You really have to eat in game?

Sendai texted back to Arel, on a private system window, I need more jing.

It’s hard to believe this system is based on anything real. It seems so made up.

Sendai dipped out of the Eight Kingdoms enough to bring his food replacement shake to his lips and take a swallow of breakfast. His avatar’s colour saturation faded to greys, then brightened as he returned his focus to the Mountain Mantis Sect main pavilion and its canteen.

Other avatars all around him in the same robes as his, seated at long tables, went from ghostly to bright as their players went through the same process as he did.

His hand ached, a little, from wielding chopsticks. He wasn’t very good at it, had the wrong hand posture or something, but shovelling stewed vegetables and rice into his mouth wasn’t beyond his abilities.

He swallowed his in-game food and tapped on the little book he’d anchored his private window to.

Taoist magic. Daoist? Chinese traditional medicine? Whatever. It seems like a mix of everything. It is pretty weird.

Sendai was far from the only neophyte texting and eating. A lot of others were fiddling with scrolls or books – only a couple were fingering the empty air. But there was a gaggle of neophytes with first rank sashes gathered at a nearby table, talking.

“He wouldn’t dare steal from the sect!” One proclaimed.

Wei – who Sendai had ‘helped’ with training the previous day – shook his head grimly. “I was delivering poultices to town, and he was waiting for me on the road. He only let me pass when I showed him I didn’t have any money.”

There is a logic to it. Cycles, flows... in any case. I suppose if I want company for my lunch breaks, if this carries on I’ll just have to start playing too, won’t I?

Sendai didn’t respond immediately, listening while he gagged down his fourth bowl. The flavour wasn’t great, but he could – at least – force himself to chew and swallow.

“So he is a bandit. Why involve the sect at all? Just tell the town guard.”

Wei shook his head. “I don’t think the guards care. They think the path into the mountain is patrolled by the sect.”

“So tell the seniors to watch out for this man! He shouldn’t be hard to spot, with dark skin and bright yellow hair.”

A teenage girl clicked her tongue disdainfully. “Don’t bring the seniors problems. It is better to bring them good news. Let’s gather up a group and go deal with this.”

“The man has friends of his own.” Wei turned his attention back to his rice bowl. “And besides, they call him the Rust Swordbreaker. He’s too dangerous for us.”

Sendai dipped half into the real world, watching them while blindly sipping his meal replacement. Cheap to buy in bulk, nutritionally complete, flavourless and made worse every time he dipped back into the sensation of stuffing himself with the stewed root vegetables and bok choy the sect freely provided its neophytes.

Sendai?

Sorry, baker-girl. Something came up, but I’ll be there for your bedtime and Uchi’s breakfast.

Something wasn’t right with Sendai’s digestion. Or his Avatar’s, anyway. He kept belching as he explored the sect’s compound, trying to find the library. He’d be entirely lost if not for his translation charm, but even with signs he had to stop to ask for directions three times, crossing a half-dozen enclosed courtyards – one of which contained a very ornate garden.

He embarrassed himself, stepping aside for a flock of inner-sect acolytes, by belching whilst bowing. At least they didn’t know who he was.

It’d be nice if he could pull up a system window for the game, just check his body statistics, but the Eight Kingdoms didn’t have many conveniences like that. For the most part the game stuff was handled with diegetic in-game solutions – like Tex’s storage rings, instead of an actual inventory.

At least he could bring up private system windows, but searching for information about the game online sometimes brought up real life Taoist texts on subjects like internal alchemy. Sendai wasn’t sure how much he could trust them to reflect the game. But he could trust the sect library, couldn’t he?

The sect library was much larger than he expected. Tapestries hung down the walls, in some cases protecting shelves of scrolls from prying eyes. There were bound books and tomes, stacks of pamphlets... a fire would be a real problem here, which might have been why the light was largely natural. Large open windows up near the roof level brought in a ton of sunlight, and the white tapestries nearby them helped scatter it across the room.

No candles, but there were enclosed lanterns, though the light from them was blue-white. Probably not flames but obviously not electricity, either.

He reported to the front desk and bowed, waiting for the librarian to look up from copying out text from one scroll to another.

“Yes?”

“Third rank neophyte Sendai humbly begs for your assistance, senior sister.”

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She squinted at him, but returned his bow. “I am Scholar Wang. What can I do for you, Brother Sendai?”

“I have a simple question, which may be simple enough you can answer it for me. Can you tell me what the difference between a paper talisman and an inscription, such as on a weapon, might be?”

She blinked, turning her head to peer into the stacks. “What an odd question,” she said after a few moments. “I suppose the difference is that a paper talisman is...” She paused, looking up at the ceiling. “Hm. A simple inscription? Not an enchantment, a spirit weapon, but an inscription?”

“Yes, Senior Sister.” Sendai bit his lip.

“Well the techniques for inscriptions and simple talismans are very similar. An expert might be able to tell you more, but they should act similarly. After all, attaching a paper talisman to something is effectively inscribing it.” She looked back into the stacks of written material. “If there is a difference perhaps it will have been written into the Imperial Reader, or Notes and Answers from the Cloud Kingdoms...”

“I think you have answered my question. Thank you, sister.”

Scholar Wang blinked owlishly at him. “You are most welcome.”

“A final question. A talisman imbued with an element of qi which overwhelms another can destroy the opposing talisman?”

“Of course,” she said. “That’s simply the five elements and the five cycles between them.”

Sendai bowed, again. “Thank you,” he said again, before rushing to his daily chores.

There were more peach baskets today, so the harvest was going well. Thankfully not even first rank neophytes had to actually pick the pears – for that, sleepy looking villagers and servant-golems did the job. The villagers looked totally and utterly stoned, most of their avatars in various shades of grey, utterly drained of colour while they straddled being on and offline. It was a little creepy, but probably not the worst way to supplement an income while mining.

Liu was already waiting, sitting on the stone wall beside the winery and watching while a first rank unyoked the ox that had hauled the cart of peach baskets to the winery.

Sendai stepped up and unexpectedly belched. He covered his mouth with his hand. Didn’t feel that coming up. “Excuse me,” he said to Liu.

“Are you quite alright?” Liu asked, gazing at him curiously.

“Uh. Sure. Yes.” Sendai hopped up onto the cart and hauled at his first basket of the day.

It wasn’t... light, exactly? It felt like his body was heavier? Like he had more inertia? It was easier to move the basket this time, anyway. Didn’t have to drag it. It was still heavy, but what had seemed like the weight of a person was now manageable. A large bucket of water, or a couple of overloaded shopping bags, perhaps.

Good, Sendai thought, carrying the bag along. He could handle these things now. He dropped it off the side of the cart before hauling it along to the usual spot outside the winery.

Liu watched Sendai go, pausing to waft a paper fan at himself. “You look enthusiastic today.”

“I had a good meal.”

“A journey of one thousand li begins with a first step,” Liu recited unenthusiastically. He fluttered his fan while yawning, then flicked it aside, gazing boredly at the clouds.

Yeah. This was going to work. Sendai dropped his first peach basket, glanced into the winery, looked around for the first rank with the ox... the coast was clear. He sidled up to Liu, sat down on the low stone wall beside him.

“Could I persuade you to do me a favour, brother Liu, in exchange for me doing one for you?”

Liu lifted one eyebrow smoothly. “You’d like me to finish our work for the day, I suppose.”

“No.” Sendai shook his head. “It would be of great assistance to me if you could demonstrate your calligraphy and provide me with a paper talisman – just a water seal, to endow water qi.” He gestured airily. “And, of course, as you can see, I’m doing better today. I can do this chore for the both of us, so all you need do is return at the end of our shift to have your tally marked. You’d be free to spend your time as you wish.”

Liu cupped his chin in his hand, eyebrows raised. “You never cease to thwart my expectations, brother Sendai.”

Sendai shrugged, then got up and mounted the cart again. “How about it?” he asked, grunting as he lifted the next basket.

Liu narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Of course it would be simple for me to... do all this.”

Sendai got four baskets off the side of the cart, then showed Liu his empty hands. “I have nothing else to offer but performing this menial labour, brother Liu.”

“Just a common water seal?”

“That’s right.”

“How strong?” He folded his arms, hiding his hands in his sleeves.

Sendai paused at that. “Powerful enough to overwhelm a reasonable fire talisman?”

Liu narrowed his eyes again, watching Sendai unload the cart. “Mmmh. And if you don’t finish our chore?”

“As you said,” Sendai replied, hopping down. “It would be simple for you to finish in a flash.” He snapped his fingers.

For a moment Sendai thought Liu wouldn’t go for it, would just sit there staring at him all day. But then Liu flexed his fingers, producing a brush and sheet of paper. “Very well. Come here, for a demonstration.”

Sendai joined Liu, and Liu held the paper out at arm’s length. “Naturally,” Liu said, “these are no mere hanzi. Writing shenfu logograms requires secret knowledge.” He eyed Sendai. “So do not think you can simply copy the strokes.”

“Of course not.”

Liu flicked the brush once at the ground, dislodging a drip of ink, and set the brush to the paper. His strokes were rapid, not like those of any calligrapher Sendai had seen before – flicking the brush and twisting it in intricate ways to manipulate the flow of ink. Sendai didn’t recognize the three characters Liu had inked, nor did his translation charm.

Liu indicated each logogram in turn, with the back of his brush. “Grand heavens, we beg humbly for your blessing, of the waters.” He surrounded this with a quick sketch, a frame, resembling a pagoda and its roof. “We place this prayer in its temple... and call upon the king of all dragons and four oceans.”

His charm could read the next logograms Liu inked, even if he couldn’t understand the name. “Sihai Longwang?” Sendai asked.

Liu glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Your accent is atrocious.”

“Sorry.”

“Finally...” Liu drew a final logogram. A sketch, perhaps. A signature? The sweeps of ink vaguely resembled oceanic waves, and the moment he lifted his brush the paper seemed to crackle with cold, blue-black frost. Liu immediately rolled it up around the handle of his brush, deftly yanked a loose thread from Sendai’s sleeve, and tied up the little scroll with it.

“When you unfurl the talisman it will become active. Ordinarily these should be thrown, but when pressed to whatever you choose, it will stick there and activate.” He pulled the talisman from his brush and held it out.

“Thank you, brother Liu. That was most impressive.” Sendai accepted the talisman and bowed.

Liu bowed in turn. “Good luck with the peaches.” And with that he turned and strode off.

“Really. Thank you, dude. Really appreciate it.”

Liu smirked over his shoulder. “See you in a couple of hours.”

Sendai tucked the talisman into a small pocket in his robes, hidden by the way they draped around him, and got to work in a pretty good mood. After all, he had just about everything he needed for his plan...

One thing Sendai hadn’t planned on was throwing up after moving eight baskets. He didn’t feel properly bilious – it just happened. Hot vomit burning through his mouth out of nowhere. His avatar’s indigestion didn’t register it was too late.

He took a moment to spit out the worst of it, and double-checked he was okay in reality – he was, although the chalky aftertaste of his breakfast wasn’t entirely pleasant.

He staggered back to work, once it passed. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder if there’s a power-levelling guide for eating...”