“Ow.”
“You smacked lighting, of course it’s going to hurt. Idiot.”
“I regret only that I couldn’t smack it harder. Also, ow.”
“I’m aching too, but you don’t hear me whining about it. Disgraceful lack of composure and reserve.”
Liren and Tian were bickering as an autonomic act. Their attention was turned inwards, examining the changes to their bodies. They were significant.
Tian’s body had an ethereal pureness to it, yet it felt dense and weighty. A bit like the thousand layer ice, there was a hell of a lot condensed into a comparatively small volume. His muscles were still athletic rather than bulky, but were now as perfect and as visible as an anatomical diagram. He looked at his restored left hand, following the flow of his arm from his shoulder all the way down to the tips of five fingers. There was a dao charm to it, he decided. There was a natural rhythm and power in it that his right hand simply lacked. It took an effort to look away from it.
“Are you going to pull your robes back on?”
“Eventually.” Tian was too busy examining his body to bother with propriety. “Better question- why are yours still on?”
“I decline to answer on the grounds that it should be completely obvious.”
“Foolishness does explain most things.” Tian muttered, turning his attention inward.
He was worried that his body would remain yang deficient, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was how Liren described it- yang organs remained yang, yang vital energy brought movement and power to muscles and fired the nerves, but the energy was balanced with an uncanny precision. Each had just as much yang energy as it needed. If he moved his hand, a minute additional amount of energy went to the hand. A clenched fist was a tiny explosion within him, before calming and returning. All paths ultimately converging in his heart.
His heart rested in fire, as though the little lamp had somehow ignited the vital energy his middle dantian was converting into qi. The crimson palace and the heart floated together within him, illuminated by the flames. Tian, odd as it was for a daoist in a sect to say it, did not consider himself religious. That made finding the right words to describe what he was seeing and feeling hard, because all that came to mind was ‘holy.’
He drew in a deep breath, watching the chaotic qi in the air get drawn down into his lungs. Then on the exhale, impure air was expelled from his body. Each inhale was deep and long, and each exhale felt turbid. As though the atmospheric qi had been carefully sieved, and only the purist, finest particles of life-bringing energy were accepted. The rest were forcefully expelled.
Lungs were metal aligned, he recalled. And metal was the element of precision. Carefully sorting through the pure and impure, then the lungs fulfilled their other function- letting go. In and out. Universal acceptance, then a rigid need for purity.
He needed to get out more. Everything was starting to look like a yin-yang cycle. Sometimes you just needed to breathe, and not worry about the details.
“Fancy a game of… no that won’t work.” Tian’s voice trailed off
“What?”
“Go is the only board game I know, but I’m trying to get away from seeing everything as yin and yang, so.”
“I learned how to play chess ages ago, but haven’t played since I was ten or something. Want to learn it together?” Liren offered.
“Perfect.”
Perfect, or nearly perfect, would be how he would describe his body. Other than the two missing fingers on his right hand, but they would come with time. His vital energy was shockingly pure, his fleshy body was simply insanely strong and enduring, and his meridian network flowed like the Agate through his body. Even his dantians looked larger and stronger, acquiring a sense of greater depth or richness of meaning.
There was something he was missing, some hidden key to the charm he was seeing. The Supreme Virtue Hell Suppressing Body Refining Sutra was to credit for a lot of it, as was the qi-dragon, but it seemed an element was missing.
Purity, enduring, saintly, immortal…
He slapped his hand against his forehead. His right hand. For safety.
It was the Immortal Qi. Before he even left the gory pit with the dustless lotuses and mashed up snakes, Grandpa Jun had him circulate a cultivation art that drew in qi through his pores. A breath of qi without breathing, recreating the pre-natal, immortal qi he had in the womb. Well, that he should have had in the womb. Given how he and his stillborn siblings turned out, they all might not have had it in the first place.
All that, when combined with his energy exchange with Liren, resulted in a saintly physique. How could it not. Which raised a question that made him squirm slightly as he gathered his courage.
“Um. Liren? Sis’ Liren? Would you say what we just did qualifies as-”
“DON’T SAY IT!” She yelped.
“But…”
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“Yes, and shut up! And shut up some more! We are going to have a long, long talk about a lot of things, but this really isn’t the time.”
Tian nodded. That was fair.
“My skin is softer.” Liren muttered, not willing to look at Tian.
“Your skin has always been soft.”
“Not like yours. And it’s not at that level now, either. But it’s softer. I’m a hell of a lot stronger, but I don’t look it. If anything I look softer. Weaker.”
“Matter of opinion I guess, at least about looking weaker.” Tian smiled. “Is it a problem?”
“No, not at all. I can feel that blades will just bounce off of me. Mortal blades, anyway, and I think that unless someone is using a damn good art, Earthly blades would struggle to cut me deeply. I feel stronger, but more resilient, if that makes sense.”
“Sure it does. The difference between cast iron and steel.”
Liren grinned at that. The amount of carbon wasn’t that much different between cast iron and steel, and even within the category of true steel, there was bad and good. What made truly good steel was the tempering. It let the steel bend and come back straight without breaking.
“I like that. A body forged in fire and quenched with thousand layer ice. It sounds heroic.”
Tian nodded. “Mythic, even.”
“Said the half naked man glowing with the light of his blazing heart. Seriously, put your robe back on. Sister Su and Sister Lin will be coming over soon, and I’m suddenly worried about the intentions of Brother Wang.”
“He did not make a pass.”
“I didn’t think he did, but he’s still up three wives in two years.” Liren snickered as Tian hastily pulled his robes back on, though she frowned when he left his hair down. “At least put it in a ponytail. Really, what’s wrong with a bun? A bun looks proper. You look good with a bun.”
“I look better with my hair down. At least I feel better. Do you know how long it takes to brush hair this long? Fine, fine, bun it is. While company’s around.” Tian grumbled and started combing it out, heart blazing with the words ‘You look good with a bun.’ The comb went though once, then a second time. He paused a moment. The comb went through a third time.
“Huh. Now that is magical.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been knocked all over the rocks and things, struck by lightning, had my body undergo a massive tempering and partial reconstruction, including my hair, and there are no tangles.”
Liren hesitated, “Your hair has always been pretty tangle-free, right?”
“Because I look after it. This is not looking after it, this is getting knocked around by fake tribulation lightning. But look- no snags, no knots, no frizzing, not even a split end.” Tian ran his hand through his hair and shivered. “It feels nice, too.”
Liren looked curious, then hurried him along. “They are coming over. Quickly, straighten yourself up.”
“Yes, yes.”
The three remaining members of their party were struggling to cross the ice. Each had decent movement arts, but none of them were particularly suited for crossing ice. Worse, Tian could see the cold was hurting their feet, and they had to raise their hands to shield their faces from the heat of the tree.
“What are you… oh. You are a demon. That explains a lot.”
“They are going to be tired, Liren! Look at them suffering.”
“Can you even warm up a kettle with the frozen lake next to you?”
Tian stuck his shiny new copper kettle on a root of the stone plum tree, and pointed defiantly at the thread of steam rising from it.
“Alright, you have a point. Not what- did you put thousand layer ice in there?”
“Oh, now I should serve my sectmates any old trash, eh? Good water is right here, free for the taking, and you want me to use trash water. Hell, they might as well drink it cold and ruin their digestion!”
“Tian Zihao, you know perfectly damn well there is a time and a place…”
The three sectmates struggled together as they crossed the ice. Lin slipped. Before she could do more than register her feet sliding out from under her, Su and Wang had her by the arms, steadying her. They shared a look. Then they advanced. Su took the lead, piercing into the oppressive fire, while Wang anchored the middle and Lin brought up the rear. Their teamwork, their trust in each other, let them cross that hellish threshold. It took them through fire and water, finally reaching the shore.
“Sis, I’m done, grab some for each of us.”
“You are not done. We shall each grab our own, and take our own ice too. Come, Husband. One last push.” Sister Su encouraged Wang and Lin, then staggered forward to grab a fruit. She picked it, hesitated, then stored it in her ring. She grabbed a boulder of thousand layer ice and stowed it too.
“The exit! We got the treasure, where is the exit?” Lin gasped.
“Probably between those big rocks over there.” Tian pointed.
There was a pause. The twin torments of the fiery plum tree and the frozen lake couldn’t stop the sheer disbelief that was hammering the three young heroes. Tian and Hong were sprawled comfortably on the rocks, with a kettle merrily bubbling on a tree root, tea cups laid out, and a rather ordinary tea pot already loaded with tea. There were even rice crackers, though they were frosted over and charred in places.
The three found the strength to march in unison between the two tall boulders. This time it was Tian who snickered and tidied up his tea set. “I guess I will have to serve when we get outside.”
“Like a sane person? Haah. Hey, we should grab some more of those fruits and ice. Valuable resources.”
Tian nodded. “They are valuable. Do you think they are more valuable where they are, a reward for completing the trial, or outside?”
Liren hesitated, trapped by Tian’s open eyes. She sighed, and started tidying up the damage to the beach.
“You are a very good daoist, Zihao, but a lousy immortal. What kind of immortal doesn’t grab every opportunity?”
“Dunno. I guess I’ll find out.”
“I guess we will.”
Brother Fu gave them a look when they exited the trial. So did the crane, but it was a very different sort of look. Tian thought the looks from Wang, Su and Lin were particularly special, seeming to combine almost every emotion at once. Truly, he learned so much from his sect siblings.
“You underwent tribulation-”
“Fake tribulation.” Tian clarified. Brother Fu pressed on regardless.
“After eating the obviously over-concentrated natural treasures, and before preparing to serve tea.”
Tian thought about quibbling, but that wasn’t properly filial. Brother Fu was probably cranky from not having enough tea.
“Shall I serve now?”
Brother Fu exhaled explosively. He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and opted for smiling.
“As long as you are healthy.”