Practical Test

"Give me one full breath of time to take off and then try to catch me and stop me from painting," Wu Ling said, pulling a small bottle of paint and a brush from his belt pouch and preparing to run. "Fair?"

"Fair," Su Xiang said, taking a deep breath. "GO!"

As soon as she yelled, Wu Ling took off running as quickly as he could. He knew that in a foot race against a body cultivator like Su Xiang, he was bound to lose but that was only true as long as the race was fair. He didn't intend to play fair! "Yue, slow her down!"

Su Xiang launched herself after Wu Ling only to skid to an immediate stop to avoid a swirl of mist forming in front of her. The mist froze almost instantly, becoming a slick sheet of ice just over a meter in diameter. Dodging around the ice slick broke her momentum but she launched herself forward again only to have Yue dart past her at lightning speed, this time throwing up a wall of ice directly in her path.

Finally understanding the game that Wu Ling had proposed to play, Su Xiang swung her sword as quickly as she could using a Flash Cut to crack the ice wall and following up with a brute force kick that shattered the ice wall, freeing her to resume her charge toward Wu Ling. Thus far she'd only managed to cross half the distance yet Wu Ling had already reached his goal, opening the bottle of paint and making several strange-shaped strokes on the surface of the rock.

Dashing forward, Su Xiang gathered her energy for a more powerful strike while dodging the obstacles Yue kept putting in her way. When she'd come within ten meters of the boulder, she took aim at the strange painting of v-shaped lines and unleashed her best Flying Crescent. With a sweep of her sword, a crescent moon-shaped arc of light half a meter wide flew toward the painting at the speed of an arrow shot from a bow!

Yue darted into the path of the Flying Crescent of sword light, this time conjuring a smaller but much thicker ice shield to block the crescent and protect the painting. The shield worked, dissipating the energy of the sword light before shattering in a spray of ice crystals but it clearly cost Yue most of her remaining energy. Still, it had been enough for Wu Ling to complete his strange painting by pricking his finger and pressing a drop of blood to each of the twenty strange black marks.

"Go," Wu Ling shouted, waving his arm from the painting toward Su Xiang who had nearly reached him. Suddenly, the painting twitched, and each of the twenty vague shapes detached from the rock wall becoming phantom black birds with razor-sharp wings!

Su Xiang skidded to a halt, her sword dancing in her hand, forming an intricate defensive pattern as a flock of black birds descended on her. The slightest touch of her blade was enough to shatter the phantoms but there were so many of them that a few got through, each leaving behind a small cut in her robes or nicking the skin of her exposed hands and wrists.

The phantoms didn't inflict any serious damage and even the impact of cutting her was enough to shatter a phantom but by the time most of the phantoms had been destroyed a trio of fireballs impacted the ground a meter to her left, unleashing a small wave of flame that singed the edges of her robes.

"I give!" Su Xiang shouted, holding her hand and sword up high in the air in surrender. "You missed on purpose didn't you Hou?" she said, giving the smug-looking Golden Crow a glare that melted moments later into a smile.

"It looked like the Blade Winged Bird Swarm had your full attention and I didn't want to risk that you wouldn't notice the incoming attack so I asked him to be nice," Wu Ling said, grinning from ear to ear. "What do you think?"

"Honestly, I didn't expect something like that," she said with an approving look. "Your phantoms were pathetically weak and I probably should have just ignored them. They didn't inflict wounds that were any worse than a paper cut," she added, holding up a hand with a shallow cut for proof. "But there were so many of them so suddenly that my mind hadn't caught up with my body's reflexes to do something about the attack. By the time the thought occurred to me that I could have just ignored them and let them destroy themselves on me, Hou's fireballs had already arrived. I don't know if it would ever work twice, but for a surprise, it's very effective," she told him, trying to give him the most honest assessment she could.

She was impressed but there were a number of weaknesses in her sworn brother's attempt that she didn't want him to be ignorant of. As the elder sibling, she felt it was important that he understand the limits of what he accomplished, even if the result was an impressive victory.

"Blade Winged Birds are the simplest phantom I can paint," Wu Ling explained, taking out his paint and brush to demonstrate. "You can make a bird's wings and body just by touching lightly with the tip of the brush and pressing a little more firmly as you approach the center then lightening up as you pull away. When you paint in a 'V' shape, you get bird wings and body. After that, they just need a little bit of energy to jump free," he said proudly.

"If you had more time, you could paint a LOT more of those couldn't you?" Su Xiang asked, beginning to see even greater potential in Wu Ling's technique.

"I could," Wu Ling agreed. "But it might take more energy from me than it would be worth. As you said, they don't do very much damage and they're best being ignored. Right now, time is my biggest problem. If I have time to prepare, I can probably paint better phantoms. If there is someone to defend me and I have my zither with me, I might be able to use music like what I did against the men from the Red Tiger Den yesterday. But even fast art is still slower than a sword. If I didn't have a chance to run with Yue to help me slow you down, I wouldn't have had the time to set anything up," he concluded.

"Brother Ling, you know that I've been a cultivator for over a year now right?" Su Xiang said. She'd awakened on her sixteenth birthday and it had taken her an entire year to become a middle-stage brawler. In the six months since then, she'd become even more proficient in the techniques of the Shining Blade Hall, but here her little brother was, six months younger than her and freshly awakened but pushing himself to match up with her right out of the gate!

"I'm a small stage ahead of you, I've practiced swords since we were children and you managed to one-up me on your third day as a cultivator," Su Xiang said, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I think you have earned the right to be very, very happy with your progress. We'll keep practicing. In another few weeks, who knows, we might be up to taking on a mission from the sect or the Association of Loose Cultivators," she continued in an encouraging tone.

"Speaking of which, have you registered with the Association yet? I can't imagine that you're going to go find yourself a sect to join." After the way both the Shining Blade Hall and the Bamboo Silk House had treated Wu Ling and his mother, she'd be surprised if Wu Ling said he had any ambition to join one of the hundreds of third-rank sects in the Outer City, much less a second-rank sect like the ones he'd grown up in.

Besides, even if he did want to join a sect, there weren't many options for male Artists. Martial cultivators like Su Xiang were spoiled for choice in finding a sect to join but unless Wu Ling wanted to become a Weaponsmith or Armorer, there weren't many options available to him aside from becoming a loose cultivator.

"No, I haven't registered myself yet. It didn't seem like the most important thing," he said. Truthfully, it had slipped his mind. While his mother was crippled, she was technically still a disciple of the Bamboo Silk House and his father had been a member of the Shining Blade Hall. Sect members had no need of an identity jade from the Association of Loose Cultivators because their sects provided them with identity tokens.

It really hadn't occurred to him but Su Xiang was right. If he wanted to pick up the kind of odd jobs that were often available to loose cultivators, he'd need to register with the association sooner rather than later. His purse might be reasonably full at the moment but that wouldn't last forever unless he found some other form of income.

"How about this, let's stop early today since you've got your win and we'll find a branch of the Association to do the paperwork at on our way to a nice bar," Su Xiang proposed. "I'll buy the first drink to celebrate your victory and you can buy the second drink to apologize for singeing my robes. Fair?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"Fair," Wu Ling said, smiling back. "But if you buy me dinner, I'll let you carry Yue all the way back," he added with a flirty wink.

"You!" Su Xiang started, face turning beat red as she stomped on the ground. "No dinner, but I'll pick up the bar snacks," she countered.

"Deal," Wu Ling said, stretching out his hands to place a fluffy Guardian Beast in Su Xiang's waiting arms. Truthfully, he planned to treat her to dinner as thanks for helping him but he couldn't resist the chance to tease her a little. The smile on her face and the light in her eyes as she snuggled the harmless-looking rabbit were just too irresistible!