206. Blossoming Friendships (I)

Of course, Dev'rox had an idea. The lovely little imp wanted him to go straight to the Training Grounds and start challenging people for merit points. That wasn’t the worst plan, but he wanted to verify how many points sparring got versus other uses of his time as well.

There also didn’t seem to be any reason not to use your three challenges a day. Norman called it the simplest way to gain merit points, but that didn’t mean it was the most efficient.

The first thing that he did was return to his dorm. He chose to go in the water again, but he didn’t dive deep. Disturbing the Guardian of the Depths once was sufficient for him.

Alistair reasoned that with a couple more hours of practice, swimming would be faster than jogging to his destination. He could use his maximum effort without fear of colliding with a fellow disciple and swim straight to his destination, even if it was currently slower because his swimming was imperfect.

If I were a bit more impertinent, I could’ve asked to see Sheeloth’s swimming technique.

He arrived back at his dorm shortly, drying himself off with Mana. Knock. Knock. It was like he was back with Nathan, not sure if his friend and his girlfriend were engaged in extracurricular activities.

“I’m back,” he announced, opening the door. As he expected, Red was still asleep. “Man, what’s with you and sleeping? Is your punishment for being so goddamn talented that you have to sleep ten hours a day?”

Red shot up at hearing those words, the laws of nature yielding to his aesthetic. It should not have been possible, yet it was. The Dao echoed in his movements, yet he did not use Dao energy.

“You bastard,” Alistair said. “You only show that stuff off around me. If moved like that everywhere, you’ll be picked up by the elders quickly and become the next genius of this sect.”

“I’ve already been noticed,” Red said. “While we toured, innumerable peerless jade beauties were staring my way. I can’t blame them. And yes, it is as you say, I keep a lower profile in public. I’m not trying to be found out, I promise you that. It’s just terribly boring sometimes, waiting for Nenna. I need to find some fun activities. Surely there are some hidden secrets here.”

“I can think of a fun activity,” Alistair said, running up to Red and punching him in the face. “Let’s start with your payment for my information right now. Daily training, right?”

“Very well,” Red said. “I did say that I’d train you to the best of my ability. Instead of thirty minutes, let’s do an hour.”

Alistair and Red exchanged blows in ultra-close quarters. It was a range that he was not too familiar with, since most of his fist fighting took place in open arenas.

“Your foundations aren’t bad.” Red held onto his collar with his right hand, only using his left hand and feet to block and parry. “The Holy Ravine always punched above its weight in the Martial League, if I remember correctly. That was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it? I fought a few men and women from the sects that trained you. I detect Silver Comet, Kodaidaemin, and Holy Ones in your heritage, no?”

Alistair shook his head. This fucking guy.

“If you don’t use your Fate-divining and that weird state I don’t fully understand, I don’t need to use my right hand.”

That much was true. With only his natural ability and the two passives of [Adaptive Kinesthesia] and [Monk Motionlessnes], he couldn’t force Red to use all his limbs. Somehow, the guy even knew something about the Kai’tazake Mutra, but maybe that was just him feeling the strange serenity that occurred within Tranquil Mind.

“It’s good. Let’s fight without abilities for now.”

They exchanged blows for five minutes straight. Well, exchanged was one way to put it. While Red didn’t stand still like he had when they fought on Faxor over a year ago, he still only needed three limbs.

And he didn’t throw anything back.

Every moment Alistair though he was adapting, learning patterns. Feeling the Tune of the Fight, learning what Red’s musical accompaniment was.

And then it changed. It should have been impossible. How many harmonies did Red understand? How much complexity was in his purview?

Or did Alistair have it all wrong? Was the secret of Red’s ability simplicity in perfection rather than complexity? After all, his movements were very precise and without extraneous movement.

He just didn’t know. All answers faltered.

Red decided to give a little lecture as they fought. “I just realized that you probably don’t know about how martial artists fight in the multiverse.”

The restful prodigy yawned. “It’s not the most popular path to the peak, but it works. It’s not the rarest either. I wouldn’t know for sure, but I would imagine there are sects and cultivators who stand near the peak of the multiverse with their fists. Truthfully, I cannot consider the fist to be the main path I follow, but it is meaningful to me. Sentimentally and in terms of my cultivation.

“The honorable martial artist fights in a three-stage process. This is seldom violated. First, there is the hand-to-hand exchange without abilities. The line is often fuzzy, but you know it when you see it. A true exchange of fist against fist. Once that has concluded, you move on to hand-to-hand with abilities.”

Alistair tried copying Red’s moves, using Fara’s dislocation technique to kick as fast and as precisely as the Cabal recruit, but he whiffed.

“The final stage is unleashing one’s Domain with hand-to-hand. It’s not uncommon to have internal Domains, either. This is the way of the fist.”

It didn’t make any sense. Alistair perceived all with [Reality Sense], yet the punch Red threw was out of his perception, striking the toughest part of his forehead.

Alistair didn’t take any damage from the blow, but he still felt dazed.

“Your foundations were shored up by your mentors, but how can you hope to compete against someone lived unarmed combat for twenty-two years?”

“You’re twenty-two?” Alistair asked, his jumping sidekick smacking into the window to the outside. “I just turned twenty-three. But twenty-two years? You were kicking people as a baby?”

“The moment after I was born, I took seven steps and declared myself to be the honored one. I’ve known nothing but war since my birth. You do not have the qualifications that I do.”

For a moment, Alistair was sure the world was going to end. A bloodlust unlike that he had ever felt before rose from Red.

Surely it was nothing—yet in his vision, a vivid red aura surged from his roommate’s body, steeped in a savagery beyond words, even as his aura sense whispered only silence.

A punch of guaranteed death, immersed in this bloodbath, careened toward Alistair’s face. His body refused to obey him until the last second, when his Dao Heart stirred. He would not be cowed by his fear of death—

Silence.

There was no fear of death for his heroic nature to avoid; there was no subversion of his path that “Heroism” prevented. There was only death.

Alistair was dead.

Then, he was not. Red’s punch stopped right before it hit his nose and mouth. There was no terrifying aura of unrestrained violence, there were no red affects, there was no sense of death.

There was only a bronze-skinned man wearing a white jacket, and his sparring partner, a black-haired man in a sleek black coat with Chinese characters on the back.

“Until you’ve lived the life I’ve lived, you will never force me to use but a fraction of my power.”

Alistair, hearing those words, copied Red.

It wasn’t a perfect copy by any means. Whatever strange means Red summoned that aura of bloodlust incarnate, Alistair had no means of replicating.

Instead, he gathered a massive chunk of killing intent—nue—and unleashed it all at once, throwing a punch that was the culmination of his struggles.

The first man he ever killed, defending Donna and Tamia.

His struggles in Fellows vs. Felons, fighting for Earth.

The duel with Anthony, that made him understand what a true fight to the death was.

His battle against Pharaoh, a man whose Dao had surpassed him at the time, that taught him the importance of understanding.

When he, Oliver, and Alexandra fought Dragonus and Admiral. How he saw a daughter deal a killing blow to her father and watch him die in front of her.

His encounter with the infinite evil in his Insight Vision, the eldritch horror that brought eternal despair, and how he raised his fist anyway.

His final fight against the Devil Kings, defeating George, and liberating the planet.

The Domain that sat within his soulcore—Spirit’s Fists Overcoming Evil. His utterly insane ambition of a paradisaic multiverse.

Sure, Red might have had more battles under his belt, more experience. Greater inborn advantages, a physique that was loved by the Dao.

But Alistair would never allow anyone, no matter how strong or gifted, to disrespect his journey. His mother. Sofia. Blaise. Jesse. Caren. Bartholomew. Brigid. Whimsy. Billions of average people, who saw an alien god and were burned alive. Billions of people that died to monsters, beasts, Devil Kings, and starvation.

That was who and what Alistair fought for, and Red’s punch would never, could never, change that.

“That’s my bloodlust,” Alistair spat, his fist lightly touching his partner’s forehead. “Do you feel that it’s not qualified enough?”

Red’s eyes opened wide, his gaze centered only on the fist before him. Alistair wasn’t so delusional as to imagine that there was any fear within the man, but he was satisfied nonetheless.

“Not bad,” Red admitted, the words long and measured. “Not bad at all. Your burden is deep as the ocean, so your fists have grown thick to compensate. It is a path that I am not destined for, yet it can reach the peak nonetheless.”

He circled around Alistair’s fist, adjusting it ever so slightly at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. No more than 1% deviations at most.

“However, I was not wrong that you do not have the experience. I will try to rectify that with our lessons, but it will never truly cross the border of a life-or-death battle against a fellow martial artist, as I’m sure you know.”

Alistair nodded. Practice and sparring only took you so far. Real-life experience was required.

“The way I just adjusted your arm was in line with what stories you tried to tell me with your punch. When fighters clash, we understand the opponent’s path and truths with our fists. You consciously communicated that to me, but your body is out of line with your meaning. Did your teachers in the Holy Ravine tell you about tradition?”

“Of course,” Alistair said, wanting to defend Master Ko Pao and Pike. “I feel like it's an analog to Dao History, right?”

“Yes,” Red replied. “There are two roads you may travel down. Tradition, incorporating the techniques of the masters, and genius, creating your own mastery. Obviously, genius is much harder, and even geniuses such as myself borrow from the greats.”

Red forced Alistair to throw the killing intent punch again, with the new adjustments. Alistair immediately felt a difference. Everything was… connected.

“The adjustments I made were from both roads. You have carved your path, but you also take inspiration from many others. Your fist is your own, and your fist is the perfection of past heroes, is it not?”

Once again, Alistair was taken aback by the level of insight that Red had after feeling a single blow. Giving that information to him nicely may be the biggest lucky break I’ve ever gotten.

His Dao Nodes stirred once more, now the second time in two days, the first being his experience with Pristine Evolutionary. Alistair began to understand the true power of a sect.

It was the congregation of talents. Iron sharpening iron.

“So the exact positioning I use during a moment of inspiration becomes inherently more powerful itself?”

“Now you’re getting somewhere.”

The next hour was the clashing of two men and their fists, and nothing more.