Chương 19: Chapter 17 - Pathfinder
They talked for hours. Ao Wen didn't leave anything out. She talked about the Dragon blood and Phoenix flames. She talked about Teacher Xie and how he was both strict and kind, and how she learned about a lot more than just the saber. The more she talked, the more at ease she felt. It felt less like a part of someone else's life and more like something she had done herself.
Eventually, she finished both the story and the pair of wooden long sabers. As weapons went, perhaps a skilled Artist would have been able to do something with the lightning energy that clung to the Thundercloud Plum wood, but Ao Wen wasn't a skilled Artist and she had no use for the lightning energy. The sabers were simple with only a smoothed bulge to mark the transition from hilt to blade. On the hilt of one, she used a small chisel to inscribe the word 'Practice,' on the other she inscribed the word 'Pathfinder.'
"So why two of them? Was the first one practice to make a better one?" Feng Xi asked.
"It depends what happens. Best case, I'll destroy the one named Pathfinder within a few hours. Teacher Xie might be able to execute full force techniques with a wooden sword without destroying it in a process but I've never done it. The one named 'Practice' is for normal practice after today," Ao Wen answered. "Honestly… I wasn't sure when I started if I would need the second one. I didn't know if I was brave enough to pick up a saber to begin with. Talking to you really helped though. I feel more like 'me', and I'm less afraid of making a saber a part of my life."
"Less afraid?" Feng Xi teased. "What are you still afraid of?"
"Getting hurt," Ao Wen said honestly. "Dying. I might have "won" against the coyotes that time, but they clawed up my legs, my arms, my back, my stomach… I was lucky they didn't spill my innards all over the ground! And when I collapsed, there might still have been more of them out there. It was barely something that could be considered a victory. I kinda wish I could hear what Teacher Xie said afterwards. I'm sure he had some choice words. The whole thing was my plan too. I have a hunch it wasn't a good plan, but Teacher Xie let us do it anyway to learn a lesson."
"Sounds like a painful way to learn," Feng Xi said. "And you like this guy?"
"Like isn't the right word," she answered, putting away tools and cleaning up to leave the workshop. "Respect for sure. Maybe even admire a bit. Fear a little bit too. He's not like the teachers we've learned writing and sums from here. He was harsh, demanding, but after that fight… compared to real beasts, he was gentle as a kitten!"
Feng Xi shuddered, her mind picturing a dominating battle scarred man and towering world ending beasts. "Well, I'm glad you got to learn the lesson without the scars," she said. "Wait, you said you wanted to go to the Thundercloud Forest… you're not going to hunt beasts yourself are you?"
"With a pair of wooden swords? No way!" Ao Wen laughed. "I'm just looking to get away from people for a little while to practice. I want to see if I can actually use my energy the way I learned or if it's different. Jun Biyu was human. I don't know how things will work since I'm not."
"Okay," Feng Xi said. "I'll bring my zither then. The edges of the Thundercloud forest are generally safe but this time of year, many creatures are migrating or trying to gather for the winter and some predators may range closer to town than usual. A little music can keep unwanted disturbances away."
Outside the workshop, morning had given way to a brisk afternoon with clear skies and multicolored leaves blowing across the street. As they walked across town, several people hurried out of their way, bowing as they passed. Moments after their passage, whispers began to fill the air about the mysterious "Fairy Ao."
In the Thundercloud Forest, Feng Xi led the way to a small stream surrounded by brightly colored trees. "When I think of a romantic confession," Feng Xi said, "I think of somewhere like this. Away from the bustle, surrounded by nature's beauty."
"I'll remember that," Ao Wen said with a smile. She almost asked if Feng Xi brought her here to confess back, but at the last moment, she held her tongue. Her feelings were out there. Feng Xi hadn't run away. It was enough.
Stepping into a clear area next to the stream, Ao Wen closed her eyes and for the first time since waking from the dream, tried to channel her martial energy the way she had learned from Teacher Xie. At first, things moved smoothly, but quickly pain surged in her lower dantian, energy roiling fiercely with nowhere to go.
Dropping to her knees, she coughed fiercely before spitting out a mouthful of blood. "I'm okay," she said, gesturing for Feng Xi to stay where she sat with her zither. "I can do this."
This time, Ao Wen placed Pathfinder beside her and sat down with her legs crossed. Instead of trying to channel her martial energy, she just tried to feel it. As Jun Biyu, she'd learned how to sharpen her focus, cleaving her way to the power within and to draw forth every available drop of her energy, letting it flow through her body in a heightened state. The lower dantian was both a repository and the source of the body's energy. For Jun Biyu and her fellow students, improving meant expanding the amount of energy the dantian could hold, improving the efficiency with which they used limited energy and increasing their control of that energy. There was never enough energy and it had to be carefully rationed.
When Ao Wen sensed the energy within her lower dantian, it felt vast, as though there was a sea of energy where Jun Biyu possessed a small lake. "It's backwards," she thought. "Jun Biyu had so little to work with, she had to forcefully pull out all of it every time. No wonder I choked myself!"
Pulling ever so gently on her body's energy, Ao Wen followed its flow through her meridians as she completed a cycle the way Jun Biyu would have. Pain accompanied her energy, like pulling coarse sand through her veins. "Not even this much?" She wondered. "Is the flow wrong? No," she thought, subjecting herself to more grating pain as she completed another cycle. "My meridians are too weak. It really is backwards." Jun Biyu had too little energy and not enough space to store it… she never strained her meridians because she never had enough energy to exceed their capability. Ao Wen, on the other hand, had fierce earthly energy to spare, but if she drew too much of it, her meridians would burst or worse.
"Can I even use it like this?" She asked herself. Standing again, she picked up Pathfinder and began the first set of practice movements she'd learned, drawing as lightly as she could on her martial energy. Soon, a soft bronze glow enveloped her body and the wooden saber. The flow was uncomfortable, but it felt more like straining muscles than tearing flesh. Compared to a day beneath the desert sun, it still wasn't that bad.
Sitting beneath a silver leaf maple tree, Feng Xi watched Ao Wen take her first real steps on the path of cultivation with a bit of wonder. It had taken her months off practice before she'd been able to manifest the aura of her heart in a way that was visible to others but Ao Wen was doing so from her very first day. Perhaps that wasn't true, she thought, considering the three months that Ao Wen had experienced, but it still impressed her. Clearly things worked differently for Ao Wen than they had in the vision or she wouldn't have suffered a backlash when she first circulated her energy. Nonetheless, she adapted quickly.
Moving more confidently, Ao Wen struck out with her saber, strong earthen energy flowing into each movement. "This part is the same," she thought. Controlling the body and guiding the flow where she needed it to be worked much the same as it had for Jun Biyu. "There's something missing though… something she didn't have that I do."
Returning to a basic guard position, Ao Wen tried to reach out to a different source of energy. She had two words for energy, two bloodlines. Earth was one, the other was "Fire," she whispered. Reaching out the same way she'd channeled earth energy, she began to call out to the vermillion flame that burned within her.
As soon as she tried to draw from the well of flaming energy within herself, she immediately felt things were off. Her skin flushed red, sweat poured from her body, and a flaming aura began to burn both her clothes and Pathfinder before she managed to safely guide the energy back to her dantian. Everything hurt from her skin to her lungs, it felt like she'd rushed through a bonfire. The pain drove her to her knees, the scorched wooden saber slipping from her finger tips as she collapsed to the ground, barely keeping herself from crying out in agony as she fought to suppress the remnants of the flame energy still circulating within her like the embers of an extinguished fire.
"Wen!" Feng Xi cried out. "What happened?"
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