Laughter filled a small room on the second floor of the Reclusive Mountain Sword Sect’s guest residence wing. Inside Sat Fan Zhong and Xing Zheng alongside Fan Yong as they exchanged words while sharing warm wine. The room was sparsely decorated with only a single shelf lining one wall above a plain bed.

In the corners by the doorway that led out of the room were two torch stands that danced with flames while several talismans were attached to their stands to help keep out rain and balance the temperature within. The two youths were listening with focus as the old swordsman told of the battle that he had fought.

“It was then that a single drop of blood took the form of an old man who gave off a terrifying presence! I immediately used the talisman that my master had given me for life-saving events like that, if it was used only a second later then I fear all would’ve been lost!” Xing Zheng’s tone conveyed excitement and action as he embellished his telling of the tale.

He was enjoying the fanfare and it seemed to be doing him good. Inwardly the feeling of loneliness that had followed him for the month-long walk back to the valley was covered as if a warm blanket were smothering it. Simply seeing and talking to the young fan clan scions sent him back to a simpler time, one where he could sit and regale the younger generation.

Often he would do this when there was nothing to do within the sect, giving out tidbits of wisdom or fascinating new arrivals with cultivation tips. Although Xing Zheng enjoyed his privacy and seclusion he was still human after all. Thinking of that his mind turned to how injured he still was and estimating the recovery time.

It seemed that he would be doing a lot of ‘living’ his life as even his best estimate put a full recovery in around 20-30 years. As he worked to wrack his brain for some way to recover faster a voice seemed to lull him from his thoughts.

“Teacher! Are you even listening?” Fan Zhong sounded impatient and his words slurred slightly as he spoke.

“Hmph, as if I could stop hearing you, perhaps even the heavens heard your blustering.” Xing Zheng replied with a wry smile on his face as he focused his attention on the young man.

“Oh? Well, what do you think then?” Fan Zhong’s tone was haughty and carried a tone of challenge as he raised his nose into the air indignantly.

“That's…” Xing Zheng internally winced as he realized that with his weakened divine sense he truly had missed whatever the youth had been saying. “Oh fine, I wasn’t paying attention, look at you being an unfilial disciple. Can’t you see that your teacher is severely injured? And here you are abusing me in my weakened state!”

Slight amounts of red tinged his face and he could feel that the alcohol was affecting him more than normal. Harsh mental blockades threatened to clamp down on his emotions, allowing him to raise himself to peak combat effectiveness at any time. However, he simply let his thoughts stay at ease while enjoying the back and forth. It felt good to simply act his role, seniors were allowed to be grumpy after all.

Sweat beaded down Fan Yong’s brow as he carefully controlled the image of the runes in his mind. Below him was a cauldron that bubbled with a thick brown liquid that gave off a heavenly smell. A small flame that burned with incredible heat sat under all of this as an array of five glowing runes lined the stone floor in a pentagonal shape around the base of the cauldron. Inside were a total of 16 ingredients selected for their various complimenting effects and synergistic Qi combinations all to make the final product.

This brewing had taken more than a week to set up and plan out along with the last three hours to get to this point. Currently, he was sitting within one of the pavilions that lined the other side of the road across from the training arenas on the second step of the sect. Both Xing Zheng and Fan Zhong sat in lotus position at the entrance to the structure making sure that he wasn’t disturbed and providing aid if he needed it.

It had been a month since the old swordsman got back and after speaking with him for some time Fan Yong had wanted to refine a Spirit Cooking broth to let the old swordsman's injuries heal faster. After long hours of discussion and finding what was available the immortal agreed but only if he paid for it and Fan Yong understood that this was a training method for his refining and that helping Xing Zheng was only a secondary matter.

All that said and done they had gathered here to begin the refining that morning and everything had gone smoothly. Firstly he had inserted the old beast bone of a 100-year-old water serpent. This had been chosen since Xing Zheng was, at his core, a water cultivator and so the base of the broth should match his elemental cultivation.

Next came three ingredients that would form a chain of strengthening for the refining. These were essentially like the essence dust that Fan Zhong had used to refine his treasure whereas other elements were used to give a boost to the ones they enhanced. This process had been done over three days and each one had its own set of three ingredients that formed its one chain of strengthening.

After that, they were refined into each other to form a concentrated paste that resembled gritty mustard in consistency and glowed a golden color. Adding this had been relatively simple however, it had almost destroyed the entire thing as the raw energy contained in that paste had the maximum than Fan Yong could handle. A solid two hours of refining alone had gone into keeping the runes for the flame array stable in his mind while containing the rampant Qi until it dissipated into the broth.

Not only that the temperature of the flame contributed to how rampant the energy was. A hotter flame meant the process would go faster and less medicinal efficacy would be lost while requiring greater mental strength to contain. Lower flames took longer and would result in worse results while being a safer process as one didn’t risk ruining the entire refining process by causing an explosion.

After that was finally put under control the last hour had been used to slowly add the last three ingredients. Each of these carried ethereal Qi combinations that would actually trigger the intended effect of the broth. Before this, it was only a large highly concentrated portion of Qi that might serve as an overly complicated and purified version of a spirit stone.

These ‘active’ components as they were known in Spirit Cooking possessed little energy but the unique effects they had upon ingesting them were why they held value. The first one was the meat of a beast that lived deep in the earth and was only rarely found inside deep caves. These were ‘refining devourers’ which appeared like giant glowing worm-like creatures.

Each one glowed with a color corresponding to one of the six elemental pillar Qi types and would spend their days tunneling through stone and material deep in the earth. After they ate their fill these worms would go into a dormant state where they found the energy type they were attracted to and pushed out all other elements in their food. What resulted were incredibly pure stones of elemental Qi forming that dwarfed the energy density of spirit stones.

Unfortunately, the refining devourer would normally be far away from civilization at this point, and harvesting these stones was incredibly rare, far more than just finding the creatures when they periodically surfaced. For alchemy thought, their flesh would have a similar result to their refining when introduced to a dominant element in a concoction. Thus this meat would allow the broth to purge anything but Water Qi from Xing Zheng’s system allowing him to push out impurities.

Although there was more than Water Qi to the old swordsman's energy cultivators at his level had extreme control over their bodies so holding onto the secondary types that he needed shouldn’t be overtly hard given he was in a calm place to ingest the broth. Slowly the small cubes of meat had softened and dissipated entirely under the flame while Fan Yong tensely watched. That had been disappointing at first but he understood that there wasn’t anything to do about it, keeping the meat as something to eat in the food was a mostly cosmetic and texture addition that his level of skill didn’t allow for.

The next two ingredients were far less interesting with a high earth-grade quality mountain spring flower to give extra clarity and clear-headedness during cycling and a 100-year-old ginseng to promote healing of the energy pathways. All of this led to the current situation where Fan Yong needed to carefully control the flames as the final refinement took place. With his appraisal technique, he was constantly checking the flow and composition of the energies within the cauldron while also making sure to keep the runes stable in his mind.

This was the critical moment and it was going well, right up until the refining devourer's unique effect began merging with the Water Qi. As this happened it attempted to take all the remaining energy and violently shove it out of the cauldron causing the entire mixture to boil and froth. Fan Yong lost control of two of the five flame array runes, which turned out to be a blessing. With the less intense flame, some of the potency of the broth was lost but this gave him a reprieve to recover mentally, allowing his will to surge back with a vengeance.

After this, another hour passed with no more mishaps, and finally, the broth was done. As he wiped the sweat from his brow a hand clamped on his shoulder as a blur appeared to his left before Xing Zheng appeared on the opposite side of the refining array.

“Well, it might be lethal but it smells good! How is it, teacher? Is Brother Yong’s cooking on the level of a mortal’s posion or a threat to even vaunted immortals?” Fan Zhong laughed as he stood beside his friend, arm slung over his shoulder.

For his part Fan Yong rolled his eyes and gave the other man a playful shove before looking up at the old swordsman.

“Very good, although I think it's too much for just me alone, Junior Yong. It's a good thing we invited some friends. Worry not as the cleansing effects will do mostly good for those of you who have yet to cycle Qi, your path in the master realms will be slightly easier although perhaps we should prepare baths as well…” Xing Zheng seemed to be in high spirits as he made a seal to deactivate the privacy formation surrounding the pavilion.

Slowly the noises of the outside world came back and the clamor of disciples training in the nearby grounds washed over them. More obvious to note was the small crowd of disciples that were standing at the entrance to the pavilion. Among that crowd were several that Fan Yong had become acquaintances with as well as Hu Wu, the master of the Spirit Cooking lecture.

Nervousness entered his mind as he moved the cauldron, with the aid of Fan Zhong, to the entrance and served some of the broth using bowls that Xing Zheng seemed to conveniently pull out of thin air. Honestly, it baffled him how many things that man seemed to contain in his ‘storage bag’, how many things could one man prepare for! Shaking his head, Fan Yong knew that he was simply distracted with idle thought.

With resolve, he looked to Master Hu Wu and waited for the man to taste his work. The old man gave off an ancient air as he took the time to take in the fragrance of the broth. For his part, the master looked every part of Fan Yong’s idea of a sect lecturer with his traditional martial robes and long beard thin beard that dipped to his chest.

In all the only thing that didn’t fit was his short-cut white hair and piercing orange eyes, somewhat of a rarity around the valley.

“Hmmm…” Hu Wu hummed lightly as he finished taking a sip from the bowl “Very good disciple Fan Yong, some of the medicinal effect was lost but overall a good meal. However, a suggestion for the next time.”

“Yes, Master Hu Wu?” Fan Yong straightened and focused, intending to commit the criticism to memory.

“Perhaps, a bit more salt next time. Spirit Cooking is, after all, cooking instead of alchemy.” Hu Wu intoned with a calm smile crossing his aged face.

Fan Yong was dumbfounded as the laughter of Fan Zhong echoed out behind him. Soon everyone was enjoying the broth along with some prepared mundane food and wine. In all, another successful day lived to the fullest.

Pain lanced across Fan Zhong’s shoulder as the tip of a training sword pressed a shallow wound into his skin. The blade had pushed along the haft of his stone staff as his opponent caught the correct balance point in their bind, allowing them to seize the advantage and simply lunge forward from the locked position. As he fell back and went to his knees, a middle-aged man with a sword loomed over him.

He stood just a head shorter than Fan Zhong at full height and was of medium build. Traditional gray sect robes adorned his body and a light traditional sword was in his hand. Brown hair fluttered to just above his shoulders as murky black eyes stared down at Fan Zhong. This was Shen Shuren, another one of the core First-grade disciples of the Reclusive Mountain Sword Sect.

Quickly Fan Zhong rose to his feet and gave a martial salute to him.

“Brother Shuren, thank you for the guidance.” Fan Zhong intoned with the cadence of a soldier reporting to a superior officer.

“Of course, Brother Zhong. We’ve been sparring for a while now and my gains have not been little. It's inspiring seeing someone who doesn’t traditionally practice swordplay still attempting to take lessons from our sect's style.” Shen Shuren returned the salute with a casual tone, his voice light and jovial.

It was true that they had been sparring on and off for many months now. At the moment it had been three months since Xing Zheng had returned from his trip to the center of the northern plains. During this time the group had stayed within the sect and ingrained themselves with the cultures and techniques within.

Fan Zhong had found himself fascinated by the bind position of swordplay. Normally in the Fan clan style engagements were meant to be swift where shifting palms knocked the opponent off balance, while origin palms looked to deliver lasting damage. Receiving techniques were used to take a risk to finish off an opponent with deadly counters instead of being an overtly defensive technique in nature.

In all of this, weapon contact was something that happened briefly and was rapidly disengaged from either to approach from a different angle or gain distance. The bind in swordplay instead chose to fight for control with the opponent, looking to leverage your weapon's center of gravity against the tip of their blade to gain an advantage. In this way, high-level swordsmen often had engagements of many seconds where their blades remained in contact as they pushed forward or retreated to win this advantage.

Once one gained the upper hand they could simply press the opponent's blade aside while stepping forward, essentially walking their sword into an opponent. Mortal and low-level marital artists found this hard as following the movements of an enemy so closely was past their mental processing speed. However, with mental energy, as one grew higher in realm this became far less of an issue.

Considering all of this Fan Zhong had been trying to incorporate more binding techniques into his own martial arts, finding it fitting well with his newly formed association with struggle and the martial path. At first, it had been tough as his staff lacked a crossguard, one of the most important factors of binding in swordplay. Simply put, if one's hands were in danger of being cut then engaging in weapon contact for prolonged periods was not a great idea.

Not to be deterred however he had pushed on and it was coming along well. The natural treasure hand wraps he wore had done a great deal to help with the lack of a guard on a staff and after a bit of work, he had managed to get used to gripping his weapon lower when engaged with an enemy's weapon. Combine this with more practice shifting his hands and much of the worry of hand injuries had been alleviated.

Now the issue was simple, Fan Zhong was simply years away from being good at weapon binding. It looked so simple from the outside but after sparring with the sect disciples it became clear the minute movements and feints could leave your opponent disengaged just slightly giving them the chance to run you through with a sword. The arenas had array formations that emitted repulsing force to disperse attacks that hit too deeply; however, he had been on the receiving end of many painful stabs that hurt no less from their dulled lethality.

After the last few months, it was looking better and Fan Zhong could use his foundation of martial arts combined with the forming addition of engaging in the bind to defeat most of the disciples. However, the elite disciples remained out of reach and that is where Shen Shuren came in. Every time they clashed it was like he was fighting a ghost and an immovable wall at the same time.

His sword seemed to press down at just the right angle whenever he wanted to attack and simply disperse when Fan Zhong thought he was caught in a trap. Their martial arts realm was rather similar as the man had only been in the First-grade realm two more years than him. What mattered was the skill disparity and that is what left him in the current predicament.

“If it's not too much trouble, Brother Shuren, care to go again?” Fan Zhong asked in a respectful tone, his focus on analyzing how to improve during this next bout.

“We have plenty of time left, as long as you feel up to it we may continue Brother Zhong.” Shen Shuren said in a calm tone as he walked back a few steps within the training arena to take his position.

Soon both of them were standing five meters apart and had settled into their fighting stances. Cool air washed over the dirt training arena as the sounds of the early morning echoed against the mountain in the distance. Overhead the sun shone with radiance as the few disciples that walked on the road nearby chatted amiably among themselves.

Inside some of the pavilions on the other side of the road, some of the disciples sat and discussed theory or recent lectures they had taken. Still, other members of the sect went about their daily tasks, sweeping walkways or preparing morning meals. To Fan Zhong that world narrowed to the fenced-in dirt arena as he took a calm breath.

A cadence that sounded the drums of war beat in his mind as he took a single step forward. That step marshaled the sounds of a melody, one that complimented the drums and told of the conflict and struggle that happened on a battlefield. His second step fell and his momentum surged as the tempo of the noise picked up.

The world seemed to tinge red however, it was controlled, caged even. Inside his mind, that rage was focused on his weapon, on his opponent. In a blur, he built speed as the discordant ensemble played in his mind, a tone that clashed with the seeming beauty of the picturesque sect. It was the clashing of ideals, the war of what martial artists aspired to be, and what the reality of their battles looked like.

Air shook as an origin-piercing palm from Fan Zhong was met with a rising slash on the outside of his guard from his opponent. Quickly that slash turned into a circular movement as Shen Shuren moved his sword so that it was above his staff and at the tip as he pressed down. The blade was like a silver snake as his staff was pressed downward as the tip raced forward toward Fan Zhong’s chest.

Using some of his saved momentum he twisted to deliver a shifting palm strike with his right hand. Instead of retreating, he stayed inside his opponent's guard, keeping his staff in contact with the blade as he pulled it back slightly to press the center of his weapon upon the tip of the sword. As soon as Shen Shuren's guard was pushed open his left hand surged with his remaining momentum as Fan Zhong delivered a ‘mortal origin palm’ from the side.

The visage of a descending mountain enveloped his mind and the staff strike hit so hard that the air let out an audible booming noise. Runes lit up around the arena as repulsive force cushioned the strike enough to save the other man from having serious internal injuries. Even still the blow was so powerful that Shen Shuren was thrown across the arena and slammed into the enclosure fence.

For just a moment Fan Zhong stood with a grim expression on his face as his mind began formulating how to finish the man off. After a brief shake of his head, he dispelled the rising song of war and calmly walked over to see if his sparring partner was ok.

“Are you ok, Brother Shuren? Apologies, we’ve been sparing for months now however, this is the first time I’ve managed to get past your guard. It seems I don’t know my own strength.” Fan Zhong bent down to offer the man a hand as he cradled his side with one arm while using the other to push himself up.

Once he was on his feet Shen Shuren simply chuckled and shook his head before looking at Fan Zhong.

“It seems I’ll need to be more careful around you Brother Zhong. As for this?” He pointed to his still cradled side. “I’ve had worse training injuries, give me a few moments and it should be good.”

With a nod Fan Zhong went over to the gate to the enclosure fence to grab some pain-killing pills for the other man, it was the least he could do. As he did so a small smile played on his face as he thought of the upcoming tournament.

Chatter filled the second step of the sect Fan Zhong looked down on the greatest crowd he had seen since Xing Zheng and the Sect Master’s duel had occurred. All the space around and in between the training arenas had been filled out and the outer ones had been taken down to make way for three tiers of stands for spectators. Currently, he and Fan Yong were sitting in the second row of stands overlooking the main of the prepared arenas.

There were five of them with one large main arena and four smaller side ones. The stands lined either side of each with the farther row having their backs to the cliff edge of this level of the sect. This was the event that he had been waiting for, a year of training and earnest study and now it was time to test his gains.

As he looked out over the multitudes of disciples and visiting martial artists Fan Zhong couldn’t help but feel giddy with a growing sense of anticipation.