I seldom had a moment to admire and be in awe of the kid's prowess before my eyes veered just enough to the side to catch the faintest flinch. Immediately executing Shadow Steps, I appeared behind him just in time to reach out and hold him up before he fell.
His face was ghastly pale and covered in droplets of sweat, his lips were sickly blue, and the look in his eyes was... hazy. Shooting a small plume of Qi into him, I immediately realized why: his meridians were bone dry. Like canals of a river that had not been flowing for thousands of years.
Even his dantian was thoroughly empty, drained to the point it seemed like a wasteland. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that he was at all conscious. It was also monumentally stupid of him to have used literally all of his Qi for one attack, though I suppose he really just wanted to see the most of what he could do.
"M-Master..." he mumbled, gasping for breath.
"Haah, you idiot," I sighed, gently pushing my Qi into his meridians, trying to revitalize them the best I can without causing any undue damage. "Rest, now."
"What's wrong?" Lao Shun appeared next to me and asked.
"He used up all his Qi."
"Oh," he took over for me and put him down on the ground gently, pressing his fingers on his wrist and examining him. "This is... remarkable?"
"What is?"
"There is no permanent damage," he said. "Ordinarily, the totality of one's Qi reserves are not equal to the one's ability to use that Qi. An average cultivator can, at most, exercise about one third of their dantian; a more talented ones may go up a few notches, while Heavenly Chosen can, under right circumstances, utilize about two-thirds in a singular attack. Using everything, though, is often a suicidal attack; even if one survived the ordeal, their body would be utterly broken. Meridian channels in humans simply aren't strong enough to endure; even little Lan would struggle to sustain the damage without any permanent consequences."
... oh. So it's a bit more bizarre than I thought.
"Well," I said. "He's a talented kid."
"..." Lao Shun looked at me quite bizarrely, rolling his eyes in the end as he picked up Zhao'er who'd already started snoring a bit. "There are only so many miracles you can handwave away with, 'They're talented kids'."
"Why? Isn't it the law of the universe that at the root of every miracle is someone with the capacity to defy the ordinary?" I replied. "Laws, especially unbound from nature itself, are merely established limits."
"No, no, laws are laws," he said. "Not suggestions that your disciples plow through every other month."
"Like you?"
"Ugh. Don't involve me in this mess."
"Just take care of him."
"I will," he shrugged and walked away.
If I had to hazard a guess as to why Xi Zhao remained 'unharmed' despite emptying his dantian in a single attack, I'd say it's probably a combo of a few things, all of which are rooted in his increasingly mental pursuit of his Path.
I've noticed it with all the kids, but even myself--the more I study Dao, the more I cultivate, the more I reshape my body. It's subtle and hardly in any sense extraordinary--sort of like slowly gaining tolerance towards alcohol and, before you know it, you need to four tequila shots in and two beers deep just to feel the slightest buzz--but it's present.
For instance, as I use Shadow Steps a lot, meridians at the bottom of my feet are slightly wider and sturdier than in my back. Not to the point that trying to expel my entire dantian worth of Qi through them wouldn't obliterate me, but in that they can tolerate slightly more Qi and, more importantly, 'process' it at greater speeds.
Perhaps that's what happened to Zhao'er, only, well, to an extreme degree.
As the shock wore off, the kids ran over to the massive gash to inspect it, with Xiu'er immediately proclaiming she'd be able to block it and making everyone else laugh.
I glanced over at Long Tao to see if he was particularly shocked, but if he were... it wasn't imprinted on his face.
"What?" he said, smirking. "If you want to praise me for guiding him well, just do so, Master. You don't have to be shy."
"... haah. What would the world say if they heard that I'm having one of my Disciples guide another one of my Disciples?"
"... my father," he said after a momentary silence. "Often used to say that the world's greatest failure was its close-mindedness. That the old held onto their pride and disallowed anyone to step on their mandates, and that the young had to suffer unto that pride, wasting precious moments of their lives. The lament of how many grand talents were failed just because they happened to have a wrong Master who was too stubborn to admit they could teach properly.
"Sects felled into ruin, over and over, because those in position of power insisted upon their own ways."
"The point being?"
"The point being," he added. "The world has less than no right to judge you, Master. Its failures could stack a mausoleum that would reach the heavens. My grandmother used to say that the smartest people were not the ones who knew the most or remembered all they were taught, no. The smartest people were those who knew to surround themselves with people smarter than them."
"... ouch."
"Ha ha," he laughed. Like, legitimately laughed. Wow. "Heart, mind, and soul. The three principles of existence. They all bear equal weight--yet are never treated as such. Mind, soul, and then heart. Somewhere far down below. That is how a curious, innocent child grows up to be a petty, vengeful maniac who sees the entire world as a stepping stone for their greatness. Not even my parents saw it, Master, but you did. The importance of heart. Whereas others only ever care for it if there are Demons involved, you know... it all begins with the heart. So," he said, walking away. "Let them judge you all they want. Don't you have a small army of kids to prove them all wrong, anyway?"
... Long Tao's 'cheer up' speeches were infrequent, to say the least, but they hardly ever felt like a misfire. Well, this one kind of is. I never once cared much that he took reins over teaching them about cultivation--shit, I was grateful beyond all else that he did, because I was not able to.
I suppose, in his own way... he seems to worry, perhaps feeling like I'd think lesser of myself for letting him take over.
It'd be kind of cute if he was just a normal teenager. But considering he was old as shit... it's honestly kind of sad. Just how badly were his relationships with people ruined in his past life that he just assumes something like that?
Haah.
Forget that.
Everyone's gone away, now, and... it's my time. Just a bit. A tinywittlebit~
Alright. Guide Qi gently through the meridians around the heart, compress the sensation of 'fire' into a thought, convey it as an intention. Slowly--slowly guide the burning plume of Qi through the meridians and toward my fingertip, there we go. Nice and steady.
Man, that's starting to kind of hurt, not gonna lie. Okay, speed it up a bit. Nice, nice. Aaand, it's there, just let it go. Slowly.
Hmm.
Right.
... why the fuck is everything within a ten-mile radius on fucking fire?!! I THOUGHT I WENT TINY!