Xiao Li ferally laughed as he parried another strike from his enemy, but the movements of his sword were anything but out of control. This was the best fight he has had so far! They had been clashing with nothing but their swords at high speeds for the past few minutes, which was an eternity in terms of battle.
Furthermore, this fight was just for the joy of it. While it was true that there was some minor award for being first compared to second, both of them had already secured a spot in the Inner Sect.
As much fun as he was having, it was time to end things. He attacked with the third part of his Gentleman's Sword, Poet's Grace. It wasn't a special move so much as a type of stance. It was his best all-around stance that sacrificed neither offence nor defence. He focused on wielding his sword with fluid, sweeping movements, creating an elegant and mesmerising dance with his blade—combining precise strikes with graceful footwork. It allowed for both defence and offence in a seemingly effortless manner.
Xiao Li let his enemy catch his blade, and at the moment the other man's sword was committed to deflecting his, he twisted his other hand into the complicated gesture required to cast one of the spells that Mei Wen taught him, Sword Burst. Mei Wen had said that the way he cast the spell was wrong, but considering the effect was better his way, he wasn't one to complain. She said it is supposed to cause spectral swords to appear and shoot out in all directions, but that indiscriminate attack wasn't the way his Dao of the Sword worked. Instead, all of the spectral swords appeared behind him and shot forward at his one target.
It was much more dangerous and deadly than even Fire Bolt was, but it had a shorter range. Wen couldn't argue with the results, even if it seemed to upset her anyway.
It was his trump card for this tournament. It also made people think that he had mastered Sword Qi to a much greater extent than he actually had because it looked like the attacks that only masters of Sword Qi could make. That was just a little bonus, hahaha! He didn't mind if people thought he was more incredible, after all!
The six spectral swords shot out, and his enemy went wide-eyed for an instant. Xiao Li tried to keep his blade occupied, but he beat his sword back and managed to deflect two of the spectral swords. However, the other four made him look like a pin-cushion. Or at least, they would have if this was a real fight. Still, his opponent's outer barrier broke like the glass window of his father's house; he accidentally threw a small child-sized sword through it when he was practising ten years ago.
"Winner, Xiao Li!" cried out the referee.
Jiaozi Liu slapped his own leg hard and complained, "And I was just getting fired up! Well fucking done, Junior Martial Brother Li!" Then, the senior took a few steps towards him and slapped him on the back hard enough that Xiao Li had to take a step forward. Also, that hurt quite a bit.
This was a nice change of pace. He thought Senior Brother Jiaozi Liu was a nice guy, as they had practised together at Mei Wen's house, but he had been getting so used to everyone he defeated being really sour about the experience that it was almost a surprise that his opponent was acting with proper camaraderie for a brother disciple. He grinned and nodded, "Thank you, Senior Brother Liu." Then he blinked and looked around, asking unsurely, "Is... is there any kind of ceremony or anything?"
"Nope," grinned Senior Brother Liu as he led Xiao Li off the arena floor, "Not an official one, anyway. There is one for the overall winner, but this lower bracket was made because the Outer Sect got pissed that the higher-cultivation Inner Sect disciples won every single year. Still, there is an unofficial one. Let's go have the last beers we'll drink as Outer Sect disciples, eh?"
---xxxxxx---
The Qi Gathering realm losers bracket final match was between Xiao Li and Senior Brother Liu. It was pretty thrilling, and it lasted longer than I thought it would. Real battles just didn't last too long, I discovered, but this match lasted a good three or four minutes of constant violence, with the two fighters bouncing around the arena like Beyblades.
I wasn't too surprised at the outcome. While I did think it was possible the fight could go either way at a couple of points, I wasn't exactly the best person to ask to judge the merits of two battle maniac sword cultivators fighting.
The Owl girl Nalani had somehow become something like an assistant to me. The other girls in my clique didn't seem to mind because she had been a disciple here at the Silver Serenities School for almost five years now. She asked, "Are you going to the celebration for Senior Brother Xiao Li?"
I frowned and tilted my head to the side. A few of my clique seemed a bit confused, too. I asked, "I didn't think there was any celebration for the winners in the losers brackets."
Nalani smiled, her experience being here for years being useful, "Ah. Not anything official, no. But there is always a celebration in the Outer Sect for both the winner and those who got a position in the Inner Sect. It'll start tonight and go through the day after tomorrow."
Wow, did cultivators party hard, or was this to give people a way to dip in the party if they had been in seclusion or something? Perhaps a little of both.
Also, shit. I wish I had known that. Although, Nalani probably assumed that I did know it. I clucked my tongue, thinking about what gift I could offer Xiao Li and finally nodded.
The "blood inheritance" I pulled out of the arm of that demonic cultivator. I have reviewed it in depth by now. It was a cultivation method combined with some spells and techniques, including both a sabre and a sword manual. It was quite amazing that it all fit on one small sheet of ... well, it wasn't paper. I didn't know what it was made out of. It could made out of baby vellum for all I knew, given demonic cultivators' tendencies, but it wasn't paper.
Every time you turned the paper over, the writing shifted into a new page, almost like an e-book reader, except the ink was darkened, congealed blood. There was a formation on the paper that caused this effect. To me, this was actually the most interesting part of what I had received by far. It was a method of encoding data and displaying it using nothing but a formation, which I found very interesting.
I had never been a computer programmer beyond writing simple scripts when I was a teenager, but I was inquisitive about what kind of data structures this formation encoded data in and how. Even if it was just images of each page, what was the image coding solution? Somehow, I doubted it was PNG.
The jade slates that the Sect used to send messages and letters had to have similar "technology", but their working principles were hidden on the inside, and I doubt they'd appreciate me breaking them. There also was nothing in the first four floors of the Dao Repository that described how this "magitech" worked, although surprisingly, the closest was considered the most useless by the Dao Repository—a book teaching formations to Qi Gathering cultivators.
The formations in this book were quite complicated but used almost no Qi, so the author felt they were appropriate for beginners to practice—cheap and easy. The author was wrong. Well, they were cheap to practice, but they were not easy. They were too complicated for most beginners. It was only the fact that ritual spellcasting had a surprisingly large similarity to formations that I was able to decipher them.
The cultivation method stored in the blood archive was average, and that was before you got into the requirements to kill a lot of people for blood essence. The spells were better, but almost all of them would turn me anaemic if I tried to use them—I had no way beyond my dwindling stock of healing potions to restore blood essence to my body if I didn't want to steal it from others. The only one I found that was at all useful was a tracking spell that could find a person or animal if you had at least a drop of their blood.
The two weapon manuals were different. While neither looked earth-defying, and I doubted they were outstanding, they were weird, feral and bloodthirsty—and that was the draw. Xiao Li loved crazy and weird sword manuals and techniques. They didn't have to be good, either. The more wacky they were, the more he seemed to love studying them, giggling as he read them.
I had meant to give this one to him already, but I got distracted with other things and only recently pulled it out again after I began studying formations.
I smiled at the owl, "Thank you for reminding me, Nalani. I need to go back to my place and prepare a suitable gift," I remarked, staring off into space in thought, "If you girls like, we can all meet up at the party. Or we can go separately if you all would prefer?"
I had decided that trying to avoid my position amongst these girls was pointless. I would probably even accumulate more followers. It was because there was a level of bullying and exploitation that occurred in the Outer Sect. This wasn't surprising, given the housing system.
In fact, that was the mechanism of a lot of bullying, I'd discovered. A stronger cultivator could challenge a weaker one to a duel. Winning gave the right to force a "house swap", not the obligation to take the loser's dwelling. But it also won the winner the stakes of the bet.
The standard bet minimum was five spirit stones and one hundred contribution points, and this dropped to one spirit stone and ten points if the person you were challenging had a lower-ranked dwelling than you did. That told me that the school understood precisely what the problem was, but instead of nipping it in the bud, they kept it around but lowered the damage that could be done. Five stones and one hundred points as more than most disciples would make in an average week, so you'd be able to beggar someone continually. One stone and ten points were enough to be considered a tax.
I felt stupid for discovering this so late. Apparently, this was a pretty well-known feature of this school, and almost everyone who applies knows to start following a stronger disciple for protection. It was like the Outer Sect was comprised of maybe seventy to eighty distinct gangs.
Cultivation resources weren't overflowing in the Outer Sect, and it was even worse if you had to pay tribute almost every week. They expected me to protect them if another gang or strong individuals sought to prey on them. In return, they'd help me with minor matters or just fawn over me if I'd preferred. Or both, in Nalani's case.
If I had known this was the expected exchange at first, I might have pushed back some as I didn't really have any desire to do so, but I felt obligated now.
"Of course, we'd like to stay together," one of them said, and the rest mirrored this.
We agreed to meet up at the celebratory site in a few hours, and I rushed back to my home. The head servant greeted me at the door, saying, "Greetings, Mistress."
I nodded at him and ordered, "Please arrange for some tea to be sent to my study."
"Of course, Mistress," he said affably.
The servants were something new to me. In a way, they were disciples, too. If of the most lowly type. They were classified as "servant disciples", and it was one option to stay in the school if you were deemed unsuitable in the entry examinations. The Sect would give you an above-average cultivation method suited to you and a small stipend, and in return, you were obligated to provide the school with twenty years of service in an indenture contract.
You could cultivate, but only when you had free time from other duties. Surprisingly, it was considered a very good deal and working as a servant was kind of competitive here as well—especially for the younger servants.
The thought process was that if you could reach the second level of the Qi Gathering realm, then you'd extend your life by about twenty years, and this was a pretty achievable goal even if you had to work most of the time and by the end of it you'd be a genuine cultivator.
If you reached the fifth level before your tenth year of service, then your contract was cancelled, and you had the option to join the school as a true disciple, although this very rarely happened.
I rushed to my study and sat down, pulling the blood scroll out of my storage and flipping it around until I got to the correct spot. Then, I gathered a blank book of about fifty pages and a fine brush and ink and sat down and got to work.
This sword arts manual wasn't so profound that I wouldn't be able to copy it and give it to Xiao Li as a congratulatory gift. I had even practised it a little bit, for lack of any actual sword arts to use, but decided it didn't suit me. It was just too wild and untrammelled, not to mention I found it difficult to place my mind in the appropriate state of bloodlust that was necessary to really use it.
Still, it might take a few hours, and I would have to be careful, or I could ruin my efforts. After I finished the third page, the youngest of my servants, a girl of about eleven, deposited a tea service next to me.
"Thank you, Fang'er," I replied. I glanced at her and noticed that she hadn't started cultivating yet. That was expected. She'd only been working here for a few months, apparently. Sensing the energy of heaven and earth took a long time if you had to work a day job simultaneously.
Perhaps I could combine my study of formations and create a similar formation to the illusion ritual I used to trick my calligraphy tutor's grandson into detecting Qi. I knew that these types of formations did exist, and it could be a pretty good project to individually redevelop it and see how my solution differed from the "standard."
As a side effect, it could help the little girl Fang Fang. I did like helping people near me—if it wasn't too much trouble, anyway.
There was another pressing reason why I thought to do this. My grandparents raised me back in West Virginia, to the point where I considered my grandpa my dad. He was the best dad I ever had, at any rate.
And my dad was a coal miner and, more importantly, a union man 'till the day he died. In the part of the country where I had been born, it had still been the case that you were either a union man or a stooge for the bosses. It wasn't Harlan County, Kentucky, but as the song went, there were still no neutrals there—even if trade unionism nationally was, sadly, on its last gasps by the time I got isekaied.
If he was looking down on me from Heaven, he would be mighty disappointed seeing me taking advantage of what amounted to child labour.
I actually think that he would be somewhat understanding of my situation, if baffled as to how I got here. Given the nature of Magic Chinaland, he wouldn't expect me to spread the Good News of trade unionism nor set up a new chapter of the Wobblies here, but he damn well would expect that I give this girl something back.
So I would, even if I had to resort to the same method I used last time, which would be of nil research value beyond confirming its efficacy.
Speaking in Magicland China terms, I had sown karma with this girl now, and it would disrupt my cultivation if I didn't balance the scales, even if I was the only one who thought they were imbalanced.
I took a sip of the tea.
"Bitter," I complained and reached for the honey.
---xxxxxx---
I met my clique at what I considered one of the "community centres" in the Outer Sect. They could be used for any purpose; you just had to reserve them. In this case, it was for the celebration.
As we walked in, I realised that this party was being organised by what might be described as one of the main competing cliques of female cultivators. That made a lot of sense. This was an unofficial social event, so I should have expected that.
The top group of Mean Girls in the Outer Sect was led by a young woman named Chen Dexin. She was beautiful, had a strong cultivation and was ranked fifth in the unofficial Outer Sect disciple rankings based on the simple expedient that she had the fifth villa on the street I lived on. The quality of our dwellings was the same, but there was a bit of a status symbol for having number one.
Dexin was a very feminine name and suited a rich bitch like her. It meant something akin to "simple and elegant." And while she might have been elegant, the young woman who sneered at us when we entered was not.
"Who invited the kennel club?" she asked rhetorically. I didn't quite recognise this girl, but I thought she might be in the second tier of Dexin's lackeys. She had a cultivation of the fifth level but had a punchable face.
My clique tensed up, especially Nalani and the other diremonster girl. What a high school-level insult. I was considered widely to be a diremonster disciple, so my clique was the "kennel club."
It might not be very surprising, but I didn't have much experience with racism. Wait, wouldn't it be speciesism? Merildwen, however, did. Not only was it common for humans to be distrustful and prejudiced towards elves, but actual elves would be even worse.
An elf's genes were so strong that if they had a child with a human, it would basically be a clone of the elf parent. I had no idea how that worked, and it seemed to go against what little I knew about gametes fusing into a zygote from high school biology, but it definitely worked that way. So, when a bunch of elves noticed that she looked almost exactly like her mom and travelled with a middle-aged human male, well, they could be even crueller than anyone.
I had to say... I didn't like it.
Still, it was amateur-hour-level racism from someone who used to like browsing Twitter.
"Okay, yeah, you," I said quietly, memorising her face and then brushing past her without saying anything else. She didn't try to stop us. I was positive that snide words were the limit. You don't get entrusted with managing an Outer Sect-wide social event and allow your minions to exclude some randomly, even if you didn't care for them for some reason.
I used Message to tell Nalani,
She seemed a bit surprised at hearing my voice in her head, but she was smart and replied,
We didn't get hassled much more than that, and after a while, we mingled more or less singly, although they all seemed to stay within a certain distance of me.
I looked suspiciously at the stand that was offering complimentary "wine." The truth was that Magic Chinaland didn't fucking have wine. I had been using that word mentally because it was the closest cultural referent, but the truth was it was basically vodka made out of sorghum and other plants.
It was disgusting, actually. It made my cousin's 'shine seem like champagne.
Still, one didn't survive a tour in the Navy without the capacity to drink disgusting, high-proof liquor, so I took a small glass and sipped it.
Amazing. It wasn't downright awful. It wasn't good, but it was a lot closer to vodka, and that I could drink easily. This must have been distilled multiple times.
"Hahaha, let's drink, Junior Martial Brother!" yelled a familiar voice, and I turned to see Senior Brother Liu lead Xiao Li over to the "wine."
"Sister Mei Wen!" Xiao Li cried as he recognised me, running up to me, "Help me! He won't let me stop drinking!"
I peered at him. Yeah. While he wasn't quite three sheets to the wind yet, he was a bit plastered already. When Xiao Li grabbed my shoulder and made contact with my skin, Mrs Mei sent a message telepathically,
I snorted. He might regret not being defiled by a trollop. Still, if he was aiming at that hauntingly pretty Mengyao girl, it might ruin his chances if she thought he was promiscuous. I, also didn't like the idea of him being taken advantage of. I sent an affirmative feeling back and sighed, realising I would have to stay longer than I intended.
"No more drinking!" I warned Liu, waving my finger as I hypocritically took a sip of my own, "He doesn't have a great tolerance."
"Bah!" Senior Brother Liu said but then sighed, "Fine! Food! Meat! Let's go!"
"Wait," I stopped them before Liu dragged Xiao Li off.
I then pulled out the carefully transcribed sword arts manual, "This is for you. It's a sword art manual I found on that demonic blood cultivator we killed. It's really wacky."
Xiao Li grinned and grabbed it, "Thanks, Mei Wen!"
"Ahahaha, come and tell me of this battle!" yelled Senior Brother Liu and dragged Xiao Li off.
---xxxxxx---
I glanced at Xiao Li, still sleeping in my guest room and chuckled. I expected that he would be feeling pretty bad when he woke up, so I warned my staff to have breakfast and a lot of water waiting for him.
One would think that cultivators would have no problem with a hangover, but if the hootch was strong enough to get you drunk, you always did. It might be a law from the Heavenly Dao.
"Mistress, Miss Nalani left this note for you," my butler said and handed me a small slip of paper.
Inside it was a name and an address. I grinned and left my building.
Little Miss Thang lived in the upper end of the houses that were just worse than a whole villa. They were about family-house-sized, and you only got one servant, but they were still pretty nice.
I headed directly to her house and politely rang the bell. The servant answered, and I said, "Good morning. I am Mei Wen, and please let your Mistress know that I will be challenging her to a spar."
I couldn't tell if the servant was surprised or not, she seemed too professional. Still, she departed and not too long after the girl who had disparaged me and my clique came to the door, looking angry, "What is this about? You already live in the villas."
I spread my hands in front of myself, "Then, surely, you must realise that this is purely out of spite." Wasn't it obvious?
She narrowed her eyes but then grinned, "Good. I'm going to enjoy this. We already know you won against Jiaozi Liu through a trick. When do you want to do this?"
"I will be standing outside your door until you are ready," I told her, smiling serenely. That was quite rude of me, actually. It was standard to give the challenged the opportunity to select a time within reason.
She ground her teeth and snapped, "Five minutes."
I nodded, and when she returned after briefly retreating into her house, we set off together for the nearest sparring circle. It seemed like a busy day for sparring, and we had to wait for two fights ahead of ours. There was also quite a crowd, which suited me just fine.
When it became our turn, my opponent jumped into the circle and started doing some quick shadowboxing and kicks into the air. It looked like she was a cultivator who fought using her body.
"That trick won't work on me," she declared up front. I wasn't so sure. It might not, but then again, it might. I could try using Suggestion to tell her to pick up single grains of sand on the arena floor and then just punch her in the back of the head.
But I had something else in mind.
"Begin!" the Foundation establishment senior yelled, and the girl began running at me. I casually held out my hand and cast Hold Person. It took hold instantly, paralysing her and almost causing her to tip over with the momentum she had.
I could just beat the crap out of her now, but I had something else in mind. There was a level one necromancy spell that was quite similar to Cause Fear. It was called Cause Pain. However, it wasn't as useful. It was an AoE spell, but the area was tiny. If someone moved even one step, they'd step out of it. It was actually more of a torture spell one could use on already subdued enemies.
It was basically Crucio, in other words, although perhaps not that painful. I had actually used it once on myself when I started to stop showing physiological responses to using Fear as training. However, in retrospect, I felt that I was a bit wacky for doing so. It hurt quite a lot. I only managed to stay still for five seconds before jumping out of its AoE.
It was a niche spell whose only real saving grace was that it didn't require concentration, yet its effects lasted a full thirty seconds. So, it worked perfectly with Hold Person, which did require concentration.
I waited for a full ten-second count and then cast it on the ground my opponent was standing on and casually walked towards her, stopping just a couple of steps from her. One interesting thing about being paralysed by magic was that you couldn't move at all except to breathe. That included screaming in pain, too.
I then used Message, altering the spellform so that she wouldn't be able to reply back to me. I didn't give a damn what she had to say, after all. I mentally drawled,
I then went on to explain exactly how I found her behaviour inappropriate and what I expected from her in terms of civility and decorum moving forward.
We probably looked quite odd from the spectators' point of view. One girl charged at another suddenly stopped, and then they just stared at each other, although now a single tear was leaking out of the corner of one of my opponent's eyes.
Wish dot com Crucio wore off first, and I carefully wound up a punch, a haymaker, letting the concentration of Hold Person go right before hitting her in the face, bowling her over.
One didn't grow up a boy in the hills nor survive in the Navy without knowing how to throw a punch. I hadn't studied fist arts here in Magicland China, so I may not be displaying the profundity of my fist here, but that wasn't my intention.
I was just punching a bitch. That, I could do.
I glanced over and made sure she was unconscious before nodding.
"Winner, Mei Wen!" the Foundation Establishment referee yelled, and three disciples wearing the distinctive robes of the Spirit Doctor Hall rushed in to tend to the downed girl.
I performed a fist in hand salute to her unconscious body, whistled and walked away, not even bothering to get the one spirit stone I was owed.