The Door To All Marvels

Better than most, he was aware of just how short even the longest stretches of time could last. When aeons could be spent just working on a single project, uncountable millennia whiled away in the heart of some star or another just refining the next batch of material for the next batch of material to make the next single piece of the next… and so on, and so forth, until it all became almost meaningless. To an Immortal Sovereign, time essentially was meaningless. What he hadn’t really known— what he’d forgotten, in those long aeons— was just how long even a few short months could be.

His footsteps were light on the steps down to the 32nd Precinct’s sole subway station. It was always a little novel, to be getting around on foot— in the manner of mortals, so far divorced from what he’d been before… it was another one of those small, enlightening things. It was a bit damp, warm and musky and redolent with a not entirely pleasant smell— a rather quite thoroughly unpleasant smell, actually, one that only strengthened as he descended further until he was standing on the lonely platform, far buried beneath the earth.

Not alone, though. A few people had huddled up in one of the corners, where the shadow of winter’s brisk air couldn’t reach them, only sparing him a passing glance as he stepped down onto the platform. That was also another interesting thing that kept coming to him— pleasantly, at times, and unpleasantly at others. Nobody noticed him. Not in the way they used to. Here, he was one amongst untold millions.

There, even a single other being would’ve been out of place.

“Instructor Mingtian?” Or, well, not entirely unrecognized. He glanced away from the homeless in the corner, gaze settling heavily on someone he hadn’t expected to see when he’d set out. “What are you doing here?”

He tilted his head in response, leveling Guandong a very unimpressed stare. “I could say the same to you.” She looked… different, from when she’d been a student under his care. More mature, maybe, as told in the ephemeral wash of the aura around her, the touch of her passing, the quiet presence she had on the space around her. Unnoticeable to the senses of a mortal, but obvious to the domain of an Immortal Sovereign.

What was obvious, though, was how much more kempt she looked than when he’d last had the chance to see her. Not that she’d looked particularly unkempt back then, but the uniform and exacting care she’d given to her appearance certainly made the differences all the more obvious.

She was wearing Guxi’s colors. It wasn’t entirely surprising, but… interesting. That’s what it was. It was interesting, to see what the fulfillment of that path had led to. Distasteful as the councilor had been, Guandong didn’t look like she was faring all too poorly herself.

The seconds trickled by slowly, caught between them as they stared at each other. Guandong was the first to break, looking stuck between sheepish and perturbed beneath his domineering gaze. “I, um. Councilor Guxi sent me here.” Mingtian just raised a single eyebrow— he didn’t even have to ask to make it obvious that he wanted to know more. “I’ve been instructed to receive the councilor’s esteemed guests.”

“I doubt that there’s anyone Guxi would want to meet with that would arrive to the precinct by public transportation.” Though, the response did check out, more or less. There wasn’t particularly much reason Guxi would be sending her agents, junior or otherwise, to such a random remote spot of the precinct.

“They’re…” Guandong drew in a deep breath, crossing her arms behind her back and for a moment managing to adopt an unruffled look of absolute authority. “To honor their achievements and to reward them for what they’ve achieved so far, the honored councilor has extended her hospitality to the students of the University of East Saffron.”

“Avyr and Lily.” It was not a question.

Guandong winced. “Yes.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I… see.” Annoying. He’d been dealing with Yuxan’s petty little power plays for so long that he’d almost forgotten just how heavy handed Guxi could be when she decided to play the game herself. Hers was, after all, the mandate of rulership; its shadow the power to crush those who opposed her. A blunt power, but he’d long since lost count of the number of times he’d seen petty cultivators barely more powerful than their peers turn themselves into little tyrants.

The sudden urge to smite Guxi into the ground to protect his students, though, was stronger than he’d expected it to be. Guangdong gulped slightly, taking a shallow step backwards— careful, though, lest she fall onto the rails behind her. “It’s a great honor, Instructor… and do they even have anywhere else to stay? The councilor is not an unkind woman, no matter what you’ve heard…”

“Heard? I’ve seen.” He scowled, pacing a few steps then turning, then pacing— “she’s the exact kind of foolish woman to do this sort of thing. I should have expected this from—”

“You! You can’t just say those things about the councilor!” Guandong’s eyes had blown wide in a mix of panic and fear, voice strained, almost hissed between clenched teeth— “even if you dislike her. She is the hand of the Bloody Saffron Sect in our precinct, and her word is law. We all exist on the sufferance of her benevolence.” Even the vagrants in the corner had glanced up as he’d spoken, whispering to each other nervously in a way that did not particularly inspire confidence.

Mingtian just rolled her eyes. “If I were to listen to every jumped up petty warlord I ran across, then I’d have…” he let himself trail off before he said anything incriminating, just shaking his head instead. Mortal— he reminded himself that he was pretending to be mortal, and mortals by and large did not encounter more than one warlord a month.

Guandong just blinked, half in surprise, half in incredulity, and an additional bonus half in jealousy of all things. “Well, not all of us get to be friends with a disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect. Some of us have to respect the rules of the community they live in.” She turned away after that, not even waiting to hear his response, probably thinking that it made her look wise and serene instead of the childish it actually did…

Still, Mingtian didn’t respond, struck by her words far deeper than he’d expected. For one, the assumption that it was Zhihu’s name that allowed him to speak out the way he did, when he hadn’t even considered that compared to his own personal power…

Right. Mortal. He was, for all intents and purposes, a regular mortal. Not a very good mortal, given that he kept doing cultivator things, but nobody had figured out his background yet, which… well, at least there was that. The hidden part of being a hidden master was important, and yet, he kept acting like he always had. There was something profound to that, in a way.

The second thing that struck him, far greater than the first— so simply, so strongly in a way that he hadn’t even expected—

The way that Guandong had described it—

Friends. He let the word simmer in his mind for a bit, breathing in deeply to settle himself and then immediately regretting it when he caught a mouthful of the subway tunnel’s putrid air. Friends… he chuckled softly, the sound quiet and yet— in the silence of the subway tunnel, shockingly loud. Friends. Him and Zhihu, friends… the others probably found it odd for Mingtian the mortal to be friends with a disciple of the region’s premier cultivation sect.

He felt it odd in the opposite respect— for him, Mingtian the Immortal Sovereign of Boundless Radiance, Mingtian who was so impossibly far beyond her that she wouldn’t have been able to grasp the true distance even if he tried to explain. For him to be friends with her… and yet. Despite the absurdity of the situation, the depiction sat true with him. It was an odd sort of friendship for sure, but he would not call it any less real for that.

It was like that, him still chuckling at the absurdity of the whole situation and Guangdong still trying to look like a respectable, aloof servant, that the train rolled into the station, brakes squealing as it dragged itself to a stop. The doors swung open as the sudden sound slowly faded, allowing its passengers to disembark— all two of them, that was. For some reason, the route to one of the most backwater precincts in the entire city was not well traveled.

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Mingtian’s gaze was on them in a moment, absorbing every single detail with far more fidelity than a mortal ever could. A domain over light made the task trivial— from the moment he could see them, he could see everything about them. A strange emotion welled up within him, one he found hard to pin down despite all his experience. Happyness, of a sort. Relief. Of a sort.

Avyr glanced around, deep eyes alight with the energy of his cultivation catching first on his own, then on Guandong, and finally on the rest of the station around them. Then his face scrunched up in a way that might have looked threatening if Mingtian didn’t find it so adorable. “This place…” stinks. “I don’t remember it being quite so… well aromatized.” Lily snorted beside him, clearly restraining a laugh. “I appreciate that you waited here for us Mingtian, but if we could take this somewhere else…”

“Please,” Lily all but begged. “ It’s so bad.” It was pretty bad. Not the worst he’d ever experienced— there had been certain hells he’d been to which made a delight of tormenting their visitors to the greatest extent they possibly could. The resources within them had been good, but that had not been a pleasant experience.

Amusingly, as they made their ways to the stars and the brisk freedom of the overground, Mingtian couldn’t help but note that they’d both ignored Guandong entirely. She came after them, of course, scrambling to both keep up and ensure she looked like the sort of respectable servant she was pretending to be, but she was definitely on the back foot.

They didn’t speak as they climbed the stars— not even Guandong, not willing to address them in the strange and disquiet quiet. They needn’t speak; their mere presence told a story, in the faint echo of their wounds, in the accouterments they carried, in the clothes that adorned them and the remnant brush of their auras, unrestrained with the willfulness of youth and made all the stronger by their cultivation.

That was perhaps the most obvious change about her— more obvious even that the heavy sword hilted at her waist. It did not announce its presence to the world, and yet— despite that— it was so obvious that no one with eyes to see would ever be able to miss it. Not even just in the way she moved, perfectly graceful, effortless, easily like no mortal really could, but…

It hovered there, dark and deep, placid and calm and yet, promising in its heavy shadow the threat of immense violence. Bearing the traces of enlightenment in its foundation, steadied with the unconscious perception of someone who’d begun learning to truly see— Mingtian wondered if Lily was even aware of just how impressive a foundation she’d started building, even with the flawed resources she’d had to work with.

She’d finally become a cultivator.

Avyr’s changes were less apparent. He’d not advanced like his friend, which he’d more or less expected given the realm’s overly convoluted— if somewhat effective— way of ascending through the low ranks of cultivation. He was, however, settling well into the cultivation technique that he’d designed for him. He’d clearly made some significant strides in his comprehension of the technique, apparent in the way he kept the blazing heat of his abundant yang-aligned qi tightly bound to him without reducing its power in the slightest. What with the way he’d leapt ahead with his revolving core… it was actually looking quite nice. He bet he’d be able to strike up a realm— in truth, and not just in ambush— if he was careful and made sure to dodge the worst of the attacks. Something that given the other thing that slumbered within his cultivation…

Yes, they were both progressing very nicely indeed.

Wan winter sunlight spilt over them as they emerged onto the street, barren with the coming cold— a sharp and a pale thing, catching against Lily’s hair and shimmering through Avyr’s fur, glinting off the weave of Guandong’s robe and racing along the hidden length of Lily’s blade.

And, though they could not perceive it, his domain grasped the whole of it— the vast and boundless radiance, the benediction of sunlight, cast forth even still unto the glittering windows, asphalt, rushing cars, every so often passing passersby of East Saffron. Mingtian breathed out, his breath pluming in the cold air— the swirls of that mist tumbling over themselves in gentle whorls, chaotic for a fraction of a moment until they became, once more, undone as they dissipated into the qi of the world. “It’s nice to see you two again.”

The words hung heavy between them. Only for a moment, but a moment was still long enough to twist the emotion between them strangely. Not badly, but… on that brief bridge of time where none of them dared respond rested something so much more than either of them. An entire story, untold.

Then, Lily just reached over and swept him into a hug. “Missed you too.” He stiffened, the action so embarrassingly obvious that he was sure they all noticed it, mortal or not— but forced himself to return the gesture after a moment.

Avyr snorted, but brushed his head up against his hand in turn. “I’ll admit to having missed you as well. My liaison was… well, I would not dare to impinge the good name of the Bloody Saffron Sect, but if some of their disciples might be considered by certain individuals to be… less entirely hospitable… than their peers, I wouldn’t be able to argue with transgressing truth.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “That’s a shame. We’ll have to talk about your cultivation path in more detail, later…”

“Later,” Avyr agreed, nodding politely— Guandong probably took that as confirmation he was simply brushing him off, but Mingtian had gotten to know the cat well enough to tell the thread of subtle eagerness that lay beneath. To the one that’d given the cultivation method he had now… it was entirely sensible.

If he was a Hidden Master, which he wasn’t— he blinked, then grinned. Well, between Zhihu and him, he wasn’t entirely worried about someone finding out. As long as it wasn’t someone insufferable like Guxi or Yuxan. “How was university?”

Lily bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet, whatever austere cultivator’s dignity she’d manage to preserve after their return to the precinct immediately gone, replaced altogether by that so-familiar, so exuberant… “Amazing! All the classes were so intense, everything digs so deep into what it means to be a cultivator and how to be a cultivator and… well, other than the formations class, that one was a disappointment. It’s just memorization.” She scowled, as though the university had personally insulted her with that. In a way, it had. She was his di… student, and to any student of his such a patently horrible way of learning formations had no doubt ground on them to no end.

Avyr nodded in commiseration. “I’ve helped her with her homework, on occasion; even I could definitely tell you that whoever they picked to teach the formations class is wildly underqualified. I can understand, I suppose, a focus on the historically important formations, but to the exclusion of everything else? Foolish.”

“Yeah, that’s what Qinfu said. He told me that they probably focused on old stuff because that’s what sect disciples used to need to be able to, you know—” she waved her hand, pantomiming a mock fight— with remarkably good form, he couldn’t help but realize. Her teacher had done a good job impressing the importance of proper sword forms into her, even if she didn’t quite realize it herself. “I mean, come on! Guandong probably is better at formations than most of the people in my class, and she wasn’t even good at them!”

Guandong jerked slightly at the mention, looking nervously their way. “The honored cultivators flatter me. I’m sure that I couldn’t possibly compare to you in any such ways.” Lily just gave her a weird look. “While I have your attention, could I bring up the topic of accommodation? The—”

“Oh, right.” Lily half chuckled, half winced. “I’d forgotten about that. We were just going to find one of the nearby hotels and stay there for the duration of the break— though, Master Mingtian, if they don’t let Avyr in can he stay with you?”

Mingtian couldn’t help but snort at the poleaxed look on Guandong’s face. “Sure, I don’t see why not—”

“Honored cultivators! You cannot! Such behavior doesn’t fit your station at all!” As if station was an important consideration in a city where thousands on thousands of cultivators at their same level were simply… a normal part of society. No, it was not the station of cultivators Guxi was worried about, and that was transparently obvious. “I implore you to reconsider. The councilor has already prepared a suite for you two— imagine the message it would send were you to book time in a hotel instead.”

Lily frowned for a moment. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”

Avyr snorted. “It’s a political sort of thing. Guxi is offering us her hospitality, and if we were to refuse it…” something passed silently between them, before Lily made a silent little gasp of realization, blushing a bit. Avyr just turned to Guandong, dipping his head in graceful acquaintance. “I would be honored to accept, then.”

Mingtian sighed. So it went, when one didn’t really realize what they were working with… “are you sure you want this? I’m sure that Guxi wouldn’t mind if you didn’t stay here. If she does, then… well, I’m sure at least someone would stand up for you.” Guandong paled dramatically, no doubt thinking he was insinuating Zhihu. It was a useful misunderstanding.

A moment passed, tense, before Lily just shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’m sure that she’d be nice to us, right? We’re under the sect’s aegis now, right? It’s not like she’ll do anything to us.” A little optimistic, but…

She was probably right, Mingtian had to admit. He just nodded, and Lily smiled. “Alright. I’ll see you later, then?”

“Yeah!”

“Farewell, then.” Guandong was already tugging them towards a car parked on the side of the street nearby, so distinctly out of place for how nice it looked that it didn’t take a genius to figure out whose it was.

He waved, and Lily waved back, and Avyr inclined his head with those so-knowing, so bright, so alive eyes, leaving him—

The door snapped shut.

He was alone on the street once again, chest aching quietly at the absence, the presence— that moment, fleeting, too fast, there, one second—

Gone the next.