When Lily woke up, she was in a different place entirely. This, she’d somewhat expected— the sort of unconsciousness she’d fallen into had felt… deep. Deep and dark, and cloying in a way usual sleep wasn’t.

  She shook her head, still a little fuzzy from the whole duel, getting a better glance about her surroundings. It was a smallish room, though not lacking in decor— the wood was a rich, ruddy red, the walls a dark wooden brown, and various eclectic odds and ends covered the walls. From tapestries to papercut artworks, to random other things she couldn’t even identify and even an old television— they all told a story. For one, this clearly wasn’t a hospital room. For another, whoever’s room this was, it was the room of someone well traveled and wealthy.

  A few sticks of incense lazily smoked on a bedside table, the scent of it pleasantly sharp. She could barely catch the qi within the smoke even when staring at it, but it was glaringly obvious when she so much as closed her eyes and meditated for a second— a bright and vibrant qi that was clearly medicinal. A cup of water had been left there too, and after a second of fumbling with the sheets that’d been left around her, she managed to pick it up and take a sip.

  Before she could so much as return the cup to its coaster, the room’s door swung open, the rattle of a string of beads running off wood alerting her to the motion. “Well, look who’s finally woken up.” She stiffened, immediately drawing her bedcovers up to her chin. The thought of him seeing her in such a compromising position… “your cat friend brought me here, and I took it upon myself to care for your wounds. None of your wounds were significant, so the local hospital would have hesitated to use spiritual medicines in your treatment. I assure you, I spared no expense in your treatment.”

  “How… how long was I out?” She tried to ignore the fact that she’d been sleeping in what she could only imagine was Qinfu’s room. A Core Formation cultivator. The embarrassment threatened to overwhelm her if she thought about it for too long.

  “Two days. We were all worried— your wounds shouldn’t have been that bad.” He frowned. “Actually, they shouldn’t have been there at all. How in the name of all the heavens and celestials above did you manage to get into a duel to the death at the University? I can see that sort of thing happening between Sects, but here?”

  “I promise I didn’t—”

  “I know you’re not at fault.” He sighed. “I’m just curious. And a little concerned.”

  “It was Song Banwei. He seemed to have a… grudge.” The details of the fight came back to her, at first as though through a thick fog, and then with far more alacrity. “He said that he was part of the Twin Pines Clan, and that I’d insulted his clan. There was a thing with a spiritual herb and theft and a disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect—”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “I remember hearing about that. The matters external to the sect tend to get around to those of us who live outside the sect grounds; it was an occurrence of some small interest to hear that someone had given the Twin Pines clan a bloody nose over attempted theft. The herb…”

  “We used it to make a pill for Avyr. To help him break through to Opening.”

  “Good.” Qinfu smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t waste it. I always wondered how your friend managed to reach Opening so fast— diligence and a fortuitous encounter paints a compelling story.” A moment of comfortable silence passed between them before Qinfu settled down on the very edge of the bed, careful not to disturb her. “You’ll probably be here for the next few days. That head wound you received was clearly a nasty one.”

  “What about— what about my classes?”

  Qinfu smiled, placing a stack of papers he’d been hiding— somehow— on the bedside table. “I already managed to secure an extended leave of absence pertaining to medical necessity from your professors, with the blessing of the Outer Elder.”

  Lily gulped. “The Outer Elder?”

  “He intervened in your fight, you know? Avyr was about to fight an outer disciple, and he descended like the very heavens themselves. Even I felt that from where I was meditating here.” A wistful expression came to his face. “I’ll have that sort of power soon, hopefully.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “How did you get him to agree to that?”

  “Ah ha! I was hoping you’d ask.” He smiled, one hand going down to his belt, where he pulled his sword off from his belt and set it on the bed between them, the sheer weight of it rumpling the sheets more than she did. “That’s because of my fortuitous encounter— I received an anonymous sword donation of surpassing quality.” Carefully, he drew it from its sheathe, its silvery-dun glow catching the light and scattering it back. Lily could feel a palpable presence of qi from the blade, the entire room’s feng shui warping around the blade for the brief moment before Qinfu slid it back into its sheathe with a snick. “It’s called the Dust Parting Wing, and it’s probably the highest quality Core Formation blade I’ve ever seen. It’s obviously a gift from an elder of the sect, so everyone is treating me better now. A good weapon is key for cultivation— or, well… whatever, I’ll get into the complexities of that statement later, just know that my cultivation will probably improve significantly.”

  “I’m glad for you.” Then she blushed, realizing that— who was she, to be glad for an inner disciple of the Bloody Saffron—

  Qinfu just smiled, chuckling. “Aww, thanks. You’re probably my best student, so I appreciate that, sincerely.” A second, silent, before— “so… how about some TV? I have this great— and by great I do mean terrible— period drama I’ve been watching about the pre-imperial sects…”

  Lily just chuckled.

  ………

  Over the next few days, she learnt a lot while she was mostly confined to her bed. First and foremost, that the almost twenty year old underground TV series Ten Thousand Peach Blossoms Aflutter was, indeed, horrible. Horrible in a funny way, that was— how they somehow managed to get everything about cultivation so perfectly wrong, the over the top acting, the editing and practical effects mixed in with publicly available film snippets… gold. Comedy gold. She’d laughed so hard at some of the cornier lines that Qinfu had been forced to pause the recording to make sure she didn’t accidentally aggravate any of her injuries.

  The second thing she learnt was that Avyr was… not in favor, currently. She’d felt a bit guilty when he’d told her, but he’d said not to worry. It was touching, she couldn’t help but admit, to know how thoroughly Avyr was on her side— to throw away everything, to risk his life to save her from her own problems.

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  The third thing was that the desert in the south of the continent had exploded. That was a remarkably important development that had caught everyone off guard, and had almost sparked a confrontation with an imperial airfleet that had been passing dangerously close at the time. Only a bit of quick diplomacy had prevented a war from kicking off immediately.

  The fact that the next great war had almost started while she was recovering in her room was… unsettling, in the way only the most terribly real of facts managed to be— and what could be more real than a war? Its hands, its clawing fingers, outstretched over everything and sinking into everything, felt on every aspect of their lives…

  She’d shivered and turned off the TV when she’d heard that, just… thinking about it for a moment. Eventually they’d learnt that the disturbance had been caused by a phoenix breaking through to Immortal Ascension, but if that crucial bit of evidence hadn’t emerged…

  That her entire world was balanced on a knife’s edge between peace and deathly chaos was deeply, profoundly disturbing.

  The thought had stuck with her for a while, as she slowly was allowed first out of her bed, and then around the room, and then around the pagoda. Luckily, she was allowed to take care of herself well enough. She would have died of embarrassment if a maid or someone had to help her bathe or of whatever. Heavens forbid if Qinfu had tried— she’d have straight refused, or keeled over dead on the spot, or maybe both.

  It gave her plenty of time to think, and that wasn’t always a good thing. She couldn’t help but feel strangely removed from it all. It crept into her, in the wee hours of nights when even the incense ran low, and a pale haze soaked the rooftop, rafters of her mind.

  A unity, despite itself. Unremovable from itself, even if it tried.

  Often, she’d turn to meditation to distract herself. It was one of the least strenuous things to do, after all, and the way the qi flowed through the room, swirling in tune with so many hidden formations and bursting, alive with so many others… that, she could appreciate. The way that all the runes played together…

  Those were normal formations, though, barring a few that she couldn’t make heads or tails of, like the chit in the TV. What really drew her attention was the qi of the pagoda array, as it whispered and swam, and swirled, and ebbed, and flowed, and somehow still slunk away on its way upwards to heaven, carrying with it a wholly unique transformed, majesty, almost. Not the mess of almost grimy qi that was East Saffron’s, but a more…

  She could not put her finger on it. It escaped her, each and every time.

  Until, it didn’t.

  She was sitting on her bed, legs folded together in typical meditative repose, trying to ponder the pagoda’s qi structure and actually pondering the unity of things, when it just… clicked. It was a breakthrough in the purest meaning of the word— an absolute and utter transformation in the way she saw the world.

  Her qi leapt up in response, frolicking through her body and spirit with reckless abandon, and she was forcefully ejected from her meditation as it punched her chest, slammed against the inside of her dantian, and largely threatened to wreak havoc on her cultivation.

  Almost desperately, she reached out to wrest control of her qi, drawing at the full power of her will to— steady, even— but as she grasped the rampaging wave of it, it quieted almost immediately. She gasped, then coughed, wracking for a moment before spitting a glob of blackish blood onto the bed. The qi slunk back into her core all kicked puppy-like, leaving only a piercing headache in its way. Yet— yet, she could see. Even the qi flows she could observe with her eyes wavered and morphed, and if she pushed just a little further she could see a… depth she’d never seen before.

  Or rather, it was as thought the depth had always been there, but she’d never been able to comprehend it priorly. She could see echoes of patterns resonating out the qi of so many different things, as the TV connected to whatever it did so far away, as the pagoda drew up the qi of the earth, as a subtle formation woven into her bedside sent a pulse of—

  “Lily?” She squeaked and dove back under the covers— the uncomfortably bloody covers, at that— as Qinfu pushed open the door, stepping into the room, clearly concerned. Also, clearly having been woken up; he was still dressed in a simple nightshift, the only thing consistent between that and his regular outfit the sword that still hung at his waist… so that was what that formation did. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m— I’m fine.” She breathed in deeply, trying not to think about the situation, or her position therein, or the fact that Qinfu apparently slept with his sword. Okay actually that last one was pretty funny. “I was just… practicing some things.”

  Qinfu gave her a doubtful look. “Your vitals certainly didn’t agree with whatever sort of practice you were doing.”

  “It’s fine! I…” she was about to say that it’d been nothing much at all, but he was her liaison and advisor. If there was anyone she could ask about… whatever that’d been, then Qinfu was probably amongst the best of them. Barring, maybe, Mingtian, but she got the impression that this wasn’t the sort of thing she ought to put to post. “I made a breakthrough.”

  Qinfu blinked. “Already? To— no, you’re still in Shedding.” He tapped his chin. “What was it?”

  “I… um. In qi perception, or something related to that…” she waved a hand at the air around her, trying and failing to encompass the breathtaking totality of a change that defied words. “I can see… depth. That’s the best way I can put it. You know, like— when you’re flying above something on sword, and you look down, and everything beneath you is so tiny and flat and— then, when you land, the whole world seems to prop up and expand into its usual dimensions? It’s like that, but with qi, and instead of flatness to fullness, its fullness to… more.”

  “Oh.” Qinfu was silent for a second, before he snickered. Actually snickered. “Oh, heavens above, this is awesome. You’ve moved past essential comprehension and touched on the higher comprehension. Not even all the disciples of the Bloody Saffron Sect have accomplished this— usually the crafters get it first, which tracks, but… it is a great accomplishment. An incredibly great accomplishment. In fact,” he grinned. “I think it’s great enough of an accomplishment that nobody will be able to naysay me when I say that it deserves contribution.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “Contribution? Truly?”

  “It’s not something that you’d gain contribution for in the sect itself, but the University doesn’t expect you to go out and slay monsters for the good of an institution already protected beneath the aegis of the Blood Saffron Sect. No, contribution is designed to be earned by advancement— and a breakthrough like that is certainly no small thing when it comes to advancement.”

  “Then… what would I even do with it? I already have you, and you teach me everything I could possibly want to know…”

  “While I appreciate the confidence you have in me, I’m merely a swordsman. A swordsman advanced far along the path of the blade, but I bid you to consider and make sure you’re getting the best value out of your contribution. It’s something that you’re going to spend a lot of time pondering once you join the sect, so I wouldn’t be so hasty in dismissing it.”

  “…allright.” It was a bit reluctant, but she could see the point that Qinfu was trying to make. And it did excite her, all the possibilities… “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s all I can ask of you.” He smiled, picking back up his blade and heading for the door. “Rest well. I’ll see how many contribution points I can wheedle out of the various administrative functionaries, and maybe you’ll even be healed soon. And finish that homework. I don’t think your formations teacher is going to be pleased if you turn in work late, injury or not.”

  Lily thought about how she’d react, and shivered. Definitely not… “thank you. Really.”

  The expression on Qinfu’s face softened just a little. “It’s simply the course of my duties. Have a good night, Lily.” Then—

  The string of beads rattled back over the door, swaying, side to side and back again, and Qinfu was gone— leaving Lily alone with what she’d gained now of all times, after trying for so long.

  The night was lonely and dark, and deep.