The Boy from the City
The exchange meet was held at the martial arts square in the eastern part of the city.
It was an open-air venue several times larger than the entire courtyard of Bluestone Town Academy. Smooth gray-white flagstones paved the ground, and a circular raised platform stood at the center. Intricate Soul Power isolation arrays were carved all around it, their patterns shimmering with fine silver light in the sun. Tier upon tier of stands surrounded the platform, with room for over a thousand people.
When Long Tian entered with Mr. Wang, the stands were already more than half full. Students and teachers from junior academies in seven or eight neighboring towns and cities each occupied their own section, dressed in uniforms of different colors beneath fluttering flags. The most conspicuous section was in the very center of the stands, where a row of youths sat in silver-white uniforms. Every one of them sat straight-backed, their faces young but bearing a composure beyond their years. The badges on their chests were more finely made than those of the other academies, bearing the emblem of the main academy in Spirit City.
"Those are students from Spirit City Junior Soul Master Academy," Mr. Wang told the children in a low voice. "The best junior academy in the country, without exception. Their students need at least level six Innate Soul Power to enroll, and most have two Soul Rings before they turn thirteen. If you draw one of them today, don't be afraid of losing. Just do your best."
Zhao Xiaopang hunched his shoulders. "This isn't about doing my best... My legs feel weak just looking at them."
Long Tian said nothing, his gaze resting on the students in silver-white uniforms. One boy in the front row stood out in particular. He was about eleven or twelve, tall and slender, with black hair tied behind his head and a cold expression. The other students around him had all unconsciously left half a seat between themselves and him, as if in silent respect. The boy seemed to notice someone watching him. He turned his head slightly, and his gaze met Long Tian's across the distance before he looked away again, his face expressionless.
The exchange meet took place over two days. The first day was the preliminaries, with all contestants drawing lots at random and fighting until sixteen remained. The second day was the elimination tournament, which would determine the final rankings.
Long Tian's first opponent was a boy from Singing Sand Town with a Sand Scorpion Martial Soul and level seven Soul Power. His opponent attacked fiercely, sand claws carrying fine grit straight at Long Tian's face. But Long Tian's Light Dragon Power was just the right counter to an earth-attribute Martial Soul like this. One Light Bullet blasted the claws apart, and Shadow Stealth circled behind the boy and wrapped around his ankles, securing Long Tian's first victory. Zhao Xiaopang waved a flag and cheered from the stands, shouting so loudly that even Han Xu, two rows away, covered his ears.
His second opponent was a girl from Cloud-Gazing City Academy. Her Martial Soul was a Swift, and she was astonishingly fast, circling Long Tian like a streak of blue-gray lightning. Unable to catch her, Long Tian simply stood still and spread Shadow Stealth outward in a ring of dark ripples along the ground. The girl slipped as the shadow froze the soles of her boots. The instant she faltered, Long Tian turned sideways and knocked her off the platform with a palm strike.
With two wins in a row, Long Tian advanced smoothly into the top sixteen.
But it was in the top sixteen that he truly had his eyes opened. Sitting below the platform, he watched the black-haired boy from Spirit City Junior Academy fight with his own eyes. The boy did not even fully unleash his Martial Soul. He merely raised a hand, and a pale purple arc of lightning sprang from his fingertip, directly numbing half the body of a two-Soul-Ring student from Class B across from him. He defeated his opponent in a single move. An uproar swept through the crowd. The boy withdrew his Soul Power and walked down from the platform without expression, as though he had finished the most ordinary of tasks.
"That one's called Lei Jingyun," Chen Hao said quietly. Long Tian had not noticed when he sat down beside him. "Thirteen years old, Purple Lightning Thunder Eagle Martial Soul. They say he already has two rings, and the second is a Thousand-Year Soul Ring. Unless something unexpected happens, first place at this year's exchange meet is his."
Long Tian watched the black-haired boy's back as he walked toward the stands. He felt no fear. Instead, a restless heat welled up inside him, leaving him eager to try. A Thousand-Year Soul Ring, a Purple Lightning Thunder Eagle, six years older than him. The gap was plain to see, but to his ears, the word "gap" meant only that "the road was still long."
When the draw for the top sixteen came out, Long Tian was matched against a boy from Green Sun Town Academy whose Martial Soul was an Ironback Turtle, renowned for its defense. Long Tian tried blasting it head-on with a Light Bullet, but it left only a shallow scorch mark on the boy's shell. Shadow Stealth crept along the ground and froze his feet, but the boy merely pulled them out of the ice and stamped the ground, without even knitting his brows.
The two remained locked in a stalemate on the platform for nearly the time it took an incense stick to burn. Long Tian was consuming Soul Power faster than his opponent, and sweat had already appeared on his forehead. Gritting his teeth, he activated his Soul Ring and compressed shadow and light to their limits at the same time. For the first time, the two forces briefly mingled in his palm. A flash of chaos-colored light appeared, and his palm, wreathed in intertwined gold and black, struck the center of the shell. With a dull thump, a fine crack finally appeared in the tough Ironback Turtle shell.
The Ironback Turtle boy's eyes widened. He touched the crack in his shell, and the corner of his mouth twitched. At last, he raised his hand and conceded. Before leaving the platform, he looked back at Long Tian. "That kind of force doesn't seem like it comes from someone who's only just passed level eleven... What's your Martial Soul?"
Long Tian smiled between breaths. "A dragon."
Long Tian had squeezed into the second day's elimination tournament by the narrowest margin.
Back at the inn that evening, Mr. Wang called the four children into a room for a short meeting. Han Xu and Zhou Wan'er had been eliminated in the second round of the preliminaries. Now they sat dejectedly in a corner without a word. Chen Hao, on the other hand, had made it into the top sixteen, but lost to a student from Spirit City Academy in the round of sixteen, which was no disgrace. Long Tian was the only seedling Bluestone Town Academy had left.
Mr. Wang did not offer many words of encouragement. He simply poured Long Tian a cup of hot tea, then sat down and looked him in the eye. "Your first opponent tomorrow will most likely be from Spirit City Academy. You've seen Lei Jingyun. He should be the top seed, so you won't meet him in the first half of the bracket. You're most likely to face one of the others from his academy first. The students of Spirit City Academy, even if they aren't the very best, are stronger than every opponent you faced today."
Long Tian held the teacup without letting go, even as his palms grew slightly red from the heat. He nodded. "I know."
"After you fight tomorrow, win or lose..." Mr. Wang paused, his gaze darkening behind his lenses. "I'll take you around the south of the city in the afternoon. Before you came, someone left a message at the town entrance saying that the owner of a smithy in the south of the city was something of an old acquaintance of mine."
Long Tian's hands tightened slightly around the cup. He looked up at Mr. Wang, who offered no further explanation. He merely patted Long Tian on the shoulder, said, "Get some sleep early," and got up and left.
The room fell quiet. Chen Hao had gone out to fetch water, while Zhao Xiaopang snored softly in the bed next to his. Long Tian sat on the edge of his bed, took out the jade pendant and the parchment, and laid them on his lap, looking at them for a long time. Outside the window, Spirit City was still awake. The faint bustle of the night market drifted from distant streets and alleys, and lamplight filtered through the paper window, casting a hazy halo on the wall.
The smith Mr. Wang mentioned... Is it Old Chen? When did he get the message? Who told him?
Long Tian pressed those thoughts down one by one, folding them up and tucking them into a corner of his heart. Then he blew out the lamp and lay down. In the dark, he closed his eyes, but what appeared in his mind was the pale purple arc of lightning at Lei Jingyun's fingertip that day-fast, precise, ruthless, without a single wasted movement. Both were young geniuses, but the other boy had already traveled a long way. Long Tian, meanwhile, had only just put on his shoes.
He turned over and clutched the jade pendant in his palm.
First, win tomorrow's match. Once I've won, I'll go see Old Chen.
Outside, a cold winter moon hung in the night sky over Spirit City. Moonlight spilled across the overlapping roof tiles in the south of the city, revealing a smithy lit by a dim yellow glow deep in a narrow alley. Inside the shop, a hunched old man crouched beside the furnace, turning the coals in the firebox with iron tongs. Firelight illuminated his face, its wrinkles carved as if by a knife, while his cloudy eyes remained fixed on an iron bar glowing red in the fire, as though he were waiting for someone.
Sparks flew from the furnace, flickered on the ground, and went out. The old man pulled the iron bar out with his tongs and laid it on the anvil. He raised his hammer and brought it down with a clang. In the night, the sound rang clear and lonely, blow after blow, carried into the wind at the mouth of the alley and scattered far away.