Chapter 5: The Language of Fists
The moon still hung above the Heavenly Flame Sect like an indifferent immortal—half-curious, half-bored—as Caelan led Lyra away from the Jinwu training grounds.
Behind them, the damaged courtyard was already repairing itself.
Stone crawled back into broken stone. Cracks sealed. Scorched tiles cooled beneath the formation's light.
Ren remained behind with his anger.
Caelan considered that an excellent result.
He walked ahead with his hands behind his head, entirely too cheerful for someone who had spent the last half-hour beating another boy into the ground and convincing him that reality possessed a loophole it absolutely did not.
Lyra followed more cautiously.
She wasn't afraid of Caelan.
Not exactly.
What unsettled her was how much he had enjoyed himself.
Not merely the fighting.
The way he had fought.
Caelan had seen what Ren wanted almost immediately. Pride. Proof. A way around Destiny's Chosen. He had given the boy little scraps of hope, allowed him to believe indirect attacks might succeed, then watched him tear apart his own courtyard trying to prove it.
And all the while Caelan had been smiling.
It wasn't mindless cruelty.
That might have been easier to understand.
It was curiosity mixed with amusement, violence treated as both experiment and conversation.
Lyra had seen enough nobles manipulate one another with promises, marriages and carefully sharpened compliments.
Caelan apparently preferred punches.
She wasn't certain that was an improvement.
When they reached one of the broad elevated paths connecting the clan territories to the main sect districts, Lyra finally spoke.
"Are you certain he isn't going to complain about you?"
Caelan snorted.
"To whom?"
"I don't know. His father?"
Caelan glanced back at her.
"Ren's father is the Jinwu Clan Head."
"Yes. That was precisely why I asked."
"He'd have to explain that he agreed to spar with someone younger than him, got beaten badly, and then spent half the match attacking rocks because I let him think he'd discovered a weakness in Destiny's Chosen."
Caelan smiled.
"His pride won't survive the report."
Lyra considered that.
"That is a surprisingly convincing argument."
"I have those occasionally."
They continued.
Caelan began walking backward, apparently deciding that roads were too simple when faced in the proper direction.
"He doesn't want to join me now," he said. "But he wants to beat me."
Lyra blinked.
"Is that supposed to be progress?"
"Of course."
"How?"
Caelan gave her the disappointed look of a teacher discovering his student had somehow forgotten arithmetic.
"You really don't understand fighting."
"I understand hitting people."
"No. That's violence."
"And fighting is?"
"More interesting."
Lyra stared.
Caelan sighed dramatically.
"When you fight someone properly, you learn things."
He tapped one finger against his temple.
"How they react when the plan fails. Whether they panic. Whether they become reckless when angry. Whether they protect themselves first or keep pushing. Whether they'll run when something hurts."
His smile returned.
"A conversation lies. A fight usually doesn't."
Lyra frowned.
"So you beat people until you understand them?"
"Not everyone."
"How reassuring."
"Some people are boring."
She ignored that.
"And this somehow creates friendship?"
Caelan's expression changed slightly.
Not enough for anyone less attentive to notice.
"Maybe."
Lyra caught it.
Caelan continued before she could say anything.
"The sect encourages groups for a reason. Different people. Different strengths. You don't build something useful by collecting five copies of the same person."
He looked toward the distant Jinwu grounds.
"But putting names together doesn't make them trust each other either."
"So you intend to beat them first."
"Training together helps."
"That wasn't training. You humiliated him."
"He needed it."
"Of course he did."
Caelan grinned.
"He's spent too long trying to fight like the person everyone expects him to be."
Lyra remembered Ren's flames.
The way they had changed toward the end.
Hotter.
Wilder.
The anger that had stopped looking like something interfering with his technique and started looking like part of it.
"You noticed something."
Caelan said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Lyra shook her head.
"In the stories I grew up reading, friendship usually begins with someone rescuing someone else."
"You read terrible stories."
"I like those stories."
"I know."
Her eyes narrowed.
"How?"
"You talk in your sleep."
Lyra stopped walking.
Caelan laughed and vanished down the path beneath a burst of wind.
"You liar!"
"Probably!"
She hurried after him.
Lyra did not know what to say after that.
An unusual condition.
She normally possessed at least three respectable answers and one impolite one for any given situation.
Instead she followed.
Caelan's claim that people formed bonds through fighting sounded ridiculous.
Worse, it sounded familiar.
She had read stories like that.
Young warriors beating one another half-conscious, exchanging dramatic speeches, then somehow becoming lifelong companions by sunset.
It had always seemed charming on a page.
Watching Caelan throw Ren through reinforced stone had damaged some of the romance.
Perhaps manga had been omitting important details.
The path rose through the sect.
White stone stretched beneath their feet, broad enough for enormous spirit beasts to pass without crowding the cultivators moving in the opposite direction. Above them, disciples crossed between peaks through the air. Distant formation platforms drifted between mountains. Red-and-gold banners moved in currents Lyra could barely feel.
And beyond everything stood the Heavenly Sunfire Tree.
Its trunk vanished through cloud.
Its branches spread across the heavens.
Flashes of gold and crimson moved among them where great flame beasts nested.
Lyra still found herself staring at it.
This entire place offended her sense of proportion.
"This sect is absurd."
Caelan looked back.
"That sounded complimentary."
"It wasn't."
"Then you're adjusting."
She glanced at the disciples passing them.
Every student carried the same sort of identification card Caelan had shown her earlier. Some used them to check directions. Others accessed formations or exchanged contribution points for services.
The sect felt less like a school and more like a country that had decided mountains were preferable to borders.
And unlike the hidden supernatural society of Earth, very little here seemed interested in pretending power did not exist.
It was simply built into everything.
Lyra looked toward Caelan again.
"What now?"
"My next person."
"Another potential member?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to beat this one too?"
Caelan considered the question.
"Probably."
Lyra sighed.
"Do you know any other methods of making friends?"
"No."
The answer came far too quickly.
Lyra looked at him.
Caelan kept walking.
For once, she didn't make a joke.
After several steps, he added:
"Besides, this one should actually be interesting."
That restored her suspicion.
"Why?"
Caelan smiled.
"He can't release Ki outside his body."
Lyra frowned.
"You said Foundation cultivators could."
"They can."
"But he can't."
"No."
"And you find his disability interesting."
"I find what he did about it interesting."
That changed the answer.
Caelan turned onto another path.
"He reached Foundation a year ago. The sect still hasn't worked out why his Ki won't leave his body."
"A year?"
"They've tried."
"And nobody can fix it?"
"A Sage probably could."
Lyra had already begun learning that a Sage could rewrite the problem was considered an unreasonable solution around here.
"So what does he do?"
Caelan's grin widened.
"He hits things."
Lyra stared at him.
"Of course he does."
"Very well."
"Of course."
"He's one of the best close-range fighters among the younger students."
That caught her attention.
"How old?"
"Fourteen."
"And his cultivation?"
"Second Foundation."
Lyra remembered Ren.
"Ren reached that at thirteen."
"Yes."
"So Ren really is exceptional."
"Unfortunately. It will make him even more unbearable once he realizes it."
Lyra smiled despite herself.
"And this new boy?"
"His progress is good. Normal for someone talented."
Caelan turned his eyes toward the training districts ahead.
"He just has a problem nobody else has."
There was something in his expression Lyra was beginning to recognize.
Interest.
The dangerous kind.
She sighed.
"What's his name?"
Caelan looked back at her.
Then smiled.
And kept walking.