Jasmine cried for long enough that Dawn began to worry that the illusion would fail before she would stop. That would defeat the whole purpose of asking Dusk for it in the first place.
Thinking quickly, Dawn glanced at the Codex message that started this whole thing. It had conveniently moved to the side when she stopped paying attention to it, but it slipped back into position once she turned her focus to it.
Outer Disciple Jasmine Carnadine has offered you 1450 Contribution Points. Do you accept?
She accepted.
Jasmine needed someone she could rely on, and for reasons she didn’t fully understand, Dawn was the best available option. She wasn’t going to abuse that.
Which meant she needed to be someone that could be relied on.
And to do that, she needed to be stronger. The points wouldn’t help them as much as they would other people, given the drawbacks of their Bloodline, but it would be a boost.
“Jasmine?”
Dawn shook her a little.
“Hey, we’ll need to get moving. We’ve definitely caught some attention from this, and I don’t know how much longer Dusk’s illusion will hold for. We need to get you cleaned up, do you have anything for that?”
Jasmine nodded.
“Hang on,” she mumbled, sniffling slightly.
She shakily got to her feet, and reached into a slim pouch at her waist. From it she pulled a handkerchief, with dense symbols embroidered along the edges.
She wiped her face with it, and where it passed, Jasmine’s face cleaned up with ease. By the time she was done, she looked like she had never been crying at all. Her eyes weren’t even red. Looking at their knees, Dawn saw that while her pants were covered in dust from the ground, Jasmine’s dress was pristine.
“Now that’s just not fair,” Dawn complained halfheartedly.
Jasmine smiled weakly. “Wealth has its burdens and benefits.”
“I’ll say,” Dawn grumbled.
Jasmine closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Dawn nodded, and was about to ask Dusk to drop the illusion when Jasmine spoke up.
“Do you think you can follow my lead?”
Caught off guard, Dawn’s only response was, “Sorry?”
“As you just said, people will have noticed… this,” Jasmine said, gesturing to the illusion, “They’ll likely come to conclusions of their own, but it would be best for both of us if we control what those conclusions might be. I need you to follow my lead after Dusk releases it.”
Dawn searched Jasmine’s face for a moment. She had regained control over herself remarkably quickly following her breakdown, which was impressive. She’d clearly taken to her tutors' teachings well. Dawn entertained the notion that Jasmine was acting distraught in order to play out some scheme, but she dismissed it fairly quickly. There simply was no reason she could think of for someone of Jasmine’s station to lower herself like that, even if no one else could see it happen. Besides, while Dawn knew she wasn’t exactly the brightest, she had a knack for people. This felt genuine.
She nodded. “Alright.”
Dawn gave Jasmine a few moments to ready herself, and then asked Dusk to drop the illusion.
The moment it fell, Jasmine gave her an imperious stare, and said, “An interesting proposal, Sect Sister. I will consider it. In the meantime, you can continue as my temporary attendant.”
Dawn’s mind stuttered for a moment, before eventually realising she needed to respond. Dredging up the remnants of etiquette Virion had taught her, she gave a half bow and replied, “Of course, Lady Carnadine.”
Jasmine nodded minutely, so much so that Dawn was half-convinced that it hadn’t actually happened, but then Jasmine twitched her hand in a way that Dawn was certain was deliberate. Dawn took that as telling her to fall in behind her, and did so, on Jasmine's left hand side.
She took a look at the small crowd gathered around them. In the short time they had been talking, the group of several hundred people had been whittled down to a bare 15, not including Dusk, Dawn, and Jasmine. Everyone else was standing in front of an older man in a military uniform, who was talking to them in an authoritative tone that Dawn could just barely make out from this distance, but not enough to tell what he was saying.
“What’s that about?” Dawn asked under her breath, just quiet enough to be sure Jasmine would hear, and no more.
“Sects as prestigious as Falling Sky won’t accept anyone if they’re potential won’t take them past late Formation,” Jasmine said, equally quietly. Before becoming a Cultivator, Dawn wouldn’t have been able to make out what she was saying, but even the small benefit from taking the 1st Step was enough to bridge the gap. “So, the Imperial Army tends to step in and offer to sponsor the training of those that don’t make it. Those with potential for Formation will usually become officers, while the more common Cultivators will make up the rank and file. A large portion of their forces come from the Sects, in fact.”
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“Huh.”
At this point, Elder Castir approached, the last new disciple to be tested shortly behind him.
“19 new disciples. It’s been some time since we had an intake that large. Now then, on to how the next month will go for you all. You will be given temporary housing for the first month, during which you will all attend a mandatory training course to ensure that everyone is on an even footing in regards to your general knowledge and physical abilities. After your first month here, you will be allowed into the Sect proper, where you can interact with your fellow disciples and access the Sect’s full resources, pending your contribution points, of course.”
The Elder then proceeded to lead them all to a rather basic looking building, with two storeys and a stone facade with wooden accents. Walking them through the double doors, Dawn and Dusk found themselves in what looked like a small eating hall, with two long tables and accompanying benches. At the back was a serving area for food, unattended at the moment, and to one side of the hall was a flight of stairs leading up.
“This is where you will take your meals for the duration of your initial training. Breakfast will be served up to an hour past sunup, at which point you will be expected to gather on the training field. Lunch will come after physical training, for half an hour, then you have general knowledge classes in the amphitheatre. You will be given two hours to yourselves at the end of each day, to be spent however you choose, as well as a day of rest at the end of the week. If you have any questions or concerns, I am usually available next door. For now, I expect you all to get yourselves sorted in your rooms upstairs, in an orderly fashion. Good day, disciples.”
With that, Elder Castir turned and walked out the door.
The crowd stood there for a moment, before the silence was broken by a brash young man in clothes that looked more expensive than Jasmine’s.
“Out of my way, peasants! As if I’m going to let the best rooms go to one of you filth!” he cried, before immediately dashing for the stairs.
There was a beat of stunned quiet, before everyone else began pushing and shoving to get to the stairs behind him. Dawn was about to follow suit, but was held back by Jasmine grabbing her elbow. She gave a small shake of her head when Dawn turned a questioning look her way.
After the crowd had thinned considerably, Dawn said, “Soooo, what was that about?”
Jasmine scoffed. “He’s middle nobility, I’d stake my Essence on it. They tend to be the most… egregious offenders of basic decency among the upper class. Arrogance, greed, sycophancy, if it’s a character flaw that nobles in general are accused of possessing, middle nobility are almost always the culprit. Honestly, if they weren’t so entrenched in keeping the economy’s stability, Father and his allies would have rid the Empire of their like years ago.”
“That’s nice,” Dawn said, “but I was asking about why you held us back from getting decent rooms. All the good ones will have been taken by now.”
Jasmine gave her an incredulous look. “You really think the Sect would waste those kinds of resources on rooms that only get used for one month out of the year? The rooms are all the same, Dawn. The only real difference between them is the distance to the bathing rooms.”
“Huh.”
“Come on,” Jasmine said, “let’s get settled in.”
**********************
Once the door had closed behind her, Jasmine finally, finally allowed herself to truly relax.
The stress of the past six months had weighed heavily on her, culminating in a downright embarrassing display of emotion when faced with someone so confoundingly genuine. Jasmine hadn’t exaggerated when she said that people with no ulterior motives were a rarity for her. She had no doubts in her mind that her Father was a good man, but he believed strongly in survival of the fittest, and as such cultivated an air of “healthy competition” among his children that ultimately resulted in them dragging each other down as much as possible for even the slightest advantage.
Combine that with the betrothal, the Incident that fractured her Core, and the breach in the Wall that had consumed her Father’s attention, and Jasmine found herself at her wit’s end.
If it weren’t for the perceptiveness and quick thinking of Dawn and her strange twin sister Dusk, that outburst could have been… damaging.
Just what was up with those girls, anyway? A person can’t not have a Spirit, that’s like saying they didn’t have ears, or couldn’t see colour. And Dusk? Even as rudimentary as it was, she had manipulated sound when she was only on the 1st Step of the 1st Layer, that’s supposed to be impossible.
Jasmine sighed. She supposed it couldn’t be helped, with someone like Elder Virion as a grandfather. If anyone could figure out how to separate Body and Spirit without unmooring the Soul, it would be him.
Taking a steadying breath, Jasmine sat cross legged in the middle of her room, which was admittedly less than modest by her standards, though she knew they were somewhat skewed compared to most people.
Examining her damaged Core and seeing it had less Essence than when she last checked, Jasmine pulled up her Codex Profile to confirm.
Essence: 2/5 [Error: Core Damage Detected]
She deliberately didn’t look at the rest of her Profile, still feeling raw from earlier and not willing to reopen wounds so recently touched.
Seeing that some Essence had indeed leaked from her Core, Jasmine pulled a Tier 1 Essence Stone from her pouch. Concentrated and crystallized pieces of physical Essence, they held a number of uses, from various forms of crafting to slightly replenishing her own reserves.
There were downsides, of course. Essence Stones had the equivalent amount of Essence of an average Cultivator at the peak of the corresponding Layer, so a Tier 1 Stone held a full 30 points. Due to the nature of the Stones, it was impossible to withdraw only a portion of the contents, and as such it was a significant waste on someone in the early Steps. What’s more, because of the damage to her Core, she could simply let the remainder slip away.
Taking a moment to steady herself for the pain to come, Jasmine held the Stone in both hands at the navel, and began to draw in the Essence.
Instantly, her Core was flooded with far more Essence than it’s fragile nature could fully deal with, and her Body and Spirit was wracked with searing pain. Long used to this after nearly two months, Jasmine immediately funnelled all but five points into a single flame hovering before her.
The pain diminished significantly, though not fully. Tiny aftershocks ravaged her form, little waves of sympathetic pain that faded with every breath Jasmine used to steady herself.
Not for the first time, she bemoaned the fact she couldn’t use Alchemy to replenish her Essence stores. Unfortunately, the only concoctions gentle enough for her to imbibe safely were far too expensive to do so on the twice daily basis she needed to keep her reserves from depleting. Her family’s physicians had repeatedly told her that if she were to have any hope of a full recovery, she couldn’t afford for her Essence to run out. If it did, the fractured pieces would settle in place, and it was far too likely that even someone as renowned as Elder Virion would be unable to help her then.
The Sect wasn’t going to allow her into the grounds proper until the first month was done, but now she had a near certain way of securing his help, as well as a possible ally in the Alterse twins.
Jasmine could wait another month.