Chapter 162: A Roadside Death, II

"You see," the master said, pulling his finger back. "You know qi. You use qi. You do not truly understand qi. Even I, a Sovereign, do not claim to understand qi, but I understand more than most. You need to achieve understanding, if you ever want to get anywhere, and the more you know the higher your chances of understanding will be."

Wu Hao glared down at the thick book.

"I still don't see the point."

"How were you able to use a Heaven-grade technique?" Master Shu muttered, as much to himself as to Wu Hao. "Is it really true that Heaven smiles upon the stupid?"

"Hey!" Wu Hao protested.

"Another question, then. It seems to be the easiest way to get you to realize the deficiencies in your knowledge."

Wu Hao scowled. Was this what mastership entailed, then? Being relentlessly insulted?

He nearly jumped out of the carriage, but the glint in his master's eye made it clear that he'd be dragged back if he did. He could still kill himself but hesitated.

The master took his silence as a sort of assent.

"What differentiates a Mortal-tier technique from an Earth-tier technique?" he asked.

"Earth-tier techniques can be enhanced with qi," Wu Hao said.

"Correct," master Shu nodded. Wu Hao felt pleased at the man's approval before he remembered that he was supposed to be upset and the scowl was put back into place. "And what differentiates an Earth-tier technique from a Mortal-tier technique?"

"The Mortal tier cannot be enhanced with qi," Wu Hao stated. Not that he knew any or had tried it himself. He'd never died to someone using a Mortal-tier technique before and he definitely wasn't about to start now. "Or they don't have any additional effects beyond just making you stronger, I guess. The Earth-tier techniques can. You can activate additional effects if you use your qi along the correct patterns, but the techniques also work without them."

"Correct," master Shu said again. Again that little thrill that Wu Hao had to ignore. He felt like a dog trying its hardest not to wag its tail. "And you might even know that Heaven-tier techniques require a connection with the world around you, using it as a basis to form a technique greater than what you can possibly manifest on your own. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Good," master Shu said. A thought seemed to strike him. "What do you connect with for that technique of yours, by the way?"

"You can't just tell?" Wu Hao asked. He'd never considered before that images like the ones he'd connected to earlier were invisible to others, even the masters. In fact, after he'd seen Hua Lixin's image, he'd considered it fairly obvious that everyone could see them. When he hadn't known the image that Hua Lixin had used, it had been harder to defeat him, while when he did know the image he could cut through it by simply taking the tree's crown as another sky to sever.

"I cannot," master Shu said. "Perhaps if I watched you fight for a dozen hours or so. But we don't have that sort of time and, in any case, it's far easier simply for you to tell me. That said, you should never tell anyone other than me what you connect to. It is vital that you don't, since to know what you connect to is to also know how to disconnect you, if you have half a brain."

Wu Hao sighed and decided: what the hell. Master Shu was a master. He could simply explode Wu Hao from the inside just by pressuring him with the sheer immensity of the qi he had access to.

"A storm," he said. "I imagine cutting, whirling winds. I imagine everything going everywhere. I imagine chaos and being in the middle of that chaos. It's a storm that I can't resist because it comes from within, so instead I focus the storm and use it to cut through the sky above."

Master Shu's eyebrows had climbed up with every word spoken.

"I see," he said slowly. "A storm. Fascinating. Do you have any other Heaven-tier techniques I should know about?"

He did, in fact. There was the Hound's Snapping Jaws, the dagger technique that he'd never quite managed to figure out. There was the Stream-Cutting Sword Art, a sword art that he'd never used before, even when he did have a sword, because he'd had no Sky-tier sword arts.

There were also the demonic techniques, but if he hadn't mentioned the others before because he'd never used them, these ones he didn't mention because he had no clue how master Shu might respond to him knowing any demonic arts. Something told him it wouldn't end well to tell him, though. Very much not well.

"None that I can use," Wu Hao said.

Master Shu's eyes narrowed. "That is a very specific answer to a question that shouldn't have been that difficult to answer."

Wu Hao shrugged, and master Shu exhaled.

"Fine," he said. "I will accept that answer, for now, and I will move on."

Maybe it was a lie, but Wu Hao felt oddly inclined to believe it. Master Shu had made no attempt to inquire where Wu Hao had learned the other techniques he'd mastered, where his money had come from, or who his parents were. Wu Hao had enjoyed the fact that he hadn't been asked because what was the point of making up answers that wouldn't deceive anyone?

"Now think, disciple. You are now the winner of the Winter Solstice Tournament. When we reach, say, the Hua Sect, you'll be asked to spar with other disciples of theirs beyond just Hua Lixin. What manner of techniques do you think they'll use?"

"Sword arts?" Wu Hao said.

"Yes," master Shu said. "And?"

"And... fist arts?" Wu Hao guessed.

"Incorrect. Mount Hua also has a tradition of spear arts, though they're rather rarely taught nowadays. That said, this discussion is leaving aside the variety of movement techniques such as the Treading Fire Step or the Floating Blossoms Movement Art, internal cultivation techniques that I was never allowed to even learn the names of, and every kind of miscellaneous arts that they've picked up through the thousands of years that they've been around."

"What kind of miscellaneous arts?" Wu Hao asked.

"Stealth arts, formations," the master said. "Healing arts, arts related to farming treasures from the soil that can be useful for cultivation."

"You can't use those last two in combat."

Master Shu palmed his face. "They are related to the miscellaneous arts, brat. Besides, they form the foundation of Mount Hua. In fact, they're more ancient than the sword arts."

"What?" Wu Hao asked. "How does that work?"

"The first patriarch of the Mount Hua Sect was first a farmer," master Shu said, almost absently. "He discovered, through great trial and error, the way to cultivate immortal plums. The sword arts were established starting from the principles that he discovered. Much as the Buddha found enlightenment underneath the fig tree, I suppose."

This text was taken from NovelPhoenix. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He coughed. "We have, however, gotten sidetracked. How exactly are you planning to deal with all these arts - in combat - if you don't have the firm foundation to recognize by which principles they operate?"

Wu Hao could just try them out and then die later, if he failed. He opened his mouth but then stopped.

Master Shu was right. He was the winner of the Winter Solstice Tournament now. It would be beyond embarassing if he killed himself after losing to a random disciple of the Hua Sect, just because he didn't see through their techniques at all.

Pride had crept up on him. He had come a far way from being the boy who had been forced to lie, face down, in the muck and in the dreck, for hours, just to be killed almost immediately afterwards.

Wu Hao glanced down at the book again. He flipped through its pages, squinting at the writing. At least it was fairly legible, written in a clean hand that didn't smudge the ink at any point. There were even diagrams illustrating the movement of qi, neat categorizations of the various kinds of qi to be attuned to, and their effects.

It still looked boring as sin, but Wu Hao knew that he'd be doing himself a disservice if he didn't read all of it.

"Who wrote this?" he asked, turning the book around. "I don't see an author listed."

"It's one in a series of books that came down from antiquity," master Shu said. "Every beginning martial artist learns it. It has been copied for generations upon generations. I have yet to see anyone claim that they could improve upon its contents and not be proven ultimately wrong."

"Is it valuable?"

"Does it matter?" master Shu asked. "I'll make you learn it, brat. One way or another. Even if I have to imprint every word of it upon your skull. If you finish it, you will finally be the equal of one of the Nine Sect's beginning disciples. In knowledge of qi, at least."

"How long until we arrive?" he asked, already dreading the answer.

"Five days," master Shu said. "I expect you to have read the book from cover to cover, by then. Perhaps if you manage to actually remember any of it I might even be reluctantly impressed."

Wu Hao nodded. Five days, he thought. Five days to read this entire thing. So be it. He had suffered worse than this before.

But, all said and done, if master Shu's smile got just a hair more smug, Wu Hao might still throw the book at him.

He flipped open the first page.

"Of all things in existence, qi is certainly among those that are the least understood. The word means breath and therefore it is sometimes said to be the breath of the world, both the exhale and the inhale, and hence it can be cultivating by using the proper breathing techniques - combined, of course, with the proper forms of meditation. And while it can be used without the need for understanding, the simple usage of it does not confer knowledge. The stones around which the river flows have no idea of the course of the water beyond itself, and a rock buried underwater has no concept of water except that it knows there are things which flow and things which do not..."

Wu Hao stared down at the page. Master Shu raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "Well?"

Sighing, Wu Hao read on. Around them the carriage trundled steadily forward, so smoothly that perhaps it might not have been moving at all.

A few hours later, Wu Hao stumbled out of the carriage. He had sat so much without being able to stretch and move that he felt a deep pain in his ass. They were finally stopping for the night, and while Master Shu looked no worse for wear, Wu Hao was tired and hungry and felt almost blind from staring at the impenetrable writing of the book he'd been handed.

There wasn't even the vaguest hint of civilization around them. There was only the road by which they had travelled and the thin forests around them. All else was a landscape that stretched into hills and featureless plains. He couldn't even see Mt. Song in the distance anymore.

A quick walk would help him, he decided. He itched simply to move. Afterwards he figured he'd grab a quick lunch. Food was one of the things he'd packed himself, despite the master insisting that he didn't need to. The master poked his head out of the carriage, and walked over, stretching slightly.

For a man who was apparently a hundred-plus years old, he was still spry enough, Wu Hao thought.

Together, they ate lunch, drawn from the master's spatial storage, like the tea and the snacks and the books. There was a sort of spicy soup which heated Wu Hao to the point that the winter felt like an autumn afternoon, and otherwise there was rice with a few vegetables and a bit of beef. Wu Hao ate it all but didn't dare ask for seconds.

He waited until the master was done eating, wondering what was going to happen next. Back to the carriage, he supposed.

A quarterstaff thudded into the ground. Wu Hao looked from the master's outstretched hand to where the staff lay on the cold dirt, then back again. Another thing the master had drawn from his spatial storage.

"Time for a lesson, I think," the master said.

Despite every other lesson that he'd been taught so far, Wu Hao felt a vague thrill of excitement run through him.

"Pick it up," the master said. "You didn't think that your foundation would grow only by repeating theory, did you? No, boy. I'll make a complete martial artist out of you or kill you by trying."

"The phrase goes 'or die trying'," Wu Hao pointed out.

"It does," master Shu said. "But that would be inaccurate, because you pose as much threat to me as a fly might. I am, after all, a Sovereign."

"So you keep pointing out," Wu Hao muttered. Master Shu stepped forward, lightning-quick even without using his movement techniques, until he stood close enough to Wu Hao that they were at the exact same distance from each other as Wu Hao's new staff was long. With a flick of his wrist ink burst forth out of the air, clumping together until it formed a staff out of thin air. He gave it an experimental swing and shrugged his shoulders.

"Good enough," he said. "I'll show you the first few movements of the technique I once used, when I roamed the rivers and the mountains, looking for inspiration on my arrays. It is called the Heavy Iron Staff Art, and I expect you to have a handle on it by the time we reach the Emei Sect."

Growling, Wu Hao's fingers closed around the heavy staff. He had only a single thought to cheer himself up with: if he did his best, he might actually get to smack a Sovereign.