Chương 102: Team Training

The morning air carried that faint herby smell that always drifted over from the nearby gardens, and I stood at the iron gates of the outer disciples' beast grounds with Wei Lin and Lin Mei watching mist curl around our feet like it had nowhere better to be. My plan for the day was straightforward, team training in the morning and then a trip to the sect archives in the afternoon to see what I could dig up on soul bonds, and if that went well then tomorrow, I'd head back to the Two Suns World.

"When you said team training," Wei Lin said, breaking the silence, "I assumed you meant the practice yards." He was looking at the gates the way most people look at a cliff edge.

"Not somewhere with a non-zero chance of getting eaten." Lin Mei drove her elbow into his ribs.

"Nobody is getting eaten. The dangerous beasts are in the inner grounds." She hesitated.

"Aren't they?" I nodded, and decided now was probably not the time to mention the eighth-stage beast I'd heard rumors about lurking somewhere in the deeper sections of these grounds.

"Azure," I thought, "what do you know about the layout here?"

"Concentric rings," Azure replied.

"The outer ring where we'll be staying has beasts roughly between the fourth and fifth stages. The middle ring runs sixth and seventh. As for the inner ring…" He trailed off in a way that made his point for him.

"Got it," I thought back.

"And our chances of running into anything from the inner ring while we stay out here?"

"Virtually zero." Good enough for me. I turned back to find my teammates still going back and forth, Wei Lin had moved on to explaining in detail what a second-stage beast could do to a person if it got lucky, and Lin Mei was explaining back to him why that was a stupid thing to say before we'd even gone inside. I cleared my throat.

"Ready?" Wei Lin stopped mid-sentence and gave me the look of someone deeply reconsidering a recent life choice.

"You're way too comfortable with this."

"A little bit," I admitted.

"But honestly, better to figure out how we work together in here than to figure it out mid-tournament when there's actually something at stake."

"He's right," Lin Mei said, though her fingers had found the edge of her sleeve and were fidgeting with it.

"And I've been wanting to test some techniques anyway." She paused.

"I haven't learned any healing techniques yet though. So please don't get hurt."

"Your compassion moves me," Wei Lin said, touching his heart.

"It's practical," she said flatly.

"I'd rather not carry you back." I put my hand on the authentication stone by the gate before either of them could talk themselves out of it, and the gates ground open with a deep sound that made me think of Rocky.

We stepped through and the forest inside looked almost ordinary, tall trees with branches crossing overhead and sunlight coming through in long slanted strips, except for the faint shimmer in the air that gave away the containment formation wrapped around the whole place, making sure whatever lived here stayed here. The gates swung shut behind us with a boom that sent birds scattering somewhere off in the trees. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Wei Lin cleared his throat.

"A fifth-stage beast. Something that's already had breakfast. That's all I'm asking." I nodded.

"Azure," I called out mentally, "what have you got?"

"I'm scanning," he said, and then a few seconds later, "the closest option is a Jade-Crowned Serpent Tiger that is at the peak of the fifth-stage." I told the others and Lin Mei's whole energy shifted, her eyes lit up in recognition.

"Those are actually perfect for a first exercise," she said. Wei Lin looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Perfect, how?"

"They're strong but they follow patterns, enhanced speed, they can channel jade essence through their claws and produce cutting waves through the air but they aren't particularly intelligent." She counted off on her fingers.

"First they'll try to ambush from above, if that fails, they circle and look for weaknesses, then they go for the cutting waves, and if none of that works they just go straight physical."

"And you know all that because?" Wei Lin asked.

"The herb gardens receive beast core shipments for medicine refining. I like to understand where the ingredients come from." I couldn't help but smile at that. It made sense that Lin Mei would turn even beast core deliveries into a learning opportunity. Wei Lin blinked.

"Of course you do." We started down the trail, keeping our movement quiet. I made sure we stayed downwind even though I knew that with spirit beasts, physical senses weren't always the most important factor.

"Wei Lin," I said, keeping my voice low enough not to carry, "I've been meaning to ask how your cultivation method works. I understand the merchant framework for cultivation but how does that translate to a fight?" That seemed to improve his mood. He was clearly proud to talk about his technique.

"Remember how I told you my inner world is like a marketplace? Well, each 'shop' specializes in a different type of energy. When I fight, I basically make trades."

"Trades?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Say someone attacks me with fire essence. I can 'buy' it with my qi, store it in the appropriate shop, then 'sell' it back as a different type of energy. Usually earth essence, since that's what I have the most affinity for." He shrugged.

"The conversion rate isn't great, I lose some power in the exchange, but it means I can adapt to pretty much any type of attack."

"That's actually smart." It wasn't as flashy as some techniques, but the versatility could be invaluable in the tournament. It could probably be OP in the higher realms.

"Don't get him started on the special discount techniques," Lin Mei said from behind us, "he'll explain energy arbitrage to us for the rest of the morning."

"Resource management is a legitimate combat strategy," Wei Lin muttered, though he had the self-awareness to keep it brief. Azure guided us to the edge of a small clearing, and I raised a hand to stop them. In the clearing, the Jade-Crowned Serpent Tiger was stretched out in a stripe of sunlight. The body was built like a tiger's, muscular and dense, but covered in deep green scales instead of fur and its belly faded to white and a ridge of pale jade crystals ran all the way from its forehead down its spine.

The tail was long and flexible like a snake's and ended in a sharp jade barb. It was genuinely beautiful if you bracketed the part where it could probably split a person in half without much effort. It looked like it was sleeping but its ears were moving and its tail was tracing slow deliberate arcs through the air, it knew we were here and it was waiting to see what we'd do first.

"It's already sensed us," I whispered.

"It's waiting for us to make the first move."

"You mean it's waiting to ambush us," Wei Lin muttered.

"Probably, yeah. Which is why we're not going to do that." I turned to look at both of them.

"Lin Mei, focus on disrupting its movement and making openings, that's your whole job. Wei Lin, you're hitting hard whenever a clean shot appears. I'll keep its attention split and cut down its movement options." Both suns stirred in my inner world, restless and ready, but I pushed the feeling down. My goal was to train without them, I needed to get better at finding the ceiling of what I could do on my own with plants, and besides with a forest around me, I already had more than enough to work with.

"Any questions?"

"Yeah," Wei Lin said.

"What happens if the plan stops working?"

"Then we adapt."

"Incredibly reassuring, thanks." Lin Mei was already moving her hands through the opening positions of the Flowing River Method, her expression had settled into something focused and calm, which I appreciated.

"This is training," I said quietly, making sure they were both looking at me.

"I'll make sure nothing actually bad happens, but you need real pressure to get better. Do you trust me?" Wei Lin exhaled through his nose.

"You got into a fight with a sixth-stage disciple yesterday and walked out fine, so I suppose the answer is probably yes." Lin Mei just nodded, eyes already back on the clearing.

"Then let's wake up our scaly friend."