The CopyCat Immortal

Chapter 14: The Hunt for Water Techniques

Ren didn't care about the beauty of the moon reflecting off Mirror-Soul Lake. He wasn’t a poet; he was a thief, and he was currently looking at a "manual" made of high-pressure liquid and prehistoric hunger.

"Fire in the lungs, wind in the veins, earth in the bones, and lightning in the nerves," Ren whispered, his eyes narrowing as he crouched on a jagged ledge of obsidian. "It’s a damn elemental mess. I’m a walking catastrophe looking for a coolant."

His internal world was screaming. Ever since he had integrated the Titanic Mantle from the Hidden Dragon Valley, his meridians had felt dangerously clogged. The Inferno Burst was too hot, the Azure Static too sharp. He was a pressurized steam pipe nearing the bursting point. He needed Water—not just for a well-rounded arsenal, but to act as a lubricant for his boiling core.

Below him, the Mirror-Soul Lake didn't ripple. It was an unnaturally flat sheet of sapphire glass, rumored to be so deep that even the light of the sun got lost before reaching the bottom. The lake was forbidden for a reason. It was home to the Aquarian Leviathan, a Grade-3 spirit beast that lived in a state of perpetual irritation.

"Alright, Ren. Just a splash. A lethal, bone-crushing splash," he muttered, gripping the Core-Damper ring on his finger. It was cold, pulsing a warning against his skin.

He stepped off the ledge.

He didn't dive gracefully. He used the Wind Blade rotation to flatten his body mid-air, increasing the friction against the water to make as much noise as possible. SMACK. The impact was like hitting a brick wall made of ice.

"Hey! Over here, you big overgrown sushi roll!" Ren yelled, thrashing in the water. He injected a pulse of Azure Static into the lake, sending ripples of blue electricity outward to serve as bait.

For three seconds, the silence was absolute. Then, the world inverted.

A dark mass, easily sixty feet long, detached itself from the abyss. The water began to churn, bubbling like a witch’s cauldron as the Leviathan rose. Its scales were plates of interlocking azure steel, and its eyes—two orbs of glowing turquoise—looked at Ren with a soul-piercing boredom.

Ren’s survival instincts were howling. "There he is. Come on, big guy. Show me how the lake handles an uninvited guest."

The Leviathan didn't roar. It didn't even swim toward him. It simply opened its maw, a dark cavern lined with rows of crystalline teeth. Ren watched as the creature began to swirl the water around its mouth, creating a massive, terrifyingly concentrated spiral.

Analysis initiated, Ren’s consciousness flickered into combat-mode. Hydro-kinetic compression. Velocity: Hypersonic. Potential output: 15,000 PSI. Type: Pierce-Element.

"This is gonna suck," Ren breathed.

He didn't raise the Earth Shield. He didn't use the Titanic Mantle. Those would soften the hit, and he couldn't afford a "soft" lesson. He needed the full, raw data of the strike. He needed the water to pierce through him like a lance so he could feel the flow-pattern of its Qi.

The Leviathan fired.

SHR-RRREEK.

The sound wasn't of splashing water. It was the sound of air being ripped apart by a high-pressure jet. The Riptide Lance was a stream of water no thicker than a man’s wrist, but it moved with enough force to cut through solid obsidian like it was warm butter.

It struck Ren squarely in the solar plexus.

The world vanished into a white-blue haze of absolute pressure. Ren’s lungs were forcibly emptied of air. He felt his ribs cave in, his sternum snapping backward with a wet crunch. The water wasn't just hitting him; it was tunneling into him, seeking the void in his ruined meridians.

He was blasted through the water, skimming across the lake's surface like a skipping stone before plunging into a limestone bank with the force of a falling meteor.

System Warning: Immediate failure imminent. Lungs collapsing. Heart rate: 12 beats per minute. Beginning Emergency Grafting.

Ren lay pinned against the broken limestone, his mouth filling with the metallic tang of his own blood and the fresh, cold taste of the lake. Deep inside his chest, the Inferno Burst and the Azure Static recoiled from the invading cold.

It felt like a tidal wave was trying to put out the sun in his heart. The pain was spectacular—a freezing, jagged agony that traveled from his bone marrow to the edges of his vision.

Syncing... 20%... 45%... 70%...

Analyzing 'Riptide Lance' harmonics. Flow-rate identified. Pressure-stabilization protocols engaged. Adapting Water Qi to bridge the heat-sink.

Suddenly, the cold didn't feel like a weapon anymore. It felt like a release. The fire in Ren's chest met the water and hissed into steam. The lightning coiling around his nerves felt its conductivity double as the Water-Qi provided a perfect path.

99%... Mastery Synchronized: Oceanic Jet – High Pressure Manifestation – Mastered.

Ren gasped, a great, rattling lungful of air that came out as a plume of silver mist. His eyes, for a split second, turned a deep, oceanic blue—pupils widening until they looked like the abyss of the lake itself.

The Leviathan, thinking the nuisance was erased, began to submerge, its massive tail-fin flicking through the surface with a disdainful splash.

"Hey," Ren croaked, dragging himself out of the limestone crater. His hemp robes were in tatters, clinging to a torso that looked more purple and blue than flesh-colored. "We ain't... we ain't finished yet."

Ren stumbled to the edge of the water. He felt a new sensation—a heavy, fluid weight sitting in his gut. It wasn't the stubborn resistance of the Earth or the aggressive heat of the Fire. It was the crushing potential of the tide.

He raised his arm. He mimicked the posture of the Leviathan’s maw, his fingers curling into a focused cone.

Focus. Compress. Release.

He didn't use his lungs; he used his will. He tapped into the fresh "ocean" sitting in his meridians and accelerated it with a spark of the Azure Static.

POW.

A concentrated jet of blue-tinted water exploded from his palm. It hit the surface of the lake twenty yards away, the impact creating a fountain of spray that rose thirty feet into the air.

The Leviathan stopped. It turned its head, those glowing turquoise eyes focusing on the shivering laborer standing on the shore.

Ren wiped a streak of blood from his lips. "Yeah. It's me. You like your own work? It feels great on my end."

The beast let out a low, vibrational groan that rattled the rocks beneath Ren’s feet. For a moment, it seemed like the creature would resurface for another round—perhaps a real fight this time. Ren tensed, ready to dive back into the blender. He had the technique now, but another direct hit might actually break his spirit roots for good.

"Go back down, big guy," Ren whispered, his heart hammering against his mending ribs. "I got what I wanted. I'm full for today."

As if understanding his challenge, or perhaps sensing the weird, multifaceted Qi swirling within the "laborer," the Leviathan gave a long, echoing rumble before diving deep into the dark sapphire. It vanished, leaving the lake once more a sheet of perfect, silent glass.

Ren slumped to the ground, his body finally trembling from the hypothermia and the shock. The Core-Damper ring on his finger was humming a soft, content melody.

Status Check:

Fire (Inferno Burst): Balanced.

Wind (Gale Blade): Active.

Lightning (Azure Static): Stabilized.

Earth (Titanic Mantle): Grounded.

Water (Oceanic Jet): Lubricating.

The Five Elements were now closed.

"The cycle... it's done," Ren groaned, looking at the palms of his hands.

His ruined meridians were no longer an obstacle. They had become an ecosystem. The heat was cooled by the water; the wind was grounded by the earth; the lightning gave the whole thing a pulse. He didn't feel like a human anymore. He felt like a miniature version of the natural world, all bound together by the scar-tissue of his "deaths."

But the price was visible. Faint blue veins, pulsating with a rhythmic glow, now raced from his neck up toward his jawline. The "Anomalous Reflux" was reaching its limit. He couldn't hide this much power under a servant's cloak for long.

"God, my mother would kill me if she could see me now," Ren sighed, closing his eyes against the rising moon. "Scrubbing floors by day, fighting sea monsters by night. It’s a busy life for a piece of trash."

A quiet rustle in the grass made him stiffen.

"Still talking to yourself, I see."

Elder Zhou stepped from behind a cluster of weeping willow trees. He was dressed in a dark traveling cloak, his mercury-colored eyes scanning Ren with a mixture of professional interest and deep, philosophical weariness. He looked at the cracked limestone, then at the lingering steam coming off Ren’s wet robes.

"Mirror-Soul Lake is for internal meditation of the High Elders, Ren. If they found you here, not even a pile of spirit stones would save you from the pits," Zhou noted, walking to the water’s edge.

"I just wanted a wash, Elder," Ren coughed, trying to cover his chest with his arm. "The heat was... getting to me."

"A wash that caused a localized seismic event and a Leviathan wake," Zhou said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. He leaned over and poked a finger into the pool of water Ren was sitting in. The water hissed, still hot from the friction of the jet-impact. "You have the full elemental quintet now. Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth... and now, the Ocean's pressure."

Ren didn't bother lying. Zhou had been seeing through him since Chapter 1. "It felt like a piece of the manual I was missing. Without the water, the fire would have eaten my spirit roots in a week."

Zhou sat down on a flat rock beside Ren. The old man looked unusually somber. "It's a beautiful symmetry you're building, Ren. But you're reaching the Ceiling of a Mortal Frame. Five Grade-3 signatures in a set of 'ruined' meridians... that ring won't hold it for much longer."

"The Tournament," Ren realized, his gaze hardening. "It’s in three days."

"Exactly. The Internal Trial will move to the Main Arena. You won’t be fighting Sun Taos anymore. You’ll be fighting the disciples of the Primary Pillars. You’ll be fighting Xiang Wu at his full power. And possibly... Hua Ran, if you make it that far."

"Good," Ren said, a terrifying clarity washing over his features. "I'm tired of sneaking around the edges. If they want to test me, let's see how they handle a scavenger who can take their best and give it back with interest."

Zhou reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small jade token—different from a disciple’s badge. It was a blank, obsidian-black slip. "If you die in the arena, it ends. But if you survive, and you somehow keep this secret... this token will open a door that even the Sect Master doesn't fully understand. It's the path to the Ancient Archive."

Ren took the token. It was heavier than it looked, smelling of old paper and copper. "The path to the 'Why,' Elder?"

"Maybe," Zhou said, standing up and disappearing into the night. "Or just the path to more suffering. In this world, there is very little difference between knowledge and agony."

Ren sat in the silence of the Mirror-Soul Lake, the jade token cold in his palm. His body was a map of bruises, and his Qi was a symphony of five stolen voices. He was no longer just an anomaly; he was an army.

He stood up, the water falling off his ragged robes like tears. The "Copycat" wasn't hunting manuals anymore. He was hunting a legacy.

"Three days," Ren whispered to the abyss.

He walked back toward the barracks, the rhythm of his breathing matching the ebb and flow of the tide he now carried inside his chest. The Azure Cloud Sect was looking for a champion. They were going to get a tidal wave instead.

And the trash of the servant quarters was finally ready to sweep the whole mountain clean.

The hunt for techniques had reached its limit. Now, the feast was about to begin. Ren looked up at the stars, not as distant wonders, but as reflections of the fire he now held. He wasn't just surviving; he was perfecting.

And as he neared the sleeping disciples' quarters, he let out a final, cold puff of mist. The "Trash" had become a dragon, and the dragon was getting ready to breathe.

The arena awaited. And so did Ren's next death.