Ming's Final Exam

Fun fact about Ming: For those who don’t know, I did martial arts for about 12 or 13 years, and got fairly serious with it. Ming is named after a student who came to study under my teacher at the time. She was 5th dan, and she knocked me around in every sparring match with ease. 

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Ming ran her hands along her student identification card, studying her point totals. Eighteen hundred and thirty practitioner-level points, but those didn’t matter. 

No, that wasn’t quite right. They were important – after all, that was how she would be gaining access to the Hall of Empty Whispers. 

She simply had already met her goals with that level of points, and their conversion to spellbinder-level points was atrocious. 

But it was the ninety seven university-level points that had her attention right now.

She was so close to being able to purchase the Doyen Blade – a growth item that was perfect for her. If she could just get her hands on it, her combat power would soar to unheard of heights. 

Just three more points. 

And she had the opportunity to get those points now.

It was something of an open secret that the combat certification at Lledrith University was used to scout people for the Elohian Elysian Mastery Tournament team. As such, it hadn’t exactly shocked Ming to learn that their first year final exam was going to be a tournament.

The first several rounds had been easy. There were few people in the class who could hold a candle to her, much to her disappointment. The worst that she’d gotten thus far was a single scratch along her left arm from one of Marie’s arts – that woman could be scary, but the tournament setting was disadvantageous for Marie, since her techniques didn’t have the room needed to build up power. 

Two rounds left. 

If she could just win two more rounds, she’d be awarded five university level points. 

It was a shame, though. Of the three people left, there were two who she actually didn’t hate. Crushing their hopes would make her feel bad. 

But she would do it. She needed that blade. 

“You’re up,” her professor of combat theory, Miss Galilahi said, stepping into the room. Ming put her card in the locker, nodded to Miss Galilahi, and strode out into the arena. Behind her, she could feel the faintest flicker of space chi as Miss Galilahi used an item to teleport out. 

“I want a good, clean fight!” Miss Galilahi called out. “Externally crafted items are banned. The use of any…” 

Ming tuned her professor out as she studied her opponent, sighing internally. 

Dario Dumont. 

That was a shame. He was always polite to her, his summons and mobility made him an excellent scout in their forest missions, and his sibling was actually kind of funny. She hoped that Morgan wasn’t in the crowds watching, but she’d pushed her spiritual senses to the very limit of what a normal person could manage. She knew they were in the stands, to her southwest. 

Dario locked eyes with her and nodded, his chi tensing. Her own power tensed as well. 

“Begin!” 

The moment that Ming heard the word, she was moving. Her cultivation thus far was entirely focused around speed, and he couldn’t match that. He knew that, though, and sure enough, he had already unleashed bursts of sonic power in the air around him to stop her from getting in close, and to break apart any of her Silver Blades she conjured.

But her Nascent Truth of Combat allowed her to know all of those things instinctively. She could read the flow of battle better than anyone at her age. So she paused, and in the half second interval between attacks, forged a Silver Blade, enforced by the power of her Truth. 

It lanced through the air, a crescent of silvery power, and struck him in the throat. It should have triggered the defensive barrier and pulled him from the fight. 

Instead, green light flared around him as his Lesser Phantom Armor took the hit. It shattered, but gave him time to summon a massive snake that encircled her. It should have cut off her speed advantage, blocker her line of sight, and allowed him an eventual win. 

She cut through the snake in a single strike, forging the art much larger than she normally would, then dodged the lightning that she knew was coming her way. She stepped in close as he tried to release a sonic burst, but his rhythm had been thrown off. Her hand grabbed his wrist and executed a picture perfect throw, and the art dissipated before it could finish forming. 

He didn’t hit the ground, his windstream that fixed his legs and made him an amazing conduit for flying magic allowing him to levitate for a moment, but that didn’t stop her. 

She forged a Silver Blade in her hand, and drove it into his chest. 

He vanished, and Ming bowed. 

That had been impressive. He’d lasted much longer than she’d expected. Once he was third realm and able to use his primal creation chi to copy the magical matrix of creatures, as well as make use of his legacy, he’d be a true opponent. 

Mostly. 

She would have advanced too, and would have her own tools. 

Ming returned to her waiting room to wait for the final round. 

This time, when she was pulled out, she glared at her opponent. 

Emi Long was everything that Ming was not. 

While Ming had fled Feng Chui and the greater control of Daocheng, seeking a better life, Emi had been born to wealthy parents who vacationed back and forth between Elohi and the Golden City of Daocheng. 

Where Ming was small, lean, and muscular, with darker skin and calluses on her hands from the endless hours listening to her Truth and practicing with any weapon she could find, Emi was soft, smooth skinned, pale, and adroitly feminine. 

Emi’s three tails swished behind her, and her fox ears twitched happily as she grinned at Ming. 

“Hey Ming. You look great today. I’m not sure I can win, but I’ll do my best, kay?” 

That was the other thing. Emi was…

Nice. 

Not polite but professional, like Dario. Emi was all smiles and joy, and she seemed to never have a worry in the world. How she could be so naive was beyond belief. 

Ming gave her a polite combat bow, and Emi sighed, as Miss Galilahi recited the rules. Ming felt a faint trace of annoyance – was that really necessary every single time? 

“Begin!” 

Ming released an overwhelming barrage of Silver Blades in every direction at once, even as Emi released a technique that cut off Ming’s access to her spiritual senses. 

Emi was a Hồ yêu, a nine tailed fox, and she was infuriatingly skilled at illusions.

The blades cut through Emi’s form like paper, and chunks of light, dreams, shadows, space, creation, mundane, and wind chi fell to the floor, puffing away into energy. 

Annoyingly, the blades she sent out in every direction didn’t actually strike the fox-girl. Emi might have only been in the third realm, but the Foxfyre arts allowed her to burn away forged chi. Combine that with the illusions, and Emi had likely destroyed her blades while weaving the illusion of them still being there. 

This was why Ming needed the sword and the whisper trial. If she’d had them…

Well, no sense in crying. She never had before. 

Emi appeared before her, an orb of bright purple-orange Foxfyre in her hands. 

Ming released a blade behind her, and was satisfied to hear Emi let out a stifled curse, even as the illusion rushed at her. 

Danger pricked her Truth, and Ming turned and dodged out of the way of the illusion as she abruptly realized the truth – the Foxfyre had been real. 

But even with a trick like that, Ming’s speed was unrivaled. She didn’t even need to empower her qigong with chi as she flickered out of the way of four more Foxfyre orbs. She launched herself back, pressing her back to the wall, even as three Emi appeared in the center of the arena, releasing flickering waves of light. 

If those touched her, they’d disrupt her spirit, just for a moment, and Emi would have the opportunity to hammer her with Foxfyre. 

At least, that’s what Emi thought. But Ming could win this battle. She could win any battle where the opponent wasn’t at least three realms above her. 

Ming let out a sigh as she allowed her hands to drift towards the sword she kept buckled at her belt. It was a completely ordinary blade. No enchantments, no poisons, not even made of a magical metal, just simple steel. 

Then Ming powered her qigong technique, drew her blade, and flashed into battle.

The moment the blade was in her hands, Ming could feel her Nascent Truth thrumming, pounding, crashing against her spirit. With an effort of will, she shattered the working that was holding her spiritual senses down. 

There!

The waves of light struck her, sinking into her spirit, mind, and body, assaulting her techniques. 

Ming shattered them with an irritated flick of her chi and leapt into the air. She struck out with her sword, and for just a moment, she felt like she could see the look of panic on Emi’s face, even through the veil of light and dream chi. 

But Emi was a third realm, and Ming was stuck in the second, at least until the trials were over. 

The blade could have shaved a hair off of Emi’s head, but it missed, and Ming was falling then. Her incredible speed did little to help her jump height until she had a chance to master the Lightfoot Art at third realm, and Emi thrust her hands out, dropping the invisibility. At the tips of each of her fingers, her three tails, and above either ear, tightly compressed orbs of Foxfyre appeared, then shot down at Ming with incredible speed. 

It didn’t matter. The drumbeat of combat guided her, and she sliced apart two orbs, contorted her way out of the range of another, then landed and kicked off in a run to dodge the rest. 

Emi stared at her, mouth agape, stunned by the fact that Ming had used an ordinary sword to cut apart her Foxfyre. 

Ming understood – most people underestimated just how much power one could exert with a Nascent Truth, especially below the stage of the Elders, where resonance was weak and often forgotten. 

Truthfully, though, the fact she was using a physical blade was part of why. Foxfyre burnt through opposing chi like water thrown on a grease fire, but was only moderately damaging to the physical, since it also burned the mind and spirit. Ming knew – she had studied the art quite intently while planning her own path. 

If Ming had tried the same enforcement with her Silver Blades, it might not have worked. 

But now that Emi was stunned, Ming deftly wove her chi in a complex pattern, forging seven Silver Blades at once and launching them towards Emi. Emi reacted with admirable speed, conjuring more spinning orbs of Foxfyre.

Behind her. 

Ming spun and drove her sword through the illusion of Emi that had appeared behind her, shattering it, but like before, the orb of Foxfyre was real. The ability to conjure it through illusions was a new one for Ming, but not new enough she couldn’t simply cut it apart. 

She sidestepped two more orbs of Foxfyre that came from Emi’s real body, and turned back to see that her opponent had melted enough of the Silver Blades for it to not be a lethal hit. Not only that, but she was surrounded by a swirling mist that would further distort Ming’s forged chi, not unlike the armor that Dario used. 

Ming wondered why Emi hadn’t been using it before, while invisible. Then again, maybe she had, and that had been how she had evaded the wave of blades. 

Emi paced back, trying to keep out of range of Ming’s sword, and Ming gave the other girl a feral smile. 

Then she overcharged her Silver Blade. It forged in the air and smashed through the mist. A moment later, Emi was pulled away, into the stands. Emi immediately beamed at Ming. 

“Great job!” 

Ming ignored her and turned to Miss Galilahi. 

It was time to claim her prize.