Fatherly Asura

The Qi of this [Mystic Realm] was of a denser sort that any outside, or so Fu had come to realise.

Survival granted the opportunity to harness it, [Season] dependent, and yet, even then, the ambient energy could be said to be greater than that beyond the [Paifang].

[Spiring] was not to his benefit, but did not rebuff him, though neither did it have the feel of surplus that [Winter] would.

Armed with such understanding, Fu toiled with this latest [Meridian].

Three days it had taken to purge the [Impurities] from his [Channels], steel now, as opposed to the sand that crowded his inner shores as they had before the [Node] was opened.

The gong struck.

Simultaneous padding began, with Fu merging into the centre as he wiped free the sheen of perspiration from his brow. Much as his surrounding comrades did.

His routine ingrained.

Or so he had thought, surprised to feel a hand upon his shoulder as he turned from the barrack’s junction.

“Wall duty tonight,” corrected a woman, her [Spirit Bat] padding a wing in the direction that all but he had taken.

“Gratitude,” he returned, joining the procession once more.

At this hour the Blight’s full reach had subsided, tidal in its nature. This left glimpses of the barren scape below, an arid and deserted land of sparse vegetation. Gnawed, it seemed, more than rotted or inhospitable.

The Nineteenth [Winter] Brigade fell into their stations with practised rhythm, equidistant in their placement atop a protruding battlement, illuminated by the glow that blinked from the fortresses’ base.

A series of Qi-infused crystals, lit from ground to tip, shrugged free dusk’s dim blanket to leave neither root nor brick darkened.

Third Officer Zhiyuan patrolled her subordinates, granting a curt exchange with each, bypassing only three of their number. As was her usual way in all things. Be that greeting, order or acknowledgment.

Despite this, Fu bowed at her passing, returning his attention to the wall thereafter. Not dismayed.

Grotesque shapes picked after the last day’s growth, insectoid scavengers one and all. But this granted time, for their meals were not yet done below, and after their Officer’s passing his comrades settled into a slackness that was as equally practised as their march.

A scroll, in some hands. Tomes. Baubles. Items to while away their time until midnight.

And Zhiyuan proved lax in this, delving into her own pursuits.

Three cultivators ringed around her, palms coiled. They struck with deftness, measured and slow. Actions performed at a pace that might conjure images of oil, so slowly they moved. A deflection came, with their senior advancing an elbow, or a knee, each a harsh angle of defence.

From this he had his final sense of what the night would hold.

Four positions to his right, Zang Ce stood idle. Having neither technique to perfect nor bauble to occupy his time. Wasting the granted chance through no fault of his own.

Fu recalled the [Stifling Stream Revolutions] into his muscles to begin the first set. To see how Zhiyuan practised struck a note of intrigue however. Until now the world of cultivation, the deeper, martial aspects of such, at any rate, had gone unseen.

Something in the way his Third Officer moved. So precise. It conjured a level of proficiency that left him with no doubt she might move at tenfold the speed she did now, when needed.

A transcendence of [Might], the attribute he assumed granted his own speed.

This led his front step to place slowly, and the ensuing strikes were glacial.

Strain rose, both in his [Dantian] and in the burning of his muscles. Unexpectedly. The control needed to pace through these movements threatened to topple him.

Ankles and thighs quaked upon poising himself for the first kick, drawing even Hushi forth from beneath the douli.

But Qi flowed as the octopus drew, a stabilising influence. Enough to fill his [Dantian] higher, and begin the process of his [Air Qi] formed spirals. It did not quench the emptiness where his inner reserves held gaps, but rather supported him with enough to not reduce any further.

Approaching the second turn, he caught eyes upon him, mistrusting. If he had to guess, and raised from the parchment’s lip to regard their junior.

Fu only pushed on in this slowness. Drowning out the exterior world as his spirals launched forth, grinding at his [Impurities]. Well fed, with the passing, pungent breeze that had begun to crest the wall.

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