The flas curled around my palms and feet like obedient serpents, their heat licking the night air without rising further.
My breathing was slow. asured. I inhaled for four counts, held for two, then exhaled through my nose. With each breath, I drew qi from my dantian and guided it in a looped cycle; flowing through my limbs, brushing the edge of the fla, then circling back again.
Where once the act of holding fire on both hands and feet would’ve drained within minutes, now the flas simply remained. Like keeping a pot warm on coals rather than feeding the furnace itself, I learned to keep them as they were without emptying my reserves thanks to the breathing pattern Ren Zhi taught .
A sharp voice echoed through the clearing.
“Focus,” Ren Zhi’s voice snapped from the shadows, firm but calm. “Breath alone won't save you. Keep moving.”
I nodded once, then looked forward.
The clearing ahead was scattered with dry leaves, placed one by one in uneven intervals by Ren Zhi earlier. Each was a checkpoint. A test of control, balance, and restraint.
I took the first step.
Floating Cloud Steps.
My foot landed softly on the first leaf, only the ball of it making contact. A shallow pulse of qi flared through my sole, just enough to cushion the impact and roll my weight forward. The mont my heel would've dropped, I twisted; ankle, then knee, then hip, redirecting my montum toward the next leaf. The fla on my foot fluttered with the motion but didn’t vanish.
Another step. Then another.
I glided across the clearing in short bursts, each footfall whisper-light, each movent folding into the next. The ground never fully accepted my weight. My qi bore it instead, bleeding just enough energy at each point to make it seem like I was skimming the surface of water, not dirt.
All while the flas continued to burn; controlled, anchored by breath and flow.
When I reached the final leaf, I let the montum carry into a spin, drawing the fire along my palms as if sculpting air. Then I dropped into stillness, arms at my sides, chest rising with slow, silent breaths.
Behind , Ren Zhi moved.
His cane tapped once against the ground, then stopped. He crouched beside one of the leaves I had stepped on. Picked it up between two fingers.
He held it toward the faint moonlight. A tiny scorch mark blackened the center.
“It’s too much,” he said simply.
He let the leaf fall apart between his fingers. The edges crumbled to ash.
“You scorched it in the instant you touched down. And your breath—off. Too shallow near the end. Otherwise, this leaf wouldn't even have a mark.”
I nodded, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow.
“It’s… difficult. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s unfamiliar. I’m still treating each part like it’s separate. The breathing pattern. The footwork technique.”
Ren Zhi straightened slowly, expression unreadable.
“It is unfamiliar. Because it’s not fla,” he said. “You’re used to imposing force. To stoking the fire and letting it flare out. This—” he gestured loosely to the scorched leaf, “—is wind.”
He began to pace in a circle around .
“But we don’t want actual wind. No gusts. No displacent. Just the idea of it. Movent without resistance. Direction without confrontation.”
He stopped behind .
“And when applied to your flas, the point is not to add to them. It’s to shape them. To guide.”
I turned to face him, slowly rotating my foot to bleed off the excess heat still rising from my heel.
“So it’s a modifier,” I said, frowning. “A filter for the fire, not more fire itself.”
He gave a half-shrug. “Call it what you want. But if you learn to walk like wind, then your fire will stop fighting you. That’s when your martial arts begin to change.”
I nodded, quietly. “I’ll keep working.”
But even as the words left my mouth, my mind drifted.
A wind-based technique. Subtle, elusive. Not an elent most casual cultivators would be familiar with; not unless they were trained deeply, or once lived it. The Whispering Wind Sect and Tian Zhan ca to mind.
Another clue.
Another piece of Ren Zhi’s impossible puzzle. Was he once an elder of theirs? A defector? A survivor?
The thought had barely begun to form when I crushed it.
He never told . Never even hinted. The only thing he ever asked for was privacy and discretion.
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I owed him that much. I intended to uphold it.
Instead, I turned my gaze toward the treeline.
A blur of blue and silver darted through the night.
Tianyi shot past like a cot, wings trailing a haze of qi as she bounced from trunk to trunk, ricocheting through the clearing with effortless grace. Windy chased her, low to the ground, his coils barely touching the earth as he slithered and snapped through the underbrush, his movent sinuous, fluid, and fast.
They were racing.
Yet Ren Zhi didn’t even glance at them. He stood unmoved, unbothered, arms folded behind his back like the two streaks of destruction weren’t tearing up the clearing like wild storms. Typical.
I took a quick peek at their stats through the Interface.
Na: Tianyi
Race: Mystical Butterfly
Affinity: Wood
Cultivation Rank: Essence Awakening Stage - Rank 2
Special Abilities:
Qi Haven: Transforms frequented areas into concentrated qi zones, boosting recovery and cultivation efficiency for those within its boundaries.
Moonlight Empowernt: Gains increased power and vitality under the moonlight.
Qi Siphon: Can absorb small amounts of qi from its surroundings to sustain itself.
Qi Transfer: Can imbue living beings with energy by transferring its qi, providing a small boost to those who receive it.
Qi Infusion: Infuse your body with qi, strengthening and making it faster.
Drunken Constitution: A constitution that enhances one's ability to fight while intoxicated.
Bond Level: 3 (Close Companion) - Tianyi has ford a deep bond with you, displaying loyalty and commitnt to your shared journey. Her abilities may strengthen in response to your connection, and she will be more attuned to your emotions and needs. Additional abilities or enhancents may beco available as your bond continues to grow.
I blinked. She’d broken through. I hadn’t even noticed. Was it when I gave her the beast core elixir yesterday?
No wonder her movent felt sharper, her montum tighter. She’d always been fast, but now her aura pulsed with refined strength—controlled and conscious. Like her body finally knew what to do with the power she’d been grasping at for months.
I glanced at Windy.
Na: Windy
Race: Wind Serpent (Aberrant)
Affinity: Wood and tal
Cultivation Rank: Qi Initiation Stage - Rank 5
Special Abilities:
Tail Whip: Delivers a swift and powerful tail strike infused with qi.
Paralyzing Venom: Injects venom that temporarily paralyzes the target.
Moonlight Empowernt: Gains increased power and vitality under the moonlight.
Predator's Insight: Perceive the most efficient paths to a lethal strike.
Illusory Motion Technique: A movent technique that creates afterimages and subtle distortions in your wake.
Bond Level: 3 (Close Companion) - Windy has ford a deep bond with you, displaying loyalty and commitnt to your shared journey. His abilities may strengthen in response to your connection, and he will be more attuned to your emotions and needs. Additional abilities or enhancents may beco available as your bond continues to grow.
Still the sa.
But he was different. I could see it; bigger, faster, and stronger. He moved with more control, more nuance. His tail curved and flowed with intent, like a whip trained to precision rather than instinct.
He hadn’t ascended yet.
But he was close. The signs were there.
I wondered... would Windy awaken like Tianyi did? Would he gain a humanoid form too? Or sothing else entirely?
A pang of quiet uncertainty settled in my chest.
Because no matter how fast they progressed, no matter how proud I was of them...
I was still the anomaly.
Their growth made sense. Their efforts showed. But mine?
Mine felt orchestrated. Nudged forward by unseen hands.
Perhaps it was the Interface Manipulator title. Or the Dao Pioneer. Or the way the Heavenly Interface itself sotis shifted around , as if aware of my circumstances—reacting, accommodating, accelerating. Giving quests when I needed, bestowing skills that synergized perfectly with each other.
But whichever it was...
I couldn’t afford to rest on my laurels.
Not with what I carried.
The Phoenix Tears pulsed quietly in my mind. Even sealed away in my ring, I could feel their presence. As if the artifact had carved out a chamber in my consciousness and sat there, quietly humming.
It tempted .
A legendary panacea. Said to cure anything short of death.
And more than that, it called to . A whisper behind every exhausted breath, promising restoration. Completion.
But I knew better.
It wasn’t a gift. It was bait. A pearl that could bring the wrath of the sea with it.
Anyone who knew I had it… would hunt for it.
Heavenly Fla Mantra has reached level 7.
A flicker danced through my chest. Warmth spread outward. I felt the change instantly.
The flas at my feet bent with my motion, curling with my breath, as though my body had beco the bellows, the hearth, and the spark all at once.
I let out a slow breath, letting the warmth ebb back into stillness.
That’s when the idea struck .
I turned to Ren Zhi, heartbeat rising.
“I want to give you sothing,” I said.
He tilted his head just slightly, the way he did when listening closely. “What?”
I focused on my storage ring and channeled a thread of intent. The Phoenix Tears erged in a sealed vial no larger than a clenched fist, glowing faintly under the moonlight.
“This,” I said, holding it out. “The Phoenix Tears. That mad elder had them. According to Xu Ziqing and the others from Verdant Lotus, they’re real. The legends were true. They’re said to heal anything short of death. So...”
A silence fell over the clearing like a drifting mist.
Ren Zhi didn’t move. He didn’t speak. Just stood there, his expression unreadable.
I held the it out, steady despite the nerves creeping into my fingers. “You’ve given so much,” I said quietly. “Your ti. Your teachings. You never asked for anything back. But if this can help you—truly help you—then I want you to have it.”
“Are you an idiot?”
I blinked, more confused than offended. “I’m starting to wonder.”
He let out a long sigh, like he was too tired to argue with the world anymore. “You know what that thing is, don’t you? People have started wars over less.”
“I do,” I said. “I offered it to Elder Ming first. He turned it down.”
Ren Zhi snorted, amused. “Of course he did. Never seed like the type to care for it.”
I couldn’t help smiling.
He stepped a little closer. His milky eyes didn’t et mine, but they felt like they saw through the night just the sa.
“So why not take it yourself?”
That made pause.
“I thought about it,” I admitted. “More than once. It’s… tempting. I feel it calling to sotis. Like it knows what I lack and wants to fix it all.”
He didn’t interrupt. Just listened.
“But I’m not broken,” I said. “Not yet. And I’d rather save it for soone who is.” I looked down at the gourd, its warmth faint against my palm. “If you ant harm, Ren Zhi, you could’ve done it a dozen tis by now. But you didn’t. You helped. You guided. You gave freely.”
I t his gaze. Or tried to.
“You’re a benefactor to . One of the few who’s asked for nothing in return. I just want to repay that in a way that matters.”
He exhaled, shaking his head. “Your bleeding heart’s going to be the death of you, Kai Liu.”
I smiled faintly. “Maybe. But if I stop trusting the people I care about… I’d be soone else entirely.”
Another pause.
Then, with a low grunt, he raised his cane to gently tap the vial back toward .
“Keep it,” he said. “You’re a fool. But not the kind I dislike.”
I nodded, and with a thought, returned the vial to my storage ring. Even sealed away, I could feel its weight.
I wouldn't use it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Tempting as it was, I knew better than to trust a legend at face value. Elder Cheng had been on the brink of death; raving, rotting from the inside... yet even then, he hadn’t used it. He held onto it. Fought for it. Died with it.
That ant sothing.
Maybe the Phoenix Tears needed preparation.
Maybe it wasn’t a dicine you could just swallow, but an ingredient for sothing far more complicated. Whatever the truth, it wasn’t sothing to be used carelessly.
“Wrap it up,” Ren Zhi called, already turning away. “We can continue tomorrow.”
I gave a mock bow. “Your kindness, as always, is overwhelming.”
Windy let out a long groan from the tree he’d flopped over, tongue hanging out like he’d just chased a hurricane.
anwhile, Tianyi perched on a high branch, legs dangling, wings twitching lazily as though she hadn’t just spent the last half hour outracing a snake with predator blood in his veins.
She looked… fresh. Eager.
Too eager.
“Trade pointers?” she asked, eyes bright.
I blinked. “Now?”
Windy lifted his head weakly, then flopped again with a pained hiss of air. Absolutely not.
Tianyi hopped down in a graceful arc, landing beside with a flutter. “I want to learn how to drink alcohol properly. How to use it better.”
I nodded. We rarely practiced together, and I largely forbid her from practicing unsupervised as the risk of collateral damage was too high. But now, we could contain it since we were in the forest. "This young master shall entertain the request.”
Before I could protest, she zipped into the storehouse, leaving and Windy in the clearing.
Monts later, she returned with an armful of bottles I distinctly rembered hiding beneath a loose floorboard wrapped in old cloth.
“How—?”
She blinked at innocently. “You talk when you sleep.”
Of course I was.
She set the bottles down, twisted one open with practiced ease, and took a swig. Her nose wrinkled, but she kept drinking.
I watched the liquor drain with increasing dread.
Tianyi was powerful.
Tianyi was fast.
Tianyi, drunk, was terrifying.
She exhaled with a tiny burp and smiled. “Okay. I’m ready.”
I backed up a step and flared my flas. Hands, feet—bright and steady. The training was still fresh in my muscles. The mantra was humming in my blood.
I fell into stance. And let out a small grin. I wouldn't have dread of saying this even a month ago, but...
“I’ll give you the first three moves.”
She nodded. Calm. Serene.
Then chugged the rest of the bottle in one go.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
She charged.
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