I stared at Ran Jun, and he stared at me. The drinking house around us was filled with the expectant silence that comes from a large crowd of people eavesdropping intently.
“I’m sorry,” Ran Jun said slowly. “Could you repeat yourself?”
I didn’t want to, no matter how sorry he was. All I wanted to do was leave, collect the flower, and properly apologize to Tan Lu, but instead I had to deal with all this. It seemed that no matter what I did, things blew out of control. Perhaps the demonic cultivators had performed some kind of karmic curse on me? Was an evil, child-eating cultivator out there enjoying marvelous luck because I was here suffering?
Suppressing a sigh, I forced myself to smile at Ran Jun.
“I’m going to collect an Azure Tiger Blossom from the Howling Blossom Valley,” I said.
A gasp echoed through the drinking house. The surprised noise quickly dissolved into excited chatter. This wouldn’t end well, I could just tell.
Ran Jun shook his head.
“I still don’t believe it… don’t you —”
A bright-eyed, navy-uniformed attendant pushed her way through the curtain around our booth.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Alchemist Run,” she said. “But the boss would like to have a private word with our Honored Guest.”
“It’s Alchemist Ran,” Ran Jun said testily.
She ignored him, staring only at me.
“Please, will you accompany me, honored guest?”
“Wait,” Ran Jun said. “I was talking to him, and my superior can wait…”
“Not your superior,” the attendant cut him off. “Everyone’s superior. The Matriarch of the Stone Forest Pavilion wishes to have a word with our guest about his mission.”
“Oh,” Ran Jun said as he deflated into the booth. “I won’t keep you then.”
She nodded at him and gracefully took my hand. When she pulled me up, I felt that she was easily stronger than me, stronger than any of the monkeys I’d fought — including Ghost Fang — and far stronger than the serpent. She might even be stronger than that lightning lady, Yun Lin, though the attendant was doing a better job of hiding it.
“Please, come this way.”
I followed her out of the curtains and into the open area of the drinking house. Most of the booths had pulled back their curtains, and everyone was openly staring at me. Their gazes were so intense I had to check if I was naked. Conversations died as I passed their tables, only to resume when I went past. Most of the chatter was about the coming auctions, but I heard mention of the valley and of different types of flowers.
It was enough to make a foolish man curious, but I was wiser than that. It simply made me want to leave.
Chen Ai stood at the bar, arguing about a drink, but her eyes widened as I walked past with the attendant. She approached, but the attendant held up her hand.
“I’m sorry,” said the attendant. “I must escort this honored guest to a more luxurious location.”
“I’m with him,” Chen Ai said with a drunken frown as her hand drifted to her sword.
“Don’t you dare!” screamed a man from the other end of the drinking house.
We all turned as silence fell once again.
###
Even in his dreams, even in his worst nightmares, he called himself the Flawless Blade. It had been the name he whispered to himself ever since he first picked up a jian, back when the weapon was too heavy for him to hold straight, even with two hands. He’d lived his life by the sword, rising from the son of a blacksmith to an outer disciple of the Whistling Canyon Sect. After only a year, he passed into the inner sect, a record time for someone without backing.
After another year, he left the sect.
They were small and focused on alchemy and smithing. Though he held them no ill-will, they lacked the resources to teach him any more of the jian. Even if the Core Formation Elders were stronger and faster and wiser than he was, not one of them possessed the Spirit of the Sword.
It was not an exaggeration to say he was a generational talent blessed by the very heavens.
So, he stripped himself of the robes, of his name, and went out on a path as meandering as his sword was straight. Monsters, bandits, and cultivators fell to his sword: any who challenged him, and any he challenged.
All were cut down, their losses honing his blade.
After completing the Qi Condensing realm, he began the ambitious Ninefold Elemental Pillars cultivation method. This method was dangerous in that it required the cultivator to imbue a different element into every pillar of Foundation Establishment. Harmonizing nine separate elements was next to impossible — most cultivators didn’t dare try more than three — but if he succeeded, he would enter the Core Formation realm with the blessing of the heavens.
It was easy for him, of course. Nine elements were nothing to someone who could break down a sword into a hundred elements or more. Where others saw one thing, he saw the universe.
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In his dreams, he walked on the edge of a blade toward the pinprick stars.
He walked there now, reminiscing, floating, but knowing that there was no pit on either side of his blade.
No.
The bridge he walked upon rested on the ground, because he — the Flawless Blade — had fallen.
Memories cut into his dream, pain and humiliation bleeding forth as he remembered the dull expression on that plain-looking man’s face. The man who had the gall to challenge him. To stand naked before him. To defeat him without even raising a blade!
The shame was too great. It seized his heart. The Flawless Blade tripped, and he fell onto his sword, cutting himself into —
“Aagh,” he woke, sitting up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. “Where am I?”
Sweat drenched his skin. His breathing was erratic. His pulse wild.
With his Blessed Core Formation cultivation, he should be able to sense an entire city block with precise detail… but the second he pushed out his spirit senses, an aching pain raced through his soul.
He lay back in bed, breathing through his teeth as he reeled in his senses. What had happened to him?
As the pain settled and his breathing evened, he probed himself with his spirit. If he moved slowly, there was no pain, but what he saw was worse.
His core was the same solid steel color it had been when he broke through during his duel on the mountain, but where before the surface had been as flawless as his name, now deep and ugly cracks ran through the sphere.
If he hadn’t successfully threaded his enlightenment through the Ninefold Elemental Pillars to establish his Blessed Core Formation, then his cultivation wouldn’t have survived at all.
A thought that would terrify any cultivator.
He forced himself not to succumb to the building panic.
Nervously, he examined further. If the cracks were too deep… No, he was lucky. The soul that was beginning to grow inside his core was still there, though he wouldn’t know what impact the cracks would have until later.
His qi leaked from his core in erratic pulses. Sometimes it radiated the full strength of a fledgling Core Formation cultivator, but other times his qi died down until he was barely more than a mortal.
It was a terrible blow for one such as he.
He lay in the bed, stunned by his discovery, trying to summon the motivation that had led him through countless duels.
Duels…
He’d wandered west into the Black Tiger Kingdom, and the backwater country provided a surplus of cultivators with which he could test his blade. He’d never picked a fight, simply parked himself in a pass or on a bridge and demanded that people fight him if they wanted to continue on their road.
Many fought him, and all lost.
All except for…
That plain, average, stupid face!
The cracks widened a hair’s breadth, and he growled as his core radiated pain.
How could he call himself the Flawless Blade if he lost a duel?
Simple.
He could not.
There was only one solution.
He must kill the man who defeated him. Only then could he reclaim his honor, reassert his name, and repair his core.
With the confidence borne of simple-minded determination, he sat up and swung himself to the side of the bed.
He froze.
Sitting on top of a shelf, directly head height, and somehow watching him was… a cabbage. It was dishvelled, and old, and spotted with dried blood, and he’d seen it before. As impossible as it seemed, he knew that cabbage.
The duel…
The plain-faced man and that blonde, cow-horned woman had that cabbage with them. He’d defeated the blonde woman before. She hadn’t even warranted him drawing his blade. When she’d returned, she’d had that plain-faced bastard and the cabbage.
So, the cabbage must belong to the man who defeated him in a duel.
Anger seized the Flawless Blade. He reached for his jian to slice the cabbage into salad…
His hands touched air.
Where was his jian?
He looked around, heart pounding with panic…
The memories came back. The blonde woman took his jian after he lost the duel. He’d woken up on the bridge, while he was being carried like a sack of grain, and when he tried to kill the man carrying him… he lost control of his erratic cultivation and sliced the bridge apart.
He should be at the bottom of that canyon, but instead, he was in a comfortable room.
The man with the cabbage had… saved him?
Such… retched… dishonor!
The Flawless Blade’s jaw clenched so tight he spat blood.
“How dare he!” he shouted.
His cultivation surged, and the room trembled. The windows rattled as dust fell from the ceiling. His sword wasn’t there, but his spirit was. With a gesture, he focused his intent into a trembling, invisible blade.
All he needed to do was lift a finger to disintegrate the cabbage, but he hesitated.
For whatever insane reason, the man who defeated him carried this dirty, disgusting vegetable around. It couldn’t be for food. There must be another reason. Possibly it was related to cultivation.
Was the Flawless Blade the kind of person who would strike out at another’s cultivation resources because he lost a duel?
Was he that petty?
In truth, he’d never lost a duel, so he didn’t know…
The sword intent broke, and the Flawless Blade stared mutely at the cabbage. He wouldn’t be petty, that’s what he told himself. This had nothing to do with fear of that average-faced, mysterious cultivator.
Absolutely nothing to do with being afraid of a cabbage and the way it watched him from atop the dresser like a disappointed elder.
That would be insane.
No, this was simply respect, for he was the Flawless Blade and he held himself to a higher --
“Drip.”
He looked around.
“Drip.”
He looked up.
“Drip.”
He looked down at the blood leaking from his hand, where his own failed technique sliced open his palm.
Another crack widened across his core.
He couldn’t waste time with this cabbage; he needed to find the man who did this.
The blonde woman took his sword, and he knew that the weapon was too good for the likes of her to throw away or trade. If he could track his sword, he could track her, and if he could track her, he could find the man who dared to defeat the Flawless Blade.
Biting through the pain, he expanded his spiritual senses.
The room was in an inn, and the inn was in Mountain Root City. Citizens and cultivators bustled about the street, some flinching as his senses expanded out. Blood leaked from his lips and dripped from his fingers as he pushed everything he had into locating his sword. His impression of the city blurred as the distance grew, but at last he found his sword shining like a beacon of silver flame.
It was in a drinking house a few miles away.
Forcing the wound in his hand to heal, the Flawless Blade leaped through the window. The burst shutters rained down on the street, but he was already away. His erratic core pulsed with power, lending him flight for the first mile, before he sagged and started leaping from rooftop to rooftop with a Foundation Establishment movement technique. Each leaping step ached his soul, but he refused to sacrifice the speed. This pain was only temporary. Once he achieved his goal, he would be intact once more.
A tall building woven from stone trees loomed ahead. Inside, lay his sword, his revenge, and his destiny.
He would be the master of them all.
###
“Don’t you dare touch my sword!”
A man with long, wild hair and a sickly complexion pushed himself past the guards and stormed towards Chen Ai. Tables wobbled and drinks burst as he flared his cultivation. Two guards rushed forward to stop him, but he threw them aside with contemptuous ease. They crashed into tables, scattering guests, but the drinking house held its breath as violence brewed in the air.
As the wild man’s hair parted, I recognized him…
Before I could say anything, he shoved past me and leered at Chen Ai.
“Take your hand off my jian!” he shouted, his voice growing hoarse. “And tell me where he is! Tell me where I can find the cultivator who defeated me!”
Feeling slightly awkward, I tapped the Flawless Blade on the shoulder.
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