Chương 29: Protect the House

"Um, Paike?" Guan Li's nervous voice reached into Paike's thoughts and pulled him out of his near trance.

"What are you looking at?" Paike realized that his qi construct had faded entirely, and he was left staring out into the middle of the open air like a simpleton. He turned to Guan Li with a reassuring smile.

"Nothing anymore." That didn't come out as well as it had in his head. Quickly, he changed the topic to bring the conversation back on track.

"So, how did the rest of the trial go?" Paike asked, but he noticed that Guan Li was giving him a wary look and maintaining a decent amount of space.

"What?" he asked, worried that something had happened.

"Are you okay?" Gaun Li asked warily. Paike looked at him, trying to figure out what was going through Gaun Li's head.

"No, actually."

"What?"

"You're being all wary and stuff, and it's worrying me. Is Liming alright?" Paike asked, slipping into more casual speech, trying to pull Guan Li back to how he usually was. He was pretty sure his sister was okay, but it didn't hurt to ask. Guan Li always spoke casually with him, even if he was trying to be more formal around most people. But the oddly formal way Guan Li was acting made Paike's senses alert.

"You, um, you really tore into that girl," Guan Li said, taking a cautious step closer to Paike.

"I didn't know you could fight like that."

"Oh. Mmmmhm," Paike articulated, realizing what was wrong.

"Elder Ji said she was healed?"

"Yes," Guan Li said emphatically.

"She very much needed to be healed. Instantly." Guan Li started to say something but cut himself off.

"Paike, I'm pretty sure you tore out her windpipe." Paike blinked. A flash of an image and the coppery scent of blood washed over him for a second before he put his hand to his forehead and ran it through his hair. But that was just a flash. Guan Li had watched him kill Lan Zhu, so it wasn't just blood or hurting a woman that got to him. No, the fight must have been especially brutal to make him this wary.

"Yeah, I... I guess I did," Paike said slowly and hesitantly.

"The elder said that something in my physical cultivation, some sort of hidden trait to my attunement, let me go into a deep combat trance. And, well... I might need to learn how to control that a bit better before I try to use it again."

"Yes. Please do," Guan Li said.

"He also said that I needed to do a lot more testing," Paike remarked. Guan Li took a half step back, and Paike held up his arms non-confrontationally.

"With someone I trust to be more powerful than me," Paike added hurriedly.

"He suggested that I save up some points and get tutoring from an inner sect disciple, someone from at least the third realm."

"You would need an Emerald cultivator to keep you in check?" Guan Li asked with a mixture of surprise and incredulity. Paike shrugged.

"I think just to make sure no one gets hurt, including myself."

"I suppose," Guan Li said, nodding.

"I could see that." Paike could see that the conversation was working, and Guan Li was losing some of the caution he had walked in with.

"Yeah, I also shouldn't be losing complete control or awareness when entering a combat trance," Paike elaborated.

"That's just not how it's supposed to be. So, what happened after I left?"

"Well, Liming won her first match easily, and the top eight get a special session tomorrow. For the rest of you, regular lessons will occur the day after tomorrow," Guan Li noted. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Good. Well, I'm glad you got a special lesson. That's a good reward." Guan Li didn't look as certain. Paike resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't the extra work, clearly. Guan Li was just spoiled rotten with how much attention he had received from the high-level elders so far.

"Come on. How often do you think we normally get lessons from elders? Especially ones as powerful as Elder Ji," Paike said, attempting to cheer up his roommate and friend.

"I don't really have grounds for comparison, but I assume practically never."

"Well, not entirely never," Paike responded.

"But yes, it is infrequent and costly to earn them from sect points. Usually, you need some sort of special reward for that. One-on-one lessons aren't unheard of, and group lessons are slightly more common, but it's a precious reward. Liming was probably incredibly annoyed that she missed it by one spot."

"Yeah, she took it out on her opponent for sure," Guan Li said with the first genuine smile he'd shown since he showed up.

"Anyways, back to my first question. What were you looking at?"

"Oh, that's something I wanted to show you," Paike said.

"But we probably want to go out to a training yard or somewhere out of the way. I've got to test my first art!"

"Hey, well done! Congrats," Guan Li said.

"Oh, Elder Ji also gave us library passes," he added, holding up a similar token to the one that Paike already had.

"Good. I imagine that those are going to be relatively common soon. Most people will be able to purchase them with points pretty quickly. People need the arts, and they need access to learn those arts. Even some of the theory tomes are extremely useful," Paike said. Guan Li nodded.

"Of course... Maybe you can help me pick one out?" he asked hopefully. Paike smiled slightly glad that Guan Li wasn't so nervous around him anymore.

"It's not that I don't want to help you," he said.

"Rather the opposite. Um, if you have any questions, I can answer them; but you should choose something that calls to you, though. It's the best way to find your path. But I'm more than willing to go and let you know what I know about certain things if that helps."

"Okay," Guan Li said.

"I don't want you to choose something for me, but maybe just give me some of the background knowledge I might be missing."

"Then yes, I can do that," Paike said with more confidence.

"Come on, though, let's go do some testing with my new technique." The two of them headed out. Guan Li was suitably impressed with how much damage the barrier could take. The two of them, hitting it repeatedly, could bring the barrier down in under a minute if they focused on it. Paike imagined that it would be much faster with more powerful cultivators. But even a minute in a fight was an eternity. Setting something up that might take him a couple of minutes to conjure, he could create a much, much larger shield.

However, due to the ratio of a circle's area and circumference, the larger he made it, the exponentially more exhausting it was to fill with qi. But with how long the barrier lasted, it could be extremely effective for preparing a battlefield ahead of time or even setting up a trap. If it were translucent, that would be a little bit better, but still, they had a decent amount of fun just messing around with it.

"It makes me jealous. I wish something like this fit my path," Guan Li said.

"But I'm relatively certain defense arts aren't going to work for me. Not if I want to fall into that scout role that you and Liming seem to think I'm suited for."

"Yeah," Paike agreed.

"Not really best for impenetrable barriers, but there'll be lots of fun things. And you can always learn a trick like this later. It just won't be a main part of your arsenal."

"True," Guan Li said.

"But I have a feeling getting really, really good at a handful of things would be a lot better than having too many options." Someone like Paike's mother could make a new art whenever she wanted, but she stuck with ones she made long ago or learned and modified hundreds of years before.

Not because they were the perfect combination that she could devise, but rather because she had spent so much time perfecting them that it would take forever for her to bring up anything new into her arsenal at a level she was satisfied with. On the other hand, there was a very, very rare type of cultivator, more like his father, who didn't practice any particular art but rather did it all on the fly. That took a genius that Paike couldn't even comprehend. And even then, that wasn't always better.

Sometimes, having something extremely well practiced and tested was the best.

"Well, do you want to go look at the arts available now?" Paike asked. Guan Li tilted his head, considering for a second. Still, he never got a chance to give his answer because a massive gong sound rang out all over the sector. Paike had no idea where it was coming from, but as soon as he heard Elder Chu's voice as she spoke across the mountain, he knew what it was.

"Orientation week is now over. Challenges are now available. Please remember the rules, but more importantly, have fun." Paike could just imagine her smile as she went on to describe the brief rules and the system one more time. In summary, the complete set of rules would also be posted in the bulletin. And there was to be no combat in the official administration buildings. Other than that, it was basically free reign. Paike and Guan Li exchanged nervous yet excited glances as they looked around.

They had found a clearing a little way down the mountain into the tree line. But many other people were out here, and even more people would hopefully be looking for a tussle back towards the housing district. Before they could get too excited, another idea popped into Paike's head.

"Oh no," he said.

"We should probably get back and protect our house. The initial fighting is going to be brutal."