Following whatever the hell happened at the cultivation conference, you make the decision to set about getting Yan Hui a sword and finding out what he's actually capable of.
He can't fly on a sword - you're damn certain of that, from the way he stared at them on the journey to and from the cultivation conference, the obvious nervousness to the way he clung to your new first disciple. But he isn't some mundane, either.
The healers have been all too willing to tell you that no one but a cultivator, and a strong one at that, could have survived his injuries. You scoffed at the time, but now...
When you return to Lotus Pier, you don't waste time having him spar through the ranks of lower disciples. If he has any technique to match that strength, then he's going to be miles ahead of the mostly fresh faces in your sect.
Besides which, it's not your way. If you're going to get an idea of his strength, then it's going to be by testing it yourself.
So the day after you return, you make your way to the sparring grounds, and offer him a choice of practice blades.
Yan Hui assesses them carefully. These are blades for beginners who haven't bonded with their own yet, and you think he can tell they're not of the greatest quality the sect can offer. But they'll work for anyone who draws them rather than responding only to an owner's golden core, which is unfortunately what you need here.
After regarding most of the blades, Yan Hui turns to you, says, "These are mostly too thin for my style," and pulls the widest jian from the pile anyway. While you're thinking something to yourself along the lines of Too thin? What did you use before, a fucking saber?, he crosses the courtyard and settles into a ready stance. It's no stance you've ever seen before, but there's no mistaking the 'come at me' in his expression.
So you put everything else to the side, draw your sword, and go at him.
Yan Hui is not a cultivator of any sect you know of. That becomes almost immediately obvious, from his stance and more importantly the way he holds his ground. There's a certainty to it, something you've seen among some of the Nie, and that's the closest you've seen to whatever the hell this is, the sheer unrelenting power behind the downward strikes, and the upward ones that come back from those aren't exactly an opening. Yan Hui swings the heaviest practice blade in the yard around like it's a bamboo beater and you are the unfortunate dirty rug it has an appointment with. It rattles your arms, it's almost certainly going to break the practice sword eventually, but the truly baffling thing is that Yan Hui does it all one-handed.
You are having to work to parry blows from a man who uses his sword with only one hand. And while you have obvious acrobatic superiority, letting your blade help pull you up into the leaps and flips of a cultivator battle, Yan Hui just marches forward, feet on the ground and barely seeming to even track you with his eyes. Even when you flip over him and lash your blade at his back, he knows where you are enough to spin out of the way and -
You learn, very hard, why Yan Hui uses only one hand with his sword, because in the opening left when he dodges yours, he swings that empty hand around and punches you in the gut hard enough to send you sliding.
It hurts like a bitch. It isn't just a punch. There's a burst of qi in it that burns like fire - you're not making that up, either. Your clothes are warm like they've been passed over an open flame, when you automatically press your free hand to your stomach, trying to catch your breath.
You swear. You look up, see the smirk that's almost a grin on his face, and say, "Fine. Time to quit holding back, then."
Purple sparks tingle over your fingers. Time to give as good as you got.
comes back to this months later
He can't fly on a sword - you're damn certain of that, from the way he stared at them on the journey to and from the cultivation conference, the obvious nervousness to the way he clung to your new first disciple. But he isn't some mundane, either.
The healers have been all too willing to tell you that no one but a cultivator, and a strong one at that, could have survived his injuries. You scoffed at the time, but now...
When you return to Lotus Pier, you don't waste time having him spar through the ranks of lower disciples. If he has any technique to match that strength, then he's going to be miles ahead of the mostly fresh faces in your sect.
Besides which, it's not your way. If you're going to get an idea of his strength, then it's going to be by testing it yourself.
So the day after you return, you make your way to the sparring grounds, and offer him a choice of practice blades.
Yan Hui assesses them carefully. These are blades for beginners who haven't bonded with their own yet, and you think he can tell they're not of the greatest quality the sect can offer. But they'll work for anyone who draws them rather than responding only to an owner's golden core, which is unfortunately what you need here.
After regarding most of the blades, Yan Hui turns to you, says, "These are mostly too thin for my style," and pulls the widest jian from the pile anyway. While you're thinking something to yourself along the lines of Too thin? What did you use before, a fucking saber?, he crosses the courtyard and settles into a ready stance. It's no stance you've ever seen before, but there's no mistaking the 'come at me' in his expression.
So you put everything else to the side, draw your sword, and go at him.
Yan Hui is not a cultivator of any sect you know of. That becomes almost immediately obvious, from his stance and more importantly the way he holds his ground. There's a certainty to it, something you've seen among some of the Nie, and that's the closest you've seen to whatever the hell this is, the sheer unrelenting power behind the downward strikes, and the upward ones that come back from those aren't exactly an opening. Yan Hui swings the heaviest practice blade in the yard around like it's a bamboo beater and you are the unfortunate dirty rug it has an appointment with. It rattles your arms, it's almost certainly going to break the practice sword eventually, but the truly baffling thing is that Yan Hui does it all one-handed.
You are having to work to parry blows from a man who uses his sword with only one hand. And while you have obvious acrobatic superiority, letting your blade help pull you up into the leaps and flips of a cultivator battle, Yan Hui just marches forward, feet on the ground and barely seeming to even track you with his eyes. Even when you flip over him and lash your blade at his back, he knows where you are enough to spin out of the way and -
You learn, very hard, why Yan Hui uses only one hand with his sword, because in the opening left when he dodges yours, he swings that empty hand around and punches you in the gut hard enough to send you sliding.
It hurts like a bitch. It isn't just a punch. There's a burst of qi in it that burns like fire - you're not making that up, either. Your clothes are warm like they've been passed over an open flame, when you automatically press your free hand to your stomach, trying to catch your breath.
You swear. You look up, see the smirk that's almost a grin on his face, and say, "Fine. Time to quit holding back, then."
Purple sparks tingle over your fingers. Time to give as good as you got.