The CopyCat Immortal

Chapter 10 Provocation in the Training Hall

The main Training Hall of the Azure Cloud Sect smelled of two things: expensive medicinal incense and the pungent, salt-lick scent of young men trying to prove they weren't meat.

Ren was in the corner, predictably gripping a mop that had seen better decades. His hands were steady, thanks to the Core-Damper ring Elder Zhou had gifted him, which hummed a cold, rhythmic tune against his skin, keeping his volatile spirit roots from vibrating into glass. He moved with the practiced slouch of a man who wanted to be part of the furniture. 

He didn’t look up as the massive double doors slammed open. He didn’t have to. The air in the room suddenly turned thick, a pressurized wall of Qi that signaled the arrival of someone who believed the world was their personal stage.

"Hey, look at this. The 'Lucky Peasant' is actually working. I thought you'd be at the medic's bay getting your bones glued back together," a voice boomed, dripping with casual cruelty.

Xiang Wu didn't walk; he swaggered. Surrounded by a retinue of Inner Sect bootlickers, the senior disciple moved through the hall like a shark in a koi pond. He stopped exactly six inches from the edge of Ren's wet floor, his polished leather boots gleaming. 

"Senior Wu," Ren murmured, bowing low. He made sure to keep the bow a little too shaky, his voice a little too high. "Just doing my part. The floors don’t scrub themselves."

"Scrubbing floors," Xiang Wu repeated, his lip curling. He looked around at the other disciples who had stopped their katas to watch. "A fitting occupation for someone of your... profound talent. Tell me, Ren, did you ever find out how you survived that iron flail the other day? Was it ancestral luck? Or are you hiding a secret charm in those rags?"

The surrounding disciples snickered. Among the cultivators, Ren was becoming a punchline—the man who didn't have Qi, but had an infinite supply of accidental miracles.

"I just flinched at the right time, Senior," Ren said, his eyes fixed on Wu's belt. "The heavens protect the stupid, they say."

"Is that right?" Xiang Wu stepped onto the wet floor, his foot splashing into Ren's bucket. "Well, I was talking to the Head of Martial Discipline this morning. He mentioned the internal tournament is coming up. He's worried that the outer peak lacks 'flavor' this year. He wants to see some demonstrations from the rank-and-file."

Ren felt a cold sinkhole open in his stomach. Here it comes.

"You saved a life, Ren. That makes you a hero in the eyes of the little initiates," Wu continued, leaning down so his shadow swallowed Ren. "It wouldn't be right for a hero to just carry water. How about a little 'light sparring'? Just to show these guys your miraculous flinching technique."

"I wouldn't want to waste your time, Senior," Ren tried to say, but Xiang Wu's hand was already on his shoulder.

The grip wasn't a gesture of friendship. It was a vice. Xiang Wu’s Qi—a heavy, earth-shaking resonance—drilled into Ren’s shoulder blade. Any other laborer would have had their collarbone turned into dust instantly. Ren felt his Earth Shield instinctively attempt to flare, but he bit his tongue and forced the energy down into his feet. 

"It’s not a waste. Think of it as public service," Xiang Wu said, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "I know you're full of it, kid. I watched you move. Panic doesn't give you ghost-steps. I'm going to find out what you are, one broken rib at a time."

Xiang Wu practically shoved Ren toward the center of the training ring. The crowd parted, a sea of white and blue silken robes looking down on the boy in brown hemp. 

"Choose a weapon," Xiang Wu said, pointing at the racks. "Take anything. I’ll use my bare hands."

"I... I’m good with the mop, Senior," Ren said, his voice cracking on cue. He gripped the wooden handle like it was a lifebuoy in a hurricane. 

Xiang Wu snorted. "Fine. Die with a mop in your hand. Let’s see that 'luck' work its magic now."

Xiang Wu didn’t wait. He didn’t bow. He blurred forward.

The movement was the Gale-Wind Pounce. It was fast—not 'Meteor' fast, but fast enough to decapitate an untrained human. His palm, glowing with a soft, translucent green light, aimed straight for Ren’s solar plexus.

Ren's world slowed down into a sequence of data points. He saw the vibration of Wu's tendons. He saw the shift in the dust on the floor. 

If I dodge perfectly, I’m dead. If I take the hit, I might actually die.

Ren took a middle path. He "tripped." 

As the palm approached, Ren let his left heel slip on a puddle of soapy water. His body tumbled sideways, his center of gravity collapsing in a way that looked entirely ungraceful. The palm whistled an inch past his ear, the wind-pressure alone stinging his cheek.

"Oof!" Ren grunted, landing on his rear.

"Lucky trip," Wu spat, his eyes narrowed. He didn't reset. He followed up with a spinning low kick, his shin humming with the Earth-Crush weight. 

Ren rolled. It wasn't a clean roll; he flailed his arms and legs, looking like a panicked cat, but he channeled just a micro-flicker of Wind Blade Qi into his hips. He moved six inches further than a normal body should have. 

The kick smashed into the wooden mop handle instead. 

CRACK.

The oak wood, reinforced with years of dirty water and a sudden, subconscious pulse of Ren's Earth Shield, didn't shatter. It flexed. The resonance of the impact traveled up Ren’s arms.

Scanning technique: Earth-Crush Kick – Tier 2 – Resonance captured.

"Is that all?" Xiang Wu growled. He was getting frustrated. To the onlookers, it looked like a cat playing with a ball of yarn, but the cat was failing to catch the yarn. 

Wu's Qi suddenly surged. He wasn't hiding his cultivation anymore. He was at Foundation Level 4, and he was using the Seven-Step Vortex footwork. The floor beneath his feet cracked. 

"Enough games," Wu roared. 

He lunged again, but this time his strikes were a barrage—a series of palm-thrusts that created localized vacuums in the air. Each strike carried a miniature Vortex intended to shred whatever it touched.

Ren moved in the eye of the storm. He didn't fight back. He evaded within the chaos. 

He used a tiny spark of Azure Static to numb the air around his joints, increasing his reflex speed by milliseconds. He combined it with the Mind-Rend Veil’s predictive sense he’d stolen from the Mirror Gallery. 

In Ren's eyes, Wu’s movements became transparent. He saw the 'ghosts' of the attacks before they arrived. 

Left. Pivot. Ducks. Slide. 

"Hold still, you rat!" Wu lunged with a dual-palm strike—the Mountain Splitter. 

Ren saw the opportunity he was waiting for. He didn't dodge this time. He raised his mop like a shield and braced himself. 

The impact was thunderous. The Qi from Wu’s palms slammed into Ren, and for a split second, the laborer was bathed in a green-brown aura.

K-RACK.

Ren was thrown backward, sliding ten feet across the floor. He coughed, a thin trail of blood leaking from his lip—real blood, from the sheer pressure of the impact. His chest felt like it had been hit by a landslide.

Syncing... Earth-Crush Foundation... Mastered.

Ren scrambled to his feet, panting heavily. He looked terrified. He looked battered. He looked exactly like a "trash" disciple who had barely survived. 

Xiang Wu, however, wasn't smiling. He was staring at his own hands. They were trembling. 

The "vibration" of the laborer's mop had been wrong. Every time he struck it, his Qi felt like it was being diverted into the ground or swallowed by a void. 

"You..." Wu began, his face reddening with a mix of fury and dawning realization. "There’s no way a laborer has this much resilience. Who sent you, Ren? Which sect? You’re a spy, aren't you?"

The Hall fell into an even deeper silence. 'Spy' was a heavy word. 

"Senior, I’m just... I’m just a water carrier," Ren wheezed, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Please... I’ve had enough. I’m just trying to finish the West Hall chores."

"I don't believe a word of it," Wu roared. He reached for his storage ring, likely to pull out a real weapon, his eyes bloodshot with rage. He had lost face in front of forty disciples, unable to clean a laborer’s clock in five moves. 

"That is quite enough, Xiang Wu."

The voice was quiet, but it cut through the roar of Wu’s Qi like a silk ribbon through paper.

In the balcony of the second floor, Elder Zhou stood leaning over the railing. He wasn't looking at Xiang Wu. He was looking at Ren. 

"Sparring is meant to refine techniques, not to destroy flooring," Zhou said dryly. "And you, Xiang Wu, are a Foundation Level 4 senior. Fighting a servant with your full aura is beneath your dignity. Go and meditate on your lack of restraint."

"But Elder, he's—"

"Go," Zhou said, his mercury-gaze narrowing.

Xiang Wu bit his tongue so hard Ren saw his jaw muscle bulge. He gave Ren a look that could have withered a field of crops—a look that promised a long, agonizing death in the very near future. 

"This isn't over, Ren," Wu hissed, so only he could hear. "Luck eventually breaks. And when yours does, I'm going to be there to pick up the pieces."

Xiang Wu turned and swept out of the hall, his lackeys trailing behind like dogs with their tails between their legs. 

The rest of the disciples began to filter out as well, whispering and casting sidelong glances at Ren. To them, Ren was no longer just 'the lucky trash.' He was an omen. An enigma. 

Ren stood alone in the center of the ring, his breath slowly returning to normal. He felt the new energy—the Earth-Crush resonance—settling into his marrow alongside the others. It was getting harder to balance, the Core-Damper ring was working overtime. 

He looked up at the balcony.

Elder Zhou was still there. The old man didn't look angry. He had a faint, almost imperceptible smile on his face, his mercury-eyes gleaming with a terrifying pride. He raised his wooden tea cup toward Ren in a silent toast before stepping back into the shadows.

Ren looked down at his shattered mop. He realized he was standing on a razor's edge. 

He hadn't just survived. He had absorbed a part of the Inner Sect's pride. 

"Public service, huh?" Ren whispered, a cold, pragmatism returning to his features as he gripped the broken wood. 

He didn't care about the humiliation or the stares. He looked at his hand, and for a split second, he saw the floor under his palm slightly buckle from the Earth-Crush Qi he now possessed. 

He had four elements now. Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth—and now, a devastating resonance. 

The tournament wasn't just an event he had to survive anymore. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet. And Ren was very, very hungry.

"Keep theprovocations coming, Xiang Wu," Ren muttered, picking up the pieces of his broken broom. "I've still got plenty of room for more."

He walked toward the exit, a limp in his step for the benefits of the cameras—or at least the prying eyes of the disciples. But inside, his pulse was a war drum, beating to the rhythm of a stolen victory. 

He was the trash of the Azure Cloud Sect. But the mountain of trash was getting taller, and soon, it would look down on them all.