Chapter 22 – The Rise of Etra

“Again, why don’t you remind me why I’m doing all this?” Yun Jingfei said.

Her breath came in jagged bursts. Sweat traced restless paths down her skin, pooling into the thin fabric that barely shielded her most private places.

Her dress hung neatly from a nearby branch, while the midday sun pressed down, drenching her in relentless heat.

What she wore now was little more than underwear, though Qin Yun insisted on calling it ‘Athletic Sportwear’. It stretched and bent along her curves, taut enough to support what needed to be.

Strange as it was, Yun Jingfei had come to enjoy the freedom it offered. Moving was effortless, and with only Qin Yun as her audience, modesty hardly mattered.

To understand why she was drenched in sweat, one would have to turn back the clock a little.

It had been one month since the wedding, three weeks since they both returned from their isolated getaway. Qin Yun had spent most of that time working on their housing situation.

The foundation had long been established. With Yun Jingfei’s aid, they had both settled on a floor plan. A simple one, not too big or small, just enough for both of them, with abundant possibilities for expansion, should the need arise.

The house’s frame was already raised. Massive wooden columns, at least a foot wide, supported a slightly inclined roof resting on massive beams, sourced from the countless nearby trees, some of which were more than a century old.

Qin Yun had no shortage of materials, which cut costs substantially as he was the only one working on this project.

For good measure, he had even made a makeshift quarry of a nearby cliff, digging straight into the rock to extract slabs of identical stone, then shaping them with a chisel for roofing.

Practitioners’ houses were usually built to last, for it wasn’t rare for these structures to live and age alongside their owners, lasting more than a few centuries with minimal repairs needed, such was the goal Qin Yun had in mind.

From dawn to dusk, his days consisted of hard labour, of which he was already accustomed to, having spent most of this life quietly repairing the structures around the clan, whether it’d be the most intricate ornaments, down to the foundations themselves.

Nothing was beyond his skill. The house was taking shape quickly. In another month, he guessed, they could finally trade their cozy tent for real walls.

For her part, Yun Jingfei seemed to be in no hurry. Her earlier reluctance had faded. Used to the excess of palace life, Qin Yun worried this new reality may not fit her lifestyle, but such worries were misplaced, for she had also spent a few years as an ascetic.

Practitioner sects, especially remote ones like the Soaring Phoenix Sect, weren’t known for their convenience. Though she may have been a core disciple, allowed to practice day and night while being supported by an army of outer disciples, her life in the sect was a far cry from her life as an imperial princess; life within the mountains was much harsher than the life Qin Yun was currently offering her.

It was a comfortable middle ground.

Yun Jingfei lived a lackadaisical lifestyle, rising whenever she wished and going to bed whenever sleep struck her. She relished the freedom for a time, but the lack of structure soon overwhelmed her.

She felt herself wasting away, plunging her into depression once again.

So, Qin Yun offered a solution.

When the mind wandered aimlessly, a distraction became necessary, and no distraction was better than exhaustion. When the body was too drained to move, extraneous thoughts wouldn’t be able to rise to the surface, buried deep into her unconscious mind, left to rot without escape until they faded entirely.

However, one problem came to mind. The path of a practitioner, the one Yun Jingfei had used as her outlet all these years, had been closed to her. She needed something else.

Qin Yun proposed to teach her martial arts.

She was reticent, at first, but soon relented. She had no real reason to refuse, only a lingering attachment to what could have been.

Unfortunately, ever since the incident, her physical capabilities had taken a steep nosedive.

Once, she could have battled at breakneck speed for hours on end without showing the slightest hint of exertion, relying on the vitality found within the blooming spiritual seed, but now, just a mere jog around the small clearing where Qin Yun was building their residence left her panting.

She collapsed many times before making even one uninterrupted lap.

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She was now mortal, worse even. Her physical strength was that of a child, minus the endless vitality.

For the next two weeks, Qin Yun forced her to help him with his construction project. By carrying heavy material, even one small piece at a time, not only did it speed up Qin Yun’s pace, but it also helped her gain stamina.

He even made her shape the stone roof tiles by hand, using nothing but a hammer and chisel. She complained endlessly, but stuck to it, eventually getting it done.

Days of repetitive hammering forged her body into one barely fit to even begin to learn martial arts. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Now, all she had to do was keep building on that foundation, just as Qin Yun was currently building his house. Neither was all too different.

“Didn’t you want to learn martial arts?” Qin Yun asked. “I thought you were getting bored with just physical training?”

“How’s that any different?!” Yun Jingfei snapped, limbs heavy from the repetitive motions. Ever since she had graduated to the next step, Qin Yun’s training had become even more draconian.

Attached to all four of her limbs were carefully selected weights, light enough that she could move them, but heavy enough that doing so would take all her attention.

The slightest lapse in willpower and her limbs would miss the carefully choreographed dance Qin Yun had so diligently taught her, which she was made to repeat ad nauseam, until she couldn’t anymore.

More than the fatigue, it was the unknown purpose of this dance that weighed on her mind. Qin Yun had tried to explain it, but the core concept still remained out of her grasp.

“Tell me again, how is this supposed to help me grasp Madra?” Yun Jingfei said, hunched over, hands on her knees as she desperately tried to regain her breath. “Can’t I just do as I did when I started cultivating? They can’t be that different…”

“But they are,” Qin Yun replied, not bothered to look her way as he was busy whittling a small circular post used as a railing for the second-floor balcony. “Etra and Madra, as energy concepts, couldn’t be further apart.”

“How so? If you’re so smart, why don’t you explain it with words instead of this strange ritual?”

“Because words simply aren’t enough,” Qin Yun replied firmly, as if he had merely stated the most obvious of realities. “Does a bird need words to know how to fly? No, it simply does, because it is in its nature to do so.”

“We’re not birds,” Yun Jingfei rolled her eyes.

“Maybe not,” Qin Yun shrugged. “But, humans are still animals, nonetheless. We all have our own natures.”