Pursuit, Run

Si Chou brought me to visit someone special one day. In a room on one of the upper floors of the sect, where a man sat on a simple pillow. The room was nice but not overly fancy, the kind of thing that fit with the rest of the sect.

"Patriarch? I would like to introduce you to my first student."

Si Chou held me out on one hand. I looked up at the grizzled man before me. His Qi was… huge. Uncountably so. I felt like I was staring up at the heavens and unable to comprehend its scope. Earlier, when he walked past a window in sight of me, I'd been shocked by his power. Standing right in front of him didn't help.

Also, he looked like the master from Kill Bill. Pure white hair, a clean white beard, and MASSIVE bushy eyebrows. He looked the same age as Si Chou despite his white hair. Then again, Xianxia guys could be ancient and look like pretty boys.

I waved my claw at the white haired man. He gave me an odd look. "Si Chou, are you being serious, boy?"

"Yes. This is Xiaobo."

Oh yeah. My new name. Apparently it meant 'Little Wrestler.'

As Si Chou explained it, 'I thought that name suited you better. My grandfather's name as well.'

Sappy. I loved it.

"Xiaobo," The Patriarch of the Ever Persuing Arrow stared at me as I lowered my front right leg from waving. "Boy, I was sure you were going to turn this insect into a pill."

"I feel that would be a waste, Patriarch," Si Chou said respectfully, but with a bit of a smile on his face. Despite the frown I could sense on the Patriarch, I still heard him laugh just a bit.

"A waste. An acceptable excuse. Xiaobo the beetle. Does he understand us?"

When I nodded, the Patriarch sighed, resting his head in his right hand with an almost lazy movement. I say almost, because his every move seemed… powerful. I didn't know how powerful he was exactly, but even while resting, he reminded me of the time I'd seen a tiger in my old life. All power and grace in every small movement.

"Very well, Xiaobo. I'll allow it. But if he becomes unstable, I will have to deal with him."

No need to explain how he would deal with me. Wouldn't be a cultivator world if someone didn't casually threaten my life, huh?

"And why have you brought this 'disciple' before me?" The Patriarch asked with a long suffering look at Si Chou that felt uncomfortably like the look my dad had when I tried to talk to him about video games.

"I am going to teach him the Pursuit Arrow, and I wished for your permission to do so." Si Chou explained.

"Pursuit Arrow. To a being without real arms and can't carry a bow." The Patriarch said dryly.

"Unless you think he should learn one of the other 'basic' techniques only our sect uses. As in the other one." Si Chou asked dryly. "It is possible to use Pursuit Arrow with a small enough object, and it is a good technique for a being that can fly."

The Patriarch waved a hand dismissively. "Very well. And I suppose as a disciple I should provide him resources, hm?"

Si Chou, for the first time, seemed shocked. And… what the fuck, was that blood? Dripping from his lips in a single stream. After wiping his lips quickly, he spoke. "Patriarch, I would never-"

"Oh?" The Patriarch glared. "Would you have me treat your student poorly!? For shame. No, I will provide him the same service all our students gain! Here!"

The Patriarch reached into a pocket and pulled out a single cultivation pill. I stared at it, surprised. This one smelled expensive. It was a cut above the one Si Chou had given me before. He placed it down before me on Si Chou's palm. "There. Enough to make up for all time he has went without. We may be just a branch sect, but we aren't so poor we can not aid our own."

"T-Thank you, Patriarch!" Si Chou bowed, nearly dropping me before he caught himself. While he was bowing, I saw the Patriarch hide a giant smile very quickly.

Si Chou rose up. "I will take my leave then. Thank you again, Patriarch."

"Bah. A mere pittance. Thank me by not wasting my time." I was starting to realize the Patriarch was just as relaxed as the rest of the sect, acting like the typical hardass Patriarch like it was his job.

I'd awakened in a very fun sect.

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In the courtyard, while I chewed on my new cultivation pill, Si Chou began to teach me. The obstacle course he kept modifying over and over rested behind him, while Si Chou himself was dictating in front of me. A few of the other sect members were watching him with bemused looks on their faces as he gestured, the bow on his back bouncing around and a quiver at his side full of arrows.

"The Ever Pursuing Arrow Sect, technically, is only a minor one. A branch sect. When any of our members show particular potential, they are sent to the main branch to fulfill that potential."

A few sect members gave begrudging nods of agreement.

"But, while we may not have access to all of the best techniques, we do have the main one. The Pursuit Arrow. A simple technique, but one that remains a part of our arsenal at all points in our life. Observe."

Then Si Chou took out an arrow, notching into his bow with the ease of long practice. Then he turned and aimed at me. The arrow flew directly at me, whistling through the air. I watched it approach calmly while taking another bite of cultivation pill, having some idea of what he was going for.

Just like I thought, before the arrow would have nailed me in the head, it suddenly twisted upwards. I could sense Qi like a trail of fire in its wake before it shot up ninety degrees and into the sky. Once it's velocity stopped, it dropped gently through the air, landing on its side and clattering on the stones.

"Well done!" Si Chou said, seemingly to himself.

"Are you sure that thing is intelligent?" A woman I'd seen walking around asked curiously from the sidelines. "It looked like it was going to let itself get hit. It didn't even stop eating."

"My disciple simply trusts me," Si Chou said.

True. Although, I wasn't sure why I had been so calm. Did I really trust him that much? Huh.

"Regardless. The Pursuit Arrow! Which I will be teaching you starting now. We use our Qi to control objects in flight. The last part is important. The easiest time to control them is while the object is already at speed."

Newton's laws, then. An object in motion is easier to keep moving, or something. But I could see the appeal. I was a flying insect after all, what better technique for me? I swallowed the last of the cultivation pill, slowly adding its Qi to my own.

There was some… weirdness, to it? Like, grossness? I breathed it out with my Qi, feeling like I was removing impurities from my own soul. Or something poetic. It felt good though, and let me refocus on Si Chou.

"The way the technique works is that first, you must connect your Qi to the object you wish to control. Like surrounding it in string, then controlling it with your own mind," Si Chou demonstrated by pulling back on another arrow. "Watch closely."

I used my senses to follow along as he did exactly that, sending his Qi into the arrow. At the moment of release, I felt his Qi snap around the arrow like a bear trap. He pulled at it hard with his intent, forcing it to take a hard right turn midway through its flight to force it into a wooden post. The whole process seemed to tire him out though.

"Okay… Again!" Si Chou fired again. And again, pouring his energy into the move. I watched carefully, trying to feel every bit of it. The process was simple, but also harder than it looked. You had to strain to maintain connection, use physical force on an already moving object, and control that flow of energy all the while.

Si Chou fell to a knee all of a sudden, surprising me while the next arrow he was going to fire clattered to the floor.

"Yo!" I chittered, jumping up and flying over to his shoulder. He was panting and sweating very hard. He chuckled as I nudged his cheek with one of my horns.

"I'm okay, Xiaobo. Ah, what a shame your master is, to be tired after only a few arrow shots." He sighed. "But you see, yes? Why don't you try? Simply use the technique to guide your flight."

I nodded. Flying up, I hovered in the air for a bit, clumsily. Then I forced myself to focus. Surround myself in a net of Qi. Then, while I fly forward, control my-

I smashed into the ground with a crack of noise.

"Oooooh!" A couple of the other sect members said.

"...Ow," I chittered. I staggered to my feet. Okay. I'd been trying to go down just a bit, but that sudden force had more of an effect than I thought. Try again.

Fly up. Hover. Forward and to my left-

"AHHHH!" I went tumbling with a loud beetle hiss of shock, heading to the left, spinning like an out of control jet and smacking a sect member in the head as he screamed like a little girl.

This… was going to take a while.
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The next week went amazingly for me. First, with Si Chou getting express permission, he was able to get me the same 'resources' that an Outer Disciple would get. Not anything too crazy for a human to get access to, and the only thing I really used was food available to all students. But the same resources for an insect were an insane bounty.

I got to eat SO MUCH fruit.

I also did a lot more physical exercise. I wasn't sure it was having an effect at first, since beetles didn't exactly work out, but the more exercise I did, the more energy I felt flowing inside me after. And when I molted, that strength seemed to grow even more.

I molted twice actually, shedding my old chitin for stronger armor. That process was weird. Getting out of my old skin and coming out new and shiny. One consequence of that was that I grew. I wasn't sure what the pace was supposed to be for beetles, but Si Chou seemed to consider it fascinating. I wasn't about to become the size of a small dog anytime, but I was a big goddamn beetle.

And I kept working on Pursuit Arrow. But the technique was hard for me. It wasn't just controlling my flight with my mind. I had to keep in mind a whole host of things. The best I got was getting good at moving slightly faster than a beetle should. Which was great, but it wasn't the auto-aim arrows some members of the sect could do.

I was getting better though! Just needed to keep practicing. Keep growing. No more fighting other beetles though, sadly… Last time Si Chou got kicked out when I got too enthusiastic. Jinhai was happy about his winnings, but the table, wall, and ceiling would need repairs, and that one guy would rethink his conduct around women for a long while after what I did.

Si Chou also spent a bit of time away from the sect, never telling me where he went. That was curious.

I was feeling pretty good though. In the Ever Pursuing Arrow Sect, I was an oddity, but I felt like I was making my way in the world. Hopefully I would grow fast enough that I could be considered a person in truth by the world at large.


I woke up a couple of weeks after I started learning Pursuit Arrow to smoke filling Si Chou's office. I didn't really sleep, but I did have moments where I just rested, my body replenishing its energy. Yes, that sounds like sleep, but it really wasn't.

Point is, I was resting, and then I began to wake when smoke poured under the door to begin filling the room. I flew up, still confused and a bit groggy, and landed on the floor, staring at the gap under the door. The smoke was light, but growing darker. Beyond that I could see flickering red. While my Qi sense wasn't powerful enough to reach too far, the area beyond the office had a couple of people. They were… fighting!?

Then, one Qi signature began to flutter, like a heartbeat. Moments later it just… disappeared.

Oh… Oh shit.

Before I could process that, the Qi that had won the fight rushed the door, kicking it open. The man who appeared looked around. He was wearing dark blue clothes, so dark they were almost black, with purple highlighting the edges of his robes. And his face was covered in blood, so thick that he smelled of nothing else.

And his Qi felt wrong. I used metaphors of fire before because it was hard to describe Qi. But I didn't need metaphors for the bloody faced man before me. His Qi felt like the smell of rotting meat. Soaked in it. The combination of the scent of blood and the feel of his Qi made me, a beetle, want to vomit.

He was also the strongest person I had ever met. Beyond Si Chou, beyond anyone in the sect, beyond the Patriarch even. I looked at him with all my senses, and felt like I was staring at a vast impossible land of meat, rotting and disgusting, but so huge my eyes couldn't see the horizon of it.

I stared at him as the fires blazed behind him. When I looked between his legs, I sensed the chaos beyond. The hallway was on fire. A body lay behind him… Jan. Oh god. Jan.

"Books… useless," the guy grumbled, turning and walking out. With one hand, he waved at the room, his Qi bursting, like pus from an open wound.

A burst of sickly yellow energy flew out of his palm, smashing across the room. I crouched low, feeling it pass over me before it destroyed everything. The books I'd learned from, the enclosure I lived in, the desk that Si Chou often talked to me at. The Bloody Faced Man left me on the floor, in the center of my destroyed home. And he never noticed me.

I waited for a moment before flying out. I just couldn't think of anything else I could do. It was obvious what was happening. Someone was attacking the sect. I had to find help! …Or at least find Si Chou, or the Patriarch!

I flew in short hops from wall to wall, running on the floor at times, using my obstacle course training to move as quickly as I could, bursts of Pursuit Arrow letting me zip faster through the air. The screams of those around me, both pained and enraged, filled the air, the scent of blood and smoke thick along with more of the rotten meat Qi.

And all the while I passed more bodies. I had seen dead bodies in another life, at funerals. This was different. Raw, violent, and horrific. People I knew, faces that I never learned the names of but still familiar.

I flew over another body, then did a double-take, landing before it. For a moment I just… couldn't move.

Si Chou sat up against a wall, his eyes closed almost peacefully. His green robes, always so nicely clean, were soaked in his blood. I slowly moved forward, nudging at his hand with my horns.

His eyes snapped open. Despite how weak his Qi felt, he still had life in him. He looked down at me, his smile soft and sad. "Ah. Xiaobo."

I let out a shuddering sound as I floated over him, my mind racing. "No. No, no no, come on… Si Chou?"

He slowly reached out as I chittered at him. He coughed, continuing to speak. "Death… clarifies things," Si Chou sighed as I landed on his chest, listening to him closely, fire burning around us.

"...I hoped to keep teaching you," he sighed. "See what you became, to tea-"

He shuddered. Within him his Qi, that flame that had once been a bonfire, flickered. He reached for his waist, struggling with a bag tied there. I flew down and pulled at it, easily flicking it off of him with my horn, then carrying it up to him, the bag about my size. Si Chou struggled to open it.

"Xiaobo," his breath shuddered. "I have no great treasure. No grand lesson. Only two things. I order you to run and live. Head into the woods. Learn Pursuit Arrow. And I give you this," he pulled something out of the bag. It was… a book?

A book sized for me? Had that why he had spent so much time away recently? Si Chou smiled with teeth soaked in his blood. "I thought it would help. Basics things every disciple learns."

I felt his Qi beginning to finally fade. I wanted to cry. He didn't deserve this. None of them did. They were archers. A branch sect of guys just enjoying life. In a world where people could throw lightning from their fists, they were meaningless. Si Chou was just a nice guy who liked bugs. Who cared for me, taught me, cheered me on during matches, laughed at his best friend's dumb jokes, made fun of his Patriarch. He was innocent.

Si Chou tried to speak more. To say something final. I tried to listen to him. But he didn't get a chance. He just… stopped. His Qi shut down. His entire body fell limp.

No last word or wisdom. Just dead.

I stared at him, feeling like my heart was going to break. I never hated being in a beetle body more. He didn't even get the dignity of comforting words. I wanted to smash a fist against the wall, to scream, to cry, to give him a hug.

Instead, I pressed myself against his chest, shaking and clutching his robes as best as I could, chittering softly.

Then I got up and placed the book he had made for me in the bag, slipping it around one of my horns.

I gave him one last look. God, I couldn't even bury him, I couldn't-

I looked away. Then, with small shaking hops, I left.

I left out of the hallway soaked in blood. I entered a courtyard on fire, dark figures with Qi like rotting meat roaming about the Ever Pursuing Arrow Sect, and hid my own Qi as I moved to the exit. I went down the mountain, stopping to look at the Inn in the distance. It was on fire as well, burning brightly as smoke climbed up to disappear in the night sky.

In the distance, I heard the sound of lightning, felt familiar Qi cover the land. The Patriarch. His Qi felt like… rage. Righteous, but soaked in sadness. Lighting hit again. Then again, and again… before silence. The Qi disappeared with a final taste of bitterness. And I knew the Patriarch died.

Then, my wings bursting into motion, I flew into the woods, leaving my new home behind.