Trial of the Dragon: Awakening the Coiling Dragon Form

One evening, when Sheung went to visit the Heart Palace, he was seized by a powerful force which pulled him to a place he had never been before. The space was vast and pulsing. A high plateau of black stone floated above a swirling abyss of gold and crimson mist, as if suspended over a sea of molten qi. The heat didn't burn, but it seared something deeper—something in the soul.

Sheung stood at the center, barefoot, staff in hand. 

Across from him, the great dragon hovered in semi-corporeal form, a sinuous titan with pearl-like scales and eyes like ancient stars.

With a rumble like distant thunder, the dragon's voice echoed.

"You have learned from Longyin. You walk the Taoist path. But knowledge is not power. Power must be forged."

The dragon raised a claw, and the first phantom warrior appeared. A translucent figure in archaic armor, wielding a curved blade. Its eyes glowed with a cold, testing light.

Sheung took stance. He remembered Arkell and Longyin's training: calm breath, rooted balance, draw the circle within. He spun the staff into a guard, then struck as the phantom lunged.

The clash rang like a bell through the void.

More came. Two. Then four. Then eight.

They moved with increasing speed, from all directions. Sheung danced among them, sweat flicking from his brow, his sleeves torn by glancing blows. Each motion drew deeper from everything Sheung had learned during the past few months of training.

But they were pressing in too fast.

Whack!

A phantom's elbow caught his side. He dropped to a knee, panting. The staff trembled in his grip.

"Technique alone is insufficient," the dragon growled. "You mimic form. But what burns beneath the form? Show me your fire."

Sheung's breath caught. His mind reeled back—to his grandfather's brush, to the first moment the FU symbols glowed for him. To the heat in his chest when Elder Hua spoke of lineage. To Longyin's words about rotation, about centering the strike through the heart, not the hands.

Something shifted.

He rose. Slowly.

His body moved on its own, drawing tight spirals through the air. His staff traced orbits around his torso, deflecting, lashing, rebounding. Phantom blades struck and were diverted as if caught in flowing currents. The FU he had installed into the staff were intuitively activated in a flowing sequence of elemental attacks and timely defensive shields and barriers. His body and soul moved expertly as if with a mind of its own, and he surrendered to its knowhow. 

The phantoms halted, then bowed before fading away.

The dragon's laughter rolled across the space like thunder.

"You remember. Now, take what is yours."

The dragon's eyes blazed with radiant gold. It surged forward, not to strike, but to envelop.

Coils of light and memory wrapped around Sheung. The world shifted. He stood in an ancient battlefield.

Great Taoist warriors danced through the smoke, wielding staves like extensions of their will. A mighty figure, one of dragon blood, spun through enemies with strikes that bent the air and cracked the earth.

"This is your inheritance," the dragon's voice whispered. "The Coiling Dragon Form. Passed through the bloodline, waiting for one whose spirit has been tempered in motion."

The movements of the form burned into Sheung's limbs:

Flicking Tail Reversal – a low, behind-the-back whip strike to counter flanking foes.Coiling Claw Break – locking the enemy's weapon and snapping inward with the shaft.Whisking the Clouds – a spiraling leap-strike, drawing celestial wind.Thunder Lashing Spine – a chain of center-spun strikes, hitting all around like a storm. Hundreds of interconnected movements

Hundreds of interconnected movements weren't just remembered, but were inscribed into his body and spirit. The staff glowed. So did the veins of gold in his arms.

His bloodline stirred.

Sheung saw and felt the dragon curling through his meridians, coiling at his dantian. His body started to dance through the form, moved by the power of the dragon flowing through him. He continued shadow dancing on the black platform for what seemed like an eternity, staff becoming an extension of his body through space and time.

And then, he was back. Sitting on his bed in his home. The dragon was gone, but he felt its presence in the background of his whole Being. It led him to lie down and close his eyes, drifting into a deep restorative sleep.

But in the distance, across the abyss, a gate had opened.

The next phase of his journey awaited.

And when he stepped into the academy tournament, they would all see the coils of the dragon in motion.