Tian was a little disappointed to receive merely a pat on the back and an “Attaboy,” after his breakthrough. Nobody was interested in making a fuss. He got the distinct impression that his brothers would be equally impressed if he fell off a log. He sulked about that for a bit, but quickly got over it.
Cultivation felt good. Cultivating helped Tian calm the anxiety he would feel, often for no reason that he could explain. Perhaps it was all the open spaces, or knowing that people were watching him. Cultivation calmed him. Tian felt more balanced, somehow. And the changes to his body! It was like every breath nourished his flesh. He didn’t know he was starving until he learned how to eat qi. He loved the feeling.
Even sweeter- cultivation was easy. It was so, so easy! You just had to breathe a certain way and send the energy moving around you in a fixed pattern. No problem at all; everything flowed smoothly.
Not everyone was so fortunate. His senior brothers often described cultivation as leading a herd of horses into a barn by yourself. Doable with skill and effort, but exhausting and dangerous. Pills could rapidly speed things up, Tian heard. They were also impossibly hard to come by, at least here in the Outer Court. He didn’t worry about it. He didn’t have any money anyway. Besides- he liked cultivating. Why would he want to skip past something he enjoyed?
A little before the one year anniversary of his arrival at the Temple, he proudly reported to Senior Brother Fu that he had reached level three.
“A bit ahead of schedule, but that’s great. You have worked hard. Ready to learn your first combat art?”
“Very ready, Senior Brother. Though I did wonder if I could get other abilities as well.”
“LIke what?”
“Weaving a hut from saplings with a spell, that kind of thing.”
“When you are old enough to go adventuring, you will have opportunities to earn a storage ring. Just keep a tent in there.”
“Tents break. I might lose my ring. My own power is… my own.” Tian struggled to put it into words, but Brother Fu understood.
“Unfortunately, that’s not something that can be achieved with vital energy, but there are other utility arts that you can use. They will be available in the scripture library, but not for free. Now that you have lived under our roof for a year, eating our rice and receiving our teachings, it’s about time you contributed.”
Tian nodded. That made sense. “How can I help?”
“Beat the absolute piss out of a girl.”
“Okay.”
Tian turned and started walking off, only to get his collar snagged by a laughing Brother Fu.
“A specific girl. And please don’t beat her until she actually pees, the Convent would burn our little Temple to the ground if you did. I suddenly had this image of you walking around the street asking girls if they needed to pee.”
Tian firmly shook his head. “I would never!”
“Oh no?”
“No. Rock Throwers cannot be trusted. They might hide the truth. I would beat them first, pour water down their throat, wait, then beat again.” Tian nodded virtuously.
“Yes, that’s the feral response I should have expected. I have been meaning to ask, what is it with you and people throwing rocks? It’s not a nice thing, but I don’t think you can classify the whole town as “rock throwers.”
“It’s not just the town.”
Brother Fu waited. And waited. Eventually, he asked- “So who is a rock thrower?”
“Anyone who might throw a rock at me. Which is everybody who isn’t a Senior Brother.” Tian didn’t notice the emphasis he put on the words “Senior Brother.” Brother Fu did.
“Is that something that happened a lot?” Brother Fu chuckled.
“Yes.”
The smile drained away from the old man’s face.
“You aren’t wrong, I suppose. Even within the Outer Court, and certainly within the greater Monastery, there are rock throwers. The person I want you to fight hopefully isn’t one of them. It’s a friendly spar between the brothers here and the sisters in the Convent. We are brothers and sisters, after all. One day soon, you will have to trust your back to a sister as you fight against the heretics and demons. Safe chances to spar and make friends are rare.”
“Make friends?”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing, little Tian. It might even be the best thing. And to that end, we are going to introduce you to a kid about your age over at the Convent. And just as her seniors and your seniors are sparring, you are going to square off with her too. Do well, and there will be rewards. More techniques, access to special places, good stuff. You don’t have to win- you can show off your abilities without winning. But everyone likes a winner, and losing is habit forming. Win.”
Tian nodded.
“I’m glad to learn the Temple’s traditions of beating women. Brother Fu, you are choking again. Brother Fu, should I slap your teapot? Brother Fu? Brother Fu?”
“In the Earthly stage, you can send your vital energy through your body and through specially prepared tools. There are pretty much every sort of combat treasure you can imagine, from swords, to spears, blow darts, fans, daggers, tridents, staves, glaives, chakram, claws, armored gloves… it goes on and on. And naturally, there are accompanying combat arts for each of them.”
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The brother in charge of the armory was sloppy, with a little paunch on him. He was the first person in the Temple Tian had seen with stubble on his chin. He sprawled in a big bamboo chair, seemingly uninterested in anything but the scroll in front of him and the calabash of wine by his side. Tian didn’t believe it- he could see the viper in his eyes.
“Your first training weapon is loaned to you until you can pay it off doing missions. The corresponding combat art is a benefit provided by the Monastery, but don’t be fooled. You will be paying for that too, in the end.”
Tian nodded. That all made sense to him. He was still pretty vague on money, but it made sense that you had to work to get things.
“Let me guess- flying sword?” The sloppy man smiled.
Tian shook his head.
“Oh? It’s a classic for a reason. Elegant, masculine, versatile, provides all the benefits of both ranged and melee weaponry, and you can train it all the way to the highest of heavens. Most people can’t wait to get their hands on a flying sword. Or are you a spear man? Fiery yang energy ready to explode outward, dominating the battlefield?”
Tian held up his hands. “I’m Level Three, so I can’t make the sword fly. I can’t hold the hilt strongly either. Same with spears and daggers and all that.”
The sloppy man sniggered. “Maybe a blow dart or something? Hidden needle art?” He waved Tian into the building. “Don’t touch anything except the weapon you choose. Take a good look around before you pick. You will recognize pretty much everything in there. At some point, someone in this Temple got bored enough to practice it on the martial field.”
Tian walked into the storehouse. It was well lit, but otherwise it could have been almost any other hall in the Temple. Polished wood floors, warm wooden walls, with red pillars holding up a high tile roof. Along the length of it were tables and racks, displaying the stored weapons and the little pamphlets describing the accompanying combat arts. Tian was surprised to see it all laid out like this, without even so much as a watchful dog guarding it.
Then he remembered the brother outside, who was a peak Level Nine. In this Temple full of old men who were also at peak Level Nine. In fact, the only person here who wasn’t at the very precipice of immortality was him.
They probably wished someone would try something. The Brothers, Tian had noticed, loved fighting. The most popular two locations in the Temple were the Mission Hall and the martial arts practice courtyards.
He walked along the shelves and tables, smelling the lightly oiled steel and warm wood. The swords and sabers were simple but highly functional. You could imagine the sound as they cut the wind and sliced flesh. Like awful beasts slumbering- the weapons just wanted to be woken and allowed to feast.
“Not for me.” Tian shook his head and walked past without much regret. He knew himself. The Brothers who used swords and sabers were tall and strong. Always charging forward in their spars, hacking directly at the enemy and seeing nothing else around them. It didn’t appeal.
You could only use a sword as a sword. You could only use a saber as a saber. A staff was more flexible, almost infinitely so, but it also relied on grip strength. That also ruled out every other polearm. The flying needles were ignored without a second glance. They were only good for delivering poison, and Tian didn’t rate poison as something very useful.
That left a few options. Bows- out. Daggers, both flying and otherwise- possible, but again, too limited. He finally landed on the rope dart.
The yellow rope was about ten feet long, and the heavy steel dart was about five inches tip to tail. There was a red tassel, a brilliant puff of string fibers tied just behind the dart. He looked at the combat art that came with the rope dart, and quickly nodded. It was all about improving the control of the rope, letting the user manipulate it like another limb. It didn’t do much to improve the lethality of the dart, but Tian wasn’t fussed about that. He could think of plenty of ways to kill someone with a rope dart.
He picked up the hank and walked to the front door. “I’ve made my choice, Senior Brother.”
“A strange choice, for your first weapon. A bad one, actually. The demands a rope dart places on you are more than merely physical, and the physical requirements are very strict already. Why this one?”
Tian let the rope lie loose in his left hand and started spinning the dart with his right. He threw it out, letting it snap like a biting adder. He caught the rope with his elbow, shifting his body and making the heavy iron dart whip over the dry earth with a threatening hum. He was clumsy, in the sloppy man’s eyes. He was clearly experimenting, trying to figure out how his seniors made the head dance and spin.
The guard scratched the stubble on his chin, letting his eyes narrow before relaxing. “How many times have you used the rope dart before?”
“This is my first time, Senior Brother.”
“You picked it because it puts no real requirements on your ability to grab.”
“Yes, Senior Brother. I wanted a weapon that could do the grabbing for me.”
The guard snorted and a thin book appeared with a wave of his hands. Tian’s eyes widened. This must be the storage ring that Brother Fu mentioned. It seemed incredibly magical.
“This is the Snake Head Vine Body art. I’ll let you guess why it’s called that. Return it when you have memorized it or two weeks have passed, whichever comes first. If you have questions, ask your senior brothers around the practice field. At this point, we have all learned it.”
“Everyone knows this art?”
“Everyone knows all the combat arts in the Temple. They are cheap to borrow, and the years are long. You don’t know it yet.”
“Know what, Senior Brother?”
“The horror of a long life. I can feel Senior Brother Fu glaring at me through the walls. Scram. Go study and kick that little missy’s ass at the spar. I can’t abide people who act arrogant because of their connections. Go.”
Tian studied. The book was mercifully short on words and packed with pictures. Each page was filled with tricks, each with accompanying diagrams. It was quite important to follow the diagrams carefully at the beginning, the book explained, as failure to do so may result in the always embarrassing “stabbing yourself in the face” scenario. What made the art instantly attractive to Tian was that it came with its own qi diagram, and that diagram suddenly gave Tian a hand he could trust.
He imagined his vital energy like one of the long roots of the lotus, or like a jungle vine, or even like one of the adders. It stretched along the rope easily, filling all the twists. It really was some kind of special rope- Snake Head Vine Body didn’t work when he tried it on the laundry line. And once he could reliably control his rope, he used it constantly. From that moment on, nobody in the Temple ever saw Tian parted from the rope dart. He would tie it around his waist like a belt, or over his shoulder like a sash, or make a hank out of it and tuck it inside his robe.
“Little Brother Tian, do you love the rope dart that much?” One senior brother asked.
“Yes. It is the best for me. Not for everyone, but definitely for me.”
“Why?”
Tian smiled and whipped the rope off his waist. The dart flew out and snipped a ripe mango from a tree. A slight shift brought the rope over to the falling fruit, and a flex of his qi made the rope loop around it, becoming tacky to the touch. A little hook with his elbow, and it all came flying back towards him. He snagged the fruit in flight, as the rest of the rope whipped around his waist once more. The dart was neatly caught by a seemingly careless loop left in the wrapping process.
“It would be hard for me to climb that tree, Senior Brother. But now I don’t have to. And if I did have to, I have a rope that would let me climb wherever I wanted. If I was chased off a cliff by a tiger again, I could throw the dart into a crack in the cliff face, and get down safely. Even if there were eagles attacking again, I would be safe. It’s a snare, it’s a hunting spear, I could even use it to keep the reeds up when I need to make a shelter. A rope dart is perfect for me.”
The senior brother looked a bit boggled by all that, but eventually decided to just laugh. “Well I see you have clearly thought it through! I’m glad that it works for you.” He shook his head and started to walk off before stopping. The beefy man slowly looked back over his shoulder. “Wait. What do you mean again?”
“Want a mango, Senior? It’s very good.”
The Senior Brothers were good sparring partners, but they did have a tendency to gossip, and not worry about including Tian in their gossip. This meant that he was frequently bewildered. For example, why did everyone start laughing when Brother Wu had a fateful encounter with a jade beauty, only to learn that she was a practitioner of the legendary Sunflower Manual? Were some women made of stone? Did Brother Wu have a thing for green women?
More worrying were questions like- What was the significance of Brother Tai being sent to patrol the Southern Border? Why did it make everyone grim, and start muttering about reaching out to old comrades? For that matter, what even was a “Southern Border?”
Sometimes, the brothers went out at night and came back with cold faces and murmurs of “To the uncaring Heavens, human life is no more than straw dogs and clay oxen.” He didn’t want to ask what that meant.
He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise when he saw the returning Brothers. His mostly amiable big brothers were clearly not kind people all the time. They, too, were predators. Senior Brother Fu had warned him indirectly. Everyone likes a winner, and losing is habit forming. He believed that.
Right now, he was under their protection, and had nothing anyone wanted. But as soon as he started doing missions, he would have things. He would become fat meat. Predators got to keep their food when other predators didn’t dare come and take it. If he didn’t keep his things, he would become thin, and thin was a short step from dead.
Tian started spending the entirety of his day out on the practice fields, only stopping for his time with Brother Fu and meals. He sparred as much as he could without injury, trusting that the senior brothers would know how to check their attacks. Spears, swords, sabers, flying daggers, staffs, halberds, meteor hammers, even people with rope darts. The hidden needles gave him fits, as did the barehanded fighters. Both for the same reason- they could ignore the rope or control it unless he was very careful.
He learned very well all the lessons his seniors taught. And if they had the uncanny sense that he was studying them and not just their techniques… well. What harm could an eleven year old boy be?
Brother Fu sent the word down barely two months after he got his rope dart. The “friendly sparring session” would be held in three days at the Convent. Tian just nodded. He was quite ready to prove he could keep what he killed. Looking forward to it, even.