The order seemed odd to Sen. There was certainly a place for discussing things, but he’d generally found it more effective to simply demonstrate his understanding than fumble through verbal explanations that only partially captured the true meaning of something. For him, cultivation was at least equal parts clear understanding and intuition. Much of what he did he accomplished because it felt right, not because he possessed some deep theoretical understanding of the topic. Adding to the oddness of Fu Ruolan’s order for him to explain was that she knew this about him.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just show you?” asked Sen.

“I don’t need you to show me what you can do with shadows. I’ve seen that already. Just as importantly, there is often a rather steep imbalance between what someone can do and what they know.”

Sen had worried she would say something like that. He summoned a chair from a storage ring and sat down in it. He could feel his eyebrows trying to meet each other as he thought hard about how to answer the question. However, no amount of hard thinking was going to turn intuitions into information, at least not in the space of a conversation. He finally said the only thing he really felt he knew about shadows.

“They’re fuzzy. So, they’re malleable.”

After ten seconds of waiting, during which the nascent soul cultivator grew visibly and increasingly impatient, she said, “And?”

“That’s it,” answered Sen.

“After weeks of focused study of shadows, the best you’ve got is that they’re fuzzy, so they’re malleable?”

Sen nodded. “That’s what I’ve got.”

“But I know that you know more than that. You couldn’t have done things like make those shadow balls you, the spider, and Liu Ai play with all the time if you didn’t know more.”

“No. You would know more. I expect Auntie Caihong, Uncle Kho, and Master Feng would know more. In fact, I bet almost any other cultivator would know more. All I really know is that shadows are less fixed than other things, which makes shadow qi less fixed than other kinds of qi. Hence, they’re more malleable. Everything beyond that, it’s just intuitions and experimentation. Even when things do work, I don’t know why they work most of the time. For example, I know that I can harden shadow to the point of physicality. But that’s all I know. I only knew that much because I’ve seen Falling Leaf do it. Even having done it, I couldn’t explain why it works. I certainly couldn’t teach someone else to do it.”

“So, you didn’t condense and layer the intrinsic matrix?”

Sen blinked. “What’s an intrinsic matr—”

The words trailed off as a flood of connections formed inside of Sen’s mind. Disparate pieces of knowledge, information, and intuition were forged into a moment of clarity and understanding. Sen shot up out of his chair, spun away from Fu Ruolan, and threw out his hand in a gesture that was wholly unnecessary, yet felt right to him. A narrow tower of shadow slowly rose out of the ground. Over the course of a minute, it rose to nearly thirty feet tall. Sen felt a swell of pride as it loomed over them in all of its pitch-black glory. As he withdrew his active control of the qi, Sen crossed his arms and waited. The seconds felt like they were dragging by at one-tenth their normal speed, but he never let his eyes wander from the hasty construction.

“What are you doing?” asked Fu Ruolan.

“I’m waiting,” said Sen.

“For what? My patience to run out?”

“Just give it another ten seconds. Then, I’ll know.”

“Fine.”

Ten seconds later, Sen beamed at the tower that was still just sitting there. It didn’t crumble or dissipate under the fury of daylight. It just endured. Still smiling, Sen returned to his chair and snapped his fingers. The tower puffed out of existence.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Yes,” said Sen, “I condensed and layered the intrinsic matrix.”

Instead of saying anything, Fu Ruolan closed her hand into a fist and started pounding it against her forehead. Sen watched this display for a while before he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why are you doing that?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to dislodge the memory of what I just saw.”

Sen wasn’t sure how seriously he should take that statement.

“Okay. Why?”

“Why?” asked Fu Ruolan, letting the fist drop away from her forehead. “Because that isn’t how learning works. You don’t just hear a phrase and attain instant understanding.”

“That isn’t what happened,” objected Sen.

“It’s funny you should say that because it looked an awful like that’s exactly what happened from over here.”

“It really didn’t happen like that, though. I had some things half figured out, a few background guesses, but when you said intrinsic matrix, it brought it all together for me. But that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t spent the last few weeks trying things and failing at them a few hundred times. I never would have thought of it like that if you hadn’t said something, though. Hey, do the other kinds of qi work like that as well?”

Fu Ruolan immediately started pounding her own forehead again. Sen thought he should intervene, but he wasn’t sure how.

“You should probably stop that. It can’t be good for your brain. Plus, what if you knock some of that alchemy knowledge away?”

That brought the nascent soul cultivator’s self-abuse to an immediate end. She still didn’t look happy, though. Sen kind of felt like it was his fault, but he didn’t see anything he’d actually done wrong. He’d just had an insight. That seemed like something that most teachers ought to be happy about triggering. Minimally, she should be happy about it because he was confident that he’d just taken a big step toward being able to do the shadow walking technique. Having thought it over, Sen concluded that this was a her problem and not a him problem. If she didn’t like the way he achieved his understanding, there was basically nothing he could do about that. While Fu Ruolan dealt with her… Sen didn’t know what exactly it was she was dealing with. While she dealt with her issue, Sen had fun making stable objects out of shadow.

He started with another chair. It felt strange when he sat down in it like it was there but not really there. Either way, it held his weight which was all he really asked from a chair. Next, he made a rope that was stretched taut between two trees. He made it so that was high enough that he had to jump up and catch it. He dangled there from the shadow rope for a while, just to see if it would maintain integrity. It felt like it would, but he dug a little deeper into what he now knew was called the intrinsic matrix. Even as he looked at it, Sen could tell that the rope was slowly breaking down. It might not evaporate in the next two minutes, but it wouldn’t last for more than ten minutes. It was also getting progressively weaker as time went by. It seemed that even with the condensing and layering that shadow qi had firm limits on how long it could remain solid. He might be able to get a little more life out of it if he could condense the matrix a bit more or add additional layers, but only testing would answer that question.

He was far more certain that adding layers of other kinds of stable qi would vastly improve the total life of the shadow objects. He expected that earth would work the best since it was the most stable qi type or the most stable he had any direct experience using. Plus, earth qi was simply less hostile to shadow qi than metal qi. It seemed entirely possible to make temporary structures that were nearly as strong as a galehouse, but that would break down naturally after a day or three. He could capture most of the benefits of a galehouse but leave minimal evidence behind. That could prove quite useful if he found himself in hostile territory. Given the heavens seemed to both love and hate him, that situation seemed like an almost foregone conclusion.

For fast and dirty work, though, Sen thought that metal qi would still work the best. He could already see much-improved versions of his shadow-metal qi spears. Ones that might well last for hours, even as much as half a day, and would survive multiple uses. Something like that would have been extremely helpful when facing that horde. Even better, he could dissipate them right out of enemy hands if they grabbed them. As he considered the options, though, he knew that air qi and shadow qi were the most natural pairing. He could probably make one of those shadow balls for Ai that would hold up for a week or two. Maybe longer if he put it together the right way.

“What are you doing?” asked Fu Ruolan.

He'd been so lost in his own thoughts that Sen hadn’t even noticed that he was still hanging from the shadow rope. He released his grip and dropped to the ground. He made a conscious effort to dispel the rope before addressing Fu Ruolan.

“I was just testing something.”

“Did you at least learn something useful?”

“I did.”

“Care to share?”

“I think I can make a ball for Ai that will hold up better.”

Fu Ruolan’s lips twitched a few times like words were trying to force their way out. Then, she turned on her heel and stalked away. Sen stared at her retreating form in confusion.

“What?” Sen called out after her. “She likes them!”