Shen was woken up by the sound of a large explosion. She sat up and looked towards the main gate and saw cracks starting to form in the barrier. The demons must have noticed that the barrier had decreased in quality and been encouraged to send everything they could at it to break it. She grabbed her latest device from the table, not bothering to see how pure the chi now was, and stored it, then ran towards the gate, sending small amounts of lightning into the Flash step sword to get there in less than half the time.
Just before she got there she saw large numbers of melee soldiers near the gate, fighting demons. While the sect had them outnumbered at least three to one, the demons were killing or seriously wounding four humans for each of them that fell. Shen saw someone on a sword fly through the hole in the barrier and over the front gate and she pulled the chakram from her ring, sending it towards the man. He hadn’t expected her attack, as he was focusing on making his way towards the inner city, and it hit him. Though the weapon didn’t manage to penetrate his armor, it did hit with enough force to knock him off his sword in the surprise. He fell a few heights to the roof of a nearby building and rolled down it before hitting the ground.
Shen adjusted the path of the Chakram to return and ran at him. He drew a sword to swing at her and she dodged, side stepping to try and get behind him. He turned around and swung again, but Shen used Flash Step to jump to the side. The chakram, which was flying at her from behind, continued after having its flight slightly adjusted and hit the man in the throat. While he was wearing a helmet, he had no protection on his throat, and it flew through him, severing his head.
Shen grabbed his ring off of his finger, stored his sword, stuck the ring in her pocket and recalled her chakram before running at a demon that had broken through the lines. The Flash Step sword proved useful again as she dodged an attack, then returned to where she was before to thrust the blade through his chest. It hit something solid and was pushed to the side, but the demon collapsed. Right, he had a Golden Core where his Dantian would be. She pulled the sword out of him and he collapsed, bleeding out on the ground, but the blade was bent to the side a bit. While she could repair it, she couldn’t do so in battle, so she stored the sword and drew the dragon sword she had been given.
With no enemies in her immediate area she looked for one nearby and saw Mr. Li and Shoom fighting one of the demons. This one seemed a bit more skilled as he had managed to not only take on both of them at once, but had wounded Mr. Li several times, forcing the elderly man to constantly dodge and rely on Shoom to attack. Shen ran over and joined in, and with her help they managed to push the man back. His own sword skills were slightly better than hers, about on par with Danka’s, but with the three of them attacking at once he was unable to do anything but dodge and parry.
Shen saw an opening and activated the sword’s Deep Freeze ability before swinging at his open shoulder. He barely managed to block her strike with his blade, freezing it instead of himself, but Shoom lunged forward and bit his calf, casting Deep freeze as well. The man scream in pain as the leg which bore most of his weight was instantly frostbitten, and fell to the ground. Unable to block properly as he fell, Shen slid her sword to the side and upwards. The tip of the blade hit the front of his throat and slit it open slightly, and the man started pouring blood. Shoom ran over and bit at the bleeding area and pulled out a long, fleshy tube that had formerly been his voice box.
Seeing the man stop moving and the other demons get pushed back, Shen relaxed slightly and sighed. “Well, Mr. Li. We killed him.” she said, then turned to congratulate the elderly man. Instead of standing there breathing heavily as she had expected, he was laying on the ground holding his stomach. When the demon fell he must have gotten in one final swing. Shen noticed that a large amount of blood was pouring from between his fingers. “No!” she screamed, and immediately started trying to cast the Many Rivers technique on him. While she hadn’t had much practice with the Foundation level version, she did what she could and the bleeding slowed, buying him time. With that effort, however, she had used all of her Water chi, and it would take time to gather more.
If only she had another source of chi she could rely on. She started pulling out spirit stones, converting what chi she could into Water chi and injecting it into the technique, but with it coming in bursts she was only able to convert around 10% of it at a time, which was one reason she made devices to do that, as they could easily convert 60% of the chi, and a well made one could convert over 90%.
She wished that she had asked for one of those Immortal spirit stones she had seen. With that much chi she could have instantly cured him. Even an Exquisite or High grade stone could save his life. She briefly considered dumping all eight thousand plus stones she had in her ring onto the ground and using them, but over such a large area she would likely be able to convert less than a tenth of a percent of the energy, the equivalent of eighty or so stones, and the concentration used would likely force her to stop using the technique. There had to be a better way to do this. She briefly considered asking Shoom for his help, as his Ice powers were technically based on a version of Water Chi, but his chi, like the swords, was an ice chi, not water chi, and so wouldn’t work with the technique. If Sho or Do were here they might be able to loan her the chi she needed, but they were most likely fighting the demons that had made it inside the city.
That’s when she realized that their enemy carried another power source in their chest. She drew the Sunder sword from her ring and slit his breast bone open, channeling most of her metal chi into it so it slid through like a hot knife in butter. She then reached inside his chest and pulled out his golden core.
Ignoring the dark red blood dripping from it, she pulled the chi from it into her body, imbued it with the pattern of the traces of Water chi in her dantian, and sent it into Mr. Li, using the technique. He tensed from the pain and discomfort of the forced healing, but the wound quickly closed, not healing completely but healing enough that he would last a few minutes. When the Golden Core was out of chi, she stored it in her ring along with her equipment, and lifted Mr. Li, putting him on Shoom’s back before jumping on herself. “Clinic.” she said, and Shoom ran for the nearest healing area.
A minute later they stopped in the middle of several medical personnel and she jumped off, then pulled Mr. Li off of Shoom’s back. One of the healers motioned them to a bed and she placed Mr. Li on it. “Who healed this wound?” the medic asked.
“I did,” said Shen. “Many Rivers technique.”
The medic shook his head. “Well, it stopped him from dying immediately, but the flesh was in the wrong place, so it didn’t heal properly. Still, you gave him a chance.”
“Will he live?” Shen asked.
“I don’t know.” said the Healer, “But at least he has a chance.” The man pulled a surgical kit from his ring and drew out a scalpel. “I’m going to need you to give me some space so that I’m not distracted during surgery.” the man said.
Shen nodded. “In that case, I’m going to go back to the wall, so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” She started to walk away, and Shoom followed her. “You should stay with Mr. Li.” Shen said. Shoom growled. “Are you saying you want revenge?” she asked, and he barked. “In that case,” Shen said, jumping onto his back, “Find the enemy.”
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An hour later, Shen fired the last of her fire chi at a few fleeing demons. One of them was scorched slightly, but continued running, ignoring the pain. The demons had kept pushing their way through the slowly closing breach in the barrier, and over a thousand sect members had fallen trying to push them back, but eventually the hole had shrunk enough that they could no longer get reinforcements. The few that were left decided to try and jump through the small hole that was left rather than face certain death by staying.
The fighters cheered, and the surviving sect members, almost entirely Inner disciples and Elders, started collecting what they could from the corpses of the demons or gathering the bodies of their deceased friends. They knew that it was only a matter of time before the barrier was breached again, and this time they would need every advantage they could get, even if it meant using the demon’s weapons against them.
While one of the High Elders was leading a team to gather the dead sect members, hoping to have a mass funeral, another, the one who had taken over the Formation Master duty from Master Ling six years ago, Elder Xu Xan, but failed to have the skill to fix the barrier, was sending people to collect the Golden Cores of the demons. He was then cleaning the blood off of them before drawing a paint brush and drawing an Explosion formation from an element on them, each one getting the next element in the sequence. Shen knew what he was doing. The Explosion formation would release a massive burst of chi in an area around it shortly after being fed chi. They were often used to make a type of thrown weapon known as a ‘grenade’, though Shen had only seen the idea in her Intermediate Formation book and never made one. One could, instead, set it to release the chi when one stopped sending chi into it, which was sometimes used as a suicide weapon to detonate upon the death of the user, or to detonate when something like a spirit stone or beast core ran out of chi.
He was instead using the Golden Core of a demon, and was using the Nascent soul version of the Explosion technique, though without a soul to help it bypass defenses it would simply be a False Nascent device. This would allow each one to damage an area several heights in diameter. As last ditch weapons went, it wasn’t a bad idea.
Shen went over to introduce herself and volunteer to aid him. He recognized her as one of his competitors, and stared at her for a few seconds, a look of distrust on his face, before sighing. “I am willing to work with you in order to protect the sect, as you are likely one of only three people in the sect that can properly use this formation. However, I wish to turn this into a competition to prove which of us is the better formation master. We will both be given as many Golden Cores as we can use, and the one to make the most functional devices wins. What do you say?”
Shen thought about the terms for a few seconds. “What if we deduct the failures as well. That way, if you rush the job and make a defective problem, it takes away from the successes.” Shoom came over and started bumping her arm with his nose, be she ignored him.
“Very well.” said the Elder. “I can accept that.” He motioned to the small pile of blood covered cores. “In that case, shall we begin?”
Shen stepped towards the pile and Shoom barked. “What is it?” she asked, and he took a few steps before giving Shen a puzzled look. Shen realized what he was saying. “I’m sorry, Elder, but I was just reminded that I need to go check on a friend that was injured. I will return once I’ve done so.”
Xu Xan nodded. “Very well, I will have the others prepare everything for your return. I will make the relics while you are away, as time is critical, but we won’t count any of the ones I make before the contest begins.”
Shen bowed. “Then I look forward to our competition.” With that she ran over to Shoom and hopped onto his back before riding towards the clinic.
When they got there, Shoom ran over to Mr. Li and laid down beside him, licking his hand. Shen climbed off the kneeling wolf’s back and a doctor walked over. “How is he doing?” Shen asked.
“He is improving.” said the surgeon. “Unfortunately, feces and bile got onto some of the neighboring organs and into his blood before we treated him. We washed the wound as best as we could, but in this condition we can’t risk stressing his body by giving him Cleansing or Antibiotic pills. We will need to wait until he grows stronger and wakes up before doing so.” They might have a technique which can help him, but in this situation chi is a scarce resource, with this doctor likely currently resting between healing sessions or conserving it for emergencies.
“Very well. We’ll come by occasionally to visit him.” She said, and turned to leave. She thought about ordering Shoom to follow, but decided to let him stay. As an initial Foundation spirit beast he was the equivalent of a toddler, and his father was sick. She went over to Shoom to hug him, and after a few seconds Shoom licked her cheek before nuzzling Mr. Li. “I’m sorry, boy, but he is hurt. We need to give him time to sleep so that he can get better.” Shoom looked sad and refused to come with her, so she explained the situation to the doctor.
“Many people that come here have spirit pets.” the man said. “He can stay with his master if he wants, but if he damages anything or distracts us from caring for patients, I’m using a Sleep talisman on him and putting him in a cage.”
“Understood.” said Shen before petting Shoom and leaving. A few minutes later she returned to the outer wall, where the contest was being set up. When she arrived she found that all of the sect members and mercenaries had been carried over to an open area nearby and were being covered with sheets. If the sect managed to win the battle, they would receive proper funerals, but for now no one could be spared to dig individual graves, nor could the graveyard outside of town be accessed or could anyone spare the Earth chi to dig the graves.
The demons, on the other hand, were being added to a pile after having all of their belongings stripped from them and their golden cores cut out. Normally the sect wouldn’t desecrate the corpses of intelligent beings, but, like when hunting spirit beasts, there were useful parts inside of them which the sect needed. At least no one was draining their blood or harvesting their skin, even though Shen was certain she could make Foundation level blood steel from them if she did, maybe even Late or Peak quality from some of the stronger ones, like the one that had almost killed Mr. Li. Once their cores were harvested, however, they would be burned.
Beside Elder Xu were two wooden boxes full of washed Golden Cores of various sizes, though they were all roughly the size of a monster core or spirit stone. She started to walk over and saw Ponma carry over another box and stack it on the other two. “Ponma.” She said and jogged over. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.
“Well, I am part of the support staff. I happened to be nearby when the battle happened, so I could help Mae run people back to the medical area, so after all of the injured were moved I decided to help with the Core harvesting and started washing them. I assume you are the Formation Master Elder Xu challenged to a contest?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” she said. “We’re going to see who can make the most functional explosion relics, then I guess I’ll help set them up so that the demons will run into them before entering the city.” There was a ten height wide section of the wall that had been knocked down by the demons when they made it through the barrier, one of many breaches in the outer wall, so those were likely where they would attack when they returned. For now, however, they had retreated back down the mountain through side paths, the plant Shen had grown blocking the main one and eating anyone or any creature that tried to use it. Once the battle was over, the elders would need to go and kill the plant and capture the cores it had taken from its victims, but for now they were leaving it to protect White Jade Road.
Shen took out a spirit stone and her paint set and started practicing. She had never used this formation before, so she wanted to make at least a few items from it before the contest began. Her first item, based on fire, took a bit of time to check for problems, but once she fixed all of the errors she told it to activate and threw it into an empty section of the rubble where no one was. It went off with the force of a middle gathering fireball, and she tried again. This time she tried to delay the collapse of the stone a bit by feeding the chi back into the stone, so that the formation had a little more time to convert the neutral chi to Fire chi, making it last about one second longer before exploding. This time when it exploded it was at Peak Gathering, but she knew that she could still improve the force slightly.
The third time she focused on compressing the effect. This should keep fire chi from leaking for a fraction of a second before the single use relic exploded, increasing the amount of chi in the explosion. When she was finished she threw it and it went off with the force of an Early Foundation attack. Normally it wouldn’t be able to do so, but the purity with which the item would imbue the chi was several times what such an item would normally do, so the effect was further improved.
Shen then did the same with Metal, Earth, and Water attacks. While she wasn’t good with Water chi, this effect used very little chi in its imbuement formation, so she could simply use a small amount of the chi her bracelet was feeding her and take slightly longer to make the purity the same as the others.
Wood chi, however, didn’t make a good explosion. At most it tended to bruise and knock people over, which is one reason you rarely saw people use Wood Chi in battle, preferring to use it to heal afterwards. Shen asked Elder Xu if the effect needed to be an explosion, and he stared at her for a few second. “This is a contest to make Explosive relics.” he responded with a tone that made her think he questioned her intelligence. “All items need to be a type of explosion.”
Shen glanced over at one of the ones he had made and saw that he had rolled them in easily available spirit grass and spirit rice seeds, gluing them to the surface. He was likely hoping that the seeds went into a wound, at which point the huge amount of wood chi in the air would cause them to grow rapidly. While such rapid growth would cause it to grow abnormally and likely ruin the medicinal properties and food production of the plant, a plant growing inside of someone would cause great damage over a short period. The main issue would be breaching the skin to get them inside.
Shen wouldn’t be taking this approach, however. If the Wood chi could be used to create a secondary effect, she knew what effect she wanted to use, one which used her knowledge of elements and elemental chi to amplify the effect.
