Meditation is the battle between you and your thoughts.

~Lugh, God of Battle and Craft

Qi Gong was almost life-altering. Crow concentrated on his breathing, body, and mind, which was also good for his soul. It made him feel relaxed. The Song sisters guided him until he could do everything near flawlessly. The fluid movements of the sisters were something that would come with time. He had to perfect his moves through meditation and comprehending his own body. While it seemed easy, it was anything but that. Synchronizing all the elements took a lot of mental focus initially.

“Not bad, little bird,” Song Xue moved her head so that she was looking at Crow eye to eye. “Now relax your breathing, as I am. Focus on the natural energy around you while you inhale because breathing passively draws that energy. As you do so, imagine your chakra is like a lung, and you are inflating—”

“Crow, don’t do that for now. Just breathing will naturally pull the Qi into your body. Unlike us, when it’s time, you’ll be forced to split your concentration. Since Soul Burn is constantly depleting your body of Qi, you will need to figure out how to force it into a passive state while moving the Qi through your body. Do that, and we move to the next phase.” Song Lin explained.

“What the hell? What are you talking about?” Song Xue was shocked out of her calm state finally. She knew he’d been cursed, but she felt everyone was treating it as if it was minor.

“I’m right here,” Crow muttered.

“Alright, both of you focus! Xue’er, they cursed him with Soul Burn. Essentially, it cripples his current method of cultivating—”

“Wait. I understand the theory behind what this idiot is trying to do, but you didn’t tell me it was this severe. Do you have any idea what will happen when he opens his first chakra?” Song Xue was nearly shouting. “And you, little bird—you big dumb idiot! You knew what you agreed to do and still went along with this foolish plan?”

“Xue’er! Enough. Regardless of the process, he needs to use a different cultivation method. If you can’t focus and help him relearn everything about cultivating, then leave.”

“No. I’m not leaving,” Song Xue stamped her foot in anger. “Besides, you alone aren’t enough to support him when he opens his first chakra—hell, have Luthais on hand tool.”

“I-is it really that bad?”

“Normally, no. However, you are older, your Source is already active, and you cultivate a powerful fire-based Martial method. When I opened my first one, I froze an entire garden solid. The plants exploded into ice shards and would have killed any servants had they been nearby,” Song Lin stated. “This girl filled the sky for nearly four days with snow.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad—”

“Idiot,” Song Xue grumbled. “It was summer.”

“Oh…” I muttered sheepishly. After that, they went back to Qi Gong.

After another quarter of an hour, Crow knew he wasn’t getting his focus back. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his soul was roasting. The breathing was pulling in quite a bit of energy. Normally, Qi would move through his meridians. Absorbing Qi without focus resembled the Druid method, which caused Soul Burn to burn steadily and scorch his existence. Focusing on his breathing helped Crow ignore the pain while slowly learning how to push the Qi away from his Source.

“Stop for today, Crow. Remember, you must stop if the pain becomes enough to distract you. That can create bad habits that will be detrimental to your health and growth. Remember what you said. If you want to destroy the broken tower, then you must not rush it.”

Crow originally wanted to protest, but her comment shut that down. She was right. His goal wasn’t just to survive the coming humiliation. It was to do something so heaven-defying that even the gods of old would take notice. While he thought that, he looked towards the Plaza of the Gods—he wanted a statue in that plaza.

Bidding the Song sisters farewell, he left the lodge and went back to his room to clean up.

“What really happened to him?” Song Xue asked the moment Crow left.

Song Lin sighed. “Some old monsters who won’t die feared him too much. They crippled him, and if I’m honest, he has a minimal chance of succeeding. He’ll need a miracle to overcome this calamity.”

“He’ll do it.”

Startled, Song Lin looked over at her sister and saw that she was serious. Her eyes never left the door that Crow passed through.

“You are more confident than me.”

“Because I refuse to let the man fated to be with me become weak. He’ll get stronger,” Song Xue grinned at her sister with a knife dancing through her fingers. “Or I’ll kill him myself.”

“What are you saying, you crazy little girl.”

“I’m not crazy!” Xue’er yelled. “All my life, I struggled in this hellish place, bullied because I’m different. I’ve had to fight and fight and fight. The only person who never cared about where I came from has been him. It is easy to find powerful people, but people with strength and kindness, they are rare. The type of person who would stand against his own people to protect an outsider, that kind of person has conviction that isn’t easily swayed. You wait, and you’ll see. He’ll shock all of you who doubt him. And those that scheme against him—hmpf, their fate will be even worse. And I’ll stand by him, killing anyone who dares harm him.”

Song Lin was shocked into silence. Her little sister hadn’t spoken to her much recently, and this was probably the most she’d said in one go in the last few years. She felt guilty for that, and guilty for not looking out for her better.

“Do you think you alone are enough?” Song Lin asked with a teasing smile.

“What does that mean?”

“The kind of man you described will likely have hundreds of women chasing him. How are you going to control him?”

“I won’t. Strong men will attract beauties like me. As long as I’m first in his heart, I won’t have to kill anyone.” Song Xue’s evil little smile stretched across her face. “Is big sis interested too?”

“Pffft,” Song Lin choked and realized she’d just lost a battle of wits with her younger sister, and her face flushed in response. Instead, she blurted out another question. “Are you seriously going to let him have other women?”

“Didn’t you say our father had three wives? What is so strange about it? Cultivators like us will live for centuries, and we could go decades not seeing one another when we climb the tower.”

“Where the hell are you learning all this?”

“This…” Song Xue clammed up. The Morrison clan wives talked to her, especially clan head’s wives. At the time, she didn’t know why they spoke so much about all this stuff when she wasn’t really old enough to have that kind of relationship. So she’d crept into the clan head’s lodge and overheard that old pervert claiming he’d take her as a concubine. She shuddered thinking about it and decided not to tell her sister. It would cause more problems, and they weren’t staying there anymore. She hoped it ended there.

Shortly after figuring out what the clan head had planned, she slowly sealed away all her emotions and bury herself in the coldness of her cultivation. It was going well, but then she attended the Flower Festival. Damn that smug little bastard. She had never forgotten about Crow. The moment he stepped forward, talking about that stupid flower, she knew sealing her emotions was impossible.

Although she fled after getting the mud dumped on her, she had watched from the shadows. Watched Crow beat that Munro boy until he was bloody and nearly lifeless. Watching his viciousness with fists and words, she couldn’t help but feel her heart flutter. She was a complete mess when he turned to look for her, asking others where she went.

He never hesitated, not once. And when Song Xue met him after, the words he whispered to her had struck something deep inside. At that moment, she knew—she would only ever love one man in her entire life.

“Since you won’t tell me, are you safe now?” Song Lin asked, and Song Xue knew it was a probing question, but she’d give her that much.

“Yes.”

“Please don’t hide anything from me. I am not your mother, but I feel like you are my child. I make mistakes—”

“Stop. I love you, big sis, and no one will ever harm us sisters. Especially now that we have big brother Crow by our side.” Song Xue smiled warmly, but the twirling daggers painted an opposite image. “But if you dare tell him anything I said, I will hurt you.”

Song Lin laughed. “One day, you might have that chance, but that day is not today.”

The sisters paired off and fought. It was not the cultured fight expected of women, but the kind where both bled and clothes nearly fell off from cuts and rips. A battle in which neither showed mercy. However, their laughter echoed outside the lodge.