Chapter One Hundred: Heat and Frost
After dinner, Yun Che finally managed to separate himself from Jin Wei and Lin Xia and make his way toward the section of the Azure Wolf Consortium reserved for contracted beasts, mounts and cultivation partners.
This had taken longer than expected, largely because Jin Wei had discovered that beginning one's first independent business involved considerably less dramatic pointing toward the horizon and considerably more arguing with numbers.
He still needed workshop space, workers, suppliers, tools, contracts, molds, distribution arrangements and, most importantly, a production system that did not involve Yun Che sitting at a table for twelve hours a day manually assembling several hundred miniature warriors while slowly losing the will to live.
Until those matters were settled, Yun Che remained technically unemployed, which was a rather remarkable situation considering he was fourteen years old, heavily in debt and legally required to spend five hours of every day performing unpaid civic labor.
There was, of course, still Jin Haoran's offer.
The Master of the Azure Wolf Consortium had made it perfectly clear that Yun Che could work directly beneath him as a designer and researcher. It was probably the most sensible option available. Jin Haoran possessed workshops, artificers, blacksmiths, Rune Masters, materials, warehouses and enough money to test ideas which any reasonable merchant would have thrown into the nearest canal after hearing the estimated cost.
Yun Che had not refused him.
He had merely delayed giving an answer, which was very different, particularly if one ignored the fact that Jin Haoran almost certainly understood exactly what Yun Che was doing.
For now, Jin Wei's venture needed him more.
Not as free labor. Jin had already made his position on that painfully clear. If Yun Che designed products, built prototypes or solved manufacturing problems, Jin intended to pay him.
That was not really the point.
His friend had hidden him from sect patrols when doing so could have damaged the Consortium's reputation. He had argued for him, protected him, sat beside him during the ugliest period after the wyvern attack, helped arrange materials Yun Che had no hope of affording and, through sheer persistence and terrible jokes, had been one of the people who kept Yun Che connected to ordinary life when fear had threatened to swallow everything else.
Yun Che wanted to help him get the first production system standing before committing most of his time somewhere else.
Besides, he admitted privately as he crossed into the beast compound, Jin Wei's toy business sounded fun.
That alone made it suspicious.
The beast grounds occupied an enormous section of the Consortium compound. Azure Wolf merchants crossed deserts, mountain passes, monster territories and half the kingdom on a regular basis, and many traveled with contracted beasts, trained mounts or cultivation partners. Consequently, the inner grounds included reinforced shelters large enough to house creatures capable of accidentally destroying ordinary stables, open exercise yards, feeding halls, shallow pools for aquatic species and multiple training fields protected by barriers that had presumably been built after someone learned an expensive lesson involving an enthusiastic monster and a warehouse wall.
Amon had claimed one of the larger yards.
He had also, apparently, become popular.
Yun Che stopped at the gate.
The Iceback Glacier Drake lay stretched across the grass in magnificent laziness, his huge body occupying so much space that two armored wolf beasts resting nearby looked almost like oversized dogs by comparison. Both wore the Azure Wolf Consortium emblem upon their harnesses. One had placed its head against Amon's foreleg and appeared to be asleep.
Mirage sat proudly upon one of Amon's horns, speaking to a brightly feathered bird perched on a fence post, while Whisper drifted above a shallow pool surrounded by several frost-aligned beasts who seemed delighted by the little spirit's presence.
Yun Che folded his arms.
"You've all become very social."
Mirage turned immediately.
We have lives.
Amon opened one eye.
Unlike you.
"I have a life."
Mirage fluttered from Amon's horn to Yun Che's shoulder.
You tried to spend the night in a library.
"That happened once."
Tonight.
Yun Che decided that defending himself would only encourage her.
"Training."
Amon's second eye opened.
Mirage's wings drooped.
Whisper drifted over curiously.
Training what?
"Frost."
That earned considerably more interest.
Amon lifted his enormous head. Mirage straightened. Whisper's translucent body brightened until pale-blue light rippled through him.
Yun Che pointed at himself.
"Specifically mine."
Amon snorted.
Finally.
Yun Che narrowed his eyes.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Your frost is embarrassing.
Mirage agreed immediately.
Very embarrassing.
"My frost is perfectly functional."
Mirage spread her wings with the solemn dignity of someone about to deliver a devastating scholarly rebuttal.
I specialize in illusions and my frost is stronger than yours.
Yun Che opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Unfortunately, she was correct.
Among the four of them, Yun Che was indisputably the weakest frost user.
Amon was an Iceback Glacier Drake whose species had developed within frozen mountains. Whisper was literally a Frost Spirit. Mirage's primary specialization was illusion, but Azure Mirage Butterflies were naturally ice-aligned, and months of training beside Amon and Whisper had sharpened that side of her abilities considerably.
Yun Che, meanwhile, possessed Frost Aura, a frost-aligned transformation and the proud distinction of being worse at frost than all three of his partners.
"That," he said, "is exactly why we're training."
His long-term priorities had not changed.
Earth.
Lightning.
Magnetism.
Eventually electromagnetism.
And, beyond that, gravity.
They were not all one thing.
Earth had nothing to do with his current Iron aspect. It was another elemental principle entirely, one Yun Che eventually wanted to add to his repertoire because controlling earth meant controlling terrain, structure, pressure, weight-bearing foundations and perhaps, with enough understanding, some of the principles surrounding mass and force.
Iron was different.
Iron was simply what his current cultivation expressed.
His Ki had begun there because iron was the foundation he understood as a blacksmith. As his Ki became purer, denser and stronger, he did not expect that expression to remain iron forever. Iron would eventually give way to harder, stronger metals, each representing an improvement in the quality and strength of his cultivation rather than some connection to Earth affinity.
Lightning and magnetism were another path.
His old world had treated them as parts of the same greater phenomenon.
This one did not.
That made Yun Che curious.
If he could eventually unite Lightning and Magnetism through cultivation rather than merely knowing that a relationship should exist, electromagnetism could become one of the foundations of his future combat style.
Earth might eventually help him approach the questions of mass, force and gravity from another direction.
But those were future problems.
Ambition and availability were not the same thing.
He had no electromagnetic cultivation art.
His current circulation system had not been designed for such a concept.
Goldriver's public archives treated Lightning and Magnetism as largely separate disciplines.
He did not yet possess an Earth Rune, much less a serious Earth cultivation method.
And practical gravity research was apparently considered the sort of knowledge one did not hand to curious fourteen-year-olds without several official seals and a very convincing explanation of why they needed to learn how to make buildings weigh more.
Frost, however, was already in his hands.
His bloodline supported it.
His transformations supported it.
Three of his closest companions understood it naturally.
He possessed Frost Aura.
He had access to the body of an Iceback Glacier Drake whenever he transformed.
It was not necessarily his final path.
It was simply the easiest element available for serious improvement now.
And after recent events, Yun Che had begun to appreciate the importance of using what he actually possessed rather than waiting for the perfect answer to fall from the heavens.
They began with theory.
Mirage immediately objected.
I thought training meant attacking you.
"It will."
Her wings perked up.
Good.
"After the lecture."
They fell again.
Amon's chest vibrated with unmistakable amusement.
Yun Che sat cross-legged on the grass and drew several circles in the dirt.
"Cold isn't actually a thing."
Whisper stared at him.
Mirage stared at him.
Amon stared at him.
Yun Che stared at the circles.
"That sounded much better before I said it."
Whisper floated closer.
I am a Frost Spirit.
"Yes."
And you're telling me cold does not exist.
"I'm saying cold isn't energy you add to something in the same way you can add thermal energy."
Amon lowered his enormous head until one pale-blue eye filled Yun Che's vision.
Explain.
That was better.
Yun Che tapped one of the little circles.
"One model I learned describes ordinary matter as being made from particles far too small for our eyes to see."
Mirage leaned over his shoulder.
Smaller than dust?
"Much smaller."
Have you seen them?
"No."
Then perhaps people invented them.
Yun Che gave her a flat look.
"We're not having a philosophical crisis over atoms."
He drew arrows around the circles.
"The important part is motion. Those particles move, vibrate and collide. Their microscopic motion is related to temperature."
He scratched faster arrows into the dirt.
"Generally, more thermal energy means greater microscopic motion and a higher temperature."
Then slower ones.
"Remove thermal energy and the temperature falls."
Whisper drifted closer still.
So cold is...
"A description of having less thermal energy relative to something warmer."
That caught their attention.
Yun Che continued carefully.
"If ordinary water freezes, you aren't pouring some substance called cold into it. You're removing enough thermal energy that the molecules settle into a solid structure."
Amon's eyes narrowed.
And Frost Ki does this?
"Partly."
That word mattered.
Yun Che had no intention of pretending thermodynamics completely explained cultivation.
Frost Ki could freeze things far below ordinary temperatures in moments. It could damage spiritual bodies, interfere with elemental Ki and create supernatural ice that remained intact under conditions where mundane ice should have melted.
Whisper himself could do things no Earth textbook Yun Che had ever seen could have explained.
So the mundane model was not the whole truth.
But it was a better foundation than:
make thing cold.
Instead, Yun Che could think more precisely.
Extract thermal energy.
Control where that energy moved.
Reduce molecular motion.
Control phase changes.
Restrict heat from flowing back into the target.
A technique became easier to refine when the cultivator understood more precisely what result he wanted his Ki to produce.
Lin Xia's rune studies had repeatedly suggested the same thing.
A vague instruction required brute force.
A precise instruction wasted less.
Yun Che raised his palm.
A small flame flickered into existence above it.
"Heat goes in the opposite direction."
Mirage edged away from the flame.
"Mostly."
Amon gave him a look.
Yun Che sighed.
"Nothing is allowed to be simple here."
The flame brightened.
"For ordinary combustion, fuel reacts with an oxidizer and releases energy through chemical reactions. That's the simple explanation. Cultivation flames obviously aren't required to obey every condition ordinary fire does."
He looked at the flame in his palm.
He was creating it through Ki.
No pile of wood.
No visible fuel source.
No reason it should continue existing under the rules he had learned as a schoolteacher.
"So there are mechanisms here I still don't understand."
Mirage tilted her head.
You admit that often.
"That's because I'm intelligent."
I don't think that is what the word means.
Yun Che ignored her.
"What matters is that some of the ordinary principles still help. Temperature. Energy transfer. Compression. Flow. Conduction. Those are things I can actually study."
He narrowed the flame.
It became smaller.
Brighter.
Hotter.
"Fire Drake Breath uses far more sophisticated circulation than this."
He let the flame disappear.
"What I'm doing now isn't Fire Drake Breath. That technique requires preparation and a much larger buildup. This is just a basic controlled Fire Ki stream using a few things I've learned from studying how the real technique works."
That distinction mattered.
Yun Jian had spent decades developing Fire Drake Breath.
Yun Che was not going to casually turn it into an instant flame thrower because he had read two books.
"That's what comprehension means to me."
He stood.
"Not sitting beneath a waterfall until mysterious truths descend from heaven."
Mirage looked toward Amon.
Could we put him beneath a waterfall?
"No."
For research.
"No."
Whisper chimed softly.
Yun Che suspected that was laughter.
"I research. I form a model. I test it. The model fails. I complain about wasting materials. Then I make a better model."
Amon's tail shifted.
That does sound like you.
"It is considerably less elegant than enlightenment."
Yun Che smiled.
"It is also reproducible."
He rolled his shoulders.
"Now we test it."
Mirage became cheerful immediately.
Amon rose.
Whisper floated backward.
Amon activated Frost Aura first.
Cold rolled across the field.
The change was immediate.
Grass whitened beneath his claws. Moisture condensed from the air and froze into glittering crystals. Frost crept across stones, fence posts and the reinforced training targets positioned around the yard.
Whisper joined him.
The temperature fell sharply enough that Yun Che's breath became a plume of white vapor.
Then Mirage added her own frost.
Her output was much weaker than Amon's but considerably more precise. Thin ribbons of pale-blue energy curled around Yun Che rather than flooding the entire area.
Yun Che stood in the center.
Then deliberately lowered most of his defenses.
Cold struck him.
His skin tightened almost immediately.
His lungs protested when he inhaled.
Frost Ki pressed through his clothing and armor before encountering his own circulating Ki.
This mattered as much as theory.
Elemental affinity was not built by reading books alone.
The soul needed familiarity.
The body needed exposure.
A cultivator had to produce an element, resist it, circulate it, experience it and gradually reshape his internal pathways until the energy no longer felt foreign.
Yun Che began circulating Frost Ki.
He did not simply repel Amon's aura.
He allowed part of it to press against his own circulation.
Guided it.
Observed it.
Compared the sensation of Amon's Frost to Whisper's.
They were not identical.
Amon's Frost felt physical.
Heavy.
Predatory.
Like a glacier advancing whether the world approved or not.
Whisper's felt cleaner.
Closer to an elemental state.
Less concerned with flesh and more directly connected to the idea of freezing.
Mirage's Frost was subtler still, threaded through the same delicate control she used for illusion.
Yun Che's teeth began chattering.
"This is miserable."
Mirage hovered directly in front of him.
You asked for this.
"I know."
That makes it funnier.
Amon increased his aura.
Yun Che immediately looked at him.
"Not that much!"
You said you wanted harder training.
"I meant eventually!"
Eventually has arrived.
Whisper's crystalline chime sounded again.
"Why are all of you enjoying this?"
Nobody answered.
Which was answer enough.
Yun Che raised one hand.
"Fine. Second experiment."
Fire Ki gathered.
He exhaled.
A narrow stream of flame crossed the yard and struck one of the reinforced stone targets.
Not Fire Drake Breath.
Not even close.
Just a controlled flame.
Heat rolled outward.
Amon responded.
Frost surged toward it.
"Don't just overpower the flame!" Yun Che called. "Pull the heat away!"
Amon changed his approach.
Whisper followed.
Mirage narrowed her Frost into several spiraling streams.
For several seconds, nothing dramatic happened.
Then the flame began shrinking.
Not crushed.
Starved of temperature.
Thermal energy flowed away from the flame and heated stone faster than Yun Che replenished it.
The light dimmed.
The stone cooled.
Steam briefly rose from condensed moisture before the surrounding Frost turned it into crystals.
Yun Che expanded Ki Zone.
He concentrated.
Where was the heat moving?
Into the surrounding air.
Into the ground.
Away along the temperature gradients created by Frost Ki.
Some of the energy was being carried outward and dispersed through mechanisms Yun Che could partly recognize.
Other portions behaved strangely once elemental Ki became involved.
That was the important part.
"Again."
They repeated it.
Then again.
On the fourth attempt, Yun Che changed something.
He circulated his own Frost Ki alongside theirs and tried to create a deliberate pathway.
Not absorb heat as Ki.
That was not what he was doing.
He spent Ki controlling where the thermal energy moved.
His control was dreadful.
Most of the heat dispersed uselessly into the environment.
Some of the attempted transfer disturbed his Frost circulation badly enough to make his forearm ache.
But a very small portion followed the pathway Yun Che had created.
From the cooling side—
through his controlled field—
toward his other hand.
He immediately supplied Fire Ki there.
A flame erupted above his palm.
Hotter.
Brighter.
For perhaps half a second.
Then it vanished.
Everyone stopped.
Amon stared at him.
Mirage hovered motionless.
Whisper drifted closer.
Yun Che stared at his own hand.
"Oh."
Amon's tail struck the ground.
Again.
Yun Che grinned.
The principle was simple enough to describe.
Frost removed thermal energy from one place.
Fire benefited from thermal energy concentrated in another.
If Yun Che could develop a proper method for controlling that transfer, his two affinities did not necessarily have to exist as opposites.
Cooling one thing could contribute to heating another.
Not because Frost magically created Fire.
Not because thermal energy became Ki.
Because Yun Che could spend Ki to control the movement of energy already present in the environment.
The current process was appallingly inefficient.
He had spent several times more Ki controlling the transfer than the redirected heat had contributed to the brief increase in flame temperature.
But efficiency could be improved.
The fact that the transfer could be deliberately guided at all was enough.
Mirage saw his face.
There it is.
"What?"
The expensive face.
"This experiment costs nothing."
Mirage landed on Amon's head.
Yet.
They trained for almost two hours.
By the end, the yard looked as though winter and summer had fought a petty territorial dispute across it.
One side was covered in frost.
Several targets were blackened.
Steam drifted over broken patches of ice.
Amon's scales glittered with frozen condensation.
Mirage had become tired enough that flying seemed beneath her dignity and had instead claimed Yun Che's head as a seat.
Whisper's normally bright body had dimmed slightly.
Yun Che lay flat on his back.
His Ki reserves were low.
Not dangerously empty.
That distinction had begun mattering more to him.
He reached beneath his armor and activated one of his storage systems.
Ki flowed back into his body slowly.
Controlled.
He had begun requiring the same habit from his companions.
When they were safe and properly rested, they filled storage artifacts from surplus Ki.
Training sessions could then make use of those reserves.
Afterward, they recovered properly.
Use.
Recover.
Refill.
Repeat.
The books had made it clear that repeated healthy expenditure and recovery could encourage greater Ki capacity and regeneration.
Repeatedly exhausting the body and soul past safe limits was another matter entirely.
That could damage pathways instead of strengthening them.
Yun Che had no intention of discovering the exact line experimentally.
Probably.
More importantly, stored Ki existed when something went wrong.
Yun Che had developed a somewhat unhealthy relationship with the phrase just in case.
He intended to keep it.
Amon lowered himself beside him.
Your Frost remains weak.
Yun Che closed his eyes.
"Thank you for the encouragement."
Amon considered.
Less weak.
"I'll take it."
Mirage spoke from his hair.
Your Fire improved.
"That's what I'm more interested in."
Whisper hovered overhead.
Heat helping Frost. Frost helping heat.
"That's an oversimplification."
You understood me.
"Unfortunately."
Whisper chimed.
Then Yun Che smiled.
Because he had understood.
Once everyone had recovered enough to continue, Yun Che brought out the Myriad Arsenal.
The effect was immediate.
Even Amon sat straighter.
Two thousand five hundred metal plates rose from the segmented cloak around Yun Che's shoulders, from storage housings attached to his armor and from several cases beside him.
Five hundred plates had once seemed excessive.
Then Yun Che had tried to make an actual cloak from them.
Five hundred had proven considerably less impressive when spread across the body of a fourteen-year-old wearing full armor.
During the ten days after the wyvern attack, he had kept working whenever the caravan stopped long enough to let him forge, inscribe or assemble more modules.
Five hundred had proved the idea.
Two thousand five hundred had completed the shape.
The dark cloak came apart.
A metallic storm formed around him.
Not chaotic.
Organized.
Hundreds of plates circled close to Yun Che's body while others spread through the training yard in layered groups.
Half carried Lightning, Durability and Attraction inscriptions.
The others carried Weight, Barrier and Attraction.
Attraction was essential.
Every plate needed to interact with its neighbors.
The inscriptions helped modules pull into predetermined relationships, lock layered structures together and recover configuration when impacts displaced individual pieces. Yun Che's Telekinesis handled broader movement. His Ki supplied direction. Prepared control inscriptions handled the geometry of configurations he had already designed.
None of it thought for itself.
Not yet.
The Arsenal did not decide to defend Yun Che.
Yun Che decided.
The system simply allowed a single decision like shield to become something more sophisticated than consciously positioning hundreds of individual plates one at a time.
Amon's eyes narrowed.
Mirage immediately flew higher.
Whisper retreated several meters.
Yun Che smiled.
"Now we're doing combat practice."
Amon stood.
For you?
"For all of us."
That changed the atmosphere.
Yun Che raised one finger.
"You're not trying to destroy the Arsenal."
Amon looked mildly offended.
Why not?
"Because I need combat data, not two thousand five hundred expensive pieces scattered across Goldriver."
Amon's expression suggested he considered that cowardice.
Yun Che smiled.
"Besides, I don't think you can break through it anyway."
Silence.
Mirage slowly turned toward Amon.
Whisper floated backward another meter.
Amon stared at Yun Che.
Then his tail struck the ground hard enough to crack it.
We shall see.
Yun Che grinned.
That was exactly the reaction he wanted.
The purpose of the session was not simply to discover whether Amon could break a shield.
It was experience.
Yun Che's experience controlling thousands of modules under pressure.
Their experience fighting an opponent whose defense could shift shape faster than ordinary armor.
Amon needed practice against enemies he could not simply overpower.
Mirage needed to learn how illusions functioned against distributed defenses controlled through Ki Zone and Parallel Thought.
Whisper needed to discover how to attack through layered physical barriers and moving weapon groups.
Yun Che needed to learn how to manage several intelligent opponents simultaneously without turning the battlefield into an expensive pile of confused metal.
He raised his hand.
"Come."
Amon charged.
The ground shook beneath him.
Before he crossed half the distance, hundreds of plates moved.
They did not form one shield.
They formed five.
The first angled.
The second rotated.
The third floated behind it.
Two more folded across Yun Che's sides.
Amon struck.
The impact boomed across the compound.
The first layer flexed backward.
Attraction inscriptions fought to keep the displaced modules connected to their neighbors.
The second layer caught most of the remaining force.
The third barely moved.
Amon stopped.
Yun Che raised one eyebrow.
"Again?"
Amon roared.
Mirage attacked simultaneously.
Five false Amons appeared.
Three false Whispers.
Then Yun Che suddenly found himself surrounded by fourteen Mirages, all of whom looked deeply pleased with themselves.
His Ki Zone expanded.
Noise.
False signatures.
Visual distortion.
Movement from several directions.
His attention divided.
Parallel Thought took part of the load.
One mental thread tracked Amon.
Another handled the nearest Arsenal groups.
Yun Che himself monitored Whisper and tried to distinguish Mirage's real position from the increasingly irritating lies around him.
The illusions remained annoying.
Which Yun Che considered a compliment.
"Better."
Mirage's voice came from everywhere.
You can't find me.
A group of plates suddenly spun behind Yun Che.
Mirage yelped and shot upward as they nearly enclosed her.
"I don't need to."
That is cheating!
"It's literally my weapon."
Whisper fired.
A pale lance of Frost struck from the left.
The outer metal screen opened deliberately.
Whisper's attack passed through.
Then encountered Yun Che's Ki barrier.
The single broad wall fractured into hundreds of interlocking hexagonal sections.
The Frost lance struck.
The first few segments broke.
The others rotated.
Stress spread across the neighboring sections instead of remaining concentrated at one point.
The attack died less than a handspan from Yun Che's shoulder.
Whisper stared.
Yun Che smiled.
"Good attack."
Then twenty metal plates appeared around Whisper.
The Frost Spirit immediately turned incorporeal.
They passed through him.
Yun Che nodded.
"Good response."
That was why they were training.
Amon attacked again.
This time he did not charge directly.
He used Frost Aura first.
Ice spread across the field.
Then he launched a wide Frost blast at Yun Che's left flank while approaching from the right.
Better.
The Arsenal reacted.
A layered wall caught the Frost.
Another group became chains.
They wrapped around Amon's front legs.
Amon broke the first set immediately.
Then found another twenty chains behind them.
He tore those too.
More arrived.
Not because Yun Che believed metal chains would hold an Iceback Glacier Drake indefinitely.
Because every second Amon spent breaking them was a second he was not attacking Yun Che.
Amon realized that.
His eyes narrowed.
Then he stopped struggling.
Instead, he froze the chains.
Ice expanded around the linked sections.
Amon used the frozen mass as leverage.
His entire body twisted.
Dozens of plates were dragged out of position.
Amon lunged through the opening.
Yun Che smiled.
"Exactly."
The opening vanished.
Three hundred plates became a layered shield directly in front of Amon's face.
He struck.
Boom.
The shield moved backward perhaps half a meter.
That was all.
Amon stared at it.
Then at Yun Che.
Yun Che looked extremely pleased with himself.
Amon inhaled.
"No."
Amon breathed Frost anyway.
The barrier caught it.
Whisper joined.
Mirage added her own attack.
For the first time, all three struck the same location.
Metal plates layered.
Hexagonal Ki barriers formed behind them.
Weight inscriptions activated across the front layers.
Attraction inscriptions pulled neighboring plates tightly together while Yun Che's Telekinesis pushed the whole structure forward.
The combined attack hit.
The training yard vanished behind a storm of Frost and mist.
Several nearby beasts fled.
The armored wolves who had been sleeping beside Amon earlier were now watching from behind a reinforced fence with the expressions of animals reconsidering their choice of friends.
The mist cleared.
Yun Che remained standing.
The shield remained intact.
Frost covered the front.
Several sections of the Ki barrier had shattered.
A few physical plates had been forced slightly out of alignment.
None had failed.
Amon stared.
Mirage stared.
Whisper stared.
Yun Che slowly lowered the shield.
"That's Myriad Arsenal."
Mirage landed on Amon's horn.
I dislike it.
Yun Che laughed.
"You're supposed to."
Then Yun Che stopped focusing entirely on defense.
That was when the training became considerably worse for everyone else.
The Arsenal separated.
Sword.
Lance.
Chain.
Shield.
Floating blades.
Spikes.
Hands.
Walls.
Cages.
Platforms.
Every one was a configuration Yun Che had already designed and practiced.
That distinction mattered.
He was not inventing a sword from two thousand five hundred independent pieces every time he wanted one.
He thought:
sword.
The prepared control architecture defined which nearby plates were appropriate.
Attraction inscriptions drew neighboring modules into the correct relationships.
Telekinesis moved the resulting structure.
Parallel Thought allowed Yun Che to keep several groups operating at once.
The Arsenal did not possess intelligence.
It possessed organization.
Amon charged.
A wall rose.
He went around it.
The wall folded into a wave.
He jumped.
The advancing structure became upward-pointing lances.
Amon twisted in the air and landed sideways.
"Good!"
Yun Che immediately sent chains toward his rear legs.
Amon froze the ground and slid instead of stopping.
Better.
Mirage filled the entire yard with illusions.
Yun Che deliberately reduced how heavily he relied upon Ki Zone.
He wanted difficulty.
Five false attacks approached.
He reacted to three.
Two groups of plates chased things that did not exist.
Yun Che frowned.
"That worked."
Mirage became extremely pleased.
Of course it worked.
Then a metallic cage dropped around her actual position.
That was unnecessary.
"You became predictable."
I became successful.
"Briefly."
Whisper discovered the best strategy of the three.
He stopped trying to defeat the outer defenses entirely.
Instead, he passed through them.
His incorporeal form slipped between the metal plates.
Yun Che immediately had to shift from physical structures toward Ki barriers.
Whisper fired Frost from inside the outer defensive layer.
The attack struck Yun Che's shoulder guard.
He slid backward.
His eyes widened.
Then he smiled.
"Excellent."
Whisper brightened.
Amon looked at him.
Mirage looked at him.
Everyone had now understood the real lesson.
Do not defeat the Arsenal.
Defeat Yun Che.
That changed everything.
Amon began forcing the plates outward rather than striking the strongest structures.
Mirage concentrated on feeding Yun Che false information so that he wasted plate groups responding to threats that did not exist.
Whisper exploited the moments when Yun Che transitioned between physical and Ki defenses.
Yun Che's control suddenly became far more difficult.
Which was exactly what he wanted.
"Again!"
They attacked.
The metallic storm moved faster.
Amon's claws struck barriers.
Mirage created false openings.
Whisper appeared inside defensive layers.
Yun Che responded.
Wall.
Turn.
Chain.
Barrier.
Redirect.
Seal.
Open.
Close.
His thoughts divided and recombined.
The Arsenal no longer felt like two thousand five hundred separate objects.
It felt more like a body.
A very large, extremely complicated body.
Telekinesis had changed too.
Once, lifting a single weapon had required conscious concentration.
Now movement happened almost instinctively.
Yun Che no longer thought:
Move those plates thirty centimeters left.
He thought:
Block.
And his trained control moved them.
Intermediate Telekinesis had not made him vastly stronger.
It had made him natural.
That was more important.
Parallel Thought had progressed for the same reason.
One mental thread could maintain a defensive group.
Another could manage an attacking configuration.
Yun Che could briefly devote a third portion of attention to Ki Zone while still fighting personally.
Briefly.
The moment he tried to sustain too much at once, pressure built behind his eyes.
His timing worsened.
Commands lagged.
The different mental tasks began interfering with one another.
Parallel Thought had not given him three minds.
It had given one mind additional working limbs.
And those limbs could still become tired.
Body Enhancement had improved through the same dull but reliable method.
Constant use.
No revelation.
No miracle.
Practice.
Again and again until difficult things became ordinary.
Amon lunged.
Yun Che did not block.
A platform appeared beneath his feet.
It launched him upward.
Amon passed beneath.
Yun Che rotated.
The platform narrowed into a spearhead.
He dropped toward Amon.
Amon rolled.
The spearhead separated before impact.
No accidental stabbing.
Combat experience did not require murdering one's friends.
Mirage attacked from above.
A metallic hand swatted toward her.
She vanished.
The hand opened.
Hundreds of plates scattered.
Mirage reappeared between them.
Her eyes widened.
"Got you."
The plates formed a hollow sphere around her.
Mirage screamed.
LET ME OUT!
"It's a barrier."
IT IS A PRISON.
"Educational barrier."
YUN CHE.
He released her.
She immediately flew toward his face.
A shield appeared.
Mirage struck it.
Her dignity suffered considerably more damage than the shield.
They continued until the compound bell rang eleven.
Yun Che was breathing hard.
Amon's sides rose and fell steadily.
Mirage had landed again.
Whisper's light had dimmed.
For half a second, Yun Che looked at the floating plates and considered one more round.
Then he remembered Lin Xia standing outside the library.
This is not how living works.
Yun Che lowered his hand.
"Done."
Amon looked toward him.
We can continue.
"I know."
Mirage stared suspiciously.
You are stopping voluntarily?
"Apparently."
Whisper chimed.
Yun Che pointed at him.
"Don't sound so surprised."
The two thousand five hundred plates began settling.
Not defeated.
Not broken.
Simply finished for the night.
Amon had never brute-forced his way completely through the Myriad Arsenal.
Neither had Whisper.
Neither had Mirage.
But that was not the important result.
All three had improved noticeably during the session.
Amon had stopped relying only on direct power.
Mirage had begun designing illusions specifically to manipulate Yun's decisions, tricking him into wasting defensive groups against false threats.
Whisper had learned to exploit transitions between physical and Ki defenses.
And Yun had discovered something more valuable than whether his weapon could survive an attack.
He could use it under pressure.
Against multiple opponents.
Against deception.
Against incorporeal movement.
Against brute force.
That was what he had needed.
The plates settled into their resting configuration.
Dark segmented cloak.
Layer after layer folded around his shoulders and over the white-and-gold armor beneath.
Amon lay nearby.
Mirage occupied Yun Che's head again.
Whisper hovered just above the grass.
Amon finally spoke.
It is irritating.
Yun Che smiled.
"Good."
Very irritating.
"Better."
Mirage lifted one wing.
I hate the hands.
"Noted."
Remove them.
"No."
Whisper chimed.
Keep them.
Mirage stared at him.
Betrayal entered the training yard.
Yun Che laughed.
It came easily.
That surprised him.
Not long ago, nearly every combat exercise had carried something ugly beneath it.
Fear.
Preparation.
The thought of the next beast.
The next mistake.
The next thing powerful enough to tear through his armor.
Tonight had been different.
He had defended himself because defense was interesting.
He had tested weapons because he liked building weapons.
He had studied Frost because he wanted to understand Frost.
He had fought his partners because all four of them wanted to improve.
Nobody was dying.
Nobody was running.
Nobody was screaming for help.
It was simply training.
And when training ended, they stopped.
That mattered too.
Yun Che looked upward.
Goldriver's lights reflected across the canals beyond the Consortium walls. Boats still moved between lantern-lined streets. Somewhere far away, people were laughing. Somewhere else, merchants were still arguing over prices, cultivators were training, and scholars were probably making the same terrible decision Yun Che had nearly made and remaining inside the library until sunrise.
He still needed another rifle.
He still needed money.
He still owed debts.
He still had community service tomorrow morning.
He still needed to understand the Myriad Beast Metamorphosis Bloodline.
His Frost remained mediocre.
His Fire needed work.
His Lightning needed much more work.
He still had no Earth Rune.
His theories about Magnetism might result in either a breakthrough or several destroyed pieces of equipment.
Electromagnetism remained a concept from Earth rather than a cultivation path he could actually use.
Gravity research remained locked behind enough bureaucracy to defeat an army.
And even his Iron aspect was only a beginning.
Iron represented the quality of Ki he possessed now.
One day, if his cultivation became strong enough, iron would no longer be sufficient to represent it.
Steel.
Spirit alloys.
Metals harder and purer than anything he could currently forge.
His cultivation would change as he did.
There was a great deal left to do.
For once, Yun Che did not look at that list and feel hunted by it.
He felt excited.
Amon glanced toward him.
You are smiling.
"I know."
Why?
Yun Che looked at his hands.
Then at the dark segmented cloak resting around his armor.
Then at his three exhausted partners.
"Because we're getting stronger."
Mirage yawned.
You are still bad at Frost.
Yun Che's smile vanished.
Amon's rumbling laughter shook the grass.
Whisper chimed.
Mirage looked extremely pleased with herself.
Yun Che sighed.
"Tomorrow we're training illusions."
Mirage stopped laughing.
Yun Che smiled again.
And at eleven o'clock, rather than beginning another training session, he gathered his companions and went inside to sleep.
That, he decided, was probably what Lin Xia meant by balance.