46.i A Diamond Body

~ Sun Ritsu ~

Our unremarkable hero awakened to the smell of chlorine. When he opened his eyes, he realized that he was lying on a cheap lounge chair beside an indoor pool.

Ritsu’s trainer, Bodhi the monk, was standing at the edge of the pool in gray sweats with their hands in their pockets, looking out at the water.

“Did you know?”

Ritsu rubbed the spot on the side of his head where it was hurting for some reason. He tried to remember what that reason was.

“Know what?”

Bodhi didn’t turn to face Ritsu. Instead, they bent their knees slightly before pushing off into the sky. Ritsu tried to follow their trajectory, but he wasn’t fast enough. Bodhi dropped from above and landed directly onto Ritsu’s back.

“Hey! What the–”

The sun clone’s vision tumbled around him as Bodhi rolled him onto their shoulder before firing him at the pool.

Yes, you heard correctly, Dear Traveler. Bodhi threw Sun Ritsu clear across the room and over the water. The sun clone’s confused cries echoed off the atrium glass as he soared.

When Ritsu landed against the rough concrete on the other side, he didn’t even have enough time to catch his breath before Bodhi landed feet first on his chest.

“Did you know,” they leaned in close before saying with their eyes wide and missing nothing, “that you have a diamond body?”

What kind of interrogation was this?

“A diamond…?”

Bodhi stood up and laughed. “Of course you didn’t know. It’s you.”

They casually stepped off of the monkey and breathed a sigh of relief.

Ritsu opened his mouth to speak, but Bodhi grew serious and lifted their hand.

“I just used a nice chunk of my qi to slam you into a concrete floor with the force of a galewind. But you don’t have a scratch on you.”

Ritsu groaned as he sat up. “Okay, but it still hurts.”

Bodhi smirked. “Bet your head hurts too.”

Ritsu didn’t see their point, but he nodded anyway.

“Sun Ritsu,” Bodhi said, helping him to his feet, “even the most thick-skulled, well armored sun clone would suffer some kind of concussion after getting t-boned in the face by Sun Tie Quan’s quarterstaff. But all you have is a headache. That’s why I’m sure.”

Ritsu suddenly remembered the sudden death round. Did this mean he lost the Sevenfold Peach already?

“Sure of what?”

“Your diamond body. I don’t know why I didn’t test you for it earlier.” Bodhi paused, suddenly noticing the way Sun Ritsu’s shoulders slumped. “Hey! Didn’t I tell you not to sulk in front of me? You made it to the next round.”

Ritsu breathed his own sigh of relief.

“Okay, so what’s a diamond body then?”

Bodhi waved for Ritsu to follow them. “I’ll explain on the way to The Lunch Hero. We’re supposed to be meeting up with everyone there.”

Together they left the indoor pool, which happened to be located at the top of the hotel where they were staying.

As they walked, Bodhi explained, “The reason you didn’t get severely hurt in that last round is all thanks to your diamond body. Basically you can get the shit beat out of you and still be all right. Don’t get me wrong, the diamond body has its limits, but I don’t think anyone here has what it takes to put a dent in yours.”

Then Bodhi caught Ritsu up on how the rest of the trial went.

“So Blue Force made it to the next round,” Ritsu noted after Bodhi listed off the other seven winners.

“Yes and we’ll get to that in a second. First you need to tell me whether you remember ever entering a brazier of fire.”

Ritsu shook his head. “A… brazier?”

Bodhi made an exasperated sound. “A cage. A bowl. A net. A pit. Anything with lots and lots of very hot spiritual energy trying to burn you alive! Even if you stumbled into one accidentally, they’re pretty freaking hard to miss.”

Ritsu tried to reach into that blurry corner of his memory that all came before he washed up on the shores of the Horse Province.

“Sorry. If it happened to me, I don’t remember.”

Bodhi didn’t look too disappointed. They seemed to expect this.

“Okay, well we can’t rely solely on your diamond body for the rest of this tournament. They’re giving us two weeks to prepare for the next round, so we’ll have to do some cultivating between now and then.”

By this time the two spirits had arrived at The Lunch Hero – huh?

I said “cultivating”, yeah. So anyway, the two spirits…

Cultivating as in cultivation. As in self cultivation. You know?

Oh. You’ve never heard of it. Well that’s okay. I doubt our false hero Sun Ritsu has heard of it either. I was about to say that Ritsu was going to ask Bodhi for clarification on the topic, but upon entering the restaurant, they were greeted by quite the crowd.