Within the sky well, the sun had finally appeared.

Shibara took her papers and went to where Ruidie and Israk waited for her.

While watching the second stage, Ruidie recognized Yonten playing a piece on a four-stringed lute. She didn’t see any of the two nuns, so they must not have gotten this far.

"Have we chosen which art to partake in? Let’s all say it," Shibara said.

"Chess."

"Chess."

"Chess," they all said.

Shibara turned to Ruidie. "It is the only one of the four we know. I convinced Israk to learn by empathizing how it mimics strategy in war."

Ruidie snickered. "I can imagine that!"

Israk snorted. "You?"

Ruidie thought about how to best answer. "Chess is the only one of the four I don’t know. I have met everyone in my town. Among them, some practiced calligraphy, painting, or zither. I had them teach me."

Israk raised a brow to indicate his question.

"After I met their level or became better than them, I stopped improving. I never got any better. I’m at the proficiency of townsfolk playing for a hobby. My zither playing isn’t even half as good as that." Ruidie gestured to Yonten.

"Still, chess, which you’ve never practiced?" Shibara said.

The three watched the examinees who were sitting in front of chess boards, playing against students who simultaneously recorded the games. The examinees placed black stones down, while the students placed white stones down, on the crisscrossed grid. When pieces were surrounded, they were captured. When the game ended, the open territory surrounded by each color was counted for points.

Ruidie tilted her head. Her brow knitted. "Isn’t this type of chess just like any other game with clearly defined rules and a defined way to win? Writing, painting, and performing is subjective and requires practice so that your body memorizes the controlled movements that are considered good. Chess doesn’t need any of that, it seems very straight forward."

"People play to practice making the correct judgments on which move to play according to which strategy. The more they play, the fewer mistakes they make."

Ruidie mouth creased. "Why would people not just make the correct move? Are people just guessing where to place down a stone?"

Shibara smiled at the inexperienced chess player. She walked up to one of the games that just ended. "I’ll play first. Watch my game and play next."

Israk and Ruidie both nodded.

Shibara sat down in front of the student. "Just a nine by nine board?"

"A nineteen by nineteen game would take the whole day to play," the student said. "Play the moves quickly. I’ll warn you if your turn takes more than three full breaths of time."

Shibara picked up a black piece and placed the first move.

…

Ruidie placed down the first piece. Going first was a substantial advantage. Her stone fell on the very center of the board. Shibara had already confirmed what the rules were to Ruidie.

The student gave her a quizzical look because of her move, but he remained silent as they continued.

Shibara’s game played out with the two players placing stones near their own side. The game ended when a border formed, and after counting the spaces on each side, Shibara won by three points.

When Israk was playing, Israk began as Shibara did, however, midgame, after a few captures by the student, Israks line collapsed and he lost the game by ten points.

Ruidie placed down another stone. She did not take more than a moment to think,  even shorter than the student.

After ten moves, it became clear. She was losing.

Unlike Shibara and Israk, she played all around the small board and forced the student to do so as well. However, the student’s stones were in better positions, allowing them to suppress several areas of the board. She was losing by at least ten points.

"Any chess player would recognize these opening moves as the Standard Lily Pond," the student said with pulled lips. It was obvious from Ruidie’s unconventional moves that she was a complete beginner.

Ruidie glanced over to Shibara.

"Never heard of any lily ponds," Shibara answered.

The student reddened, but Ruidie didn’t notice as she stared closer at the pieces.

It was possible to achieve any goal, the only thing stopping someone was knowing how. Someone who can discover the ‘how’ was someone who can achieve anything.

For a game, the goal was to win, and by gauging the possible paths, one led to victory. In the world, various facts are well hidden and unexpected to everyone, but in the game, the board was the entire world. There were no hidden factors to take advantage of. A simple game with a limited number of moves wasn’t easier but in fact harder to control. Tricks were too obvious. If you wanted to manipulate the world, you needed to calculate everything.

"Take your move," the student said with a raised smile.

Ruidie picked up a stone and placed it.

…

"Lost by one point," Shibara said.

Ruidie sighed. "I hate it when I lose," she pouted.

The student’s face was listless, his brush barely finished the game record. She was behind by twelve points. How did this happen? It was the sudden consecutive exchange of prisoners. Consecutive. How is that even possible?

Ruidie snatched the record sheet from the student’s hands and joined the Ashina Siblings to the final stage.

A small line was formed before the area in front of the table. On the side, spectators watched before they decided to join the line.

The sun was now centered in the sky. The trio chose to join the line.

A tall and thin figured boy stepped in front of the table, placed down his essay and painting, and bowed.

The aged man, likely the vice-principal, sitting in the middle of the five judges, glanced at the materials before passing them to the others. The cold woman sitting on his left slightly smiled when she saw the materials.

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"Pass. State your name," the man sitting on the right of the vice-principal said.

"It’s Xiang Gen," the youth said respectfully.

Vice-Principal Kang wrote his name on a scroll in front of him. "Xiang Gen, you are now a student of the Stargazing Institute. Proceed to the left."

There were some reactions among the spectators. "He passes without an interview. What could he have written?"

The next examinee, a well-built youth, placed his essay and calligraphy piece on the table.

"We have no questions. Do you have anything to show?" the woman sitting left of the vice-principal said.

The youth took a crouching stance and began a routine of boxing forms.

They were strong but rigid at the same time.

"Stop," the man said. "Exit to the right."

The youth hung his head down, making it impossible to see his expression, as he dragged his feet across the pavilion. There were no comments.

Ruidie paid attention to the five judges and noticed something. "The three in the middle wear dark blue robes, but the man and woman sitting on the two ends are wearing pale-green and grey respectively."

"They are senior instructors from Thousand Thought and Grand Heart," a spectating girl whispered back.

"Are you going to present soon?" Ruidie asked after seeing the essay and game record in her hands.

"Once I watch some more."

It was her choice, Ruidie thought. But, Ruidie believed it was the wrong one.

The next examinee that went before Israk was surprisingly short. The boy wore a white tunic, had short hair, and was as young as Ruidie. His nervous emotions were written on his face. He stepped in front of the table but didn’t place anything down.

Vice-Principal Kang raised a brow. "Where are your materials, Child? You didn’t perform a song either."

The high pitched voice of the boy nervously resounded. "Esteemed Seniors. I have looked through all the questions and don’t know the answer to any of them, so I didn’t write an essay. I was never taught any art, so I didn’t practice one either."

Everyone stared at the young boy in amazement. Amid this, some discernible ears heard a distant meow of a cat.

Ruidie raised her head in confusion.

Vice-Principal Kang narrowed his eyes. "Boy, open your palm for me to see."

As the boy did so, Ruidie and some others also caught sight of his palm as he prepared to raise it. A single spot.

"What is your name?" Vice-Principal Kang asked.

"Chen Xiaosi."

Vice-Principal Kang glanced at both nodding senior instructors by his side. "Chen Xiaosi, you are officially a student of the Stargazing Institute. Proceed left."

A great wide smile replaced the boy’s bitten lips. He truly couldn’t hide anything from his face.

The spectators flooded with murmuring reactions and Ruidie joined them. "So everything is up to what the judges decide after all."

"I have hope," Israk whispered. A smile tugged his face.

Shibara rolled her eyes.

Israk walked forward in his straightest form and placed down his materials confidently.

"This game is abysmal," the woman commented tonelessly.

The man raised the essay with a knit brow. "Are you saying it was the Queen Mother of the West who wrote the Thousand Character Classic?"

"Of course not," Israk stammered. "But look at my words, aren’t they tidy and neat?"

Ruidie smiled while Shibara tried to stop her hand from collapsing on her face. Many spectators laughed and some quietly ridiculed the youth.

"Is there anything you would like to show us?" Vice-Principal Kang solemnly said.

Israk’s expression grew stern. He retrieved the curl of wood and sinew from his back. In a single motion of stretching the object with his foot and arms, Israk had strung his horn-shaped bow. He took one of his three personally fletched arrows and drew it. As he turned the bow away from the judges, the spectating examinees who had laughed at him all ducked down with vivid fear.

His back faced the judges, who were all leaning forward. The arrow pointed towards the open entrance of the Azure Pavilion on the other side of the hall. The examinees who were still writing their answers to their questions all had blank faces at first. In another moment, they had all scrambled to fall behind the cover of their desks.

"The flower plum blossom that just fell-" Israk began. Outside the pavilion, below a plum branch, a plum blossom was falling. "-won’t be hit."

The arrow shot. Paper on the desks flew in a circle behind the arrow's gust of air. The silver arrowhead was right before the plum blossom. It then embedded itself deep into the plum tree. The blossom continued falling uninterrupted.

There was silence.

"The blossom wasn’t hit," Vice-Principal Kang said.

"Anyone can pin a falling object into a tree, but few can avoid hitting something in the path of their arrow," Israk said.

Vice-Principal Kang closed his mouth.

Someone who Ruidie had yet to hear speak, the woman donning pale-green on the left-most seat, stood up. "Grand Heart takes him," she proclaimed.

"Senior Fang you-" the man next to her started.

"What is your name? Are you willing to learn at the Grand Heart Institute?"

Israk turned to Shibara. Ruidie saw the level of respect hidden in his gaze.

Shibara waved her hand. "Go ahead. We’ll cover more ground if we’re in different schools."

"I, Ashina Israk, am willing."

People finally recognized the siblings, most likely Ashina Clan direct line descendants.

Senior Instructor Fang smirked. "Go outside the left exit, someone will arrive to retrieve you."

Without waiting for the moment Israk left the hall, Shibara took her place in front of the table and set down her essay and game record. She calmly waited with a small smile.

"Unorthodox. Very unorthodox," the woman on the right said when holding the essay.

"Do you have anything to show us?" Vice-Principal Kang asked.

Shibara stepped back and covered her left eye with her hand. Her right hand brought out a red-tinted silver mirror. She raised the mirror to the edge of the sun’s ray from the sky well, causing a burry patch of light to reflect from the mirror onto the shade of the pavilion.

The patch of light was not a single color, as multiple colors formed a view, similar to a reflection.

At first, the senior instructors did not know what they were looking at until the man gasped. "That’s the Palace!"

He was right. Everyone realized they were seeing the many administrative buildings of the Outer Palace viewed from the sky down.

The reflection then blurred and displayed a tilted view of Taiping.

Ruidie’s gaze was glued on Shibara. She didn’t know how Shibara was doing what she did, but Ruidie speculated one thing. This was the view of Shibara’s hawk, Isitin.

"That is what my hawk is seeing," Shibara confirmed while lowering the mirror.

There were discussions among the judges.

"Clearly, two methods were used in conjunction. One to retrieve vision with an animal. One to share the vision with the physical world," the senior instructor sitting at the rightmost edge, the one from the Thousand Thought Institute, said.

"The mirror is coated by a layer of the girl’s blood. Besides that, It should be similar to the Water Viewing Method," the woman said.

"To retrieve vision is just below sharing senses, and far below sharing thoughts. A lesser form of Two Mind Melding?" the man said.

"I assume these are part of the Ashina’s legacy. No matter what she displayed, it is at least upper state, if not the peak, of the first realm." Vice-Principal Kang spoke to Shibara. "You have already fulfilled the Institutes’ unofficial graduation requirement, why do you wish to study here?"

"I wish to cultivate again from the beginning." Shibara did not say more.

Vice-Principal Kang nodded in understanding. "Then, what is your name?"

"Ashina Shibara."

At this moment, the rightmost senior instructor rose. "Vice-Principal Kang, I believe she would find studying in the Thousand Thought Institute more suitable. For one, we are less orthodox and have a larger selection if she wishes to find a cultivation method that does not conflict with her existing one."

Vice-Principal Kang frowned. Senior Lei was attempting to snatch the examinee just like Senior Fang did with the other Ashina. Although this was one of the reasons they participated in the judging, to invite students that were suitable to their Institute despite not taking their Institute’s exam, it irked him. Nevertheless, it was an arrangement between the three Institutes, and it wasn’t as if Stargazing never snatched students. But this matter concerned a prospective student who did not only show potential but had already proved their potential. "Ashina Shibara, where do you wish to study?" he said.

"May I ask what the most important difference is, Seniors?" Shibara asked.

"Our Stargazing’s foundation is the Imperial Observatory," he replied.

"Our Thousand Thought’s foundation is the Spring and Autumn Archives," Senior Instructor Lei said.

Shibara cupped her hand, imitating the ways of the plains people. "I choose to study in Thousand Thought."

Vice-Principal Kang was regretful.

"Welcome to the Thousand Thought Institute," Senior Instructor Lei said.