Against the Murim Tide

Each day followed a strict rhythm as Ahmad and Yi journeyed toward the Tang clan. They would wake at dawn, after eight hours of travel, they would stop to make camp. For Yi, this was when her real work began. Ahmad had made it clear from the start that every moment, save for eating, sleeping, and shitting, she would be spent only on growing stronger.

She started with basic forms, her guan dao slicing through the air in sharp arcs. Ahmad had told her to treat the weapon as an extension of herself, and she was starting to understand what he meant.

Endurance came next. Yi would carry the guan dao on her back while she ran like mad, weaving in between the trees, when camp was set next to a mountain she would climb it. Ahmad had drilled the importance of stamina into her, strength and technique were useless without it in a prolonged fight.

Then came the part of her training that tested her reflexes and mental focus. Ahmad would stand before her, his voice calm as he would state his next move. "I'm going to attack you here, then here," he'd explain, pointing to his torso and then his head.

But when the attack came, it was too fast for Yi to react. He'd strike right after telling her to dodge, yet through the days she had not managed to dodge even once. Every time she failed, he'd simply repeat the same command, louder and with more force. "Next time I say dodge, YOU FUCKING DODGE!"

She could feel her frustration building, but each failed attempt pushing her body to its limits. It was frustrating, but with every strike she took, her mind grew sharper, her senses heightened. Or at least the brain damage she sustained while surviving this rigorous training, if it can be called that, led her to believe so.

Once her body was pushed to and then beyond its limit, she would sit down in the lotus position and focus on refining her ki. With the guan dao resting on her lap, and close her eyes to concentrate on herself. With each breath, she guided the energy through her body, visualizing it as a river flowing through her meridians from her ki center, sometimes directing it into her weapon. The process drained her, but she felt her control growing stronger as the guan dao filled with her energy.

After exhausting herself this time mentally rather than physically, Yi spent time visualizing her opponents. She imagined their swift movements, the clash of weapons, and her ki infused strikes.

Afterward, Yi would stretch and reflect on the day's training before going to sleep. She ran through the techniques in her mind, analyzing and asking Ahmad where she could improve if he forgot to remind her. The routine was grueling, and she had no time for anything less than perfection. But with each passing day, her control over the guan dao grew, as did her mastery over her ki. With each day her body, slowly but surely, got more powerful, and her mind became sharper. 

On the sixth day after leaving the inn while they were walking through a forest Yi noticed a subtle shift in Ahmad's posture, his eyes narrowed as they locked onto something deep within the forest. She followed his gaze, but before she could even try to see what had caught his attention he began speaking.

"Come," he said quietly. "I'm gonna show you something awesome."

"What is it?" she asked curiously, but Ahmad didn't offer her an explanation. Instead, he placed a finger on his lips, indicating for her to be quiet. Shortly thereafter he started moving with completely silent steps. After a second of hesitation, Yi sighed and nodded, though Ahmad didn't see it as he was already further into the forest.

Yi found herself walking as silently as she could, matching Ahmad's slow pace. He moved with the ease of someone accustomed to navigating the wilderness, while she kept close behind, her curiosity kept on building. 

After almost half an hour of walking at the speed of a snail, or at least to Yi it felt that way, Ahmad and Yi settled quietly into the dense underbrush. The rustling of leaves was barely audible as they crouched, or rather as Yi crouched, Ahmad somehow made absolutely no noise. Yi's eyes followed Ahmad's gaze, drawn to a small clearing up ahead, which had a big, mostly flat rock in its middle. 

There, laying down on the rock, was a massive fox which was the size of a tiger. Its icy blue fur shimmered with the divine glow as it reflected the sunlight. The fox's golden eyes were barely open as it looked lazily at the trees in front of it. Its massive tail was easily over a meter long. Its appearance was the epitome of majesty, if among animals there was royalty it would be king, but there was an unmistakable laziness in its demeanor… it reminded her of someone.

Yi's breath got stuck in her throat at the sight of the creature. "It's huge…" she whispered, earlier she was silent because Ahmad told her to be, but now she was quiet because she had to be.

Ahmad didn't respond to her, he just kept looking at it. Yi shifted uneasily, the palpable aura of power radiating from the fox filling the air around them.

Yi started thinking, why did Ahmad bring her here? How did he even spot it from such a distance? Yes they had walked slowly, but they still covered enough ground to the point where a line of sight was impossible. Did he hear it? It didn't look like it'd moved for a while, if anything it acted more like it had just woken up.

Just when she thought that it shifted. The fox's eyelids, still half closed fluttered slightly, revealing molten amber beneath them in their full beauty for Yi and Ahmad to witness. Then the foxes nose wrinkled until finally, with a slow movement, it raised its head skywards.

Its black lips curled back to reveal sharp white teeth, a pink tongue stretched forward, curling at the tip as the jaw widened further, almost comically so for such a creature. A soft exhale escaped as its front paws extended cutely forward. Its claws slowly moved across the stone on which it was laying, leaving deep grooves as they effortlessly cut through it.

As the movement ended, its mouth closed with a quiet snap as it's upper and lower teeth hit each other, and the fox let its head drop back onto its paws, its amber eyes drifted shut and stayed closed. It had begun to drift off into sleep.

'Did it just yawn?' Yi thought, not knowing if she should be terrified or amazed by how cute the perfect murder machine in front of her looked. She finally figured out why Ahmad had brought her here.

"Am i going to fight it?" she asked with a steady but overly quiet voice.

Ahmad glanced at her with surprise in his eyes, but that surprise quickly turned to amusement. "I like the bloodthirst, but no, you're too weak." he replied with a smile. "And even if you could beat it, it's not like you would gain anything."

"But won't fighting something stronger help me improve?" she answered unsure of what he meant.

Ahmad shook his head. "The strongest spirit animal might reach the late Weapon Master stage, and i'm being generous when i say that, but it's not worth your time or energy as far as training goes. You're either stronger and can beat it easily, or weaker and it'll murder you. Unless you really need the money a spirit core could fetch, fighting spirit animals while equal or weaker is pointless. I mean, how's fighting a fox going to help you? A human, even those who imitate animals in their martial arts, fight very differently. It'd be like studying to be a military administrator but deciding to read a single book about crop cultivation."

Yi frowned while still watching the fox, she couldn't take her eyes off it. Its immense size and supernatural grace captivated her, and the energy it exuded was unlike anything she had ever encountered. For some reason she really wanted to fight it, but not to kill, all she wished was to try her strength against it.

Ahmad sighed after sensing her hesitation. "If you want to prove yourself, fine. But this fox is at least at the second realm, that makes it a weapon master as you call it, anyway, it's stronger than you are. You'd get nothing from it except injuries and that's if i save you."

"So why did you bring us here?" she asked while still looking at the fox.

"Because it's pretty? I mean look at you, you can't take your eyes off it, not everything has a meaning behind it you know. How often do you think you can find a blue fox the size of a tiger by coincidence in a random forest?"

Yi nodded after thinking about what Ahmad said, though she couldn't deny being a bit disappointed by the simple answer he gave. The disappointment however didn't stop her from continuing to look at it. It really was beautiful.

For a while longer they simply sat while looking at it, the more Yi continued to look at it the more at peace she felt, it was as if all of her problems didn't exist.

But eventually Ahmad broke the peaceful silence. "To get to that size that thing must have eaten enough spirit plants to push it into the second stage of the second realm, or mid to late Weapon Master level. If you eat its spirit core you might make it. What do you think? Want to face the tang as a late general or early weapon master?"

"Shouldn't something so magnificent be left alone?" After a moment of silent thinking this was her answer.

Ahmad didn't look at Yi when he responded, instead he kept looking at the fox with a wistful look in his eyes, his tone was calm and gentle as he spoke to her. "I guarantee you, someone else will come along soon enough, and they won't hesitate to kill it. You can't protect it. The world doesn't care about how majestic it is, the best thing we can do is end it ourselves so we at least know it was put to good use, we'll take the core, nature will take the body, possibly feeding the next spirit beast that will rule this forest." 

His words were cruel, but she could not argue against what he said, Sichuan had two great sects and one great clan alongside many smaller organizations. Entire groups of people made a living solely by scouring the mountains and forests in search of spirit plants in order to sell them. It was a miracle it had survived this long even if it was this far from any major roads.

Spirit animals are those that consume either many weaker ones or a single potent spirit plant, which causes them to form a spirit core. This core then naturally absorbs energy, making the animal larger, tougher, stronger, and faster, much like a human advancing through cultivation stages. These cores are highly valuable, as is the body itself, as they contain far more ki than the plants they originated from. But once the core is full, it stops absorbing ki, limiting the animal's growth to the late Weapon Master stage since unlike humans they cannot manipulate or compress ki to progress further down the path. Therefore, no spirit animal exceeds the strength of a late Weapon Master, and those that do are extremely rare and worth more alive than dead.

She thought of the Tang clan and of her own desire to grow stronger, spirit cores were rare, one like this would save her years of meditating that she could instead spend on enhancing or creating techniques. Yi took a deep breath before turning to Ahmad for the first time since she laid eyes on the majestic animal. "A Weapon Master," she said with determination in her voice. "If I'm going to face them, I want to do it as powerful as i can."

Right as she finished speaking, Ahmad stood up and stepped into the clearing, this time not bothering to be quiet. The air around him shifted, becoming heavier. The fox remained unbothered as its massive form rested peacefully in the sunlight, it acknowledged someone entering its domain but wasn't.

Then, Ahmad moved. His motions were a blur, faster than Yi's eyes could follow. One moment, the fox lay undisturbed, and in the next, it looked the exact same, but Ahmad was standing next to it while holding a small eyeball sized dark blue ball in his blood covered hand. There was no sound, no struggle, no chance for the creature to react. Ahmad straightened, holding the dimly glowing spirit core in his hand.

Yi blinked and her heart started racing as she tried to process what had just happened. The fox, so imposing mere moments ago, was gone in the blink of an eye, or not even that, she didn't blink from the moment Ahmad stood up to the moment he already had the core in his hand. It wasn't that Ahmad hadn't even given it a chance to defend itself, because even if given a chance, there was nothing the fox could have done.

He turned to her and extended his right hand as if to displaying the core to her. "Eat this,"

Yi hesitated before speaking. "Is it… safe?"

"Probably," Ahmad answered casually. "Never ate one myself, but I've seen others do it. Also, they're expensive, so like, either you eat it or we can get some pork rib soup, a lot of it actually. You could probably buy the inn we stayed at and have them make it for at least a year."

He stopped for a second before continuing.

"Meditate," He said with a more authoritative tone than usual. "Don't stop absorbing it until you fully exhaust it. Don't rush it, or you'll waste it."

With that, he tossed the surprisingly clean, somehow blood free core over to her.

After catching it, Yi begun inspecting the spirit core. It looked like a blue jade, and if she hadn't seen where it came from mere moments ago, she might have believed it to be one. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself and swallowed it.

The moment the core reached her stomach it dissolved and a torrent of untamed energy surged throughout her entire body. Yi collapsed to her knees and clutched her chest as the power begun to overwhelm her.

She quickly assumed the lotus position as her breathing became more labored and she began the arduous process of absorbing it. The energy from the core intertwined with her own, and slowly made its way over to her core as it moved around her body.

Hours passed, her sense of feeling had been completely lost, not only because she focused so much on herself as to ignore everything on the outside but also from the fact she had been doing it for so long. By the time she opened her eyes, the sun kept shining down from almost the exact same spot as before, judging by its position, barely an hour had passed. 

'It didn't take as much time as i thought it would.' Yi thought to herself as she ignored the numbness that had taken her entire body.

She then began inspecting her body, During this time she managed to squeeze virtually all of the ki into her own ki center, which she then compressed and finally expanded. She didn't feel physically much different, but the sheer amount of ki cursing through her body made it clear she had reached the early weapon master realm.

"Holy shit, finally!" Ahmad said with exasperation in his voice, taking Yi out of her thoughts. "Twenty five fucking hours and twenty three minutes, i know i told you to not rush it, but everything has a limit you know!"

He was sitting over a sizable fire, a massive stick, resembling more a tree than an actual stick in length and width, was in his hand, and impaled on it was a boar about half her height. 

 Yi stared at the boar, her mouth opening slightly in disbelief.

Why a boar, why in this way? She wanted to say it, but she thought better of it. After everything she'd seen today, mostly a fox the size of a tiger, this felt oddly mundane. Yet, above all else, hunger gnawed at her. If this was a book, her stomach might have even audibly grumbled for the entire forest to hear.

Ahmad glanced at her with a grin as he hoisted the boar. "Before you ask, it's because boars don't set you on fire, poison you, or curse you with bad luck for the next hundred years. They're boring, but tasty."

She blinked at him, but in her mind, she was just glad he wasn't preparing the fox. 

When the boar was finally cooked, Yi bit into the meat. It was plain, dry, and slightly gamey, the best she could say about it was that it was warm. Ahmad didn't bother hiding his disappointment in the taste in his mind.

"Blnd, huh?" he said while still chewing, making it hard to understand what he said. "Thas whut ya git wit no seasonin. If ya din't train so muh..." He paused to chew some more before finishing what he was saying, this time with a clear mouth. "If you didn't train so much, we would make it to an inn every single day. Not that i blame you, it is the point of this whole journey, or is this a quest? We did leave with a task to accomplish so ye i guess it's a quest. On that note, did you know every time you go to take a shit it's a quest because you go somewhere with the intention to complete a task?" 

Yi almost choked after hearing what he said. She tried to laugh, but the massive chunk of meat she was currently devouring stopped her, and by the time she finished it her mood was still cheerful but not vibrant enough to still make her laugh out loud. She wasn't sure if liking these crass jokes was something she always did but never experienced, or if it was Ahmad slowly influencing her. 

By the time they finished the boar around 4 hours passed making it almost night, and Yi felt a mix of satisfaction and slight discomfort. The meat had been bland, but it had filled their stomachs unnaturally so, and they were ready to continue their journey. Ahmad casually packed up the remnants of their meal, tossing the bones aside as he cleaned his hands on his trousers.

"Not the tastiest meal, but it works," he said with a shrug, his tone as casual as always.

Yi couldn't help but agree, though she was already looking forward to something with a bit more flavor, like a certain meat flavored soup. They packed up and without further delay, continued on their way.

The next four days were a blur of travel. Her training continued but with more hours dedicated to physical training given she had to acclimate herself to the new over double amount of ki within her, as they neared their destination. By the time the walls of the city where the Tang clan was located came into view, Yi was ready for whatever, or rather whoever awaited her inside.

Ahmad turned to her, his voice low. "Always have a good rest before a fight."

Yi nodded, she thought they would go straight in given Ahmads straightforward personality but was grateful for the chance to catch her breath, though she wasn't sure if the excitement within her would allow her to actually rest. "Sounds good."

With that, they made their way toward the city's entrance, ready to find a quiet place to stay for the night. Tomorrow, tomorrow would be the day everything changed.