Chương 21: "You've got some nerve showing your wrinkly face"

Ch 21: "You've got some nerve showing your wrinkly face" Shuo tossed the broken hammer back. Zhen caught it, the cracked head heavy in his palm.

"Annoying but not a big deal," Shuo said.

"You're a blacksmith. We'll just need to take a little detour to find a forge where you can fix them. Nothing coin can't solve." Zhen stared down at the fracture splitting the metal and thought back to the sword strike that had made it. He looked back up at Shuo.

"No." A surprised look crossed Shuo's face and his grey eyes sharpened.

"The cub has teeth. I'll play. Why not?" Zhen turned the hammer over and traced the crack with a calloused thumb.

"If I'm going to fight cultivators, mortal iron isn't going to stand up to the punishment." He looked up and met Shuo's gaze.

"A temporary patch-job won't solve the real problem. I'm going to have to remake them, but this time in spirit metals." Shuo's lips quirked.

"Spirit smithing? Bold words for a boy who couldn't even sense a meridian a few months back. It's not just about heat and dumb muscle. What do you know of forging spirit weapons?" The question stopped Zhen short. He hadn't thought that far, but the answer came to him almost immediately. On his last night with his parents they had talked about the Moonlight Steel they had obtained to make Chul's horseshoes. They had mentioned the supplier and the blacksmith. He frowned, and the names came to him.

"I'll get Moonlight Steel from Mistress Zie." Zhen forced confidence into his voice.

"And, like you rightly say, I'm a blacksmith, I'll forge the new hammers myself. If I can't then I'll get help from the smith, Shiyong." Shuo studied Zhen for a long, unblinking moment. Then a delighted smile split his face.

"While, obviously, you haven't the faintest idea who Zie Ruo-Chen actually is, this isn't the worst idea I've heard. And Shiyong is the best blacksmith outside of the Capital. You definitely won't be able to make them yourself. Working with spirit metal is nothing like mudane metals." He gave Zhen an approving nod.

"Two worthy thoughts in the same hour, you're on a roll." Zhen opened his mouth, but Shuo kept talking. He gestured at the dead Folded Shadow operative.

"When this rat fails to report in, the Order will know something's happened." He kicked at the corpse's boot.

"The route I planned to get us to Cloudstone Peak is now compromised. They'll flood these roads with their people, and we'll end up spending the next few months dodging patrols instead of training." Shuo's smile widened.

"But if we detour to the Thirsting Veins to see Ruo-Chen? That solves both problems." He started to pace as he ticked points off on his scarred fingers.

"First, we head in a direction no one will expect. Second, you'll get the spirit metal you'll need for those hammers. If you forge them properly, those hammers could serve you all the way to the end of the Qi Condensation stage." A third finger rose.

"Third, in the foothills, we'll find spirit wood suitable for the handles." He stopped pacing and faced Zhen.

"And, if we go to The Evergreen Dominion to find Shiyong, we'll end up approaching Cloudstone Peak in the opposite direction from the way we're heading now. It'll mean we'll have to pass through more densely populated areas, but it will be worth it." Shuo's beaming smile lit up the clearing.

"This is perfect." Zhen's chest loosened. This was better than he had hoped for. Then a thought struck him.

"If we go that far out of our way, will we make it to Cloudstone Peak in time for the trials?" Shuo's smile flickered. His grey eyes unfocused, clearly calculating distances and timelines in his head. The pause stretched long enough that Zhen's stomach clenched again. Then the smile returned, sharp and mischievous. Shuo turned from Zhen to Chul, who stood watching them with her intelligent dark eyes. The mare's ears pricked forward.

"Well," Shuo said, his rasping voice carrying a note of challenge, "This broken-down horse has been stuffing herself with spirit herbs and plants for months. It has to count for something. Whether we get there in time or not depends on her." Chul snorted, and her hoof stamped against the forest floor. Shuo's laugh scraped out.

"Guess that's my answer." He looked back at Zhen.

"Pack up. I'll get rid of the body. We leave before dawn, and we're not stopping until we're three provinces away from this mess." Zhen let out an uninhibited whoop as Chul surged beneath him, her hooves eating up the ground. The rocky plain around them blurred into streaks of grey and black in the pre-dawn light. Wind scoured his face. Ahead, the Thirsting Veins clawed at the sky, their jagged peaks wrapped in grey mist.

As he had done a dozen times since he had first seen the Thirsting Veins, he activated the Eye. The same sense of wrongness came to him just as it had every other time. To his normal sight, the mountains were majestic, but with the Eye he got the same nagging sensation that he got when he botched a cast. The issue was directly below the second-highest peak, where something reminded him of the time a couple of years back when a blocked flue had forced smoke back into the forge.

However, as before, from this distance, that general feeling of wrongness was all he got. With a frustrated shrug he deactivated the Eye and leaned into Chul's steady gallop. Months of hard travel had stripped away the last traces of civilization. The farms vanished first, then the villages, until even the scattered homesteads disappeared. Now nothing remained but stone and scrub. Even the ambient qi here was thinner than he had experienced before.

Chul's rhythm never faltered, and her breathing came deep and steady. Zhen leaned forward, his fingers tangled in her mane, and felt the surge of her muscles through his legs. Even over the past weeks, she had grown stronger, both faster and tireless. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. She could sprint without slowing from dawn til dusk before doing it all again the next day. When they had first left home, the enchanted shoes had given her speed.

Months of grazing on spirit grass and drinking from qi-rich streams had transformed her, and that speed and strength was all her own. Zhen had limited experience to draw on, but he couldn't believe that there were any mortal creatures that she couldn't easily outpace.

"Faster!" Shuo's voice cracked across the plain. Despite Chul's speed, the old man ran alongside them, effortlessly keeping pace with her.

"If this is your idea of stretching her legs, we'll reach the Veins sometime next year." Zhen grinned and loosened his grip. Chul responded instantly, her stride lengthening. As the sun rose fully, Shuo called a pause.

"Enough playing," Shuo said.

"Time to train." Zhen groaned but slid from Chul's back. His legs protested. Three hours of riding at speed had left muscles burning, but he landed in the ready stance Shuo had drilled into him time and again. Shuo attacked without warning. This was the new strand to their training after the fight with the Folded Shadow.

Shuo had concluded, rightly, that their weakness lay in fighting intelligent opponents, and he had appointed himself to fill that role His open palm came at Zhen's face, and Zhen barely twisted aside. No time to think, only react. His footwork and reaction were instinctive now. Shuo's elbow whistled toward his ear. Zhen ducked, then turned that into a retaliatory leg sweep, but found only air as the old man danced back.

"Still telegraphing," Shuo said.

"Your shoulder dropped before you moved." Zhen circled right. Chul mirrored him without being asked, cutting off one of Shuo's angles. They had refined how they moved together and covered each other's gaps. When Shuo feinted toward the horse, Zhen closed from the side. When Zhen overextended, Chul was there to force Shuo's attention away. It never mattered. Even though he clearly wasn't exerting himself, Shuo moved through their attacks like smoke.

No matter how often Zhen tried to use the Eye, on him it didn't reveal any flaws in the old man's technique. No wasted motions or openings. Nothing. Shuo's strikes, even if they were pulled enough to avoid real injury, landed with enough force to leave bruises that would last for days even if he circualted qi around his meridians to try to heal them. A tap to Zhen's ribs folded him. Chul tried to intervene and received a slap to her haunch that made her squeal in indignation.

"Better," Shuo allowed a pause an hour later after he had dumped them both in the dirt for the fourth time.

"You're learning to hide your intentions, and Chul's learning patience. Neither of you is close to mastering either, though." Zhen pushed himself up, spitting dust. His hammers were inside his storage pouch and he missed the extra power and reach that even one hammer would have offered. But it was not to be. The day after the Folded Shadow's attack, he had checked over the other hammer with his Eye and found the handle a spider's web of developing cracks. One more real fight and it would have shattered.

So, for now, he trained without weapons, and learned to fight with his fists and feet and elbows. As they had sped toward The Thirsting Veins, Shuo hadn't taken any detours for fights against spirit animals, or paused to allow him to open a new spirit gate. So one night around the fire, Zhen broached a subject that had been gnawing at him.

"My dantian's full again." Shuo poked at the coals with a stick, sending sparks spiraling into the dark.

"I know."

"Then why haven't we…"

"Because you've been advancing too quickly." Shuo's grey eyes caught the firelight.

"You've opened seven spirit gates so far. Opening your next gate pushes you to the peak of the first stage of Qi Condensation. Unless you want to face down an actual tribulation out here in the open, we wait." Zhen's chest tightened.

"How long?"

"Until we're almost at Cloudstone Peak." Shuo's smile was blade-thin.

"A little over a year to move from the first stage Qi Condensation to the second is still ridiculously fast, but, if we're lucky, the Heavens won't be offended at your speed. In any event, while the Thirsting Veins themselves are fine, the plains around them are notorious for the sparsity of qi. This is not a good place to attempt to open a spirit gate." Zhen did not have the time or energy to get frustrated by this. It wasn't as though his growth had stalled.

Shuo had become ever more critical during training over these weeks. His sharp eyes picked apart every breath and every imprecise movement. It was a painful education, but the results showed. Zhen's movements were smoother and more controlled, and his strikes were faster and more powerful. It was another week later when the foothills of the Thirsting Veins rose before them as the midday sun warmed them. Thick forest swallowed the rocky plain, and Zhen slid from Chul's back and led her into it by the reins.

The trees here grew thick and twisted, their bark dark as charcoal. The moment they crossed beneath the first canopy, the weight of the qi hit him like a physical blow. Compared to the sparsity on the surrounding plains this was a shock. It was nothing like the gentle saturation of the clearings where they had camped previously, or even the lake where Xuanfeng lived. Here the dense qi pressed against his skin and the air vibrated with the spiritual pressure.

Elementary Pulse drew qi into his meridians at several times its normal rate. He knew that if he had to, he would be able to fill his dantian here within hours rather than weeks. Zhen's eyes widened.

"This place..."

"Satisfying, isn't it?" Shuo's voice carried his usual dry rasp, but approval flickered beneath.

"Now you understand why we came here to get your materials." Chul snorted and shook her mane. She seemed unsettled, her ears swiveling toward sounds Zhen couldn't discern even with his improved hearing. They moved in single file between the trees, Shuo leading, Zhen following, and Chul bringing up the rear. The forest pressed close, and roots snaked across the path. Twice, Zhen stumbled, his legs still adjusting to solid ground after hours on horseback. After a mile of silence, curiosity won out.

"Why isn't there a sect here?" Zhen asked. Shuo glanced back, one eyebrow raised.

"With this much qi, wouldn't it be perfect for a sect estate? Training grounds, spirit herb gardens, all of it." Shuo navigated around a boulder without breaking stride.

"There are a few hermits. Wandering cultivators who claim a cave or valley for a decade or three. But no sects."

"Why not?"

"Many asked." Shuo's tone sharpened with amusement.

"None were granted permission." Zhen frowned.

"Permission from who?" Shuo's smile widened, and he didn't reply. They walked for an hour, winding between massive trunks whose bark glittered with crystallized sap. Chul followed without complaint, but her ears continued to swivel at every sound. Shuo finally paused at the edge of a clearing barely visible through the undergrowth.

"The spirit wood you need is just ahead," he said. His tone shifted, losing its usual mockery.

"High-grade spiritual hickory. It's the undisputed king of tool and weapon handles. Strong, flexible, absorbs shocks like nothing else, and it conducts qi like copper conducts heat." He paused.

"There's just one small issue. The tree has a guardian." Zhen's pulse quickened. He rolled his neck, and his joints let out a series of sharp pops as he loosened the tension from their march.

"I understand. If I want the hickory, I'll have to fight the guardian for it." He met Shuo's grey eyes.

"I'm ready." Shuo winced, looking at him with an expression that mixed pity with amusement.

"You think you are, but in every way that matters, you're not."

"What does that…" But Shuo was already moving, pushing through the last screen of brush into the clearing beyond. Zhen followed then stopped dead. An immense hickory tree dominated the space. Its ancient trunk was wider than Zhen's family forge and wrapped in dense armor-like plates of shaggy bark. Gnarled branches sprawled outward like a canopy of blackened iron, and waves of wood-attuned qi rolled out from the roots in visible distortions that made the air shimmer. At the base of the tree sat a panda.

But nothing like any panda Zhen had seen before The creature was twice Zhen's height, and muscle rippled beneath black and white fur. It leaned against the trunk, chewing happily on a qi-infused bamboo stalk as thick as Zhen's waist, the wood crunching between teeth that looked as if they could bite through stone. The panda's contented expression vanished the moment they entered the clearing. It dropped the bamboo and rose to all fours.

The ground shook beneath each step as it stalked toward them, its head lowering as its black eyes fixed on Shuo. The panda loomed over them, its massive shadow blotting out the sun. Up close, Zhen could smell the sharp scent of crushed bamboo that rolled off it. It stopped a few paces away and glared down at Shuo with a look of disdain.

"You!" Its voice vibrated with a deep, thunderous bass that made the grass shiver.

"You've got some nerve showing your wrinkly face here again."