The fifth floor of the tower was accessed from a gate on Petal 12. The Petal had a collection of weavers and tailoring shops but not many houses. Chang-li commented on it as they passed through.

Li Jiya said, "No doubt in a tower eruption, this Petal is evacuated and the bridge is cut until cultivators can handle the eruption."

That made sense. Li Jiya had asked him, Joshi, Brother Stone, and Disciple Yang to accompany her on this first trip. Once they discovered how dangerous the floor was and what opportunities it offered, they would consider bringing more of the disciples.

The brides were given one six-hour visit inside the tower every four days, with no more than two brides permitted in at any given time. Chang-li supposed this would prevent some clashes. He wasn't particularly hopeful it would stop them all, not with cultivators involved.

Now, as the Morning Mist party approached the gate, they found the Azure Flame sect waiting for them, in their crimson and blue robes. The Azure Flame candidate, Xue Lan, gave Li Jiya a tight smile as she looked over the party. Azure Flame had eight cultivators: two men and a woman wearing rings indicating their status as Young Masters, and five others that Chang-li guessed were senior disciples. He opened his spiritual senses and reached out gently toward them, trying to gauge their strength. He knew it was possible for one cultivator to gauge another's strength without asking, but didn't know how.

Xue Lan's lips parted with a shark-like smile. "Now, now, Li Jiya, haven't you taught your pets better manners?"

Suddenly, an oppressive presence pressed against Chang-li. It was much less than the prism Nai Lin’s had been; this was more like the time Feng had set his will against Chang-li's. He fought back, pushing against it, but heard a groan from Disciple Yang.

"That's enough," Jiya snapped. The presence vanished. "We will all play nice. There's no cause for us to argue, Xue Lan."

"So you say, but I agree. Now is not the time. My sect and I will beat yours fair and square. I've asked around and nobody's even heard of Morning Mist. You were a member of an unimportant sect before. But now you turned your back on your family and your sect to stoop even lower."

Li Jiya shrugged. "I am putting my future on the line here. We'll see which sect is better equipped for this challenge."

She let her words dangle as a cultivation official hurried up to them. His badge of office marked him as an inquisitor rank. He bowed low to both brides.

"I am Inquisitor You Fang, here to oversee your visit into the tower. You will be the fifth and sixth bridal parties to enter. I am not permitted to give you any details about what you may find inside."

"Just get on with it," Xue Lan said impatiently.

"I merely need the list of all of your associates. When you return from each trial, you will inform me of any who have reached a milestone of progression or died so that my records may be updated. I see here," he consulted a board to which several pages had been attached, "that your sect paperwork is all in order."

Chang-li had come prepared. He handed over today's roster. One of the Azure Flame's disciples did the same.

"You may enter," the inquisitor said, and the cultivators surged forward. Chang-li braced himself as he stepped through in case the Azure Flame decided to attack them. There hadn't been any mention in the rules of whether that was permitted, but they instead raced forward, not sparing a backward glance as they peeled off to the right. Li Jiya led her team left.

Unlike the previous floor of the tower that Chang-li had ventured into, the realm of ice and snow, they were standing in a wide meadow. All around, the walls of the surrounding hills rose up. Off in the distance was a bloom of light, rising from the ground, probably the location of the floor guardian. They had been warned not to approach the floor guardian, that doing so would result in disqualification from the tournament. This was to be a competition of skill not just a race to the finish.

Li Jiya glanced around, nodded to herself. "It's as Min said. This floor is a mirror of the valley outside, but with no water."

The contestants were not supposed to have been given any details about the floor, but Min was from Vardin City. She knew who to ask, and probably so did most of the other cultivators here. He doubted this would be a surprise to anyone. This floor was an exact match for the valley where Vardin City sat, except the lake was drained away and replaced with this meadow. The surrounding hills were full of monsters, not terraced farms, and the tower was replaced by whatever form the guardian chose to use for his tests. That was the pillar of light in the distance.

Off ahead, something screamed. It sent chills down Chang-li’s spine. He missed a step. Brother Stone and Disciple Yang stopped dead in their tracks, Disciple Yang glancing back over his shoulder as though he wished to flee.

"Exert your will," Li Jiya said confidently. "Remember, we will be facing enemies who are close to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. They will be using their own willpower as a weapon. It is an excellent chance to train your own will against them."

She was using a complicated cycling pattern Chang-li couldn't quite follow. He had switched to Purification of Mind and Soul, his standby whenever any challenge seemed to threaten his reserves. Li Jiya noted and shook her head disapprovingly.

"You don't want to bind your willpower close. That might have sufficed at the Peak of Bodily Refinement and Peak of Mental Refinement, but you're going for Peak of Spiritual Refinement now. Your will must become an extension of you, and you learn to use it as a weapon."

That was starting to make some of the scrolls he'd translated more clear. Chang-li mentally swapped certain terms around. He had been laboring under the apprehension that the goal of Spiritual Refinement was in perfecting one's soul and had spent long hours of the night peering over the scrolls trying to determine just how one would do that. There were plenty of scrolls that talked about souls in a confusing and arcane way. But now, if he instead began applying will, a concept he was familiar with, instead of soul, the idea made more sense. Certainly, he felt more comfortable with the idea of separating his will from his body and using it as a weapon than doing that with his very soul.

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Li Jiya kept heading forward, Joshi striding after her. Chang-li hurried, gathering in lux himself. The air here was dense with it, all of the physical colors as well as both green and blue lux. There was little violet or indigo anywhere to be gathered. So be it. He started to use Infinite Loom in preparation for quickly casting multiple weaves. Chang-li was looking forward to a chance to use some of his new abilities in real combat.

They were racing toward what would have been the edge of the lake in the outside world. There, it was a place where the meadow began to rise steeply in rocky crags over them. The first 20 feet or so of the hillside was nearly a sheer cliff. Then the angle flattened out and became a more gentle slope. Set in the crags were dark holes that loomed like mouths.

As they approached the nearest, another cry assailed them. This time Chang-li was prepared. He had switched to Breath of the Heavens, pulling lux in as he respirated and separating it out into physical and spiritual luxes, sending the physical luxes through the left side of his body, the spiritual luxes through his right. As he did so, he tried to focus on his will as something he could separate from himself, perhaps like a cloak. The concept wasn't coming together just yet. Perhaps if he watched Li Jiya, he'd understand what she was doing.

She had her weapon in hand, the long pole with a crescent moon head atop it. It felt as though her core was boiling over as she cycled furiously. Her lux was denser than Chang-li's, and she was pulling in more and more with each passing step. "Throw it at the cave mouth. We must draw the creature out," she ordered.

Chang-li wove a slightly altered Firepot on the Infinite Loom, a technique that came out to be just a little bigger than his fist, but with a long skinny handle. He wove red lux around his left hand as he grabbed the fire pot technique. The lux glove kept him from affecting the technique's weave at all as he snapped it from the loom. He raised it high over his head and hurled it by the handle. The fire pot spun head over end as it arced through the air into the mouth of the cave and disappeared. An instant later, a gout of flame emerged. Everything inside screamed. It didn't sound pained, but rather challenged. Then a burning monstrosity burst from the cave. Its head was shaped a little like the rock he and Joshi had fought together, and its body was entirely different, more peacock-shaped, with a long sweeping tail and tall curling feathers made of flames. It was eight feet tall and twelve or more feet from beak to tail, and it ran on tall stilt-like legs, each leg tipped with orange lux claws. The beast was at least as full of lux as Chang-li, all the colors. It screeched again, and Chang-li felt the technique it unleashed in that screech. It was laced with green, blue, and yellow lux. The sound wave hit him and staggered him back. Stone and Yang were dropped to their knees. Joshi's head went down, his arm up. He took a step forward. As the bird's cry died, Li Jiya wasn't affected at all, not so much as a hair out of place. She stepped forward to meet the creature, her weapon held proudly high.

"A phoenix! Good omen!" she shouted. "But don't use any more flames, Cultivator Wu. You'll only make the beast stronger."

Chang-li had already guessed that. It was wreathed in flames and showed no sign of any discomfort. Chang-li drew his sword. He was glad not to have to carry it in his soul space anymore, but instead at his waist in a proper scabbard. Beside him, Joshi's arms were wreathed in lux. The barbarian was muttering something to himself under his breath. It sounded like a chant in a language Chang-li had never heard before.

"I will keep it distracted," Li Jiya instructed as she swung her weapon. "I will protect you. Watch for your opening."

Something seemed to extend out from her. Chang-li was perceiving it with his lux senses, not his eyes. It was like a wide pair of wings that formed up into a shield in front of him.

The creature screamed again, but this time its attack barely even touched him. Even the disciples were unmoved. They'd climbed back to their feet. Yang was casting a new technique he and Chang-li had been working on together, disrupting the earth under the firebird's feet. As the dirt under its claws began to shift, the bird hopped forward, a little off balance.

Li Jiya took the chance to slam her weapon hard into its breast. The bird screamed again as blood trickled down.

Chang-li was watching Li Jiya closely enough that he felt when she gathered her will together. It was like someone pulling handfuls of cloud and condensing them into a weapon. Both her hands on her long polearm, Li Jiya swung, at the same time lashing out with her will against the blazing firebird. The bird squawked and was knocked backward under the force of her combined blows.

Chang-li raced forward, swinging his sword. Its lux-enhanced edge sliced deep into the bird, and fire blazed out. Joshi was there, both fists punching as he landed a flurry of blows on the fiery creature. Li Jiya stood over it, hacking with her weapon, her will focused, keeping the bird locked down. She swung again and cut the bird's head from its neck. There was a flare of fire and a feeling like a physical push. Chang-li stumbled back from the bird's corpse. His head was ringing. Li Jiya's will flared once more before she got it under her control.

The cultivators stood gasping as the bird's corpse continued to burn without being consumed.

"I'm sorry," Li Jiya managed. "It got away from me there at the end. I didn't mean to push my will against you, but when the bird was dead, it suddenly had nowhere to go. I will work further at it."

Brother Stone and Disciple Yang looked like they'd just spent the last hour running flat out. Both were sweating and breathing heavily. A glisten of sweat shone on Joshi's bald head, but the barbarian cultivator seemed otherwise fine. Chang-li was about ready to collapse. He forced himself to remain standing as Li Jiya approached the bird. She reversed her polearm and sliced the creature open. The fire dimmed and died. There inside the bird nestled a gleaming ruby. She reached in and plucked it, holding it up to the light.

"Our first treasure," she said, tossing it in the air before catching it and stowing it in a bag at her waist.

Joshi's eyes had fixed on the stone. Now he stared at Li Jiya. "Do you plan to keep those for yourself?"

"I must reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement before the end of this tournament, or it’s all for nothing. I must be able to take on the other bridal candidates. To do that, I must strengthen myself.”

"So must I," Joshi growled.

"And you will. We have time yet," Li Jiya said.

"Then it makes the most sense to give us the first treasures so that we may become stronger and help you acquire more," Joshi argued.

Li Jiya didn't look convinced. "Once you reach Peak of Spiritual Refinement, what prevents you from leaving?" she challenged. "You won't get past that. Not at this tower. The prisms are insisting that the sects cap their cultivators at that level. Anyone going beyond will not be allowed to participate in the bridal tournament.”

“I’m a long way from Peak of Spiritual Refinement. You don’t need to worry.”

Cheng Li spoke up. While he desperately wanted to continue his own advancement, he also needed this alliance, at least for now. "Jiya, Joshi is right. We are here to support you. You came to us asking for help and promising us rewards. We will back you and see that you reach the next phase of this tournament. But you need to be helping us as well. Show some good will. Give the rewards to the sect, and we will give you the backing you need.”

Li Jiya still looked unhappy, but she wasted no time in nodding her agreement. "It's a deal." She fished out the sphere and tossed it to Joshi. “Now. I sense something to our west. What about you?"

"I feel it as well," Cheng Li agreed. "And a presence farther south along the valley's edge also."

"West," Joshi declared. “We should avoid the other sect for now."