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Twisted Skies, Chapter 4 - Yang-Infusion
🕑 Added 2020-04-06 06:09:51 +0000 UTC Unlike the windows in the hallway outside, this one could be slid open. Even fancy people created stench after all, and so they needed a way to vent. As soon as Thurain had opened the window, he had found his way to the roof, and thus past the array and to Mr. Aubrey's private front compartment.
“Really? The thief climbed through there? I don't think that's very realistic, is it?” he heard from the clerk behind him.
While the clerk was still busy protecting his employer's interests, Thurain stretched his head out of the window for a better look. As soon as he did, the powerful airflow blasted his face. Though of course, this force was nothing for a cultivator. A look down revealed the rails on the ground, and the floating wheels above them. The two rails were charged with yang energy, and would repel the yin-infused wheels the train traveled on.
Thus, the entire, giant train would hover along the tracks, to create a smooth ride for the passengers and reduce energy costs for the owners. However, as fascinated as Thurain was by the new technology, his goal was in the other direction from the rails, so he looked up, towards the bony spine of the insect carcass they were traveling inside.
“No normal person would fit through there, would they?” the clerk continued to insist.
Indeed, the window was narrow, but it wasn't something an average sized person couldn't squeeze through. Determined to test his theory, Thurain grasped at the sides of the window to gain some leverage.
“And the outside draft is like a storm. The top of the train is slippery as well. Who could possibly make such a dangerous trip just for some money and a worthless ring?” The clerk still argued, but Thurain's upper body had already left room.
“Mr. Aubrey, I'll meet you in your compartment up front,” he called towards the back, before he shot himself out of the window. His action elicited gasps from the observers, but to Thurain, it wasn't anything special. As a circulation stage master, he already had full control over his body.
As soon as he left the confines of the train, he dropped down until his legs were propped up on the train's flanks. At least his hands still held on to the window. For a few seconds, he kept his position to get used to the speed of the wind outside the train, before he tensed his muscles and jumped up to the roof in a single leap.
Once atop the back of the dead creature, Thurain realized that while the clerk had been annoying, no normal person would be able to use this route. At least in this one instance, the clerk had been right. The armor of the starlight beetle was black in nature, but shone in all colors of the rainbow under the right light. Though its beauty was a plus, it was also hard enough to protect the train from attacks by wild beasts just as much as from an avalanche. Yet it was also as slippery as the ice of pure yin he had tVained on up in the north.
However, for Thurain it wasn't much of an issue. As a cultivator, he understood the nature of the beetle quite well. To achieve this unnatural smoothness, the entire shell was charged with qi to keep the train afloat atop the rails, and at the same time it created a thin field of yang around the entire outside surface. While it would be an obstacle for normal people, manipulating the qi was no problem for him. His arms formed a circle as the qi began to rotate around in his body.
Again, the two snakes formed to chase each other. This time, rather than send them on the route he used to practice, his yang chased a tiny sliver of yin through his legs and feet. As a result, Thurain's feet began to attract the yang field of the train, and soon stuck to the shiny chitin like a magnet.
Thus, his perilous adventure turned into a leisurely walk. Now he had time to look at his surroundings. Once again, the spiral sun fell into his view. Yet even more striking was the giant spiral of clouds that had formed in the distance. There, Thurain understood, would be the goal of his journey: Heliana, with the Elemental Path Sect in its center.
Despite the sight, he didn't enjoy the blast of wind in his face, so he rushed across the compartment's roof, to the front end of the train, just behind the locomotive. Once there, he clambered down to the side window and looked inside. To his luck, he had found Mr. Aubrey's bathroom on the first try. And just like the ones in first class, the windows here weren't secured either.
He was just about halfway through the window when a breathless Mr. Aubrey burst through the door.
He must have run here from the other toilets, Thurain thought, as he squeezed the rest of his body through the opening. He landed on the ground with little grace, but much satisfaction. Once he was back on his feet, the nervous clerk's pale face also appeared behind the rich man. Despite the clerk's obvious worry about an accident, or his less obvious worry about his job security, Thurain only really cared about Mr. Aubrey's opinion for now.
“Seems like now we know how your thief made it into the private cabin.” As he spoke, he brushed the dust from the desert outside off his robes.
“Incredible, master! Who knew it would be so easy to gain entry!”
While the clerk already looked eager to refute Mr. Aubrey's claim, this time Thurain was kind enough to do the work for him.
“You say that, but ordinary people would just be blown off the roof if they tried this,” he said. “I've looked around up top, and there are no traces or marks on the back of the shell. That means that no one used any mountaineering tools or the like to make it here. If someone walked over the roof, that means they used qi. That only leaves two possible methods of entry: One, the thief is a cultivator, or two, the thief used a modern cultivating tool, like your watch.”
Now that he wouldn't be held accountable for the incident, the clerk breathed a sigh of relief. After all, what could an ordinary clerk do against a cultivating thief? Thurain wasn't so optimistic. He still thought that the train's owners would be looking for a scapegoat. They usually did in cases like these. While the faultless clerk's future dismissal was a shame, there was little Thurain could do to help.
“Master Thurain, now that we have solved the mystery and reduced the potential suspects, do you already know who took my ring?” a hopeful Aubrey asked, unconcerned with the fate of a common clerk.
“Not yet, but at this point, it's not hard to find out. I just have to get back to first class and sense for qi fluctuations. Whether they are true cultivators or just used tools, my senses will find them without fail.”
The answer close at hand, they made their way back. Yet before they had even returned, they could already hear trouble from within the first class compartment. Once they had rushed back, they found Thurain's alcoholic seat neighbor in the grips of the second clerk who had stayed behind to guard the exits and the guests.
The alcoholic was screaming and thrashing about, while the clerk was struggling to keep him under control. The man's wife stood next to him and stepped from one foot to another, flustered as she wanted to help, but couldn't. In the end, her husband didn't need her help at all. However weak the man looked, he was about to wrestle free from the taller and more muscular clerk. Thurain realized that something was wrong.
“No, I was wrong,” he muttered and rushed through the compartment, leaving Mr. Aubrey and the clerk behind. By the time he reached the fight, the alcoholic had already overpowered the clerk. He held him from his back, and threw him to the side like a rag-doll. Without sparing Thurain a single glance, the alcoholic charged for the exit in the back. Yet when he turned to look for his wife behind him, he encountered a surprise.
A shadow had rushed between the two, with blinding speed. Now that he was in sight, Thurain wouldn't let the thief get away anymore. While this one was stronger than a normal short-lived, he didn't expect any resistance from the untrained civilian. The thief punched on reflex, but his form was all wrong, and there was no strength behind the attack. Thurain simply caught it out of the air and used his sheer physical power to lock down the arm.
However, something was strange yet again. While the man's wife shrieked and hit Thurain's back with useless pats of desperation, he felt a strange heat emanate from the man's arm. More and more, the arm's temperature rose, as if it would burst into flames any second.
Cultivator? Thurain wondered, before he realized what he really had in front of him. The alcoholic wasn't an alcoholic at all.
“You were infused with yang! What kind of bastard would yang-infuse a human!?”
Instead of an answer, Thurain received a bestial growl in response. The alcoholic's eyes were now even more bloodshot than before, and his face had begun to flush a deep red. The muscles on his arms were thin, but showed all his veins as they jittered from tension. These were the same symptoms he had seen on the man earlier, just stronger. Back then, he had mistaken them for alcoholism. It was no wonder he hadn't noticed the man's unusual state sooner. Although the fake alcoholic looked in pain, he still raised his free left to hit back, completely out his mind.
Yet even his mad strength gave him no chance against a real cultivator. His second arm was caught as easily as the first, and thus a circle was established between the two combatants. With grim determination, Thurain began to circulate his qi, and led it through the man's body and back into his own. On the way, he would pick up the yang inside the fake alcoholic's body and make it his own. The opponent lost his unnatural strength, and the fight was over.
