1st of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle

For the first time in his life, Newt entered a port. The pier was huge, catering to a hundred docked ships, with plenty of empty space left over. Then, he saw the sea. The greenish-blue stretched into the horizon, stealing his breath away with every wave rolling towards him and striking the land.

“Never seen an ocean?” Elder Alabaster smirked.

Newt nodded. Never mind an ocean, he had hardly seen any lakes or wide rivers.

“Come on, our sub is this way.” Elder Alabaster led the way onto a twenty-foot-wide strip of carved rock, its pieces carefully fitted into a gigantic three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

As he stepped forward, Newt watched the three-colored masterpiece of contrasting fiery-red, deep-blue, and white, wondering whether there was a purpose to the layout. Would anything happen if he followed one particular trail, or could he avoid stepping on a certain color or color combination?

“Great design to hide something, isn’t it?” Newt’s master somehow noticed his fascination, despite walking a step ahead of him. Maybe higher realms really had senses beyond the natural ones.

“Yes, Master. What’s a sub?” he added after a moment’s pause to consider how stupid the question would make him.

“A submerged ship, kind of like a metallic tub-boat that travels below the surface and avoids the rough weather. It’s much faster and much more private than a ship.”

“I have never heard of such a vehicle.”

“Yeah, not very useful for those under the third realm, really. People who need to breathe more often tend to suffocate unless you have an air-aligned cultivator aboard,” Elder Alabaster said with a disturbingly cheery voice. “Very dark and claustrophobic too, but it makes little difference if you just cultivate your realm as you travel.”

Newt nodded, as if he understood what his master was talking about and followed, trying to imagine a pitch black underwater ship devoid of air. His imagination was decent, but he failed at the task. Too many new concepts.

While his mental image was merely half-complete, it certainly did not involve a tear-shaped metal pod fifteen feet long and six feet wide.

“Here we are.” Elder Alabaster gestured towards the contraption, and Newt was thoroughly unimpressed.

“Oh, come on, say, ‘wow’ at least. This is our sect’s legacy technology, nobody else makes these.”

Newt hesitated, then uttered a quiet, “Wow.”

“That’s the spirit.” Elder Alabaster was unconcerned by his lack of enthusiasm, her grin still wide. “And why are you staring at my ass and crotch all the time?”

Newt jumped back, his face turning crimson.

“I wasn’t. I—” his tongue got tied, and he took a deep breath to collect himself while Elder Alabaster folded her arms and tapped her foot. The grin was still there, transforming into an amused smirk.

“I wasn’t,” he repeated. “I was looking at your legs.”

Newt bit his lip, realizing he was talking about the one subject Elder Frostgrave told him not to talk about.

I met her a quarter of an hour ago, and I’m already poking at her taboo.

“What about my leg?” Elder Alabaster stopped tapping her foot, nailing Newt with her gaze.

She’s furious! How do I get out of this? She’ll kick me out even before I got accepted. Newt licked his lip, his eyes once more turning downward before he snapped his gaze back up, away from the legs.

“I—”

“Don’t even think about lying to me, the entirety of my will is focused on you.” The woman stopped him before he could utter his sentence, her sharp gaze trained on him, slashing him as much as her tone.

“Do all seniors have a way of detecting lies?” Newt asked, attempting to avoid answering the question.

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“Technically no, practically yes. Everyone beyond the fifth realm has both spirit roots, and our third eyes are sensitive enough to pick out the flow of spiritual energy, the movement of your pupils, the flow of your blood, and the speed at which your heart is beating. Naturally, as your cultivation increases, you become resistant to these methods, your body more difficult to pierce. I can read the bodily functions of those of fourth realm and below with ease. Fifth realm already is troublesome. Now, answer my question. Why are you looking at my leg?”

Newt gulped.

“Senior Frostgrave said not to mention the leg to you.”

“The leg?” She blinked.

“Yes, she explicitly warned me not to mention the leg to you, and I’m trying to figure out what is wrong with your leg, but no matter how I look at it they seem normal to me. Identical,” Newt started blathering, but Elder Alabaster’s laugh shut him up.

“Kid,” she barked the word, “that old bag of bones was pulling your leg. I can bet she thought I wouldn’t say anything until things grew weirder.”

Newt stared at his master, not understanding what she was talking about. What would turn weird?

“I thought you were looking at my ass, what would other disciples and elders passing us by think once we returned to the sect?” she asked, then answered her rhetorical question. “That you are looking at my ass. It could spark strange rumors about us, and I don’t believe she would do that to you. I can understand why she would prank me, but this prank harms you too. I thought she liked you?”

Newt thought about it for a moment, recalling the scene.

“I may have teased her favorite disciple too much.” It suddenly became clear to him he had taunted Everlast about Dandelion when Elder Frostgrave offered the man to join her harem. While it seemed like a harmless joke, he probably infringed upon some unknown seniority or hierarchy rule by accident. “Yeah, I said something stupid right before she told me that, and I think this is her getting back at me.”

Elder Alabaster nodded. “Harmless fun for the most part. It might have sparked some embarrassing rumors, but a master-disciple relationship with opposite genders does that often enough anyway. Now, hop in.”

At her word, a circular hatch opened on the top of the sub, and Newt hopped in, literally. The gesture drew a smile from Elder Alabaster, confirming that Newt was a literal person, who lacked experience. She followed his example a second later and jumped.

Newt had just started observing the wooden interior and the soft sitting-cushions when Elder Alabaster entered, and the hatch closed, leaving them in pitch darkness.

The sub lurched, catching Newt by surprise. He rolled back and hit his head against the wall.

“Brace yourself, we are moving.” The warning came too late, and Newt guessed it was intentional, judging by the lack of apology in his master’s tone. “Feel free to cultivate, we’ll need a day or so to reach the Explorer’s Island.”

Newt wondered whether all elder cultivators were benignly petty, and he was certain Elder Frostgrave’s leg was still kicking him.

“Yes, Master, I shall meditate.” Newt paused. “May I ask something?”

“I have no lights in the sub.” Elder Alabaster answered, expecting the question.

“No, not that. How do you see where you are going?”

“Ah, a sensible question. By scanning the density of spiritual energy and its flows outside. My range is fairly decent if I focus my perception in a single direction. But you should note that subs and most other means of transportation are meant for relatively safe environments. I wouldn’t dare traverse the depths of the Savage Wood like this. For dangerous places, you need fortified ships, whether it’s earth-ships, air-ship, or water-ships. Even high realm mounts aren’t considered safe, because contact with more ancient specimens of their species might make them feral and attack their rider.”

Elder Alabaster stopped talking and waited for Newt to ask another question.

“Anything else?” she said after two heartbeats of silence.

There were plenty of other things Newt wanted to ask, but he was worried about distracting the driver.

“Can you talk while steering?”

“Sure, I’m mostly looking out not to smash into something moving slower than us, since there are few things in this sea moving this quickly.”

“Can we discuss the earth element techniques?”

Elder Alabaster shook her head, and the only hint of the gesture was the silhouette void of spiritual energy Newt saw.

“Not in a tub made of water-aligned aluminum with no contact with earth of any kind.” She paused, her tone softening. “Talking without you feeling the energy is pointless.”

Dandelion did it just fine when we discussed cultivation and spiritual arts.

“Yes, Master.” Newt kept his thoughts to himself. “I will cultivate, then.”

He closed his eyes and entered his realm and headed to place another set of earth-aligned runic formations Dandelion had prepared for him.

Newt understood the general intent, and the reason Dandelion suggested the slight shift in rune choices. He had plenty of spell formations which enhanced the power and durability of his earth techniques, but already rigid earth was made even stiffer, and it needed subtlety, fluidity, and finesse to evolve further and support arts different from pure body reinforcement.

“Newstar, you abandoned us.” Newt’s skin crawled as the wind howled behind his back. He thought he had gotten rid of that heart demon.

“I have done everything in my power!” he shouted back, but in the world of scalding air his skin felt clammy and cold.

“You pushed the problem onto another and fled to enjoy an adventure.” The voice came from up in the sky and Newt looked up, seeing a fiery red cloud shaped like his mother with a chain around her neck.

The cloud dispersed, and Newt wanted to say that accusation was pushing it. That he had found an incomparably more competent person to handle the situation. But he could not. He remained silent, tears sliding down his cheeks, turning to steam.