Chapter 5

The Mist Valley Plaza hummed with nervous energy. After the spiritual root test, the successful applicants—a greatly thinned crowd, Mingyue noted—were ushered towards a new section of the vast arena. Here, the air vibrated with raw spiritual energy and the rhythmic clang of metal on metal.

A new Elder, a burly man with a permanent scowl and hands like tree trunks, bellowed the rules for the second trial. “This is the Test of Force! You will face a Spiritual Golem! Demonstrate your ability to subdue it. We seek not brute strength alone, but control, precision, and efficiency!”

Mingyue watched, her doctor’s eye already assessing the situation. These golems were massive, easily twice her height, constructed of some gleaming, obsidian-like spiritual material. They moved with a slow, deliberate power, their strikes designed to test resilience.

She observed the applicants ahead of her. Most launched themselves at the golems with explosive bursts of spiritual energy, trying to shatter them with elemental attacks or raw physical force.

“All flash, no substance,” she muttered, a familiar critique forming in her mind. She saw cultivators with impressive flame roots blasting fireballs that scorched the ground but barely chipped the golems. Others, relying on brute force, seemed to be flailing. “Honestly, it’s like watching a bunch of unrefined qi batteries trying to punch through a brick wall with their faces.”

Her martial arts background, dormant for years under layers of medical textbooks and hospital shifts, stirred. She saw their wasted motion, their reliance on external power rather than internal control. It reminded her of clumsy martial arts students, all brawn and no finesse. They poured qi into strength, when five pounds of pressure in the right spot would do the trick. She even saw a few truly skilled individuals, perhaps from established families, who possessed both power and grace, delivering fluid strikes that found small cracks in the golems’ defenses. Okay, not everyone here is a ham-fisted brute, she conceded.

When her name was called, “Shen Mingyue! Arena Seven!” she took a deep breath. She stepped onto the circular stage, facing a fresh Spiritual Golem. It stood impassive, awaiting her move.

“Begin!” the Elder’s voice boomed.

The golem lurched forward, its obsidian fist arcing towards her. It was slow, but impossibly heavy. Its movements were ponderous, each step shaking the very ground. Instead of meeting it head-on, Mingyue moved.

She didn’t run, she flowed. Her body, despite its recent privations, remembered. She dipped, swayed, and spun, using the “Silent Step” lightness skill she’d intuitively learned from the jade slip. It wasn’t about speed, but about misdirection, about never being where the attack was aimed. She seemed to flicker, almost appearing to vanish and reappear just outside the golem’s reach.

“You’re all muscle, no brain,” she muttered, circling it. “Honestly, it’s always the same with you big, beefy types.”

The golem recalibrated, swinging a horizontal blow. Mingyue didn’t evade completely. Instead, she stepped into the attack, her body twisting. This was Aikido. A smaller opponent needs to redirect energy from a larger foe. She met the golem’s massive forearm, not with resistance, but with a subtle redirecting force, guiding its momentum past her. As its arm continued its arc harmlessly, she pivoted, her hand snapping out.

“‘Disrupting Heaven’s Gate’ point,” she whispered, her fingers driving into a specific seam on the golem’s shoulder, a spot where its spiritual energy seemed to converge. It wasn’t a hard strike, more a precise, focused tap, like inserting an acupuncture needle. She channeled a minuscule amount of qi into her fingertips, following the pathway she’d gleaned from the jade slip.

The golem shuddered. Its movements hitched. The glowing lines of spiritual energy that ran along its form flickered, some dimming. It tried to bring its other arm around, but its initial attack was now off-balance, its momentum redirected against itself.

Mingyue flowed with it, stepping in again, finding another convergence point on its mid-section. A focused jab. “‘Stilling the Three Souls’ for the finish.”

The golem froze. Its glowing eyes dimmed completely. It stood motionless, a silent, inert statue of obsidian. She hadn’t shattered it. She hadn’t even scratched its surface. She had simply… turned it off.

A stunned silence fell over the arena. The other applicants, still recovering from their own bruising encounters, stared. The burly Elder frowned, then a slow, grudging nod spread across his face.

“Highly unusual,” he rumbled, his voice losing some of its booming quality. “Such precise control. Minimal qi output, maximum efficiency. A unique approach.”

Mingyue stepped back, saluting the judges. It had been rusty, but her martial arts instincts, combined with the jade slip’s knowledge, had worked. She proved her worth, not by being the strongest, but by being the smartest and most adaptable. The feeling of success was a sweet contrast to her former life where “successful” usually meant “no one died on your shift.”

A faint ache throbbed in her shoulder, a reminder that while her technique was flawless, her body was still recovering from starvation and adjusting to this world’s energies. She walked off the stage, feeling the gazes of hundreds upon her. Some were confusion, some envy, but a few held a spark of dawning respect. She had passed. Now, for the next hurdle. She rubbed her arms, still feeling the faint tremor of exertion, and scanned the crowds for any clues about the third test. She needed to conserve energy. Her doctor’s training might not have prepared her for battling golems, but it certainly taught her to read a room – and the body language of the Elders was already hinting at something less physical, more cerebral.