Watching Shen Ming Yue’s back finally depart from the servants’ quarters and grant a breath of peace to wash over the room, An Fei heaved a sigh of relief.
The young girl struggled to retain a seated position as she carefully observed the closed door, her senses strained to their limits.
“No one?”
An Fei murmured as she narrowed her eyes, the tips of her ears twitching as she fought to maintain concentration. Succumbing to the dizziness that threatened to overcome her consciousness after persisting for five minutes, the young girl released the pent-up breath held hostage in her lungs.
Next…
An Fei quickly pulled at the upper folds of the dress, exposing the white undershirt and the complex net of knots towards the left.
The young girl grit her teeth as her hands grasped the sheathed qama, shoving it through the opening in the folds of the area near her chest and into the prepared holster of string.
The hilt was to be angled towards her sleeve, to allow the blade to fall into her hand the moment she pulled the string.
An Fei had modified all of her dresses she had received from Shen Ming Yue to support the net of knots, much to the youthful girl’s confusion.
By unfurling the third knot, the support maintaining the qama suspended in the air diminished by a significant margin, allowing the blade to slip out of its sheath without trouble.
The young girl had designed it as such to allow gravity to perform much of the work, but her first attempt had resulted in the qama severing through the knots and almost exposing her skin…
“As long as I don’t perform any harsh movements while the blade’s falling, everything… should be fine?”
An Fei licked her lips whilst closing the folds of the dress, and slipping underneath the blankets to warm her exhausted body.
The young girl wondered regarding the whereabouts of the little raven and the small crow, as well as her leather bag – particularly, the pouch of coins and the twin butterfly swords.
Granted, she had retained enough mental clarity to put both Wei Xuan’s sachet as well as the Empress’ two pouches into the Sanctum whilst siphoning a small portion into a separate bag, but that small amount was equivalent to a large fortune in even Shen Haoren’s eyes…
Nothing happened to it, perhaps?
A light sigh brushed against the edge of the room as the young girl slipped into a light doze, oblivious to the befuddled comments of the servants employed at the Plum Blossom Inn.
The workers pointed towards the closed door as they quietly conversed amongst each other, a single question racing through their minds.
…just what was in that room, for the door to be closed and locked from the outside?
–
For the next week and a half, An Fei did not move much from the room grudgingly allotted to her by the frustrated Yang Clan.
The young girl remained in the bed for the better part of the day, only moving outside to utilize the bathroom or settle some external needs.
One reason was because the room was locked from the outside, and the other was due to her physique refusing to recover for an odd reason.
“Little Sister, your complexion is so pale,” Shen Ming Yue muttered as she dabbed at the young girl’s forehead with a wet cloth.
“Is your body alright?”
An Fei lowered her head into a light nod, her mind partially focused onto the cool and pleasing sensation of the cloth brushing against her skin.
The young girl ignored the curious aura emanating from Shen Ming Yue’s body, and returned her attention to the book placed upon her lap.
…it was none other than the manual the Sanctum had unknowingly sifted from her maidservant, Xiao Ying’s, collection.
The goldleaf tome was spread open on her lap, the characters displayed in neatly styled calligraphy that exuded a cautious, yet scholarly aura.
As An Fei’s eyes scanned the pages, she selectively ignored the portions of the text dedicated to the practice of spiritual cultivation, skipping directly towards that of the martial arts that accompanied that of the <Golden Lotus of Establishment>.
The <Golden Lotus of Establishment> possessed three supplementary martial arts techniques that were unique to the cultivation technique.
Named as the <Spiraling Clouds>, <Golden Splendor>, and <Torrential Plume>, the three techniques were described as those thoroughly capable of exhibiting the majority, if not all of the potential offered by the cultivation technique.
<Spiraling Clouds> constituted that of a defensive arrangement of the lotus petals, partitioning the swarm of petals into three secondary groups.
The general description of the technique was to force the petals within the secondary groups to revolve around each other at a rapid speed to generate a sufficient disturbance in the atmosphere to prohibit any incoming martial arts techniques from locking into her position.
The second and third, <Golden Splendor> and <Torrential Plume>, were merely offensive tactics that emphasized the movement and utilization of the petals to generate destructive phenomena.
<Torrential Plume> described how to utilize the petals to fly in a general direction as per the practitioner’s wishes, transforming into a lethal arrow given a sufficient quantity of spiritual essence. <Golden Splendor> was to accumulate an excessive quantity of spiritual essence in the lotus petals, before directing the excess to converge at a single point to produce a disturbance in the concentration of atmospheric spiritual qi.
Subsequently, the three martial arts techniques received three remarks of judgement from the young girl.
Useless, somewhat useless, absolute garbage!
The <Spiraling Clouds> did not need any remark necessary; the description of the technique itself implied a crippled versatility to the extent that it was nigh unusable.
As for the <Torrential Plume>… what was the point of forming a massive arrow with the lotus petals?
To perform a one-man-show against an armed militia?
“Granted, the idea is worth considering, but to be labeled as a martial arts technique…”
“Little Sister, dd you say something?”
Shen Ming Yue’s ears pricked at the young girl’s abrupt mutter, and couldn’t help but raise her head to ask. An Fei blinked as she shook her head, her eyes naturally drifting back to the pages.
The three martial arts techniques described in the cultivation manual were quite literally military tactics that embodied independent units – lotus petals – to perform combined tasks at a remote extent.
There was none of the awe-inspiring sequences of motions that the young girl had expected, prompting her mood to sink by a considerable margin.
The <Golden Splendor>’s purpose, from An Fei’s analysis, was a rudimentary shock and awe stratagem utilizing spiritual essence and an excess quantity of sources to expel the spiritual essence into the atmosphere.
To simulate an explosion of spiritual essence to disrupt the distribution of atmospheric spiritual essence in the surrounding region; such an act was equivalent to crippling the ability of all practitioners in emphatically utilizing their martial arts techniques beyond any physical enhancement.
From An Fei’s observations of Shen Haoren, Tang Yunhe, Wen Jiu, and Yang Jian, cultivators employed a specific pattern of behaviors as they utilized a martial arts technique.
A deep inhale of air, followed with a sustained exhale as they completed the subsequent motions and actions necessary to enact the phenomena witnessed by others.
This was not a physical intake of breath enacted by their lungs, but by either their pores or meridians.
The young girl’s sea of perception had hinted to her in her moments of thought that martial arts techniques were dependent on the concentration of spiritual qi in the atmosphere of the surrounding region.
Just as the lungs breathed in a combined mixture of gases and extracted the necessary elements to maintain bodily function, the pores and meridians of the practitioner absorbed the atmospheric spiritual qi into their body.
After which, the spiritual essence expelled from the practitioner inundated the atmosphere, intermingling with the spiritual qi already present to manifest miracles
Miracles that were external from the physique, as though they followed a specified communication…
Hence, only the <Golden Splendor> offered by the <Golden Lotus of Establishment> was appealing to the An Fei who convinced herself on her conjectures.
Disrupting the concentration of atmospheric spiritual qi in the region – if, her conjecture was accurate and valid – would force the practitioners to employ different tactics or forgo the usage of martial arts techniques capable of influencing their external surroundings; this, in turn, would divert much of the <Steps of Underlying Shadow>’s principal flaw – the inability to protect from damage incurred due to an incompatibility of the incoming spiritual essence.
Following the reversible devastation that the mortal world imposed on her body, the lingering spiritual essence of the Sanctum would be fatal to the mortal practitioners…
…but how was she to practice it?
She only had two petals, and the description of the technique seemed to require much, much more than just two measly lotus petals…
