Yan Qiu walked back to the inn with his head full of questions.

  The arena did not exist and the street did not exist. Nobody in Dusthaven had ever heard of an underground fighting pit, and he had asked a dozen people who all looked at him like he was crazy.

  He pushed open the inn door and found Xu Liang on his hands and knees in the corner where Yan Qiu slept, pulling something out from under the thin blanket.

  “What are you doing?”

  Xu Liang turned around with a handful of copper coins, his eyes wide. “Wait, what? You have this many coins and you told me you were broke?”

  Yan Qiu stared at the coins scattered across the floor, glinting in the lamplight. Xu Liang had been cleaning and found them everywhere: under the blanket, under the bundle Yan Qiu used as a pillow, tucked into the folds of his spare clothes.

  “How many?” Yan Qiu asked.

  “A hundred and forty-three so far. There might be more.”

  His chest tightened and a sharp pain spread through his ribs. It was the same pain he had felt when he woke from the nightmare about the floating compound and the screaming cultivators. He pressed his hand against his chest and waited for it to pass.

  “Where did you get all this?” Xu Liang asked, looking genuinely confused.

  Yan Qiu opened his mouth to tell the truth, but the truth made no sense. He had won the coins in an arena that did not exist, fighting opponents that nobody remembered, in a place that had never been built.

  “I was saving them for pills,” he said.

  “Saving them? You told me you only had a few copper when you got here!” Xu Liang crossed his arms. “Were you lying to me this whole time?”

  “I did not want to spend them unless I had to.”

  Xu Liang looked at him for a long moment. Yan Qiu could tell he did not believe it, but he could also tell that Xu Liang was not going to push. There was something in the way his eyes moved, a flicker of understanding that said he had his own secrets too.

  “Fine, your business is your business.” Xu Liang stood up and brushed off his knees, then grinned. “But since you are so rich now, you owe me a treat.”

  “A treat?”

  “Meat buns! From the stall down the street, the good ones with the thick filling.” He rubbed his hands together. “Come on, you can afford it now. I have been craving those for days.”

  Yan Qiu almost laughed. The pain in his chest was fading, leaving behind a dull ache that he was starting to get used to. He gathered the coins and counted them himself, finding a hundred and forty-seven in total. Xu Liang had missed a few.

  The next morning Yan Qiu went to the market.

  Dusthaven’s main street was crowded with vendors selling everything from vegetables to spirit stones, and he walked past stalls of dried herbs and racks of cheap weapons until he found what he was looking for: a small shop with faded characters above the door that read “Cultivation Supplies.”

  Inside, an old woman sat behind a counter covered in bottles and scrolls. She looked up when he entered, her eyes moving over his worn clothes and thin frame.

  “What do you need, boy?”

  “Pills and a technique scroll, something basic.”

  “Pills I have, technique scrolls depend on what you can afford.” She gestured at the shelves behind her. “Body Tempering Pills are forty copper each, Qi Gathering Pills are seventy, anything stronger will cost you silver.”

  Yan Qiu did the math in his head. He could afford three Body Tempering Pills and still have enough left over for clothes and maybe a scroll.

  “Three Body Tempering Pills. What techniques do you have for under twenty copper?”

  The old woman reached under the counter and pulled out a thin scroll with frayed edges. “Qi Reinforcement. Channels energy into your fists or feet to strengthen your strikes. Simple and effective, nothing fancy. Fifteen copper.”

  He bought the pills and the scroll, then found a clothing stall on the way back and traded his worn robe for something cleaner. The new clothes were plain grey cotton, nothing special, but they fit him better than anything he had worn since leaving Blackroot.

  When he returned to the inn Xu Liang whistled. “Look at you, almost like a real person now.”

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  “Almost,” Yan Qiu said.

  The days passed quickly after that.

  He worked at the inn during the mornings and afternoons, carrying trays and cleaning tables and learning how to deal with customers who had too much to drink. The innkeeper paid him fifteen copper a day, same as before, and Yan Qiu saved every coin he did not need for food.

  In the evenings he cultivated. He sat cross-legged in his corner and reached inward, focusing on the bright current and ignoring the darkness the way the old man had taught him. The qi moved through his body more easily now that he had broken through to the second stage of Breath Weaving, and he could feel his channels strengthening, his pathways widening, his foundation growing more stable with each session.

  He also practiced the Qi Reinforcement technique from the scroll. The method was simple: gather qi in your core, then push it outward into your limbs. The first few times he tried it the energy scattered before it reached his hands, but by the third day he could hold it for a few seconds, and by the fifth day he could throw a punch with qi reinforcing his fist and feel the difference in the impact.

  It was not much, and a cultivator at the Channel Refining stage would laugh at his progress. But for Yan Qiu it was everything.

  On the seventh day the innkeeper asked if he wanted to spar.

  They were closing up for the night and Xu Liang had already gone upstairs. The innkeeper was wiping down the counter when he looked at Yan Qiu.

  “You have been practicing something in your corner every evening. What is it, martial arts?”

  “Cultivation, and a little bit of fighting.”

  “Oh? Show me then.”

  They went out to the small courtyard behind the inn where the moon was half-full and the air was cool. The innkeeper stood across from Yan Qiu with his hands loose at his sides.

  “No qi, just hands and feet. Let me see what you know.”

  Yan Qiu blinked. “Wait, you know how to fight? Are you a cultivator?”

  The innkeeper laughed and waved his hand. “No, no, nothing like that. I just picked up some skills over the years. Running an inn, you meet all kinds of people. Some of them teach you things that might be useful someday.”

  Yan Qiu nodded and raised his fists.

  The innkeeper moved first, stepping forward and throwing a straight punch at Yan Qiu’s chest. Yan Qiu shifted to the side and tried to counter, but the innkeeper was already gone, stepping around him, and a palm slapped the back of his shoulder.

  “You are fast and your footwork is not bad, but you have a problem. You do not read your opponent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You react after I move, and by then it is already too late.” The innkeeper raised his hands again. “Watch my shoulders and my hips. The body moves before the fist. If you see the movement starting, you can be ready before it arrives.”

  They went again. This time Yan Qiu watched the innkeeper’s shoulders, and when he saw the slight shift that came before a punch he moved early. His block was in place before the fist arrived.

  “Better. Again.”

  They sparred for an hour. The innkeeper was faster and more skilled, landing hits whenever he wanted to, but he never hit hard enough to hurt. He was teaching, not fighting, and Yan Qiu learned more in that hour than he had in weeks of practicing alone.

  The strange thing was how good it felt.

  In the arena that did not exist, fighting had made him feel something dark and hungry. He had wanted to hurt people and had laughed while bleeding, and the memory of it still made his stomach turn.

  This was different. Sparring with the innkeeper made him feel alive in a clean way, like running or climbing or any other thing his body was meant to do. There was no hunger in it and no darkness, just the simple satisfaction of moving and learning and getting better.

  When they finished Yan Qiu was breathing hard and his arms were sore from blocking. The innkeeper looked the same as when they started.

  “You learn fast,” the innkeeper said. “Keep at it. Learn to read your opponent before they move and you will beat people stronger than you.”

  “Thank you.”

  The innkeeper nodded and went back inside.

  The twelfth day arrived.

  Yan Qiu woke before dawn and packed his things. The pills were gone, used up over the past week to push his body further. His cultivation had not advanced to the third stage because twelve days was not enough time for a breakthrough, but what he had gained was stability, control, and a foundation that would not crumble under pressure.

  He went downstairs and found Xu Liang waiting for him.

  “Today is the day,” Xu Liang said, leaning against the counter.

  “Yeah.”

  Xu Liang reached into his robe and pulled out a small jade plaque. It was pale green, about the size of his palm, with characters carved into the surface that Yan Qiu could not read.

  “Here. A merchant gave this to me a while back, said it was a keepsake. I want you to have it.”

  Yan Qiu looked at the plaque. It was clearly valuable, the jade smooth and cool to the touch, the carving precise and detailed. Not something a merchant would just give away.

  “I cannot take this.”

  “Just take it.” Xu Liang pressed it into his hand. “It might help you someday. Think of it as a gift from a friend.”

  Yan Qiu looked at Xu Liang’s face. There was something in his expression that he could not quite read, something that said this plaque meant more than Xu Liang was letting on.

  “Thank you.”

  “Good luck out there.” Xu Liang grinned. “You better pass, or I will be very disappointed.”

  Yan Qiu tucked the plaque into his robe and walked out of the inn.

  The road to the Barched Wind Sect led south through the mountains.

  Dusthaven sat in a valley and the sect was somewhere beyond the peaks that rose on the southern horizon. Yan Qiu joined a stream of other candidates walking the same direction, young men and women from the city and the surrounding villages, all of them heading toward the same place.

  The mountain path was steep and the air grew thinner as they climbed, but Yan Qiu kept pace with the others. His legs were strong from months of training and his breathing was steady from weeks of cultivation. The candidates around him ranged from children younger than him to young adults who looked like they had been preparing for years, and none of them spoke to each other. They were all competitors now.

  The path wound through pine forests and across rocky ridges, and by midday the sect came into view. It was built into the mountainside, a collection of pavilions and training grounds connected by stone stairs that climbed toward the peak. Banners with the sect’s symbol hung from the walls and Yan Qiu could see figures moving on the terraces above.

  A crowd had gathered at the base of the stairs where sect disciples in white robes were directing candidates into lines. An elder stood on a raised platform overlooking the assembly.

  Yan Qiu found a place in line and waited. The trial was about to begin.