MARTIAL AVATAR

"Ah!" suddenly exclaimed the golden-eyed youth.

"Yes, brother?"

Cheng Hao looked visibly relieved as he fanned himself with a hand, "I just remembered something that might help us solve this problem. We're truly lucky, you see? There is a rather unassuming technique that was ingeniously revamped to make use of a Martial Way's characteristics!"

Xiao Wu chuckled, "Why now, isn't that convenient? And what would this sensational technique be called?"

"A name, you say. Ooh, it's eluding me..." Cheng Hao sported a deep frown as he enthusiastically rubbed his temples.

Xiao Wu rolled her eyes with a knowing smile.

"Ah, I remember now! " the boy exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, "It's because some who know about it call it Projection. Others, a Conjuring. Your Ancestor and I, on the other hand, both happen to prefer the term... Martial Avatar."

Taking note of Xiao Wu's expectant expression, Cheng Hao rapidly expanded upon his introduction, "The Martial Avatar takes advantage of the characteristics of a Martial Way. It allows cultivators to use a part of their Martial Way's might without actually having to summon it outside of their consciousness. Which characteristics, you may ask?"

"You see, as their cultivation improves, cultivators gain the ability to create tangible objects by weaving enough strands together in the World of Qi: if these creations remain stable when apart from their architect and show no noticeable loss of stability even as time goes by, these objects are then recognised as Constructs of Artefact Qi."

"Martial Ways are, for the better part, Artefact Qi; Qi that has turned material and stable. However, they are stable not because the Qi is brought to a forceful standstill, as is usually the case. Instead, it's because that ever-flowing Qi has been so thoroughly figured out by a cultivator that they could easily arrange conditions such that its very Flow will naturally localize. Your Black Dragon breathes and coils, and your White Oak's branches and leaves flutter in the night breeze; localized, not still. In the World of the Strands, their every scale is a hidden truth, every notch and ridge of the trunk a closely regarded secret. As Xiao Lan recited those obscurities to the Strands, they were completed little by little, and that which is complete is also self-contained: the Martial Way is thus born, ever stable even in its perennial flow."

"In other words," Cheng Hao dropped all pretences and gave a cheeky grin, "A Martial Way is none other than... a Qi construct built following very strict guidelines. Is it not?"

Xiao Wu tilted her head.

"Eh? I... guess so?"

The boy's gaze of bright gold was almost devilish as he drew an unbelievable proposal, "And given that's the case, if you had access to those guidelines, then why should you not also be able to replicate your Martial Way as a Qi construct?"

"No??? I don't think that's how it should work???"

Xiao Wu felt as if the splendour of Martial Ways would collapse if she even dared entertain that blasphemous idea.

"Come now, of course, I exaggerated a bit. There's no way creating a Martial Way would be that simple. Otherwise, the world would be drowning in them, wouldn't it?"

"That's what I'm saying!"

"For one, there's the aspect of higher stages; if you even have yet to fully understand the Qi at your own stage, how could you possibly hope to shape the Qi in ways that you have yet to even comprehend broadly? And you wouldn't even have the Authority to shape higher-stage Qi to begin with! No matter how alluring your sweet temptations and directions, it wouldn't even listen to you."

"Yes, yes!!!" Xiao Wu was nodding frantically.

"And geez, just thinking about the matter of Paths, or even just Attuning: how would all of that work at the Mortal Realm, when it's the business of Ageless and Immortals? Would we even know where to begin even if we were handed the blueprints, given they'd include methods that defy comprehension and borderline a post-Ascension intuition?"

"I didn't quite understand all that, but it sounded about right!!!"

Cheng Hao grew pensive, and at the sight of that, a bad feeling started creeping up in Xiao Wu's heart.

"Mmm... Uh?" Cheng Hao suddenly widened his eyes before smacking himself on the forehead, "Silly me! Higher stages and higher Realms? Why even bother with them? It's not like we'd be able to make use of the methods dictated in the Qi of higher stages even with the original Martial Ways. Just discard the Qi of higher stages, only look for the completeness in ours!"

"How is that even a- Of course that's a thing… But would we even have a use for that?"

"Just like formations channel the power and characteristics of their source, it is only natural we would be able to use corresponding Qi Constructs as mediums for the Martial Ways in our Pseudo-Cores."

"...Projection. Conjuring. Avatar," Xiao Wu grimaced at not connecting the dots sooner, "The more accurate the representation, the better the connection, I can only assume."

"Mmm, I could test that out, perhaps?" Cheng Hao raised a palm with furrowed brows and a solemn gaze, "Let's see, first one strand..."

By entering half a meditative state, Xiao Wu could feel through her Sea's senses that Cheng Hao's Authority was at work. With it, he quickly took over an Inferior Qi strand in their surrounding, washing it over in the colours of his Sensed Qi.

With his tongue cutely sticking out, Cheng Hao tilted his head "Now some more,"

One by one, more and more strands were added alongside it until the amount was sizeable enough for even the five senses to pick up on the changes in the two children's surroundings.

"Now, was it like this? Is this about right? This one would be something like this..."

Xiao Wu's tiny jaw dropped as, before her eyes, a translucent, inverted pagoda was taking shape before her very eyes.

"Should be enough? Now, for a connection... How would that work, I wonder? Surely, the mere act visualizing the Martial Way projecting onto the Construct wouldn't be enough- ah, would you look at that."

Cheng Hao smiled sheepishly, his whole body shrouded in the golden glow of the Avatar between his palms.

"It worked."

Xiao Wu shuddered as a familiar pressure battered her surroundings. Of course, it was at most like a considerable wind had started blowing, nothing as striking as what the true Martial Way had exhibited.

"Mmm, but it's nowhere near as imposing? Ah, but of course, I could add some more strands to better define the details..."

And just as quickly as he voiced that unrealistic conclusion, the boy had already accomplished the deed. In no time, the tower on his palm was no longer transparent and was ever-growing a shade darker, fast approaching the boundary of solid objects.

His experienced actions betrayed his struggling facade, revealing just how practised he truly was on the matter, and that the earlier display had been considerably slower mostly for Xiao Wu's sake.

By the time, he was satisfied, the pressure had similarly grown an order of magnitude more intense, loosely comparable to that of the genuine Immortal Ascension Tower.

"Oh."

Cheng Hao turned to look at Xiao Wu with a sheepish grin.

"Indeed, it looks like the projected power gets stronger as the medium gets closer to the original, uh?"

"..."

"But there seems to be a limit on how much power can be channeled at once. Mmm. I wonder if you can make many at once? How would the projected power divide up between multiple Avatars?"

"..." Xiao Wu opened her mouth to speak, but again and again, no sound would come out.

A few breaths later, and sure enough, the pressure weighing on their surroundings had roughly doubled.

Once the pressure had tripled by the third Avatar, Cheng Hao finally nodded with a convinced expression, "Indeed, isn't it only natural that the untapped power, a result of an unfit medium and not of a lacking source, could eventually be drawn upon by adding enough mediums?"

Xiao Wu expressionlessly nodded, "That does sound logical."

"Then you play around with it tomorrow, once your Spiritual Energy reserves are back to full. I have a feeling that being practiced at making an Avatar, or several, on the fly might beat blowing up our Pseudo-Cores in the case we need our Martial Ways."

"...Speaking of, when did you find the time to recover that much Spiritual Energy? That didn't look like a task that would be light in consumption."

"Oh, you'll find that I recover my Spiritual Energy reserves unnaturally quick," Cheng Hao dismissed both the question and the Martial Avatars with a wave of his hand, the strands dissipating and going back to their original states, "It's a charming characteristic of mine. One of many, of course."

The hut fell silent as Cheng Hao sported a bright, guiltless smile, while Xiao Wu's gaze was lost somewhere in the distance. Eventually, the emerald-eyed girl turn to look at him with a somewhat relaxed expression.

"...I feel luckier and luckier that I don't yet comprehend the scale of what you have shared tonight, brother Hao."

"Agree. That's for Bigger Wu to fish out of her memories someday and lose sleep over."

"Bigger Wu asks me for permission to smack you when the time comes. 'How could you play around with my adorable, innocent self back then! Her worldview is all skewed now!', she laments."

"Do refer that it is payback for all the scares you have given me so far. And also, you should have understood how unnatural your path is by then, yes? So remind her that 'You have no room to talk here, you shameless glutton!'"