The leap had been calibrated to perfection. She landed at the exact coordinates she meant to, not needing to manipulate gravity for course-correction even once during the entire trans-continental flight. She landed ever-so-softly on the snowy side of the mountain transition, where the nominally-mundane withered and the fantastical rose up.

  Behind her lay the barren peaks of the Forbidden Age range; before, a single great mountain covered in lush greenery and flowing waters. Few in the world could challenge the Gate of the Water Sovereign, or even reach it overland, but this place posed no threat to her. No, the Immortal of the Great River feared little under the heavens, and this place least of all. How many people in the world would even recognize this place- this being before her?

  She began the ascent. The freezing air abated, replaced with pleasing temperate humidity and the rich blessing of qi. She laid her hands on layers of ‘stone’ accumulated over hundreds of years, the dingy and dead flakes of the living shell beneath. Before long, she climbed to an open space, a wide and gentle grotto hidden within the mountain’s face. Soft, rolling grass, the smell of clean water, and the rush of a waterfall greeted her.

  “Hello~! Zhenzhu? Are you lucid?” she called. No answer, not even an echo as the rushing water ate up the sound. Dahe tapped her foot against the grass. “Miss Leonardo, I came to visit. You can spare a bit of attention for your Splinter, who braved the stratosphere just for you, I know you can!”

  As if in answer, the waterfall at the back of the space sputtered. It was a small thing, but the sharp mind of the Immortal could detect a pattern in the gaps. An old code that Dahe had taught her, back when she was only the size of a house.

  The water pattered down and Dahe moved to the pool at the waterfall’s base, sitting on the rocks at its edge. “That’s better. You were always my favorite,” she said. A vessel floated in the water, slowly sloshing toward her. As she took it, a thin stream of clear springwater poured down from the rocks high above, right into the cup.

  She examined the liquid, then held up the container and shook it. “I believe tea is traditional in these situations? You know, some plant matter?” She heard the sound of a branch snapping from far away, and then a single leaf floated down from higher up. It twirled and danced through the air, then landed neatly in her drink. “Perfect, thank you.”

  After taking a sip, she continued. “If you’re interested, I’ve got news of matters down South.” She waited patiently as the waters gurgled in response. “Yeah, they’re all still at it. Big war between Yulong and Jinhu’s respective patsies, this one lasted a couple of centuries. And would you believe it ended with the two bloodlines fucking each other, after all this time? I’m kind of surprised it took this long.”

  Inquisitive burbling accompanied the staccato code. The ancient cultivator laughed. “No, of course not. You know my policy. Oh!” she added, as if the thought just occurred. “But I am taking care of the result, at the moment. Bright little kid, and in a way, a perfect example of the way fortune mimics fluid pressure dynamics.”

  The code communicated a vague question, and the Immortal gave a specific answer. “See, his mom pushed him out early to align with a crazy celestial alignment. She pulled it off, too, but the complications fucked up the little dude’s dantian. Since the Heavens couldn’t pour the deluge of luck into his cultivation, as would be the normal route, it found the next two most vital outlets: charisma and learning capacity.”

  She shook her head and chuckled. “Here’s just one instance! He just spent a whole week diving the Whispering Reef. Mind you, he’s still in the Foundation Establishment phase- ah, I suppose they call it the ‘Realm of the Student’ now. Anyway, a week in the Whispering Reef, and I didn’t have to intervene once.”

  Another question from the waterfall. “No, he encountered plenty! Just, like, not one of them attacked him. He’s everybody’s best friend, immediately. That’s what I mean about the charisma, he just exudes this bright, soothing aura. He’s also super compatible with [Cognitive Enhancement], no epilepsy or anything. Kid’s going places… fuck if even I know where, but places for sure.”

  Another pattering of code, almost like a laugh. Then, the ‘conversation’ moved on to other topics. “Ah, and I hear that crazy bird is calling himself ‘Mr President’ now. Yeah, somehow the whole ‘freedom and prosperity’ thing turned into a horrible parody of democracy. Again. As for the other continent… sorry, I actually haven’t been there since last time. I’m saving that trip for a special occasion, but I’m pretty sure I felt a big impact coming from that direction about five hundred years ago. Did you feel it too?”

  And so on and so forth, for quite some time. But at some point, the water began to patter with less precision, as though the flow controller were falling asleep and slurring its ‘words.’ That meant the time for conversation was at an end.

  One last piece of business before Zhenzhu Gui returned fully to her ruminations. “One last thing! Would begrudge your kind, elderly mentor the use of your passage? I’d like to check on Little Grandpa before I go.”

  A final, slow burble of assent. Technically, if she wanted to use it, she could, and the Water Sovereign could do little to stop her. However, one did not reach Dahe’s age by sowing resentment among friends. This was a delicate thing, even if the turtle happened to be ninety-nine percent asleep ninety-nine percent of the time.

  Dahe Yiji departed the glade and indulged herself in a leisurely climb up the mountain that was her friend’s shell. Forests had colonized the humid lower slopes, and streams swelled from pockets beneath the surface. Parasitic vines coated the trunks of the trees, greenifying every visible surface. A peaceful, pleasant interlude, if one could ignore the eyes… and the thick Intent. A weak cultivator would not last very long in these woods.

  Greenery became sparse and faded altogether as she climbed, giving way to a thick blanket of snow. She rolled up her robes, bearing her legs to the comforting and familiar chill as she ascended to the peak.

  At the apex, she stopped to look down upon the world, its state and its troubles. There was something mystical about being on top of a very tall thing, which she attributed to qi bullshit. The whole continent appeared to stretch out before her eyes in perfect detail.

  Time started doing funky things, but no one on Earth knew time like she did. Now, she took it all in at her leisure. In the East, the scattered Sects patrolled and trained, meditated and struggled, delved the Wilds and plundered each other for scraps of strength and wisdom as always. The military forces of the Jade Dragon Empire were tense, terrified, forced into unpreparedness. In the West, the Tiger Clans hardened themselves. Great stores of resources flowed to the Eastern border, prepared and fortified in bunkers and caches, ready to be used and unleashed in the great push. The Tiger crouched for the charge.

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  Between West and East lay the vast scars of the war that had raged for two centuries. In places, nothing would ever grow again, and wicked things lurked in the shadows just beyond sight. Others bore the expansion of the Wild, ever hungry to reclaim the lost and discarded.

  And in all those depopulated, drained areas in between, mortal settlers worked and strived and explored and built, nearly as eager and energetic as the Wild itself. Many were mandated by the Empire on one side or encouraged by the Clans on the other; all wanted to craft a new life for themselves amid the ashes. They watched the West, and shuddered. They gathered in newly-built temples and begged the gods… for what?

  The answer toiled in a little cabin tucked away in a small Northerly province, and there Dahe Yiji did not look. She wanted to preserve his little ‘surprise.’ The precious ‘Peace between East and West’ hung in the balance, blissfully unaware.

  She cast her gaze to the far South. The Ruby Bird was letting his people build a full-on steam engine system, complete with a trans-continental railroad? The landmass narrowed a bit down there, sure, but that would cause some instability eventually. Leave it to that weirdo. She took a moment to look at him, personally, and found him surrounded by tailors fitting him for what appeared to be a giant, bird-compatible three-piece suit. He took his ridiculous role as ‘duly elected representative’ seriously, and that was hilarious.

  Her eyes met his, and somehow he sensed her attention from an entire continent away. The Ruby Bird lifted one prismatically-shimmering wing in greeting, then returned to his mortal-assisted preening. He was sharp, she had to give him that.

  Finally, the Immortal shook herself out of the vision-trance, returning to her original errand. Her sensitive internal clock told her she’d been here for several weeks already. If she ran late, she could always just use [Emergence of the Groundhog], but she’d promised herself she’d only use that technique for stupid stuff. She recalled the exact location of the crack in Zhenzhu Gui’s shell, and ducked down into a particular ‘valley.’

  A little excavation, and she managed to squeeze into the ancient wound. She crawled in head-first, squirming into the tight crag, and was soon surrounded on all sides by ‘stone.’ Before long, the crumbling grey mess gave way to the true material of Pearl Turtle’s shell. No sunlight reached this place, but if it did, it would have revealed dazzling and rich opalescence.

  Then, she was through the upper shell and climbing on the Sovereign’s inner skin, just forward of the shoulder. Her hands now gripped onto house-sized scales, and still she clambered down. The turtle was fully entrenched in meditation; no movement, not even a hint of breath were detectable.

  Gravity shifted, inverted, and the Immortal found herself climbing up rather than down. Finally, she emerged out the bottom of the shell and into the light of the Underworld.

  A symphony greeted her. The carapace’s bottom was not so mountainous as the top, and the steaming jungle had colonized much of its living surface. Sonorous war-cries, mating calls, insect and birdsong, and the calls of many older and forgotten things filled the air. Cycads and tree-sized ferns, as well as more ancient forms like scale-trees, blocked her line of sight to the upward-curving horizon. That was fine; mostly, Dahe just came to see what shone above.

  Little Grandpa. The Earth Sovereign, the Crystal Qilin, the Sun Beneath the Earth, her friend. Her oldest friend, in every possible permutation of those words. He’d shown her his true form, once, possibly as some strange, eldritch joke or exercise of trust. A weird little thing, looking a bit like an eel larva, the size of her finger. Only millennia later, during the latter days of the Age of Mortals, had she been able to figure out what he actually was. She saw an illustration in a scientific paper, around the time disco was getting big, and it was nearly a perfect match.

  A pikaia, they called it, a basal stem-chordate that swam through the primordial oceans over five hundred million years prior. Five hundred million! And people thought she was ancient. She’d only made it to about two hundred and thirty-five thousand, peanuts to that pleasant little fellow. No wonder he survived alongside her during the troubles at the end of the Age; if he could tank the Permian, he could live through anything.

  It was a close run thing. Even now, she didn’t know exactly what motivated his actions back then, when the evil god and the rest of the pantheon yeeted themselves out of existence and qi began building up again. Between the near-extinction of humanity and the absence of a top-down force absorbing all of the excess energy, the whole system entered a feedback loop of overcompensation. Qi shot past its natural functional levels, warping physics until the planet itself began to crack. It was as though the surface ‘wanted’ to be a flat plain, and it didn’t care that becoming so would kill every living thing on the face of the Earth.

  All she did was explain the situation to Little Grandpa, and he made a move. Maybe he loved the living things of Earth, maybe he saw a chance at ludicrous power and grabbed it. He burrowed down to the molten iron core of the destabilizing planet… and devoured it. He took its place, and as the new core he acted as a fulcrum for the untamed qi. The beating heart of the world, a regulator, a protector… a new sun, within the confines of the planet itself.

  Rather than explode into a flat plain, the Earth ‘merely’ tripled in size and became hollow. Honestly, the Crystal Qilin was closer to a ‘god’ than most actual gods… but what did a pikaia need with such a title? He was what he was. Now, that true ancient’s dreams and nightmares populated the inner surface of the world, the ‘Underworld’ as people took to calling it. That primordial energy and bizarre life formed the fountainhead, the wellspring of the Wild.

  Dahe found a bit of unclaimed shell and sat down for a while, basking in the light. “Are you doing okay up there? Do you ever wonder how the surface is doing?” she asked, looking up with a smile. She didn’t bother raising her voice; if he could hear her, he could, and if he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Volume meant nothing between beings of such power.

  The orb of warm light did not respond… but she was sure she perceived a tiny change in the ambient energy. As if, perhaps, the air around her grew a tiny bit warmer. That was enough.

  It was a good time indeed for interacting with old friends. Now she’d personally seen the Sovereigns of Water, Fire, and Earth, and as soon as she got back to her grotto she’d return to caring for the Metal and Wood Sovereigns’ scion.

  Time for her little vacation to end. Between the vision-trance and the Underworld crossing, months had already passed. She’d found a very satisfying way to kill time, but ultimately the purpose had been to give her student some breathing room. He still needed guidance, and she prided herself on being the world’s best teacher, among other things.

  Zhenzhu Gui did not stir during the return climb. From the position on top of her mountainous shell, it was even easier to calculate the necessary launch trajectory. A single leap, and the world soared underneath her again.

  As she passed over the peaks of the White Mountains, she noted the change wrought by the seasons. The tips remained white, capped with snow, but the mantle of evergreen forests at their feet flourished with the emerald hues of summer. The gentle and refreshing scent of pine reached her nose at last as she activated a gravity shift for a soft landing. Then, all she had to do was make a quick change of clothes before marching back to her humble home.

  She allowed herself to perceive matters within the glade only moments before reaching it. She stopped short. What Dahe Yiji felt in there utterly shocked her, and at her age and with her experience, she did not shock easy.