Ling Qi let out a small laugh under her breath. "The point is, I think I've earned an afternoon off, you know?" She mused aloud. "No one can blame me for getting a little cultivation in."
"Sure," Sixiang said, amused. "You shut in."
Ling Qi simply let out a huff. "Quiet you, I'm diligent is all."
"Zhengui will cultivate too, so he can protect Big Sister tomorrow!" Her little brother cut in excitedly.
I can imagine it now, family leisure time is everyone just sitting there in a circle...meditating..
Giving only a slight nod in response, Ling Qi quieted her thoughts, and turned her mind inward, toward the flows of her qi, and the cycles of energy within her body. Slowly awareness of the outside world faded away, sequestered to a corner of her thoughts, and taking with it her sense of time. It was no wonder, Ling Qi thought that older cultivators could vanish into meditation for years, decades or even centuries.
Even back in the second realm, hours could vanish in a flash, and even whole days could go by if one wasn't careful. She suspected that feeling of distorted time would only grow with her cultivation.
That'd certainly help explain why plateauing happens for most cultivators.
In Yellow, Ling Qi could cultivate by taking a few minutes off while waiting for a meeting to meditate for a moment, in Green the same process took a few HOURS off. Sure she gained time in a day by steadily diminishing need for mortal sustenance and rest, but if she had responsibilities(like say, training soldiers) then splicing them between cultivation hours in a day is going to get worse.
Because the value of a cultivator's time rises with tier cultivation, especially as their available time expands with telepresence and multi-body arts, but cultivation takes more and more time.
If the scale holds, in Cyan it'd basically be "do you want to cultivate today, or do literally anything else?", in Violet it'd be "Do you want to do things this week in three different places at once, or do you want to cultivate".
If so, sticking promising new cultivators as Barons is a HELL of a way to tarpit them with responsibilities isn't it? A clan head can't just take a month off, and cultivating twice a week is going to slow them down.
If you wanted to be Clan Head without stalling cultivation or grossly mismanaging your fief, you'd need a cultivation art that lets you derive cultivation from fief administration.
Hmm.. would the Reflecting, Guiding, or Mother Moons work better there?
She could feel the marks left by her injuries still, faded by the power of the Sect's medicine as they were. A feeling of jaggedness, halfway up her forearm, where the bone had broken, and a messy snarl in her abdomen, where lightning had surged through her still fragile organs.
She understood now why Elder Jiao had mentioned the possibility of her going into shock. Her stomach and viscera had received ruinous electrical burns, and though reflexive qi flows had allowed the damage to be ignored, it likely would have grown worse with time. She might have been unconscious for the rest of the day.
I dare say us trying to tough it out and keeling over for the rest of the day would not have been fun.
To truly change an masterful art such as the Thousand Rings Fortress was beyond her but… perhaps applying its lessons elsewhere was not. In the opening rounds of a battle, she had to choose whether to put her effort into becoming one with shadow and slipping away, risking great damage, or channeling her effort into armor, trading on the certainty of a weakened attack… if that could be solved...
With a new focus, Ling Qi concentrated her thoughts on that idea.
By the time Ling Qi opened her eyes night had fallen, but she had succeeded. The ability to defend from more potent arts had been etched into the very core of her spirit. It was sloppy, lacking the structure granted by a full art, less efficient than her Ten Ring Defense art, but, with this, she could improve her early defense, without having to sacrifice her opening offense to as great a degree.
Huh, that sounds kind of like proto-art creation via shaping domain?
Sitting up in bed, Ling Qi stretched her arms overhead, feeling invigorated, the last soreness from her wounds having faded. Peering around her temporary room, Ling Qi could not help but smile. On the stand by her bed was a little basket, full of flowers, sweets and distinctly wood scented pills. The note laying in the center confirmed her thought. Li Suyin had seen that she was deep in cultivation, and elected not to disturb her, leaving instead her congratulations and a little victory present.
Ling Qi grinned as she let the first of the pills dissolve on her tongue, the rich flavor spreading as quickly as the vital warmth of the medicinal energy. Perhaps she could improve her efficiency even more by morning like this.
Suyin: "Only you, Ling Qi, would take being injured as a chance to cultivate more. Here, have more drugs."
"You're too modest, Ling Qi," Sun Liling said, her smile growing sharp. "Why, you're practically a living example of what the Sect's are supposed to do you know? Someone as talented as you woulda been wasted as a mortal."
"Don't get put off balance," Sixiang whispered.
"Thank you very much for your kind words, Princess," Ling Qi replied somewhat mechanically, not quite able to keep all of the bewilderment out of her voice. "I am more than honored to here so praise." Something wasn't right. By now she was sure that the story of the years events had spread to everyone watching. Sun Liling so openly praising an enemy who had caused her so much trouble would make her look bad surely. Was she just trying to seem generous, and clean up her tarnished reputation? Ling Qi doubted it, but…
The other girl nodded amicably, not breaking eye contact for a moment. "Right. I just wanted you to be sure you know?"
A bad feeling began to stir in Ling Qi's thoughts. "Of what Princess Sun?"
"That I would be taking you seriously, from the start. I think you've earned that," she replied lightly.
That is a lot of face she's giving us. She's had the whole of yesterday to talk about optics with Sun Shao.
Liling did what she always does, when it gets hot, raise the stakes.
What she did here
-She (sort of) recognizes Ling Qi as a Fourth Monster
--This means Renxiang gets face by proxy, as her judgment was recognized by a rival.
--This means Ling Qi's opponents so far all recover some face by proxy, after all, Ji Rong fought valiantly but could not be expected to beat someone Liling took seriously, and Chu Song was set up to fail.
--This means Ling Qi going down like a bitch or conceding after the first good hit is going to look poorly on Liling for being the one making the statement, she needs to actually put up a fight after being accorded such respect.
---Which, yes, means Liling is sort of obligated to drag this out into the closest thing to a torture session. She's looking forward to it.
--This means Liling taking her time winning isn't a face loss anymore.
--This means Liling winning gains her face(which she sorely needs after the total assbeating her faction took)
--This means Liling losing costs less face.
Not a bad move for a few words. If she can win(she can).
It also means we're gonna get such an assbeating, but totes worth it.
Oh.
As the formations mists rose, and and solidified, forming a maze of roots beneath her feet and a sweltering sun above her head, shining through the high tropical canopy of a thick jungle landscape, so overgrown that a man might hardly be able to pass through between any given pair of tree trunks, Ling Qi could only stare at her grinning opponent.
Oh, Shenhua you clever bitch.
This is an environment that
blatantly and visibly favors Liling. While secretly being nearly the best terrain for Ling Qi because:
-Tree canopy means shadows and visual obstacles are omnipresent and impossible to predict or remove.
-Rich vegetation buffs Zhengui as much as Dharitri.
-The environment is moist and that helps Ling Qi as much as Liling
-Ranged attacks without aimbot features will suck. AoE attacks like FVM and Ashfall would not.
If Liling does well the terrain takes the credit. If Liling does poorly, she takes all the blame.
Hey!
She caught sight of the enemy a moment later, as Gu Xiulan's flames seared away a chunk of the canopy, exposing a flash of yellow and black as the hidden figure dodged. When it halted atop the branches of another tree, Ling Qi got her first glimpse of the attacker. It was… shaped like a human woman, mostly, but the yellow and black chitin that grew from and encased her limbs, and disturbingly insectile eyes and waving antenna on her bald head put the lie to that, as did the glittering wings, on her back.
She was also naked, save for a roughly spun skirt of red cloth that hung past her knees, but that did not seem terribly relevant at the moment, Ling Qi focused on the odd string instrument in her hands instead, she could feel the foreign qi flowing outward as glistening chitin claws plucked the strings. She did her best to ignore the way the womans cheeks split open as she sneered down at them, her scissorlike jaws working in the air.
It was a good thing that she didn't let herself be distracted, because a moment later she was forced to dodge to the side as a heavy weight slammed into the ground where she had been standing a moment before. The beast that turned to face her, bright green eyes gleaming in the mist was a massive black cat of some kind, a collar of intricate metal and cloth over its neck and shoulders. Ling Qi made her distance quickly, pulling away to the center of the forty meter wide muddy clearing the jungle along with Xiulan, who had dealt with her own attacker, going by the meter long bronze spear sticking in the dirt where she had stood.
Said spear vanished like mist a moment later, reappearing in the hands of the tall, muscular and dark skinned man, he regarded them with an hungry expression shadowed by the unkempt black hair that hung over his face. Unlike the woman, he wore thick white leather breeches, and a cloak of the same, something about the material made her skin crawl, and she found herself hesitant to look at the heavy hide cloak for long.
The man said something in his guttural foreign tongue in a slightly mocking tone that made the insect woman bristle and hiss something angry back, and the great cat circled away from them, eyes locked on Ling Qi, clearly looking for another opportunity to pounce. All of them are in the late second realm, though the cloaked man's qi is strange and muted.
In the instant of calm that remained, Ling Qi caught Xiulan's eye as her fingers danced over the length of her flute. She only had time for a slight gesture, flicking her gaze in the direction of the enemy musician before she put her focus fully on her foes. The tone of her melody changed, growing mournful as the mist darkened with her qi, and she launched herself toward the bee woman, feet blurring over the muddy ground as she dragged her mist with her to engulf the distant enemy.
The woman's wings glittered as they blurred out of sight and she leaped from the treebranch, retreating only slightly slower than Ling Qi advanced. Her own song changed, and the opening notes of a new melody flowed forth, ominous and rising in intensity. The power of her own melody failed to take hold, flowing off the half naked woman like water from a duck's feathers.
The claws of her constructs proved more difficult to avoid, and she felt a surge of satisfaction as misty talons scraped across carapace, leaving deep grooves in the black chitin. She had little enough time to celebrate though, as her instincts screamed and she twisted her body to the side, dark mist trailing after her limbs.
The dark shape of the massive black cat brushed past her in the mist, but as it passed her by it warped, bone and flesh twisting noisily and painfully as in the space of an instant, the beasts body became that of a man and it's former front paw lashed out, glittering bronze talons catching her across the stomach and ripping through her gown to scrape lines of blood across her skin.
She leaped back, feeling the burning of poison in the wound and grimaced as the creature turned back to face her, fangs bared in a twisted grin. It's head was still that of a great cat, though subtly warped, and black fur still covered rippling muscle, but it now stood on two legs.
More disgustingly, thousands of fuzzy gold and black bodies swarmed across his flesh, a living armor made of the swarm that had failed to penetrate her mist. A glance back toward her other foe showed the woman emerging from a burst of blue white flame, smoking and trailing charred insects. Another confirmed that the other enemy had gained his own armor.
That glance almost proved her undoing though, as the white cloaked barbarian swept his garment from his shoulders and brandished it in his free hand like a shield. Lingt Qi shuddered, not quite knowing why the cloak unsettled her, until it writhed with life, and a multitude of red slits opened across its surface.
Faces, the thing was made up of human faces, stretched and stitched together impossibly. Her gorge rose at the sight, even as the torturing things gabbled and screamed, releasing a bloody mist from the grotesquely stretched mouths. It was an abomination, and she needed to destroy it. She didn't want to imagine what that thing had done to create such a talisman, but she would…
Ling Qi shook off the anger clouding her thoughts and refocused. No, disgusting as it was, she needed to stay on target. Especially since the woman was keeping enough distance that she would have to choose one or the other to keep within the mist.
Ling Qi cycled her internal energy as she turned her eyes back to the enemy she had chosen to target, pushing back and erasing the toxins she could feel in her veins as she began her elegy once again, putting the full force of her will into the melody. This time the woman shuddered as dark qi invaded her meridians, sapping stamina and will to fight. Despite the trembling in her limbs though, her song continued, clashing with the melody of the vale as it picked up tempo, eliciting the feeling of the approach of a terrible foe.
Ling Qi nearly screamed as the notes washed over her like a wave of needles pricking at her skin, but threw off the spiritual assault with some effort. Gu Xiulan seemed unaffected as well, though was now clad in pulsing strands of near liquid fire that twined about her like armor.
Her own concerns quickly overwhelmed her as the half beast thing rushed her, it's gait growing more human by the instant as it completed its transformation. The things eyes were narrowed and frustrated, but that did not stop it from overtaking her in speed, it's bare clawed fingers punching through her gown to dig into her side and twist. She tore herself away from the beast, and blood trailed from his fingers in unnatural ribbons even as she felt foreign qi sapping her stamina and weakening her muscles. Despite that she maintained the presence of mind to leap aside and avoid the black cloud of bees that descended to engulf her moments later.
To her side, brilliant white hot flames erupted, punching into the shroud of shrieking souls that had risen to encase the other enemy. The disgusting barbarian threw back his head nad belowed in pain as the lance punched through, destroying the armor of bees and searing his flesh, Xiulan flinched as well, burns searing across her own flesh. That cost her as the beastly man's flung spear tore a gash across her thigh and slammed into the dirt behind her.
The instant it did, Xiulan froze, trembling and wide eyed, but still as a statue. Ling Qi reacted instantly, activating the art Elder Ying had given her in a pulse of cleansing wood qi, fortifying herself at the same time that she purged the curse of immobility away from her friend. That was all the attention she could spare though, as the next measure of the enemies song washed over her, clawing at the weave of her own technique as if to shred her defenses.
It proved ineffectual for the moment, but the bloodthirsty song pounded in her ears and wore at her qi unceasingly. Despite that, when her other foe lunged at her, the bronze claws strapped to his right hand outstretched and glistening with poison, she was able to dodge despite his superior speed. She was beginning to get the measure of his movements.
A moment later, she heard Gu Xiulan let out a furious cry, and dozens of beads of flames flickered into existence around them all. A moment later they bloomed, exploding in showers of blue and orange sparks that seared and englufed all three of their enemies.
Gu Xiulan was not doing well though, she could tell her friends energies were guttering, as she desperately dodged and avoided the clawing hands of the third enemy who was still shrouded in shrieking and gibbering spirits. His disgusting cloak fluttered and struck like a third limb as he drove her friend back, blood and qi torn from her wounds every time he so much as grazed her.
She wasn't the only one struggling though. The fires had hurt the bee woman badly, and she now slumped atop a tree branch, her music faltering. A knife flew from Ling Qi's hand a moment later, striking her dead center in the chest and dropping her remaining qi precipitously. It cost Ling Qi to retain her song for an attack, but she wanted the woman down before she could finish her melody
The woman shot her a venomous look, mandibles snapping angrily, as she ceased her sonata… and instead called back her swarm, armoring herself and her allies once again. She slumped afterwards though, qi entirely depleted. The echoes remained though, and Ling Qi nearly screamed as the pressure broke through prickling and stabbing at her skin thousands of hungry insects. Blood rose from scores of tiny cuts and pinpricks across her body, even as she dodged another increasingly frustrated attack from the other enemy.
Flowers of flame bloomed again, bursting across their enemies. The woman was flung limply from her perch, but the others merely flinched , protected by said woman's last act and their own tough hides.
That was the last thing she did though.
Ling Qi saw her friend stumble, her wounded leg buckling underneath her for a moment. It was all the opening her opponent needed. Rippling white leather covered in distorted eyes and mouths coiled around her throat, and the barbarians hands, twisted into bloody talons of bone plunged into her stomach, only for him to to tear in opposite directions, blood and other things spraying from the wound.
She heard herself scream something, interrupting her melody as she watched her friend slump in the barbarians grasp, her fires finally guttering out.
Everything went dark, and she knew no more.
We fought this before. Bug Lady is Dharitri. Shifter Spearman is Liling.
