“How very delightfully quaint.” Finally, they cleared the snowed-in field, their footsteps crunching beneath them as they stepped onto a path that was bound out from the auditorium towards the school in the distance. “An old fashioned idea… I know that I’m no expert, but you learn some things after being in charge of an institute for learning for the past seventy or so years. You’re laboring under a misapprehension, Mingtian, one that was dispelled a long, long time ago— so long ago that it was still the age of the Empire of Twelve Constellations. No cultivator is an island sole unto themselves. No sect is a pillar alone beneath heaven.”

  Mingtian was silent, as they stepped out into the school proper, a few tardy students still shuffling into the building— paying them little heed and great respect. Listening, as the warmth enveloped them.

  “Take the Bloody Saffron Sect, for example. Of course, the actual roles in the sect are clear cut. The elders, the core disciples, the inner disciples, and the outer disciples, as well as their various pavilions and organizations and whatnot— not important, here. What is less obvious though, is that we are also part of the sect. The far-outermost disciples, if you would, working to advance the sect’s purpose in our own small, mortal way, and in doing that slowly ascending. Even further, all the mortals in East Saffron could be considered part of the sect, in some small, tangential way… for to be a citizen in East Saffron is to be subservient to the sect, and to be subservient to the sect is to be part of their authority. Do you see?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  Yuxan just chuckled, silent for a moment as he directed them up the stairs and to his office— a rather nice little space overlooking the central floors of the academy. Lushly appointed, too… scattered with various effects and things, all no doubt gathered over years upon years of serving as principal. It had a very… lived in sort of feel. The plants had grown large enough to be almost a little unwieldy, and some of the tables were covered in various documents and the like, not quite haphazardly but not quite neatly, either. The corkboard on the wall had so many cards pinned to it that it looked more like a random mosaic than an actual corkboard.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The principal grabbed the chair in front of his desk, rolling it over Mingtian’s way as he collapsed in his own, rather considerably more plush, chair behind the desk. Sunlight streamed in from the window behind him, casting the whole room in a lurid, vivid brightness. Radiance… “the way of the cultivator has advanced. Changed, since… whatever you were raised on.” And then he went off on another long-winded rambling about how he should stay at the school and teach full time to get access to the pills that were commonly used in the city to advance to shedding…

  Unknowingly, ironically, striking at something close to the heart of the matter— how laughably wrong, to call what they had progress, yet… how piercingly correct, to say that cultivation had changed. Unceasing advancement, clinging to the course, pursuing the totality of things… though realm after realm… until they reached the Celestial Realm, and the entire game became worthless. Whatever might lie above that, none of them had managed to find it yet. Not even the sword saint…

  The game had well and truly changed. It was why he was here, wasn’t it— the Celestial Realm, for all it stood as the pinnacle jewel of all creation, was boring.

  “Interesting,” he finally interrupted Yuxan. “Thank you, for the conversation. It was enlightening.” He lied, mind caught up on something else entirely— still, Yuxan’s whole countenance brightened for it. “I’ll have to think over that— but I do need to get back to the library. They need my help.”

  “Of course, of course.” He smiled widely— almost threateningly, the same sort of smile he’d given Guxi while actively defying her. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision eventually, for your own sake if nothing else.” Great. Great… he wasn’t going to be happy when he quit after Avyr and Lily graduated, would he?

  Lovely.

  Future problems though. He gave a shallow bow to the principal, and got a nod back in return and stepped out—

  Back to the library returning, and to the almost-serene peace within it.