24. Fight & Flight

It was like Kaya was a kid again and the world was her sandbox. A very big, hilly, bone-studded sandbox.

She leapt around, catapulting and whooping. “Look!” She yelled as she bent down, coiling like a spring, and bounced into another leap. The sand at her feet shot out in a blast and she flew twenty feet in the air; twisting into a somersault, she landed nimbly into a crouch. Her smile was full of vicious joy, a predator at play.

Dorian nodded. Usually this effect was only possible with a Vigor physique. But a bloodline granted her the beginnings of one; she’d steadily inherit the attributes of her bloodline even in the [Origin] realm, granting her a Pseudo-Vigor physique. When she stepped into the Vigor realm, she’d already be granted a high-class physique; no need for any treasures or special rituals, like the rest of the mortal lot.

The bloodline was already paying dividends.

Strangely, seeing Kaya made him more curious about Hento’s. If he had superb speed or explosiveness he hadn’t shown it; strength, likewise, didn’t seem to be his forte—and Frost Pythons were hardly paragons of speed anyways. Perhaps it was his dexterity, or his contortions, or his reaction speed that his physique granted? He had a suspicion Hento hadn’t had a chance to play all his cards in their duel.

The Young Master had had more time to get his traits under control and to mask them. Kaya, meanwhile, was still an embodiment of unchecked aggression.

Now she’d progressed to trying out—or rather, showing off— basic techniques with her qi. “And watch this!” She called as she settled into a stance. She whipped around into a [Ray]; the technique blossomed and skidded into the sand in an instant, burrowing a hole which glowed deep red like hot coals. There was scarcely any time between the start of her motion and the shot’s springing out.

Her activation speed’s been halved. And the technique was edged with her new aura—explosive, nearly unhinged. Much more explosive.

“Woah!” Dorian gasped. To play up the effect he let his jaw drop a little. “Awesome!”

“I am, aren’t I?” she grinned.

“You might be even stronger than Hento now!”

She wrinkled her nose. “That prissy moron? Pssh! I was always stronger than him. I don’t care if he’s got a thousand bloodlines.”

Then Dorian’s expression turned awkward. He pointed up to her. “Sis, your hair…”

“Huh?”

At which point she looked up, realized half her head had was ablaze, and went back to a round of screaming and fire-extinguisher-rolling.

“You really need to work on your control.”

“I know, I know,” she groused as she sat back up and patted out the last of the fires. She was still smiling as she looked up. “

“When you’re not setting yourself on fire, yeah.”

She set her jaw. “Spoilsport. Fine. That’s it. I won’t come back in until I’ve got it under control!”

Standing, she settled back into another try at a technique.

“Hi-ya!”

This time she threw a [Flash Palm] laced with wild aura, lost control of it, and sent it skittering at his head; he ducked and it went over, colliding into the sand. The move nearly set their home on fire. It did set her hair on fire, but by now she was a veteran of the duck-and-roll routine.

Then, from from the distance—“Whichever nitwit is practicing martial arts at this hour, go fuck yourself!”

Dorian winced. It was getting pretty loud…

“Fuck you, you inbred piss-guzzler!” Kaya roared back.

“Fuck you, you cactus-fucking bitch!” wafted over the reply from a cluster of tents.

“Grr….” as she stomped over, fists wreathed in qi, eyes burning in rage, Dorian pulled at her arm.

“What?!”

He blinked. Was it the bloodline or was she always this hot-headed?

“It is getting late,” he said. His eyes flickered to the spot where the [Palm] landed a mere few yards from where his bedsheets lay. She followed his gaze and paused. A guilty   “Maybe you could stand to practice a little farther out?” He hedged.

“Tsk. Fine.” Then she glanced in the direction where the voice came. “But not before I tear that asshole a new asshole.”

***

She stalked off in a fit of rage, and he went back inside. He had his own toys to check out.

“The Cloud-treading Steps, eh?” He said, dusting off the cover. Probably it was a tome Tuketu had stumbled ages ago, found inscrutable, and stuffed into an empty spot in his ring for safekeeping. It was a qigong technique, a rarity at the lower levels. If it was a good or even half-decent one, it’d be rarer than mithril; most movement techniques were gods-awful. At this levels fighters had no conception of good footwork, which was really just good movement, which was really just good positioning. But low-level fighters preferred the flashy and the offensive; footwork, a fundamental, was the first to gather dust.

The title didn’t give him much hope. Cloud-treading Steps was perhaps the most generic name he’d ever seen; he’d probably seen thirty arts with the same name! He flipped it open and scanned the pages.

And slowly, as he worked his way through, grew more and more pleasantly surprised.

The art’s mechanism was intriguing. Rather than the octopus mating ritual that most techniques entailed, this had no footwork patterns at all. Rather than boost speed in stepping-patterns, it lightened the user’s bodyweight. At the highest level, it claimed to allow the user to step on air itself and frolic among the clouds.

Then he flipped to the actual details of the technique, and its grand promises ground to a screeching halt.

It burned through qi far too fast. Its lightening was a passive effect, toggled-on… at his rate, even if he executed the technique to perfection he’d burn through all he had in thirty seconds.

It’d need some rejiggering—unlike with the [Fist of the Rising Sun], this was too flawed a technique to include in his arsenal at its base form.

As he set to analyzing it, breaking down its structure, and plugging its holes, though, he stopped again. Weird. The more he dug into it, the more it seemed like a derivative technique. It was like an artist hearing a description of a great painting and trying to reproduce it blindfolded; it had the outline of something greater, but none of the execution. Some parts cohered like well-oiled joints. Others seemed like they were glued-on crooked.

The implications came to him in a jolt. He sucked in a quick breath.

This was not an uncommon way for techniques to form, but he’d never have expected it of this realm. If he guessed right, the transcriber of this tome found a much older, coherent but incomplete tome—perhaps pages were lost to time or sections to erosion. Then they’d thrown in their own additions, taping over the gaps.

What are this technique’s origins? At a glance, they seemed sophisticated enough to be descended from the Middle Realms. Perhaps even higher.

If that was true, it changed everything. His heart sped up just thinking about it. Something was off about this Realm; he’d known it from the start, and that sense only furthered when the revelation of the Chief’s and Hento’s bloodlines. For a Lower Realm, Ylterra was ridden with treasure; now this? Had some cabal of rogue gods had left a host of inheritances here—or was it something else?

Whatever the case, if he was right, what he held had the makings of a god-tier technique. All he needed to do now was to draw out its essence.

He set himself to it with fervor.

The next several hours passed in a blur as he extracted, milked, and reworked the technique for all it was worth; he rerouted the qi flows, discarded extraneous motions, and brought out the essence of the thing. There was a unique satisfaction to it, like cleaning up a trash-laden, filthy house—it was painstaking work, but as he peeled back the veneer of muck something charming was taking shape. Something divine.

By the time he finished, panting and sweating, he’d burned up half the night.

Kaya sat to his right, patiently cycling, eyes closed; he was so caught up in mental remodeling he hadn’t even noticed her enter. True to her word, she’d gotten her aura under control. Now it simmered at a slow boil, nearly invisible.

She’d had her fun. He savored his new creation in his mind, grinning. He’d have his, too.

The warm night wind was a caress. It was dead night, a night that drowned in quiet. Out here there was no movement save for the smoldering of a few low torches. The world seemed to hold its breath as he walked out into the open.

“This had better work,” he said. He was tired and yet he also tingled with energy.

This is nearing god-Tier, if I’ve done my job right. He pulled himself back a little. This fragment was only one introductory technique, nowhere near a true martial art. Likely he’d never encounter this art’s most potent parts.

But even so—if he was right—the [Cloud-treading Steps] would unlock entirely new heights. Literally.

He took a step.

[Level-up!]

[Cloud-treading Steps (Modified)] Lv. 1

[Level-up!]

[Cloud-treading Steps (Modified)] Lv. 2

He was no stranger to other gravities, but it was especially strange to have his mass altered drastically in an instant. All his body’s heuristics for distance and balance and timing had to be adjusted; one step took him nearly ten feet up. One leap had him spinning into a somersault, arms flailing for balance.

When he fell, he fell like a feather: softly, meandering his way down gravity’s rainbow. He had enough time to right himself and land on two feet.

Delightful! He tried again, this time keeping in mind the full mechanics, and bounded up a step. Now came the hard part.

In a way this his own invention—it hadn’t been in the technique as written in the tome. But calling it an ‘invention’ was folly; it was as though he’d seen a lock’s hole and simply filled in a key that conformed to its shape. Here, that key was a burst of qi which played off the air itself. Just like the technique’s original intent promised.

At this rate of burn he’d last another half hour, maybe. Plenty enough to fully test this thing out.

He quirked a corner of his lips. It’s only day two, and I’ve discovered flight.

Then, just as he was deliberating what to do with it, a low roar drifted over the far distance. Ordinarily he might not have heard it, but in this perfect stillness, in this silent night, it reached him the way even a small ripple disturbs the surface of a still pond. His eyes snapped to attention.

Whatever made the noise was too far to be seen. At least, at this elevation—and at this distance.

He now had a means of correcting for both, didn’t he? With his newfangled technique, it wouldn’t be much effort to check it out…

A little midnight excursion might be in order. He shook out his limbs, loosening, and smiled. Let’s see just how fast these Steps can go.

Author's Note: to all my $5 Patrons, I've now set up a 5 chapter, $10 Tier! I plan to increase the advance chaps for this Tier by a chapter a week, starting this weekend.