Blue Tyrant Night Talk: Liu Erlong's Question

A row of lanterns glowed at Heaven Dou City's south gate in the gathering dusk. Their dim yellow light spilled over the gravel road at the end of the main thoroughfare.

Nan Feng followed Liu Erlong through the gate. The guards glanced at her and waved them through without a word. The title of dean of Blue Tyrant Academy carried considerable weight at the city gates.

Once inside the city, Liu Erlong turned into an alley in the east instead of heading toward the center.

Old scholar trees lined both sides of the alley, their crowns screening the sky. Light filtered through gaps in the branches and leaves, casting flecks of gold on the ground.

After a walk of one incense stick's burning time, a sprawling compound appeared at the end of the alley. Its walls were built of blue-gray bricks and topped with withered yellow vines. A wooden plaque above the gate bore four painted characters: Blue Tyrant Academy.

Liu Erlong pushed the gate open and went in. Nan Feng followed.

The compound was larger than it looked from outside. A blue flagstone training ground occupied the center, with rows of single-story brick-and-wood buildings on either side. Warm yellow light shone through their windows.

Several people were practicing on the training ground. When they saw Liu Erlong enter, they stood straight and saluted. She waved for them to continue and led Nan Feng farther inside.

"Blue Tyrant Academy mainly admits female students, though we take male students too." Liu Erlong didn't look back. "If you have nowhere to stay, you can stay here for a few days. I won't charge you tuition or take you on as a student. But you owe me an answer about that matter."

Nan Feng followed her into a room at the very back of the compound.

The room was small and simply furnished. There was a desk, two chairs, and a row of bookshelves against the wall, holding Soul Beast illustrated guides and cultivation journals.

Liu Erlong sat down behind the desk and pointed to the chair opposite. Nan Feng sat. She was silent for a while, then tapped the desktop twice with her fingers.

"Yu Xiaogang's Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul," she said, her voice more even than it had been on the road. "Have you read it?"

"I have. I borrowed it from the academy library."

"One of its points says that the age of the Soul Ring one can absorb is determined by both Innate Soul Power and Martial Soul attributes. Every Soul Master has a limit, and exceeding it will make their body explode." Liu Erlong's fingers went still. "Is that right?"

Nan Feng looked at her. Liu Erlong's eyes were unusually bright in the lamplight, something burning deep in her pupils. She held his gaze and waited for his answer.

Nan Feng weighed his words. It would be too sweeping to say outright that it was wrong. Part of Yu Xiaogang's theory came from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's research data, and that data held true under normal circumstances. He hadn't seen what lay beyond those circumstances.

"That theory holds true for most Soul Masters," Nan Feng said, keeping his voice even. "The problem isn't whether it's right or wrong. It's that he treated 'most' as 'all.' Yu Xiaogang used the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's data as a foundation to derive a set of general rules. General rules can't account for exceptions."

"My Martial Soul is an exception. My tower has the power to suppress. That's why I could absorb a nine-hundred-and-twenty-year Soul Ring when I was a ten-year Soul Master. Yu Xiaogang's theory doesn't account for that power."

Liu Erlong's fingers curled slightly. "You said on the road that your second ring was two thousand one hundred years old, and your third was twelve thousand years old. You're level thirty-four now, right?"

"Right."

"Level thirty-four, with three rings. A normal Soul Master at level thirty-four has three Soul Rings: the first is a hundred-year ring, the second a hundred-year ring, and the third a thousand-year ring. Your arrangement is completely different. Your first ring exceeded the norm by more than twice as much, and your third jumped straight to ten thousand years."

Liu Erlong stood and walked to the window, turning her back to Nan Feng. Her long golden-red hair hung down her back, stirring in the wind that slipped through the window.

"Back then, Yu Xiaogang told me my Scarlet Dragon Martial Soul was too fierce, that my meridians couldn't withstand the impact of a high-age Soul Ring."

"So for my fourth ring, I could only absorb a Soul Beast around three thousand years old. It couldn't be over five thousand. I believed him. I worked my way up to level seventy-eight, then got stuck. I haven't advanced in three years. I always thought there was something wrong with my Martial Soul."

She turned to look at Nan Feng. The old scar at the corner of her mouth twitched in the lamplight.

"The optimal arrangement for a normal Soul Master is a hundred-year first ring, a hundred-year second ring, a thousand-year third ring, a thousand-year fourth ring, and a ten-thousand-year fifth ring. Every ring after the fifth is ten thousand years or older."

"That's a rule accepted throughout the Soul Master World, and it's also the core of Yu Xiaogang's theory."

"He said that before any Soul Master broke through to the fifth ring, none of their Soul Rings could be over ten thousand years old, or their meridians wouldn't be able to withstand it."

"But when I absorbed my fifth ring at level fifty, I chose a fire-attribute Soul Beast a little over eight thousand years old. According to his theory, my body should have exploded. It didn't. I survived, and my Soul Power kept rising all the way to level seventy-eight. I started wondering how much of what he said was actually true."

Nan Feng listened without interrupting.

Liu Erlong returned to her chair and crossed her hands on the desk, her gaze falling on her fingers.

"The things I asked you on the road today-you answered them without hesitation. You said your first ring was nine hundred and twenty years old, your second was two thousand one hundred, and your third was twelve thousand, as casually as if you were talking about what you'd eaten today." She looked up at Nan Feng. "That's what I want to ask you. Where exactly did Yu Xiaogang's theory go wrong?"

Nan Feng was silent for a few breaths.

"He was wrong to treat the relationship between Martial Souls and Soul Rings as something fixed. He copied his data from the records of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan and Spirit Hall. All that data concerns things that have already happened. It's the past."

"A Soul Master's cultivation is dynamic. The relationship between Martial Souls and Soul Rings changes as Soul Power Level rises, Martial Souls evolve, and Soul Bones are fused. He only saw what had already happened, not what had yet to happen."

"The optimal arrangement for a normal Soul Master is a hundred years, a hundred years, a thousand years, a thousand years, and ten thousand years. That's the limit for a normal Soul Master. My tower can suppress a Soul Ring's backlash, so my limit isn't the same."

Liu Erlong stared at him for a long time. The oil lamp's flame flickered, making her shadow sway on the wall.

When she spoke, her voice was lower than before. "When you said your first ring was nine hundred and twenty years old, I wanted to ask you something. Do you know how many people in the Soul Master World regard Yu Xiaogang's theory as gospel? Heaven Dou Royal Academy, Shrek Academy-even Spirit Hall uses his work in its training materials. For you alone to overturn his theory is to stand against the understanding of the entire Soul Master World."

"I know," Nan Feng said. "But I don't need to stand against the entire Soul Master World. I only need to walk my own path. Whoever wants to believe his theory can believe it. I don't."

Liu Erlong was silent for a while, then suddenly laughed. This laugh was longer and deeper than the short, raspy one in the dwarf pine grove.

She walked to the bookshelf, pulled a booklet from the top shelf, turned to a page, and pushed it in front of Nan Feng.

Nan Feng looked down. The booklet contained handwritten notes, the writing so neat it was almost rigid. It was the same hand as the manuscripts in Yu Xiaogang's office. The page held a table calculating the suitable Soul Ring ages for the Scarlet Dragon Martial Soul, with densely packed figures annotated beside it.

"He wrote this for me back then." Liu Erlong tapped the page.

"He said the fourth ring for my Scarlet Dragon Martial Soul couldn't exceed five thousand years, the fifth couldn't exceed eight thousand, and the sixth couldn't exceed twelve thousand. He calculated my limits down to the last detail. I believed him for twenty years and got stuck at level seventy-eight, unable to advance. It wasn't until I tried once my own way that I discovered all those limits of his were wrong."

She closed the booklet, returned it to the shelf, and turned to Nan Feng.

"I asked you to come today because I wanted to hear you say for yourself where he was wrong. You've said it now, and I believe you."

Nan Feng pushed his chair back and stood.

Liu Erlong stood by the bookshelf, watching him. Her long golden-red hair had a warm rim of light under the oil lamp, and the old scar at the corner of her mouth seemed a little softer than before.

"I'll be staying in Heaven Dou City for a while," Liu Erlong said. "If you run into trouble and need help, you can come find me at Blue Tyrant Academy. I won't take you on as a student, but if you have ideas about Martial Soul cultivation, you can come talk to me."

"I'm not your teacher, but I've lived all these years. There are some things I see more clearly than someone your age."

Nan Feng nodded.

He paused at the door and glanced back at Liu Erlong. She stood before the bookshelf, leafing through another booklet, the lines of her profile distinct, the old scar at the corner of her mouth curved.

Nan Feng pushed the door open and went out. The night wind rushed in, carrying the scent of old scholar tree leaves, and stirred the hem of his clothes.

The lights were still on at the training ground, where several female students were practicing blocks. The swish of kicking legs sounded again and again.

He crossed the training ground toward the compound gate. The deep black Soul Ring glow beneath his palm pulsed against his skin, rising and falling in rhythm with the cyan light in the crack at the base of the tower.

He remembered what Liu Erlong had said. His days in Heaven Dou City had only just begun, and he needed to find a place to settle down and work his Soul Power from level thirty-four to level forty. Only after reaching level forty, when the door to the tower's third floor opened fully and the Power of Creation could be released, could he help Xiao Wu touch that seal.