Path of the Berserker

I awoke the next morning on the floor between Su Ling’s crib and Yu Li snoring away on her cot. Despite the discomfort of the hardwood floor, I had slept like a log again, having passed out after sharing a meal with Yu Li and polishing off a small bottle of rice wine.

As I arose, my arm felt a thousand percent better and when I removed the bandages to check, the mosaic of twisted scars added a new layer of thickness to my already bulging arm. As I flexed, I could tell that my short ordeal in the broodmother’s jaws had caused some kind of a breakthrough when it came to my Body Hardening mastery. Recalling the full Body Refinement table within my mind’s eye, I considered where exactly I was with my progression in all categories now.

Body Refinement Category

Stages

Description

Muscle Strengthening

I to V

Increases your passive casual strength and your ability to do damage through Frenzy-infused techniques. At 1st stage you will be at peak natural conditioning. At 3rd stage you will have the strength of ten men. At 5th stage you are able to snap iron as easily as twigs in your palms. Train by infusing Frenzy with strenuous exercise.

I to V

Increases the swiftness at which your body moves and reacts. At 1st stage you will be at peak natural conditioning. At 3rd stage you can snatch arrows out of the air. At 5th stage you are able to run faster than a swallow and move a blade quicker than the eye can see. Train by infusing Frenzy into quick attacks and actions which test your speed and coordination.

Body Hardening

I to V

Increases the durability and hardness of your skin and bones. At 1st stage you will be at peak natural conditioning. At 3rd stage you can resist flames and the blows of dull objects. At 5th stage your body has become as strong as iron and can resist most blades and even arrows. Train by using Frenzy to mend your broken skin and bones.

Internal Strengthening

I to V

Increases the body’s ability to withstand prolonged exertion, toxins and the strain of high-level Frenzy-infused techniques. At 1st stage you will be at peak natural conditioning. At 3rd stage you can consume strong spirits without intoxication. At 5th stage your body can utilize multiple techniques at once without ill effects. Train by using Frenzy to mitigate the effects of toxins and by performing techniques that use high bursts of Frenzy.

After reading the descriptions, I could confidently say that I was at the fifth stage in all but one of my Body Refinement attributes now. My strength and reflexes had been honed by fighting countless monsters and hours of form exercises and my Body Hardening had clearly reached fifth stage now as well. Only my Internal Strengthening was still sitting at perhaps fourth stage.

But that was okay.

I had the perfect training exercise in mind to fully master my Foundation Body Refinement. It was time to put Mu Lin’s knowledge to the test.

It was time to create lightning.

Leaving Yu Li’s place, I got a quick freshening up at home and then began making my way towards work. Although I could probably afford to take another day off with the double pay we were getting, I had to think about paying for the training session with Gui Zu now. Plus, I was just going to do my own thing at work anyway once I got into the field, so why not make some money in the process?

When I reached the square, I was greeted with the same cold shoulder from most people, but there was a definite sense of fear floating in the air as well. And when I focused on the source, I could barely believe my eyes.

There in the center of the square with her posse was Jian Yi.

There were seven of them in all, sat on backwards-facing chairs and table-tops like a bunch of juvenile delinquents. I could sense an increased level of the fear spewing out of Jian Yi, but her face had the same smug smile as she did the day before. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was putting on a pretty good impression of [Indifference].

Last night’s conversation with Yu Li played through my mind, as I approached her. And thank the heavens we’d had had it, because the anger was already building in my gut. The bitch was guilty as hell, her fear proved that, but she was apparently prepared to take the ass-whooping to prove her point to the rest of the community that I was a complete psycho.

She probably wasn’t wrong either.

I wanted to kill this bitch, but that would mess with my ultimate plan.

Still, I couldn’t let this get out of hand. In a way, she was doing to me, what I was doing to the empire—undermining from below. And just like the empire, in my eyes Jian Yi was no physical threat and I got away with all kinds of shit based on cultivators underestimating me. But I knew better. Jian Yi was no match for me in strength, but her cunning could leave me ultimately undone. So even though I wasn’t going to go off the deep end like I may have wanted to last night, she and her gang still needed to be put in check. And quick. The last thing I needed was a festering wound that would rot our community from the inside.

I poured on [Fear the Flame] as I stood over her, but then looked to the rest of her team behind her instead, making it clear to Jian Yi that she wasn’t the one of importance here.

“I’m only going to give you all one warning,” I said. “And that’s only because you’re Terrans…the people I’m trying to protect and save.”

I waited a second for the reactions. The smiles left their faces immediately as they reacted to my presence, and a couple were even trembling visibly as the fear exuded from them like a bad odor. I could probably have kicked my fear aura up a notch to force them to the ground, but I didn’t want to freak out the entire square.

“What are you talking about, Chun?” Jian Yi looked up at me defiantly. “A warning for what?”

I wasn’t getting pulled into her bullshit. Battling about the facts of who did what and who didn’t was where she wanted the conversation to go, to claim innocence while I belted the crap out of her. But neither of us were going to get that kind of satisfaction out of this. At least, not today. Ignoring her comment, I simply continued.

“You all have a choice to make. And the actions you decide to take from here on will determine that choice. Cease, and I will still consider you an ally that was only temporarily misguided-----blinded by the indoctrinated cultivator mindset that has been forced upon all of us. But continue on your path, and you will have decided to be my enemy. The choice is yours.”

With that, I turned and walked away.

I got about three steps before Jian Yi called out.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Chun! You’re crazy! Threatening us over nothing? Who is the real tyrant now?”

I turned, wanting to strike her dead as she leered back at me, the bitch egging me on. The Demon fought tooth and claw with the Struggler for control and it took every ounce of my wherewithal to channel my building Frenzy into [Indifference] and then plaster on a fake smile.

“Only time will tell, Jian Yi. Until then, I suggest you choose wisely.”

* * *

I was still pissed off and in a sour mood by the time I arrived at work. So much so that Mu Lin had to snap her fingers in my face to pull me out of my daydream of pummeling Jian Yi’s pretty little face in.

“Damn, are you even listening to me?” Mu Lin said.

“Sorry,” I said and went back to packing my kit for the day. “What were you saying?”

She huffed out an exasperated sigh. “I said, you didn’t even ask me how I did on my exam, you big Chun.”

Damn, I hadn’t thought to ask her at all. Too wrapped up in my own thoughts. I felt like a shitty friend again as I tried to give her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. So how did you do?”

“Failed by five points,” she said with a glum frown. “I was so pissed.”

“Yeah, that sucks,” I said. “But five points doesn’t sound too bad. You’ll get ‘em next time, right?”

“I hope so,” she said. “Because there won’t be a practice next time. It’ll be the real thing.”

“Really? How far away is the real exam?”

“Like a week, right before the Gold Tournament starts.”

That made me think of how soon the Iron Tournament would be starting. “Shit. The Iron Bracket opens up tomorrow. I need to get going.”

“Wait, what?” she said, grabbing my arm before I could walk away. “You aren’t seriously considering entering the Iron Tournament, are you? Is that why you were asking that question about Jing?”

“Ah…” Damn, she was too smart to lie to. I decided to ignore the Jing part. That would only lead to more questions. I focused on the tournament instead. “Well yeah, why not? I qualified for the Iron Bracket so I might as well give it a shot, right?”

“No!” she said, waving her hands in a ‘no-go’ gesture. “No, no, no… they kill people in the Iron Bracket and up, Chun? The Wooden Bracket doesn’t even compare.”

I knew that, of course, but I couldn’t let it seem like I did. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Why do you think it’s for Core Realm cultivators and up? I mean, you saw how bad you got busted up in just the Wooden Bracket, right?” She glanced at my arm and furrowed her brow. “What the hell? The bandages are off already?”

I shrugged. “The healer at the Tournament was a worry wart, I guess. Had me wrapped up like a mummy.”

She looked at me even more strangely. “What’s a worry wart and what’s a mummy?”

I laughed as she mouthed the English words phonetically in her Yee accent. I had to remember that Mu Lin was barely two or three when the cultivators took her. She’d probably barely heard those words before, much less remembered what they meant. But then that thought caused my laughter to die instantly. Here she was, filling her head with the knowledge of an alien culture just to be accepted by them and yet she knew none of her own. It was sad in a way that brought a deep heaviness to my soul. But it stoked the kindling of my Flame as well.

“Hey, I got to go,” I said, feigning another smile. “Don’t want to be late to the field on my first day back on the job.”

“Yeah right. I’m sure Sumatra will have a glorious work detail to welcome you back.”

I was happy to break off from the conversation and went to go find my trio of handlers. To my surprise they’d already been sent out and I couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride in that. But then worry hit me at the thought that I’d have to do actual work at work and not focus on my training.

And then I saw him.

My savior with red hair still packing his gear.

“Yo, Lee! Hold up!” I shouted to him as I grabbed my pack. “I’m teaming up with you today.”

* * *

The trail through the wild was easy, as the trail always was when you partnered up with Lee. His free-flowing conversation amused even the three tight-lipped cultivators who had joined us from off world. I stayed mostly quiet, but with Lee’s endless questions and easy-going charm they opened up and by the time we had reached our chosen hunting grounds, I’d learned they were all Core Realm cultivators from a planet called Tundari found somewhere on the outskirts of the core worlds.

“That’s pretty cool, man,” Lee said, nodding to their latest response to his endless queries. “I wish we had herbs like that to smoke here.”

“No, you are the lucky ones,” one of the cultivators said. “Look here.”

The man stopped at a tree and then with a quick strike of his jian blade, cut into its bark.

“Do you see the color of the rings?” he said, pointing at the pattern of red and white inside. “This is known as Demon Wood on our world. Very expensive and essential for the smithing of high-grade weapons. A log from this tree would be worth over a Tael of silver on Tundari. But here, with the Bloodmoon, your entire planet is full of it. It is too bad we couldn’t take back a ton of it by vessel.”

“Damn, that much?” Lee said with a whistle and then grinned at me. “We should go into the logging business, Chun.”

I smiled back at him, patting my axe. “Way ahead of you, buddy.”

One of the other cultivators chuckled. “Don’t waste your time. Even if you could harvest the wood, sending it by vessel would be far too expensive. Only when an Omni Gate is established would it become viable. Then this planet might become very wealthy indeed.” He then snorted with a scoff. “Perhaps even you mortals would benefit.”

My Flame stirred at his condescending tone. Clearly, he was not as charitable as his companion when it came to conversing with ‘mortals’, but what he said was true also. I didn’t know exactly what an Omni Gate was, but by the context, I figured it had to be some form of instant teleportation device between worlds. If we had that, I could only imagine what we would look like in terms of demographics and commerce. But it would mean a pipeline to the greater influence of the empire as well.

“I say we’re probably benefiting just fine without it for now,” I said with a hint of [Struggler’s Resolve]. “Isolation has its advantages.”

I walked away before he could say anything else, leaving the cultivators pondering on my words. As we continued to walk, I looked up at the sky. It was already midmorning, and I hadn’t gotten in an ounce of training yet. I needed to get started. Slowing down a bit, I fell in line with Lee who was bringing up the rear.

“Hey,” I said to him in a whisper. “You mind if I go take a breather for a bit? I’m still not at a hundred percent from my injury. Plus, I had a hell of a messed-up night last night.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“Long story, but I got a little drunk.”

He laughed. “Well for the dude who made me a whole Tael richer off of my bet with Mu Lin, no problem.”

I laughed with him. “Thanks for having faith in me, bro.”

“You? No way. I was counting on that sick bod of yours, man. What are you, like seven feet tall and three hundred pounds now? No skinny Yeester’s gonna be able to defeat you using a stupid wooden stick.”

I laughed hard at that. Enough to make the cultivators turn around and I prayed they hadn’t heard Lee refer to them as Yeesters. “Shit, that’s a new one, Lee. I’ll have to steal it.”

“Feel free, my man. Anyway, I got the group. Go take it easy.”

* * *

I made a double promise to make it up to Lee when this was all over. I felt shitty as hell for lying to him, but even then, he made me feel okay about it by not giving it a second thought. Truly a solid guy.

I made good on the time he had afforded me by finally getting into my own head and preparing to take my first step on the way to become a true Iron Bracket contender. Finding a spot on the roof of an abandoned service station, I kept an eye on where Lee was pitting the cultivators against a nest of giant wasp-like creatures known as drexel and started my meditation.

I first engaged the four meridian points I had unlocked previously and warmed them up by running a constant flow of stored, concentrated Frenzy through them. Once I was ready, I then began to activate the points in the sequence outlined in the Lightning Manual. It was a quick series of actuations required. If I could liken it to anything, it was almost like bouncing a ball back and forth between the points, building up speed before firing it towards the final meridian point known as Jing.

Although according to Mu Lin and Xi Xha, it was no meridian point at all.

It was my Spiritual Root Essence.

My elemental core of being.

For an elemental wielder that would be something obvious which is probably why it was referred to in such an obtuse way. But for me it could only mean one thing—my Frenzied Flame. But how did I target it exactly? The Flame wasn’t something literal inside of me. It was a focus. Perhaps my Dantian was the closest thing?

I tried that, summoning my Frenzy and bouncing it across the four points. I channeled the final surge of energy towards my Dantian and then cried out as a grenade went off inside my stomach. I doubled over in a fetal position, clutching my abdomen as I rolled across the rooftop in pain.

It took me a few minutes to recover, and I had to check to make sure I hadn’t shit myself in the process. Clearly that wasn’t going to work and a small part of me lost hope that the knowledge in the lightning book was as transferable as I first thought. I sat back, staring up at the clouds. Spiritual Root Essence. It had to be my Flame for sure, but it clearly wasn’t something stored inside my Dantian. So what was the Flame exactly, then?

Was it actual Flame?

I was hoping it was, but it was more metaphorical than that.

My spiritual root.

The core of my Flame.

What was it?

I searched both my thoughts and my knowledge of the orb.

Threja had even mentioned it to me before. The core of my Dao.

The deep trigger that was the source of my pain.

That led me to think of Mu Lin again. The loss of not knowing what a ‘worry wart’ or a ‘mummy’ was. The loss of my people. The way Jian Yi was so easily turned against me. It was that loss. The loss of my family, my people….and my burning desire to punish the empire for it.

Suddenly the Flame roared brightly inside my head.

It was hovering before me in my mind’s eye. Blue at the base and yellow at the top.

I didn’t hesitate.

With the image still clearly in my mind, I went through the lightning sequence again, bouncing the frenzied energy back and forth. I finally directed it towards the image in my mind and a sudden heat filled my body as something new opened inside of me.

I opened my eyes and directed the energy towards my hand.

In an instant, a candle-like Flame flickered to life briefly in my palm.

And then it was gone.

Along with my Frenzy.

Shit, that was it? I thought.

I tried again, focusing harder on the new space I had opened within my soul and managed to make two candles’ worth of Flame in my hand. What the hell? It wasn’t lightning by any means, but maybe I just needed more Frenzy? Or perhaps I had to level up my Flame up some more.

While I was initially not thrilled by the results, I had to take a step back to consider what I had just done. I had just made fire appear from thin air. Real fire. No fake magic tricks. No tools. No science. This was real magic. Real Kung Fu freaking magic! I smiled. I had just made a breakthrough like none other. I was able to conjure fire from a metaphorical Flame.

But more than that.

If I could make fire.

That meant I could make lightning.

* * *

I spent the rest of the workday honing my new-found fire manifestation ability.

I discovered that the amount of flame I could produce was relative to the amount of Frenzy I could apply to the process. And the limit to that was my Internal Strengthening ability and the density and amount of Frenzy I could pour through my system. My Dantian was mostly in liquid form now, having mastered the ability to compress Frenzy almost instantaneously, but the quantities of energy I needed were still somewhat large.

Even with utilizing all my stored Frenzy I was only able to produce a Flame barely bigger than my hand that lasted for all of three seconds.

I needed to pick a fight with something to generate more Frenzy, but looking about, I couldn’t see anything worth my while. This was a drawback to growing in power, I now realized. I could create copious amounts of Frenzy while in a fight, but it had to be against something much stronger than I was. Here, the drexel the cultivators were still fighting would barely give me a workout, much less Frenzy.

Unless I take on the whole darn nest, I thought.

My Flame stirred at the idea.

I looked back towards Lee and checked the time. We’d have to head back in soon.

That didn’t leave me much time.

I’d have to make it quick.

Jumping off the roof, I engaged my reflexes and sprinted across the hunting grounds to find my own nest of drexel. It was a liberating feeling to fully cut loose without care for being caught and questioned for what I was. The ground beneath me was being eaten up like I was driving in a car, the wind pressing into my face so hard I had to be doing at least 50.

When I finally slid to a stop, I tore up the grass, leaving a twenty-foot skid mark behind me. Glancing upwards through the copse of trees I had arrived in, I spotted my target. There in a particularly large cluster of decaying pines was the paper-mache-like structure of the drexel nest. It was at least the size of a two-story house, the creatures flying in and out of it with a distinctive hum of dragonfly wings. They were black-bodied with red limbs, their blue compound eyes giving them the appearance of minor demons.

They were dangerous creatures despite being only D class. In addition to their razor-sharp jaws, they came equipped with a wasp-like stinger that would kill a mortal human easily. But could their sting still kill me? If the stinger could penetrate my skin perhaps. Still, I was at stage four in my Internal Strengthening now. Their poison wouldn’t affect me that much, if at all. But maybe with enough of them stinging me at once?

The thoughts of danger caused my Flame to stir.

Looking at myself from the outside, I had to actually be going nuts to be thinking like this. Here I was, trying to psyche myself up, not by counting my likelihood for success but for failure. I let out a laugh. I was becoming a madman for sure. Gripping my axe, I approached the center most tree and hacked at it with a Frenzy-powered cleave.

The two-foot-thick trunk exploded with the force of the hit, sending the tree sideways as it fell. The air filled with the sound of a thousand chainsaws as the nest hit the ground and what had to be over a hundred dog-sized wasps poured from out of it.

The sight and sound alone was enough to get my Frenzy pumping and I channeled it quickly into my reflexes as I dove into the fray. Time slowed as I hacked and chopped at the creatures, using my martial forms as an extension of my instincts. The wet crack of insect carapaces was cathartically satisfying as the killing of each beast rewarded me with a new burst of Frenzy from my [Blood Lust].

The nasty white goop that came with it was less appealing, but I was having too much fun to care. I hacked away gleefully, letting my pent-up frustrations about Jian Yi and Hein flow freely through my rage. Jaws and stingers sliced through my clothes, but I could barely feel the sting of pain through my hardened skin. The more I killed the more seemed to come. One on one the creatures were no match, but in a swarm, clearly the [Odds had to be Against Me] by now.

The thought caused less Frenzy than I imagined it would, barely topping me up past full. I guess even my Flame knew I was mostly bullshitting out here. Still, it was enough Frenzy to give my lightning a second try.

Using [Struggler’s Resolve] I came to a standstill, absorbing the bites, stings, and impacts of the insects’ bodies as I went through the meridian-opened sequence again. Frenzy funneled into a thick liquid stream as I bounced the energy back and forth. I channeled it towards the new opening I had created and then shouted the first thing I could think of to amplify my Flame.

“Burning Rage!”

The world turned bright yellow as my entire body burst into flames. A massive shockwave came next, blowing apart what was left of the hive and the dozens of drexel buzzing around it. I think I must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew I was standing shakily on my feet in the middle of a raging forest fire.

Oh shit!

I choked on the thick white smoke pouring off the burning pine trees and made a bee line for what I hoped was the opposite direction of the flames. While I could certainly feel the heat, with my hardened skin I could feel no pain from it at all as I literally burst through the edge of the tree line and into the open space just in front of the service station.

I hacked and wheezed, ridding the burning smoke from my lungs.

I glanced back at the flames and was glad to see it was an isolated copse of trees that I had set on fire and not the entire forest. I then looked down at my clothes, which were now cut to shreds and burnt in several places.

Shit, how the hell was I going to explain this?

As if to echo my thoughts, I caught sight of Lee and the three cultivators running across the open field towards me. I rested my hands on my knees, only now just realizing how heavily I was still breathing, but I kept it up for show more than anything else.

The unfriendly cultivator was the first to arrive, speeding across the ground with qinggong, his feet barely touching the ground as he ran.

“What happened here?” he demanded, his tone authoritative and accusatory, although I couldn’t imagine as to what he’d think to accuse me of. Maybe I just looked guilty right now.

I kept breathing heavily like I was out of breath, buying time for an answer. I looked to the service station and then got a brilliant, but stupid idea. I bought a few more seconds, waiting for Lee and the other two cultivators to arrive before I began to explain.

“Well, that didn’t go too well,” I said.

“Shit!” Lee had genuine concern in his eyes as he approached me. “What happened to you, man?”

“I ah…” I nodded towards the service station. “I found an old barrel of gasoline in the station over there. Rolled it over to a drexel nest…lit it…and well. You see the result.”

Lee’s eyes widened. “Man, you are freaking crazy, bro.”

“What does he mean?” the stern cultivator asked. “What is Gas-so-leen?”

He pronounced the word phonetically like Mu Lin had.

Lee thankfully went into full-blown explanation of the stuff, describing it as water that catches on fire that smelled real good and made your car go vroom. He then had to spend another few minutes explaining what a car was and what vroom meant.

The cultivator eventually laughed. “Foolish mortal toys. You are lucky to be alive, handler.”

“Indeed,” one of his companions said as he gazed at the blaze. “Such a fine waste of Demon Wood too. You know not what you have done.”

“It makes sense he knows nothing,” the stern cultivator said before looking at me. “We have an old Tandari saying: Only fools play with fire. You should learn from that.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.

“Yeah,” I said, looking with some pride at the fire I had caused. “We have something that goes like that too.”

* * *

On the way back in from the field I had to use [Struggler’s Resolve] to keep the smile from coming to my face. I hadn’t been successful in creating lightning, but I’d made one hell of an uncontrolled fireball. Still, why did it come out as fire though? Was it because of what I’d shouted? Or was I still missing something?

Recalling the glimpses of the lightning manual in my mind, I began scrolling through for an answer. By the time we reached the halfway point to the gate I believed I had honed in on what that answer could be.

The core of all lightning techniques were based upon the one I had just performed. It was a primer so to speak. An initial spark that led to everything else. From there, more elaborate techniques could be performed on top of it, but there was nothing that modified it from the original primer.

Something had to be missing then.

But what?

I had poured as much Frenzy as I could into that technique. Did it still need more?

Then going back to the page for the primer I saw a line that gave me a clue.

“And like the striking of flint on steel, let your Qi spark into lightning.”

I’d read that line countless times before, but only now did I look at it in a different light. And it was my own stupid gasoline idea that led me to it. I had originally assumed the line was something metaphorical. How could Qi make sparks like flint striking steel? Qi was formless. A source of energy. But then…so was gasoline. It was a condensed liquid form of energy. No different than my Frenzy was now. By using the technique, I had turned my liquid Frenzy into fire, but if my Frenzy were solid, would the smashing of it together cause the spark I needed to create lightning?

It kind of made sense. Just like the orb, this was an advanced manual. One that perhaps assumed the practitioner was already a Core Realm cultivator that was able to manipulate solid Qi. Thinking along those lines, Hong Feng’s warning came as doubly threatening now. If I’d been able to create lightning, not only would it have revealed that I knew secret knowledge, but it would also have revealed that I had abilities well beyond what my core density should be able to produce.

Damn that would have been a close call, I thought.

I could have done myself in real quick.

Considering I wasn’t even at the stage to worry about that yet, maybe I was being a bit pedantic, but being able to create lightning or not, the initial problem still remained. How could I wield this new-found power without being tagged as an anomaly? Right now, I couldn’t even explain how I was able to create fire much less lightning.

I sighed inwardly as my options looked slim.

There was one of course.

Joining the Fire Birds.

But what the hell would that even mean?

As we neared the gate, I thought on the various outcomes some more. And then suddenly an idea came to me. Hong Feng was more than just a sect elder. He was a criminal overlord and giving me this kind of opportunity was probably something way out of the ordinary when it came to sects. He’d demonstrated that he was willing to break the rules to get me to join. And in that regard, he had just shown his hand and I was the one holding the trump card. He desperately wanted what he suspected I possessed. The key to Frenzy. The key to becoming a Berserker.

Perhaps I could use that to get what I needed from him.

My jaw set with resolve as I prepared a new plan.

I needed to find out just how much Hong Feng was willing to pay for a glimpse of my secrets.

It was time to make my second venture into the Jianghu.