The moment I left the Earth Garden, it was like the world started moving again. That sense of eternity faded, repced by a return to life’s natural rhythm. There was an urge to act now. Not the burning impulse I’d felt in the Fire Garden, but something more familiar, calmer.

  Earth, that quiet mass of slow, grounded stillness, was now behind me. And though it had felt good there, even comforting, it wasn’t me.

  No regrets about visiting. After everything: the experiments with Fire, Bde, and other forms of qi, it had been the right decision to experience what Earth offered.

  But staying there... No. Not my pace. Not my kind of silence.

  Now that the choice was made, it was time to act. But not in haste. There was still time to think everything through.

  The question of a mentor remained open.

  Should I find a Bde teacher here in Yellow Pine?

  Maybe. Chances were, there were more qualified candidates here than in Bck Lotus.

  Then again, Bck Lotus had its share of sword cultivators. It was, after all, one of the oldest and most traditional paths, spanning centuries, if not millennia. Why stay here when I could do things more easily back home?

  Well, for one, in Bck Lotus, the sword cultivators leaned heavily toward Point Qi. Bde was treated as a secondary path. So any mentor I found would likely study the connection between Point and Bde.

  But if I wanted Bde and Fist… Then I’d need the Army & Fleet Academy.

  And I highly doubted Novak had any connections there.

  And if he did...

  I decided I should settle everything here before I left.

  First — essence trading.

  Patel seemed the most sensible choice, but Zhang shouldn’t be ruled out. Patel had the seniority, the experience, and our connection ran through our Masters. Zhang was my own contact, and in some ways, that put us on more equal footing.

  Second — techniques.I needed to cross-check the Lotus and Pine libraries. If Yellow Pine had promising techniques Bck Lotus didn’t, it might be worth picking some up now, while I was still officially an exchange student. Otherwise, I’d be stuck figuring out complicated schemes to get them ter.

  Best pce to start? What I already had.

  Which wasn’t much.

  My entire offensive arsenal boiled down to three techniques: Airy Chain Punch, Hook, and Heavenly Fist. That’s not counting the first-stage variations. But the foundation was the same, and that mattered. Because that foundation was what I’d be yering upgrades onto.

  I wasn’t counting movement techniques. I’d seen Bde movement, and it was rubbish compared to what I already had.

  What I did need to look at, were the discs. They could seriously extend my striking range.

  Back in my room, I brewed tea.

  My hands moved on their own, tracing familiar gestures. Nothing complex, just habit. It was a rhythm tied to a recent routine. Not days, but weeks of analysis, scouting, decision-making. This time, though, the options were narrowing.

  And the decisions were starting to look very real.

  I settled into my chair with a cup of tea in hand and pulled up the Yellow Pine library on my tablet again. I already had a general idea of what was avaible, but it wouldn’t hurt to go over it once more. Maybe I’d missed something.

  The Hook Ssh technique was present in both libraries, Lotus and Pine. In fact, there were two versions: one Bde-leaning, one Fist-leaning. There were Hooks for every taste and style, really, and the quality wasn’t bad either. The full range, right up to red-grade.

  What did surprise me was Heavenly Bde That Cuts the Earth — a perfect match for Heavenly Fist. But it was an Ultimate, and priced accordingly. An Ultimate for the second stage.

  Sure, it could be upgraded to third, eventually. But was it worth it? Maybe I’d be better off waiting until I advanced and just upgraded Heavenly Fist into that fancy Bde variant.

  Besides, Ultimates came with other problems. I’d chosen the sky-crashing giant Fist projection because it fit me. A giant Bde projection also looked cool, but it felt more limited. There were hybrid Ultimate techniques that combined Fist and Bde in various ways, unching massive projections. And while I didn’t care much for a simple vertical forward punch, the horizontal Bde projection was four metres wide.

  Another decision to postpone.

  Better start small.

  Ultimates demanded not only a massive energy pool, but real understanding and practical control over the corresponding qi.

  Something simpler, like Chain Punch.

  Unfortunately, there were no specific Bde-linked variations of that technique in either library. Overall, Bck Lotus had a better selection of fast, light Fist-Bde techniques.

  That made sense.

  In a world without formation-etched exo-armour, those kinds of moves would be devastating. Even a reinforced cultivator’s body couldn’t fully withstand that kind of pressure.

  But armour could.

  Light techniques were mostly good for initiating combat, or maintaining constant pressure on your opponent.

  Bde had its own tools for that: discs.

  Dozens of different disc types, and even more techniques to use them.

  When I was preparing to choose a qi path, I’d looked at a ton of techniques, but never paid much attention to weapon types.

  Now that I was focusing on Bde, though, the options were overwhelming.

  There were the cssics: thin, circur bdes with sharpened edges. Then there were the weird ones, petal-shaped discs that bloomed in mid-air.

  Some were the size of a coin. Others as wide as a dinner pte.

  The small ones were mostly for volleys. The big ones were for breaking shields, slicing through armour, especially useful for interrupting enemy techniques.

  Solid discs were more precise and easier to control in flight. Hollow ones, chakrams, were lighter and faster at rger diameters, but harder to manage, at least judging by the reviews.

  There were also shaped discs, with serrated edges or off-centre weight distribution for asymmetrical spin. And, of course, discs etched with formation patterns.

  That st part snapped something into focus. Could I commission discs with a Fire-type offensive formation?

  I was pretty sure I could.

  Each disc type had its own ideal technique, or techniques, and, conversely, each technique could use multiple disc types. Sometimes, changing the disc changed the effect entirely.

  In theory.

  In practice, the global effect was always the same: they flew and they cut.

  Still, there were hundreds of techniques.

  Where I’d breezed through the Fist-Bde hybrids fairly quickly, the throwing techniques swallowed me whole.

  I was lost in them till well into the night.

  Some highlights:

  Silver Swarm – basically a shotgun for mini-discs.

  You could use standard discs, but the technique was clearly designed for coin-sized ones.

  A general-purpose unch move: up to 8 mini-discs at once on Stage Two. +4 per stage after that. No mid-air control, no exceptional range. On the one hand, that wasn’t really what I was looking for. On the other… something about it spoke to me. It had potential to overwhelm defensive barriers with sheer volume.

  Came in all quality tiers.

  The Bde Whisper – one of the most refined techniques I found.

  Designed for hollow discs, more rings than bdes. Good range, good manoeuvrability in flight.

  Downside: only two rings could be controlled at once, and the control requirements were steep.

  Still, my mental techniques might compensate for that. And it came in red quality.

  The other downside? I didn’t really like the weapon itself. Chakrams were bulky.

  Reaping Circle – a continuous-fire technique, like a machine gun.

  Low accuracy, insane pressure, and no post-unch control whatsoever. Honestly, the closest thing to Chain Punch I’d seen so far. Only orange quality, which poked at my perfectionism.

  Then again, my Iron Head wasn’t red either, and it had saved my day more than once.

  Fullest Cycle – essentially an autonomous boomerang.

  Could fly loop after loop, so long as the cultivator had enough control. Worked with most disc types, except the very smallest.

  Limitations: two small discs or one rge at Stage Two. At Stage Three, two rge ones.

  And theoretically, I could double that count using my mental techniques.

  However, I had a bit of a bias against rge discs. The bigger the disc, the fewer I could carry on my armour. And even then, they were still single-use. One hit on the target, and control was lost — same as with the Point spikes.

  Although…

  Marlon!

  Yeah, my old roommate from first year had flunked his transition to year two, but back when he still had hope, he’d shown me a trick.

  He used to catch his spikes mid-air with telekinesis, after losing control. Right at that moment when they’d bounce off a shield or barrier formation but before they hit the ground.

  He used Air Qi to do it somehow.

  Back then, it seemed cool, but not useful to me.

  Now… well, now I had access to Wind too.

  Marlon had gone back to Earth. Definitely not someone I could ask for crification anymore. But Kate was the one who recommended his mentor. I literally had a direct line to the source of that trick.

  With that in mind, Fullest Cycle was starting to look like the best fit for me.

  And once again, I ended up with a choice that only loosely resembled my original idea. It was like my thoughts mutated violently every time I sat down to pn.

  I was starting to realise something else too: Even when two types of Qi had the same main quality, they weren’t actually the same.

  The hardness of Fist was hollow, brute and blunt.

  The hardness of Earth was full and yered, like bedrock.

  Same with sharpness: Point was hot. Bde was cold.

  Which brought up another question. How exactly does Bde move? Sure, visually it was clear — spinning, sliding, slicing.

  But what about in telekinesis?

  Because this wasn’t just about pushing objects around with force, it was about sensing, holding, guiding Qi outside the body.

  Comparing it to a Fist projection wouldn’t help. Telekinesis was a secondary trait of Bde Qi, like the shield was for Fist.

  And my first-ever shield activation had ended with swollen hands. I looked down at my fingers and imagined wrist-level stumps.

  Screw that! I was training in armour.

  And I seriously doubted the Lotus could teach me this properly. Even if I found a mentor there, they’d teach me Bde from the Point perspective. Which was wrong from the ground up.

  That pissed me off a little. Because it meant only one thing — more deys.

  I needed a skilled and trustworthy instructor from Yellow Pine. Time to call Patel.

  Although… why Patel?

  He could find someone skilled, sure, but when it came to trustworthy, that was Mendoza’s domain. Either way, the request would pass through her sooner or ter.

  I took the st sip of my now cold tea, catching bits of tea leaves on my tongue, and dialled Master Mendoza’s contact.

  She picked up before the first ring even finished.

  “Yes?” Her voice held restrained curiosity. After all, if it had been urgent, I wouldn’t have settled for just a call.

  “I’ve made my choice. I need a Bde instructor. Strictly discs and telekinesis. Someone effective.” She’d understand the trustworthy part without me saying it.

  “A few days, if you’re not in a rush,” she replied. Deliberately stalling.

  “Why the dey? Just make sure it’s someone above third stage,” I said, a clear nod to the fact that I saw through her py.

  “What’s the hurry? You still have to grow your root. That’s ten or eleven days in the Bde Garden.”

  “That won’t stop me from starting training.”

  “Tomorrow after lunch,” Mendoza promised.

  We ended the call, and I decided I’d exchange the essence through Zhang. If I went through Patel, she might tell him to dey the trade, just to stall me.

  Then again… maybe she wouldn’t.

  Maybe that was just my paranoia talking again.

  MaksymPachesiuk