Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Tea would have to come after. They assembled on the main street before the pagoda, and Duan Dai made an announcement, his voice echoing among the sandstone alleys from one end of the town to the other.

"Mortals of Sand Orchard. You are privileged to behold a demonstration of the power of the Steel Ribbon Sect. Such an opportunity may not come again in your lifetime."

It was not a technique; the sheer force of his lungs was enough to ensure that he was heard. Faces appeared in doorways and windows, as others gathered along the street, many with tools or other burdens still in hand. Some looked eager, but most were simply afraid. An invitation from an immortal was not something to be lightly refused. Fushuai frowned, trying to gauge what kind of man they were dealing with.

If a crowd had not appeared at his call, would he have punished the townsfolk for the offense? After waiting a few breaths, he seemed satisfied with the audience, pacing down the street for the length of several houses before turning to face Zhang Sha.

"We shall continue until one of us yields, or until I am satisfied by the skill you have demonstrated. Have you prepared yourself?"

Zhang Sha removed his leather jerkin, as well as the tunic underneath, leaving only his trousers and boots. His body was sharply defined, devoid of even an ounce of fat, the muscle marked by thin striations. He appeared both fit and starving. The bracer remained, now on his right arm, concealing the thin scar that encircled his wrist.

Fushuai saw the recovery of his hand as being nothing short of miraculous, but it had not been tested to its fullest yet, and it was difficult to imagine its strength had been completely restored in so short a time.

Losing a limb was a sobering setback, even for cultivators with a talent for surgery.

Duan Dai's smile thinned as he undid the sash supporting his dao and let it fall beside him. With his elegant sect robes and the confidence of his stance, his status was unmistakable. To those who watched, it must have appeared that an immortal was being challenged by a vagabond.

"Then we shall begin."

He flowed forward, his will thrusting ahead of him to clash with Zhang Sha's. Someone along the street cried out, collapsing, caught by the stray edge of their dueling intents. Azure light rose from his skin as he struck, a manifestation of qi powerful enough to be visible to mortal eyes.

Zhang Sha turned his fist aside, and that single exchange was enough to mark the difference in their strength. The other cultivator was ahead of him in foundation formation, though even as Fushuai focused his senses, he could not say exactly how far. Elbow, forearm, knee; the two traded blocks and blows. The impacts of flesh and bone were like drumbeats. Dust rose around their feet, and bricks cracked with the force of their steps.

For a few breaths, the vagabond held back the immortal, and then he bent double from a fist to his gut.

"You're sturdy enough for someone at your level," Duan Dai said casually, hitting him again. "Inferior in every other quality."

Zhang Sha spun away, seeking distance, only to find that he could not escape. He lashed out, illusion disguising the angle of his attacks, unable to do more than brush the other cultivator with his fingers. His legs were swept out from under him, and as he went down, he tapped the other man's side with his palm.

"Impudence!" A swift kick sent Zhang Sha flying before he touched the ground. Commoners scattered as he crashed through the face of a stone building, and the facade crumbled in a tan cloud. He stalked forward, and Fushuai moved in so that they reached the breach together.

"Your victory is clear."

"He is a worm seeking to delay a dragon." His mask of polite cheer had shredded like paper fortunes. "I am not finished with him."

Fushuai was close enough now to see the cause of this reaction. There were marks upon the man's meridians, the work of Ripple Needle Juncture, disrupting the flow of his internal energy. The blockage was not complete, and it was unclear whether Zhang Sha would have been able to paralyze his limbs unless he was simply allowed to do so. But he was clearly taking the attempt seriously.

They stepped through the rubble to find the Hollow Anatomist rising with murder in his eyes. Dream and hunger mingled in a sickly haze. Orbs of varicolored light flickered, and pleading whispers rose from the stones.

"Yield!" Fushuai shouted as sky-blue robes flashed forward. Needles flitted through the air, one deflected, another passing through cloth, two finding their marks.

Duan Dai snarled, his hand clamping around his opponent's throat in a grip that words could not escape. He lifted him off the ground and drew back his fist as Zhang Sha struggled to free himself. His aura faltered as the other's grew, laced with killing intent.

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Fushuai saw his companion's death at hand, and the heat of anger surged, briefer than a ripple in a glass of wine. That heat could not survive the cold that followed, rising from his center in a wave as his spiritual presence expanded to its fullest. He had never truly felt it in himself before, even when he took a life, the killing intent that now issued from his lips, carried by a single word.

"No."

Zhang Sha dropped to the floor, and the victorious cultivator turned. Their gazes collided, and his resolve faltered at whatever he saw in Fushuai's eyes.

"You should teach him not to play such games with his betters." His right hand spasmed, and he tore a needle from his arm, then another from his chest. "I find my blood has grown too hot for a bloodless match. Your friend did not impress me, but you might. We'll have our bout in the evening. Sunset."

That suited Fushuai, who nodded in response. The man hadn't seen him fight, so there was no way for him to know that every inch the sun fell would be to his advantage. Duan Dai tossed the needles, steel winnowed from the carapace of a centipede, at the knees of the man he had defeated.

"You are too broken to be of value to your sect. Take a word of advice from your senior. Turn those tricks on yourself and end your journey before any more resources are wasted on you."

He stepped lightly out of the building, robes swishing, and returned to the pagoda without another word. The others parted for him to pass, and the street was otherwise empty. The commoners had fled as soon as they saw someone kicked through a building. When cultivators stopped holding back, mortals died in droves.

"Are you alright?" Fushuai moved to help him up, and Zhang Sha brushed away his hand.

"Leave me."

"You did well. I fear he is above us both."

"Leave me."

He stepped back. There was hatred in his friend's gaze, but not for him. All that loathing was turned inward. Zhang Sha's gaunt frame was no longer that of a lean predator, now seemingly frail and wan. Fushuai let him be.

If a cultivator chose their fights carefully, they could go a long time without facing someone truly superior. It led to complacency, even delusion. If a decade passed without a challenge, how many challenges could there be in the world? Zhang Sha had accepted him as an equal and an exceptional case. Facing another foundation cultivator alone had revealed how far behind he'd fallen in the years since his deviation. Under normal circumstances, there was no reason for any sacred artist to expect to be able to defeat someone even one step above them. Stepping back into the sunlight, seeing his sisters huddled with Bai Tu half-curved protectively around them, he hoped he was not about to be taught the same lesson.

"Is he wounded?" Lin asked as he approached.

"Yes, though I fear it is his pride that suffered the worst of it. Duan Dai nearly killed him. Our contest is delayed a few more hours."

She clutched her sister's hand, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper. "We could leave. Run while his back is turned."

Fushuai shook his head. He could still sense the other man's aura, and that meant he could sense his as well. The Steel Ribbon disciple wanted this fight, and he would chase them for it. "He gave us his word that he would let us go in peace if I could best him. If I fled after accepting his challenge, he would have every right to come after us with his blade drawn."

Of course, he might draw it anyway. For some cultivators, honor was no more than a tool, something to be picked up as needed and discarded when it no longer served a purpose. Either that or they used words to twist the Jianghu into a mockery that fit whatever scheme suited them best. The duel had been brief, but Fushuai thought he had seen enough to take a measure of Duan Dai. Barely ahead of him in raw cultivation, limited by the rules of engagement, and otherwise unremarkable. He could be beaten. If his assessment proved false, then perhaps it was his own honor that would be tested.

He had no intention of letting this man claim his sister as a prize.

***

Zhang Sha fell inside of himself, retreating into his inner sea. It was a hot, fetid place. A swamp overgrown with twisted trees and shivering fungus, the offspring of his twisted root and a history of failed attempts at pillar establishment. His dantian floated at the heart of it all, spinning slowly. Overlarge and lopsided, as much a tumor as a righteous organ.

How had he done this to himself?

All those techniques, and all of them useless. His illusions were fragile and faulty. His connection to earth and water was no stronger than it had been before he reached foundation formation stage. He knew a dozen bindings, and a dozen variations for each, and not one of them could save him when he was faced with an opponent who was merely as strong as he was supposed to be, appropriate to his advancement. With enough resources and preparation, he might have overwhelmed someone like Duan Dai with a flurry of constructs and talismans. To even consider it was as much as admitting defeat.

Standing beneath his dantian, he imagined tearing it open with his bare hands and waiting to die. It would mean never fulfilling his promise to his sworn brother. What was another stain on his honor now? One more weight on the karmic balance threatening to drag his soul into the hells. Ghosts flicked in and out of existence among the trees. Broken bodies, tortured faces, beast and man alike.

Broken. That was the word the Steel Ribbon scum had used as well, after coming close enough to see the ruin of his internal alchemy.

Turn those tricks on yourself.

It had been nothing more than an insult. And yet, it touched on something deeper. The first insight of his path spoke itself with his voice, loud in this hidden place.

"The dream of hunger is no dream."

Hunger was associated with Yin, the void of an empty belly. The absence within the lungs that draws air in. All his experiments, all his pursuits, whether fruitful or fruitless, had turned upon that idea. What if it was wrong? What if hunger were an active force instead of passive? What if it was creative instead of consumptive?

The five fundamental elements were bound in the generative and controlling cycles, linked in a web of relationships. Wood generated fire, and controlled earth while in turn being controlled by metal and generated by water. Did the rarer elements not exist in similar states of duality? Yin and Yang were in balance with each other. But what controlled hunger? What did it control?

It came to him then, surrounded by the pulse of poison and the whispers of a turbid pool. The new words rose from the water, and hearing them, he set to work weaving pieces of a dozen dozen formations into a single, seamless whole. What would become the first pillar of his soul.

Hunger is the father of dreams.