Chapter 45- Embracing Yang

“Fire. Arguably the most Yang element. So… I should explode my way out of here.”

Sure. You do that.

“It was a joke, Grandpa.”

I wasn’t joking. But you would be missing out. My opportunity senses are going crazy. We have to get into that ring.

“The person who jumped in before me said his name was Ma Teng. I don’t know what honorable clan the Ma are, but even if they loaded him up with four times what Sister Liren’s grandmother gave her, that’s at best a nice-to-have, not a need to have.”

True. But I trust my instincts. Let’s go investigate.

“How? Actually, that’s the most important question. How do we deal with all this fire? Because I’m okay standing here for the moment, but I’m going to get tired soon.”

Now that, I’m afraid, is something for you to figure out.

Tian looked around the room. How was he supposed to “figure out” walking through fire? Maybe he could swing from stalactite to stalactite? That seemed… possible. Maybe. But it wasn’t really useful. That was just moving around the room. The real value of the chambers came from understanding their elements and incorporating them into his own cultivation. So what could he draw from here?

The chamber seemed to have more stalactites and stalagmites in it. Some even touched, forming thin pillars. Others were squat and wide. Most were long and narrow, with smooth ridges along their length. For some reason, despite there being almost no similarities, he was strongly reminded of the trash heaps in the garbage dump. You could jump between them, but there were unpleasant consequences for failing to nail the landing.

Fire was associated with spontaneity. Tian grinned, and jumped.

He switched over to Light Body Heavy Hands. It wouldn’t make him fall any slower, but it did let his jumps push him further. His foot touched on the hot stone of a stalagmite just long enough for him to gather his strength, then he kicked off again. It felt like one of Grandpa’s jumping games. Each foot falling just where it needed to, but his mind focused on something else.

Tian failed to appreciate how special it was that he could jump from stone to stone, never really worrying about where his foot was going to land and focusing entirely on what his path through the stalagmites would be. It didn’t occur to him that, for most people, a slippery, sharply angled surface would not be considered a suitable surface to jump to or from. It was all normal for him. Who’s grandpa didn’t play jumping games with them when they were growing up?

It was an eight jump path that turned into fifteen jumps due to poor planning, but none of the jumps were too dangerous. By the end, he was just having fun. Grabbing the ring was going to be tricky, however. Bones would fall apart without connective tissues, so he couldn’t just grab the whole skeleton with his rope dart.

He was going to have to reach into the fire. Actually… he would have lower himself into it. Not something he was looking forward to. He swapped over to Snake Head Vine body and wrapped his dart around a stalactite, cinching it down tight and popping the barbs for extra grip. It wasn’t great. The rope kept trying to slip. Tian poured more and more of his vital energy into it, but he couldn’t stop moving now. Each time his foot touched a stalagmite, he was riding a wave of momentum. Stop moving, and he would drown in the fire.

He jumped for the bones, letting his weight ride on the rope as he slid lower down. He grabbed the finger with the ring on it. Got it! It was burning, searing hot in his hands, the whole bone was hot enough to sear flesh. He yanked upwards… but the bone didn’t separate. Ring, bone and the whole skeleton was pulled upwards for just a moment.

The skeleton was so heavy, Tian briefly wondered if it was made of stone. Then the rope slid off the stalactite and he stopped caring about the little things.

Tian shoved the ring into a pocket on his robe and, with the instinct born of fighting in the wasteland, stowed the skeleton in his storage ring. He just needed a quick jump. He just needed to get up out of the flames quickly, and he would be alright. He started to crouch- but it was too late.

Tian didn’t remember how he was burnt as a child. He vividly remembered what it was like to have been burned. He remembered how, in those first days of learning how to cook, he feared the fire. A long ago memory, something he had firmly overcome. Or so he thought.

“I can’t burn! I don’t want to burn!”

The fear, the anxiety, seized ahold of him. It squeezed him, his body flooded with adrenaline, his breath came in panicked panting hyperventilation. He ran in the rough direction of a flattish stalagmite he remembered, praying he would reach it. He could feel his body burning. He could feel his skin turning agonizingly hot and freezing cold as nerves died reporting dreadful damage. He reached the wide base of the stalagmite and he scrambled up, out of the fire, out of the terror. The top was barely as wide as one of his feet. It would do. A thousand times over, it would do!

Frantic hands patted his body. His shoes were gone. His feet were in agony. His trousers were mostly gone too, and big portions of his outer robe with them. Silk was a lot of things, but even the specially treated and woven silk used by the sect crafters wasn’t fireproof. He ripped off everything he could. There was a moment of refusal, where he rejected the evidence of his eyes.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then he started cultivating. He wouldn’t live that way again. Never again. Advent of Spring could heal him. It could heal anything.

Tian NO!

The wood qi cycled- and his meridians burned. Tian screamed, barely clinging to the top of the stalagmite. The fire qi that had invaded his flesh fed on the rich wood qi and vital energy and grew into a blaze. Pain made Tian stop immediately, but the damage was already severe. Without serious help, he would die.

The pills Doctor Pei gave you! First eat the Jade Spring, then Golden Dew. Quickly!

Tian pulled the bottles from his storage ring, the tiny flex of qi nearly making him black out from the pain. Jade spring- good for healing flesh and skin. Heavenly person medicine. He tapped a single green and white swirled pill out of the jade bottle and into his hand. Then he swallowed it dry.

Tian felt the medicine hit his stomach and explode outwards like a cool fog. It spread through his body, cooling what was hot and gently warming what was too cold. The power should have been gentle. It was anything but.

It was a medicine meant for those at the Heavenly Person Realm. Tian could only struggle to stay up on the stalagmite while the pill did its work.

The Demon Pulling Art!