Typically, temples were among the first structures to be constructed in a new settlement. To tear down a place of worship would be sacrilege; therefore, new and improved facilities would be built as additions, rather than replacements. The result?

  In older cities, the temple district invariably evolved into a complex of vast, palatial estates. A properly-funded and staffed temple could rival a Sect, depending on the god they worshipped. The adherents to Jian Duanzao, god of the blade and the forge, and of purification by fire… they served a very, very martial god.

  In spite of this, when the little prince arrived and requested an audience, they called the head of the city’s forge-priests to meet with him. It had turned into some kind of formal affair in the marble entrance hall, with many lesser initiates flanking their austere leader.

  The grey-haired priestess bore lines of old age. Her ceremonial attire hid most of her physique, but Huang Jin could sense incredible power radiating from her. He sat on his knees before this mighty cultivator, hands folded respectfully on his lap. Baoshi gripped his shoulder tightly, observing every word spoken with a bewildered air.

  Meanwhile, Master stood in the corner of the room as guardian and observer.

  “And what does this ‘wandering cultivator’ seek in the house of Jian Duanzao?” asked the priestess. Her expression was like steel, her posture perfect as she loomed over him.

  “This one would walk the Path of the Sword. This one asks not for discipleship, and petitions only for such guidance as you might be willing to give.” He bowed his head in reverence as he spoke. Instinct guided him where memory failed; formality ran through his blood like platelets.

  Her aura did not change in the slightest. “And you mean to offer recompense for this guidance?” she asked.

  The Master had prepared him for this part. Huang Jin reached out and laid a princely sum of three silk notes at her feet before returning to his humble position. In the end, the temples served as a more socially-active mirror to the Sects. Commerce existed within the framework of both like some sort of natural law.

  An acolyte came and collected the offering before the priestess spoke again. “Your determination is admirable. Do you seek to take your first steps on this Path?”

  The prince unbuckled the sword at his belt and, in proper ceremonial fashion, presented the sheathed blade to the priestess. She took it up and inspected the blade at a half-draw. It was the latest of the swords Huang Jin had made, infused with his own Metal qi and incorporating all he knew of the Sword.

  “You forged this?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her qi shifted ever-so-slightly. The prince kept his head down, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the woman had just shot a glance at the Master. He couldn’t help wondering how things would go at the palace, without her present to vouch for his work.

  The woman sheathed the blade and handed it back to him. “You are above a mere initiate, then. Come with me, and I will share with you a sliver of Jian Duanzao’s wisdom.”

  She turned, but as Huang Jin rose to follow, she paused and looked back. This time his head was up, and he caught the look the forge matron gave to Dahe. “Forgive me, Honored Immortal,” she said, “but only those here for worship or petition are allowed further entrance.” Her voice held no fear, despite knowing of Dahe’s identity; so steady was a priest in the house of their god.

  “I understand, good priestess.” The Master actually inclined her head. “You have my thanks for looking after my pupil. I only ask for leave to remain here and await his return.” Whatever response the prince expected from his Master, it certainly wasn’t that… or at least, not phrased so graciously.

  “Granted,” the priestess replied.

  Huang Jin started as claws bit into his shoulders; in the ritual atmosphere, he had nearly forgotten about Baoshi. He managed to catch the priestess’ eye before she turned around again. With one finger, he gestured up at the little dragon and adopted a gently questioning expression.

  The response came in the form of a muted, nearly imperceptible nod. Apparently, his offering could account for two. Then, she led them onward.

  Before long, he could hear the pounding of hammers. The sound surrounded him, each strike ringing like a bell and singing like a single voice in a choir. Heat rose and the smell of molten metal filled Huang Jin’s nose; this was a place of Metal and Fire.

  He steadied himself against a vague, rising discomfort. Both Wood and Metal had something to fear from Fire-aspected qi. He re-adjusted his perception with a long and steady breath. Fire did not merely take from Wood, rather Wood provided nourishment and Fire put it to use. Fire could warp Metal, but it could also refine. Relations between elements were rich and complex. As he reflected on this, he found his qi cycling without issue.

  Almost without issue. Something tickled his subconscious like a whispering voice… or many whispering voices.

  One said to Another, “The harvest is coming in strange this season. How do we store this?”

  “Ha!” said Another to One. “It’s not so different. Pack it down and add it to the pile. If it doesn’t work, why, we can take it out and try again!”

  It didn’t take much pondering. Like himself, the Bacteroides Lebes Spiritus living in his meridians had never dealt with such a rich influx of atmospheric Fire qi. They appeared to be managing.

  By the time he’d brought himself to internal balance, the priestess had led him to a deep inner chamber. The room was hewn from cold stone, but he could feel power emanating from the very walls. The box-like interior bore no carvings or adornments, save only the sconces on the walls and a single, lonely anvil. The massive hunk of bare iron stood directly in the center of the room, clearly an object of worship or ritual.

  The priestess bade Huang Jin to sit before the anvil. After he had done so and folded his hands onto his lap, she got to work. After the application of a long and complex sequence of taps, a tiny circular hatch appeared in the object’s base. From this, she extracted a pristine scroll, practically humming with contained power. A pulse of qi emitted from her hand as she undid the seal.

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  “Read this,” she instructed in the gravest voice the prince had yet heard from her. He took it with absolute reverence. This was it. The real thing.

  He read it, and immediately discovered a problem. Thanks to [Cognitive Enhancement], he absorbed the scroll’s contents as quickly as he could unroll it. The process was virtually automatic; his eyes took in a permanent imprint of the characters, which he fed to his subconscious for digestion.

  But this matter was sacred. He couldn’t just read the whole thing in an instant and then let his mind make connections in the background while he did other things. That would be unthinkably improper.

  So, when he reached the end, he made a show of going back over every inch, mulling over every line. The charade became a mechanical process as that vast machine of a hindbrain began to unravel the work’s meaning.

  A forge-priest used hieromancy to put himself into a holy trance, during which he crafted a mighty blade. The scroll recorded the words uttered under this divine influence. It truly could not have been more different from the books the Master had supplied. Those were largely technical manuals and similar guides; direct, succinct, detailed, prioritizing a balance of readability and information density.

  This work, meanwhile, dealt with the profound, and illustrated concepts wrapped in metaphor. The impurities of metal became the sins of life, the alloying agents became the hardships of a righteous path. There were many quotes like, “Strike thy plenty, and find avarice! Strike thy valor, and find bloodlust! Strike thy reason, and find cowardice! Strike and strike again, and know thyself true!”

  Huang Jin began to see it. This was a window into the way the forge-god viewed the world. The words were more than words, there was a power and weight behind them that he had not previously experienced. He could feel the wisdom of the deity stirring deep within his mind.

  After an hour, he re-rolled the scroll with infinite care. The priestess had sat on the opposite side of the anvil for the entire duration, not speaking a word. She rose and took the sacred object as he offered it up. “What did you see?” she asked.

  He thought for a moment, still seated. “Honored priestess… would you, perhaps, give this one access to a forge? It is a matter more for the hammer than the voice.”

  “You may take only wisdom from this place. Do you still wish to create?” Her eyes were hard, but Huang Jin detected a spark of approval in their depths.

  Keeping his gaze steady and voice as steely as he could make it, he answered. “Yes!”

  The priestess waved her hand, and the room changed completely. Panels slid from walls, hidden doors opened and ironworks emerged. All of the accouterments of smithcraft appeared as though from thin air, down to several sets of tongs.

  The prince coaxed the little dragon off of his shoulders, discarding his robe and arranging it as a ‘bed’ in the corner. “A little more time, Baoshi, don’t worry,” he assured his ‘son.’ It probably wasn’t necessary; those concentric-circle eyes shimmered with wonder at all of this mysticism.

  Then, Huang Jin tied his golden hair back and got to work. The priestess stood aside silently, clearly intent on seeing what the young petitioner would do.

  The next three hours were dominated by absolute concentration. The prince focused the entirety of his enhanced mind on the work. This was not the first sword he’d forged, or even the fifth; he knew every step by heart. But now, he kept the divine ethos at the forefront of his efforts.

  The thin material of his conscious mind dragged the vast machinery of his subconscious into the task. Purity, within and without, of action and intention, the soul undergoing the hammering process right alongside the superheated metal.

  He had plenty of things about himself he needed to change. Especially his lack of strength, and his problem of getting caught up in details and missing the bigger picture. Perfection was a distant goal.

  The forging of the soul was a lifelong task. For now, he could at least infuse the forming blade with purity of intention. He knew what he wanted, here, and it was honest and unblemished.

  He quenched the blade, then gave it the final sharpening and polish. The workshop didn’t have the materials needed to make the handle or scabbard; the blade alone would be the test.

  The priestess took the weapon as Huang Jin offered it up to her. She frowned in concentration as she inspected the workmanship. “It is a pity that your discipleship lies elsewhere,” she said at last. “You’ve taken a step so quickly.” With a nod of approval, she took the product and placed it into a drawer, presumably to be finished later. Then, she headed for the door, signalling that the instruction was over.

  Huang Jin collected his robe and Baoshi. The dragon remained unusually subdued as he took his accustomed perch. His eyes gleamed; apparently, the forgework had him enraptured the whole time.

  Master waited patiently in the entry hall, and acted with perfect candor as she collected her student. The priestess gave them both a respectful tilt of the head as they left the temple. “Farewell. Our door remains forever open to those who would earnestly seek the way.”

  Dahe and Huang Jin bowed as one, and then departed. They wandered together through the worn cobbles of the Hallowed Rift, pale in the sullen lantern-light. They passed under the vast stone gateway, now thankfully free of corpses, and turned from the road into the Nameless Plains.

  Even after escaping the city’s glow, the night was not completely dark. Moonlight turned the breeze-swept grassland into a dream of flowing silver. As they neared their destination, the prince broke the ethereal quiet.

  “You know, Master, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you act so… deferential.”

  She walked in front of him, as if plowing a path through the chest-high stalks. Though he couldn’t see her face, he heard a smile in her voice. “You wanted to get to know me better, right? Here’s another interesting piece of trivia: I am a massive coward.”

  “... What?”

  “I can be as brazen as I like, usually, because I’m powerful. But rest assured, I would rather hide beneath an outhouse for a thousand years, than get into a real conflict with a near-equal.”

  That threw him for a loop. Especially because she had been plenty brazen with the Empire itself. “But… oh. You mean, you won’t risk angering the gods?”

  “Yeah. I’m close, at the very apex of the Realm of Stars, but I’m not a god. It might be tough going, smiting a gal like me, and I’ve got my kids up there advocating, but I would not win that fight.”

  That explained why she would walk softly around the gods’ Earthly representatives. He chuckled, saying, “I guess you’d be a little more relaxed around Gaoyao and Huayuan’s followers.” Of the Master’s children who had risen to godhood, those were the two he’d already contacted through hieromancy.

  “Ha! Nope, I walk on eggshells with them, too. They may have started life inside of my ovaries, but they’re stronger than me now. My ass didn’t get this old by taking chances.” The words might have been harsh, but her tone bore the soft fondness of memory.

  Before long, they reached the patch of grass concealing the portal room. This visit to the city of the Earth Gate had only lasted three days, but it weighed on Huang Jin’s heart like months. He finally settled as the teleportation formation activated. At last, he could relax. At last, he could see his precious Zodiac again.