“Would it cost you too much energy to tell me what that is?” Tian’s eyes were fixed on the swimming… whatever it was.
Not at all. What it is specifically is a Qi Spirit. These occasionally appear in places with really intense levels of qi. It has taken the shape of a… hmm… patron deity? A primordial spirit? Not really sure how to describe it to you. Imagine a magical beast that was a sort of embodiment of Water as an elemental principal, as well as a few other things. It’s hard putting words around something like this. For example, some people think the combination of turtle and snake is meant to be a representation of yin and yang, flexibility versus rigidity, but in either case, longevity.
“Once again, the answer has given me more questions. It’s a yin-yang beast of some kind?”
No, it’s a Qi Spirit that has taken the form of the totem auspicious beast that represents water and that some bored humans slapped labels on.
“And… what should I do about it?”
That one is up to you. But for right now, I’d keep cultivating. Check your skin. That Hong girl is going to stamp her foot with jealousy.
Tian looked at his hands. Somehow, despite fighting in the desert and working in a desert base for more than a year, he was even paler than he had been at the temple. His skin had turned the rich white of mutton fat, though not quite the blinding white of a Go piece. He ran a finger along his arm. It was a sheer pleasure to touch. Soft with a hidden resilience, smooth and utterly free of blemishes.
“Did I get any taller?”
You did not.
“Cultivation is a scam.” Tian patted his head in irritation. He was growing well, but Hong was too. Somehow, the hooligan girl was still taller than him. Proof, if more was needed, that the world was ruled by a mad god.
He patted his head again. He had read about things described as “soft as the finest silk.” Tian had never seen “the finest silk,” but it was probably almost as nice to touch as his hair.
“I still have no idea how to defeat this… being.”
Particularly since it doesn’t seem to be interested in fighting you.
The strange turtle was swimming through the cavern, seemingly without any purpose. It looked… content, Tian supposed.
Until a stalagmite made the worst damn mistake of its life.
The reckless fool had spent uncountable years slowly rising up, and now it would pay the price for its arrogance. It stood in front of the turtle, forcing it to stop swimming for a moment. Tian saw spirit go still. Its turtle eyes narrowed. The serpent slowly drew back. Then… it struck!
The ghostly snake lashed forward, long fangs biting into the rock. The turtle wasn’t going to let the snake have all the satisfaction. It lashed out with a heavy claw too. The stalagmite was too stunned to respond. The turtle-snake didn’t let up. The turtle actually reared on to its hind… legs? Clawed flippers? Tian wasn’t sure what to call them. Whatever they were, the spirit got planted and started slapping with both front claws while the snake struck from cunning angles.
It should have looked silly. It did look silly. Tian was irresistibly reminded of the armored mortals who lined the road during the annual spars. They looked so serious and covered in armor, just like the turtle. Such fierce looks on their faces. The turtle looked pretty fierce too. And while the slapping might not be some exquisite form of boxing, if the enemy was something other than a pointy rock, they would probably be killed by it.
The turtle didn’t seem to be getting bored. It was laying into the stalagmite with ruthless determination. The longer Tian watched it, the stranger it became. Slap, slap, slap. Whip, bite, jab. Leaving aside the insanity of an energy spirit attacking a rock, the sheer coordination of the turtle and the snake were extraordinary. Tian was fascinated. The longer he watched, the more mysterious it became.
It really wasn’t some exquisite boxing technique, nor was the snake displaying some subtle art. They just moved naturally, and as one. There was a charm to it all that he really couldn’t look away from.
“Grandpa, am I crazy or-”
You aren’t crazy. Focus! This is an immense opportunity if you can grasp it.
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The turtle moved simply. Tian knew from hundreds of hours of martial arts practice, the foundation of boxing wasn’t the hands but the feet. A fleshy body relied on the accumulation of momentum and shifting weight, on the explosive strength and speed of the lower body, the simple necessity of solid footing, to deliver powerful blows. It was a core tenant of hard, external martial arts, and pretty damn foundational to soft arts too.
The turtle’s footwork was shit. It just was. The flippers were all the wrong shape and it was floating around in the air anyhow. Despite that, it didn’t seem to matter. The turtle planted itself in the air, and swung its claws. It wouldn’t work on a human- far too clumsy, every blow announced in advance. At least, not on its own. Because what had fascinated Tian was that the boxing was perfectly blended with the snake’s strikes.
They only looked like two separate animals. They moved as one. When a slap came in from the left, the snake struck from below and right. If the turtle threw an uppercut, the snake would be drilling in from the top. But the realization felt too superficial, Tian was sure there was something going on here beyond mere coordination.
If it wasn’t the footwork, was it the posture? The upright turtle looked silly, no matter how fierce it was. The shell, the jutting neck, to say nothing of a giant snake coming out of its rear. These are not the hallmarks of an accomplished master. But for all that, the body was rigid. Imposing, really. Stout. Trusting in its armor for defense and focusing entirely on offense.
That wasn’t how cultivators fought- they relied on skill over armor. Though he had noticed some heretics made use of crude helmets and breastplates. The way Tian had heard it explained, most cultivator-grade armor was of the soft cloth variety. Thanks to the materials used, it could stop a blade as well as steel. It was just so eye-wateringly expensive, it might as well be mythical. At least, that’s how it was in the Outer Court of Ancient Crane Monastery.
The armored boxing displayed by the qi spirit was a purely offensive way of fighting, but it’s not like turtles don’t have predators. What else was he missing here? It couldn’t just be “Boxing is easier if you are wearing armor.” The charm was deeper than that. The mystery was more subtle. Yes the blows were coordinated, yes they flowed together, no it wasn’t as simple as “flowed like water.”
Tian had fully fixated. The same focus that saw him tracking a rat through the junkyard or a disease through his medical books had him cataloging and sorting everything he was seeing. Rigid but flexible, coordinated but disparate in tempo and technique. Grandpa said people called it a yin-yang beast, and he could see why. But this wasn’t a yin-yang chamber and this wasn’t a yin-yang guardian. This was about water.
He wasn’t seeing it. Maybe he had to feel it with his body? Tian stood and started carefully mimicking the turtle. It gave him a very different feeling than Thunderous Palms. It felt very manly. For some reason, planting your feet and slapping the life clean out of some little toerag was absurdly satisfying.
The rope dart, under the control of Snake Head Vine Body, was quite tricky to coordinate but he had experience with it. It was just that he was usually keeping his body in motion as he did it. Borrowing the momentum of his body to move the dart, not purely his will. It took a lot of focus. And he was starting to get tired.
The chamber was flooded with qi, but his mental energy wasn’t unlimited. Trying to figure out the turtle’s secret was draining. It felt like the harder he reached for it, the further away it became.
Tian froze. The more effort he put in…
It didn’t look anything like how Brother Fu moved. Nothing at all like it. Brother Fu moved forward when you stepped back, and back when you moved forward. He seemed to feel how you would move, so he could always be standing in just the right place. The turtle wasn’t doing any of that. It was just standing there, beating up on a stalagmite.
Tian grinned. He knew he was on the right track. It wasn’t just like how Brother Fu did it, but Brother Fu wasn’t a spirit-turtle thing. Brother Fu took some complicated philosophical ideas and used it on the battlefield. This was a turtle smacking a rock. It was just moving with nature as it did it.
That was it. That was what Tian was missing. It was a being of pure elemental qi, created by the strangeness of this place and this moment. The charm he had been missing was nothing more or less than the spirit turtle moving in accordance with its nature and the nature of the place. It was just doing what felt right to it. So what might feel right to him?
Tian started to focus on the idea before he laughed and shook his head. That was doing it wrong. It wasn’t about figuring out, it was about feeling. He liked the manly feeling of planting and slapping, but it wasn’t quite right for him. He didn’t wear armor, for one thing, and he was entirely done with being slapped himself.
He started letting his body move a bit more. More steady than he usually was, but still moving and swaying. Like a bamboo pushed by the wind- lots of movement up high, but feet firmly rooted below. Bending, but coming back into place with a mighty smack for whatever had pushed him back.
It was, to his utter surprise, fun. More than that, he could feel that what he was learning now, this feeling, this sense of solidity and firmness, could be incorporated into his boxing. He started using the hand movements from Thunderous palm. Just to see how it felt. The difference was immediate and shocking. It was still a soft, internal art. But it really didn’t have to be.
Tian shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. The heavy palms could work with Thunderous Palms, but it was trying to force things again. The art and the intention didn’t line up. He would have to figure something out later. But for now, he and Senior Turtle were happy, swinging away in the dark.
Fun as it was, though, he was tiring. It had been a long time since he last slept and he didn’t dare fall asleep in here. Who knows if he would ever wake again. Tian stopped his shadow boxing and started looking around the cavern once more. There still wasn’t any sign of what he was supposed to do here. He certainly wasn’t going to fight the giant glowing turtle. He couldn’t even seem to find the door to the null chamber.
This was the water chamber. It was all about going with the flow. Not fighting the current or the pull of gravity. Water flows downhill… he walked to the lowest point in the chamber and touched the wall. His hand went right through it. He pulled it back. It was fine. He stepped forward… and the caverns shifted.