In this same span of days, a great matter had come to pass within the Sect of Seven Mysteries.
"Senior Brother Li," the idol of the younger generation of disciples, had shown himself alert far beyond the common run of men. On the very spot he had seen through the conspiracy of two spies whom the Wild Wolf Gang had set as moles within the sect, who had sought to steal away the list of those disciples appointed to go down the mountain on their training. And together with a dozen or so of his fellow disciples he had taken the two men alive. It was a meritorious service of no small note.
A few days thereafter, the Grand Sect Leader conferred upon Li Feiyu, in the presence of a great host of disciples, the office of Protector, whereby he formally stepped into the middle councils of the Sect of Seven Mysteries. No little stir did this occasion, and the fame of Li Feiyu swelled yet the louder.
Of all this, Han Li knew nothing. He was shut up within his sealed wooden cabin, deep in his own especial training. Saving that he went forth from time to time to the kitchens to fetch himself a little food, he had had no dealings with any man for many a day, and so could not but be ignorant of the brilliance his friend had won.
Summer passed and autumn came round; time fled as swift as a shuttle. And at last the day arrived that stood on the eve of the appointed meeting.
In the wood of thorns at the ravine's foot, a figure unearthly strange came and went amid the thorny branches all grown thick with sharpened spikes, now vanishing, now appearing. Those dangerous thorns wrought not the least hindrance upon him; but like a wisp of blue smoke he slipped through one after another of those nets woven of bramble, now coming to view near at hand, now springing up further off, the whole passage passing in utter silence, as though he were no thing of flesh and blood, but a body without form.
At the last this figure halted upon the trunk of a tree, and stood straight upon the bough, gazing afar. It was none other than Han Li, whose training had borne some fruit.
His garments by now were rent and ragged beyond all repair, so that the very skin and flesh beneath were laid bare. His hair hung loose and tangled; his face was streaked black here and white there, till his true features could no longer be discerned. And what was most astonishing of all — at his neck, at his waist, upon his arms, his thighs, and his ankles, there hung a tiny iron bell.
Mark but these iron bells, and then recall how Han Li had flitted like a specter through the wood; and it will not be hard to tell how unearthly that movement of a moment past had been.
He stood unmoving, gazing toward the direction of Spirit Hands Valley, and murmured to himself:
"The hour is just right. At last, upon this very last day, I have perfected the Mist-Wandering Step. With it in hand, I carry one the more measure of assurance for my own safety."
Though the look upon his face could not be clearly seen, the joy in his eyes spilled forth unguarded.
After months of study and bitter practice, Han Li had mastered several hidden arts of no little power, and was not without some confidence in them. Even if he could not hope to match the unfathomable skill of Doctor Mo, yet for his own protection he held a fair measure of hope.
A breath of wind came by, and Han Li felt a chill against his skin. He looked down at his "garment of holes," and picturing to himself the figure he must now present, could not keep a bitter smile from creeping over his heart.
Looking back upon the practice of the Mist-Wandering Step, he still felt more than a pang of lingering dread. To train his agility within a wood of thorns was a pastime fit to cost a man his life. For at the outset, his form being yet novel and unsure, he could not but be raked and torn from head to foot by the hard spikes of the branches, till he was drenched in blood.
Happily he carried on his person the "Nutrient-Essence Pill," which not only healed internal injury, but proved marvellous even against outward wounds. No sooner had he swallowed one than the bleeding was stayed and the wound sealed with a scab; and by the second day even the scar had vanished away without a trace.
At this Han Li clucked his tongue again and again in wonderment. This medicine was stronger far than common wound-plasters. He could not fathom why it should bear so strange a name as "Nutrient-Essence Pill"; to his mind, some such word as "Scar-Remover" or "Blood-Stauncher" had been a deal more apt.
Had that eminent one who devised the Nutrient-Essence Pill but heard this fancy of Han Li's, he would in all likelihood have spat a mouthful of blood for very rage; that the peerless healing drug he had so carefully compounded should be set upon the same scales with the common gold-wound ointment of some hedge quack, and their worths compared! How could such a master not be furious to the marrow!
Yet it was only by training in so dangerous a place that Han Li had been able to rouse the whole of his hidden power, and within so brief a span to bring his Mist-Wandering Step to a fair degree of ripeness, so that it could be put to use at need that very day.
Moreover, his Art of Eternal Youth, but a few days since, had reached the sixth layer without mishap — the very highest to which Doctor Mo's formula led him. Without the aid of those dozen or more vials of spirit medicines, he might have strained with all the strength of his might and yet never have attained it in his lifetime.
After years of cultivation, Han Li had come to hold no little insight into the Art of Eternal Youth, and thought it a most singular art, unlike the common run of martial learning, whether in the fashion of its practice or in the manner of its working.
In the first place, Han Li was of the mind that the success of this art, and the speed of its advance, hung chiefly upon the man and his own quality — upon the aptitude of the cultivator, and whether that aptitude be rightly suited to the art. The well-endowed might pass along the road easily and without hindrance; and he guessed that, even without help from without, they might by dint of bitter toil reach a lofty level.
And he, whose aptitude was poor, having climbed to a certain stage, would, lacking spirit medicines, find every step a labour all but beyond him. Han Li conjectured that such a one could go no further for all his life, and must stop where he stood — as he himself had done, sailing smoothly enough through the first three layers, only to find the fourth suddenly so sorely hard that he could not gain an inch.
But if there were spirit medicines at hand, then out of the impossible came the possible, and one might break through the prison of aptitude and climb yet a step higher. By this it may be seen how sorely the art leaned upon the aid of medicines.
Yet to swallow spirit medicines one or two every day, as though they were naught but little sweets — that was a fashion such as, he guessed, scarce any man under heaven had ever kept. And so, where reason said the fifth and sixth layers were the harder by far, he had climbed them without the least strain, and never once tasted the hardship he had known at the fourth.
And the Art of Eternal Youth, carried to its sixth layer, besides flooding Han Li with more abundant vigour and a sharper head, had for the present shown him no other marvellous use. Strange to say, from the very first this art, at each of its layers, had strengthened only his spirit, his mind, and his five senses, while its effect upon the body was small indeed — mere health of frame and lightness of foot. And that current of energy it engendered — which Han Li named his pseudo-true-qi — though it could course through his meridians freely, even as common true qi, served only to quicken his sense of touch, and beyond that had no practical virtue, nor any of that terrible puissance of true qi.
Moreover, having come thus far, Han Li judged that beyond the sixth layer there must still lie an unfinished portion of the formula, and that perhaps all its hidden virtues were reserved for those final layers.
At the thought he shook his head with no little helplessness, and sighed. Between him and Doctor Mo, as matters now stood, to dream of the layers beyond was a thing not to be thought of at all.
Staying his wandering fancies, Han Li leapt up, and came softly down upon the ground without a sound. Then he strode off with long steps toward the little wooden cabin.
Tomorrow he was to meet Doctor Mo; and before that, he would make the most of his native wit to plot out in his head, in advance, the very steps of the meeting — pondering with care the every detail that might come to pass, and drawing up for every danger not yet born the best plan with which it might be met.