I ARRIVED AT the Golden Spire with the Phnx ive slung across my shoulder and wrapped in the white sheet. Master Edrik had once againined it was unfinished when I dropped by to pick it up, but I ensured him the polish and sharpening probably wouldn’t matter.


    I was going to learn the basics, but more importantly, after learning more about the Legionnaires, their role and how the vets at the Golden Spire felt about them, I rethought my earlier decision of keeping it a secret and figured I owed Master Wong the honesty of why I wanted to learn the ive technique from him.


    Thest thing I wanted was for him to think that I was somehow bamboozling him when I showed up to a future lesson with a Phnx ive in tow. Now at least I could be upfront about everything on my very first lesson. My instincts proved right when I finally unveiled the weapon in the makeshift training yard behind the bar.


    “Holy shit!” Wong shouted after spitting out a fresh swig of his brew. “Where in the nine hells did you get that!”


    I couldn’t help but chuckle at his reaction as I put the de on disy. “Master Edrik made it for me. Or <i>is</i><i>making</i> it for me I should say. It’s not quite done yet, but I think it’s finished enough for me to start learning with it.”


    Wong stroked his beard as he marveled at the weapon. “I’ve heard of him. He’s done a damn good job. This why you were asking about the hell worldsst night? I told you it best to stick to the ring, kid. You don’t want to be drafted into that mess.”


    I smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard the lecture before. And no, I don’t want to learn how to use this for that reason.” Although honestly, the more I learned about the academy and those hell worlds, the more I was intrigued. I left that part out though and ended the exnation with something far easier to understand. “I just think being able to use a big-ass sword like this would be pretty cool.”


    Wong grinned and then let out augh. “I’ll drink to that. Fine then! Let’s get started. Let me see you swing that thing.”


    The training yard was a small area barely bigger than a tennis court and I wondered how we would train with suchrge weapons in so small an area, especially as much of the space was taken up by arge circr tform made of rusted steel that was tucked away in one corner. Aside from that, the area was enclosed byrge sheet piles towering about twenty feet high, providing ample privacy and on them hung various implements of destruction:rge hammers, spears, axes, ives.I gripped the sword in both hands and then went through the motions of swinging it. Just like before it was hard to manage, and it nearly pulled me off my feet at the height of my cleave. Wong leapt to the side, careful to keep his gourd well out of the way of my haphazard swing.


    “Whoa!” he said. “Alright, I’ve seen enough. Pass me that thing.”


    I handed over the de and remarkably, Wong hefted it onto his shoulder as easily as if it were made of styrofoam instead of a material several times the weight of steel.


    “Here’s your problem,” Wong said. “Not surprisingly, you keep trying to swing the thing like it’s that toy hatchet of yours. For something small like that, the control is all in the wrist. But for a ive, all your power and control needs toe from much further up.” Wong then punched his upper arm. “You need to lead from the shoulder and hips, not the wrist. Observe.”


    Wong bent his knees into a martial stance. Twisting his torso back slightly, he let out a yell and hefted the de off his shoulder in a one-handed grip. The de cut through the air with unimaginable speed and he spun with the rotation, using the sword’s momentum to heft the de back onto his shoulder again, winding up in the same position he started.


    It was a brilliant maneuver, something worthy of Threja herself.


    “It won’te natural,” Wong said. “And you should probably start by learning to use two hands first, but once it clicks, you can start learning the rudimentary forms of the ive technique.”


    He tossed the Phnx ive back to me and I caught it one handed by the hilt. I hefted it onto my shoulder as Wong retrieved a normal ive from off one of the walls. It was a polearm at least ten feet long with a huge de at the end that extended the weapon another four feet.


    He gave me another demonstration using the exact same movement as he had with the sword and sure enough the weapon reacted just the same––smooth, slow and graceful.


    “Your turn,” he said nodding to me.


    I found my bnce and mimicked the technique focusing on using my body weight and lifting the de from my shoulder rather than trying to swing it with my arm strength.


    Amazingly, the de seemed to have no weight at all as I did it, but when it went into full swing, it caught me off guard again and I found myself tossed onto my ass by the momentum. Wong chuckled.


    “Here,” he said, handing me the normal ive. “You’d better start off with this. A Phnx ive is not nearly as well counterbnced. Once you master your techniques using a normal ive, using the Phnx wille much easier.”


    I dusted myself off and got back at it, using the polearm while Wong demonstrated for me using the sword. Over the next hour I performed the same maneuver again and again, a simple horizontal swing focusing on using my weight and bnce rather than my raw strength. It was counterintuitive but I kept at it.


    “You can brute force it being as strong as you are, but don’t do that,” Wong said instructing me swing by swing. “Even a mortal can wield a ive this size to great effect. It’s all about bnce and momentum.”


    I took his words to heart as I retrained my muscle memory and after another couple of hours the sun had set and Wong announcing it was quitting time.


    “That’s good enough for a first day,” he said. “Come on, it’s time for a drink.”


    Iughed. “I can’t drink all night again. I was nearly dead this morning.”


    “Come on, that’s my payment. You owe me at least one drink.”


    “Okay,” I said. “But maybe just a small shot of your secret brew. That’s it.”


    Heughed. “Excellent choice!”


    “Hey what is that thing over there?” I asked, pointing to the circr structure in the corner as we were about to depart.


    A wicked grin spread across Wong’s lips. “Come, I’ll show you. It’s what you’ll need to master to truly be a proficient ive wielder, but it’s also the hidden secret to the weapon’s true strength.”


    I was even more intrigued as we both approached the device. It was almost like an elevated ring or stage, being about three feet tall off the ground. Wong took the Phnx ive and leapt atop the tform and then stood in the center.


    “Head over to the crank there,” he said, pointing to the side of the device.


    I did so and found a rusted crank made of ck iron sticking out of the side.


    “Go on, turn it.”


    I did as instructed and felt a good bit of resistance as I turned the thing. With a rumble an outer ring began to rotate at the edge of the tform and atop it was a small red shield I didn’t notice before. I stopped and it stopped.


    “Good,” Wong said, readying therge sword on his shoulder. “Now here’s the game. My aim is to hit that shield and your job is to try and move it so I can’t. Got it?”


    It felt like a crude carnival game of sorts. I rotated the crank both ways and sure enough I could change the direction of the shield’s rotation around the ring. It didn’t exactly stop on a dime, but the control was still pretty precise. I could get it up to a good speed too if I cranked hard enough.


    “Okay, okay,” Wong said after I’d gotten the hang of it. “Let’s give it a go. You say when and I’ll swing.”


    I could see where this was going and purposefully rotated the shield in one direction before shouting. “Go!”


    Wong began his swing and I immediately changed direction, sending the shield in the opposite direction at just thest second. To my chagrin as his de fell, it curved as if attracted to the shield by a ma and mmed on top of it with a loud <i>ng</i>!


    “Haha!” Wong shouted in triumph. “One for old Iron Pot Wong!”


    I stood there stupefied. No way could he have changed the momentum of his swing that quickly. Could he?


    We went at it again, this time with me starting from a standstill.


    It went even worse with Wong easily able to track the target a good quarter turn of the ring beforending right on top of it again.


    “Nice try,” he said. “Again!”


    I tried a new tactic starting slow and then elerating but time after time Wong hit the mark. I even went at top-speed and he was still able to predict exactly where the shield would end up some five seconds in advance and bring the de down right on top of it after two full rotations.


    “Holy crap,” I mumbled and was subtly reminded of his fighting style while I had fought him in the ring. “How the hell do you get so good at knowing where it’s going to be?”


    “I get <i>you</i> to tell me,” he said with a wink.


    “Huh?”


    “All ive attacks are heavy and slow, but they have the advantage of reach and momentum. You need to force your opponent to react in the way you want them to and then, when they think they’re clear, you nudge your attack at just thest second. That’s why you always lead from the shoulder and hips. They’ll never be able to anticipate your true direction until it’s toote.”


    My lessons with Fia earlier suddenly clicked. “Ah, I get it. Heavy attacks can only be blocked and avoided, right? The <i>Xiangqi</i> match at high speed!”


    Wong shrugged. “Sure, I guess. If you want to get all technical about it.”


    I stood back with a grin on my face, finally seeing the potential of the Phnx ive as not just a weapon to fight giant monsters but also as a tool to best cultivators in the ring. “Master Wong, you ever heard of anyone using a ive as well as a short-ranged weapon at the same time?”


    “You mean like a sword?”


    “I mean like an axe.”


    Wong paused for a moment before bursting outughing. “The true Iron Bull, eh? You’re in love with that damn axe of yours, aren’t you? But no, I’ve never seen it done. Be one hell of an awkward technique to master. Crazy even. Lopsided. Those weapons don’tplement themselves well at all. But it’s possible, I suppose.”


    <i>Possible</i>. That’s the only word I needed to hear.


    Already the high-speed chess game was bouncing around inside my head. I envisioned using my axe for feints and swift attacks to force opponents into the path of my already falling Phnx ive and vice versa. Iron Pot Wong was right.


    <i>No one would even think to do something as crazy as that</i>, I thought.


    But that just made it all the more reason to do it to me.


    Unpredictability was the key.


    “Let’s go have that drink,” I said with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. “But just one shot. I’ve got a lot of training to do.”


    * * *


    The next two days went by in a flurry of activity.


    I was up early each morning to meet with Fia, sans the hangover thanks topletely detoxifying myself the night before. After detoxifying, I’d also spend about an hour reinforcing my Internal Strengthening by practicing the [Iron Lightning] technique. It wasbining the use of two techniques in one, so it certainly taxed my system enough to cultivate and I found myself growing more and more proficient at it each day.


    Not quite mastery, but close.


    During the days, Fia ran me through the paces, refining my axe techniques while also sharing the basics of her own fighting style. The Path of Heavenly Silver was a sword style at its core, but there was a keen emphasis on the more ninja-like aspects of stealth and subterfuge.


    Using one’s speed to be nearly invisible was a level of mastery that became the building block of many other techniques. I was eager to learn as much as I could, and especially the particr technique that I would need to learn in order to defeat Lady Silver Sparrow. Fia dangled it like a carrot at the end of each training session though, teasing me with the promise of revealing it the next day before finally demanding her payment between the sheets.


    The afternoons went by with just as much interest as I caught up with Wong after a quick bite to eat in the square. The lessons were simple, almost theplete opposite of the Silver Leaf style, but it took practice and patience. By the second day I had managed to finally perform a horizontal strike without flipping myself over and by the third day I was performing overhead cleaves as well, which were a bit easier to control but took a lot more in terms of timing and prediction to hit a moving target.


    By day three I added a new element to my nighttime self-study.


    I’d been neglecting to read the book Jim had given me for weeks. Granted I was so busy doing so many other things, that every time I even thought to look at it, I just felt overwhelmed. But that night, after a full sparring session with Fia, abat lesson with Wong, and an hour of [Iron Lightning] practice, I felt the urge to at least live up to my promise to Jim.


    The reading was slow at first and my rusty English was a reminder that I needed to bridge thenguage gap between my two sets of people for us to be united. As I read into the night, the various conflicts and battles in 18th-century America yed out in my head. I couldn’t imagine going through something like that in our current situation.


    Back then it was all muskets and horses, but now it would be cultivator versus cultivator.


    And we didn’t have too many.


    It could take us decades to be strong in terms of numbers.


    But one thing was certain.


    We needed unity. That’s what the American colonies had going for them.


    Right now, we were barely united as a single neighborhood, much less whole provinces.


    A rekindling of my primal me beckoned me as I finally honed in on the true spiritual root of my Dao. The whole reason I was doing any of this. Beyond marrying Fia and bringing the sects together, or learning the Phnx ive or reaching Jade Bracket, the notion of bing strong enough to free the Earth rang out as the calling I truly needed to pursue.


    It wasforting in a sense.


    I’d been pulled in so many directions it was good to know that all my progression was still leading towards the ultimate goal. We didn’t have the numbers to fight skirmishes and battles like the colonies did against the British. But perhaps we didn’t need to.


    Not if I became strong enough to fight for everyone.


    Just as my eyes were growing weary, I stumbled across something that immediately snapped my mind back to attention. The multiyear conflict with the British had been going back and forth, but in that time, the colonies were simply fighting for better rights and representation in the British Empire, still trying to be seen as equal citizens to their fellow British subjects across the sea.


    But in 1776 everything changed.


    They quit on the idea of equality within the empire and rejected itpletely, issuing the Deration of Independence instead. I paused on that as my mind reeled to see a vision of our far future. Getting strong was critical in this cultivator world, but I would need political power as well to seal the deal. Slowly I thought out my strategy, taking years, decades even, but one day, when I was powerful enough and had united the provinces of Earth under a single banner of the Terran Sect, I would pen my own deration of independence against the Empire.


    My me burned with a new sense of conviction and resolve the more I thought about it, and I gave a silent prayer of thanks to Jim. The war would perhaps not be fought as he thought it would. The world had changed far too much for that, but his insight into what must eventually take ce was spot on.


    We would have to one day take a bold step against our colonial masters.


    And when we did, I’d have to ensure that we were all strong enough to face the inevitable war that would follow.