“Off the field!” Wu Ying’s former opponent snapped at him.
Realizing his mistake, Wu Ying scrambled off, idly noting the trio of arrows that littered the area around Tou Hei. It seemed that the ex-monk’s defensive style—the Mountain Resides—could protect even against projectiles.
“I want archers on our side too,” Wu Ying muttered as he reached the end of the field and rubbed his chest.
***
To Wu Ying’s surprise, the mock battles became a mainstay of the training regime. Outer sect members were drawn into the mock wars, forced by their trainers to partake, while the martial specialists took the role of the opposing cultivators. As the training grew formalized, additional arms and armor appeared, partly to reduce injury for the outer sect members and also to allow the martial specialists to cut loose. Using a chi-filled air strike to blow apart a pike line at full and at half-strength were very different things.
In time, additional defensive options were added, with one-use talismans and special defensive equipment given out. Of course, it wasn’t just the martial specialists who acted as the opposing cultivators, though they were the majority. After all, the hot-blooded youth of the Sect all enjoyed a little rumble once in a while.
What amused Wu Ying was the addition of the Elders, many of whom argued and fought for the right to be the commanders of the opposing teams. It took the intervention of the Inner Sect Hall Master himself to sort out that growing issue. Now there was a sign-up sheet and rotation for the Elders.
Even more amusing to Wu Ying was the small, but persistent, betting ring that had formed around each battle. A couple of times, Wu Ying had tried his hand at gambling, but after losing a couple of Meridian Opening Pills, he had given up on that sin. Wasting resources, even if these resources were less useful to him now, was anathema to the peasant.
Scenario after scenario played out over the next month, with Elder Hsu seeming to take great delight in coming up with new potential battles. Sometimes the cultivators were sent in as the vanguard and had to deal with unbroken pike lines and flights of missiles. Other times, they were driven to the flanks, sent as reinforcements for fractured platoons, a stiffening agent for broken morale. Or they might fight between the opposing groups, dueling one another in support or in opposition of a winning side.
In short order, Wu Ying gained both an appreciation of the aid a cultivator could bring to an army and a realization of how limited their effects could be. Since most of society had received some cultivation training, most soldiers were in the early stages of Body Cleansing. As such, while Wu Ying was stronger and faster, he was not, in reality, a major factor in any fight.
However, those at the Energy Storage stage were able to project their chi in attacks that could shatter lines or reach behind guarding shields and kill archers or officers. Some cultivators with powerful qinggong skills were able to pass through packed lines to attack officers and other cultivators. The more powerful the cultivator, the more damage they could deal, their chi stores ample to deal out multiple strikes.
But for all that, cultivators were still human. Blades could wound, arrows could pierce, shields could bruise. Exhaustion, the press of bodies, the sheer mass of numbers of “normal” soldiers could wear down even the most powerful inner sect member. That was driven home in the sixth battle, when the cultivators were massed against a larger number of outer sect members. Forced to fight a delaying action, they did well. At first. But eventually, the cultivators fell. An errant blow. A missed parry. And one would fall. And then another. Wu Ying prided himself that at least he was not the first nor second to fall. He had managed to last for a while, using his skills and careful management of his chi and positioning to survive. Even if he did not manage to score as many kills, he had survived.
A failure, a lesson. It was all experience, as Elder Cheng had told him. And now, Wu Ying sat in his courtyard, meditating on the battles. Taking them in not only to analyze his martial forms to do better, but to study them for his own cultivation. His dao. What had he learned?
An image. Senior Ge, powerful and heroic, standing in the line. Beating aside poleaxe cuts, tearing weapons out of hands and striking raised shields. Each blow so powerful that he crumpled the wooden defenses and blew away his attackers. Striding forward into the middle of the battle line to be swallowed by the masses. Gone.
Tou Hei and himself, standing side by side as a rain of arrows dropped. Wu Ying pulling upon the Brilliant Woo Petal Bracer to charge his Dragon’s Breath attack, slicing apart arrows that fell upon their team. Tou Hei striking the ground with his staff and forming a chi-empowered barrier. The flight of arrows was either cut apart or blocked, falling to shatter around them. Skipping past the defending pair, the rest of the team hit the side of the line.
Another memory. Of himself fighting a pair of Energy Storage cultivators as he tried to block them from approaching their rearguard. He was losing. Of course he was losing. The Long family style was not a defensive style. Nor could he win against two others—even if he was more skilled. But he didn’t have to win. He just had to delay them, because in delaying them, the rest of his team could do their job.
Memories, learning, understanding. Each breath, he assimilated them. And then another memory rose, unbidden.
Crouched in a rice paddy with his family and the rest of the village. Working together to plant stalks of rice in the water, moving from rice field to rice field. Some tried to do it alone. But the work required to plant the rice stalks was backbreaking and tiring. You could work together or alone, but together was faster. More efficient. And more fun.
The same lesson.
It was all the same lesson. Perhaps Wu Ying was dumb. Perhaps he was slow. Or perhaps some lessons had multiple facets to them. Each bowl of knowledge consisted of multiple grains that had to be chewed upon and digested individually—even if it was the same bowl.
Chi swirled, gathered and formed, beckoned by the breakthrough. The world approved, once again, as a part of the Dao—the greater way—was understood. Wu Ying absorbed it, took in the chi even as it petered out. It was only a small lesson after all, and one he had once known. But still.
New experience. New enlightenment. Another step on his path.
Chapter 3
Letters from home were always a treat. Having to cross hundreds of li[3] to reach the Sect, letters had to be carried by local merchants or private postal couriers. Such individuals worked circular routes around the kingdom, only deigning to visit places like Wu Ying’s village when sufficient time had passed. As such, the village had to rely on the trips by locals to the main city or the occasional merchants who were, for obvious reasons, less regular during the winter.
Seated in his study in mid-afternoon, Wu Ying caressed the side of the letter. It had arrived last night, but rather than waste candlelight to read the correspondence, Wu Ying had used it as a spur for today’s training. Now, having finished early, Wu Ying broke the seal on the wrapped scroll and peered within.
In short order, Wu Ying had sorted the two letters into three components. First, set aside for later consideration, was more discussion about the Long family style. That would require time to puzzle out, since his father had taken to writing more and more cryptic statements as Wu Ying progressed. Second, was the actual letter from his father. The entirety of the contents fit on a single piece of paper. And lastly, the letter from his mother, which would contain the meat of the correspondence. That was the letter he read first.
Wu Ying greedily devoured the news from home, reading through her letter in one quick burst before returning to its start on the right[4]. Wu Ying read more slowly now, savoring the details.