Night of the Broken Gliph

It was mid-winter. 

Due to the South’s warm climate, the snow was mild, looking like heaven-sent glitter bringing a new shine under the sun. 

A night wolf coach was travelling at a steady pace. Chui Yim, Bak Wun and Chor Shing Chit weren’t afraid of the cold and felt rather nonchalant about it; they kept the fireplace empty and were even glad about the chilly wind that blew in from time to time. 

It had been half a month since they left Southern Ping; according to their planned route, they were nearing their destination, South Imperial City. 

Chui Yim couldn’t help but think about everything that had happened in the past few months. He fled from Chan Shue Gun, tattooed a gliph on Chor Shing Chit when his life was at stake, then fled to Night Lion City. That was where he met and cured Tse Yu Bak at an inn. As a result, he was implicated in the Tse Clan’s internal strife. 

Afterwards, he arrived at the Engraved Mountain Range, where he found many precious herbs, even discovering a legendary gliph which improved his understanding of gliphism. He also learnt about the Fifth Teacher of Cloud Palace, Wat Suen, from Chor Shing Chit and Wong Kwan. 

This sequence of events was followed by him feeling helpless after realising the changes in the Heaven’s Flame. He visited Breaking Thorns City which changed his mindset, subsequently deciding to insert energliph into the heaven’s flame. 

His days at Southern Ping weren’t much smoother. He nearly lost his life to the Yellow Spring’s Lady, somehow ended up as Ping Chi’s direct disciple and learnt alchemy and medicine from him. Chui Yim even helped the Ping Clan maintain the city’s leadership against the Mo-Yung Clan. 

Over a year, Chui Yim had visited roughly twenty cities with countless experiences, some more memorable than the others. So memorable that they seemed to have taken place only yesterday. 

The closer the coach got to the city, the more Chui Yim felt this way. 

After cultivating the Nine Levels Of Heaven’s Flame and picking up gliphism, Chui Yim finally felt like he was about to break through. This would be a new start for him. Cultivating energliph wasn’t the true start to his path of gliphism; breaking through his inner chamber was! 

Chui Yim had no idea how to pass his bottleneck, but he felt that South Imperial City would be where it happened; if he didn’t break through before the Cloud Palace enrollment, he’d definitely lose against the other elite participants. 

“Look, that’s South Imperial City right there,” Chor Shing Chit spoke suddenly. 

How should I describe it? 

After seeing South Imperial City himself, Chui Yim was at a loss for words. 

Some authors had described the city in books, “The city was as tall as a mountain, dense as a forest, and as vast as the skies and ocean.” 

By now, Chui Yim had been to countless cities and villages and he was no longer a naive country boy that lived under a rock. Night Lion, Breaking Thorns, and Southern Ping were major cities, but they were nothing compared to South Imperial City. 

Southern Ping was similarly magnificent because the Southern Mountain located within the city was enough to awe anybody. However, things were different for South Imperial City. Gigantic, comprehensive city walls as black as ink looked like hills surrounding the city, but if one looked at the walls closely under the sunlight, one would see hues of dark blue. 

Outside the city walls, there was an additional layer of fog that looked thin but was actually several metres thick, blanketing the city walls all around. 

The city looked more like a mountain or heavens instead of a city. 

This was the South Imperial City for you. 

Even Chui Yim dared not confirm the metal used to build the walls, only able to guess that it wasn’t a simple mineral or metal but an alloy. There was even energliph felt from it. 

The main ingredient should be a good conductor of energliph, before being mixed with other materials to form an alloy. 

It was hard to see through the layer of fog but both Chui Yim and Chor Shing Chit who saw the legendary gliph on the Engraved Mountain Range had a deep understanding of gliph formations which allowed them to identify the Cumulonimbus, Nimbus and Dewdrop gliphs. 

The Cumulonimbus gliph would gather the water vapour in the air; the Nimbus gliph would then condense the water vapour into rain, the Dewdrop gliph turning the water-attributed energy into energliph. 

Along with that alloy… The city walls are becoming more powerful every second! The defensive strength of the walls increases every second! One day, it will become stronger than any mountain or metal! The architect of South Imperial City is unimaginably rich, powerful and smart! 

Chui Yim might be learning alchemy, medicine and gliphism simultaneously. However, he was still originally a metalsmith, and it was already an ingrained habit to view things from the perspective of a metalsmith. He had already gained countless ideas, envisioning many different methods to make new gliph weapons or carving gliphs with just a glance of the city walls’ workmanship. 

Passing through the fog, the night wolf moved towards the city gate that wasn’t far away. It was similarly shrouded by fog, making it look like an entrance to a cave hidden beneath a fountain thus named the water curtain gate since passing through it felt like passing through water curtains. 

“South Imperial City spans a huge area. They have four city gates called water curtain gates, differentiated by their directions; North, South, East, and West,” Chor Shing Chit explained. His face had a weird expression, as this was his hometown. 

As the capital of the South, this was where the central authority was. Besides the imperial family, about twenty more clans were based in the city. Some were cultivation-type clans, while others had many government officials or influence in the Lam dynasty. 

Chui Yim remembered that he had read some books that described South Imperial City as a place with a high chance of meeting elite clan members while in the city. 

This might have been exaggerated, but it was enough to show how deep the roots of South Imperial City were. 

Within a mansion in South Imperial City sat a frowning man. 

“Father.” Not much later, someone came in, easing the frown on the man’s face. 

“Sing.” 

Sing was in good physical shape: muscular, but slightly evil-looking. 

He was Chor Sing, the expected successor of the Spiral Dragon Chor Clan and the man sitting in front of him was his father Chor Chong Hoi, a four-chambered stage glipher. 

Chor Sing was the most powerful cultivator of his clan within his generation. The three-chambered stage cultivator broke through last year and had the most potential, making Chor Chong Hoi’s faction the strongest one in the Chor Clan. Their elderly clan leader was the only one who could restrain them.