Qi Like Tar

For the first little while, Paike didn’t even need to use his qi to support his muscles as he loped along after the elder. That was not the case for many of his classmates. Paike was older, and when they were all still in Ruby, that had a significant advantage. It meant that he was taller, had generally more endurance from more years of training, even if he was a bit heavier; every stride carried him further.

Now that he was in Topaz, much of that mattered a lot less. Some of the advantages, like longer stride, were never really going to go away as long as he was taller than others, but his body had changed physically. Even though his physical cultivation was about average, his spiritual cultivation more than made up for that. Every bit of qi empowering his physical cultivation was more powerful, even if not as deeply pervasive as it could be.

And just those passive effects were enough to keep him going. But eventually, though, even he had to begin forcing his meager remaining qi through his painstakingly crafted channels, mostly in his legs but throughout his torso as well, making sure his heart and lungs were fully supplied with qi as they were with oxygen. Still, he felt practically fresh, nearly unstoppable.

An hour into the run, most of the physical cultivators were struggling. Those who were even Middle Ruby were sweating and panting. Ones like his sister or Li Feng were continuing, but did not look nearly as comfortable as he felt.

It wasn’t much longer before the first cultivator collapsed. Elder Ji looked back and tsked, but left the young girl lying on the side of the trail, not too far from the sect. But if she didn’t recover quickly, she might be in some danger.

Still, they all ran on, but things had changed. The elder sped up a little, rather than slowing down to give them a chance to recover. Suddenly, though, Paike realized something was happening. His senses were passively scanning everywhere, but his focus had been growing on just keeping his breathing even and steady, keeping his outer appearance calm and unflustered despite the strain.

Sweat began to run down his back. At this point, even Liming had sweat dripping on her temples, despite the only one who looked nearly as unbothered as Paike being Li Feng. He couldn’t even see Guan Li, but that might have been because the younger boy was running towards the back. But he could imagine that even though his cultivation wasn’t as good as the others, the innate toughness that the boy had was likely serving him well, especially after having solid food for a few weeks.

But something was coming from the forest, something incredibly close. Something in Ruby that should have been scared off by the elder’s very presence, but wasn’t. Something that Paike should have seen a long, long time ago if he had actively been scanning for danger like he had when he was exploring the woods with his sister or traveling by himself.

Instead, he’d gotten lazy. It was only because of his sloth that he had trusted the elder’s presence to either keep beasts away while they were focusing on training, or to warn them if any danger was forthcoming. Clearly, that trust had been misplaced. This was training, after all. He should have known better. His family tutors had been far harsher, and if they had even noticed he wasn’t paying attention, they would have punished him much earlier.

Paike looked around and noticed that while no one else had said anything, a few were tense. Li Feng had his hand on his sword as he stared off in the direction where something was coming, but no one said anything. Paike looked at the elder, who was running backward, watching all of them. Their eyes met, and Paike tried his best to ask a question, but the elder’s face was impassive.

So Paike swallowed, took a deep breath, and raised his voice. “A threat incoming on the left,” he shouted.

The elder gave what could charitably be called a slight nod of acknowledgment. Apparently, he had been waiting for someone to call out a threat. This was not a competition, and not in the way some seemed to think. Was it supposed to be? Were they supposed to be working as a team? Were they supposed to be letting others fall by the wayside?

He couldn’t figure out the exercise, but this felt right. This was part of it. His team was here, even if not all of them were. And even if this wasn’t a team exercise, he wasn’t going to let his sister or his roommate get attacked unaware, because he was pretty sure that his sister at least hadn’t noticed.

This warning was given just in time as a trio of what looked to be wolves, with red tips on the edges of their tails and ears, lunged out of the forest. But they didn’t get very far. They were early Ruby, incredibly weak, and Paike wasn’t even sure how they’d survive in a forest like this, where most things were at least Middle Ruby or higher with how deep they were.

In fact, he was almost entirely certain that it had been lured out by the elder or some of his assistants. There was a flurry of attacks; about half the people launched a technique or two at the creatures, slashing, splashing them with fire, smacking them with ice, repelling them down, and an arrow pierced through another one.

They were quickly left behind, dead or injured, but no one had bothered to check. Technically, there were valuable resources that could be harvested from them, but everyone else was too focused to keep up with the elder. No one wanted to spend time harvesting a kill when they had a lesson to do and an ability to impress potential mentors. If they did well enough, they might earn sect contribution points.

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This continued on for some time. One by one, the weaker classmates were left behind. They had started dropping off in groups. One would give up, and two or three more would follow, who were close to giving up as well. Part of it was for safety, part of it was just general psychology, until there were only half a dozen running at the front.

Paike and Li Feng were side by side, right at the elder’s heels. This time, though, they were all actively scanning the forest with their senses, and callouts were no longer necessary as everyone was constantly aware. They were attacked much more frequently, and when they were down to only five, that was when the first Topaz beast appeared.

Paike activated a technique for the first time since he had started running. Unstoppable in his goals, his qi shot him forward, and his fist smashed into the strange, leopard-like thing, crushing it into the ground with an overhead strike.

Even as he stepped past and out of the way, just in time for Li Feng’s sword to come and cleave into the fallen beast, still, though, the Topaz beast was tough. The sword bit in but stopped at the bone of the spine, Li Feng seeming surprised that his sword arts had not decapitated the thing in a single swing.

Still, though, both he and Paike jumped back and turned and ran to catch up with the other three students, who hadn’t even slowed in their pursuit of the elder, who was now running at a pace that had everyone sprinting to keep up. There was no way they’d be able to maintain this pace for much longer.

The beast stayed behind to lick its wounds and slink away, defeated but far from killed.

Guan Li and his sister were two of the remaining cultivators, but his sister was panting. She had had plenty of physical conditioning. She had been trained to fight hand-to-hand for hours at a time and to run until her body gave out, but she was only eleven, and her body was giving out.

If she had reached Topaz, she’d be able to keep going, or maybe even peak Ruby, but she was only late Ruby and was struggling. Guan Li also struggled. The third cultivator was one that Paike recognized, but she looked better than either of Paike’s two friends.

It was Mei Lingchi, a teammate of Li Feng, who was constantly looking at his sister. There was clearly no love lost between the two of them, but Paike had not been paying as much attention to his sister's situation in the past few days as he likely should have to his family matters.

The Mei clan was famous for their healing ability, and it was clearly being used here. She looked relatively fresh and unharmed, but the wear and tear of the run was just not touching her the way they touched the others. Even the number two student in the entire outer sect first years, Xia Jun, had fallen behind. His lightning, while quick in bursts, did not have the same staying power as the healing energy washing through Mei Lingchi.

It was only because he was behind and catching up, likely, that they thought he was distracted when the first bit of treachery appeared. A green tendril appeared on the ground in front of his sister, his little sister, and slowly twirled around her ankle mid-stride.

When it tightened, she jerked to a stop and tripped, the tendril disappearing even as she sprawled out on the ground. Guan Li half stopped, half turned in a surprised look at Liming’s falling form, but Paike waved him off as he picked her up, hauled her up from one arm, and placed her on her feet, running forward.

Even as he passed the healer, he watched carefully for his footing and whispered low to her, “Best not waste any qi. You’ll need that soon,” he said, even as he brushed against her as he passed her.

As he did so, he reached out with his own qi and flicked at her control. The healing technique she had been using was mostly internal, but even so, the meridian she had been using did have to connect to the spiritual world somehow. Normally, his attack would have been brushed away, but it was not even an attack. It was more of a touch, a feel. Just a rude probing.

But his qi was not so easily moved. The tendril that he extended bent as a wave of qi should have contemptuously flicked his probe away. Instead, though, it surprised her, and she briefly lost hold of the technique, gasping as the qi roiled within her, and she struggled to regain control.

It would not work again on her. It was only the surprise at the solidity of his qi and its Topaz quality that had caught her off guard, but he still smirked as he moved past, his sister struggling to catch up.

But there was a new problem beyond just exhaustion. Everyone had been running for a long time now and fighting as well. They’d been burning qi for most of the time, and burning it hard. Those talents, like his sister's, burned through qi even faster because they could. It empowered their techniques, but it used it whole.

And a few moments later, when Liming had almost caught up, she faltered, her qi guttering out. The healer also stopped. That looked to be trouble. Paike considered stopping as well, but looked back and saw that Guan Li also halted his run.

He looked at the former street rat, confused. He looked fairly good, but still, this time he waved Paike on. He mouthed something, but Paike couldn’t tell. Instead, he had turned his attention back to the elder, trusting his sister and Guan Li to be able to keep themselves from getting harmed.

He was glad that his sister had backup, especially with someone who apparently had ill intentions towards her. Paike put his head down and kept running.

With only the two of them left, they didn’t look at each other, merely keeping pace and pushing as hard as they could.

They were so busy keeping watch on their surroundings and dealing with attacks that when they burst into the clearing where they normally had their lessons and found the elder standing there waiting for them, Paike didn’t know what to say.

It was all he could do not to collapse, put his hands on his knees to keep breathing, and instead stay tall and calm as the elder appraised both of them. And then, after several moments of standing there waiting, catching their breath, Elder Ji cracked a smile.

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