Druidic Cultivation | Twenty-Eight

Look to the skies and rejoice, the face slapping has finally begun. Exposition Arc is coming to an end soon, I believe. 

* * *

The sun continued to set as its journey across the sky came to a finish of the day.

“I’ve discussed it amongst our peers and it appears that we have a winner. Of all the samples presented here today, this grey-banded mamba gallbladder was the strongest creature slain, although not by much admittedly. Still, Feng Jiao is the winner of this year’s competition as far as the alchemists are concerned. Without any other distractions, let’s eat! Aiya… if only we had a roasted boar to accompany such a grand occasion… what a shame that...” The old man broke off and just shook his head in sadness, seemingly genuinely aggrieved about the loss of roasted boar. 

He’d been like this throughout the judgement ever since Feng Nian insisted that he be the one to crush his hopes by grading the boar. It appeared to all that the old man enjoyed rubbing Nian’s face in his failure, constantly making remarks about how magnificent a child was for being able to spot such a strong beast, how agile they must have been to slay something that wasn’t a mere animal, or just talking about how good boar tasted.

With each little poke and prod at Feng Nian, the boy’s face grew more distorted until, eventually, he seemed to lose all emotion at all and just stared, dead-panned, at Feng Jiao. The closest he’d gotten to joy was when two other children presented samples that neared Jiao’s quality, nearly defeating him. Although Nian would not win, he also did not wish for Jiao to win either due to the old man’s constant praising of him.

From where he sat not too far away, Lou observed the changes in Feng Nian’s mood. He too was feeling ill about the entire event. He’d never gotten along with Jiao and seeing him be praised so much didn’t sit well within Lou’s mind. He stood, ready to finally make his move and kiss up to one of the primary family children. Before, he’d not wanted to interrupt the judging so he waiting until it was complete.

Jiao stood up on the table he’d been seated at and shouted for all in the clearing to hear, unable to contain his hate and envy for any longer.

“I accuse Feng Jiao of cheating!” The words were loud and filled with conviction, as if Lou knew already that Jiao had cheated and needed only to inform the rest of the world.

Around the clearing conversation died off as all eyes turned to Feng Lou. Many there had had similar thoughts but nobody wished to slap their own faces and make a spectacle of themselves in public. Who were they to accuse a family member of subterfuge with no proof? Only an idiot would do something like that. They stared on at Lou with naked scorn in their eyes.

“I know that many of you will not believe me, but I know that more of you share my thoughts. Tell me, how could a ten-year-old kid slain any beast even remotely close to core formation, let alone a venomous snake? Feng Jiao hails from my Crouching Grass village and I personally know he only began cultivating three months past! Obviously, he had an adult sneak into the forest and help him, there is no other way!”

“Feng Lou, cousin dearest, is that what you think? You believe that I am as inferior as yourself, only able to slay a beast with the aid of people more powerful than myself? How about we make a wager, right here and now?” Jiao was tired of his cousin’s antics. Although he knew that if he went up against that mamba ten more times, he’d die every single time, he also knew that he was more than a match for his loud-mouthed cousin. Even if most of Jiao understood the doubts, he still needed to go out of his way to quash them.

Jiao was done playing around. He’d been looked down on because of his appearance, because of his age, because of his mother, and any other reason people could find to diminish him. He’d connected his sixth meridian back to his dantian at a record-breaking speed of three months, faster than any he’d heard of before. He’d spent two months refining his own combat style while fighting for his life every single day. He’d single handedly slain a near-core formation beast and survived to tell the tale. If Feng Lou wanted to slap his own face, Jiao would help him.

Feng Lou was taken aback by Jiao’s words. He expected the boy to cow and admit his guilt when confronted publicly, to apologize or, at the very least, hide his face in shame. What he didn’t expect was for Feng Jiao to viciously attack him with words and push himself into a corner. Lou was fourteen and had awoken his martial spirit two years ago. Regardless of the difference between grade six and seven, there was no way for Jiao to have caught up to his cultivation base in three months. He stared on in stunned silence for a moment too long.

“Well? A bet, or not? If you are too cowardly to see your own words until the end, Feng Lou, I expect a public apology to match the public accusation. Kowtow three times or slap your face five times, declare you were wrong. If you accept an exchanging of pointers, I’ll expect five kowtows and ten face slaps when you lose. You shall refer to me as your father from now on, every time you see me.

“You children will call me grandfather and I shall dote on them well. They will love their grandfather much more than their weakling father, that much is for sure. Oh! Don’t worry about your future beloved feeling left out. I’ll let them call me father-in-law, but I’m sure they’ll before to refer to me as daddy.

“Well, Feng Lou? Do you dare?” Jiao could see in his cousin’s eyes that he wasn’t afraid of Jiao, but was confused by the confrontation. The last thing Jiao wanted at this point was for his cousin to back down and refuse to fight so he provoked him viciously to seal the deal. Naturally, Lou was not able to back down at that point.

“You think I don’t dare? We shall see who is whose father.” Lou dismounted the table and a large open space slowly cleared between all of the contestants and their families. Lou stood ten meters from Jiao, spitting in anger even as his cousin stared back coolly. On the sides, their fathers, Zhipei and Yaobei could only look on with slight amusement. Both were aware of how little their sons got along and blamed Aoman, their elder brother, and his ilk for the enmity. 

Everybody else looked on ready to be entertained. More often than not, the Feng family youth competition was a martial arts exchange between the youth. This year, Feng Nan had beaten off the traveled path with his beast hunt in order to give his son the edge when it came to winning. While the beast hunt was still a good test of skill, it was far less entertaining than a fight. Everybody was sure there would be more challenges after the fight between Lou and Jiao, even if only for entertainment rather than grudges.

In Lou’s mind, there wasn’t any way that Jiao could have reached the second step of Mortal Awakening yet. The images that a martial spirit was able to communicate during dreams were never clear enough to get a complete grasp on cultivation. This was why the village assigned children of similar talents to help foster growth with one another. In addition to forming friendships and bonds, they would be able to offer each other the bits of enlightenment they’d gleaned from their spirits and form a more complete picture.

Lou knew that Jiao did not have a mentor because he’d been assigned to help his younger cousin and refused to. Thus, even if Jiao was the luckiest boy alive, he should only have one meridian connected back to his dantian. Lou himself had just connected his fourth not too long ago, and was already confident of his victory. 

It should be said that of the awakening stage, only five of the meridians translated back into combat ability directly. Those being the locus and talem, the first two traditionally, and the pulmus, vascus, or conceptium, the last three for most. Therefore, there wasn’t too much difference between a step two or step six mortal awakening cultivator, apart from cultivation speed.

Because, for most cultivators, either the locus or the talem meridian would be connected back first, so Jiao either had speed or striking power on his side. Without knowing which his cousin would have Feng Lou felt the need to leverage dominance with a fast attack. No words were exchanged as Lou cycled his Qi through his legs and kicked forward in order to close the ten-meter distance in a breath. His hand curled into a fist and came flying forward even as Qi empowered his strike to his cousin’s stomach. 

Feng Lou’s face found nothing but air even as his face lit on fire and he found himself screaming toward the ground. With a movement, Feng Jiao had sidestepped his cousin’s punch and slapped down on the boy’s face. Lou hit the ground so hard he bounced an inch up before settling with his face in the dirt. Feng Jiao, not quite done, kicked his cousin in the stomach hard enough to turn him over. With disdain in his eyes, Jiao looked down and gave his cousin one parting remark.

“You may think whatever you want to think, but you may not say whatever you want to say, little boy. If you keep trying to speak on the territory of a real man, you should be careful not to be slapped down by one.” Jiao returned to Lou the very same words he’d been given months ago at a feast. With each word, Lou’s pride was cut more and more but Jiao did not care, he turned to leave.

“How dare you strike at your own blood so viciously!” At this point Feng Nian, that evening’s last place contestant, stood and walked into the ring. Feng Lou got up and half-walked, half-crawled, to hide behind Feng Nian. Obviously Nian intended to cause trouble for Jiao, as if he had not lost enough face that evening.

The fight started out the exact same way. Feng Nian shot forward with a burst of speed to catch his opponent off-guard. Three swift punches were sent out at Feng Jiao, their form much better than Lou’s had been. Jiao twisted his body this way and that, pushing the fists away from his own form with open hands and flowing like a leaf in the wind before backing up with a leap to disengage.

Nian had been trained to fight with open hands by a tutor much better than the one available to Feng Lou in Crouching Grass. Although his punches had not landed successfully, he’d also not left an opening for Jiao to strike back at him. In his eyes, Jiao was outmatched and thus choose to retreat. 

Nian shot forward once more to push his advantage, only to be caught off-guard himself when Jiao, too, shot back at him. Unable to slow himself fast enough to get back in a fighting stance, Nian could only watch on as Jiao’s hand came streaming through the air like a willow branch and caught him on his left cheek.

Nian spun twice and stumbled backward two steps before catching himself. He opened his mouth to insult Jiao again, only to be viciously backhanded on his other cheek and spun once again. Jiao continued to push his advantage, landing slap after slap and backhand after backhand on Feng Nian’s already swollen cheeks.

Eventually, Nian lost his footing and fell to the ground with tears streaming down his cheeks against his will. Jiao stood over him and looked down, saying nothing at all before turning to walk away. 

“Where are you running off to, Feng Jiao. I am not done with you yet. You think because you landed a couple lucky strikes while I was off-guard that-”

“That’s enough! Shut the hell up, Nian. Have you not lost enough face for us this day?” Another slap rung out through the clearing, but this time it was not from Jiao’s hand. Feng Nan had finally had enough and had stepped out into the clearing, smacking his own son as if he were employing some holy hallowed technique to slap sense into someone.