Chang-li cycled as Joshi and Hiroko slept. The shifting colors of the sky filtered through the trees of this oasis. He had the cultivator journal open on his lap and was glancing through Scribe Wulan’s writings for clues.

We have summoned the Guardian. Our offering is acceptable. We mount the steps to the second floor. To my surprise, I have received the Guardian's boon as well. I have accompanied cultivators on their journey many times and never before been deemed worthy of receiving a boon. I feel the lux in this place is good for me. Kang encourages me to cycle. He has taught me a swirling technique which I will describe more thoroughly on the following page.

That page was frustratingly written in the cultivator script.

We offered the bounty of seven oasis protectors. Kang was certain seven was the key number. After all, there are seven colors of lux, seven basic cultivation principles, seven guiding stars that beckon us heavenward.

He was correct.

Chang-li paused.

Offerings. The Guardian wished offerings taken from the protectors of each oasis. Surely the tree they had fought and defeated was one such protector. Was the sword he had pulled an offering, or had they missed something? He resolved to go back and look more closely after Joshi and Hiroko woke.

He continued reading. Next came several dense pages written in cultivator script. If only he could read it — the secrets there would be his key to defeating this floor and making it out alive.

He closed his eyes, trying to picture Scribe Wulan from their one brief encounter, instinctively dropping into a cycling technique. You said you wished to pact with me. That you had business yet unfinished. If that is so, aid me now, oh great scribe!

“I may have made a mistake.”

Chang-li opened his eyes. Scribe Wulan stood there, shimmering slightly around the edges of his old-fashioned garments. He peered around nearsightedly. “You’ve gone backwards! I thought you would progress, not start the tower from the beginning!” He jabbed at Chang-li with his walking stick. “Fool boy! I’ve bound my eternity to an idiot!”

Chang-li rose to his knees. He bowed low. “Honored scribe, my foundation was weak. To build it up, I sought the beginning. But I fear I underestimated the challenge. Your journal may hold the key to my survival. I beg you once more to aid me —”

“Yes, yes,” Wulan said. “Of course you need my aid. At least you have collected enough lux to properly hear and see me. I can help you, but it will cost all the lux you have given me so far.”

Chang-li blinked. “Pardon, my teacher, but I have given you lux?”

“How do you think I am here? My ghost is bound to your core. Some tiny portion of what you cycle goes to me. That’s how I’m manifesting now.” Wulan sighed. “Clearly, if I ever wish to complete my task and pass on, I must give you more help. Since you cannot yet channel the lux we need for me to manifest for very long — reading my journal will be the most use. Yes. Very well, I shall teach you. But until you reach the first step that’s likely all I can do.”

“You know much, for being a spirit,” Chang-li ventured.

“I know what Cultivator Kang told me,” Wulan snapped. “This business is as new to me as to you. Now. I will teach you what you want, and you busy yourself cultivating. I do not intend to spend eternity tied to your soul.” He reached out a withered hand and brushed Chang-li’s forehead. It felt like a cool breeze tousling his hair.

Chang-li blinked. He was back in his cycling posture, and his companions still slept. Had he dreamt that?

He looked back down at the page. The cultivator script swam before his eyes. He blinked again, and now the characters almost leapt off the page at him.

The Swirling Mists technique, one of the Sect of Morning Mists' three beginner cycling techniques, as taught to me by cultivator Kang. Place yourself into a comfortable cycling position. Rest one hand on your midsection to aid in sensing your core. Rest the other hand on the earth itself. Feel the lux inside your body. Use the hand on your midsection to direct the colors of lux you wish into your core, while directing the other lux through your arm and into the earth where you are returning it.

Note, we found difficulty with this technique due to the presence of violet lux, which is resistant to being channeled into the earth. Kang says he does not know why this is, and that I should allow it to circulate through my veins.

I wonder if perhaps this is why I have achieved success in cultivation that I never before dreamed of. Take care. I have trepidation writing this, for it will be another mark against me when this is read by the Imperial Inquisitor. And yet, I have already willed myself to submit to the Emperor's justice. My head can only be removed from my body once.

Chang-li followed the book's instructions, arranging his legs in a more comfortable seating arrangement, placing his right hand on his stomach, the left hand on the ground. He closed his eyes and cycled lux through himself. He'd become adept at letting the orange and yellow lux into his core while shunting the rest away. Now he found, as he pushed his unwanted lux through his left arm into his hand, down through the palm, spread out against the rich, moist soil of the forest floor, that most of the lux flowed easily, like he was an irrigation channel maintained and kept open for water.

The tiny fragments of violet lux, though, clung stubbornly to the walls of his channel. Try as he might, he could not push them out into the earth. Giving up, he allowed the violet lux to flow through his channels. He noted as he did that it felt as though his channels were becoming stronger and deeper. That was, after all, the point of cultivation. The violet lux seemed to be hastening the process along.

Intrigued, he switched back to the cycling technique he had learned from Joshi. This time, though, he purposefully filtered both orange and yellow, but also violet into his core. The effect was immediately noticeable. The violet lux clung to his core. But instead of clogging it, the way the yellow lux had when he was trying to cycle only orange, it was as though the violet lux was making his core's capacity deeper.

He opened one eye and looked at his sleeping companions. Joshi might well know what the violet lux was doing to him, but did he dare let Indigo Princess Hiroko hear him speak of actively cycling the forbidden lux? Sneaking into a tower and attempting to cultivate without license was one thing. He was almost certain he could find a way to have his trespass forgiven, especially if he saved the life of Princess Hiroko. Channeling violet lux, though, was something he knew, would place even Spiritual Perfection-tier cultivators subject to an inquisitor. Chang-li decided to keep it secret for now.

He returned to the journal, turning back to the page where scribe Wulan had spoken of taking offerings to the floor guardian. He painstakingly deciphered the preceding pages. Here, Wulan was more forthcoming about the challenges they had faced.

The fifth oasis we found was the home of a pack of enormous golden lions. The females attacked us at once. Kang fought them off as I attempted to stay out of the way. I am still in awe of Kang's progress, though he has passed the Peak of Bodily Refinement and this is only the first floor of the tower. No challenge should prove too dangerous for him. It is not until we reach the third or fourth floor that he expects to find any great difficulties.

After defeating the females, we proceeded to the lion's den where an enormous old male sat atop a rocky hill, guarding the cubs. Kang bowed to the lion as though it were another cultivator, and then they began the duel.

This is the first protector we have met whose lux abilities I was able to perceive. The lion wielded red lux like he was a cultivator himself. He also had a breath attack of fire that focused yellow lux. That puts him on a par with a late-stage Bodily Refinement cultivator. Fortunately for me, Kang is a match for anyone on his own level as he has mastered two forms of lux and is beginning to wield orange in addition to red and yellow. Kang tore the lion apart. When I joined him, we determined that his tribute was his heart. Kang cut it out and stored it inside an infinity bottle in his soul space where it will remain fresh and still beating until we present it to this floor's guardian.

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"You have interesting reading?” Joshi had woken while Chang-li was absorbed in his book. Now he sat up, stretching his arms as Hiroko slept on. Chang-li quickly related what he had learned of the floor guardian.

"Does it say where this guardian resides or how to summon it?"

"I haven't found that yet.”

Joshi nodded. "We will go back to the tree and determine what these offerings are. A guardian which must be appeased by bringing tribute from elsewhere on its floor is a common floor challenge. The tower nearest my own lands boasted several floors like that. The monks had prepared me to face such. I should’ve thought of it after we defeated the tree."

"So how did you get from being a prospective cultivator, and it sounds like one being prepared by a sect, to..." Chang-li gestured. "You know. Where you were."

"Slavery, you mean?" Joshi asked. He considered Chang-li before shrugging. "First, the monks were not a sect. They would have sponsored me for an unlimited cultivation license. They served as a school to train hopeful cultivators, not as a powerhouse of cultivation. Most of the monks had gone no farther than Bodily Refinement themselves. Second, it was always my father's idea that I cultivate. I did not object. It would have been advantageous to our people. The monks had finished my training and submitted my application for a license. I took the opportunity to visit my father and brother in our clan's summer encampment. It had been several years since I had ridden with my people. While I was there, my clan clashed in battle against the army of the emperor."

Chang-li winced. "So you lost and were taken captive."

Joshi shook his head. "We won, and that was my undoing."

He didn't seem inclined to say anything else. Chang-li was desperate to hear more, but something about Joshi's face kept him from asking. Instead, he said, curiously, "Why would the monks train a boy from a clan at war with the empire? Wouldn't that risk bringing the emperor's wrath on themselves?"

Joshi shrugged again. "My father presented me to them when I was seven years old. He offered them a choice between training me to become a cultivator or him burning down the monastery, slitting the monks' throats and flaying their skins to make saddlebags. The monks chose to add me as one of their pupils."

Well, that answered that question.

“How long have we rested?" Joshi asked. "Are you in need of sleep?"

Chang-li shook his head. "Between the rest I had in the labyrinth and all the cycling, no. I think it's been about two hours. Is that enough for you?"

Joshi nodded. "Yes. Hiroko seems to require more rest. I think the blue lux is a strain on her. We will have to ask her about it."

Chang-li felt revulsion at the idea of asking a cultivator, even an accidental and unlicensed cultivator like Princess Hiroko, for details about her abilities. That was reserved for between sect members. Cultivators did not speak of such things with outsiders. But here, their lives depended on understanding what each other could do.

Joshi leaned forward and shook Hiroko by the shoulder more roughly than Chang-li would have dared. The princess's eyes flicked open. She sat up, staring around herself before sighing and pulling Chang-li's cloak around her shoulders. "Oh, right.”

“Are you well?" Joshi asked.

"Just tired." She stood up. “What’s the plan?"

Joshi led the way back in the direction of the tree they had fought, as Chang-li explained what he had learned. Hiroko held out her hands as they went. "There's no signs of life from the tree. I think we really did kill it."I can feel an absence. It's like the life all around me is a web, but now there's a hole at the center. The life is moving to fill that hole. Sooner or later, another protector will arise here. But there's so little life in this place. It may take some time."

"It makes sense," Chang-li said. "Maybe that's why this entrance was lost, because this floor is hard to use. It requires killing multiple of these oasis defenders in order to move on to the next floor, and the defenders are limited in number and slow to be reborn. That could be very frustrating, which lowers the value of its entrance as a bargaining point once we get out of here."

"Only if you are foolish enough to reveal its flaws before you have sold the secret for as much as you can get," Joshi pointed out.

Chang-li tilted his head to one side. "You're right. But I don't think I would sell the location until I've gotten every drop of use out of this book that I can." He considered again mentioning what he had learned about violet lux, but held his tongue for now.

“Why sell the book?” Joshi asked. “Just tell everyone we stumbled on the entrance by chance.”

They splashed across the pond, Hiroko taking off the cloak and draping it over her arm as she crossed so as not to soak it, then spread out. Bones crunched under their feet as they searched the tiny three-foot by three-foot island. The dead tree sighed and swayed in the wind, its shriveled branches looking as though it had perished years before. The hole where Chang-li had withdrawn his sword dripped with sap.

He turned to it, noticing how the sap gleamed and glistened, not reflecting light but glowing itself. Some of it had rolled down the trunk a ways and condensed into a ball like a marble a little bigger than his thumbtip, a little too bright yellow for amber. He pointed it out to the others.

"That's it," Joshi declared.

"How can you tell?" Chang-li asked. He suspected that this was indeed the tribute, but wanted to hear Joshi's reasoning.

"It has the same feel as the divine treasures that the monks of Hapiru kept in their most sacred storehouse."

That was good enough for Chang-li. Joshi reached out a hand and pried it away from the bark. It came away in a perfect yellow sphere. "It's heavy," he remarked. "Dense like a very hard stone."

"Put it in my pack," Chang-li held open the bag.

Joshi hesitated, then shrugged. "We are allies in this," he agreed, before storing it in Chang-li's pack.

After that, they all drank. Chang-li wished he had another canteen. "Our path is set, then," Hiroko said. "We need to defeat six more of these, and then find a way to summon the Guardian and prove our worth. So be it."

The oasis quickly gave way to a vast wasteland of sand. It piled up in dunes, heaped and sculpted by the wind. If there had been sun overhead, this place would have been intolerable, Chang-li thought, as he struggled up the side of one dune. The sand shifted under his sandals.

At least he had sandals. Hiroko wore delicate silken slippers. She winced a little as she walked. Joshi seemed to notice. He walked beside her, talking her through a simple red lux cycling technique that would aid her body in strengthening itself. Chang-li made note of it. He gave it a try, and found the simple technique did indeed wash away his weariness, give him a quick spring in his step. Hiroko, though, shook her head in frustration.

"I can't get it. I've never been able to touch red lux properly. Blue is so easy for me, and everything else so difficult."

"You have a strong affinity," Joshi said. "That is both a gift and a curse. You find it easy to master blue lux spells. I was surprised at how effective your abilities were against the enemies we fought, but it does make using other lux difficult. Not impossible. Try to imagine the blue lux as a wrapper around the red, letting it flow through your body.

"Like a dumpling," Chang-li suggested. "A blue lux wrapper around a red lux filling."

Hiroko giggled. "I once snuck into one of the Imperial kitchens at New Year's and watched the cooks making dumplings. One of the scullery maids saw me and slipped me a handful. I could have had all I wanted that night at dinner, but these tasted so much better." She sobered up. "My attendants found me and scolded me. They separated all of the kitchen folk out and asked them who had seen me there. I tried to lie and say none of them had, but I had some of the dumpling on my face. Finally, the girl who gave me dumplings confessed. I don't know what happened to her."

Chang-li had never thought he would feel sorry for a high noble, but now he did. Hiroko fell silent. After a moment, she straightened up a bit. "It’s working! These dumplings taste almost as good as those did."

"While you cycle," Joshi said, "tell us more about your abilities."

Hiroko plodded on, her sentences coming in short gasps. Chang-li matched his steps to hers. "I can feel out life. That is the one my teachers told me to focus on. I think because it's the safest. You saw how I helped Chang-li. It's dangerous. I wasn't sure I could do it. I wouldn't have risked it. If he wasn't dying."

"But what makes it dangerous?" Joshi urged. "Dangerous to him? To you?"

"To him, mostly. It opens a connection between two beings. Lets their life be shared. Had the viper crab been stronger or intelligent, it might have seized Chang-li's life force and drained him. I was there to intervene. Against an opponent as intelligent as a human could mean death for me. And whoever I was trying to help. Both."

"Then we should not use it unless forced," Joshi said. Chang-li was a little jealous of how easily he walked and talked. He focused on cycling the red lux as Joshi continued. “What of the fight against the tree? Did you use that skill?”

"No, that was more like opening wounds in the tree's life force. There are always predatory spirits that wish to sap life from others. All I did was make it easy for them. The problem there, though, is I can only affect one target at a time, and I'm not good for much else while I'm doing it. If the tree had allies against me, I would have been defenseless."

“You do well to share that,” Joshi said approvingly. "These are strategies we need to know if we must face another six of these protectors in order to ascend higher."

"I believe you really are the son of a war leader," Chang-li said. "My scribes' training doesn't offer much help with this sort of thing.

“There are, perhaps, benefits to learning how to fight before one learns how to read," Joshi agreed. "Right now, though, you are our greatest asset. You and that book of yours. Do not neglect your cycling, but if we must remain in one place longer for you to work on unraveling the secrets inside that book, so be it. You are the only one who will know if you are sharing everything you learn, but I beg you, do not hold back. Outside this tower, we are of different stations. Right now, we are all the same, and our lives depend on each other."

Chang-li nodded, even though he wasn't sure he could believe it. After all, everything he knew about the nobles of the Court of Gems told him they had been trained since birth to be the Emperor's spies. Scribe Wulan's writing made him suspect the master of the sect of Morning Mists had been betrayed by his own imperial spouse. Who might well have been the mother of Cultivator Kang, who had faced down the unknown in this very tower.

It was hard for Chang-li to imagine a member of the family betraying his or her patriarch. Even harder than it was to imagine anyone defying the Emperor.

Family, vocation, affiliation. Those were the three points of the triangle on which society was built. The three together formed the base of a pyramid with the Emperor at the top. Remove any of those, and the Empire might teeter. And yet, if any of them tried to elevate themselves on a level with the Emperor, then the Empire was doomed.