In Wu Ningli's room, both Wu Ling's mother and Su Xiang became increasingly nervous watching the progression of Wu Ling's Awakening. Several times in the past hour he'd trembled and shaken, sweat pouring from his brow as he attempted his strange Awakening method. Eventually, the smoke of the incense had exhausted itself but Wu Ling still hadn't emerged from his inner world. Instead, blood began to flow from his tightly clenched fists as his nails pierced the skin of his palms.
"Should we do something?" Su Xiang asked the older woman, not having any experience with awakenings outside of her own. Her parents both held respected positions in the Outer Sect of the Shining Blade Hall and she'd received a high-grade stick of Awakening Incense from them when she reached sixteen years of age. In general, most children who grew up within the walls of the Shining Blade Hall would attend group Awakening attempts once a year starting from age thirteen. The incense provided by the sect for these Awakening attempts wasn't luxurious but it allowed almost one in five hundred potential disciples to awaken each year. While the children of sect elders might have received the kind of high-grade incense she used for her fourth attempt for their very first one, her parents had given her three chances to awaken with the group before they purchased an incense for her that had a one in two hundred chance of success along with the services of an Independent Alchemist to prepare her body with acupuncture before she made the attempt that transformed her from a mortal into a Brawler, successfully stepping onto the martial path.
"Should I fetch an alchemist to help?" Su Xiang asked, willing to do anything to allow her soon-to-be sworn brother to achieve his dream of Awakening as an Artist.
"No," Wu Ningli said with a shake of her head after a moment of consideration. "This means he's still fighting even after the incense can no longer help. Only one in one hundred people who attempt to become cultivators with the very best of Awakening Incense will ever succeed," she continued. "With lesser incense, it can be as low as one in one thousand or even one in five thousand. From what Ling'er said, this should be very high-quality incense that even if it didn't carry him all the way to awakening gives him a real chance of bridging the final gap himself."
"How much of a chance?" Su Xiang wondered aloud. "As good as one in ten?"
"One in fifty," Wu Ningli said softly, trying not to think of the injuries she'd seen in people who came this close and failed after trying so hard. It was better to have failed when the incense burned out than to have attempted this and failed despite the sacrifice. If Wu Ling persisted this way but still failed, he ran the very real risk of crippling himself. Wu Ningli had seen mortals make this attempt only to burn their potential so fiercely that they aged decades in the span of an hour, or others who overdrafted their bodies so much that they became weak and feeble as newborns for the remainder of their lives. Those who succeeded would soar like eagles but those who failed often wished for death rather than live the lives that were left to them. "I would never have encouraged him to try this hard in his first attempt, but I believe in him. Neither his father nor I have ever been able to give up and accept that we can't achieve our goals, no matter how impossible something appears. Our son is the same," she said, shaking her head at the way he seemed to be following in the footsteps of his parents.
"I believe in him too," Su Xiang said, holding Wu Ningli's frail hand for comfort as both women watched the delicate young man before them struggle to finish what he'd started.
Several minutes later, both women let go of a breath they didn't realize they'd been holding as a resplendent silvery light poured from Wu Ling's body, healing the wounds in his hands and cloaking him in the soft aura of a newly awakened cultivator!
Slowly, Wu Ling blinked his long-lashed eyelids, revealing eyes that had shifted from flat, steely grey to a shimmering silver hue. Looking at his mother and soon-to-be sworn sister, he grinned broadly as he confirmed what they already knew. "I succeeded," he managed to say before coughing out a cloud of black soot that had gathered in his body with all the incense he inhaled.
"Congratulations Brother Ling," Su Xiang said with a wide smile, stepping forward to give him a hug before wrinkling her nose at the odor that clung to him. "I forgot, your body just shed a layer of mortal flesh, you need to go wash up before you're fit company."
"Elder sister knows best," Wu Lin said with a teasing smile. "Are you offering to come wash my back?"
"Brat, no," she said, giving him a solid punch to the upper arm now that he'd also become a cultivator and could take more of a hit than he could have before. Still, a newly awakened Aesthete wasn't a match for the bodily strength of a middle-stage Brawler like Su Xiang and the punch almost instantly raised a small bruise. "That'll teach you to stop being inappropriate with your elder sister," she said triumphantly.
"Okay children," Wu Ningli interrupted with a smile. "Ling'er, I'm very proud of you, that didn't look like it was easy. How about you wash up and then we can eat together and talk about what to do now that you've stepped into the world of cultivators."
"Mother Wu," Su Xiang said once Wu Ling had left the room. "Let me fetch something for dinner tonight, I can treat everyone."
"You can on one condition," Wu Ningli said, her voice becoming surprisingly stern. "Answer me honestly, is it Mother Wu you want to be calling me or Mother-in-law?"
"I, I, wait," Su Xiang said, tripping over her words and flustered at the direction Wu Ling's mother had taken the conversation. "You know we promised when we were children," she started to say only to be cut off by the older woman's sharp gaze.
"I know what you promised as children," she said with an edge to her voice that carried a trace of her Sword Dancer's sharpness and a hint of otherworldly menace. "But you're not children anymore. Ling'er is perhaps the most beautiful boy I've ever seen and you know well what my former profession is so I don't use those words out of a mother's blind pride. I want to know what you're planning for my little man now that you've swept back into his life like a summer breeze ready to carry him away."
"Mother Wu," Su Xiang said, firming up her resolve before the older woman's imposing aura. "When we were children, I wanted to be sword-sworn companions with Brother Ling for the rest of my life. We both did. Now… I just want to see the world with someone who never once felt threatened by my gifts. Brother Ling isn't the same as he was back then. Honestly, sometimes, he makes me a little uncomfortable," she said, blushing as she thought back on the way he'd flirted with her yesterday at the teahouse while dressed as a demure young lady. "But however he changed, when he saw me yesterday and he knew that I saw through what he was wearing, he didn't try to hide. He didn't try to run away or deny the truth of what I'd seen. Instead, he played music for me in front of his entire class along with everyone else watching and then he told them that he missed his friend," she said, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. "No one has ever done anything like that for me. So I don't know if I'll ever be anything other than his sworn sister, I don't even know if I want to or if he wants to…. He's the only person I know that can still leave me guessing what he means even when I know that every word he speaks is pure truth. But whatever we turn out to be in the future, I know I'll be there with him, every step of the way."
With a gentle smile, We Ningli withdrew the sharp sword aura she'd cultivated in the Dark half of the Bamboo Silk House and returned to her appearance as a gentle and frail mother. "If you two decide that you want to be married instead of sworn siblings, as long as your eyes look that clear when you say it, you'll have my blessings. For now, though, I'm glad that Ling'er won't be alone as he starts his journey. Now that he's awakened, there are people who will stop ignoring his existence and he needs to be ready."
"I'll be right there with him, whatever comes his way," Su Xiang promised.
Later that night, after the trio had enjoyed a sumptuous meal that Su Xiang had spent her entire month's stipend on to celebrate Wu Ling's awakening, the two young cultivators faced each other solemnly as they knelt before Wu Ningli.
"I, Su Xiang, swear that from this day forward, Wu Ling is my younger brother. As his elder sister, I will shelter him from wind and rain, his enemies will be my enemies and our fortunes will rise and fall together. My parents are his parents and I acknowledge his parents as my own," she said formally. "With our ancestors as witness, I swear to never abandon or forsake my brother, and should I betray my oath, may the Heavens strip me of my cultivation!" As she made her oath, she made a small cut on the palm of her left hand, dripping four drops of blood into a shallow bowl of ink to bind her Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul to her oath.
Once Su Xiang had spoken her oath, Wu Ling began his own. "I, Wu Ling, swear that from this day forward, Su Xiang is my elder sister. As her younger brother, I will heed her counsel. Anyone who threatens my sister or her virtue will become my enemy. My fate will forever be entangled with hers, for good or for ill. My ancestors are her ancestors and I acknowledge her ancestors as my own," he intoned formally. "With our ancestors as witnesses, I swear to never abandon or forsake my sister, and should I betray my oath, may the Heavens strip me of my art and my cultivation!"
As Wu Ling made his oath, he repeated Su Xiang's actions of making a small cut on the palm of his left hand and dripping four drops of blood into a shallow bowl of ink. He then followed that action by blending their blood with the ink and writing 'Wu Ling - Younger Brother' on the best scroll he had available.
Su Xiang followed immediately after, writing 'Su Xiang - Elder Sister' on the same scroll before presenting it to Wu Ningli. "Mother, please accept this as proof of our oath," she said, offering a deep kowtow to the crippled elder.
"Children," Wu Ningli said, accepting the scroll from Su Xiang. "This is a sight I had thought to never see after my husband's death. As your elder, I witness and accept your oath. Whatever happens to me, I'm comforted to know that you'll always have each other to depend on."