Joshi rushed in, attacking with simple physical strikes, his gauntlets flashing. Zhao Zhen stumbled back under the assault. He took a moment to regain his balance. Joshi took advantage of that opportunity, punching Zhao Zhen in the chest. Chang-li had a moment's hope this would be enough to force the enemy into an error they could make use of.

Joshi's gauntlet broke through the lux armor surrounding Zhao Zhen. The Lux Embodiment cultivator recovered, focusing his gaze on Joshi. He brought his sword down. It changed from a foot-long narrow blade to one twice the length and width as it crashed down onto Joshi's upraised arms. The blade struck Joshi's gauntlets, shattering them.

Joshi shouted in alarm. He vanished, to appear a few feet away.

Chang-li's heart was in his throat. He was glad he'd convinced Joshi to take those slippers. Even as he listened, hearing the sounds of lux all around, Zhao Zhen's cycling was slightly off. When he focused, Chang-li could hear the notes of his opponent's lux like an echo: loud, then soft. His core and his Lens weren't fully aligned.

There had to be a way to take advantage of that.

Zhao Zhen was countering every technique they used against him. If Chang-li didn't figure this out quickly, they'd have nothing left. Somehow, the Lens was letting him do that.

A thought struck Chang-li as Zhao Zhen released another technique toward Joshi. Chang-li threw himself in between. The strands of orange and green smashed against his chest, lux grabbing at him, the orange forming little hooks that sank into his flesh, delivering green lux inside his skin. He felt it there, immediately begin to burn.

Chang-li focused. He sucked what remained of that lux into himself and moved it not to his core, but to the Lens. There he continued cycling between core and Lens.

The world around him seemed to pause as he focused inward on that broken technique. He could see it, see the way the lux was bound together. The Lens highlighted the connection between the two colors, how Zhao Zhen had used three different subshades of green and two of orange, the first wrapping around the rest of the technique to protect it. Chang-li couldn't reproduce it, not without time to study, but seeing exactly what shades of lux and in what proportions was the first step.

He focused his will. He would study his enemy and understand him, and use that to defeat him.

Something clicked into place.

Chang-li felt his Intent strengthen. It was calling to him now, right there. All he had to do was name it.

"I study," he said to himself, focusing on the lux he was analyzing.

Around him, the fight continued. Zhao Zhen and Joshi exchanged a flurry of techniques. Min readied another arrow, looking for an opening as ropes of blue lux streamed around Hiroko.

"I study," Chang-li said more firmly.

But that wasn't it. Studying was only part of a scribe's task. A scribe didn't just watch. He wrote things down so that they would be permanently recorded and never lost. That was the difference between a scribe and a scholar. A scholar might keep his knowledge locked up in his own head or private journals, but a scribe always meant to share what he had written with others.

Besides, he wasn't just a scribe anymore. He was a cultivator. He had left his desk behind and ventured out into the world, where more than mere knowledge was required. Knowing was all well and good, but he had to act as well.

Joshi was being pushed back. His attacks sometimes were effect and other times splashed harmless. Either the Lens was becoming less effective or Joshi was sharpening his will.

Chang-li closed his eyes and tried changing perspectives.

"I learn," he ventured.

That was closer to right, because learning took action. He didn't just study his enemy and their techniques. He learned them so that he could defeat them or make them his own. It was still too narrow, too focused.

He thought of the Morning Mist acolytes that he had begun to set on the path of cultivation.

"I teach."

He knew that wouldn't be it. Couldn't be his entire Intent. After all, he'd come all this way for weeks now without teaching anyone and had still advanced. But it was part of it, just as studying and learning were part of it.

He understood. He studied. He learned. He taught. He used what he had done to take the next step —

Chang-li's eyes flew wide open.

The battle raged. Min's arrow thudded into Zhao Zhen. Zhao Zhen had a complicated technique in his hand. A little fire dragon from Hiroko's fan arced its way forward and exploded in his face, disrupting his concentration. Zhao Zhen hadn't seen that one before. Every time he was confronted with something new, it took him a matter of seconds to respond.

Chang-li understood why, as he finished digesting the technique and the flash that had come with it. Zhao Zhen was doing the same as he was, taking apart their lux, learning how to counter each exact combination of shades. That would be the key to defeating him.

And now Chang-li knew his Intent, wider than merely understanding or unwrapping and solving a puzzle, more personally focused than mere teaching but including that aspect as well.

"I master!" he bellowed aloud.

It felt right. He didn't just practice techniques until they felt right. He wanted to know, to understand. Because when he knew and truly understood what made a technique work he could pass it along to his friends and students. But he could also take it and make it something truly his. Just as he'd wrested lux from opponents, all the way back to his fight with Young Master Feng at Broken Moon, mastering it and taming it.

The Lens in his chest sang, absorbing lux as he used his modified Double Branching River cycling technique to link his two sets of channels with his core like the two halves flowing into one great whole.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

With a start, Chang-li realized that Zhao Zhen's Lens was doing the same as his own, resonating with his Intent. Zhao Zhen's intent was all about taking from the weak. The Lens was amplifying that and letting him steal lux from every attack against him. But the resonance was imperfect. His intent was flawed. Maybe that was slowing down how fast he could absorb new techniques used against him.

That was how they beat him.

Chang-li felt his Intent and will strengthen as they became one with himself. His Lens and his core pulsed to the exact same rhythm. Lux flowed into him more than he'd ever felt before. It felt like an advancement, except he could tell he wasn't there yet.

Still, this had its benefits. He just needed to tell the others what to do. "Magen!"

Zhao Zhen was pushing Joshi back The two leapt across the lake from stone to stone, clashing their swords and gauntlets, Zhao Zhen apparently having decided Joshi was the greatest threat. Joshi's attacks seemed less effective than ever and he looked like he was being pushed to his limit.

Magen hovered near Chang-li, keeping an eye on the fight for Joshi.

Chang-li spoke to the lux creature. "Joshi, if you can hear this, we need to overwhelm him with as many new techniques and attacks at once as we can."

Joshi's voice came back through Magen's. "What do you want me to do?"

"Distract him." He turned and shouted. "Min, use the special arrows." She threw him a confused look before nodding. He had given her a few arrows with experimental techniques he had found in a scroll, then made when he was not otherwise occupied. One made water splash the target. Not a lot of water and it did little damage. Another left a pool of light behind, like a moonbeam on a cloudy night. It wasn't even particularly bright. Just things he had read about and tried and didn't feel like throwing away.

"Hiroko, use something new, anything. And change it up as fast as you can."

Hiroko nodded as if she understood completely.

Joshi disappeared. Zhao Zhen turned, seeking him, and Chang-li pulled a scroll from his bag, one he had created on the first floor as a break from all the Earthshaker techniques he was inscribing for the Darwur warriors. It had been a bit of an experiment for him, combining different luxes in a pattern he'd read in a Morning Mist book. Not something he himself wanted to master. Just a thought exercise.

He shoved as much raw lux into the scroll as he could and activated it, aiming it for Zhao Zhen.

The technique rushed out, taking the form of a four foot-tall charging blue rhinoceros, a creature Chang-li had ever only heard about in stories. It was bulkier than he had expected. He'd been picturing something more like a horse with a horn on its head. This thing was built like a low-slung bull. It charged across the battlefield, hovering about a foot over the grass.

Zhao Zhen chuckled and lengthened his sword until it was nearly the size of a spear. He leapt from his rock to the bank, and as the technique appeared he took up a crouching stance, both hands on the handle of his sword, then stepped forward, thrusting the sword out.

His technique looked good, hesitant, Chang-li noted. Like some of his lux techniques, he'd taken his sword forms from someone else and hadn't truly mastered it yet.

That was the difference between him and Chang-li. Chang-li wouldn't be content just to steal techniques from other people.

The blade struck true. The lux rhinoceros exploded into a thousand tiny lux swallows in red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. They pelted Zhao Zhen, their sharp beaks driving into his armor. As they impacted him, they vanished, their lux sucked into his Lens. His armor cracked, then shattered.

Already, Chang-li could see Zhao Zhen falter. He took a step back. The sword in his hand shrank to a long dagger.

Now was the time, and Chang-li's allies were ready. Arrow after arrow arced through the air and struck Zhao Zhen, each delivering a slightly different technique. Chang-li could hear Hiroko's blue lux change its notes as she altered the pattern she was using.

Now Joshi appeared behind Zhao Zhen, striking him with the Thousand Fists, a good move, even if he had seen it before. It should keep him off balance. Joshi's punches were strong enough that without proper armor, Zhao Zhen would feel them. Chang-li just needed to break through.

Chang-li raced forward, Liar's Blade in his left. He engaged Mirage Blade and pulsed yellow lux through it, changing the shade with each heartbeat. The sword flared with ice, then with fire, then crackled with an edge of lightning.

Zhao Zhen had a shield technique he was trying to use. Liar's Blade cleaved through it.

Zhao Zhen swung his own blade and Chang-li caught it on his Mirage Blade. Zhao Zhen's blade slowed only an instant before smashing through the lux-image blade. That was all right. Chang-li reformed it instantly as the enemy stumbled forward at the sudden lack of resistance.

Chang-li raised Liar's Blade as Joshi struck Zhao Zhen across the back, driving him forward, stumbling. He recoved quickly and wirled but Chang-li's was already on him. Liar's Blade stabbed Zhao Zhen right through the Lens on his chest, then slid into him.

The Lens exploded.

Chang-li jerked back as an incredible surge of lux washed over him. Instinctively, he drew it in, his core and his own Lens cycling madly.

Glimpses of madness filled him: Zhao Zhen's quest for strength and dominion, the bitterness as he sought over decades to climb past Lux Embodiment with no luck. His recent exultation as he realized the Lens would let him take what he could not master himself from others.

Then more poured in, flashes from the cultivators he had killed, their own desires for greatness, their distrust of one another.

Chang-li cried out and stumbled back. He couldn't see anything. Too many flashes of other people oppressed him. He heard voices. Were they his friends or someone else?

He wrapped his will around him, forcing himself to listen. "This is how I master it," he told himself. "First I hear, then I study, then I understand."

But he understood these cultivators too well, and he didn't want any more of them. Didn't want their essence to become part of him permanently.

He thrust it away, trying to filter their techniques from their lives. He didn't need this taint in his soul, his core, his Lens. This wasn't who he was, and he wouldn't make it part of him.

If mastery meant becoming like them—

But it didn't. And it wouldn't. He'd come this far without succumbing to the disease that had corrupted these cultivators. With the help of his friends, his wife, his master, he would remain himself.

The deluge died away.

He still had a roiling torrent of lux in himself. His core would take too long to digest this. Should he get rid of it? No. He changed his cycling pattern, closing off the channels out of himself, instinctively feeling that venting lux was the wrong choice. He bound the lux on a cycle between the Lens and his core, holding it there away entering his core. Then, struggling up to the top layer of awareness, he opened his eyes.

Joshi, Min, and Hiroko's faces loomed over him. He was lying on his back.

He blinked. "Did we? Is he?"

Joshi nodded. "Most definitely dead."

"Good." Chang-li took a deep breath.

"Are you all right?" Min asked. "You struck him, and then you fell. It's been, I don't know." She glanced at the sky. "Nearly half an hour. I was worried."

He managed to croak, "I'm all right," and then sat up.

They backed off, giving him some space. He looked around. A few yards away, a blackened crater in the earth showed where Zhao Zhen had been. His dagger lay some distance away, the blade snapped off at the hilt.

Chang-li took a deep breath. "I'm mostly all right," he clarified. The torrent of lux inside him refused to still. "I think we need to get out of here quickly."

"Agreed," Joshi said. "For all we know, there's more of those enemy cultivators to come. And General Li may need our assistance. If Prism Eri is here..."

That was something Chang-li hadn't even started to worry about.

"How did you figure out how to defeat him?" Min asked.

"He had a Lens, same as me," Chang-li said. "When I realized what it was doing to him, I knew how to defeat him. His was external. It took him longer to understand and take in the lux it was feeding him. We gave him more than he could take."

"You figured out a way to defeat a Lux Embodiment cultivator," Joshi said. "Well done."

Chang-li felt warmth in his face at that.

"And you seem to have solidified your Intent," Joshi added as he peered at Chang-li. "Will, your Lens let you absorbe technique like that?"

Chang-li shook his head. "I don't think so. I think it had to do with his Intent. Mine is… different."

He rolled his shoulders. He felt sore all over and was starting to think enviously of Lux Embodiment, where he could use lux to smooth away all of the muscle pain he was currently experiencing.

His friends were right.

It was time to climb.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.