The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

"Timmy!" I call as I walk toward him.

"Bella?" he says, looking up. "Are you done?"

"I'm done with them. Now it's your turn."

"My turn for what?"

"To learn how to fight."

"I don't want to learn how to fight."

"Well, that's too bad."

Timmy frowns and pulls his plant closer.

"I promise I won't touch your plant," I say. "But you need to learn how to fight. You don't have a choice."

"I don't want to."

"If you want to reach the higher Floors where the cooler plants are, you need to at least be able to defend yourself."

"No."

"Yes. This isn't up for debate. Now put your plant down and stand up."

He hugs the plant and scoots back. This isn't going to work. I was hoping he would be a little more reasonable so I wouldn't have to do this.

"I'll give you another cool plant if you learn how to fight." He perks up. "When I was looking through the Quests, I saw one for a plant in the southern desert, which is where we'll be going in a few days. It was like a small cactus that-"

"The Oum Barrel Cactus?" he asks.

"Yes, that's the one," I say. "If you learn to fight, I'll give you one."

"Really?"

"Yes."

He seems to be internally debating it, so I give him one final push to get over the edge.

"I'll even teach you that trick to making plants grow."

"Okay!" he says, but he still doesn't get up.

"Now, put the plant down and stand up. It's time to begin."

Reluctantly, he sets it down and stands up, facing me. Then, he runs to the weapon rack and grabs a shield and uses it to cover up the plant, and only once he finishes does he stay still. He keeps glancing back at the hidden plant though.

"Timmy, do you understand why you need to learn how to fight?"

"No."

I grab a helmet from the weapon rack and hand it to him.

"Pretend that this is a plant," I say. "A very nice flower. A tulip, maybe."

"I like tulips."

"Great! Now pretend that there are tulips growing from inside the helmet."

"Okay."

"I'm a bad guy and I'm going to take your tulips."

"No!" he says, trying to hide the helmet from me.

I jab him on the back a few times, blocking some of his pressure points, then walk around and take the helmet. He pushes against his restraints, but he still can't move. He looks like he's on the verge of tears.

"Now I, the bad guy, have your tulips, and you couldn't do anything about it."

The oum around him vibrates angrily, and he's straining himself to the point that it looks like he might pop a blood vessel, so I set the helmet back in his arms and undo his pressure points. He cradles the helmet like a child and eyes me warily.

"You can stop pretending there are tulips now."

He glances down at the empty helmet as if only now realizing it is empty, then begins to relax.

"Do you understand though? What if that was actually your plant, and I was actually a bad guy? You have no way to stop bad guys from stealing or hurting you or your plants."

"Can't you stop them?"

"Only if I'm here," I say. "And I'm not going to be here forever. What happens if a bad guy tries to hurt you when I'm not here?"

"You're going away?"

"In a month or so, yes."

He looks sad. Why does he care so much?

"So," I continue. "Once I'm gone, you need to know how to defend yourself, right?"

"I guess…"

"Excellent! Now, let's begin. Have you ever learned how to fight?"

"No."

"Do you know how to punch?"

"No."

"I thought so. We'll start with the basics then. Are you right-handed or left-handed?"

"Left."

I walk next to him and get in a southpaw stance. "Copy my stance."

He awkwardly starts shifting his feet until he's almost copying me.

"Move your left leg a bit further back. Now angle your left toes outward a bit more. Bend your knees slightly. Good. Now, try to stay strong and steady."

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I reach out and give him a gentle push on the chest and he stumbles backward a few steps.

"Hey!" he complains.

"When you are in a fighting stance, you need to be stable," I say. "Like a tree. Your legs are your roots. Your body is your trunk. I am the wind. You can't let the wind blow you over. Do you understand?"

His expression turns serious as he nods.

"Alright, now, get back in the stance."

He tries again, and this time it looks a bit less awkward. It's not quite stable yet though, and when I push him, he stumbles. Without me even prompting him, he gets back in the stance again. He stumbles once more when I push him, but the fourth time, he figures it out. I push, and he leans into it so he doesn't move at all. He's rigid like a pillar. I push a bit harder, and he keeps pushing back. I keep increasing the pressure until he has almost his whole weight on my hand, then I suddenly pull back and he falls forward.

"You're working against me too much," I say. "What does a tree do when it's windy?"

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"Does a tree stay perfectly still, fighting back against the wind, or does it move with the wind?"

"It moves with the wind."

"And when the wind stops, does the tree fall over?"

"No."

"So, be like the tree. If I'm pushing too hard for you to withstand, move with the push. Take a step back to stabilize yourself. Understand?"

He nods and gets back into his stance. I push him again. I start with a very light push, and he takes a large step back.

"Only step back when you need to."

He nods, and I give him another light push. This time, he doesn't move. I increase the pressure a bit, and he still doesn't move. I push even harder, and this time he takes a step back. Not only does he take a step back, he even pivots slightly so that the pressure from my hand isn't hitting him straight on anymore.

"Very good," I say. "Now, remember that stance. That's your fighting stance. If someone ever tries to hurt you or take your plants, you get in that stance."

"Okay," he says, still in the stance.

"Now, there are four basic kinds of punches. We'll start with the jab."

I spend the next half hour teaching him the basics of punching, and then another half hour on kicking, and the hour after that on defending. To put it kindly, he struggles a bit to understand. To put it unkindly, he has negative talent for fighting. I try to keep up the plant analogies, but since plants typically don't attack, some of them are real stretches. They definitely seem to help him understand, but the fact remains that he is utterly uncoordinated, and has clearly never done much athletic activity.

After those two hours, we stop to rest, since he's looking tired, and while he's grabbing water for himself and his plant, I take some time to observe the others. I've been half keeping an eye on them while training Timmy, but now that I can devote my full attention to it, it's much easier to see their progress. While Timmy rests, they do a total of three matches, and a few things become very clear.

First is that Jacob and June are a cut above the rest when it comes to fighting. They both seem to have experience fighting back on Earth, and their natural talents are very suited for it. It's also interesting how they seem to be opposites of each other, and in ways that give neither an advantage. Jacob is a calm, calculating fighter who uses finesse and foresight to win. June relies almost entirely on her instincts and her superhuman reaction time. It's difficult for Jacob to hit June because she's so unpredictable and reacts so quickly, and June won't hit Jacob, because she recognizes that he's dangerous, and won't draw too close. When the two fight on the same side, they dominate no matter who is against them, and when they are on opposite sides, it always turns into a 1v1 while the others fight around them.

Second is that Kat doesn't know how to attack properly. She's athletic, perhaps more so than any of the others, but unlike June and Jacob, she has no combat experience. She has some good ideas, but her execution is always subpar, and her timing is often off. This mostly comes down to experience, and she's already visibly improved compared to earlier.

Third, both Vanessa and Jenny have the same problem of their minds working ahead of their bodies. I can tell that they mostly know what they need to be doing, but when it comes time to do it, they're always a step too slow. They both have good timing, but in different ways. Jenny is very good at waiting for and spotting specific openings, while Vanessa is good at observing the whole battlefield and reacting on a higher level.

Finally, Al is really struggling to fight out in open space. I think in a one-on-one fight, he would beat everyone except Jacob and June, but in the team fight, he seems lost with nowhere to hide. He's much older than the others though, and is set in his ways, so this will probably be a tough habit to break.

By the time the third match I watch ends, all six of them look exhausted, and Jenny looks like she's about to pass out. Two hours of cardio isn't exactly light work for a 1 star cultivator, but it's also not as much as they could do. They're all out of shape. Fortunately for them, we still have over five hours left in this reservation.

"Alright, take a break," I say, standing up and walking toward them. "Good work. Get some water. I think I saw a snack bar outside. Meet back here in 20 minutes."

They voice their affirmation, then trudge outside in a group.

"Timmy, you too. You can go grab some food if you want."

"I'm okay."

I shrug and then head over to the weapon rack and start grabbing as many weapons as I can. I lay them out all over the room, forming a makeshift obstacle course-ish thing. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

As the others trickle back in, they look confused, but they must sense something, because no one says a word until the twenty minutes are more than up. They all wait for me to speak first, so I do.

"You all are out of shape," I start. "You might feel great compared to how you did before you came here, but that level of activity should have been nothing for you. Don't think I didn't see all the breaks you were taking in between matches. Luckily for you, I'm out of shape too, and I've been putting off conditioning, so I'll allow you to join me today if you want. If not, you're free to leave, but I will be annoyed if we have to slow down for you during the Starter Quest."

The part about me being out of shape isn't entirely true. I got plenty of conditioning in running through the Outlands, but you can never be too in-shape, so I might as well do more. I will, however, be annoyed if anyone skips out and then causes us to slow down. I think if Jacob, June, or Kat decided to leave, it would be fine, but if Al, Vanessa, or Jenny left early, that would be bad. Thankfully, all of them seem to be interested in exercising, and none leave.

"Don't use any oum," I say.

And with that, I turn to begin the course. Kat is first in line behind me, followed by Jacob, and then the rest file in. The rest except for Timmy, meaning that after a few rounds through, I have to stop and go coax him to join us. Once we're all started, we manage to go for a full hour before the first one drops. It's Timmy, of course, and he trips over one of the spears and scrapes his knee. I tell him to cultivate until he feels better, then go again, and move on without stopping.

Jenny is the next to fall, and I tell her the same. After that it's Vanessa, then June, then Jacob, then Kat. By the time Kat falls, Timmy and Jenny are back up, and we enter a long cycle of work and recovery. I stay moving the whole time, of course. My conditioning is better from running through the Outlands, and I'm also a Middle 1 star instead of Early, so my body is stronger anyways.

When we leave, it's night out, and the others can all barely walk. Kat is in an excellent mood though, and her positivity lifts the spirits of the others. For dinner, everyone has double portions compared to their usual, and by the end, they're all laughing and talking about what they'll do if they win. When we finish eating and it's time to part ways, I stop them all for a moment.

"Cultivate well and recover, because we're doing it again tomorrow."

"Okay!" says Kat cheerily.

The rest look a bit less enthusiastic, but still confirm that they are also coming. Jenny and Timmy look especially reluctant, but at least they're smart enough not to say anything. They should be more grateful. I honestly wouldn't bother training them at all if it didn't affect me, and I'm sure they've realized it by now, but training from me isn't something just anyone can get. I may not be as experienced in cultivation as some of the upper Floor Climbers, but with thousands of years of experience in thousands of different styles, there are probably very few people better at fighting and physiology than me.

When I get back to my room, I take a shower, and then unfortunately have to get out without cultivating, because I want to see if I can finish my connection with Trinity before we have to leave for the Starter Quest. That doesn't happen tonight, but I can feel it getting close. I can sense the barrier between us, and I know it will only take a little longer before I break through. However, I won't be able to do it tonight. After all that exercise, I am feeling very tired.

I lay down in bed and fall asleep instantly, and in my dreams, I find myself in the past once again.