Boots

4.3 - He Yu Conducts an Investigation

Dai Shoushan ushered He Yu into his home. A large building, at least by the standards of the village. He was fed and given what he suspected was Dai Shoushan’s own room to spend the night.

Accepting the meal with as much grace as he could, he ate. It caused him another small twinge of hom...

4.2 - A Short Trip South

Several days later, He Yu found a note from Zhang Lifen. It had arrived in the night while he’d been cultivating, delivered by one of the carved heron statuettes she used to send messages. Unfurling the crisp roll of paper, he saw more or less what he’d expected. She would be absent on sect b...

4.1 - Prelude to Dawn

On a frozen lake high in the Shrouded Peaks, He Yu trained. Spires of ice formed pillars like a forest of blue glass. He Yu stood atop one such pillar near the lake’s center, sweating despite the cold. Zhang Lifen stood upon the shore, her bow of qilin horn and black wood in hand. A gleaming ar...

Prologue - The Dawn Palace

A soft, golden glow bathed the entirety of her world. Beautiful, it would have been, under other circumstances. A beautiful prison was a prison still. It had taken just over a hundred years to probe the dome covering the valley. To find the tiny gaps, small enough for trickles of qi to slip throu...

A quick note

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to give a bit of a heads up about today's post. Normally for one this short, I'd double up. But since I'm literally moving as this goes live, I'm gonna buy myself a bit of extra time/space by only posting the one.

The good news, at least, is that this is the ...

Epilogue - More than a Setback

The knock came about an hour after nightfall. Zhang Lifen waved a hand and the door to the outer wall of her garden opened. First Disciple Yi Xiurong stepped through.

“That was reckless,” Yi Xiurong said, her voice calm.

“Tea?” Zhang Lifen asked, placing one last detail on her...

3.44 - Golden Core

Once He Yu and Zhang Lifen were a fair distance down the path back to the main areas of the inner sect, and well out of earshot of the Sixth Realm back at the garden, Zhang Lifen finally spoke.

“Excellent work,” she said. “I think your display back there more than qualifies as setting...

3.43 - The Four Demon Fists

The dull glow of red veins running along Sha Xiang’s arms slowly pulsed as she spoke. “I did what I had to.”

The voice was hers, but different somehow. Crueler than it usually was, but He Yu realized that in some way this was who she’d always been. Whatever the Four Demon Fists had ...

3.42 - Payback

When He Yu found Sha Xiang, she was in one of the inner sect’s many gardens. Cui Bao sat nearby drinking wine. Mo Zhiqiang and Da Ning were both present as well. Four sets of eyes turned towards him the moment he stepped from the path.

As he cupped a fist in salute, a faint breeze tugged ...

3.41 - A Word of Advice

He Yu had made it nearly all the way back to the inner sect when he felt the familiar presence of Zhang Lifen’s qi. He activated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, extending his spiritual perception. She was much further away than he’d have thought, but he recalled Yan Shirong’s comme...

3.40 - Tribulation

Heaven’s wrath descended. Lightning filled the sky. Great forks of gold and green and purple and blue arced across the heavens. They struck the ground. They branched between the blackened clouds above. They struck the lone cultivator standing upon the empty peak of a flat mountaintop. They test...

3.39 - The Summer Storm

It took almost another two weeks for a proper storm to form in the north. He Yu mostly stayed home and cultivated. He spent a fair amount of spirit stones and contribution points on elixirs and medicines during that time, cultivating as much of his aspects as he could manage.

Sha Xiang, tha...

3.38 - An Offer

It was early summer, and the mists of the Shrouded Peaks turned muggy and warm with the changing of the season. Still, it was little impediment to the immortals of the inner sect. He Yu cultivated. The time in his cultivation chamber was chiefly spent contemplating his Way—what it meant to be a...

3.37 - Moonlight

Li Heng sat with his back to the mountain. The mists of the Shrouded Peaks stretched out below him, with other slopes rising like solitary titans, keeping watch over the sect lands. Above, the last full moon of spring cast cold light over the vista. He’d initially come up here thinking to culti...

3.36 - Heart to Heart

For the next couple of days, He Yu did everything he could to avoid admitting that Chen Fei had been right. Eventually, it got to be too much, and he made his way to Li Heng’s home. He knew his friend’s routine well enough, and made sure he stopped by in the morning, after Li Heng had spent t...

3.35 - Reflections

Chen Fei knelt next to the corpse of a beast that was easily half again as large as she was. The bear-skin mantle she’d taken to wearing hung from a nearby tree branch along with her outer coat. On the one hand, it made it hard not to look at her, as from the waist up she only wore her moxiong....

3.34 - Return and Regret

Over the next several weeks, He Yu trained against rock spirits in the hills. On some days Zhang Lifen would round up a pack of Second and Third Realm spirits, each group larger than the one before. She would bring more his way just as fast as he could destroy them, claiming she didn’t want him...

3.33 - Facing the Mountain

With every breath he could spare, He Yu cursed Zhang Lifen’s name. She vanished before the stone spirit covered half the distance to the edge of the caldera, leaving him to face the thing alone. Unlike the spirits from the previous day, this one carried a fire aspect to it, making its presence ...

3.32 - Insights and Awakening

Zhang Lifen’s training lasted until nightfall. Just as the sun dipped behind the mountains to the west, she produced her bow of qilin horn and black wood from her storage treasure. The weapon’s spiritual weight imposed itself upon the area, followed a moment later by Zhang Lifen’s own spiri...

3.31 - A Training Opportunity

As it turned out, the correct answer was “a bit of both.”

Although He Yu had hoped she would accept another job on his behalf, she simply told him to keep up as she set off in a seemingly random direction. Her pace was little more than a quick jog for someone of her advancement, and she...

3.30 - A Promise

Tan Xiaoling’s account of the attack was much the same as Yan Shirong’s, although she was able to fill in some details that Yan Shirong hadn’t. Sha Xiang and her goons had attacked, staging ambushes and aiming to pick them off one by one. The plan had mostly worked.

“I don’t blame...

3.29 - Failure and Disaster

He Yu rolled over onto his back. How long his qi had raged out of control, he couldn’t have said. What he could say was that every part of his body and spirit hurt. His dantian ached and felt emptier than it ever had before. His meridians ached and felt like he’d been cycling acid through the...

3.28 - Scion of the Li

Li Heng stood before Sha Xiang and Da Ning, jian at the ready. His body enforcement technique, Raiment of the Frozen Soul, caused hoarfrost to spread outward from where he stood, creeping across the ground. As much as he wanted to go after Cui Bao and give Yan Shirong the proper opportunity to es...

3.27 - Ambush

The time had finally come. Sha Xiang had waited long enough. Suffered embarrassment enough. She had finally cultivated to the peak of Body Refining. She had struggled against the Four Demon Fists and made it hers. The cracks in her meridians didn’t matter. Emissary Kong had told her that once s...

3.26 - Gazing Upon the Peak

Spring brought with it the scent of flowers and rain. The manicured gardens and immaculate paths of the inner sect mountain came alive with color, and the challenges of the past year faded as if washed away with the changing seasons.

Through it all He Yu trained. Although his stipend from t...

3.25 - Outside Context

“The fuck you have!” Sha Xiang shouted. Earth and fire qi rolled out from her expanding presence. The scent of sulfur hung over the arena. “He’s still got fight left in him.”

“My judgment is final,” Su Meifeng said. “Any conflicts you choose to resolve aren’t sect business...

What's been cooking?

Just a super quick little update for anyone who might be curious.

I've hit 50k words out of a planned 150k on the 4th arc. For reference, the previous 3 arcs have all clocked in around 80k words, ...

3.24 - Ranked Duel

From across the dueling arena, Mo Zhiqiang’s presence expanded. It had become far more well-defined since their last fight, taking on the impression of a waterfall plunging down the side of a mist-enshrouded cliff. A spray of water rose from the pool below, and a light breeze carried the scent ...

3.23 - Payback

“You can’t be serious,” He Yu said. As Li Heng told him what Yan Shirong had discovered, the heat rose in his neck along with his anger.

Mo Zhiqiang. He Yu had barely even thought about him since that first duel. Apparently, he’d been behind the endless parade of petty challenges th...

3.22 - The Path Forward

With the coming of spring, He Yu emerged from seclusion. He’d reached the peak of Body Refining sometime around the new year and now stood with one foot in the Fourth Realm. Instinctively, he knew that he wasn’t yet ready to form his Golden Core, but being as close as he was, he had glimpsed ...