The Heavens Shall Fall

After Elder Thane had left, Siu brought the books back to their place, sank the notebook, brushes, and copied notes into the satchel, and checked the table twice to make sure nothing had been left behind. Or something that Pellan could complain about. Only after he was certain everything was in order did he leave while Arya hopped onto his head, and Marly climbed up his shoulder, neither of them hidden inside his bag anymore.

Reaching the platforms, one of them just got back down from above as a servant stepped off it, carrying a box of notes, barely able to see over its edge. Not wanting to wait for anyone else to come towards him, Siu stepped onto it, and the bronze railings slid shut on their own. When it closed, a calm, feminine voice sounded from the glass around him.

“State your destination.”

"Khm," Siu cleared his throat, speaking as clearly as he could, “Fourth floor, Cultivation Archives.”

“Access confirmed.”

It said, then lifted through the shaft with a smooth transition, so much so that he couldn't feel the movement at all. Through the patterned glass, he watched as the first floor dropped away beneath him, and after disappearing into the ceiling, the second and third floors passed by relatively quickly, making him only see that both of them looked pretty much the same as the first one. When it emerged onto his destination, it came to a quick, soft halt, the voice speaking again.

“Fourth floor. Cultivation Archives.”

Stepping out from the elevator, once again, rows of shelves welcomed him, and, being much later than they initially got here, more than a hundred disciples were going about their businesses, browsing between the shelves, murmuring to themselves. He was already thinking about how to find Quillian when he suddenly heard his voice echoing nearby, defeating the muffling spell itself.

“Not there! The blue-marked books go to the water-based techniques! It is there because none of you idiots can read the codes! Weather-related spells are more complex, and if the code has a 'WM' in it, do check whether it refers to water, air, illusion, or actual weather before you shove it somewhere! Use your eyes! They are not decorative!”

True enough, Quillian was there when Siu glanced between two shelves, leaning on his cane while scolding a disciple, while half a dozen servants were moving books around him. As he shooed the unlucky girl away, he was already turning around, not finished with his instructions.

“Halven!” he snapped at one of the servants, “Go check the water-based row. We can't trust this idiot...”

“Yes, Senior!”

“Nera, count the copper-bound set again. There should be thirty-two volumes, not thirty-one.”

“I counted thirty-one, Senior.”

“Then?” he looked at her over his glasses. "Why are you here? Find the missing one!"

“Yes, Senior!”

"Master..." Arya’s ears tilted forward. “Despite yelling so much, he does sound happy, doesn't he?"

“He sounds angry to me,” Marly whispered, hugging Siu's neck a bit stronger now.

“Well, maybe it's the same thing for him.” Arya chuckled as Quillian's eyes looked towards the trio.

"Hm?"

"I'm done with the task," Siu straightened, walking closer to him, “Senior.”

"Come, put them there.” He led him away, pointing at a desk, and then, instead of checking it out, he pointed with his cane toward a rolling cart stacked with books, so much so that it was starting to lean to the left. “Take that cart and return the books to their proper shelves. The shelf marks are on the inside of the front cover.”

"Um," Siu opened his mouth, but in the end, only two words came out of it, “Yes, Senior.”

Finding it better to just go, he rolled it away, and when Quillian disappeared from sight, he opened the first thick book at the top of the pile, bound in already faded, old leather. Looking into it, he found the stamped code at once: FIR-COM-2-18. Not panicking because it meant nothing to him, his first instinct was to check the index next to the row he was at. After a few moments of confusion, it became clear that the first letter stood for fire, so he carried it to the fire-affinity row. After deducing the remaining meaning of the codes to find the book's original place, he also took his time flipping through it to see what it was really about.

"Treating all fire-born manifestations as 'burning' remains the most common error. There is a difference in your fire-based affinity: Do you find it easier to produce flames or to raise the room temperature? You may think the two of them are the same, but they are not. If you can do the latter only by summoning fire, you are unlike those fire-affinity users, who can increase the temperature without visible flames. Both of you wield the same gift, yet use it in completely different ways. That is why understanding yourself first is the most important. It must be done before you start looking for spells to defeat your peers with."

Siu paused as he read it, almost flipping the page to continue, but then, he remembered he was still here to work and not to study. Memorizing the book's code, he put it back in place and grabbed another one.

"WIR-CDO-8-11."

Clearly, it was a water-based one, and he opened it to take a better look.

"Water cultivators with high environmental sensitivity frequently appear stronger in prepared terrain. Rivers, rain, and mist are all your friends. However, if you can't access anything nearby, just bring your own water; condensation on a bottle's surface is an option even in the most dire circumstances."

As he kept putting them back, every tome that came across his fingers, he took a look at each, reading the authors' tips for future cultivators or snippets of their experiences in situations that were sometimes very deadly. By the time the last book returned to its shelf, Siu’s arms hurt like he had just trained with Elder Thane, followed by his head throbbing from all the reading he had done. When he pushed the empty cart back, Quillian was nowhere in sight. He was about to go look for him when, once again, as if sensing he was needed, the old man appeared from one of the shelves.

“Done?”

“Everything is in its perfect place, Senior.”

“Are they?”

“I believe so.”

"I'll take your word for it!" Quillian sighed, then finally smiled, “Come on, boy, it is time for lunch.”

He led them away from the main rows, then through a narrow passage between two tall cabinets, where at the end stood a plain wooden door with only one sign: Keep Out. Throwing the door open, inside was a small, private room with one narrow window looking out onto the mountain face, though the glass was so thick and enchanted that the view appeared hazy. A desk stood against one wall, two shelves with more books, most of them looking surprisingly new, and when Siu scanned their spines, he realized they were mortal fable stories, nothing to do with cultivation. A low table sat in the center, with cushions around it, and beside it was a kettle, already faintly steaming, on top of a glowing plate.

“This is yours?” Siu asked, closing the door behind him.

“Yep. I need my relaxing space when someone boils my blood. So, come, come, sit. This is a privilege, so don't you dare take it lightly!”

"I wouldn't!" Siu chuckled while Arya and Marly hopped off him, taking their place at the table, both of them glaring at the old man. Well, more like, watching the bundle in his hands.

It wasn't anything much, just bread, a lot of cheese, pickled vegetables, and some dried meat, along with only two boiled eggs, which he quickly held in his hand, showing that they were for him and him only.

"Don't you dare steal my favorite ones, you hear?" He snorted, looking at Arya and Marly, "Here, these are more for you."

Then he pushed a small jar of honey, a bunch of roasted nuts, and dried fruit towards Marly, and pulled out a wrapped cooked meat, placing it before Arya. Of course, without holding back, Marly had already started eating. At the same time, Arya eyed Quillian for another moment, then lowered her head and took a bite, her tail happily wagging behind her. The food was simple, yet it felt better than it had any right to, for not only Siu but Marly and Arya, too. After everything was gone, Quillian poured tea into two cups, pushed one to Siu, then took his own and leaned back with a sigh.

“What?” Quillian asked, noticing that Siu was thinking about something, his eyes moving back and forth between him and the tea.

“Senior Quillian,” he said at last, coming to a decision. “There is something I should tell you.”

“Go on.” He muttered, squinting at him now, expecting something related to the books, but what Siu said next surprised him.

"Well..." Siu looked down into the tea. “It is about my affinity.”

Siu spoke carefully as he explained what he could and made sure he didn't just dump everything on him. He described how his affinity first came to be, how nobody knew what it was, including the visiting Obsidian Moon cultivator, Grand Elder Yan, and the Sect Master himself. How it acts when he battles, and then he told him what Elder Thane had said and what his conclusions were. As he was speaking, Quillian did not interrupt once; instead, he just remained still, forgetting to even blink. When it was evident he was done talking, the old man stood up faster than any young cultivator could, hurried to his desk, grabbed a blank notebook and a quill, then returned so quickly that his cane nearly slipped.

“Oh, my boy!” Quillian said, his eyes actually glowing, his cultivation leaking out, making the room feel stuffy all of a sudden, “Oh, boy!”

“Senior?”

“It... This... This is magnificent!” Quillian gasped as he slapped the blank notebook onto the table. “You ridiculous, dangerous, inconvenient little disaster!”

"Excuse me?" Siu blinked, twitching his lips.

“No. Yes. Yes. Damn it. Shut up! Let me think!” Quillian waved his hands as he opened the notebook and began writing at once. Unable to hold back his curiosity, Siu leaned forward to see, along with Arya and Marly, only for them to read:

Subject: Siu.

Then he scribbled it out and wrote 'Unknown.'

Affinity: Unconfirmed sympathetic adaptive resonance?

He paused again, biting on his quill.

“Terrible name,” he muttered, then crossed out half of it.

Working Term: Adaptive Pattern Resonance.

“Still ugly.”

"Um," Siu watched him write, feeling that the old man had finally gone crazy for real, “Senior...”

“Do you understand what this means?” Quillian asked, not looking up.

“That I have difficulty with cultivation.”

“Yes, that too." He rolled his eyes, "I meant that you have something new! Something new that may never have been documented? Hahahaha! I will document it! Do you know the last time something like this happened? When a never-before-seen affinity appeared? It was... At least nine... no, ten thousand years ago! Or more. It was the first Void-based affinity, I think... Hahahahaha! What a great moment we live in! This is superb!"

“That does not comfort me.”

“Who cares?" Quillian snorted, already back to the notebook, "Let's see... The pros: Exposure-based growth. You can skip a lot of the meditative linkings if you can adapt by copying. Then... there is potential compatibility with multiple styles. Do you know how rare it is to find people with dual affinities? Not to mention, those with three! I can't recall anyone with four. Can you copy multiple?"

"I... I don't think so...? I don't know." Siu stuttered, getting overwhelmed by Quillian's zeal.

"Well, we will have to get to the bottom of it then, boy! You can learn through proximity... Hm, no wonder you are good with contracted beasts. Now, let's see the apparent cons. Backlash. Mhm, yes, you will need to be careful of those. And your dependence on watching others. If you copy without understanding what you imitate, there's a significant risk of harming your own body. Sooo... Yes, naturally, you need a proper foundation. We will start with common affinities first, yes, Elder Thane is right.”

“That is a lot of studying,” Siu said, trying to interject somewhere, before Quillian's mind would carry them way far ahead.

“What else would it be?!” He looked at him with raised brows, "And you are already behind, boy. Working and going on stupid missions instead of studying? What were you thinking?!"

"I need resources to cultivate, Senior." He answered with a deadpan look.

"No, you don't," He snorted, "I mean, you do, but you don't need to work for it. I will finance you, you just let me accompany you and document everything! Trust me, I will help you streamline this unique body of yours, ahahaha!"

"I..." Siu hissed, not expecting something like that, but refusing... was not an option, and Quillian didn't give him the chance to even consider it.

“I am furious that you told me this only now. Oh well, I can also understand it, so I'm not going to hold it up against you! Good thing you decided to finally tell me. Boy, this is my bread and butter! I have spent half my life sorting out the difference between what cultivators think their affinity does and what it actually does...” He added, his eyes growing distant at the end, clearly talking about his own past.

"T-thank you... Senior." Siu finally said, knowing he had only one choice, that he would accept his help.

"No." He shook his head, looking seriously at him, "I need to say that, not you. Thank you for telling me. I may have failed to step into the Second Circle, but this... this will be my legacy. I will make sure you reach that stage, boy, and I will be writing your history in the meantime."

"..." Siu was now actually blushing, yet before he could realize that, Quillian had stood up.

"Let's start with Chapter 1: Quillian versus Siu!"

"Huh?" He asked as Marly and Arya made a similar noise at the same moment.

"I want to see it in action," the old man grinned at him, standing and leaning on his cane, "Come on... We are done here today. We are going to fight!"