I'll show her my perfected Gentleman's Sword

I discovered that the nuance between training and being trained was completely, utterly and beautifully different. After an entirely pleasant day and two nights of the latter, I finally managed to leave the Frolics of the Lunar Bunny for, perhaps, the last time. At least, this local franchise, anyway.

I had to decline another offer to stay, this time as the zither MILF's pet, but I was nobody's pet—well, at least, not on a full-time basis! I had a lot more ambitions these days, and most of them couldn't be achieved if I wiled away my days hugging someone's thigh. That wasn't the way to master the mystic arts.

The weekly Sending from Meril's parents had arrived at a very inappropriate time last night, so all I could send back was that I couldn't talk right then. That said, I was happy to hear that they had finally discovered some signs of civilisation. They had discovered themselves in an arctic wilderness after the teleportation mishap, and from their perspective, it had only been six days, while it had been closer to five months for me.

Fortunately, they were well prepared to survive in almost any environment, no matter how harsh it appeared on the surface. Both of my parents could cast level six spells, so while they weren't quite capable of casting Magnificent Mansion just yet, to my mom's continual complaints, they were capable of casting the fifth level spell that was quite similar, if a little more subdued, called Humble Home.

As for me, I couldn't even cast Tiny Hut yet, although I was hopeful for the future with how I have been practising my evocations. Casting third-level evocations would be a good milestone because I wanted to be able to cast Sending back at them. I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate my bothering them twenty-plus times a day normally, but it would be much easier to tell them the story of my travels rather than having to count on the ability to reply to their Sendings.

I was really surprised such magic worked in alternate dimensions or wherever we were. I already knew, or at least suspected, that sending or receiving matter from my current world back to Borea was difficult. From my engineering background, I didn't understand why it would be easy to send information and hard to send matter, as I considered them fundamentally similar actions, but I had never been an expert on physics, aside from the practical applications of nuclear fission.

I knew I wasn't really their daughter, not really, but I was a bit attached to them anyway.

I got back to Li's villa, and he was already outside waiting for me. I smiled at him and waved, and he almost flinched and took a step back, frowning at me in deep thought. He asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Why? Let me go get my things, and then we can leave. I'll buy you some breakfast at the shop you like for the trip," I offered him, confused.

As I passed him, I heard him mutter, "...never just smiles. What happened? Why is she happy?"

It took some self-discipline, but I ignored those remarks, proceeding into the villa and getting the backpack I had already packed. I glanced around, frowning, and searched the villa for a couple of minutes before finding my familiar Crow. I had shifted his form into a black cat, and ever since then, he spent almost all of the day sleeping in sunspots.

A raven didn't fly fast enough to keep up with us even months ago, but I had built a little cat carrier onto the top of my backpack, and I shoved him inside. I could have unsummoned him, but I felt it likely that every time I did that, I likely got a new soul acting as my familiar when I summoned them again.

If they were sent back to Hell, then the time dilation was so extreme that it might be likely that they had finished their sentence and had been reincarnated by the time I called them back, especially if they were taken from the first few layers of the Hells here. Unlike in Merildwen's life, where each layer of the Hell had close to comparable, just different, quality of afterlife, the Hells here were more like Dante's Inferno, where the deeper you get, the shittier the experience.

I had taken Mrs Mei's advice to heart, so it wasn't as though I was pitying Crow; it was just that I already had a working relationship with him, so I felt like I didn't want to bother breaking in a new familiar.

After that, we left. I didn't lie; I bought an extravagant meal at one of the restaurants operated by the Zhang Immortal family. They were one of the three cultivation groups in the city. It cost a spirit stone for both of us but featured meat from demonic beasts and spirit rice, both ingredients that had a large amount of Qi.

Not only that, they didn't suffer from the fact that regular food tended to have impurities of various kinds, spiritual and mundane, that you had to spend a little time every day eliminating before you started cultivating.

Xiao Li was easy to please, and this meal would have him on cloud nine for the rest of the day. I even gave Crow a small bite of the stir-fried meat.

The way we travelled reminded me a lot of the way ninjas in Naruto travelled, except we didn't run with our arms held behind us. But we did run about as fast, much, much faster than I could have before, and fast enough to be barely visible if a regular person was watching.

Even the terrain was somewhat similar to what I would expect to be around the leaf village, with forests of various kinds being the norm. While before, we cut through the wilderness here, there was no real need to do so. Travelling between cities, especially when one of them was the Imperial capital, there would always be roads, and in this case rivers, too. 

The Winding Rivers Realm wasn't named for nothing, after all, and it was common to see small boats and barges floating down the multiple rivers that they passed by, through and along.

My clothes weren't made of the silk of special spirit-worms, either, so they were only as strong as regular silk. Travelling through and near forests at high speed invariably caused damage, which I had to fix each time we stopped for the day with repeated castings of the Mending cantrip, to the point where Xiao Li saw me and eventually asked me to do the same, which I agreed to do as it didn't take me much time at all.

However, one evening, I suddenly frowned as I finished using Mending and Prestidigitation to not only fix but clean his spare set of clothes, realising that I was basically washing and mending his clothes for him, which pissed me off. I tossed the cleaned and repaired clothes at his head, which caught him off guard and almost caused him to trip into the small campfire we had created.

He seemed confused and asked, exasperatedly, "What did I do?!" I just gave him a snort and ordered that he make dinner this evening. I'd flavour it with Prestidigitation, especially if it was Xiao Li's cooking, but there was no way I was cooking, too!

---xxxxxx---

We passed through two more cities on our way to the capital but only stayed in every two days a piece—one day to rest and the next to buy supplies and sell anything we'd picked up on the trip. Xiao Li seemed to be a magnet for odd demonic beasts to attack or stumble across strange herbs or even spiritual plants to the point where we would make a reasonably good profit just travelling from one place to another if the rate of encounters didn't ebb.

"This city was even worse than the last one," Xiao Li said as we departed its walled gates.

I hummed and nodded, seeing a long line of refugees waiting at the gates. I indicated the line and asked, "You mean the refugees we saw in the city?" The last city had a few, and it really was weird that the closer we got to the Imperial capital, the worse the quality of life was becoming, to the point where we were seeing refugees. 

However, there was currently a Civil War being fought in this country, so it wasn't entirely unreasonable, I felt. I was pretty lucky in that the edge of the country where I teleported to was on the very opposite side of the nation to the provinces that were attempting to rebel, otherwise, I might have been caught up in it earlier.

Xiao Li shook his head, then paused and made a shrug, "Yes, no. It's more that it feels sick to me."

I raised an eyebrow and opened my senses to the area around us for a moment before I shrugged, "I can't feel anything myself."

We were far enough away that Mrs Mei popped up, slightly unsure, saying, "I think Little Li is feeling the Dragon Qi in the cities."

Dragon Qi? What the fuck was that? Were there dragons around here?! I queried the obvious question, and Mrs Mei replied, "Dragon Qi is the energy of a nation—a kind of metaphysical life's blood. He feels as though it is sick because the nation is in turmoil and its fate is up in the air. It's unusual that he can feel it, though. Usually, you have to become a leader of a lot of people or be born to a royal family before you can."

I grinned. This sounded like an obvious plot hook. If this were a novel and not real life, it would turn out that Xiao Li's mother, who married into the Xiao family, was secretly a princess of a large dynasty! We both asked a few more questions as we ran.

It turned out that if you had access to the Dragon Qi of a nation, you could be empowered to the point where it would be difficult to face you in the same cultivation realm. Xiao Li asked the obvious question, "Why don't all cultivators create some sort of country, then?"

"Because it takes a huge amount of time! It's seldom worth it! Why waste time managing a group of mortals when you can just continue cultivating and reach a higher realm with the time you would have wasted?" she asked exasperatedly.

I nodded slowly. That was true. It wasn't like everyone was good at leading people. In fact, most cultivators had very below-average leadership and management skills, from what I could tell. I doubted that you would get many benefits from the Dragon Qi if you were just notionally in charge or were a national mascot, either, but that was just my guess.

Xiao Li noticed it first, slowing for a moment before saying, "Something's a matter up ahead. I can smell a lot of blood. Let's go check it out."

I blinked, and then sniffed delicately, and admitted that I did sense the energy of death in the air. Xiao Li picked up his pace and I followed it was no time at all before we arrived at what could be characterised as the site of a massacre.

Most of the people, who appeared to be villagers and refugees, were already dead, and there were three men who radiated malevolence standing amidst the corpses, which had to number at least in the low hundreds.

One of them was older, looking middle-aged, with dark hair with specks of grey intermixed in it. He held a war cleaver-style sabre in his hand and everything about him screamed villain. The other two were younger, but they were all dressed in similar Daoist robes, coloured in bright crimson.

I clicked my mouth closed and prepared to cast Hypnotic Pattern. They were all cultivators, and I was unable to see through the strength of the older one. The other two were in the fourth and third level, respectively.

I knew Xiao Li liked the honourable thing and all, but they were bunched up enough that I intended to cast Hypnotic Pattern as soon as they turned to confront us. Certainly, Li would challenge them before the inevitable fight. I didn't think for a second that he would do the wise thing and back up and allow me to cast Invisibility on both of us so we could flee the area.

I felt that since the fight was inevitable, it would be best to catch them all with my strongest crowd-control ability right from the start; then we could focus fire each one one at a time, defeating them in detail.

However, I was mistaken about what Xiao Li intended. Instead of stopping to confront the murderers, who were even now absorbing tendrils of blood from their victims using some sort of magic spell, he screamed and leapt at them with his sword drawn, causing me to gape in surprise.

The three men were surprised too—enough to leap away to dodge Xiao Li, who caused a small crater when he landed. This made me feel a little bit better, as the old man couldn't have been in the Foundation Establishment if he hadn't noticed Xiao Li's approach. However, the fact that Xiao Li made them scatter and ruined my CC ambush made me suck my teeth with an audible "Tsk."

My crowd control spells hit way above their weight class, and I thought we could have instantly solved his battle if Xiao Li had kept them bunched up, but I neglected to send him a Message to tell him my plan, so it was partly my fault, too.

I kept most of my material components in my hammerspace so I could summon them at need, so I instantly caused a gilded skull to appear in my hand, held and hidden behind my back, as I shifted from crowd control to battle mode. I cast Summon Undead. Rather than animating an existing corpse, this one summoned an undead entity from the aether, and I could pick amongst a small group of them. 

The only one that would be useful or quick enough to help me in this upcoming fight was the incorporeal one, though—the undead spirit. The rest were way too slow. I summoned it directly underneath me, hidden by two metres of dirt. Although I hid the summoning, the local Qi was still perturbed by my casting, which caused the older enemy to glance at me momentarily. I took the time to dump my backpack on the ground, getting a yowl from Crow in his carrier.

The three men glanced at each other and seemed more amused than anything at the interruption of Xiao Li. The older man said, "Another dog of the Imperial court. I'll take care of him. Junior Brothers, subdue his woman."

The two other cultivators nodded and laughed in a malicious way that promised that I, and probably any other female, really, really didn't want to be "subdued" by them.

I narrowed my eyes, sword already in my hand as well. However, if they were intent on subduing me and not killing me outright, then I could take them away from this strong guy, who might have some way to injure or kill me quickly. I wasn't his match, as he had to be at least in the upper levels of our realm.

I leapt away, using my recently learned but not entirely mastered Flutter Steps footwork ability and managed to move quite a bit away before I had to stop and face them. I had plans for how to fight them and hopefully win, although they weren't making it as easy as I liked. They didn't bunch up so that I could still utilise Hypnotic Pattern; instead, one approached me from each direction, obviously assuming I still intended to flee, cutting off my avenues of retreat as if I was frightened prey, slowly approaching me.

I was glad for this because not immediately attacking has allowed my summoned undead spirit to catch up with me, moving underneath the ground.

"Hey, hey now, little girl, you should just surrender, now, when—" I interrupted him, motioning at the approaching speaker, the third-level fighter with a sword that seemed to pulse malevolence in time to his heartbeat. It was an obvious spirit tool, even if probably a low-grade one, but it would make mince of my mundane sword if I tried to fight him.

As I pointed at him and gestured upwards, I lifted my hand in an obvious order. The undead spirit I summoned came up from underneath the ground, almost on top of him and attacked, getting a good swipe in before being fended off by the man's sword. 

Both men took a step back, and the seemingly unarmed fourth-level cultivator that had been approaching me from the other direction hissed, "Ghost cultivator! Why the fuck are you here bothering us? We don't get involved with your business!" His voice was annoyed, like a cop who set up a sting operation only to arrest another cop who then tried to arrest him.

Instead of replying, I felt for a thin rod of metal in my hand and spoke the words to Hold Person, causing the man with the sword to freeze, paralysed. Then, both Shadows leapt out of my shadow and wrapped around him like snakes, beginning to drain his strength. I considered him a bigger threat, even if he was a stage weaker than the other man, as the other man was seemingly unarmed. That might have been a mistake, but I didn't have time to really think about it.

The unarmed man didn't give me a chance to try to kite him at all, leaping at me with a snap kick. I managed to cast True Strike in time to help me fend him off for a second, getting my sword in the way of his kick but ended up getting my sword kicked out of my hand with a crack and spike of pain that indicated a surely broken wrist. 

I didn't even have time to cry out in pain as the man followed up with a palm strike to my solar plexus, my breath escaping in a hiss as I flew out several metres from the strike, slamming into the ground and rolling end over end for at least another metre. 

The only reason I was saved from a follow-on combo while I was momentarily dazed was the incorporeal ghost attacked the man, and he had to spend a couple of seconds to destroy it with several quick punches that glowed with Qi. However, that gave me time enough to get to my feet and, shakily, cast Rime's Binding Ice, which exploded outwards from me in all directions, including the approaching enemy. The sharp shards of ice cut him in several places, and he winced, backing up a step.

That gave me enough space to follow on with another cast of Hold Person for the second time, and I was gratified that he was paralysed, too. I'd have been in a tight spot if he made the saving throw, probably reduced to kiting him with Web, combined with Ray of Frost or Toll The Dead. I spit out some blood, as I felt like I had several broken ribs and possibly damaged organs. Still, I had to move quickly—he wouldn't stay down long.

I walked out of the ice explosion, directly for the paralysed man, and grabbed him by the throat, casting Vampiric Touch. All of my ice spells had an outside impact and were easier to cast. It was how I was able to cast the last spell, even though I sucked at Evocation. The same was true, and even more so with necromantic spells.

Normally, this would have dealt some damage and healed me a little bit; however, this was the first time I had cast it on a human, and the effects on the fourth-level Qi-gathering cultivator were outsized, too. He wilted in real-time, dehydrating like a stop-motion video of a grape turning into a raisin. My own bones in my wrist snapped back into place and reformed with the distressing sound of Rice Krispies, although it wasn't painful.

Blinking, I felt in perfect health. Perhaps better than perfect health! I glanced over at the other enemy, who had fallen to the ground once my concentration shifted to the new casting of the enchantment, but he seemed so weak that he could barely crawl, trying to weakly fend off the two Shadows, which had already got his number. I kicked his sword out of his hand and let the Shadows finish him off.

One of the shadows seemed injured, so I drew it back into my amulet to recuperate while the other disappeared back home into my shadow to hide as normal.

I was a bit worried about Xiao Li, so I didn't have a lot of time, but I spared a couple of seconds to pull out my ritual dagger and snag the loosening souls of each downed man, before putting my understanding of Flutter Steps to the limit to return back from where I came.

---xxxxxx---

Xiao Li winced as Mei Wen darted away with the two men chasing her. He wanted to help her, but he couldn't even take his eyes off this man. Otherwise, he might die right here, immediately. His enemy was four stages higher than him, in the eighth stage of the Qi gathering realm, and furthermore was an obvious demonic cultivator. 

They generally had strength that was a little bit higher than their cultivation, not to mention weird and fey abilities. That said, almost universally, their talent was lower. Otherwise, why would you need to take a slantwise path? This guy looked fifty years old, for example.

"Don't worry about her; she can take care of herself," Grandma Mei said to him mentally.

Xiao Li nodded and said, "You really fucked me, stranger, by calling Mei Wen my woman. Don't expect any mercy." He wasn't intending to offer any in the first place, but he especially would not after the man had said that. Mei Wen was not likely to forget his words, and there was no way she would wash his clothes tonight with her magic.

The demonic cultivator snorted and took a step towards him with that large sabre raised.

Xiao Li brought his sword up into the ready position for his self-created sword style and struck first, attempting to get a measure on the man. His initial thrust was beat aside, but Xiao Li didn't leave an obvious opening for his enemy to take advantage of.

Xiao Li nodded, satisfied. This wasn't suicidal at all. The man's sabre techniques were nothing to write home about, and he didn't have that much mastery over them anyway. He might be stronger, but Xiao Li was better.

The fight then continued in earnest, with blows struck, parried, and occasionally hitting home. The enemy was just bullying Xiao Li with his larger cultivation base, strength and speed, and it was everything he could do to avoid dying in each exchange. Already, he had taken a couple of light wounds, but so had the demonic man. The recently masted True Strike spell was invaluable, helping not only in his attacks as was obvious, but also in defence, allowing him to make a strike with little avenue to counter-attack.

Xiao Li wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible, but he started to feel that his only hope was to drag it out and expose an unforced error on the less skilled man and then seize that opportunity. Every now and then, the old man held out a hand and cast a demonic spell that caused a whip of liquid blood to lash out, but Xiao Li saw it coming each time, leaping backwards and dodging the spell, lashing out with Fire Bolt at the same time.

He wasn't to the point of mastering that spell yet, as it took a couple of seconds to cast. Mei Wen said he should be able to cast it instantly, but the old man's blood whip was even more unwieldy. As such, every time he noticed the man casting it, which was distinctive, he had enough time to make some space and cast a Fire Bolt. It invariably caused the man to have to defend against the flame attack using the whip, dispersing the flame with a hiss of boiled blood. Both spells ended up being a wash, with neither doing any damage.

Xiao Li was perfectly willing to continue exchanging moves this way, as dragging things out favoured him, but the old demon growled and rushed at him, deciding to settle things with brute strength and speed, just what Xiao Li didn't want.

After several more moves, he was on the backfoot with another wound to his side that was weeping blood. However, he had finally noticed a flaw in the enemy's brutish sabre techniques, so he felt good about this next clash.

But, before the enemy lashed out again, he suddenly briefly glanced behind Xiao Li and frowned, leaping out of the way just as three glowing darts would have impacted him. Xiao Li grinned, having recognised that spell. It was Mei Wen's Magic Missile, and he knew, unlike the old demon, that it couldn't be dodged.

His enemy was surprised that the darts just shifted trajectories and started seeking him again. He lashed out with this sabre twice, destroying two darts and grunted as the third impacted his shoulder.

For Xiao Li, that was all he needed. He finished the spellform in his mind, throwing his non-dominant hand out as he cast Lightning Lure. A lash of electrical energy wrapped around his enemy and then yanked them rapidly towards him.

Xiao Li was ready. The Gentleman's Sword, first strike: Unhurried and unbothered.

The war cleaver fell from the dead hands of the old demon, impacting the ground shortly before the man's severed head.

Xiao Li went to one knee, panting, and pulled a small bottle of bright red liquid out of his backpack, thumbed the cork off with a popping sound and downed it in one go. 

Mei Wen had shown him and Grandma Mei the alchemy that her mother practised, including recipes for these healing potions. It had to be said that Mei Wen was... really, really bad at it. However, reading the recipe was enough for both Grandma Mei and himself to guess at what local plants they could use for the missing ingredients.

Watching Mei Wen ruin a cauldron of ingredients with simple errors in an attempt to show them how her mother made potions also helped, as her errors were so obvious that they didn't impact the demonstration. This was their first attempt to replicate the potion, and it was effective. However, the ingredients were a bit too pricey, but it was just a prototype, a proof of concept.

He was sure he could adjust the recipe to produce the same potions with much cheaper ingredients, cheap enough that he might make a fortune selling them. 

He relaxed for a moment and then glanced up and saw Mei Wen already standing near him with her hands firmly on her hips, looking perturbed. He waved his hands in supplication, "Look! Nobody thinks you're my woman! He was a brain-addled demon!"

She made a "tsk" sound but thankfully removed her hands from her hips. Xiao Li sighed with relief. He stood up and shook his head, sighing, "A shame. I didn't want you to see my Gentleman's Sword until I got more of the style finished."

Mei Wen's lips twitched and wriggled as if she was holding in laughter. She asked him, "You call your sword style your gentleman's sword?"

What? Was it so funny?!