Both Jun Li and Hua Shu traded blows in the middle of the square below the nameless pagoda, neither one paying any mind to the scraps of flesh they strode over as they continued their sparring match of ambiguous hostility.

  Hua Shu seemed to be in a good mood as he crossed swords with Jun Li and had become quite receptive to her questioning. "My Authority… It may not surprise you to hear it relates to flowers. Though its exact nature is more particular, as Authorities tend to be."

  As Hua Shu spoke, his sword swept through the air in exaggerated movements, petals of Qi shearing off the surface with each twist and slice of the blade. "And I see your Authority too…" He struck out, allowing Jun Li to parry an openly telegraphed attack, her warped blade colliding with his, and sending chaos through the petals that filled the air.

  The intensity of the impact caused an invisible wave of energy to flow off of Jun Li's blade, sending the lingering intent within her half-melted blade into the petals, causing them to clump together and fuse, before quickly falling to the ground, robbed of the ephemeral nature they possessed when individual.

  "...I thought it was fusion, or merging in some way, but I see it's how you created that sword… Some sort of 'Melting' Authority?" With an experienced eye, Hua Shu quickly identified the nature of Jun Li's Authority, a skill he intentionally refined over the few life and death battles he experienced with those who bore Authorities of their own.

  "That's correct… You said Authorities tend to be pretty specific?" Jun Li questioned further, extracting information with her words, while procuring experience with the Drifting Ghost Blade, refining herself on two fronts. "More specific than 'Flowers' or 'Melting?'"

  "In a way." As Hua Shu spoke, Jun Li executed both Movement Techniques and Martial Techniques simultaneously, cutting in wide, sharp arcs that were next to impossible to evade without proactive movement or head-on deflection. "Say two people have Authority over 'Fire.' Even if it's 'Fire,' there's no chance they'd have the exact same notions regarding the most important and central properties of 'Fire.'"

  "So, one of them might have an Authority that emphasises 'heat' in a way that burns or warms, and the other might have an Authority that emphasises 'consumption and growth.'" With one short, powerful motion, Hua Shu rotated his sword and struck to deflect Jun Li's blade, before repeating the motion once more, flooding Jun Li's field of view with flower petals.

  Slicing through the wave of petals, Jun Li was met with open air and a sudden absence of a sparring partner. Leaping back from the clearing petals, she carefully looked around, convinced Hua Shu wouldn't leave while the sparring match was still intensifying. "Then, what does that make yours? Something about 'Flowers' sounds about right, but all I've seen from you are petals."

  "Perhaps your Authority relates to… withering and shedding, perhaps?" Jun Li spoke while staying on guard, looking to the neighboring buildings for any sign of Hua Shu attempting to flank her.

  As she did, the flowing petals of Qi around the square began to settle and fall to the ground, most dissolving rapidly. From a nearby flower carpet, an errant breeze lifted the lingering petals into a loose, transparent mass that drifted in Jun Li's direction.

  It was so small and drifted so weightlessly that it drew no attention from Jun Li. Yet from between those petals, the glint of a sword shot out towards Jun Li, striking deeply into her gut even before Hua Shu's full body could emerge into view, landing back onto the overgrown stone of the square. "...It leans more towards the aspect of 'fruiting,' actually."

  Looking down at Hua Shu, Jun Li clenched her teeth, enduring the pain with little difficulty as she focused on countering. Before Hua Shu even finished his sentence, Jun Li had hardened her blood, solidified the subdermal silver she found in the Earth Dragon's Grave, and spread a layer of ice over the skin around the wound.

  "You've got some tricks…!" Too close to use the Drifting Ghost Blade, Jun Li struck out with her bare hand, a punch tearing through the air and causing the wind to howl. Hua Shu leaned back with the intent to pull his sword free while he retreated, but the sword was entirely stuck, and the stubborn grip on his sword, trained over many years, kept him in the path of Jun Li's strike.

  With a loud crack, Jun Li's fist impacted Hua Shu's head, the force causing the solid bindings Jun Li put around his blade to crack and loosen. Only then did his sword slip free from Jun Li's abdomen, allowing him to slump back to the ground.

  "Ugh…" After lying still for a moment, Hua Shu kicked the floor and slid back before rolling to his feet, looking towards Jun Li with a somewhat disappointed face. "It's like I said, you're not much of a swordsman, that much was clear when I first saw you…"

  Jun Li looked back, holding a hand over the hole in her gut, and feeling that easily she had stopped the bleeding. "Oh yeah? Just because the first good strike I landed was a punch, you're discrediting my swordsmanship?"

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  "Hah!" Hua Shu scoffed at her words. "Swordsmanship does not a swordsman make…"

  He paused for a moment, feeling frustration creep up on him. Letting out a sigh, he continued. "You're more skilled than most Cultivators with a sword, but you merely use it as an implement, a tool, a weapon like any other."

  "For me, it's so much different." He held his sword aloft, and Jun Li noticed that it was unblemished, even after passing through her gut. "The sword is my nature, my nurture, my past, and future… And as long as I abide perfectly by its nature, my path is secured eternally…!"

  He spoke of the sword with great passion, and Jun Li felt for a moment like such figures did indeed appear in her memories, those obsessed with the sword, even in that far-off world of Daoist Cultivation.

  "It was obvious, when I saw you standing with no sword on your body, that you were not a true swordsman… To carry your sword eternally on your body, both as training and a display of your convictions… that is nothing less than the basest of requirements for one on the path of the sword."

  "But!" He spoke louder, unable to calm himself despite his attempt. "Do not assume I mean disrespect towards you in saying this. There are many paths to follow for those like us, real Cultivators, Cultivators with futures… When you find your path, it will be no less valid than that of the sword."

  "I… see." Jun Li quietly replied, taking in the valuable information scattered about within Hua Shu's monologue, all the while attempting to assess the damage done to her internals by his previous strike.

  "Your sword has been worth something! I thank you for humoring my request!" Hua Shu changed his grip on his sheath and threw it far above, high into the air. "But spar or no, this is a swordfight, do not assume you'll leave with such minor injuries! Don't worry, if your potential is so fragile that you die from this, then you never had potential to begin with!"

  With that sudden, threatening remark, Hua Shu grasped his sword with both hands, swiping it through the air once and producing an ear-splitting sound, simultaneously projecting an intense Killing Intent, one that left no doubt in Jun Li's mind that if she failed to defend herself properly, his next assault wouldn't stop with just one or two fatal wounds, she would end up in the same state as the mutilated flesh puppets that littered the square.

  Hua Shu shot forward, twisting his sword to produce a tornado of flower petals that obscured Jun Li's peripheral vision. The time between his remark and attack was so short that Little Yun had no chance to intervene, unable to even leave the house on the sidelines before he had reached Jun Li.

  Upon reaching striking distance, Hua Shu's ensuing attack did not last even four seconds.

  Swinging his sword in the pattern of an upturned crescent, Hua Shu's sword struck Jun Li's guarding blade, sliding off and releasing a thick blanket of petals over the ground.

  From there, he took a half-step back, swiping down at Jun Li's left eye with bizarrely particular intent. Observing the flow of petals that followed his blade, she was easily able to shift enough to turn it into a graze that left a thin line down her cheek and shoulder.

  From the low angle it had naturally reached, Hua Shu's blade turned up once again, thrusting up towards Jun Li's throat in an eruption of petals, the sudden halting of the blade's momentum at its lowest point proving just enough for Jun Li to pull her blade into place, and shove the rising sword outward before it could pierce her.

  In this moment, Jun Li's field of vision was obscured entirely by the colorful petals released by Hua Shu's sword, but over their fight, she had become used to observing how his movements caused the petals to shift and swirl, making it possible to intuit his location without seeing or hearing him directly.

  As she thought that, a sharp line of pain ran down her face, from the front of her scalp to the tip of her jaw.

  "Bouquet Sword Art - Thorns Without Flowers…" As Hua Shu sheathed his sword, the petals scattered around Jun Li dispersed like smoke, leaving her vision clear. As she slumped down, suddenly losing full control of her limbs, she saw blood flow down from between her eyes, splitting her field of vision in two.

  Though her mobility was impaired by the sudden damage to her frontal lobe, Jun Li could hear the sound of Little Yun hissing and felt the rush of air as the snake came to her side, moving between her and Hua Shu.

  Stepping back, Hua Shu spoke calmly. "I suppose you weren't expecting that, a movement that caused no motion from within the cloud of petals, a swing of my sword that shed no petals itself…"

  He chuckled. "Oh well, you'll live, I think. And… next time you won't think to understand someone else's Authority after only a few minutes of fighting."

  Unable to raise her head, Jun Li could only listen as Hua Shu walked away. There, in the dirt, she silently gathered her unfocused mind and attempted to call upon her blood to keep her wounds together until they could heal.

  Little Yun, even without any direct confirmation from Jun Li that she would recover, believed in that as if an inevitability, and watched with alertness as Hua Shu left, and the square became silent.

  Lying silently, unable to control her body beyond the slightest twitches, Jun Li felt neither grievance nor fear. Only frustration at becoming as helpless as she once had been as a child before Ren Liwei, and again as an adult in the presence of 'Junzi.'

  As seconds turned to minutes, Jun Li could only focus on digesting the knowledge she had gained from her fight with Hua Shu.

  'Swordsmanship, Authority, and the aspects thereof… there's so much more I need to study, train, and refine…'