Chang-li found himself in a vast room. The sky above was lost in fog. He could feel the chamber stretched out all around him, but the haze grew thick about ten paces or so from where he stood. Yet it had the feeling of being a vast enclosure, like the way he had never been able to forget he was inside of a tower, even on the broadest of its floors.
The mist was slightly tinged gold, and he could hear creatures or people moving in it. Whispers, the shuffle of feet on the floor. His skin prickled as he turned in place. He caught sight of no one and nothing. What kind of place was this? Was there a trick, something he was, as a supposed cultivator scribe, already supposed to know?
Chang-li's hand went to his breast as though he were tempted to open his soul space and pull out his sword, but he forced his fingers away. Instead, he channeled lux, preparing red and orange, just in case he were attacked. The lux in here was, if anything, denser than it had been outside. It was pushing against his boundaries, trying to force itself into his lux channels. He held a conscious, positive pressure to keep it out, allowing only what he chose. He didn't know what would happen if he gave in and let the lux have its way with him, but he also didn't want to find out.
He reached into his satchel, and his fingers found Wulan’s pen case. He drew it out, finding the familiar object grounding him, reassuring him that he wasn’t dreaming.
Then, all at once, a figure materialized through the mist. It was an old woman, her gray hair up in a bun on the top of her head and fastened with a long pair of lacquered sticks. She wore the robes of a cultivator, the color faded out, and her brooch bore a device of a quill pen.
She was a shade.
He could faintly see through her, and she hovered off the ground. But he’d never seen a shade so thoroughly realized before. Impatiently, she spoke. "I see you're a scribe. Your sect sent you to do some dirty work?"
He nodded dumbly.
"Then speak up, boy!" Her eyes fastened on the pen case in his hand, and she cackled, clasping her hands together. "Oh, aren't you a clever one! It's been ages since anyone brought a shade to us. I thought perhaps it had gone out of fashion. Go on, summon him!"
Chang-li managed to croak, "What?"
"Your sect shade! That's why you brought him here, isn't it? So we can teach him the techniques? Much more efficient than passing it along to you to write down. Come along, then!" She snapped her fingers, and Chang-li jumped.
He channeled lux into Wulan's pen case, hoping it was the right thing to do. A moment later, the irascible cultivator scribe appeared, floating cross-legged in midair, just as he'd been the last time Chang-li summoned him.
"That's twice now you've summoned me without so much as a by your leave,” he grumbled to Chang-li. He was looking denser here, too. It must be the increased lux levels. He almost looked like a living person, but for the sheen around him.
Chang-li couldn't resist. He leaned forward and poked a finger at Wulan's shoulder. It passed inside the shade's outline. "Quit that!" Wulan said crossly. He looked around. "Where am I?"
"We're at the cultivator library," Chang-li said. "She said to bring you out." He gestured to the other shade. Wulan's attention shifted. He stood up, still hovering over the floor, and smoothed at his robes before gliding over and bowing low before the woman.
"My lady scribe, how charming to meet you. It's been ages since I had anyone other than this oaf to talk to."
The female shade raised a hand to her lips and giggled almost girlishly. "That is too kind of you. What is your name, brother scribe?"
"I am Wulan of the Morning Mist."
"And I am Dathia Rose of Harmonious Inclinations. How long has it been for you?"
"Oh, I don't know. The calendar here seems all messed up," Wulan said. "Why, no one here had even heard of the Morning Mist until I convinced this young fool to help me resurrect our sect. I must rescue us from obscurity, of course, but you can see the sort of tools I have to work with." He made a dismissive gesture at Chang-li.
"I'm right here," Chang-li said. The shades ignored him.
"You've come to the right place," Dathia Rose said. "I take it your acolytes are having difficulty with the Mental Refinement stage?"
"They'll have difficulty with the Spiritual Refinement stage once they get there, too,” Wulan said. "But one thing at a time, I should say."
"Your acolyte would be torn to pieces if he attempted to enter the Spiritual Refinement room. The lux density in there is a hundred times what it is in here, suitable only for cultivators already at the Peak of Mental Refinement, not those who," she cast a glance at Chang-li, "seem unlikely to ever reach it."
"I'm still here," Chang-li said, finding himself more and more annoyed. "Listen, I came here for knowledge of techniques and the secrets of how to reach Mental Refinement."
"Yes, yes," Dathia Rose said. She sighed. "Fine, I'll summon another to talk to you while the elders and I speak with your shade."
"What are you going to do with him?" Chang-li asked. Wulan didn’t seem concerned, so perhaps he shouldn’t be either.
"Merely impart as much of our wisdom as he can take. You've shamefully neglected him," Dathia Rose declared as she looked Wulan over.
The ancient shade looked disappointed. He puffed himself up. "I am in fine mettle.”
"Yes, but if your descendants do not provide you with significantly more lux as well as a better anchor, you will dissipate here in a matter of years," Dathia Rose said. "I hope they have plans to install you in a permanent location."
"Part of our bargain is to restore the sect holdings of the Morning Mist," Wulan said.
"Since when?" asked Chang-li as another pair of shades appeared. They seemed to be twin brothers, only a little older than Chang-li himself. They bowed to him, and then to the female shade. "Lady Rose, we heard your summons."
"Take this one away and train him or something.” Rose sounded annoyed. "Come, Wulan, speak with me.”
“I’ve still got his pen case.”
“Just leave it on the table here," Rose directed. "You can retrieve it when we are done."
"Ah.” Chang-li studied the small round marble-topped table which had certainly not been here before. "How much is this going to cost me? I've got a budget to stick to and a list here of what I need."
"I'll take that list," Wulan said, holding out his hand. Chang-li hesitated before pulling the notes he'd made the night before from his pocket. It contained a listing of everything he was hoping to find in the archive.
Wulan raised an eyebrow. "Ambitious, aren't you? I'm not sure how much of this they can put in my head."
Rose looked over his shoulder, their outlines overlapping a little bit, which disconcerted Chang-li greatly. Wulan didn't seem to mind. Indeed, the old scribe set his free hand around Rose's waist. If the older woman shade cared, she didn't make it apparent. In fact, as Wulan's fingers touched her hip, she giggled again.
Chang-li turned to the twin shades. "I beg you for your knowledge."
The brothers raised identical eyebrows and laughed, glancing at the two shades deep in conversation. "Come with us."
They glided off into the mist, and Chang-li, not without reservations, followed. The mist parted as he went through, retreating to leave a corridor in which he followed the shades along.
"How do you all come to be here?" Chang-li asked.
The brothers both shrugged their shoulders in the same way. "Most of us are formerly patron shades of a sect who either found disfavor with the Empire or lost their last disciples. As part of their assets, we were claimed and installed here to benefit the nation."
"In our case," one of the brothers said, sighing, "it was our sister's fault."
"We should never have trusted that traitorous bitch," the other brother said. "We were all three born at once, and devoted to the path of cultivation. We trained, achieving the rank of Spiritual Refinement before the age of thirty-five, and had acquired quite a following in our sect. Each of us wished to be proclaimed the next Grand Master."
"Our sister," the other brother said, picking up the thread of the story, "came to each of us in turn and persuaded us that we were plotting against each other.”
“She set us up," the first brother said grimly. "Arranged for a match and swapped out the weapons, leaving each of us to believe that the other had dealt deceitfully."
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"And so we perished, each with the other's sword in his breast," the second brother declared dramatically, turning a doleful face to Chang-li. "Then after she had achieved the rank of Grand Master, she wished no record of her treachery to remain with the sect, and so she donated us to the provincial government in order to settle some back taxes. We've been here ever since."
Chang-li found the story frankly ridiculous, but he didn't want to offend the brothers. "So, ah, gracious instructors, how shall I call you?"
"I am Deng, and he is Dang," one of the brothers said. Chang-li tried to fix which was which, but they were moving quickly enough, he was losing track. They emerged from the mist into a cleared area, a set of concentric circles, the largest a good fifty feet across, the smallest inner circle a mere six feet. The brothers led Chang-li right to the center.
"Let your shade learn the boring matters. We can see what it is you need," Deng, or perhaps Dang, said.
"What's that?"
"You are hiding a sword in your soul space. It is not a particularly notable sword, although it does have a good affinity for yellow lux, which at your stage is quite valuable. It may be possible to expand that affinity to include green, which would greatly enhance its helpfulness to you," the second brother said. "But if you are hiding a sword in your soul space, that can only mean that you haven't told anyone you are a scribe who has decided to pick up the sword."
Chang-li started to protest that he was no such thing, but Dang, or perhaps Deng, held up a hand. "We certainly don't care about such strictures. We are shades and past the laws of men. What we can see is that you are a hopeless swordsman. So doff your robe, draw your sword, and learn."
Both of the brothers materialized swords in their own right hands. Chang-li decided it was best to do as they asked. Besides, when else was he going to get the offer of free sword lessons? As long as Wulan was learning some valuable techniques and they were able to get their hands on the trove of Morning Mist's secrets, this would be a valuable way to spend his day.
And if it wasn't, he'd come back tomorrow and try again. He still had time before the caravan returned to the tower. He shrugged out of his outer robe, leaving on his tunic and leggings, and then opened his soul space and withdrew his sword, which he handled only with his left hand. The brothers eyed him.
"Interesting. You are a crosshander?"
"As a child, I preferred my left," he said. He hesitated, then admitted, "This way I haven't quite broken my scribe's oath."
They shared a laugh as they realized what he meant. "The hand that holds a pen has not touched a sword," Deng said. "Well thought. I like seeing a bit of duplicitousness in a scribe. It's what you need as a cultivator."
"Duplicitousness and discretion," Dang agreed. "Otherwise, you'll find your sect records are an invitation for an inquisitor."
"What do you mean?" Chang-li asked as he copied the brothers' stance as best he could.
"Well, as they say, if an inquisitor wants to find something amiss with your sect, all he has to do is look. There are a thousand laws governing cultivation, and even the best-intentioned sect is going to fall afoul of some of them. Just try to leave the bigger ones out of your sect journals.”
“And never, ever, ever admit to working with violet lux," Deng added.
Chang-li felt a quick stab of guilt. He nodded.
"Now the first thing you want to know is how to hold a sword," Deng said. "Please don't say you do already. What you want to do is..."
Chang-li trained with the brothers for what seemed an eternity. After a particularly exhausting bout, he fell back, gasping. He drank from the water skin they had materialized somewhere and realized he wasn't hungry, though it seemed like he must have been here for hours.
The water was oddly filling. Where had they gotten it? It probably wasn't water at all, but some form of purified lux that was fortifying his body. At the Peak of Bodily Refinement, Chang-li could expect to begin to take some of what he needed from lux, but he would still need food eventually.
"How long have I been here?" he asked, panting. "I had a companion with me. I can't leave her here forever, and I have to return to my tower in three more days."
Deng shook his head. "Do not fear. Each hour that you spend here is recorded against your fee. But," and he smiled, "even though they try to strip the violet lux out of the crystals they give us, there's always some. We have very little to do here in between visitors. And so, we tend to, shall we say, adjust the flow of the hours, speed them up when no one is here.”
“But in consequence we have a great deal of stored time available to us to use when we do have visitors. You've been here an hour," Dang declared.
It had felt like far more. Chang-li had suspected since his time on the first floor of the Golden Moon Tower that violet lux altered the flow of time in some way, but to have it confirmed like this was yet another astonishing revelation, and the idea that time was something that could be saved up or spent out made his head hurt. He decided to accept their explanation.
“Let us begin again. We are fascinated by your description of using both an elemental technique and your sword at the same time. Give us a quick demonstration and we'll see what kind of pointers we can give you."
The brothers were very good swordsmen. Chang-li discovered quickly that he was not, and then slowly began to improve a little at a time. They admitted they were not much in the way of using elemental techniques.
"I like to channel through my sword," Deng explained. "When you are more advanced you should try to get your hands on a channeling sword. One of those can handle all that nonsense for you. Just channel in a little green lux and your attacks will leave a nasty swath of poison on someone, or hit them with some orange and their wounds will be twice as deep. That's what most swordsmen tend to do."
"Yes, we leave the elementals for the softer types, those who don’t want to experience combat up close and personal," Dang agreed, "but I can see some potential here. Have you considered trying to use it as a shield?"
"I have," Chang-li agreed. He showed them what he thought of.
"Interesting. Your left-hand sword work will take many enemies by surprise, but it does leave your right side more exposed. You'll want to compensate with the shield, I think.”
“If you could quickly switch between a shield and an offensive ability, that would be a powerful combination,” his brother mused. "I don't think we have anyone here who could match that."
"No, but he might benefit from tutoring by Master Yala," Deng said. "She was a great elemental cultivator.”
“But we must work on your mental techniques. Right now you are in danger of your body overwhelming your mind. That is a common problem at the Peak of Bodily Refinement.”
Chang-li lowered his sword. This was what he’d been aching to learn. Secrets of cultivation. He bowed respectfully to the brothers. “Can you explain it to me?”
“Do you know what lux is?”
There had to be more to the question than Chang-li saw. He frowned as he thought. “I guess — it just is. You cultivate it in order to do things.”
“Lux is the broken-down and clarified remains of lumos, the substance which creates, maintains, and alters the universe.”
He’d heard of lumos, but only in a vague way, from family prayers and other rote recitations. Chang-li nodded. “Go on.”
“A cultivator who could use lumos directly could re-shape reality with a thought. There are whispers that the Emperor is capable of controlling lumos, but he is a divine being. The rest of us use lux. Towers convert lumos to the seven colors of lux.” Deng paused, inviting Chang-li to respond.
He thought about it. “Why seven?”
“Excellent question!” Dang applauded him. “Why seven and not four, or ten? There are a great deal of cultivation philosophy devoted to that topic but you’ll never contribute anything of note at this stage, so forget it and accept. Seven colors. They range from the physical — altering or enhancing your own body, altering and enhancing the world around you, and altering or enhancing the elements themselves — to the intangible. Spiritual luxes can control minds, space, and time — but stay away from violet unless you want an inquisitor up your ass.”
“And of course, lux is utterly inimicable to life,” Deng tossed in.
“Wait, what? I thought lux is needed to make plants grow and to —”
“Yes, yes, its applications are important. The sun is needed to make plants grow, but if you tried to inhale the sun and keep it in your body you’d regret that too. You know all those impurities you’re cycling out of your body? They’re not lux impurities. Lux is perfect, pure, undefiled. Those are from your body destroying itself due to the presence of lux in you.”
“So, when you begin cultivating, the first step is to refine your body,” Dang said. “That allows you to tolerate higher concentrations of lux. If a normal mortal were to step foot on this floor of the building, he’d quickly find himself puking his guts out and if he didn’t heed that warning, would perish.”
“I remember a disciple once. Promising girl, barely starting out. She ignored a warning sign and stepped inside a training area for Spiritual Refinement cultivators. She died screaming, in a matter of seconds. Tumors erupting from her body, skin boiling away… where were we?” Deng related the anecdote in a light-hearted manner. Chang-li’s blood ran cold hearing it. “Ah, yes. Bodily refinement. Now that you’ve reached the peak, your body can handle more lux and you can push out the toxins and repair your body without aid. But lux is still not good for you. Yet you persist on pushing on, into denser regions. Now the attacks center on your mind. So at this stage, we focus on keeping your mental defenses up. As you push toward Mental Refinement, you will learn to shield your mind at all times, keeping the lux out.”
“Let’s set his feet on the path,” Dang said. “You’ve been keeping the lux at bay the whole time you’re here, allowing only a trickle inside. That’s excellent. Shows you have good instincts and solid control. Drop the resistance and let the lux in.”
Chang-li was struck by visions of himself writhing on the ground vomiting blood. “You know, I think I’d better study —”
“Do it!”
Chang-li dropped his barriers, and the lux flowed in.
It was like he’d plunged into a raging river. The flow overwhelmed him, dragging him along. His mind echoed with shrieks. His vision blurred as explosions of light behind his eyes pounded through his skull. He could feel insects crawling up his skin. A smell of rotting roses filled his nostrils.
“Control it!” Deng ordered from somewhere far away. “It’s your mind, control it!”
He didn’t know how. He didn’t have a technique.
“Ground yourself,” Dang told him. “Your feet are planted on the ground. Cycle up from your feet, in from your fingers. You are accepting the lux into yourself, but you own it. Your body belongs to you. Your mind must become yours as well.”
Inch by desperate inch, Chang-li pushed back the feelings, until he saw clearly enough to put his lux barrier back up. The flow cut off. He sagged to the ground, panting.
“Every Mental Refinement cycling technique is, at the core, similar. It’s about subjecting yourself to the flood, and controlling it. You will learn. Step by step, you will learn.”
Chang-li took a deep breath. He rose and bowed. “Thank you, my tutors.”
“Oh, and a warning,” Deng said. “Until your mind becomes as strong as your body has, you may find times your body controls your mind instead of vice versa. Be careful with friendly duels. They may escalate beyond your expectations.”
Maybe that was why Feng was such an asshole? For most of the time Chang-li had known him, he’d been working toward Mental Refinement. Perhaps now that he’d reached it he’d be a better person.
Fat chance of that.
“Well. Return tomorrow, and we shall see what more there is for you here.”
Chang-li had by now lost all track of time. "Tomorrow?"
"Why, yes. You've been here eight hours now. I'm afraid between this and what your shade has learned, your tab for the day will be quite extravagant. Just settle up at the desk. They don't mind running credit, but for a sect no one has ever heard of, they're going to demand to see some gold for this large a bill."
Chang-li bowed low to both brothers. "My gratitude is immense. Thank you."
"Our pleasure," Deng said. "No, really, it was. Oh, and by the way, if you should ever encounter our sister, Miya, of the Orange Blossoms in the Breeze sect, please don't hesitate to ram your sword up her ass. And then tell her shade where to get off."
The brothers chuckled, then retreated backward into the mist, which closed in around them and Chang-li. For an instant, he panicked, then the mist dissipated, and he found himself staring at Wulan's pen case on a small table in front of him. He certainly hadn't moved, but the sparring rings were gone.
He picked the pen case up. There was no sign of Wulan. He channeled a little lux into it. An irascible voice said, "I'm going to bed. Talk to me tomorrow. I've got a headache from all this nonsense you let them stuff in."
Grinning, Chang-li shoved the case into his satchel. He turned around and found a door behind him. Time to go. He hoped Min had had as productive a day as he.