Zhang Cai hopped onto the sword and took flight a meter above the surface of the water.

He cast a glance back and made his gaze focus onward, and he watched the forming of those miniscule waves hitting the beach by the great winds. The sea bubbled under his feet, the air pressure parting a straight line over the water to wherever he went.

‘‘What is this one‘s specialty?‘‘

The air was warm. The breeze of the leftover wave-pushing gales brushed cool against his nose, and he did not smell anything strange else than the salty one that every sea-bound body of water had.

Then what was all this ambient Qi doing?

Being a Rocksmote for enough of a time, Zhang Cai could feel the world breathing the same as him. Every seven seconds, no interruption, a new wave of Qi would burst into existence around and away from him, and seven seconds after they would fall and merge with the nature around them.

‘‘The seven second rule was because of this?‘‘

He smiled.

Delving into his dantian for a second, he gathered ten pulls of the total eight hundred eighty-eight pulls worth Qi. He led them into the sword and the blade gleamed silver above the flowing aquatic surface. His figure flashed, robes flapped, and Zhang Cai was a few dozen meters away. Sailing at haste and parting the sea before him he stretched both arms wide and took a deep breath. This kind of neck-breaking speed was one thing he enjoyed the most.

He traveled with the wind at his back and the Sun to his right. Perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a few hours, he kept the same pace and enjoyed the fresh air and bright sky he could not find before. He took a few deep breaths once in a while, and when he did so he saw a deep shadow cast on the light-blue foaming sea under him.

For a moment, he was confused. He glanced again, and noticed that it was not a cast shadow, but a shadow inside the sea itself. And the foam and bubble spreading from its center did not allow him to see what it was until the ravenous gigantic jaw emerged to crush him between a bloody jaw and blade-like teeth.

Zhang Cai deftly moved left and avoided the gray-colored fish‘s ambush. The tail of the beast flapped in the air, whirled droplets away and landed some on him, then dove back down to turn into a shadow. Blue sea splashed in waves and sent him, disturbed, out of the impact’s way.

‘‘What the fuck was that?‘‘

Zhang Cai recoiled from his short fall and rose. He flung one hand forward, cloaking his face from the ever-rising currents over him, and watched the shadow creep onto him. The fish was bearing much too fast, even by his standards, and Zhang Cai doubted the beast‘s cultivation that he saw as Third-step Glassmade.

How was one Glassmade so quick, to be able to chase him on flight? That thought he could not ponder long, for another shadow he noticed to his right. It came the same, thinner in width but longer in height, and also faster. A single fleshy-gray appendage pierced the veil to hail its approach.

Zhang Cai pushed his right feet down on the hilt of the blade and raised the flat tip. The other shadow leaped at him, spraying the waves a few meters high, and hurled its skull on Zhang Cai.

One hand of his unsheathed the dark blade and the one on the front put up a round bubble of water before him. So brilliant in its color, and gleaming so bright, even Zhang Cai did not see the fate of the beast. A force came on his shoulder, rocking it back, and a thud. The beast’s skull smashed on the sphere of condensed water, cracked, and Zhang Cai cut through its thin beak all the way to its right fins.

The blood washed over him and the other shadow burst out of the veil of the sea.

‘‘Fuck-’’ he pulled four pulls of Qi and laid them on the blade as a thin veil of aquamarine.’’-off!‘‘

His arm flashed forth. The blade moved faster than the eye could see, a ray of light cloaked the scene, and the leaping beast came to be split into two to fall as a mangled bloody corpse.

Both halves of the fish fell with its torn guts and Zhang Cai let out a deep sigh. ‘‘What did I even ask for?‘‘

It seemed that the Daoying Strait did not have its peculiarities above the surface, but in deep water. These fishes, of which he knew not of their breed or kin, had cultivation of Glassmade far above those in Il-Ich. Upon that cultivation was their finesse.

’’They are fast...but not enough to catch me.’’

That piece of knowledge gave him relief for the moment, but then he considered where he was and where that island was. As nature followed a linear progress in its evolution with the density of Qi, the deepest waters would have the strongest Qi currents. The island, situated between two shores hundreds of kilometers apart, should—no, must have Qi so dense Rocksmote fish were bound to be seen. Even if safe now, if not ambushed or surprised, he would be bound to face beasts that could eclipse his pace.

Or would that island be safe, even? Who knew if that plot of land did not house beasts unknown to the eyes and ears of those like him? His master did go there, but his master was someone above Threshold. He had few things in the world that could prove to him dangerous.

But he thought of its small land and coverage, and he forsook that line of thought. A land so small could not house great danger, since the Qi of land and Sea would be in conflict. And there was the inevitable conclusion that, if he went back now, he would have to travel at least a month to get into Shu Noble Family Land. He had no idea if they had a commercial way of traveling in the strait, and if they did how much it would cost.

‘‘Just go forward.‘‘ he thought to himself. ‘‘I don‘t need to think so much about these things now.‘‘

He pushed his Qi into the blades, and he thought for a moment it was easier than a few hours before, and rose in the air a few meters. But he noticed his Qi depleted far too quickly, there was a strange wind lashing at him and forcing his balance to crumble. He thought of Li Bo’s words on the matter, then descended back into the original height.

He did think of his Qi reserve as well. He deemed fit to conserve it as much as possible. That meant he was to fly low and defend himself with the blade alone, if possible. He did not feel confident of that, but his body told him otherwise. The mental voice that desired safety and the instinctual voice that deemed him strong enough kept their bickering, alongside empty thoughts about the scenery, as he flew away.

These two voices were a part of him, or a part of every living man and woman he supposed. Not the beasts, since they did not have reason. Ever since he stepped out of land, he felt the voice of his body, of instinct, grow stronger in its role. The balance between them remained secure, and did not turn fragile as he feared. Yet that single shift of powers told him enough to know something wrong.

Or was it wrong?

He thought of being confident as wrong. His body told him that he could be confident of his strength. His muscles, still sore and pained from his past wounds, told him the same. His Qi, bubbling, and also calmer than before— with its sole aquatic affinity that he would rely from now on until Threshold, signaled the same conclusion.

He had grown stronger. That conclusion, he could not accept it.

He could not accept that fact, but he did not have an answer as to why. He had clues, since there was no irrational act to all, even if it lacked reason. He knew he feared it for once. There also was the arrogance that others bore from their power, which he saw many examples of in Curlan and forth.

‘‘But there is something else.‘‘

What that was, he pondered upon it until the Sun above let go of its golden reins of light. From the mustard-like rays it heated up to the warm orange of life, and it warmed up Zhang Cai‘s bones until he felt full without eating and sleeping, and it was gone half-down the horizon by then. Raising his head, he found his Qi hardly down five hundred pulls, and a great many shadows and fins after his silhouette.

The whirling winds of sea picked up after their great rush, echoing the swarming and rising waves all bubbly and splashing against each other. Howls accompanied them and Zhang Cai heard two of them so much louder than others his ears rumbled. Among them were two, one the smallest of the herd and the other largest, and they both had a cultivation of fourth-step Glassmade.

He let them follow him, since the distance between them was greater than a few dozen meters. He also had not been exerting his speed to converse Qi, so that assurance kept his wits clear of obstruction. Then the moon followed their wake, and the screaming winds overrode the desperate roars of the horde that grew ever more larger. Few of them he saw leave or stop dead from exhaustion, and more followed those to feast upon the defenseless fish. In an hour more there was but three after his tail and they all were at the cusp of Rocksmote.

An hour more he went by and he found himself feeling a little more stronger. Zhang Cai felt it in his very being that now, if he wished so, he could zoom away like the arrow on a flight and none of these beasts could even see his cast shadow on the sea. He could leave blurs, zig and zag around them and toy with them, and he would not be caught.

This feeling grew more and more until he saw the island at the horizon, spanning half the horizon in width. There were few trees occupying its rocky shores; those that grew on warm coasts like wild citrus trees with inedible fruits and red cedars away from the shores deep inland. Also one breed that he had not seen, with wide green leaves curving down to earth and fruits that did not seem savory.

For a moment he inspected, and at the other he marveled at how he could see such details from afar. Unknown to him, he had seen deep in the dark, with the aid of moonlight, an island at least two kilometers away and its trees and even the fruits on those trees. Such precise eyesight was not his own, as he had felt the same earlier of his observatory skills in Qi.

The question was, was it a boon granted or labor rewarded? Would there be more in his path of cultivation, more abilities and perks that he would gain, without putting in the effort for them?

A little while he thought upon it and found it ridiculous to even think. He had spent months upon months on treacherous paths and cultivated still; he faced many beasts, Xian, people, and he survived great encounters with extraordinary danger. If there was no reward to them, what was the point?

He had gained it— that he convinced himself.

Content at his conclusion he approached the barren gray cliff and rose to its peak. He cast a wide glance through the range of trees and absurdly long grass that did not seem to belong to an island. Yet he saw nothing noteworthy, so he descended.

His feet touched the ground, his body jolted, and he heard a great rumble behind him.

Gazing behind him, Zhang Cai saw the beastly fish clash against a glistening silver veil. The veil stretched across the island, glittering like stars across the sky, and went as far as two hundred meters away from the shores. The beasts labored to pierce it, but none of the remaining three survived the initial impact without wounds. They had large gashes on their fleshy blue and gray skulls, bleeding purple and red. Zhang Cai watched them struggle for a few more moments. At last, growing tired of the meaningless effort, they roared and swam away, leaving the shimmer of the veil to die.

He heard the hoots of an owl at his back and cast a deep, meaningful look to the cedars shadowing the deeper parts of the island.

‘‘There is something wrong,‘‘ he thought. ‘‘And I am not gonna be the one to deal with it.‘‘

He sat cross-legged beside the cliff, not bothering to set up the tent and the fire, and laid his back to the secure sea and his gaze to the island. A cool breeze caressed his cheeks.

From that deep, queer darkness, he felt a silent calling amidst the crashing waves. A call he did not answer until dawn broke.