Aimless Ascension

Gale left Vale to guard the house again on his visit to the town. He felt terribly bad about this, however, he had no solution for this at the moment.

He couldn't just leave everything to heaven's will when he threatened a short-tempered young master after beating up his men.

Well, his plan was to commission the ghostly practitioner Twilight to guard Stormhold against any misshapen when they were away. However, it seemed she wasn't free at the moment or probably hadn't taken him seriously to consider his offer.

Ultimately, Gale could only leave everything to his trustworthy companion. Even if the people from the Han Family came to sabotage everything he erected so far, Vale would be able to stop it.

Gale had a couple of tasks in the town, and he would like to stay another night to complete them. The first was to complete the deal with the Wang Family, while the second would be a bit time-consuming.

Gale had to instruct his disciple for the first time. He never thought this day would come when he would take someone under his wings as his disciple.

What could he say? Life was full of surprises. His life in particular.

Although Xiaolin's talent and peculiarities had a big hand in leading him to take her as a disciple, there were some slight other issues as well.

People seemed to get the wrong impression about their relationship very often. Gale wanted to demise all those impressions before they could turn to rumours.

True, Xiaolin was pretty and good-natured, but she was too young to be anything for him, save for a disciple or little sister. Well, the age difference wasn't big, hardly six years–Gale had seen plenty of people marrying with larger differences.

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A longer lifespan makes the status quo wacky sometimes.

The Wang's Inn was bustling with workers when Gale arrived. Every worker was in a haste to complete their task of cleaning the inn, carrying a broom or bucket of water.

A simple question to one worker led him to find that they were cleaning on the occasion of the coming Harvest festival at the end of the month.

"Seemed like a big event," Gale muttered and walked into the inn.

It was way past morning for him to find Xiaolin in the small garden, meditating. However, he found her there, but instead of meditating, she was practising the physical arts he handed her with Wang Li.

Two women clashed with one another with wooden swords in their arms. It didn't take an expert to find Xiaolin was on the losing end, but it was alright since they were only sparring.

Wang Li was a copper ranker for years. She had neglected spirit arts for a prolonged time, but after revisiting her old teachings, she adapted pretty well. It was obvious Xiaolin would find herself at the short end of the stick in the spar.

Moreover, Qi changes the body the more you hold on to it. There were practically two factors in this: the first was the simply sheer amount of Qi, while the other was time.

Although Xiaolin's body had more affinity to worldly energy, Wang Li's body held onto Qi for longer periods of time and was larger in quantity. Obviously, her endurance and resilience would be better than his disciple.

However, something was wrong with how these two women were practising. It was as if both parties were trying their best to not hurt the other party. Their grasp over the Qi was clumsy as well.

Of course, Xiaolin had a minuscule amount of Qi which didn't recover after she spent it, but Wang Li should have at least ten times more of Xiaolin, why was she like this? Probably worried about hurting the frail girl.

'This is bad,' Gale thought. 'At this rate, it will take them years before they can take the first step.'

However, Gale didn't stop them. He let them spar until Xiaolin's body gave in, as she basically couldn't endure anymore. She fell flat on the ground as they ended the spar. Her chest heaved up and down like a fish out of water.

Gale sighed, shaking his head. "It seemed you hadn't taken your master's words seriously at all," he said, adopting a disappointing tone that he was all too familiar with. 'Well, at least, I hadn't been this stupid in the beginning.'

"Seni. . .master," Xiaolin called, and stood back up, even though her legs were wobbly. She was barely standing. She bowed, following the courtesy, and the older woman did the same.

Both were soaking in sweat as their training attire was glued to their bodies. Xiaolin was completely spent, while Wang Li had much of her stamina left.

"Oh Master Gale," Wang Li said with a laugh. "I was taking care of your disciple, as I promised you. What do you think of our sparring?"

Gale narrowed his eyes and considered something to say that might not be too offending. But he stopped himself, thinking sometimes people need a reality check, especially when they have a large ground to cover.

"It's terrible." Just as the words left his mouth, both women's expressions turned unsightly. But Gale wasn't finished yet. Not even nearly. "Even the most amateurish practitioner would feel good about themselves watching you two practise. I wanted to count what's wrong with all you have shown but the moment I started, I delegated to count what's right about you two. At least I have fewer things to count. By fewer, I meant one. Only one.

"Honestly, your basics weren't half bad for someone who barely started it, but all the good ended right there. It's like . . ."

Gale wanted to continue, but he stopped finding Xiaolin already on the verge of tearing up.

'Oops, I got carried away,' he mused and sighed. It hasn't even been time to make her cry. Worse training was waiting for her. He couldn't just let her cry for something so stupid.

However, while the younger woman was on the verge of crying, the older one adopted a furious look.

She glared at Gale, pointing her wooden sword at him. "Fight me."