Though he knew it was a training exercise, Lindon's heart was still hammering. Gingerly, he passed a corner of his sleeve through the light. When it survived unharmed, he tried with a finger.
He felt nothing; no heat, no resistance. With his other hand, he passed through the red man, and once again it was like waving his hand through only air. It was just like the Path of the White Fox, then. Forgers could make solid illusions, and Strikers could produce foxfire, but in the end it was all only light and dreams.
He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
“This isn't even his only technique,” Eithan said conversationally. “Just his most common one. If we get you to Lowgold, perhaps your Empty Palm technique could affect him...but he would never allow you that close. In a thousand fights, you would fail a thousand times.”
Eithan stopped talking, and all the slithering lights left by Jai Long's techniques vanished. The red man reappeared in its starting position, empty-handed.
Lindon waited for his heart to return to a healthy rhythm before he rose back up the wall to his feet. “So then. I need a second Path that covers for my weaknesses and targets Jai Long's.” He hesitated for a moment. “Or...I'm not sure how to ask, but are there any...famous, or especially powerful Paths out there?” The myths and legends of Sacred Valley were filled with tales of unbeatable Paths, so if those really existed, Lindon didn't want to be stuck with a mundane one.
Eithan raised one eyebrow. “You think you need a special Path? Are ordinary Paths not good enough to meet your esteemed estimation?”
Lindon ducked his head. “I knew it was childish to ask, excuse me. I only wanted—”
“No, you were right. Powerful Paths, coming right up.”
The ball flashed emerald, and the green man reappeared. This time, this one held the spear, and as it twirled the weapon, the spearhead shone like a star. The Path of the Stellar Spear, though Lindon couldn’t tell if it was the original version or Jai Long’s twisted one.
The red man cupped its hand and gathered a ball of deep purple light. The technique trembled against invisible restraints, as though pushing against the air, and an equally vivid purple sword appeared in his left hand. The weapon crackled and shook, also straining against some unseen bond.
“Path of the Broken Star,” Eithan announced. “This Path branched off into the Stellar Spear many generations ago, and the original is far more...potent.”
The green man started off defensive, weaving a net of squirming snakes behind, just as Jai Long could do.
The red man disappeared, leaving a violet shadow of Broken Star madra behind. When the scarlet figure reappeared, there was a gap sliced in the barrier and a hole driven through the green man's chest.
“Jai Long might last a little longer than that,” Eithan said, “but not too much so. If you mastered the Path of the Broken Star, you'd make a splash throughout the Empire.”
The featureless figure still hadn't extinguished its sword, and it buzzed and crackled in the air.
Lindon was tempted to choose this one instantly, but he couldn't pass up the opportunity to see what else was on offer.
“Now, disadvantages: it demands exacting madra control, its techniques are notoriously difficult to apply in real-world situations, and there's only one place to train it: a secret city long lost to the Jai clan.”
Lindon felt suddenly cheated. “If we can't find it...”
“It's lost to the Jai clan. Not to me. While it would give me great pleasure to see you defeat their heir with the Path they've been desperately hunting for centuries, it would take us at least three months to gain access. That leaves you seven months to go from ignorant initiate to skilled sacred artist, and I...well, let's say that you would have the chance to surprise me.”
Watching the purple blade, Lindon had to wonder. If there was another way to delay Jai Long or put off this confrontation, maybe he could find the time he needed to learn. It was worth considering.
The red man flickered and reset to the middle of the room, his Forged weapon gone. The green man reappeared, once again spinning Jai Long's spear.
Eithan continued for the better part of an hour. He demonstrated the Path of Crawling Shades, which would turn Lindon’s shadow into a symbiotic Remnant of darkness that devoured enemy techniques. He shows off the Path of Twisting Rivers, which used a technique of combined Ruler and Striker disciplines to accelerate Forged water until it sliced through steel.
The Path of the Last Oath was designed for and by Soulsmiths, and relied on Forging basic constructs on the fly and using them like disposable puppets. With its power, Lindon could counteract Jai Long’s shining serpents and bury him beneath the weight of his own improvised minions. The Path of Grasping Sky would allow him to grip Jai Long with a Ruler technique and then crush his windpipe as a Striker.
Lindon was very intrigued by the possibilities—and by the vast emerald wingspan that came with it—until Eithan told him that the Grasping Sky was the Path of the imperial clan.
Lindon preferred not to make more enemies than necessary, so he reluctantly set that Path aside.
Eithan snapped his fingers as though something had occurred to him. “You know, if Paths of the nobility interest you, I do have one last possibility...”
A dull flash, and the red man reappeared. This time, its hands were swallowed by a substance that looked like black fire, or a thick concentration of inky smoke. The black was streaked with scarlet, so that the figure held two handfuls of dark and bloody rolling flame.
That caught Lindon's interest immediately. The fireballs were intimidating, and this fit his image of a sacred artist: conjuring balls of strange-colored fire. His own clan had used purple foxfire for centuries.
“The Blackflame family united this empire, and ruled it until the Naru took over only five decades ago.”
The green man raised his spear, but the red one blasted it apart, a bar of dark fire slicing through emerald flesh. The technique sliced through him like a red-hot blade through snow.
“Their power came from the dragons that originally roamed these lands. It's one part fire to one part pure destruction.”
This time, after the green man died, it came back in seconds. It wove a net of twisting serpents in the air with its spearhead.
Black flames ate through the technique, and then the enemy.
“It's not versatile at all, really. It's a potent, violent Path designed for war. Its chief advantage is that it doesn't demand a great degree of control; the main technique involves spraying fire in the general direction of something you want to destroy. Doesn't require much finesse.”
The green man appeared again, moving to strike the red man in a blink, but it passed through a curtain of black flames and died once more.
“Children of the Blackflame family were deadly threats even at Copper.”