"Eight Pole Collapse!"
The cold cry rang out abruptly in the small grove at the summit of the mountain. A nimble shadow leapt and darted deftly through the forest, and the dense thorns that crowded between the trees offered it no obstacle whatsoever. The next instant, the shadow came to a halt in front of a tree as thick as half a foot broad, planted its feet apart, twisted its body sideways, and slammed its elbow violently against the trunk.
Thump! A dull sound burst forth, wood chips flying in all directions, and spiderweb cracks spread and crept outward from the point of the elbow strike.
Creak... The tree, hollowed out by the single blow into a great gash, let out a groaning sway and, an instant later, toppled helplessly to the ground. Just as it fell, the shadow — as agile as a swift-darting monkey — retreated a step ahead of time and landed lightly upon a great block of green stone.
Looking at the fruits of his labor, a gratified smile spread across Xiao Yan's clear-featured young face. For three months, this was the first time he had successfully executed the Eight Pole Collapse, a Dou Technique of the high grade of the Xuan rank; and this Eight Pole Collapse, said to be the match of an Earth-rank technique, had indeed not disappointed his expectations. With only the sixth rank of Dou Qi, the destructiveness it unleashed was enough to match the power of the eighth rank!
The farther one advanced through the initial stages of Dou Qi, the slower the progress toward each ascension. Since the last time he had bought his full stock of medicines, Xiao Yan had shut himself away for three months of bitter cultivation, and it was only in the final days of the third month that, by luck, he had leapt at last from the fifth rank to the sixth. Three months to raise himself a single rank, though that seemed slower than the two months before it, filled Xiao Yan with a deep contentment. In the days of his youth as a genius, he had needed the better part of a year to climb from the fifth rank to the sixth; at this rate, his progress was already a terrifying thing.
Having loosed a single Eight Pole Collapse, Xiao Yan's whole body felt as though it had been wrung dry like a sponge. A numb, aching pain gnawed relentlessly at his nerves, and the veins of his arms twitched faintly like the pulsing of cramps — the surest sign of strain pushed past its limit. Licking his lips, he turned his head with difficulty and stared at his right elbow. There, the skin was already a bright, angry red.
"Tsk..." Sucking in a sharp breath through a grimace, Xiao Yan muttered with a rueful smile, "No wonder the beatings had to be so brutal. Had it not been for all that training, this single strike would have snapped my own arm instead of the tree. This Eight Pole Collapse — in the end, it comes down to whose body is the harder."
Lying sprawled, utterly spent, upon the cold stone, Xiao Yan let his rushed breathing ease little by little back to calm. Yet the numbness running through his limbs had left him unwilling to move even a single finger. With the power of the sixth rank he currently held, he could at most loose a single Eight Pole Collapse, and once he had spent it he would be wholly drained, unable to lift a hand until his strength returned.
He tilted his head back, eyes half-closed, and idly watched the clouds drifting across the clear blue sky. A light breeze swept past, lifting a strand of black hair and whipping it against his forehead. Deep within his body, the Foundation Liquid he had absorbed over so many months now seeped out from every corner of his frame, unbidden and unnoticed, mending his weary muscles and cells so that they might return their strength to their master at the fastest possible speed.
"Master, how much longer before I can break into the seventh rank?" Xiao Yan asked in a low voice, eyes still gently shut. For once he had reached the seventh rank, he would at last possess the right to enter the Dou Qi Pavilion and search for a cultivation method. Though he looked down upon the methods of the Xiao family these days, he nonetheless had to earn that qualification himself — it bore directly upon his father's dignity.
A gust of wind stirred, and Yao Lao's translucent form appeared beside the great stone. Even in spectral form, the old man carried himself with an air of unhurried dignity, his dim shape barely more than a veil of mist beneath the pine shade. Watching the youth with eyes full of laughter, he first surveyed the broken tree upon the ground, nodded slightly, pondered a moment, and smiled: "Your pace of cultivation has exceeded even my expectations. I had thought that, even with the help of the Liquid, it would take you a full year to reach the seventh rank... Perhaps your bitterness was bottled up for too long, and now the rebound drives you all the more fiercely. By this progress, you will certainly break into the seventh rank within two months."
At these words, a faint arc of a smile lifted the corner of Xiao Yan's lips. He very much wished to know what expression would appear on the faces of those clansmen who, over the past three years, had mocked and scorned him in a hundred ways, when at last they witnessed the strength he truly wielded. Had not the words he spoke to Nalan Yanran that day in the great hall been meant for them as well?
"I, Xiao Yan, worked a miracle three years ago; three years from now, I shall still do so!" His gaze flickered, and he remembered that lone silhouette standing in the great hall half a year ago, beneath the myriad gazes of ridicule and contempt — stubborn, unyielding, alone.
"Nalan Yanran, I am climbing toward you, step by step. Wait in peace — three years from now, we will meet again at the Yun Lan Sect!" A tide of defiance suddenly surged to his lips, and the youth leapt to his feet, threw back his head, and roared toward the boundless sky.
Watching the shouting youth, Yao Lao smiled gently and did not try to stop him. Men needed pressure before they could mature. Now that Xiao Yan's talent was settled, what he needed was the spur of a pressing urgency. The appearance of Nalan Yanran had built him the finest spur of all.
"Use her as your whetstone. The road of the strong still lies long before you!"
"Let's go. Home, and on with the cultivation!" After bellowing a few shouts, joy deepened the smile on Xiao Yan's young face. He leapt down from the stone, waved a hand at Yao Lao, and, laughing, dashed toward the foot of the mountain. Behind him, the old man watched that nimble figure grow small against the slope, and a faint, knowing nod of approval followed him all the way down. The seedling was no longer a seedling — hunger for strength had taken root in its bones, and once such hunger takes hold, no power on this Dou Qi continent can stop it from rising.