Joshi was more worried than he had let on to Chang-li. He could feel his approach to the Peak of Mental Refinement. He knew he was nearly there. Already, his mind hummed with the increased flow of lux through it. It was getting easier to understand his weaves. He and Magen were communicating better and better.

But it would not be enough. He could feel the last veil, and to step through it would take something more than merely gathering lux and cycling it.

The onslaught of dense lux was growing stronger with each step they took. He could tell Chang-li felt the strain as well. Sweat dripped down the scribe's face with every step they took.

The lux was emanating from that giant crystal, Joshi realized. He couldn’t see it through the forest of mushrooms but he could feel it ahead. His senses were keen enough now to see the flows of lux. This crystal was the focus of lux for the whole tower. And he could feel more than that. Something beyond the lux. Deeper, richer, more pure. Was this Lumos? The true substance of the universe? Which cultivation towers broke down into lux so that cultivators could make use of it?

The monks of Harupa had spoken little of Lumos. It was a forbidden topic, like the idea of channeling violet lux. Only the emperor bestowed the right to learn to crack Lumos into lux upon his chosen few. But Joshi was no citizen of the empire. His people ranged the wilds and had occasional contact with others who spoke of lands beyond where the rules were different. There, perhaps, cultivators could work without imperial decree.

That was a problem for another day, if he lived to see it. First, there was the problem of Feng. From what Li Jiya had said, Feng still had two disciples with him, unless he had already sent them back. Joshi suspected he was keeping them close. Those disciples would not themselves be a match for himself and Chang-li, but outnumbered and with Feng's superior cultivation, they had no chance. Not head-on. They needed tactics.

"Let us halt," he told Chang-li. The scribe seemed relieved. He sat down at the base of one of the enormous mushrooms and pulled out the inhibitor bracelet, placing it around his wrist and taking some of his rations from the bag. He closed his eyes as he chewed.

Joshi sat as well. He commanded Magen to go ahead, telling the lux creature to keep himself as invisible as possible, though he was not sure he would be able to hide from the senses of a cultivator already at the Peak of Mental Refinement. Nevertheless, he sent the creature scouting along. If he concentrated and cycled his own lux through it, Magen could range quite a distance from him, the bond between them stretching but not breaking.

Joshi concentrated on seeing through Magen's vision, even as he watched his own surroundings. The mushroom forest thinned out as the slope reached the bottom of the bowl. Between the end of the forest and the crystal rising from the floor of this enormous cavern was a moat filled with shimmering light. Bridges at intervals of 50 feet or so spanned the moat.

Magen dipped down to take a sip of the light while Joshi urged caution. Joshi felt the infusion pouring through him and ordered Magen to stop. It was the purest, densest lux he had tasted yet, flowing deep. This must be what the lux technicians would be seeking to harvest.The lux sought to enter Joshi’s own core; he quickly switched his cycling pattern and vented it from his body instead.

From Magen's tiny sample, Joshi knew that it was far too dense for him to take into his own body, as much richer than the ambient lux as Tower lux was to the world beyond. He was certain Feng wouldn't be able to handle it either. Mental Refinement only got you so far. This would destroy even a body adapted to the needs of ordinary lux. Could he make use of that?

Joshi began to consider. Feng was arrogant, that was certain. He had the skills to back up his arrogance. In a fair fight, Joshi had no doubt Feng could defeat him and Chang-li both. There had to be a way to change the odds. With Magen, he had superior vision and awareness of any fight. Could he turn that to his advantage?

As he scouted, Magen, patrolling around this side of the river of lux, spotted two Soaring Heavens disciples, a man and a woman. Joshi didn't know either of their names, but from the markings on their robes, they were inner sect disciples, probably trying to earn their way toward a higher rank by assisting Feng.

One of them pointed toward Magen. He'd been seen. Joshi started to recall his lux creature, then had an idea. He directed Magen a little ways up the slope and had him become fully visible. The two started after him, talking excitedly to each other. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he had a guess. They recognized Magen as a lux creature; they would know how valuable he could be in the right hands. They might yet be trying to capture him.

Neither seemed to have called an alert back to Feng, if Feng was even here. No, Feng was here. Joshi was sure of it.

Magen led them a little further. Joshi turned to Chang-li. "A pair of disciples comes. Prepare. We should try to take one alive and question them."

Chang-li sprang to his feet, removing the inhibitor and preparing himself for battle. He drew his sword with his left hand and began weaving together a pattern with his right. Joshi was impressed with how his friend could manage fairly complicated weaves with only a single hand. Joshi's own instincts led him toward reinforcing his body with lux, but he was pushing for more than that. He prepared now, readying a Thousand Fists technique.

The male disciple preceded the female by a good ways, hurrying forward. Joshi told Magen to go invisible. The male disciple raced ahead, past where he had last been.

Joshi directed Magen around beside the female disciple, right behind her head. Then he unleashed his technique. He punched, and the three reflected blows emerged from Magen. They took the female disciple unawares, knocking her down.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

She didn't move. Joshi wasn't certain if she'd been killed, but he thought she was likely merely knocked out. As the male disciple hesitated, looking back, Joshi and Chang-li sprang out from their hiding places.

The male disciple turned, surprise on his face, just in time for Chang-li's technique to hit him square in the chest with flame. He had a counter-technique of his own at once, ripping the flame from his robes and transforming it into a whip of lux that he swung at Joshi.

Joshi ducked, came in with a hard right punch to the abdomen, but the disciple had reinforced his body with red lux. It did no more than stagger him an inch back. Joshi followed up with a blow to the face, but the disciple caught his hand with the lux whip and yanked it aside. He wound the other end of the whip around Joshi's hand and tried to pull it to himself.

Joshi ripped his hands apart with no effort. The disciple seemed surprised that his technique had had no effect. Joshi was a bit surprised too, how easy it had been to break. Then he remembered the first floor guardian's words: "No bond shall hold you unless you choose it." He grinned to himself as he stepped in and smashed a hard right hook to the disciple's face. The man went down. Chang-li was there, a sword at the man's throat.

"Drop your weave," he ordered, "or I'll slit your throat."

The disciple let his hands fall loose at his side. Magen was keeping an eye on the female disciple. She hadn't moved.

"To your feet. We have some questions for you. If we like your answers, we'll let you go," Joshi said.

Chang-li took a step back and let their prisoner rise. "You are here with Young Master Feng?"

"Yes," the man mumbled. He was still breathing heavily. Blood trickled down his face.

"He will not be pleased to hear how easily you were defeated.”

The disciple hesitated. "No."

"Then tell us what we wish and we will allow you to flee," Joshi said.

A little ways off, the woman was starting to stir. Chang-li prodded at the man with his sword. "Walk over to your friend." He pulled a rope from his satchel and tossed it to Joshi, who quickly bound the man's hands behind his back, enforcing the rope with red lux to strengthen it. The man would be able to cut his bonds with a lux blade, but they were watching him for any signs of him touching the lux in his core. It sat quiescent now.

They reached the woman as she sat up. "Don't move," Joshi said. He had the man sit beside her and then bound the woman's hands as well. They glared up at him, sneers on their faces.

"Do what you like, but you're no match for Young Master Feng," the male disciple said.

"How many more of you are there?"

"Don't tell him that," the woman said.

"Do you want us to slit your throats or let you go?"

She snarled but fell silent as the man began to speak. He could see, no doubt, the blazing determination in Joshi's eyes. Joshi leaned in, snarling, letting a bit of his close-held rage show.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Young Master Joshi of the Morning Mist."

"Yes, but before that, I was the son of Khan of the Darwur, the only enemy who has fought the empire's forces to a standstill in the last two hundred years. My father dealt a great defeat to the General of the West, one he has still not recovered from. I am here to demonstrate to the empire what a son of the Khan of the Darwur can do as a cultivator. Do you wish to stand in my way?"

It was nonsense, of course. Joshi's father had nothing to do with him being here, but he would use his people's fierce reputation as a weapon. His father would be proud of him for that.

The man blanched and began to babble. "We're the last. Feng sent the others to deal with you. He had ordered them to report back and was furious when they didn't. Couldn't believe you might have defeated them. Thought you had perhaps slipped past them. We saw the creature and thought capturing it would put us in Feng's good graces. He's waiting for you at the crystal."

"He has already met the Tower Guardian then?" They nodded.

“And received the boon. He wasn't happy about it," the woman said. "Seemed to think it was useless. Then he started laughing and said maybe he'd put it to use after all.”

"Why has he not left?"

"He means to kill you," he said. "He will return with the boon and the head of Young Master Joshi and then no one will doubt his worth. He said they'd have to make the indigo princess marry him.”

Joshi felt very near to murder then. Instead, he growled. "What else does Feng have at his disposal? Scripts? Weapons?"

"He doesn't need any of that to defeat you. He's just going to kill you," the male disciple spat.

“Then why send you?” Chang-li asked. “Why not keep you back until we arrived?”

The female disciple looked murderous. “We begged him to let us prove ourselves against you. He laughed and said we could try, and if we did, we’d be accepted as inner disciples of the sect.”

“Idiots,” Chang-li muttered. “Instead you split your forces.”

Joshi straightened up. "I don't think there's anything else we can get out of these two," he told Chang-li. "Should we let them go?"

"I don't trust them," Chang-li said, looking from one to the other. "I think they will attack us again the moment our backs are turned.”

“Go! We will be watching and if you turn back, I will kill you,” Joshi told them. They hesitated only a heartbeat before running for the exit, a few hundred feet away.

They watched the disciples until they both disappeared into the exit. Then, Chang-li turned to Joshi. "We outnumber him, but that doesn't matter."

Joshi nodded his head in acknowledgment. "You are correct. He has surpassed the Peak of Mental Refinement. We have not. He's stronger than we are."

"How much stronger?" Chang-li asked, the frustration in his eyes mirroring Joshi's own. "I know before I reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement that his will could crush mine without a thought. But our bodies have been reforged with lux. We are cultivators ourselves. We have lux in our cores and techniques. He's not yet reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, and this floor seems to test us at the level where we are. Can we beat him?"

"I have not tried my strength against him." Joshi sighed. "I don't know." It was frustrating to admit so much. "But what choice do we have?"

"To go back," Chang-li said at once. "He has beaten us to the Tower Guardian and received the boon. He's won, and he's waiting because he believes he can kill us. I don't like just walking in and facing him. Not without some sort of plan or strategy."

Joshi nodded. He bent down and traced in the dirt with his finger. "No. My father would never have gone into battle against a superior enemy without a plan. And yet he has defeated the General of the West several times. The General is a cultivator. Many of his men are cultivators as well. And my people are not."

"Is this going to help us here?" Chang-li asked skeptically. He sighed. “All right, how did he do it?"

"For the last battle, the one I was present at, he waited until the general’s army had been away from a tower for several weeks, their lux reserves depleted. Then my father sprang his trap. Without lux, a cultivator may be stronger than an ordinary man, but he is no match for ten, nor can he easily shrug off a dozen arrows piercing his flesh."

"We have no chance of cutting Feng off from lux," Chang-li said.

"But we do." Joshi looked up at him and grinned.

Chang-li's eyes narrowed. He reached into his bag. "You mean..."

Joshi nodded. "Here's what we will do."