Of Hunters and Immortals

The challenge at the halls of healing was far from the last. Jiang didn't know how he'd managed to piss so many people off, but clearly he'd done something.

He couldn't shake the feeling that it was… organised, somehow. During the entrance exams, people had been challenging him to duels because they thought he was a coward for his initial refusal – either wanting to beat someone up so their 'honour' would be appeased or just hoping for an easy target to make them look better.

It was annoying, sure, but not the end of the world. He'd take his lumps for a while, the aspirant would swagger off feeling good about themselves, he'd dust himself off and get back to cultivating.

Now, though, he couldn't get so much as a moment to himself. There were disciples waiting for him after the morning lessons, at the job hall, outside his quarters. Half of them were people he'd never even seen before – and some of them had clearly been disciples for quite some time, which meant it was unlikely he'd personally offended them.

So why did everyone suddenly decide it was 'Pick on Jiang' week?

The worst part of it was that Yiaolin had informed him that, contrary to what he'd assumed, healing was not actually free. The Sect offered it for free for the duration of the entrance exams – mostly because otherwise it would be too easy for aspirants to sabotage each other by forcing someone to repeatedly pay for healing – but that wasn't the case for full disciples.

It made sense, really. The ingredients for the poultices or elixirs or whatever couldn't be free, to say nothing of the expertise required to actually turn them into medicine. The Qi healing stuff Yiaolin did technically might not have cost her anything either – except that she doubtlessly had better things to do than take care of every disciple with a skinned knee.

She'd been nice enough to heal him from the aftermath of Li Xuan's 'lesson' without charging him, but had informed him that it was the last freebie he was getting.

Fair enough.

Unfortunately, that meant he was in serious danger of running out of contribution points entirely due to the amount of duels he was being forced into accepting. Granted, contribution points weren't essential anymore – the Sect provided basic food and accommodation for free – but he also wouldn't be able to afford any cultivation resources either.

Jiang paused, looking down at the broom in his hand and pretending he didn't see the disciple waiting to challenge him as soon as he finished his assigned task.

Did he actually need cultivation resources?

Certainly, they would help – at least, presumably. There had to be some reason everyone wanted them, after all, but really… he hadn't needed to use an elixir or anything to break into the second stage.

Sure, cultivation was already getting noticeably slower – it felt like the impurities in his pathways were somehow more resistant to his Qi – but he'd still made some decent progress in the week-and-a-half since he'd passed the exams. And that was with his schedule suddenly becoming busier, now that he wasn't able to skip the morning lessons or pick his own tasks.

Also, admittedly, he… may have slacked off a little with the whole cultivation thing. It wasn't that he let it fall by the wayside completely; it was just… well, learning to fight – properly fight – seemed like it would do him more good than being slightly faster or stronger. And he was making progress, too – he still hadn't won a single fight, but they weren't the one-sided beatdowns they'd started off as.

Still… maybe it was time to focus a little more on his cultivation again. If nothing else, it would reduce the number of duels he was forced into – cultivation time was almost sacred in the Sect. Nobody interrupted a cultivator meditating unless it was really, really urgent.

Jiang nodded to himself. That was a plan, at least. And maybe it was time that he started getting a little sneakier, as well. He might not be able to refuse a challenge to a duel, but that didn't mean he had to make it easy on them. It wasn't refusing if they couldn't find him, after all.

With a sigh, he leaned his broom gently against the wall and turned to the waiting disciple.

"Outer Disciple Jiang, I challenge you—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's just get this over with."

— — —

Jiang slipped down the side corridor behind the mess hall, keeping his steps quiet. He'd spotted the disciple waiting by the main entrance two minutes ago, arms folded like a statue and eyes scanning every passing figure. He didn't recognise him—tall, clean robes, smug expression—but that didn't matter anymore. Recognition wasn't a requirement. Half the Sect seemed happy to take a swing just because someone else had.

Really, though, not even letting him eat breakfast before challenging him? Was nothing sacred?

Fortunately for him, the cultivators seemed to have something of a blind spot when it came to the servants – no one had thought to check the back entrance into the kitchens. Admittedly, it was a trifle awkward squeezing past the cooks, who didn't seem to know how to react to the sudden cultivator intrusion into their domain, but if it got him his morning porridge without having to fight someone first, he would put up with it.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Seeing the confused look on the disciple's face when the man came in to eat and found him already sitting there was a balm to his soul.

Unfortunately, the disciple in question kept a close enough eye on him that he wasn't able to slip out the same way after breakfast.

"Outer Disciple Jiang, I—"

"I know, you don't have to keep saying it!"

— — —

He was starting to have to get creative in his efforts to be left alone. Sneaking into the dining hall was easy enough, even now that the other disciples were trying to spot him – it's not like there was a set time to eat, so he could always just wake up early.

The mandatory lessons, on the other hand, were becoming a problem. Not only were they at a specific time and place, but he couldn't get sneaky with it – the one time he'd tried, a whole group of disciples had worked together to block him. Fortunately, it was considered dishonourable to challenge someone to duels back-to-back, which meant after he got beat up once, he usually had at least a few minutes to make himself scarce before someone else tried to track him down.

Still, that meant he was essentially locked into at least one duel every day. Even worse, he was starting to run low on contribution points, meaning he couldn't afford to go to the halls of healing every time. His bruises had bruises.

On the upside, he was getting very good at being sneaky. Not that he'd been a slouch before or anything – no hunter lasted long if they couldn't sneak up on their prey – but now he was learning how to sneak through more populated areas. Moving through the Sect was very different than moving through the forest, after all.

It was starting to get to the point that it was affecting his cultivation though, which was more than a little irritating. His private quarters were all well and good – and whatever reason the other disciples were targeting him for, it wasn't good enough to bash down his door, so at least he got some relief.

On the other hand, everybody knew where his quarters were, so there was usually someone waiting outside for him whenever he left or came back.

He had no idea how these people had the time to just wait around for him. Didn't they have their own problems? Even more incredible was the fact that there was always someone waiting for him, which meant they had to have organised it.

Was there a roster out there, some kind of schedule titled 'Stalking Jiang'?

At this point, Jiang was getting increasingly certain that it actually had nothing to do with him at all. Elder Lu had mentioned – way back when they first met – that Elder Yan would probably have it out for him, if only to get back at Elder Lu.

Honestly, if Elder Yan hated Elder Lu that much, could they just duel between themselves? Why did Jiang have to get involved?

The training yard near the eastern wall – the same one where he met Li Xuan for their lessons – had become Jiang's fallback option. He had yet to have a second lesson with the inner disciple, which was probably a good thing – he already knew he was going to have to get healed afterwards, which was going to further drain his already low contribution points.

Either way, the training ground was far enough from the central buildings that most disciples didn't bother with it. No shade, uneven footing, nothing resembling proper amenities. The weapon rack looked like it had been looted from a junk heap. Precisely the sort of place no one wanted to spend their free time.

Which made it perfect.

He sat cross-legged in the far corner of the yard, back against the outer wall, hands resting on his knees. The stone beneath him was sun-warmed and cracked, the faint scent of dust in the air. It was quiet.

He drew his breath in slowly, gently pulling at the thread of Qi that wove through the world around him. He vaguely wondered if Qi was a finite resource. If he pulled all of the Qi out of a stone, would it crumble to nothing? Would more Qi rush to fill in the gap? If so, where did it come from?

All questions he didn't have the answers to. All questions he didn't actually need to know, either.

He refocused, cycling his Qi through his pathways until it encountered the first impurities. Working slowly, Jiang eased his Qi past the rough spots, then circled back to run through them again. Not trying to brute-force his way through – that would just cause damage – but still applying pressure. There was no shortcut for it, or so Elder Lu had assured him, so he didn't bother looking for one.

Before long, he'd lost track of time, which was usually a good sign. The sun had shifted slightly, casting longer shadows along the western wall, when faint footsteps roused him from his meditation.

Great. Even if this wasn't one of the disciples who were so fond of challenging him to duels, it wouldn't take long for knowledge of his spot to spread.

Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately – it was Li Xuan who stepped into the yard with his usual brisk, purposeful gait, braid pulled tight, and a training sword slung over one shoulder. His expression shifted when he spotted Jiang already there, something like annoyance flickering across his face.

"What are you doing here?" the inner disciple demanded.

"Cultivating," Jiang responded, debating whether ignoring Li would result in the man smacking him with a wooden sword again. He couldn't discount the possibility, which meant he was forced into interaction.

"Obviously," Li responded with a roll of his eyes, "But why are you doing it here. This is my training ground."

Jiang blinked. "I don't see your name anywhere. Besides, why not here?"

"Because the cultivation or meditation rooms are far better than some random training ground?" Li Xuan responded dryly. "And I don't need to put my name on it; nobody else comes here."

"Just because nobody else uses it doesn't make it yours," Jiang pointed out before pausing. "And wait, there are halls for cultivating? And what's the difference between cultivating and meditating?"

Li Xuan looked at him incredulously. "How ignorant are you? How have you made it this long without knowing any of that?"

"I've only been here for two weeks," Jiang said defensively. "I don't think it's too surprising that I don't know literally everything about the Sect and cultivation yet."

Li Xuan waved a hand dismissively. "Sure, you've only been here for two weeks, but what about before that? Don't tell me you were trained by some wandering cultivation who didn't teach you the first thing about joining a Sect…" he trailed off. "What am I saying? Of course that's what happened. It explains why you're so rude, at least."

Jiang debated the merits of informing Li Xuan about what actually happened before realising that he didn't care.

"Sure," he shrugged.

Li Xuan huffed an aggrieved sigh. "Well, there's no helping it," he grumbled, walking over and prodding Jiang with his foot. "Come on, get up. If I'm going to be teaching you this basic stuff, I want to be able to hit you while I'm doing it. Grab a training sword."

Jiang scowled up at the inner disciple before his good sense kicked in. Regardless of his personal feelings about the other man, he really wasn't in a position to turn down actual teaching and the opportunity to ask questions. The mandatory lessons each morning were all well and good, but they generally assumed an existing level of knowledge that Jiang didn't have.

If he had to pay for that knowledge in bruises, well…

He'd done worse for less.