Chi was highly adaptable; it wasn't limited to humans. Her human form gave the best results, but her Inhuman form and Kree form worked too. After all, someone like Lei Kung, who'd lived several hundred years, had genes long since different from an ordinary human's, yet chi worked for him all the same, and he used it superbly well.
Unlike powers that arrived all at once, chi had to be honed, growing stronger through the slow accumulation of countless days.
Daisy wasn't all that discouraged. There was still that big prize pool waiting for her over at Shou-Lao—three hundred years of cultivation at the least, which amounted to another major enhancement of her body.
"My thanks for K'un-Lun's help, and for the Yu-Ti's protection." Daisy bowed slightly toward the figure a short distance off. Her voice was clear, mellow, and pleasing to the ear.
The Yu-Ti stepped out and gave a faint nod. He took it that K'un-Lun's chi had healed Daisy's throat.
"It's an unorthodox road—but perhaps this is your path." The leader offered a line or two of comment first. No astonishment, no disparagement, just very ordinary words.
"So then—you've already decided to challenge Shou-Lao and leave K'un-Lun?" the Yu-Ti asked.
Daisy still couldn't see through this man. He might fall short of the Ancient One in raw power, but with chi reinforcing him the Yu-Ti wasn't far behind the Ancient One at all. As a pure martial artist, he didn't have those tricks that spanned timelines, but anyone who underestimated him would pay for it without fail.
To put it in the old, classical phrasing, the Yu-Ti was a single step from unity of heaven and humanity.
Daisy answered with great care. "I've been in K'un-Lun two months now. I have a bad feeling—something terrible is about to happen in the outside world."
Thor's hammer still hadn't fallen, and instinct told her trouble was coming. There was the S.H.I.E.L.D. business, the HYDRA business, her own family's business too—two months away from home, and she wished she could sprout wings and fly back this instant.
"In that case, make your preparations. Three days from now, we'll go to Shou-Lao's lair and complete the challenge. Steel yourself—the challenge can kill you." With that, the Yu-Ti fixed a pair of pitch-black eyes on her, not looking away until Daisy nodded. Only then did he turn and leave.
Truth be told, Daisy was a little afraid. Anyone who didn't fear a fight to the death was a fool. But she had her confidence too—if a weakling like Danny Rand could beat Shou-Lao, there was no reason she should lose, even if Danny had only beaten a five-year-old dragon.
And unlike the people of this world, unlike the honor-bound folk of K'un-Lun, she figured that if she couldn't win, she could always run. Even if the battlefield were sealed, she'd sooner teleport into an alternate space than fight to the death.
Back in her own private room, her original clothes—after a week of heavy fighting and three days of sitting still—were filthy beyond saving. She didn't much care about her appearance, but she didn't want to look like a complete slob either.
Water was scarce in K'un-Lun; the disciples all had to haul their own water. As an elder, her treatment was far better, with someone assigned to fetch it for her. Daisy tossed the ruined clothes aside, kindled a roaring flame between her palms, and burned the lot to ash. Then she bathed in a wooden basin, changed into the elder's robe, and dropped into a deep sleep.
To challenge Shou-Lao she needed to bring out her strongest state. The human state, unable to use her vibration powers, didn't have enough combat strength, so for two days running Daisy worked on adapting to chi in her Inhuman state.
At first the circulation was a little sluggish, but as her body slowly adjusted she could roughly draw out about seventy percent of her chi.
Flame riding on shockwaves—one punch thrown, and fire scattered across the sky. It looked impressive as hell.
"Not bad at all." Watching from a distance as she trained, Lei Kung clapped in approval. Daisy had always kept a respectful attitude toward this martial master with a philosopher's bent, who was half teacher, half friend. Lei Kung considered the two of them equals, but Daisy still observed the courtesy of a junior. One of them was twenty, the other six hundred; she didn't have the nerve to pose as his peer.
"Thanks to K'un-Lun's guidance, and to yours, Master." Her answer was sincere. The two of them were nothing to each other by blood or history, yet K'un-Lun had been willing to teach her without holding back. She had a genuine fondness for the place.
"Care to spar again?" Lei Kung invited her to a rematch.
Daisy accepted readily. She needed combat precisely to grow familiar with using chi, and Lei Kung's level—neither too high nor too low—was just right.
This bout between them was mostly a friendly exchange; the tension was far lower than in their first fight. Even so, half a day of fighting still wreaked enormous destruction on the training ground.
When it was over, Daisy was exhausted. She plopped onto a stone chair with no regard for appearances, while Lei Kung still stood ramrod straight—though that looked more like pride forcing him upright.
"Master, when I challenge Shou-Lao, I can bring weapons, right?" she asked.
Lei Kung thought it over carefully. "Every generation of Iron Fist has challenged him bare-handed—but no one ever said you couldn't bring weapons."
A day later, when Lei Kung saw Daisy in full battle gear, he wanted to slap himself. Daisy wore her hawk armor and bracers, carried a sword and shield, had a ring on her finger and a lasso at her waist—decked out like a hero off to slay an evil dragon.
Daisy asked him, a touch guiltily, "You did say it was allowed…"
The Yu-Ti, who'd come to watch, turned to Lei Kung. What's the meaning of this? You agreed to it? This is an Iron Fist trial, not a tryout for Olympus or Asgard!
It's called Iron Fist! Which part of those two words did they not understand?
Lei Kung's face was a mask of embarrassment, but in the end he tacitly allowed this fully armed approach to the selection.
When he nodded, the Yu-Ti didn't stop it either. He was K'un-Lun's leader, true, but plenty of concrete affairs fell to Lei Kung, and the two complemented each other. There was no need to make Lei Kung lose face over a small thing like this.
The three of them set off down the path toward Shou-Lao's lair. At first the Yu-Ti, to show that he was the one in charge, walked at the very back—but the more he looked at that armor of Daisy's, the more awkward it seemed to him, and in two bounds he sprang to the front.
Daisy looked at Lei Kung, the picture of innocence. "I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"
Lei Kung fought down the urge to throttle her and shook his head.
Watching the two of them sulk, Daisy nearly laughed out loud. With the full kit on, her combat power was at least fifty percent higher. Her Atomic Cut probably wouldn't be lethal to a magical creature like Shou-Lao, but whatever happened afterward, opening with one big shot and then waiting out the cooldown was the correct way to put out damage.
With the Vibranium bracers she could throw her vibration powers around without restraint, and adding in her pseudo-Lasso of Truth, those three pieces working together for one round of skills—even if the dragon could tank it, it'd still cost Shou-Lao half his health.
The path grew narrower and narrower. The Yu-Ti and Lei Kung reinforced themselves with chi, using some technique akin to lightness skill to skim across the ground, while Daisy simply manipulated gravity to lift off and follow them through the air.
From the Sacred Mountain of K'un-Lun they descended all the way down, into the mountain's belly, then followed a corridor into an underground cavern.
The temperature around them climbed fast; Daisy estimated it was already close to forty degrees Celsius (104 °F) here.
At the mouth of a fiery red cave, the Yu-Ti and Lei Kung halted. She knew they'd arrived.
"My thanks to you both for the help. I'm going in." Daisy nodded to the two of them, then with her sword and shield on her back walked slowly toward the cave mouth.