The Door To All Marvels

East Saffron was aglow with a festive mood, come the day of the solstice. Winter, still— bedecked in cold and yet-remnant hints of snow, swept off the streets but not yet taken from the ice-clad trees and frozen, shadowed places, the whole world seemed to await the coming night. Almost holding its breath— after the past night’s celebrations, for what was left to come, of family, of joy…

It all mingled together, a heady aura that draped itself over the city and each passerby. It rode with the crystal sunlight that dripped through the city, cast down from the winter’s wan sun and shimmering off each and every small patch of ice. It whispered, singing its merry tunes from the decorations that bedecked the streets and hung from doors and lay on every bough and sign; it laughed with the children and smiled with the adults, and settled in the faint warmth of the elderly…

A very mortal cheer, but for that, perhaps, all the more magnificent. Standing in the brisk air just outside the library, looking down on the park that spread out before him to the tune of dry grass and trees so starkly thrust up into the wintertime air, Mingtian could not help but bask in it— the sheer joy. It was not the utter jubilation of a rescued planet, or the reverent worship of ten billion cultivators worshiping their divine ancestor, but still… it carried the essence of those things. It was less, but in that lesser existence, it was all the more.

Mortal, and yet in its impermanence, immortal. He sighed, smiling. It was a good day…

“Librarian, sir. The head investigator will see you now.” The police officer who’d stepped out of the door behind him gave him a mystified, somewhat concerned look. Which was only logical. A mortal’s reaction to having their place of work all but destroyed overnight— and on the night of the winter festival’s eve, no less— was… not what he was displaying.

Mingtian didn’t let it get him down, though. It’d been a good result, all things considered. Buildings could be rebuilt, after all, and mortals were nothing if not resilient. There were plenty of them around, and they’d get around to it eventually…

He nodded to the police officer, turning about and stepping inside the library. Were it not for the few officers around and the police tape spread liberally between the bookshelves and over pretty much every door, he’d have called the scene normal.

It was, of course, deeper in where the abnormality started— and in turn, deeper within where the Chief Investigator lay in wait. A police officer tried to lead him there, but he only paid cursory attention to her as he navigated unerringly towards the scene of the destruction.

Seen in the daylight… he whistled softly, taking it all in, that gaping wound. The viscera of the building had been laid bare, ripped up from the floor and torn down from the ceiling, walls’ marrow ripped out and scattered across the pile of debris. Since the night, a bit more of the upper floors had caved in, ripping asunder the wires buried in the wall and leaving them hanging, grotesque images of urban sinew hanging limp in the dark space. Above it all, the roof bulged inwards threateningly, and Mingtian didn’t doubt that if something wasn’t done immediately, there was a very real threat of a collapse.

The investigator himself stood on the very edge of the desolation, arms folded behind his back as he stared forward. “Librarian Leng. My condolences on the destruction. Whatever happened here… it’s a tragedy for the library, regardless of the cause. I’ll be sure to get to the bottom of this.”

“Sure.” It took an effort of will for him to resist the urge to roll his eyes, or snort at the sheer absurdity of that statement. He was quite confident that they’d never figure out what’d happened here. “It’s a shame, yes…”

“We’ve already placed devices to read the spiritual residues that any criminals might have left behind, but the readings have been… odd. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if it isn’t too much of an imposition.” The aura of the library had been altered more in that one clash than all the years of use leading up to it. Not entirely surprising, given that the library had been quite grievously wounded.

“I don’t see why not. Would you like to take this to my office?”

“No, I’ve got to stay down here and keep an eye on the forensics crew. Police protocol, I hope you understand— these machines come all the way from Zhongshi, and are far too expensive to leave without proper oversight.”

“Shame.” Not that he had anything against standing in front of a slightly damp sump hole and pile of debris, not at all, definitely not. He’d just much rather be enjoying the festive mood outside. “Well, then, ask whatever you want.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Out and about. Not here.” It wasn’t a very convincing lie, all things considered, and it was pretty clear that the investigator thought so if the way his eyes slightly narrowed was anything. Mingtian just rolled his eyes. “At this point in time, I was probably already home. It was the Festival’s eve; what do you think I was doing, blowing up libraries?”

“When you put it like that, you make it sound ridiculous, but it is my job to follow every lead to its logical conclusion, no matter how absurd it may seem.” Right. Just like he followed every lead related to the various unscrupulous activities of a certain academy principal. The mere fact that it took blowing up the library for them to finally come out and start doing their jobs did not particularly instill confidence in him.

Then again, he supposed that was only all the better. He didn’t want them to figure anything out, after all.

The inspector glanced back at the pit. “Do you know if there was anything unusual about this area beforehand? Were there any wardstones placed here, or on the upper floors? Any… culitivator-related stuff?”

He shrugged. “I practice my formations craft here with my student sometimes, and between the chief librarian and the two university students, it’s visited by cultivators rather quite often. There might have been a spiritual material or two left in one of the upstairs rooms, but if there was, I forgot.”

“How do you just forget a…” the man physically restrained himself, groaning. “Nevermind. Next question. Do you know anything that might have caused this? Anyone with a grudge against the library, or with a particular ability to destroy somewhere here…”

“Are you insinuating something?”

The chief inspector folded his arms. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m entirely impartial in this investigation—” he didn’t need to even read into his aura to tell that was a blatant lie and a half— “and I just want to get to the bottom of this. The cat probably can do something of this scale—”

Mingtian snorted. “What do you think he is, a Foundation Establishment cultivator with techniques in his pockets?”

“Cats don’t have pockets.”

“Shows what you know about them; they definitely do.” He smiled wryly at the man’s evident frustration. Sure, it wasn’t the blissful, peaceful joy of the coming celebration, but it was still quite the nice thing, annoying him so. “I have it under good authority that they were with the good councillor the entirety of last night, so unless you’ve decided that the councillor is complicit with this…” the man rapidly blanched.

Notably, he didn’t ask any more questions along those lines. It was almost like he feared to implicate the chancellor in anything… which wasn’t a particularly surprising observation to make. It was in the very nature of petty tyrants like her to do that sort of thing— hold themselves apart and above the law, acting utterly contrary to reason or justice…

Even thieves had their dao— and tyrants were the greatest of thieves.

It was one of the reasons why it was usually better for cultivators to remain separate from mortals. That sort of power tended to be a cruel thing. That their small realm had gotten so entangled with the mortals beneath them…

He wouldn’t lie— there were interesting things that’d come from it. It was advanced for such a minor realm, and unless they blew themselves up, they’d probably continue to advance in an interesting direction or two…

“Ah.” He blinked, smile only intensifying. “I think we’re going to have to put this investigation on pause.”

“I’ll let you go when I let you go and no—”

“Mingtian. I’m glad you’re alright.” The chief inspector choked on his last words as Zhihu materialized out of her hidden gait just a few feet away from them, the motion utterly soundless and perfectly, comically dramatic. The way his already pale face paled further… “I came as soon as I heard what’d happened. I had feared the worst.”

“No you didn’t.”

Zhihu rolled her eyes, tilting her head in acknowledgement. “You’re right, I didn’t. The thought that you’d be done in by a simple bit of arson…” she stared out at the field of shattered building, fragments, viscera-of-library, silent for a while. “What an interesting spiritual residue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before…”

“You probably have, if you knew where to look. And if you knew where to look, you’d probably have seen what’s there already.”

“Damn it.” The cultivator scowled, and— despite not even emitting a single touch of killing intent— the chief investigator stepped back in deathly fear. “Must you always be so utterly insufferable? If you weren’t a mortal, I’d challenge you to a duel.”

“You’d lose.”

“You—” Zhihu breathed deeply, folding her hands behind her back and giving him her best impression of an aloof cultivator. “You dare? You court death, speaking that way to a disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect!”

“And you do not even know how close you tread to annihilation, daring to speak that way to a core disciple of the Divine Immortal Heaven-Scouring Affray Sect! Kowtow one hundred times and I might deign to forgive your trespass!”

Zhihu deflated. “That’s… not even a real sect. Seriously, what sort of pretentious, upstart Foundation Establishment cultivator would name their sect the Divine Immortal Heaven-Scouring Affray Sect? That’s just asking to be blasted into oblivion by a passing Sundering cultivator.” Mingtian tried his best not to laugh, but it was hard— not because of anything Zhihu said, really, but more because of how utterly wrong she was.

The Divine Immortal Heaven-Scouring Affray Sect… he didn’t respond for a moment, just remembering his time with them. As one of the Peak Divine factions of the Heavenly Realm, the sheer amount of power and influence they’d had dwarfed every faction in Zhihu’s small realm a million times over. Other than himself, he supposed, but that wasn’t really a fair addition given he was really just visiting.

If they’d heard a mere Foundation Establishment disciple disparaging their name… well, last he’d checked, the sect master was still alive; he’d have to tell him next time he traveled to his Heavenly Realm in an eon or two—

He blinked at the same time Zhihu did, both of them turning their attention to the doorway. Zhihu raised an eyebrow, before glancing back over his way. “How very mortal of you, sensing a cultivator’s arrival.”

“It’s not like she’s managed to hide her presence, and it’s not like mortals are entirely dull to this sort of thing. You only need to ask her how much of those spiritual matters she was able to feel, and then you’ll know. When she gets here. In about…”

Lily rounded the corner a bit nervously, guided by a police officer who really looked like they hadn’t wanted to say no to a cultivator— and froze, staring at the scene of the destruction. “Heavens… what…” she paused, then immediately closed her eyes, standing still. It wasn’t quite a meditative pose, but Mingtian supposed it was close enough for her to get in the meditative trance, which was really what mattered in the end. After a few moments, she blinked her eyes open staring at the mound of debris in confusion. “I recognize this. Why do I recognize this?”

The poor chief investigator— who’d gotten more and more flustered as their conversation continued— brightened considerably the moment he heard that. “Can you tell me anything further? What does it seem similar to? Have you seen a crime like this before—”

Mingtian huffed amusedly. “Alright, that’s enough.”

“You heard the man.” Zhihu reached out lazily— or, at least, with the appearance of laziness— grasping the chief inspector’s arm. The moment he tried to pull away though, he realized just how strong a Foundation Establishment cultivator really was. “You’ve overstayed your welcome. Leave.” She actually did use a pulse of intent at that, sharp and dangerous, honed with all the violence of someone who’d truly had battled at the edge of a blade— and that was enough to send all the various police officers running.

Lily had managed to withstand it, though. It was rather impressive how well she’d been able to weather the intent of a cultivator two full steps above her… clearly, she’d not been slacking with her cultivation.

Well, effort deserved a reward. Reaching into his ring, he pulled out a slip of paper, drawing runes out of nothing and sunlight, and grasping them, with his domain forging them, casting them in scattered patterns onto the paper even as he refined it into something greater. Not all the way to the ninth step like he had for Janus’s little sister, but just enough that it conceptually came into alignment with the formation he was about to enact.

Folding his hands into a complicated seal, he let the paper fall, fluttering for a moment as it twisted and turned through the air only to land unimpressively on the slightly damp ground. Zhihu glanced at it, then at him, and then back at it. “Was that supposed to… do anyth—”

“Eye of Heaven, Great Devourer; I invoke you: Hand of Infinite Creation, I invoke you; Celestial Embrace, Minor Occlusion, I invoke you!” With each further invocation, with each handseal, the qi of the world violently twisted around them. “Four Divine Beasts, Four Color Stone, Pillars of Creation: manifest! Divine occlusion formation: activate!” The otherwise innocuous paper exploded with a blinding light as qi— far more qi than could have possibly been shoved into such a tiny thing— exploded out from it, arcing down to four points on each side of the pile of junk.

At first, they formed shimmering, iridescent pillars, coruscating with the four divine colors— but after only a few seconds they rapidly darkened, bleeding out almost inky until a dome of darkness covered them completely.

For a second, the silence was deafening. Lily and Zhihu just stared at him in stunned awe— something he’d expected from Lily, but that not even Zhihu was pretending to be above slack-jawed incredulity…

Hm, maybe he’d gone a bit overboard. Then again, he wasn’t sure what he’d thought would happen, using a Heavenly Realm ritual that invoked the fundamental forces of the universe in front of them…

Zhihu shook off her awe first, drifting gracefully over to the barrier and feeling the way it rippled back from her presence. It wasn’t a particularly strong barrier; heavenly technique or not, he was still a mortal— but what it lacked in sheer durability it made up for in quality. It was, after all, an occlusion formation— and it wouldn’t be a very good one if a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator was able to see through it.

Frankly, he doubted even Sundering cultivation cultivators would be able to bypass it without breaking it entirely. Unshackling and Immortal Ascension cultivators, probably, what with their inherent abilities to play with spatial techniques and dip into the Chaos Sea, but as far as he was aware, there were none of those in the city.

Finally, after trying for a while to comprehend the barrier in front of her, she turned back to him. “What is this?”

“A technique from the Divine Immortal Heaven-Scouring Affray Sect.”

Zhihu rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t want to tell me, you could have just said so.” Well, it was her loss if she didn’t believe him.

“I was going to tell you how I broke the technique of Sundering-level cultivator, but if you don’t want to listen, then who am I, a mere mortal, to tell you what to do? I won’t begrudge you if you have to leave and deal with very serious cultivator business; the barrier shouldn’t be much of an obstacle… to…” he broke into snickering at the utterly devastated look on Zhihu’s face. It was just far too funny.

“Oh!” Lily’s eyes suddenly widened. “You were the one that hurt Rr’an! I thought that was Qinfu!” Then, a few seconds later— “how?” Clearly, if Zhihu’s look was anything to go off, she was wondering much the same thing. “He was so impossibly powerful. I sensed it. Like a calamity bound in the form of a cat.”

Mingtian shrugged. “I’m sure if Qinfu had what I did, then he’d have been able to win easily too. He activated a powerful life-saving treasure of mine, and paid the price.” Zhihu made an understanding little oh sound, which— given he’d gifted her the Sovereign Immortal Crosses Laughter blade— her conclusion was fairly sensible. Not correct, but sensible. “Now… I suppose this will be a good lesson for you, Lily. I imagine you have questions?”

“When I met Rr’an, he left us in this… I don’t know how to put it. It was like an array, except instead of being a natural confluence of qi, it was formed out of… these enormous floating tangles of qi, conceptually dense things— just two of them, but together it almost felt like I could hear a whole story in their wake.”

“It’s not a common usage of arrays, but I know what you’re talking about.” Even Zhihu wasn’t even pretending not to listen anymore, as he stepped forward onto the pile of debris. “It is far more reminiscent of a technique, all in all— a persistent technique, yes, but still nonetheless a technique. I imagine that both of you know what techniques are?”

Zhihu rolled her eyes. “Of course I do. Who do you take me for, a basic idiot from the army? I’m an inheritor of one of the single greatest libraries of techniques in the world.”

“Not the greatest though.”

“Well, we’re not an Immortal Ascension ranked—” she paused, then scowled at him. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.” Mingtian just smiled softly.

“Aren’t techniques spiritual, though? As in, inherently spirtual?” Lily asked— a question that Mingtian was half sure Zhihu would have also asked, had she not been so busy affecting the sagely understanding of a cultivator far more senior than she actually was. “How could a spiritual technique become an array?”

“The two are not so different, if you know what you’re looking for.”

That, at least, was enough to make Zhihu react. “That doesn’t track. Modern qi theory holds that there’s an inherent separation between the techniques of the spirit and the more material orders—” that was, alchemy, formations… and so on, he knew. It was a funny thing to say so confidently, given how wrong it was.

“Do you really believe that’s true? When the nature of the universe was yet young, and the five elements were still pure, did some divinity descend from their ageless heaven and decide— techniques shall use one type of qi, and formations the other?”

Lily blinked slowly for a long second, turning the thought over in her head. “So… you’re saying that formations and techniques are… similar?”

“Rather, before we begin, let me ask you this. Soon, you’re going to be opening your meridians, in order to advance further on your path… but what do you think meridians are, if not a formation carved into your very spirit? If they were mere channels for qi— first, they would still be a formation, even in the most attenuated sense, but second, they would just be straight lines from the outside world to your dantian. Except, they’re not, are they? They twist and turn according to exacting definitions, with even the slightest mistake liable to cause qi deviation. Why do you think that is?”

“Dunno.” Lily shrugged. “I’d never actually seen real meridians. Other than the stuff in popular media, but I don’t actually trust TV dramas to tell me anything real about cultivation.” Ah, right, that was a good point…

Rather than admit he’d been wrong, Mingtian merely turned to Zhihu, tilting his head lightly. He half thought she wouldn’t respond— what with cultivators and secrets of the profound and sect insular-ness being how it was. Luckily, though, the inky-black, still so slightly coruscating barrier that surrounded them seemed impetus enough for her to at least respond. “They… I can’t tell you what the Bloody Saffron Sect’s cultivation method accomplishes, but I think it’s safe to tell you that just drawing straight lines in would permanently scar your foundations. That’s the sort of method they’d hand out in the army— easy, and keeps the soldiers in check if they can’t actually advance through Foundation Establishment.”

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“So it’s part of… by building one’s meridians according to a very exacting pattern,” Lily slowly began, “they become more than the sum of their parts. They turn your spirit into a formation in and of itself.”

Mingtian shrugged. “Not a formation, not an array, but… close enough. Imagine you had a material to carve a formation in that allowed the formation to be all but infinitely flexible, capable of acting beyond its means even if you make mistakes in its script and even growing around whatever formation you place within it to— naturally— bring it to whole new levels of ability. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

“That would be incredible.” Lily practically drooled at the thought, which— good. He’d be more concerned if she didn’t— any student of formations worth the ink they used would lust after something that impossibly good.

Of course, it was a trick question. He grinned, folding his hands behind his back like any proper hidden master should when delivering enlightenment to their juniors. “The spirit truly is an incredible thing, isn’t it?” For a long second, they just stared at him, not quite comprehending. Then, Zhihu’s eyes widened almost impossibly broad, and she immediately dropped into a meditative pose. Lily just looked stricken.

He resisted the urge to laugh. Unsuccessfully.

A few seconds and a light chuckle later, he beckoned Lily over to his side. “Now… while she does that, let me show you what I put this barrier up for.” Lily all but bounced over, eagerly standing beside him— eyes scanning about as she tried to glimpse something that didn’t even exist yet.

Reaching down, Mingtian pulled aside some of the larger chunks of debris that’d fallen over the formations from last night. It was actually a bit tougher than it looked— some rather large chunks of plywood and sheetrock had fallen down— but after a hesitant second Lily leapt in to help, and that made everything a whole lot easier. He imagined that’d be when most mortals felt envious at the casual ease even a Shedding cultivator displayed moving such heavy loads…

Well, he wasn’t the average mortal, was he? He simply nodded to her when they’d finished, shallow enough to be thankful, not quite deep enough to be reverently respectful. “You see it, don’t you?” It was all but impossible not to. Even if most of the harshest lines had faded, swept aside by the falling debris or water damage or whatever else, the spiritual impression was undeniable. “You must. It is not a particularly subtle thing.”

“Y-yeah,” she breathed out, eyes locked on where the bagua binding formation had once burnt itself into the floor of the library around a Sundering cultivator. “Yeah, I see it. It… it feels like if I so much as breathed on it, it would ensnare the entire world and still hunger for more. Are you sure it’s safe to just… leave it like that?”

Mingtian shrugged. “It’s not dangerous, that’s for sure. It’s going to fade over the next… day or so, depending on how much qi Rr’an used trying to escape it, and then it'll be gone as though it had never existed in the first place.” Barring the residue it left on the aura of the library… but, for as much as Lily’s perception had become quite good for a first step cultivator of her level, she still had quite a ways to go before she was able to truly peer into the history, the aura of things.

Maybe not until she developed her domain, however many millenia in the future that might be.

Still, Lily didn’t dare touch it. Wise, probably. “How… does it work? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

“I doubt you would understand even if I could explain it.” She slumped a little, which… even though it was true— she really needed to progress quite a bit further on the path of formations before she could grasp even the slightest hint of what went into making it— it kind of made him feel bad. Also— as a note to himself, he really did need to make an actual protective treasure. If someone decided to explode the library without showing themselves, then he’d have been in tough luck…

Still, that formation wasn't what he’d brought Lily to see. Rather, it was what still vaguely suffused the air around it, those tangled masses, sloughing away now that they lay, broken corpses of intention invisible and intangible unless you knew where to—

“Look,” he bid her, imploring. “Really look. Not at the formation, though I know it’s a bit of an eyesore—” understatement; to someone without the ability to discern what they did and didn’t see, it was probably a blinding light to her nascent spiritual sense— “but at what lies beyond it. The story behind it.”

“I see it,” she mumbled. “A lord visited the guard atop the keep, and surveyed all the lands that belonged to them. ‘The forests are rich and deep, and the fields are fertile. What more is there for us to want?’ Asked the guard, and the lord Responded ‘the inborn nature of both is by separation, corrupted. Were each man to plant a mulberry tree by the waters, then heaven and earth would once more come into alignment.’ Then she gasped, stumbling back. “What is…”

“The fire?”

“It’s everywhere. It’s everything. They… their whole world is aflame.”

“Bursting, forth, from underground the earthly destruction, and from above the heavenly tribulation, searing their land with utter dominion, destruction beyond human understanding. Fire that leaps from tree to tree and spreads through the fields with ravenous eagerness, and destroys everything in its path.”

“They don’t know what to do. They just stand there, talking about planting mulberry trees while the whole world burns down around them.”

“It is an out of context problem to the technique.” He smiled, tilting his head up just a little. “It is a powerful technique that Rr’an devised; in using those supremely ancient stories, he transforms what might otherwise be a simple working into a persistent effect, and twisting of the qi of the world to its own pattern that could— in theory— perpetuate itself for days, or years, only to collapse back into normality the moment it’s finished. Not even damaging the space around it, even.”

“The library doesn’t look undamaged…”

“Because the technique was broken. By understanding how it worked, and understanding what made it work… all I had to do was take a simple fire rune— not even a three-dimensional mapping, just the most basic form— and insert it between the two halves of his technique.”

“And it just… fell apart, like that?”

“Not as such. It’s the technique of a cultivator who follows the path of the jungle, the verdant growing, the living of wood. You know the elements; it should come as no surprise that a technique so heavily rooted in the wooden could not survive the flame.”

“I… see. And yet it remains.”

“Only until it finishes burning. Then… well, it would be better if we’re not here by then.”

“It’s going to explode?”

“No, but what do you think happens when a conceptual wildfire burns through its entire conceptual forest? What else is there to burn but the real?”

Lily blanched. “Is there no way to save the library?”

“Well, if you could figure out how to make a formation that would prevent the inferno from erupting out with all the force of a broken Sundering level technique, then I’m sure the library would survive relatively unharmed.”

Lily gave him an exasperated look. “How am I possibly supposed to do that?”

To which, he just shrugged. “You’re the cultivator. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Lily glowered, but— notably— pulled out her notebook and started sketching out ideas. They were woefully inadequate for the level of technique she was dealing with, but, still… kinda cute. Like when a kid saw cultivators fighting in the heavens above their planet and decided that their favorite stick was a heaven-defying treasure too.

He didn’t interfere. It would be a learning opportunity, really… though, while she worked on that, he did surreptitiously make a flame-binding talisman in his spatial ring. Just in case she accidentally triggered the collapse earlier.

Gently, he padded over to where Zhihu still sat, working on her cultivation. That she’s found some inspiration from his short lecture was… not entirely surprising. He’d done similar things before— not for mere mortals, of course, but for peak-divines and the most preeminent figures of the various heavenly realms, and that sort of enlightenment hadn’t been entirely uncommon. Still, he hadn’t been trying to make her understand.

He tilted his head, tapping a finger to his chin, trying to comprehend— beyond the basic, at least. To comprehend comprehension… not an entirely easy task, even for someone such as him. Without the overwhelming cultivation advantage he usually had when it came to these sorts of things…

He huffed softly, smiling. It was a fun challenge.

A long moment passed, as the barrier around them shivered and shimmered, and the qi of their little slice of the world settled. Faint ripples occasionally came from where Lily worked on whatever formation ideas she had, but other than that… it was almost peaceful.

Not quite the same jubilant echo as the city outside, but… comfortable, the companionship of it…

Then— he sensed it at the moment of its inception; at first, minor, a faint ripple in the essence of the world from Zhihu. Slowly, building, with each passing second refining itself and spreading outwards— the furious force of a moment passing beneath the edge of some heavy and bloody blade…

He paused, quirking an eyebrow towards Zhihu, before rummaging around in his storage ring for an appropriate gift. After all, it wasn’t every day that a friend ascended an entire major realm.

It wasn’t like he was at a loss for options— there were plenty of powerful artefacts and… well, to say it as it was, junk he’d shoved in his storage ring. As he’d taken some of the stuff out, whether as decoration or as components or whatever else, he’d been steadily replacing it with even more worthless junk…

In retrospect, perhaps it would be for the best that nobody would ever see the inside of his storage ring. The amount of random stuff he had in there was just a little embarrassing.

After a moment of indecision, he pulled out a fragment of ossified bone that he’d found… somewhere. If he bothered to think back on it, he’d probably find it was one of the many materials he’d gotten for Lily to practice with… or maybe one of the ones he’d made for his class… or…

The provenance wasn’t important. What was important was that, as a piece of bone, it would make a good base for a yin-affiliated material. And a material heavy in the yin qi of blood would be perfect for an ascension.

He kept faint hint of his attention on Zhihu as he folded it over in his hands, feeling its every curve and void, arched truss, small connection, filament, foam ossification. The memory of the monster it’d come from…

Then, he took its qi and twisted it. It was a simple refinement, all things considering, with how conceptually close the material already was to what he wanted it to be. To twist, to break, to change… that was the nature of things, but to refine? There was an art to that, no lesser than the art of formations. To bring forth from the inborn nature of a material something beautiful; to cleave the clear from jade and the crystal from ice… or to, at the very highest of achievements, change its nature entirely.

Well, highest of achievements for a normal cultivator. He wasn’t content to merely do what most divines did— a mere altering of nature was insufficient. Not for a friend, at least…

By his authority, by his will, by the blood of an Immortal Sovereign, supreme over all beneath the heavens—

He bid the ossification, change— and broke blood from a dry stone.

It collected at first in the shadowed voids, just enough that the bone felt a slight bit heavier. It wasn’t particularly noticeable at first… but he was not a hidden master for nothing! That, and he could see it transform the qi within it…

He tilted it in his hand, and watched it bleed. Scarlet liquid spilled out from within it, trailing down his hand and splattering on the cold stone below. It was not a qi-dense treasure, by any means, but… he tweaked it a few more times, just enough to make sure that the blood pouring out of it was just right, then wrapped it in a bit of cloth. A treasure that could purify yin qi like it would probably be helpful.

“Zhihu.” No response. Well, he’d expected as much, given what she was doing. “Zhihu…” lower, whispered, as he knelt down in front of her, gently taking his hands in her own— holding his poise just so as to not disrupt her cultivation. Giving her deviation at this point… that would be unfortunate. “I have something for you. Perhaps it would help.” Her qi twitched within her, proving that she was listening. “Run your qi through it. Take it. Make it yours, and refine it in your spirit.”

For a second, he thought that she wouldn’t— too far gone in her own cultivation to focus on anything outside her spirit— but luckily the Bloody Saffron Sect had trained her a little better than that. With a sudden exertion of will, the qi within her burst forth and enveloped the spiritual treasure, shimmering off her body in waves of bloody red. It was an ultimately simple technique— merely a diversion in the continuous cycle of qi through an external object— but it was enough. Each revolution, her qi felt more and more… steady. Grounded in its element, intangibly so… greater, in the same way that vermillion was greater than crimson.

Slowly, the bloodied treasure disappeared, subsumed by her qi. It dissolved into so many flecks of crimson light, skittering across her skin for a fraction of a second before they were subsumed into the major meridians in her palms. His domain traced their progress as they settled in her spirit, refining her qi just a little further and— perhaps more importantly in the moment— empowering her as she carved the final set of her foundation.

With a final reverberation of qi, and a thrum of things coming into alignment, Zhihu gasped awake. “It is finished.” Her spirit settled, but not… entirely. Or rather, it did settle, but in a different depth than before— her spirit was as solid as ever, reinforced beyond its ostensible rank by the foundation she’d carved into it, but now there lay in the center of it a small star of power. A tiny, quiet orb, containing within its bound such vast power—

A core.

He dipped his head to her. “Congratulations on advancing to Core Formation. It’s an impressive achievement.”

Then— surprisingly— Zhihu bowed to him. “It was your words that allowed me to understand what I was missing. I…” she breathed in, a grin spreading across her face until it was positively blinding. “I’ve been working on advancing to Core Formation for so long now that I’d half begun to think that I’d never make it…”

“Advancing is, ultimately, a personal endeavor. No matter how many resources you have, no matter what realm your teacher is in… the journey of cultivation is one you walk on your own.”

Zhihu was quiet for a long second, before she just nodded her head. “I see…”

“Oh.” Mingtian glanced over at Lily, who was busy staring at the recently ascended… outer disciple? Outer disciple by technicality only, as Mingtian was pretty sure that she was still young enough to be promoted to inner disciple as a matter of course. “I understand.”

Mingtian cocked his head, curious. “What?”

“What you were trying to tell me! With Rr’an’s technique— I— one second! I’m sure that I can do it.” What he’d been trying to tell her? Other than showing her what she might be able to accomplish in the future and giving her an impossible task to solve…

Well, what man could say all that existed under the heavens. Perhaps she really had figured something out. She was a smart girl— it wasn’t impossible. Her failure would probably be funny, to… he followed after her, and after a second— shaky with her recent ascension, though she hid it well— Zhihu followed too.

A smile tugged at the edge of his lips as he watched Lily clamber around the pile of debris, hastily brushing talismans into her book and stuffing them at rather well-chosen points about his barrier. It took him a long second to figure out what she was doing— a long second, which was incredibly impressive given the true breadth of his experience. It was one of those techniques that was so entirely specific and useless to most cultivators that it barely even existed in higher realms, much less saw much use. As it was, it was only particularly useful to weak mortals with perceptions above their realm…

So, a perfect technique for her at the moment. Clever, indeed.

Lily tossed the last talisman onto the ground, then slipped her notebook— what remained of it after she used up essentially all of its pages, at least— panting softly as she stood in the center of it all. “Alright. If I remember correctly…” carefully, she folded her hands into a seal— then paused, staring down at her hands for a long moment. “No, I don’t think… I think…”

Mingtian slipped up quietly behind her, carefully repositioning her fingers just a little. It was a difference of the merest of margins— but seals depended on the merest of margins, and she was trying to copy one of the more complicated ones as well.

Lily closed her eyes, letting out the slightest of breaths before opening them once again. “Thank you, Master Mingtian.” Mingtian opened his mouth to deny the accusation, then closed it, merely stepping back instead. “From within the heart-mind of the soul, outpouring in order with heaven— Sixty four hexagrams, spirit severing formation: activate!” She grunted, dropping to a knee as something ripped from her— the merest, tiniest portion of her spirit, and yet— for a moment, enough that she was in two places. Like a clone technique, if the clone technique were designed by an idiot whose stated goal was to cause spiritual damage to the user.

Her qi boiled from her spirit, the entire formation connected— just for a moment— bound a thousand interconnected characters and suborned to her will. A sharp, a breath, a cusp overturned and outspilling—

The world inverted in front of her as the unreal was made real— and then there was fire.

It burst forth from the blazing technique, exploding outwards before falling back in on itself, caught by whatever advanced elemental transformation Lily had enforced upon it— curling in on itself and consuming itself until there was nothing left but a few shimmering coals and a faint waver of heat. And the burnt, destroyed wreckage of what Mingtian assumed was some very expensive police equipment.

Zhihu stepped forward, waving her hand through the space where the conflagration had— breifly— erupted from. “Huh. To think that there would have been such a threat just… sitting there, entirely invisible if you didn’t know what to look for.” She glanced at Lily, who’d decided that standing was for the weak and had crumpled onto the floor, gasping for breath after the sheer amount of spiritual strain she’d just put herself through. “An impressive feat for a cultivator of your rank…” she dug around in a bag for a second, then tossed something to Lily— who failed to catch it, despite the relatively lazy throw.

He could’ve probably caught it— and that was the mortal him, not the Immortal Sovereign’s domain empowered him. It really went to show just how the formation had taken out of Lily… as he’d only expected, seeing what she was doing, but still— it was one thing to expect, and another thing to see her there, laid out on the ground. Not quite injured, beyond what she’d done to herself… but a self-inflicted injury was still an injury, even if that sort of thing was common when it came to cultivation…

The item Zhihu had tossed her clinked off a shorn-apart, half-melted metal pipe and tumbled down a few chunks of plaster to land a few feet away from where Lily was laying. For a while, she just stared at it in a sort of tired, kind of bewildered confusion, not entirely recognizing it… but, then, her eyes widened. “A spirit stone?” Breathily, almost, she reached out and picked it up, turning it over in her hands as she appreciated the filigree carvings and gentle sealwork that wrapped around it, their soft, golden glow almost entirely obscuring the crimson light that radiated from deep within.

“Not quite.” Zhihu folded her arms behind her back, cutting a rather intimidating image— especially with her new core, and the pressure of her presence that she’d not quite yet figured out how to totally repress. “Spirit stones are a useful currency— general, universal, and other than a few minutes of provenance and quality, perfect for most applications. However, there are some things that cannot be bought with spirit stones.”

“It feels like a spirit stone, though…” Lily paused, blinking dumbly for a second. “Is this a greater spirit stone? I… you’d truly give that sort of thing to me? I thought those were beyond rare.”

“No, it’s— technically— made up of the same type of spirit stone that everyone gets from the spirit veins— forget I said that, actually. It’s just normal spirit stone… just like a coin is a normal piece of metal.” Not quite true, but Mingtian wasn’t in the mood to be pedantic and destroy the metaphor with a well-timed commentary on the resonance of a properly designed currency with the qi of the realm. “It’s the physical token for contribution points.”

“…contribution points? Like what I got from the University of East Saffron?”

“Similar, but for that the contribution points given to you by the University of East Saffron are, by their very nature, not as valuable. They’re more like… practice points, than anything real. They introduce you to the concept and give you the chance to get used to managing them, if you’re outstanding enough to earn any. This is my personal wallet, and the contribution points in it are Bloody Saffron Sect contribution points.”

“I… I can’t take this.” Lily hastily shoved it back at her. “Please accept this humble cultivator’s sincerest apologies, but this gift is beyond my means. I don’t dare to accept.” Mingtian nodded slowly. Wise, to avoid entangling herself in such burdensome matters… though misguided, given that there weren’t any issues of karma or fate or whatever other esoteric powers meddling with the matter. In this case, the gift really was just a gift.

Zhihu snorted. “The twelve whole contribution points on it. I’ve already paid for my cultivation cave this month, and I bought some materials that I thought might have been of use in… well, you know. The matter is, it’s a paltry amount to me, and I’m going to be rich now that I can start taking Core Formation jobs. That isn’t even to mention the increased dispensation I’ll get as an inner disciple…” she was practically drooling.

Perhaps seeing that there was no point arguing over a good thing, Lily gratefully clutched the token tight to herself for a few long seconds before slipping it into her pocket and bowing low to the newly-minted Core Formation cultivator. “This humble junior thanks senior martial sister! I’ll never forget your magnanimity!”

“Yes, yes, of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be off— I need to report to the Inner Elder responsible for promotions posthaste—”

Mingtian raised an eyebrow, shifting the qi of the barrier to reinforce it as she approached the blackened film. It wasn’t enough to stop her from leaving— she was a Core Formation cultivator after all— but it certainly got her attention. “You will be back for dinner.” Not even the most idiot cultivator… well, no, one should never underestimate the idiocy of cultivators. Most cultivators couldn’t have possibly mistaken it as anything less than a demand, even if a mortal giving a demand to a cultivator four whole steps above them was patently absurd.

Still, Zhihu didn’t smite him for his impertinence, merely… still, for a moment, before she just nodded. “Of course.” Then she strode through the barrier, the entire construction shattering into so many black shards and, dissolving— she stepped through the door and onto her sword, and blasted up into the sky.

A faint wind trailed in her wake, setting his clothes aflutter and rustling the library debris…

He smiled. It was a good day.

Behind him… well, he had the impression that the same wasn’t true for the chief investigator.