"I am the Rain Hall Master of the Holy Sect, known as the junior rain-master. Tell me, how are your magic arts?"
Qin Mu stepped into the next chamber. Within sat a woman, her face painted with strange patterns, a feather headdress on her brow, and in her hand a bamboo staff of twenty-four segments, bound with the tail of some unknown beast. "In this chamber," she smiled, "we pit our magic arts against one another."
Qin Mu shook his head. "I do not know magic arts. Can a martial artist of the Spirit Womb realm learn them?"
"Why not?" the woman laughed. "Primordial qi is magic power. Has the Cult Master's Wife not taught you? From my Spirit Womb days I walked the rivers and lakes calling down rain for the folk, so they called me the shamaness. As my fame grew I came to be called the junior rain-master, and the Cult Master made me Hall Master of the Rain Hall. Still, I fall far short of the Cult Master's Wife — she was chosen the Holy Maiden, I was not."
"How does one fight with magic arts?" Qin Mu frowned.
The Rain Hall Master set her hand to her brow and sighed. "Is there nothing you know? Since ancient times the magic and battle-skill schools have warred, each deeming the other heretics to be put to death. Walk among supernatural practitioners claiming battle skills, and you'd be sliced into ribbons! The magic-arts tradition is stronger than you imagine!"
Qin Mu grew curious. "Does the art of driving the sword count as magic?"
"It does not." She shook her head. "Driving the sword belonged of old to the battle-skill tradition. Later the sword-driving practitioners fancied themselves the true path, and branded all who cultivated battle skills or magic arts as heretics — that is why the National Preceptor of Yancang called his great assembly and crippled the battle-skill tradition. Did the Cult Master's Wife teach you nothing of this?"
"Why must they ever be at war?" Qin Mu knit his brow. "Are they not all supernatural arts? Would it not be better to take the best of all three?"
"A man's strength is finite," she said. "One school alone drains a lifetime. Since all cultivate different things, rivalry is natural, and none will yield — so, of course, they fight to the death."
Qin Mu's spirits kindled. "Elder Sister, work your magic arts before me. I have never once seen them!"
She raised a hand, and mist welled through the chamber, then a gentle drizzle fell — the rain, striking the floor, creeping back up the walls. She swept her hand, and the threads of rain stood out like zither strings; she plucked, and a great music boomed, the rain coalescing into a water-flood-dragon that surged at Qin Mu! He seized it by the nape and crushed it to shards with a snap.
She started. Her hands flew as the rain turned to blades and spears, swords and halberds, streaking from every side while the air froze — the weapons of ice gaining ever greater might. Qin Mu's fingers danced, shattering them all. "So this is magic arts," he said. "Would you count this move of mine a magic art too?"
Suddenly both his hands blazed with fierce flame. Hands as knives, he swept a pair of cutting strokes, and the Rain Hall Master was sent flying into the courtyard. Her voice rose, startled and furious: "You heretic of the battle-skill tradition, passing battle skills off as magic arts..."
Qin Mu walked on. In the next chamber knelt a great brute of a man, rough and stubbled, and beside him a long rectangular sword case sealed with bronze clasps.
"I am the Sword Hall Master." He did not rise. "You carry a sword satchel, so you must know something of swordplay. Today we match our sword arts."
"I have never studied swordplay," Qin Mu said.
The Sword Hall Master looked up, startled. "A sword satchel, yet no swordplay? Has the Cult Master's Wife taught you nothing?"
"She says a man in our village possesses the greatest sword art under heaven," Qin Mu said, "and so she cannot pass on her own, lest that man refuse to teach his."
"The greatest sword art under heaven?" His tiger-eyes bulged, his gaze sword-light boring into Qin Mu's heart. "Who dares blow such a trumpet? Learn a single move of his art, and I shall see how far this so-called greatest sword outmatches my Holy Sect!"
Qin Mu blinked. "I have studied other things too — the Eight Thunder Moves, the Heaven-Stealing Legs, the butcher-knife art, and spear-play, painting, hammer-work..."
"I want only to see this greatest sword art under heaven you boast of! The rest is all dog shit!"
Qin Mu had no choice but to return to the Village of Broken Elders, where he set the affair before Grandma Si.
Grandma Si flew into a rage. "That stiff-necked Sword Hall, all rules and no sense! And you, Mu'er — you should have split him and hacked him to bits!"
"It would not be an honorable victory," he stammered.
She clasped his hand and led him to the village entrance, where the Village Chief and the Herbalist were brewing tea opposite the boy Ancestor. "Village Chief, the Sword Hall Master insists on matching sword arts with Mu'er. Will you not pass along a move or two?"
The Village Chief frowned. "In so short a time, even under my tutoring, it would be hard to best him. He has steeped himself in swordplay for I know not how many years."
"Still, Mu'er is the Supreme Body, is he not?" Grandma Si blinked.
"The Supreme Body..." The corner of the Village Chief's eye twitched. Qin Mu was the Supreme Body he and he alone had sworn to with his mouth. That the boy's spirit womb had awakened went beyond all imagining; to have his swordplay stand against the finest sword master of the Heavenly Demon Cult was asking rather much indeed. Yet Grandma Si had tucked this task into his hands, and refuse it he could not.
He pondered a while. "Mu'er, tell me the Cinnabar Heart Art you learned from Gu Linuan." Qin Mu recited it straightaway. The Village Chief nodded: "The Yancang National Preceptor gathered the world's sword masters and shook out something worth having. The Cinnabar Heart Art's sword control holds a secret merit all its own." The boy Ancestor added: "He is a singular genius."
"Tell me how he expounded the art for you." Qin Mu repeated it. The Village Chief mused, then laughed: "Gu Linuan hoarded a piece of it." He pointed out the errors; Qin Mu tried the corrections at once, driving the sword with his qi, and found it far easier to command, faster besides.
The boy Ancestor's eyes brightened. "Gu Linuan hoarded nothing. His understanding is limited, far short of old Dao's. You plumb every subtlety hearing it once, while he errs at it all his life."
The Village Chief looked at Qin Mu, unhurried. "I will not teach you swordplay — only the simplest of moves: the Thrust."
"The Thrust?" Qin Mu blinked. Was that not simple — drive the sword forward with qi, nothing more?
"To thrust is not as simple as you imagine. You know no swordplay, yet learn this single move, and among all the sword masters of the Spirit Womb realm, only a few could best you. Take an ordinary sword, and try piercing the pillar of the butcher's shop."
Qin Mu roused the Cinnabar Heart Art. A coil of qi thick as an arm wound up a fine sword and hurled it at the pillar. Thud — in a single strike the sword pierced clean through. The cow-herding boy turned back to the Village Chief, whose face had gone stiff. He coughed. "Try piercing this piece of rock."
Qin Mu swept his qi, drew the sword free, and with another ring pierced the mountain stone. Once more the boy turned back, innocent and wide-eyed. The boy Ancestor, caught between astonishment and amusement, could only hold in his laughter.
"I had forgotten — this boy's qi is immeasurably deep. His swordplay is wretched, but his qi doubles his power," the Village Chief thought. Embarrassed, he coughed again. "Then try piercing your butcher knife."
A crisp ring — and this time Qin Mu failed to pierce it.
"At least he did not pierce that, or I would have no way left to teach him..." The Village Chief breathed an inner sigh of relief. "When you drove out that thrust, what did you feel?"
Qin Mu thought long, and his eyes lit up. "I feel my qi is not yet strong enough. The instant the point meets resistance, my qi can scarcely press on, as if I had all my strength and yet struck with a strand of hair. The qi-thread is too soft — it cannot bear all my power."