The orange corridors posed a new threat. When the orange lux first gathered in the walls around them, Chang-li slipped on his limiting bracer and prepared himself. Sharp, spiky light filled the air around them, dazzling him. He sensed the attack just in time and threw himself to the side. Daggers stabbed out of the air at him, some passing within inches of his face. Chang-li drew his sword and knocked them away.

Joshi had his gauntlet on one fist and a small orange shield on his other, which he used to protect himself from attacks. The disciples huddled behind Brother Stone, who spun his staff dexterously. It was bright with orange lux, knocking the wave of blades from the air. As soon as any blade touched another weapon or shield, it dissolved into orange shards falling to the floor, the tinkling of glass breaking.

No sooner had the last of the daggers vanished than a swirling pair of axes appeared, tumbling in midair straight toward the disciples. Chang-li sprang forward, slashing. His sword struck one of the axes. He could feel the orange lux being sucked out of his blade and he replenished it as fast as he could, cycling rapidly. Joshi punched. When his orange-tipped gauntlet struck the other blade, it too dissolved.

The disciples were here, shouting, facing back down the corridor, the direction they'd come from. Chang-li saw the spinning blades coming up toward them. Brother Stone stepped forward, spinning his staff, and knocked one out of the air, but five more short daggers flew past him toward the disciples. Disciple Yang and Shou had glowing red gauntlets similar to Joshi's. They struck at the orange blades. Chang-li saw their punches hit, but the blows did nothing but knock the blades a bit off-course. Disciple Yang twisted out of the way just in time, but Disciple Shou was struck in the upper arm. He fell back, clasping his shoulder and shouting.

Disciple Cui had been resorting to using a small wooden truncheon in the previous fights since he was out of orange lux. He flailed blindly and connected to a pair of the blades, shattering them.

"Orange lux or weapons," Joshi snarled. "There's plenty of orange lux out there. Use it."

They were under attack again already. Shards of lux crunched under Chang-li's feet as he shifted his weight the way the ghost brothers had taught him to meet the next attack, a pair of long orange pole arms. He slashed across the hilt of the first, ducked under it, came up around, and knocked the other to the side. He was certain he'd hit both, but neither dissolved. It took a second hit from Joshi to dissipate these weapons.

"Orange!" Joshi was snarling at the disciples. Yang and Shou were flailing against weapons, mostly hiding behind Cui and Brother Stone. "Weave orange into your red. We'll be out of red soon anyway," Joshi ordered.

The disciples were doing their best to comply, but the pressure from the weapon attacks wasn't giving up. There had to be something more to this. Chang-li pulled off his bracer and let it drop. Waves of lux flowed into him, overwhelming him. He cycled desperately, practicing Mind's Wall as he fended off a sharp barbed trident that was coming to him with the persistence of an angry bee. Joshi punched and struck two knives at the same time with his Thousand Fists technique.

The disciples were back to back now, Cui and Brother Stone protecting the other two as they desperately tried to adapt their techniques. Joshi had spent time on the first floor with each of them, teaching them how to combine red and orange, but it seemed in the heat of battle they were struggling. Chang-li was struggling too. The lux pressure on him was intense. His mind reeled. How was Joshi managing this with no assistance at all?

He began to spin his core, fending off attacks with his sword, doing no more than defending himself. Joshi was darting about the corridor, punching, springing back. Something about this encounter was bothering Chang-li. His readings and the time he'd spent in the tower made him suspect there was more to towers than merely breaking lumos down into lux that could be collected by cultivators and technicians. The guardians he had encountered seemed sentient, in their own ways. There was an intelligence at work here.

This floor was testing Peak of Mental Refinement stage cultivators, those who were seeking to even now ward their minds against the influences of lux. In the first section, their opponents had relied purely on physical attack, powered by red lux. Here, they were facing the very personification of weapons, which could be defeated only by other weapons or orange lux.

Chang-li felt his defenses slide into place. The world around him shimmered. Without even his seeking it, his core rose in him. Now, it was as though his eyes and his lux vision were one, his core spinning away madly behind his forehead. And he saw.

He saw the lines of pure orange lux running through the walls of this place until they reached concentration points, then gathered themselves into the the flying weapons. All it took was a touch of orange lux.

Chang-li banished his sword back into his soul space. He gathered up some of his remaining yellow lux and wove a new Firepot technique, a delicate chord of yellow wrapping around a solid orange core. Then, as another huge wave of thrown daggers and heavy axes came at them from both directions, he shouted, "Everyone, down!"

Joshi and Brother Stone reacted at once, dropping to their knees. Brother Stone tugged on the robes of Disciple Shou standing next to him. Disciple Yang and Cui followed as Chang-li released his technique in all directions.

It wasn't elegant or focused. It didn't need to be. The yellow lux shot out from him, then broke apart, orange lux exploded as tiny darts flying in all directions. Whenever one of the darts hit a weapon, the weapon shattered.

That wasn't what he was aiming at. More of the darts struck the orange lines on the wall and the concentration points from which the weapons were coming. The walls dimmed and went dark, leaving them in deep shadow, with only the faintest orange trace around.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Chang-li fell back, gasping for breath. His core dropped back down to his stomach. He cycled Purification of Mind and Soul, desperately warding off the effects of the lux all around him. To his surprise, it was easier than ever.

Joshi looked down at him, nodding approvingly. “You have pierced the first veil.”

“Yes, I feel like I can tell my own mind from the influence of the lux all around me.”

“Well done. You saw through the trick. I did not."

"Those are collector points for the lux," Chang-li said, indicating the burned spots on the wall. "Destroy them and the lux can't take shape around us."

Joshi formed a single orange lux spike, extending out from between the second and third fingers on his right hand. "Now I know what to look for," he said.

When Chang-li had caught his breath, he went over to the disciples. Yang and Shou were practicing their technique. They both looked abashed, bowing before Chang-li and muttering apologies. He waved them away. "Keep practicing," he told them. "It's easier in practice. The more you do, the more natural it will be when you fight."

He stooped, picked up the bracer, and stowed it away in his bag.

"I do not think you will be needing that anymore," Joshi said.

Chang-li wasn't certain about that. He had definitely made progress. If this level of understanding was why Joshi had been able to resist the lux levels all along, that was promising. "I'll keep it in reserve," he said.

They marched on. With the secret of the orange tunnels unlocked, their only worry was running low on red. The deeper they pushed into orange, the less red was available to them. Chang-li cycled dutifully, stockpiling as much as he could. Now he began to find traces of yellow, a sign they were approaching the end of this section.

He and the others adopted a strategy, using weapons infused with orange to fight off the blades and arrows that attacked them out of the darkness, while Joshi sought out and destroyed the lux concentration points.

Joshi was by far the most skilled with using orange lux. Chang-li could run it through his sword or wrap it in one of the colors he did feel comfortable with and fling it indiscriminately. That was about it.

He kept working on the training pattern. From Magen’s appearance as they walked, so did Joshi. The tunnels were definitely becoming more yellow in hue, so Chang-li wasn't surprised as they reached another crossroad chamber.

He and Joshi peered through the door. The guardians here were the red and black stone monstrosities they'd faced before, now man-tall and armed with orange weapons and a yellow gleam in their eyes.

"It's not fair," Shou complained in a low voice. "We haven't got that much red at our disposal."

"The tower does not care about fair. The tower determines fitness," Joshi told him. "Besides, that means when we kill them, there will be red lux available to us. Seize that if you can." He turned to Chang-li. "With twelve of them, we will need to keep them busy while killing a few as fast as possible. That will give me the red lux I need. What about you?"

Chang-li had his sword out, glowing with orange. "Do you see a lux concentration point?" He was using Mind's Wall but couldn't quite drop into that layered vision he'd managed during the first fight with the lux's weapons.

"I do not think they will have such a weakness," Joshi said. "We must fight them as honest men."

Brother Stone said, "We'll keep our backs to the wall and try not to get in your way. At the very least, we should be able to distract a few of them while you're taking on the rest. I suppose that's what disciples are meant to do.”

Chang-li nodded. "Then let's go."

Joshi leapt into the room, opening with his Meteor Punch jump. As before, it attracted the attention of the creatures in the room nicely. Chang-li followed. He slashed and hacked and had one of the dark monsters down in seconds. The lux spooled off of it. He hadn't bothered harvesting lux from their kills before, since there'd been plenty of ambient lux of that color at his disposal, but now, starved for red, he seized a portion of it as Joshi took the rest.

Joshi's gauntlet appeared, wrapping his fist. He summoned a shield and blocked a sword stroke from one of the tower monsters. Chang-li stepped to the side and attacked a second monstrosity. It caught his blade on its own. Orange sparks flew up. Chang-li had a tiny Firepot waiting in his right hand. He drove the red-shelled technique straight into the open mouth and eyes of the monster, splashing yellow lux flame across it.

The monster fell back, burning, but not dead. Likely, flame didn't hurt stone as much as it seared flesh. Chang-li followed up with a slash from his sword, and the monster fell to pieces.

Joshi had punched two to death already. A pair of them converged on Chang-li. He caught a blade on his own. The second was about to take him, but then the floor beneath the creature rumbled and a shard of stone shot upward, straight between its legs, knocking it off balance.

Chang-li didn't have time to follow up, but he didn't need to, because Disciple Cui was there, roaring with anger and wielding his own red and yellow technique. This was the first time Chang-li had gotten to see it properly. Cui could rip shards of stone out of the ground or ceiling and direct them as weapons.

Chang-li whirled his sword and slashed across the stone enemy's torso, the orange-enhanced blade cutting deep inside and revealing a glowing red interior. He gestured at the ceiling, "Cui, bring them down!"

Cui grinned wildly, both hands raised. A rain of stone spikes fell onto two of the monsters that were trying to attack Joshi, pinning them to the ground. Chang-li finished his creature and was on to the next. Joshi was double-punching, his physical fist hitting the front and its echo striking from the back. A combined punch to the head was enough to destroy the next creature.

Across the room, three rock monstrosities were pushing in on Brother Stone and the remaining two disciples. They were back to back, holding them off as best they could. Chang-li raced forward when suddenly a punch, orange lux outlined, came out of nowhere, smashing one to the ground. Cui's spike drove deep into another. Brother Stone and the disciples, revitalized by the help, swiftly downed the last.

Chang-li turned, making sure all of the monsters were down. He breathed a sigh of relief and dismissed the technique he'd been building before crossing to Joshi. "How did you manage that last attack? I could swear it was you."

Joshi nodded. "It was. I am trying to figure out how to replicate it, but my reflected punch was directed through Magen."

Chang-li realized he had seen the distortion the lux creature tended to cause when he wasn't making himself deliberately visible over near the beast. "Oh, well that's useful."

"Once I have mastered it and can do it on command, yes," Joshi agreed. He turned to the others. "Anyone badly injured?"

"I am," Shou said. "It's not too deep."

"We rest now," Joshi declared. "Everyone eat. Tend your wounds. If it is serious, you must leave this place," he told Shou, nodding to the stair ladder leading downward.

The tunnels ahead glowed yellow. Chang-li couldn't contain his own excitement as he sat and ate. So far, he felt as though Joshi had done most of the work here. Now, with the elements to command, it would be his turn to shine.