For four days, I swung paper bdes with the same ck of success. And today, at st, I left a cut on the rope.

  A shallow, almost ughable one — just a few severed strands. The first strike of the day, and the first Bde Qi I’d ever formed.

  Far from pure, there was a solid amount of Fist Qi mixed in. The paper knife, of course, was destroyed, but the detonation was so weak that the bde didn’t even shatter, it simply splintered, like a piece of dried wood.

  Eriksen nearly jumped out of his skin. He grabbed the rope with both hands, inspecting it so closely you’d think he was trying to measure the cut in microns. He kept running his armored fingers over the fibres, again and again, as if afraid he’d imagined it, trying to tell the sliced strands from the torn ones. And then he ughed with genuine satisfaction, taking my insignificant success as a personal victory.

  I didn’t feel like jumping for joy.

  There was no sense of triumph. Only exhaustion and relief, like I’d finally shrugged off a heavy rucksack that had been digging into my shoulders for four straight days.

  That entire time, a worm of doubt had been gnawing at me, whispering that I’d fail again, that Bde would turn into another Wood — endless struggle with no results.

  Over those four days, life had turned into a conveyor belt. Training hall at morning. A few demonstrations from Eriksen, followed by endless explosions of paper knives. Then infirmary, to undo the damage from the detonations. Two injections, ointment, cold under the skin. Then seven hours of forced theory. Then the Bde Garden: essence, meditation, root growth. And from there, straight back to the training hall, armour still on.

  More knives.

  More explosions.

  More infirmary.

  An entire side-branch of this cycle had become my body’s relentless circution of fluids. I’d started thinking of my path in Bde cultivation as one of chronic hand swelling and record-breaking numbers of toilet visits.

  And now, today, when a cut finally appeared on the rope, when the knife didn’t blow apart, when my palms didn’t go numb, not even an ache, I expected at least a spark of joy. But instead, I just stood there staring at the cut, as if it were someone else’s work.

  As if it hadn’t happened to me. As if I hadn’t just spent half a week chasing a single stupid line through a mass of blue fibres.

  I exhaled. Let the tension go, like excess liquid flushed down the drain. At least I wouldn’t have to start over with a new qi type.

  Eriksen, by contrast, was glowing like a spotlight. He looked like a man who had just seen proof he was right. As if these four days had been his personal exam as an instructor.

  Overjoyed, energised, practically buzzing. He was barely holding himself back from shoving another knife into my hand and telling me to do it again.

  Instead, he was rambling some mantra about sensation.

  “…hold onto it. It’s like riding a bike, once you’ve learnt it, it’s always there. Think back to how the qi vibrated between the anchor points…”

  To be honest, that’s exactly what I was doing — paying less attention to his chatter and more to memorising my internal state.

  Ignoring Eriksen, I reached into the basket for the next knife.

  Stance. Swing. Ssh.

  Now I was using far less energy. I had to, just to avoid injuring my hands, to keep them functional for more repetitions. Still, it had become a habit. And that habit had begun to shape new channels in my arms: thick, clumsy ones, the trenches carved out by standard grey techniques.

  These new channels intertwined with the old ones, and, or so it seemed to me, disrupted their stable structure.

  Once I could isote pure Bde Qi, I’d have to re-check all my techniques.

  For now, I simply let the qi flow the way it wanted, or rather, the way that felt more natural. All I cared about was dragging it from my core to the tip of the bde, then back down to the edge near the guard, and then out again to the tip.

  I wasn’t yet thinking about cycles, about making the flow continuous. That was too far ahead.

  I took my stance and triggered the reactor — qi surged down my arm.

  I raised the knife — it poured into the bde, reached the tip.

  I sshed — it rolled along the edge from tip to guard, then back along the inner line of the paper knife.

  The bde met the rope, and I felt a subtle shift in resistance.

  Normally, the fibres held firm. They offered no give, resisting the paper bde from the outset. But this time, the first millimetre sliced almost effortlessly, as if hinting I’d done something right. I felt the cold sharpness not from outside, not from the weapon, but as an extension of myself. My own intent to sever the blue strands.

  But it sted only for a moment. Just a millimetre of progress. Then the bde cracked from within, splitting down the cutting edge. The ragged shards caught in the fibres, and the fibres proved stronger.

  The resistance spiked, and a piece of the bde tore off, getting stuck in the rope.

  Eriksen rushed to check, but I already knew there was a small cut. He opened his mouth, probably to praise or encourage me, but I cut him off with a sharp gesture.

  Not out of anger. I just needed to understand where I’d gone wrong.

  I dipped my head slightly, flexed my wrist, and reached for the next knife.

  I didn’t look at him. Didn’t wait for advice.

  Stance.

  Swing.

  Ssh.

  Another cut. And another dry crack of detonation.

  New knife.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again!

  "Maybe try switching hands?" Eriksen offered cautiously, careful not to break my focus.

  I waved him off without looking.

  “Quiet. Don’t interrupt. I already had a sense of direction.”

  Next knife and still the right hand. The same result: a centimetre and a half of cleanly cut fibres. Detonation. Destroyed bde.

  I wasn’t frustrated or angry. I’d started to see a pattern.

  I took the next knife.

  Stance. Swing. Ssh.

  The same centimetre and a half of success, and the same colpse at the tip. But this time, I caught the detail that ruined it all. Now I could feel where the qi was trying to go. It didn’t want to loop.

  On the return movement inside the bde, from the guard back towards the tip, the qi simply smmed into the anchor point instead of completing the cycle.

  Strange as it sounded, my qi was too hard!

  I froze at the realisation.

  Less hardness. More sharpness!

  "You alright?" Eriksen asked.

  "Never better!" I replied, tossing aside the ruined knife, grabbing another, and sshing again.

  Same result, but this time I managed to hold on to the insight, locking it in my mind.

  I picked up the next knife with my left hand, a bit worried it wouldn’t work, but it went fine. I left another cut on the rope.

  The poor thing now looked like a battered cleaning brush, or a shredded toilet scrubber. Blue fibres of varying lengths stuck out in every direction.

  "I think," I said, "that’s enough for now."

  "We’ve only been at it fifteen minutes!" Eriksen protested. "You’re not pnning to quit, are you? Not after a breakthrough!"

  "Don’t worry," I reassured him. "It was more of a... moment of crity. No enlightenment and root growth, but I realised what I’d been doing wrong, and I need to process that. Besides, I’d rather not wreck my hands. For once, I’d like to get by with just the ointment and skip the injections."

  Eriksen didn’t quite believe me, or maybe he did, but not completely.

  "I’ll be expecting you this evening, then," he said.

  "Of course," I promised, brushing aside his doubts.

  I got back to the dorms much earlier than pnned, skipping two-thirds of the session and the medbay visit. My left hand was in perfect shape, and the right was just a little swollen and itchy.

  First thing to do: apply the ointment.

  I wasn’t in the mood to dive into theory today, and it was still too early for lunch, so I pnned to use this rare moment of peace to just lie on my bed. And as I approached my ft, I actually felt a wave of drowsiness creeping in.

  Unexpected guests at my door snapped me out of it.

  Without wasting a second, I switched the beacon into attention mode.

  One of them was Tao. He clearly didn’t want to be there — every ounce of reluctance was written on his face. In his hands was a wooden box he clearly didn’t know what to do with.

  The other person I didn’t recognise.

  She was a short Asian girl, carrying a thin, curved sword in an ornate scabbard. The bde itself looked more like a fantasy elven weapon than anything historical. She also had threes on her colr, but it was obvious she was the one in charge.

  She gave Tao a gnce, and he stepped forward.

  "Here!" he muttered with contempt, thrusting the box towards me.

  Was this what Zhang had mentioned?

  Nothing ended up broken, anyway. And it had been a while.

  This was starting to feel like a bad prank.

  I didn’t take the box.

  Tao started to go red.

  "You bloody mocking me?" he hissed.

  "Tao Dao!" the girl snapped.

  His name is Tao Dao?

  She smacked him on the inner thigh with the scabbard, hard enough to make him stagger, and instantly finish turning beet red.

  Crimson-faced, Tao straightened up, grabbed the box with both hands and held it out again, this time in a half-bow. His voice trembled, as if his body were resisting the very act.

  "I… I apologise. I apologise for what happened in the Armour Hall and the Lightning Garden..."

  I looked over at the girl.

  She dipped her head, far more dignified.

  "Cadet Sullivan, I am Zhou Xiangyun, disciple of Master Chen. He ordered Cadet Tao to deliver his apology. However, Tao Dao was meant to do this a week ago. So here we are, now. Unfortunately, the Master was not in the best of moods when he gave his final order, so neither of us, not Tao Dao, nor I, may leave until you accept the apology."

  I gnced at the box, and immediately thought of Soro.

  She’d been gifted Lava Heart the same way.

  "I accept," I said, returning the bow. "This wasn’t necessary."

  "Apologies, but that’s not how this works," the girl replied. "A week ago, yes, that might have been enough. But not now. Tao Dao must pce the box into your hands, or remain here until you agree to take it. And I am to supervise," she added, though it sounded more like a warning that she had no intention of standing here all day.

  I didn’t have much choice. I took the box, and Tao straightened.

  "Smooth Flow," he muttered. "A tea to clear the mind and stabilise qi flow outside the body. The old man said it might be useful for a Bde cultivator."

  "Thanks," I replied, though I’d already firmly decided that, no matter what, I wasn’t drinking it.

  Not for any amount of money. Even with natural resistance to toxins and poisons, I wasn’t risking it.

  Honestly, I didn’t even want it in the room — but for now, I needed to get rid of this pair and pass the box to Mendoza’s people.

  Let them check it.

  This whole thing smelled off.

  MaksymPachesiuk