By the time Joshi and the other cultivators returned Hiroko to the Dowager, the princess was glowing but exhausted. All of the Young Masters made their bows. Feng swaggered off immediately to where his disciples had been waiting for him. Joshi could hear him boasting to them as he went about how well he had served the princess.

When only Li Jen and Li Jiya remained Joshi turned to them. "Thank you for your support today."

"We didn't do nearly enough," Li Jen replied. Hiroko and the Dowager were making their way out of the tower, their heads bent together in conversation. "You and Feng did everything."

"Not at all," Joshi said. "The two of you killed at least as many tower beasts as Feng and I did."

"But we weren't out leading the charge," Jen said. He seemed exasperated. "And I understand why. The two of you are on a level that I at least am not. Li Jiya is holding back."

"I am not," his sister insisted.

Joshi believed Jen. "Are you afraid of upstaging your brother in the princess's eyes?" he asked Li Jiya. "Or are you hiding your abilities from your competition, thinking of the race on the next floor?"

She hesitated. "I do want to make a good showing on the next floor. Our sect needs it." She shrugged. "But mostly, I'm here to focus on my own advancement. I need to reach Peak of Mental Refinement before we leave here if I'm to be a good candidate for the Emperor's Gauntlet."

"What's that?" Joshi asked. The others looked at him in surprise. Clearly it was something everyone was expected to know about.

"The competition to choose the year's Imperial Brides. There'll be contests in ten different provinces, and only the top girl at each gauntlet will be chosen. Vardin City, capital of Riceflower Province, is hosting one of the gauntlets. I already have my invitation to join."

"And I'm the one holding you back," Li Jen said again. "I'm not sure I'm ready for this." He turned to Joshi. "Each of the candidates will bring her supporting staff, her disciples, and other Young Masters of her sect to assist her. It is a great honor for any sect to have one of their young masters chosen as Bride of the Emperor. It will cost a great deal but if I succeed… it will help revive our fortunes."

"Then I wish you luck," Joshi said.

"You're very gracious," Li Jen said. He sounded bitter. "But you can afford to be. I'm not your competition with Hiroko, am I? Feng is.”

Joshi blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I saw the way she looked at you," Li Jen said. He sighed. "It's not surprising. You and Feng are both much more impressive figures than I in every way."

Joshi considered the slight Young Master. He was handsome in a weak-featured way. His mouth had an honest set to it, and his eyes were kind. Jen was nothing like Feng, and, Joshi had to admit, nothing like himself.

"I am not competing for the princess's interest," Joshi said. He couldn't think of anything more likely to keep him entangled in imperial affairs than marrying an indigo princess. His intention was to carefully avoid any marriage entanglements, staying on a solo cultivation path as long as he possibly could, at least until he had a better course for his future.

"Then you might tell her that," Li Jiya said with mockery in her voice. "Because I don't think she is aware."

Joshi made his excuses and went to find his disciples. The three false disciples were where he had told them to be. To his pleased surprise, they had killed several tower beasts, ringing the clearing with the corpses. Disciple Shou had skinned the beasts and harvested their claws and eyes as well, while Yang had made a hot lunch. Joshi accepted his with thanks.

"Have you made progress on your cycling technique?"

"We have," Yang said. "The Way of Washed Linen technique you tried to teach us before works in here."

Joshi nodded approvingly. "With the increased lux densities, you'll find the cycling techniques that eluded you in the outside world come naturally. Show me."

He stood in the middle as the three arranged themselves in a circle around him, sitting cross-legged with their arms resting on their knees, eyes closed.

"Good," he told Shou. "That is the right rhythm. Cui, you are pushing and pulling where you should be guiding. You must think of it as water that you are allowing to flow through your channels. You do not push and pull water. Instead, you sculpt the channels themselves to carry it."

"I don't know how I'm supposed to do that," Cui grumbled. "I am a brawler, not a cultivator, whatever Elder Sister says."

"Brother Stone will be giving you a thump on the ear if you keep this up," Yang said.

"No," Joshi said sharply. "I am your master now."

All three opened their eyes. He could feel their cycling techniques drop.

"False master," Shou said. "Look, I appreciate the deal that Elder Sister made for us, but we all know it's a fake."

"No," Joshi said, again raising his voice. "You three, stand."

They lined up in front of him, facing him as he stared them down. "Nothing about cultivation is false," he told them. "Do you understand me?"

"But all of this is fake," Cui said, gesturing at himself and the others.

Joshi gestured to the tower beast bodies around them. “Are these false? Are the bruises on your knuckles false? Cultivation can never be false," Joshi said. "At its heart, the secret of cultivation is in learning to accept truths about yourself, improving yourself, and becoming more than you thought you could be. You will never succeed if you think of yourself as false cultivators.” He realized he had been guilty of the same sin, thinking of them as false disciples, and resolved never to think of them that way again. They were unexpected disciples, arrived from a source he did not fully trust. But while they were under his care, he would teach them what he could.

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"Stand up straight," he told them. "Shoulders back. Breathe in the lungs. Drink it in. Fill your cores. Now, cycle."

Joshi spent about an hour working with them. Satisfied that they could continue to practice cycling on their own, he went off a little ways to work on his own techniques.

His core was brimming over with lux. Now he sat and channeled more of it to Magan. He closed his eyes and concentrated on seeing through the spirit creature's own senses. In his fights today, he had used Magan as a scout, once or twice, and to help him spot enemies that were outside his own vision. It was difficult to see through his own eyes and Magan's at the same time. Difficult, but would be a valuable tool in the future. Joshi determined to work on it until it became second nature.

There was little else he could do for his own advancement yet. He didn't know the secrets to reaching Peak of Mental Refinement. It was as simple as that. Perhaps Chang-li would return with the treasure he hoped to find. Perhaps he would not. One way or another, Joshi was determined to continue his climb.

He and the disciples left the tower late that night. He had noticed that it seemed time passed on the third floor at about the same rate it did in the outside world, and that there seemed to be very little violet lux present on the third floor. Chang-li's suspicions that violet lux affected the flow of time seemed more and more likely to be true.

The disciples invited him to join them for a pint of ale at one of the taverns, but he declined, returning to the sect house alone. The lights were blazing, and the servants, provided by Min, were taking good care of the house. There was a cold supper laid out in the common room. Joshi served himself.

A knock came on the door. He hesitated and opened it, finding to his surprise Li Jiya standing there.

"Young Master Li, will you come inside?” She entered, looking about the place.

"You're well set up here," she said. "I've never heard of Morning Mist before, but you seem to be doing well for yourselves."

He shrugged. "An obscure sect. Like you, I am attempting to rebuild our fortunes."

"Where's your Grand Master, anyway?"

Joshi had thought about this and had a lie prepared. "I was forced to leave him behind in Tuflang Province. He is quite ill and is kept company by our other Young Master, his grandson. I am merely a foreigner, accepted by their kindness. It fell on me to revive our sect's fortunes."

"This is a very long way to come," Li Jiya said as she stalked about the room. She helped herself to some of the fruit from the supper table.

"My sect has had dealings in this tower long before. It is where we consider the beginnings of our misfortunes to have occurred. Therefore, our master felt it had to be here that we begin repairing our name."

She shrugged. “His reasoning seems a bit…” She hesitated, perhaps not wanting to call the imaginary master superstitious. “Old fashioned,” she finished.

Then, seeming to have decided to get to whatever business had brought her, she took a deep breath. "Young Master Joshi, I am concerned about my brother."

Joshi was, too. Li Jen seemed to be pushing to prove himself. Every time Joshi had seen him in combat today, sweat had been dripping from his face. Joshi hadn't recognized the cycling technique he was using, something confused and crowded, probably a Peak of Mental Refinement technique.

"He held his own," Joshi prevaricated. Jen had kept up with Jiya mostly because Jiya was holding back. Neither of them had been anything like on par with Feng and Joshi.

"He will not believe me that he should continue to advance at his own rate rather than rushing to try to keep up with others. I've pointed out to him that he's far in advance of what any of those Jade Lotus cultivators are capable of."

Joshi snorted. "It seems those Jade Lotus cultivators are satisfied with the title of cultivator and not the substance of it."

"Yes, I expect they'll receive a dissatisfactory performance notation after this tower," Li Jiya said. "They say one in five sects who participate in a tower cull is judged unsatisfactory."

"How many such marks can a sect receive before it is no longer a sect?" Joshi asked. "I come from not a cultivator background," he added quickly. "While my master of the Morning Mist sect has taught me much, there are other things that everyone else takes for granted that I just don't know."

"Ah, yes," Jiya said. "That makes sense. There's no number set, but if a sect has too many unsatisfactory marks, then masters of tower culls and other cultivation challenges are not going to accept them. The invitations to tower culls dry up, and your fortunes unravel quickly once the disciples stop coming," she said bitterly.

"You speak from personal experience."

"Our sect has fallen on hard times," Jiya admitted. "I can repair that if I win this contest to become the Emperor's bride."

"Is that what you wish for yourself, or merely how you are trying to help your sect?"

She understood at once what he was driving at. "It's my own desire," she said. "I've been aiming for it since I can remember. My great aunt, the Dowager Pearl, has been my guiding star since childhood. But we are far from my purpose in coming here."

“My disciples are elsewhere," he assured her. "If you need to speak plainly to me, please do."

"My grandfather's wife would not like me saying this. She would accuse me of revealing sect secrets. But anyone with eyes can see that Moon Whispers has fallen on hard times. Three-quarters of our sect died in the Bonebreak Plague a few years ago, and with them many of our techniques and secrets. My grandfather does the best he can. He passed his techniques on to me, and they've suited me well. My brother, not so much. My brother and I are very different people. I love him dearly. But our techniques are not the best for him. Some of the ones in our sect scrolls might be a better fit, but we have no one to decipher the scrolls for us. I wonder, might I perhaps offer you a trade? If there's a technique of the Morning Mists sect that might fit my brother better. I can't speak for my whole sect, but I'm willing to aid you."

Joshi was touched by her devotion to her brother, but he shook his head. "I don't know him well enough."

"You could observe him," Li Jiya begged. "You could watch him again tomorrow, and perhaps after that you would have enough of an idea to help him."

Li Jiya's face was desperate, but she didn't realize Joshi didn't have any techniques to teach. Nor, despite his pity for the boy, would he have been eager to take on yet another disciple. Despite the fact that he had spent much of the last few weeks teaching cultivation techniques and tricks to others, he wasn't comfortable with the role. Right now, he wanted to be focusing on his own advancement.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think the techniques of my sect would be well suited to your brother." He cycled a little red lux and formed the gauntlet around his hand, then added tips of orange. "You have seen me fight, and I have seen your brother. Our styles, our preferences are nothing alike."

"I know, I know. I just thought perhaps if someone offered him a different technique, he might find it suited him despite everything." Jiya turned away. "Ever since the Indigo Princess arrived, he's been speaking of her in the most exalted tones. At first, I thought he was just hoping to impress her. Marrying an Indigo Princess would do wonders for our sect, there's no doubt about it. I tried to assure him that he didn't need to win her over. There were other ways to help us, but... Honestly, I think he's a bit in love with her at this point."

Joshi raised an eyebrow. "Well, he is a worthy young man. Perhaps the Princess will look on him with favor."

Li Jiya actually laughed in his face. "With you around, you think any woman would look a second time at my brother? No. I love Jen dearly, but he's outmatched here." Her shoulders slumped. "Thank you for hearing me out, Young Master Joshi."

"I am sorry I am not able to help you."

Li Jiya saw herself out.