Path Of The Dragon (A Dark Fantasy Cultivation Wuxia Xianxia Progression Series)

Chapter 67 Discussion

Jie smiled and with a look to make sure Xue was doing alright, she increased it by one. She kept increasing the resistance as they improved to keep the challenge at a steady level as she and Xue trained for hours. She kept pushing herself as far as she could despite her screaming muscles and after hours more... she heard the sound of a gong and the resistance started dropping. As did the numbers displayed in the hologram until it reached zero and the door slid open.

"Guess our time is up," Jie said.

Xue looked bedraggled with disheveled fur as he panted and looked at her like she was nuts for subjecting them to that. She expected she probably looked at least as disheveled but the sudden drop in resistance left her feeling oddly weightless and free.

She laughed and left the building to find Elder Shi outside, looking annoyed.

"You're late," Elder Shi said, "ready for your training?"

Jie bowed. Her robes were soaked with sweat and pealed away only to plaster themselves somewhere slightly different like a second skin as she moved. Her muscles all screamed and her legs threatened to turn to jelly beneath her.

"Of course," Jie said between ragged breaths, "sorry to keep you waiting."

Elder Shi blinked and her lips twitched. She fought the twitch, but finally burst into laughter. "The manners are nice. If it weren't for you being insane enough to train through the night and still want to keep going I'd almost think you'd been replaced with a shapeshifter," Elder Shi said.

"Well... I don't like a lot of the nonsense here, but I don't try to be deliberately rude you know!" Jie said, "I'm trying to adjust to all this... insanity. Like you said. I need to learn the rules so I can use them to my advantage instead of making things worse. And I need to train more."

"Oh... so you took me seriously then? Well... that's good. But do you ever even sleep?" Elder Shi said.

"I slept last night," Jie said.

"You slept in the conditioning chamber?" Elder Shi asked.

"Oh... wait. Sorry. I meant the night before last... I think?" Jie said.

"Right... look your cultivation isn't high enough that you can afford to get away with so little rest. You do have to sleep sometimes," Elder Shi said.

"I really did sleep before I came back to the academy," Jie said.

"Well... alright," Elder Shi said, "come along. You'll have to cultivate for a bit and have a nice easy run there or you'll be useless for training. I want you to sleep tonight. Not cultivate. Not train. Not study martial skill scrolls or anything other than close your eyes and fall asleep. Do we understand each other?"

"I'll try," Jie said.

Elder Shi shook her head as they ran toward her dojo. "With any other student, I'd threaten with harsher training or less sleep. With you... I think that would only encourage bad behavior. But your training and cultivation will suffer if you let yourself go too long without sleep. At least for now," Elder Shi said.

"Of course. I just... got carried away. I thought I'd sleep after I was done, but it lasted longer than I expected, and I wasn't going to waste a use," Jie said.

"I suppose that makes sense..." Elder Shi said, "Is that a spirit tiger following you around?"

"Yes," Jie said, "his name is Xue. He was... a gift."

"Hmm... that wouldn't be the same spirit tiger that the auction master bid on by any chance, would it?" Elder Shi said.

"You heard about that?" Jie asked.