Min POV

Min watched Chang-li disappear up the stairs before turning to the clerk at the desk. "Now then," she said, "I require some information here."

"Of course, lady," the scribe said, bowing. "How may I serve you?"

Min strolled away from the desk deliberately, letting her fingers trail along its edge before stepping out of reach. The clerk's eyes followed her.

"You see," Min said, formulating a plan in her mind, "I have recently become betrothed to a young master from a, shall we say, sect in some difficulty."

"Yes, my lady," the scribe said politely.

"Morning Mist was once a noble sect with many great deeds to its account, but they have fallen on hard times, mostly, I think, due to a failure of the late Grand Master's spouse, my predecessor. At this time, the sect has no cultivator spouses at all."

That, at least, was true. The scribe seemed to believe her. "A difficult situation, my lady."

"Indeed." She turned back, smiling as hopefully as she could and spreading her hands wide. "You see, I am to marry into the sect and be expected to perform duties that I have not been properly trained for, as well as having no superior to teach me. My fiancé and the other disciples do not see how difficult a situation this puts me in, but they are entirely focused on cultivation and fail to see that there are other tasks equally important to maintaining the health of a sect."

The scribe nodded. She had a pleasant expression and seemed to be following what Min was saying. "I understand your difficulty, my lady."

"I wonder if you would be able to help me determine the kind of records I wish to spend my time perusing. I would be very grateful for any help." Min cleared her throat. "As would my grandfather."

The scribe had seen both her and Chang-li's documents. She dipped her head. "Of course, my lady," she said warmly. "Come with me."

She stepped out from behind her counter and began walking about the circle. "These rooms contain all of the sect records pertaining to matters at the first stage of cultivating bodily refinement, but they also contain the day-to-day doings of various sects. I fear some of them are a little cluttered. There is very little call for most of these records, so they've generally been stored under the name of the sect who deposited them and not properly cross-referenced. But it might be possible to..."

Min drew a copper coin from her purse, a 10-kwam piece. It was the smallest she had, and with what Chang-li had taken from her yesterday, she was starting to run a little short. She would have to see if she could prevail on her brother to give her an allowance before she returned to the tower. She pressed it into the scribe's hand. "Anything," she said, "anything will help."

She had spent the night worrying whether to risk being caught away from the mayor’s palace. Chang-li ought to be able to get the records of techniques and learn how to reach the Peak of Mental Refinement. He could pass them down to her chosen disciples. But the Oaken Band sister's warning had brought into sharp focus the fact that she didn't actually know anything about running a sect, and neither did Chang-li or Joshi.

What other ways might they be caught out? They could fall afoul of customs and regulations they'd never heard of. The longer she thought about it, the more she was convinced that she needed to learn how sects worked anyway.

The scribe pointed at the first door. "Each of these rooms is organized by date of deposit of records. When the last room is filled, we go to the oldest and take its contents to the deep vaults. Do you have any idea where you would like to start, my lady?"

"With the most recent," Min declared. If she was going to learn customs and regulations, she might as well be up to date on them. She had a handful of blank journals and a soft lead stick of the type the Oaken Band preferred to use. It would not be as elegant as the pen and ink of a scribe, but she could scribble down simplified characters much faster than she could use a pen.

Now she followed the clerk through one of the doors. The room beyond was much larger than she had expected, at least 40 feet on a side and chock full of shelves. The space between rows was barely enough for a person to walk. The shelves rose to a height of 8 feet, with boxes piled on top of them. There were tags on the end of each shelf, with the names of sects listed in pen.

Min went to the first shelf and ran a finger down the list of sect names. None of them were anything she recognized. What was she even looking for here? She turned to the scribe. "You have worked here for long?"

"Eighteen months, my lady."

"Do you enjoy your posting?"

The woman's face dimmed. "Ah, I was hoping that working with cultivators would give me a chance to impress a sect with my skills," she admitted. "But I'm stuck here, working a desk. It hasn't really happened."

"What's your name?"

"Yaw Dai Nee."

"Very well, Scribe Yaw. I shall remember your helpfulness, not merely to my betrothed, but to my family as well," Min said, making sure the girl took her meaning. It was always good to impress upon people just how useful you might be to them. "All my family," she added, and the woman's face lit up.

She bowed low. "Thank you, lady."

"Now," Min said briskly, "I want the records from the largest sect you have had visit and deposit records in the last, say, year."

Her brow furrowed. "That would be the Tradewinds Sect, I think. They are said to have branches in a dozen different provinces, and one of their grandmasters was made a Prism not fifteen years ago."

"Perfect," Min said. She reasoned that a very large sect would be more likely to have their procedures and everyday life written down, rather than handing the knowledge from one person to another. If she was wrong, she still had time to make another choice.

Scribe Yaw helped Min locate the records in question. They filled most of a shelf three aisles over from the door. Crates full of scrolls, stacks of scribbled journals, and boxes with lids that Min pulled open. One contained several fabric samples in different colors, presumably those of the sect. Receipts of supplies. She boggled at the number of crates of eggs and stacks of rice the sect apparently used in a single month. Other miscellany. These seemed less than immediately useful, so she turned to the stacks of books.

One look at a page quickly told her whether it was written in the standard character set or a sect language. She set aside all of the ones she couldn't read with some regret. No doubt they contained much more interesting items, perhaps even secrets, but there was no point wasting her time on books she couldn't read.

"Anything else, Mistress?" Scribe Yaw asked, hovering.

Min shook her head. "I'm fine for now, thank you."

"Should you need anything else, I'll be at my post." The scribe disappeared and left Min in peace, which suited her. She pulled a sturdy covered crate off of the shelf and used it as a seat, making a stack beside her of journals, with one of her own blank books open in front of her.

Min began to take notes. At first, the trivialities of a sect's daily life didn't seem to have much to teach her. Then she began to see rhythms. She found a training schedule tucked away, with a notation saying "for the lesser disciples" and copied it verbatim into her book.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

A stack of notes from the sect's infirmary was worth their weight in gold. She scribbled note after note. This cultivator had sprained an ankle and was prescribed hot compress and rest. This cultivator had overstrained his lux channels using a cycling pattern he had been warned was too difficult for him. He was given a tonic and dismissed from the sect. Another cultivator, suffering the same ailment but with a cryptic addendum in a different hand reading "too well connected," had been given a lux strengthening pill and told to cycle "the Way of Soothing Rains" for a week before continuing her training.

You could learn a lot about how to run a sect by reading through the records of injuries, Min thought. One whole page of her notebook now was dedicated to recipes she wanted to learn for the healing tonics and other prescriptions that had been listed. To her luck, she found another volume, slim, handwritten, and tied with a ribbon that contained just such recipes. She started to copy them out, flipped through the book, counted them, and carried it out to Scribe Yaw, who looked up eagerly from her desk.

"Yes, Mistress?"

"I would like a copy of this made and added to the other items my scribe is taking from your vaults."

"Of course, Mistress. It could be ready for you in a week. " She hesitated. "Or for an extra fee, by the end of the day."

Min waved it off. "We want it today."

"Of course."

Min returned to her perusals. Somewhere around midday — it was hard to tell since the rooms had no windows, but her stomach was rumbling quite a lot — she rose again, having learned quite a lot from the sect records. She felt there was more she could learn, but she needed some lunch. She stopped by the helpful scribe's desk again. The girl was eating cold chicken cutlets and fishballs. Min's stomach rumbled.

"I don't suppose there's a way to have lunch brought up here?" She wondered idly how Chang-li was getting on. "And there's been no sign of my scribe?"

Scribe Yaw shook her head. "The cultivators who visit the top floor rarely return before the end of the day. Please," she shoved her food toward Min, "help yourself to my lunch, lady."

It was taking advantage of the girl, but Min really did mean to put in a good word for her wherever she could. She took two of the balls, enough to take the edge off her hunger, and drank from the flask of cold tea that Scribe Yaw offered her. Then she hesitated.

"I wonder if you might indulge me, but where are the records of the oldest sects kept?"

"In the vaults," the scribe said promptly. "All the really old stuff is down there but we don’t let just anyone in."

"Too many secrets?"

"Fragile documents, my lady."

Min nodded. She wasn't going to argue that she could handle such records safely since she knew very well she couldn't. "How do you know what is down there or how to find it?"

"Well, we have the compendiums in the hall. Let's see, they're in this third room, my lady." Scribe Yaw led her over. "but the compendiums hold the deposition and withdraw records dating all the way back to when this library was founded.. They're along this back wall." She showed Min the racks and racks of leatherbound books and scrolls. "These are listings of every sect that has ever visited Riceflower Province and the Tower Culls that they were associated with."

"Thank you," Min said pleasantly. The girl left again, and Min wondered what she was actually looking for here.

She was certain that the Morning Mist sect was a real organization. The ring Joshi wore was no fake, or rather, if he had been capable of such a counterfeit, then he would have been also able to fake the rest of the sect without any help from her. No, she had a suspicion what had happened. Somehow Chang-li or Joshi had come across the effects of a long-dead cultivator from the Morning Mist sect, which had gotten them access to a secret entrance into the tower. They’d gone in with Hiroko, and all come out at different times.

Min had a hunch learning more about the Morning Mist sect would pay off, though she wasn't certain why. She also had a feeling they were very old. It was just something about the look of Joshi's ring. While it had been bright, without a speck of tarnish, it was a very old-fashioned design. The ring could have been handed down from cultivator to cultivator, but it didn't look as though it had been worn that much. And for them to so boldly throw around a sect name, expecting no one to have heard of it, might also indicate an age.

Min started into the stack of compendium scrolls. She unrolled and searched through them and immediately noticed something odd. Each scroll had the date of its creation right at the top. Next to the date was a note stating, "All dates should be readjusted to calculate for year 423 being equivalent to Imperial Year 1 due to Imperial Decree."

Imperial Decree? What sort of Imperial Decree would have erased 400 years of history? Min had never heard of any such thing. It was the year 1273, counting down since the Emperor had constructed the first cultivation tower and turned untamed wilderness into the paradise that was now the Empire.

This implied that there had been 400 years of some calendar before that. Surely any tribes that had lived in a barren wilderness devoid of lux would have been too busy running from monsters and scraping a meager existence off of the sort of pathetic crop that grew naturally without the benefit of lux fertilizer to have bothered keeping records.

Curious, she began to read through the lists of sect visitations, looking for references to tower culls at Golden Moon City. There were none. Min realized with exasperation that the city could have been renamed and resolved herself to looking through every sect name in the scroll.

Morning Mist was not in the first scroll, nor was it in the second, but now the name Golden Moon began to crop up along with a notation that the broken tower offered certain opportunities for a cultivator brave enough to enter, but warning they should consult the Council of Elders before venturing there.

The Council of Elders? Min had never heard of such an organization. Riceflower Province had a governor. From her family for the last three hundred years, and another family before that. The sects and the Office of Cultivation between them worked out who was permitted on a tower cull and who was not.

She read deeper. A little farther on was a note, "Eruption at Golden Moon Tower. Several cultivators lost. Others survived, crippled, and warned of an overabundance of violet lux. This imbalance should be addressed by the Council of Elders."

Min found the mystery intriguing. She read on. And then, on the third scroll, she found the name.

"Young Master Kang of the Morning Mist sect has arrived and presented to the Council of Elders with a handsome gift in exchange for permission to delve the Golden Moon City Tower off-season. Permission has been granted. Cultivator Kang further offers several guarantees of his good behavior, including leaving his sect records in the Cultivators Library. Additionally, Cultivator Kang deposited a sealed mapcase with cartography." There was a notation after the entry.

She scanned down the next few entries and saw no further mention of the Morning Mist sect. She went back to the entry referring to the Morning Mist visit and copied out the notation. Min retraced her steps back to the desk and the helpful clerk. "Scribe Yaw?"

The woman looked up, smiling pleasantly.

"Yes, my lady?”

“There's a record I particularly wish to access. It's in the deep vaults."

Scribe Yaw frowned. "I could put in a request to have it brought up to you."

"That's really not necessary," Min said. "I'm not certain whether or not it's relevant to me. Would it be possible for us just to pop down and take a look? It really shouldn't take me long to decide if it's something I need or not. If it is, I can put in the request through normal channels."

Scribe Yaw frowned. "I don't know, my lady. That vault is restricted to those who know how to handle those old documents."

"I presume you take plenty of shifts down there," Min said. "You look to me as though you know your way around an archive."

The other woman puffed up, clearly pleased by the mild praise. How long had she been stuck at this desk job? Min made a note to be sure to have someone from the Brotherhood bring her a token of appreciation, at the very least. "Yes, of course, my lady."

"I don't intend to touch anything," Min lied. "I just need to find out if the record in question is even there. I could go down and be back up here in no time at all."

Scribe Yaw hesitated. At last, she set aside her record book and straightened up, dusting her hands off. "Nobody ever comes up here this late in the day. Sect scribes always want to spend hours and hours upstairs. I suppose I won't be missed."

"Thank you," Min said, dipping her head.

Scribe Yaw led her back down the stairs she'd come up, and then through an inconspicuous door that led to another stair leading deep below the atrium. The temperature dropped precipitously as they descended. The air felt drier. There was still a feel of ambient lux.

"We keep the vault cooler, and as dry as we can," Scribe Yaw whispered. "No flames allowed. Only lux lamps."

That was quite an indulgent use of lux, but Min wasn't going to argue. They stepped out into a vast room full of shelves like she'd seen in the ones upstairs, stretching out for ages. A few rows away, someone wearing a dark brown robe was sweeping the floor.

"You have some idea where this is?" Min held up a copy of the location sheet she’d noted down.

Scribe Yaw peered at it, raised an eyebrow. "Those are very old. Yes, I can take you there. Come on."

She set off along the rows, at last reaching the end, coming up against a wall. Scribe Yaw turned and went along the row, nearly all the way down, before stopping.

"Here you are, my lady."

Min studied the shelves. There, amongst all the others, in a tarnished brass cylinder, was the emblem of the Morning Mist sect.

She needed a way to distract Scribe Yaw. Pretending to have just thought something, she turned to the other woman. "I forgot to bring anything to write down this information on. Could you find me a slate? I'll want to make a request."

Scribe Yaw bowed her head and set off, retracing her steps.

Min turned over the small case in her hands. This should belong to the Morning Mist sect. But if it wasn't labeled like the other documents they had deposited, would the officious bureaucrats of the Hall of Records say she had no claim to it? Min slipped the roll up her sleeve. It was only four inches long, very small for a scroll case.

When Scribe Yaw returned with a slate, Min ostentatiously copied out the details of a scroll, two shelves over and three shelves up, picking one at random. Then she handed the slate back to Scribe Yaw.

"Thank you for indulging me," she said. “I should get back before Scribe Wu finishes. I will remember your help, I swear.”