Chapter 81: The Second Plan (Patreon)

A good holiday always ends too fast.

When Miguel teleported everyone back to Yunkui Summit in one go, Ju Fufu still had one of Sweety's egg-yolk pastries clamped in her mouth, her tiger tail drooping, looking for all the world like her soul hadn't caught up with her body yet.

"Ahh... so we're back already."

"Senior Sister, didn't you eat your fill at the Tea Sipping Immortal today? How come you still look like nobody charged your battery?" Pan Yinhu pushed up his little round red sunglasses.

"That's different! Eating is eating, playing is playing!"

Ju Fufu shoved the last of the pastry into her mouth and mumbled around it, "I haven't relaxed nearly enough yet—"

"Next time."

Ye Shiyuan spoke in a tone that left no room for negotiation. "Master said the second stage of training starts the moment we're back."

Ju Fufu's tiger ears went from upright to flat.

"Second stage? What's the difference from the first stage?"

Ye Shiyuan didn't answer. He glanced at Miguel.

Miguel was walking at the back of the group. He turned his face away from the horizon, that mild smile still in place. "The difference? Should be pretty big."

Early the next morning, on the training ground.

Wise stood in the center of the field, rolling his wrists loose.

His orange Yunkui Summit training uniform, outer layer and lining both, already had a ring of sweat soaked through it. And he'd only just finished warming up.

Little Guang stood across from him.

Today she'd pulled her long hair up into a high ponytail and pinned her droopy ears down with a hairband so they wouldn't flop about during training.

At the sash of her modified Shanghai-style qipao, a crescent-moon jade pendant swayed gently with every stretch.

About five meters separated them.

"Ready?"

Miguel stood at the edge of the training ground and raised a hand.

Wise glanced at Little Guang and nodded.

Little Guang nodded too.

"Begin."

Wise moved first.

He drove off his feet and shot forward.

Not especially fast, but steady, every footfall placed with deliberate thought, the goal unmistakable: close the distance.

Across from him, Little Guang didn't move.

Longswords condensed from Ether energy circled slowly around her, edges turned outward, like a silent ring of railings.

Over these past days of training, Wise and Belle hadn't been the only ones learning new things. Little Guang had drawn new ideas out of them as well.

She was waiting.

Looking for her moment.

Three meters.

The instant Little Guang's right hand rose, several Ether longswords tore through the air, their crossing light sealing off every line Wise had to cut inside.

Understanding flickered through his green eyes — last time, this was exactly the distance where she'd stopped him.

Then he vanished.

Dimensional Detachment.

Not once. Twice, back to back.

The first reappearance point was on Little Guang's left. That one was bait.

Her sword formation did chase it, only to find the spot empty halfway there.

Because Wise's second Detachment had already carried him to her right rear — two body-lengths out.

The moment he snapped back into reality, his right fist fired.

The Ether energy had finished gathering during the jump between dimensions, and now it came out with nothing held back.

Little Guang's reaction was frighteningly fast.

She didn't even look. A half-step to the side, and the standard-issue Yunkui Summit longsword in her hand swept around flat, the blade wrapped in Ether pressure that matched his and then some, meeting the punch head-on.

"Wise, don't go underestimating my close-quarters work."

Her voice was soft, with a mischievous edge to it.

Wise smiled right back, and his offense didn't slacken by a hair.

The instant fist met blade, his other hand was already coming in — hauling himself out of the losing side of that exchange by sheer stubborn force.

Ether energy wove together, collided, burst apart.

Pressure spread outward from the point of contact, and the dust on the ground blew out in a ring of ripples.

Both of them were shoved back half a step.

"Not bad."

Miguel nodded from the sidelines. "Wise, you're handling your own ability more and more fluently, and your fundamentals keep getting solider. That part is good."

He paused.

"But your thinking on offense still needs work."

"I honestly can't tell whether you picked this up from me or from your Senior Sister Fufu — why do all of you love bulling straight in so much?"

The words had barely left his mouth before Ju Fufu, squatting at the edge of the field, answered at full volume, "A real hero fights head-on! Junior Brother's doing it right!"

Miguel looked over at her.

His fingers curled slightly, gathering force.

Ju Fufu's tiger ears flattened backward where everyone could see it, and her whole expression flipped as she rattled on at double speed, "Actually, in a fight it's much better to take a few detours, Junior Brother! Tactics, you know — flexibility, flexibility is what really matters—"

Wise covered his face with one hand, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

"All right, all right, Senior Sister, stop tormenting the poor kid."

"Let me explain it instead."

Ye Shiyuan stood up and pushed his glasses back into place.

"Whatever the tempo of a fight happens to be, your ability is by nature an entry-type skill. If you treat it purely as a means of attack, an enemy will find the flaw easily."

He looked at Wise, speaking unhurriedly, every sentence perfectly clear.

"Wise, what you should be thinking about is how to change that assumption."

Wise looked at Ye Shiyuan, then at Miguel. "I understand. Senior Brother Ye, Big Bro Miguel."

"There you go."

Miguel smiled. "Pooling everyone's ideas usually works out better than shutting yourself in a room and building the wheel from scratch."

The words had hardly landed before Ju Fufu clearly couldn't sit still any longer. She hopped straight in from outside the field, tiger ears twitching twice.

"Come here, come here, let me give you a tip — next time you cut in, stop fixating on how to get close to Little Guang. Think first about how Little Guang is going to stop you."

"Think about the opponent first?"

"Exactly!"

Ju Fufu planted her hands on her hips, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If all you ever look at is how you're going to attack, of course you'll get read. You have to work out how Little Guang will move, and have your next step ready before she moves at all."

Pan Yinhu added from one side, "Senior Sister's right. It's called striking later but landing first. Yunkui Summit's arts are all about borrowing momentum and turning it back."

He still had that little notebook gripped in one hand. At some point he'd already written down several key moments from the bout just now.

Wise took a couple of seconds to digest it.

"Can I try again?"

Little Guang gave him a look, retreated back out past the five-meter mark, and settled into her stance again.

Under the hairband, her droopy ears gave a small twitch.

"Come on, then."

The training ran several more rounds.

In every round, Wise's angle of entry changed.

From a hard frontal push to probing the flank, then to using Dimensional Detachment to plant false landing points — he began trying to read the spread of Little Guang's sword formation before he ever charged.

He still got stopped, but each time he was stopped a little closer to her.

Miguel leaned against a corridor pillar and watched all of it.

The coordination between Wise and Little Guang really was improving.

He was getting better at reading her movements, and she was starting to adapt to his rhythm.

That kind of unspoken rapport isn't drilled into existence overnight, but the direction was right.

Still—

This wasn't enough.

The training carried on until dusk.

When the last bout ended, Wise simply lay flat on the training ground, chest heaving.

Sweat slid down from his temple and dripped onto the ground, evaporating away almost as fast as it landed.

Little Guang sat down beside him and passed him water.

"Thanks."

Wise took the bottle, tipped his head back and drained most of it, his throat bobbing twice.

"Feels like we understand what the other one's thinking more and more," Little Guang said.

"Well, lately it's just been the two of us sparring."

Wise rested the bottle on his chest and looked up at the sky. "Not to mention getting worked over in shifts every single day by Big Bro Miguel, Master and the Senior Sisters."

Little Guang laughed a little and said nothing.

The two of them just sat there, neither one moving.

The wind across the training ground carried fallen leaves in, then carried them off again.

The distant ranges had been dyed warm orange by the setting sun, and a few thin wisps of cloud drifted along the skyline.

At that same moment, under the covered walkway at the edge of the field.

Miguel leaned against a pillar.

Yixuan stood beside him.

Her long silver-white hair stirred faintly in the evening wind.

Her dark gold eyes were half-lidded, her gaze resting on the two young people in the middle of the training ground — though it never followed their movements. It looked more like she was gazing through them at something else entirely.

She held a copper coin between her fingers, the pad of her thumb slowly working along its rim.

"Wise and Little Guang's growth is there for anyone to see."

Yixuan spoke quietly. "Wise is improving faster than we predicted."

"Mm."

"But it isn't enough."

"No, it isn't."

A gust of evening wind rolled through and tugged at the corner of Yixuan's bright yellow shawl.

She put the coin away and turned her head to look at Miguel. "So it's about time we put the second plan to use."

Miguel was silent for two seconds.

Out on the field, Wise was climbing back to his feet, slapping the dust off himself.

Little Guang reached out and hauled him up, and the two of them started over one behind the other, still carrying the heat of the session on their skin.

The setting sun drew their shadows out long, stretching from the center of the training ground all the way to the steps below the walkway.

Miguel looked at those two shadows, and the corner of his mouth curved.

"All right."