Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Han Yu and his friends forced their way through a crowd, wishing to be some of the first into the examination venue. Several of their group had been very hesitant to trust the flyer on blind faith, but just one day before, the Hadal Clan had announced the legitimacy of the new Redwater Sect, and so practically every teenager and young adult in the neighborhood had shown up. Getting into a sect had the potential to change the entire result of their life.

There were few parents who were unwilling to let their children join, merely those who were particularly religious or who were too worried about the potential risks. In this part of Canvas Town, however, just living came with such risks, and chances were that many of their children would end up joining a gang at some point. A sect would be much preferable, unorthodox or not.

Han hadn’t even bothered asking his parents. He had simply informed his father that he intended to join the sect. He hadn’t particularly cared. Secretly, Han was most excited about the idea of being able to leave his parent’s apartment rather than the idea of fulfilling his dream of learning martial arts. If all went well, he hoped he would not have to return there tonight, or perhaps ever again.

The examination was being held in an empty space at the top of the stack, a wide stretch between a warehouse and a skydock. Had it been the Hadal Clan, Han knew that he would have been able to expect a wide interior room for the purpose, but on Tseludia Station, such large spaces came at a premium. Permits needed to be filed with the government for permission to eliminate so many interior walls, due to concerns of damaging the stack’s structural stability.

Other than the venue, the event was rather professional. Uniformed sect members kept order among the crowd of excited teenagers and young adults. Red banners surrounded the area, and a stage was set up towards the front, where a small group of Seiyal stood. Han Yu tried to peer through the crowd, trying to see what Riverfiend actually looked like, as the media had yet to find pictures of him.

Most of them wore white robes with various inlaid secondary colors, those of the various palaces. Han knew from the information the sect had released that there were five palaces, only four of which already had a Palace Leader already instituted.

Six people stood on the stage, five of which wore the white robes, three men and two women. The last figure wore a red uniform with black undertones. He was a farsei, his face not particularly notable, but he had a tyrannous bearing. Han knew that this had to be Sect Leader Cyrus Yu, the Riverfiend himself. Han wanted to be like him one day.

The crowd continued jostling its way into the space until everyone had arrived, where Han found that there was finally space to breathe as the crowd expanded to fit the larger open area. He looked around, but realized that he had lost all of his friends in the crowd. He supposed he would just have to meet up with them afterwards when they had all made it into the sect. He kept the concept of failing the examination firmly out of mind.

After the last dregs of the crowd made it in, the red-robed man who Han suspected to be the Riverfiend stood before the edge of the stage, arms resting behind his back. There was no podium or microphone before him, but when the man spoke, the words echoed out across the entire space. Han’s eyes blazed with admiration. Could this be sound arts?

“This is the entry examination for the Redwater Sect,” the man said brusquely, seemingly skipping as many formalities as were possible. “As such,” he continued, “we will only be accepting those who I determine to have sufficient potential. The rest of you can either give up or work hard to increase your potential before the next entry examination. I can say this, however: I will be exacting in my choices. Do not attempt to dispute them.”

Having said that, he stepped backwards, allowing a woman in a white robe with red accents to take the stage before them. She was a rather pretty sei, and her long hair rested loose behind her, completely untied. It struck Han as somewhat scandalous to see her like that. It was one thing for aliens to do so, but for a Seiyal…

Once she had the crowd’s attention, she called out.

“The man who just spoke was Sect Leader Yu, who you likely know of as the Riverfiend. I am Vice Sect Leader Rachel, and I will be proctoring this examination. As we said on the flyer, a martial artist’s foundation is important, and so only mortals are to be accepted during this examination. If anyone here has already learned martial arts, you may consider talking to a doctor about foundation annihilation surgery before returning for a future examination, where we will then be willing to put you into consideration. In addition, anyone who breaks a rule during the examination will be seen as lacking in discipline and thus removed from consideration. I will not be accepting any questions.”

She smiled as if she had told a joke as her eyes scanned the crowd. Han almost thought that her gaze paused on him for a moment before continuing.

Could she really have been looking at him? He glanced around, and saw that others surrounding him seemed to have similar questions written on their face. It was probably not him, he decided. Still, a small part of him could not help but hope. She really was pretty. While he was lost in a fantasy, the Vice Sect Leader continued speaking, looking down on everyone with what seemed to be a smirk.

“To begin, there are more of you here than we expected. To begin, we will have each of you fight one other candidate. Don’t worry, we’ll divide you into weight classes. We understand that those are important for mortal fights, and we wish to expand our selection criteria beyond those whose parents could afford to feed them well.”

Again she seemed to find her own words humorous, and again Han could not tell why. Wasn’t what she had said something that was strictly true? He was glad for the weight classes. While Han wasn’t malnourished, he wasn’t bulky enough to have much chance into some of the larger men his age.

Following this, the Vice Sect Leader ordered the men who were standing beside the crowd to maintain order to pass out small chips made out of some sort of polymer to his prospective entrants. Han soon received his, and he inspected it carefully.

The item was roughly the size of a serite chip, about the diameter of someone’s eyeball. It was mostly flat, with one side a blank red and the other bearing two digits: a letter and a numeral.

He looked around, trying to figure out the purpose of the item. It clearly served to identify him, but how would they use it to announce the pairings? There were no screens anywhere in sight. Did she intend to have them show themselves to her one by one and then get matched up?

As he was trying to figure out the plan, each of his ideas being painfully long and time consuming, he was interrupted by a clamor from those around him. Han looked up to see a vast projection floating above the stage. He gasped in shock.

The image was almost the size of an entire building, floating unsupported in the air. Han hadn’t even seen it appear, as if it had formed from nothingness in midair. He instantly recognized what it had to be.

“Illusions created with extant miasma,” he murmured under his breath.

He had heard of it, and seen it in movies, but the real thing felt totally different. It was the single most magical thing he had ever seen, even despite the mundane nature of the image that was actually being displayed, a mere board showing lists of letters and numeral pairings, and where they were to meet up.

Han quickly made his way over to the spot that corresponded to his own chip, finding himself faced with another boy a bit younger than him that he didn’t know. He thought he might have seen him around the neighborhood before, but they had certainly never met. The other boy didn’t say a word, merely narrowed his eyes as he inspected Han. Han smiled at him, almost baring his teeth. He could not lose this fight. This fight could very well determine his future, and he knew that his opponent must feel the exact same way. An opportunity like this one might arrive once in a lifetime.

He glanced at a nearby duo, a man and a woman roughly his own age. It struck him then that they actually hadn’t bothered to separate by gender. Wouldn’t that be unfair to the women? He questioned the idea for a moment and then set it aside, because the woman on the podium had started speaking again.

“Before you start, keep in mind that we will be watching everything. Fights will last until knock outs or concessions. If you intentionally kill your opponent, we will report you to the Justice Office, so keep that in mind as well. After this, you and your opponent may bow to one another and start at any moment.”

Han noticed her specific word choice, allowing for accidental deaths. The idea unnerved him, but wasn’t a surprise. This was, after all, part of the world of martial artists. Risk of death came with the territory.

There was a moment of silence after she finished speaking, but quickly all of the would-be martial artists began to bow to one another, and Han heard signs of clashing already starting. He instinctively rubbed the skin atop his cerebral dantian. After building up his willpower, he looked to his opponent. They locked eyes, and both bowed to one another.

Han got into an approximation of a combat stance, eyes ablaze with fervor, and charged.

Martial Foundation: [Created in the initial stage of Foundation Refinement, a martial artist’s foundation comprises both the type of miasma they use and how much of their dantians it permeates. A perfect foundation is not actually that difficult to create, assuming one has the right techniques. Possession of a foundation creation technique capable of achieve perfection via refinement is a large part of what separates weak and powerful sects. Foundations can be destroyed via breaking a martial artist’s dantian, but they can also be destroyed without breaking the dantian through expensive cutting edge surgery. This surgery was created by the Staiven, and it is rumored they discovered how to do it by performing illegal experiments on kidnapped martial artists. The Pantheonic Government has made no investigations about the matter.]