《Transcendent Fist - A Xianxia Inspired Cultivation Novel》


 Chapter 1 - The Tree and the Tiger

    Jin was a boy, high up in a spruce tree, with a tiger at the bottom of it.


    Beneath him, in the vast forest clearing that he''d called home for almost 18 years, his master was engaged in what would be the last battle of her life.


    Men had come, using the secret passage under the forest known only to the Shi clan, and Master Xinya would not be able to hold them off. This much was clear to everybody, including the attackers, and Xinya herself.


    Jin could offer no assistance (due to his predicament of being high up in a spruce tree, with a tiger at the bottom of it), however it had been Master Xinya who had sent him up here, flinging him high and binding him to the rough bark with invisible strands of her own life energy. The tiger, well, that was still a mystery to Jin, although he had seen the great beast before, and could reasonably assert that it, too, was here because Master Xinya had compelled it somehow.


    He tried to remain calm, to draw upon the strength of his inner self as he had practiced so many times, and yet, his bewilderment and frustration were heavy distractions. He had to accept that he couldn''t move, that he couldn''t help, that he couldn''t fight, and that what was happening was going to unfold however fate decided. He would be playing no role. Only by that acceptance would he even be able to focus hard enough to awaken his senses and hear and see the scene below better, to perhaps gain some understanding of what these men wanted, and why Master Xinya had hidden him. Yet, powerlessness was a truth that his nature would not acknowledge easily.


    "Search her house for the weapon!" one of the attackers yelled, giving an order to one of his well organized pack of forty or more men on horseback, while Master Xinya strained to keep the barrier of pale blue life energy she had created between herself and their forces strong. She ignored the men who jumped from their mounts, and broke away from the group to race towards the home she had shared with Jin.


    Jin couldn''t see his house from here - it was behind him, and he still wasn''t calm enough to explore the area with his mind - but he felt the colossal shockwave as it exploded, presumably with the men inside. It was at this moment that he realized that Master Xinya had planned for this kind of attack, though he knew of no reason why she would have been expecting such a thing. She''d enchanted the house to self destruct.


    He looked down at the ring she''d rammed onto his little finger before rushing him into the tree, just moments before the first men on their horses had emerged from the tunnel. He knew what it was - he''d seen her use it almost every day, though this was the first time he''d ever seen her take it off, or been allowed to touch it. It was her Interspatial Ring - a magical device that kept a unique dimension within the gem set in its band, where all of Master Xinya''s precious belongings were stored. Whatever the men were looking for, this weapon they screamed about, it must be inside. This was not the time to check, though.


    "The weapon belongs to Bao Shi now, Xinya. All of the treasures of the Shi clan belong to its new leader. You may have been asked to take care of it by Wuying Shi, but Wuying is dead. Keeping the weapon is theft. We will find it, even if we have to tear this forest apart after your death, so why not just make it easier on yourself and hand it over? We can take you as a prisoner, and a slave with your skills will not be treated poorly," the man who had ordered the others to search the house said calmly, as though he was not shaken at all by the explosion, or by the attacks flying from the men on either side of him at Xinya''s barrier. Arrows and flying knives, birds, dragons and beasts made of his soldiers'' life energy sailed past him to batter her wall, yet he spoke to the straining woman as if they were at a negotiating table.


    "I know nothing of any special weapon of the Shi clan. Whoever you tortured to get that information lied to you," Master Xinya said through gritted teeth, her pretty, pale face now contorted and flushed with the effort of maintaining both her barrier, and the binding on the boy in the tree.


    Jin couldn''t be sure if she was telling the truth. The Shi clan did own the land he and Master Xinya lived on, and did send people to trade with her, as well as offering certain favors, such as prisoners for Jin to train his martial arts against. He''d always assumed she must have had some long standing relationship with the head of the clan, but Jin had never seen him come here personally. It seemed unlikely that such a person would entrust something important to her. She was just a martial arts master who lived in seclusion, training her one disciple.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    He knew very little of the clan and its politics, and it angered him that something as irrelevant as a new leader ruling over a load of people he''d never met was causing this. His home was already gone, and there was nothing that suggested his master would survive this, either. Why? What were these people to him? Nothing. And yet, they had the power to destroy everything he''d ever known, what felt like randomly.


    "We didn''t need to torture anybody to find out about the weapon, Master Xinya," the man said, sounding almost bored, as though his patience with her was wearing thin, "Wuying gloated about it as the life ebbed out of him. Bao Shi is a man of his own honor, and he looked Wuying in the eye as the poison took its effect, and asked him for his last words. He vowed that one would come with a weapon of great power to strike down Bao and lead the clan to greatness in his name, or somesuch similar brave nonsense. These words sealed your fate."


    Master Xinya sounded unfazed by this revelation, whether she was lying or telling the truth about the weapon.


    "I have no idea what you''re talking about. If Wuying Shi had a secret like that, I was not party to it."


    The man was about to reply, when she continued.


    "But I wish that it were true. I wish that he had had this great weapon to defend himself when your foul leader murdered him. And with poison no less, like a common rat! Bao is a snake and a craven, and your clan will suffer Wuying''s loss in ways the likes of you are not fit to foresee."


    Even Jin, who knew barely anything about politics and etiquette, having been raised as an outsider, knew that speaking that way about the clan''s new leader would cause great offense. He could feel the intensity of the men on the battlefield rise, as anger flooded their auras and their attacks became sharper. But then, Xinya no longer had anything to lose. Perhaps it brought her some satisfaction to be able to say what she really thought of whoever this Bao Shi was in her final moments, regardless of his social standing.


    If the man had any more to say, now, she was not listening for it. Master Xinya''s decision had been made and the time had come. Those last words were as good as any.


    She had promised the beasts of the forest her body should she die while she was living here, because the flesh of a powerful cultivator was, to a magical beast, a delicacy imbibed with power. Well, they would come to collect, soon, and they would find a feast.


    The barrier around her drew in closer, the attacks of the soldiers following it, but never penetrating it, although her strength was clearly fading. Just a matter of time now, they thought, each eager to be the one whose weapon landed the killing blow on this troublesome woman. Now she was simply standing, encased in her blue light, with the enemy growing closer. She had dropped her fighting stance and stood with her eyes closed, and her hands by her sides. Her long, loose black hair and the white silken dress she wore billowed with the energy inside her barrier, but other than that, everything about her was still, such was the slowness of her breath and the control she had over her body. She did not tremble or gasp, as she used all of her remaining strength to perform the one technique she had learned, but never practiced. Hands of energy moved inside her chest, grasped her slow-beating heart, and crushed it to dust. Jin''s own heart thumped harder as he watched, his throat tight.


    "Suicide? How unsatisfying," the leader of the men said, as she collapsed to the green floor of the clearing.


    There was no need to check whether she was really dead; every man there could feel her aura dissipating.


    "Search her body - she may have the weapon on her, or at least some clues about it," he ordered his disappointed men.


    But he hadn''t noticed the rumbling in the earth, at least, not until his horse bucked wildly, crying out, and threw him off. From the ground, he saw the other men''s horses behaving in the same desperate, frightened way. The men who were thrown off were perhaps luckier, though some were trampled underfoot as the horses dashed into the forest. These were bolthoof horses - the pride of the Dragon Valley region - and ran at speeds almost invisible to the naked eye when they were moving at full strength. The men who dangled from their mounts as they raced into the trees were dragged across the ground with enough ferocity to tear not only their robes, but their skin and even their muscle tissue from their bodies, despite the fact that they were all cultivators with impressively resilient physical forms.


    In the chaos, the surviving men, including the leader, got to their feet, and looked around wildly in terror as it became clear what had happened. When Master Xinya had died, all of the wards and enchantments she had placed to protect this clearing, and the passage that lead to it, had been undone. The rumbling that had caused the horses to make their escape was the sound of a thousand curious, hungry magical beasts making their way to that annoying bit of land that had been denied to them for so long. And there was no escape.

 Chapter 2 - Debts of the Beast

    It could not really be said that Master Xinya died willingly, or without regret, though it may have looked that way to Jin, and to the men who were now being ripped apart by gleeful monsters.


    Like any devoted martial artist, she had once set her sights on reaching the pinnacle of her potential, which for someone with her talent, could perhaps even have been one of the immortal realms. At the very least, she could have expected a long life, in the centuries. She had not wanted to make any oaths that would see her sacrificing herself for the will of a clan, or even for the boy she had raised. She was a good woman, but not so selfless as this. However, the duty of training and protecting the child at any and all costs had been the price of the rebellions of her youth, and refusal would have meant execution at Wuying''s hand. A fair execution at that.


    She had accepted that she may have to die in the course of this duty quite some time ago, and nearly made peace with it. It was just a few weeks until the boy would be of age, though, and then her sentence would have been served. How cruel to have this happen just when she was beginning to dare to hope that her pursuit of immortality might begin again.


    Her comforts at the end, which were sufficient to allow her soul to pass on, were twofold: First, she was happy that she was taking all of her attackers - supporters of that bastard Bao - with her. Secondly, she had succeeded in her role of protector. She died knowing that as long as the tiger stuck to its word as honorably as she had, Jin would be safe, and the special parts of his training that had been entrusted to her would still be completed.


    So far, the great tiger, a male magical beast of exceptional size and with intelligence on a par with a wise human, was doing exactly as he had promised. To stay by the tree and ensure that the boy didn''t come down once her binding was undone, until any human threat was gone, was the first of the three favors he was honor-bound to perform for Master Xinya.


    Jin had felt the life energy binding him to the tree vanish as he''d watched his master die. He''d been bracing himself to see her meet her end, but the rage and grief that filled him when it actually happened would have been enough for the men down below to sense, had there not been so much else going on. With his jaw clenched and his eyes prickling, he had sworn revenge upon those men, and whoever this Bao Shi who had sent them was. He''d been ready to summon his fighting strength and leap from the tree to engage the attackers, even though his chances of winning against even one of them would be terribly slim at his current cultivation level, and even though his powerful master hadn''t stood a chance against their number. But as he looked down through the branches, preparing to endure a drop of 100 feet - a drop his body could withstand, but only if he was ready for it - his eyes met the glowing amber of the tiger''s, and a low growl ascended to reach his ears.


    The tiger wasn''t threatening him. No, if he was prepared to rush in and fight more than 40 powerful men, one magical beast would not frighten him, not in that moment. It was warning him to think better. This tiger was not an enemy, though it was not a friend, either, and Jin knew that it was here because of Xinya, that whatever interest it had in what happened here was down to her wishes. She''d wanted him to stay in the tree, and so did the tiger. He made an expression at the tiger as if to ask it why it didn''t want him to pass, and it whispered in a low voice:


    "They will die here without your help."


    It was true, of course. He could see the horses running, already killing several of the men in their fright, and he knew, too, that the clearing was only safe from the myriad terrors of the forest because of Master Xinya. Things would come now and steal his revenge upon the soldiers, but that only gave him a good reason to take the only course of action that would guarantee his survival today, and stay in the tree. He needed to live so that he could personally kill Bao Shi.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    It was torture to remain outside of the action even now nobody was binding him, but restraint was sometimes the better path to a goal - a lesson he had first learned from Xinya, and which he was glad the tiger had reminded him of.


    He leaned back against the tree, still perched on his branch, and resigned himself to watching the savage scene unfold. It brought him some bitter pleasure, under the circumstances, to see these men fight in vain against the overwhelming forces of the beasts, only to die. The gorilla type magical beasts seemed to be getting the bulk of the rewards, brutally tearing off arms and legs, though serpents, wildcats and wolves also made some kills, with darting movements and sharp fangs. Birds of prey dodged the men''s futile attacks, before swooping down to gouge faces with fearsome talons.


    The beasts did not work together in killing the men, as far as Jin could see, but they did not turn on each other either, in spite of what a precious treasure the flesh of the men, and of poor Master Xinya was to each one of them. Perhaps this bounty of cultivator meat - which would empower their own life energy as well as sustaining their bodies - was, to them, an unexpected blessing, and one which should be treated with some respect rather than bickered and brawled over. Well, it was either that or that their pecking order was so strongly ingrained that every beast knew their place, and did not dare challenge another for more than their share. Jin had spent a lot of time studying magical beasts, and yet he still couldn''t make more than an educated guess as to why they were acting this way. He merely watched, inwardly cheering with sadistic delight at the suffering of these stupid soldiers. It was only when the last screaming man had finished dying that he realized that he was going to have to leave the tree at some point, and that he would be no safer than the Shi clan soldiers had been, now that Xinya''s protections were gone. The clearing was part of these beasts'' domain now, and no longer his home.


    The reality of his situation hadn''t truly sunk in, and he had nothing to form a plan with for what to do next beyond finding a place he could safely rest, and meditate, and decide. A place where he could explore Master Xinya''s Interspatial Ring and look for answers, too. But that was enough of a plan for now.


    He looked down again at the tiger, who was sitting patiently, watching the other beasts eat. He was about to call to him and get his attention, but the tiger seemed to sense he was being looked at, and turned his great head upward.


    "Can you help me get out of the forest? I mean, I''m not sure where I''m supposed to go, but I definitely can''t stay here."


    It was a strange thing, to be asking this beast for help, but he''d guarded him this long, so perhaps there was a chance he''d aid him again.


    "I will carry you safely from here to your next destination - thus, my second debt will be repaid," the tiger said, in his rumbling voice. Jin had no idea what he meant about the debts, but was too relieved at having a way out to pay it too much mind.


    "Should I come down now, then?" he asked, uncertainly.


    "Yes. While it will no doubt be an indignity to both of us, you should probably ride on my back. The other beasts will not challenge us while they are busy here."


    Jin dived from his high branch and flipped in the air to ensure he fell outside of the reach of the lower branches, landing beside the tiger with grace.


    "When you said my next destination, does that mean there''s somewhere I''m supposed to go? Did my master tell you something?"


    "Your master would not tell one such as me the details of her schemes, nor would I care what they were, but I am honor-bound to perform three favors for her. The first was that should this situation ever arise, I would be summoned to guard this tree. The second was to take you safely to a house deeper in the forest. She didn''t tell me the third, so for me, once you are delivered there, my debt is repaid and I shall think no more of the woman."


    Jin had a few ideas both about why the tiger might have three debts to Master Xinya, and why he didn''t sound too fond of her. But it wasn''t that that was concerning him. There was only one other house he knew of in the forest, and it was a place he had been taken to twice before. A place that the mere memory of chilled him to his marrow.


    It stood to reason, though, that she''d want him to go there one final time.

 Chapter 3 - A Strange Birthday

    Just as the tiger had said, there was something undignified about having Jin on his back. Jin didn''t really care, at this point - having to depend upon the great beast for safety was something he''d resigned himself to for now, and, well, riding atop a giant tiger would have actually made him feel quite powerful, if he had believed for a moment that he was the one in command. The tiger clearly felt embarrassed and degraded at being ridden by a cultivator however, and the embarrassment spread into Jin almost by osmosis.


    The tiger''s muscular form, hardened by his own innate ability to cultivate chi - much like a human''s, though achieved without some of the steps - felt dependable beneath Jin as it strode past the carnage of the clearing, and the softness of the lustrous orange-and-black fur he held onto by lacing his fingers through it was almost a comfort. It was still daylight, and springtime, but Jin felt cold in his robes, as though there was a chill inside of his bones that couldn''t be removed by wrapping up the outside of his body. The heat from the living animal was reassuring against him.


    Still though, the sense that the tiger''s pride was being wounded with every second it carried him, made Jin feel that he shouldn''t try to make conversation. There were things he wanted to ask the tiger, and indeed, it was a rarity to meet a magical beast that had ascended to the level of using human language, but chattering away like a normal traveling companion would be crass. There would be time, he hoped, after they reached the dreaded house, and the tiger was no longer acting out of a debt, when they may perhaps be able to discuss the events that had just transpired on more even footing.


    The house. Jin would probably have been more upset at this being his destination if it weren''t for the fact that he had been expecting to have to go there again sometime in the near future anyway. He would turn 18 soon - at least, by Xinya''s best guess of when he had been born, given she supposedly found him when he was already a few months old - and there was still one more trip to the sage left to complete his ''special training''. The two previous visits had been on his sixth, and his twelfth birthdays, and he was smart enough to figure out that pattern. His eighteenth had no doubt been the next birthday his master had planned to mark with such a gift, and now she was gone, that part of his fate hadn''t apparently changed.


    His sixth birthday was one of his earliest memories, at least in the sense that while he could remember hazy fragments of events that had happened before that, he couldn''t remember how it had felt to be him, before that procedure. Master Xinya had been kinder than usual to him that day, and he had assumed it was merely because it was the day when they celebrated him getting a year older, perhaps with some special food or even a gift, and perhaps with a less arduous training schedule for him to withstand. Now, when he looked back, he knew that she was being kinder because she could only imagine how painful the day was going to be for him, and that there was really no way to explain to a child so young that what he was about to endure was actually a great blessing, which would make him stronger and better for the rest of his life. Even longer than that, should he reach the immortal realms.


    The tiger bounded on through the shade of the forest unhindered, as Jin fought not to remember the pain.


    That first time, he had been seated in a chair, and told only to swallow the elixir that the elderly, odd smelling man in his curious shack full of bizarre looking objects gave him. Everything in that room had seemed to glint with a kind of misintent - a type of magic that felt at odds with the beautiful blue gleam of his master''s life energy. And yet, she had been there with him, telling him what he needed to do, taking out cubic crystals to pay the man. She hadn''t seemed disturbed by the place at all. He''d been sure it would be fine.


    He didn''t remember how the elixir had smelled or even how it had tasted on his tongue. He had trusted Master Xinya that it was just a medicine to make him stronger, something that a young boy needed. Something that would help him train better. Medicine he had known as a child was never that pleasant, unless it was a healing pill to refresh him after a training injury, and so he hadn''t been worried enough by the sour aroma or the burn in his mouth to fully commit it to memory. What it felt like when it hit his insides was another matter. That, he would never forget.


    It started as a corrosive burn that felt as if it was dissolving the very structures of every blood vessel in his body. He''d been vaguely aware that someone was strapping him to the chair as he began to scream and convulse, though he would never be able to say if it had been the sage, or the cool hands of his master. Everything in the room around him had become irrelevant as his body struggled against the agony of transformation. Next came the feeling of every muscle, from the big, powerful ones in his legs through to the tiny ones that moved his eyes and flared his nostrils, heating up to an unbearable temperature. This didn''t replace the acidic burn in his veins and capillaries, but added itself on top of it. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Master the pain by forgetting yourself. There is more to come," a voice had said. It might have been Master Xinya, or even the sage, though it didn''t sound like either. It might well have been the hallucination of his young mind, being undone by the pain, and fighting for a way to save himself. He had tried his hardest to do what it said.


    As Master Xinya''s sole disciple, he had been taught to meditate even at this very young age, to be able to remain focused on his own intentions and seek out insights even when all around him was uncomfortable. This was how a cultivator grew, he was told. But this wasn''t a case of staying calm and focused while insects and worms crawled all over him - a basic form of mental training he''d practiced before - or while birds screeched in the skies on their annual migration, or while Master Xinya appeared to randomly slap him on the side of the head. This was more like trying to forget that he had nerves and pain receptors while he bathed in liquid magma. No training he''d done came close.


    The battle between his will to separate himself from what his body was experiencing, and the intense, agonizing pain, was one that went on for what had seemed like an endless amount of time, as the excruciating, burning feeling began to permeate next his organs, one by one, each adding a new note to the discordant orchestra of unbearable sensations. Unconsciousness would have been a blessing, but it did not come - it seemed that the elixir required its host to be aware of its actions upon the body. Eventually, he had found that he could pretend, in his mind, that his real, inner self was unconnected to the physical form being ravaged by burning, that it could be somewhere else, and return when the ordeal was complete. He had never been sure, when he''d thought back on this state of mind over the years that followed, whether this had been what the voice had meant, but it did get him through it. In time he became aware of his body cooling down. A strange sensation, almost like things that had been white hot, liquid metal inside of him were solidifying. The pain de-escalated quite rapidly, in fact, and the young Jin tentatively allowed himself to mentally inhabit his body again fully, to experience what was happening. After a spell, he even opened his eyes.


    He''d been surprised to find that the room was full of very thick steam, but other than that, Xinya was standing just where she''d been when he''d swallowed the elixir. The look on her face had been one of sympathy, and yet, there was something else there. Curiosity, perhaps? Or was it more like triumph? Jin could remember it plainly though, as seeing her was what had brought him completely back into the moment, and what a strange moment it was.


    Everything about him felt different. He flexed his fingers and toes in wonder, noticing how much stronger and more agile even they felt, and then he flexed the muscles in his arms and chest, and found that in doing so he was able to tear through the strange feeling, elastic material that had been used to tie him to the chair. He had expected to feel weak and in need of a long recovery time after what had happened to him, whatever it had been, but now he felt so strong and good that he almost questioned whether it had happened at all. His memory bore the injury of the ordeal, but his body certainly did not.


    "Come, come on, it is done now, there is no reason for us to stay here any longer," Master Xinya had said, and she''d pulled some fresh robes for Jin out of her Interspatial Ring.


    Dumbfounded, he''d realized that yes, he had been wearing clothing when he''d taken the elixir, and now he was naked, but there was a pile of ash around the chair and scorch marks on the ground that hadn''t been there before. He wondered if the sensations he''d had hadn''t just felt like heat and burning, but had actually been a fire, that had burned his clothes to cinders. He dressed hurriedly, eager to get away from the strange room. The sage was nowhere to be seen.


    "What happened to me, Master?" he had asked, as they''d walked through the forest, with a field of Xinya''s life energy all around them to protect them from the beasts.


    "Your body has been transformed. It is a great blessing. You were just a boy, but now you are as strong as a sword. I know it hurt, but you will soon understand that all power comes at a cost like that."


    "Did they do that to you, too, when you were a kid?" he''d asked her. Master Xinya was the strongest person he had ever seen, and so surely, if there were painful ways to be strong, she''d have done them all.


    "No. It is something new, and only for you. You will be much stronger than me, with time."


    "Why? Why do I get a new way to be strong?"


    "Because you''ll need it."


    That had been the only answer she would ever give, and it was just as unsatisfying when she said it again, after the procedure on his twelfth birthday to strengthen his mind - a process that had been just as horrible to endure as the one for his body. It was just as unsatisfying to remember those words now, in fact, as he rode a tiger on towards whatever was awaiting him on his third visit to the sage''s house.

 Chapter 4 - Xinyas Arsenal

    The tiger ran fast, even with Jin riding him, but Jin remembered well that the sage''s shack was several hours journey away on foot, and the further away they got from the clearing, the more magical beasts were visible. The ones closest to Jin''s former home had all rushed to be a part of the gruesome feast that was now taking place there, but deeper into the forest were creatures who would never have made it in time to participate, and who were carrying on their lives as if nothing in the world had changed.


    The sun was beginning to set now, too, and while it was already fairly dark in the forest, with the tall, ancient trees blocking out the light, the shards of hazy sunshine that shot down through the canopy of leaves were becoming duller. This didn''t matter at all to the tiger, and only a little to Jin; one of the benefits of that terrible procedure on his twelfth birthday to reforge his mind was a keenness to his senses that rivaled a beast''s, and he could see very well in low light. What it did mean, though, were that the kinds of creatures they were passing were changing, and the behaviors of the animals were different, too.


    Huge moths with a faintly glowing gray dust on their wings began to settle on the tree trunks, where before they had been flapping their wings high above where the tiger trod. In the air, leathery-winged, bat type creatures took their place, making screeching cries that set Jin''s nerves on edge. The floor, caked deep with pine needles, rustled with the sounds of unseen rodents and serpents making their way to their dens, and the yapping of foxes could sometimes be heard in the distance.


    None of these things needed to trouble Jin, for these monsters were no match, even for a less talented martial artist than he, and especially not when he was being escorted by a tiger. However, his concerns were not about the creatures he could hear and see, but rather the ones he couldn''t. He''d just watched strong masters being torn apart by gorillas, and attacked mercilessly by wolves and hawks, all denizens of this forest, and while the tiger was surely among the strongest beasts found here, Jin knew enough about magical beasts to know that he was not unmatched. That is not to speak of other tigers, who would surely not take well to seeing one of their kind bearing a human - a tasty human cultivator, no less - to safety.


    But when the tiger suddenly dug his four great paws into the ground to halt himself, the fur beneath Jin''s fingers palpably bristling, it was not because a gorilla or direwolf had decided to challenge their progress to the sage''s shack. Jin couldn''t see what it was, yet, and it was possible the tiger couldn''t either, but both were aware of the powerful fighting aura, potent with killing intent, that they''d brushed up against.


    Jin wished he was able to bring his life energy outside of his body and use it to create a barrier, like Master Xinya could do, or even a weapon, like the soldiers she''d been fighting, but that was beyond his cultivation level, and also beyond the capabilities of the tiger. Both of them were still at stages of what was known in the cultivation world as corporeal conditioning. Jin had trained hard, and had also been given alchemical pills regularly by Xinya which helped him to progress through the levels of corporeal conditioning rapidly, and he was only a few stages from the peak of this part of his evolution. Paired with the forging his body and mind had gone through with the sage''s elixirs, Jin had incredible resilience, flexibility and strength, as well as reflexes and sensory perception. He had also studied cultivation techniques that allowed him to perform complex attacks that could cause fatal damage, or even seal another martial artist''s abilities, by hitting the pressure points and destroying the flow of their life energy. But prodigious as he was as a fighter, he could not go beyond what one man could do with one body. He couldn''t hurt someone without contact, or create things out of his own energy and will. He couldn''t perform, or defend against, spiritual attacks. He still had both feet in the realm of humanity, even if he did have a body as strong as a sword. And there were many people and things in the world that he could not yet fight.


    "Do you know what it is that we can feel, here?" he whispered to the tiger.


    "I fear that I do. This is not man, nor beast, but the aura of a goblin spirit."


    "I don''t know what that is... Is it a ghost of some kind?" Jin asked, frowning in concern.


    "I have heard tell that they can appear in this part of the forest, but have never seen one before. They are forged from the life energy of the trees and the plants, but given their intent by the sorrows of suffering humans as they die."


    "Can''t we take another route to the house? Or... just not go there at all? I''m happy to just leave the forest without going there, you know, if it''s a problem..."If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Jin knew he really should do as Master Xinya would have made him, and that whatever the benefits of his next procedure with the sage would be would surely be incredible, but it wouldn''t have taken a huge obstacle to persuade him to skip it and take his chances outside the forest without completing that part of his training.


    "There is no other route, because it is most likely that the goblin spirits are created here because it''s close to the house... We beasts know about that place. We don''t go near, because it is a place where beasts can meet their end. We know that humans can meet their ends there too. Their suffering gives life to the goblin spirits. But as for not taking you there, and leaving the forest instead, your master made me swear to deliver you there, and to force you to enter, if I had to, and only then will I be free of my debts. I am sure you know better than I do why it would be important to her, but probably neither of us truly know that woman''s real goals."


    Jin listened, and tried to think. He didn''t know about goblin spirits specifically, but he did know that any kind of ghost or demon would be a tough opponent, even for very strong cultivators at the corporeal conditioning levels, like himself and the tiger. There was no way to make the tiger forget about taking him to the sage''s house without fighting him, and he definitely didn''t want to do that. Not only would it be the kind of fight where even if he won, he''d sustain terrible injuries, because he had to fight hand to hand, and the tiger possessed colossal size as well as fangs and claws, but also, he didn''t want to hurt or kill the tiger. He felt like the only thing left connecting Jin to Master Xinya. They''d have to get through this part of the forest, then, and that could mean getting into a fight with the thing creating this stifling aura.


    "The weapon!" he said, his voice still a whisper.


    "Weapon? If you have a good weapon, now would be the time to unsheath it, I would say," the tiger replied.


    "I don''t know, but I have my master''s Interspatial Ring, and those men, they were after a special weapon of some kind. If she really was hiding it for that Wuying Shi guy, then it will be in here. Even if it''s not, there''s going to be something among her stuff that can help us here, I''m sure of it. She wanted us to come here that badly, and she''d know we can''t protect ourselves the way she protected me when we went there before. She will have thought of this, I know it!"


    The tiger did not share Jin''s admiration of Master Xinya, who had tricked him into owing her three life debts. He made a skeptical grumbling noise, but stayed poised to move while Jin used the Interspatial Ring and searched its contents.


    He''d never used the ring before, but the process of accessing its contents was intuitive to him as someone experienced in meditation. He was able to mentally interact with the space inside the ring, and explore it. With time, he''d be able to learn his way around the ordered collection of stuff inside, and be able to bring out whatever he needed in an instant. But time was not something he had right now, and Master Xinya had, it seemed, accrued a lot of stuff in her life that she felt valuable enough to hide here. He needed to find a weapon, so he ignored the piles of cubic crystals - he was aware they were a currency, but not aware of just how wealthy Xinya''s hoard had made him, having never been outside of the forest to spend anything - and the piles of books containing cultivation techniques, and the various other strange items he had never seen before. He focused only on what must have been Xinya''s arsenal.


    There were plenty of regular, non-magical weapons in here, many of which he had seen or trained with before. There was also a long staff which he knew Xinya was very proficient with, which had sapphires set at either end, and dark, gunmetal gray dragons embossed up and down its length. This staff was a spiritual-grade weapon, a tier higher than a magical weapon, and something that someone at the corporeal conditioning level like Jin would not be able to harness the full power of. He could use it, but only to perform physical martial attacks - none of its other features would work for him. There were also a pair of butterfly swords which Jin had seen Xinya use before, and these were magical tier weapons.


    There was nothing in here, though, that he hadn''t already seen, or which would be more powerful than the average master at Xinya''s level would possess. Unless something was hidden deeper within the ring, or he was missing something, the secret weapon of Wuying Shi wasn''t there.


    "Quick, boy, I see it there between the trees," the tiger urged, and Jin felt its body tense further beneath him, as if it was winding up to pounce.


    He knew he had to get off of the tiger so that both of them could fight unimpeded, and that the time for choosing a weapon was over.


    The staff and the butterfly swords would have a big strength difference between them in a master''s hands, but for someone at the corporeal conditioning level who could just use them as what they were, it came down to whether he wanted to fight with blades or with the range of the staff. Both had their merits, but he opted for the swords. They were exceptionally sharp, and that may just give him the chance to land a fight-ending strike quickly, even if it did mean he was giving up the superior agility and reach he''d have with the staff.


    In one solid movement, he leaped from the tiger''s back to land on his feet beside the beast in a fighting stance, the two short, single edged weapons materializing in his hands.


    His eyes searched the space between the trees in the darkness, and he finally saw what the tiger had seen - the goblin spirit, crouching its deformed body, ready to launch itself forward in attack.

 Chapter 5 - The Goblin Spirit

    Jin had fought humans before - strong ones, at that, men high in the stages of corporeal conditioning, who had been found guilty of some crime against the Shi clan and sent to Master Xinya to be used as training dummies for her disciple as part of their sentence. He''d been told that these were bad men, that these were people who could be hurt or even killed in his training, and it wouldn''t matter - that his progress was more important than their lives. He had never killed one, however, and on a few occasions, he had slipped healing pills meant for himself to men who he had injured more than he felt comfortable with.


    It wasn''t that he hadn''t been willing to take lives, or that the idea of doing so had been especially distasteful to him. Master Xinya had told him that all martial artists who reached their pinnacles would inevitably have to have fights along the way that would result in one participant dying. It was the fact that he didn''t really know what these men had done, or even what made the Shi clan special enough to judge them, that made him stay his hand. If he had killed them, it would just have been to further his own training, not for justice, or because the men had willingly entered into combat with him. He had discovered too, that he could get better training by exercising some restraint, and letting the men fight to their own true potential, rather than just ending the fight himself with a killing blow at the first chance he got. By letting them fight him in relative safety, they would have the chance to show him their special cultivation techniques, and give him different attacks to try to discover ways to handle. He had been happy with this.


    He had fought beasts, too. He had never fought the tiger, though he had watched Master Xinya do so in an attempt to teach him another important lesson - an incident which he suspected was one of the reasons for the strange dynamic between the beast and his master. He had, however, hunted creatures in the areas close to his home as training, and had also had trapped beasts brought to the training area in the clearing for him to practice his techniques against. Those, he had killed, but only because they were not of the same intelligence level as the tiger, and so could not be reasoned with. They didn''t know why they were fighting, but once a fight had begun, the only way to end it was to incapacitate them.


    What Jin had never fought, though, were enemies of other kinds. Ghosts, spiritual beings, demons - all of these things lived in the world, as much as it could be said that these things lived - and in more types and subspecies than even the most learned sage knew of. However, encounters with them for training purposes were difficult to orchestrate, and Master Xinya had forbidden him from seeking out real combat experience in truly dangerous situations until he was 18. He would be ready then, she had told him, ready to go out into the world and begin truly perfecting himself as a martial artist. He''d be at the stage of his training where life or death situations would be required for him to progress further, and learn more.


    He had taken this to mean that whatever would be done to him on the third trip to the sage''s house would be required for him to be able to face creatures different to human cultivators and magical beasts. Yet here he was, having to face a goblin spirit before that rite of passage could be completed. He could rely only on theoretical knowledge about fighting spiritual creatures, and the fact that he had the tiger by his side.


    Jin had never seen anything as ugly as the goblin spirit, outside of books. Even the least aesthetically pleasing beasts in the forest, like the tarantulas and the hairless, wrinkled mole rats, at least gave the sense that they were supposed to be that way, that it served some natural purpose. The goblin spirit looked like something that shouldn''t be - a twisted and degenerate parody of a humanoid form, with grayish-yellow skin, and patches of matted, wiry hair sprouting out between wrinkles of excess flesh that hung from its hunched, bow-legged skeletal shape.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Its face was worse still, though it was difficult to fully appreciate every crag and fleshy hole in its flapping cheeks in the dim, failing twilight. Malformed, oversized teeth like tusks protruded from its lower jaw, and its eyes were set too far apart, one bulging and bulbous, the other deep set with a sagging lower lid revealing a pallid, grey-red membrane under which spindly blood vessels throbbed.


    It remained crouched, seeming to be making the choice about which of the two was the most interesting to attack. Its intent felt like pure malice. It did not give off the energies of a creature that was ready to fight because it wanted to defend itself, or because it was hungry, or even because it was enraged. It seemed to be looking at Jin and the tiger without fear or curiosity, seeing them only as potential playthings it could hurt, until that ceased to be satisfying, and then kill. This unsettled Jin more than anything else about the thing in front of him. He had never encountered a creature that would see a cultivator and a tiger as nothing but its next victims. Was the goblin spirit really so strong it could genuinely disregard them as a threat, or was this just its nature? Did something like this, something formed from the life of the forest and the suffering of the dead, simply not fear death, or losing, and think only of what harm it could do, caring not of the risk to itself?


    As Jin tensely observed the creature, trying to fathom out why its intent felt so unlike anything else he had sensed before, whether from weak or strong, man or beast, the tiger decided he had had enough of waiting to see what the goblin spirit would do, and sprang forward with a deafening roar.


    Jin followed in the tiger''s wake, expecting the beast to try to pin down the goblin spirit with a leap, and wanting to be ready to move in and decapitate it with his twin swords if that happened. Ending the fight quickly by working together, using the tiger''s weight and strength and Jin''s speed and blades seemed like the best strategy they had against a creature whose attacking style and abilities were unknown.


    The goblin spirit simply stood with an unnerving grin on it''s face until the tiger was within a good distance to leap forward. This alone was worrying - it was as though it knew something that the boy and the beast did not, and that this was the way its enemies always behaved. Jin sensed that something was wrong and diverted his direction, leaping to the side and dashing at an angle as though to try to flank the goblin spirit, rather than following the tiger in a head on attack. His sense that something was awry was quickly proven correct as, while the tiger was is mid-air, jumping with teeth bared and the long, gleaming claws on his front paws poised to tear at the goblin spirit, the strange creature vanished.


    The tiger''s momentum caused him to crash forwards through the empty space where the goblin spirit had been, while Jin stopped moving easily to pivot and look for where it might have materialized. Jin knew that some cultivators, once they had surpassed the corporeal conditioning levels, could use their life energy to transport themselves around a battlefield with certain special cultivation techniques, and so he was expecting that like them, the goblin spirit had moved instantly, rather than truly disappearing. The strong, malevolent aura that spread out from it was still just as potent, so it definitely wasn''t gone. It definitely wasn''t safe to leave.


    Before he had time to cry out to warn the tiger, a whooshing, gray blur descended from a tree high above, and the goblin spirit landed with a painful sounding thud on the back of the tiger, who roared with what Jin supposed was surprise and anger. But the goblin spirit had its bony fingers pressing into the tiger''s neck, and the roar became anguished and high, as though the tiger was in excruciating pain.


    Jin didn''t stay still to try to figure out what was happening to his companion. He kicked off of the tree and dashed at the goblin spirit, jumping to the right height and making a wide slash with one of his swords that should rightly have taken the ugly head of the creature off of its jowly neck. But the butterfly sword cut through the air with no resistance. The goblin spirit had vanished once again.

 Chapter 6 - Soul Violence

    "Don''t let it touch you!" the tiger groaned, panting heavily.


    Clearly whatever had happened while the goblin spirit had been on his back had been very painful, although no wounds showed.


    "What did it do?" Jin asked in a low voice, as he searched around with his eyes, on guard for the goblin spirit''s next appearance.


    "Soul attack... I haven''t ever felt anything like it..." the tiger said, his words sounding labored and dazed.


    Jin too, had never been subjected to a soul attack, though he knew what they were. Some cultivators could undergo arduous training that allowed them to develop resilience in their very souls, and which could let them wield them as weapons, invisibly attacking the souls of their opponents. A soul attack could be fatal, and even the quickest exposure to soul violence could be extremely debilitating, leaving the victim mentally and emotionally unwell, as well as causing physical symptoms like light-headedness, weakness, and difficulty meditating and cultivating. The goblin spirit must have had the innate ability to use soul violence, just as many demons and spirits did, according to what Jin had been taught.


    The real problem with dealing with soul violence was that the soul was a completely different matter to the body and mind. One couldn''t tell by looking at somebody, or even by watching them in a normal, physical fight, what the strength or resilience of their soul was. Some people had strong souls, some people did not. Some people cultivated to strengthen their souls, to protect themselves against soul violence or to be able to use it themselves, others couldn''t. Others still didn''t prioritize it, as it was a more unusual form of violence to encounter, if one mainly stuck within the realms of mortal humans. More crucially, if one had never been in a situation where soul weapons or attacks were present, like Jin, one could not know or even guess at how well they would be able to withstand the onslaught.


    Jin didn''t know whether he could stand up against the goblin spirit''s soul attack, but he did know that the soul violence had had a profound effect on the tiger, and he could also guess from the way the creature had attacked that it had chosen the tiger as its opponent for the time being. If the tiger became too weak to go on, then Jin would be in an even worse predicament - even if he could beat or escape the goblin spirit, he''d be in the forest after dark with nothing to keep the beasts at bay, looking for a place he hadn''t been to since he was 12. He needed to defend the tiger from being touched by the goblin spirit again, but how, when the thing could vanish as soon as he got close enough to strike?


    There was no time for strategy. The air around Jin moved and he spun around to see the goblin spirit racing towards him and the tiger once more, before leaping to try to get onto the tiger''s back again. Its limbs were flailing in the air as it pounced with its arms stretched forward to grab the tiger''s fur, and Jin desperately slashed at the arms with the instinct to prevent the creature from making contact with the weakened beast.


    He hadn''t expected to cut - only for the goblin spirit to vanish again before it had a chance to touch the tiger, giving him a few more seconds to try to think of a way to defeat it. Yet, the blade of the butterfly sword in Jin''s right hand cut keenly through one of the goblin spirit''s spindly wrists, and its tip managed to reach and lacerate the other arm, too.


    A hellish gurgle of shrill displeasure came from the goblin spirit''s disgusting mouth, as thick, dark blood poured from the stump where one hand had been, and the gash on the other wrist. Jin registered his success with surprise and used the momentum from the cut to bring the second sword down on the creatures head, as its body smacked to the ground, falling where it had been unable to grab on to the tiger. Alas, the second strike did not land, as the creature rolled frantically out of the way of it, and before Jin could strike again, it vanished for the third time, leaving a mess of sticky blood, and a dead hand, behind it.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Why didn''t it vanish before I could cut its hand off?


    The goblin spirit''s aura still hadn''t gone away. The creature was badly wounded, but it hadn''t retreated.


    Jin had to think fast, knowing another attack would come in moments. If the goblin spirit''s main form of attack was with soul violence then there was a good chance losing a hand might not affect how dangerous it was. If anything, the rage and pain it must be feeling may make it attack more ferociously.


    What was the difference between then, when I hit it, and the two times we tried to attack before? The first time it was just standing there. The second, it was on the tiger''s back, performing its soul attack. The time I hit it, it was leaping... Is that it? Does it need to be still to use its transporting ability?


    "I''ve got an idea, but I need your help. When it comes again, do you think you can run to make it chase you?" he asked the tiger.


    There was no time for the great beast to reply, but he''d heard Jin''s words. The goblin spirit reappeared, this time from amid the trees on the other side, putting the tiger between itself and Jin. Jin could have jumped over the tiger in time to try to slash it head on, but he wasn''t sure he''d be able to avoid the creature touching him that way, and as he didn''t know if he could tolerate even a fraction of a second of soul violence while still being able to keep the ability to attack, he didn''t want to risk that. Instead, he let the tiger do as he''d asked, and start running. Jin himself jumped back out of the way, so he could move in pursuit when the goblin spirit gave chase and use his exceptional speed to catch up and slash at it from behind.


    It was a good plan, but it failed.


    Jin had been relying on the goblin spirit continuing to attack the tiger, rather than himself, allowing the tiger to serve adequately as bait. This would allow him to test his theory that the goblin spirit couldn''t vanish while it was in motion in relative safety. If he was wrong, then the goblin spirit would disappear before he could decapitate it, but he and the tiger wouldn''t really be any worse off than they were before the attempt. However, as the tiger rushed away with a roar - weaker than before but still enough to strike terror into most forest beasts - the goblin ignored it, the force of its malevolent glare fixed on Jin as it hurtled forward, that same thick blood drooling from the clean wounds he''d left on its arms.


    He had no choice but to engage it like a normal foe, now, so Jin rushed forward too, as soon as he realized he was now the target, crossing his butterfly swords in front of him like scissor blades, aiming to run them through the creature''s body and cut it in half. The strike was partially successful, because the enraged goblin spirit was now attacking with no caution at all. Jin''s twin butterfly swords slashed through the wobbly, loose flesh around the creature''s belly, though it had managed to shift backwards slightly when it saw Jin moving to meet it in its dash, so he wasn''t able to cut all the way through its body.


    A wound like this would prove fatal, in fact, the creature''s entrails were starting to drop and slither from the slashes Jin''s swords had made, but causing a death that wasn''t instant was not a win against a creature such as this that used soul violence. It could attack with its full power until the moment it truly died, because its body wasn''t its weapon. Jin turned his arms quickly to perform the second strike, this time bringing the uncrossed blades across the creature''s body to cross again, but before he could finish the movement - rapid as it was - the goblin spirit thrust the bloody stump where its hand had been against Jin''s chest.


    Now Jin would experience soul violence for the first time.

 Chapter 7 - A Disciple Without A Master

    It happened so fast that were it a knife to the heart, Jin wouldn''t have recognized it happening until he found himself drawing his last breath. Something invisible and intangible was piercing him in a way that couldn''t be described in terms of physical pain, something that came from the goblin spirit''s malevolent soul and tried to taint his own with an inhuman corruption. He felt things that were incompatible with his own humanity - evil intentions that were driven by unfathomable motivations, chaotic, venomous darkness that asphyxiated him on the level of his very consciousness.


    He had never been aware of his soul in this way before, he had just trusted that it existed. He had listened to Xinya talk about how that was the part of him that would, if fate were on his side, remain, even if his body and mind transcended their current forms and he reached the heights of an immortal being. Now his soul had never felt more important, and he felt himself, his whole self as he knew himself, struggling against this sense that there couldn''t be anything noble or good left behind after the onslaught. He felt this intimate part of him frantically panicking like a frightened bird grabbed in a fist, and there was no question of his body or even his mind taking any further action in this fight.


    "Endure this..." came a voice.


    It was a voice Jin hadn''t heard in a long time, but recognized right away. The same voice that told him how to get through the agony of having his body and mind reforged on his sixth and twelfth birthdays.


    Is it the sage? Is he here now?


    But before he could consider the voice any further, or even ruminate on how this time, its advice hadn''t been advice at all, and quite useless in telling him how to confront the attack on his soul, he felt the cold, moist forest floor against his cheek, and realized his senses were returning.


    He almost didn''t care what was happening, as long as the goblin spirit wasn''t touching him anymore, but after swallowing down a wave of nausea he opened his eyes.


    The tiger had pinned down the goblin spirit and swiped off its jaw with his powerful front paw, causing what was left of its dense, syrupy blood to gush from its neck, finally killing the thing. The aura it had brought with it was gone now.


    "That was --" he began, hearing his own voice come out thin and strange.


    He wanted to tell the tiger how it had felt, to commiserate with him, to say that he understood now why the tiger had cried out and weakened so during the fight. But the tiger just gave him a long, meaningful look.


    Jin understood. Both had been similarly violated, and they both knew how it had been, and speaking about what they had experienced independently would be unseemly for two who were not truly friends. They had both shown themselves at their very weakest in front of beings who would under any other circumstances be their enemies, and so drawing attention to it would only heighten the tiger''s existing embarrassment about their situation.


    "Can you stand? We should not linger here, there may be more of them," the tiger said, at last, after Jin had taken a few moments to steady his breathing.


    "Yes, let''s go," he said, moving shakily to his feet and preparing to get back on the tiger''s back.


    "Aren''t you forgetting something? Don''t you human cultivators value the cores of other creatures, as we beasts value your flesh?"


    Jin wasn''t thinking clearly, but he perhaps would have missed this anyway. Yes, he knew that human cultivators did indeed prize the cores found inside magical and spiritual creatures, the cores that allowed these beasts and spirits to cultivate naturally without going through the same steps as humans, but he had never really needed to be in the habit of worrying about that sort of thing before. Everything he needed had been provided for him his whole life, and matters of currency or crafting were always handled by Master Xinya - even when he had slayed magical beasts, he''d just given the cores to her and thought no more about them. Now, he was going out into the world and he''d need such things. He''d need to remember their importance.


    He turned back to the gory mess that was the corpse of the goblin spirit - its jaw missing, its belly opened up, and its arms ravaged by his blades. With the residual nausea from the soul attack, he had to fight his hardest not to be repulsed to the point of vomiting in the act of reaching his hand inside its abdomen to seek out the core, located, as always in humanoid creatures, just below the navel. There were easier ways. Master Xinya, at her level of being able to use life energy, was able to simply disintegrate the corpse of something she killed, leaving only the core behind. Jin wasn''t there yet, so he had to probe around, up to his wrist in monster guts, until he found the crystalline lump.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    He plucked the core out of the body and shook it vigorously to try to clean off some of the viscera clinging to its rocky form. Even in the darkness of the forest, it was easy to see that the core of the goblin spirit was infinitely more beautiful than the creature that had housed it had been. The magical power condensed inside of it throbbed with an indigo light, almost at the pace of a slow heartbeat, though it was no longer part of anything alive.


    Jin had never seen a core this color before, and from the way the tiger looked at it, too, with more curiosity than he''d seen from the beast up til now, he guessed that he hadn''t seen its like either.


    "Do you want it? It was you who made the killing blow. It''s yours by right," Jin said, holding out the core to the tiger.


    "I have no use for it. It is just interesting to see, for me. I have never killed a spiritual or demonic creature before. We avoid engaging with them. To see what is inside such a thing is... fascinating. It is yours, but I would ask you to think carefully about how you use or spend it."


    The tiger spoke with an air that suggested he disapproved of most of the things humans did, as would only be natural for a magical beast. Jin, who was currently feeling very appreciative of the tiger, who had at least cut short the soul attack he''d been subjected to, had every intention of using the core in a way the tiger would think fitting, when one arose. He didn''t really know what that might be - there was little about the world of trading and bartering he knew yet - but he vowed to himself to use this precious core in a way that the tiger would not be offended by.


    "Let us go, now. The sooner we reach the house, the sooner my debt will be paid and I can return to my life," the beast said, nodding his head in a gesture that indicated to Jin that he should get up and ride him.


    It was barely three minutes before the light from the windows of the sage''s house became visible through the trees. The tiger was moving more slowly than before, still not fully recovered from his own encounter with the soul violence, and so the shortness of the journey was a surprise. It was troubling to Jin that anyone could be living so close to where the goblin spirits prowled. But of course, the goblin spirits were only here because of the sage.


    His soul must be very strong. Stronger than theirs, so they don''t bother him.


    Strangely, Jin saw as they crept towards the house, that a bolthoof horse, still wearing the livery of the soldiers who had attacked Master Xinya, was tethered to a wooden post outside, by a rope made out of life energy of a sickly yellow color. It was a majestic looking creature, its coat the color of pale gold, and its mane braided, where it had clearly been well looked after by its Shi clan masters. Despite their supernatural speed, bolthoof horses were not magical beasts, and did not have cores or cultivate, and so they were easily domesticated.


    "Let''s stay back... I want to listen in. The horse worries me. What if one of the soldiers somehow made it here, and is inside the house, interrogating the sage?" Jin whispered.


    "There is no way any of those men made it out of the clearing alive when the beast attacked, I saw them all die," the tiger said, impatiently, but he did stop and lower himself down behind a tree so Jin could get off and concentrate.


    His senses were weaker than usual, in fact, everything about him was only at a fraction of its usual ability after the soul attack, but in the quiet of the forest he was able to listen and pick out the sounds coming from the sage''s house. There was only one person breathing inside, and it was the very, very slow breath of someone at a much higher cultivation level than a Shi clan soldier. It had to be the sage.


    "I think it''s safe. I suppose he must have caught the horse somehow as it ran..."


    To catch a bolthoof that was running for its life at full speed was a feat well beyond Jin, and something he could only theorize about approaches to, but it certainly seemed like something someone very adept at using their life energy outside of their body could do.


    "I must see you to the door. Master Xinya made my instructions clear to the last detail, and so I must obey them to relieve myself of the debt."


    The tiger stood, and Jin nodded at him stoicly. He didn''t like that the tiger would leave, now. He didn''t like that he''d have to go though whatever was coming at the sage''s house without anybody with him this time, and he didn''t like that he couldn''t really tell the tiger just how much he appreciated the help he''d given him - not only in slaying the goblin spirit, but just in being with him in the moments after everything he''d known had been taken away. A tiger and a human were not friends, and any comfort he''d taken from their arrangement was partly in his head - he knew that. But equally, the tiger being with him for this journey was Master Xinya protecting him for the final time, and so that being over, it meant that she truly was gone from his life now. He was a disciple without a master, a boy without a mother, and a man without a friend. Saying any of it would make no difference.


    They walked toward the door, the pathway illuminated by the gibbous moon shining down on the clearing where the sage''s house stood, in silence.


    But just as they were a few paces past the horse, who ignored them, the door opened, and there stood the sage, tall and imposing in spite of his great age. Surely he wasn''t expecting them, because he immediately adopted a fighting stance, and a ball of what looked like plasma in that same jaundiced yellow color as the life energy tethering the horse grew instantly in his hand.


    Jin quickly held up his hands to show he wasn''t armed - he had wisely put the butterfly swords back in the Interspatial Ring along with the goblin spirit''s core.


    "Don''t harm me. It''s me, Jin, Master Xinya''s disciple."


    "I know who you are, Jin. Stand aside, it is the beast you brought me who must die," the sage said in a cold voice, as though he was talking about doing an unpleasant but mundane chore.

 Chapter 8 - The Limits of Honor

    "No! You don''t need to kill him! He delivered me here because Master Xinya was killed, by men from the Shi clan. The tiger just promised her he''d get me here safely - he''s not here to hurt you! He''ll leave now!" Jin said, moving in front of the tiger, his hands still up to show he wasn''t armed.


    "I''m not worried he will hurt me! Ha! No, I am well aware of the situation - it seems your master told me more than she told you. When I saw the horses fleeing I knew something along the lines of this was happening, and so I prepared, as she paid me well to do, for your arrival. The only thing left that I need is the beast. It was an elegant solution of hers, to send it along with you."


    Jin didn''t understand, but he was not willing to let the tiger die. He knew he couldn''t fight the sage - he was afraid of the man as it was, without even knowing how powerful his magic was, but there was no doubt that his level was at least as high as Master Xinya''s had been. The fact he had caught and tethered the bolthoof with his life energy showed that. Plus there was his prowess with alchemy. Who knew what special abilities he had given himself, or could temporarily harness with pills he could make. Nonetheless, Jin stood firm, his outstretched hands moving to his hips to form fists. Not quite a fighting stance, yet, but he was ready.


    "I understand. This was the third favor, was it?" the tiger said in his low voice, "I had been wondering all this time why she had set it up so I owed her three life debts, but I had only been asked for two things. I suppose it was always supposed to end up this way, one way or another. Even if the men hadn''t attacked, there would have been some request made of me that lead me here to die. Well, honor is honor, but I have my limits. I will not go willingly."


    Behind Jin, the tiger lowered himself into a crouch, poised to pounce. Both were still weakened by the soul violence, and were hoping against hope that some other solution could be reached, because the chances of them winning a fight against this man, even if they worked together, were minuscule.


    Jin took in what the tiger was saying with a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He had felt it was awry, too, he had just been too preoccupied with his situation to consider it much. Master Xinya didn''t waste anything - efficiency and economy of action were among her core principles as a martial artist. If she had planned for the tiger to help him, why would she have only asked for two favors, when she had three? Indeed, he was sure, thinking back, that she had set the three favors up very specifically, just as the tiger seemed to think.


    It had been two summers past, when Jin had just turned 16, that Xinya had brought the tiger home, encased in a cage made of her blue life energy. She had saved the tiger from a trap, that would surely have killed him if he''d been left, she had said, though she had said it with a wink that implied that without her, there would have been no trap. She had trapped beasts before for herself and Jin to fight against in the small battle arena they used in their clearing, and so Jin had not been surprised at this, though he had wondered why the tiger was in such a bad state. It looked like it had been poisoned, as well as trapped, and was barely conscious inside the cage. Why would she weaken the beast to this extent if she wanted to fight it? Even if she wanted Jin to fight it, fighting something that looked to be on the brink of death and could barely lift its head would be no challenge.


    But she had kept the tiger in the large, spacious room where she slept, carefully nursing it back to health with pills and herbs. She had not permitted Jin to see the tiger. Perhaps she didn''t want him to grow too attached to it, especially if he learned that it could speak. Not if she was planning for one of them to kill it in the arena. Master Xinya did not believe in killing friends. She would never have taught him lessons by allowing him to form a bond with something, and then making him fight it. Other masters valued that sort of teaching, but Xinya didn''t see the need to make a disciple cruel or cold. He would kill enemies, and he would kill when it served an important purpose. He might even kill for justice, some day. But she wouldn''t raise him to kill just to become more at peace with killing.


    When the tiger was healthy, she had brought the cage out to the arena, where Jin sat to watch. She''d said this lesson would be one he would value. He''d assumed she was going to show off some astounding new cultivation technique, that she''d then teach him, so he was excited for this. She''d strolled gracefully out to the center of the arena, the blue energy-cage floating on ahead, moved by her power, and the tiger crouching tensely inside, baring its teeth at her serene face.


    When she''d made the cage vanish, the tiger had pounced forth immediately, trying to pin her down. It had looked furious. That had seemed ungrateful, at the time - she had, after all, saved it from the trap, and saved it again by restoring its health. Jin hadn''t really considered that an intelligent creature may not like being toyed with like this - trapped, then healed, then made to fight to the death. He hadn''t known as much about magical beasts back then, and hadn''t known that the tiger could talk. He perhaps was thinking of it as something bigger, and more dangerous, but no more likely to hold grudges than a wild dog. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Master Xinya''s face had remained calm - though serious, she was not underestimating the animal - as she''d glided out of range of the tiger''s leap, and then instantly, long strands of her blue energy had come from her hands, wrapping around the torso of the great beast and lifting him high, high up into the air. This was a similar technique to the one she''d used to throw Jin into the tree, earlier today, although she hadn''t hidden the life energy as she had done then - that, she''d told him before, required her to burn through a lot more of her power.


    "Jin, you see how this tiger is at my mercy? I could slam him down, from that height, and maybe he would survive, maybe not. But if he did, well, he''d still be in my control, would he not? I would be able to do it as many times as I needed to. That is the first thing I want you to remember about today. If you can get into a safe position like this, where your foe can do nothing, and their life is in your hands, you have options."


    Jin had been impressed by how easily she had achieved this dominance over the tiger, but he wasn''t sure what he was supposed to be learning. He would still be in the corporeal conditioning stages for a long time, and wouldn''t be able to do this kind of attack any time soon.


    "Now, I shall use those options. I shall give the beast a chance to live," she had said.


    "Tiger! I have saved your life twice before. You know as well as I do that I only saved you from traps of my own making - I shall not insult you by pretending otherwise - but the fact is, twice you would have died if I had not chosen to make you survive. If you live on, we can agree that you are honor bound to help me, twice, too, correct?"


    The beast roared angrily from up high, but Jin was astonished to hear him reply with a clear ''yes''. He''d heard, at that time, of magical beasts like this, who could understand everything one said to them and respond in human words, but he''d never seen it. Watching Master Xinya try to manipulate an animal through conversation was strange, but impressive.


    "And if I bring you down gently now, mercifully, and let you return to your life as though this unpleasant incident had never happened, that would be a third debt? Yes?"


    "Yes," the tiger hissed.


    Master Xinya had proceeded, ignoring the writhing tiger up in the air, tethered to her like a bizarre balloon, to give Jin a big speech about how sometimes, showing one''s strength to a weaker, but potentially useful creature, could create an alliance far faster than friendship or kindness. That mercy could sometimes work in everybody''s favor. But only when the subject of the maneuver was thoroughly outmatched.


    "The stronger you become, Jin, the more people you''ll be able to rely on - and that will multiply your power in this world beyond what any cultivation method will do on its own."


    And so, this was what she had been planning back then. The three favors of the tiger were always supposed to lead to the sage killing him, for some reason to do with whatever process he was supposed to put Jin through on his 18th birthday. How much else had Xinya planned for Jin that he wasn''t aware of? What else had been right in front of him, without him knowing?


    "Sage, I will not accept this. I think I understand - my master set things up so you''d have whatever it is you need from the tiger to make me stronger again. But I don''t agree to it. I will go out in to the world as weak as I am now rather than let him die for me."


    The sage laughed, though not unkindly. It was more a weary kind of sound, as if he was tired of explaining obvious things to foolish young people.


    "It isn''t for you to decide or agree. A lot of resources have been used up to make you what you are now, and to ensure that that process is completed. None of this was done out of kindness towards you. Did you really think a boy found in the woods would normally have been lavished with pills, trained as the sole disciple of a master, and reforged not only in body, but in mind, and now soul, too?"


    Soul? So the third process is going to strengthen my soul...


    He at once felt both afraid and excited to imagine it. If a tiny moment of soul violence had been so horrifying, he could only imagine the pain at having his soul reforged the way his body and mind had been, but then, if it meant he would be strong against creatures like the goblin spirit, or even be able to cultivate to use soul violence himself far more quickly than other people, well, the possibilities were enticing.


    But no, he would not sacrifice the tiger for that.


    "I don''t know what you mean. I don''t know what is normal and what isn''t, for other people. I only know that if I don''t want you to kill for my gain, then you have no right to do it. And I know that I should fight, even when the chance of winning is small, if the alternative is something that wrong."


    "I have no particular interest in the Shi clan and Wuying Shi''s grand enterprise, Jin. I don''t especially care if you go on to fulfill his plans or if you die right here, I''ll tell you that now. But I''m bound by financial contracts to make sure your training is completed, and so while I won''t kill you, I will imobilize you, kill the tiger, and proceed with the procedure whether you resist or not. You''ll wake up far from here in some village, and it will be done. That is the only choice you can make here - whether you''ll come inside and talk with me, perhaps learn a little about why all of this is happening to you, or whether you''ll continue resisting, and have the same things transpire without your agency. The tiger''s core is needed for the elixir, and the elixir will be administered tonight. Those are the facts."


    The Shi clan again. Wuying Shi. It seemed that they had something to do with him, and the sage was dropping casual mentions of it all to try to lure Jin into wanting to know more, wanting it badly enough to stand aside to let the tiger be killed. And he did want to know. But it was still more than he could bear to betray the tiger. It might be futile. Just as the sage had said, things would probably happen the same way regardless of what he did here. The sage was too strong. But whether he acted like he was OK with the tiger being sacrificed to make him stronger felt like a matter of great importance. A matter of his own honor.


    And he had one thing left that he hadn''t tried.

 Chapter 9 - Cores and Effects

    "You need the tiger''s core. Well, would another core suffice? I have all of Master Xinya''s possessions, now, and her cubic crystals. What if I have something else you can use? Will you spare him, then?"


    The sage looked dismissive.


    "Any core from a powerful creature would have the potency I need, but this tiger is of a scarce kind, in this forest. Very few beasts have ascended to the level of mastering communication with human language. It was for precisely this reason Master Xinya chose him. She could have killed him herself and kept the core until it was time for the elixir to be made, but she generously let him keep his life until now. The kindness has already been done, Jin, and his fate is sealed."


    But Jin wasn''t listening to this. The sage had given him hope of a way out. He had mentally retreated briefly into the cavernous dimension of Xinya''s Interspatial Ring, and now, the core of the goblin spirit appeared in his hand.


    "Can you use this? We had to fight our way past a goblin spirit on the way here - one created, it seems, by whatever other killing and misery you cause in the course of your alchemy. The tiger made the final blow and saved me from it, while it was attacking me with soul violence. It seems quite fitting to me that its core might now save this tiger, and strengthen my soul."


    The sage''s expression changed, and the ball of plasma in his hand dissipated. He took a step forward, the indigo light from the core reflected in his intelligent eyes. The tiger let out a low growl behind Jin, as if to warn the man not to come any closer, in spite of the poor position the beast was in in the current situation.


    He looked into Jin''s eyes, seeming to scrutinize him for a moment, before speaking.


    "The core of a spiritual creature - a malevolent one, at that - would have the power I need to complete the elixir. But using the core of something evil, something that traded on soul violence, to reforge your soul... well, it will cause some changes to the behavior of the elixir. I believe it may even create stronger effects than what I had originally planned, but that means you will need to endure greater pain..."


    The sage looked unsteady, as if the idea of the pain frightened even him. There was something personal in it, like the thought gave him a memory he would rather keep suppressed.


    Jin couldn''t help but wonder.


    "Have you... ever used a core like this on somebody before?" he asked, slowly.


    "The soul reforging process is something very few people undertake. It requires a lot of things: expensive resources, an alchemical expert like myself, and for the person to have already had their body and mind reforged. As such, even I have only performed the procedure three times, and I am perhaps the most experienced in this in the empire. The second and third subjects were people I have no inclination to tell you about, though they were people far older and more advanced than you. They used the cores of high level beasts. The first, well, the first person I prepared the elixir for was myself. I had easier access to the cores of unpleasant creatures than of high level animals at that time, and so I used the core of a mid-level water demon. Its power would be something akin to your goblin spirit core. It was a fierce battle to keep my sanity, and, well, when I show people the strength of my soul, some have said that there is something of the demon about me, now."The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Jin understood what he meant. He''d found the sage, and even his house, disturbing and awry in a way he couldn''t quite identify, even on his first visit, before he''d known he was supposed to endure pain here. The man, thinking back, had never actually been cruel to him, though he hadn''t lavished him with kindness and sympathy, either, and he had always been polite, even friendly, to Master Xinya. With anybody else, one may have just thought he was someone who didn''t particularly enjoy the presence of children, but was otherwise a pleasant, if somewhat serious, man. But his whole presence had something sinister about it, something that seemed to even permeate his living space. The weapons and instruments hanging in the shack, they were, if Jin remembered it properly, just normal things - no different from the things inside Master Xinya''s ring. But he''d always suspected that they were evil weapons, demonic ones, probably forged in the boiling blood of people who dared to wander into the forest. The strangeness in the man''s soul had stirred his childish imagination.


    "I will take it, then. If I am to suffer anyway, it might as well be for the strongest results. Besides, it''s only once. I''ll withstand it."


    He spoke bravely, but inside he was terrified. He was already weak from fighting the goblin spirit, and he couldn''t imagine a pain that combined the experience of soul violence with the pain of his previous reforgings. He didn''t want to become somebody who people found disturbing, with a soul that had been touched by demonic power, either, but he was trying not to think about that. Surely if he was a good person, and made noble choices, it wouldn''t matter, and if it did, well, he''d be strong. If people didn''t like him, he''d use his strength, like Xinya had done with the tiger, and win any allies he needed that way.


    He had little choice but to accept it, in any case, if he wanted to save the tiger.


    "Jin, are you sure about this? I am not willing to give my life, whatever I have owed, but I will forgive you if this is too much for you to take on to save me. I will stand my ground and fight, and if my death comes, so be it. It was never your fault."


    "No, I''m sure. Fuck it. What''s the worst that can happen, eh?" he said, with a smile.


    Neither sage nor beast seemed to enjoy the levity.


    "If your mind is made up, then I am willing to proceed. I will need to give you medicine to recover your soul before the elixir can be administered. You''ll need your full resilience to tolerate the process. Come inside, I have something for you to read while the medicine takes its effects," the sage said, inscrutable and professional once more.


    "And the tiger? He can go free? You won''t hunt for him, or think he still owes anybody any life debts?" Jin asked shrewdly, wanting a clear confirmation that his choice really would ensure his companion''s safety.


    "I think it''s clear he does owe a life debt. To you. But no, I have no quarrel with him."


    Jin turned to look at the tiger, whose great head reached almost as high as his own.


    "Don''t worry about owing me anything. I don''t care about that. Just, well, if I ever come into the forest again, don''t treat me as an enemy. OK?"


    The beast nodded silently. There were a lot of things Jin would have liked to have said, but there was no need. This would just be one strange day in the tiger''s life now. He was free to go, and free from the debts of honor Xinya had held over him for two years. The tiger turned and padded back into the dark of the forest, breaking into a run as soon as he passed the first trees, hoping to get a safe distance from the house without encountering any more goblin spirits. He didn''t look back.


    Jin turned back to the sage, who had been waiting, with an impassive expression on his old face.


    "Shall we begin?" Jin said.

 Chapter 10 - The Sage

    Jin followed the sage into the house. He had wondered on his last visit why the man lived in such a small, shabby space, when he was clearly a master of alchemy, and was paid well by anyone who used his services. This place was beyond what most people would call humble. Jin hadn''t been in any other houses than this one and the one he shared with Xinya, but Master Xinya''s house had been far grander (before it blew up), and he had seen in books the kinds of homes the people in the empire''s big cities lived in. Surely the sage could afford a more comfortable life than this?


    There was just one large room, and it was cluttered. There was nowhere to sleep. Jin knew that cultivators at the highest levels of corporeal conditioning and beyond needed very little, perhaps even no sleep at all. He didn''t need much himself, especially since his mind had been reforged. Yet, it seemed sad for a person not to have a bed, even if they only used it as a place to relax and read, or to meditate in a sleeping position.


    There was a stove, but Jin doubted that this was often used for food. There was a thick, cast iron pot on the flames now, in fact, but the strange aroma coming from it certainly didn''t indicate anything edible. There was a wooden table, and four chairs around it. One of those chairs had been the one he had now twice been strapped to. He wondered if it would be the same one tonight.


    Everything else in the room could be best described as miscellaneous, or mysterious. A pair of scales with some strange powder on one side, that somehow wasn''t upsetting the balance despite the other side being empty. A battleax with an obsidian head, and a handle engraved with odd, faintly glowing runes. A leatherbound book thicker than any Jin had seen before, with words on the spine in characters Jin couldn''t read. Jars of... parts of things. Old, tarnished chains that looked to have once been jewelry. Bookshelves and chests were covered in this kind of stuff, and lined the walls. And everything gave off that faint whiff of evil.


    Jin stood in the middle of the room, waiting to be invited to sit.


    This is no good. If I want to get on in the world, now I''m on my own, I have to stop wondering about everything and just ask people the things I need to to get my answers. How will I find out anything, otherwise, now I have no teacher? I may as well start with this old man - I already know it''d take a lot to make him kill me, since he''s supposed to continue this reforging thing for whatever reason... And I already know he''s not as sinister as he seems.


    "Sage, please don''t be offended, but I have questions," he began.


    "No doubt you do. I may have answers, too. I expect you want to know about the Shi clan, and what their struggles have to do with you and your poor master... Sit down, boy - I have something to do here, and then I''ll give you a healing potion for the damage you took in your fight with the goblin spirit. We can discuss these matters while you wait for it to take effect."


    "Oh... thank you. I mean, yes, of course I am more than curious about all of those things, but... before that, please, if you don''t mind, I actually meant I had some questions about you."


    The sage, who was now over by the stove, looking into the pot with his back to Jin, stiffened a little. But he didn''t say anything, so Jin went on.


    "It''s nothing all that important. I mean, you don''t have to tell me anything, do you? But I spend so much time wondering what things mean or why they are the way they are, and, well, I used to just ask my master. Now I either have to ask other people, or never find out anything for sure, I guess, and... well, what I was wondering now is, why don''t you live in a fancy house, somewhere nice? You are so powerful, and you must make a lot of money, so why would you live here in the forest? Is it because you like it?"


    The sage turned around now and looked at Jin with the same scrutinizing gaze he had used when Jin had first suggested using the goblin spirit core, as if he was making a recalculation about something he had previously thought he had figured out. He shook his head quickly, as though clearing his mind of a doubt, and then he spoke in a sincere tone Jin had only heard hints of when he''d been talking about his own soul reforging.


    "You will need to learn the times and places to ask questions that people may find impertinent, Jin. There are men with far higher opinions of themselves than I out there, who will not take your curiosity in the spirit that it''s intended. That said, you''re quite right - seeking out answers is an important habit to get into, especially with the path you''re on... I am not ashamed to answer you this, on this occasion. It is not often anybody asks about what I do and don''t like, these days, after all."


    He almost sounded happy. Jin sat down on one of the wooden chairs - no longer thinking about whether it was the same one he''d sat in six years ago, or six years prior to that - and waited for the old man to carry on.


    "Of course I don''t like it here. Maybe living in a forest full of monsters is pleasant enough if you have the kind of lifestyle that Xinya strove to give you, but living alone like this, well, it is about as you might expect it to be. But I''m not here all the time. I have another place in the Imperial Capitol, where I can enjoy physical luxuries, though, when you get to my age - I''m 284 years old, by the way - the real luxury is just having people around who might surprise you or show you something new. I go there to keep up my connections and sell the things I have created at the auction house, but it is here that I do my work."If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    He stopped working at the stove, and sat down across the table from Jin.


    "The forest serves as both a camouflage, and a deterrent, hiding me from anyone greedy enough to try to steal my resources, and making sure nobody would be foolish enough to stumble upon me by accident. When you do special things, and you have special things, Jin, you are never truly safe. You need to understand that now, because the life you may well have ahead of you will see you being someone with your own things to protect, and with your own jealous rivals. I create pills and potions and elixirs that small clans would go to war over. Things that could give people great power, and which come at great cost. I therefore make myself, and my things, as hard to find as possible. When I am in the city, it is in disguise, and only those who know me best, and those who can be discreet, like the Wong clan who run the auction house, ever know my identity or trade."


    "Is it worth it, though? It sounds like you make a lot of money, but you don''t really have anything you want to spend it on. You know all the most powerful people, but you''re usually alone. Why do you do it?"


    No sooner than he let the words spill out, Jin regretted them. Just because the sage had indulged his first question, that probably didn''t mean he could ask something so much more personal. Asking if someone liked where they lived was on a whole different level to questioning the very purpose of their life''s work. He''d just got caught up in having this insight into the sage''s life, and forgotten what manners Xinya had had time to teach him.


    But the sage didn''t look offended. In fact, he looked thoughtful, as if it was a fair question, and one he was considering his answer to.


    "I don''t just use my alchemy to make things that earn me money, and help other men gain power, Jin. If that were all there were to it, then yes, you''d be right, it probably wouldn''t satisfy me anymore, and I probably would have changed course to a different lifestyle once I didn''t find much need for the wealth, any longer. But, my work, especially the more experimental aspects of it, well, it has enabled me to learn some things that have helped us understand the very nature of ourselves, of cultivation, and of the reality we live in, in ways that nobody before me did. It is an ongoing work, but sometimes, new knowledge comes out of it, and that knowledge can help people. Always at a price, of course, but that is just the way of things in a competitive world, such as ours. And then, well, there have been more than a few times a trusted ally has come to me as a last resort, when they have been subjected to a poison or other deadly attack, and hoped I would be able to save their life. There are means for those I trust to find me even in this forest, and to get here quickly. I will always do my best to treat them. Sometimes, it is a success."


    "That''s what the tiger meant, I guess. He said that the beasts don''t come near this house, because they know it is a place where beasts and humans can suffer and meet their ends. He said that was why there were goblin spirits here. I thought... I thought that meant you hurt people, or even killed them, in the course of making things. But I guess the people who suffer and die... they are those you are trying to help. And the beasts... you have to kill them, like you thought you had to kill the tiger, so you can use their cores to help people."


    "I am not a wholly good man, Jin. Sometimes I have to make choices where not everybody wins. And, yes, sometimes I need resources for one act that will benefit one person, that costs the life of something else. Sometimes I do, regrettably, even need parts of human cultivators. But this is part of the agreement that anyone who gains the access to come here in an emergency makes with me. If I fail to save them, their remains are... well, I don''t think I need to be so crass as to say it out loud. But it is as a result of this that I can perform certain alchemies that would normally be taboo, without having to kill humans. It is a balance I have made peace with."


    Jin didn''t really know what to say to that, but he found himself respecting the sage a lot more than he would have expected before today, when he had only the memory of the scary old man. He sat in thought, contemplating what the life of the sage was like, as the man tapped the ring on his finger - an Interspatial Ring like the one Jin had inherited from Xinya - and produced a pill.


    "I will have to charge you for this - Soul''s Haven pills are very rare, and expensive to make - but it will bring your soul back up to its current full strength in an hour. You''ll need it before we can do the reforging, and without medicine, it can take months to fully recover from a soul attack, especially the first time you experience one."


    He handed the pill to Jin. It was a small, golden capsule. He hadn''t questioned whether Jin could afford it - he already knew he had all of Xinya''s cubic crystals, and it seemed he knew Xinya would be good for it.


    "How much? I am sure Master Xinya would have no problems with me spending her money in this way."


    "20 cubic crystals. But, well, it''s not really Xinya''s money - that''s part of what you''ll need to learn now. You have had another benefactor your whole life, and the cost of all of the things you have had, including your reforgings with me, and all of your pills, well, the money went through Xinya, but was never actually hers."


    "What exactly are you telling me?"


    "Your master left a letter in my care to give to you in the event that she wasn''t with you when you came for your soul reforging. It seems she put rather a lot of plans into place for that eventuality, doesn''t it? It is sealed, so I don''t know exactly what it says, but I expect it covers the parts I do know, at the very least. Maybe it''s best if you read it now, once you''ve taken the pill. It will probably suit you better to learn your heritage from her, than from me."

 Chapter 11 - The Heir Who Died

    Jin had almost gotten used to the fatigued, faint feeling that was the aftermath of the soul attack, and so when the Soul''s Haven pill gave him an instant lift in his wellbeing, before proceeding to gradually bring him back to full strength, he realized once again just how much damage that tiny burst of soul violence had done to him. He sat for a moment with his eyes closed, enjoying what could only be described as a feeling of comfort, and powerful relief, in awe at just what masters - or creatures - who could use their souls that way could do. Hopefully, after his own soul had been reforged, he would never be such an easy victim of soul violence again, and may soon be on the path to wielding it himself.


    He opened his eyes, and saw that the sage was back to working at the stove. The thing in the pot must be what would become the elixir. But the sage had taken the letter he spoke of out of his Interspatial Ring, and left it on the table in front of Jin.


    Just as he''d said, there was a seal - unbroken. Not that it would have been hard for a master alchemist to make a letter look unread, if he had wanted to. Jin trusted that he hadn''t read it, however - the sage already seemed to know a lot of the things Master Xinya had kept from him, and didn''t seem all that invested in whatever was happening, beyond his contractual obligations to perform Jin''s reforging.


    He took a deep breath before breaking the seal. It was an oddly auspicious feeling. These would not only be the words that would answer all of his questions about this strange day''s events, but also probably the last words Master Xinya had planned for him to ever hear from her. She''d been with him his whole life. He knew most people had mothers and fathers, rather than masters, and siblings to practice with rather than criminal men and captive forest beasts, but he''d never really thought his own life peculiar. She''d given him everything he needed, and taught him everything he was ready for. Now life would be different, and he hoped there would be something in her letter to help him know what he was supposed to do.


    Dear Jin,


    If you are reading this, it is because you have made it to the home of the sage Jiang Deng, and I am dead, or captured. I do not intend to be captured, so I apologize if you had to witness my death.


    If my suspicions about the way things are going are correct, I will have died fighting people from the Shi clan, though of course, it could just as easily be because I tried to punch a cyan dragon. I will continue as though my assumption about the Shi clan is correct, however, because you need to know about them anyway, now you are of age.


    Some time ago, perhaps a decade after I left Boundless Sun Sect in search of a breakthrough to take me to the next level of energy mastery, I worked with a mercenary guild of cultivators for a while. As part of a contract, I became embroiled in a plot to overthrow a man named Wuying Shi. He was (perhaps still is, though I doubt it if you''re reading this) head of the Shi clan, one of the most powerful clans in Dragon Valley. I was supposed to spy on him, but strangely, we became friends. He offered me a role teaching martial arts to the children of the clan. However, when it was uncovered that I was originally sent to him as a spy, Wuying Shi would normally have executed me. But, whether it was because he liked me, or because he felt that to kill a master at my level, who was only acting for money and experience rather than being a true political threat, was a waste, he offered me an alternative. He asked me to help him forge a weapon.


    At this time, the process of forging bodies and minds was one that only a few people had ever done, but it intrigued Wuying Shi. He could just about afford to have it done himself, but instead, he had a grander idea. He wondered if, if the process, taking 12 years, was done on a child - an heir - and that person was also trained rigorously by a master, with no other distractions, they might become someone more powerful than the world had ever seen. He wanted to create a person like that, and have them in allegiance to himself, and the Shi clan.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Wuying Shi was expecting a baby. His fourth child. One that would not be the immediate heir, and would not be noticed or celebrated as much as his first son, his second son, or even his daughter had been. The Shi clan mourned when the baby didn''t survive, but only for the sadness it must have caused Wuying''s direct family. There were already heirs, and so the loss of one son would not harm the clan''s future.


    Of course, that baby didn''t die at all. The baby, Jin Shi, was the one chosen for Wuying''s grand experiment. You were given to me, along with a long list of instructions, a plot of land in the forest, and a pile of resources in the form of pills and cubic crystals, and books containing cultivation techniques - almost all of the most important treasures of Wuying''s lineage.


    In more recent times, I have heard whisperings of unrest. I believe Bao Shi, the younger brother of Wuying Shi, has become concerned that the clan is stagnating under Wuying''s leadership. He is not aware that all of Wuying''s plans rest on you and I, and all of his resources have been spent on that pursuit, so a period of stagnation while you grew up was inevitable. Bao Shi is a ruthless man (my polite way of saying he is a complete bastard - though I suppose I can say what I want if I''m dead), and I suspect that he may ultimately decide that Wuying is unfit to lead, and make a bid to depose him.


    Because you are reading this, it is likely that that is what has happened.


    Now, you''re probably thinking, ''amazing! So I am actually a noble young master?''


    Well, no, it''s not as grand as all of that. I intentionally didn''t teach you about the clans and politics of the empire, particularly, because I wanted you to be able to make up your own mind about who you - this powerful new type of person - thought was worthy of your help. But the Shi clan, your clan, is not a noble, storied or powerful clan, at least, not in the grand scheme of the empire. In Dragon Valley they were strong, and growing in power when you were born, and Wuying was ambitious for more, but the name Shi won''t entitle you to much when you reach the Capital. And you should reach the Capital as your next destination. It was always my plan that once you were 18 and had finished your reforging, you would join Boundless Sun Sect and continue your training there. Among my belongings, which I hope I was able to give to you before I died, you will find the book for the cultivation technique Transcendent Fist. You are not ready to study it yet, but if you open it up, you''ll find another letter from me, along with a token that will help you when you reach Boundless Sun Sect.


    You may be keen to take vengeance on Bao Shi as Wuying would have wanted his son to do, but your skills aren''t ready yet. In any case, I never wanted you to feel like you actually had to do anything for the Shi clan if you didn''t want to. I would never say this while both Wuying and I were alive, of course, but now, well, what does it matter? It seems to me that you were gifted with all of this potential, but how you decide to use it, and for whom, is not for anyone else to dictate. Though, I won''t shed any tears in the afterlife if you do kill Bao someday - just saying.


    My point is, whatever you want to do, you need to grow first, and Boundless Sun Sect will be the easiest place to do that.


    Jiang Deng will be able to find a way to help you out of the forest, and show you how to get to the Imperial Capital. Give him whatever he asks for in terms of payment - he is not greedy, and can be trusted to only ask what is fair.


    Now all that remains, until you find a quiet place to read my next letter, is to say thank you for being such a good disciple, and to wish you all the strength you will need for the times ahead - including, I presume, the times immediately ahead, with the soul reforging. I am sorry I didn''t get to see what kind of man you will become, but I have every faith that you will change this world forever, if fate is on your side.


    Love always,


    Xinya


    He read over the words three times, making sure he understood it, feeling slightly less like he was about to cry with each pass.


    "Jiang Deng," he said, using the sage''s name for the first time, as he hadn''t known what it was before, "when we are done here, I would like to buy that bolthoof horse you have outside."


    The sage turned from his stove with an understanding smile.


    "Buy it? I see no reason for you to have to pay me for the horse I caught. It is, after all, wearing the livery of your clan, young master."

 Chapter 12 - To Put Form to Voice

    In some hidden world inside of Jin, a battle was raging.


    For anyone looking at him from the outside, the boy appeared to be in an unpleasant trance, with eyes rolled back in his head, a veneer of sweat glazing his forehead, and the occasional twitching of a limb. But since the only person looking at him from the outside was the sage who had put him into this condition with his soul reforging elixir, it didn''t serve to unsettle him. Jiang Deng knew there was nothing he could do to help Jin now, and so he made himself some tea, and sat, and waited, reading a book to pass the time. The shortest spell he''d seen a person spend in this state had been two hours, so he wouldn''t know the results of the procedure for some time. He found himself hoping the boy came out of this as something truly remarkable, not just for his own professional satisfaction, but because there was something about Jin that was just plain surprising. At Jiang Deng''s age, people had stopped seeming unique with any frequency generations ago.


    ***


    I don''t know where... no, I don''t know what I am.


    Jin''s experience of the soul reforging elixir had placed him in some other plane. All around him was fire - furious, red hot flames that roared and towered, spewing burning embers the size of beetles, but he wasn''t sure what exactly it was of himself that they were burning. He knew who he was - not in the sense of being Jin Shi, none of that really seemed important here - but in the sense of being the same consciousness he had always been. But he didn''t seem to be a body. Something was hurting, something was being seared and tortured in the flames, but it wasn''t flesh. The part of him that was a human man on the cusp of 18 wasn''t here. He wasn''t sure if he was glad it was being kept safe somewhere else, or if he missed it terribly. A man who had raised himself to the throat-chakra level of the corporeal conditioning stage, especially one who had had his body reforged, understood his physical form well, cared for it, and trusted it as his greatest weapon. Stripped of it, a man like that was defenseless.


    Is this a glimpse of hell? Am I visiting some world of fire and pain just to return from it stronger? Is that how this works?


    "Hell?" a voice roared with laughter, "you really do want to become a god, if you fancy there is a hell inside you."


    "You! You spoke to me before! Do you understand all of this?"


    The voice was the same one he''d heard in his previous reforgings, and when the goblin spirit had attacked him. Somehow Jin knew that if he tried, now, he would be able to see the speaker. As soon as this idea had struck him, a magnificent dragon rose up in front of him, so gigantic that if Jin was certain of his own size here - which he wasn''t - he''d have likened it to one of the tall spruce trees surrounding his old home. It was aflame, perhaps it was even made of flame - the intensity of the fire made it hard to tell - but it had clear form, with wings and clawed legs and a long snout.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "I understand that this will give us power, and I understand that you have to endure it. It feels good. Think about it. Doesn''t it feel good?"


    Why the fuck am I talking to a dragon and why the fuck is the dragon such a masochist? This doesn''t feel good at all! It feels like I could turn to ash and blow away in the drafts from the flames.


    "I don''t like it. How long will I have to stay here? Are you supposed to teach me something?"


    "What could I teach you? I only know what you know. Perhaps a little more about what you can do..."


    "Who are you? I don''t understand any of this!"


    "I''m another piece of you. The piece that you''re always trying to connect with. You''ll get there easier if you enjoy the flames."


    The piece that I''m always trying to connect with... does that mean the dragon is something to do with my life energy? Is he what I''ll be able to control and use, like Xinya''s blue light? Is this the character of my future power? Fire, and dragon force?


    "Does... everyone have a dragon inside them?"


    "How should I know? I don''t know anything you don''t know. Come now, we have to embrace this together."


    The fire was getting fiercer. Jin felt like whatever he was was struggling to hold itself together, like every piece of his being was being fed too much energy, and wanted to shoot apart. There was heat, there was a strange, fizzing vibration in him at a frequency that was alien to him. But the dragon was opening up his wings and stretching up his neck as if in a moment of euphoria.


    Somehow, Jin got the crazy idea, perhaps from the word ''embrace'', that he was supposed to hug the dragon. That it might wrap its burning wings around him and shield him from the onslaught. It made no sense - the dragon was aflame, so it could offer no refuge - but he did it anyway, moving through the fire to reach it and attaching whatever he was to the dragon''s body. The dragon''s wings indeed did close around him, pressing against him, burning, always burning. It roared, and roared again, sending out its own flames - white ones now, and adding to the unbearable blaze.


    Endure it. Endure it.


    He repeated this, and only this, for what seemed like an eternity, held close to the dragon that dwelled within his soul, as both of them burned together.


    After a lifetime of this, a jolt made him aware of his body again. The jolt felt a lot like a bucket of icy water being thrown over him, followed by the hiss of rising steam. His vision changed, and he saw Jiang Deng, with an empty pail in his hands, and an impressed look on his wrinkled face.


    "Jin... Jin, are you alright? You started to come round... it raises the temperature of the body very quickly, you see, as the consciousness begins to experience both the soul forge and the normal world at once, so I had to cool you with water. I have never seen the like of it though... how did you complete the soul reforging in only 15 minutes?"

 Chapter 13 - Gold on Four Legs

    Jin had learned how to ride horses before, using animals that came along with the prisoners he was given to train with. Prisoners, however, were not usually transported on the back of the Shi clan''s precious bolthoofs, and so Jin had never experienced the kind of speed and power he was experiencing now, as the golden horse dashed through the forest, leaving the sage''s house far behind.


    Jiang Deng had offered to let Jin rest at his house while he recovered from the soul reforging, but the truth was, Jin really didn''t feel like he needed it. Just like with the body and mind reforging, once he had fully awakened to normal reality again, he''d felt better than ever. He didn''t feel the same obvious changes he''d had those times. When his body had been reforged, he''d noticed right away how much stronger, harder and more resilient he was, and when his mind had been reforged, he''d instantly been aware that his intellect could glean more information from his senses than it could before. Then there had been the improvements he had noticed while living as his reforged self for a while, such as having almost impossibly quick reflexes, and a sharper memory. With his soul, however, he didn''t awaken feeling like he''d been upgraded in some way that could be clearly quantified. Instead, he just felt more at peace with things, and as though he had a new, strange trust that he could call upon the dragon, whatever it was, and that he''d know when the time was right to do so. Soul violence didn''t frighten him anymore. How could he be afraid of some malevolent little goblin attacking his soul, when he knew the fire and the dragon were inside, burning with limitless power and strength? He was sure that the next time he encountered a creature like that, things would be different.


    Seeing as he felt no need to stay, he''d asked Jiang for the information he needed to ride to the Imperial Capital, paid him, and left on the bolthoof horse. He had come to like the sage, but he knew that the journey he needed to go on was vast in scope, and the idea of resting in the forest when he could be pressing ahead to whatever awaited him at the Boundless Sun sect felt wrong. He hoped he would meet the sage again, in fact, he hoped that one day, he would be able to count himself among the trusted people who could go to Jiang Deng in a life or death emergency. Still, he felt it inappropriate to ask for such a privilege now, and decided it was probably one of those things that had to be offered, rather than requested.


    The sun was beginning to rise by the time he''d set off, and so it was in the chill, dim spring dawn that he experienced what would be his last moments in the forest where he''d spent his whole life. The beasts were of no real concern while he was riding the bolthoof - there was no creature so fast in this region, and the smaller insects, snakes and birds that may have been able to harm him by latching onto him or the horse all fled from the sound of its thundering hoofbeats.


    He couldn''t help but smile to himself as the trees began to thin out, and he realized he''d soon be seeing what some other landscape looked like. It had been the most eventful day and night of his life, and he had lost so much, but he couldn''t help but feel inspired by the idea that his real life was just beginning, that childhood was over, that having someone else deciding what he learned and where he could travel was over. He would mourn for his master for years, but this moment was not about her death, but about his rebirth.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    It had taken less than an hour to cover what Jiang Deng''s map had said was over 100 miles of forest, and the sun was low in the sky when the trees finished, and Jin was able to see for the first time that the Dragon Valley region was indeed between two vast mountain ranges. The mountains had been there forever, in the distance, and yet, he''d never seen them before, the trees of the forest creating a barrier between the world he knew and the world that was really there. It almost took his breath away to see them reaching up, their peaks shrouded in the misty haze of a clear morning. He didn''t think he''d ever seen so much light before, either. The clearing he''d lived in with Xinya was big enough to grant him a patch of blue, or gray, or black to look up at, but he''d never been surrounded by unimpeded daylight like this before. The sun had barely even risen, and he wondered just what it was going to be like to be out here in the middle of the day, with all this light and space.


    The horse was still running at its fastest, and yet even at this speed the mountains were so big, and so dominant on either side of him that he had the chance to look at them clearly as he flew onward. Jiang had said that the horse would be able to keep up this speed for two hours, before needing a rest and some food, and he''d helped him find a town on the map at around the right distance where he''d be able to arrange for both. No idea appealed to Jin more than that of another hour of this exhilarating ride through these beautiful new surroundings.


    But suddenly, something was wrong with the horse. It was as though her hooves had snagged on something for a moment, a sensation like something snapping as she passed. Then, a terrifying, loud noise, an explosion of some kind, and Jin found himself hanging on carefully while she reared up in panic, spooked by the sound. They were surrounded by a thick, gray smoke that was hard to breathe in - Jin''s slow breathing meant that this wasn''t a problem for him, but the bolthoof was panicking even more, bucking wildly and making frightened sounds. Jin was only lucky that his unusual agility and strength meant that it wasn''t too much of a struggle to stay in the saddle.


    Something was pressing against his body in places now, and he realized that a kind of net had been thrown over him and his horse. There were men talking animatedly with an accent he had never heard before, and he focused to be able to hear them over the horse''s frenzied whinnies.


    "Told you it was worth hanging around to see if there were any more of them! It''s not every day big bags of gold on four legs just come running out of the forest!" one man said.


    "The trap worked great, poor beast''s going crazy though!"


    "Wait for the smoke to clear, it''ll soon calm down, especially when we show it its friends."


    "I''m keeping this one. It was my idea to stay behind to see if another came, and I''ve taken a shine to them now I''ve seen them properly. We''ll make enough off the other four - this one''s mine."


    "Er, guys... this one... seems it''s actually got a rider on it."


    It did. And the rider did not look happy.

 Chapter 14 - A Horse With No Name

    As the smoke cleared, Jin could see the group of men who were talking. There were six of them, and they looked just a little older than he was - perhaps in their mid-twenties. If they were cultivators, it would be possible that they were far older, and retained their youthful looks due to the refinement of their bodies, like Master Xinya, who had been, to the best of Jin''s knowledge, in her sixties, but looked no older than the young prisoners Jin was sent to train with. There was nothing to suggest that these people were cultivators, however. They weren''t wearing the robes Jin had come to associate with the cultivation world, or the armor of clan soldiers, but were dressed in clothing Jin had only seen in books - the clothing worn by merchants or other ordinary people, who were almost never cultivators. They had weapons, too, three of them had old looking machetes, one had a bow on his back, and the other two had swords, but they were regular, distinctly non-magical weapons. The kind Jin had used for training when he was first practicing a new skill, because they weren''t fit to harm his reforged body.


    "Let us pass and I won''t hurt you," Jin said, as his horse continued to buck under him.


    If the men were in any way confused at how Jin was managing to stay calm and in a good riding posture while the bolthoof moved like this, they didn''t show it, though it should have been an early sign for them that this was no ordinary young man.


    "Ha! Why would we do that! There have been free bolthoof horses coming out of that forest all night, and we went to a lot of trouble to catch some. Seems you did the same, but that horse isn''t rightfully yours any more than it is ours. There are more of us, so we''ll be taking it from you," said one of the men with the swords.


    "The livery on this horse shows that it belongs to the Shi clan. That means it belongs to me. You can keep the others, as long as you treat them well, because I only need this one, but once again, if you continue to hold me up on my journey I will have to use force..."


    "What are you to the Shi clan? A servant? Some distant cousin of the direct line they send out on a horse to run their errands? They won''t miss you. Seems to me something went on in the forest that took out a lot of Shi clan men, and if you really are one of them, well, you should just be happy you kept your life, rather than trying to get yourself killed over a horse," one of the men with the machetes replied, his hand on his weapon''s handle.


    Jin realized he wasn''t going to get anywhere with these men. He was only trying to reason with them for their own safety. He could understand perfectly well why some young men who didn''t have bolthoof horses would want to catch the animals, and he didn''t really care about Shi clan property going to somebody else. He certainly wasn''t used to thinking of himself as being connected with the clan yet, although he was more than ready to accept he had a right to this horse. It was probably better for the other horses to have someone take care of them, than for them to just run around wild. They were domesticated, and wouldn''t know how to find food themselves. Plus, despite their incredible speed, they got tired quickly, and could easily become prey to stronger beasts. If some enterprising people caught them and sold them to people who''d use them well, then Jin didn''t care. But this horse was his, and rightfully so, and he needed it to get to the Boundless Sun sect, so he''d have no choice but to fight to keep it. And he knew that even against six armed men, the strength and training he had would mean that they would pay dearly for insisting on engaging him.


    It was with no real joy then, that he whipped his feet up out of the stirrups and landed two sharp kicks to the faces of the men on either side of his horse - two of the machete wielders, who hadn''t spoken yet - before jumping up acrobatically to stand on top of the horse''s saddle, still having no difficulty with balance despite the animal''s continued, agitated movement.


    The impact of Jin''s hard feet, combined with the impressive precision of the kicks, in spite of the position he''d been in when he struck and the fact he''d kicked with both legs at once, sent the two men shooting back to fall to the ground with angry, pained groans. They clutched their faces, unable to speak, as blood ran from the sides of their mouths. Their jaws were shattered.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "I didn''t want to do that, but I really need to keep my horse. You should be able to heal those two guys. Now, will you please just let me pass?"


    The man with the bow backed away, though it was hard to say whether he was retreating, or just trying to get into better range to shoot at Jin. Jin didn''t care - his body was, after all, as hard as a sword, and his reflexes were impeccable. He could dodge an arrow, or he could withstand one hitting him, if there was nothing magical about it and it came from a regular man like this. The two men with the swords and the machete wielder who had argued with Jin, however, remained where they were - just out of reach of a kick.


    Why won''t they give up? Is it honestly worth injuries of this kind just to save face? They must see they have no hope of beating me, and if they''re not cultivators, they probably don''t have access to the kind of healing pills I get to use when I''m wounded. A broken bone for these men would take months to heal without pills or cultivation techniques... Why won''t they just fuck off and let me pass?


    "You bastard! That was just a lucky shot. Now we''re going to make you pay. How about if I wound your horse? Then you''ll have no choice but to stay here and take your punishment. It''ll take me a while to get her back to full health once you''re dead, but since she''s going to be my horse anyway, seems like I can do what I like to her."


    The man drew his machete and moved as though he was going to slash at the horse''s flank. Rage flared up inside Jin - a mixture of anger that this person would sooner hurt the horse he wanted than admit defeat, and frustration that these people were too stupid to understand that they were outmatched. Kicking two of his group into submission hadn''t worked, and he could not allow his horse to be wounded.


    Not being cultivators, the men didn''t really perceive the furious intent coming from Jin now, seeing it only as the anger of a threatened man. But in a fraction of a second, Jin had tapped the Interspatial Ring and taken into his hands the butterfly swords. An ordinary man was nothing against the slicing power of a magical tier weapon, wielded by a cultivator high in the levels of corporeal conditioning, especially when that cultivator was Jin, who had been reforged in body, mind and soul, and was effectively a living weapon himself. The sword in Jin''s right hand came down on top of the man''s head as he moved closer to hack with his machete, and it cut through his skull like it was made of butter.


    The other two men close to the horse recoiled in horror, and the smell of the blood made the bolthoof even more agitated.


    Jin had killed someone for the first time. He regretted that the man had left him with no better choice, but besides that, he felt no guilt. If he''d only wounded him, the others would have kept coming - it was clear that these people were not smart, and were too proud to back down, no matter how many of their friends they saw badly beaten. Killing one of them was the fastest way to end this, and avoid his horse sustaining damage.


    The two men backed away, and with the help of the man with the bow, they helped up the other two with the broken jaws. Jin watched coldly as they left, leaving the body of their comrade at the feet of his horse. The group disappeared behind some rocks, and shortly after, four bolthoof horses raced from the area there. Presumably the men were riding them in some configuration, but Jin didn''t care, he just hoped it would be the last he saw of them.


    He got off of the horse for a moment, ignoring the dead body, and tried to soothe her a little. It had been a frightening experience for her, and he wanted her to be calm before they set off again. Besides, if he took some time here, at least he''d be less likely to catch up with the other men again somewhere along the road. Realizing she was bothered by the smell of the man''s pooling blood, he lead her by the reins for a little while, at a normal, human walking pace. Soon, there was a small lake, off to the left of the road, and he decided to lead her there and see if she wanted to drink. He thought it might be a good opportunity to rest quietly himself, too, and decided that he might even like to bathe in the lake, to feel cleaner, and to experience what a lake felt like for the first time.


    But as he drew closer, he realized that he wasn''t the only person around, or the only one who had had the idea that this lake might be a good place to relax.

 Chapter 15 - A More Pleasant Stranger

    As Jin realized that there was a young woman, alone in the water, presumably bathing, just as he had planned to do, he knew at once that he really shouldn''t be watching. Jin hadn''t really had all that much exposure to women other than Xinya before, and while he had certainly learned enough from books about the differences between the sexes, and was definitely, definitely sure he''d like to learn a lot more about girls in a practical sense, it actually made him nervous to come across one in the wild like this.


    His master had been a woman, of course, and she had done her best to instill in him some idea of the etiquette surrounding how men should treat women if they didn''t want to offend, but because he''d never really seen such interactions in person, all her lessons had  achieved was making him feel like any normal interaction with a girl he didn''t know would amount to some kind of terrifying test, where he could very easily say or do something wrong, and earn the ire of her whole clan. Master Xinya had told him very clearly that she was an exception, that she was treated as a kung fu master first, and a woman second, so the way that men behaved around her was not typical. She had told him too that in the cultivation world, men greatly outnumbered women, and that at the Boundless Sun sect where she had once trained, there were twenty different schools of men, and only one of women. Women who dedicated themselves to cultivation were usually those who had shown exceptional talent - enough for their clans to feel it was worth investing resources into them - whereas most males of only reasonable talent from important lineages within respectable clans would be expected to study and value martial arts. The result of this was that more men than women ended up meeting the criteria to join sects. With that in mind, most women he''d meet outside of the sect''s lands would be ordinary people - either people he should be willing to protect, or people who were already being protected, often by those who would be ready to fight him if he made any errors in his behavior.


    He knew for sure that being caught looking at this woman while she was bathing (perhaps naked - that was how Jin had been planning to bathe, after all, and he didn''t see why anyone else would do it differently - even if the idea that that was probably the case just made him want to look more), would definitely be considered one of those breaches in etiquette. He didn''t want anyone who may be around, hidden out of sight, guarding her, to think he was doing that, but more, he didn''t want her to think that. He didn''t want his first encounter with a woman he didn''t know to be one that ended in embarrassment. So, he hid behind a tree. Surely she couldn''t take that long, and he could just wait until she was gone. Although, the more he thought about it, he didn''t really want to waste this chance to talk to someone out here - or to talk to a girl. His last encounter with people from outside the forest had resulted in him killing someone, and that had left quite an unpleasant taste in his mouth. What better way to cleanse his palate and restore his faith that there were good people out here than to talk to a pleasant, gentle girl?


    He made up his mind to listen carefully from behind the tree, using his powerful sensory skills to detect when he heard the rustle of clothing being put on, and then come out and try to have some kind of normal, peaceful greeting with the girl.


    He didn''t get the chance, however.


    As soon as the sound of a person emerging from the water and dressing had told him that it was probably safe to emerge nonchalantly and say hello, he heard a charming, lilting voice ring out.


    "Oh! Aren''t you just the most beautiful horse! Whose horse are you?"


    For a moment Jin wondered if she had mistaken the bolthoof horse for a high level magical beast who could talk, but then he realized that most ordinary people - or so he''d been told - probably weren''t aware that such creatures even existed. The question, aimed at the horse, was really just the girl asking in a non-threatening way for its owner to show themselves.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Jin stepped out awkwardly, knowing it would look really obvious that he had been hiding behind the tree.


    "I''m so sorry. I was planning to bathe in the lake, and to give my horse a rest here, but when I noticed someone was in there I just waited behind here. I only saw your head above the water!" he said.


    The girl laughed, and it had the pleasant timbre of tiny bells. Jin knew he had been forgiven, if he had indeed ever been suspected of anything. He relaxed a little.


    "Don''t worry. I''m actually not supposed to be out here enjoying the lake, so if you can keep it a secret that I was, then I will not ask too many questions about why you were behind a tree! Your horse is so beautiful! I have never seen one like her before. What''s her name?"


    "She''s a bolthoof. The fastest animal on the continent, so I''ve heard. They come from here in Dragon Valley, but they''re hard to catch and tame, so not many people breed them," he said, reciting his knowledge of bolthoof horses, happy the conversation hadn''t remained weird.


    "Oh, no, I know she''s a bolthoof - the color of them is legendary, so I knew as soon as I saw her - I meant what is this particular horse''s name?"


    Jin had just murdered a man and maimed two others for this horse, but it hadn''t actually crossed his mind to name her. Maybe she''d had a name before, when she belonged to the Shi clan, but... Did animals normally have names? Maybe the tiger had a name, and was offended that Jin had never asked what it was. He hadn''t thought of it. He''d only just found out his own family name. Such things hadn''t seemed important when he lived in the forest.


    "I haven''t named her yet. I haven''t had her for long. What do you think would be a good name for her?"


    "Oh! I really couldn''t name your horse! She''s so special and valuable, you must want to choose yourself!"


    "I think she''d be happy to have a lady name her, actually, you''ll probably come up with something much better than me."


    The girl looked thoughtful, her long hair beginning to dry in the sunshine and blow across her face in the light breeze. Jin tried to ignore how pretty she was and concentrate on the normal conversation he was finally having with a girl who (on appearances at least) was close to his own age.


    "I don''t know. What is she like? Is she brave and steadfast, like a noble warrior''s loyal steed?" she asked.


    "I wouldn''t say that. A while ago when I was close to the forest, some men tried to steal her, and they caused an explosion to frighten her. It certainly seemed to work..."


    "Oh, how awful! Poor girl. But you defended her?"


    "Yes. I... fought them off. I''m a martial artist, you see. My horse is taking me to the Boundless Sun sect, I''m supposed to go there to train."


    Her eyes widened as though impressed.


    "Oh! Then you must come and meet my brother! He is going to try the entrance test for the sect this month, too! Come, you can come to my family''s home. We can take care of your horse and think of a name for her there. My father is the head of the Xiao clan, and he''ll be happy to show you hospitality if I ask him to. It would be so nice for my brother to know somebody else when he goes for the entrance test - he has been ever so worried about it!"


    Jin could see no reason not to take her up on the offer. He hadn''t, in fact, been aware that one had to pass an entrance test to be able to join the Boundless Sun sect, or that there were only opportunities for new people to take the test once a month, and it sounded like there was time to spare between now and the next exam. He did wonder why the girl had been so willing to invite him without asking what clan he was from, but then he remembered that his horse still bore Shi clan livery, and so whoever the Xiao clan were, they were not, presumably, a clan who had any interest in the Shi clan. Owning the horse and being a cultivator headed for the sect was enough to tell her that he wasn''t a brigand or anything else dangerous, and Dragon Valley had countless clans. Unless it was an enemy, an ally, or one of the top noble clans, it wasn''t likely that a name would mean much.


    "Just remember, when you meet my dad, don''t tell him I was relaxing here instead of training..."


    "Of course! So, would you like to ride my horse? I''m sure she can easily carry us both."


    The girl nodded in obvious delight.