The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

"Again!" cried Breaker, and Rix yelped as he felt the switch strike him across the back of the legs for what was probably the hundredth time that day.

His training had progressed again. Verbal distractions had become physical. Now, for three hours every dive, he would perform a kata using his staff while Breaker periodically whipped him in random places at random intervals with a slim length of wood.

It was one of the most infuriating things Rix had ever experienced.

He sucked in a deep lungful of air, doing his best to silence the boiling sensation in his chest. He knew Breaker wasn't doing this because he enjoyed it. In fact, it was actually to the man's detriment. His inability to impact the physical world meant that just imparting force through the stick cost a little of his lifeforce. He couldn't hit Rix hard enough to cause damage, but the blows still stung.

The whole experience made Rix feel like a scolded child. Every time that lash fell, the instinct to strike back roared like a caged bear in his chest.

"Your qi responds to will, Zao Rixian, not to temper," said Breaker, as if reading his mind. "How can you hope to command the energies of creation when you cannot even command the storm within your own heart? Mastery demands stillness, not this childish rage."

He was right, of course. It didn't take an aeons-old being to make Rix understand that anger clouded the mind. But knowing was only half the battle.

Then again, that seemed likely to be the point.

Setting his jaw firmly, Rix resumed the kata.

***

"Fuck!" Rix yelled, as the cycling technique shattered for the fourth time that day.

"Who would have thought your weakness would be walking," said Luna, who had stopped a few feet away.

"Walking isn't the problem."

She raised an eyebrow. "I don't see you doing much else."

Rix growled. "We'll see how you go when you get to this bit."

"Won't struggle with walking, I can tell you that."

They were roaming the Fractured Realm on foot, working the next iteration of Rix's exercise: cycling while moving around. He'd thought it would be easier than the switch. No sting, no thrum of anticipation.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

While the switch did hurt a little and fostered the constant tension of wondering when the next blow would come, the actual effect itself was predictable. Once he learned to accept that threat as ever-present, suddenly the exercise lost its potency. He could maintain his cycling indefinitely.

Conversely, the simple act of moving forwards provided a constant source of fresh challenges. Navigation, balance changes, shifting terrain, all were unique in their demands. When things were flat and uniform, he could sometimes go several hundred feet before losing his concentration. But the moment they had to scale a hill or fight through a patch of scrub, his brain was pulled in too many directions and the technique collapsed.

"Come on," said Luna. "There's a rocky area over here, I think, and Breaker said to make you work for it."

It was one of their master's rest days. They'd become less common since the horde, though his use of the switch had taxed him to the point where they were still occasionally required. In his absence, Rix and Luna spent the full six hours of the dive roaming for fadeborn, with Rix cycling in between fights.

Seizing his qi, he pushed it downwards and began walking.

***

The air was driven from Rix's lungs as Luna rammed the pommel of her sword into his gut. He doubled over, his cycling technique driven from his mind.

He slammed his staff into the floor of the training cell, letting out a bark of frustration.

"Again," he said.

Luna grinned. "Don't need to ask me twice."

They were fighting at significantly less than full capacity, and even that was another level of mental overload. Movement, precision, threat assessment, footwork; the distractions were myriad and overwhelming. The culmination of everything he'd worked on so far.

According to Breaker, simple training didn't qualify as 'extreme duress', but it was close. And that meant so was Rix. Day by day, he was honing his mind to be a weapon on the same level as his body. He could now perform the Mountain Gate cycle while sparring lightly. Anything above fifty percent and the intensity soon became too much, but he was pushing that number a little higher each session.

Given that six weeks ago he'd been struggling to cycle while in the horse stance, his progress felt like nothing short of a miracle. He just needed the final push.

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Raising his weapon, he launched himself forward, swinging for Luna's head.

***

"To your right!" Luna cried, causing Rix to pivot instantly to face the new threat: two more of the spider fades that had just broken through the scrub.

A sharp smile spread across his face. It had been some time since he'd fought this variety, but he had hardly forgotten their quirks.

Not giving them time to initiate, he surged forward, his staff sweeping in a deadly arc, catching both fades across the face with a single swing. Chitin crunched beneath the blow, and their corpses were sent flying. A trickle of essence flowed into him.

He couldn't help but laugh. It had been months since he'd really fought here in the Low Whisper zone, tackling the weakest the Fractured Realm had to offer. He still remembered those first halting steps, the way every distant echo had set his heart racing. He was far from a monster by Cloudpiercer's standards, but still, he'd come a long way.

Hearing a tearing disturbance behind him, he spun to find one of the hulking bear-like fades lumbering towards him. A thrust to the throat, a hammer blow to the skull, and the creature collapsed.

Next to him, Luna was dispatching a group of the mantis fades, flitting between them with ruthless efficiency. Every time her blade flashed, black blood spilled. She wasn't getting anything out of this — both of them were well beyond the point where such weak opposition gave essence worth counting — but she'd wanted a break from her own exercises. She was growing closer to having all her meridians open, but the endless hours of agonising meditation were taking their toll.

It made sense. In some ways, this was almost relaxing. A martial activity with no real threat.

The fades came in a steady stream. Somewhere out there in the trees, Breaker was racing around, pulsing his aura to drive ever more of the beasts their way. The density wasn't quite as high as it had been during the horde, but they were killing in a steady rhythm.

And in the background, qi cycled steadily through Rix's body.

These fights weren't taxing him enough to actually open his gate. He could have fought Low Whisper fades with barely more than a fraction of his attention. But in terms of the demands they placed upon his mind, functionally these fights had everything he needed. And so far, he was more than up to the task.

He simply had to scale up the difficulty.

***

Rix whipped his staff around, [Wind Blade] sizzling dangerously as it sliced through the air toward the fade's throat. But the creature was fast. It bucked, dodging the worst of Rix's attack, causing his technique to instead bite into the meat of its thigh. He felt flesh part beneath his assault, but the fade was already countering, swiping downwards with two claws that extended from its paws like sickle blades. Rix's style hummed in his mind, feeding him a block, then a backwards step, then a counter of his own, all of which he executed seamlessly. The fade howled as [Wind Blade] struck again, carving a wound into its shoulder this time while Rix escaped unscathed.

This fade was long and black, moving on four lithe limbs like a hunting dog. Although between the claws and the wicked jaw-full of mismatched fangs, it was more dangerous than any dog he'd seen. They were in the Peak Whisper zone now, and they were truly fighting for their lives.

Behind him, Luna was engaged with another identical opponent. As he glanced behind him, he saw her land a devastating strike, carving one of the fade's limbs clean from its body. The creature bayed, but barely seemed to register the wound, dancing backwards as though it had a lifetime of moving on three limbs.

Sweat slicked Rix's forehead, his lungs sucking in rapid, sharp breaths. His muscles burned, his mind raced. And in his veins, the cold surge of adrenaline. It was an assault on his concentration from every angle.

And yet, in his meridians, qi cycled in a steady, unbroken rhythm.

The process was second nature now, etched into every part of him through relentless repetition. At this point, whenever he was doing anything physical — whether it was training, duelling, or diving — he would drop into the cycling technique almost by reflex. It was his constant companion, with him regardless of the strain on his body or mind.

He was proud of his progress. Two months of steady work were manifesting before his eyes.

Now he just had to cross the final hurdle.

He launched another attack, a sideswipe designed to drag [Wind Blade] along the fade's guts, but the creature darted forward, catching Rix's staff in its mouth mid-swing and trying to wrench it from his hands. Rix's body was yanked forward, but he kept his footing. A quick [Sunspot] to the eyes, and the thing released his weapon as it backpedalled.

While his conscious mind was mostly dedicated to the exchange, there was now a tiny part fixated entirely on his cycling. That little sliver of his focus watched during the exchange as his qi moved through the full technique. Root, solidify, channel, return. As far as that part of his awareness was concerned, he was the tree. He could feel his roots driving into the soil, his core strengthening, his limbs exploding outwards.

But now that he was truly under duress, he felt something else as well.

As he drew his qi back up from the ground and held it at his sealed Mountain Gate, the location seemed to tremble, like a table struggling to support a great weight. And every time he pushed it out through his arms and legs, the force of that action made it shake further still. It felt right, like he was on the cusp of breaking through.

But still, the gate held.

He felt the tiniest flare of frustration, but he tamped it down. He could be angry later. In this moment, there was no space for emotion. Emotion would only make the process more difficult.

Despite how close he was, something was still missing. Breaker had described the ideal sensation as a 'flow state'. A sort of complete immersion where time faded and the cycling felt effortless. It sounded very similar to what he'd achieved since ranking up his style. A sort of perfect unity between mind and action.

Though the cycling technique felt instinctive at this point, it wasn't yet at the same level of mental integration as his style. He wasn't entirely sure how to cross that final threshold. With the Martial Path, he had the System within himself, enmeshed with his mind as tightly as prison shackles.

With cultivation, he had only himself and his efforts to rely on. Repetition had been what had taken him this far. It would have to be what completed the journey.

He and Luna finished off their fades almost in unison.

She looked at him in askance. "Any luck?"

"Nope," he said, letting his ironclad grip over his focus slip away.

"We go again, then."

It wasn't a question.

Rix nodded.

"We go again."

***

Xu Han sat in the arena stands, watching the Shadow Runner runt fumble his way through another bout. The boy was an embarrassment. He had no true strength, flouncing around the ring like a cheap whore at a festival. Just watching it made Han's stomach turn.

Why had he agreed to the little shit's terms? Some grand duel on a set date? After the mess hall brawl, the Warden had been breathing down his neck about "maintaining order." At the time, it felt like a strategic move, a way to buy peace and stop the guards from crawling up the Iron Hand's ass. He'd told himself he was being smart, patient.

Now, watching that dreg prance about, Han felt nothing but the acid burn of humiliation. Patience was for weaklings and corpses. This runt, this nothing, had somehow manoeuvred him, Xu Han, leader of the Iron Hand. It was a stain. An insult to his strength and authority. He was a Xu! In this pit, he bowed to no one. And no one made him wait.

This charade had gone on long enough. The debt would be collected on his terms.

Fortunately, Wing wasn't the only one with little birds whispering in her ears.