Chang-li considered the two remaining disciples and Brother Stone. Neither of the disciples had made it past the first veil, while Brother Stone, during their climb down through the green maze, had claimed to reach it.

"You should go back," he told them.

Disciple Cui objected. "Feng already outnumbers you. Do not send us away."

"He's correct," Joshi said. "It is not about numbers, but about the state of your progression. The lux has been growing more and more dense. Even with your limiters, you must be feeling it."

Disciple Cui and Yang looked away, not meeting his eyes. Brother Stone nodded. "I am, but I'm master of it. I want to continue pushing forward. The Elder Sister is counting on me to reach as far as I can."

"We didn't bring Min either," Chang-li pointed out. "There will be time for you to continue your own progression. Go with Li Jiya. Tell Min what's happened so far."

Cui and Yang bowed and made no objection, but Brother Stone shook his head. "I will not leave you behind."

"Am I your master or not?" Joshi demanded.

Brother Stone hesitated. At last, he bowed. "You must take care not to get yourself killed," he told Chang-li. "If I abandon the Elder Sister's spouse and ill befalls him, I fear what she will do to me."

"I have no intention of dying here." Chang-li assured him. “Tell Min I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The disciples accompanied Li Jiya back to the green chamber, leaving Chang-li and Joshi alone.

Chang-li took some time to study what lay beyond them. It wasn't merely another chamber. This cavern, supposing it truly was a cavern for he could not see the ceiling, was vast and spacious. It seemed miles wide, at least. Tall, blue mushrooms twice his height sprung up everywhere. A glowing path led beneath them. In the distance, something moved at about head height. There was a quiet drip, drip of water that he couldn't see.

He cycled lux. All the physical luxes were present, as was a strong thread of green, but blue dominated. That had him worried. From their training with Hiroko, he knew that blue lux affected the mind. She had used it to drain the life from their enemies or to inflict them with debilitating effects. All the techniques he had read in the scrolls used blue as a secondary component of a technique. Weave blue into your orange, and now your sword might leave your enemies slowed, unable to react fast enough. Bind blue to yellow, and the flames would burn not just body but mind as well, making the victim believe their wounds to be far more severe than they truly were.

Chang-li was excited to give it a try but apprehensive about what they might take.

"Come," Joshi said. "We are wasting time."

They set off together along the path through the mushrooms. Chang-li was concerned about following so obvious a trail. Yet elsewhere, there were chasms in the ground or great spikes of rock blocking the way. This path had been set for a reason. He would follow it, but he would be wary.

Something moved off among the mushrooms. Chang-li looked, saw nothing. "Did you hear that?"

"I hear many things," Joshi said quietly. "Be prepared." He hesitated. "If you must, use the band."

"I will," Chang-li promised.

Sword in hand, he and Joshi proceeded along through the forest. The only warning he had was a quick buzz. Chang-li whirled, striking out with his sword before he even saw his foe. He sliced, and an enormous wasp the size of a chicken fell at his feet, one wing severed. The wasp was banded red and blue. He pivoted and struck it in the abdomen, spilling lux from its body. A dozen more wasps descended on them. Their buzzing was an irritation in his mind. He fought it off as best he could.

Joshi was punching. Magen hovered beside a wasp that was out of his range. As Joshi struck the closest, a duplicate of his punch emerged through the lux creature's body, knocking down the next wasp. Chang-li forced himself to use the senses he'd been so carefully cultivating as the whine of the wasps grew stronger, his eyes unfocused. He felt, rather than seeing or hearing the wasp, as it buzzed on him. Another fell dead at his feet. Joshi shouted and punched.

The wasps, attracted by his flurry of blows, were surrounding him, giving Chang-li the opportunity to weave together a technique. He wove a Firepot but made one end of the weave much looser than the other. He pointed the loose end at the wasps and poured yellow lux into pot. The weave exploded on just that side and sprayed the wasps with his fire. Three fell, their wings crispy. Joshi struck one then pivoted even as it was falling, to strike out at the final one. As the last wasp twitched and died, the pair stared at each other, breathing heavily.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Well," Chang-li said, "that wasn't so bad."

Shapes swarmed through the mushroom forest toward them. Human shapes. Then a moment later, Chang-li made them out clearly, cultivators in robes, four of them. He tensed himself for an attack from Feng, but Joshi called out, "They're not alive, but not dead either."

Chang-li sensed with his lux, pushed past the confusion his eyes were telling him and perceived. The lux field was unmistakable, similar to the dead men who had attacked them earlier. These were animated by the blue and green lux that infused this place. Their robes too, weren't patterned in the soaring heavens scheme. Though the blue light here muted everything, they had a diagonal hash design to their robes, unlike anything Chang-li had seen before.

There were three men and a woman. The woman's hair was dressed in an uncommon style, cut short across her forehead and tied back from her face. All three men had short hair themselves. One sported a goatee. They were more animated than the revenants before, moving like living beings. Chang-li sensed that these had been cultivators at the Peak of Mental Refinement. They had fallen and now here they were.

He and Joshi set themselves back to back. Magen flew overhead, circling around them, helping Joshi watch as the revenants came in.

"Got anything up your sleeve?" Joshi asked.

The four dead cultivators came at them in a loping stride, their bodies hunched, their hands dragging almost to the ground, more like animals than humans, though clearly neither anymore.

"Go," Joshi told Magen, and the tiny lux creature streaked ahead. "I will keep them busy,” he told Chang-li. “You find a technique that works.” He crouched and then exploded upward in a lux-powered leap. He came down fist first, his Meteor Punch kicking up sand in a six-foot radius around him. As he crashed into the foremost revenants, the others turned on him, attacking. He moved a red lux shield about his body impossibly fast, blocking each of their attacks.

Chang-li took a deep breath, trying to remember what he had studied. These former cultivators were held together by blue and red lux. The techniques he’d read all used physical lux to contain spiritual, making it easier to work with. Use the same colors against each other; that was just basic cultivating theory.

He rebuilt his weave, this time starting with red. He needed to break through the outer shells of the revenants' bodies and expose them to the weaponized lux he was wielding. The net this time looked as though it was woven of ropes rather than fine threads. He hadn't the dexterity with red lux for anything more refined. He hurled it out onto the nearest of the revenants. The weave settled around the creature, wrapping it, and it screamed. Not a sound a human throat should have been capable of making. It wailed in despair as it fell to the ground, the lux weave tightening around it and crushing it into a ball.

"Do that again!" Joshi shouted as he kicked out with one foot, knocking a revenant back, then followed up with a punch that was echoed twice through Magen against the third of the revenants.

Chang-li hastily wove again. His reserves of red were growing low. The defeated cultivator’s lux coiled upward. He didn't have the time and concentration to seize it, purify it, and make it his own, so he used what he had and sent another net of red flying at the one Joshi had knocked back.

Out of red lux, he ran forward, seizing the available lux and cycling it rapidly through his body. He had his sword in his hand and tried to infuse blue lux into it, but it didn't work. The lux simply wouldn't flow. He understood now why the ghost brothers had told him that cultivators sought out special weapons to use with the spiritual luxes. Instead, he filled it with red and slashed.

It severed an arm from the revenant on Joshi's right. Joshi punched hard, knocking it to the ground. Chang-li was still cycling as the remaining revenant came in. Joshi turned to meet it and slammed one enormous blow against its torso, exploding through its chest. As his fist emerged from the other side, the creature seized Joshi's arm and pulled itself toward him, hissing and clawing.

Chang-li threw a hastily woven net technique into its face. The net was a quarter the size of the others he'd made. It closed around the creature's head and compressed. Joshi pulled away. He and Chang-li left the cultivator's body writhing on the ground as they turned to the one Joshi had previously downed, the female cultivator revenant.

She wasn't immobilized yet, though his attack had seemingly broken her spine and she couldn't rise. She scrabbled at them with claws, raking a long scratch in Chang-li's leg as he and Joshi brutally dismembered her body. The hateful task done, Chang-li stepped away. He accepted their lux and cycled it almost without thinking.

"This is the fate that awaits us if we fail," Joshi observed. Chang-li didn't bother to answer. “You came up with a technique quickly. Well done.”

Chang-li explained what he had deduced. Joshi nodded gravely. "These are a curious dichotomy," he observed. "Unthinking, mere physical beings, held together by red lux but animated by blue. I wonder if there is another intelligence directing their actions or if the spell merely points them toward us and sends them along."

Chang-li cleaned off his sword before resheathing it. "I'm not sure it matters." He started to say something else, but as he did, he looked up and spotted what could only be their destination.

Chang-li pointed, Joshi turned. In the distance, through the blue mushroom forest, was an immense purple crystal. The whole cavern, he could see now, was shaped like a bowl sloping downward. They stood on one of its flanks about a quarter of the way down. In the center rose a purple crystal. He couldn't have said from here if it was shaded more toward indigo or violet, just that it stood out from the blue. It had to be at least a hundred feet tall with sharp faces turned toward them.

He could spot figures moving along the bottom and his heart sank. Was that Feng and his disciples waiting or was it still more revenants?

"At least we know where to go," Joshi said, his tone echoing Chang-li's own resolve.

"Then we shouldn't waste any more time."