Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Fushuai saw his dantian, a net floating above an inner sea. Recently expanded, it was not as tightly bound as it might have otherwise been, but he recognized that a bit of looseness was necessary if he intended to stretch it again. Meridian expansion was a never-ending pursuit, his master had insisted, so why should the dantian be any different? Wherever a traveler reached a peak along the Golden Road, that did not mean he had reached its end. The benefit of a peak was that it offered an excellent position to view the next one. Before he improved it, however, it needed to be anchored.

Such was the purpose of the pillars: to provide a framework within which the dantian could safely grow, setting the stage for the eventual development of a core.

His inner sea was shallow, barely rising above his sandals as he walked to what would be the first corner of his foundation. Then he turned over the tooth in his hands and thrust it into the bed of his soul.

The act was accompanied by a sting like the bite of a sword in his gut, and the sensation launched him out of his meditation. He staggered back, one hand to his abdomen, once again within the confines of the wide tunnel before the buried palace, then sucked in air as if he had never tasted it before.

Bai Tu was sitting a few paces in front of him, a jian at his feet. Its pommel was scorched, but the blade was unmarred. As bright as if it had been polished that morning. The fox yipped, circled, and sniffed at his hands.

"Hello, friend," he said, running a hand through thick gray fur. The fox's shoulder came nearly to the base of his ribcage. "Have you been waiting for me?"

"We all were." Zhang Sha got up from where he had been resting against the far wall. His right arm was in a sling. Lin wasn't far off, and her relief was palpable when she spoke.

"It's been hours," she said. "I don't know how you kept the flame burning for so long. It should have hollowed you out in minutes."

"I don't think I was the one keeping it burning." He flexed his hands, which felt cold, and looked for the remains of his opponent. His last-ditch effort to call upon a technique not wholly his own had obviously succeeded, but she still could have survived. All he saw of Han Luo now was her sword, and the belt and sheathe beside it, both damaged. The rest was ashes scattered across the road.

"Who, then, boy wonder?"

"At first, I thought it was Yanjin." He looked for the pieces of his gu-en and retrieved them from where they had dropped or rolled. "There were similarities. But that demon would have spoken to me, I think. If it was the goddess, she chose to appear in a very different form than I remember. A being appeared within the blackflame, and they shared the technique with me. That is all I know."

The teeth and the purple lanterns of its eyes had suggested it was a dragon, but it hadn't revealed enough of itself to make that claim. And in any case, as preoccupied by Xiao Sheng's vision as he had been, he was liable to see dragons everywhere he looked.

"Your first pillar," Zhang Sha's tone bordered on resigned. "You've established it then. Was it something in the manual that helped you?"

He shook his head. "There is much to be learned from the scroll, but its knowledge will have to be pursued with caution."

"Why?"

"Wait," Lin was squinting. "What did you say about a goddess? What goddess?"

"Hah. Your brother didn't tell you about his divine babysitter? I thought we'd mentioned it."

"I don't know much." Had he truly not shared it with her? It wasn't that he had intended to keep the relationship, if it could be termed that, a secret from his companions. Perhaps he was too accustomed to silence. "In Coughing Valley, when I was confronted by Yanjin, he pulled back, saying that I had already been claimed by another. It was the same spirit I saw when I first entered qi refinement, in the shrine where I completed most of my training on Lonely Mountain. Without a face or a name, at least not one that has been given to me. She has a strong connection to Yin, and she must have been important once. There was another statue of her higher in the mountain."

"How many immortals do you know?" Her voice veered upward in pitch. "Xiao Sheng, an Asura, this goddess? Some kind of demon prince spoke to you when you reached foundation? Are there any more you haven't mentioned?"

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"Ah." Fushuai scratched the side of his head, suddenly uncomfortable. "The manual my master left me. It's not a written record so much as a vessel for at least part of the spirit of a nascent soul cultivator he defeated long ago. Xie Gui."

Her mouth dropped open.

"See?" Zhang Sha said. "It's not fair, is it? Some people are just chosen. That's why it couldn't have been me who met the Emperor."

"You who what?" Fushuai asked.

"I'll tell you the story, but I would rather be gone from this place sooner than later."

Ao Lao's body was resting at the base of the stairs, wrapped in a spare robe. Fushuai carried him as they made their way out. It seemed only right.

He was interested to learn more about Zhang Sha's past, and the mystery of his sister was at least resolved. Though he had still been a youth himself, he had seen it as his duty to protect her and their family, and that failure had haunted him ever since. It did not explain everything he had done, but that first small twist may have been what set him on a path of deviation. Guilt, left to fester until his spirit became sick. Then, when a fellow disciple poisoned him in a duel, that curse had found rich soil to take root in.

They did not speak of it on their way up, but Fushuai knew that if his companion had not stepped in front of Lin, he would have had two bodies to carry out of these ruins instead of one.

Dry badlands air reached their nostrils as they climbed out of the excavation site. Zhang Sha had gone ahead of them to learn if there had been any more hunters waiting, but it appeared that Han Luo truly had come alone. Leaving the ruins, they did see a cultivator wearing the emblem of the Emerald Adders, but he was not hiding in ambush. The man kept his distance, bowed slightly in acknowledgement, and moved to return to the city. Huashe Tianzu's words held true.

There were ten li between them and any landmarks outside of the ruins, but Fushuai did not want to leave Ao Lao there. A ring of spindle trees offered a modicum of shade when they stopped to lay him to rest. Zhang Sha raised a bed of sandstone to place him on before he was burned, then they sent his smoke into the sky.

Lin offered a brief, traditional prayer.

"From gold to jade, the soul ascends and greets the cycle of the wheel. From life, to death, to life again. Farewell, and fortune, to your next beginning."

Fushuai's eyes followed the smoke to a clear blue sky and wondered if there were any eyes upon them now, or any ears to hear. Was his master listening? He wished he had thought to ask what happened to Goshung, or had any idea how or when they might speak again. He had spent less than a year on the mountain, and still, it had changed his way of thinking. Not for the better.

He'd become too accustomed to the idea of having immortals standing behind him. Whatever challenge was ahead, at least the challenges of the earthly realm, he felt that he could face them. Even when he'd acted rashly, he'd been able to overcome, seeking greater and greater difficultly, and growing every time. But others did not live such charmed lives.

"Lin..."

"Pardon?"

"We should part ways."

She blinked. "What? Here? Now? You have the manual. There is so much to learn. That is why I came."

His gaze was still on the smoke. "You will die if you follow me. A decan and a day, a month, a year. There will come a moment when I have taken too great a risk, and it will be you who pays for it. We have treasures to help you, and you're more than skilled enough to make it back to Sand Orchard on your own, if you are careful."

"But you have been teaching me. I have nearly mastered the water threading technique we discussed. Here. Look. I have your rock." She reached into her pack to produce the stone he had given her to carry, its granite surface marked with thin, neat grooves.

"You are dedicated," Fushuai said, "and smarter than I will ever be. But the Living Blade is not here to teach you, and I am no replacement. With what we have now, we might be able to force your advancement through qi refinement, but it would hurt you in the long run. Your root is not like mine."

She threw the stone to the ground at his feet. "You aren't even giving me a chance!"

Bai Tu, aware of their disagreement and seemingly unsure of who to side with, barked once at them both. Zhang Sha shifted away from the oversized fox and around the sandstone bed. "A lot could lie in wait between here and there. It would be safer if she were with us a little longer."

"I can grow stronger," Lin pleaded. "I'm not—" her gaze flicked to the remains beside them, now mostly blackened bones. "It won't happen to me."

Fushuai sighed. Gao Ligang had refused to support him. Though he understood now why he had done so, he felt that outright forbidding her to follow was still too close to forbidding her from finding her own path.

"I will issue you a challenge. We go back to Sand Orchard together, and I support your advancement in any way I can, short of encouraging a deviation. However, if you have not attained qi manifestation by the time we arrive, you must agree now that you will not try to follow me when I leave."

Her face set. "I will do it. I swear that I will."

"Well," Zhang Sha said. "If we are talking about advancement. Let's take the time to sort through everything we brought out of the ruins. Once we know what resources we have, we can chart a course for all three of us."

Bai Tu bumped his hip.

"Fine. Four of us." He adjusted his sling. "Fushuai, you need to decide what your plans are for this beast before it learns to speak."

Fushuai looked back toward the ruins, now largely hidden behind a veil of sunlight and dust. What they had done for Ao Lao seemed too little, but he did not know what else to say.

"I want to get farther away from here. Then we take stock. The Adders could always change their minds."

"Hah. Now you're thinking like a cultivator."