The next morning, none of us could hide our excitement as Jue Zhu pushed the great door open. From the moment we stepped in, though, it was obvious that this challenge wasn't going to be like the others. The Ascended Beast stood in the center of a huge open space, looking for all the world like a minotaur made of reddish metal. I had expected this to be different from the other Zodiac Rooms, but just then, something happened I doubt any of us saw coming:
The beast spoke. "You kids sure kept me waiting. I mean, overall I guess you were pretty fast, but Game Night might have been a little overconfident."
Not an Ascended Beast…a true Spiritual Beast! Normal magical beasts, well, some of them had an edge in raw power over cultivators of the same level, but it depended on the beast. Ascended Beasts definitely did. If it hadn't been for how fast my mind worked, I'd have definitely been outmatched by the sheer speed and strength of the Albino Serpent, and even then my reflexes had barely kept up. I hadn't wanted to admit it at the time, but in spite of not actually taking a hit, that fight had been the closest I'd come to dying since I'd started.
And now, I was staring down an adversary an order of magnitude superior in every way, and I had to think they were a particularly strong variety of Spiritual Beast. Absolutely, this was no time for rash moves. Best let this play out.
"So are we fighting, or are you going to test me some other way?" I had to give Jue Zhu credit, he didn't sound the least bit scared. I mean, yeah there was the Academy promise that we'd be revived—only it'd be 10 years later and our cultivation would be set to 0—but I really didn't want to find out what happened if one of us died while we were still at the Academy. Would I have to repeat grades?
Then again, a thought suddenly struck me, I don't think I've seen Jue Zhu go all out since first year. It all depends on just how strong this guy actually is. He's concealing the extent of his power by restraining his spiritual pressure, so there's no way to know until we start.
"Oh, we'll be fighting all right. No need for it to be to the death, either—unless you force my hand. Fight well enough to get my approval, and I'll complete the Jade Ox Medallion for you."
"I'm glad you put it like that," said Jue Zhu, drawing his blade, "I don't want to kill an intelligent creature who's done nothing wrong."
"How touching," said the Bronze Bull, dripping with enough sarcasm for one of us to cut, "you should be more worried about yourself!"
The bull charged at Jue Zhu, drawing a huge sword of its own. He met its challenge…and starting from that moment, I got my first taste of being a sideliner to a truly epic struggle. Don't get me wrong, I was able to help. Instincts honed from several hundred raid battles kicked in, and I used my arrows to harass and distract the Bronze Bull with my arrows, which gave Jue Zhu several openings. Meanwhile, Jong, Quan and Shokoya had to be a lot more careful, as they were only really able to have an effect when they attacked together, and even then they weren't much more than another distraction. "To think, even your companions could manage to annoy me," said the Bronze Bull, "I answered this call as a duty as a friend to the Iron Oxen, but I didn't expect to be able to really test myself!"
That was when I saw it—and thought Jue Zhu might yet fit in this cultivation world after all. He was being pushed harder than anything he'd faced at the Academy, and from his face he was enjoying himself more than I'd ever seen. "I'm also enjoying testing myself!"
"Then let's keep going."
By now, he was a lot warier of me, so it was harder for me to land a distracting hit on the Bronze Bull. I still managed it every so often, though. Still, I was a bit gobsmacked that Jue Zhu was able to go toe-to-toe with them. We all knew he was talented beyond any of us, but this was him going up against a foe that would have flattened the rest of us put together. Even Jong, with his double Body talent, would have been seriously outmatched, even if a little less than the rest of us. But try as he might, the Bronze Bull just couldn't get through Jue Zhu's guard. After a few more minutes, he'd apparently had enough. "Stop! This is your win. I was skeptical when the human first told me there was one worthy of meeting the Iron Oxen, who hailed from a world not of the heavens, but it seems it's the truth."
The Bronze Bull tromped over to a seemingly random place on the wall, beckoning us to follow, and tapped several places. A portion of wall vanished and he took a small box from the revealed alcove. He took the piece of the medallion from inside, and handed it to Jue Zhu. "Something you should know about a Jade Ox Medallion that gets broken," he said, "is that even if you have obtained all the pieces, they can only be restored by a special touch of sorts taught only to their stalwart allies…such as my kind. Hand me the other pieces."
The Bronze Bull closed his hand over all four pieces, squeezing…and when he opened his palm again, the medallion was whole. "Keep it safe from those who would steal it. The location of the Iron Oxens' territory is well known by your kind. They make sure of it, so that all but a select few know to stay far away.
The true Temple of Ox has gone the longest of all the Zodiac Temples without anointing a new Zodiac Champion. I wish you the best of luck in ending its silence."
We hadn't even gotten all the way down the steps of the Ox Room when Jue Zhu stopped in his tracks. "Eh? The air feels different somehow. Almost welcoming."
"Now that you mention it, yeah," I said, "I wonder what the deal is?"
"Maybe the TA at the Exit Tower knows," said Jong, "let's go ask him."