Grand Master Bo looked upon his students, they really were each unparalleled genius. A sect could go a thousand years and not see one with their potential, and he had four of them. If it wasn’t for the rising tide of notifications of army forts, outlying villages, and even small sects that had fallen to the rising tide of demons, he would be down upon his knees burning incense and chanting his gratitude to the Celestials for the opportunity of a hundred lifetimes to be part of shaping the future of not one, but four cultivators who had the capacity to challenge the heavens, and touch the stars themselves. Instead, he must cut corners until they bled, and send them into battle before they have done more than form their mana core, barely into the Yang Cultivation stage.

The students worked the forms of the unarmed technique, the Dao of Dragons, which was the base from which all the advanced combat techniques were derived, and without which none of the advanced mana battle techniques could be used.

“Now that you have formed your Mana Core, you can begin to imprint the battle techniques into your Mana Core. Normally, a student who had not yet formed their Nascent Soul would be restricted to only a single technique, as their souls would be insufficient to hold more than a single technique at the low level of compression of the Mana Core. A Nascent Soul can store as many as a half dozen techniques allowing movement, attack, defense, and various options both in range and elemental affinity. As the demons are upon us, and you must stand into battle already, each of you will be allowed to learn three of the advanced techniques even at your Mana Core stage, and another three as soon as you are able to crystalize your mana channels to bring about the Nascent Soul formation as your meridians and your Mana Core become one.”

Brock Kowalski, much changed from the brash young MMA fighter who could not believe there were any higher mysteries or secret mystic elements beyond strength and training in the martial arts, was the first to ask the question.

“Grand Master, how do martial techniques work?” He asked.

The Grand Master smiled. It was good they asked themselves, that meant they would listen to the answer.

“Normally, a cultivator must move beyond the Yang stage and establish the divine body of the Yang stage cultivator to use Formations. Formations are created by the crafting of sigils infused with mana by the creator and balanced in perfection with the laws of heaven to draw not only the chi of the universe, but to bind the elements themselves into the form and intent of the formation the cultivator has created. The wards on the palace, the teleportation pads, the communication arrays, are all examples of great formations, but on the smaller level the spiritual weapons and armour that protect us in battle are imbued with formations to enhance their effect and endurance, while the disposable single use talisman are the lowest level of single use formation. These are examples of external formations.

It is also possible to create such a formation internally, to write the formation on your own soul, and activate it with your own mana at your own discretion. This is what is meant by a technique. It is a formation that includes the physical motions of your body, the channeling of your internal mana, and the specific elemental essences required to bring about a magical effects in an instant that would require days of mana shaping and many further days of practice even to attempt a single time. To create this formation requires more power and skill than your current cultivation level and knowledge can provide, but through the work of masters and grand masters like myself, we can spend days and weeks to create these books, and simply through the act of reading them these mana techniques will be written into your soul to be invoked at will.”

Brock blinked. “You mean like a video game? Mash L2 R1 and X to execute some sort of seven move combo or create some Dragonball Z ball of flaming destruction?”

William sighed. “Ignore him Grand Master Bo, he was doing push up during school and ignored things like science and reason.”

Grand Master Bo blinked. “He is essentially correct. I do not know about button pushing, but yes by invoking the right technique you can run across the air itself, pass through solid walls, step from shadow to shadow, or indeed call upon the power of the dragons themselves to hurl a ball of flaming destruction.”

Serena jumped off her mat to approach her master in eagerness. “You can? I can?”

Grand Master Bo conjured a table from his storage ring, and arrayed thirty treasure grade technique books and spread them before his disciples. “Indeed, I ask that you each select three techniques from the highest grade books the Kingdom and Sect can provide. I would suggest you consider one movement, one attack and one defense ability, but you must suit your choices to augment the specific weapons and spirit arts you already practice.” He concluded.

Serena looked upon the books and made her choices with the audacity of the Dragon, and glared defiance at the Grand Master who simply hid his smile behind his mustaches.

Serena had chosen the movement technique Cloud Striding Dragon, the Claws of the Dragon sword technique, and the Dragon’s Roar. Grand Master Bo understood she was indeed the child of Dragons, and expecting her to choose techniques unrelated to direct domination was close to non-existent. He looked over the rest of his students and wondered if any of them would choose an art that was not directly related to attack? The Grand Master sighed. Perhaps in turning these children into weapons he had been too successful.

As each student took their technique books, they books would dissolve into white fire and the chi bound into them would form a stream that flowed into the mana core of the disciples, imprinting the secrets of the technique directly into the mana core, able to be invoked at will. William looked inward with the eyes of an alchemist and the soul of a modern engineer and his eyes widened with the realization. “This is like a computer program. We are writing a computer program to run the mana shaping, directly in our soul and when we invoke it our soul and our body just execute it as the program grabs the power it needs from us and from the environment.” He shouted in surprise.

“Whatever geek boy.” Serena said as she shouted. “Cloud Striding Dragon!” taking to the air above the training room’s floor as she ran upon the sky, turning to draw her two shortswords and cutting downward at Brock as she shouted. “Claws of the Dragon!”

Two lines of sword chi sliced towards the MMA fighter, who drew his own sword and shouted “Dawn destroys Darkness” as a flame infused arc of sword chi rose to clash with the two dragon shaped claws of chi slicing downward from Serena’s attack. The fragments of the broken attacks cut a few feet into the marble of the hall. Grand Master Bo smiled. Yes, these were weapons that yearned to be used. Now his biggest problem was keeping them back long enough to have a chance to come back from the war he had no choice but to send them to.

Later that day, when they were exhausted from the endless practice and sparring with their new techniques, and the pill driven spiritual healing that followed from young and overeager cultivators wielding the powers of heaven with the minds of mortals, Grand Master Bo led them in the cultivation of the Yang stage, moving them from the Mana Core formation towards the formation of the Nascent Soul.

“Open yourself to the flow of chi. Can you feel how the desperate hunger of your Mana Core calls to the chi around you? Can you feel the pain as you cultivate? Your core is crystal and can drink in the chi a dozen times faster than your limited channels can carry it. Do not let the mortal flesh limit you, can you feel the elemental essences polluting the chi that you draw from the world? This must be purged as you pour your soul into the chi to make it into pure mana. This pure mana will tear at the walls of your poor weak fleshy meridians, and replace them with mana crystal, like your mana heart. When you have purged the last of the fleshly meridians and replaced it with the deeper crystal mana channels, your mana heart will no longer out draw your mana channels ability to feed it and you will have achieved the Nascent Soul, and your journey to immortality will have begun, the dross of your mortal flesh purged and your internal chi transformed into pure liquid mana.” Grand Master Bo took out a small pill and broke it under his nose, sniffing harshly to deaden his senses for what was to come.

Andrea was first, as always, to make the breakthrough. Her process was the least violent, and the most resolute, with so little wasted effort he would have sworn she was walking the path of ascension for the second time had he not called her from her birth world himself. She gagged now, and threw up the rice of her last meal, mixed with heavy black tar, tar which also wept from her eyes and pores. The stench rising from it was unbelievably foul.

Gasping, Andrea looked at the Grand Master and demanded “Why is this happening again?”

The Grand Master handed her a bottle of cleansing agent and stepped well back before replying.

“You are drawing a dozen times more chi from outside than before, and with it a dozen times more elemental essences. Outside of the specific element of your affinity that you temper with, the rest are toxin to you. Your body will purge it as impurities. As your channels are clogged with it, and as the tissues you must tear apart to build your new deeper crystal meridians with are also contaminated with those elements, you must purge more of them from your flesh. Less and less of your mortal body remains, as your spirit sheds each cell of your born flesh to replace it with a more perfect celestial form, and you begin to take the first steps of an immortal ascendent, as far removed from common humanity as it is beyond the grass it treads underfoot.” The Grand Master said, thanking the Celestial Emperor and every Dragon that his passage beyond mortal flesh was so advanced he had not had to weep such corruption, nor consume mortal food, in more centuries than these children had years.

Meanwhile in a forest far far away, a nine tailed fox was having an interesting day. The Kitsune was ancient, and he had all nine tails of the peak development of that most magical of all beasts under heaven. He had seen nations rise and fall, and had seen the first immortals of rising humanity bring order to the world, only to turn away from the world, and join the Celestial Dragons in the heavens above. In their absence, the cultivators that followed the first immortals were arrogant and greedy, lacking the drive, the ambition, and the courage to ascend the steps of heaven by their own hand and will, they turned to the earth and their allied cultivating spirits, the spirit beasts and great and ancient trees, and turned their flesh into resources to rise in power without learning. Honestly, the casting off of impurities from the great sects and cities of the cultivators had given rise to demons in numbers unseen since the ancient times before the rise of the immortals.

The humans then withdrew to their walled cities and warded sects, leaving the very spiritual animals and plants that helped defend humanity from the demons in ancient times to become demon food, while humanity hid itself in safety. The Kitsune was, not pleased, with humanity. This made his particular circumstance intriguing. He was being chased by demons. Normally he would simply destroy them, but there were so very many demons. It took time to wield his spiritual arts, and the demons had enough numbers to sacrifice as many as it took to get their claws close enough to him that he could not longer afford to channel his great magics. He was a fox, at the end of the day. A large, splendid, and dare he say, wise fox, but still a fox. His flesh was no more immune to claws powered by demonic strength as a common mortal warrior. He could be killed.

He had surrounded himself with the illusion of two score demons, which combined well with the threescore actual demons he was surrounded with, and left each confused as to which was which. He had no path to safety, but until the war between his illusion and the real demons was finished, they could not hunt him down. Having resigned himself to praying the Heavens for a miracle, and when that failed, to chewing a few of the demons to death before he fell, the Kitsune felt he may well owe heaven an apology. A very small apology, but one very definitely wrapped in so very many questions. The Kitsune was perhaps being rescued. Or not. It was something of a mystery to him. This many centuries into life, if he was to die to demon claws, it was not too much to ask Heaven first resolve the question of what exactly he was looking at.

Five score demons did battle in the grove of willows where one nine tailed fox hid behind his own illusion, and into this storm of claw and fang came two very strange figures.

One was a warrior Ogress, tall for her breed, which itself was tall for any name giver race. She moved with the grace and power of her kind, and her spear reaped the demons like a farmer reaps his grain, yet there was something deeply wrong with her. As she strove spear to claw with the demons, she would gesture with a hand and the great willows would bend down to bind the demons in whips of willow branch and tear them limb from limb. As her spear punched through demon chest and skull, she would cast a glance behind her and a wall of earth would rise behind her to block them from surrounding her. This was impossible. Ogresses could not use the spiritual arts, and male ogers could not body cultivate. She was clearly an ogress, and yet the elements bent to her will like it would to a dragon or indeed to the Kitsune himself. She didn’t even use the clumsy magical circle and sigils like the male ogers or human cultivators. She commanded them without a word, like one of the dragons or great beasts.

Then there was the man. He was possibly human. He was no oger. For one thing, he was hairy, like a northern barbarian not an Imperial man. He fought with the strength of a dragon, but that should be the least surprising thing, for he had demons bound in his soul, and far stranger, a fragment of a god. He did not fight like a demon, he fought with skill and cunning, with genuine laughter, as if he took part in some sort of sport or game, yet he dodged claws with the barest of margin, frequently seeing a lock of beard or hair, a scrap of cloth be torn as he spun between and among the foe. Worse, he never once struck, nor blocked the Kitsune’s own illusionary demons. Somehow, this one eyed mortal struck only the real demons.

Poison billowed in the air in great yellow clouds of corruption, but around this mortal whipped whirlwinds of air and rain, and when his spear lanced forward, lightning flared from its point to burn those targets who thought they were beyond his touch. He leaped into the air and pushed off the empty air as if it were a stone wall, to hurl himself deeper into the foe, and his spear stretched from eight to twelve feet and back again to punch clear through two of the waiting demons, only to see him thrust the butt spike of the spear behind him to stun the demon closing on his rear. In the time it took two to fall, and one to stumble backwards, the mortal had spun out of the circle, leaving grasping grass from the ground he trod to rise up and slow the demons from chasing him.

He spun again and lunged, taking one, then another, then fading back to use his spear as a wall to guide the charging demon to deflect past him like a bull fighter passing the charging bull, then casually ramming his spear through the back and heart of the demon still struggling to figure out how he missed the target that had hardly seemed to move to miss him.

The man and woman spun together and apart a dozen times as they ran each other’s foes into each other, and thrust their spears within a butterfly’s wing of the other’s flesh to take targets beyond or behind them, as if they were one creature of four legs and two spears.

Mana flowed off the man like rivers of power, beating at the air like the forge god’s hammer on an anvil, while the ogress power was a whisper in the leaves, yet the earth and sky bent to their will the same. The Ogress struck with such force the demon’s chests shattered, their limbs tore off their bodies, while the man struck half as hard, and left an equal line of silent or screaming demon wreckage behind him. In the end, the two of them stood laughing in a field of demon ichor and churned earth, laughing like maniacs. The Ogress leaned down and grabbed the, possibly human, in a tight embrace and the two of them kissed with a hunger the demons would have found excessive.

Against his better judgement, the Kitsune dropped his illusion and coughed to get their attention.

“Pardon me good Ogress and good, human?” The fox spirit still wasn’t sure. “This one is called Sung, I am a Kitsune, a nine tailed ascendent fox spirit who has guarded this wood since before either of your births. While it is quite likely that heaven had ruled that I die in this time and place beneath the claws and fangs of yonder demons, I find myself not quite understanding the method of my salvation. Forgive me dear lady, for while you have the beauty, power and skill of the finest of the Maidens of the Mountain, I have lived many centuries and not seen a single of your folk bend the elements to your whim, yet you do so with the ease of a young dragon, or a fox of at least six tails. Might this one know how such a miracle comes to be?” The fox asked politely.

The Ogress blushed, then bowed. “Greetings noble Sung. This one is Astrella of the Mountain, Daughter of Mother Pon, and now bride to this one here. He is Bolverk. He carried the spear to the Maiden of Mountain to win my hand. He isn’t the best spearman that has ever come to the mountain, but he isn’t the worst that lived to tell about it. Besides being able to cook and decent company between the bedsheets, he has taught me the ways of the cultivator as I have taught him the way of the spear.”

The Kitsune blinked, then turned to the one eyed, possibly human, then back to the Ogress and asked with a diffident bow.

“Forgive this ungrateful one, dearest saviour Astrella, but did you know your companion has nine demons inside him?” The fox asked ready to bolt if the possible demon cultivator tried to murder him for revealing his secret.

Astrella reached over and ruffled the ruffian’s hair, then slapped him on the ass. “Not the least of his oddities, but yes I knew.”

I sighed. “I am right here you know. I can hear you both. Yes good Sung, I am Astrella’s husband, and she is my Dao Companion. We practice dual cultivation. I teach her the ways of mana and calling the storm and the earth, she keeps me from stepping on my spear. For the record, I don’t have nine demons in me. I have ten. Nine of them I ate fair and square, the tenth my god ate first, and it seems to amuse him to observe my progress upon the path. My name is Bolverk, and while I bring nine kinds of ill fortune, it is only for my foes.”

I could see Sung looking at Astrella for confirmation, then I felt a wave of mana flow into me that brushed past my own defenses like they were paper, only to rebound from the spirit of the Hanged One who chose to keep my secrets and his own while he amused himself in my flesh. The fox’s eyes widened, and all nine tails flicked in alarm at the touch of godhood hidden in the eye that is not.

“I see, truly, there are more wonders under heaven than even this one knows. Well saviour Bolverk, saviour Astrella, what can this poor fox offer you in return for my life?” The Kitsune offered with a bow so graceful I felt even more like a heavy hoofed ox than usual. Mind you, I also saw a straight line I could not resist, so I didn’t.

“Actually good Kitsune, my bride spoke to me of the unmatched learning of the Kitsune, unequalled under heaven by any save the dragons, and I wondered if you could answer some questions about why our powers don’t seem to be working right.” I asked carefully.

The Kitsune looked at the field of slaughtered demons and sighed. “This is the result of your powers not working right? Pray then good Bolverk, how may this old fox help you. What is it you do not understand?”

Astrella and I sat cross legged before the fox, our spears planted in the ground by their butt spike as we sought the wisdom of this most ancient and magical forest spirit.

“Well, we both have been able to form our mana core, and we both have been able to affect external elements with our power, we have been able to use our chi to enhance out bodies and weapons, but nothing really seems to work the way the books tell me it is supposed to. I have way more mana that Astrella, and her channels seem to be growing so much more slowly, yet she can do as much with it as I do. We have both been through our breakthroughs, yet neither one of us has purged our impurities. I am afraid the impurities are holding us back from our potential.” I asked, having studied the cultivation manuals, and having discussed with Astrella and her mother, and found that they all agreed with the book how it was supposed to work.

I flinched back a bit when the fox barked out quick laughter.

He stopped, looked at me in all seriousness, then laughed long and deep a second time until tears ran down its fur. Finally getting his laughter under control, the Kitsune finally deigned to answer me.

“Only humans speak of impurities, and you should be thankful you never purged yours for the false path of immortals. Those are the elemental essences. Chi is born from all things that live in this world, yet the world itself is a fountain of power. The elements of fire, water, earth, air, and wood fill the world and the power of those is in the flesh of all that lives. Your core pulls chi and the elements in from the world, and as your soul purges the elements from the chi as it turns it into mana, but it is your soul that draws those elements into your flesh. That soul binds the elements to the elements in your flesh, bound with your soul. When your mana calls, the same soul that bound that chi into mana is bound in the elements in your flesh. The mana calls, and your elements answer. As the elements move within you, so do the elements outside answer.”

I processed that slowly. “So because Astrella was an Ogress, her flesh was full of the elemental essences bound to her soul, it takes a very small amount of her mana to make her own elemental essences reach out to call and be answered by the elements in the world. Yet that same full and powerful flesh resists the push of the mana to reshape her mana channels.”

The Kitsune nodded. “Yes, she has a fraction of your spirit power, but she can do at least as much as you with the power she has because her body is full of bound elemental essence, bound in harmony as her soul bound it to her own flesh.”

I was doing the math on this slowly, not wanting to screw up. “So if I keep cultivating, my flesh will fill with bound elements like Astrella’s, and I will be able to do more with each bit of mana like she does?”

Astrella snickered “That is because I am wise and beautiful, you are lucky to have me.”

I glared at her, which would have been easier if she hadn’t deliberately picked the side without an eye. I continued on.

“And if Astrella keeps cultivating, she will eventually have as wide mana channels and as deep a mana pool as I will, right?” I asked.

Astrella snickered. “See, you are good for something besides making breakfast and tripping on your spear. You do teach some neat tricks.”

This time the fox snickered, which sounds weird in a fox, no matter how many tails it has.

“Yes,” Sung the Kitsune spoke with the gravity of an ancient master, once he stopped laughing at me. “By the time you both reach Nascent Soul, you will have mana pools and channels the equal of any human cultivator, but you will be able to make the elements respond to you as easily as any Kitsune or even the lesser dragons.”

I was deeply confused now. This was not the path of the immortal cultivator that the text promised, nor the legends told in the land. This seemed way better, way more natural, way more efficient and effective. What was I missing.

“Why doesn’t everyone do it this way? Why does humanity purge the impurities and then require so much more mana to get a fraction of the effects we can this way?” I asked honestly confused.

The Kitsune blinked, looking at me like I was the dumbest monkey in the jungle (which may well be true, but still rude to point out). “Because binding the elements in your flesh, binding yourself to this world, you bind yourself to life. The vitality of the cultivator will grant you longer life and vitality, fertility for as long as you live, but I should be greatly surprised if you lived more than three centuries at best.”

My eyes widened. “So they purge their mortality, to become immortal, even if that means neutering their power.” I clarified.

The fox snickered again, and I examined both what he said, and what I said. Oh my god. Holy Odin, tell me they aren’t talking about what I think they are talking about.

“What else do they purge with their impurities?” I asked, and I could feel Odin already laughing his ass off in the back of my mind and soul.

The Kitsune blinked slowly. “They purge all impurities. By Mana Core most of them stop eating food, taking the occasional nutritional pill. By Nascent Soul they don’t require food at all. They have risen beyond all mortal needs, they no longer have any mortal desires, nor can they sire mortal offspring any more. When they pass from Yang to Yin stage, they will no longer age and they may look forward to be able to turn their back upon the world and ascend the steps to heaven among the gods and dragons. Normally it only takes a few centuries of secluded cultivation, locked in a room alone with their cultivation until they are able to rise to the next stage.”

I thought about the paths of purity and immortality, I thought about the paths of harmony and humanity.

The Kitsune shrugged. “Human’s chose immortality. They fall to demons now because the great ones have ascended the steps to heaven and risen above the world. The ones with the power to shatter the demon tides with a wave of their hands are off locked in their private caverns spending centuries dreaming of immortality, turned away from the world until they grow strong enough to rise above it. Now that you know, won’t you choose the same?” Sung asked, honestly interested in this odd maybe human.

‘Fuck that. Eternity without hunger is a lie. It is an eternity without eating. Eternity without desire, without love, without human contact. Living so long that no soul walks upon the earth that you know or care about, they are not ascended humans, they are forsaken humans, for they forsake their humanity long before they turned away from the world to hide, or ran away from the world to wash dragons or contemplate their navels in the sky. Fuck that. Not going. I will live and love, I will build with my own hands and pass it on to my children, I will guide their steps as they learn to find their place in this world, and when the time comes I will die and leave this world to them.” I said, and the fox flinched in surprise.

“You choose mortality? You reject the path of ascension? Do you not have a fragment of a god inside you and you still turn your back upon the heavens?” The Kitsune actually seemed offended.

“He isn’t that kind of god. It sounds like this world is falling to demons that every one of your precious immortal cultivators is so heavenly bound they are no earthly good.” I said, and Astrella hugged me in approval, while a one eyed god laughed coldly in agreement.