Ma Qi's voice dropped. "I—I—I just got tired of waiting, that's all. I wanted to ask you where exactly you found those ore cores... Amon, we're neighbors. I watched you grow up. How could I ever hurt you? ... I apologize for tonight. Let's just say it never happened. If you forgive me, I'll definitely—"
His words cut off right there. Amon saw the strangest sight of his whole life. A thin, barely noticeable layer of ice had formed on the ground; in that instant it suddenly spread and wrapped around Ma Qi's entire body, freezing him solid. Then countless cracks spread across the thin ice, splitting it densely apart—and Ma Qi's body shattered into countless small pieces along with it.
The ice vanished at once. Only a dark red stain was left on the ground, flesh and blood and mud. Ma Qi had disappeared forever, silently, without a sound.
Amon looked up. It was the Old Madman, sure enough—though he could not have said which divine arts the grand mage had just used. Freezing art? Space-cleaving art? Cast at the same instant, in a snap of the fingers, making Ma Qi vanish without asking a single question. It was the first time Amon had ever watched a man be killed with his own eyes, and in such a bizarre, horrifying way. He gasped a few breaths before he asked, "Old Madman, you just killed him like that? Without even asking him anything?"
The Old Madman's face was dark as still water. "He's been following you for ten days. He's been to your house three times in the middle of the night. Tonight, in a place like this, he suddenly comes charging at you swinging a sledgehammer. Tell me—what else could it possibly be?"
Amon was startled. "He went to my house? When I wasn't there!"
The Old Madman nodded. "Yes. A few days ago you were already calm enough, but not careful enough. Tonight you made progress—a breakthrough, even. You actually spotted him. Always pay attention to the small changes around you. Now do you see how important that is? ...Ah, but maybe I'm asking too much of you. You're only a child, after all. Either way, you didn't immediately beat him to death with your stick, and that shows you've already passed the test of impulsive desire."
Amon was puzzled, and asked back, "You say I passed the test of impulsive desire—but then why did you kill him without asking a single question? At least let him explain himself." As he spoke, he kept glancing at the dark red stain on the ground, still shaken, still not calm.
The Old Madman: "Child, some nonsense doesn't need asking! What you have to learn isn't only divine arts or combat arts—more important is how to see this world clearly. Otherwise, what good is power? A wild beast has great power. Do you want to be as ignorant as an animal?"
Amon: "Ignorant? I only wanted to know clearly why he came, what he meant to do—whether he wanted to grab me or kill me?"
The Old Madman pointed at the stain on the ground. "To catch a child, you don't swing a mining hammer like that, and you certainly don't burst out with that kind of speed and strength. That was a killing blow. ...He didn't even want to talk—he just wanted to kill you. Maybe he was afraid he wouldn't be able to go through with it, so he used the most direct method instead, without the slightest hesitation."
Amon couldn't help but shiver. "You're that certain?"
The Old Madman sighed again. "Ma Qi knows you. He's your neighbor in this little town. He watched you grow up—he knows you better than anyone. Yet today he didn't cover his face. Did he never consider what he'd do if you recognized him? That can only mean one thing: before he came, he never imagined you would live to tell anyone."
Amon lowered his head. "I never thought Ma Qi would do something like this. He deserved to die—but I was in the wrong too. If I hadn't brought out the Deep Blue Water Heart that day to force Xiaogu's hand, today's disaster might never have happened."
The Old Madman nodded slightly. "So you know he was sent by Xiaogu?"
Amon: "With your hint, how could I not have figured it out? He didn't even cover his face—and it wasn't just robbery, he went straight to killing. So it could only be Xiaogu's orders. Ma Qi is Xiaogu's servant."
The Old Madman walked over and patted Amon on the back, as if comforting him. "What you just said about being in the wrong—that's your own business. It has nothing to do with what became of Ma Qi. As far as he was concerned, you were not in the wrong at all. ...A moment ago you could have killed him or not killed him. But if, for some reason of your own, you mean to forgive a man's crime, you must first understand two things."
Amon raised his head. "What two things?"
The Old Madman answered slowly. "First, you must clearly understand that whenever a person makes a certain choice, he is at the same time choosing the corresponding consequences, whether he likes it or not. Take Ma Qi: once he decided to do this, he should bear the consequence of possibly being killed, whether he was aware of it or not.
"Second, if you choose forgiveness and pardon, you yourself must understand—and be able to bear—the consequences of that pardon. You must be clear whether doing so truly dissolves a grudge, or brings greater harm to yourself or to others. ...As for Ma Qi—as a third-rank warrior, he could not possibly have missed that you just used a divine art. If he couldn't kill you, he would certainly have turned you in. You did nothing wrong, and still he wanted your life."
Amon lowered his head again. "You don't need to say so much. There's no need for Ma Qi to go back and turn me in—you already told me he's a third-rank warrior. If I had let him go just now, he could have killed me."
The Old Madman laughed again, as if mocking himself. "How many people I've killed in my life, I can't even remember anymore—and this is the first time I've explained so much to a child. Amon, the first time you watch a man killed right in front of you, and you're calmer than I was at your age! Remember today. Everything has a first time, and experience is life's wealth."
Amon stared at the ground, a little dazed, and answered, "Ma Qi is dead—dead by his own trap, and dead by Xiaogu's desire. But Xiaogu is still here. What's to be done about him?"
"Figure it out yourself! Think—if I weren't here, what would you do?" That was the Old Madman's answer. Then he thought it over, probably deciding he was being too hard on a child, and with a mocking look he glanced toward Duke Town far away. "If you're smart, you don't actually have to do anything at all. Time is precious right now. It isn't worth wasting on that sort of person."
Amon soon understood why the Old Madman had said "you don't have to do anything." Lord Xiaogu was sick again, and this time it was no light illness. He had visibly lost weight and looked worried from morning to night. He did not come looking for trouble with Amon again; now and then, walking about town, he would even take a detour the moment he spotted Amon from a distance, as though he did not quite dare to look at him.
Ma Qi counted as a person of some importance in Duke Town, so for him to vanish into thin air naturally stirred up quite a commotion. People talked endlessly; his family and the neighbors who helped them searched everywhere, but there was no news at all. Ma Qi's wife wept all day long, and the family went anxiously to the Muyun Temple to pray to the guardian goddess.
Whether the goddess Muyun heard the Ma Qi family's prayers, nobody knows—but the priest certainly did. Word had it that Xiaogu had even given a large sum of money to comfort Ma Qi's family, which moved the townsfolk deeply, and astonished them too!
Paying that tax for Amon had nearly bankrupted Xiaogu; where would he find the generosity for another large sum? It was because his conscience was guilty and he was afraid—he had no idea what had really happened to Ma Qi. Ma Qi got lost in the Black Fire Thicket, was killed by accident, was caught and imprisoned and interrogated, was exposed and fled... every possibility had occurred to him, and the more he thought, the more his heart quailed with fear that he too would be exposed.
Xiaogu had even prepared for it: if Ma Qi had been caught and confessed that he acted on his orders, he would deny it flatly and insist he had nothing to do with the matter—Ma Qi had seen Amon in possession of all those godstones and grown greedy, and so plotted to rob and murder him. It was all a matter with no other witnesses anyway, empty words with no proof. Ma Qi's testimony could never bring down a noble like him; it would only add a charge of slander.
But no such thing happened. Ma Qi had vanished as completely as air. When Town Chief Dasti did come to visit him in his illness, he asked whether there was any clue to Ma Qi's disappearance. Xiaogu of course said he knew nothing—he just felt, for no reason he could name, that the town chief's gaze was a little strange, and it left him ill at ease.
Xiaogu badly wanted to know what had actually happened; the not knowing tormented him like a cat clawing at his heart. He had sent Ma Qi to kill Amon, yet Amon had come back without a scratch, as if nothing had ever happened. But Xiaogu did not dare ask Amon, for fear of betraying his own guilty conscience, and he could not work out how things had turned out this way—inevitably, the more he thought, the more frightened he became.
In the end the wrangling tormented Xiaogu past bearing, so he asked the town chief for leave and went to the city-state to see a more skilled divine artist. Carrying his illness with him, he made a temporary "escape" from Duke Town.
And what was Amon doing all this while? He had no time to spare for Xiaogu. The Old Madman taught him a great many things—or more precisely, did not teach but simply poured them in, explaining nearly every low-tier, first-rank divine art to him. In such a short time Amon could not possibly practice them one by one, and the Old Madman did not ask him to; he only had him memorize as much as he could.
Even the most outstanding grand mage could not possibly master every divine art, but he had to have some understanding of them all, and know how to handle every kind of situation. On the other hand, the Old Madman was not sure what Amon would be best at in the future, and he seemed unable to wait to observe him slowly, so he laid this foundation for Amon. Such a way of teaching divine arts was almost never seen in the great temples.
Amon spent all his effort at it; only in a state of focused concentration could he memorize so many intricate divine art incantations. It was more exhausting than mining. By comparison, learning combat arts—the use of strength—was much easier. The Old Madman asked only that he memorize and understand the various low-tier divine arts, while what he had Amon practice during this time was combat arts.
First-rank combat arts required awakening the power of eruption, and Amon had long since managed that; the Old Madman had him put that power to use. Sending power out and drawing it back at will was already part of Duke Town's miners' craft, but from the standpoint of combat arts itself, its original aim was for people to train their own bodies to be strong—while in practice the most important skill lay in fighting, and so it was also called martial arts.
The Old Madman was not especially skilled at fighting technique, so he merely had Amon practice on his own with that "branch," feeling out how to use his strength. A grand mage like him had no need to trade blade strokes with anyone—and in fact, many divine artists held that crude hand-to-hand brawling was beneath their noble station.
Many important fighting lessons can only be grasped properly through real life-or-death combat, and the Old Madman could not teach much of that. But strength, accuracy, agility and endurance—those Amon could train in his daily practice.
Amon felt worn out in mind. If not for his divine art training of the past while, he could hardly have remembered clearly all the divine arts the Old Madman explained; yet his body grew stronger and more powerful by the day, and he felt lighter and more comfortable than ever. But just after Xiaogu left Duke Town, all of a sudden, Amon fell "sick" as well!
Amon had no notion of "illness" at all; he had never once been sick since childhood. So this illness came suddenly and strangely—chills and fever by turns, as though he were back two years ago, bathing in the Cold Spring. Strangely, two years ago he had fallen and injured his leg, and a year ago he had carelessly wrenched one side of his shoulder and back; those injuries had healed long ago, yet now they seemed to flare up again, the old wounds aching dully and ceaselessly, past bearing.
On the surface he tried not to show anything unusual, not wanting his father to worry, but in private it was a hard struggle to bear—when he practiced combat arts he could barely control that iron rod with any accuracy. The Old Madman cast a healing art on him, and the healing art of an eighth-rank grand mage could only ease Amon's pain, not cure the ailment; the various small complaints kept breaking out again and again.
Amon did not understand what had come over him. He could not say he was afraid, but he was a little worried—while the Old Madman, on the contrary, seemed rather pleased.
The Old Madman saw Amon's worry, and one day he finally spoke with a smile: "Child, these past few days have been hard on you, haven't they? I ought to thank you, as it happens—through you I've confirmed a conclusion I reached over many years. And you truly haven't disappointed me: so quickly, you've come face to face with a new test."
Amon asked, not understanding. "What conclusion? What test? I remember you once said that the first test a divine artist faces is 'the Awakening of Desire,' and that to cultivate low-tier divine arts to their peak, the next test one must undergo is 'firmness of faith.' Neither has anything to do with my situation now."
The Old Madman shook his head slightly. "This isn't purely a test that divine artists face. Since what you awakened was the power of one body with two faces, the tests you face are also one body with two faces. This one I call 'purity of the body.' It should be something you run into while cultivating combat arts, yet it is often overlooked—the combat arts texts have no clear record of it. Before I explain it, listen to a story from my own experience, one summed up from the lessons of countless dead and wounded."