Jingyi Bo had spent the last several days meditating, practicing and working at the library. Meditating was fairly dull, as it felt like she was simply absorbing mana and ki into her being. Her physical and mental disciplines were slowly approaching their own bottlenecks, though there was still some way to go. Bo’s practice was likewise straightforward - Saoka practice, talisman painting, transformation exercises. Apart from spending time with her friends, the highlights of her week were usually in the library.
She had become quite good at sneakily reading books. Some of the older books had flimsy spines, which gave an excellent excuse to read them as she rebound them. Likewise, faded text, frayed or torn pages, or other miscellaneous sources of damage gave her a moment to enjoy the secrets within. Bo found that she was becoming quite the speed-reader, learning all the tricks of skimming texts. All the Qin texts were needlessly fluffy, often spending a bunch of time aggrandising the Emperor - Isn’t he grand enough as it is? - while Goryeon texts were needlessly dense with unnecessary details. Scrolls from Yamato were almost entirely about martial arts, and usually had more diagrams than text - Bo found that she quite enjoyed restoring those old images with new ink and watching the image come back to life.
Another constant of her library life was Hyeong Daesung. That boy was in here so frequently that Bo was strongly considering giving him the role of librarian. Not that he would be stupid enough to take it - the role’s only benefit was sneaking peeks at the books, and ultimately amounted to a huge waste of time. Besides, without the role, Bo would never be able to learn anything new beyond what her instructors told her - and she was barely attending classes as-is.
A benefit of Hyeong’s presence was access to his insights - not that Bo ever directly asked him for help. It started with Bo leaving a book open on the table adjacent to the one he had claimed as his own, only to return to find that the boy had taken it. Unable to bring herself to take it from him when he seemed to be reading it so intently, Bo noted that Hyeong had a habit of muttering the interesting parts to himself. Not only that, but by the time he was done with a book, he had always written notes. If the topic of the book wasn’t relevant to his current studies (which they largely weren’t), he had a ‘bad’ habit of closing the notes in the book, or leaving them with a scroll.
The notes themselves were frequently quite insightful - far more than just recounting the contents of the text, they often had explanations of concepts or even new ideas of his own creation. Whenever Bo would clear up the books, she would quickly check for these notes, taking them for her own purposes. At some point Hyeong must have noticed her, as his notes became slightly more coherent - not to mention, for the rare times when he kept the notes to himself, he used some kind of spell to cause the notes to duplicate onto a spare piece of paper, ‘accidentally’ leaving the spare behind on the table. In an unspoken exchange, Bo left stacks of blank paper for him to continue using - her skills at making paper had become quite strong, and she was able to conjure fresh, high-quality sheets from dirt or wood.
All of this was to say that she found herself with a sudden bounty of useful texts - a large proportion of them involving formations and talismans. While many of them were out of her league in complexity, Jingyi Bo found herself practicing specifically her ability to conjure working talismans from simple materials. Ink was still beyond her ability to make from scratch due to her shaky understanding of Miasma, but the recent revelations about Wood made her paper-creating even more powerful. In a pinch, she could produce a slip of paper from nothing but air - it wasn’t easy, nor was it terribly practical, but it was the glimmer of something approaching a useful desperation maneuver. The actual formations on the paper were the real sticking point, and she quietly wished she could get an instructor on formations.
Jingyi Bo learned to regret wishes.
---
Standing in a crowd in the city centre alongside the Chao boys, Bo waited impatiently for the results of this grand announcement. There seemed to be two new instructors - a blacksmith and an alchemist.
Elder-- Master Murayoshi had an interesting field of instruction, but his intimidating appearance made Bo wonder if she would even be able to survive the class. The idea of learning how to create things definitely spoke to Jingyi Bo’s particular expertise, so she was eager to at least pop her head in to see what all the fuss was about.
Elder Yan’s alchemy also seemed to be quite interesting - as always, Bo couldn’t help but think through the lens of the Endless Steps. What interesting ways could alchemy and her power combine? Her recent discovery of a mixture that made plants grow at a phenomenal rate would be fantastic for herbalism. That being said, Bo couldn’t help but wonder - just how did a cultivator get so … rotund?
Elder Hwang came to the front, looking particularly bothered - Bo couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment that there wasn’t an instructor of formations. As though in answer, the heavens roared, and a fearsome dragon burst forth. Part of Bo wanted to scream, while the rest of her gently patted that down - Here it comes, our inevitable demise.
Fortunately for everyone, it was not instantaneous death at the hands of a dragon - it was the third instructor. A grandiose man that looked like a snake - and sounded somewhat familiar. She had never met the man before, but his voice reminded Bo of a visitor that Elder Yahui of the Everchanging Way Sect had entertained. It was before her mental awakening, so her memories of the time were shaky, but she was starting to wonder if this Grand Magus Do Hye hadn’t paid a visit to the little sect at some point.
There was something about new students that didn’t hold any interest to Bo. All she could think of was how excited she was to learn about formations from a true master of the subject. Maybe she would even get to show off a bit of what she had learned? Perhaps the man would even know of her, if he truly had visited the Everchanging Way sect.
I wonder if anyone made it out alive? Bo realised she hadn’t particularly spent much time thinking about her former home. She had been here at the Grand Academy for much longer than she had spent at the Everchanging Way Sect, but she still had some attachment to it. She hadn’t made friends there, given that she had spent most of the time on her awakening and early instruction, but she still had memories of Elder Yahui. Perhaps not the fondest one - the man was strange, to say the least - but memories nonetheless.
---
When Bo arrived home, she found Izumi waiting for her. It was unusual for her to be standing around visible, but given that she was sitting in the now hedged-in front garden it was safe to say she wasn’t attracting any attention. An odd smirk was on Izumi’s face - she had gossip.
“Another woman from Qin?!”
“That’s exactly what I just finished explaining - and why did you shout it like that?”
“S-Sorry … ”
Evidently, amongst the new students arriving, was a Qin woman from the Great Awakening Dragon sect. Another Yan, evidently to replace the deceased scion of the sect. It didn’t escape Bo’s notice that one of the new instructors was similarly a Yan of that same sect - perhaps he had been sent as her chaperone, to ensure she didn’t make a mess of the Sect’s honour.
“I’ve never known a great sect to even train their women,” Bo mused, “Though I hear mothers often pass techniques to their daughters. The Everchanging Way sect was rather unusual, and they often told me how they didn’t do things like the other sects - as if I had flunked out of one or something.”
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“You never told me - how did you end up in a sect? And why were they so … ” Izumi gestured vaguely at Bo, and the gesture was understood to mean ‘odd’.
“I kind of just … showed up, I guess? They all assumed I had been sent away from some other sect, due to my naturally high levels of qi. I just kind of ended up there - they took me in when I was weak, let me study under them, and when I went to do the final initiation pilgrimage … well … ”
“Right. The thing with the tiger. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.” Izumi made a face as if to say that she did not suppose such things lightly.
“The Everchanging Way sect were odd people. It felt to me like they never took the ‘all-powerful path to immortality’ thing particularly seriously - they just wanted to play with elements. They embraced foreign ideas, did not interact with any other sects except for occasionally poaching their rejects … They tried to pretend they were a big deal, but they really weren’t. I suppose I’ll never find out what became of them.”
The two of them sat in silence as the air became heavy. After a few moments, Izumi awkwardly tried to change the subject.
“A-Anyway, this Yan Yue - I found out her name through the administration records. The weird thing is, I haven’t seen her even once! I’ve not heard anyone else talking about her, and no room was assigned to her. I was actually wondering if you might know, is there some kind of special situation with Qin women where they can’t be near anyone else?”
Bo, as a Qin woman herself, was rather stumped. “I … suppose? She sounds like someone quite important, given that she’s a daughter of a great sect being sent to represent it. A bit weird that she’d be hiding away … I guess we keep an eye out?”
It was a real mystery. They both idly wondered if there weren’t more Qin women hiding somewhere within the Grand Academy. Could it be that there were actually more like Jingyi Bo, daughters or female disciples from other Sects disguised as men? Possibly there was some hidden conclave of Qin ladies tucked away in the forests somewhere. Bo found herself wondering about that theoretical trove of women that Izumi had to prod her out of her daydreaming.
“I was also going to ask what you thought about those new instructors. Planning on taking any lessons?”
“All of them seemed interesting - I suppose I’ll try anything once.”
“Oho~ Anything?” Izumi had a smirk on her face, but Bo wasn’t quite sure why. A moment passed, and Izumi sighed at the failure to land her joke. “I have to check out Master Murayoshi’s lessons - a chance to learn from a legendary master like himself is quite the opportunity indeed! I’m not sure about the other two … but if you’re going to go, I might as well take a peek.”
After some more small talk and a few cups of tea, they resolved to go sign up for the classes.
---
As it turned out, Master Murayoshi’s classes were entirely up to who showed up on the day, similar to the others. Grand Magus Do Hye’s class had sign-ups almost immediately. As soon as they were able, the ladies went off to join the line.
And what a line it was! Bo wasn’t particularly aware of the man’s reputation, but Izumi was well-read enough to know that he was quite the big deal. A positively ancient cultivator, the man was an extremely big deal in Goryeo. The crowd well-represented the Academy’s diverse population, and she wondered if they were even going to be able to get in.
As they were getting closer to the front of the line, Bo watched in shock as a half-spirit - no, Lee Jia herself! - cut straight into the line. She realised belatedly that one of the people at the desk at the other end was Hyeong Daesung - who also blustered that she couldn’t cut in like that. However, after a brief conversation, the interaction went the way of nearly every situation involving Lee Jia.
There was bickering between her and the other half-spirit at the desk, Grand Magus Do arrived and spoke to Lee in an enchanted bubble of silence, there was some groaning about deals and even a conversation about keeping out xiantian-level spying. Just what kind of mad world did that girl live in? Jingyi Bo did not envy her in the slightest - the crowd seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief when Lee and her rat-tailed partner left. Fortunately, the rest of the process went smoothly - Izumi and Jingyi were able to find a class together as the Grand Magus was running quite a few of them.
Jingyi Bo idly wondered how much less terrifying the school would be if she didn’t have to worry about running into Lee Jia and An Eui. Yet another idle musing that, in retrospect, might have been rather a problem.
---
It didn’t take long for the Yan Yue vanishing mystery to clear itself up, though it didn’t exactly come with good answers. Izumi had heard from a member of her martial arts group (a group that might as well have belonged in a different world from Jingyi Bo and compatriots) that they had seen a Qin woman attempting to awaken her ki under the tutelage of none other than Lee Jia and An Eui themselves.
On top of that, Izumi herself had seen the paperwork moving Yan Yue into a house - filed by Grand Magus Do Hye himself no less, though apparently he had simply used magic to cause a quill to write it out rather than bothering to show up. The strange thing was, there had been a form filed to have Yan Yue moved into her own dormitory - then, the Grand Magus’ orders had superseded them, and placed her in the care of, yet again, Lee Jia and An Eui.
“Polycule.”
“What?”
“They’re all together. All three of them. My working theory is that they found her, it was love at first sight, and now they’re an item. Set of items. Uh, the metaphor breaks down, but you know what I mean.”
Bo quailed. “I really don’t! What are you even talking about? This Yan woman has been here for a day or two at best. There’s no way she’s in a … whatever that thing you said was.”
“Okay, but explain why they’re in a one-bedroom house together? You don’t just put three people in such a small house if they’re not together, right? It’s just young love, Jingyi!”
Bo wasn’t really sure that young love could explain such a thing. Normally Izumi was correct about these kinds of things, but there was some unusual aura around that Lee Jia that ruined even the most iron-clad of charts. Izumi had already dedicated a fold-out page simply to the feline half-spirit, to say nothing of the people around her. She had seemingly decided that Lee Jia was destined to be romantically involved with a woman - Bo couldn’t help but feel sorry for poor Hyeong - though there wasn’t even a singular marker of her showing any love back to these apparent suitors.
Still, Bo loved watching Izumi get riled about situations like this. She was quietly turning into a bit of a Lee Jia superfan - the name was on everyone’s lips, but for every person who mentioned it, Izumi had written that name down five more times. Bo wasn’t sure if Izumi wanted to fight Lee Jia to test her strength, to be with Jia herself, or just to take her place. If anything, as much as Bo enjoyed seeing her get passionate, she also felt a strange twinge of jealousy with how often she spoke about the girl. Is that all she thinks about? I wonder if she talks about me this much?
“Are you alright, Jingyi? You’re blushing.”
“H-Huh? Oh. I must be a bit warm, haha.” Izumi looked slightly concerned. Is she interested in girls? It seems to be totally normal for Yamato women to … be together. I’ve kind of been assuming this whole time … “Izumi? I was wondering … do you like girls?”
Izumi spat out her tea, her face flushing bright red. “Wh-what?! Wh-why would you say that?”
“It’s just that, um, you’re always talking about Lee Jia - and I rarely hear you talk about men with as much passion as you do about women.”
“No no no! I’m definitely … ” Izumi waved her hand emphatically, paused to stare into Bo’s eyes, and waved them again. “Definitely straight! I like men! Not women!”
“Oh.” Bo felt disappointed, but wasn’t sure why. I guess I just don’t like being wrong?
“Wh-what, disappointed you can’t be with me? I-I-I-I didn’t know you were … c-crushing on me, Jingyi! H-haha.” Izumi seemed to have found something extremely interesting in the bottom of her tea-cup. Bo blushed as hard as Izumi was as her brain caught up.
“N-No! I … also like men!”
“Yeah?! Name one!”
“You too!”
Both of them went silent and stared at each other. An awkward moment stretched out for what felt like forever as they racked their brains.
“Hyeong … ?”
“Uh … Guan Yi … ?”
With a sigh, both of them just felt upset. Sinking down into their chairs, their gossip turned into quiet tea-drinking. Only the arrival of Hizashi’s sunlight could permeate their gloom, and even then it was only an excuse for them both to talk to someone else.
Why am I so disappointed?