Nadia began by altering the training room.

“As this is a test of what you know, I shall have the computer remake the area to better suit your art.”

The training room shifted, bringing large pillars to bear along with outcroppings and handholds.

James stretched, warming his body up as the the world turned in his favor. “Go easy on me, master.”

“But then how will you learn, disciple?” Nadia asked.

James smiled. She always knew where to push, didn’t she?

“A simple warmup to start,” Nadia said as she stepped in front of him. “Hand motions, nothing more.”

James nodded. He held his hands out, Nadia mirroring the movement. They stood, arms within easy reach of each other.

It started with a darting hand. The goal, as James knew from earlier trainings, was to strike one of three areas. Either each shoulder or the neck. Not with force, they were training after all, but Nadia didn’t begrudge James if he used a bit more power than he should have.

After all, it wasn’t like he could get a hit in against her.

His hand darted to her neck, only for her own hand to deflect it and slide down his arm to strike. James brought his other arm up in a block and retaliated even as his outstretched arm was curled back toward him to block the blow.

Nadia was a master at deflection, turning each of James’s strikes away with as little effort as possible. James kept at it, moving faster as he struck. His master matched him with ease.

Their hands were a blur and James found himself reaching the end of what he could do without entering the Metastate. “Good,” Nadia said. “You are improving.”

James grunted, too concentrated to speak. Both hands grabbed at each shoulder, only for Nadia to knock them wide. James leaned away from the counterattack, windmilling his arms to keep balance and perhaps get a lucky strike.

“Add footwork now, disciple,” Nadia said. She stepped forward.

James fell into a roll, coming up with both hands at the ready. Nadia was on him, forcing him back. A hand tapped his shoulder.

“Point for me,” Nadia said.

James nodded and backed away. Nadia chased him, to one of the pillars. James jumped, kicking off the pillar to leap over his master. She grabbed his leg and yanked him down.

“Sloppy, disciple,” she said as he landed in a roll.

“You’re too fast, master,” he complained lightly. He sprung from his roll and sprinted toward a pillar. Nadia waited, knowing he would have to come to her if he wanted to score a point.

James used his momentum to climb the large outcropping before him. He turned and surveyed the area below, lines of energy creeping into his vision.

It was becoming easier to enter the Metastate without effort. The more he trained, the easier it was to see how the world interacted with him. And as he studied, the world opened more of its secrets.

The lines bounced now, showing directions of forces as they interacted with bodies. The pillars and outcroppings sent the lines of energy in angled directions. The exception was Nadia. The lines around her curved from her person, creating a bubble that James couldn’t penetrate.

“Out of breath already, disciple?” she teased.

“Of course not,” James said. “I was merely planning my attack.”

“You best hurry, then. I am started to get bored.”

James laughed and crouched low. He jumped, kicking with all his power to become a human cannonball. Energy flowed around him, showing him the result of his actions.

Or at least what he predicted to be the result.

James saw Nadia’s hand, a swirl of energy, move to intercept his travel. He grabbed for it but found his grip slipping as she twisted her wrist. Her other hand swept James up over her body and toward the closest pillar.

James used the spin to catch his arm on an outcropping. His muscles screamed but he held tight. The halt in momentum brought him swinging over the outcropping back at his master. She caught him again, using that same tricky redirection.

James landed in a roll and carried it into a run that moved him through a jungle of pillars.

“Out of ideas, disciple?” Nadia asked.

“Not yet!” James shouted.

Of course, it wasn’t so much an idea as an inkling. A bad one at that. But there was something he saw in the swirls of energy, a point where no lines crossed. If he could reach that then he might land a strike.

With nothing but the idea, James jumped from pillar to pillar, lining himself up for the perfect attack. He soared, pushing off the training pillar to come down directly on top of Nadia. For a moment, his aim was true.

She stepped to the side and James landed on the ground. A hand touched his shoulder.

“Another point, disciple. And now for a break.”

James fell to the ground, exhausted. “I’ve never hit you once.”

“If you could, I would be a poor master,” Nadia said.

“But I beat those other cultivators,” James complained. “And they’ve been at it much longer than I have.”

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“I doubt that,” Nadia said.

James looked up.

She ran a cool stream of water over his back, siphoning heat from his nodes to help him recover. “While you have nothing in the way of traditional training, your self-imposed running in Tower Ten has filled that hole. The majority of early cultivation is building the correct body for your martial art. Your time as a courier has given you the physique you need. After that it is a matter of using what you practice.”

James pulled himself into a sitting position. “So I really am the super talented once in a lifetime cultivator from nowhere like all the stories on the viewscreens.”

Nadia laughed. “That does seem to be the case, disciple. But remember that your talent needs time and work to grow. There are any number of cultivators who can defeat you with ease.”

James remembered Nadia’s great grandmother. “How can I tell, then?”

“If you see that they have more cores than you, assume they have more power,” Nadia said.

James rubbed the back of his neck. “People aren’t going to show me their backs if I ask, master.”

“No, they will not,” Nadia said with a smile. “But the rule is still important. Cores require a mastery over yourself, a mastery that leads well into strength. After all, it takes a powerful cultivator to command a world.”

“Am I ready for that?” he asked.

“Not even close,” she answered truthfully. “You have only just tapped into the Metastate. From how you have described it, you understand how your actions will ripple across the world, but only in a physical sense. I am helping build that foundation until you are able to see not only how you affect the world, but how the world will affect you.”

“Equal and opposite reactions,” James said with a frown.

Nadia laughed. “Perhaps, disciple. It is a matter of interpretation. Others might see it as a chain reaction, one action leading to another. I see it as a flow. Swirls, pushes, and pulls.”

“So when I understand how the world affects me, I’ll be ready for a core?” James asked.

“Most likely,” Nadia said. “But reaching that understanding takes time.”

James nodded. “Well, at least I have some of that now.”

“Indeed,” Nadia said. “And we shall use it to the best of our ability. Back to training, disciple.”

James stood.

—

Training finished late in the night, Nadia doing her best to instill everything she knew into teachable moments for James. They sparred, studied, and sat together in meditation long into the night before his master told James to get some rest.

“I have a few things I want to do first,” James told her.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Well, I need someone to identify the talismans I looted,” James said. “I had wanted to visit your mechanic friend but I had that whole punishment duty.”

“I understand,” Nadia replied. “She should still be in her corner if you would like to leave now.”

“Sooner the better, I always say,” James answered.

They took the elevator down to the market floor. Artificial light illuminated the entire floor, chasing away any darkness that came with the night. Cultivators still milled about the floor in their various groups.

“Does this place ever sleep?” James asked.

“Never,” Nadia answered. “Too many cultivators on the floors.”

She brought him over to the long department store they’d first entered. Or at least, they tried to. Two servitors moved to block Nadia’s path.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Entry prohibited,” the servitors said in grainy voices.

Nadia’s eyes narrowed. “On whose authority?”

“Classified information,” the servitors said.

There was a flash of anger from Nadia, a rage James had never seen on the woman.

“I see,” she said simply. “Come, James.”

They turned and walked to another store. Servitors blocked this one as well. James looked around, each of the stores had groups of servitors nearby. He looked up at his master.

“It seems we will be unable to complete your request tonight,” she said with calm. James wasn’t fooled, Nadia’s disposition right now was that of a riptide current. Still on the top but raging below.

They walked back to the elevator, the ding the only noise that James could hear.

The water in the lakes below shook when Nadia walked back onto her floor.

“Master?” he asked quietly.

She looked at James. “Apologies, disciple. I am, incensed. No, tempestuous. Beyond enraged. This is more than the petty games. The market floor is open to all in the Blue Mountain Sect. Someone has deemed fit to change that rule.”

“Osman?” James asked.

Nadia shook her head. “He has no power on his own. This is a collaboration, disciple. Likely an alliance.”

“Robert, then?” James asked. He recalled the sect master’s mild smiles and irritatingly placating gestures.

“He has no reason to order this,” Nadia said. “I am too valuable an asset for the sect. No, he is likely being pressured from the elders. I never thought them to be this malicious.”

James tried to appease his master. “It can’t be that bad, can it? You can still use your family connections.”

“I only hold sway over that one building on the lower floors, James,” Nadia said. “And that is only one archive in thousands scattered across the empire.”

“But you could buy talismans through them, right?” James asked.

“I could,” Nadia said. “However, actions like maintenance, cybernetic enhancements, or core installation would be difficult.”

“Why?” James asked.

Nadia sighed. “There are failsafes inside the sects. Spellgrams and formations that prevent anyone from acting on a body with malicious intent. I cannot bring you to an outsider for fear that they would attempt something. And I cannot bring you to the family for the same reasons.”

“Your great grandmother won’t help?” James asked.

Nadia barked a laugh. “She is removed from politics, James. I only barely convinced her to see you, and that is because she has a soft spot for me. No, she will not help more than what she has. And I cannot bring you to another in my family. They are worse than the sects.”

“So, we’re stuck?” James asked.

Nadia growled. “For the time being. But there will be words. Seeing as the elders haven’t come to kick us out, I must still be in the sect. It is amazing they believe they can be so bold.”

James watched as his master roiled like an ocean in a storm. “They would call civil war with this, weaken the sect all for a meager chance of a slight? Why? What would compel them to do this?”

“It could just be fear,” James said. “You did say you were powerful. Could it be your great grandmother?”

“They know as well as I do she has nothing to offer politically besides credits. Perhaps it is fear, as you say. But as cultivators we are taught to master our fear.”

James watched as his master continued to try and reason. The answer was simple to him. They didn’t like Nadia and finally had a reason to do something, however slight. He felt like his master was caught up in the details.

“What do we do then, master?” James asked.

She looked at her disciple. “I shall rectify this. In the meantime, you will have to go without identifying the talismans.”

James nodded. “Let me know if I can help.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, disciple, unless you have a miraculous way of getting past this blockade I doubt you can assist. I barely have political power of my own.”

“I understand,” James answered.

She smiled at him. “Thank you for offering.”

Eventually, Nadia left her floor to take action. While she had no direct power to sway the votes of elders, she did have massive sway over certain areas of the sect. Mainly the hunters.

The idea had come from James in actuality, a recollection of a comment he had made to Aliah. A united front against injustice. She gathered her comrades, people who traveled with her across the lower floors and outside the megacity.

They gathered in her floor, an amalgamation of every kind of cultivator. She appealed to their honor and their pride. That one of their own had been barred from the market floor due to petty politics. She brought them together to fight against it, whenever and wherever it appeared.

They responded with confusion at first. James saw Seok, the sibling duo, and other cultivators that had walked through the market street. But the more Nadia explained, the more the sentiment spoke to them. Each had fallen prey to inter-sect politics at some point in their journey. Some pictured their disciples in James’s predicament.

After a time, they agreed. It would be a simple thing, but one that the market district came to fear.

The hunters refused to sell them their spoils.

James, for his part, didn’t sit idle. He knew his master said he couldn’t do anything, but he knew that wasn’t quite true. James had a familiarity with something Nadia didn’t.

He messaged Garret.

You mentioned back markets before. Can you explain it to me?

Garret was only too happy to oblige.