The island was an enormous floating water lily, two hundred feet across, with a bright pink flower rising fifteen feet high in its center. Magen had spotted the puzzle box for them. It nestled in the center of the flower, and surrounding it were almost invisible lux spirits similar to Magen himself, with a faint blue-purple sheen to them. They gave off a high-pitched buzzing noise as they darted around the flower like oversized bees.
Chang-li tried using a weave on a net on the nearest of the lux spirits, but it slipped out of the weave easily. Joshi cornered one and punched at it with his lux gauntlet, but the spikes went right through.
They regrouped. "This is going to take some thinking," Chang-li said, rubbing his hands together, already anticipating the challenge. He enjoyed having to run through his possible strengths in order to figure out what to do.
"We should leave it," Li Jiya said. "There's no sense wasting time on a challenge we are not suited for when we could rather face down something we are skilled at."
“Finding another puzzle box will take time," Joshi countered. "And the other sects are out there as well. We have found two. We must assume that the others have had as much success as we, or more."
Chang-li watched how the creatures flitted around. There was a pattern to them, almost a pulse, like cycling. It came to him then.
"I have an idea,” he said and began cycling Breath of the Heavens. The lux all around began to answer to him.
Li Jiya started. "What are you doing?" She was reaching out and grabbing at the lux, disrupting his attempt.
"Don't fight me," he told her.
“lux manipulation outside your body is dangerous at this level of progression," she warned.
He realized she had never seen him try this in a tower before. "Don't worry. I've had training," he assured her and pulled on the nearby lux as he had in the fight with Feng. It answered his touch. He deftly focused on the spiritual luxes. As the creatures' gentle blue and purple flashes suggested to him, they were attuned. He brought his right fingers up to touch the pattern of lux swirling in front of him. His strong spiritual channels began to absorb the blue and trace amounts of indigo lux in the air. As it moved toward him, the lux creatures came too, bobbing along on the breeze like pollen.
The first reached him. He stretched out and touched it with his fingertips. Immediately, a glow of lux suffused him. The creature burst against his senses, flooding him with lux. He lost his cycling for an instant, regaining it quickly to process all of the fresh lux he had just stolen. There was a great deal of blue, which he immediately vented, but traces of indigo and violet. He decided to gamble and withdrew the temporal training chamber device from his soul space. Scribe Wulan had assured him that as long as it was not fully charged, he didn't have to worry about accidentally activating it. Now he cycled the violet and indigo lux in him to it.
"What is that?" Li Jiya asked, sounding fascinated.
"It's a training device," Chang-li said. He would have preferred she not see it at all.
Li Jiya eyed him suspiciously y. Chang-li told himself he wasn't cycling the forbidden violet lux or trying to use it. He was just storing it. If one of the Prisms asked him about it, he could turn over what he had gathered easily enough. It probably wouldn't suffice as an excuse.
Joshi said nothing as Chang-li absorbed the next of the lux creatures. The rest of the flock was being pulled away from the flower as they watched.
"I'll go with Jiya and fetch the puzzle box," Joshi declared. "Disciples, watch for enemies."
The two set off as Chang-li continued to cycle the lux. The creatures' lux was dense. Chang-li focused on his cycling. It like the lux thick liquid flowing through his veins, a dense syrup. No, more like a soup. Every now and then he encountered a brief obstruction, something clinging to his channels. He could feel them growing more clogged as he went. He hadn't encountered that since he had made it to the Peak of Bodily Refinement and done away with his need for purification tablets.
A couple of times, he was so focused on his channels, he briefly lost his grip on the lux. The creatures immediately began heading toward the flower, buzzing much more angrily. Joshi and Li Jiya had reached the petal and were leaping up onto it. Chang-li reclaimed his grip on the lux, but now the creatures were fighting him. He focused, sweat dripping down his face.
Three of the lux creatures bobbed toward him and hovered there, buzzing angrily. He could feel their opposition to what he was doing. He reached out and absorbed one of them. This time he felt the encumbrance at once. His lux channels were dense with obstruction. Only a thin trickle of lux passed through him. The other two lux creatures were buzzing in his face, but he didn't dare absorb them, not until he figured out how to purge these impurities from his body.
One of the disciples shouted a warning. Brother Stone snapped, "Hurry!" and the Brotherhood disciples ran off. Chang-li spared a glance. There were incoming cultivators, their robes giving flashes of red and gold. He couldn't spare the time to count or make out details. If they were about to have a fight, he needed to be at his peak.
Joshi and Li Jiya dropped back over the edge of the flower to the base of the enormous lily pad, sending it rocking as they alit. Chang-li released his grip on the lux, expecting the creatures to bob back to what they were doing. Instead, they all focused on Li Jiya, who had the puzzle box tucked under her arm and swarmed toward her, buzzing furiously. There were eight of them still remaining. Chang-li couldn't absorb any more. His channels were clogged, and they had no more time. “Retreat!” he shouted. “Joshi and Jiya, cover the disciples, let’s find another fight.”
“Agreed!” Joshi called. He raced forward, covering himself with a flashing red lux shield. “Magen is scouting ahead!”
Chang-li raced to the water’s edge and threw out a series of lux disks, trusting the disciples to follow.
As the disciples caught up with Chang-li, Yang and Shou were grumbling. "We had those Azure Flame Cultivators right where we wanted them," Yang complained. "Time to show them what Morning Mist is capable of."
"We got the puzzle box," Chang-li told him as he threw out the next lux Disc. "Go on ahead." He pointed at the island, then waited for Cui and Brother Stone to catch up.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
As soon as they were past, he withdrew his red lux back into his core, cycling it automatically as he made the leap to the island. Jiya and Joshi caught up a moment later. Jiya was looking pleased with herself. "Azure Flame sent one cultivator at Mental Refinement and a couple of outer disciples to try to chase us off the treasure," she said. "They've learned their mistake now. Too late."
"Magen thinks he sees another puzzle box up ahead," Joshi said, pointing. A series of small floating islands led off toward the edge of the lake. It was the first time Chang-li had seen the shore here. They rushed forward, Chang-li trying to cycle as he went. The thick lux was still clogging his channels. He switched from Breath of the Heaves to Purification of Mind and Soul, and his lux moved more freely, but it didn't clarify.
Joshi frowned at him. "What's wrong?"
"The lux I absorbed from those flowers is taking longer than I expected to purify,” Chang-li explained. "I'm concerned what might happen in our next fight."
"Try Way of Boulders," Joshi advised. "It's always stood me in good form when I have lux impurities."
Chang-li switched. As he tossed out a red lux stepping stone for the disciples, he lost his concentration. The weave came apart just as Brother Stone landed on it, sending the Oaken Band Brotherhood Cultivator into the waves. Yang and Shou laughed at him as they hauled him out. Chang-li tried again, and the weave wouldn’t come together at all. Frustrated, he turned to his allies.
"I need to process my lux," he told Jiya, who was looking impatient. “Something’s wrong if I can’t even manage a simple red weave.”
“We don't have time for this," she fumed. "Joshi, what about the next puzzle box?"
"Two islands more to go," Joshi said. "There's a tree in the middle of the island. It's another of the rocky kind, not the floating mats. The tree is hung with fruits, and Magen reports one of the fruits is our target. He thinks the tree may be a tower beast."
“More hostile plants. I hate those,” Jiya muttered.
Chang-li had collapsed onto the edge of the floating island, sitting cross-legged with his arms extended as he cycled Way of Boulders. Joshi was right; it did get the stubbornly thick lux moving through his channels. He pulled it to his core and focused.
The problem wasn't its density, he realized now, but its impurity. This lux was largely yellow and blue, held together with vast quantities of green. He just couldn't get a grip on the slippery, malleable green lux to separate out the yellow and the blue.
Chang-li took a deep breath and focused on the yellow, which he was most comfortable with. Slowly, he extracted it from his core and fed it out through his channels, venting it into the air. Jiya scowled.
"This is taking too long," she snapped. "Joshi, with me. Chang-li can bring the others as soon as he's ready."
Joshi looked between them, an expression of concern on his face. "If another sect comes along, Chang-li is in no shape to fight."
He wanted to protest, but he couldn't spare the concentration from his cycling. The yellow had answered easily enough, but traces of it still clung to the blue, held in place by green. No matter how he touched the green lux, it would not answer him. Instead, it shifted away under his touch.
"We need that puzzle box," Li Jiya insisted, before turning to the disciples. "Come with me," she ordered, and raced to the other side of the island, where she tossed out ragged chunks of red lux, with none of the elegance of Chang-li's stepping discs. The disciples hurried after her, Brother Stone casting a worried look at Chang-li before going.
Joshi stood there. “You should go," Chang-li managed.
"Magen says he sees Golden Locks cultivators two islands off," Joshi said. Chang-li could hear the strain in his voice. "Are you done yet?"
Chang-li wasn't. He was wrestling with the lux in him. The green had taken on a life of its own, somehow wrapping itself even tighter to the blue. It would not answer him. He felt instinctively that stopping his cycling at this point might damage him.
A thought occurred. He was supposed to be on the path toward the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, using his will to affect the world outside him. Should he not use it to affect himself first?
He focused his will, not as a shield or a bludgeon the way he had tried in practice against Joshi, but inward, as a scalpel. No, not a scalpel; that was the wrong tool for him. He imagined his will now as an ink pen, dipping it into his core, siphoning out the green lux just as he would fill a quill with ink.
It hurt him physically as he strained. His head pounded, his eyes went crossed, his temple throbbed. He couldn't see, could barely hear Joshi's warning of "They're coming!" But the green answered him, and he drew it out through his channels, finally venting it through both sides of his body. Then all he had to do was push out the few remnants of yellow through his left hand channels, and the blue through his right.
Now completely devoid of lux, Chang-li stood. He inhaled, drawing fresh lux in, and felt it like a drink of cool water on a hot day. His channels still hurt, but the lux flowed. This was the tower lux he expected. Dense, yes, but not syrupy and clogged. He wanted to pull his notebook from his satchel and make notes. Something about the way those tower beasts had processed the lux was different from how he had encountered it before. This could be important, an insight into the very nature of cultivating, but Joshi was urging him onward.
"Hurry, we have to get to the disciples before Golden Locks does."
"Where are they?" Chang-li asked as he looked about. He hesitated. “I’m still feeling the effect in my channels. I don’t know how well I can fight.”
Joshi pointed. "They're heading from that island."
Chang-li raced forward, enhancing his body with red lux to clear out the shaking he faced from the intensity of the channeling. He had to toss out a stepping stone halfway between their island and the one where Jiya and the disciples had gone.
The island was about 50 feet around, from what he could see of it, with a hill in the center and a tree on top of the hill covered in silvery leaves. The tree was shaking and thrashing as though in a high wind. He could see lux patterns flashing and hear Jiya's voice raised as she shouted to the disciples. Just as they reached the shore, Joshi reported, "Golden Locks are here, on the other side of the island. Magen has eyes on them."
“We have to get to Jiya," Chang-li said, racing up the hill with Joshi beside him. From the crest of the hill, the tree stood in the center of a small dimple atop the hill, a pit about ten feet across and four feet deep. The disciples were ranged around the tree, holding weapons or flames in their hands as Li Jiya attacked with her crescent moon weapon. She slashed at a branch from which dangled the puzzle box. It was golden and twice as large as any of the other fruits. The tree's branches resembled those of a willow, long and sinewy. It lashed away from her strike, and she caught only leaves.
Joshi grabbed her arm. She whirled on him. "We have to flee," he said as Chang-li caught the disciples' attentions. "Retreat!”
"No!" she shouted. The Golden Locks team appeared on the other side of the crater. It was their entire sect, Mai Wen at their head, thirteen strong. Morning Mist was outnumbered more than two to one, and from the look on Mai Wen's face, she was ready for a rematch.
Three different wills lashed out against them as Mai Wen pointed toward them. Hers was the strongest, but two of her cultivators had willpower enough to make Chang-li stumble. The disciples were on their knees, choking and gasping. Chang-li tried to resist, but his lux channels ached and his will refused to answer.
"Get them out!" Joshi grunted. Chang-li felt his will and Li Jiya's snap into place, pushing back the enemy attack. The pressure relieved, Chang-li raced down to the disciples. He helped Shou and Yang to their feet.
"Run!" he told them. All five raced toward the beach as Joshi and Li Jiya covered their retreat. Mai Wen was shouting something. A technique whizzed past Chang-li's head. He felt it with his lux senses and dodged out of the way. Another came hurling toward the disciples. Chang-li tossed a net behind them and caught it. As they reached the water's edge, he threw out a disk, and they were away.
Joshi caught up quickly. "They're not chasing us. They’ve taken the puzzle box and gone."
Li Jiya was there, fuming. But Chang-li knew they'd made the right call. Standing and fighting would have been hopeless against so many. And no matter what the prism said, he was certain Mai Wen would have found a way to harm his disciples if they'd waited any longer.