Sky Pride

Chapter 10- Opening the Sky

The sky was still periwinkle, not yet warming to the rising gradations of tangerine and turquoise that heralded the sun rising behind them. The last of the stars glimmered, fading, soon to vanish for a few hours then return when the great scene-stealer finally set once more. There was only a thin patch of sky over the narrow valley hiding Cruel Treachery’s cave. This was intentional.

“Your instinct will be to try and draw in the whole sky at once. This is understandable, but misguided for a beginner. You are drawing in chaotic qi, and right now, the scope of your “draw” area is what you can see. It’s all in your head, of course, your eyes are simply helping guide your thoughts. With training and time, you won’t need such a crutch. What you can draw in becomes limited only by what your meridians and dantian can stand.”

“Does that mean we can only cultivate under the open sky?” Tian asked. Master Treachery was sitting in lotus, eyes closed, on a flat bit of rock.

“For now. And only during daytime. Sunny days for choice, and right around dawn to begin with. Qi is both yin and yang, but the qi circulation system, the meridians and dantian, are more yang than yin. Inhale the remnant yin qi of the night to moisten and nourish your dantians, then inhale the sunrise. Sit at the mouth of the valley. You will have to angle yourself a bit to properly align with the rising sun while still limiting your view of the sky. Above all, inhale the purple flash from the east. It is the purest yang qi the dawn offers. Primarily fire qi, but with attention you will find hints of wood. With even more experience, you will find it contains yet more rare, nuanced varieties of qi, less primal, but their special characteristics have deep value. Extremely beneficial to developing your heart dantian, and steady accumulation of this special qi will provide a crucial component of your developing internal sky.”

The two quickly took their positions. The chant said to visualize drawing in the sky with each breath. Not air, the sky. To see the sky, and project your will outwards, slowly drawing that intangible inward and taking possession of it. They did their best, slowly guiding the qi through their meridians, and through their dantians. The similarities with the Darknorth Sea Spell were less than Tian would have thought. It was pickier, the qi felt more wild and rough. Hotter, too, with all the fiery yang qi slamming into the wood vital energy within his body. The water qi from Darknorth Sea spell didn’t clash with the fire. It moderated it, soothing and moisturising the meridians the fire qi blazed through.

The sun barely crossed the horizon, and for an instant, the barest instant, there was a flash of purple light. Tian and Liren inhaled sharply, visualizing themselves sucking in the violet qi like it was smoke. The smoke burned, searing hot, as it flowed down his throat, but the heat it left behind quickly became energizing. There was a little pain, but far more vitality. If the cool water of the Darknorth Sea softened the meridians, the expansive gas of the condensed purple flash gently forced them wider. It was a tiny, tiny amount, but wasn’t that the essence of cultivation? Small changes accumulating over decades and centuries, growing into a monumental transformation.

They wrapped up their cultivation session as the sun fully cleared the horizon. Master Treachery told them to come back in two days for the second cultivation session, a pattern they would keep for the next few months, slowly getting used to the various atmospheric and cosmological changes. Even the time of year could radically change the experience of using the Sky Treading Art. It would all be slowly introduced to them.

She was a careful teacher, answering every question, never hostile, never warm.

A week slipped past, then two, then somehow it had been a month and Tian was exchanging bewildered looks with Liren over the morning’s rice and pickled bamboo shoots.

“I swear we have been working flat out every day, but I can’t remember how we came to be… today.” Liren went to rub the back of her head, and nearly put her chopsticks through her cropped hair. She gave them a startled look and firmly set them down on the bowl.

“Right. We saw the Wangs, offloaded a load of loot, got sent to a whole bunch of other crafters who he had… did he really say “mutually beneficial relationships?”

“A hell of a thing to say when you already have three wives and two of them are very pregnant, yeah.” Sister Su and Sister Ming were looking less radiant and more exhausted and cranky. Pregnancy was much safer when you were a cultivator, but not much less draining. Tian had checked in with the doctors, who assured him that over the centuries, they had absolutely assisted in delivering babies as well as all manner of pre- and post-natal care. Tian would have found their words a lot more reassuring if he didn’t know for a fact the sect’s medical libraries had, at most, one book on obstetrics for every seventy on gross physical or magical trauma.

“I mean, I know what he meant, but…” Tian muttered, trying to follow the path of the month. “And then we still wound up dumping a whole bunch of things off at the mission hall in exchange for merits. And thanks to being direct disciples, we can now get whatever the hell we want from the library with those merits, and buy the top end materials to have things crafted with, but who the hell has time?”

“I definitely have been practicing the spear art Venerable Merciless gave me. I have definitely been doing that.” Liren’s voice had some conviction, but she still seemed a bit bewildered.

“What’s it called?”

“What’s what called?”

“The spear art.”

“Oh that.” She blinked, seemingly dredging the depths of her recollection for this nigh-impossibly-obscure piece of trivia. “Stormfall. It’s a series of…” Her voice trailed off while she groped for the right words. “It’s spearplay as understood by a very old creature that understands stabbing to an unfathomable degree, along with crushing and tearing, and understands the five elements on a level I am incapable of. He then took those things, looked at what foundation I had, considered what would help me grow as a person and a combatant, and then said ‘Do this.’”

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“Right.” Tian said, plainly not understanding.

“It’s not a spear drill, exactly, or a dance, exactly, or a philosophy text, exactly, or a fighting manual, exactly, but kind of all those things rolled into one. Thankfully with a lot of pictures.”

“Is it going well?”

“I think so. I. Um.” She turned away. Tian saw a flush creeping up her neck. “It’s um. Useful. What we are doing. In the evenings.”

“Good. I agree entirely. What the hell is in that manual exactly?!”

“No, no, you don’t understand! Yin! The spear art incorporates a lot of yin, water qi, concepts of density, heaviness, condensation, relentless flowing, enduring. I’m overwhelmingly yang. The art is moderating that.”

“Yeeeeeesss?”

“You are helping me get in touch with my more yin side.”

“Oh.” Tian smiled. “Funny. I was going to say something.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You know how much I like it when you lead, but lately I’ve been enjoying occasionally turning the tables, as it were.”

“I wonder if it’s the effect of your staff art and the Sky Treading Art. Combined with the Advent of Spring art, you are stacking yang on yang on yang. It’s not strange that you are getting a bit more aggressive.”

Tian’s smile descended into a grin. “I don’t hate it.”

The red on her neck spread up a bit. “Me either. Um. Spearplay! Of the not metaphorical kind.”

“Oh hell with that, this is much more interesting.” Soft, but remarkably strong, hands stretched out towards a suddenly retreating Liren.

“Nope! The sun’s up. Very improper!”

“Lies.”

Liren shook her head hard. “You know I would never.”

Tian frowned. “That’s just dumb.”

“Propriety is propriety.”

“I’ll let you escape. For now.” He glowered and harumphed a bit, before turning back to his pile of books. “Wait. When did this pile of books get here?”

“Two days ago. You put them there and said ‘No more delays, I’m committing to two hours of medical textbook review every day, no excuses,’ and haven’t touched them since.”

“Ah. I’m sure I have a very good reason for not doing that.”

“No excuses, remember?” She grinned, a bit wan.

“What are you forgetting?”

“My little side project. And whatever the hell it was that I have been doing in the Discipline Squad for the last month, but mostly the side project.”

“Which is?” Tian asked. He had been very good about not peeking.

“A secret. Still.”

She had been working on something for a while now, but had insisted he not snoop. He had, with a great deal of grumbling, done so. Not that he felt an overwhelming urge to peek, he just enjoyed the grumbling as an extension of the bickering. These things were important.

“A secret you have forgotten for a few days?”

“A few weeks.” Her expression turned hangdog. “How do you live like this? How? This is chaos. There are a million things going on, and they are all demanding I pay attention to them. So I pay attention to one, but then all the others get neglected, but if I move from one to the next, nothing gets done properly.”

“I thought I knew the answer to that.” Tian watched Burning Heaven come gliding in through the hole in the roof to land on the edge of the pond. “How are things in the Holy Land?”

“Nothing much changes. Brother Brightheart says he can feel his heart beat slowing sometimes just by being there. It is a bit dull, until Master assigns new training. Then things get very, very, not-dull.”

There was a faraway sound to her voice.

“Not dull?”

“I think I have killed more than a billion insects in all the hidden realms he has sent me into. He says bug extermination helps me get my mindset right for his techniques. I’m calling them insects, because I don’t know what else to call them. Some of them kind of smoosh together to make bigger insects.”

“How big?” Tian remembered some of those gu got pretty large. He could remember a beetle that was bigger than a horse. Those giant centipedes were, unfortunately, unforgettable, as were the scorpions a few grown men could stand on without crowding. And there was that enormous caterpillar, of course. That thing had been twice as tall as Liren is now, and it felt like it was a mile long. It was probably closer to twenty feet, but at the time it had felt like a mile.

“Bigger than the main temple, smaller than a pagoda? In height, I mean, it was bigger in width. They were bigger. Plural. There were a few of them.”

Tian and Liren shared a long, speculative look. “We went too easy on Han.”

“We did. We should go back and train him right this time.” Liren nodded. “We won’t use insects, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“What about meditating under a two hundred foot waterfall?” Liren suggested. “We can drop logs from the top of the waterfall to make sure he is both focused on his meditation and aware of his environment enough to detect a falling object separately from the waterfall.”

“Smart. Very smart. Economical. Thrifty, even. Exactly the kind of cultivation one should expect from excellent mountain ascetics like ourselves.” Tian nodded strongly. “Once I’ve read these manuals, I’m sure I can make better body refining ointments and medicines too.”

They engaged in mutual nodding for a moment, then, unprompted, both fell backwards and lay flat on the stone floor of the cavern.

“Day off?” Liren offered.

“Day off.”

“What’s a day off?” Burning Heaven asked.

“A day where we don’t work and just… rest. Maybe go visit the Wangs, or have tea with Father.” Tian smiled. “I’ll play the flute, and Liren will paint or something. We could do a bit of landscaping, I suppose. Put in some decorative flowers along with the vegetables and things. Do you happen to know where there are good wildflowers growing?”

Burning Heaven nodded, her red beak bobbing up and down. “Yep! Bunches of ‘em, some on long stems that would look great next to the lotuses in the pond. Wanna go get ‘em?”

“I really do.” Tian stretched out his hand to Liren and hauled her to her feet. She laughed, tired but warm and real and true as the sunrise. Together, they flew off to pick some wildflowers. Because this, too, was the dao.