Chapter 167: Death at the Summits, II

Wu Hao felt excitement run through him. Finally he'd be facing someone at the highest echelons of power, who wasn't an outright master. Finally he would face off against a martial artist of Father's caliber. Finally, he would see how far he truly had left to go.

He placed the staff back into the spatial storage tool and instead pulled the saber that the master had bought for him. It sat in his hand, feeling like it fit, and Wu Hao swung it lightly, feeling the familiar sparks of potential run up his spine. He grinned.

The crowd of other disciples stood next to the little training ground, having gathered in clumps. It wasn't just the third-grade martial artists, either. A group of second-grade martial artists, maybe a fifth of the number of third-grade martial artists and distinguishable by the two stripes that had been fitted for their uniforms, was also there.

Unlike the other crowds Wu Hao had known, there was no muttering. Instead they radiated only a pure calm, a certainty. It wasn't a certainty in Wu Hao's favor, he knew instinctively.

What did they know, though. He could -

Wu Hao's eyes landed on Sister Wuling, who had calmly taken a stance, and the glee he'd been feeling vanished like snow before the sun.

With Hua Lixin, he'd seen lines. With the master, he'd never confronted the man with a saber in his hand, but he had thought that probably he'd see lines of attack and lines of defense, also, even if they'd be fleeting at best. With any other martial artist, he believed he'd continue to see the lines.

There were no lines on, near, or around Sister Wuling. There were no avenues of attack, and there was no way to defend against whatever strike she would throw. It wasn't that Wu Hao couldn't read her stance, it was that his subconscious couldn't figure out how to react to what he was reading.

And yet all Sister Wuling did was stand there in a simple stance, feet spread apart neatly at shoulder width, her arms steadily holding her sword. It was the same practice sword that sister Biqian had used, but in her hands it looked otherworldly. Her qi had blossomed outwards from her core, forming a network of qi that almost seemed to pulse in Wu Hao's senses. Pulses of a beautiful, flowering qi.

"I wish it to be known," Sister Wuling said, "that I advise you against this, young friend Wu. You have a protective amulet, yes?"

Wu Hao swallowed, suddenly less sure.

"I do," he said, finding his voice.

Then again, what was he afraid of? He wouldn't be killed here, and even if he was, so what? He'd revive and learn something. At worst he'd have to relive the conversation with the master, and he could convince the man all the more easily now that he knew just what the master suspected he was.

Trying to marshal his courage, Wu Hao raised his saber.

"Lower it, please," she said. "I won't be aiming at you. Get back, please."

He didn't.

"Let it never be said that our sect bullies those weaker than us," Sister Wuling continued. "Let this be a learning opportunity. You've mastered a Heaven-tier technique, I have heard. Let me show you mine, then, and maybe a glimpse of what comes afterwards."

"I'm ready," Wu Hao said.

Instead of an answer, qi erupted from sister Wuling. He'd seen Heaven-grade arts before, both in terms of them being used against him and from the sidelines. He'd never seen one as elegant as this. For Hua Lixin a tree had erupted, towering above him. His own image was a storm in constant motion, and for others he had some informed guesses as to what images they would be using.

Sister Wuling's qi gathered into a single, untouched lotus. It was pure in a way that was beyond real, a purity that meant total release from the mortal coil. It sat on a clear pool of water that stretched around sister Wuling, its petals perfectly shaped as if by a painter's brush. The entire scene emanated a deep, complete harmony, a tranquility that was mesmerizing. It was alone on the water, nothing else around it, no frogs croaking, but in the distance a faint hum.

With a slight exhale, Sister Wuling opened her eyes and looked at nothing in particular - a spot off in the distance. Her sword raised slightly from where it had been hanging, qi etching itself into existence. Petals began to fall from somewhere in the sky, crystallized qi mirroring the vision, and she extended the sword forward slightly.

"Heaven Reliant Sword Art," she whispered. "Flower Blizzard."

The petals that had been drifting on an idle breeze began instead to gather into long clouds of flowers, picking up speed as they went. He couldn't have said what tree or what flower they were from, because petals had been gathered from hundreds of different types. Wu Hao recognized plum blossoms and lotus petals, and thought that maybe he saw camellia petals, aconite, irises, osmanthus...

That same humming spread throughout the air, and this time Wu Hao recognized it as a chant. Words that he didn't recognize, from an otherworldly voice, neither male nor female, but ethereal nonetheless.

"Dodge," Sister Wuling commanded, her voice a little strained, breaking through the chanting in the background. "I can't hold it back any more than this."

It took Wu Hao a moment to snap out of his trance, push qi to his feet, and dodge. A blurring step brought him several steps away, his head already turning, staring at the space where he'd stood, and the last of Sister Wuling's ability to hold the petals back snapping.

Then he dodged again because one single qi-boosted step hadn't gotten him far enough away.

Even in that moment the first petals of the storm had already torn through where he'd been standing, cutting through the air like a rain of swords. Several of them clipped his arms and his side and felt like blunt clubs, beating him like a drum.

It hadn't even been aimed at him.

Compared to the stone, he got off light, though. He watched as more and more petals formed out of seeming nowhere, turning into streams of blurring power that all flooded the space where he'd just stood.

But he barely noticed the pain, watching instead as the stone got an abrupt weathering. Petals beat against the stone like raindrops in a relentless river of power, ripping tiny chunks out of everything they cross. Even more of the petals formed into a shield around Sister Wuling, at least as many as had been spent in the attack.

Although spent might not have been the right word, because every petal that cut through the stone as easily as if it was tofu floated up again, was caught in the tide of the technique, and came back to rejoin the shield, forming into patterns that almost seemed to have meaning.

When Sister Wuling ended the technique, her face blank, Wu Hao realized that she really had been holding back, because those petals should have been sharp as razors.

It was beautiful, but it'd also have shredded him into offal if he'd been facing that seriously. Distantly, he was becoming aware that he'd been something of a moron, trying to challenge her.

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Wu Hao scrambled to his feet, but the petals that had hit him had latched onto his clothes, and where they touched him he felt curiously weak. He closed his eyes and tried to find the cause, his eyes shooting open when he'd found it: each petal had sprouted thin roots, draining away the qi that lurked beneath his skin.

With a soft whisper of movement, Sister Wuling arrived next to him and offered a hand. As there were no other options left to him, Wu Hao took it. He tried to angle the saber so he could still stab, but the lines remained absent and the Storm-Cutting Saber wasn't made for these extremely close distances, and besides he had no desire to die here.

The chant had faded, the wind dying down as the technique was ended. Sister Wuling was looking more than a little pale, though she didn't seem out of breath.

"Here," Sister Wuling said, once she'd pulled Wu Hao up to his feet with ease. There was no telling if she knew Wu Hao's thoughts. She brushed the petals from his clothes with a warm hand, then extended another hand to him, the sword having been handed back when she'd finished her technique. "You'll need these."

Wu Hao peered down at the soft lime-colored pellets that Sister Wuling had passed him. "What are they?"

"Pills," Sister Wuling said, though she looked surprised that he didn't know. He wasn't going to tell her he'd never had pills before. "Made of a variety of the plants we grow here, in our gardens. They'll restore a little bit of qi and help with the muscle fatigue."

"Thanks," he said. He looked at the small group of pellets that had been pushed into his hands, took a deep breath, and poured them all into his mouth at once.

"Ah, that's not -" Sister Wuling said, but Wu Hao had sagged back onto the ground and sat himself onto the cool stone. He slung one leg over the other and swallowed.

The first thing he noticed was the subtle flavor of green tea. It spread through his mouth and then, with his next breath, travelled through his lungs and reached his core, where the cool energy that emanated from the pellets formed a thin seed next to his dantian. It pulsed a few times, releasing thin strips of qi that swam into his bloodstream and his meridians and began to soothe the pain he'd felt from the petals. The rest of the qi attached itself to his skin, seeping into the places where those thin roots had attached to him.

He exhaled, feeling the breath mist up in the winter air. He inhaled, the cool air taking away the last of the lingering lust for battle that he'd felt. It had been so stupid. He needed to take care, because feelings like those might get him killed one day without anything to show for it. Although maybe he should've kept standing there, allowed the technique to engulf him. See if he could get anything more from a Heaven-grade technique, after being killed by it the first time.

Wu Hao opened his eyes. This time, his muscles did cooperate and he managed to stand up without any problems.

When he looked at the group of disciples arrayed in front of him, several had dispersed already. The second-grade disciples had returned to their own training. Sister Wuling had stayed, as had Huifei and Hanzi. The meditation had taken longer than he'd expected, because most of the discussion had already faded and the sun had dipped slightly.

"Are you alright?" Sister Wuling asked, the moment that she noticed Wu Hao was moving again.

"I'm fine," Wu Hao grumbled.

"That's good to hear," Sister Wuling said. "Some people have had more adverse effects to my Heaven-grade art, so I've been keeping a bunch of those pellets on hand, just in case. And..."

She bowed to him.

"I wanted to apologize," she said, her face down. "I don't know what I was thinking. I thought that I would have better control over it, but something about the mountain made it all so much more powerful than I was expecting. It lashed out."

"It's fine," Wu Hao responded, caught off guard. "I shouldn't have asked. I didn't know."

"But I should have," sister Wuling said. Her qi beaded with anxiety, gnawing at the flowers in her field.

"Please don't apologize," Wu Hao muttered. "I'm fine. Thank you for showing me that."

She still didn't quite look convinced, so he cast his eyes around and tried to think of something else to say.

"That Heaven-grade art," Wu Hao said, latching onto the new term. "What did you mean when you said that it's a glimpse of what comes next?"

Sister Wuling smiled. Not quite forgotten, then, but willing to go along. "I can't explain it. I just know somehow that there's more beyond it, like I'm on the cusp of figuring out the next step, but I can't say how I'm going to get to that next step. What my master has told me is about that next step. She calls it a Dao-grade art. It's like a Heaven-grade art, but all the more so. It isn't understanding which provides movement, it is an art that resounds with the world itself."

"I don't understand," Wu Hao said.

"I realize that," Sister Wuling said. "But I have faith that you will, one day, even if I don't. Your future looks bright. On that note, however - there came a message for you. Your master has called for you."

Wu Hao nodded, slowly. He still didn't understand, but if Sister Wuling couldn't explain it then Wu Hao would have to find a way of getting killed by one of these Dao-grade Arts. Surely Sister Wuling wasn't the only one with these kinds of glimpses, and surely the others wouldn't be as steady or as easily-relenting as Sister Wuling.

But he had a master to get to.

"I'll be on my way, then," he said. "We'll meet again, senior sister Wuling?"

"Yes," Sister Wuling said. "I imagine we will. Take care. I'll send one of the disciples to escort you to your destination. Huifei?"

"Bye, brother Hao!" Hanzi said, waving, before Huifei pulled him along, an exasperated smile on her face.

In short order, they made their way back to the staging area just above the stairs where he and his master had first been received, and then Wu Hao was guided using a rather circuitous route to another building, where the master was waiting. After bidding farewell to Huifei, he entered the room that they had been given.

Master Shu sat there, sipping his tea with a dark look on his face.

"How did the discussion go?" Wu Hao asked.

"Later," the master said. He didn't seem to be in a good mood. "How did your spars go?"

Wu Hao sighed.

"Similarly," he said, and master Shu snorted.

"I doubt that. It doesn't much matter, though."

He swiped a hand through the air, and then unfurled it slowly like a magician.

"Here," master Shu said. "It wasn't all bad. I got you a present, disciple."

Inside master Shu's hand lay a flower that looked like it had been created from a single gemstone. Wu Hao recognized it immediately, from its description if nothing else.

"I brought you the Jade Orchid, as promised. Now come on. We've got preparations to make."