Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

The guandao came for his throat.

Fushuai dropped low and twisted, feeling the wind shear past his ear. The blade snicked through his sleeve, and though he felt no pain from the shallow cut it left on his arm, his sense of his body told him it was there.

His knee dropped onto a branch, and the momentum nearly carried him end over end down through the floor of leaves. It was fortunate that he dropped, as the polearm spun just over his head on its return flight. With one hand, he found purchase and threw himself back up, the canopy bouncing where he landed.

Goshung had not taught him how to do this, how to set the qi coursing through his limbs to pool in his hands and feet, allowing him to move as lightly as a bird. It was something he'd only begun to do while he followed the Asura to where they were now, on what felt like the crown of the world. Whether instinct, intuition, or something half remembered from the scrolls and manuscripts he had secreted from the family library, it had come to him in answer to his need.

There was a name for what he was doing, he was sure. Ching-kung? Lightness skill? Names did not matter when a guandao was flying at your face.

He dodged again, this time without risking a perilous fall, and kept one eye on the sea of floating blades. Only one weapon assailed him now, but nothing was stopping Goshung from sending them all.

The parasol tree's crown spread into a battlefield, its leaves broad as platters, its main branches as thick as bridges. Wind stirred through the foliage in long, whispering sighs, a gentle counterpoint to the whistling swords. Scores, perhaps hundreds, wheeled in the night air. Some spun lazily, while others seemed to hunt along invisible paths, leashed only by spiritual will.

Fushuai's breath came in fast, controlled clips. His legs ached, and his hands trembled faintly from the climb, but there was a stillness inside him, a narrow ribbon of calm pulled taut through his center. He remembered how he had felt upon first seeing the demon-wolf barrel into their camp on the mountain trail.

Not fear, only exhilaration.

Mah Goshung remained at the center of the country of leaves, broad arms crossed over a broader chest, faint pulses of his inner fires bright in the darkening night when he spoke.

"Name them. The four noble answers."

Fushuai straightened as much as he dared, poised on a branch no wider than his foot.

"Jian," he said. "The first answer, swift and pure. The mirror of its wielder's burning heart."

As if he had invoked it by name, a double-edged straight sword fell from the flock and streaked toward him, an azure ribbon trailing from its grip.

Fushuai cartwheeled to one side. His hand shot out, fingers closing around a smaller branch, and he tore it free and swung up just in time to deflect the sword's second pass. The branch split down the middle, useless, and the sword turned upward and vanished into the stars.

He kept moving.

"Dao," he said, vaulting to a thicker perch. "The second answer is decisive. The strength of earth expertly applied."

A crescent of polished steel spun from the sky, a butcher's dream. Fushuai tore a tree limb free that jutted ahead of him, a heavy, knotted thing, and brought it up to parry.

The saber struck with the weight of a falling ox. Wood splintered, and the shock rolled up his arms. He was thrown sideways, caught himself against a net of bird nests and vines, and kicked off again before the weapon could circle back.

He landed hard, adjusting the flow of his qi as the nest's occupants scolded him from somewhere deeper in the leaves.

"Qiang," he said. "The third answer brings reach and rhythm of water."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A spear whistled into the clearing, trailing a red, fluttering tassel. Fushuai didn't try to block this one. He ducked beneath it, let it pass, and drove his heel down against a rotted knot to find balance. The spear curved mid-flight and came at him again.

He seized a long tendril of hanging moss and slid down it, hiding within the embrace of the great crown. The spear whistled by. It sounded disappointed.

"Gu-en," he said, pulling himself back to the surface. Goshung watched him with a bored expression, and made a small gesture that he continue. "The fourth answer brings the balance and flexibility of wood. The root of all techniques."

A dark iron staff dove from the swarm. He barely escaped. It struck the branch he had just left and split it with a sharp crack. One half fell, the leaves rustling and more branches snapping while the other half remained, broken and hanging at an angle.

Fushuai crouched low, palms splayed against bark, breathing deeply.

Goshung sniffed the night air as if it were more interesting than his student. "Not wrong." He cocked his head. "Not completely right, either. But you didn't drool while speaking, so I'll allow it. Now, show me what you've learned."

At a flick of Goshung's fingers, one of the blades peeled away from the swirling mass and drifted down between them. A slender, double-edged jian longer than Fushuai's leg.

He stepped forward, feeling more alive than he could remember. He did not feel the sting of the cut on his arm, or the throbbing of an ankle he had twisted, he knew not when. The sword floated into his outstretched hand, its hilt cool as spring water. A moment later, another blade, a sharply curved dao, detached itself and floated to Goshung's side.

"Begin," the Asura said.

Fushuai moved into the opening stance of the sword form he had learned as a youth. His family favored fire forms, back foot turned out, knees bent just so, spine poised. He brought the blade up, point high, elbow tucked. The dao swept in, and he met it steel for steel.

"Too stiff," Goshung said. "You look like a scarecrow afraid of birds."

He was allowed a few more testing blows, and then the weapon tugged itself from his hand to be replaced by another. Goshung had him demonstrate his competency with each of the four answers, making small comments to point out his numerous failings, but Fushuai was not discouraged. He felt more confident than he had when they first began "sparring" in the glen, more in tune with himself and his senses.

Weapons were mastered in years, not days, and he no longer felt ashamed for his lack of practice. If he had spent as much time as brother Chen training with blades, it would have led to his teacher forcing him to unlearn a host of bad habits. This way, at least, he was closer to a blank slate and would not need as much grinding and polishing before he was ready to learn Goshung's methods from their beginnings.

His last test was the gu-en.

It wasn't beautiful, not like the others. The staff that found its way to his hand was pocked and pitted, a length of ironwood gone silver with age, as heavy as if it had been true metal. It felt as if it belonged in his hands.

The weapon testing him, a spear with a serrated shark's tooth for a point, struck low. Fushuai caught it and twisted, guiding the attack off to the side, and the spear flew away, sulking. Sword and saber followed, separately and then both at once. Fushuai fended them off, though it cost him ground to do so, and it was becoming difficult to maintain the qi balance that allowed him to stand safely atop the canopy.

This test went on the longest, and the attacks grew more intense. Before, it had seemed that they were only acting as training dummies, countering and expecting to be countered; now, they moved to cut.

His tunic received a few new slits, and droplets of blood stained his left sleeve. Still, he fought on, and even when he had to freeze, the blade of a dao resting against his neck, he felt accomplished.

Goshung, for once, said nothing. Just scratched at his jaw, as if he were trying to remember what praise sounded like.

The silence stretched.

At last, Fushuai asked, "What weapon do you favor?"

Goshung bared his teeth. "These," he said, tapping a fang with the tip of a claw. If there was anyone less in need of such an array of weapons as the Asura kept in his storage space, it was him. "Before I knew for sure, I had mastered the rest."

The weapons withdrew, vanishing back into the folds of nothing from which they had come. His staff disappeared last of all, as if reluctant to leave his hand.

"Enough for tonight," Goshung said. "You are burning through what little reserves of spiritual energy you have. Return to the shrine and carry on as you have been. When dusk comes again, we will train more seriously."

Fushuai nodded and began looking for the best path down.

"Be wary of more chimera."

He turned back to his mentor. "There are more? Where do they come from?"

"A rogue cultivator is living in these mountains with us, and he has chosen the slow death of a corrupted path. I'm sure you will meet him soon enough, especially if you kill more of his pets."

"Will I be strong enough to face him?" Surely, a cultivator who stitched chimeras together from natural beasts would be above the qi refinement stage.

Goshung snorted, and a puff of smoke escaped his nostrils. "Think harder, pretty boy. You're not training to become strong. You're training to survive a story someone else has already written."

"You mean the rogue?"

The Asura did not answer.