Chapter 2- Real Boxing

A week passed since the tournament ended, but the martial practice square was being used for boxing once again. One cultivator was tall, muscular, manly and valorous, the other short, athletic, and leaning more towards pretty than rugged. Fast steps stirred the sand as slim white palms struck out; the right hand fluttering upwards towards his opponent’s face like a drifting wing, while the right stayed low and relatively close in. There was a seeming slip, a bare half step off balance, but when the strong warrior moved to punish it with a fist to the pretty face, he found the right palm buried in his gut.

Were they on the rivers and lakes, if the tall warrior wasn’t a Level Nine cultivator from the Ancient Crane Monastery, that would have ended the fight. But the warrior was a veteran of the Outer Court. He had killed his way across the red sands of the wasteland, and made a name for himself suppressing villains and heretics from the Wildfang Mountains to the Bourski Steppe. That palm barely made contact before his waist leaned back and an iron leg smashed into the pretty boy’s knee.

The warrior pushed off his planted leg as he retracted his kick, gaining some distance, then closing again with a dashing step and a quick one-two combo towards the smaller youth’s face, followed by a vicious hook to the ribs.

The palms swung out again, the smaller man moving his body like rain drifting on a breeze. The aggressive fists stopped dead in the air, as though they were striking an invisible wall. It was all parrying and positioning, but the audience found it hard to shake the illusion. The drifting palms fell lower as though he were going for another attack on the gut- a feint! They exploded towards the chest and head of the warrior, each strike moving with an obscure tempo, carrying a trace of dreadful power…

The warrior took another dashing step back, then spun around with a roundhouse kick that sent the pretty boy tumbling across the sands.

“Damn! Your bout, Senior Brother. Thank you for the pointers.” Tian picked himself up and bowed towards his opponent, who returned his bow every bit as politely.

“Heh, if this was a bout, I’d be the one flying. I’m happy to help. Your problem is controlling the timing.”

“Yes, that became very plain. Which is driving me crazy, because I swear I had it right. I got you to charge onto that hidden palm-”

“You almost did. It was a good feint, but you extended a half second too soon. I read your shoulder and upper arm and was able to check my momentum. The combo you were setting up at the end had the same problem. You thought I bit on the feint and started your attack a little too late.”

The bigger man wiggled his hand a little in the air, searching for the right words. “I know the move you were going for. It was the twelfth move, Mounting Six Dragons, right?”

Tian nodded. “Right. I figured that since your Mountain Crushing Tactics boxing was so straightforward, meeting it with a complex series of attacks-”

The warrior shook his head. “No, no. The Eighteen Palms of Dragon Suppressing is internal yin, external yang. You have to gather energy then explode at the right moment. If I’m coming straight at you, fast and hard, then counter by retreating, finding the gap, then counter-attack even faster and harder.”

Tian thought it through and reckoned that was right. “Thank you again. I’m glad you are enjoying the Dragon Suppressing Palms.”

“Thank you for handing it over to the Scripture Pavilion! It’s been a long time since I had some new boxing to play with.”

The two walked off the martial practice square, to give some space for the next sparring pair. Tian noticed one or two other people practicing the Dragon Suppressing Palms. It was generally the older Level Nines who were curious. They had learned all the arts that really interested them from the Scripture Pavilion decades ago. It had been a long time since something came along that was worth looking at.

Though the Monastery of the Ancient Crane Mountain was not short of things worth looking at.

Once upon a time, in the old, old days of a year and a half ago, the Monastery was strictly reserved for those at the Heavenly Realm. Or, as Tian learned, what those in the Monastery termed “actual cultivators.” Anything below the Heavenly Realm and you were just a slightly longer lived Mortal. True immortality started in the Heavenly realm. It sounded arrogant, but then, they were literally above others.

Heavenly people dashed through the sky on flying swords. Others bummed rides from immortal cranes, or sat with friends in a little wooden row boat that sculled between the clouds. Others favored ostentatiously humble bamboo rafts, polled through the air. The Monastery was a wild growth on the mountainside, brilliantly painted when it was built on flat ground, painted black with green trimmed eaves when the buildings hung from cliff faces. Tian made a point of exploring it, and he still had only seen a small part. They weren’t hiding things from him. It was just that big.

Immortals get bored. It should have been obvious, but it had never occurred to him. Cultivation helped, but there were few things ancient immortality cultivating daoists loved more than taking on a big project. Building a state-of-the-art alchemy laboratory? Great! But to do that, we will need to make sure the nearby smithies are vibration isolated to prevent the possible disturbance of medicine formation. Which would be a huge undertaking. Which was also great.

They would get right onto it, just as soon as they finished the eight acre underground spiritual plant cultivation fields. The current fields were full to bursting, and it was past time they expanded. Of course, arrays had to be made, the right dirt found, to say nothing of ensuring proper temperature, humidity and light. It was a massive undertaking. Which was great!

Compounding the difficulty was the fact that many of the buildings and fields were not at all near each other… if you couldn’t fly. If you could simply hop on your flying sword, soar a mere four hundred feet vertically and half a mile horizontally in less time than it took to brew a cup of tea, then surely they were close together. If you had to walk, on the other hand, the layout was simply impossible to fully navigate. The earthly, and earth bound, simply had to do their best and limit their range of exploration.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tian made his way from the practice fields to the crafting hall Sister Liren had rented. It was a fairly small building, as crafting halls went, and almost devoid of equipment. What there mostly was, was tables, places to hang things, and a good spot to hammer things. Sister Liren was lighting the wick in the last of the bowls, the mixture within them a combination of pine resin, tung oil and pig fat. It made a vile smelling, sooty smoke that was caught by a second bowl suspended two inches above the first. The smell, however, could not be contained.

“I picked the worst time to come by, huh?”

“Nah, I’m done here. I’ll come back in an hour or two for the next step.” She stepped away from the reeking bowls and walked towards the door. Liren had gotten a little taller in the last year, but to her immense relief, just a little bit taller. Still slender, and Tian knew she still thought she looked mannish. Tian thought she was crazy. The last year had been good for her. Almost as good as it had been for him. Why, he had grown a whole two inches in a mere eighteen months!

“How did the spar go?” She rolled her shoulders and stepped out of the hall. Before she put her wide hat on, Tian saw the sun bring out the luster of her skin. It was a rich tan, with hints of copper and gold just under the skin, making her appear lit from within. He wished she would skip her wide hat and gloves, but she never did. She had, however, dropped the veil. In the sect, amongst all these Heavenly Realm cultivators, it was pointless and pretentious.

“Very good! I got killed.”

“You didn’t use your elemental sense?”