Chang-li's mirror image looked him up and down, lips curling back in a sneer. He reminded Chang-li of Feng more than himself, or so he hoped. Surely such an arrogant look had never crossed his own face.

"Get up!"

Chang-li got to his feet, straightening his robes and holding his image's gaze. "What are you?"

"I am you," the image said contemptuously. "What you should be." The mirror image strode across the narrow confines of the cell, trailing his open left hand against the purple walls. "What you would be if you weren't limited and caught by your own strictures. This cell is an opportunity for you to overtake all your rivals, and yet here you are, sitting and playing with scribes' tools. You're worthless. I can't think what Min saw in you."

Stung, Chang-li started to retort before catching himself. Whatever this was, it wasn't a copy of himself. It was some trick created by the cell. Wulan had said this was a training tool. Did that mean this, too, was an opportunity?

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"To fight you." The image tapped on the wall. "It's thinning already. You've wasted, perhaps, one-hundredth of your time playing with scrolls. No matter. That ends now." He faced Chang-li, arms out, sword held down. "We fight. We fight to see who leaves this place and takes on Feng. And you had better hope that it's me, because you have about as much chance of defeating Feng as you do of chewing your way out of this cell."

Heart in his throat, Chang-li demanded, "What are you talking about?"

"You have called me forth and challenged me. From now until you leave this cell, I am your opponent. If you somehow make it to the Peak of Mental Refinement, we will be able to open the cell. If not, well, the walls are thinning with every passing moment. When they crumble, the contents of the cell will be released. One body and one spirit." The image looked Chang-li up and down. "I intend for both of them to be mine."

Could he be understanding this correctly? Was the image threatening to steal his body and replace him? Was that even possible? He'd never heard anything of the sort, but then he'd read nothing about such training facilities. He decided not to risk it.

"Right," he told the other. "So, are you going to help me or just watch?”

"I will aid you,” the image told him, "because the farther along your path of progression you get, the better it is for me when I take your body, and the better chance I have of defeating Feng. Since you've been foolish enough to provoke him. It would have been smarter to make him your ally, but you don't seem like the clever type. Despite the years of study, you haven't even figured out how to wield more than one technique."

The false Chang-li sprang forward, sword raised. Chang-li blocked it. His image brought up a handful of burning yellow lux. Chang-li slashed out with his sword, breaking the technique. He formed a Firepot and hurled it at his enemy, who laughed as the flames splashed harmlessly across his robes. Chang-li went to retrieve the lux he'd expended, but his image sucked it in. Chang-li could feel his image cycling.

"Hey!" he exclaimed in dismay. "That's not fair.”

The image chuckled. "No part of cultivation is fair. You keep what you take. That is the lesson you must learn, scribe." He attacked again.

Chang-li was on the back foot, pushed around the room, his image slashing and attacking. Only Chang-li's training with the twins helped him now. Sweat dripped down his face, his muscles blurred. He was reacting to one attack after the next, but his image wouldn't let up.

Chang-li blocked and then tried an attack of his own. The image was there, matching him blow for blow. Chang-li was frustrated. And then his head cleared.

This was a training chamber, and here he was fighting not just any opponent, but the mirror image of himself. What better opportunity would he have?

He fell back, dropping into a stance the shades had taught him. His image raised an eyebrow approvingly. "So, you have it at last." His image matched his stance.

Chang-li stepped in, his sword sweeping in a high blow. The image blocked low, then countered. Chang-li matched. Around and around they went again, this time in a dance and not a furious fight. Chang-li watched the image, saw his own movements reflected there, shifted and adjusted, and he began to see every flaw. Here his elbow was a little too far out. There his step stuttered. Gradually, he could feel the improvements.

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He didn't know how long they fought. Time passed strangely in this place. But when at last he lowered his sword, his image bowed respectfully to him.

"Good. Continue."

During the fight, Chang-li had exhaled most of his lux to enforce himself or his sword. The false image of himself had sucked it all up. Now he wove together a net of green and blue and tossed it at his image, forcing the other to react by venting some lux. Chang-li snatched at it. His image snatched too. Their wills clashed. Most of the lux came to Chang-li, though he lost a bit.

“Time for something new,” he told his image. "Release your lux, I'll release mine."

"Very well," the image said, eyes flashing. “I perceive your purpose.”

They stood a foot apart in the tiny purple chamber, staring at each other as the lux filled the room. Then Chang-li began fighting his image over it. Neither moved. This battle was mental, not physical. He could feel the lux answering him, but as he pulled it in, his image contested, siphoning it back away. They tugged over it like children with a rope, back and forth in both directions.

"What kind of a fool cannot even control his own lux?" the image taunted, ripping it away from Chang-li.

In the walls of the cell, the air was filled with a whirlpool of rainbow color, like the sky of the first level of the tower. The image sucked it all in, sneered, then taunted Chang-li further. "This is why I shall take your place. You are not suited to be a Young Master. Where is your hunger, your drive, your dominance of those around you?"

"Again," Chang-li demanded through gritted teeth.

Somewhat to his surprise, the image did as he was told. Chang-li was beginning to suspect that despite his reflection's arrogance and taunting words, he was required to obey Chang-li's directives. That would make sense. After all, this training chamber had been constructed for the benefit of the cultivator. What good would it do to have placed complicated lux constructs inside if they would not do as the cultivator asked?

It didn't mean the image was lying when he said he would try to take Chang-li's body from him at the end of the training. It seemed like exactly the sort of thing some master cultivator craftsman might have set up as a motivation for his student. Or, if this tool was created by the tower itself. He didn't know what the guardians of the towers truly were, if they were intelligent beings in their own right, or creations of the emperor, but he couldn't trust that they had his well-being in mind.

He would assume that the image was telling the truth when he said he would take Chang-li's body from him, if he could, and then see that it didn't happen.

The image won the second battle of wills also. Chang-li ground his teeth together as he tried to see what he was doing wrong. He acquired small snatches of lux, but nothing more.

This was the first time he had fought over lux. When he and Joshi and Hiroko had been progressing through the tower, they shared in the bounty of their kills. During training, there'd been more than enough for everyone. But this at least he had expected. In accounts he'd found in the Morning Mist sect papers, they had spoken of cultivator duels and that the strains of the wresting of lux from one cultivator to another might turn the tide of such a duel. It occurred to him now that if he mastered this, it could well prove to be a key weapon in his fight against Feng.

"Arrogance," his image told him. “Command. You are a cultivator. You defy the heavens and nature and those around you. The world bends to your will. This is the tool which you use to shape the world according to your own likings. If you cannot master that, you will never reach the Peak of Mental Refinement."

“Release your lux," Chang-li commanded, and the image did so. Chang-li reached out and seized hold of the lux in the room. The image did likewise. They fought. Their strength was well matched and the tug went back and forth. Then, just as Chang-li thought perhaps he might prevail, he lost his grip again. The image pulled the lux away and laughed.

"Why not just give up now?" he taunted. "You have no chance to defeat me. Let me take advantage of this room. I will defeat Feng for you. I'll even ensure that your friend survives this tower. I’m sure Min will appreciate me more than you."

Chang-li ignored him. He was thinking about the willpower battles they'd just had. About how he had been grabbing at the lux as though seizing it with hands and yanking. But lux wasn't a rope or a cloth to be wrested. It was the air he breathed. It was the blood in his veins and the thought in his mind.

"Again," he said.

As the image released the lux, Chang-li began to cycle the few drops remaining in his core through his body, stepping through his most basic cycling pattern. Then he reached out and touched the lux lightly. It answered his call. He didn't try to draw it all back into himself at once. Instead, he extended his cycling pattern out through the whole room so that he was pushing what lux he had through the fingertips of his right hand, circulating it through the room, imagining that his mind was controlling the air patterns in the cell itself, and then drawing it in with his powerful left hand.

The image grabbed at the lux, but this time it was Chang-li's — not to command. No. He wasn't ordering it or forcing it. He was embracing it, using it like he used his brushes to spread ink on a fresh page. It answered him, and it all flowed to him. He met the image's eyes triumphantly, folding his hands across his chest.

"It took you long enough," the image sneered, "and if you think that will work against everyone, you’re mistaken.”

"I know it will not," Chang-li replied, "which is why I'm going to practice again until it does."

Releasing the lux, he challenged his reflection.

He lost the fight.

He won the next three in a row.