Year 663 of the Stable Era,

Fifteenth day of the eleventh month

57 minutes into the 9th Inner Hour

"Impressive," Li Fan noted, gently blowing the last of the excess leaves off his spoon with a light puff of air. He closed the caddy with a casual flick, the lid falling perfectly into place as he tapped his spoon against the rim of the kettle. "She's keeping up remarkably well considering the gap."

"Who is, senior Li?" Oma asked, daring to risk a glance over at him as she tried to focus on the blur of blades. At her level it was hard to keep up with the fight. There were almost two-dozen blades flying around the narrow confines of the arena, each carrying out their own miniature duels that constantly bled into each other.

The Imperial Blade Scholar that Senior Ruan Chen had challenged was unleashing a fury of techniques with her trigram blades, matched at every turn by her Senior's own. Every now and again Oma would catch sight of something she recognized, but the move would be completed before she could even process what it was.

"Why, your Senior," Li Fan replied, twisting his hand in the air like he was gripping an invisible pitcher. A stream of steaming water poured out around where its spout would be as he continued. "Sun Haoran's qi is beginning to approach the mountain, but it's a step away from beginning the journey of seeking the peak. It is far for her age, so it wouldn't be too far off to call it a strong point. Her other pillars are far from lacking, but there's enough of a gap between the three to give the impression of neglect. Your Senior is a bit further ahead in terms of physique, but she lags behind in the other two pillars."

"Huh," Bai Tao said, finishing off the last dumpling. "I'd noticed that her qi was quite well developed, but I was under the impression that she had set foot on the slope."

Oma quietly readjusted her evaluation of the two at that remark. While she had come to this gathering expecting to find few peers, the exact nature of the gap in cultivation between her and her conversation partners had remained at a distance she'd dubiously dubbed "incredibly far". Cultivators of her stage were few and far between at this sort of event, usually brought by their own seniors rather than their own merit.

She had expected that the two of them were likely somewhere in the third stage. Li Fan in particular seemed quite advanced in his cultivation given the wide range of personal anecdotes he'd shared. But their last exchange was unmistakable proof that their earlier talk about the dao had been derived from experience rather than learning.

"Still, good technique on her," Bai Tao nodded, as another great wave surged across the field. "She's really got a good grasp of the trigram sword technique. Much better than that other fellow, who could barely string together half of them."

"True, but it's still not enough compared to her opponent. She clearly has a more academic leaning than our tablemate, who specializes in the practical application of the sword."

"That does make the difference these days, doesn't it," Bai Tao sighed. "Back in our day qi was almost more important than skill, as the field was far from even. The younger generation is fortunate, to be able to delve the depths of the scholarly arts far deeper than we were ever able to. Even if it does mean that they trade it for the mentorship of hardships."

"Indeed," Li Fan said, holding up his cup, his eyes almost misty as he seemed to stare back into those distant days through its patterned peaks. "I can't imagine how much faster my own cultivation might have been back in the day, had I not needed to spend so much time tracking down missing pages for every manual I found. So much time wasted, just to rediscover paths that had already been laid. But still—all the people I met, the places I travelled... it was almost a mentor of its own, in its own way. The journey of my journey, I suppose."

"Hear, hear!" Bai Tai said, offering him a toast that Li Fan gladly accepted with a clink. "A toast to the third mentor! Success, failure, and the path to it!"

"Well said, well said," Li Fan laughed, refilling both of their cups with tea as Bai Tao did the same with the last of his gourd. "It will be an interesting thing, to see the sort of cultivators that reach our stage out of those born in this new age. That no longer remember the dark times of the Age of Drought."

"Hopefully the inverse of those that came before us," Bai Tao sighed, the barrier of the arena ringing as Sun Haoran narrowly dodged Ruan Chen's sword intent. "A joy to equal the sorrow of those that lived through its arrival." Li Fan nodded quietly, the shadow of the past darkening the corners of his smile.

"Did you ever meet one?" he asked, turning over the cup in his hands. "Someone who remembered, that is?"

"No, the cutoff was a bit too far before my time, senior," Bai Tao replied grimly. "But my sect's history is long. A senior brother of mine once told me the tale of his shifu, whose father was one of those unfortunate cultivators. A Void Stage cultivator, if what he said was true. Someone who was a step from the promise of Immortality, only to have it wrenched from his grasp as the qi he needed to sustain his cultivation disappeared like a mirage. He was a body cultivator, so he lasted longer than most. Clinging onto life for decades as he tried to rebuild his cultivation before his despair turned to madness and he was executed for attempting to sustain himself with a demonic technique."

"A grim way to go," Li Fan grimaced.

"Did you ever meet one, senior?" Bai Tao asked, and Oma's ears twitched as she focused her senses on hearing his answer.

"In a manner of speaking," Li Fan replied, sighing deeply as he did. "It wasn't a survivor, so much as a shade of the past. A ghost, hungry for what once was."

"An unpleasant business indeed," Bai Tai said, patting his shoulder. "But something worth remembering. That even the low points of the age we live in are still something far better than what once was, even if it is itself a pale reflection of the ancient days."

"Indeed," Li Fan agreed, taking an almost affectionate bite of his crab. "The distance of our past can never eclipse the closeness of our present."

"And hey, it's not like we could have gotten this sort of show back then. Too much focus on conflict and survival to entertain the possibility of stability. Or to catch sight of a young cultivator finally making a breakthrough on their dao."

"I doubt we'll get a chance to witness that," Li Fan said with a shake of his head. "Her dao is far from complete. Her qi is strong, but her comprehension is lacking. In fact, I would even say that her opponent's is quite a bit further along than hers is."

"Howso?" Oma asked, unable to stop herself from interrupting the two masters. She'd just gotten so used to listening to their talk that it had felt all too natural to speak in so enticing of a lull. Her hands flew to her mouth as her blood ran cold, her qi halting like a river after the third frost of the season.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

What a blunder.

This was the exact sort of thing that the 'Young Master's Manual for Banquets and Other Formal Gatherings' had referred to as a "classical example of what not to do". Or an easy method of courting death. Interrupting an older cultivator while they were in the middle of a thought. The only small mercy of it was that he was a self-professed loose cultivator rather than a member of her own sect. It would be a twofold disaster if this was what marked the quiet end to her career as a cultivator.

"I'm so sorry, venerable elder," she apologized. Her forehead slammed into the table as she bowed, making sure to use a more appropriate honorific to show her sincerity.

The 'Young Master's Guide to Courtesy and Manners' had stressed the importance of due respect. Senior was for cultivators of an indistinct age or that hadn't stated their cultivation. Elder was for cultivators of importance in a sect other than one's own, but it could also be used when addressing a cultivator that was at least a thousand years ones' senior. And, of course, venerable—to acknowledge that there were at least two stages of cultivation between them.

Li Fan simply laughed though, a look of mild amusement at her stricken expression on his face as he answered.

"Ah, don't worry," he chuckled, pouring her a cup of something that smelled faintly minty. "And stop with all that formality. Wonderment is the privilege of the youth! There's little to be ashamed of in realizing your own inexperience and seeking to remedy it! If even you forget to ask questions, everyone will be poorer for it."

"With regards to cultivation, though, so many are prone to see it as some cold equation of clear steps. To refine qi, to grow it further, and then to simply form a dao as a natural result. But in reality it is far from that simple. One's core might take shape through diligence, but its form can also remain closed by it."

He tapped his chest lightly, just below his sternum where his dantian resided. He sipped his tea as Oma looked at him quizzically. In the distance Ruan Chen split a wave of fire to the cheers of the crowd. As her expression remained confused, he laughed again, this time more at himself than anything else.

"Haagh…I see that I've been spending too much time with the fossils again. It's hard to remember that not everyone has had the time to share my perspective."

"I suppose I should call you venerable elder as well then, venerable senior elder," Bai Tao laughed, giving him a bow. "The depths of your learned mind are far more profound than my own."

"Ack! Stop that. You're making me feel too old," Li Fan exclaimed, tossing the contents of his cup at the portly cultivator. A chopstick rose to split it in half before it could reach him, tea splattering against the wall as Ruan Chen's cleaver sliced through the air with a sound like a zither's wail. "Please just call me Li. Or Cultivator Li, if you would prefer something more formal."

"Of course, Cultivator Li," Oma replied, bowing her head quietly as she repeated the two titles to herself so that she wouldn't forget them. If this was to be her first personal encounter with a cultivator of such a stage, the last thing that she wanted was to offend him by refusing to use his preferred moniker.

"Let me put it to you in a different way Miss Oma. If you were to read all the books on swordsmanship in your sect's library and beyond, every volume from here to the four corners of the world, what would happen?"

"I'd…know more about the sword?" Oma ventured hesitantly, her words slow, to give herself more time to think. This was like one of Shifu's questions. Simple on the surface, but as elaborate as an ornate knot once you tried to start unravelling it.

"I'd be filled with facts…so I could probably answer any question, but then, they wouldn't be my words, would they? I'd probably string a bunch of them together, based on what makes sense…but at the end of the day…I'd just be another book, wouldn't I? Not a new one, but a collection of others strapped together. I think."

"Very good," Li Fan clapped, Bai Tao joining in a moment later.

"The word you're looking for there is compendium," he added, flicking a small pill-like object at her. Oma hastily caught it, turning the delicately wrapped sphere over in her hands as she stared at its ornate pattern.

"Is this…" she started.

"Just a little sweet from back home," the jovial cultivator winked, producing another from his pocket for Li Fan. "My kids used to love 'em, so I always carry around a few for special occasions."

He attempted to offer some to the rest of the table, to mixed results. Li Fan graciously accepted his, but Oma's Seniors refused to even notice the offer. They were too focused on staring at the ongoing match with rapt attention. The jade sphere in Weijian Mei's hand glinted faintly as the two stared on, the only difference between them and a pair of statues being the fact that Li Zhan would occasionally raise his empty cup to his lips to take a sip of a drink that no longer existed.

"To get back to topic," Li Fan said, as fire met intent on the dueling field, "you are right that learning alone is not enough. One's dao requires comprehension of purpose and the strength to realize it. Without one, there is nothing."

"To know is not enough. All the books in the world cannot move you one speck closer to enlightenment on their own. One must learn from them. To seek a path into the unknown once you reach the end of the page-paved path. To forge that next step on your own. That is why you must seek not to learn information, but to learn from it. But that's just this old man's opinion," he finished ruefully, shamelessly swiping the last piece of crab from under Bai Tao's chopstick as he did.

"I see," Oma said, mulling the idea over in her mind as she stared at the fight. Wisdom from a cultivator of their level was truly valuable, so she did her best to consider it. Ruan Chen was carving a web of gashes across the thick stone, treating the reinforced floor like it was tofu. Both her swords and technique were immaculate, but Oma found herself unable to escape from the grasp of Li Fan's words as she tried to read deeper into the fight as it happened.

Not to study the blade, but to study studying it. An idea so similar to the mantra that she'd been taught by every one of her martial instructors. But different in such a slight, fundamental way.

"The first step is to learn your katas, and become familiar with them", they had said, with words repeated so often that their utterance had become a kata of its own. "The second is to forget them."

It had always struck her as an unintuitive method of teaching. After all, why not teach the applications with the lessons? So that one could understand the purpose behind the movements, rather than simply repeat them? But hearing it another way just made so much sense.

Rather than learn the kata's form and then discover how to apply each move out of sequence, what she should really be doing was gaining an understanding of principles from them and then forming her own conclusions. To develop her understanding of the blade through her continued practice of it, rather than to see practice as simply a step along her journey.

So this was a true cultivator's wisdom.

To convey such a profound understanding in such an easily understood manner. Unbidden, Oma's qi coiled against her meridians in anticipation, almost as ready as she was to put Li Fan's words to practice. To just whip out Willow's Branch and feel out her own swordsmanship.

But she restrained herself. This was not so ephemeral a lesson as to be forgotten so easily, and she could still learn so much from this very moment. From the wisdom of those around her and the fight in front of her.

She focused her restless qi into her senses, to take in as much as possible, letting the soothing scent of the minty green tea calm her mind as she took it all in.

She watched the way that Ruan Chen moved.

How she followed convention here, only to break it there, mixing different styles of swordsmanship as she swapped between blades as easily as she breathed.

Her draw technique complemented her swordsmanship perfectly, her weapons dancing between her hands and sheaths so quickly that it looked like she was using a spatial technique.

But it was all placement.

Careful planning and bursts of speed, using all her senses to track her blades rather than rely on qi or sight alone.

Anticipation and reaction, married by a sense for danger that let her flow between the offensive and defensive seamlessly. Immovable yet flexible, always finding the gaps in her opponent's guard.

Almost like tea, Oma though, her hands shaking as she held her cup. Or water. Flitting through gaps and flowing around obstacles. A perfect wall would have no holes, but water could still flow over it. So it wasn't in rigidity, but fluidity that true strength lay. It was not Ruan Chen's quantity of blades that gave her her advantage, but how she used her understanding of them. How she used each of their strengths to their utmost in the moments they could do the most.

Lost in thought she felt herself unconsciously finishing her cup, reflexively unrolling the sweet as she watched enraptured.

"Oh, it's orange," she heard herself say. The words a thousand li away as her body picked up slack for a preoccupied mind.

"Yup," Bai Tao said proudly, as the sword intent of the two combatants began to reach a peak. "Made that batch myself. We had a good harvest this year."

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