Sky Pride

It took Sister Li two weeks to craft Tian’s darts. During that time, for no plausible reason Tian heard, the base was shifted from an Up to a Down posture. That is, it was no longer considered on the front lines, and so long as people earned their monthly quota of military merits, they could pick and choose the missions they took.

Brother Long Yichen came to find him when the darts were ready, and looked subtly disappointed to be called “Brother Long” instead of “Brother Supreme Art.” Tian was prepared to endure his disappointment. He agreed with Sister Li. “Supreme Art” was a ridiculous name to call yourself, especially when Tian hadn’t seen the man craft so much as a cup of tea.

Tian was still courteous to him. Other than his weird naming sense, Brother Long was alright and it was hardly his fault that he had been born into a good family. Tian just wouldn’t waste his good tea on him. It was a comforting thought, and it helped him forget that Brother Long had better tea than he did.

It also helped distract from the memory of the dead Brother Long in the desert, and the Grace Cloud Valley green tea that remained untouched in his storage ring. Tian sometimes found himself looking out over the wasteland, dreaming of adventuring down the Green Snake River. He had never been to a city before. He would find the city of osmanthus trees and drink in the tea house. Perhaps he would find a Xiaoxiao there. It was one way to leave the wasteland in his mind. There were other ways, of course.

“Do you have any hobbies, Brother Long?”

“Oh, well, I do try to cultivate my dao heart with the four arts.”

“The four arts, brother?”

“Yes? Ah… perhaps you know them by another name. Painting, calligraphy, playing the guqin and playing Go.”

“Go is the game with the black and white stones, and the table with a big grid on it, right?”

“Yes. You really never played?”

“No, I have seen the senior brothers play it, of course, but I never really understood it.”

“Would you like to learn?”

Tian thought about it. On the one hand, he had innumerable things to learn. His conversations with Brother Wong already had his head spinning and the other doctors were worse. On the other hand, his studies were expected to take decades, or even the rest of his hopefully eternal life. So it wouldn’t be terrible to learn how to play. And Brother Zhang’s little jab about not having any hobbies rankled. Brother Long looked hopeful. Tian smiled and nodded.

“I’ll have to trouble you.”

“No trouble at all! This is great! Everyone else here has been playing for a century or more. I get killed every time.” Brother Long rubbed his hands together. “But in the meantime, Senior Li is waiting. I think you are going to really like what she has to show you.”

Senior Sister Li looked like she was ready to fall over and die, but she was smiling. Or grimacing. Probably smiling.

“You owe me.”

“I thought you were taking the unused hairs as your fee?”

“Yes. But morally. Also practically, each of these darts took six hairs, considerably more than I thought they would. But damned if it wasn’t worth it. Look at these beauties!”

The older crafter waved her hand grandly towards a wide leather pad on her crafting table. The painfully white lights shown down on… nothing. Tian squinted. He could see faint glints of light on the stained hide.

“You made the darts even more invisible?”

“Oh they are so much more than just invisible. Watch this!” She gently blew some white powder over her desk. The fine particles settled gently on ten three inch long darts. Each dart was an elongated oval, nearly a cylinder, slightly wider in the middle but quickly compressing down to a sharp point at either end. “Are you watching? Don’t blink. If you blink after all of this, I’ll ban you!” She reached out and gave the leather pad a little shake. The darts and the powder shifted slightly, and the darts vanished.

“Sister Li?!”

The crafter smiled. She had been staring viciously at Tian’s eyes. He hadn’t blinked.

“Your eyes don’t deceive you. I have managed with craft what usually requires enchantment- environmental blending. Not only are the darts fully transparent, if they get covered in powder, smoke, water vapor or the like, so long as they move even slightly, they will simply appear as another part of that medium. It is possible to see them move if you look very, very carefully, but in most use cases, they can evade even the techniques used to find invisible enemies.”

“Amazing. Just… I don’t know enough words to say just how amazing it is. This is just incredible.”

“Now I know what you are thinking. ‘Sister Li, you may be the Heavens’ answer to the dream of Earthly crafters, but I am a hot blooded man. Excessively hot blooded. Just… so much blood, everywhere. What if my beautiful, highly technically complicated, made with unique ingredients darts become covered in something sticky and highly visible? Like blood?’”

“My exact thoughts… Supreme Crafter Li?”

“Crude, do better. But I appreciate the effort. The answer is, you are screwed. Except! I spent six damn hours per needle polishing them with increasingly fine powders and silks, as well as soaking them in hardening and preservative agents. You wouldn’t believe how many highly specific agents and reagents went into crafting your needles. The sheer quantity of Gold Thread Tree Heart powder…” She drifted off. Then shuddered a little.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

There was a long pause.

“Senior sister, do you need a commission to go to bed?”

“Oh, I’m going to sleep for three days straight after this. I just needed you to understand, these things are absolutely amazing, sharp as a sword cultivator’s razor, and utterly precious. I don’t usually interfere with my customer’s choice of weapon art, but I swear on my eyes if you pick some cheap ass art as part of your broke ass lifestyle-”

“I spent pretty literally all my merits buying the best and most expensive dart art in the scripture pavilion, Senior Sister. I bought it two weeks ago. I knew you would make something good.”

Sister Li swayed a little. Then she turned decisively for the door.

“You aren’t fired as a client. Come again. Next time bring spirit crystals and a huge jug of wine. Good wine.”

“Yes, Sister Li.”

“And… be nice to that Long boy. Not a mean bone in him, but he couldn’t find his ass in an outhouse.”

Tian collected his darts and hustled back to the hospital. He had, by means of careful petitioning, secured the right to use a broom closet as a cultivation space when off duty, provided he could find a place to stow the brooms that wouldn’t inconvenience the other orderlies. With much less careful, but equally polite, negotiation, he persuaded the other orderlies that just carrying a broom in their storage rings negated the need for a broom closet. That, and a few jugs of rough wine, carried the day.

There were cultivation rooms to rent in the depot, but those cost martial merits or spirit crystals. Why pay when you could enjoy a job perk?

He had long since memorized and returned his copy of Imperial Heavenly Swallows. He had reviewed it quite a bit, but now that the darts were in hand, he mentally recited the introduction.

From the garden of the Heaven Calling Temple rise ten thousand swallows in flight. Diving and twisting through the air, they never strike each other. Flying at their utmost speed, even in a chaotic melee, their prey cannot escape. Purple qi rises in the East with the dawn, Northern White Tiger sharpens his claws upon the wind. One is the origin, nine the highest, and ten returns to perfection, immortal, carrying the authority of heaven, earth and man. One and ten progress to the myriad and at the pinnacle of perfection the myriad is revealed to be the absolute. Within seeming chaos is order, the rigid becomes flexible, all things change yet one truth is immutable. So long as there is hunger, there will be those who hunt. So long as there is ambition, there are those who will rise.

The language was flowery and filled with allusions to things Tian neither knew nor cared about. Despite that, there was a charm to it. Tian couldn’t explain it, but there was a weight to the words that he hadn’t really noticed in other arts. He carefully reviewed the other arts that he knew, and the only one that gave him the same sort of tension was Advent of Spring.

“Could this be a combat art on the same level of Advent of Spring? It can’t be. Not for a mere hundred and fifty military merits and made available to the Outer Court.” He thought. Then another thought intruded. “The Advent of Spring is intended for Inner Court Disciples as a way to refine their fleshy body even as they practice qi cultivation. Sister Su did say Imperial Heavenly Swallows could be practiced to the Heavenly Person realm but…” He looked at the introduction again. “Cultivation arts are many times more expensive, of course. But who knows.”

He paused. “Well. Probably the head librarian does, but I don’t think I can go ask him.”

Or you could ask your old Grandpa.

“It won’t take too much energy?”

For something you have already figured out? No, I’m actually… well. The author probably had a high degree of scholarly learning and wrote out the core of the art with what I suspect she felt was unusual bluntness.

“She?”

Han Yingyue is listed as the author. If that’s a boy’s name, I know a singer who had his idea ripped off. It might explain the author’s homicidal impulses.

“Grandpa?”

It’s a woman’s name. Also, is this really important?

“I mean, it might be.”

No. Moving along. It is an art you can cultivate to at least the Heavenly Person level. What’s more, you start the art by cultivating a single dart, then build up to nine. To cultivate the tenth dart, you need to be at the Heavenly Person Realm, and… a reasonable conclusion could be drawn from the rest of that sentence. And drawing an inference from the text and connecting it to the name of the art. And given the imagery used and the name of the art, I have a feeling things get REALLY spicy at the Heavenly Person Realm. Sorry, you haven’t figured that bit out yet, and since it’s a long way off, there isn’t any need for me to explain it now.

“Wait, I can only use one dart?” Tian looked at his ten treasure darts, feeling like he had somehow lost something precious.

Focus, Tian. You start with one. Then you build from there. Build a… very long way. Notice that while ten is the highest named number, it doesn’t say that ten is the end. Come on, I’ll walk you through the refining process. This is going to be a little messy to start with. Good thing you are the janitor, I guess. You know what? Let’s go through the vital energy circulation method first, then get into the refinement.

Grandpa Jun wasn’t being dramatic. Tian had found that part of the manual extremely clear with almost excessively detailed diagrams. The dart must be covered in his blood and completely covered by his hands as he circulated the first part of the refinement art. He had to do this for exactly thirty three minutes a day for thirty three days, at which point (assuming he had calculated everything properly and it was a yang day in a yang season at noon) he could hammer the dart into a very precise spot almost, but not quite, touching his heart. The dart would then be refined with a different circulation pattern for sixty six minutes a day for sixty six days, having ensured that the dart being refined (ie the first, second, third and so on) was completed at the correct day and time specified on the included chart.

One could take a break between refining each dart. The author wasn’t a maniac.

Then, once the initial refinement was complete, one simply had to learn how to control it using the eye-watering circulation diagrams carefully copied over four pages. Nothing to it, really.

“Grandpa, did we screw up by picking this art?”

Nope. Today is the wrong day to start properly refining this thing. That kid Wong can show you how to do the calculations. It will be a good exercise for you. But at the very least, we can start practicing. This is going to be a long process, but the payoff is worth it. I can’t tell you why just yet, but I can tell you this- at least when it comes to the scripture pavilion, the Ancient Crane Monastery is not screwing over its disciples. Not one bit.

Tian looked mournfully at the near-invisible dart in his hand. Even when he was holding it, it was almost impossible to spot. Little Nippers was just thirty merits…

He sighed and poked a blood vessel on the top of his hand. The jab was painless. He caught a few drops of blood before his wood cultivation sealed the hole.

“Difficult, painful, time consuming. Sounds like it was made for me.”

That’s the spirit. From adversity comes strength. Refining this needle will make you even stronger than you are now. And just wait until you have to do it all over again, nine more times! Nine more times to start with, anyway.