Chapter 17
Alex sighed and shook his head, chuckling softly at what truly had been an eventful day.
Yet as much as there were things he was eager to follow up on, including touching base with Nili and giving a certain bounty to the tiny grove he had discreetly created in the shell of an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the city, he knew what he needed to focus on more than anything else.
So, after using Qi Perception to make sure no one was watching, and a discreetly positioned leather recliner to ensure a trip and stumble for anyone unexpectedly entering, Alex assumed the lotus position and began replaying in his mind the duels he had so recently fought.
Not just today, but since first stumbling into the corrupted underground wing of gentle vice that had become a deadly purgatory for so many.
Yet whereas so many memories were tinged with vague uncertainties, despite how sharply his mind had grown over his trials in his latest handful of lives, he could still recall so clearly in his mind’s eye what it felt like to become one with the storm.
To sense the howling winds both deflecting his enemy’s blows and aiding his ability to weave and slip past his opponents’ desperate rebuttals.
To feel the crashing of stormy seas echoing nearly perfectly the roaring of ancient rivers empowering his hands and feet with all the devastating power of a typhoon.
He could sense it, even taste it, how close his newly forged art was to Silver Swan.
And a tiny part of him that wasn’t worried about alerting ancient sleeping dragons was eager to rip open carefully placed veils and fully embrace ancient arts, even if he somehow knew that taking the slower path, the more comprehensive path, would not only ensure his safety as he deliberately avoided triggering peril but would only enhance his power in the long run.
For just as he could sense the pristine majesty of Silver Swan, he could now perceive that it was but a part of a larger whole.
Though it was originally an art based on Water alone, he had somehow enhanced it to fully incorporate Metal in ways that were perhaps never intended, simply by visualizing the sea.
The perfect art for the girl he would have so dearly loved to marry, had the fates not forced him ever forward.
A hapless piece upon the game board of the gods until he had claimed a seat at the table for himself.
Yet as a fellow Contender, the fierce pressure that hostile parties had put him under had only grown.
Grown like stormy seas crackling with Lightning that had become his and Hao Chan’s own.
Grown like the howling Winds that were the harbingers of the most fearsome storms. The twin of Water with Lightning being the pristine fusion of their bonding, Metallic salts emblematic of the bitter tears of strife, struggle, and retribution, carrying their will through all currents.
The Dark Qi of chaos, change, and transformation. Depicting the stormiest of all seas from which there was no warding the howling winds that sheared right through poorly secured sails and rigging, and the waves that would sink even the largest galleons.
And finally, the rocky shoals that would slice open the hull of any ship as Alex found himself walking a stormy path, or now, flowing through the forms of an art so very like Silver Swan, yet with added twists and innovations that had been modified out of what he now realized was a streamlined Silver-tier art.
For Silver Swan was absolutely perfect for Water-aligned concubines, all the more so when reinforced with Metal’s resilience.
It wasn’t so surprising that an imperial princess could incorporate Lightning’s call in such wild seas of potential, yet how common was the cultivator who had access to Wind and Earth as well?
Yet Alex did. And in so doing, he made full use of the spacious chamber to embrace the steps to an ancient primal art where Water’s force and fury was made all the greater by Wind as Lightning was generated effortlessly through their fusion, conducted with devastating force through Metallic-salt-infused waters shimmering with Darkest retribution, and the moment one’s opponent lost their focus or balance for even a second, rocky shoals of hidden Earth would tear through the bulwark of their strongest defenses and rip open their keels, no matter how strong those sailing counter to Alex’s path thought they were.
Faster and faster Alex flowed through his forms, all the furniture somehow finding itself on top of his bed now in the center of his spacious quarters as he continued embracing his dance around that inviolate demarcation, flowing from strike to parry to counter to devastating rebuttal.
Angle kicks flowed into wheel kicks and spinning backfists, followed by a flurry of jabs, crosses, and hooks cutting through the air that carried no trace of Adder Strike at all.
Instead, they were heavy with the weight of crackling potential, of Wind and Water and pristine, deadly fury.
And the powerful uppercut that rose like a reef ready to tear through all resistance made it clear that Alex could now unleash Avalanche while flowing in and out of the stormy sea’s gentle embrace, without any long buildup at all.
As surprising and sudden as a warship running aground.
Before stormy seas shattered cracked foundations to kindling and there was nothing left but the skeleton of the once mighty ship drowning in the depths of the sea.
Alex could now so viscerally picture himself riding those doomed vessels, dancing through the stormy sky, channeling that devastating Lightning conveyed with each crescent kick and spinning backfist. He wanted to howl with delight and wonder, epiphanies roaring through him even as he made the best of his limited quarters, trusting in Lini’s final shadowy blessing to mitigate the spiritual thrum of his epiphany as he became one with the storm howling through him.
When at last he closed his eyes minutes or perhaps hours later, still shivering with transcendent revelations, he did it floating a foot off the naked stone floor, the crackle of lightning caressing his form brighter than the dimmed blue lights that his spiritual discharges had already shattered.
In those twilight moments, he slipped into dreams that were an even more visceral version of the dance he sought to master.
He gazed with wonder at the massive super cable spinning so monstrously fast about his soul that space and time seemed to warp and stretch as the countless regrets he had yet to consume were wound about ever tighter to the brilliant accretion disk of his soul.
Besides the horror of that which he refused to see as anything more than metaphor and dream, he was consoled by several priceless revelations.
One was that whatever minute wobbles he had dreaded forming when he had dared to ascend two ranks in such a terrifyingly short period of time had stabilized to the point of pristine perfection.
And he suspected it was because he had poured every last level-up point into claiming not just one but two full rank-ups of his primary physical attributes.
Eight ranks to stabilize his foundation, where even the most gifted Silvers who were destined for Gold never had more than two, unless imperial blood or a true genius’s gifts flowed through their veins.
The other was that communing with the path he was on was paying profound dividends as multiple skills ranked up without him having to shed a single drop of blood.
And that was when he sensed it.
A promise temporarily deferred. Yet what he had thought would be only hours had been several days. Fortunately, the forest was resilient. Even the tiny grove he had nurtured from dead husks and ancient seeds. Yet not so resilient was the pair of souls trapped within it.
The souls of his friends.
Ya Ling. The desert princess he had communed with so deeply.
Once dancing upon the desert winds in a dance that could have led to a courtship as old as time.
And Linnea. His battle sister and gestalt companion.
A girl whose smile warmed his heart just as Ya Ling’s had.
A girl he could have so easily claimed as his own.
And when they fought, it truly was as one.
Even now, they were racing with growing panic through a forest they didn’t understand.
It didn’t even matter, the sheer improbability of it. Because in very short order, it would be as if they had never existed at all.
Alex bolted awake with a gasp, knowing he was running out of time.
He darted toward the door as fast as his feet could take him, yanking it open so fast that Nili, features set in a worried frown, lurched back in surprise.
“Alex?” Her look of concern turned into dismay. “Alex, what the hell happened to your…” She paled. “Come on. This way. We have to leave now!”
Alex didn’t bother arguing, happily stepping in Nili’s shadow as they hurried along gloomy corridors that somehow left plenty of room to slip past angrily cursing cultivators.
“Did you find the source of the spiritual energy fluctuations? No Silver was recorded as renting a breakthrough chamber!”
“Honored senior, there are no records of anyone being in this wing, whatsoever.”
“Did we have guests last night?”
“Uncertain, Master.”
“How the hell is it uncertain? This room was destroyed! And why… why does it smell so strange?”
Like the sea, Alex thought, understanding that the poor cultivator utterly lacked the ability to put into words that which he had never experienced before.
He then winced, realizing that his breakthrough had been perhaps a bit more profound than even he had realized.
Even if he was still just a Rank 2 Silver, Storm Wing, Storm Swan, and Avalanche had each ascended a full rank.
And clearly his breakthrough hadn’t been quite as discreet as he had thought.