Jai Chen

Jai Chen
General information
Path	Unknown
Faction	Jai Clan
First Appearance	Soulsmith - Cradle book 2
Origin	Black Flame Empire
Family
Siblings	Jai Long

Jai Chen is Jai Long’s sister. She is eight years younger than him. The siblings are very close. Chen first appears as a tertiary character in book 2, Soulsmith. By book 10, she has developed an interesting madra and is one of the founders of the Twin Star Sect.

Chen’s Childhood

Chen was born with a promising future into the then-prominent Jai Clan, highly ranked in the Blackflame Empire. As a child, she lived in Serpent’s Grave, the heart of Jai power, where the Patriarch Jai Daishou kept a palace on Shiryu Mountain. However, she was largely ignored after suffering a seemingly incurable injury to her madra channels when she was attacked in bed at only six years old. She is the younger sister of Jai Long, who is eight years older than her. Because of his own sudden facial deformation, incurred during the same attack that injured his little sister, he was exiled to the Desolate Wilds, despite his promise and ability. Still a child, Jai Chen went “out west” along with her big brother. They found a home with the Sandviper Sect in the Desolate Wilds, a bleak place with twisted black trees and numerous dreadbeasts. They sought the powerful Ancestor’s Spear in the ancient Labyrinth — the Transcendent Ruins. She lived out west for about 8 years, roughly. Then, in book 2 Soulsmith, three strangers came to the Ruins — Lindon, Yerin and Eithan Arelius — and her future was set in motion, so she went East with her brother to Serpent’s Grave.

Age & Appearance

Jai Chen is roughly the same age as Wei Shi Lindon Arelius (Skysworn, ch 4). She’s a young teenage girl in book 2 Soulsmith, about 14 years old. By book 10, she’s probably about 19. Dark hair and eyes, dainty, soft looking, small-framed. Wears blue robes.

Jai Chen

"About his age, she was small and pale, with
soft black hair that tumbled down past her
shoulders. She was dressed in powder-blue robes

-Skysworn, ch. 4

Soft

"She was a small woman...
and she looked...soft.
In every sense of the word.
Eyes, skin, hair, hands, demeanor.
Soft. But...soft didn’t always mean weak."

-Bloodline

Character

Warm-hearted, loyal, trusting, patient, determined, brave, long-suffering, yet still able to giggle at the absurd. Strong. Picked up the broken Ancestor’s Spearhead and used it to kill her enemy (Skysworn)

Injuries

When she was six years old, Jai Chen suffered from a crippling disability (mangled madra channels) as the result of an attack by a Remnant. She went to the Desolate Wilds with her brother Jai Long, who was only fourteen. Befriended by the Sandviper Sect, they made a home in the wilderness. Her brother searched for a way to gain power and to heal her. She was healed by Wei Shi Lindon Arelius and Little Blue and seems to have unique, possibly living madra due to the original Remnant attack and various subsequent events.

Path

Unclear. As a child, she would probably have been Foundational following the Jai Clan sacred arts -- the Path of the Stellar Spear. However, that ended when she was injured. After Lindon and Little Blue healed her in book 3, Blackflame, she could finally begin to cycle. However, she utilizes a unique blend of aspects. Her Path will be unique. In book 4, Skysworn, Eithan examines her, after she was exposed to the dangerous Archstone and the powerful tip of the Ancestor’s Spear:

Eithan ran his spiritual sense through her soul. Thanks to Sylvan Riverseed's touch, her madra channels had been rebalanced, cleansed, and purified. Without that, she would have lost control of her madra and died already. As it was, she was just barely holding on. A sack stuffed to capacity and coming apart at the seams, but not in danger of bursting. “Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for her,” Eithan said, and Jai Long's twisted face began to fall behind his mask. “...but fortunately, there's also no need. She will survive this. And her core will be filled with quite unique madra, so that's a treat. You were quite lucky that Lindon and I were here, and that Lindon's Blackflame core was empty, otherwise the madra would have reached a critical imbalance. As it is, none of our madra conflicted too badly with each other. They will blend together in her.. . .But then...well, she has a unique Path ahead of her.” (Skysworn)

Arelius Sight

Chen accidentally gained a measure of Lindon and Eithan’s pure madra and the famous Arelius Bloodline Abilities when she used the Ancestor’s Spear to kill Jai Daishou while he was employing the Archstone. To use her borrowed Arelius Senses, she will have to expend madra, while Eithan's works naturally. Also, she didn’t inherit this Bloodline Trait genetically and cannot pass it on (Skysworn)

In Bloodline, book 9, Chen tells Eithan that her dragon spirit Fingerling can use his borrowed Arelius Bloodline Abilities better than she can:

I seem to recall that you were able to use a version of my bloodline power. Can you still see things through strands of madra around you?”. .…
“Only if I concentrate,” Jai Chen said happily, and Jai Long cursed his own failure. He had raised her to be too trusting. She gestured to her dragon. “He’s better at it. If he really tries, he can see things over a mile away.” (Bloodline, ch 9)

In Reaper, she advances to Lowgold, after Lindon gives her cycling advice. She has no Goldsign. As a Lowgold, she improves at utilizing Eithan's detection web:

"Even with the support of the sect, she’d had a difficult time reaching Lowgold. There weren’t any Remnants with her unique blend of aspects, not to mention any appropriate scales. But since she had, her detection web had become easier to use and far more efficient." (Reaper)

Fingerling

Sometime after Lindon healed her at the end of book 3, Jai Chen bonded / contracted with a tiny ferocious pink dragon-spirit. It seems to have come from her own living madra. Fingerling can see up to a mile away and its madra dissolves enemies. This dragon-spirit first appears in book 4, Skysworn, during Lindon's duel with Jai Long.

Fingerling: Description

‘He spun his spear around, looking for the creature that had gotten behind him, only to see his sister holding a dragon by its tail. A serpentine dragon roared, surging from the space between her hands. It was like one of his snakes, only far more detailed: he could see a pair of whiskers on its face and scales on its body. It was tinged pink, like the light of dawn, and it raged into the bloody creatures with a majestic cry. They were splattered across the floor with the sheer momentum of its charge.(Skysworn, ch 9)

Fingerling’s Madra

Fingerling came from Jai Chen’s spirit madra, which was probably altered by the Remnant that attacked her at age six, about ten years ago, mixed in perhaps with pure pure madra from Lindon and Little Blue, who first unknotted Jai Chen’s core and madra channels. It was also effected by the Ancestor’s Spear and the Archstone during the duel between Lindon and Jai Long, and the unexpected actions of Jai Daishou.

‘Awed, Jai Long extended his spiritual perception. The substance of this creature felt like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was something like his own madra, corrupted by that Remnant long ago, which explained life in a creature that wasn't a Remnant. But at the same time, it was also...refined, in a way he couldn't describe. Like Jai Long's power had been boiled down, purified, perfected, and then strengthened. And there were elements that reminded him of a storm. It was a confusing, overwhelming mass of impressions, and he couldn't make sense of them. . .’(Skysworn, ch 9)

‘Jai Chen directed Fingerling, who breathed his strange pink madra over a bloodspawn that looked like it had been made from scarlet scissors strapped together to walk like a man. Fingerling’s breath didn’t behave like fire, or even fire madra, but like a dense cloud that passed over the jagged spawn and dissolved it.’(Bloodline)

Fingerling’s Name

“You’ve cared for your bonded spirit well,” Eithan observed. “Have you named it?”
“We call him Fingerling,” Jai Chen said, looking a little sheepish. “He started off the size of a finger, and he loves eating small fish. It started as a nickname, but then it just.. .stuck.” The pink, serpentine dragon trilled proudly at the sound of his name. (Bloodline)

Twin Star Sect

Twin Star Sect Recruitment

Eventually, Archlord Eithan Arelius invites Jai Chen to help organize the new Twin Star Sect, a group that follows the Void Sage —- Wei Shi Lindon —- who is on the Path of Twin Stars. He is also called the Twin Star Sage or the Sage of Twin Stars. Working with Wei Shi Kelsa, Chen recruits new members and manages the sect. The sect sprang to life in the Desolate Wilds shantytown of Refuge and continued in Serpent’s Grave. (Bloodline and Reaper)

‘His sister, Jai Chen, wore a set of sacred artists robes trimmed in blue and burnt orange: the colors of the Twin Star sect. She wore the emblem proudly over her heart, and she moved as though it gave her endless energy. She bounced into the room beaming, and even her companion spirit danced around in midair as though he’d inherited the mood. Fingerling was a serpentine, finger-sized pink dragon that was the manifestation of Jai Chen’s power.’ (Reaper)