How much could a single man do? A single immortal? Even a single Immortal Sovereign, restricted as he was, bound to a mere infinitesimal fraction of himself? The touch of the shadow of cold played across his skin as he strode through darkened halls, mind awhirl, as it had been ever since the meeting earlier.

  What could a single person affect? Their immediate surroundings? A country, a world, a realm? Whole universes, stars and galaxies and so profoundly much that his small mind failed at that moment to comprehend the whole of it?

  In a sense, indelibly.

  In a sense, not at all.

  He wouldn’t though— could not, because he had not come to meddle in the insignificant affairs of minor realms. The empire and the sects would continue to war their internecine war, again and again and again, the scope of a hundred years a blink of an eye even to those not-quite-immortals that stood at the pinnacle of the realm. It wasn’t his place to interfere…

  He could.

  He could. He knew it, as well as the sun rose. He was pretty sure that, restricted as he was, he wouldn’t be able to fight the entire realm at once— but he could still quite easily face off against a couple immortal ascension cultivators, and if given enough time to turtle down, could defend somewhere essentially forever. He could do it, he was sure… except, for how long?

  What could a single man do? Rule the world— but only for a moment. Even if everything went perfectly… one day, he would leave back to the Celestial Realm, and continue advancing, and the minor realm he stood in now would be nothing but ancient memories, eons gone past, changed to unrecognizability by uncountable ages—

  “Mingtian?” He blinked, startled out of his reprieve by a low, recognizable mewl. “Are you…” Avyr stood in the dark a few feet behind him, cutting a menacing figure indeed… were it not for the look of concern but barely writ onto his whole self. “Doing well?” The cat finally finished lamely, glancing away. “You look… stressed.”

  “I’m fine,” he lied. “Thank you for asking though.” To think that he’d allowed his emotions to overcome him long enough that a mortal… or close enough to a mortal… could notice. That was just a little embarrassing… “regardless— what brings you out this late? The library is about to close.”

  The cat cocked his head in not-quite confusion, not quite dismissal. “Nothing much. I was just wrapping up studying for an upcoming history exam…” he chuckled softly, his chirping laughter bright against the darkness about them. “I swear sometimes they design these tests to annoy me, specifically.”

  Mintian gave him a commiserating pat on the shoulder. His front shoulders, at least. “It only gets worse.”

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  Avyr snickered, probably thinking he was joking. He was not— he shivered to remember some of the tests he’d been put through by various hidden masters, sect elders, great sages… and so on, over the years of his ascension. Funny stories, those.

  He flicked the lights off as they went, making everything was well and truly settled in for the night before they reached the main doors. Finally… alone in the dark, the two of them, between the towering stacks of books and the frigid outside—

  For a moment, they paused. Mingtian didn’t know what Avyr was thinking… probably something profound. Or maybe he was just dreading the cold.

  Either way.

  He pushed open the door, stepping out into the bitter chill of winter at night. He flared his domain a bit to push off the cold— then noticed that Avyr was shivering rather violently. Right, his kind was more accustomed to the warm tropics… “use your cultivation,” he advised, Avyr’s gaze snapping to him as he spoke— “cycle your qi. You cultivated an extreme yang constitution, no? This cold is merely mundane— but you’re not; rebuke it. Channel the qi that pools in your—” a burst of heat later, and— as Avyr’s qi began slowly to whirl— the air around him turned into a furnace. Warm enough that even standing a few feet away he could feel it— right beneath him, the snow started to melt, and then boil— “not that much!” An instant later, the heat lessened dramatically. Still comfortable, but no longer boiling.

  Avyr glanced up at him, looking almost stunned. “How did you know?”

  Uh… he folded his arms behind his back, adopting a supremely unbothered look. “I helped you create the technique, didn’t I? Of course I would know the secrets of its use. Treat it as an exercise to hone your control; the energies awhirl within you need not spread out to the air around you. The more firmly you control their cycles, the more efficient the technique will become, and the longer you’ll be able to hold it.”

  “Oh…” he stepped forward, softly, shivering slightly as his wet paws touched down against the snow… the snow melting before him, leaving dark footprints in the black of night, aglimmer beneath refulgent streetlights. “That does sound useful… it’s draining, though. I’ve used up a good portion of my transient qi.”

  “Be careful not to touch the qi you packed into your foundation, less you regress your cultivation.”

  “Of course.” Perhaps wanting to make the trip before he succumbed to the cold, he set out— stepping forward, and into the far darkness. Mingtian followed behind, silently— observing, as Avyr’s qi swirled around his body, noting the snags and noting, again, how Avyr made an effort to smooth them out. It almost seemed unconscious…

  A grin touched the edge of his face. The cat showed potential— and he didn’t even realize it. Then the grid fled, a reminder, echoing— not his disciple. Not his duty. He paused in the middle of the path, waving farewell. “Have a good night, Avyr.”

  The cat turned, blinking in laconic surprise. “You’re not coming with?”

  Mingtian shook his head. “Not this time. I’ll see you again tomorrow, though?”

  Avyr grinned his unsettling, feline grin, and nodded softly. “Of course—” and then he was—

  Gone.

  Once more into the far cold and promise of what might be…

  He smiled, and it was a bitter thing.

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