NOVEL NEXT Bk 5 Ch 28: The Smith
While they remained at the oasis, refilling their cores and preparing for further travel, Joshi sent Magen to scout. Chang-li was working under the assumption that the character for "West" they had received from the guardian at this oasis indicated there might be three more guardians: in the East, the North, and the South.
Sure enough, Magen came back and reported finding two more oases. one to their southeast, one to their northeast. There was no sign of either guardian. The center of the floor was a whirling orange sandstorm. Magen had steered well clear of that, and it explained why, when Chang-li looked in that direction, the orange seemed cloudy and confused.
All of them were aware of the pressure pushing them forward. There was no telling when Eri's minions might gain access to the tower and begin climbing it themselves in an attempt to seize control. They needed to stay ahead and to reach the top floor in time. Chang-li could only hope General Li knew what he was doing.
The four set off again, refreshed in body and soul. Chang-li had crafted more technique scrolls. He'd thought long and hard and developed a Bloodflame Venom variant that Min could weave into her lux bow, thus imbuing each arrow she shot with just a hint of the venom. That should pack a nice punch, he hoped. Min accepted the scrolls from him, and after she'd used the first, said she thought she saw how it was done, and she'd try to weave the technique into her bow permanently.
Chang-li was pleased with the progress both of the women were making. Min wore her blindfold with confidence, striding across the orange atmosphere and constantly cycling Purification of Mind and Soul to steel her body against the invasive orange lux. Most of her shots now hit the target, and as they were attacked along the way by more groups of sentient weapons, Min was almost always the first to get a kill.
Hiroko seemed quiet and indrawn, though now she had a full core of lux. She wasn't shaking anymore. Instead, she focused on giving Joshi an enhancement similar to what Noren had taught her back at the Riceflower Tower when they had practiced against the ground pigs. With her light touch on him, Joshi's punches were enough to crack the orange lux pillars, and very few of their opponents could withstand more than one.
As they neared the southern oasis, Chang-li sensed the presence of more red and blue lux escaping from its boundaries than they had noticed at the western oasis. His senses alert, he was the first to notice when a new form of attacker arrived.
They were humanoid and resembled the protector of the last oasis. Thin, featureless creatures, their bodies sheathed in plates of orange lux, wielding weapons hewn from the pillars all around. They moved silently, slipping along like leaves dancing in the wind. Chang-li pointed them out as he readied a Firepot.
As the group of five approached them openly. Chang-li hurled the Firepot into their midst. It blew up, knocking two of them back, but the creatures got to their feet and kept on.
Joshi and Chang-li went to meet them. By the time they reached the five, Min had feathered arrows into one, and it flopped to the ground. Interestingly, its body remained, though the sheath of lux coating it dissolved away. Chang-li and Joshi dispatched the others quickly, Chang-li quietly prideful that he took out his two in only a fraction of a moment longer than what it took Joshi.
The four examined the bodies of the fallen.
"It's like the tower couldn't be bothered to do anything with them," Min said, prodding one with her foot.
They were solid creatures, their bodies denser than their movement had suggested, but without lux they looked like empty shells. Hiroko didn't seem to care for them at all. She shuddered as she stared down at them. "There's nothing spiritual in them. These are no more real than the blades we fought before. They're… twisted."
"Twisted Bladeborn?" Joshi offered.
No one suggested trying their meat, though they were likely dense with lux. Eating the meat of tower beasts was one good way to promote progression, but there were lines Chang-li had no interest in crossing.
The four continued on, fending off attacks from the weapons and the Twisted Bladeborn, and sometimes a combination of both. Chang-li's suspicion was confirmed when he spotted one Twisted Bladeborn seizing a flying weapon as it approached their group, then hacking about with it.
At last, they approached the next oasis. This one didn't have quite so much blue and green, though those colors were definitely present. Instead, it was a simple spring welling up out of the orange desert all around, with a few stands of trees surrounding a small building set beside the spring.
The protector emerged from the building as they approached. This one was almost human-looking. He was too tall. He had hair and a bushy beard like nothing Chang-li had ever seen before. The beard was a dark reddish color. His clothes were strange: heavy trousers gathered up just below the knee and a tunic in an unfamiliar style.
He had a hammer in his hand. Behind him, Chang-li could now see that the building was an open-sided shelter. Inside stood a forge with an anvil and racks and racks of weapons.
The man stood in front of the smithy, his left hand on his hip, right hand holding the hammer, as they approached. Then he turned, slammed his hammer hard into a sheet of metal standing outside his smithy.
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The sound of the gong rang in Chang-li's ears. The racks of weapons stirred. Dozens of swords, knives, and axes flew up into the air, then came to surround the man in a cloud, points and blades facing toward Chang-li and his friends.
The man pointed at them, and a wave of weapons shot forward.
Chang-li sprang out ahead of the others. He raised his hands and forced his will outward, hardening it, using the better sense he had gained while swimming in the oasis pool. His will was a shield to protect the ones he cared about.
The wave of weapons hit his shield. About half of them dropped to the ground, the rest punching through. Chang-li instantly reformed his will again, closer to him, harder than before. This time, another half of the weapons dropped, leaving a couple of dozen still headed his way.
Joshi shouted and flung out a handful of Binding Chains, thin cords of blue and orange lux that wrapped around the hilts of six of the weapons, then flailed them about, smashing them into some of their fellows.
Min's bow twanged.
A single blade made it past them, straight at Hiroko. She stood there as though she couldn't see it coming.
Chang-li shouted.
She didn't budge.
He raced toward her, but too late. The blade hit her, and then he blinked , because she was actually standing two feet to the side of where she had been, and the blade had passed through to hit the ground behind her, harmlessly.
Hiroko smiled, holding her hands across her chest. "Let's see what else I can do. There's enough blue lux in the air," she mused.
Chang-li turned back. The smith appeared to be readying another bout. "No use having him do all the fun. Earthshaker!" Chang-li shouted, and tossed a scroll to Joshi, who leapt forward.
His Meteor Punch crashed into the ground in front of the smith. It knocked several of the weapons out of the air. Then he unleashed the Earthshaker. Most of the smith's weapons were caught in the cone and destroyed.
Now the smith looked angry. "How dare you destroy my work!" he shouted.
Chang-li was surprised at this display of intelligence from a protector. He'd met a few creatures inside of towers who seemed to be able to think and speak for themselves — the sphinx who had given them the clue to unlocking Broken Moon Tower's secret, the dragon he had met at Riceflower. This guardian didn't seem anything like as developed as either of those.
The smith ran to his forge. He slammed his hammer down against the anvil, sending out a shower of sparks. The sparks hung in the air. Orange lux coalesced around each of them, forming throwing stars with a core of red at the center of each. They flew forward, but Chang-li was already there, his will knocking them down.
This protector would have to come up with a better trick than this to defeat them.
He felt vaguely disappointed. General Li had said these would be appropriate fights for Peak of Spiritual Refinement cultivators. He wasn't much challenged here. On the other hand, it was absolutely perfect training for Min and Hiroko. Perhaps the tower was balancing between them. If they'd left the women behind, he and Joshi might have had more of a challenge. He immediately felt guilty, even for thinking that. "Let's end this!" he shouted to Joshi.
Hiroko's boon enveloped Joshi. He seemed to gain an inch of height and ripples of muscle as he formed gauntlets around both his hands with lux spikes protruding from each.
Chang-li might have only his blade and his scrolls, but he wasn't going to let his friend have all the fun.
Together they raced inward, and the smith leapt away from his forge. He snatched up a red-hot poker from the embers burning there and met them, hammer in one hand, poker in the other.
Chang-li parried his poker with the Liar's Blade. Heat from the poker stole up his arm, as Liar's Blade absorbed it and began to glow red hot.
Joshi caught the hammer between his two gauntleted fists and squeezed. The weapon shattered, sending pieces of debris back into the smith's face.
The smith ducked away. Chang-li pulled his sword free, swung it again, and sliced the protector's left hand clean off. Hand and poker tumbled to the ground.
Chang-li stepped back. Joshi lowered his shoulder and delivered a body blow to the smith, knocking him back into his own forge. The embers flared up. The protector screamed.
Flames enveloped him and smoke obscured Chang-li's vision. A stiff breeze blew the smoke away, and a moment later all that remained of the protector was a pile of ash on a smoldering hearth.
Chang-li sheathed Liar's Blade and caught his breath as the women approached. Joshi stooped over the pile of ash and sifted through it, using his lux gauntlets to protect him from the heat.
Joshi plucked out another signet. As they had expected, it read "South." Joshi stowed it along with the first. "Let's take a look around."
Min interrupted him. She was grinning. "I did it!" she proclaimed. "I passed the Veil of Sight."
Chang-li was impressed. He'd known she was close, but it had been so little time since she'd reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement, to have made the first step toward Peak of Mental Refinement was quite a feat. "Well done," he said.
"Why don't we check out the building, see if there's anything worth looting," Joshi said to Hiroko, and the two disappeared inside.
Chang-li put his arms on Min's shoulder and pulled her close. They kissed, a short but passionate embrace. Min pulled back, her eyes sparkling. "See? I told you I needed to come with you if I was to keep up."
"I knew you could," he assured her. "But I'm so pleased."
"What's next?" she demanded.
Chang-li leaned in and kissed her again. Then said, "After the Veil of Sight is Veil of Touch. Then, of course, the Veil of Heart. And that's different for everyone."
He sketched out quickly how he had passed that himself, and she nodded determinedly.
"I'm going to reach the Peak of Mental Refinement before we leave this tower," she pledged.
Chang-li was torn between telling her to temper her expectations, but decided instead that there was no need for that. Min knew her limitations and would do what needed to be done.
"I think you can," he said to her seriously. "Now that you've really got time to devote to cultivation and not to everything else, you're doing better than I think either of us had hoped."
He was beginning to see that what he had before taken for a lack of natural talent at cultivation was actually Min's focus being torn between dozens of different things at once. When she was Min of the Oaken Band, and Min granddaughter of a politician, and Min cultivation spouse, and Min the schemer, there wasn't a whole lot of space left for Min the cultivator, after all.
Here, when there was nothing else to take her focus, she was truly beginning to shine. He would have to make sure that he gave her everything she needed to achieve her goals.
Chang-li leaned forward and put his arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. "Come on," he said. "Let's go see if the others have found anything."