For a week following his advancement, Qing Liao did little. He remained at his hall in the sect. Light meditation, simple exercises, and very simple practice compositions filled his days. Much of his time was spent muddling about stamping geometric designs upon leather scrap, seeking the possibility of new motifs without regard for symbolism or the coordination of energies. The results formed a series of little pretty things without much use that were soon recycled.

  He needed this interlude, required time to settle into the new version of himself. Stabilization preceded consideration of the next step as a cultivator.

  Life in the vitality annealing realm was, on the surface, little different from that of one in the body refining realm. Instead of refining meridians, whole sections of the body were annealed to the continual presence of qi through the steady replacement of flaws and improper qi forms even as the dantian expanded and the total flow increased many times over. Occasionally, moments of enlightenment would speed this progression as the awareness of the dao allowed the cultivator to expand their mastery of their own body and increase their understanding of the nature of qi itself. A slow step towards the development of the mental in addition to the physical.

  The Celestial Infusion Method explained the process cogently and coherently, as all Orday's writing did, and Liao read the slender volume repeatedly, seeking to anchor himself in the ancient wisdom of the sage. She might have ascended twenty-five hundred years ago, but cultivation was a timeless art, not changed by the shifts in human civilization.

  Unlike most cultivators of his station, Liao was blessed, and alternatively cursed, in that he had the direct attention of immortals. In moments such as this, that was a great benefit, as they were able to listen to his questions and offer answers as to the proper path forward. Sayaana believed that direct aid was more often counterproductive than otherwise, and given the foreign nature of her path compared to his own, was limited to the most general forms of advice, but her presence was a friendly support nonetheless. They worked together carefully, and her advice served to provide critical course corrections when he was lost.

  Grand Elder Itinay remained cold and precise, but even her brief congratulatory message offered critical insights. She cautioned patience, advising the slow expansion of his understanding on many routes. In a rare explicit promise, she told him that opportunities would arise in time.

  Liao suspected that, given the last great opportunity had been the demon horde, such events would be fraught with danger and difficulty. He did not especially look forward to such conflagrations, but Sayaana maintained that strife was an essential component of the path upward. Change and challenge were necessary.

  Knowing this, but mindful of continual invocations of patience, Liao slowly worked his way back to full health. After a week he felt able to return to archery and dagger practice, though without any sparring. This, unfortunately, did little to disrupt a growing sense of isolation. He might visit the weapon halls, but no one there worked with him much, for his technique had already diverged from their own. It was left to Sayaana to guide him in the development of the hybrid technique they had devised together.

  Most in the sect implicitly recognized that he had been somehow severed from the other youths, even if the orders remained obscure. They, knowing better than to oppose the idiosyncrasies of immortals, avoided this living representation of the same. Further, most of the instructors were unusually busy. The light casualties of the recent attack meant that the new classes had expanded the sect's overall size to as large as it had ever been, and bringing up the surplus of new students had placed certain old methods under strain until matters equalized. There were now far more truly youthful faces about than there had been previously.

  Such discoveries spurred his rapid resumption of full strength practices. It was almost impossible to avoid reminders of his special role in the sect given that a green-skinned woman lived within his perception and made her opinions known on a regular basis, and this served to provide additional motivation most days. Though Sayaana could be strange and frustrating, especially at meal times due to her continual railing against the Celestial Origin Sect's strictly vegetarian diet – it was hard to imagine a worse way to be reminded of the absence of meat that someone else constantly opining on its luxuriant taste – speaking to her offered an ironclad source of motivation. As she'd become a friendly presence, the need to one day restore her to true life grew by degrees and offered a perfect justification to pursue endless cultivation.

  Shortly after resuming a typical full time training schedule, Liao found his daily routine interrupted by a visit from Su Yi.

  The senior disciple's arrival at his residence took Liao completely by surprise, to the point that he was meditating in his little garden – the small fish pond was still going through a very slow development process – when his sole servant, Chen Chao, announced her arrival. His maid, usually possessed of a perfectly level expression that showed off her naturally pretty features while completely obscuring her emotions, appeared strangely pouty when she tapped him on the shoulder lightly to jolt him free of meditation.

  Rushing over to the courtyard to receive his senior, inwardly bemoaning the empty state and shabby look of his quarters all the while, Liao wondered what could have upset the young servant to break her usually perfect facade.

  A single look at Su Yi sufficed to provide the answer.

  As ever, the disciple in her white robes presented a vision of perfect, doll-like beauty. She represented a visualized ideal that appeared matched absolutely with the imagery of elegance projected through images throughout Mother's Gift. Smooth features, flat face, sharp eyes, utterly unblemished pale skin, ruby-red lips, luscious waves of black hair, and a figure precisely matched to ideal ratios made her appear more like something taken from the imagination of a master painter than a real person. Rather than the unreal manifestations of idealized dao that the grand elders possessed or the strange serenity of mastered souls other elders comported, Su Yi stood, moved, and smiled as a living feminine ideal.

  Dangerously enticing, that concept, and one that was easily liable to induce jealousy in most other women and no few men. Liao suspected his maid, who was also his sometime bed-mate amid evenings of weakness and overactive imagination, felt threatened by such a ridiculously glamorous guest.

  Nor was she to blame for such feelings, for they spoke to excellent intuition on the part of the servant. The young vitality annealing realm cultivator held more than a few fantasies regarding his senior. They would never be realized, of course, he could not pursue, and she would never countenance, a relationship separated by three centuries of lifespan, but even friendship sufficed to set tongues wagging among the sect's gossips.

  A rumor mill this visit would surely amplify considerably. Thankfully, Chen Chao retained the professional poise of all members of the hereditary servant families, and served tea – the traditional means of welcoming a visiting cultivator – without comment. Su Yi must have sensed this reaction, she was no doubt used to it, but gave away nothing in response.

  Liao wanted to apologize for the state of his residence, but said nothing. His space was bland and boring, but it remained clean and presentable, to claim otherwise would be improper. Worse, it would insult Chen Chao's work for no reason, and as much as he wished to impress Su Yi, he would not do that.

  Instead, he was left feeling embarrassed as a host as Su Yi accepted his invited seat on cushions laid out by the little unfinished pond. Even that was better than his hall, kept extremely simple and largely empty, utterly lacking in the sort of decorations and mementos accumulated by senior cultivators. It betrayed the nature of one almost continually absent. Though he took no shame in living there, for it more than fulfilled his needs, the setup was woefully inadequate to properly host visitors, especially glamorous lady seniors.

  He was also aware that Su Yi knew this, and her unexpected appearance was rather puzzling as a consequence. She could have easily sent a message requesting him to attend her at her residence, as befitted her senior rank. Her home was far finer and better furnished than his own, much more suitable to entertain. She had done so in the past, when hosting small holiday gatherings.

  Their relationship might have artificial origins, as the grand elders had decided that Su Yi, purely due to fate, would serve as the primary tie binding the weapon Liao knew they intended him to be to the sect, but he genuinely liked the senior disciple. And that was not merely a matter of her making his heart pound. Though her statuesque appearance and serious demeanor initially made her seem unapproachable, she had proven genuinely caring and unexpectedly kind to him, offering up key insights on his path.

  Besides, Sayaana liked her. That counted for a great deal.

  “You did not expect me,” Su Yi stated flatly as she sat down. She held her tea cup delicately in her lap, fingers with a similar shade as the porcelain wrapped carefully around the small vessel.

  Liao could only nod. Of course he hadn't. “You are always welcome,” he offered, and meant it. Hopefully that statement would appear neither foolish nor lovestruck. “But I fear being a poor host.”

  “A reasonable dread.” Ruby lips quirked in an amused smile, but spared not harshness. “Your hall looks like the home of someone who spends all his time in the woods.” She focused her deep, dark eyes upon him. That gaze remained gentle while being fiercely piercing. “Tell me, have you visited the city in the past ten years? Even once?”

  It was pointless to attempt to lie to someone two full realms above you in cultivation, they would read the deception embedded in the qi flow without even needing interrogative effort. Liao could hide from the plague, but not his fellow cultivators. “Only to pick up supplies and sell excess hides,” he admitted. He did not dare to look upon that lovely face as he said this.

  No accusation followed. The response he feared, a brutal judgment, never materialized. Instead, a genuine question, one filled with loose curiosity, pierced his jumbled thoughts. “Do you feel like the sect has wronged you? Forced you to live like a hermit? Left you wandering in the wilds and shunned by your peers?” She sounded sad, upset even, on his behalf.

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  “I don't mind,” Liao answered her. It was honest. He recited the words inside and found no deceit embedded in them. He might not have wished for this outcome, but he was content with it. Travel into the city, parties with other young cultivators, performances by talented mortals, nights spent in the arms of dancing girls, these things simply had little appeal to him. Even violating the dietary restrictions and eating meat, a much more severe temptation that he faced every time he trapped or hunted, was something that did not require the company of others.

  Not that he had. Sayaana's mocking expression sufficed to dissuade him every time. For now, at least.

  “It's the life I expected,” he added when the dark eyes did not relent from the careful, wordless measurement. “Long days in the wild with only one other for company, that is all I ever thought I would have. Though Sayaana is far better company that my father.” He smiled a little, spurred by a sudden reckless impulse kindled by the beauty before him. “And far easier on the eyes.”

  “Ha! And don't you know it!” The green-skinned remnant soul materialized in the corner of his vision, leaning casually against the wall.

  It was surely a true assessment. The remnant soul might have lost her body, but Liao could see it as it had once been, perfectly accurate. She'd been utterly stunning, as all immortals were, a creature of verdant majesty. The glorious vision of an entire forest compressed into a single female representation. Though her total age was nearly the millennium mark, Sayaana's external form remained fixed to a youthful, and exceedingly feminine, twenty-five. Combined with the green tint to her form and the exotic allure of her slightly foreign features and facial structure, she was truly gorgeous. Only the alien nature of her perfected immortal body served to mitigate the development of dangerous lusts.

  “Still a trapper,” Su Yi mused in response. “Perhaps that is a good thing, perhaps not. Either way, it marks you out among a sect of stargazers.” She sounded amused, though what that might portend remained impenetrable. Her true thoughts were hidden beyond his grasp.

  Liao had gotten rather used to speaking to utterly unreadable elders. He had given up attempting to parse meaning and expression and simply accepted the words themselves as best he could. Generally, senior cultivators were fairly direct. They could hide their meaning, if they wished, but rarely had any need to do so.

  “I suppose it is better for you to be happy with this than otherwise,” the musing aloud continued. “The grand elders are unlikely to change their minds. You are imprisoned by success, and I am confined along side you.”

  Faced with that declaration, Liao winced inwardly. He could only nod and do his best to commiserate through his movements. The true nature of his invisibility to demonic qi remained broadly secret, but his contribution to the defeat of the demon horde had been declared as 'critical' all the same. Though many in the sect wondered how a youth in the body refining realm could do such a thing, most simply took it as a reason to stay far away from him. Few wished to get involved in some scheme of the grand elders.

  “I am sorry you were swept up in this,” he told the lovely disciple. His eyes descended to stare at the floor out of respect. Not that the decision had been given to either of them. It was nothing more than a matter of chance, the happenstance that the one disciple who already knew the special recruit was suited to the needs of the moment. Considering how appealing Su Yi's aid was, and not simply because of her face, Liao thought he'd been very lucky.

  “Accepted, but unnecessary,” the senior disciple agreed, momentarily fixed and formal. She shifted on her cushion slightly in the next interval, and turned her face away from the pond to stare at the red-paneled stone wall. Deliberately, she took a sip of her tea.

  A moment of silence stretched across the little garden.

  “I have benefited from this, a great deal.” Though the statement ought to be a happy one, her elegant voice possessed a somber tone. “Truthfully, that is why I came to see you today. I will be departing shortly, and gone for some time. I am entering closed door cultivation.”

  The belt that tied together Su Yi's white silk robes was emerald green, the color owed to a cultivator of the awareness integration realm, fourth of the seven great realms under heaven. Liao knew somewhat more than that, having learned during their collaboration that she stood in the seventh, highest, layer of that realm. That status was a critical one, as far as any disciple could go. There could be only one reason to enter closed door cultivation at this time.

  She intended to do what he had just done, only on a far greater scale. She wished to breakthrough to the spirit tempering realm, to become an elder.

  It was a far, far more difficult barrier than the one he had recently surpassed. Worse, it was one that carried with it a terrible risk, one that even daring to contemplate set knives spinning in his belly. The worst fate of an initiate or disciple who failed to breakthrough was shattered cultivation and physical crippling, and pills and ritual protections made this vanishingly rare. It only occurred in catastrophic cases where fools violated the proscriptions of the elders to wait, defying advice that they were not ready.

  Becoming an elder was different. To reach out and grasp hold of the soul, to make the incorporeal physical, was required. That was a violation of the natural order.

  Such an act drew the attention of the heavens, and not their admiration. Entering the spirit tempering realm not only required reaching that elevated state, it demanded that the cultivator survive the heavenly tribulation that followed.

  And nothing, no pill, no ritual, no talisman, could protect a cultivator from heavenly lightning. All such measures were utterly pointless, overridden by absolute authority, swept away by the descending wrath that decreed their nonexistence. Only the cultivator, their will, could stand before that power. Naked and alone, armed only with their dao, they were forced to exert their continued existence in defiance of heaven's will.

  Most did not succeed.

  “She is ready,” Liao heard Sayaana's assessment instantly. The remnant soul gave a nod of her head in acknowledgment of the risk. Respect granted to one willing to dare the path. Many refused that challenge. “And now is good. Hesitation only worsens the chances.” Green eyes hardened, emeralds cast in the mercilessness of centuries. “I like her, and I think she has a good chance, but say your goodbyes all the same. There's no predicting this, ever.”

  Fighting a sudden, unexpected, surge of tears, Liao looked up in silent agreement with his foreign guide. “You came to see me because you have set aside your home then,” he stated. An inane observation, but all he could manage in the face of a sudden rising tide of emotion. Regret, desire, sadness, and terror all mixed together.

  Slowly, very, very slowly, Su Yi sipped her tea. “I put everything in storage. It is standard. This breakthrough, it takes years at least. Decades, sometimes. There's no reason to have servants watch an empty house for so long.”

  It was a very practical policy, one of the many aspects of sect life stamped by the ruthlessly efficient designs of the Twelve Sisters. Liao thought this one especially characteristic of Itinay. “A factory for immortals,” Sayaana had called the sect, once. She'd even noted that producing a mere three in twenty-five hundred years could be considered a real accomplishment. Beyond the sect founder, she had been the only cultivator in the history of the Endless Needles Sect to ever reach the celestial ascendancy realm.

  Spending a decade, and maybe two or even three, in singular devotion to the contemplation of the infinite dao and one's own advancement was impossible for a twenty-five year old to properly understand. He was losing Su Yi, that was what he knew to be happening.

  It was true, at least in regard to the current Qing Liao. If, when, she returned, they would both be different people. Seizing control of your own soul induced changes, made that which had once been hidden clear to all. He too, would change. Even though he was unlikely to advance more than a layer or two in the interim, not being a genius, a man of forty was not the same as one of twenty-five even among cultivators. The members of the sect might resist the passage of time, but only immortals were truly able to override it.

  He did not want to think about the alternative, whatever Sayaana implied. Losing a friend, when he had so very few to claim, was not something he would tolerate. He was too young to think of it, too unprepared for this. Demons had killed his classmates, and comrades from the Textiles Pavilion, during the incursion, but they were not his friends. Nor did dead children in the village of his birth, lost to all the accidents of mountain living, count in the same manner. That was a different life, a different form of death.

  To his great relief and terrible shame, Su Yi took the lead in the necessary, fateful, conversation. “I have made arrangements to distribute my possessions if I do not return.” She said this calmly, but her fingers gripped the teacup very tightly, until her knuckles shown white. Ironclad control remained to her even then, for the least flicker of her true strength would have crushed the porcelain to power between those delicate digits. “Including a few pieces I would like you to have.” Somehow, she smiled with furious warmth. “I intend to give them to you regardless, eventually, but it is not the right time.”

  It was, possibly, the phrase most true to the dao that anyone had ever said to Qing Liao.

  “Do you have a place picked out?” he asked, desperate for something else to consider.

  The smile on that perfect face, impossibly, broadened. “There is a pocket on Ironthumb Mountain, high and just behind the summit, that I've chosen. I suspect you know it.”

  He did. The mountain was just southwest of his home village. He had seen the clear protrusion of flat-topped rock she surely meant many times, from a distance. He had never climbed to that top, did not think anyone had. It was too inaccessible, surrounded by steep ridges without any purchase. If anyone had dared the ascent in centuries he would be surprised.

  Su Yi, of course, would simply step across the gaps upon strides of light.

  A well-chosen point indeed. “I have a great deal of experience with the area,” she murmured, amusement bleeding through curled lips. The annual mission to test the village for cultivators had clearly left its mark.

  “Don't push yourself too hard,” she offered, unprompted and unexpected. “You might be content, wandering alone, but even if that's the life you chose, live it. Do not make your days nothing but a series of tasks. The grand elders chose you as a weapon, Qing Liao, but you're a young man, and there is no second change to live out your mortal years. Those experiences matter, you will miss them if? ? ? you let them pass.”

  Something sly accompanied those words, and for a moment Liao dared to wonder just how many shattered hearts the lovely woman had left scattered across the land in her youth. He shook his head quickly to clear away such thoughts. Whatever their validity, they did not suit the moment. “I will remember that advice.” There were few other members of the sect who wandered about beyond the boundaries of farm and field, but there were some, and he knew them by reputation at least. He supposed it would be worthwhile trying to share ideas. “But it is hard, knowing that the whole world waits.”

  “An empty world,” Su Yi cautioned, suddenly harsh. “One that will still be there in fifty years, or a century.” Willful disappointment bled into her words. “And once you step beyond the gate, you will spend all your time, all your energy, on that side. You'll lose anything that remains here. Your parents are still alive. I know, I saw them on the new year. They have many years left, in mortal reckoning. It is hard to face them, yes, we all find that to be so, but when the end comes, you need to be there. It will haunt you forever, otherwise.”

  Simple words, nothing complicated, but also nothing the elders had ever mentioned. Not even Sayaana. Immortals, it seemed, moved entirely beyond such concerns. Su Yi, somehow, retained sensitivity to such basic human connections.

  Liao's father was forty-eight years old. His mother forty-six. They might live ten years move, or they might live forty. It could not be known, but he knew with certainty that he would outlive them both. Even if he never advanced again, a stagnation Sayaana would never tolerate, he'd live well into his second century. There were no other children.

  He could, he would, spare the time to be a filial son. To do otherwise was absolutely unacceptable.

  “Thank you,” he told her, trying and failing to stay steady. “You have a way of reminding me of what's important.”

  Standing suddenly, Su Yi put down her teacup and left it on the pavement stones before her. “When I return, perhaps you can do the same.”

  He nodded and bowed. There would be no goodbyes today. He would carry that against the heavens instead, without regret.