Light was not John’s friend. He knew that, of course, but he was reminded every time he experienced going up against it. Even with his other elements to balance things out, John often defaulted to using darkness when he had little reason to use anything specific. It was mainly for when he expected back and forth exchanges, or he tended to build up his power by making use of the elemental cycles.

It was a bad habit he was only picking up on now. It was true that all of his totems had some sort of affinity with darkness, but just because it was easy didn’t make it the right move. Deirdre made it quite obvious as she sparred against him.

Darkness wreathed his sword as he went in for an attack. He expected her to dodge or block, but instead her eye merely flicked to his weapon for a single instant. Focused beams of light struck his blade, using only a tiny amount of energy. If it was any more, he would have had time to react to its buildup, to anticipate and to counter. Instead, he was only able to react, locking down his darkness energy to prevent an explosive reaction between the two conflicting elements.

His sword continued to swing towards Deirdre, but she didn’t even bother blocking. Her staff thrust towards him, a blade extending from its tip and resting against his throat after punching through his spiritual energy. His own attack merely bounced off of her defenses.

“You know…” John said. “I wouldn’t be embarrassed to lose if you beat me because of your higher cultivation, but you’re basically matching me in energy level.” John looked at his sword. He’d gathered a significant amount of energy for that attack. Why hadn’t it worked?

“I wouldn’t say that’s quite true,” Deirdre admitted. “I’m more aiming for the peak of Soul Expansion. If I used only as much energy as you at the twenty-second rank, I would have much more trouble.”

“Still… how do you keep countering me so easily? Ah, I don’t actually want you to answer that. I need to figure it out myself. Though if I act like a buffoon for a while, you can let me know.”

“It’s a matter both simple and complex,” Deirdre said.

“Oh, very helpful,” John rolled his eyes.

“Glad to be of assistance,” she grinned.

They returned to something akin to starting positions, and began again. Their sparring was relatively light, given that they might have to move out at any time, but they still took it as seriously as possible.

John was familiar with the fighting style of the Golden Tomb Guardians, and she was familiar with him. There weren’t necessarily any advantages for either of them. So had she picked out a weakness in darkness specifically, or was it him? Was there a difference between a cultivator’s weakness and that of their elements?

Such questions were hard to go over in detail when glaive-like blades of light kept slicing in front of his face. He knew he had to block Deirdre’s short staff if he was going to block at all, but it was difficult.

John began to pick out what was wrong. A weakness in his darkness. Given that light and darkness were mutually opposed, he felt like he should have been able to exploit some advantage in her, but he didn’t find himself able to. While against some light cultivators, a grazing blow with his sword wrapped in darkness might blast apart their energy defenses, she was trained to prevent that reaction just as much as he was. Perhaps more, since he didn’t only have darkness to rely on.

And yet… he did tend to use it quite frequently, didn’t he? That was the catch.

Whenever he used darkness unthinkingly, she would respond with a burst of light. John had the experience to keep it from reacting explosively with his own darkness, but he still produced an opening- while he was locking down the elements, he was barely able to focus elsewhere.

It happened almost every time, meaning his attempts to take advantage of her weakness actually worked against him. But he couldn’t ignore darkness as an element. It was twenty percent of his power, after all, and leaving out any component actually weakened him by more than that amount. He just had to be intentional about things.

John gathered darkness on his blade as he sliced towards Deirdre, but he wasn’t using it as his actual power behind the attack. Earth and water paired together, hiding under the darkness. When Deirdre flicked her sleeve, releasing a wave of light in front of her, John pushed his darkness towards her. Their energies were quite small, so when they mutually annihilated in the middle it resulted in more noise than actual danger. But John’s attack was still on its way.

Deidre still deflected his sword, but she had to put a bit more effort into it. Just because she was exploiting his bad habit didn’t mean that she was going to crumple when he recognized it properly for once.

Against an opponent closer to his own power, John might not have encountered that particular flaw. He was strong enough to overcome the difficulty, and it wasn’t as easily exploited as Deirdre made it look. But it was something that needed fixing nonetheless. The more John preferred a particular element, the weaker he would be in the long run. He imagined that also included the direction he cycled his elements. Obviously there were some limitations on that since he had to build up a dominant element in the end, but there were still options.

He could begin with fire and feed it into water, or start with water and augment it afterwards. Thus, he could make different chains depending on what he started with. There was also the possibility to cycle through darkness from either earth or water… and when he eventually began to incorporate light into his actual fighting abilities, he would open up more routes with fire and air too.

The only issue was if he expected to end on a certain element and was interrupted before he got there. He would have to remain flexible. If he went from air to earth and anticipated reaching fire, he might fail to properly clash against a foe with an imperfect form of earth only intended for empowering his next element. How quickly he could cycle elements was another matter as well.

“You know,” John said. “I appreciate your help greatly. But I don’t think I learned anything about actually controlling light myself.”

“Oh yeah,” Deirdre said. “That was kind of the point. It might not be very helpful, but the best thing I can say is you should focus on rapid and unexpected applications. Especially with your inability to control it in quantity. I expect you can find the openings yourself.”

That was true. He was going to push for some amount of instruction on light control, however. He had mostly approached it from the position of an antagonist, but if he was to eventually reach the legendary realm of the Exalted Soul Phase he’d need to do better than that.

-----

Charlotte addressed the various cultivators present in the command tent. “The Muted Crags are clearly unwilling to fight on our terms. It should not surprised us that they would be willing to give up the territory they stole to keep their lives, since they didn’t invest anything into it. But they should still be fearful of further retaliation. Why would they be willing to provoke us? That was the question we needed to answer, and ultimately we don’t know anything for certain. However, we have at least determined one thing. It is the cultivators of the Black Peaks that are ultimately responsible.” She looked around the room. “For those unfamiliar, the Black Peaks could be called something like a city-state. An association of various cultivators with geographical proximity working more or less towards common goals.”

“Do we know of any clans or sects leading this aggression among them?” Deidre asked.

“Not yet,” Charlotte shook her head. “But it is unlikely that they would begin to push so aggressively without a backer or someone taking the helm. A sect, a clan, a few powerful individuals. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet gotten any concrete information. But there are a few people who might still talk.”

Alister of the Crimson Juniper sect spoke up next. “How do we intend to respond?”

“A siege on the Black Peaks,” Charlotte said. “If they have nothing to lose, seeking them out will only result in them fleeing. And their current losses will do little to dissuade future attacks. If we appear weak, we will only lose more.”

That was an unfortunate truth in the world of cultivation. It wasn’t possible to bring the full force of any sect or clan to protect each and every one of their assets. Rather than defending their sources of income- though they still did need some guards- it was more important to dissuade people with the threat of greater retaliation. Resources could be used, destroyed, or sold away before meaningful retaliations could happen, meaning that even if they wiped out an attacking group, it didn’t always bring them back to the place they were before.

And the losses of manpower weren’t that easy to overcome either. Trained cultivators were required as defenders, but too many would be both expensive and limit the diversity of locations that could be covered, and too few would simply perish to determined attackers.

“What will we do about hidden pockets in the Rolling Dunes?” John asked. “If we pass them by, we might leave the Phoenix Forest open.”

“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “We will sweep the Rolling Dunes with several more patrols before beginning our combined march. That’s not just to drive them out, but to let them think we are uncertain about approaching the Muted Crags. In actuality, we will have people scouting there to find an optimal route. It has been ages since the last conflict with the Muted Crags, so our maps might be out of date.”

If he was leading a squad from the Tenebach Clan, John would doubtless be involved in scouting. As it was, his group would be too noticeable. No matter how much they attempted to dilute their presence, there were too many people with no stealth skills of their own. They were also too weak and inexperienced to achieve the level of quality required.

John might be able to scout on his own. There were certain dangers to that, however. And without inflating his ego, John knew he was too important for that risk. Or put another way, he knew too many people who would be upset he took on such a task alone. At least in his current state. If he was back at the peak of the Consolidated Soul Phase he could reliably flee from pretty much any threat, but he was just a little bit too limited at the current moment.

The discussion continued with plans for particular patrols, determining how they would cover the most of the dunes and potential hiding places. There would still be forces available in the Phoenix Forest to protect the various sects there in case anyone slipped past, and it could only be small forces, but it was still something that had to be considered.

Especially if they were intending to engage in any sort of siege. Cultivator sieges tended to move faster, since some of the strongest siege weapons were the people themselves. There were also the worries about reinforcements- or conversely, a group was weak enough to be known to not have any reinforcements so there was little risk in forcing a battle swiftly. Even so, with travel in both directions and somewhere between days and weeks of potential skirmishes along the way and time for a siege, they couldn’t afford to send too many people ahead. Thus the reason to call upon other sects as well as people outside the Phoenix Forest.