The Stargazer's War - Chapter 2.3

Chapter 2.3: The Waiting

I let my wooden practice sword fall to the floor as I rubbed the spot where Xavier’s axe had struck my chest. “That’s match to you.”

Xavier grinned and withdrew his weapon, offering a hand in its place. “Well fought.”

I shook it. “I could barely touch you.”

Xavier used the handshake to pull me in and clap me on the back. “But you kept fighting anyway. You have a warrior’s spirit.” He raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

I scowled at what had become one of Xavier’s catchphrases. “That’s it for me.” I stooped over to pick up the padded training weapon. “I want to get a shower in before dinner.”

Xavier froze and for the first time seemed to notice the sweat that drenched his uniform—he was the only one who still wore his sect colors these days, if only for a lack of alternatives that fit his massive frame. “Fair point. Very well. We’ll clash again tomorrow.” He at least had the good grace not to push for more bouts after dinner. He knew that was my meditation time.

He strode away as I reracked my sword and collected Shiver from where I’d left it. The dense enchantments around Lucy’s sparring ring did well enough at blunting any damage from Xavier’s or Charlotte’s weapons of choice, but Shiver had an annoying habit of cutting through the training wards.

It only did so while I ran my qi through it, but avoiding such was easier said than done. It felt, at times, like the blade wanted my qi, pulling some in whenever I channeled it nearby. I could fight without Shiver. I couldn’t fight without my muscle meridian.

Of course, as Lucy had told me time and time again, Shiver didn’t want anything. The sword was young; it bore no chance of attaining a will of its own for another millennium at least. The real answer was that my control needed work. If the way Xavier had just thrashed my in training was any indicator, my fighting needed work too.

That bit wasn’t entirely my fault, though. Xavier spent more time in the ring than any sane human being, so obviously he’d improve faster than I. It didn’t help that while his Silverskin technique deflected my attacks with ease, my own Vac Suit did precious little against him. The skill worked wonders against qi attacks, but no amount of shadow has ever stopped a great axe.

I mulled over the various shortcomings of my only technique as I made my way back to my suite and into the shower. In all likelihood, I’d never be as skilled a fighter as Xavier. My talents lay elsewhere. Where, exactly, I hadn’t quite figured out, but until I found a way to bring my overwhelming quantity of qi to bear, my best bet seemed to be sticking to the shadows.

After all, they stuck to me.

I dried off and slipped on a fresh pair of the loose-fitting cultivator pants and another of Cedric’s tees—this one a deep blue with a sleek breast pocket logo for a company Klent Securities. Whoever they were and whatever system they worked out of were a mystery to me. Lucy still refused to share anything about her prior passenger, and nothing Cedric-related I’d looked up on the Fyrion network had returned anything. Wherever he’d come from, it was a long, long ways away.

The umami scent of ramen permeated the kitchen by the time I walked in. A dozen pale tendrils of qi flew about the space, chopping onions and setting the table and stirring the pot. Before I could even ask, one shoved a glass of ice water into my hand. “Thanks, Lucy.”

“You’re very welcome.” Her reply echoed across the counter from in front of the stovetop.

I took a sip as I turned to the dining table and sat at the head, leaving the chair opposite Charlotte open for Xavier. Right on time the latter strode in, trailing a hand affectionately across Charlotte’s back as he circled the table to take his seat. Only as our food made it to the table did Charlotte shut off her holo projector and clear the table of her employee files.

Dinner itself was a simple enough affair. We chatted about everything and nothing as we enjoyed Lucy’s delicious cooking. Our plan for the coming months had already been as decided as it realistically could’ve been, leaving our topics to range from simple gossip to philosophical debate to whether or not there was a Thread of sandwiches.

You know, normal stuff.

I had to cradle my bowl defensively to keep Lucy from taking it as I stood walked it to the dishwasher. The pot, unsurprisingly, was already clean.

Rather than stay behind and continue to fight Lucy for the chance to help with the cleanup—a losing battle I refused to concede entirely—I bid Charlotte and Xavier goodnight and made my way back through the wooden halls of Lucy’s soul space to the upper deck. I walked the short distance down the narrow hallway that circled Lucy’s corporeal self before stopping to pop open one of the matte white storage compartments that lined the hull below the window. From within, I withdrew a vac suit.

Lucy’s vac suits were… different than the ones to which I was accustomed. They were thinner and sleeker in shape, more formfitting than the bulky things vacwelders wore. The only exception to the near skintight design was around the crotch, where the suit hung a bit looser to accommodate the non-blood-flow-restricting pants most cultivators favored.

I found it far more comfortable and easier to maneuver in than my old vacsuit, if a bit prone to puncture. I supposed most cultivators weren’t doing spacewalks around torn and jagged bits of metal. Neither was I.

I stepped into the airlock as I twisted my helmet into place. The familiar hiss of my suit pressurizing rang in my ear. A smile stretched across my face.

The doors opened, and I stepped free.

I wrapped my fingers over the top of the airlock, swinging up and over onto Lucy’s roof as I left the artificial gravity behind.

Lucy, being Lucy, had no use for vacwelders. She kept space debris at bay entirely on her own, deflecting anything moving fast enough to inflict even a dent with the slightest flick of qi. That didn’t stop me from coming out here.

I walked comfortably across Lucy’s hull, the weak magnets in my boots more than enough to keep me anchored as I crossed the short distance to the skiff’s center. I sat down, keeping my back to the Dueling Stars and Lucy’s thrusters alike, adjusting my vantage until neither Ilirian to my right nor Fyrion to my distant left could intrude upon my view of the starry black.

I took a breath. I straightened my back. I shut my eyes.

And I cultivated.

One by one I ran through the circulation exercises I’d learned on Fyrion, starting and stopping the flow through various meridians in an increasingly complex pattern. I’d long mastered the drill far enough to pass out of the sect’s pre-cadet cycling classes, but there were always improvements to be found, always transition times to be shortened, always precision to be honed.

These days I found my limit running through one of the intermediate cycling formations while simultaneously channeling my Vac Suit technique. Progress came slowly, in seconds added and imperfections sanded away rather than big, self-evident revelations, but it did come. Splitting my focus like this didn’t come naturally, but it was a skill all cultivators needed, and one that directly correlated to combat prowess.

Only once I grew tired of the repetitive practice did I move on to something more… unique.

Most cultivators hit their bottlenecks in capacity and in input, the ability to take in qi from around them and to contain as much of it as possible. With the infinite sea ever present and the way it swept in to fill me to bursting at a thought, my core already held more qi than most irons, and the concept of improving my input was laughable.

I focused on throughput.

I reached out and touched the infinite sea with a carefully segregated fragment of my focus, fighting to keep myself anchored in the here and now as I drank from it. Qi flooded into my center, and at a rate as torrential as I could manage, I expelled it.

My body ached with the power racing through it. My core pushed out against the boundaries of its size, battering against the impenetrable wall between me and the next stage, unable to beak through without the physical focus we’d come to Ilirian to craft. My meridians stretched and cracked, micro-fractures lining the qi pathways as I forced more powerful through them than they could manage. They’d recover by this time tomorrow, stronger than they’d been before. Such was the way.

I halted willingly, sparing my core and meridians any lasting damage long before my focus or pain tolerance would’ve given out. A weariness overtook me, not of the mind or the body, but of the spirit.

I let it rest.

I ended my practice in meditation. I sat, and I breathed, and I stared into the emptiness of space. I let my thoughts drift aimlessly, touching upon and accepting any worries or doubts and moments of guilt that arose before moving past them. I pondered the universe and my place in it, the existence of beauty beyond the littleness of the beholder, the paradox of meaning in the face of the infinite.

I found no answers that night, nor any night. I came to no revelations, discovered no soul shattering epiphanies, stumbled into no further divine inspiration that might’ve added another technique to my toolkit.

Threads only know if that final hour of quiet contemplation brought me any closer to anything of practical use, but I came away from my meditation feeling better for it. Only in the quiet can those thoughts beneath the surface make themselves known. Only in the dark can we seek that faint glimmer of insight.

Exhaustion saturated every aspect of my being by the time I finally stood. I’d made no leaps and bounds today. I’d been thrashed in the arena, true split focus yet evaded me, and I was nowhere close to discovering an offensive use for my qi, but I returned to the airlock and stripped myself of my vac suit with a contented smile upon my face.

Progress had little to do with revelations or achievements or dramatic moments of victory. It didn’t mean pushing yourself to your absolute limit or training longer or harder than anyone else.

Progress was doing it again tomorrow.

I ended my day, as I ended every day, with a quick stop in Lucy’s garden. Already both of Nick’s seeds had sprouted through the soft soil, their growth hastened both by the fertile ground and the regular infusions of qi they each received.

I didn’t need my spiritual sense to differentiate between the two. One sprang defiantly from the earth, bright and green and as full of life as anything. The other, mere inches away, stood pale and brown, its leaves sagging as if burdened. It was to this latter I raised a finger and fed a steady stream of dark qi.

For all its deathly appearance, Lucy assured me the sprout was very much alive. It grew just as well as its more normal twin, and drank of my qi each night with a thirst.

The other seed needed no such visits. Lucy’s garden came equipped with an automated system for delivering qi to its denizens. My qi simply didn’t work with the necessary enchantments. It didn’t work with any enchantments, at least none we’d come across thus far.

Only once I’d tended to my botanical charge did I finally return to my suite and slip into bed, another day gone, another day spent on incremental improvements, another day surrounded by the little family I’d built for myself.

And another day closer to Ilirian.

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