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I stopped just short of applying the last meridian and then shifting the sequence in my mind, applied the modified version of [Wrath of a Thousand Slain Souls] that I had mapped out the night before. The process was agonizing, opening two new meridians at once that I had only touched on before.

The energy surged through my body like molten lead through my veins.

I gritted my teeth through the pain and slowly coaxed the energy towards my jing.

In a burst of lightning, rivulets of energy crackled across my body, but it felt different now, more like it was running just under my skin rather than over it. I was dumping huge amounts of Frenzy into the technique and wasn’t sure if most of it was being wasted or not.

But there was only one way to find out.

“Do it now!” I shouted. “Go!”

A few feet from me, Zu Tien, who had been holding her silver needle technique, nodded and then threw an open palm in my direction.

A trio of silver quills shot from her palm and slammed directly into my bare chest.

The first one evaporated in a spark of blue lightning, but the other two bounced off my hardened skin and fell to the ground.

Damn, only a partial success, I thought.

I dropped the technique and felt mentally drained.

Zu Tien, who was standing with Gui Zu at the end of a small alleyway behind the main square, looked at me imploringly. “Did it work, Master Chun?”

I looked down at the two needles that had bounced off my skin. Were they from Lady Silver Sparrow, the woman who I would face in less than two weeks’ time, they would probably have pierced my heart.

“Not exactly,” I said. “But the first one being totally deflected shows promise.”

“I’d call it a success,” Gui Zu said with a jacked-up smile. “Two days ago, you couldn’t even manage to maintain both techniques at once. But now you seem to be doing it quite at ease.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, thinking of my progress over the last couple of days. “Hopefully once I can master deflecting more than just one projectile, I can start ramping it up a bit.”

Gui Zu laughed. “Take time, brother. You’ve been at this pretty hard. But thank you also for sparring with us. You have afforded us room for advancement, as well. I think it has truly made a difference.”

Gui Zu was right about me pushing hard. Over the last three days I’d been burning the candle at both ends. After returning from Master Edrik’s, I went to work developing the [Iron Lightning] technique while also invoking my Mental Quickness to try and scribe the orb.

The scribing itself didn’t work of course, I would need more exposure to the spiritual realm for that, but I practiced just how I would do so when the time finally came. Each night I would meditate for a few hours, translating the contents of the orb into English. With my mental capacity at perhaps Eighth Stage now, I could do so while also puzzling through the meridian sequences for the [Iron Lightning] technique.

Again it came like performing math to me. Substituting the meridian sequences into one another to form a long chain that I could send Frenzy through. In this case, it was generating the [Iron Skin] technique to a point just where I was about to apply it to my skin and then redirect the energy to my jing to form lightning and then further transform it through a toned-down [Wrath of a Thousand Slain Souls]. All of it took an incredible amount of concentration and strain, but as Gui Zu said, I was getting better and better at it each day.

In the mornings, after I had refined the technique at night, I would put my theory to the test by practicing with Zu Tien and Gui Zu, slowly perfecting the technique, performing it over 100 times each day. After a few hours of open sparring I then shifted to work mode when dawn came and assisted with the building preparation with Jian Yi while also gathering goods I would need to take back to the wild.

Finding the parts Jim needed proved to be especially difficult.

I didn’t know what an exhaust manifold or a fuel injector was so I just tore a couple of old engines out of the truck model numbers Jim had given me to look for. The rest of the time I spent hunting down monsters in the wild, cultivating while also providing fresh ingredients for Yu Li to practice her new culinary skills.

I had to use [Indifference] to keep from retching when I tried her first attempt at braised Rapling Tail with rice. She was a good cook normally, but her adding of exotic alchemy ingredients to increase the meal’s Qi potency had left a terrible aftertaste.

Gui Zu was surprisingly honest with his feedback, maintaining a crooked smile while he told her it needed more perfection and urged her to simply try again. It was then that I realized Yu Li had taken to cooking five or six times a day, trying to perfect her new craft and Gui Zu was her main test subject. We had a good laugh at the end of the meal and went to the square for actual dinner on me.

What time I didn’t spend poisoning myself with Yu Li’s cooking or training with Gui Zu and Zu Tien, I spent with Jian Yi trying to sort out the business end of the sect. We had a huge jump in enrolment thanks to my recent win in the ring and were sitting on just over 800 Taels of silver in the bank. With my 20 spirit stones left over from the Corrupted Steel purchase, Jian Yi said she had enough to engage a sect to start rebuilding the apartment block.

Which was exactly what was on the agenda for today.

“We’ll have to call it quits for now, guys,” I said. looking to Gui Zu and Zu Tien. “Jian Yi has these building guys coming at six this morning to look about the new property.”

“So early?” Zu Tien asked.

“Was my call.” I looked up at the star-filled sky still tinged with the red hue of the setting Bloodmoon. If we could get the business done with quickly enough, I would still be able to head out to the wild today, which was the plan. The wagon full of goods was already packed and I was itching to see how Kelsey was progressing, not to mention to get back on track with my spiritual progression as well.

But I couldn’t tell Zu Tien any of that. I merely smiled at her instead.

“Early bird gets the worm.”

* * *

I stood with Jian Yi within the main office, overlooking a detailed set of architectural drawings spread across the table between us. Two members from the Loyal Prosperity Sect waited silently with pleasant smiles on their faces as they watched us mull over the plans.

I had little idea of what I was looking at, but Jian Yi said she was confident the design would meet our needs. The only thing left outstanding this morning was to settle on the price.

“Six months is not quick enough,” Jian Yi said. “You see the condition our people are living in now. For 3200 Taels, I would expect this to be completed in half that time.”

The two men shared glances, one of them looking perturbed.

“Do you seek to insult us?” the perturbed one said, and I could sense a sliver of anger from within him as he stroked his short beard. “This is our best offer.”

“We have had many best offers,” Jian Yi said nonplussed, her eyes never leaving the drawings to meet his. “All of them were of a shorter time frame than this.”

The other man, a tall fellow with a goatee bowed obsequiously. “Perhaps so, Vice Leader, but clearly their quality would never match ours. This building will stand for many decades, if you do it right. I would advise against wasting your moment on a quick fix that will fall apart in only ten years.”

The guy sounded convincing to me, but Jian Yi still held a poker face that could rival my [Indifference] technique in its execution.

“We shall see,” Jian Yi said. “But we will not pay full price for something six months away.” She then placed a stack of paper with fine writing on top of the drawings. “This is an agreement for construction and payment. We will agree to your six-month schedule, but will pay only a third now. A third at the midpoint and the balance on completion.”

The grumpy sect member picked up the papers to scrutinize them with a scowl. “What trickery is this?”

“No trickery,” Jian Yi said. “I have crafted the contract myself. If the Loyal Prosperity Sect is as trustworthy as they claim, then surly they would not balk at putting their word to the test before the courts.”

The more pleasant sect member quickly smiled. “Most assuredly. While we normally expect payment in advance, a contract before the law protects both ways. We will look forward to your first payment to get underway.”

“Very well,” Jian Yi said and then handed me a pen. “Sect Leader?”

I raised a brow at her in an “Are you sure” kind of gesture and she nodded.

I then took the pen from her and signed the document.

The pleasant sect member smiled and, taking the pen from me, did the same.

Jian Yi then secured the 1000-odd Taels of silver from our vault, our entire sect’s savings, and handed it over to them.

“A pleasure to enter into business with you,” the tall man said, bowing again upon receiving the money. “We will send a work crew to start in the morning.”

As they left, I felt a twinge of both accomplishment and uneasiness in my soul.

“That went pretty smooth,” I said. “But are you sure this is all going to work out?”

Jian Yi smiled. “It will with that contract. We are studying negotiation and contract writing in my syllabus at the university. I wrote it as one of my assignments actually. It is sound. Trust me. My instructor gave me the highest marks.”

I chuckled. “Is it enforceable in court though?”

She grinned at me. “With the Iron Bull as our Warden I don’t think they would dare to test us in the courts of battle.”

I smiled. “So now what?”

“Now we need money,” she said. “Are you certain you can make another 1000 Taels of silver in only two months?”

I looked at the sky, which was now bright with the rays of predawn.

“If I get moving fast,” I said. “Time for me to head back to the wild. I’ve got a lot of monsters to kill.”

* * *

I arrived at the bunker just before dusk, breaking my record for speeding through the wilderness with a wagon full of goods on my back. As I approached Threja’s sword, dragging the wagon behind me, I was surprised to find a large structure made of timbers had been erected, a tent of sorts, providing shelter for an area as big as the square back home.

A cluster of people were underneath it, roasting something over a large cooking fire.

“Max!”

It was Kelsey’s voice that greeted me first, the spritely teenager running out of the crowd to give me a warm embrace.

“I sensed you coming!” she said, beaming up at me. “Your Frenzy is huge!”

I laughed involuntarily at what she’d said and was thankful no one else was nearby to overhear and perhaps misinterpret it as something lewd.

Susan and a bunch of other people joined next, each of them greeting me with handshakes and slaps on the back.

“You were right, Kelsey,” Susan said with a smile. “He’s here. Welcome back, Max.”

Kelsey grinned triumphantly, and I surmised she must have spread the word of my approach. The fact that she could sense my Frenzy from afar was a good sign. It meant she had broken through to the 9th Tier of Body Refinement and was now able to progress through the Foundation Realm in earnest.

“Well done, Kelsey. I can tell you’ve been working hard at your training. It’s truly paying off. Oh, I have something for you too.”

Turning to the wagon, I withdrew the woodcutting axe Master Edrik had made and presented it to her.

Her eyes went wide with joy and excitement. “This is for me?”

“It’s made of a special Qi steel. It’ll be sharper than any axe you’ve ever used. Lighter too.”

Kelsey bounced the axe in her palm and laughed. “This is lighter than my pipe wrench for sure. Watch this.”

She moved into an open area and began performing the basic axe forms I had left with her and to my amazement she seemed to have nearly mastered them already.

“Kelsey, be careful!” Susan yelled. “You can lose a limb with that thing.”

“I know, Mom, that’s the point!”

Susan sighed in exasperation, and I could tell I was witnessing something that had to have been playing out daily while I was away. After a few minutes of Kelsey entertaining us with her martial skill, Jim emerged from the bunker along with Harris and Flores.

“Welcome back, son,” Jim greeted me with a handshake. “Did you get my parts?”

He grinned, letting me know it was a bit of a joke, but I played right along with it and pointed to the wagon where two truck engines were sitting on deck. “That work for you?”

Harris laughed. “Looks like he did you one better, Jim. We should definitely be able to keep the generator running with those.”

“Good to hear,” I said. “How’s the demon situation down below? Is the collapse still holding?”

“For now,” Jim said. “We make patrols every couple of days and don’t hear much coming from behind it. Think maybe they’ve retreated. At least for now. Which is a good thing.”

I breathed an inward sigh of relief, but knowing there was more to the demons that just random animalistic behavior, I had to wonder what that really could mean. Was the King of the Moon repositioning them for some other kind of attack? I didn’t want to think what that could mean. Still, I wasn’t going to break the mood and didn’t let the concern show on my face as I nodded.

“Small mercies,” I said. “Now for what you’ve been waiting for. I brought you all some stuff. Hopefully it will help.”

I turned everyone’s attention to the wagon and for the next thirty minutes became a sort of bunker version of Santa Claus as I distributed the various items I had brought. There was everything from sacks of rice to seeds, tools, spices, livestock and even a buffet of freshly made steamed buns that I had secured from an early morning street vendor right before I departed in the morning.

The entire community turned out and the smiles of appreciation and downright elation warmed my heart. I watched a grown man collapse into tears at the simple joy of tasting something sweet again as he bit into a bun filled with red bean paste.

While I cultivated the generous outpouring of lemonade, the sight of bringing my people so much comfort and joy was a reward in and of itself. The whole thing turned into an impromptu community festival, with people laughing, dancing and just enjoying life again.

As the night went on, I made plans for how I’d spend the rest of my time back in the wild. I had about ten days until my match with Lady Silver Sparrow and I had to make every one of them count.

I got with Harris and received an update on where we were with the wall. They’d made good progress while I was away and had just a quarter of it left to do. I figured with my help, we could have it completed in three days tops.

But I didn’t plan to spend my entire day just building the wall. I spoke with Kelsey and set up times where we could meet and train together for a few hours before working on the wall and then go hunting in the afternoon for a good four hours or more.

I figured I could kill two birds with one stone, giving Kelsey hands-on combat experience while also giving me an opportunity to cultivate by taking down big monsters and also strengthening Threja’s sword, if I could use it effectively that was.

It made me wish I could have trained some before retuning, but honestly I could kill monsters just as well with my axe. Maybe not as big, but enough to bring back cores to make the next building payment.

Strengthening Threja’s sword was a long-term goal that would have to wait a bit for now.

Kelsey was squirming with jittery excitement as I told her my plan.

“I can’t wait,” she said, bouncing atop the log we were sitting on. “This is going to be the best week ever!”

I chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Oh, there’s one more present I have for you. I want you to hold on to this.”

I reached into my overcoat pocket and produced the orb.

“Wow,” she said, wide-eyed, taking it from me. “What is it?”

“A ball of Corrupted Steel. It’s the same material that makes up my axe and Threja’s sword. One day it will contain all the information you need to know to follow the path of the Frenzied Flame.”

She studied it in the pale red glow of the Bloodmoon, squinting as if trying to figure it out. “Contain information? How? What’s it do?”

“It’s hard to explain, but when everything is in place, writing will appear on there. It will be like a book that only you can read. Similar to the cultivation manual. But different.”

She nodded. “So what do I need to do to read it?”

“You? Nothing,” I said. “It’s all on me from here. I need to transcribe it with a technique I haven’t quite mastered yet. I will need your help to master it though.”

“Really?”

“Remember how I was subjecting myself to the Bloodmoon. I need to do that again. Maybe a few times. And I’ll need your Flame to guide me back to sanity each time.”

“You sure?” Kelsey asked. “You were out of it for like three days the last time you did that, remember?”

I looked up at the Bloodmoon in thought. “True. But I was pretty spent from fighting the snake earlier when I tried it last time. I’m hoping it won’t be as bad when I try it again.”

Kelsey got up from the log we were sitting on. “So, let’s go find out.”

“Huh?”

“The Bloodmoon is out. The sword is right there. We have time. What are we waiting for?”

I laughed. “I like your enthusiasm, Kelsey.”

“Hey, the sooner you can master this the sooner I can become a real Berserker, right? So let’s get to it, teach!”

I smiled. It was late and most people had already left to go inside the bunker to sleep.

Susan included.

Why the hell not? I thought.The sooner I learned the limitation of how much I could cultivate with this new Bloodmoon method the better.

“Okay, let’s give it a shot.”

Grinning in victory, Kelsey led the way as we left the tent and headed for the perimeter of the barrier.

“Just like before,” I said. “Call for me when you see me start to turn demon mode.”

“Got it.”

As we neared the barrier, wild screams and howls filled the air. Like moths drawn to a flame, a pack of demons was already there to greet us, snarling and hissing for my blood. I readied my axe and steeled myself with [Iron Skin].

“Here we go.”

Kelsey nodded and I headed into the fray.

I killed perhaps two or three of them before I felt the effects of the Bloodmoon begin to take control. I did my best to resist the Dark Frenzy permeating my soul and to my surprise I was able to maintain my sanity for what seemed like a minute before the world began to shrink and I was looking at myself in third person again.

Back in that dark space, I waited for the monster to arrive.

I knew the meridian sequence of the [Soul Shield] technique and tried to concentrate on it, despite not being able to feel my body anymore. In no time the monster appeared, tentacles flailing. It stopped a short distance away from me, not immediately attacking this time.

~Thou dost tempt me, cur-sed flame.~

I had no response for it.

Maybe it was getting wise to what I was doing.

Or maybe it was it was getting tired of me killing its minions.

I resisted the pulse of Dark Frenzy, focusing on the way it ran electric through my soul.

It’s just like building my body hardening, I told myself. Resist it, heal from it, grow stronger.

I’xol’ukz suddenly shifted to the side, focusing on something else as a flicker of candlelight entered my field of vision.

Kelsey. Right on time.

I heard her calling my name and I focused on it to pull myself back from the abyss.

I came to my senses shivering and in pain, my body cut with a score of slashes from the demons still howling at the barrier behind me.

“Let’s get you to the sword,” Kelsey said without a pause and helped me limp back to it.

I cleansed my Flame, billowing out the tar-black gunk from the Dark Frenzy and after recovering, used the Frenzy stored in my Dantian to engage [Mark of the Giant].

My body shifted and grew, healing my wounds. I traded one resource for another, Frenzy and the loss of increasing my Body Hardening by normal rest to further expose my soul to the darkness of the unknown to increase my spiritual insight.

I prayed it was working.

“How’d I do?” I asked, looking to Kelsey, who was now sitting on the edge of the deep crater that contained Threja’s sword.

“You killed like twenty of them,” she said. “Took you a lot longer to become a demon too. Does that mean you’re getting stronger?”

I flexed a fist. “I think so.”

Hope so, I said to myself.

“Well, you look healed back up,” Kelsey said. “You want to go at it again?”

I laughed but she was dead serious.

My body was healed, my Flame restored but inside I still felt weakened.

My soul needed to rest.

“Better pace myself,” I said. “Using marks can take a lot out of you. And I don’t want to be bedridden for three days again. This was good progress. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Cool,” she said with a grin, and then she added, making it clear where her interest truly lay, “Think you can scribe the orb yet?”

I laughed at her forwardness.

But honestly, I hadn’t tried it yet.

I had studied the technique but never put it to the test.

“Let me see,” I said and held out my hand for the orb.

She handed it to me, and I focused on the [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] technique, recalling the meridian sequence from my mind’s eyes. I focused on the orb in my palm, rolling it between my fingers, willing the knowledge in my mind to etch onto its surface. The metal heated in my palm, but something seemed to be blocking me, like I was pushing against a locked door within my own mind.

I gave another mental push and then collapsed exhausted.

The orb fell and Kelsey yelped when she tried to pick it up.

“Dang! That’s hot!” she said. “Did it work?”

I shook my head. “No. Not yet. Guess I still need more exposure for spiritual insight.”

“Guess so,” Kelsey said, looking a little glum. “Oh well.”

I smiled. “Thanks for the help though. We’ll give it another go tomorrow night, yeah?”

She nodded.

“Now let’s get some sleep,” I said, and at just the thought I felt my body and soul yearning for a nice warm bed. “We have a full day of training, wall building, cultivating and hunting, before we get to try this again tomorrow.”

Kelsey merely grinned.

“I can’t wait.”