They made camp early, just as Li Xuan had ordered. The afternoon sun was still a weak, watery presence in the sky, but the Inner Disciple had found a defensible hollow, screened from the wind by thick pines, and declared it their base for the remainder of the day.

  To be honest, Jiang was actually reluctantly impressed with the inner disciple’s woodcraft. He’d assumed that cultivators would be helpless when they couldn’t sleep in a fancy compound, but while Li Xuan and Mistress Bai seemed annoyed at the lack of civilisation, it didn’t stop them from setting up an efficient camp.

  Admittedly, the fact that they could store anything they could ever want in spatial rings somewhat detracted from the ‘achievement’, but Jiang couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed that he didn’t have to hunt for his dinner.

  Once the camp was set up, Mistress Bai stood and turned to Li Xuan. “We need to establish our plan, Disciple Li. Not just for the next few days, but for the main engagement.”

  Li Xuan nodded, pushing himself off the tree he had been leaning against. “Very true. Our primary objective is unchanged – we seek to find and eliminate Gao Leng. But the rules of engagement must be clear.” He looked at Jiang, then at Zhang. “While we don’t know exactly what we will find, it is safe to assume that Gao Leng won’t be alone. At the very least, he will most likely be surrounded by bandits, some or all of whom may have been… altered by him. While his forces are unlikely to be individually as dangerous as we are, quantity has a quality of its own. Mistress Bai and I will engage Gao Leng directly. You two,” his gaze was sharp and absolute, “will not.”

  Zhang looked like he wanted to protest, but Li Xuan cut him off. “This is not a training exercise. A demonic cultivator is not a sparring partner. He is a walking disaster, and we have no time to correct a mistake made from overconfidence. Your task is to handle his followers. Crowd control. You are the containment line. You keep the mortals off of us, so we can focus on the real threat. Do you understand?”

  Jiang nodded shortly. While it might be more satisfying to kill Gao Leng himself, he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could actually pull it off with any certainty.

  “What if he has other allies?” he asked.

  Li Xuan hesitated. “That… is a good point. While I would like to think that every cultivator would find his actions and cultivation as abhorrent as we do, it is possible that he has drawn other cultivators to his side. Fortunately, it is a safe assumption that none of them will be stronger than he is – unorthodox cultivators will almost always prefer working on their own. If he does have cultivator allies… we will simply have to adapt.”

  That… wasn’t a particularly comforting answer.

  “Now that I’m thinking of it,” Jiang started slowly, “How sure are we that you two are stronger than Gao Leng?”

  Zhang flinched at the blunt, almost disrespectful question. Li Xuan’s eyes narrowed, but it was Mistress Bai who answered, a short, dry laugh escaping her.

  “A fair question, if lacking in… subtlety,” she said, glancing at Li Xuan. “Are you offended, Disciple?”

  “He is an Outer Disciple. His ignorance is to be expected,” Li Xuan said, his voice flat. He looked at Jiang. “Gao Leng was cast out decades ago, before he formed his Core. Demonic arts grant fast, unstable power, but they build on a shoddy foundation. Mistress Bai and I are both at the peak of the Core Formation realm, not to mention we outnumber him.”

  “Unless he has allies,” Jiang pointed out, privately wondering why Li Xuan felt weaker than Mistress Bai if they were at the same level of advancement.

  “How fortunate, then, that we have two fresh disciples with us to even things out,” Li Xuan said sarcastically. “This isn’t a Sect spar against padded opponents, Jiang. This will be a live battlefield. We don’t always have the luxury of knowing what we will face, but that doesn’t mean we can avoid facing it. What we can always do is prepare for as much as possible.”

  He straightened, brushing a bit of pine needle from his sleeve. “Speaking of which. Zhang, Jiang – your training begins now.”

  Jiang groaned quietly. “Already?”

  Li Xuan ignored him and drew his sword, the steel catching faint sunlight. “You’ll thank me when you’re alive to complain.”

  Zhang got to his feet immediately, eager, while Jiang followed at a slower pace. He half-expected Li Xuan to start swinging, but instead the man simply gestured to the open space before him.

  “Fighting isn’t about strength, though it has its place.” Li Xuan said, pacing a slow circle. “It’s about momentum. Control that, and you can win even against a stronger foe. Lose it, and all the power in the world won’t save you.”

  He looked at Zhang. “You have likely learned most of this already, but there is wisdom in revisiting your foundation. There are three basic methods. You’ll need all of them at some point, but the trick is knowing when to use which. The first is pressure. You keep your opponent reacting. No time to think, no space to breathe. Works well when you have speed or numbers. The second – attrition. Wear them down, exhaust their energy and patience. The third – restraint. You wait for one clean strike and commit everything to it. That one’s the hardest; it demands control, not just skill.”

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  “Which is best against the foes we expect to face?” Zhang asked.

  “There is no such thing as a ‘best’ method,” Li Xuan lectured. “It all depends too much on context. If I were to face a bandit group, for example, I would likely rely on pressure. My strength is sufficiently higher than theirs that I wouldn’t need to worry about being surrounded or worn down, so the best way to ensure my safety would be to eliminate any and all threats. For Mistress Bai? I am not entirely familiar with her skill set, but I suspect her method would lean more towards attrition or restraint. Slower, perhaps, but conversely less risky.”

  Mistress Bai shrugged but didn’t offer a response.

  “But surely for someone of your strength wouldn’t be threatened by bandits, no matter which technique you used?” Zhang pressed.

  “That is an exceptionally foolish way to approach matters,” Mistress Bai interjected. Mistress Bai interjected. Her gaze was sharp, cutting to Zhang. “Arrogance is a luxury of the truly invincible, Disciple Zhang, and none of us qualify. A lucky blade in the dark, a well-placed vial of poison, a hidden trap… all of these can kill a cultivator just as easily as a bolt of Qi. The moment you believe you are above a threat is the moment you give that threat the opening it needs to end you.” She paused, her eyes flicking to the woods around them. “Especially out here, in a situation rife with unknowns. Thinking yourself immortal is the fastest way to prove the opposite.”

  Li Xuan nodded, his expression grim. “Mistress Bai is correct. Your mindset is a liability. Right now,” he looked at both Jiang and Zhang, “you two are as weak as you will ever be. You are in the first realm. You are, by any meaningful standard, still fragile. In the Sect, you would not be permitted on a mission of this danger until you had, at minimum, refined your body. If we had any other viable choice, neither of you would be here.”

  His gaze hardened. “You will treat every mortal opponent you face as if they are a cultivator in their own right. You will treat every bandit as if he is holding a blade coated in poison that can kill you with a scratch. Arrogance will get you killed, and it will get us killed. Is that clear?”

  Zhang looked suitably chastened. Jiang just nodded, his expression unreadable.

  Li Xuan sighed. “Words are one thing. Experience is another.”

  He drew his sword, the sound of steel a sharp, clean note in the quiet clearing. The faint, oppressive pressure of his intent settled over the two junior disciples, making Jiang’s skin crawl.

  “And as it happens,” Li Xuan said, a thin, almost cruel smile touching his lips, “I find the best way to teach a lesson on weakness is a practical demonstration. Let’s begin.”

  — — —

  Jiang barely twitched as Zhang slammed into the ground beside him. Right now, it was all he could do to lie bonelessly on the ground and breathe.

  He wasn’t sure if he was so exhausted because he was so much weaker than Zhang, or if it was just that Li Xuan had it out for him in particular. In theory, the outer disciple and he should be at roughly the same level – at least, that was what their advancement suggested. In reality, it was very apparent that skill and experience matter far more than raw power.

  He wondered if that was why Mistress Bai seemed so much more powerful than Li Xuan. Cultivators might not age in quite the same way as mortals, but it wasn’t hard to notice that Mistress Bai was visibly much older than the inner disciple.

  A shadow fell over him, blocking the weak afternoon sun. He looked up, squinting, to see Mistress Bai standing over him, looking faintly amused.

  “That was a… spirited display,” she said dryly. “But now that Disciple Li has finished his ‘practical demonstration,’ our lessons can begin.”

  Jiang groaned, letting his head fall back against the frozen ground. “You’re kidding. Right now?” He wasn’t sure he could even stand, let alone think about cultivating. His entire body felt like one solid, throbbing bruise. “Can’t this wait until I’m not halfway to dying?”

  “Of course, right now,” she replied, as if the question were absurd. “Do you believe Gao Leng will pause his own preparations to give you time to recuperate? We do not have the luxury of wasting daylight.”

  Jiang just grunted, which seemed to amuse her further.

  “Come,” she said, turning away. “Drag yourself to your feet. We will find a quiet spot.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. Her tone wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t one that invited argument either.

  Jiang exhaled through his nose, forced his arms under him, and pushed himself to his feet. Every part of him ached. He glanced over at the other side of the clearing. Li Xuan and Zhang were still at it, but the nature of their spar had changed. Li Xuan was no longer just overwhelming Zhang with speed; he was actively instructing, calling out corrections, forcing Zhang to block and parry in a structured, repetitive drill. It was… actual teaching.

  Jiang scowled. So Zhang, the proper disciple, got lessons. He just got hit. Figures.

  He limped after Mistress Bai, who had settled on a fallen log a short distance away, well clear of the ongoing spar. She waited patiently for him to lower himself onto the ground opposite her.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not entirely heartless – we will start slowly. It will give you time to recover your breath.” She paused, her gaze assessing him in a way that made him vaguely uncomfortable. “And perhaps it is for the best. If we are to be travelling together for the foreseeable future, it is only practical that we understand one another, at least a little.”

  Jiang didn’t buy the sudden attempt at friendliness for a second. She was a woman who had killed the Broker with a casual wave of her hand and hadn’t blinked at the deaths of five Elders. She didn’t do “getting to know” people unless there was a reason.

  “Fine,” he said, deciding that bluntness served him best. “You want to start with easy questions? Here’s one. Why haven’t you left yet?”

  Mistress Bai’s smile froze for a tiny second. “I beg your pardon?” she asked mildly.

  “I’m not an idiot. You made such a big deal about not wanting to get involved with the big sects, but here you are travelling with three members of the Azure Sky Sect. It doesn’t add up. There’s no reason for you to stick around, and plenty of reason to leave – if any of the sects find us, find me, there’s going to be another fight, and you know it. So why haven’t you left yet?”

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