The next day, Su Xiang arrived in the small main courtyard of the Wu family to find Wu Ling dressed in casual robes and happily scrubbing at what looked like scorch marks on the well-worn flagstone floor of the outer yard. "Sister Xiang," he called happily. "You have wonderful timing, I was just finishing up the last of the cleanup."
"Cleanup? Did someone set fire to something here? No one was harassing you or Mother Wu were they?" Su Xiang asked anxiously. If the men from the Red Tiger Den had discovered Wu Ling's identity, she wouldn't put it past them to try to get petty revenge by vandalizing his home. Su Xiang enjoyed the safety of residing in one of the Outer Sect branches of the Shining Blade Hall but Wu Ling and his mother were all alone in their small courtyard.
"No, no one was harassing us," Wu Ling said with a smile and a shake of his head. "That was just your first opponent getting a warmup. Let me introduce you. Hou!" As soon as he called out, a bright ball of fire formed a meter in front of him, growing from the size of a grape to the size of a small melon before the flames parted to reveal the gleaming and flaming form of the Golden Crow, Hou.
"This is Hou," Wu Ling introduced casually. "Hou, this is my sworn sister Su Xiang. When you spar with her, you can attack her but you can't truly hurt her, you understand?" Receiving an affirmative caw in response, Wu Ling smiled and gestured for the bird to join him, which it quickly did, perching on his shoulder and extending its head for a brief scratch before settling down.
"You spent the money you took from the Red Tiger's disciples on a beast companion?" Su Xiang asked in confusion. "Are you sure that's wise? What if something happens to your little pet?" While beast tamers weren't unheard of in Silver Sword City, beast tamers who could raise something as extraordinary looking as the bird Wu Ling called 'Hou' would surely charge an exorbitant fee for their services.
More importantly, a beast that was tamed by someone else would never possess the loyalty toward Wu Ling that it would have if he tamed it himself. He might have gained a useful ally but he could just as easily gain a treacherous spy!
"Hou isn't a beast companion or contract beast," Wu Ling explained. "He's a Guardian Beast. I didn't buy him, I painted him. I told you yesterday, that we've been very wrong about the kinds of power an Artist can wield. This is just the beginning."
"So, the scorch marks you were cleaning up, those are from him," Su Xiang said with, relieved that he hadn't done something as dubious as buying a beast from an unknown tamer. "How powerful are his flames? How does he use them?"
"His flames can be weak or a little strong, it depends on how much energy he has," Wu Ling explained. "He's conjured from my Inner World so he generally draws his power directly from me but he'll eat spirit crystals if you feed them to him and he can use that to power his abilities as well. Right now, he's clever but not that smart and he needs really clear directions. The best thing we've figured out is that he can conjure a ball of fire between his talons and hurl it down at a target."
"So what am I supposed to do? Dodge? Block? Fight back?" Su Xiang's smile took on a predatory gleam as she landed on the last option. She'd brought wooden swords thinking that this would be a basic refresher of things that Wu Ling had learned as a child in the Shining Blade Hall but she'd been badly mistaken about what he had in mind.
Thankfully, she always carried her actual sword with her as well and looking at the eager little bird on his shoulder, she could all but see it trembling in anticipation at having a real opponent.
"I was thinking that we should start slow and work our way up from there," Wu Ling answered. "Hou has never needed to hit a moving target, I don't know if his fireballs can be blocked or destroyed or anything like that. Painting him was honestly the easy part. Fighting with him is a whole new skill to learn."
"Didn't the technique you used to paint him describe what his powers would be and how they should be used?" Su Xiang asked, confused about how Wu Ling could know so little about the capabilities of something he'd created.
"It isn't like that," Wu Ling replied. "The technique I used is very open-ended. The manual described how a Guardian Beast should be painted, how to summon them and help them grow, and a lot of general advice but no Artist wants to be told exactly what they're supposed to paint for something so important," he explained.
"Hou and I will have to figure things out with a bit of trial and error and grow together over time. That's why I need your help. Right now, we know he can burn things but if I had to fight off the Brawlers from the Red Tiger Den with just Hou, I don't know that we'd have any better odds than if you'd had your sword to fight them. Against a stronger opponent, if we were flailing around like idiots, we'd probably just make them mad," he admitted easily.
"Okay, in that case, I'd actually like to go somewhere other than your home," Su Xiang said, relieved that the power of his new flaming companion hadn't gone to Wu Ling's head.
"We need some room to move if I'm going to be dodging fireballs. I know a place by the river that's good for practice. There are other cultivators who use the same area so we may not have complete privacy but I don't think that's the important thing at the moment, is it?"
"Not really," Wu Ling agreed. "I don't want to make a big deal and show off what I can do until I'm considerably better at things but it's not like we have to skulk around at night to train in secret like thieves and assassins."
"Do thieves and assassins actually sneak around at night just to train?" Su Xiang asked, genuinely curious since Wu Ling actually knew something about people with such dubious professions.
"Yes and no. Some things I guess you can only practice at night," he answered honestly. "Other things though, I saw people train as part of everyday life. Walking up wooden stairs, carrying your laundry and trying not to make a sound while you do, or following random people through crowds on your way to the market, just to see if they notice you following, that sort of thing."
"Did you practice like that?" Su Xiang asked, wanting to better understand the things that had shaped her sworn brother in the years they were apart.
"Sure," Wu Ling said with a shrug. "When I was eight and nine, it was kind of a game, and the senior sisters were always happy to share their games with the young girls around the sect. Once I got older though and I realized what all that practice was really for, it stopped being a fun silly thing. I still have some habits from the things I learned, and I remember a few tricks, but I'd be a fool if I tried to do any of that stuff for real," he said simply, not wanting to dwell too much on the second sect to exile him and his mother or the things he'd learned there. While he had many pleasant memories of his time in the Bamboo Silk House, the ending had left such a bitter taste in his mouth that it was hard to appreciate the rest.
"We're off topic though, and if we're going somewhere else, I have someone else to introduce you to first," he said, trying to put matters of the Bamboo Silk House behind him and focus instead on the path ahead.
"You painted more little friends? I can't wait, what's next?" Su Xiang asked eagerly.
"Hou, time to go for now," Wu Ling said, pulling the Golden Crow back into his Inner World. "Yue, come meet Sister Xiang," he called. Similar to when he called out Hou, a small ball of fog formed on the ground about a meter away from Wu Ling, growing rapidly in size until the fog blew away and revealed the soft, cute, and cuddly form of the Silver Snow Rabbit, Yue.
Yue looked about briefly, first to Wu Ling and then to Su Xiang before decisively abandoning Wu Ling and leaping into Su Xiang's arms to bury her furry face in Su Xiang's chest.
"Oh Heavens, she's ADORABLE!" Su Xiang said, instantly snuggling the bunny and reaching out to stroke her soft silvery fur. "Wait, you're going to make this cute lovable little girl fight for you? Wu Ling, you're such a cruel beast," she teased.
"She's not supposed to fight like Hou does you know," Wu Ling said with an answering smile. "Look, the mighty sword cultivator has already been rendered powerless, both her hands are occupied and she won't drop the rabbit to draw her weapon. I've won without fighting!"
"Brat," Su Xiang said, sticking her tongue out at him but making no move to give up the rabbit.
"She can help with defense, here, watch. Yue, protect Sister Xiang," Wu Ling commanded, picking up a loose stone and throwing it directly at Su Xiang. In an instant, silvery-blue mist formed in front of the young woman before turning into a solid sheet of ice the size and shape of a small shield, easily deflecting the thrown stone before evaporating in a cloud of silver mist. "See? She's good at protecting people."
"Fire and Ice, the Sun and Moon… Wu Ling, you really do put your artistic touch on everything don't you?" Su Xiang said. "I'm impressed, I'm really, really impressed, and I'm rethinking everything I thought about what it would be like to go on an adventure with you."
"This is going to be a lot of fun," she said with a smile. "Let's go, I can't wait to start practicing. And… I'll carry Yue on the way. That's okay, right?"
"That's absolutely okay," Wu Ling answered, happy to see that Su Xiang still had a soft spot for cute animals. Slowly, bit by bit, it felt like their friendship kept picking up where it had left off. Deep down, she was still the same Su Xiang.