The stench of the Spirit Beast Pens had become a familiar, almost comforting blanket to Ye Xingliu. It was the smell of honest work, of primal life, far removed from the petty intrigues of the outer disciples. Here, amidst the grunts and the musk, his world had narrowed to the rhythm of a shovel and the symphony of beasts.
He had learned to stop fighting the chaos of the scents and sounds. Instead, he let his Life Sensing flow through it, untangling the threads of each creature's vitality. He felt the blazing, fiery core of the prism-feathered hawk, a condensed sun of pride and fury. He traced the deep, earthy pulse of the six-legged qilin, slow and ancient as a mountain's heartbeat. And he knew the rhythm of Grunter the Ironhide Boar intimately—a powerful, steady drumbeat of stubborn contentment, punctuated by sudden, explosive surges of energy.
It was during one of these surges that the breakthrough came.
Grunter, in a playful mood, decided the new pile of fresh hay was an invading army. With a joyful bellow, he lowered his head and charged, not at Ye Xingliu, but directly past him, a living boulder of momentum.
The first time it happened, Ye Xingliu had frozen. Now, a week into his punishment, his body reacted before his mind. His senses flared, painting the boar's path not as a line, but as a flowing, unpredictable river of force. He didn't think; he flowed.
He let his knees buckle, his body dropping and twisting in a motion that was neither a dodge nor a retreat, but a yielding. Grunter's granite-like flank brushed his robe as the beast thundered past, and Ye Xingliu's own energy, the cool starlight in his core, instinctively spiraled through his legs, pushing him back to his feet in a single, unbroken motion.
It was clumsy. It was messy. It was nothing like the precise, chiming arc of the Laughing Star.
And it was perfect.
A memory, not his own, flickered in his mind—a fragment from Little Comet, a vision of a celestial rock tumbling through the void, wobbling, spinning, its path a beautiful, chaotic lie against the orderly backdrop of the stars.
Comet Fist – Stance 2: Drunken Meteor.
The knowledge settled into his bones. This was not a stance of attack, but of evasion and unpredictable counter. It was the art of turning a charge into a miss, a blow into a glancing touch, of using an opponent's own force to send you spiraling safely away.
Grunter skidded to a halt, turned, and snorted, clearly inviting another round.
Ye Xingliu grinned, setting his shovel aside. "Alright, you overgrown piglet. Let's dance."
For the next hour, the pen became his training ground. He didn't fight the boar; he danced with it. He weaved around its charges, his body mimicking the tumbling, unstable path of a meteor, his feet finding purchase in the mud where none should exist. He fell, he rolled, he spun back up, laughing. Each near-miss, each graze, honed the new stance, carving it into his muscle memory with the boar's tusks as the chisel.
"An unorthodox training partner," a familiar, slurred voice observed from the fence.
Ye Xingliu looked up, panting but exhilarated. Old Drunkard Huo leaned against the post, taking a long pull from his gourd. He looked even filthier than the pens, but his eyes were clear and sharp, missing nothing.
"Master Huo!" Ye Xingliu said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"Hmph. Checking on my investment," Huo grunted, though the warmth in his eyes belied his tone. He gestured with his gourd towards Grunter, who had calmed down and was now sniffing Huo's robes with interest. "The Laughing Star is the fist you throw. The Drunken Meteor is the step you take to throw it. You cannot have one without the other. Chaos and purpose."
He took another swig, his gaze sweeping over the other restless beasts. "Men give you rules. They give you 'should' and 'should not.'" He pointed a grimy finger at Grunter. "Beasts? They give you truth. Instinct. The pure will to charge, to eat, to sleep. They teach you to move without thinking, to feel the flow of power and get out of its way."
Huo pushed himself off the fence, his lesson delivered. "Good. You're learning. This 'punishment' is the best training you could have gotten in this stuffy place." He tossed a small, withered apple to Ye Xingliu. "For your friend. Don't get soft."
And with that, he turned and ambled away, disappearing into the twilight as suddenly as he had arrived.
Ye Xingliu caught the apple and turned to Grunter, who was watching him with hopeful intensity. He smiled, tossing the fruit into the air. The boar caught it with a happy crunch.
As he picked up his shovel to finish his work, he felt the compass warm in his pocket. He didn't need to look to know.
Mortal Awakening – 10%
He had reached a threshold. Not in a clean meditation chamber, but in a muddy pen, taught by a boar and blessed by a drunk. For the Wanderer of the Infinite Ascension, it was the only way it could have happened.
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