“Alright! Let’s go!” Lily grinned, and even Avyr looked pleased at his praise. “Also—” as they slowly started to pick their way out of the station, Lily cocked her head at him. “How did you know when we were coming back? We didn’t know when we were coming back.”

  Mingtian smiled demurely, clasping his arms behind his back and ever so slightly tilting his head up. “I have my ways.” Very mysterious, very hidden master— he fought down the urge to smile further at Lily’s awed expression. His day was turning out even better than his wildest hopes.

  Avyr, though, just gave him a considering look before glancing away. If he wasn’t friends with Xulong, he might have misinterpreted it as predatory. Instead, though, it just looked… interested. The cat had no hope of even sensing the seals he’d put on himself, but one didn’t need to sense to intuit that something was very, so deeply, wrong. Maybe he’d even figure it out, though Mingtian rated that possibility as… unlikely, to say the least.

  Instead of taking the bus, like Lily no doubt expected him to, he hailed a taxi the moment they stepped out onto the curve, all but shoving the reluctant Lily into the cab. Avyr followed a bit more peacefully— but maybe that was just because he’d grasped how little wealth meant to him. Of the two of them, the cat was as ever the more thoughtful one.

  He pulled out a slip of paper, stuffing it into the cupholder, sound muting around them to make sure they weren’t overheard. The taxidriver politely chose not to interfere in the matter of cultivators. A tactful choice.

  His students would probably end up thinking that he’d used some sort of talisman to silence their conversation— and that was the point— but he’d just used his domain. Far easier, that. “So. I presume you made strides in your formations studies?” Lily nodded excitedly, and he moved onto Avyr— “and you’ve advanced to pinnacle Shedding. Your cultivation will have bottlenecked— you’ve felt it, haven’t you?” He nodded, slowly. “You’ll need to keep cultivating qi until you have enough to break through. It’ll probably take you most of the semester here in East Saffron, but if you’re diligent, you might barely be able to break through in time for the examinations.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Actually…” a little sheepishly, Lily held forward one of the boxes he’d given her. “I think I might have something that could help with that. It’s a bit volatile, though…”

  “Let me see.” Gently, he grasped hold of the box, questing in with his qi sense— slipping through the weft and weave of his refinement, feeling the burning bright energy of Foundation Establishment extreme yang qi. “Interesting…” he made a handseal with one hand, and flipped the box open with the other. Immediately, a harsh golden light escaped— but a single cycle of a technique caught that radiance and twisted it into harsh, burning glyphs, runes written out of radiance itself. Rings of preservation settled around the fruit, preventing its decay and preserving its unique properties. “There.” He tossed the fruit over to Lily, who barely fumbled to catch it. “It won’t decay now.”

  “Can you turn it into a pill for Avyr?”

  Mingtian snorted. In this small realm? “No.” Maybe if he had access to the sort of reality-defying techniques a divinity did, he’d have been able to treat the pill formation like an incredibly advanced refinement, but he was a rather terrible alchemist, all things considered. That was more Baixue’s thing… he sighed. “No, I’m not an alchemist at all. You have those six spirit stones, though. Hire your own alchemist.”

  “Will that be… enough to hire an alchemist?”

  “Probably not, but you’re a smart young woman. You’ll be able to figure it out.” Her face twisted momentarily sour, before she rolled her eyes and placed the fruit back into the box. She would, he was sure— and it would be a good learning experience for her…

  Again, not her master. He reminded himself, as if the reminders were in any way helpful.

  Still…

  He smiled, and leaned back in his chair, just looking out at the city as it rumbled past around them.

  It was good to have them back.

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