the spiral’s tip was examined in five magnified images.

Fu traced how it threaded tighter until no perceivable end remained. The Qi looped, re-entering itself to create a spherical foundation - an orb around the outer edges that crossed to curve back, and again, and so forth.

The task seemed formidable, requiring a peerless control of [Inner Qi] to complete but one rotation.

“We have no time to seclude ourselves as others do,” he said. “Neither will the resources and Qi required be cheap.”

There should be no harm in testing the waters, at least.

His gaze went inward, and his chest soon heaved in rhythmic breaths. As did his Qi, which circulated in familiar fashion. The gaseous energy wound throughout his [Dantian], pulled taught into a single plume.

Hushi’s mind brushed his own. A presence to comfort and guide.

Some extension of his [Senses] had Fu focus on this spiral’s tip, where he went deeper, or gazed closer, if any comparison to eyes could be made. It appeared in great clarity, this thin point, most threadlike in association.

He clutched it, and circulated Qi to enforce a push. With the characteristics of an intangible cloud, the toll on his [Inner Qi] was dire. But he persisted.

A tenth fled.

Two tenths.

At three, the ribbon of [Air Qi] had both reached and grooved itself to begin a return across once more.

The effort only grew.

Time oft disjointed in his sessions, and was well known to occur. An inner look of minutes may well translate to hours or days. Thus, as the second groove formed and Fu’s reserves were nigh depleted, he parsed out a breath of resignation.

Disparate and juvenile as it was, the [Core] dissipated.

Fu stirred himself to see the sun’s marker of late afternoon. It was his first glance, and the vicinity of his fortress remained as it was before.

The second was a study within. One of progress lost and wasted Qi.

No. To ascribe it as waste is a lie.

Though the [Core] had vanished long before the barest hint of a shell could be formed, he had gained valuable insight. His progress may be unmade, returning [Dantian] to empty and [Channels] to parched brooks, but the distance was gleaned.

One of a hundred-thousand li, were a course plotted on a map.

Hushi impressed strain, a feeling of rawness and fatigue. His arms cascaded limply, if more for comfort than the inability to lift.

Fu palmed him tenderly. “Where might we find such a reservoir? Pills? Treasures? The wealth gained here…if this is the standard toil to reach [Core Formation], what of the next?” To have changed his perspective so swiftly brought about a grimace. “Ah. It is a heavy cloud, and I would sooner not stand in rain. Let us act first. If our contract on this genius Vajra is truly a fateful encounter, then perhaps our answers might lie there. If not her deep pockets.”

🀦

The necessity of a decreasing battlefield had Fu’s motivation’s skew. Shifting targets, allegiances, priorities, strategies. He held direction in this latest choice, although the queer chance provided by these Star siblings was a trouble his instinct told to avoid.

His presence within the [Mystic Realm] was solely for the [Constellation Seed].

Yet these means he employed-

Perhaps his [Dao Oath] to the Clouded Courts plagued him. Turned his thoughts towards seeking their guidance.

We are outwith their influence, as it was within [A Hollow Hegemon’s Splinter]. To count similar situations, where I must act on my own merits and direction… This is but the third. I lack some component as I am. But what?

Fu stroked the brim of his blackened douli, having stowed Mei’s as he made from the fortress not an hour previous.

The [Spirit Horse] cultivator rode some ways ahead, two li of distance between them. Her attention seemed frayed, with wayward looks into the headland’s short grasses with each passing breeze.

Without an [Art] or treasure that might supercede his [Clouded Ghost Arts], Fu did not suspect such looks were for him. Thus he stalked unimpeded, and paused only when a fledgling [Spirit Hare] or similar beast crossed his path.

Her previous route had brought her before the gates of a mid-sized fortress, one that had not reached the third increase of growth. The words relayed to its occupant were short. No more than platitudes and empty greetings before she had moved on. Albeit with a ghost in tow, as he had been for the following fortress.

This marked her third visit, and a [Half Cloud Step] severed much of the distance so that Fu might spy the occupant. Thus his reason for following, provident as it was.

Arunima did not emerge upon the walls, nor had he expected her to possess a meagre fortress such as this. A second-stage, if the naming convention was thus. The figure above was a man of crooked spine, and delivered a rasp alongside his words.

“...the warning. But truly, would you expect such base trickery to work?” he ended, punctuated with a sneer.

A similar sound flew from the [Spirit Horse’s] nostrils, indignant at the disrespect. But its rider only spurred it on, recalling the few, distant spectres in her retinue to join her.

It was the first Fu had heard of her dealings.

Warning. Has she travelled each fortress to speak of something? The Star siblings are no greater threat than any here, save for their alliance.

No prideful man, he did not believe it to be his name she shared. Yet, even so, the woman held use for revealing a fortress’ occupants, and took the tiger’s share of their unwitting partnership. If she did spread tales of the villainous Fu Gao, he would not stop until his target was discovered.

An hour passed before the pursuit came to an abrupt end. Daylight ever inching closer.

The [Spirit Horse] was drawn by no reins, but some communication had it rear and come about several times in quick succession. A pacing, at what however, Fu could not say. His [Senses] were not so refined as to cut through the night’s canvas beyond some twenty strides.

Her spectres, a hue of subtle leaf, stood stationary.

Previous fortresses have not had her stall. The sight must be dreaded.

Silence reigned across the grassland as his mark deliberated, and again her head mulled between several points before spurring her Bond east. This marked a sharp descent, for both she and her forces disappeared below Fu’s view as if the horizon had swallowed each whole.

So in time, he stalked forth, reaching the crest of a deep, sweeping valley. Leftmost, and its mirror, two fortresses stood. Grand things that seemed to glare at their respective opposites, irate that another of such scale laid claim to their lands.

Fourth stage, at minimum, for his own fortress far paled against these titans.

Vast, gated courtyards spread from the base of these palaces, and rose to their rear with two tiers of battlement above. The glint of spectres wreathed them like intermittent flame, for their light was spaced equally atop each wall.

A fortress of this scale… could the siblings possess one? The twins would not have me seek if Arunima was within a stone’s throw.

The [Mystic Realm’s] last translocation, its shrinkage, had taken place when the siblings were outside their fortress walls.If they were in the field, then this would be the scene upon return. Inauspicious timing, were that the case.

[Half Cloud Step].

Fu called upon his [Art] three times, and three blurring strides drew him close to the horsewoman. Some few paces distant from her, he immersed himself in the grasses.

Here the exterior courtyard’’s gates yawned open in greeting, with ten spectres as her welcome. A formation of two lines, cordons for the walkway where Brother Star emerged to walk.

An aide, by all appearances, to the Vajra at his rear. No Sister within sight.

He fawned over her coming steps, unspooling a great tapestry of carpet where her foot might touch the ground beneath. All this before he swept to his knees, and pressed his brow to the earth aside the furthest spectre.

“I bring only warning, competitor,” called the horsewoman. “Urged on by fallen foes. A killer stalks our righteous competition, one that bypasses the [False Dust Life Array] - preying on the honourable souls gathered here!”

A wink lit the newcomer’s solitary jewel, removing any doubt to her identity. Arunima’s gentle brows had risen with concern, and the jade of Fu’s seeking had flared in the ambient, spectral glow. “Amituofo,” she returned. “This Eighty Second rate daoist is thankful. To squander a position in the competition by warning others, you have the mark of a righteous soul.”

“Honor binds me, as it should all,” returned the horsewoman.

“Amituofo. It is as you say.” Arunima turned gracefully. “Take heed of this, Wei, such selflessness could only further your [Dao].”

“Yes, Mistress,” came the brother’s reply.

The [Spirit Steed] chuffed impatiently, drawing attention back to its rider. “Farewell, competitor,” she called. “When next we meet it will be on the open field.” Her flight thundered hooves in uncomfortable proximity to Fu’s position, but soon fell distant.

An agreeable woman, and to be undone by the petty greed of a subordinate.

Ahead the gates closed in short order, retreating the pair into the inner courtyard.

A scant thing, as Fu discovered when atop its perimeter wall. The [Trial] having little need for decorations to prove the prowess of one’s strategy. As such he swiftly stole to the ascent of walls, and found a crook in which to lodge.

“...cur,” exclaimed Wei.

“Indeed. A good dog does not block the road, and she has proved this. What folly. She bore the innocence of Sect bearing. A backwater locale of grass roots, for her stench said much.”

Hushi crinkled beneath the douli, bemused at Arunima’s voice. The disingenuity had taken him aback.

“Fwah-hah! A ploy to have us remain as turtles, no doubt. Does she know no shame? To deceive the great-”

Regardless of sight, Fu knew well the crack of flesh. A slap, followed then by an impact on stone.

“You dare speak to me of strategy? One attempt did I allow you, and false boldness took hold. A monkey travelling far from the mountain, thinking itself a tiger!” Arunima’s [Intent] may well have held the [Dao of Suffocation], for its extension set Fu’s skin to prickle and his chest to grow tight. “No, you fool. She speaks true of this assassin, such things are plain.”

“Only your vast insight could reveal-”

Again this Wei was assaulted. But the slap had evolved, and shifted with a whir. Lashing followed, and shrill cries.

Fu took solace in his [Clouded Ghost Arts]. It combatted the [Intent]. A force akin to the illumination of lanterns, having the fisherman feel exposed and brittle. His breaths steadied after a count of four, returning the conversation beyond.

Further lashes, and near cathartic, musical laughter. “...expendable, as you are. But even the blind might find water if they wander far enough. No. Few will believe this self-styled messenger. Yet if she seeks to rally the fools beyond our gate then a benefactor would be of capital allure. Name this, lacking Wei.”

A bloodied gasp came, only able to whisper. “Mask as toads to cripple the frogs.”

Arunima trilled as her lashes ceased. “Poor. Now come, frog. Lest I find another use for your prowess in bleeding.”

“Gra… titude,” Wei coughed.

Villain, thought Fu, dislodging from the wall.