It felt, the quiet touch of a familiar friend; its still design, adrift and aflow, the echo of a gentle ascendancy. Now that she knew what to look for… bamboo shoots shot to sunlight, trees grew according to the movements of the heavens, and the qi of the world rushed through the structure in patterns complex in their simplicity, falling heavenward to a single point at the very top of the structure.

  As she sat down in the center of the place, again, and meditated— as she had only a week before, she could see just that little bit further. Enough further, to see… like sitting underneath the lip of a waterfall, or just above it, like watching a drain whirl and whirl around and around, the qi of the world naturally funneled up towards a point high above her head. No formation required; it was simply as though that was always how things were meant to be.

  “Ah.” A slight tremble, in the qi around her— ripples of a heavy rock thrown into a still pond, as someone entered through the window. “You’re here already. You don’t have to come early if you don’t want to, you know; I still needed to set up…”

  She rose, and bowed. “Junior greets Senior Daoist Severing Dust.”

  A smile crossed his face— just a touch of one, but real nonetheless. Qinfu looked pleased to have heard the title. “Senior greets Junior. Welcome back. Hard to imagine it’s only been a week, I take it?”

  “And that I’m going to have to do this all over again, and again…” she shivered, in equal parts excited and nervous. “It’s a little overwhelming, honestly. There’s so much. More than there ever was back in the Academy, and now that I’ve got so little free time I’ve also been saddled with this whole cultivation thing…”

  Qinfu gave her a kind smile, settling down beside her and bidding her sit, too. “That’s usual. I’ve done this long enough to know that it’s pretty rare that a student doesn’t feel like they're being put under immense pressure. You are being put under immense pressure— don’t mistake me, I don’t intend to diminish your struggle at all— but you’ll adapt. You’ve already shown yourself to be one amongst a very select elite in the entire city of East Saffron— and you’ll prove that again. So don’t worry too much about it, and keep working— and it’ll all become much more bearable as you get used to it.” Lily was uncertain how much of that was truth, and how much of that was platitude, but she found herself a small bit encouraged regardless. “So, how have your classes been going so far?”

  She grimaced. “Not good. I dunno,” she shrugged—” maybe I’d just been mentally thinking of the University of East Saffron as this incredible, almost mystical place, and now that I’m here I’m realizing it's a lot like my preparatory academy, just… more. Formations is the worst though.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re so, so…” she wrung her hands, struggling to find the words for it without directly insulting an instructor in front of an inner disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect. “Limited. Attenuated. It’s like, like— they talk about formations as though they were each and every one pieces of classic literature, then don’t even teach us how to write.”

  “You think you can do better than the instructor?”

  “I…” she paused for a second. “Maybe. I don’t know if I could teach better than her, or if I even know more than she does on the topic… but I know that at least when it came to the formations we discussed in our first class, I was far beyond the level she was teaching at. I don’t get why they don’t just— teach people how to do formations. Then it doesn’t matter what formation you’re using, you’ll always be able to get at least an idea of what it does.”

  “That’s not the traditional way formations are taught…” he waved a hand, forestalling the rest of Lily’s complaint, and she suddenly blushed furiously— remembering just who she was complaining to. “Not that your ideas are without merit, just that most early formation students have been so little exposed to formations at all that the standard formations are a good introduction. Historically, they also helped make sure even the most basic formation students could contribute meaningfully to the sect.”

  “Historically?”

  “TV-shows are probably reliable sources.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure.” It’d broken the tension, at least. “I’m just… not enthusiastic about going through all of that.”

  “And your other classes?”

  “Mostly fine. Just a lot of work, you know?” Qinfu nodded. “I’m glad that I didn’t pick the other combat class. Tactical combat is bad enough without having to run drills like what I saw the other students doing.”

  “Tactical combat?” He squinted at her for a second, then shrugged, giving her a strange look. “I wouldn’t have thought you the sort, but I can see it. It’s not the most popular of the combat courses… hard to impress the judges when you’re not even fighting, but with formations— I can see it.”

  He paused for a moment as a servant came up— similar to last time, holding a tray laden with a delicate tea set. He poured two cups— one for her, one for him, the delicate steam curling off them carrying with it a pleasant aroma of citrus and herbs.

  She picked up her cup, feeling the pleasant warmth of it, and took a long sip of the tea. Then, she paused. “This is qi infused?”

  Qinfu squinted at her. “You’re not guessing, are you?”

  “No, I can…” she focused on the cup further, taking another long sip and catching the furtive little rush of qi as it seeped into her body, sinking through the flesh and spirit and swirling with an almost imperceptible, slight warmth. Then, its energy expended, it evaporated away, so much mist beneath a summer sun, only a few dregs settling into her core. “It’s weird. Not like the other tea you gave me. Light and breathy, like running into a spiderweb.”

  “It’s an Foundation Establishment tea, the most subtle one that I could get my hands on that wouldn’t burst your core like an overripe melon.” She shivered at the mental thought of that. There was no chance that would be pleasant. “I’m surprised you managed to notice it at all.” He smiled broadly. “I see that I’ve underestimated you once again.”

  She shrunk down a bit. “It’s just good training. If it weren’t for my old formations master, then I wouldn't have had any idea there was qi in the tea at all.” Either tea, actually…

  “There’s no shame in being a diligent student. No master expects their disciple to overturn heaven in the Shedding realm— a student who learns well is a treasure to a master who teaches competently.”

  “I—” she cut herself off. This was neither the time nor place to go into her own insecurities. Qinfu didn’t need to hear that sort of thing, no matter how nice he was. “What are we working on today? More qi exercises?”

  “Not this time. If you could sense the qi in that tea— and clearly, you could— then I think that perhaps a different form of study could do you well.” He paused for a second, tapping a finger against his chin, before suddenly asking— “tell me, Lily, have you ever used a weapon?”

  “I practiced with one during combat classes at my preparatory academy.”

  “Not like that. I mean, used. To hold a blade, to have it in hand, to know that it is your primordial shield between life and death, your outstretched threat bared to the world, subtle gleam to sever futures— have you ever used a weapon?”

  She thought for a long second, then— almost reluctantly— “no… not as such. Usually when I get into fights with other cultivators, I just use talismans. They’re so much more effective than what I could do as a mortal with a sword, so…”

  “Must have been expensive.”

  “I just make them. It’s easy— all you need is a pen and paper. Or a brush, if you’re feeling fancy.”

  Qinfu stared at her for a short while, before snorting. “I can see what you mean when you were talking about formations, earlier…” he shook his head. “Still, you’re not a mortal anymore. A mere Shedding cultivator, yes— but there is more vast a divide between mortal and Shedding than there is between Core Formation and Sundering. You have your own qi— and I assure you, that qi will be your greatest tool in your journey through the jianghu. It is one of the few things that is truly yours, indivisible, all but irrevocable; it is so much a part of you that cleverly done, it can be used to tell your identity. Cultivators will recognize you by your qi signature. If you’ve ever seen a truly powerful technique— like, the Outer Elder’s teleportation orb— then surely you’re aware that ambient qi won’t be enough.”

  Lily frowned. “I don’t want to give up formations.”

  “You don’t have to. In fact, I would all but beg you not to. You’re a once in a generation talent when it comes to the formation arts, and giving it up would be an almost unforgivable crime. No— one day, you’ll learn to fuel your formations with your own qi, or the qi of natural treasures, or create grand arrays that tap into the very weft and weave of the world; but that’s for the formation masters of the sect to oversee. A weapon would be a good first step.”

  “I… don’t see how the two lead into each other.”

  That’d clearly been the right question to ask, as a smile leapt across Qinfu’s face, fleeter than a brush of wind, or a racing deer. “A weapon without technique is just a dangerous implement, capable of harming enemies or its own wielder. A weapon with technique is a blade in the darkness, or a righteous sword upholding peace and defending the innocent, or a tyrant’s blade reaping the masses. A blade without qi is mere metal, an implement to be used as a blade is used. A blade with qi…” Qinfu withdrew a small, sharp knife from a hidden holster on the side of his belt, holding it gently out in front of him. A subtle prickle filled the air— an almost electric charge, a looming shadow over halcyon waters—

  Then, energy. She reeled back, stunned momentarily by the sheer amount of energy Qinfu pulled out of his core, a torrent of qi that surpassed the amount she held in her own core by orders of magnitude. It coalesced around the blade— quickly, but just slow enough that she could see what was happening, and she half-suspected that Qinfu was deliberately slowing down the process to ensure she had at least a point of reference for what he was talking about. A sheath of fuzzy energy— bands, encircling— sparks, overflowing, scattering and re-emerging— the sickly scent of fresh blood, drying— scattered dust.

  An ominous aura hung about the blade when he was finished; like a great weight lofted above the earth and left suspended on a single thread, perchance to fall at every moment. It was the color of burnt blood, or long dried stains, dark brownish almost black and awhirl with a thousand specks of impossibly fine dust. It was threat, naked and bared along the edge of steel.

  “When I named it,” Qinfu spoke— casually, as though he didn’t hold in his head something that could probably kill her in a blink if he so willed it, or even just lost control for a single moment— “I called this the Yin-Harmony Demon-Banishing Dust Severing Blade. A little pretentious, maybe, but really I only had input in the Demon-Banishing part of the name; I made it to kill demons, and so I crowned it with that noble name.” He smiled wistfully, as though remembering— “this is the technique that earned me my title. The harmony of yin and personal qi, the creation of the severing dust aspect without having to micromanage every portion of the technique, by drawing on the very nature of blood qi… you probably can’t even begin to understand half of how impressive that is.” He flicked the knife, and a coruscating blade of dark qi lashed out, severing the tea set in twain.

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  Lily stared at the neatly sliced halves for a long moment before looking up at Qinfu. “How long would it take for me to do that?”

  “I like the confidence.” He grinned. “A long time… but everyone starts somewhere. Today, we start at the beginning—” he offered out his hand— “Lily, how would you like to learn how to use a sword?” And despite herself, and formations, and all the other aspects of the University she had to juggle…

  Lily found herself excited.

  ………

  A cool wind whispered, and the wheat whispered back.

  They stood in the center of an empty field, vast and golden with the just-browning wheat, still growing lush beneath the seemingly boundless expanse of sky that vaulted above them. Waves rippled across that vast surface, cresting up as the hills rolled and falling down again, racing one after the other as heaven and earth collided. And in that collision, of the terminus between horizon and endless land, seemed to rest all the motion of the world.

  It was a profoundly beautiful, profoundly lonely sight. Lily took it all in— the bucolic scenery, a few trees bespeckling the landscape like garlands of jewels, placed there by some inscrutable act of heaven, the few structures, and the far away farmers… It felt all like a dream. The journey over from East Saffron had been all too real, even familiar— if faster than Zhihu had ever been able to take her. Make it was the difference between an outer disciple and an inner disciple. Maybe it was the difference between a cultivator and a daoist. Maybe it was merely the difference between realms. All those possibilities seemed to flee as she stepped just one more step out onto that field and took it all in…

  She breathed, deeply, tasting the earth-deep loam beneath them and the scent of growing plants, and farmland, and the peculiar soul of a soulless land, borne up and transformed by human hands into… this. She had seen the deep wilderness, wherein the wild beasts lay, and now… “it’s… so open.” In the mountains, the terrain had always pressed up around them— trees abounding, rugged snow, jagged rocks— and yet here… in its simplicity, it was so very different. Wide eyes traced clouds of billowing white, as though shaped and driven by the hands of immortals and celestial dragons, caught and cast out and smeared across the sky in a manner so breathtakingly awe-inspiring that she could not but stare. Here…

  It was just here, and the world, and Qinfu, standing beside her with a quiet contemplation and a faint smile on his face.

  He still held his sword in hand. It was… more or less exactly what she’d expected of the man— a long, heavy blade that by the feel of its qi was probably far too dense for her to even think of lifting, much less actually wield. A little pendant tied onto the hilt had been embroidered with a thousand thousand characters, so many that she couldn’t even make them out more than an intricate scrawl in looping circles. In the center of all that, two characters— not runic, even— were inscribed onto the cloth: sweeping blade. She’d laughed the first time she’d seen it, and still found it funny even now. To think that even Core Formation cultivators had a sense of humor.

  He’d flown them over on its blade. “Alright.” His voice didn’t cut through the rustling wind and silence. It felt like it should have, what with him being a sword cultivator and all, but no. It touched softly on the world about them— a part of it, almost. She quested out for his qi almost instinctually, searching for what he’d done to do that— but found nothing.

  Perhaps that was the point.

  “This should be far enough. Not—” he quickly added— “that we will need all this space, necessarily, but it will be helpful. Especially in the future.” He smiled wryly. “My master always used to make us walk out to the most isolated parts of the sect and random hours of the day. It’s a bit harder to get to an isolated space in East Saffron, but that’s what I’m here for.” An hour’s flight beyond the walls of that great city certainly counted as isolated, Lily couldn’t help but think. “You’ll understand once your techniques get… destructive. It only takes one blown-out wall before you really internalize the value of empty, wall-less fields."

  Lily snorted. “Speaking from personal experience?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny the allegations.”

  “Of course.”

  “Right.” He rolled his eyes. “Well, I didn’t particularly prepare for this— you’re far ahead of the curve, and I need to go out and…” he shook his head. “Nevermind. Here.” From beneath his robes, he drew a second sword, casually tossing it over to her, scabbard and all. Too casually, because it was heavy— she’d tried to catch it single-handedly, and had she not been quick enough to let go after she’d felt just how heavy it really was, it probably would’ve snapped her wrist.

  She glared at Qinfu for a second, but really couldn’t maintain her vitriol as she knelt and gently picked up the blade. “What is this?”

  “A sword.”

  This time, her glare was very real. “I can tell that. I more meant, you know, what kind of sword it is? Or what have you— I don’t know! It’s heavy!”

  “Swords tend to be heavy, yes.” He nodded, as if that was some profound truth. “This one is heavier than most, but then again, it was also built for late Opening and early Foundation Establishment cultivators. Not the best, I will admit, but it served me well for decades, and it should serve you well for a few weeks until I can requisition you a better blade.”

  She blinked at the sword, lifting it again and savoring, this time, the weight of it. “This was your blade?”

  “My second-favorite blade, actually! It was the sword that I finally mastered the Blood Ink Strike with, and the sword that saw me all the way through to my Core Formation breakthrough. I had to requisition something new for myself when I became an inner disciple, but it served me well.”

  “What can it do?”

  “It’s heavy.” He was silent for a long moment as she looked at him expectantly, before shrugging. “That’s really it, more or less. It’s not a flying sword, which I caught a fair bit of flak for amongst my fellow disciples back in the day, and it only has the most basic durability enchantments. It is made out of some strange spiritual material or another one of the elders brought back after an expedition, so there’s that little bit of mystique, I guess.”

  Lily couldn’t help the slight flash of disappointment that flashed across her face— but, no, that was selfish. She recentered herself, breathing in deeply before pressing her hands together and bowing deeply to her liaison. “This Junior Sister thanks Daoist Severing Dust profusely for this profound generosity. For however long I hold this blade, I shall treat it with the respect that it deserves.”

  “I like that. Earnest. Carry it well.” The whole world seemed to whisper in tune with him, for a moment, as he held out his own blade. “Now. Draw your sword.”

  One hand, she grasped on the scabbard, another on the panel, and slowly, she began to unsheathe it, its glimmering silver edge catching the—

  “Stop!” She froze. “What are you doing?” Qinfu moved over to her, his stride unnaturally long, graceful in a way that was beyond mere mortal grace. His hands grasped hers, moving the scabbard down to the side, subtly readjusting her stance, before he stepped back, glancing over her with a judging eye. Then he adjusted her stance some more. “First— remember this.” Like thunder, distant— like wind, echoing, carrying a cloud of dust on its breath— “to draw your sword is to draw the very word of death into your hands. When you draw your sword, draw it right. Again.”

  Again, she started to draw her sword. Again, Qinfu stepped in before more than a second had passed, correcting her form, and told her to— Again, and again, and again, on and on until she started to wonder whether she’d ever be allowed to draw her sword. Then, she started to wonder what the point even was, of doing it so many times— the same thing, over and over, or close enough that the difference ceased to matter. Then she simply focused on the motions, and the corrections, and the blade to the exclusion of all else— and stopped wondering at all.

  Then, there was only movement, and the field around her, and will, singular and driving and bent wholly once more to the task at hand. Draw the blade. The sun sank low in the sky, kissing the fields of wheat and lighting the whole sky ablaze in sunset drooping glory, and— she paid it no heed, focusing instead on the feel of the blade as it rasped out of the sheathe, and Qinfu’s gentle corrections. She’d learnt quickly that she shouldn’t look at the blade while drawing it— instead, she stared forward, imagining some phantom enemy— the Young Master Xinshi, or the Song brothers, or any of a thousand hostile faces. They all blended together into something that had no name, and was hated.

  Until, one time, not even thinking of the motion, the thousand corrections or really anything at all other than the simple act of it, she drew her blade and sliced down, heaving, breath panting, sweat running down her face. The silvery blade hung at her side, still outstretched, trembling as it sliced through the last umbral glow of twilight.

  And Qinfu simply stared at her for a long moment, then nodded, and with smiled— and said, “passable. It’s going to need a lot of work, but that’s a good enough first step. I’ll give you some manuals out of my personal collection, and assign you some books you should be able to find in the University library, and you should be able to study on your own from then. I expect you to practice an hour nightly. More if you can, but only if you’re not too tired.” He tossed his own sword down onto the ground, catching it with his qi and bidding it hover between them. “You might yet have some talent for the blade. Let’s get you back to the University.”

  She stepped onto her liaison’s flying sword a little warily, the simple motion revealing just how exhausted she really was. “I don’t know…” it was just a mutter, but Qinfu clearly heard her, waving for her to continue as they took off and rocketed back towards the city. “If I struggled that much with just drawing the sword, I’m not sure if this is really what I should be pursuing. Wouldn’t a mastery of formations just be better overall?”

  “Perhaps.” He was quiet for a moment. “You were decidedly middle of the pack in terms of new sword disciples, I think. From my own experience, at least, most who decide to take up the path of the sword take anywhere from an hour or so to weeks at the longest to figure out how to just draw their blade correctly— at least, with proper instruction, and I only barely qualify.”

  She frowned. “I can already fight, though. With talismans.”

  “It is a different kind of fighting, the art of the sword. You felt it. I know you did— otherwise I wouldn’t have allowed you to draw your blade.” She shivered at the mere mention of it. “The non-action. The movement without conscious thought. Effortless, light as air, easy as walking…” He was right, in that. It was incredibly different from anything she’d ever had to do before. She’d always been able to think problems through, more or less— it was part of what made formations so attractive to her, their ability to fundamentally edit the world according to comprehensible rules. “That,” that other-thing, second-method, whatever it was— “is something cultivators aspire to. Even if you eventually give up the blade or transition to a different weapon altogether, you should remember that.”

  “Why?”

  Lily got the impression that he was smiling. “I knew I liked you.” Yet, he didn’t answer any further, and Lily didn’t dare press. Maybe she’d figure it out later… but for now, as they flew back to East saffron, she tiredly reviewed everything that had been given to her, contemplating.

  The sun set over Ca Cao, and stole with its passing all the color of the earth.