Unintended Cultivator
Book 11: Chapter 24: Another Tool

“Now, I assume that Ruolan taught you shadow stepping,” said Jin Bohai.

Sen pursed his lips as he thought that over. He didn’t remember Fu Ruolan ever teaching him anything that she used that specific term for. Maybe he just means shadow walking, thought Sen. It would make sense that the man might have started calling it something else, or that Fu Ruolan did because she was a little bit unhinged. He decided that it was best to check rather than assume.

“You mean the technique where you step into that place that, I assume, exists between dimensions or realities.”

Jin Bohai stared at Sen for several heartbeats, blinked rapidly, and then said, “She started with that?”

“It wasn’t the very first thing she had me do but, yeah, I learned that fairly early on.”

“She either has a lot of faith in your abilities, or she dislikes you a great deal.”

Sen exhaled slowly and said, “You say that like they’re mutually exclusive choices.”

“It would be for many people, but I suppose it is folly to lump Ruolan into any group,” said Jin Bohai with a small chuckle.

“Agreed. For what it’s worth, I don’t think she actively dislikes me. I just frustrate her.”

“In most ways,” said Sen, choosing to answer the question without actually providing information.

It wasn’t his place to disclose details about Fu Ruolan to this man, whether he was her former teacher or not. It wasn’t like he’d ever spoken with the woman about how she left things with Jin Bohai. Yes, it was possible that she had nothing but warm feelings for her old master. Possible, but unlikely. It was far more likely that their parting had been acrimonious, given how mercurial the woman’s state of mind could prove. To say nothing of her poor tolerance of basically every person she met.

No. If Jin Bohai wanted to know things about Fu Ruolan beyond what she had taught Sen concerning shadow qi, the man could go and ask her himself. Sen had no interest in dealing with the storm that would descend if he revealed things she didn’t want spoken about. Since he didn’t feel even the slightest confidence about judging what she would or wouldn’t want told to someone, he was going to err on the side of saying nothing at all. It might be seen as cowardice by some, but it was a form of cowardice he had no qualms about embracing.

“I see,” said Jin Bohai.

The annoyed expression on the nascent soul cultivator’s face told Sen that the man across from him had at least guessed the shape of his thoughts. So be it, thought Sen. It’s not my responsibility to make the man happy. He’s here to help me, not the other way around.

“I take it that shadow stepping is something other than what I learned?” asked Sen.

“It is. Although, I don’t imagine it will take you more than about five minutes to master it if you’re already passing into that nether-realm. It’s a similar process. You just take out the hardest part. After you suffuse your body with shadow qi, you can step between shadows. Well, any directly connected shadows. It’s not as useful in the middle of the day, but it’s terribly effective early in the morning and during the evenings. Lots of shadows overlapping during those hours.”

Sen thought he understood what the man was getting at. Suffusing his body with shadow did strange things to it. It gave his entire form a vaguely ephemeral feel. He’d just assumed that it was a byproduct of the process. It had never occurred to him that it gave his body similar characteristics to true shadows, or that it would let him navigate through connected shadows. There was a kind of twisted logic to it, even if it did run contrary to his understanding of how bodies worked. Then again, there wasn’t anything natural about manipulating qi, so this wasn’t as much of a mental stretch as it could have been. Regardless, it would take some experiments to test the method and its limits. More importantly, it wasn’t what he was specifically interested in right now.

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“I can see the potential, if limited usefulness of it,” said Sen. “But I’d like to hear more about what I can do with the darkness aspect of it.”

“There are a few different things that lean on the darkness element, rather than the pure shadow element. Most of them are trivial, but there is one that is supremely useful. How would you like to walk through walls?”

It was Sen’s turn to stare and blink owlishly at the other man. He had essentially walked through walls using the shadow realm back at the Twisted Blade Sect. However, Sen had the distinct impression that Jin Bohai meant something far more direct.

“Are you talking about passing directly through a solid wall?”

“I am. Like everything else, there are limits. But it can be done with darkness.”

“How?”

“This is where that heightened sensitivity matters. How much light do you imagine there is inside of most solid objects?”

Sen was struck by how it was both an insultingly simple and profound question. It was insultingly simple because the answer was so obviously none. For someone who could work with darkness qi, though, the implications were staggering. Jin Bohai smiled when he saw the understanding on Sen’s face.

“Exactly,” said the man. “If you can suffuse yourself with darkness, not shadow, but darkness, you step through the darkness inside of things like solid walls. As I said, though, there are limits. Any formation designed to keep out people manipulating shadow will work on people manipulating darkness. They’re too closely aligned. Of course, most people never bother. So, it’s not a huge problem, but it’s something to be aware of. The more relevant limitation is the presence of strong light sources on either side of the wall. Minimally, you need a deep shadow on both sides to make it work. Ideally, you’ll work at night when everything is shrouded in darkness and there are no or very weak lights on the other side of the wall.”

“That sounds too good to be true even with those limitations,” objected Sen.

“Those aren’t the only limitations. You can’t breathe while you’re doing it. Not a genuine problem for most peak core cultivators and nascent soul cultivators if they’re only trying to walk through a wall. It could be a much bigger problem if they’re trying to walk through a mountain to reach a cavern deep inside. The other problem is that it’s intensely painful.”

“Why?” Sen asked, only to wave off Jin Bohai.

It was obvious. To make it work, he’d have to press his somewhat solid body through another solid object. The darkness qi had to enable the cultivator to manipulate the solidity of both the body and the wall enough to make passage feasible. Even so, the body would still register what was happening on some level.

“Well, I’m not very afraid of pain these days,” said Sen, as much to himself as to Jin Bohai.

“I hope that’s true because this is not the way you want to discover you’re easily distracted by pain. Lose control of the technique, and you will become part of the wall.”

That thought was enough to make even Sen shudder a little. Given how resilient his body was, he wasn’t sure it would be an immediate death. It would probably be quick given the terrible things it would do to his body and brain, but immediate was something else entirely. His body was his soul or his nascent soul, at least. Sen suspected that meant that a large part of what he considered his mind and consciousness resided in that nascent soul, rather than just his brain. He didn’t think that becoming part of a wall would be enough to instantly kill that nascent soul. That it would be a kind of excruciating agony the likes of which he’d never experienced, though… That seemed all too likely.

“I’m not certain that this is a superior option to simply using the shadow realm,” said Sen, as his mind turned over the possibilities.

“It isn’t a superior choice for every circumstance. It is the superior choice in some circumstances. Using the shadow realm, by definition, removes you from this world. You become blind to anything and everything that’s happening in this world. Now, if you’re certain or at least highly confident that the space you intend to move into is and will remain empty, the shadow realm offers a lot of benefits. Not the least of which is that you can wait there in comparative safety for a minute or two. That can be an opportunity to rest briefly or gather yourself mentally.

“If you’re not confident about what’s on the other side of the wall or what might be there in a minute or two, passing through the wall is the better choice. You’re physically blind to the rest of the world, which isn’t fun. However, it’s not the impediment to nascent soul cultivators that it is to mortals or even cultivators at lesser stages of development. After all, being inside the wall doesn’t prevent you from hearing or feeling what’s happening on the other side of the wall. It doesn’t prevent you from extending your spiritual sense. All of those things allow you to remain connected to the situation at hand in a way that using the shadow realm doesn’t. It’s another tool, but it's a powerful tool. If you can stand it.”

Sen thought back to all of the pain he’d endured over his years as a cultivator. He gave Jin Bohai the ghost of a smile.

“I can stand it.”