? Chapter 5 ?

  Parallel Phasing

  SOURCE: FLUIX_CITY_RELAY_9

  “Fall in.”

  Vance didn’t yell, but the command snapped the yard to attention anyway. He paced the front of the lineup, hands clasped behind his back. His posture seemed rigid as ever, but his eyes felt different.

  To Vance’s left stood the guest cultivator from the day prior. Her cyan robes hung perfectly off her mountainous frame. She seemed to possess the patience of someone who was already three days late to a time-sensitive event and had simply accepted her fate.

  To his right stood someone new.

  He looked to be a man in his forties, though his exact age was difficult to tell. Every movement he made seemed to require prior written approval from his brain. He wore an immaculately pressed button-up shirt, his hands resting naturally at his sides. A heavy, matte-black bracelet circled his left wrist. He seemed to look through the students, as if secrets were written under their skin.

  Scripter. Has to be.

  “You’ve met Cultivator Yara.” Vance stopped pacing, gesturing left.

  “And this is Instructor Delion. A scripter, and an old friend.”

  Delion offered a fraction of a nod.

  “Today’s session covers cross-system combat fundamentals,” Vance said, letting the words drag across the dusty yard.

  “Pay attention. If you value your lives, this will keep you breathing longer than anything else I could teach you.”

  The yard stilled.

  Yara stepped forward, her sandals barely disturbing the dirt.

  “The number one cause of preventable death among your generation,” she began, her voice dry and unbothered,

  “isn’t a stronger opponent. It isn’t ambushes. It isn’t superior numbers, and it certainly isn't bad luck.”

  Her gaze drifted over the lineup, looking extremely unimpressed.

  “Anyone want to identify the cause and reassure us we won’t be burying you first?”

  Taylor stepped out of formation. “It’s underestimating your opponent.”

  “Perfect. Our first funeral.” Yara didn't even blink.

  “Anyone else?”

  Taylor’s jaw clenched as she stepped back into line and blew hair out of her face.

  From the left flank, Sibal cleared her throat. “It’s about not understanding your opponent's weapons.”

  Clap.

  Clap.

  Yara offered a slow, patronizing clap.

  “I’m deeply impressed. Two bright minds, two very tidy graves. Anyone care to save the rest of our lives?”

  The yard offered nothing but a rustle of wind.

  “Heartbreaking, yet utterly expected.” Yara sighed.

  “It’s when a cultivator fights a scripter—or conversely, when a scripter fights a cultivator—without understanding what that actually means.”

  Without a word, Yara stepped forward, tapping her ring, and materialized a heavy training dummy from thin air, planting it in the center of the yard. It was a standard, dense-fiber post designed to absorb ten thousand strikes with space for ten thousand more.

  A spatial ring, I’ve never seen one before. I can’t even imagine how expensive that probably was.

  “Cultivator versus cultivator, your instincts are taught internally, refined,” Yara continued. “Force meets force. Essence meets essence. The math makes sense. You’ve built that physical intuition your entire lives—hopefully.” Her eyes fell to Finwick.

  She gestured lazily over to the instructor. “Vance, if you could be a dear.”

  Xu watched Yara extend a single, manicured hand toward the dummy.

  A stream of azure essence flowed from her palm, moving with terrifying, liquidy precision. It wrapped the wooden frame like shrink-wrap, constricting so tightly that even the air around it rippled and distorted.

  Standard defensive layering. Let essence eat the kinetic force. I’ve seen this a hundred times on Ranking broadcasts. I know the move. Hell, I know the optimal coverage ratios.

  Vance pivoted, driving his heel into the earth, and unleashed a punch that tore the air.

  His fist slammed into the dummy.

  Hissss.

  The essence ground, sizzling violently against it, but the dummy itself didn’t so much as rattle.

  I can’t help but feel patronized.

  Xu curled his lip.

  “What you haven’t been building,” Yara said over the dying sizzle, “is an understanding of what happens when you don’t realize you’re playing the wrong game.”

  Delion slowly raised two fingers.

  His lips moved. A whisper crawled out of his lips, too quiet to catch.

  The dummy detonated.

  A concussive shockwave slapped into the front row. Shards of splintered wood and shredded fiber rained down, clattering against boots and shoulders.

  Xu flinched, coughing through the dust. He looked up, his brain stumbling over the impossible scene.

  What?

  Hovering perfectly in the air, exactly where the dummy used to be, Yara's azure essence remained completely intact. It outlined a shape that no longer existed, utterly unbothered by the explosion that had just occurred inside it.

  Huh?

  Xu’s breath caught.

  But Vance… he… the shield... it didn't even…

  The essence hadn’t slowed the spell. It hadn’t seemed to even try. Did it even register the magic as problematic?

  Delion lowered his hand, meticulously adjusting his cuff. “If any one of you were standing there, we’d need a big trash can and a community project to make sure all of you made it in your coffin… even with Yara’s essence protecting you.”

  …

  Fenwick broke the stunned silence, his voice cracking. “But why? Why didn’t essence… protect it?”

  “It simply had no reason to,” Delion replied, gesturing to the empty pocket of air.

  “Magic and essence operate on different layers of reality. All of you likely already know this, most of you likely don’t care. However, did you know they can occupy the exact same space simultaneously without touching?”

  “That’s impossible!” Fenwick barked, his face flushing with aggressive confusion.

  “The term is Phase Paralleling," Yara corrected, dusting a stray woodchip off her sleeve. “You knew both systems operate a layer above reality. What you didn’t know is that they don’t share the same layer. Think of them like parallel lines. They do not cross.”

  The bottom fell out of Xu’s stomach.

  If I got into a fight with a scripter right now… I wouldn’t even know how I died.

  “But I’ve seen the battles in the System Rankings!” Titus blurted out, breaking rank entirely. “You can literally see cultivators blocking spells with their essence! It works! What aren’t you telling us?”

  Delion and Yara shared a glance. The kind of glance adults share when another adult asks you why the tooth fairy didn’t come.

  “Because it's a program,” Delion said, his tone devoid of pity. “It’s software. Someone built a glorified game to make cross-system combat watchable for the masses.”

  “The physics got worse,” Yara finished, a cynical smile touching her lips, “so the fights could get better.”

  Every fight I’ve ever watched

  A chill crept up his spine.

  Every strategy... every instinct... based on a televised lie.

  Lee shifted his weight, his usual smirk absent. “So everyone watching the rankings… has been learning—”

  “The wrong thing, yes,” Delion confirmed.

  “Then what actually happens,” Taylor’s voice cut through the heavy air, sharp and inquisitive, “when a young cultivator and a young scripter fight each other in the real world? When neither of them knows this?”

  Yara’s cynical smile faded.

  “Sometimes,” she said softly, “both of them die. The cultivator throws essence at an incoming spell, and the spell passes right through it and kills them. The scripter moves into physical range in an attempt at maintaining casting distance, and the cultivator’s physical strike caves their chest in. Two people succeed at killing each other because both thought their shields were made of iron, when they were actually made of grey paper.”

  She let the grim reality settle over the yard.

  “When only one dies—which is far more common—it’s usually the cultivator. Scripters have range. A cultivator who doesn’t understand phasing will spend their first ten seconds of the fight and last ten seconds of their life trying to…” She paused. “Put out the sun with a garden hose.”

  A scripter doesn’t need to understand why they’re winning to win. They just need to fight normally…

  Vance remained silent behind them. He seemed to think letting the guests wield the knife would sink it deeper.

  “Personally, I use a guideline,” Delion said, beginning at a slow, measured pace. “Not a rule. Do not treat it as one. But it holds more often than it fails.”

  He stopped, locking eyes with the front row.

  “The more elegant a scripter’s spellwork, the smaller their mana reserve tends to be. Cleverness tends to be born from necessity. The ones who cast large, devastating spells are typically scripters with deep reserves. They can afford the waste.”

  “Those are the encounters,” Yara added, “where you must analyze your environment. You need to put physical matter between you and them before the spell even finishes forming.”

  “If you survive the opening,” Delion continued, his voice dropping a register, “watch what comes next. If their spells shrink, become more precise, or more economical—that is important data.”

  Nobody wrote anything down, but Xu could feel the frantic mental filing happening across the yard.

  “Data, meaning what?” Titus asked, still looking a little pale.

  “It means they are likely managing a shallow reserve, or they overspent and are now stuck casting off the value menu,” Delion answered.

  “Again, this is a guideline. Context matters. Pattern recognition matters.”

  Without prompting, Yara produced a second dummy. She didn’t wrap this one in essence.

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  Instead, she stomped her heel into the dirt. Her essence plunged into the earth—digging, pulling, and compressing. A disc of packed dirt ripped upward, hovering like a crude shield between Delion and the dummy.

  Delion raised two fingers. A whispered syllable.

  The dirt slab shattered violently under an invisible impact, blasting clods of soil backwards, but it worked. The dummy behind remained in one piece—even if it did have some deep gouges.

  “The spell interacts with physical matter normally,” Delion explained, adjusting his bracelet. “Stone, earth, water, flesh—magic moves through these things. The essence didn’t stop the spell. The dirt did. The essence merely moved the dirt.”

  Yara formed another dirt disc, but this time, she soaked the dummy behind in a thick coat of azure essence.

  Delion raised his fingers.

  BOOM.

  The earth shattered. Shrapnel of rock tore through the air toward the dummy, and a sticker burst, a T here, an R and I over there, and even an O that landed directly at Xu’s feet.

  TRIO?

  Xu raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Taylor and Lee.

  When he looked back, the dummy stood proud, completely unharmed.

  “This is the goal of any cross-system encounter,” Yara said, letting her aura die. “You don't use your essence against their magic. You use your essence to grab something physical capable of blocking their magic. Or, you translate their magic’s energy to a physical kind, which your essence can block, like the dirt shrapnel, for instance. Find the middle ground. Find the thing both systems can affect.”

  “We can’t do that,” Lee pointed out, his tone factual, utterly devoid of his usual snark. “Not at our stage.”

  “No,” Yara agreed. “You can’t. But—that’s not what today is for.”

  She raised a single finger.

  “Today is for the moment you inevitably run into a scripter before you're ready. Rule one: Close the distance. Immediately. A scripter at arm’s length is a scripter who’s already six feet deep.” She tilted her head. “Typically.”

  A second finger went up.

  “Rule two: Use existing cover. Don’t try to manufacture it. Stone. Water. Dense terrain.”

  A third finger.

  “Rule three: If you are caught in an open field against a scripter at your current stage... accept that you've already died, and pray you can negotiate with your fists before they finish script assembly.”

  She lowered her hand. “Questions?”

  Fenwick tentatively raised his hand. “What if you don’t have time to close the distance?”

  “Then you have a problem,” Delion said.

  “But what—”

  “You have a problem,” Delion repeated, his tone devoid of emotion. “You’re asking me what medicine to give a corpse. That is the lesson.”

  Fenwick lowered his hand, staring at the ground. A moment later, he nodded. He’d understood. Xu saw the exact moment the brutal reality clicked into place behind his eyes.

  Xu raised his own hand.

  “The guideline about mana reserves,” Xu asked, keeping his voice steady. “The transition from large to precise spells. Is there a reverse tell? If a scripter opens with precise scripts and transitions to something larger—does that mean anything, or is it just normal escalation?”

  Delion studied Xu for a long moment.

  “Escalation, but ‘normal’ is a stretch,” Delion finally said. “Usually. A scripter opening with precision is assessing you. If they suddenly transition to a larger expenditure, it typically means they’ve finished their assessment.”

  Delion leaned forward slightly. “It means they’ve likely decided it is more mana-efficient to completely obliterate you now, rather than wear you down any further. That is information of a different kind. The kind you preferably don’t want.”

  Xu slowly lowered his hand. Beside him, Lee grimaced.

  Taylor’s hand shot up. She didn’t wait to be acknowledged.

  “The System Rankings,” she said.

  “They’re distributed by the overseeing Spec organization, right?”

  That's not even a question—

  FLASH.That’s barely even a question.

  This “gift” is going to drive me insane.

  Delion met Taylor's intense stare. “Yes.”

  Taylor didn't back down. “So the Specs are distributing combat references that teach inherently lethal, incorrect combat mechanics to its entire population of young fighters, of which the only ones to remain unaffected are Specs?”

  The pause that followed felt like it had something deeper behind it.

  “Is that intentional?” Taylor sharpened.

  The yard went suffocatingly still.

  Yara turned her head slowly, looking at Delion. The look lasted exactly one second longer than a meaningless glance should.

  “That’s…” Delion said, choosing his words with extreme care, “outside the scope of today’s session.”

  Taylor slowly lowered her hand. She didn’t look satisfied, instead, she seemed deeply concerned.

  Xu looked at her sideways. She caught him looking.

  He mouthed: Wow.

  She mouthed something back that was definitely inappropriate, entirely insubordinate, and extremely Taylor.

  The mouth on that girl.

  Xu faced forward and swallowed hard.

  Vance dismissed the class shortly after.

  The yard emptied in slow, paranoid clusters. The disciples kept their voices low, casting nervous glances at the sky as if expecting a scripter to drop on them at any moment.

  Lee fell into step beside Xu. They walked in silence until they cleared the main courtyard’s arches.

  “Something’s different,” Lee said, kicking a loose rock. “Since yesterday.”

  “Is it that it’s tomorrow?” Xu jabbed.

  “I mean with you.”

  For a moment, neither spoke.

  “Something happened,” Xu replied, staring straight ahead.

  “You said that this morning.”

  “Still true.” He offered with a shrug.

  Lee thought for a few more paces. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Does it have to do with yourrrrr spear?”

  Xu stopped dead in his tracks.

  Lee stopped beside him, suddenly finding the design of the ceiling incredibly interesting.

  “You know about my spear?”

  Xu froze.

  How? When? Did Taylor see it? Does she know?

  “Yeah, I noticed. You told me you didn’t have it this morning,” Lee said casually.

  Oh, right.

  Xu exhaled.

  How could I have forgotten? I’m an idiot.

  “That said,” Lee continued, rocking back on his heels, “the weird part is more that it’s literally alive.”

  I’m an even bigger idiot than I thought.

  “Soooo…” Lee dragged the syllable out, finally looking at Xu. “Were we gonna talk about that, orrrr?”

  Xu opened his mouth, then thought for a moment.

  He opted for denial. “Are you sure you’re not going crazy?”

  Wait—no flash?

  I see. Maybe the Source restriction was temporary.

  Lee’s face contorted into a wince that was half-guilt, half-amusement. “Okay, look. I MAY have stolen your spear the other day... and it... MAY have come alive while in my room.”

  You WHAT?

  Xu’s expression was as calm as water.

  “See, I was going to tell you,” Lee rambled, holding his hands up defensively, “but then I thought it would be hilarious if I just stuffed it back under your bed. Imagine my absolute horror when you showed up to drill with it yesterday...”

  They stood there in the corridor.

  “Lee, come ON,” Xu forced a laugh. “My spear didn’t come to life—”

  FLASH.

  Xu slumped his shoulders, burying his face in his hands.

  “Yeah… It’s in my cursed vase of living stuff,” Xu whispered into his palms, utterly defeated.

  Lee blinked, dropping his hands. “Oh? You were for real about that?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  A beat passed. Lee's eyes lit up with dangerous curiosity.

  “Can I see—“

  “Get your own vase of life,” Xu snapped, pushing past him down the hall.

  Lee jogged to catch up, his face scrunched up. “You know what? Forget I asked. After you called it that… it sounds kinda gross anyway.”

  Taylor stepped out from an intersecting corridor, falling into step on Xu’s other side without breaking stride.

  They became a line of three and walked in silence.

  “The Spec question,” Xu finally said, looking at her.

  “Yeah?” Taylor replied, eyes still straight ahead.

  “You think they—?”

  “Obviously.”

  “You know it goes somewhere, besides, aren’t they running the country?” Lee chimed in, sounding entirely unbothered by the idea of treason.

  “They know what they are doing,” Taylor said, her voice dropping a fraction.

  Xu thought about the dummy exploding. He thought about the millions of people watching the System Rankings, cheering for lies.

  “By the way, I overheard Vance mention something about our combat testing. Pretty sure it’s tomorrow.” Lee casually remarked.

  “Well then, we'd better prepare.” She split off at the next junction without slowing down, her boots clicking softly down the stone hall.

  Xu watched her go for a moment before turning toward Lee.

  “You uh—fix that rapier?”

  Lee stopped walking.

  “MY RAPIER!? Training was so crazy, I completely forgot!”

  He spun on his heels and began to speedwalk the other direction.

  “Bye… I guess…” Xu sighed.

  I'd better get some sleep, it’s been a rough few days.

  Once inside, he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his palms. Outside, the afternoon session bell rang out across the campus.

  There’s still so much I don’t understand.

  Thankfully, I’ve learned to be okay with that—

  FLASH.Thankfully, I’m learning to be okay with that.

  ? Cultivation Theory: Lecture Notes ?

  Eight cultivators in shambles today after discovering that punching a fireball—even with Qi—doesn't actually work.

  Turns out, picking fights with nerds who can edit the universe's code from thirty feet away... Gets you boxed if you didn't brush up on the rule book.

  Sorry, I don't make the rules, Yara does.

  5/5 Stars on RateMyProfessor?

  (Please don't sue me.)