Year 658 of the Stable Era,
Twentieth day of the tenth month
Late Afternoon
Gao Oma winced as the sound of a gong reverberated through the training ground of Sword Intent Club. It was like the impact of a sword against a metal shield, the qi-infused sound echoing in her bones for a moment before it dissipated. She rubbed her ears as she stared at the source, the assistant something from one of the gambling whichamacallits. She had only been paying partial attention to their discussion, her focus more on her dao heart than the affairs of others.
The female lead cultivator was staring at Senior Li Zhan, the buns of her hair shaking from both rage and the aftershock.
“In the name of the Southern Peaks Gambling Association I challenge you!” she announced, her loud voice bristling with aggression. “A formal duel, for the Jade Drifting Cloud Eye.”
“No,” Li Zhan replied, giving the short woman a shorter stare before turning back to face Oma.
“You dare! You bastard, you cannot refuse! Do you have no pride as a cultivator?” Hui demanded, taken aback by his casual refusal. “This is a formal declaration of challenge, between two clubs of the Teal Mountain Sect!”
Li Zhan gave Chang Hui a blank look at these words, and Oma realized that she was going to have to explain this to her senior.
She was still confused as to why her seniors of the Sword Intent Club had such gaps in their knowledge when it came to the sect’s customs, like how the different Divisions were structured or how their yearly budget accumulated even if they didn’t use it, but she supposed that every cultivator developed their own eccentricities after a while. Like how Shifu Yeung Lin would often go silent mid-sentence to write in his notebook.
“That’s a club challenge bell,” she whispered, cupping her hand over her mouth so it would be at least a slight bit less apparent what she was doing. “If a club issues one, it has to be answered, or else the rank of the club that refuses will be lowered.” Li Zhan nodded a few times as he digested her words, before turning to face Chang Hui.
“No,” he said again, equally firmly.
“Is your comprehension so low that you fail to understand the meaning of this?” Hui demanded. “This is an official challenge. Or are you too pathetic to face it like a true cultivator?” She pointed the pewter striker in her hand at Li Zhan accusingly as she spoke, goading him to react.
“We are in the middle of training,” he replied. “Go away.” He drew his sword as he turned back to Oma so that he could begin to demonstrate the proper form she should use for their next drill.
“AHA! You dare to draw your weapon at me?” Hui shouted, jumping on the opportunity with a snap of her fingers and a burst of qi. “So, you do have some spirit after all!”
Li Zhan’s indifference was putting her in the rare position of almost running out of taunts. Most cultivators tended to view provocations as a chance for enrichment, so it was rare to see one refuse to take her best material.
The Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword unsheathed itself with the barest of whispers, twirling in a graceful circle as it flew towards her hand. The Divine Silver of its curved blade gleamed in the light as it reflected the crackling electricity running down its length as Hui let her qi flow through it, feeding its power. Her finger wrapped around the pristine red leather of its grip, and the flow of electricity growing in intensity as the closeness allowed it to draw more of her power into the blade.
Li Zhan turned back towards her at the sound of the drawing of the blade, a spark of interest in his eyes.
“That is an interesting sword.”
“So, your eyes are also less rotten than your pride! Yes, this is the weapon of a true cultivator,” Hui boasted, sweeping her sword through the air to demonstrate her point before pointing it at her chalengee. “Forged during the—”
Hui jerked her sword away as Li Zhan attempted to hit it with a hammer. It was a small thing, its narrow head barely the size of her pinky finger, the sort that a blacksmith would use to test the quality of an ingot. He had made his approach as she had been talking, so subtly that she’d barely noticed him until he had been inches away from the outstretched blade.
“What are you doing!” she demanded, as Li Zhan stared as the blade now resting at her side. He took a step towards it, hand tilting back as he prepared a second attempt. She leapt away from him, throwing her sword behind her as she did.
It floated in the air a foot from her shoulder, gently bobbing in the breeze. Li Zhan’s eyes followed it like a cat after a reed, observing its every movement with great intensity. Behind her, Guan Tie slowly spun his spear from his shoulder, the green silk around its blade falling to the ground.
“It’s a very nice blade,” Li ZHan finally said, pretending to store his hammer back in his sleeve. His sleight of hand was quite poor, however, and Hui could clearly see the head sticking out from behind the side of his palm, clearly biding its time for another swing at her blade.
“What?”
“I simply wished to test the temper. You can learn so much about a blade’s alloy from its composition, as certain forging techniques leave specific marks on the metal. It’s a shame that it’s such a poor fit for you,” Li Zhan continued, eyes tracing the form of the blade as he sized up Chang Hui.
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“WHAT?!”
“A shorter blade would have better suited your physique. You waste too much energy balancing your body around its length, and you have to grip it far too close to the hilt to maintain control while wielding it with one hand. The problem might be lessened when wielding it with two hands, but the proportions of the blade are poor for such a stance, as the ratio of the blade and the width of the grip are clear indicators that it was forged as a single-handed weapon for a cultivator far larger than yourself. A jian of a length between 32 and 35 inches would be ideal for you, perhaps one that is—”
Guan Tie bit back a chuckle as Chang Hui stared at Li Zhan in indignation, her mind too overwhelmed by the deluge of information to tell if his intent was to be insulting or enlightening. Her mouth flapped like a carp trying to return to the water, and after three desperate flails she finally reached it.
“So,” she said, interrupting Li Zhan’s tangent about alloy ratios, “I take it that you’re interested in my blade.” She took the reappearance of the hammer as a ‘yes’, then continued.
“Perhaps we can reach an arrangement. Would you consider the loan of your club’s Jade Drifting Cloud Eye for a chance to observe my blade?” Hui offered. It was a longshot, a massively lopsided trade, but it would seem that this Li Zhan was one of those cultivators. The craftsmen that were single-minded about their craft to the point of ignoring most anything else. Exactly the rare sort that would take such a proposition seriously.
And take it seriously he did. His head tilted to the side as he considered it for the length of time it took her secretary to drink a cup of tea, before shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, but unfortunately Weijian Mei has is scheduled to use it that day,” he gestured to the area where the female cultivator with the sharp green eyes had been training with the Eye. It was now conspicuously absent, save for the image of her frozen mid-leap. “She is currently at lunch, but she would refuse if she was here.”
“Surely you can afford to step on a mere member’s toes just a little bit,” Hui wheedled. “After all, an opportunity like this doesn’t just come around every day.”
“I cannot do that,” Li Zhan said simply, staring back at Hui.
Damn, she thought, so he also has room for principles in that head of his.
“Well, perhaps we can come to a different agreement,” she countered aloud. “What if we were to make this…a wager. You could simply bet me the use of the Eye and, if you were to win, you wouldn’t need to disappoint your member.”
“I see,” Li Zhan said thoughtfully. “And when I win, you would allow me to inspect your blade as much as I like?”
“Yes,” Hui replied, holding back her excitement as the fish took the bait. “My Southern Peaks Gambling Hall against your Sword Intent Club. A challenge of martial might, as is fitting of your organization.” Li Zhan nodded at this again, clearly unaware of the trap she was setting.
Judging from his earlier reaction he clearly had no idea who Guan Tie was, or he would have been careful about seeking a challenge against a reigning champion. While Guan Tie was only in his 800s, he was already halfway through the Body Moulding stage, and could easily hold his own against older cultivators by virtue of his prodigious combat instincts.
“I’ll have to see,” Li Zhan said, turning to call to the disciple that had been practicing his forms behind them. “Feng.”
The cultivator took his time finishing his exercise before replying to them, straightening his rectangular glasses as he stared at the newcomers for the first time.
“Yes?”
“These people have issued us a challenge,” Li Zhan said, as casually as someone observing the weather.
“And?” Baikun Feng asked, his gaze turning to the sun as he replied.
“I would like to accept it,” Li Zhan stated, his gaze fixing itself firmly on Chang Hui’s sword as he did.
“Very well,” Baikun Feng replied, his left hand restraightening his glasses as he turned back to his companions. “It is time to spar, so now is perfect timing.”
Chang Hui looked at him in confusion as he spoke. Despite wearing the uniform of someone very much Li Zhan’s junior, the cultivator that she had assumed to be the leader of the Sword Intent Club was addressing him as if he was his senior. Her eyes darted up to the emblem on his breast, only to find seven interconnected mountains resting on a field of dark nephrite green.
Was this some sort of trick? Were their uniforms a ploy to lure newcomers into a false sense of security? Had they deliberately set this up to trap her? He hadn’t even heard what the contents of the challenge were. He’d just accepted it because the timing was right. Why? What was he thinking? Hui’s mind swirled with thoughts, each flitting just outside her reach as she tried to collect them.
“So, as representative, we shall be choosing our humble member Guan Tie,” she said, half of her mind moving through the negotiations while the other tried to piece things together. “Which of you will be representing the Sword Intent Club?”
Li Zhan and Baikun Feng shared a look at each other with slight confusion before Feng answered her question.
“All of us, of course,” he said calmly.
“I’m not sure I follow?” Hui replied, looking back and forth at them in confusion. Behind the two, Gao Oma did the same, equally perplexed by this development.
“It would be unfair for only one of us to be allowed to fight,” he explained, gesturing to his two companions. “So, you will be challenging all of us. Our numbers are equal, so it will be fair. Standard rules will suffice.”
Hui nodded, running the numbers in her head. As the challenged party, they were well within their rights to add such a stipulation, but the Southern Peak Gambling Hall’s odds were still good. Guan Tie was sure to sweep his round, and Li Gho could more than hold her own in a fight, especially against her opponent. Hui recognized her from one of the early years of the Entrance Exam Celebration.
1:3.2 odds of success—a gifted bumpkin from the sticks that had some affinity for the sword. That year had featured a free-for-all tournament as the final event, and she had heard that she had made it in at the last minute after materializing a fragment of a technique of some sort. A low prospect, if she had ended up in this place.
If she was a spectator, she would have laughed at the spread. Her subordinates were more than enough to handle this in the minimum amount of rounds, to the point that she doubted that she’d even need to fight at all. She stifled her grin as she bowed to the one called Feng, clasping her fist in a martial salute. Behind her, Li Gho did the same, followed by Guan Tie two moments later.
“This Chang Hui, representative of the Southern Peaks Gambling Association formally declares the terms of the Club Challenge. The challenge is to a series of duels. The winner is to be determined by the first to achieve two victories, following the dueling code of the Teal Mountain Sect.”
“Should the Southern Peaks Gambling Hall win, the Sword Intent Club will permit the use of their Jade Drifting Cloud Eye on a day of our choosing. Should the Sword Intent Club win, they will be permitted to inspect my Divine Silver Thunder Splitting Sword for a day. Are these terms acceptable?”
“This Baikun Feng of the Sword Intent Club accepts your terms,” the aforementioned cultivator replied, returning the gesture with a short bow.
“Our first representative shall be the disciple Li Gho,” Hui said, motioning for her secretary to step forwards. The bespectacled cultivator stepped forwards, tucking her braid behind her shoulder as she did.
“Ah, it seems that you’re in luck,” Li Zhan said, turning towards Oma.
“What do you mean Senior?” Oma asked, clutching her Willow’s Branch with sudden, dreadful anticipation.
You know what he means, her heart demon whispered.
“Your opponent is first, so you get to be the first to fight,” he replied cheerfully, his tone only worsening the anxiety in her heart.
