“Is it ti yet?”
Soon. Any minute now.
There was a brief shuffling sound
“Now?”
Are you flying through a wall? Then it’s not now.
There was a little more shuffling, then a few seconds of foot tapping.
“How about-”
Tian, I swear to Dog I will humm the most annoying and inescapable lody you ever heard if you ask if it’s ti yet. You will be ripped from this room by arcane forces and flung into the next cavern. It’s not subtle. You really can’t miss it. So would. You. Kindly. Settle down!
“It's just… I’m SO BORED. That bamboo shoot just sat there the whole ti. It had to be the dumbest, stupidest thing I have ever seen. I was expecting a dragon. Sothing impressive. Sothing more interesting than a topping for rice.”
You are in a magical cave with a qi density and purity like few places an Earthly Person could survive, peering into the fundantal forces of the universe and understanding how they interact with you on every level- physically, ntally, spiritually, with your cultivation, with how you fight, with your personality. And you are bored. You live in a temple and work for a monastery. Cultivate patience.
“Yes but the Wood Elent is so boring! Fire and water really made feel like I was achieving big things. After the first day, wood was just ‘Oh, yeah, that is how that works. Yep. Watch those muscles lengthen and grow. Co on bone formation, you can do it!’”
Infinite mysteries of the universe and you’re yawning.
“I think I’m a pretty patient person, but four days of staring at my belly button followed by two days of feeling Snake Head Vine Body move in a literal void is more than anyone could stand.”
Are you, or are you not, considerably more coordinated in moving between your combat arts now? Verging on seamless, in fact?
Tian opened his mouth to answer when he was smashed sideways through a wall and into Needle Hell. Which, when he tried to take a step and steady himself, he quickly learned was also Caltrop Hell and Razorblade Hell. It wasn’t like there was so magically safe place to step. There were only easier and harder places to endure.
“Never thought the tal cavern would be blerbbb” Blood started to pour out of Tian’s mouth. He felt his lungs filling with fluid, struggling to expand at all.
Your survival suit! Put on the face mask imdiately! Start running Advent of Spring and the Hell Suppressing Sutra too. Quickly, quickly!”
Tian did exactly that, but the Advent of Spring struggled. When he cycled it in the Fire Cavern, it was consud by the fire qi, fueling the flas. In the tal Cavern, the wood vital energy was destroyed. This did not enhance his calm. Tian was currently balancing on literal razor’s edges, and even a casual move would see his feet sliced open. Sliced feet ant falling and instant mutilation with a more lingering death to follow. He had to stay upright and balanced while trying not to drown as his blood filled his shredded lungs.
tal dust in the air. Like breathing in tiny razors. Your suit will keep it out, but it’s going to be trash in no ti. Treat it like a quiz in the hospital. Orderly Tian- What does tal overco, and what overcos tal?
Tian thought fast. “It overcos wood, as the axe cuts down trees, and it’s overco by fire as fire slts tal.” Tian tried coaxing the tal qi towards the lamp in his heart, and was relieved to see the qi breaking down into more neutral qi. It couldn’t get rid of the strong tal alignnt entirely, but it was manageable. Slow, hugely inefficient, but manageable. With the silk headcover blocking most of the dust from infiltrating, he was able to slowly get the damage under control.
He focused intently on the flow of vital energy through his body. The rate of new cuts had dramatically dropped, but the healing was fighting the tal fragnts as well as high purity tal qi. Dragging the tal fragnts into his heart was obviously a recipe for a ssy death, and trying to drag all the tiny bits of high purity tal qi was brutally slow. Too slow. He’d die if he didn’t get ahead of it.
What couldn’t be managed with skill must be managed with brute force. Lacking any better ideas, Tian mobbed each little clump of tal qi with more and more vital energy. The tal overca the wood, but when the quantity of wood reached a certain threshold the tal was overwheld. Once the tal was broken down, the vital energy could rush in and heal the wound.
Then it was on to the next little cut. One at a ti. Dozens of tis. It required an extraordinary amount of focus. Get distracted and not only would his progress be lost, so might his feet. Tian quickly lost track of ti. It really didn’t matter how long it took, so long as it got done safely. It did give him a lot of ti to study tal qi. Sharp, yes, but rigid and unyielding as well. It seed to refuse to be blended with anything. A craving for purity, perhaps? “Purity” didn’t feel quite right. More to explore.
This text was taken from . Help the author by reading the original version there.
He was catching up on the healing. The blood that had to be spat out was carefully expelled to avoid soaking the fabric of the face cover. The tissues were nding, and the tals were being slowly, painfully, broken down into tiny fragnts his body could process. The first full breath after entering the tal chamber was so sweet, it almost made him lightheaded.
This, of course, triggered a wave of paranoia. Tian carefully checked his lungs over once more. The gross damage was mostly healed. The minute damage was fully healed. He hesitated for a mont about that, then focused even more intently, letting his vital energy work as tiny, feather light fingers probing the wounds. They weren’t just healed. They seed subtly stronger.
The elental alignnt of the lungs was tal. As was the autumn season and the White Tiger. It was written with the character for gold, but everyone read it as saying “tal.” He desperately wanted to open his herbology manuals, but didn’t dare risk them in the tal-dust filled cavern.
“Grandpa, in the herbology manual, there was an entry for Iron Vein Briar and how it usually grows near water that cos from mountains with high iron deposits. But there was sothing else there too.”
Yes. There was. Related to how difficult it was to clear the briar and why it was so useful as an improvised camp defense.
“Right, the iron from the water was…” Tian racked his brains and forcibly dredged up the answer. “It incorporates the tal into itself, reinforcing it, making it more rigid and its thorns sharper. Sothing it does a great deal more than other plants, who also absorb tal to strengthen themselves.”
Very good! But how could that be, if tal is always trying to overco wood?
“Because nothing is only one thing. Wood is yang, and tal is minor yin. So it might be overcoming wood, but in small doses, it reinforces it. Strengthens and hardens it. Probably helps fight off insects and things like that too. Nothing is only one thing. Nothing is only good or only bad.”
In nature, yes. Now, apply all that to your current situation.
“Too much tal is harmful for , but I can balance and moderate the yang wood qi with so of the yin tal qi, offsetting the flexibility of wood with so needed rigidity and hardness of tal, which will also help create water qi and form a virtuous cycle!”
Grandpa Jun was silent for a mont.
That is… a very Daoist way to look at it, and under the circumstances, not incorrect.
“It sounds like it’s not the answer you were hoping for, though.”
Yes, I don’t really know why I expected anything different, though. Everything you have learned leads you to the answer you gave.
“Well. What were you hoping I would figure out?”
Grandpa Jun sighed. Don’t worry about it for now. Just an old ghost’s whim. Try practicing Imperial Heavenly Swallows. Don’t throw the dart just yet. Hold it and cycle the art. The key thing to keep your eye on is the movent of tal vital energy through your body and into the dart.
Tian did and imdiately started frowning. “Oh, I see. Yeah, that’s all wrong.”
Not all wrong…
Tian carefully shook his head. He was still spending an awful lot of focus on not ripping his feet in half. “No, it’s all wrong. It’s like with the Hell Suppressing Sutra. If I only send it Yang vital energy, it only half runs. Sa here. The tiny bit of tal mixed in with my wood vital energy isn’t nearly enough to properly use the art. Used properly, it should be going through just about anything I throw it at. It lacks sharpness.”
Among other things. But… ah… I’d look over to your left before you start experinting.
The qi spirit for the tal Cavern was licking its paw as it lay curled up on a patch of knives. Its paw, Tian noticed, was larger than his chest.
“The White Tiger?”
A form inspired by it, certainly.
Tian looked around the chamber. He had been pretty stuck in the fire cavern as well, but there was a sort of naked hostility to this space that the fire had lacked. Every inch of it seed to contain so variation on the concept of slicing or stabbing. He carefully crouched down and flicked a tal spike. It made a sharp ringing sound. Hard enough for sure, but was it brittle? Tian didn’t really want to find out. Given his luck, it would just make even more pointy, sharp shards for him to deal with.
One of those boxing tips he rembered from Brother ng was that it was completely possible to grab a sharp steel blade safely with your bare hand. Really. Just so long as your hand didn’t slide even a tiny bit once you had grabbed on. Once that happened… but so long as you kept the blade from moving around, the worst that would happen is a bit of a red spot from holding a narrow bit of tal hard.
So in theory, he should be able to step from knife edge to knife edge, so long as he didn’t slip even a tiny bit. He certainly couldn’t stay perched here forever. Tian spotted a likely looking saber and thought it might make a decent first step.
“Would it be too much to ask for the blades to present the flat of the blade?” Tian grumbled.
Yes. Look out!
The White Tiger had waited until Tian had lifted his foot and shifted his weight before making his move. With a flick of his claw, the tiger sent out a sharp cut of tal qi at Tian’s still planted back leg.
Tian yelped and quickly completed his step to the saber. It took an unholy degree of concentration and balance, but he was able to stay up. He glared over at the tiger. It was hard to tell, but he thought the big cat was grinning. It raised its claw again and Tian swore internally. It was grinning. The cat had found a new thing to play with. He quickly looked around- a cluster of arrowheads. He could, very carefully, stand on them.
The claw slashed down. Tian moved fast. Once again, the tiger had aid at his legs. This ti, his balance wasn’t as precise, and he swayed on the arrow-points. This displeased the tiger, and Tian was forced to dodge a qi thread that would have removed a decent chunk of his head. It was imdiately followed up by another claw towards the legs, forcing him to hop over to what appeared to be giant silvery moss, but were actually long spikes covered in hundreds of fine barbs.
Tian quickly learned that the tiger had certain rules. If he stepped quickly and directly, with perfect balance and control, he got a few seconds to orient himself on the next step. If he hesitated, moved in an unbalanced way or otherwise was less than graceful, he was punished with a second claw and forced to move again imdiately. It was manageable for now, but not for long. The big cat showed no signs of getting bored, and there was no obvious place in the room to hide.
“On second thought, I miss the bamboo.”
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