Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

The four answers hung in the air, drawn from the Ghost Water and given form by Xiao Sheng's will. They floated at the shrine's edge like offerings laid before an altar, each one softly aglow with the palest of blues. Otherwise, they might have been artifacts of blown glass barely visible in the moonlight.

He moved to take the straight sword. It was warm and light in his hand. The moment he pulled, the blade firmed into something more solid, dense enough to strike, fine enough to sing. Motes of silver drifted from it like flower petals shaken loose by the wind.

His master raised one finger and nodded.

Fushuai attacked, and Xiao Sheng received each thrust and slash with the bare pad of his fingertip. Where Fushuai pressed, he flowed. When Fushuai struck, he turned. Their feet tapped the shrine floor in irregular rhythm, quick, then slow.

Next was the dao, somehow as heavy as if it had been formed of steel instead of a single droplet of spirit water. Fushuai advanced with wide arcs and bold steps. The sabre struck a column as it was diverted, leaving behind a scar. Xiao's finger curved along the back of the blade and slipped away, redirecting without force.

Then the qiang, a spear that echoed Suntooth. The haft was familiar, the balance exact. His energy surged with each lunge, reliving the hunts of recent days.

Xiao Sheng let it pass by him, deflecting with the heel of his palm, a twist of the wrist, a half-step backward that left no opening.

At last, the gu-en: a simple staff, taller than he was. Fushuai spun it once, grounding his stance. This weapon did not lead him into battle. It anchored him. The staff circled, swept, and blocked as naturally as if he had been born to it, but the finger still met every blow.

The ghostly weapons did not lose their shape, but particles peeled with each collision, and the shrine grew dimmer with each round. Xiao Sheng signalled that they were finished.

"Well," he said, "you've not embarrassed yourself." He turned his palm up, examining the faint glow that clung to his fingertip. "Which, given your lack of experience, is something of a miracle. You moved better with the gu-en than I expected. Your spearwork was precise, your jian work, less so. But I must ask, what style did you believe yourself to be practicing just now?"

Fushuai felt his cheeks redden. He let go of the staff, and it floated obediently back to its counterparts. "No style in particular."

Xiao circled him slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "You do not strike like a swordsman, nor sweep like a spearman. And yet you parried with rhythm, your feet knew their place, and your breath did not falter. Goshung has instructed you in the fundamentals. But whose fundamentals are they?"

He came to a halt and turned sharply.

"There are two kinds of strength in martial cultivation. The first is hard, like hammer on stone. Straightforward, sometimes brutish. The second is soft. Yielding. Like wind through trees or water against a cliff. It bends, it absorbs, it finds a way. I have learned hundreds of styles. Dozens of schools, rival doctrines, animal paths, and sword forms that were once considered lost. And what I tell you now is this: mastery is not the goal. Survival is. There's too much of Goshung in your method. Softness is not weakness. It is survival for those not born as giants."

He let his hands fall. The night settled around them, and the light of the moon picked out the lines of his face, worn and calm.

"Show me Wild Crane Crosses the Marsh."

He had seen that routine perhaps twice. Sweeping and graceful, and likely with a long history, though the Asura had never given him much in the way of context in his demonstrations.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The motions came back to him only faintly. One hand outstretched, the other trailing behind. A rising arc followed by a pivot. When he completed the final flourish, Xiao Sheng was watching with his brow faintly raised, saying nothing.

Fushuai exhaled and lowered his arms.

"I wasn't taught that form," he admitted. "Only how to recognize it."

Xiao narrowed his eyes. "What did he teach you?"

"Asura Mah Goshung instructed me not to adhere to any one style. He wants me to recognize them in others, not to use them myself."

"Why?"

"He said forms become habits. And habits become weakness."

Xiao Sheng covered his face with one hand and drew in a slow breath, uttering a comment that was surely only for himself. "The mad dog teaches by biting."

He stood there a moment longer, fingers at his brow. Then he let the hand fall and gave a weary nod.

"Very well. I chose Goshung as your martial tutor, and a man with two masters shall forever be torn between them. Continue with his method. I insist that you should one day dedicate a few decades to practicing at least three true forms. This formless method will suffice for now."

Fushuai hesitated. The question on his tongue had not been invited, and yet, it was something he had wondered since this journey began.

"Forgive my ignorance, but why is Mah Goshung my martial tutor? You are the Living Sword. If I am meant to carry your legacy, shouldn't it be your methods that I am learning?"

His master shook his head. "In the age since cultivators began speaking my name in hushed tones, there has been no shortage of prospective disciples who came pledging to inscribe my every word and gesture into the fabric of their souls. My legacy is not the Spiritual Sword Path. There are others who walked it before me. Instead, what I seek to impart is…perspective. And that is something we shall discuss fully when you have seen more of the world for yourself. A mere puppet or worshipper is not what I seek in a disciple.

"Until then, the purpose of your training is to provide you with the opportunity to develop as fruitfully as possible. Goshung is executing his duty according to my intention, even if his methods are not those I would have chosen were I teaching you the sword myself." His hand cut to one side. "Now, begin again."

They proceeded as before, with Fushuai cycling through the four answers as they circled the clearing before the shrine. He did his best to focus on the task at hand, but his master's words were replaying in his mind. Xiao Sheng didn't want him to take up the mantle of the Living Blade; he wanted to share something deeper. His insight. But insight was an intensely personal concept for a cultivator; the steps of the stair they climbed to ascend in their Path. How his master's perspective could be divorced from the Spiritual Sword, he did not know.

"Enough." Xiao Sheng called for an end to the practice, and the ghostly weapons returned to their floating vigil. "You must choose. One answer to carry into your foundation."

Fushuai found himself conflicted. The jian was the most obvious choice, being the most traditional cultivator weapon as well as the one favored by his master. He eliminated the dao. It did not suit his developing personal style. It was a weapon for someone like brother Chen.

Suntooth had served him well. Spears could be used much as a staff was, and unlike the gu-en, they did not lack for a point. And yet, he still preferred the staff. They were deadly weapons in their own right, but they did not bring with them the inherent violence of an edge. He had trouble thinking of a warrior, famous or otherwise, who had chosen one as their primary weapon.

He hesitated.

Xiao Sheng cleared his throat.

"Once," he said, "there was a woodcutter who roamed the forest with an axe in hand, looking for the perfect tree. He passed pine, elm, juniper, even bamboo. None of them would do. One had knots. Another leaned too far. Another smelled wrong, or was too stunted by shade. He spent so long searching that by the time the sun fell, he had nothing to burn."

Fushuai frowned.

"Did he ever find it?"

"He froze to death." Xiao Sheng's voice was flat. "Do not mistake contemplation for wisdom. You will forge many weapons before your path is done. The first step is only a step. Choose your answer."

He reached for the staff, and all four of the phantom weapons dissolved into mist.

"Excellent," his master clapped his hands sharply, much as he had done at the Gao family table half a year ago. "We shall—" His words cut off as he looked to the sky.

There was a light there, a streak of silver torn from the heavens that quickly vanished behind a distant ridge.

A moment later, the sound came, drumbeat deep and distant, a god knocking on the lid of the world. One of the high peaks shuddered, cracked, and folded in on itself. The entire summit sheared off and slid downward in slow motion, collapsing into a storm of dust and stone. Clouds twisted above it, dyed red with stirred earth.

Fushuai gaped as the thunder of the collapse rolled over them.

"How troublesome," Xiao Sheng said. "I believe that was our dear Goshung."