As Chang-li and his companions entered the gash in the third floor of the tower, the Inquisitor and several guards awaited them. "I was beginning to think your sect was not going to attend this," the Inquisitor said, frowning as he looked them over.

A team of bureaucrats in brown robes that hung open over their tunics and pants were unpacking crates full of equipment, crystals set in delicate metal wires. The largest were half as tall as Chang-li, bound up in copper. The smallest, the size of his thumb, sparkling from a thousand facets and bound in gold. All of the workers bore a badge on their robes showing a tower breaking a beam of light into the seven colors. These must be the lux technicians who would take over once the tower guardian was persuaded to open his stores.

"I do not back down from a challenge," Joshi told the Inquisitor.

"Very well. Come with me."

The Inquisitor led them deeper into the tower along a marked path toward the secondary spire. Chang-li had seen it before, of course. The inner spire was a shard of pure jet black stone jutting thirty feet upward from the jungle surroundings like a tooth. Always before, it had been surrounded by a swirling barrier of lux. Now the barrier was gone and a door stood open at the base of the spire.

"That's the way up," the Inquisitor told them. "I will tell you what I told the others. You may begin the attempt to persuade this tower guardian to set aside its defenses and allow the Emperor's Own Lux Corps to enter and harvest the bounty of the tower. In exchange, one of you may receive the tower's boon, and all of you will be judged and commended based on your performance here. Good luck. And remember, the emperor's eyes see all. Conduct yourselves in a way that pleases him. But remember, the Emperor favors those who prove themselves with their strength. Should you be attacked and fall here, then we will know you did not have the Emperor's favor."

Chang-li's mouth was suddenly dry. Joshi bowed his head. “Understood.”

“I warn you. We are invoking the Rule of Primacy. There are several exits from the fourth floor all of which will return you here, to this spot. You may choose to make use of those exits at any time, but no one will be permitted to re-enter the fourth floor until the tower boon has been claimed or all cultivators who entered the floor have left or been killed. Is that clear?"

"We are ready," Brother Stone growled, clenching his quarterstaff between his hands. Chang-li could sense his cycling, as relentless and smooth as water flowing past boulders. Brother Stone and the other Oaken Band disciples didn't have quite the flair for cultivation that Joshi did, but they were solid men and Chang-li was glad to have them at his back.

The Inquisitor held out a bag, from which he drew a steel bracelet. He offered it to Joshi, who took it, then flung it to the ground with a curse. "What is this?"

"It's a lux inhibitor," the Inquisitor said, looking surprised. "Surely, Young Master Joshi, you have worked with lux inhibitors before."

"I know their touch." Joshi stared at the device as though it were a venomous snake he'd just found in his slipper.

"The lux density on the fourth floor is intense. It may overwhelm anyone not yet at the Peak of Mental Refinement, and it certainly will destroy anyone who has merely touched the Peak of Bodily Refinement," the Inquisitor said. "These will reduce the lux levels to a tolerable state. While you, Young Master Joshi, may be able to do without, your disciples certainly will not."

"Very well," Joshi said, still scowling. "Take the bands."

The Inquisitor handed one to each disciple, then gave another to Chang-li. The touch of the metal was cold against his palm. It felt heavier than it should. He put it around his wrist, and it was as though all of his senses dulled. The presence of lux, which had been a comforting weight against Chang-li's senses, suddenly died away. It was like being outside the tower entirely. He cycled his lux, but it responded sluggishly.

He took the bracelet off and sighed in relief as the sense of sluggishness faded. "I can't cycle or use my techniques with that on."

"You will find on the fourth floor it is a help, not a hindrance," the Inquisitor told him.

Chang-li hesitated, then slipped the bracelet into his satchel. He bowed to the Inquisitor. "Thank you for your help and advice.”

Joshi turned away from the bracelet that still lay on the ground. As the Inquisitor withdrew, Chang-li approached him and spoke quietly enough that the disciples wouldn't hear. "Perhaps you should keep it in case you are overwhelmed."

"I will never have an inhibitor touch my body again," Joshi snarled. "Not even to save my own life."

Chang-li remembered the collar Joshi had borne as a slave. It must be the same technology. He sympathized, and even though his practical mind was telling him to pick up the bracelet and keep it in case Joshi changed his mind later, he left it to lie where it was.

Joshi turned and disappeared into the entrance. The Brotherhood men followed. Last of all, Chang-li stepped through into blackness.

He emerged in a stone chamber. Red light emanated from the ceiling, casting everything crimson, washing out their skin tones and giving a bloody cast to their robes. Five different exits branched off from the chamber. The chamber itself had no decoration or features, just plain dressed stone. There were no icons or signs of which path to take.

"What should we do?" Brother Stone asked, turning on the spot to look at each of the paths.

"We go forward," Joshi said. He pointed to the rightmost path. "We start here, and if it proves a dead end, we backtrack and take the next one."

Chang-li cycled. The corridor was rife with lux, far more than Chang-li had ever felt at the cultivator library. It was predominantly red, with traces of orange and hardly anything else that he could sense. He cycled it as it rushed in through him. It felt like he was holding back a flood. Joshi’s teeth were clenched.

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The disciples seemed to be doing well. Chang-li slipped the bracer that the Inquisitor had given him around his wrist. Immediately, the lux torrent subsided, becoming a trickle, but a trickle of this mighty flood was still more than he had experienced before. He cycled it easily now, letting the red lux slip through his veins.

"They'll be all right," he told Joshi in a low voice, before taking the bracer off and putting it back in his bag. “The inhibitor works.”

Joshi raised an eyebrow. “And you?”

"I need to push myself," Chang-li told him. "I need to learn to use the techniques that will help us reach the Peak of Mental Refinement."

"Then we need to get a move," Joshi said. "Feng has been here for hours now. Let's hurry." He set off down the corridor as Chang-li followed.

At first, it was all he could do to cycle and walk at the same time. The disciples behind him kept up a low stream of chatter. Brother Stone was reminding the others to keep practicing their cycling techniques. They were elated at how much red lux there was here and how easy it was to work with.

The Morning Mist scrolls he had read had made one thing very clear to him. The purpose of a cultivator seeking to reach the Peak of Bodily Refinement was to master his body and become acclimated to lux moving throughout his channels and in his core. Lux was, after all, toxic to living creatures. Only by mastering cycling patterns and refining his body had Chang-li been able to attune himself to lux so that he could use it freely without worrying about it destroying his physical body.

A Mental Refinement stage cultivator was doing the same to his mind. Just as lux was inimical to the physical body, causing it to break down and create toxins which had to be purified, so too was it hostile to the mind. From what he had read, Chang-li knew that he could expect to encounter several side effects at this stage, anything from hallucinations to rejections of reality. He must impose control on his own mind.

To start, he began a technique the scrolls had referred to as the Mind’s Wall. It was compared to a cycling technique, but instead of moving lux from his core throughout his body in certain prescribed patterns, he instead must seek to raise his core into his mind. The core’s natural location was in the midriff; only a cultivator who already had control of his own body and exquisite mental focus could move the core elsewhere.

He let himself become aware of his core, studying on only it and the next step he was taking in the dim, red-lit tunnel. He deliberately excluded everything else from his awareness: the disciples whispering behind him, the weight of a pack on his back, Joshi a few steps ahead.

He focused himself on his core, imagining it rising from the pit of his stomach up toward his mind, until he felt as though his core was behind his eyes. Then, still visualizing the core resting somewhere inside his skull, he began to cycle a very simple technique, merely pushing red lux from his core out through his lux channels and venting it. There was so much around, he didn't mind wasting the lux.

It was far harder than he had expected, like pushing a rope up a steep hill. He gritted his teeth and kept on. He found the lux which flowed down through his arms to be the easiest. As soon as it was to his shoulders, it followed familiar channels. The lux he was trying to push down from his repositioned core into his stomach fought him every step of the way as it flowed the wrong direction.

There was a shout from one of the disciples. Chang-li lost his concentration. His core dropped back into the pit of his stomach. It bounced as it settled there, sending a wave of nausea and unvariegated lux through him. He dropped instinctively into Purification of Mind and Soul, cycling lux rapidly throughout his body as he turned, all in less than a second.

The disciples and Brother Stone had dropped back in the corridor, leaving him and Joshi four body lengths ahead. He saw what had caught their attention.

Red lux, visible to his plain eyes, ran along the edges of the wall. It crackled, breaking apart like lightning as it sketched out outlines of shapes. The shapes began to move, and then bodies tore themselves from the wall.

Six forms broke out of the wall, creatures born of stone and animated with red lightning. They were about shoulder high to Chang-li, bulbous and misshapen with arms and legs out of proportion to their enormous heads. They were vaguely manlike, but in no way men. Their heads emerged last, and they all had red eyes and gaping, perfectly circular mouths lined with sharp teeth. They raised their arms, all of which ended in sharp, red-tinged hooks. These creatures were manifestations of lux.

"Don't wait for them!" Joshi shouted and rushed forward, his hand gleaming with the red gauntlet as he formed it. He had a single orange spike on the front of his gauntlet, about as long as Chang-li's longest finger. He must be trying to conserve lux.

Chang-li started to call his Firepot technique, but he had so little orange and yellow lux. Instead, he opened his soul space and pulled out his sword. He hadn't done much practice with it on the first floor, as he'd been concentrating on training and translating. But as he seized the sword's hilt in his left hand, memories of his training session with the brothers' shades at the cultivator library leapt to him.

He channeled red lux through his sword. It wasn't as good a match as orange would be; instead of making the blade strike harder or cut deeper, it would just strengthen it. As he leaned forward and slashed his blade down hard on one outstretched red and black arm, he was glad of it. The impact of the strike sent reverberations all up his arm, putting his teeth on edge. These creatures were as hard as the stone they'd been ripped from.

Joshi drove a punch into the abdomen of the creature to Chang-li's right. As Chang-li whipped his sword around for a decapitation move, his target ducked. His sword whistled past its head. He arrested his swing and struck back. The blade barely bit into the creature’s head, but it hit like a club and drove it to its knees.

Meanwhile, the disciples were in a knot, back to back, surrounded by four more creatures. Chang-li focused on the one he fought. He'd help the disciples when he could. For now, he slashed with his sword. Chips flew off of his target. Joshi was driving his own punch again at the creature that he fought. Now he had it on the ground. Joshi punched downward as Chang-li hacked again. Their targets crumbled into pebbles.

Not wasting time, Chang-li leapt forward to assist the disciples. As he did, his foot seemed to catch. He went sprawling. He thought he heard a mocking laugh and felt something grabbing his foot.

Chang-li whirled, slashing with his sword, trying to sever the limb he'd felt reach out from the wall to grab his ankle. Joshi was there, his hand catching Chang-li's sword hand and pulling it back. "No!"

Chang-li didn't understand why his ally had just stopped him from freeing himself. He yanked hard, the hand gripping his sword slipping through Joshi's red lux gauntlet. He roared with anger, bringing it around, ready to sever Joshi's hand above the wrist if he was going to betray him like this.

Then Chang-li caught himself. He took a deep, cleansing, shuddering breath as the sword fell away from his hand, and his vision seemed to clear. There was no grasping arm out from the wall. He'd tripped over a piece of the rubble, gone flying.

His mind was playing tricks on him, as he’d been warned. The increased lux density here was playing tricks, and he’d nearly sliced Joshi’s arm off.

He leapt up. Joshi was already past him, racing toward the disciples. They’d gotten one of their four down and were surrounding the other three. Joshi dove in to help them.

Chang-li snatched the bracer from inside his bag and put it on his wrist, blocking out the raging lux all around, bringing it down to a tolerable level. He didn't dare lose control of himself. With the lux torrent tamed down to a trickle, he hurried to help dispatch the other creatures.

In seconds, the corridor was quiet again. Only their ragged breathing echoed about. Pieces of rock strewed the floor.

Joshi straightened up, dismissing his gauntlet. "Everyone all right?"

They all nodded.

"I think we have reached the end," Joshi said, turning back toward the front of the corridor. He strode forward a little, Chang-li following him, and they came to a blank wall. Joshi slammed a fist against it. It reverberated under his fist. "Yes, we retreat," he declared.

They set off back down the corridor.