Chang-li came downstairs to the main floor of the Morning Mist Sect house, carrying a pile of newly translated papers. Min and Joshi were in the sitting room, their heads bent together while the sect servants bustled about, making preparations. Out in the small garden, he could hear Brother Stone putting the three disciples through their paces.

Min looked up and gave Chang-li a smile that made his heart beat just a bit faster. He came over and set his papers down on the table beside Joshi, who glanced at them and raised an eyebrow. "You have been busy."

"I've broken the second cipher and I'm getting a lot faster now," Chang-li said.

"And here I thought the reason I've seen little of you these past three days is because you had better things to do."

Chang-li felt himself turn bright red. He sat down on the couch beside Min. She took his hand and gave it a little squeeze, her own face showing no trace of embarrassment.

"Everyone here will be packed and ready to leave tomorrow," Min said. "It's time we decided where we are going."

With the successful completion of the Tower Cull, the sects who had participated were moving out. Jade Lotus was gone already, and of course, Soaring Heavens had been removed from the camp by the cultivation officials before Chang-li and Joshi had even made it back. Moon Whispers was still here, making preparations for their own next plans. And one particular member of Moon Whispers was waiting on an answer from the Morning Mist sect leadership.

Li Jiya had offered to join Morning Mist if they supported her in her attempt to win the bridal competition in Vardin City. There, several promising cultivators would compete for the honor of joining the Emperor's harem. Li Jiya had set her gaze on that prize. To compete, she would need the backing of a sect and the assistance of other cultivators near her level.

Ordinarily, Moon Whispers would have been delighted to present a cultivator as a prospective bride. Now, with their only other young master dead, and sect affairs in shambles, it seemed they couldn't afford to lose Li Jiya.

Min shot Chang-li a quick smile. In the three days since he had returned from the Tower Cull, Chang-li and Min had at last begun to get their relationship off on the right footing. While there was still much they needed to learn about working together, he had been delighted to find what an eager partner Min was once they'd gotten past a few initial difficulties. He found himself staring into her eyes for much too long.

Joshi cleared his throat. "Shall we return to the matter of our discussion, or do you two wish to retire to your room?"

Min snickered and looked away. Chang-li started cycling his lux in the complicated new pattern he was still attempting to master. It was a good way to distract himself both from Joshi's quips and the stirrings he felt when he sat so close to Min.

"Ah, yes," he said, as he let his lux flow through him. Even now, three days after leaving the tower, his core was full, the benefit of having reached the Peak of Mental Refinement. His dense core could hold on to lux for so much longer than before. “So. Li Jiya’s offer. Should we take it?”

"She's offered to turn over any rewards she might gain from the tournament if we support her. Traditionally, having a sect member chosen as one of the Emperor's brides has increased a sect's fortunes dramatically," Min said. "By having a disciple become a member of the Emperor's harem, the sect gains access to patronage and resources that would otherwise be difficult to attain. They also gain prestige and a ten-year exemption from imperial taxation."

"The tax exemption is nice," Chang-li commented.

"But we do not want more notoriety," Joshi countered. "Nor do I particularly care to have the Emperor's gaze fall any more closely upon me than this. The true question is, if we do not accept her offer, where do we go from here?"

His question hung in the air. Min nodded vigorously. She held up a finger. "Precisely. The cull in Vardin City, which will also be the setting for this competition, will work in our favor. I have connections in Vardin City on both sides of my family. When I show my grandfather what we've achieved already, I think I can persuade him to increase our backing."

While she had two important grandfathers, Chang-li knew she meant the Brotherhood leader, not the provincial governor.

"I would rather make my way in the world unbound to any man," Joshi declared, which was about what Chang-li had expected of him.

He'd been thinking this over as well. "We'd all prefer to cultivate with no strings attached, but that's not going to happen," he pointed out. "We have no money. Our debt's been mostly wiped out, thankfully, but running a sect is expensive."

"Then let us become lone cultivators," Joshi countered. "We have no need for a sect. Other towers are to be culled soon."

Min had a stack of papers of her own beside the pile that Chang-li had brought down. She pulled out one.

"My brother Jai-Lin, who's still in the Court of Gems, spoke with Orange Lady Nima, who had overheard the dowager and her aides discussing with Magistrate Bao. The dowager lady will supervise the tower cull in Vardin City, but some of the other officials are being called away elsewhere. There's to be a tower cull in Jormun Province in three months. It's six hundred miles from here, and I don't know about you, but I have no connections there. Then there are several culls coming up on the other side of the empire. No details here. Tower culls happen frequently. Any Prism may be expected to supervise several culls at any time, but they try not to be spread so thin. Hence, usually you don’t have more than one in any given region of the empire. Two in Riceflower Province within a year is rare.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She flipped to a map showing the rough outline of the empire with its familiar squashed circle borders. Riceflower Province was on the eastern edge, starting along the coastline and stretching far inward. The three dozen provinces outlined on her map looked like the blotches left after a well-eaten meal, one shape bleeding into the next.

"Each of the six prisms has five to seven provinces under his or her supervision at any time, depending on the size of the province and the richness of the lux.”

Chang-li found himself nodding along. Joshi's eyes were narrowed.

"Is this truly how large the empire is?" he said. "We are here, and that then must be Fai-Lan City." He pointed from a small tower etched on a mountain by the sea to a dot a little further inland.

Min shook her head. "That is Vardin City, the capital of Rice Flower Province. It's another hundred miles inland from Fai-Lan City."

Joshi eyed the map. He pointed to the vast wastelands of the west. "Then how far from here to there?"

Min looked at the map, cocking her head to one side. "Well, if you go straight to the capital," she pointed at the icon in the center of the map, a sharp-edged tower, "and then to the other side directly, I'd say that's two thousand miles, perhaps."

Joshi sat back, staring. "Two thousand? So far?”

“You must have known that," Min said. "That's where you came from, right? You’ve already made the journey once."

Joshi pursed his lips and said no more.

Chang-li had seen maps of the empire before, but none showing the towers like this. There were so many of them, four or five in every province. He leaned forward, scrutinizing the map.

"A tower cull takes anything from six weeks to four months to conduct," Min continued. “All the while, the supervising Prism must be keeping an eye on all the other towers under his control. They cull the towers in the large cities more often, though Vardin City hasn't had a cull in almost ten years, probably because of this bridal tournament being planned. Also there's broken towers like this one that are handled only when signs point to an eruption. The lux levels in this tower will be taken down to a level far below what would be acceptable at most towers. Golden Moon City is in for a rough year or two until the lux levels return. They'll likely have a crop failure, but my family, the government side, has already laid in storehouses full of rice. But yes, there will always be a tower cull happening somewhere. We don't have to go to Vardin City, but I believe it makes the most sense. We will have allies there, assets, people who can help us."

"People who will seek to use us in their own schemes," Chang-li pointed out. "But I'm on your side in this, Min. We need to be careful with our time. How long should we waste looking for another tower cull and applying for permission to join, all while trying to keep ourselves fed? Do you really want to arrive at another tower as a pair of sect-less cultivators, Joshi? You know how much suspicion there was on you here at first. We're established now. We have a name and a sect."

"Too much of a name," Joshi said. But then, before Chang-li could think of another argument, he bowed his head. "However, I acknowledge the strength of your argument. I had already been more or less persuaded that was the correct trail. But I wish us to take it because we choose it, not because it is our easiest path. I will go, but if Li Jiya's goals and mine differ, I will pursue my own. I need to reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement as quickly as possible."

"Why?" Min asked, looking from one to the next. "The two of you have already made it all the way to the Peak of Mental Refinement in the space of three months. That's an absolutely astonishing pace. Already people are whispering the sect of Morning Mist has ancient secrets. I've had to turn down multiple recruits."

Chang-li understood what was driving Joshi, his friend's desire never to be weak and in the power of an enemy again. At the same time, he was sure Joshi felt the same call he did. The way cultivating lux and testing yourself against other cultivators made you eager for still more of the same.

"Then it's decided," he said. "We go to Vardin City. We will aid Li Jiya as long as her aims and ours are the same."

"What is your aim?" Joshi asked bluntly, turning to Chang-li. "Now that we have completed this cull and here you are as a married man with a sect eager to follow you, how long will our roads run together?"

Chang-li shrugged. "I can't answer that. For as long as they do, I'm eager to cultivate beside you."

"In that case," Min said brightly, "I will tell everyone we are implementing Plan One. We'll be ready to leave in the morning."

"Then I need to get back to my translations," Chang-li said. "I'll want to pack up the documents securely and not take them out again until we are in Vardin City. And there were a few more interesting scrolls I wanted to decipher. I think I found a good fit for you," he told Min.

She put her hands together and smiled. "Really?”

“Hopefully at this next cull we have time to catch you up to Joshi and me," Chang-li said. "I'm not sure how far spouses usually climb, but—"

"Forget that," she interrupted. "I'm going as far as I can. We're too small a sect to waste anyone's talents and you're not going to keep me out of the next tower, I can tell you that." She stood up, collecting her own papers. "I'll go and have a word with Brother Stone." Min excused herself, sliding back the paper door down into the garden before returning it to its previous place.

Joshi watched her go with an odd expression on his face. He turned to Chang-li and seemed to start to say something before he shook his head and stood up. Chang-li rose as well.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"That's a lie. I know you better than that."

Joshi hesitated. "Min seems to have her heart in the right place and I know how taken with her you are." He cut himself off again, clearly not saying everything he was thinking.

Chang-li felt his face soften and a smile spread unbidden across his face. He shook himself. "I understand what you're saying. I like Min. I like her a lot and I want to work with her. But she has other loyalties. I know that. They haven't yet been tested and I'll do my damnedest not to put myself in a position where she is tested."

“That is all I ask," Joshi said simply. "Now, you have been spending too much time locked in your room handling your brushes and your wife. Come out to the garden with me and spar for at least an hour. A cultivator must tend to matters of the body, as well as the mind and the spirit."