The sixth layer of the pyramid gave off more violet lux than even outside of the pyramid. It seemed to ooze from the walls, like the entire purpose of this tower had been to purify violet lux. Joshi sucked in as much as he could, using it to wash his lux channels. He didn't remove all of the contamination, but it eased his aching channels a bit. He fed as much as he could into Magen, the little lux creature lapping it up like a kitten drinking milk. Joshi straightened up. Time to find what this floor had on offer.

A fear he couldn't quite put into words gripped Joshi as he emerged onto the sixth floor of the pyramid. He took comfort in Magen's presence. At least he wasn't entirely alone. He proceeded down the empty first corridor, heart in his mouth, and as he rounded the corner, stopped dead.

In the hall in front of him stood the camp overseer of slaves, Master Eigen, and two of his harshest brutes. The overseer carried a whip. The brutes, heavy clubs. Joshi had felt both whip and club before. The overseer's eyes narrowed as he held out his whip hand toward Joshi. "There's our runaway. Take him, boys!"

The enforcers raced toward Joshi, their clubs held over their heads. He barely had time to set himself.

What were they doing here? How had they tracked him this far, this deep? No, gotten ahead of him?

As the first of the overseers came forward, Joshi put his shoulder down and smashed a red-lux-laced fist into the man's stomach. The enforcer let out an "oof" and flew backward three feet, staggering as he caught himself. He snarled, waving his club. "You'll regret that, slave."

The next enforcer was right there. He smashed his club down hard. Joshi raised his left hand, calling up his shield just in time to take the blow on the orange lux disc instead of his shoulder. The blow smashed against him, pushing him back, and the enforcer recovered, bringing his club around for another swing. Joshi caught the club in his fist. He clenched down. It exploded in his hand. Shards of wood went everywhere. Joshi drove his fist upward, smashing under the man's jaw and lifting him off his feet. He fell backward.

Joshi turned to the first enforcer who was approaching him more cautiously, arms wide, one swinging a club, the other ready to grab Joshi. Joshi was outnumbered, but it didn’t matter, he was enraged. These men had made his life and the lives of the other slaves in the camp worthless and painful. Now was his chance at revenge. He rushed forward and launched a flying side kick into the man's solar plexus. The man flew back in the air and smashed down hard on the ground.

Meanwhile, the overseer was laughing. Joshi pushed his advantage, racing in toward the prone man and, leaping, came down hard with lux-laced feet against the man's sternum. He felt ribs crack under his feet. Then blinding pain erupted in his vision. The other enforcer had struck him on the back of his head with the club he'd snatched up from where his fellow had dropped it. Joshi, eyes watering with pain, turned. He punched the enforcer in the gut. The man doubled over.

Crack!

Joshi threw up his left hand instinctively, and the whip hit his orange shield. It smashed through the lux of his technique, shattering it. The whip wrapped around Joshi's left arm and pulled, yanking him off balance. The enforcer, seeing the opening, came in with a club. Joshi grabbed his wrist and twisted. The club dropped from the enforcer's fingers. Joshi grabbed him by the collar and slamming him into the wall repeatedly. All the while, the overseer laughed and laughed as he pulled against Joshi's left arm with his whip.

Something popped in Joshi's shoulder. His left arm went limp. As he let the second enforcer's body drop, he turned to face the overseer. Tendrils of violet and indigo lux oozed off of the bodies, mixed in with a hefty helping of red. A strange combination, to be sure, but Joshi didn't have time to ask questions. He absorbed all the lux he could, cycling the red through his body as fast as he could to replenish his own stores, as he seized hold of the whip with his right hand and pulled, yanking the overseer off his feet and toward him. The overseer stumbled forward, eyes suddenly going wide.

"How dare you, slave!" he began as Joshi stepped in with an uppercut. It was the most satisfying punch Joshi had ever landed. The overseer's head snapped back, scattering teeth across the ground. Blood ran down Joshi's hand, his own and the overseer's as well, but he didn't care. With his left arm still wrapped in the whip, he pinned the overseer against the wall. He smashed his right fist into the man's face, over and over, until his features were a smear of blood and raw meat.

Joshi let the corpse drop to the floor and absorbed the lux. He stood there, panting, staring at the bodies.

"Impossible," he said as his red rage began to clear. His wounds healed as he cycled his technique. Magen was hovering over the bodies, wavering back and forth between them. Joshi vented some indigo and violet lux at the little creature. It chirped happily and lapped it up. Joshi shook his head.

"No. It doesn't make sense. They can't be here. We left them behind at the camp. There's no way they would have found an entrance. This must be some trick. The indigo and violet lux are playing on me."

He had already suspected violet lux affected the passage of time. Perhaps it could also reach into his past for memories he'd rather not have. Regardless, he drank in their lux, cycling it, pushing as much as he could through his strained lux channels. He didn't know if he could go on. That fight had taken a lot from him. Yet, how could he stop now, so close, so close to the top?

Joshi recovered for as long as he dared, then proceeded to the next turn. As he had half expected, more specters from his past awaited him. These were the imperial soldiers who had captured him and brought him into slavery in the first place. Their captain pointed at him. "Look, the rebel who tried to assassinate the general! Seize him!”

Two soldiers, dressed in the livery of the Army of the West, advanced on him. They both carried long spears and would have reach on him. But in these tight quarters, he could turn that to his advantage.

He waited as they advanced on him, then summoned the largest orange lux shield he possibly could and rushed them. They lowered their spear tips. He used the shield to batter the spears aside, and then he was inside of their reach.

They swung, but their spears were too long and got tangled up on each other. Joshi drove in for a kill. He smashed a fist into the face of the first, going for a knockout blow. The man slumped back against the wall, seemingly dazed as Joshi turned his attention on the other.

He avoided a spear thrust, grabbing the weapon with his left hand and knocking it off course then kicking hard against the soldier's chest. Coming down, he pivoted and punched out, crushing the soldier's chest through his lacquered armor. Joshi felt splintering under his hand. He cycled lux to repair whatever damage he had done to his own fist before turning back to the first soldier.

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Something sharp pierced his shoulder. He looked down in surprise to see an arrow sticking out of him. The captain held a bow and was nocking another arrow to it already. He pulled back and let fly. Joshi threw up a shield, but too late. The arrow was there, and then Magen was in the way, intercepting it. The lux creature interposed itself between the arrow and took the hit. It squeaked as the arrow clattered through its body, then spiraled away over Joshi’s shoulder.

Joshi finished the soldier in front of him and raced down the hall as the captain fired another arrow. This one pierced Joshi's other shoulder. Blood ran down his chest. The arrows burned. He aimed a punch and missed badly as his arm refused to obey his commands.

Joshi roared in rage. He leapt and planted a two-foot kick in the center of the captain's chest, knocking him to the ground. Joshi stomped the man's helmet until it crunched under his feet. He staggered away, pain and weakness dizzying him, and slumped against the wall, sliding slowly down.

Lux pooled all around him. He absorbed what he could, trying to cycle it. The arrows were resisting his Purification of Mind and Soul technique.

Magen was there, hovering in the air over him, pulsing sadly.

"Are you all right?" Joshi asked. He tried expending a little violet lux and the ball swooped down to suck it up. It pulsed at him in an affirmative sort of way. "Good."

Joshi closed his eyes and tried to cycle. He was going to have to take the arrows out of the wounds. Foreign bodies made it much harder to heal injuries like this, but his arms didn't want to work. He took another deep breath.

Maybe this was for the best. He was terribly tired and terribly worried about what lay beyond the next turn. And this was only the sixth floor of the pyramid. Whatever awaited him on the seventh was far beyond his hopes of defeating.

Despite himself, Joshi made an effort and with the last bits of strength in his left hand, plucked the arrow from his chest. It tore great chunks of muscle. Pain more intense than anything he had known filled his body. Joshi screamed and leaned back against the wall, panting as sweat dripped down his face.

Then he set himself and pulled the other arrow. At last, he cycled lux. He lost the technique three times before finally settling into Purification of Mind and Soul.

Red lux oozed through his clogged channels, a tiny trickle running through weed-infested ditches, but it slowly, slowly began to aid him. He absorbed what was left from his opponents. When at last his wounds were healed, his core was empty.

Joshi closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He was out of lux. Whatever still lay ahead of him, he would have to fight, and he didn't have anything left. It was too late to try to turn around and find another way out. He was going to die here.

He opened an eye. Magen was watching. He could feel the tiny lux creature, like a mobile core of lux, just hovering there. It came and settled on his shoulder. He reached up and touched it with one hand, and he could feel all the lux roiling inside it. Mostly violet and indigo, but a good bit of other colors, too. Quite a lot of red. More red than he'd gotten off of any of his kills, in fact.

He could take it, he realized. The little lux creature nuzzled against him, open to him, just as the cores of his defeated enemies were open to him. He could take this lux and cycle it through his body. He could feel from here how pure it was, how it already matched his own lux, because he had cycled it through himself before feeding it to Magen. All he had to do was take it.

In fact, the little creature almost seemed to be offering. Yet, Joshi knew he couldn't take just some. It would rip Magen apart, and he didn't think the little creature would survive. Joshi allowed his hand to fall back to his side. "It's all right," he told the creature. "I shall find another way."

He sat there, and he cycled for what seemed like hours. Then, when the cycling had done everything for him that it possibly could, Joshi got to his feet. His wounds were healed, but he knew this was his last gasp.

He staggered forward and around the corner. And there they were, just as he had known they would be, his four elder brothers, dressed in their leathers and furs. Tamok carrying his short bow. Radz and Genga holding short swords. Tall Berun armed with a javelin. They saw him, too, and mocking smiles filled their faces.

"There's the bastard, then," Berun sneered, "back from his studies with the monks. Did they let you sleep in a bed, little Joshi? Did they feed you fresh fruit with every meal?"

"He's forgotten how to ride a horse," Genga mocked. "Look at him. He fights with his fists like a child. You are too weak to be the son of a Khan. Why have you come back?"

Joshi just kept striding forward. If he got close enough, he might be able to take one down. Then he would have the lux he needed.

The four spread out, watching him come.

"Shall we honor him, then, brother?" Berun asked, and the weapon vanished from his hands. He clenched them into fists. "Let us fight like boys, barely weaned, and show this bastard brother of ours that we don't need weapons to defeat him."

Now all four moved on Joshi, their fists up, and he knew as if he needed proof that these were conjurings of his own mind. Berun and the others would never abandon their weapons, not even to teach him a lesson. This was his own doubt and darkest imaginings, somehow given flesh.

Joshi raised his fists as his brothers dove on him. Confusing flashes of faces and fists filled his vision. A punch landed on his ribs, another on the back of his head. He struck out and felt bone break under his fist. More blows rained down on him. He punched, he kicked. His vision went red with anger and with blood that spewed from a cut on his head.

Then he found himself on his knees, blows still raining down, his brother's voices indistinct but clearly mocking. Now he was on the ground as their booted feet drove into his ribs and heels. They were going to kill him this time, then. They had always been going to kill him. He had spoken too openly of his ambitions to become a cultivator. When they had seen that as arrogance and a desire to rise above his station, they would never allow that. And so here, at last, he was going to die. He had escaped slavery. He had embarked on a path of cultivation and all for nothing.

No.

A tiny spark of resolution flamed in Joshi right where his core was. It grew and grew, encompassing his whole body. He pushed to his knees.

No, he was not going to die here. He was not going to lose to some fragments of his own imagination that were not even really his brothers. Joshi would persevere. He would endure. He would climb.

He was on his feet and the spark in his core washed all through his body. It wasn't a spark anymore. It was a raging fire, and it blazed through him, pushing his lux channels, clear of the debris that had filled them.

He threw his head back and screamed defiance at the invisible sky above him as the residue of unpurified lux exploded from every pore in his body, splattering the walls of the corridor and the figments of his brothers with black tarry substance.

And Joshi was remade. Fire blazed in him. The last fragments of lux, previously frozen in his clogged channels, now burned through him. There wasn’t much of it but it moved so smoothly, so easily. He wove together red and orange as though he had been doing it forever. Now he saw why they were called a chord, because the two notes harmonized together beautifully when he combined them this way.

He drove a fist of red lux tipped with four-inch-long spikes of orange straight into Berun's chest. His brother's eyes widened. He gasped and went down as Joshi yanked away, dismissing the lux blades and then reforming them again as soon as his fist was free. He slashed against Genga’s throat, then turned and delivered a sharp kick to Radz’s chest, driving orange spikes deep in with his red-booted lux foot.

Now only Tamok stood, the eldest of his father's sons, his sneer replaced by disbelief and fear. Joshi drove in. He smashed one fist against that hateful face and his brother crumbled away to dust, as did the other figments, their bodies dissolving into lux that Joshi inhaled and gulped as greedily as a dying man drinks cold water.

He gasped as he cycled. It had never been so easy before. He switched to the Way of Boulders and felt great torrents of lux moved at his direction easily.

He had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement. He had taken the first true step on the path of cultivation, the Heavenly Climb. He had done it.

Joshi fell to his knees and wept.