Be Gentle, Immortal Master

Bai Ye gave in to my persistent begging and didn't manage to leave within his promised half-an-hour. By the time I finally went to sleep, the faint light of early dawn had already started glowing through the window. Needless to say that I woke up a few hours later groggy and heavy-eyed, but it was all worth it.

The other sects had all made it to Jade Temple as well, and the Keeper announced the agenda for the upcoming week as the huge group gathered in the main hall. Like Bai Ye had told me, various lessons were scheduled for disciples at different levels, and everyone was free to choose which ones to attend. I stared at Bai Ye's name on the line-up sheet for a long time, then decided at length that I shouldn't make things too obvious on the very first day. With a sigh, I made my way towards the lessons of a swordmaster from Jade Temple instead.

I didn't see any other disciples from Mount Hua attending this session, so I found a seat in the back of the room and made myself comfortable. A few disciples dressed in robes from Mount Tai—another sect that followed sword training regimens similar to Mount Hua—were sitting a few rows in front of me and gossiping while waiting for the master to show up.

"I'm only here because I'm curious," a girl said. "Jade Temple is known for body tempering, not sword techniques. What would their swordmaster teach us?"

"What CAN their swordmaster teach us?" a young man sitting next to her sneered. "Jade Temple doesn't even have their own sword techniques. The moves they use are from manuscripts that you can buy from a commoner's bookshop. I'm here because I know this will be an easy lesson to nap through."

The two were still chuckling when the door to the room opened, and a master in Jade Temple's robe stepped in. He glanced over the audience, and his gaze paused for a moment on those Mount Tai disciples. It was obvious that he had heard the gossip before entering, though he said nothing. The disciples looked at each other with a shrug, and everyone straightened, ready for the lesson to begin.

"This is an introduction to Jade Temple's sword style," the master started straightforwardly. "Sword styles are always better taught with demonstrations. Who wants to try sparring against one of our junior disciples?" He gestured at someone sitting in the front row.

He sure wasted no time getting to the point, I thought as I followed everyone's gaze and looked towards the junior disciple. I was surprised when I saw that it was only a boy, roughly fourteen or fifteen, smiling at us full of confidence. A murmur filled the room. "Jade Temple is so smug," someone whispered. "Pitching a new disciple against us?"

"Would you be interested in trying?" the master asked, pointing to the young man from Mount Tai that mocked Jade Temple's techniques earlier.

The disciple gasped in surprise. "I'm a sixth-year disciple," he replied. "Even if I hold back, I might still accidentally hurt him."

"You don't need to hold back," the boy said. He had risen from his seat and bowed formally to the disciple from Mount Tai. "I will try my best not to hurt you as well."

Gasps rose from the audience. It was certainly audacious for such a junior disciple to talk like this. The young man from Mount Tai seemed genuinely shocked for a moment, then he laughed. "I will gladly oblige then," he said and stepped onto the platform at the front of the room, readying his sword.

In everyone's uncertain but eager stare, the sparring began. The disciple from Mount Tai must've felt offended by the boy's words, as he slashed out his weapon fast and hard, truly holding nothing back. I watched the boy a bit worriedly. Typically, one wouldn't block a heavy blow like this directly and would resort to dodging with counterattacks, but at such a close distance, it'd be a lot for a junior disciple to manage.

The boy, however, did not dodge. He raised his thick blade and met the attack head-on, blocking the cut steadily in the air. "He's strong enough to fend off that strike singlehanded!" someone gasped. The words were still echoing in the room when the boy turned, pushing away his opponent's blade and slamming his own straight down.

That was a bad move, I pursed my lips. With such a stance, he was leaving himself wide open for the opponent to counter. The disciple from Mount Tai clearly noticed the same. With a smirk on his face, he raised his sword again and sliced it over his opponent's shoulder. That was it—this was when the boy would have to stop and yield with the blade resting on his shoulder against his neck. He was too inexperienced, after all.

But again, he did not do what everyone was expecting him to do. In a chorus of gasps and yelps from the audience, he stepped straight into the path of the incoming blade, not slowing down or changing the direction of his movement. Even his opponent seemed startled for a moment by the suicidal move. Then the boy turned the tip of his sword and pointed it at the Mount Tai disciple's throat. "You lost," he said with a polite smile.

The room suddenly grew dead silent. My eyes widened, and I searched frantically for signs of injury on the boy. There was none. He had stepped right into the other disciple's blade … but somehow made it through without hurting himself?

"Do you know how you lost?" The master spoke now, turning to the Mount Tai disciple. When the latter gave him a blank stare, the master said to the boy, "Show him the secret behind Jade Temple's techniques."

The boy pulled back his sword. In another chorus of gasps and yelps from the audience, he raised it over his arm and sliced it down. Every pair of eyes saw the blade cut into his flesh, but there was no blood. When the blade glided through, there was only a faint scar left on him where the cut should've been.

"Body tempering makes wounds heal faster," the boy explained. "Once a certain level is reached, the body will heal faster than the speed of damage from a small cut like this. Of course, I would still die from a stab to the heart, but this—" he gestured at the base of his neck and turned towards the disciple from Mount Tai, "—isn't enough to threaten my life. You need a whole different set of moves if you want to win against me."

The Mount Tai disciple's face was flushed with shock and embarrassment. "This is unnatural!" he exclaimed. "What do you use to temper your body to achieve this … abomination?"

"Exotic plants, rare minerals, and sometimes demon blood and flesh." It was the master who replied. "But why would you call it 'abomination', young man, when sword sects like yours use all these materials as well? Sometimes even worse ones …" He shook his head. "Take demonic swords, for example.. Everyone who used them knew that it was only time before they would lose control of their artifacts, but no one stopped because of it. Which sounds more abominable to you, creating unnaturalness with the sole purpose of strengthening our bodies, or exploiting unnaturalness knowing that it would only lead to chaos and deaths in the end?"