Chapter 58

Thanks for reading! Had some construction on my house that's over now. Also, I changed Shui Ling's name to Shui Yuhai.

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A heavy aura hung over the dining hall. It wasn’t a literal manifested aura of a cultivator; it was a heavy interpersonal tension. The few conversations that filled the hall were quick and quiet whispers, barely audible over the raucous noise of the kitchen adjacent the hall.

The smell of cooking food drowned the air, warring with the scent of medical gauze.

It surprised me to find that only some half of the Scions were on time, many of them featuring injuries. I recognized the spirit-herb laced bandages on their bodies. They looked like they hurt. I had worn similar bandages on the Savage Expanse after my dive in the dungeon.

Also present was the smell of the Stormwall itself. The very scent of the rain seemed to hang heavy in the air here, like it suffused the place. There was more to it than the qi.

“Your seat is this way, Young Master.” Ming said, leading me across the room.

I felt a swell of panic as we continued forward past the first few tables, getting closer and closer to the raised seats at the end. There were three. Bottles of wine sat waiting across the tables, untouched. Others around the room were already open, spilling their fragrance and a powerful qi.

Ming stopped and offered a salute.

“There’s no mistake?” I asked.

“No, Young Master.”

I was going to be sitting next to my brother. I circled the table. There was an important decision here. I could sit at the edge, avoiding any awkward conversations between me and Jin…

Or I could take the initiative now instead of waiting until after dinner.

I sat in the middle seat and let my eyes sweep the room. A half dozen furtive gazes glanced away from me as I looked over it. I let out a tiny laugh.

Each and every Scion of the Grim Tempest had been raised as a prince or princess. The decorum expected of cultivators and politicians was engraved into their bones.

It was only thanks to Wen that I had broken free of the same patterns. The strict social rules and rigid hierarchy of cultivator society locked them into a cage. For fear of offending another persons social standing, no one dared violate the invisible and all pervasive etiquette.

I was starting to realize how much it ached at me. I missed Poppy, Eros, and even Anna. They had a willingness to say truths even if I may have found them insulting. Instead, no one here even had the courage to approach me. Many with bandaged heads sat in downcast silence.

The minutes stretched. I was practically drooling for the scent of food, staring into the kitchen, when I felt the air in the room shift.

My brother stepped inside, kicking off a round of hushed conversations. I looked over to find him glaring at me. I offered him a smile. He stopped, staring up at my seat on the high table in consternation.

“Come and sit, little brother!” I called across the room. With a sweeping motion, I grabbed the bottle of wine on the table and poured two cups.

It took Jin a moment to process what I had said. His face looked like he tasted something sour. Then with a shake of his head, he crossed the room without a word.

Etiquette demanded he accept an offered drink if he didn’t want to insult me, and since we sat at the same height, our positions should have been ostensibly equal.

He stared at the cup in his hand. Then he looked up at me. There was a mix of contempt and pity in his eyes. The pity didn’t hold him back from insulting me.

“Thank you for the drink, Second Young Master.” Jin said, taking the glass. He stared at me, waiting for me to acknowledge or react to the ribbing.

I just smiled.

“To your cultivation.” I said.

“To destiny.” Jin replied.

“Excuse me.”

I turned to see that Shui Yuhai had approached the table. She gave a closed fist salute and swept up the wine bottle sat on her side of the table, pouring her own drink.

“It would be improper to drink without you at our table!” I said.

“It is improper to drink before the host arrives entirely.” Yuhai said. She smiled, her lips curving below eyes as dark as a sea. “To family.” She said, meeting our glasses from across the table with a clink.

She drank the entire glass in one sip. With a shrug, I did the same. Jin took a sip and placed his cup down.

The alcohol absolutely bubbled with qi. It tingled as it traveled down my throat. My eyes widened.

Yuhai swept around the table and sat down. She scanned the room, the very image of a pious and upright cultivator, back straight and eyebrows furrowed with a warriors intensity.

Then the image collapsed, her shoulders slumped, and she turned the entire wine bottle upside down. I blinked at her as she took several drinks before slapping it back down.

She didn’t wear the dark and official robes of the Grim Tempest. Instead, she wore robes of white and blue.

“So we three are the only ones to have completed the first trial already?” I asked, curious why Yuhai was positioned at the highest table. At the same time, it was an open faced question; I wasn’t sure that Jin had completed the trial at all, or if he was naturally given the seat.

Yuhai hesitated, looking over at Jin. Then she nodded.

“We Shui work often with Spiritbeasts. Taming. Its the supplemental training our sect provides to we Scions.” Yuhai said. She took another drink.

“Supplemental training?” I asked.

Shui nodded to Feng Jin.

“If I’m not mistaken, you’ve been trained in Spirit-smithing, haven’t you?”

“The Feng Empire are reknowned \Spirit-smiths. I have only dabbled in the craft since I was sixteen. Unfortunately, my brother wasn’t able to be trained. He was unable to form a dantian.” Jin said, leveling a dark stare at me.

“Supplemental training? Is that important?” I asked. “We have many spirit-smiths in Sandgrave, but most of them…”

“They’re disposable mortals.” My brother said. “Without your supplemental skill, you have no hope of progressing through the third trial.”

He didn’t sound happy about it. I wasn’t aware that it would be something so important or something that the Grim Tempest forced on us — I assumed it was our own father who did so. I didn’t keep up with Jin after his ascension to heir of the Grim Tempest, but each accomplishment he made in Spirit-smithing came with an invitation to a celebratory banquet and invitations to cultivators from beyond the Feng’s borders.

“Diposable mortals?” Shui Yuhai laughed. “How many mortals do you think it takes to farm enough land for one cultivator? Or, I suppose, to run a mine?”

“Dozens.” I replied without hesitating. “Thousands run the mines across the Feng. You know what the upcoming trials hold?” I asked. “Maybe I will compete in Spiritbeast taming.”

“You’ll be demonstrating your competence in the skill you were raised to pursue.” Jin spat. “You wont be pulling out any more miracles in the next two weeks.” Jin leaned closer to me. “I need every resource I can get to take my place in the clan, and if you want me to be able to protect you, you need to stay out of my way.”

I blinked, leaning back.

Jin? Protecting me? That was new.

I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, reality warped around us. [Danger Sense] activated for a split second, screaming louder than it ever had. I almost doubled over at the feeling of an alarm ringing in my head.

Then it was gone, and the Elder Shui was behind me, sat on the highest seat in the dining hall. He waved a hand toward the kitchen to the side. Almost instantly, the room erupted in a flurry of activity as servants began to carry out food with a practiced routine, a line of workers carrying dishes snaking around the tables and covering them in food. The workers flowed in and out of the room like a river.

The elder waved again, telling the room to start eating. He skipped the ceremony and toast.

Jin did his best to ignore every one around him while he rushed to eat.

I kept glancing his way. He knew the details of the third trial. I would have to learn Spiritsmithing. Fast. At least to some hopeful minimum.

“What will the second trial be?” I asked Jin. He paused mid bite, glaring over at me. Then he frowned.

He ate the bite of food, chewing slowly and swallowing. He glanced meaningfully back at the Elder.

Elder Shui was staring at us. There was warning in his eyes and a smile on his face.

“After dinner.” Jin said.

I felt Yuhai’s stare burning into the back of my head.

***

I followed my brother wordlessly after the dinner, waving away Ming.

Jin had grown taller since the last time I saw him. He led me up through the compound and out. He seemed intimately familiar with the location.

The entire time, he didn’t speak a word, even as he led me beyond the barrier that shielded the little barricade from the rain. I had left my hat back in my room, so we were quickly soaking as we walked minutes out.

“This should be far enough.” Jin said. “No one will hear us here.”

He drew his sword.

“You shouldn’t attempt the second trial.” He said. His voice was filled with cold determination. There was no cruely there. Just unwavering self assurance. “It is a trap.”

My hand rested on my own sword.

I had defeated a Third Realm cultivator already — Rainshadow Long. But my brother would be better trained.

The wind and rain roared around us.

“A trap how?” I asked. Water soaked my hair and trickled down my face.

“The blood of an Omen Alligator carries the scent of their species. It stains the skin. Their qi marks the spirit. They were guardian beasts, anyone who slew one would have been considered a criminal by the Heavenly Cloud. The Second Trial is to gather a Spiritherb — Dead Sea Flower. It only grows inside of the lake.”

Jin gestured behind us. I glanced to the side. The sun was setting, only streaming rays of red light penetrating the hole above us. The lake was less visible without the reflection of the midday sun, but still there in how it refracted the light from the hole in the clouds.

“And that Lake is full of Omen Alligators who will hunt anything that hurt their own kind.”

That sounded… incredibly dangerous. Most cultivators would attempt to kill a young Omen Alligator rather than tame or capture one. It was more difficult to subdue a beast than to simply slay it, and almost all of them would have hunted from young.

“We should warn the rest of the cultivators, then.” I said, eyes widened. They could die. Would the sect really sacrifice their own descendants just to prove that their lives had merit?

Jin leveled his sword at me.

“There’s no point. The strong will succeed. The weak will fail. That is the way of our world.

“You wont pass the third trial. So don’t waste your life on the second. Stay in your room and cultivate. The further you progress into the sect, the harder it will be for me to protect you. You can never understand how vicious the competition there is. So choose now. Return to your room and stay there. Or I’ll beat you until you cannot walk.”

I drew my own sword.

“I didn’t ask for you protect me, Jin.”

Qi danced inside of me and erupted out of the blade, black lightning buzzing off its edge, a hole in the world.

Jin stared at the sword.

“Who taught you that?”

“Its just a small inheritance I found thanks to a disposable mortal.” I said. “You can’t seriously expect me to just sit on the side and let my little brother pass me by, can you?”

“Don’t say that I was unfair to you later.”

Jin didn’t even manifest the externalized technique of the Darkwind scion. His aura, firmly controlled, finally rippled out from around him, suffusing the air. The qi that I had been cycling out of the air suddenly turned sluggish as his tempered spirit claimed domain of the world around us, pulling it away from me. When he cycled his movement technique, it wasn’t just in his legs; it was impressed onto the world.

Then he moved.

He made Rainshadow Long look like a child.

For a split second, Jin was the wind, and then his blade bore down on me. I shouldn’t have been able to move fast enough to react.

But I did.

[Stormbreak Riposte] sent his blade glancing to the side. Anti-Lightning crackled with the smell of burning ozone, flowing through Jin’s spirit, conducted by it, before slamming into the ground with black sparks. It burned the movement technique he impressed into the air. Jin’s spirit turned erratic as he shot back. He stared at me with widened eyes.

His face twisted in rage.

“You have always looked down on me.” He said.

“I’ve never — ” I stopped myself in the middle of a lie, swallowing. I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, storm clouds circled around Jin’s sword. They flashed with blue lightning. “I’m sorry for how I treated you when I was younger.”

Jin’s eyes were wild. He searched me, eyes nearly twitching with speed, his face taut in an expression of displeasure.

“I don’t understand. In what world can you block even a single strike from a third realm cultivator? You have been trapped in the first realm for years living in a resourceless desert.”

“It is bold of you to ask that when you sent the Rainshadow clan at the back of every cultivator crossing through the Stormwall from the east. Do you know that their Patriarch hunted me across the road?”

“Adversity builds strength.” Jin said with clenched teeth. “You defeated him, didn’t you?”

“Your suffering hasn’t made you any stronger.”

“You’re wrong, and the difference between us the proof.”

Jin shot toward me again.