“I’ve already beaten you,” Chen Ai said dismissively. “Get out of the ring.”

  “You sucker punched me!” cried the Shen woman with the two black eyes.

  “Do you expect the wilderness to give you a warning?”

  Her taunt landed.

  With the deep bruises around her eyes and the fiery blush in her cheeks, she looked more like a furious demon than a human.

  It seemed that where the Ran were calculating and devious, the Shen were hot-blooded and prideful. Chen Ai wasn’t usually one who liked to taunt, well, not this excessively, but she needed to test these people if she was going to trust them with her life.

  Forbidden Zones were the basis of childhood horror stories for a reason.

  “Besides,” Chen Ai said in the same deriding tone. “You never gave me a write-up about yourself.”

  “Do you expect the wilderness to give you a warning?”

  Chen Ai smiled as the Shen woman threw her words back in her face.

  This woman was an enigma.

  In her drunkenness, Chen Ai had insulted and assaulted her, but she had no memory of that event. In truth, she felt shame at how she’d treated her, and seeing how the Shen woman rose to the challenge brought the joy of battle to her heart. That her face hadn’t healed since that attack also told Chen Ai that he lacked both the power to recuperate that quickly and the resources to heal with a pill.

  A storage ring glinted on her finger, and that spatial treasure was probably her most valuable possession.

  She seemed about Chen Ai’s age, and the role of Shen representative was probably the greatest honor ever bestowed upon her, which explained why, of everyone present, she was the loudest when it came to matters of pride.

  “What is your name?” Chen Ai asked.

  Taking it for the invitation it was, the Shen woman readied herself into a stance.

  “Shen Tongtong.”

  Her stance was familiar, but Chen Ai couldn’t place it. Chen Ai adopted her own stance, and the two women stood at opposite ends of the ring. Deciding not to hold back, Chen Ai spoke:

  “Ready when you —”

  Before she could finish, Shen Tongtong summoned a bow from her storage ring and nocked a flaming arrow. Chen Ai dashed to the side as the arrow burned through the air. It struck the ground where she’d stood before and exploded in flames that burned a deep garnet red.

  With that use of qi, she could detect her opponent's level: 9th Stage of the Qi Condensing Realm. Not only was she the most powerful, but she was the only one who had displayed enough skill at hiding her qi.

  A flaming arrow burned toward her heart.

  If she had her jian, she would have deflected it with her blade. Instead, she sidestepped and advanced a pace forward as another arrow burst her way. Shen Tongtong had a calm expression, her eyes locked in, as though every burning arrow bled her rage.

  Chen Ai tried to advance, but found herself forced to dodge and back up.

  Unlike the earlier fights against the Shen, where she brute-forced a victory, or the fights against the Ran, where a strategic decision forced her loss, she was truly being challenged. And fighting up two stages was not as simple as the stories would make you believe.

  It would be easier if she had a weapon, but she realized she didn’t miss her jian. The straight and precise sword had been inextricably linked with her idea of a cultivator, but one must forge their own path to the heavens.

  And beyond.

  With a laugh, she threw herself into the fight.

  A flaming arrow shot toward her, and Chen Ai kicked up the ground. Grass shards met the arrow, and they burst into a cloud of flame. She leaped through the rippling heat, charging with her horns lowered.

  Shen Tongtong’s eyes widened, and she made to back up, but she was already at the edge of the circle.

  Her weapon required as much range as she could get.

  She drew one more arrow and let it fly.

  Chen Ai flooded herself with qi and took it on her shoulder. Flame exploded across her robes. Qi-toughened muscle burned, but it was the last hit she would take.

  Shen Tongtong threw aside her bow before Chen Ai’s charge could shatter it to kindling. She activated a movement technique and dashed around the circumference, but Chen Ai had anticipated that. Borrowing from Shen Cong, she forced the direction of escape. Her horn caught Shen Tongtong’s side, and her hand quickly followed. Grasping the woman’s waist tightly, Chen Ai bucked and threw herself backward.

  The force of her bloodline drove Shen Tongtong into the ground with extreme force.

  For the first time in the fight, a gasp of sympathy came from those watching.

  Chen Ai’s dantian was more drained from taking that arrow than from all the previous fighting. Forcing herself to keep cycling qi and breathing, she stood.

  To her surprise, Shen Tongtong was also struggling to her feet.

  Blood dribbled from her freshly rebroken nose, and Chen Ai felt a pang of sympathy.

  A flaming arrow burst into existence in Shen Tongtong’s hand. She held onto it like a dagger and dashed toward Chen Ai.

  “You pass,” Chen Ai said.

  But Shen Tongtong continued onwards.

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  Chen Ai’s eyes widened with surprise, and she barely caught her opponent’s arm in time. The fiery arrow stopped an inch from Chen Ai’s face. Smoke rose from Shen Tongtong’s fingers as the wriggling flame fought to explode.

  The two women locked arms, their feet digging into the ground as they contested their strength.

  Shen Tongtong was two stages higher in the Qi Condensing realm, and probably only needed enlightenment or resources to take herself into Foundation Establishment.

  But Chen Ai possessed the Bloodline of the Ox, and strength was where she shone.

  With a roar, Chen Ai lifted Shen Tongtong into the air and threw her across the ring.

  The flaming arrow exploded mid-air as it was released from Shen Tongtong’s grip. She rolled across the ground, but stopped herself with a crude application of her movement technique before she left the ring.

  She rose to her feet, her burned hand hanging at her side, but looked up in surprise.

  Chen Ai had stepped outside the ring.

  “I said you pass,” she said. “The candidate applications are over.”

  Seeing that Shen Tongtong was still shocked, Chen Ai clasped her hands in a martial salute and bowed deeply.

  “Thank you for this instruction.”

  She said it with true respect. This had been the hardest fight of them all. If she’d expected the poison or had a weapon, the fights with the Ran would have gone differently, but they were still on fairly even footing from the start. Shen Tongtong, on the other hand, was a ranged expert who started with a disadvantage. Could Chen Ai have even crossed the distance if they had been forty paces apart instead of twenty?

  From the way her shoulder burned, she didn’t think so. The first thing she did after leaving here would be to seek medical attention.

  “The expedition will depart in four days,” she announced. “See that you are healed and prepared to leave at that time.”

  With nods to everyone, she started to leave, but an annoying voice stopped her.

  “This is outrageous!” shouted Shen Jun.

  Chen Ai glanced over at the handsome young swordsman who sat up after finally regaining consciousness.

  “You have a problem?” she asked. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “You dare!” he said with a glare. “What foolishness is this to pick servants over the true Shen Clan bloodline!”

  Shen Mei said nothing, but the anger in her still-woozy eyes said that she agreed.

  Chen Ai half-expected Shen Tongtong or Shen Botao to defend themselves, but both of them wore expressions of well-practiced silence.

  Still, Chen Ai refused to be cowed by a noble brat.

  “I have made my decisions,” Chen Ai said.

  “And who are you to decide? You’re not the expedition leader!”

  “No, I’m not, but if you couldn’t beat me, then you won’t beat him.”

  Shen Jun struggled to his feet, leaning on his jian to do so.

  “A thug using tricks like a lowly Ran is not fit to judge me!”

  Done with this, Chen Ai motioned to the slowly approaching cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade.

  “That man is my senior brother’s disciple.”

  “He is wearing the jian that my clan gifted the expedition leader! What insult is that?”

  The cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade stopped before Shen Jun.

  “My master deemed this blade unworthy and gifted it to this lowly disciple. Just as he deemed Chen Ai’s judgment sound enough to select the candidates. Who are you to question my master?”

  Shen Jun cycled his qi and straightened, his jian held in a loose, ready stance.

  “I am Shen Jun and I —”

  His voice choked off as overwhelming intent pressed down on the hilltop. The ground shuddered and groaned. Everyone held their breath as the suggestion of a blade pressed against their throats.

  “You lost,” said the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade. “The candidate selections are over.”

  With that, he strode away, and only after a moment did his deadly presence fade. The park returned to normal, and Chen Ai went off after him. She couldn’t help throwing back one last taunt.

  “In case you’re wondering, my senior brother is a scarier monster!”

  ###

  Everyone in the Merchant District treated me like a friend. My trip to the Stone Forest Pavilion took me through various markets where vendors shouted for me to take their wares on my expedition. They cheered and bowed when I stepped into their stores, and nobody wanted payment. The prestige was enough. Even without the goodwill already extended by the Stone Forest Pavilion, it was the friendliest day I’d had since waking up in the facility. It was the most human and likable I’d felt ever since — even when compared to my past lives. If this was the treatment that Young Masters received, then I could almost understand their inflated sense of self-worth. Whose humanity could remain intact after being surrounded by such adoration? Truly, my smile alone was worth a million gold coins.

  People even asked if they could rub Cabbagy for good luck. So long as they were careful not to wake him from his nap, I let them.

  It was a lovely day with a warm spring wind blowing.

  The last stop before I went to pick up Chen Ai’s elixirs was a blacksmith. Various smithies specializing in weapons and armor and trinkets and tools all called out, but I ended up going to the smith run by Innkeeper Bu’s brother. After what we did to the Vermilion Ibex, I felt it was the least I could do.

  Blacksmith Bu was as short and red-cheeked as his brother, but his arms were roped with muscle, so he almost looked like a hairless ape as he swaggered around his smithy and bossed around his apprentices. You would think that a smithy with all the noise and fire would be impossible to make gloomy, but I suppose the Bu’s had a magic touch in that regard. Even when he gave orders, they were hoarse whispers that sounded more sinister than serious.

  “What do you want?” he said when he finally noticed me standing in the doorway.

  “I’m preparing for an expedition.”

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  Not the welcome I expected. I tried my million-dollar smile, but he just blew his nose.

  “What do you want?” he repeated, before adding as an afterthought. “Honored customer.”

  There were people in the world, in the city, in the street outside who would have thrown him to the ground and stepped on his throat for speaking like that, but I suppose he knew from his brother that I wasn’t one of those people. I kept smiling.

  “I need to commission a club, and I would like to buy some training weights.”

  “We have training weights out back,” he said. “They’re mostly just ingots, but some have holes in them if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “That sounds perfect, and the club?”

  “People don’t make clubs out of metal.”

  “It’s for a cultivator.”

  “Then go to the other side of the district and speak to the stone wood masons, the heavens know they need more bloody adoration lest their egos deflate.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I said.

  “No,” he said with a chuckle that surprised even him. “Look, metal is for swords, and I can make you a sword, but it won’t be quick.”

  “I would like a club from metal, about this big,” I said as I held out my hands. “Studded as well, actually… do you have paper?”

  His curiosity must have gotten the better of him, because he let me use paper and a brush to sketch out a smaller version of the club that the black furred monkey had wielded against me in Twisted Pine Valley. I could still viscerally remember how it felt to have my body shattered by that weapon.

  “That might be doable, and, let me guess, you want it done before you leave?”

  “Yes,” I said with a polite nod. “If that’s doable?”

  He scoffed.

  “Fine.”

  “Would you like… payment?”

  His eyes shone at the suggestion of money, but with a white-knuckled effort of will, he shook his head.

  “The prestige will be enough,” he said through gritted teeth. “However, I would also request a favor.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you when I deliver the club.”

  He looked like he expected me to shout as I held my silence for a moment.

  My merchant instincts begged me to say no, but I felt that I owed the Bu family at least this much, and so I accepted. If I truly couldn’t die, then eternity lay ahead of me. So long as I avoided capture, then I could afford a few bad decisions.

  That’s what I told myself as I followed one of his apprentices to a storeroom where the training weights were located. They must be a pretty common item for the more physically inclined cultivators, given how well stocked they were. I suppose it was also cheap on the smith’s side, with them needing to do little more than shape crude metal.

  After being told to help myself, I drew the curtain for privacy.

  They would assume I had a storage treasure, and I didn’t want to dissuade them of that notion.

  I placed Cabbagy on a shelf as I stripped down. He grumbled and looked at me blearily.

  “So, have you made up your mind?”

  “I made up my mind days ago,” I said.

  “Nobody can say you’re not determined,” he said with a sigh. Fine, kid, I’ll help you do the ritual tonight.”

  I thanked him with my million gold coin smile as I picked up the first weight and prepared to stash it away.

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