Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

The spear pulled with an intent of its own, so eager it nearly leapt from his hands. Fushuai shifted his grip and felt the warmth of the wood as if it had been resting in the sun. He didn't know its history or why the Asura had chosen it for him, just that it had nearly skewered him on arrival.

Up the slope, the ghost fox padded soundlessly sideways, tail sweeping low, and its outline blurred with the colors of the landscape.

Fushuai dropped into a half-remembered stance, leveling the pale spear tip with the creature's face. The fox took that as its sign. It flashed across and around, one moment distant, the next with its jaws snapping inches from his eyes.

He wasn't sure whether it was instinct or the will of the spear itself that brought it around in defense. Metal rang against fangs, and the haft shuddered in his palms. Fushuai spun, drove the spear low, missed, and recovered. The fox veered, coiled, and came again.

His master and the Asura watched him struggle, barely avoiding being taken to the ground and gutted by its claws. He couldn't spare a thought or a word for them, survival required his complete focus. He had never struck to kill, but the spear slipped under its jaw and caught soft tissue. He twisted and the fox buckled, breath steaming from its nostrils, then fell with its legs twitching. Fushuai stood over it, his chest heaving. The spear shook in his hands.

The fox was still alive. It watched him, one eye half-lidded, the other still bright. Blood pooled at its throat. Its body was long and beautiful, fur like rippling snow, with bones sharp beneath it. Now that he had time to look, the beast seemed either starved or sick.

He knew he should finish it, but his arms wouldn't move.

"It attacked us," he said, to no one.

"Then kill it," Goshung called from behind. "Unless you want to wait until it remembers its spine."

Fushuai gritted his teeth. The fox couldn't plead. It had only fought and lost.

And it was still beautiful. He had never taken part in a beast hunt. Such things were reserved for true cultivators.

"Will you weep?" Goshung's rumble grew closer. "Compose a song for its passing? Will that soothe your aching heart, oh kind young master?"

Fushuai's jaw tightened, and the final blow sank in cleanly. He stood there, arm slack, until Xiao Sheng's voice came from further up the trail.

"Leave it for the scavengers. It was pure body stage, it isn't worth keeping."

The spear whipped from his hand, returning to whatever void it had appeared from, and the Asura glared at him.

"Gather your stones."

At midday, the path led them to a river rushing between two steep banks. Xiao Sheng halted on a flat outcrop, arms folded, his gaze sweeping the near side.

"There," he said at last, pointing to a cluster of rocks where something green and gold winked between sprays of mist. "Heaven-Draw Flower. Bring me three, whole and undamaged."

Fushuai followed his master's gaze. The flowers rose from between slick stones just above the waterline, their petals trembling in the wind. They were already so far into the wild that treasures grew freely.

He inclined his head and stepped carefully toward the edge, his breath shallow.

"What should I do with my rocks?"

It was the devil who answered. "Keep them, pretty boy. You have a body reborn, don't you? Can't you carry a few stones with one arm?"

The Asura gave a low laugh and leapt across the river in a single, showy bound. "I'll be here to collect your body," he said cheerfully. "If the pike doesn't claim it."

Fushuai took a quick inventory of his burden and rearranged the stones as best he could. Then his focus narrowed to the path ahead: slick rock, wind-lashed spray, and flowers so close to the river he would feel the cold mist on his face when he plucked them.

The ground shifted underfoot. He remembered to breathe as Xiao had instructed, a timed rhythm, but faltered when he caught sight of a shadow moving in the water. A pike? It was larger than a man.

From the far bank, the Asura lounged. He crouched on his haunches beside the roots of a pine, chewing a stalk of grass as Fushai collected the first flower.

"You missed one," he called, pointing to a yellow blur. "Perhaps if you trembled less, you'd get it on the first try."

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A stick sailed across the river and clattered near Fushuai's foot. He flinched.

"Constant vigilance," Goshung said, amusing himself.

Fushuai gritted his teeth and stepped again. The next stone shifted beneath him. Too late to adjust and unbalanced by his rock pile, he plunged knee-deep into the river. The cold was a slap and for a moment he stood frozen, the current pulling at him with a firmer grip than it had any right to.

That shadow approached.

He staggered back onto the bank, soaked through and struggling to retain his breathing method. His hands shook, but he had relinquished neither flower nor stones. The bloom, though, was crushed. Its silken petals were bruised, and its golden pollen lost to the water. The river monster splashed its tail in disappointment.

"You'll want to wring out your slippers! Cold toes make bad anchors."

It took him nearly half an hour to gather three intact blossoms, and the prize he returned with was so modest it could have fit in a teacup. He did not expect praise, nor receive it.

What am I doing here?

The thought came unbidden. Shame followed close behind, as sour as the tongue-numbing bitterness of the silverleaf. The true journey had not yet begun, and already he was flagging. He felt clumsy, weak, and useless. Walking beside living gods.

Once, he had dreamed of greatness. Not out of arrogance, but out of longing, to rise above the dust of his wasted years and become someone whose presence made the world less heavy. But the reality Gao Ligang had impressed on him was hard to shake: he was not born of fire or wind, not chosen by fate. He had a coward's heart. When he had seen them fighting, he'd sworn to become as strong as they were, stronger. Now that seemed like a child's fantasy.

He'd barely been able to kill a fox, and picking flowers by the riverside had proved a struggle.

That evening, rain came sudden and heavy. Unusually, Xiao Sheng led them to cover instead of suffering through it. A shallow gray overhang, half-sheltered by leaning trees. Rain fell in silver spears from the lip, and Fushuai's fingers barely worked well enough to bully a fire into existence. Mah Goshung could have done it with a glance, whereas he made do with flint and sticks.

He made congee with rice and wild greens and meat provided by the Asura, Fushuai did not ask after its origins, stirring slowly while one elder dried his hooves and the other meditated. The herbs he'd gathered had vanished into his master's sleeve the moment he returned.

The porridge was thin and bland, but the meat was rich, succulent despite his lack of skill. A few bites made his stomach feel full to bursting. Afterward, Fushuai sat near the meager flame, chewing a wad of silverleaf. The herb truly was a gift, it allowed him to cycle more smoothly, loosening the mud in his meridians.

He stared into the flames, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the fire had burned low. Only a few glowing embers remained, stubbornly holding out against the pressure of the dark.

His shoulders sagged. Beside him, a wolf slept, massive, and black as a shadow made flesh. Xiao Sheng was sitting cross-legged atop the overhang, still and silent as a sword plunged into the earth. His hair, unbound, stirred faintly in the wind.

Fushuai stared upward at the silhouette of his master against the stars and sighed. He climbed to the ledge and settled beside Xiao Sheng, knees drawn in tight. His damp, thinning tunic clung to his back. These were the same clothes he had left home with, and he had only been able to wash them as often as he had himself, far less frequently than he would have preferred.

The sky above was vast.

He followed each breath like a bead on a string, letting the world fall away. The throb of his muscles dulled to a distant ache. The chill in his fingers became something he could observe, not something he had to resist.

His thoughts quieted. Not entirely, but enough. And in the silence that followed, he noticed something strange. The world was not empty.

Breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, something shifted. The silence had texture. The air pressed gently against his skin. The breeze curled with intent. A distant owl called, the sound unnaturally near.

The world was breathing, and, for one fragile moment, he was breathing with it.

He dared not move, and still it slipped away. The cold returned. His fingers ached again.

Xiao Sheng opened one eye.

"It is too early for you to read the world outside of you," the Living Blade said. "Look within instead. Follow the channels and their flow back to a source."

His eye closed again, the lesson finished. Fushuai bowed his head. He understood the words. He had studied the diagrams in his father's library, traced meridian paths with a child's brush. He knew the channels by name, the elemental cycles by heart.

But knowing a thing was not the same as touching it.

He turned his awareness inward, seeking the circuit he had memorized, base of the spine to the crown of head and down again. Lateral lines around his waist. Branches through his limbs.

Something flickered. A pull, distant and faint, like a plucked string far beneath the surface. He reached for it.

And it fled.

Again, he searched. Again, it vanished. The more he reached, the further it slipped. His breath broke rhythm. Doubt surged.

He had never tested his roots. He might have none. They might be mixed, or worse, twisted. A leaky vessel, doomed from birth.

"Enough rest."

Xiao Sheng stood, the stars paling behind him. His silhouette cut clean against the sky.

"If we walk through the night," he said, "we will reach our destination by morning."

Fushuai shook himself. He may not have been chosen by the heavens, but he had been chosen by Xiao Sheng. That had to mean something. There was no reason to lose heart after barely a week of travel. Cultivation was a mountain without end, and if he gave up now, then he wouldn't deserve to reach its first peak. The real training was about to begin.