Chương 180: Posturing

The thing about cultivators is that we have a tendency to overcomplicate everything we do, and I mean everything, even something that should be as straightforward as defending a village from spirit beasts which in theory should just be a matter of everyone working together to stop the monsters from getting through before anyone gets hurt. But no, that's not how it works here.

First, you need politics, posturing, and at least one dramatic duel before anything else can happen, because apparently it would be unacceptable to face a deadly threat without first taking the time to establish a proper hierarchy of who gets to be in charge of everyone else. I found my team at the Golden Reed Tavern, which was about as far from golden as a building could possibly get while still technically qualifying as a building at all.

The wooden walls were stained a dark uneven color from what must have been decades worth of accumulated cooking smoke, and the floor had a stickiness to it that made a person wonder what had been spilled there, how long ago, and whether anyone had ever attempted to clean it up.

"Welcome to the finest establishment in Floating Reed Village," Su Yue said from their table as I approached, her voice flat.

"The tea here tastes like someone boiled pond water and then apologized for it, and the wine..." she paused.

"Actually the wine isn't too bad."

"The wine is terrible," Liu Chang said, correcting her without looking up.

"You just stop being able to taste anything after the first cup because it numbs your tongue before it can get any worse." I took an empty seat and looked at how the three of them had positioned themselves around the table, backs against walls, clear sightlines to both exits, enough open space around each of them to move without obstruction if something happened suddenly.

This was all standard cultivator habits that most people developed without even thinking about it anymore, though given the things that had been happening recently it was probably less habit than actual necessity.

"How was the visit with your family?" Su Yue asked, sliding a cup of the allegedly terrible wine toward me across the table.

"Good," I said, and then because that one word didn't come close to covering it: "Really good actually. They're doing well." She nodded once, and I had the sense she understood the part I wasn't putting into words. Most cultivators came from cultivation families which meant they didn't have to navigate the gap that opens up between mortal life and immortal life, the worry that everyone you grew up with is going to age and eventually die while you stay the same.

Having parents who were simply and genuinely happy to see you come home, who didn't evaluate your worth in cultivation stages or sect rankings or political connections, that was something rare enough to matter.

"The other teams have all arrived," Liu Chang said, shifting the conversation to more immediate concerns. He gestured slightly toward the rest of the tavern, and I took my first real look at who else was in the room. The first thing that registered was the concentration of qi in the air, five teams meant twenty cultivators and every single one of them was at Qi Condensation Stage 7 at minimum or higher than that, the amount of spiritual energy packed into one room because of that was enough to make the air heavy.

The Heavenly Jade cultivators were seated in two separate clusters on one side of the room but their matching robes with the green trim on white fabric made them read as a single group regardless of how they'd divided themselves physically. Their two leaders who were both at Qi Condensation Stage 9 were deep in what looked like a very intense discussion that involved a significant amount of dramatic hand gestures from both parties. The Yan Clan team was something different than I had expected.

Given that they were the leading clan of the entire empire I had anticipated something more outwardly impressive, more obvious about its own power and importance. Instead they were almost deliberately understated about everything, their purple and gold robes were clearly expensive if you looked closely enough but they weren't designed to announce themselves.

Their qi was substantial, but they weren't pushing it outward the way cultivators sometimes did when they wanted to make a point about where they stood, and their table manners were impeccable in a way that was, in a place like this specific tavern, somehow more attention-grabbing than bad manners would have been.

"Master, the other team from our own sect seems..." Azure said, "uncertain about something." He wasn't wrong about that, the other Azure Peak team kept looking back and forth between Liu Chang and the two Heavenly Jade leaders and their expressions were getting progressively more concerned with each pass, something was developing in this room and I had a feeling it was going to make itself known to everyone fairly soon.

"Politics," Chu Feng muttered from beside me.

"Always politics. There are spirit beasts about to overrun this entire village, and we can't escape politics even here." He was right about that. Cultivators always did have a difficult time prioritising.

"Brother Liu," a voice called out from nearby and I turned to see one of the Yan Clan cultivators approaching our table, his qi, when I paid attention to it, made me very glad that he was on our side.

"Brother Yan Li," Liu Chang stood and they clasped hands.

"It has been too long."

"Three years, two months, and sixteen days," the Yan cultivator said, with a small smile.

"Not that anyone has been keeping count of course."

"Still as exact as ever I see."

"Still as relaxed about it as ever, I notice." There was a history between these two that I was only catching the edge of, shared background that could either make everything run more smoothly or detonate without warning at the worst possible moment, and I couldn't tell yet which way it was going to go.

"You're looking well," Yan Li continued, taking a seat at our table without waiting to be invited to do so.

"The sect life has been good for you."

"Better than court life would have been," Liu Chang replied, and there was just the faintest edge to those words underneath the casual delivery. That told me something useful. Someone, and from context it was clearly Liu Chang himself, had at some point chosen not to take the expected path into imperial service, and given the Yan Clan's position at the center of imperial power that choice must have created a noticeable amount of disruption in various directions.

"Hey, outer disciple," one of the Heavenly Jade cultivators called across the room.

"Word is that you're supposed to be some formation specialist?" I looked over at him, he was young, his qi read as Qi Condensation Stage 8.

"I know a few things about formations," I said.

"A few things," Su Yue repeated, with a short sound that wasn't quite a laugh.

"He is a registered Level 2 Formation Expert. He went through the full guild trials and passed them." That information moved through the room because Formation Experts were rare enough that even a Level 1 certification carried real weight in almost any gathering of Qi Cultivators, and Level 2 at Qi Condensation was something that made people recalibrate what they thought they knew about whoever they were looking at. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Is that right?" the Heavenly Jade cultivator said, sounding impressed. Before I could respond to that, a commotion from the center of the room pulled everyone's attention away, the two Heavenly Jade leaders had apparently finished whatever they were discussing between themselves and one of them was getting to his feet. He was tall and broad across the shoulders with facial features that were so classically arranged they seemed almost designed, the type of face that probably opened a lot of doors for him.

"We should address the question of command structure," he said.

"With five teams present, we are going to need clear coordinated leadership if we want this defense to function effectively." And there it was, exactly the politics Chu Feng had been predicting, because of course a gathering of cultivators couldn't simply agree to collectively protect a village without first spending time and energy on establishing who was above whom and by how many degrees.

"I am putting myself forward for that role," Mr. Classically Handsome continued, "the Heavenly Jade Sect has extensive documented experience with beast wave defense operations, and our cultivation methods are superior to…"

"Superior to nothing," one of the other Azure Peak seniors cut in, his voice sharp.

"This entire region falls within our sect's territory, the leadership of any defensive operation here should naturally belong to us." As the other teams began adding their own competing claims to the noise one after another, Yan Li's voice came through it all without being especially loud, "the Yan Clan has no interest in assuming command of this mission."

The room went quiet for a moment, because the Yan Clan voluntarily declining to assert authority over something was not a thing that happened normally and everyone knew it.

"Defensive operations like this one fall outside our primary area of expertise," he continued, "our strengths are oriented toward offensive engagements. We will contribute our full capability to the effort, but the leadership responsibility should rest with whoever has the most relevant experience in this specific type of operation."

It was a very clean piece of positioning when I thought about it, by stepping back voluntarily they kept their reputation intact while also avoiding any share of the blame if the defense went badly. And as a secondary benefit, they got to sit and watch how all the other groups handled the situation without committing to anything prematurely.

"Our team has the most relevant experience," Liu Chang said, "three successful beast wave defenses completed this year, each with minimal civilian casualties across all three operations."

"Experience in past situations does not automatically transfer to this one," the second Heavenly Jade leader said, joining his colleague in the argument.

"The particular techniques our sect employs…"

"Are not going to matter if we can't coordinate effectively with each other when the wave actually arrives," I said, and I hadn't entirely planned to speak but it came out anyway and now everyone in the room was looking at me, so I stood up because at minimum that seemed like the right choice for the moment.

"This isn't just a village on a map to me. I grew up here. This is my home." That made everyone go silent for a few moments because in cultivation society, the right and responsibility to defend one's home territory was taken seriously even when everything else was up for debate, though I could tell from the faces around the table that it wasn't quite enough by itself to settle the larger argument.

"Your home?" one of the Yan disciples said, speaking for what I realized was the first time since they'd arrived, she had a delicate quality to her appearance that had nothing at all to do with the actual nature of her qi which felt less like a person and more like a forest fire that had learned to sit still.

"You were raised in this mortal village?" The way she said mortal was doing a lot of work in that sentence, there was a very slight but deliberate emphasis on it, and a barely perceptible curl at the corner of her mouth that communicated without words exactly what she thought about the concept of a cultivator having originated somewhere like this. And at that particular moment I found I was tired of all of it, the whole structure of cultivation politics and the contempt it manufactured for ordinary human life.

"Yes," I said, and I met her eyes without looking away.

"I was raised in this mortal village. My parents live here right now."

"Sentiment is understandable," Handsome said, inserting himself back into the conversation before it could go further in that direction, "but beast waves require actual experience and real power to manage, and our sect has made the defense of settlements from this type of threat a central part of our—""As has ours," Liu Chang said flatly.

"Or have you already forgotten the Battle of Three Rivers." That produced a visible reaction among the Heavenly Jade disciples, a ripple of something between discomfort and acknowledgment that moved through their group all at once.

The Battle of Three Rivers was something I only knew from sect historical records but it had been a significant event, three separate beast waves converging simultaneously on a major river junction with multiple large trade routes running through it, threatening to destroy infrastructure that an enormous number of people depended on.

Azure Peak disciples had held the defensive line for three consecutive days without relief and ultimately saved thousands of lives in the process and gained a very substantial amount of prestige from it.

"That was an achievement of your sect's elders," Handsome said.

"It has no bearing on the current capabilities of whoever is sitting at your table. The Heavenly Jade Sect's established noble tradition of…"

"Can you please stop talking about noble traditions," Su Yue said.

"Nobody in this village cares about noble traditions right now. What they care about is whether they are going to be alive in two days. And if you had spent even a fraction of the time you clearly spent polishing that jade sword on actually participating in beast wave defense operations, you would know that how well we coordinate with each other is going to matter infinitely more than how powerful any one person at this table is."

I had a real appreciation for how she acted in these situations, because most cultivators who wanted to say exactly that would have spent five minutes wrapping it in careful language about the philosophical underpinnings of tactical leadership before getting anywhere near the actual point. She just said the actual point.

"If I might suggest something," Liu Chang said, and he stood as he said it.

"There is an established traditional method for resolving exactly this type of disagreement."

"Traditional method," Handsome repeated, raising one eyebrow slightly.

"Meaning what exactly."

"A single exchange between the two strongest candidates for command," Liu Chang said.

"One technique each. The person who lands a clean hit or forces their opponent to move from their starting position takes command, and the question gets dropped permanently after that." I didn't know how I felt about that exactly. On the one hand, it was the type of thing that got people seriously hurt right before they needed to be in fighting condition for something much more important and dangerous.

On the other hand, there was a practical reality to the situation which was that no group of proud cultivators was going to willingly subordinate themselves to someone else's authority without first having a concrete reason to accept that authority. So, a demonstration of power was probably the best solution.

"What are the terms?" Handsome smiled.

"Single exchange only, no lethal techniques," Liu Chang replied.

"Victory is determined by clean contact or forcing the opponent off their starting position."

"Sounds perfect," the smile on Handsome's face turned predatory.

"Great," Liu Chang nodded.

"But we take this outside." The tavern keeper, who had been doing an impressive performance of pretending he couldn't see or hear any of what was happening in his common room for the past ten minutes, visibly relaxed at this suggestion.

"Master, this is a waste of energy that we can't afford to waste right now," Azure said quietly inside my mind as we got up to move outside.

"Using cultivation reserves before a beast wave of this scale is foolish."

"I know that," I said back to him without speaking aloud.

"But if we walk out to those defensive lines tomorrow morning without this having happened first, the moment the first real decision needs to be made under pressure everything is going to fracture. At least this way we know who gives the orders before the beasts arrive."

"The arrogance built into cultivation society is going to get these people killed eventually."

"Almost certainly yes. But at least they will die having had a very clear organizational chart." We moved out into the street in a loose crowd and arranged ourselves into a rough circle around the space where this was going to happen. The villagers who had been nearby had already cleared away with the instinct that civilians in a cultivation world develop early and maintain carefully for the rest of their lives.

"This should be worth watching," Su Yue said quietly from beside me.

"Liu Chang doesn't normally show people what he can do when he doesn't have to."

"Do you think he will this time?" I asked.

"He won't have any choice about it. Heavenly Jade cultivators build everything around their pure yang energy techniques, a single clean hit from one of those can cripple someone two full stages above the person throwing it." I looked at Handsome more carefully now that he was preparing himself for actual combat, because the way his qi was behaving as he gathered himself was different from how it had been sitting in the tavern.

It had a sharp bright aggressive quality to it now, like trying to look directly at something that was generating its own light, and the yang energy underneath it meant his attacks were going to hit with a weight that was far above what his stage would normally suggest, but that same emphasis also meant that…

"His defensive capability is relatively low as a consequence," Azure said, following the same line of reasoning I was already working through.

"Pure yang techniques are built entirely around overwhelming offensive power so they sacrifice protection to achieve it. If Liu Chang can absorb or redirect the initial strike without taking critical damage, then the follow-through becomes very manageable." The two Peak Qi Condensation cultivators took their positions twenty paces apart in the middle of the cleared street.

Mr Classically Handsome drew a jade sword from his side, while Liu Chang stood where he was with his hands at his sides, not reaching for any weapon at all.

"Remember no lethal techniques," Yan Li's voice came through the tension that had settled over the circle of observers.

"Only one technique. Begin!"