Present - The Immortal Vale - Talen

“Hey, quit hiding in the bath house,” Mei Ling shouted, waking Talen up with a start. “We’re supposed to be training, not lazing around.”

“Coming,” he shouted back.

Frantically looking around, Talen found a new set of clothes had been left for him and all the old rags had been taken away.

He dried off and threw everything on as fast as he could because Mei Ling was the type of person who’d come in just to see what was taking you so long.

“Oh good, you’re decent,” she said, jumping down from the now open window.

“This is the men’s bathhouse,” Talen blurted out, his voice considerably squeakier than he’d have liked.

“I know,” she said, head swinging left and right. “I wanted to see what it looked like inside.”

She sniffed the air a couple of times.

“What’s that smell?” She asked, her nose wrinkling.

“Master Han taught me how to purify my Kai yesterday afternoon,” Talen said, shrugging.

“And it’s taken you until now to finish? I was much faster,” she said. “I managed the whole thing in under four bells.”

Talen rolled my eyes. It seemed everything was a competition to Mei Ling.

“Have your legs recovered from yesterday’s challenge?” She bit down on her lips trying to hide a smile, but it came out anyway. “I told you I could stay in horse stance longer than you.”

“Yes my legs are fine, there’s no weakness for you to exploit this morning.” He glared at her. “Of course, you had to hold it for a lot longer than I did if I remember correctly,” he said, stroking his chin. “Maybe I’ll be beating you again today, just like yesterday.”

Mei Ling punched Talen’s arm.

“No chance. Anyway, I have some good news. My father says that as soon as you reach level 3 we’ll both be allowed out to explore Sun Long Shan,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what’s out there. I’ve never been allowed to go further than the village at the base of it and even then I had to have someone with me.”

Talen joined Mei Ling, looking out of the window at the impossibly tall mountain that dominated the landscape. If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t feel anywhere near ready to begin investigating what lived up there.

“That’s okay,” Talen said creeping toward the bathhouse exit. “I’m sure I’ll be able to keep you safe from whatever is up there.”

She spun, sputtering as her face went red. Laughing, Talen stepped out of the door, closed it behind him and stuck a metal pole through the handles. There was a loud thud as she finally reached the doors.

“Looks like you’ll have to climb back out the way you came in,” he shouted. “See you at practice.”

Talen grinned. That seemed like a fair payback for the dose of trouble she’d caused yesterday. He quickly made his way to the training grounds so he’d be there on time.

***

“You’re late Mei Ling,” Master Wu said as she tried to sneak into the training grounds without anyone seeing. “You will be assisting the guards for three bells this afternoon to learn more about discipline.”

“Yes sifu,” she said bowing to her father.

She stuck her tongue out at Talen as she walked into the center of the courtyard.

“Obviously, you’ll be joined by Talen,” Master Wu said, without skipping a beat.

Talen’s mouth dropped open.

“Your energy tells me you are the reason she was late,” he told the young man before he could ask what he’d done wrong. “Now, I want to see you both run through your exercises.”

Grounding himself and dropping into a meditative state, Talen made sure his channels were wide open to gather more Kai and nothing was blocking its circulation. The purification had made everything easier and the tingling sensation in the palms of his hands extended up his arms with a thought. He started going through the form, flowing from one stance to the next, the courtyard disappearing as everything other than his movements ceased to matter. Bright sparkling Kai glided through his channels, effortlessly supporting his body as he spun, ducked, punched and kicked his way through the sequence he’d learned as a child. The routine had never been this easy for him before. Finally, he reached the end. Putting his left fist into his right palm, he bowed deeply.

“You’re improving Talen,” Master Wu said, as Mei Ling finished and bowed as well. “Start at the first Single Whip again.”

Talen sunk down, bending his legs until they were horizontal to the ground, right arm out like a crane’s head and left palm flat pushing outwards. Continuing into the next move Grasping the Moon, Master Wu walked around behind him. As Talen’s hands parted and he shouldered an imaginary opponent out of his way ready to progress into the kick, his left hand met solid resistance. Resistance that felt like a wooden stick, except for the fact that it buzzed slightly almost like contained lightning.

Talen turned his head to find Master Wu standing there holding a manifested bo staff made from pure Kai. He’d heard of energy weapons as a child, but he’d never seen one before. He’d always thought they only existed in stories. His mouth dropped open as he watched the little electric bolts shoot along the staff, sizzling against his arm.

“Don’t just stand there both of you, attack,” Master Wu said, beckoning his students toward him. “Today is all about your teamwork.”

Not needing to be told twice, Talen spun, ducking under the staff, as Mei Ling circled around behind her father. Punching upward, Talen’s fist met with a glowing blue shield that felt as solid as metal. With a tiny gesture the shield vanished and Master Wu grabbed Talen’s arm, pulling him off balance. Spinning forward, Master Wu effortlessly evaded Mei Ling’s attack. She overreached as he jumped backward. Talen tried to roll out of the way to avoid tripping Mei Ling up, but Master Wu’s hand sliced down toward him, stopping a hair’s breadth from his throat. Talen froze.

“Yield,” he said, not wanting to know what would happen if he didn’t.

“What? I had this,” Mei Ling said, gesturing wildly at Talen.

As quick as a flash, Master Wu dropped down and spun, catching Mei Ling behind her knees. With a thud she hit the floor, finding a manifested sword pressed to her throat.

“Yield,” she said, sighing.

“You two need to learn how to work together more effectively,” Master Wu said. “Especially since you will be fighting together for a very long time to come.”

He walked back to the center of the training ground, summoned his staff and sunk into a fighting position.

“Once more,” Master Wu said, beckoning to both of them. “Don’t make the same mistakes this time.”

***

“Yield,” Talen said for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning.

They’d yet to even touch Master Wu.

“Why can’t we use weapons?” Mei Ling complained, rubbing Dragon Balm into her right arm again.

“Because I don’t want you to hurt yourself with it, or worse yet, each other.” Master Wu crossed his arms. “If you fail to use a weapon correctly, your opponent will use it against you. I don’t need the extra advantage right now and I’d rather neither of you got injured.”

“When will we learn to manifest a weapon?” Talen asked, getting back to his feet quickly.

“Once you move out of the base rank into the transitional rank. Until then you don’t have the volume of Kai available to use,” Master Wu said. “Now, enough with the questions, let’s go.”

Master Wu signaled for them to attack and they both launched themselves at him.

On the far side of the courtyard a small servant boy attempted to brush away a puddle on the floor. For some reason, this was the third one he’d cleaned up this morning. Sighing, he brushed the water into the drains that surrounded the training grounds.