Sky Pride

Tian and Wang were invited to take a tour of some of the Five Element's Sect's points of interest. Lin, Hong and Su were going with some young ladies on a slightly different tour. Why they were being split up, Tian didn't know. He was in a better mood this morning. The lack of any game playing at breakfast no doubt was a contributing factor, as were the ample portions of bread and mutton soup.

"I think the mountain air is making me hungry," Tian tried to justify his gluttonous behavior to Wang. "I usually eat maybe a quarter of this."

"I thought you were in a mood yesterday. I guess you are just at that age. Eat up, you are probably going to shoot up an inch or two." Wang chuckled.

"Or ten?" Tian asked, eyes wide and hands clenched.

Wang paused, then put a little extra meat in Tian's bowl. "Sure."

Tian sighed and ate up. "Can't say I liked being called 'Little Daoist Tian' by Mei last night."

"I'm not a huge fan of being called 'Fatty,' when you get right down to it. I don't mind-mind, but I don't like it either."

"What's wrong with being fat?"

"What's wrong with being short?"

The two shared looks of commiseration.

"Seriously, though. Being pissed off and feeling disrespected all the time is, like, sixty to eighty percent of your teens. The other part is borderline psychotic arrogance and complete indifference to consequences and the suffering of others. Combined with feeling some powerful new urges, and it's a hell of a ride." Wang chuckled.

"They threw women at us. I guess they were counting on 'urges?'" Tian asked.

"Oldest, well, second oldest, trick in the book. They were blatant to the point of being disrespectful with it, but people keep doing it because it works." Wang shrugged.

"You did seem rather close with Daoist Mei…" Tian grinned.

"She's a sweet little thing. She likes playing the silly little sister and what am I if not a big brother? Once she and I got on the same page, we really clicked." The big man laughed shamelessly.

Tian had become fond of Brother Wang, but he couldn't stop a mental hand from waving. "Are you a big brother? I wouldn't know. The only thing I know about your family is your damned surname and that they sell rice!"

"She's a spy, and she's going to try to set me up and manipulate me. But she knows I know, and she knows I'll know when her strings are being pulled, and we are both grown up enough to enjoy the game for what it is." The big man grinned, managing to look foolish, yet cunning, naive yet scheming. It was quite an expression. Tian wished he could preserve it on paper forever.

"And what is it, Brother Wang?"

"Life."

Tian shook his head. Wang just smiled a little more deeply, and finished up his bowl.

"By the way, aren't you going to ask for your cut?"

"My cut of what, Brother Wang?"

"The winnings, of course."

"I get a cut?"

"Heh. I'm not such a bad brother as all that. Here." Brother Wang put a heavy sack of crystals into Tian's hands. "Sister Hong collected hers before we even left the dueling ground. I'm keeping most of it, of course. I took the risk and provided the wagers in the first place."

Tian felt the weight of the bag, the texture of the fine silk, and the warmth of his good brother's care. "The very best thing about our sect is the brothers in the Outer Court. Thank you, Brother Wang. Thank you very much."

Perhaps his brother's obsession with privacy wasn't such a bad quirk.

The big man chuckled and looked away. As they were leaving the dining room, Tian asked "If 'urges' are the second oldest trick, what's the oldest?"

"'I'm your best friend, of course you can trust me.'"

A small scroll flew through the air towards Tian. He caught it and, not sensing anything nefarious from it, opened it.

Junior Tian-

I am sending the Snow Grace Crane down in a moment. The Five Elements Courtyard has a special training ground that should be of use to the two of you. They have agreed to make it available, as they have other training grounds, for the duration of your stay. This is both a way for them to boast, a way to test you, and a way to establish their superiority. Take the suckers for everything they are worth. Junior Wang should be your example here.

I also expect they will cause trouble over the Crane. They might try to steal her, harm her, claim she damaged something and demand repayment- any number of little tricks.

Do not be deceived. There is only one game being played. It was being played last night, and it will be played every day until we leave. A game of comparative power. The stronger we appear, the better our negotiating position will be, and the more help we can get for Depot Four and the rest of our battle front. Which, in case it wasn't clear, is why we are here. We need to maintain the Mountain's standing in the alliance, but we also need a lot more support.

They know we are doing this, of course. But they know better than most how quickly perception becomes reality. If we can root a feeling of inferiority in the hearts of their most talented juniors, then they will behave as our inferiors in the future. A massive strategic loss at the hands of the most basic of tactics. Naturally, they will try to crush you for the same reasons. They will fail.

All this is to say- meet complexity with simplicity, deceit with honesty, cruelty with compassion and remember that schemes tend to disintegrate when you strike without warning. They intend to be cruel to those of us fighting in the desert. Be compassionate, and ruthlessly destroy their schemes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Keep up the good work, you are doing your brothers proud.

Feng

The scroll evaporated in his hand.

"What was that?" Wang asked.

"Instructions, warnings, encouragement and manipulation. I think Elder Feng is feeling stressed. As a filial disciple, I should help relieve her worry. Naturally, I will to do my very best for the sect." Tian nodded seriously, thinking of his newly fat purse floating on a tide of disgust at the petty games of the Courtyard. "Yes. We must give our all. For the Sect."

Tian and the crane were led to a training area that looked rather basic. Which was nicer than calling it trash, Tian thought. Presumably there was more to it than nine thick tree trunks stabbed into hard packed dirt. There must be something if it would help the crane and him work together.

Tian thought he and the crane had reached a certain level of understanding. Which was not to say the creature would do what he wanted or even pay him any attention, but they did understand each other, somewhat. Not yet telepathy, but certainly empathy. The Lin Clan's beast raising arts were simple and straightforward. They just required diligence, and Tian had never been short of that.

"Arrays require deep sensitivity to the flow of qi. Before one may manipulate the worldly qi externally, they need to be able to feel what is already there. How it moves and flows. Level One of our Nine Poles Eight Directions Field should prove no challenge for you, Daoist Tian, but I wonder how you will fare beyond that? And your… bird."

The Daoists "supervising" the training were a pair of Level Nine cultivators from the Five Elements Sect. One was a sort of militant Brother Wang- large, stout, and mindlessly caressing the head of the hatchet at his waist. He didn't say much of anything. He let his glares do the talking. The other was a slender and elegant young scholar, who seemed convinced that lingering on certain words added a refined venom to them.

Tian controlled his rising hands. The itchy feeling some of the cultivators here were giving him was getting very noticeable. He was increasingly certain it wasn't his imagination or teenage irritation. Why he would be feeling it from the smarmy but not the nakedly hostile was another mystery.

"Grandpa, this itchy feeling…"

Your last body refinement did a lot more than just give you a new finger, and your bodily cultivation has been trending in a certain direction since the lotus pond. I have a bare smidge of energy saved up, so at the moment, it's not worth explaining. I can tell you it is still developing, and it's generally a good thing. And while teenage hormones are around sixty percent of your current moodiness, let's not pretend you haven't had a spectacularly lousy few years. That leaves a mark. Honestly, if you weren't pissy at least some of the time, I'd be concerned.

"Are you ready Daoist Tian? And Bird?"

"Ahaha. I'm going to beat the actual piss out of this little freak."

Isn't it nice to have a chance to vent productively?

"Yes, thank you." Tian reached out towards the crane, made a fist, and brought the fist in front of his face. The crane followed the hand and locked eyes on Tian. He tried to press on her the feeling of following along with him. A flock moving together to find food and avoid predators.

"Whenever you are ready." Tian slightly bent his knees.

There was a sudden sense of a spear stabbing up through the earth. Tian sharply stepped left, and the crane stepped with him. Half a second later, a thin ribbon of metal qi ripped through the spot where they had been standing a moment before. It had barely faded when Tian stepped forward, avoiding the falling blast of earth qi.

It was fairly intelligent, he decided. Each pillar could be used to send a specific qi attack outward. The poles were high enough to allow extremely steep angles of attack, and the attacks could come from any point along their shaft. It was enough to keep a novice practitioner on their toes. The qi was quite elementally pure, but it lacked attacking power. Getting hit would hurt, but only hurt. It would take spectacularly bad luck to be seriously injured. The exercise rapidly became trivial.

"I think we might progress directly to Level Two, Fellow Daoists."

"As expected, as expected." The oily daoist fiddled with a large geomantic compass. Tian had gotten used to seeing them everywhere.

"It must cost a fortune, equipping everyone with enchanted gear. All the illusions, all the formations, all the equipment, it's all worth more than their weight in spirit stones. At least, as far as I know. Even if they are manufacturing them in house, how are they affording all of this?"

"Clearly too easy. Shall we jump directly to level three?" The smile was warm, the voice innocent, the itchiness was profound.

"Out of curiosity, how many levels are there?"

"Theoretically, the only limit to how far you could push the array is the limit of the materials and the amount of qi you pour into it. You might as well ask how high the heavens are." Oily chuckled, his voice polite but patronizing.

"Forty seven." The heavyset daoist rolled his eyes. "Spare me the endless noise. It's forty seven levels, and you only need to worry about the first fifteen of them because beyond that point it's all at the Heavenly Person level."

"Not theoretically infinite?" Tian asked with a slight smile.

"No, it is. It's just that the difficulty in powering and controlling the array scales faster than the complexity and power inside the array does. Forty Seven is the highest anyone has managed to drive it that I know of." The big man had a slight smile of his own. Tian did some mental math.

"Your patron?"

"My uncle, Elder Redbeam."

"Rather than see who can last the longest or go the furthest inside the array-"

"The elders compete over who can power and control the array to the greatest extent." The doughy man's smile deepened.

Ah. Tian slid his eyes over to the not-visibly-pouting oily daoist. "My pardon, Daoist, but is your patron the Elder who greeted us when we arrived? Elder… Ao?"

That got a jolt out of both of the disciples from the Courtyard.

"How did you guess?"

"You share his elegant demeanor and refined manners." It was a triumph of Brother Fu's training program. He didn't use the words "Greasy, untrustworthy scum slime similarly," at all. The Elder had been memorable, in an unfortunate sort of way. His sympathy for Elder Feng multiplied within seconds of meeting her counterpart. It was instructive to see Oily preen and Doughy sneer. "But I am wasting your time with chatter. Let's press on."

Level two didn't present any more challenge than level one, and level three was only marginally more difficult. Things got more interesting around level four, when two beams shot out at the same time. Tian dodged them with a sharp step, but the crane had to flap up into the air in a hurried mess.

Tian whistled to grab the crane's attention. He brought his right hand in a closed fist in front of his face. "Eyes on me." The crane's yellow eyes were bright on her red face, fixed on him. He reached out with his attention, letting instinct guide his movements as his will instructed his partner. "Like this. See? It can't touch us."

The crane didn't understand language, but she understood him. They moved more smoothly. Level five saw the beams moving faster, level ten was three beams and the blasted things had started curving. Not very sharply, but what were once rays were now closer to Tian's rope dart. He was stuck at Level Ten for almost half an hour. It wasn't that he couldn't keep up with the beams of energy, it was keeping up and communicating with the crane so she could keep up.

He leaned into the exercise. He had been working with the crane for months now, and progress had been slow. Under the pressure of the array, they were becoming more and more in sync. Hours of progress coming in minutes. The feeling of suddenly getting better was addictive.

The challenge became harder. He had to dodge the beams, guide the crane, and hide his spreading smile. He had been ordered to take as much advantage of the Courtyard as he could. He was only too happy to obey!