Boots

2.14 - Yan Shirong

Yan Shirong picked himself up from the dirt and took a moment to be grateful for the formations woven into his clothes. Without them, every single outfit he’d brought on this “adventure” would have been ruined by now. As he settled back into his stance, he fixed his attention on his sparring opponent.

He Yu. A mere commoner. Sure, he’d managed to advance to middle Qi Gathering after less than a week at the Shrouded Peaks Sect, but anyone could have done that by accident on the o...

2.13 - Lessons on Foundation

Over the next week, He Yu, Li Heng, and Yan Shirong would head to the nearby forest edge and chop trees each morning. It took them the better part of their time to chop through the tough bark of the Stonewrought Pines, even with the instruction they’d gained from Old Guo on that first day.

He Yu felt that he perhaps had the easiest time of it, oddly enough. Cycling wind qi in an improvised body enforcement technique was similar enough to his demonstration of what his father had shown ...

2.12 - Old Guo's Training

Much to He Yu’s disappointment, the first thing Old Guo had them do was chop wood. Where the old man had gotten his axes from, He Yu couldn’t have said, but he produced three of them. Once the disciples each had an ax in hand, Old Guo pointed them to the tree line and told them to get to work.

“This is outrageous,” Yan Shirong said, once they were within a few yards of the trees. “Jobs fit for a servant.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Li Heng said. “But I think we should...

Interlude - Tan Xiaoling

Tan Xiaoling emerged from her cultivation chamber, and into the crisp evening of early winter. The stench of extruded impurities clung to her still, despite having washed herself and changing into a fresh gown already. Her first steps with her new body—a pale imitation of what it would become now that she’d finally broken into the Third Realm—were filled with an unexpected but not unwelcome sense of strength and control. It would take some time to get used to this breakthrough, but she�...

2.11 - Unexpected Aid

He Yu had learned better than to hold anything back after watching how Old Guo had reacted to Li Heng and Yan Shirong. With wind churning along the length of his guandao, he surged forward with the Sky Dragon’s Flight. Old Guo’s initial reaction was almost imperceptible—if He Yu had still been even early Foundation, he’d have likely missed it. The old cultivator’s white brows drew fractionally together as He Yu brought his weapon down in an overhand strike.

Slipping to the sid...

2.10 - Old Guo

The pressure from the old man slammed into He Yu like a physical blow, knocking him back more than a dozen feet, and then weighing down on him like a mountain. It was unlike anything he’d felt before, not even when Zhang Lifen or Ren Huang had unleashed their spirits. The old man radiated vibrant life and deep, ancient power.

He was a tree, towering more than a hundred feet over them all. His branches stretched out to grasp the lake, the surrounding forest, and the bandits alike. His ...

2.9 - Pursuit

King Hao hefted his mace once more, readying another attack. He was several dozen yards away still, but he’d already demonstrated that his movement technique could easily cover the distance. He Yu pushed himself to his feet and readied his guandao. To his relief, he saw that Li Heng had regained his balance with the time He Yu had bought him, but he still seemed to be struggling with his jian.

Shadows rose from the grass at King Hao’s feet and wrapped around the arm holding the mace...

2.8 - Encountering the Ox King

Li Heng’s guess about the bandits’ location turned out to be correct; on the second day, they crossed the northern border of the Shrouded Peaks Sect territory. The only demarcation was a large stone carved with the characters for the sect. The stone was weathered and old, and the lands here in the north were far more wild than any they’d moved through up until this point.

It took them another three days to track the bandits to their camp. They moved swiftly, the prospect of huntin...

2.7 - The Passage of Bandits

The next month saw the journey settle into a productive routine. The first half of the day was spent on travel itself. Once they found a suitable spot to camp around midday, they left the road and began hunting beasts. While they never managed to find another Third Realm beast, there were plenty of the Second, and several were even close to advancement before the three cultivators found them. The bounty of the wilds saw them feasting on awakened beast meat nearly every night, and harvesting c...

2.6 - Teamwork

The winds churned around He Yu as he landed in the middle of the clearing. The Howling Wind whipped the serpent’s poison around and away from him. The beast’s golden eyes regarded him for a moment as he stared up at it with an expression he hoped would come across as defiant. Done with speech, the serpent’s mouth opened and its fangs hinged down once again. With golden eyes fixed on its prey, it struck.

It took everything He Yu had not to dash away using the Sky Dragon’s Flight....

2.5 - The Poison Wood

None of the three cultivators hesitated. A hail of Yan Shirong’s daggers cut through the undergrowth as they flew towards the serpent. Li Heng appeared just behind the serpent’s head in a flash of moonlit snow, his jian tracing a silver arc as it fell. He Yu rushed forward, carried by the Sky Dragon’s Flight. Wind qi gathered along the length of his guandao.

Wood and poison qi bloomed out from the serpent as it activated its own technique. Emerald scales glinted in the soft light,...

2.4 - Hunting Beasts

Over the next few days, they made better time than He Yu would have thought possible before joining the Shrouded Peaks Sect. The signs of civilization became increasingly sparse until they disappeared altogether. By the fourth full day of travel, they were well and truly in the wilds—the vast stretches of land between settlements that were the domain of spirits and awakened beasts. That night they made camp just inside the protection of a formation stone that the sect maintained along the r...

2.3 - Travel

When He Yu arrived at the outer sect gate, Li Heng and Yan Shirong were already waiting for him. Neither had changed their appearance much at all, which initially struck He Yu as odd. They looked like exactly what they were—a pair of wealthy noble scions. 

He Yu had mostly gotten used to Li Heng always looking clean and well-dressed. The heir of the Western Passage stood out in his eyes less than Yan Shirong did. The comital scion was dressed in his typical robes of black and vio...

2.2 - Preparation

As it turned out, Yan Shirong agreed to join them easily enough. He’d tried to haggle a bit at first, demanding they pay him in spirit stones for his company upfront. Li Heng said he’d be happy to do so if Yan Shirong would forgo his share of the job rewards. That put a swift end to the negotiations, and the three of them quickly hammered out the details of when they would leave.

Yan Shirong had some business to attend to on the mountain that he wouldn’t specify and said he needed...

2.1 - Consider it Training

He Yu turned in the bundle of medicinal herbs and thanked the clerk behind the assignment hall counter as she marked down his contribution points. In the weeks since his fight with Sha Xiang, he’d split his time between cultivation and taking on increasingly lucrative sect jobs. The beating she’d given him had required a fair number of resources to bounce back from, and He Yu had no illusions about their relative strength, despite the damage she’d caused her own cultivation.

The o...

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