We trained the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and I felt like every day I died more and more times, but I felt like every day I got more and more enlightened, and after a week or so of fighting both Natsuki and wild monsters, I felt like I had acquired a good grasp of what it meant to fight.

"—I had you study this painting on the first day, so now let us take a look at it again," Natsuki declared, after a week or so.

She unfurled the painting of Caojin-Baigen in the shadow of the tsunami, and I nodded slowly.

"Chunxue, what is it that you see in this painting?"

"When one is examining the tip of a downy hair emerging through a bird's skin, one will not see Mount Tai," I answered confidently. "Depending on one's focus, the smallest of things may seem larger than the greatest of things. And thus, in this painting, the great volcano of Caojin-Baigen appears small, because from the human perspective it is the tsunami that must be in focus."

Natsuki nodded. "This is good. However, you only have identified two out of three of the components of this painting."

I raised my eyebrows. Three? There were only two components in the painting. There was the tsunami crashing against human civilization, and there was Caojin-Baigen in the distance. What else was there to see in this painting?

—"I was able to gain some understanding of what humans call art during my séjour in the Eternal Mittelland of Laoghairíocht. In light of that truth, let me tell you what I see in this painting," Natsuki said as she pointed to the upper-right corner of the painting, where there was nothing but empty space. "Look here."

I looked, and I saw nothing but a dull blue emptiness.

"Look at this sky!" she cried out. "It is not red with anger, but rather blue with serenity, as if it does not even care for the affairs of man! When evening comes, the sky will darken, and when morning comes, the sky will brighten, be there a tsunami or not. That is the relationship between man and the world: not one of hostility, but one of indifference! In this painting, it is not just Caojin-Baigen that is small. The tsunami, too, is small, below the endless expanses of the sky, the sky that is ever-present yet never seen!"

I was struck with a sudden flash of understanding, and was immediately reminded of a classical proverb—

> When you see only what is before your eyes, you are blind.

> When you see that which is not present, you are discerning.

> When you are neither blind nor discerning, you are enlightened.

Then, to see the tsunami is blindness. To see Caojin-Baigen is discernment. To see the sky is enlightenment!

I sat down and meditated. I understood the Dao intent, if not of the painting then of her interpretation. The same way I saw the sky of the painting, I was suddenly able to see all the spiritual energy of the forest, swirling around me, running in and out of my veins, cleaning out years of caked-up filth with it! I sat there, meditating, and I felt a sense of oneness with the world around me, the world on which I was dependent yet which was utterly indifferent to my existence. It was a clear, consummate, oneness, the kind of clarity that I had always thought that cultivators must feel when they are about to break through.

The Dao is not about conquering the World-Law. It is about unifying with the World-Law. Some insist on carrying the weight of the world, but this is too corrupted by the ideal of domination, so such people can go no farther than becoming one of the tsunamis under the indifferent sky. Rather than search for what cannot be found, is it not more appropriate to determine one's place within the world? No matter how powerful a human becomes, they cannot surpass the world itself. They live by the water and nourishment of nature, and they die by the force of age. If the sky refused to grant us its light, then we would die in its darkness. It is in that space and that space alone, that small space permitted us by the World-Law, that we humans can do as we wish.

> In a clearing quiet,

> of all attachment free—

> how the skylark sings!

----------------------------------------

"—Chunxue."

My meditation was interrupted by Natsuki's voice, and, confused, I opened my eyes and looked around. I saw, to my utter surprise, stacks of monster corpses littered around the edge of the clearing, so high that I could hardly see the trees behind them. When had they attacked? Had Natsuki killed them all?

"Chunxue, look up."

Natsuki, standing in front of me, pointed up to the sky, and I looked, and I saw terrible thunderclouds swirling in a vortex right above yet far above my head, though the rest of the sky remained clear.

"You have been meditating for about two days. It seemed fine to let you continue, but then that showed up."

I—

I knew what it was, and I—

and I did not fear it.

Exhaling sharply, I stood up and unsheathed my sword-hilt. I set it aflame with my qi, and this time it blazed proudly, almost as brilliantly as Natsuki's own sword, this time not a dull gray but an unrepentant black!

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"I once learned that the flattened southern peaks of Altyn-Tagh cause some unique meteorological phenomena here to their east due to the concave arch they form between Altyn-Tagh's taller mountains to their north and the Cordillera Cuneata further south," Natsuki said, and I had a vague impression that she was misunderstanding something. "I believe this type of cumulonimbus formation is one of those phenomena. I would like to note down some observations. Can you deal with it?"

I nodded. There was no doubt in my mind. Not anymore. With her power, and her guidance, and her watchful presence, what could I possibly have to fear?

"In that case, use blue flame for your sword, and also eat some of these monster cores first."

She pushed a bag of monster cores into my hands. I began eating them, and my stomach asked for more, though as I ate more of them, the taste gradually became more repugnant.

"Why blue flame?" I asked, as I took a break from eating the cores that now tasted a little bit repulsive.

"In the lands west of here, they will eventually have regularized the association between magic color and functionality. Black magic controls destruction, and blue magic controls flow. Ah, but do not confound it with teal magic, which controls absorption. You do not need to destroy those clouds, correct? You only need to stave off their anger."

"...Flow? Sounds kind of weak..."

Natsuki shook her head. "In those lands, blue magic will be considered second only to black magic for combat use. Even golden magic, the magic of instantaneity, comes third."

I nodded, though I did not fully understand why something like instantaneity would rank behind flow. I let the flame of my sword go out, and then with some instinctive force reignited it in a deep navy blue. I walked to the center of the clearing, raising my sword over my head in one hand and holding the bag of cores in the other, just in case I needed them.

The thunderclouds cracked and boomed with the fury of an earthquake. Or perhaps, rather, with the fury of a tsunami.

Other than a small vortex of clouds above my head, after all, the sky was clear. This storm was only one fragment of the sky picking a fight with me. The sky itself... was far larger. Too large. I could not possibly fight the sky itself. But here, this one little patch? I could manage.

With Natsuki's power, with her guidance, I could manage.

I solidified every muscle in my body, and then shouted with a voice loud enough to reach the heavens, "Come! Attack me if you dare!"

The vortex opened, and lightning descended silently, arcing instantaneously from point to point in a pattern resembling the forking edges of a family tree, until it collided with my sword, exploding against it with godlike force!

I cried out, not in pain but to raise my own spirits, and the thunder cried out even louder in response, its voice barreling like an ocean's wave through the clearing!

The lightning's force increased, and I felt my arm giving way under its weight. The lightning, crushing me the way a human crushes an ant, forced my sword-arm down until it was only at chest level, until I could see it consuming and being consumed by the flames of my sword, their reaction blinding all the surroundings in a brilliant white light!

This sword, these blue flames, were all that stood between the lightning and my body. If I dropped the sword or let the flames go out, the lightning would strike me directly, and I did not want to risk taking the hit. If only— if only I could make the lightning strike somewhere else!

If only I could... control the flow of the lightning...?

—With a flash of enlightenment I understood. Why was flow stronger than instantaneity? It is simple. You cannot shut your ears to the thunder or your eyes to the lightning, so fast are they! Yet even lightning is harmless if you simply control its path. Just like— just like—

a lightning rod!

I did not try any more to repel the lightning strike. Inhaling deeply, I let it soak into my sword, mix with my qi, and then—

and then I pointed my sword out! I redirected all the energy towards a mountain in the distance!

Lightning shot out from the tip of my sword, then collided with the peak of a distant mountain, from which smoke and ash rose as if a volcano had erupted!

—The clouds overhead dissipated, and the entire sky was once again clear.

"You did well, Chunxue."

It felt as though half my blood had dissipated along with the lightning. I fell to my knees, gasping for air, my skin pale. But I had survived. I had survived my—

—I felt my breath catching in my throat.

"Natsuki, that was a Heavenly Tribulation."

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, that's right. That's what you call it when you... level up?"

"One lightning strike is for... the ascension from Foundation Establishment to Core Formation."

She frowned. "But, Chunxue, you have no internal mana. Your nucleus is empty. It wouldn't even help you to have an Einstein-Rosen core, since you couldn't store any mana in it. So why would you level up?"

I didn't know. It didn't make sense. I had never even entered Foundation Establishment. But then again, if I had entered Foundation Establishment, how would I know? I had no internal qi, so I could not examine the state of my internal qi to determine my cultivation stage. How absurd!

—A voice rang out from somewhere not far away.

"The lightning came from here!"

"Find the one who has ascended to Core Formation! If they are of our sect, you must reward them, otherwise, kill them!"

"Elder, we've accounted for all the members of the inner sect! None of them are here!"

"In that case, you have permission to kill on sight!"

"Shit!" I ran over and grabbed Natsuki's hands. "We need to go back, quickly! We can't let them find us!"

She pulled one hand from my grip and raised it to my forehead. "Alright. Let us return."

As I always did, I thought of my little shack on the edge of the sect grounds, and as her glove glowed against my skull—