The Stargazer's War - Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Time’s Up

“I still can’t believe Xavier beat me to copper,” I muttered to myself as I stacked a handful of apple seeds with a pair of tweezers.

“How are you still on that?” Nick asked without looking up from his genetic resequencing tool. “It’s been two weeks.”

“Shit.” The tower of seeds I’d assembled collapsed—four high, just shy of my record.

Nick let out a sigh. “Some copper you are.”

“I’m trying, okay? Divine inspiration isn’t easy to come by.”

The handful of months since Arthur’s kidnapping had passed almost painfully quickly, a haze of exhausting routine broken up exclusively by my advancement to copper mere hours after Xavier’s. We’d celebrated both achievements in one epic night of drinking, dancing, and, most importantly, karaoke—a tradition I intended to continue whether or not Charlotte was altogether too good of a singer for it.

The advancement process itself had been… honestly, kind of boring. I guess the exciting part was that I’d managed in weeks what had taken every single cultivator Fyrion had ever seen years. Xavier himself, late bloomer that he was, had spent five years tempering his focus, perfecting his ability to scrape together every minuscule mote of qi from his food, his environment, and his focus hours just to build up enough to push for copper, a skillset that would serve him well along his Way.

I’d taken one sip from the infinite sea and gone to town.

Yes, it was unfair. Yes, if I expended a single modicum of thought it was obvious I had no right to expect I’d beat Xavier to copper. That didn’t stop my competitive side from lamenting the fact. And hey, I may’ve had a lot of it, but at least his qi did something. Mine just sat there.

“Okay.” Nick’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “This one’s just about ready.”

I leaned over in my seat—a stool we’d pilfered from downstairs—and peered through the magnifying lens at the seed in question.

“On the count of three,” Nick told me, frustration still clear in his voice. “One… two… three!”

Through the enchanted glass I could see tiny spark of dormant qi leave the seed. At the same moment, I pushed a flow of my own qi into it. Most went elsewhere, billowing out in all directions as my qi tended to do, but by virtue of going everywhere, some did end up inside the seed.

Just not enough.

Three seconds later, Nick let out a resigned breath. “And it’s dead.” He tossed the seed in the trash with the other failures.

“Sorry. I’m trying.”

“You’re stacking seeds on top of each other,” he snapped. “Cal, this is important. You need fine control. Any tin should be able to do this.”

“I’m not any tin.”

“You’re right. A year ago you barely knew what cultivating was. It’s no surprise you can hardly control your qi.”

“Nick, it’s not that simple,” I tried. “You know my qi doesn’t—”

“No. I don’t know. That’s the problem, Cal. You have a preteen’s understanding of how any of this works, and because nobody can sense your qi, nobody can tell you what you’re doing wrong.”

I took a breath. “I’m trying,” I repeated. “Do you want to take a break?”

“No.” He pulled another seed from the pile. “We’ll go again.”

That was the other major development since I’d first formed my core. As time went on, Nick grew increasingly certain in his belief that my inexperience was the only reason our attempts kept failing. He probably wasn’t entirely wrong, but I hated that he couldn’t see the problem for himself. Fine control became a whole lot harder when the task at hand was pushing out a cloud of qi and hoping the exact right amount ended up inside the seed rather than in the air around it.

Of course, it wasn’t all for nothing. Pitiful as my attempts at externalization may have been, the qi inside my body worked wonders. It turns out, all that cycling and fortifying and whatnot really works. My qi pathways were wider than ever, and now at copper I’d begun experiencing a number of benefits even without cycling.

It was actually sort of a problem. The sect officially thought I’d just reached tin, and all my peers in housing D still saw me as the weak mortal at the bottom of the rankings. I’d spent the last three weeks purposely gimping my morning workouts to maintain the illusion.

Dueling day had certainly gotten interesting, though. As a copper, I thoroughly overpowered the tins my sect rank paired me against, none of whom used their one advantage—qi attacks—for fear of disrespecting their weaker opponent. Nobody wanted another clown show.

Instead I got to play this fun game of pretending their punches hurt or going just limp enough to let them restrain me while still looking like I was fighting back. Xavier didn’t like the idea of throwing matches, but Charlotte supported it full-heartedly. They’d actually broken up over the subject, though considering they were back together again by dinnertime, I didn’t hold it against them.

Either way, the fun was ending. Lopez’s deadline loomed, and if I wanted any leeway in case the combat two or three instructors proved problematic, time was officially up. Tomorrow morning, just after breakfast, I was taking a transport pod to housing A to issue a formal challenge to one Senior Cadet Long.

Then the game would be up. If I lost, my time at the Dragon’s Right Eye would be over. If I won, I’d rocket up the rankings, and everyone would know I was more powerful than I was letting on.

I couldn’t wait.

“Ready.” Nick directed my attention to the next seed he’d isolated from the pile. “On three.”

I again leaned in and channeled a small cloud of qi at the seed on Nick’s cue, taking care to add just a little bit more than last time.

It popped like a balloon.

“Damnit,” Nick cursed. “Too much, Cal. Way too much.”

“That was barely more than the last one.”

“Obviously not. You overloaded it.”

“Maybe I need one of those stylus things,” I tried. “It could just be an issue of foreign qi entering—”

“Cal, we’ve been over this. I modified it to match your spiritual signature. Your qi isn’t foreign to it.”

“Right, right, the seed’s technically my cousin and all that.”

“What? No. What are you talking about? Cal, if that’s all you’ve taken away from my explanation—”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” I interrupted. “Maybe we’re too slow? The dead seed you showed me earlier popped like that.”

“You told me you lasted several minutes between your old qi being drained and your new qi flooding in. The scale is smaller, but these seeds are dormant. If anything, they should last longer.”

“You’re saying this seed is heartier than I am?”

“Alright. You know what?” Nick slammed both palms into the tabletop and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll do it myself.”

“That’s your plan? Find the infinite sea? Nick, you’ve been trying for months.”

“And I’m closer to it than you are to basic control,” he growled at me as he stepped past.

“I’m telling you, it’s harder than you think.”

He stopped at the door. “Go practice for your fight tomorrow. We both know that’s where you’d rather be.” With that he vanished, out into the hallway and whichever window he planned to meditate at.

I stayed on my stool and quietly sighed. Teenagers, right? No matter what I said, I couldn’t seem to get it into his head this all frustrated me more than anyone. I was the one who couldn’t do any magic.

Shaking my head, I pushed myself to my feet and waded through the forest of potted plants for the door. By the time I made it out into the hallway, Nick was nowhere to be seen.

I shoved aside that problem for later. He was right about one thing, if for the wrong reasons. There was somewhere I’d rather be, if only for tonight, if only for Nick’s benefit. Wherever he’d stormed off to, I couldn’t look after him if the sect kicked me out.

I arrived early at the sparring ring, skipping dinner entirely. I wasn’t hungry.

I ran through my forms while I waited, both the entirety of the Dragon’s Fang and the handful of steps I’d borrowed from Cedric. They flowed together neatly, the product of months of practice with a handful of AI analysis tossed in. The bots weren’t great at telling you when or where a particular step would prove useful—too many unknowns—but they knew better than anyone which motions combined best.

By the time Xavier arrived, I’d already broken a sweat.

“No Charlotte?” I halted my practice as he climbed into the ring.

“Charlotte’s not speaking with me,” Xavier explained. “She… doesn’t think you should challenge Long.”

“I knew that. You said I could win.”

“It’s not just that.” Xavier exhaled. “Right now Long considers you an annoyance, a weakling that doesn’t belong here. He’ll take personal offense if you challenge him. He’ll probably try to maim or kill you in the ring, and that’s if you lose. Should you win, Long will drop at least a few hundred ranks and suffer a major embarrassment. He and anyone aligned with him will be your enemy for life.”

“He’s already my enemy.” I shook my head. “And I won’t abandon you guys. I won’t abandon Nick.”

Xavier shrugged. “Charlotte’s words, not mine. If Long is weaker, he deserves to lose. If Long is stronger, he’ll win. His opinions on the matter are of no consequence.”

I spent a moment staring across the sparing ring at Xavier, trying to parse the sheer dissonance between the two perspectives. “It astounds me that you and Charlotte are a couple.”

“Right now, we aren’t,” Xavier replied like it meant nothing. I supposed after the fiftieth break-up, they stopped hitting so hard. He raised his practice sword. “Ready?”

I charged him.

He met my advance, lunging forward with aggression of his own. I slipped into Cedric-three—we hadn’t bothered coming up with creative names for the borrowed forms—and caught the weak of his blade against my lowered crossguard. The move knocked my sword out of position, but it raised my elbow just in time for it to collide with Xavier’s face.

He stumbled back.

I got my sword back up first.

“Touché,” Xavier stepped back.

I grinned at him. “Again.”

Xavier burst into motion, exploding across the arena almost faster than I could raise my weapon. He went into The Dragon’s Raised Ire, an overhand strike that brought his superior reach to bear.

I tried to counter with Cedric-six—a weak deflect designed to leave my blade at his throat—but as I committed to the move Xavier’s feet shifted, his sword pulled back, and his left hand shot forth.

He grabbed my by the throat. I tapped his wrist to signal my concession.

“Again.”

Back and forth and back and forth we sparred, the hours drifting by as we came at each other again and again. Xavier got the better of me more times than not, a worrying prospect but for my own smattering of victories. Thankfully—no doubt intentionally—Xavier called a halt with his back on floor and my boot on his chest.

“We’ll stop here. Don’t want you wake up sore tomorrow.”

I held out a hand and helped him up. “What do you think?”

“You beat me one in three fights,” Xavier reasoned, “and Long is a stronger fighter than I. He’s over a thousand ranks higher, but that’s in part because he’s been copper for years as opposed to weeks.”

I grimaced. “That puts my odds at… below one in three? Call that one in ten?”

“No, no.” Xavier shook his head. “They’re better. Much better. I’ve been sparring with you for almost a year now. I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen all the steps you learned from Lucy’s recordings. I’ve practiced against them. Senior Cadet Long thinks you’re beneath him. He’ll underestimate you, and he won’t expect forms that aren’t a part of the Dragon’s Fang.”

“Good,” I muttered. “That’s good.”

“It is good, isn’t it?” Xavier grinned. He stepped up and placed and a hand on my shoulder, looking me dead in the eye as he told me, “You can win this, Cal. I know it.”

I returned a weak smile of my own.

“Now, get some rest.” He clapped me on the back. “Tomorrow there’ll be glorious victory.”

“Thanks, Xave. Really. I wouldn’t even be remotely close without your help.”

“The only greater honor than making it through one’s crucibles is to see one’s friends safely through their own.”

I blinked at him. “Did you just come up with that?”

“Come up with…?” Xavier squinted. “It’s a simple statement.”

“Right. Of course it is. Nevermind.”

“Goodnight, Caliban,” Xavier bid me as I gathered my things. “Dream of triumph. You’ll find it come morning.”

As we went our separate ways, he back to housing B and I up to the third floor, my mind pondered Xavier’s words. It struck me as odd—odd that he’d pull such a poetic platitude out of nowhere, odd that even after defeating me he still thought I’d beat Long, and odder yet that for all his idiosyncrasies and blatant overconfidence, by the time I made it into bed, I’d arrived at a startling conclusion.

I believed him.

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