Rustpen
patreon
Chapter 41: HAVE A DEAL
🕑 Added 2024-10-16 02:50:38 +0000 UTCCHAPTER
41
HAVE A DEAL
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Yongyi and Yiming fought in the middle stage. Both, it turned out, were swordsmen—and skilled ones, at that.
Jieyuan stood some ways off the stage, looking up, watching the two. The palace’s training room was empty save for them, the other, smaller stages unused. The rings of their swords meeting rang loudly in the vast, empty room.
Both Yiming and Yongyi were soul-stilling—Yongyi fully, and Yiming to the same extent as his nephew. Yiming had also lowered his aura to that of a fifth-sign Redsoul, making the two about evenly matched. Jieyuan had to strain himself to keep track of their movements. A thrust here, a slash there, and all sorts of swift, precise twists and turns.
Jieyuan had seen Meiyao fight a couple of times before, and her style was all about precision—reading her opponent's form for gaps and vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them with short bursts of movement, defending at other times. Yiming and Yongyi fought similarly. While one attacked, the other dodged and parried—until they found a gap, a vulnerability, and the tables would turn, the defender turning into the attacker and the attacker into the defender.
He was guessing that was the Liangshibai style of martial arts. Meiyao used a saber, and the two of them swords, but the fundamentals were about the same.
Right now, Yiming was on the offensive. The palace head mostly favored stabs, and he was quick and fierce with them, jabbing his sword in and out, in and out. Yongyi was just as snappy in his dodging, and the strikes he couldn’t dodge he’d throw off.
Yiming was the more skilled of the two, though—not by much, but still to the point that Yiming still got hit a couple of times. They were both using first-sign swords, taken from the rack at the end of the training room, so there wasn’t any risk of either hurting the other. Jieyuan had also picked up a first-sign spear from it.
A small crystal barrier appeared between Yongyi and Yiming, catching Yiming’s thrust. Immediately, Yongyi spun his body past it, striking at Yiming’s chest. But then another barrier appeared, and this time it was Yongyi whose sword was caught.
Instead of pressing forward, Yiming drew back, disengaging, a wide smile on his face. “Realmskill? You sure you want to do this?” He kept his sword ready, aimed at his nephew. The words came out quickly, inhumanly so. He was still soul-stilling, then.
“It was getting stale,” Yongyi said, shrugging. He was smiling back. “I figured we should have a proper fight.”
“Fair enough,” Yiming said. “Don’t go overboard, though—you want to go into the tournament with a full soulprism.”
“I’m not an idiot, uncle.”
“Really?” Yiming’s look was nothing short of predatory. “Let’s see if you’ll still be saying there a minute from now.”
Yiming launched himself at Yongyi again, stabbing out with his sword. Yongyi parried it, then made to attack—only for his sword to catch midair.
As Yongyi pulled his sword back, Jieyuan saw the paper-thin little stab of stone floating in the air.
But then it was gone, and Yiming was attacking again. This time, as Yongyi retreated, forced into the defensive, the core disciple suddenly stumbled back, and Jieyuan saw another sheet of crystal between his legs.
Jieyuan recognized the trick—it was the same one Sunqiu, the inner disciple, had used on him.
Yongyi recovered quickly, grounding himself, but not before Yiming landed a thrust to his collarbone. Yongyi staggered back and tried to fight back, but more barriers appeared in a short sequence, parrying all of Yongyi’s following strikes.
Yiming landed more and more stabs, all over Yongyi’s body now. Legs, chest, arms—Jieyuan soon realized the sequence. First the left arm, then the right, then the left leg, then the right, then the chest. And then back to the left arm. Yiming was playing with his nephew, and the bright, sharp grin on his face didn’t help with that impression.
Yongyi was scowling now, sweat pooling on his forehead as he did his best to avoid being hit, but it was of no use. His uncle’s onslaught only got stronger, faster, fiercer, and by this point, Yongyi was being hit more often than not.
Gleamstone barriers blinked in and out of existence between them, little more than brief, flashes of crystal. Some of them appeared between Yiming’s legs or in the way of Yiming’s swords, clearly summoned by Yongyi, but Yiming just weaved his way out of them effortlessly.
They were both using Gleaming Stone Containment—one of the Gleaming Stone Sect’s two signature realmskills. Weiming, the inner elder who’d hunted them down in the Gleamstone Valley had it, and so had Sunqiu, the inner disciple Jieyuan had killed. Elder Taishou had also used it.
Jieyuan narrowed his eyes, paying very close attention now, recalling everything he knew of the skill. It was his first time seeing two realmskill users fight each other using their realmskills like this, and this was exactly the kind of thing he needed to know more about.
Gleaming Stone Containment’s first form was Gleaming Stone Impediment, and all it did was allow you to summon a single gleamstone barrier that couldn’t be moved, remaining in place wherever they were summoned. Maintaining a barrier cost chroma—a steady expenditure, determined by the size of the barrier—but for the most part, it was a pretty much negligible expense unless you went really overboard.
Just because it was simple didn’t mean everyone would use it the same way, though, and Yiming was clearly much more skilled at using it than his nephew was. Creative with it.
A gleamstone barrier appeared between Yongyi’s sword and Yiming’s neck, blocking the attack, and at the same time, Yiming thrust out his sword, pulling the strike just as it was about to land between Yongyi’s eyes, the blade not even an inch away from skin.
There was a pause.
“So,” Yiming said, still smiling widely, “how’s that?”
Yongyi sighed, drawing his sword back and sheathing it. Yiming did the same.
“I had no idea you were this good, Uncle,” Yongyi said. He spoke slowly, the words drawn out, and Jieyuan realized he’d stopped soul-stilling. Jieyuan did the same. There was a touch of bitterness to the core disciple’s voice, but also a very heavy dose of respect.
“I’m one of the Liangshibai’s best fighters—if not the best,” Yiming said. “I might not have your pretty yellow eyes, kid, but heavenly affinity doesn’t always translate into fighting skill. Even Wanxin’s not quite at my level, either. Sure, she’d leave me in the dust if she went past Redsoul, but with both of us at the same realm? I’m better.”
Yongyi nodded, slowly, but he didn’t look all that convinced. “But how are you so fast with Gleaming Stone Containment? I don’t think even Grandfather can use it like that.”
“Practice,” Yiming said. “Lots and lots of practice.”
A gleamstone barrier in the form of the palace head, in the form of a little human figurine, about the size of a forearm. It held a sword in its hand. And then it began to move, swinging the sword up, before thrusting it out, moving in midair.
How… Jieyuan started soul-stilling again, and then he saw it—brief little flickers as the figurine moved. Or rather, it wasn’t actually moving. Yiming was simply conjuring it so quickly again and again, each time in a slightly different position, to give it the impression of movement.
Yongyi’s eyes were even wider. “That’s…”
“Like I said, practice,” Yiming said. Even as he talked, the figurine was still moving, going through a series of strikes. “I’m probably the fastest at summoning barriers. Not the best at shaping them, though—that honor goes to Taishou. The only reason I can pull off this little fellow”—he tapped the still-moving figurine—“is because I spent a couple of years getting it right. Taishou could’ve summoned a barrier in just about any shape you imagine, on the spot.
“Gleaming Stone Impediment isn’t meant for intricate work like this. You must be clever about it—the figurine’s hollow, and I’m imagining it as a barrier covering someone—but even after you get yourself in the right frame of mind, it’ll take you some time to get to this level. Most users of the realmskill don’t go nearly this far.”
The figurine vanished, but Yongyi was still staring at the spot it’d just been at, dazed. Jieyuan reckoned what Yiming had just done was even more impressive than it’d seemed to him.
“Now, my dear nephew, you’re good for your age—really good. In terms of swordsmanship, there’s not much we can improve, not before the tournament, but I can teach you a trick or three using our realmskill that’ll come in handy. But before that…” He looked off the stage, locking eyes with Jieyuan. “Enjoyed the show?”
“Sure did,” Jieyuan said.
“Wanna come on up?”
Jieyuan grinned. “Sure do.”
He hopped onto the stage, joining Yiming and Yongyi at the center.
“All right,” Yiming said. “I heard you beat Sunqiu—that’s no mean feat, considering he was a fifth-sign. So I want to see how good you really are. So for starters…” Yiming nodded to Yongyi. “You two will be sparring. Yongyi, lower your aura to third-sign. Jieyuan, you don’t have a realmskill yet, do you?”
“No.”
“Weapons-only, then. No realmskill,” Yiming said to Yongyi, before giving Jieyuan a considering look. “Do you want a realmskill, by the way? I can get you both Glistening Stone Containment and Protection in skill seed form. Your pick.”
Jieyuan stayed silent, pretending to consider it. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’ll wait to see what the Howling Lightning Sect has to offer.”
Absolute Will Command aside, he already had a Gleaming Stone Containment skill seed—Weiming’s—and he might bond it if he didn’t find any interesting skill seeds after advancing to Orangesoul. He didn’t know what the other forms of Gleaming Stone Containment did, but he liked what he’d seen so far of its first form, Gleaming Stone Impediment, particularly after the little display Yiming had just put on.
In some ways, he could even see Glistening Stone Impediment being more useful than Absolute Mind Command against enemies at a higher soulsign. At sixth-sign, he’d be able to use Absolute Will Command on a tenth-sign Redsoul, but only in the most minute of ways, and it’d probably use up all his chroma. A sixth-sign gleamstone barrier, on the other hand, would be able to block just about anything a tenth-sign Redsoul could throw at him, even with the chromal weight differential, because of how durable gleamstone was.
“Sure. Tell me if you change your mind, though,” Yiming said. He hopped off the stage. “Whenever you two are ready.”
Jieyuan turned to face Yongyi. From what he’d seen of Yongyi’s fight with Yiming earlier, he’d say Yiming was a highly skilled swordsman—but he couldn’t really say how Yongyi would compare to him. He and Yongyi seemed to be the same height, with pretty similar builds. Physically, at least, they should be about evenly matched.
Jieyuan extended his hand. “It’s probably a little late for this, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced properly yet. I’m Haoyujin Jieyuan.”
“You’re right. Liangshibai Yongyi,” Yongyi said, shaking Jieyuan’s hand. The core disciple smiled. As far as Jieyuan could tell, it was genuine. “Like my uncle, I also heard about you taking down Sunqiu. I’ll admit I’m excited to see for myself what you’re capable of.”
“Oh, I’m good, but not that good.” Jieyuan shook his head. “Luck played a pretty big role in it. I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high if I were you.”
“Luck can only take you so far,” Yongyi said. “I fought Sunqiu a few times in the past. He wasn’t the most skilled inner disciple, but he was far from incompetent.”
Jieyuan didn’t have a solid impression of Yongyi yet. Quiet, but not quite taciturn. Friendly, but not quite exuberant. Nothing like Meiyao, who for the most part seemed to oscillate between extremes. Or based on what he’d seen and heard of Yongyi’s parents, he wasn’t quite like either of them, either. Junjie was a Metalsoul second only to Daojue, and Yuyan was like the consummate Woodsoul despite being a Crystalsoul.
Now that he thought about it, all true-blood Liangshibai were Crystalsouls, and he couldn’t really find any similarities between them, personality-wise, besides their appreciation for gemstones. Crystal was derived from Earth, though, and he reckoned that Yongyi did fit the bill of an Earthsoul—moderate, grounded, temperate.
Moving his spear in front of him, Jieyuan said, “Well, I guess I’ll let you be the judge of it, then.”
Yongyi got the message. Jieyuan saw with his soulsense as Yongyi lowered his aura to that of a third-sign Redsoul, its color growing fainter, before the core disciple took a few steps back and likewise got himself into a stance.
Jieyuan shifted his grip on the spear shaft, adjusting his stance a little to its weight. He’d had some time to get used to its balance while he was inspecting Yiming’s and Yongyi’s fight. The blade was a little heavier than that of his third-sign spear, but not so much to get in his way or require any significant adjustments.
As a training weapon, the spear seemed to have been spared the Liangshibai’s love for all things gleaming and precious. It was just a plain steel spear. The only difference between it and a normal, mundane spear besides its spirit-shadow was the fact that its entire body was made of metal, as with all inscribed artifact weapons. Yongyi’s first-sign steel sword was much the same, bare bones.
Jieyuan was the first to move. While Yongyi was still eying him, looking for an opening, Jieyuan lunged at him, stabbing at his neck. Yongyi reacted quickly, parrying the blade with his sword, but Jieyuan had spent a good while seeing him and his uncle fight—he immediately, reoriented his spear into a cut, landing a blow to Yongyi’s shoulder.
“Hit!” Yiming shouted from beside the stage.
Yongyi appeared surprised, and Jieyuan briefly drew his spear back, before thrusting it out again. Yongyi managed to react in time, stepping to the side and dodging the strike, but Jieyuan had expected it, stepping forward and shifting his momentum sideways. The blade hit Yongyi on his arm.
“Hit!” Yiming called again.
This time, Yongyi wasted no time in a daze, taking advantage of how Jieyuan had closed the distance earlier to close in even further while slashing at Jieyuan’s waist.
Jieyuan brought the spear out to meet the strike, blocking it with the metal shaft. Then he pushed forward, throwing his arms up—and, by extension, throwing Yongyi’s sword up, and throwing Yongyi himself off balance.
To his credit, Yongyi regained his footing almost immediately—but not fast enough to avoid or block Jieyuan’s strike to his chest.
“Hit!”
Over the next minute, Jieyuan managed to land several more hits, while avoiding all of Yongyi’s. Yiming stopped announcing hits after the seventh, but Jieyuan wasn’t paying that much attention to it, immersed in the battle.
Yongyi was fast, and precise, and skilled, but in Jieyuan’s many, many simulated fights against Daojue, he’d had trained himself to detect even the slightest hint of an attack so that he could react to it in time—because the alternative was to blink, and then have Daojue running him through with his spear. And the one he’d been training against was Daojue, who had pretty much no tells at all.
Yongyi wasn’t bad—far from it—but to Jieyuan he might as well have been an open book. And unlike Daojue, Yongyi couldn’t move at inhumanly fast speeds, not when their soulsigns were equalized.
“Enough,” Yiming said after Jieyuan landed his twentieth attack.
Yongyi immediately leaped away. Jieyuan, caught in the fight, made to pursue, but then he found himself being pulled back.
Yiming then stepped in front of him, one hand on his shoulder. “Easy there, kiddo.”
Jieyuan snapped out of it. “My bad.”
Yiming waved it off. “Don’t worry. You’re hardly the first Firesoul I’ve had to deal with.” He let go of Jieyuan’s shoulders. “I have got to say, though, you’re even more of a diamond than I’d assumed. Yongyi sure isn’t your match—and my nephew’s pretty chipping good.”
Looking past Yiming, Jieyuan locked eyes with the man’s nephew. Yongyi was staring right back at him, his expression tense, conflicted, yellow eyes bright and vivid. Jieyuan didn’t doubt Yiming’s words. Yongyi was good. He’d gotten that impression from watching him fight before.
But virtually all of Jieyuan’s fights he’d been in the past month had been with either enemies far above him in soulsign, or against Daojue, in his simulations. And though he and Daojue were at the same soulsign, Daojue was Daojue.
Jieyuan found himself mirroring Yongyi’s conflicted expression. Because, on the one hand, he’d clearly improved. Back in the entrance trials, at the start of the year, he’d been able to beat everyone else besides Daojue and Meiyao, and there’d been a number of clan-borns among them, but not as soundly as he’d just beaten Yongyi. Clearly, he was doing something right—he was getting stronger.
But at the same time, he was far from Daojue’s match. Meiyao’s too, probably. And the two of them were also improving.
“That’s quite the expression you’ve got on, kiddo,” Yiming said. The palace head had his orange eyes fixed straight on him. “I’ll have to get a taste of this for myself. Yongyi, off the stage.”
Yongyi frowned, before shaking his head. He began walking away, but stopped at the edge of the stage, turning his head back and locking eyes with Jieyuan. He gave Jieyuan a nod—a firm, acknowledging one—then jumped down.
“Same rules,” Yiming said, taking position in front of Jieyuan, on the other side of the stage. “Lowered aura, no realmskills. You ready?”
Jieyuan pushed all other thoughts out of his head. “Ready.”
He and Yiming moved at about the same time, meeting each other at the center of the stage, spear to sword. Immediately Jieyuan could tell that Yiming was faster than Yongyi had been—as he thrust out with his spear, Yiming stepped to the side and forward, stabbing with his sword. Jieyuan similarly avoided the attack, bringing the spear back, but Yiming parried it.
Jieyuan threw himself fully into the offensive, and Yiming took a more defensive stance. Yiming’s style—the Liangshibai style—was pretty balanced, and Yiming put up a good defense. But a couple of exchanges later, Jieyuan managed to strike Yiming in the chest when the palace head fell for a feint and tried to get a hit in.
A couple of exchanges later, Yiming landed an attack, a cut to Jieyuan’s side, but Jieyuan soon took back the lead with two more hits, in quick succession. And then he got the hang of it, adapting to Yiming’s style, getting the hang of his tells, and he was getting hit less and less, and landing hits more and more.
Yiming put his hand up after a while, and this time Jieyuan managed to rein himself in. His robes were sticky with sweat.
For a few seconds, Yiming said nothing, just stared at him. The palace head seemed to be sweating just as much, if not more. With his aura lowered, Yiming’s stamina was now that of a third-sign Redsoul, and they’d been fighting at full throttle for a good couple of minutes.
“You’re quite the little monster, aren’t you?” Yiming finally said. “The reports don’t do you justice. You’re talented, Jieyuan—absurdly so. I fought Qingshi five years ago, and at the time I’d thought it was impossible to be any more talented—but you might actually have him beat. And Daojue and Meiyao are supposed to be better than you?”
“They are better than me.” Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice how Yiming had just compared him to Qingshi, how he might be better than Qingshi—Qingshi, whom Daojue had had the upper hand against even as a third-sign against a fifth-sign. It was only when Qingshi had started fighting at a sixth-sign’s level that Daojue found himself outmatched.
“Gleaming Heavens. I see it’s not just you three’s heavenly affinity that makes you so special. Yiming smiled wryly. “To think Huizhong’s brat would turn out this special.”
Yiming turned to the side, to where Yongyi was watching the two of them, attentive. “Yongyi, I’ll be heading out to handle some matters. I’ll be back later with some elders to help with your training.”
Yiming then walked over to Jieyuan, clapping him on the shoulder. “Huizhong would’ve been proud of you, kiddo.”
Somehow, I doubt so.
“Thank you,” Jieyuan said, a touch more dry than he’d have liked.
Yongyi then walked past him, hopping off the stage, and then heading to the entrance. As the palace head left the training room, Yongyi jumped back onto the stage.
“So… more sparing?” Jieyuan asked, readying his spear. “Would you mind increasing your aura to fourth-sign? I’d like to…” He trailed off, seeing the intense, thoughtful look Yongyi was giving him. “Is something wrong?”
Yongyi snorted. “This was my idea.” He seemed to relax.
“What?”
“Inviting you here. Uncle would’ve probably checked in on you later, but this was supposed to be a private training session for me. But I wanted to meet you, talk to you. Alone, that is. Uncle agreed to play along. Nobody will be coming inside for a while.” He glanced at the doors leading out of the training room.
“I see,” Jieyuan said. He eyed Yongyi carefully. His words sounded rather ominous, but the impression he was getting from him didn’t quite fit it. Yongyi looked relaxed, though maybe a little apprehensive, too. Something about him looked familiar. “What’s this about, then?”
Yongyi worked his jaw for a moment, before sighing heavily. His shoulders slumped. “My sister. Meiyao. How… How is she?”
“Oh.” Oh. He knew where he recognized Yongyi’s expression from. Maeva would give him a similar look from time to time. “She’s been… fine, I guess.”
“Are you two close?”
Jieyuan wasn’t too surprised by the question. “I’d call us friends.” He kept his eyes trained on Yongyi’s expression, looking for hints of—well, anything—but the core disciple had on an inscrutable mask. A look quite similar to the ones Meiyao would put on sometimes, the face focused but blank.
“Are you interested in her?”
That gave Jieyuan a pause. He hadn’t expected a question this direct. “And if I said I am?”
At that, Yongyi’s expression broke into a little smile. “Then at least you wouldn’t be a liar. I saw how you look at her.” He nodded slowly, giving Jieyuan a considering look. “Did Meiyao ever tell you the reason why things are as they are between her and the rest of the family?”
“No.”
Yongyi looked like he’d expected that. “It’s not my place to tell you, but it’ll probably come up soon. It’s not that big of a secret. Just… Just keep in mind that there are two sides to that particular story.” He paused. “And please don’t tell Meiyao I just said that. She’s mad enough at me as it is.”
“You should know better than to give a merchant’s son leverage,” Jieyuan said, but smiling in a way that made it clear he was joking.
“My mistake,” Yongyi said, smiling back. “Anyway, I’d like to know more about what Meiyao—about your team—has gotten up to. Mother has been relaying everything she finds out to me, but I’d like to hear it straight from the source.”
“Sure. But you’ll owe me a spar—or ten.”
At the same soulsign Yongyi couldn’t really challenge him, but at higher ones? That was a completely different story, and Jieyuan needed some variety. Fighting his simulation of Daojue was clearly working so far, but he also needed experience against other weapons and fighting styles.
“You’ve got a deal.”
Comments
Rustpen
Hey! Thanks! "Glistening" is the old terminology. "Gleaming" is the new one. Thanks for pointing out!
Akkido
I love that his mental spars with Daojue are actually helping improve by so much. We get a lot of "Meiyao and Daojue are so much better than me" that it's hard to remember that Jieyuan is also talented beyond most other Disciples. This was a nice reminder.
Akkido
"Gleaming Stone Impediment," You seem to be switching between "Gleaming" and "Glistening" randomly.
Akkido
"Gleaming Stone Containment skill seed" Previously it was called glistening stone containment. Like, the previous line.
LunarEcho
TYFTC
Jeremiah Paltridge
Thanks for the chapter!
