For the next three days, Booker walked until his feet were sore and aching, and rested against the growing winter cold beside a fire listening to his friends argue. When the noise began to annoy him more than the sounds of their voices cheered him, he would take out his drawing supplies and begin practicing his talisman-craft.

The process was still slow and frustrating. While he could regularly reach ten or fifteen percent mastery with his practice talismans, higher levels of completion eluded him. His left hand simply couldn’t obey him well enough. Constantly, slips and stumbles would either destroy the talisman outright by slashing a line where none should be, or break his concentration enough that the whole thing crumbled to ash.

He was working twice as hard for half as much result…

And it will only get harder once I access the more advanced talismans.

I’ve been thinking I’d spend the ten hour practice token as soon as I gained my cultivation, to gain a powerful cultivating technique…

But maybe it’s time to rethink that. Or at least modify that.

I need the full use of my hand. I guess I could ask for a technique to regrow my missing thumb, but with enough alchemy or talisman-craft, it should be possible to make a new thumb that responds to my qi.

So advancing my arts achieves that as well…

Do I ask for a talisman technique?

No, I can’t give up on a top-tier cultivation technique. That’s just not a sacrifice I can make right now. But maybe, maybe I can ask for a cultivation technique that will also help me fix my hand, or make better talismans some other way…

Even now, Booker itched to make use of the special bookmark hanging from among the green book’s pages. The last time he’d used one, it sent him precisely where he needed to be and granted him a powerful sensing technique that he had used to improve his alchemy – the book clearly didn’t offer any old second-rate masters when it chose someone to teach him.

No, it chose someone from throughout his reincarnations who had a chance to learn the perfect technique.

And he wanted that feeling of advancement. But if he waited until he could cultivate, then the technique it brought him could make use of that power, and be that much stronger…

So he suffered through the frustration of using his left hand, night after night, for petty improvements.

On the third day they met a hunter along the road, hauling an antelope carcass over his shoulders. He gave them a distrustful look, but identified himself as Lao-Hain, and offered to take them to camp after Fen shelled out three silver liang.

And at long last, they were there.

The Lao-Hain had no walls. Their camp sprawled in hide tents across a clearing in the forest, tanning racks hanging beside campfires, the river flush with nets catching up silver fish. Everyone here seemed to carry a flint knife, using them to gut fish, skin rabbits, shape wooden arrow points, and a thousand other tasks. It seemed even the little children had one.

But as they entered camp, the hunter darted away and soon returned trailing two strange specimens: one was a woman of enormous size and broad shoulders, but she was so filthy it was hard to tell, her hair matted and her furs buzzing with lice. She moved hunched over with her arms swinging, like an animal. The second was an old man who walked with a limp, bracing against a walking stick.

“You three. Two of you are clearly from the Sect’s ranks, one of you wears a mask. None of you are known to us and we have no reason to trust you. Before we throw you out, we’re giving you one chance: explain your purpose here and assure us you will keep the peace.” The man said. He was bald, with only a thin circlet of white hair remaining, his face dominated by a hook nose and a thin smile.

Booker stepped forward, offering the scroll Snow Blossom had given them to deliver. “This comes from the shrine nearby your previous camp, and the Fairy Snow Blossom.”

“Oh, Fairy Snow Blossom, is it?” Xan snickered. Booker shot him a glare…

“It is for Lady Snow Palace, who I believe will vouch for me. It pertains to my identity, and the fewer who know the better.”

“I see. Well, let us see what she says then…” The elder nodded to his companion, who turned and led them through the camps until they arrived at a cluster of blue tents, overseen by a banner split between white and blue with a black rabbit at its center.

He led them towards one of the few wooden structures in the village, a large narrow hall with a shallow ceiling. As he stepped through a curtain, he gestured for them to wait. Booker stood on the deck, shivering faintly. The timber was still so fresh he could smell the sap dripping out as winter’s cold squeezed the wood.

For a long moment they waited, then the bald man stepped back out through the beaded curtain and said simply, “She has invited you inside.”

As they all stepped inside, the wild-woman sat down beside the door and waited like a dog. The man limped over to the firepit and sat himself in a comfortable chair, gesturing to meditation mats around the fire. Another woman already sat in a large, high-backed throne, a piece of furniture so ornate it must have taken years to carve with images: in every aspect of its construction a different story was being told, from a tale of a hunting god finding an imprisoned magical bowl on the right arm, to the massive scene of warfare on a panel between the right-side legs.

This could only have been the Elder Snow Palace. She was dressed in exquisite blue-and-black robes on which flowers, dragons, and holy seals were all depicted. Her hair was pinned up by many beads, and her incredibly long fingernails were covered by golden nail guards.

They all sat. Booker was drinking in the details of how the Lao-Hain lived, but he was paying the most attention to the two elders and how they regarded each other.

And he hadn’t missed the fire’s contents, either. The letter was burning.

Sun Pan glanced to the old woman Booker presumed was Snow Palace, awaiting her to speak, but she shot a look back, gesturing to them with her eyebrows and a ‘get on with it’ glare.

So she’s let him in on it.

He coughed. “So, you are the missing Valley Rain. Several times we petitioned your mother to stay with us instead, but she feared the very situation we are now in – chased further and further into the deep wood by a Sect bent on destroying us to steal away our few remaining treasures.” He sighed, rubbing his nose. “And she was wise for refusing, I suppose. I am Elder Sun Pan, and while the Valley Tribe have never been true-born Lao-Hain, I wish we could have spoken before now. The inheritance of the Cloudforest Tribe is too important to be neglected…”

“I am what the Sect calls a cripple.” Booker replied, removing his mask. “My uncle did not want the weight of the valley placed on shoulders that could not bear it. However… he was wrong. I can and I will take up this burden.”

It was something he’d considered for a long time…

But in the end, if he was going to be anything but a parasite that had stolen away Valley Rain’s body and name, life and friends… He had to live a life Rain would be proud of. He couldn’t simply run away from this, and not feel deep shame following him. Shame that was poison to a cultivator.

Rain had already lost one life and all its opportunities to that poisonous shame.

“You speak bravely, but you are still a cripple, no?” Snow Palace challenged.

Booker shook his head immediately. “I have already secured all but one of the herbs I need to fully purge my meridians. That last medicinal herb is in this camp… two weeks ago I visited in secret, and arranged to buy it for a set price at a later date. I have returned for that reason.”

“Hmm.” Sun Pan didn’t restrain his small smile. “I see. You don’t expect anything for nothing. Very well. Bring out your ingredients, and I’ll have our alchemist work on your pill at the first opportunity.”

“That will not be necessary.” Booker held up a hand. He was struggling not to fidget. “I am an alchemist myself. Since nobody is sure of success, I’d rather my fate be in my own hands.”

“Hmm.” He hummed again, and then waved a hand to the woman guarding the door. “Fetch us one of the small furnaces and Dawn-Colored Lilac from the herbalist.” He glanced back to Booker. “It is Dawn-Colored Lilac you need, yes?”

“I see the elder is acquainted with herbs. Yes.”

“I am the chief of the medicine-pickers among the Lao-Hain, so I’d certainly hope I’m acquainted with root and branch.” The old man said calmly. Booker’s immediate impression of him was good – he had a sense of humor about himself that did not exist in the Sect. “If you can use this small gift to regain your cultivation, you will have a window of time. We are searching even now for a sacred deer to sacrifice for our people’s most important ritual, the opening of a path to the holy ground.”

Snow Palace cut in, rudely commandeering the conversation. “In this holy ground, it is possible to gain the benefit of your ancestor’s strength and wisdom. While your ancestor, Valley Rain, was a Cloudforest Tribe bastard, he failed to defeat the challenges of his family. It was a total surprise that he eventually discovered their techniques by reawakening the original legacy of their founder outside the holy ground…”

Ah, that must mean the amulet.

So Valley Rain was unable to pass the outer trials receive his family’s arts, until he achieved the impossible and awoke the legacy at its source.

Snow Palace continued. “Ever since then, nobody else has achieved the Cloudforest Tribe’s challenges either. That means he was allowed to become Guardian of the Upper Valley, despite only being a bastard, and make agreements with the clans on how to divide up the rest of the Cloudforest legacy. The Cloudforest are now the worst kind of poverty-stricken clowns…”

“Put simply…” Sun Pan gently interrupted. “We presently have no guarantee the remnants of the Cloudforest Tribe will ever produce another worthy heir. While we support the Cloudforest Tribe…”

Snow Palace scoffed.

“We have to accept they may never again reach their previous heights. For this reason we are willing to allow you into the holy ground: there you will have a chance to obtain the blessing of the first Valley Rain, and receive his skill of talisman-crafts through direct transmission.” Sun Pan concluded.

Direct transmission…

The bestowal of skills from one cultivator to the next. They’re offering me a generational opportunity here…

I’ve already received a library of talismans that would be priceless in the hands of someone who could use it fully. If I receive the skill to create them as well, I’ll be able to jump ahead in nearly every aspect. It would be almost as good as finding a second full book – the knowledge and skill I need to excel in talisman-craft.

At this time the wild-woman returned, carrying a beautiful flower and an equally beautiful pill furnace. The lower half was shaped like a stone cauldron and engraved with scowling, bearded faces, standing on three legs. One of the mouths was able to open and close by a metal door, allowing it to be filled with fuel. The upper half was a short, eight-sided tower of brass, with ventilation that could be opened and closed at the top via a twisting knob.

Booker smiled broadly, but Sun Pan held up a hand. “Be warned. These are not gifts. But to receive them, all you need do is pledge that you will attempt to fill the role left vacant by the previous Valley Rain. Do that, and I will let you go and start on your pill-making right away. Looking at you… you can barely sit still for anticipation, isn’t that right?”

Booker snorted out a laugh, and bowed his head, smiling even harder. “Yes! I’ve never felt such a sense of anticipation.”

“Then swear, and get out of here.” Sun Pan returned the smile with one of his own.

Lifting his hand to his heart, Booker purged all levity from his voice and expression, saying aloud… “By my name as Valley Rain, I will do my best to become Guardian of the Upper Valley.”

— — —

The wild-woman led them to an unoccupied tent, and Booker begged a little time alone to make his final preparations. Stepping into the tent, which was lit by a small hole at the top where the wooden supports connected, and smelled of tanned leather…

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Booker sat down and brought out the ingredients. Making sure he wasn’t watched, he filled the furnace with a few scraps to produce the scent of medicine. Then he brought forth a Dialyze from his right hand. He drew the crystal, flowing water-blade across the seven ingredients, rendering them chopped and split and purified in a matter of heartbeats, even the small amounts of dirt clinging to the dry herbs swept away. From there it was a simple matter to continue the preparations, grinding and sieving, separating and sorting. His mastery of alchemy was more than ready for the task.

There was no resistance. There were no more hurdles.

He was grinning ear from ear as he combined the ingredients in his palm, scooping them together.

And thought…

Furnace!

As the fire roared between his fingers, blue and sparkling, he opened his hands… and revealed a black pill swirled with seven different colors, each dark and lustrous like the shell of some exotic beetle.

Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill (Earth)

42% Potency // 19% Toxicity

Effect:

A pill formed from purifying ingredients from across the world. The salvation of cripples and those without innate cultivation, it purges all damage from the meridians, including congenital weakness. One who consumes this pill will be able to cultivate cleanly and without obstacles.

Ingredients:

Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower

Crystalline Silkworm Cocoon

Bleeding Yew Sap

Flesh-Eater Cochineal Pigment

Serpent-Tear Salt

Stonefall Spirit Tree Root

Dawn-Colored Lilac

He lifted the pill to his mouth, tilted it back, and swallowed. A heat spread silently through his chest, expanding out from the center of his being into every vein, every cell. It spread across a network of invisible lines that radiated out through his body, his meridians. As it did, he felt a gentle light begin to enter him. It was like a flower feeling the sun on its face. A warmth that filled and empowered…

He breathed in, and felt that power flare.

The powers of heaven and earth.

It’s that simple.

The book is an incredible advantage.

Even though I went through hell to get here… I had so many advantages, from the book to my friends. I did a lot on my own. Sometimes, I did things poorly, or rushed when I should have held back, or threw myself into danger without thinking a twice…

But just as often, I was helped along.

So… Even if after all this, purging my meridians isn’t enough, and I just have no natural talent as a cultivator. Then…

I’ll still be grateful.

If all I have is the book and my friends… If all I have is myself and my mortal life… Then I’m grateful.

Rain…

He was so hungry for cultivation, he never experienced the joy of all the things he had already. Despite being able to fight incredibly well for a mortal, despite having a heritage and a position in the Sect… He couldn’t enjoy any of those things.

And that’s not because he was evil, or stupid, or a bad person.

No.

It was because the world constantly pressured him. From the moment he was born, he had no choice but to follow his grandfather’s footsteps. His family chose for him. When his grandfather died, that pressure doubled, and when he joined the Sect and his lack of aptitude became clear… it redoubled once more.

In the end…

He was caught in a trap. He was expected to be a genius, and merely being excellent didn’t reach that mark. He was devoured by the things he wasn’t despite the many things he was. It closed off his thinking, and soon, he was helpless but to keep throwing himself down a path he’d already failed.

When I think about Rain, what I realize is that he was caught in a vicious cycle.

And yet I accept the same burdens he had. I lift them onto my back readily.

The book is one reason why…

But another is simply perspective. Rain always saw the demand to take the next step, to progress down the endless road of cultivation, as a fight he could never win. But I see that… and I’m eager to see how far I make it before the world cuts me down.

Because…

If I’m being honest. If I’m being totally honest…. I don’t just want this because I want to be a cultivator. I want to be a true cultivator. All of this, everything I’ve done, I’ve done because I believe that I have what it takes.

So in the end, what do I doubt? Why haven’t I become a cultivator yet…

Me and Rain… we’re a lot alike.

Because if he’s never strong enough, I’m never good enough. I always worry, and pick at my scabs, and rake myself over the coals, wondering if I did enough to help people, asking if I was really as good as I could be.

That’s not a bad thing.

But it can blind me to what’s already true…

Because I am good enough. Not perfect, but I don’t know that I need to be. I’ve already done things that should have been impossible, and made the world better by doing them. So I know… that I can be a better kind of cultivator. Power isn’t an evil thing. That’s an easy story to tell, but it’s not true. The truth is that when people get the power to fulfill their dreams, everyone else can finally see what was in their heart all along.

My dream is a good world.

I just have to trust it.

Because if I don’t then… why even bother…?

No, I believe.

I believe in myself to an almost scary degree.

You don’t do the things I do, unless you believe in something.

And I believe I’ll be a cultivator.

I believe I’ll be the best.

Slowly, for the next few minutes, all he did was breathe. Feeling the energy within him flare. It was almost musical. Every breathe felt like plucking a string, creating a resonance that reverberated through his body on a cellular level. With every inhalation, the rivers of his meridians flooded and sent unruly power radiating out through their tributaries, and with every breathe out, the tributaries went dry and the meridians sunk to a low ebb. Energy came and went, but very little stayed between breaths. Sparks flew from the rivers, drifting through his being. He found he could visualize them quite clearly, as if when he closed his eyes, his sight turned inwards, and he saw a dark translucent figure of his own body, filled with diagrams of light. With his breathing that light swirled, high and low, and he followed the glowing veins to their center…

His dantian.

The lake where even now, with each breath in, a parched and desiccated land was restored. The heart of what should have been his cultivation, long starved for power as his choked veins failed to deliver the faintest spark of energy.

Right now…

His power was fresh and exhilarating, but it had no heart. When he breathed in it entered: when he breathed out, it was gone. The powers of heaven and earth were present everywhere, but they had no home in him.

He concentrated, guiding the rivers to flow backwards. Letting himself rest in that state of meditation, neither so uptight and restrained that he held on too tightly, or so relaxed that he lost focus. Simply waiting, silently, letting no thought enter his mind but the thoughts he needed. Resting, and letting it take as long as it took.

It was like a ratchet. As long as it only went one way, you didn’t need much force. You just needed to take your time, slowly pushing, not letting a drop spill backwards.

As he gathered his energies into the heart of his dantian…

Slowly, a pressure began to build.

That was what he needed. Pressure. Pressure to compress the energy, the loose qi, into a lake…

So he pushed further, and further. Feeling the gentle expansion become an almost painful burn, an overfull pressure trying to wash back into his meridians, making his spirit tremble and shake as sparks began to flutter loose, escaping his mental grasp.

But he’d practiced talisman-craft for night after night.

Refining his ability to hold energy within a mental grip, keeping himself calm and unhindered even as he channeled a power that wanted nothing more than to escape him.

So he focused on an image. The image of him leaping high above the clouds, and watching the Mantis Sect drop away beneath his feet…

The image of the world flying past, growing smaller and smaller, clouds between him and the ground now, forests as blurs of green and buildings no larger than toys.

A single leap…

To cover an entire continent.

And suddenly the pressure reversed. In his dantian, the compressed powers of heaven and earth collapsed into themselves like a star burning out and falling inwards, becoming a black hole. As the space opened up, the remaining energy in his meridians was suddenly free to rush in, and form a frothing whirlpool that scattered countless sparks in all directions as it spiraled around a single, perfect droplet of qi…

His qi.

The first spark of his cultivation.

As he breathed, in and out, more energy washed into the torrential whirlpool. The first moments of cultivation established your foundation – everything else followed from that first understanding. And as Booker slowly inhaled and exhaled, the first golden droplet grew into a pool, which Booker could see was somehow the width and depth of a well, despite being contained solely within his body.

And it felt amazing.

Every breath felt like he was setting his lungs on fire and extinguishing them again. Every moment, it felt like his muscle and sinew was singing alongside the song in his mind, the joy of advancement, feeling himself grow stronger by the second.

It was a dizzying rush of power and it made him laugh out loud, jolting suddenly to his feet.

He was finished now. His lake of qi had grown as deep as it could, the whirlpool extinguished to leave calm waters behind, overflowing with golden power. He clenched his fists, and felt his knuckles pop as his body flexed. Now, when he pushed his body, some of that energy flowed instinctively into the muscle and strengthened it.

Booker punched forward and was shocked at how fast, how fluid, how effortlessly he moved. It was like his whole body had become a cloud, the result of adding massively to his strength without gaining a single pound of muscle weight.

He danced back and forth, flexing his legs. No, this is too good. Too good…

At that moment, the book intruded on his thoughts. It appeared as suddenly as it always did, but this time, Booker felt something different about it… or maybe his perspective had changed.

The book emitted a sense of ancient ages passing, of time immemorial being held within its pages.

As it swung open, those yellowed pages began to flip past, faster and faster until they no longer resembled solid objects but formed a glowing spiral erupted from the book’s center. From that light, an image was formed.

It was the image of a cultivator in white robes standing atop a mountain, his long black hair flowing majestically behind him. He was turned away from the image, so Booker couldn’t see his face, but everything about him was the true cultivator that Booker imagined as his future.

He stood before an entire world, which was crossed by glowing lines that broke apart into smaller lines, like the progression of veins outwards from the heart. At their center was a golden spiral the size of a continent, and Booker knew instinctively what he was looking at.

Just as his cultivation was meridian lines spreading outwards from a dantian, this was a world’s cultivation: leylines spreading out from a central core. Surrounding that core were sixteen books, each the size of a moon, their pages flipped open to reveal runic designs that flashed and flared as lightning struck down at the core, the power of heaven trying to suppress whatever was happening within.

He’s…

He’s making the whole world break through in cultivation.

These books…

The thought struck him dizzy, but he knew it was true the moment he put words to it.

These books are instructions on how to cultivate a world. When you put them together they contain everything you need, for an entire world.

And then something went wrong. From the center of the world, a red light emerged and flickered out, piercing up into the sky. It spread across the golden core like a growing crack in the center of the world, jagged and violent. And what was good and beautiful became something far more malevolent.

The world began to crumble. Entire mountains fell inwards as fissures split the earth, and cities were turned to dust as screaming filled the skies. The heaven themselves lashed out with lightning-bolt after lightning-bolt, but they were unable to suppress the destruction.

Soon…

Nothing remained. The red light devoured everything and then faded into the embers of the earth, leaving behind only dust and ruin.

And the cultivator…

Sunk to his knees, unable to believe what he had done.

The image changed again, this time to depict sixteen cultivators in black robes, each sitting around a grand table arguing. Booker saw a familiar face among them, although this was a much younger version of Master Long, the pottery master and golem-maker he had met in his first vision from the practice token.

They were the disciples of the white-robed cultivator, those who had followed him to the end. Booker had seen them before, in another tableau created by the book.

And he knew what conclusion they would come to.

The next image was one of violence. The sixteen tearing the white-robed master apart, blood-soaked daggers in every hand. Every one of them had participated, so every one would be stained equally by the guilt. They did this not out of hatred, but out of duty. The world had been torn asunder.

Someone had to pay.

And if he didn’t die by their hands, then he would die a far worse death in the end.

But Booker also knew what was coming.

Next, they turned on each other. They tore themselves apart in a frenzy of greed, each seeking dominion over the books their master had created. Pages were torn out, and the fortress they inhabited was ripped apart by their fighting and warring.

Those that survived fled to the ruined world with their prizes, finding isolated communities of survivors. Guiding and taking command of them, using the knowledge they had stolen.

Over centuries, the world regrew.

Over millennia, the cataclysm was forgotten.

Over eons, the books were forgotten too.

As Booker watched, the world was restored from a desolate wasteland to a green planet, full of forests and mountains and rivers. Cities rose and fell so quickly they looked like the scuttling of ants. The sun and the moon hung overhead in the skies, unmoving, so the image couldn’t be a true representation: but it showed the valley where he was now.

From that valley, a beam of green light leapt into the sky.

It was followed, from all corners of the horizon, by fifteen more. Fifteen different colors.

Fifteen different books. And now I know where they are.

I wonder if they know where I am…

He smiled, and bowed his head. “I know just enough about you to know: you want to be reunited with your brothers. That’s why you’ve shown me this. Well, I happen to want to read your brothers, so as far as I’m concerned, helping you is helping me. I’ll do it. One more reason to keep heading forward.”