The next morning birdsong was replaced with more groans and moans as Laurel’s first students struggled to the campfire for breakfast. She sympathized. They would be walking lightly for the next week, but they had gotten over the worst of it. Having been up for hours already for some light bladework practice, she passed out breakfast and laid out the plan for the day.

“We need to see what’s at the other end of the valley. There’s at least one or two treasures we should take a look at before moving on. Based on everyone’s top speed we’ll need to camp around halfway down overnight. I could fly all the way there and pick things up, but part of this whole mission is to teach the harvesting techniques to you all while it’s safe to do so. So I propose the cultivators head down, and everyone else stays and keeps a watch here.”

The cultivators wore identical stricken looks when they heard they wouldn’t get the day off.

“I’ll back that plan,” Kat announced. Any remaining hope they had was crushed with that final blow.

Leander got her attention with a few gestures and words from his communication stone.

“Yes, I will deal with any spirit beasts this time.”

*********

The first day’s hike was uneventful. While Laurel had been healing, the others had found the easiest path down the sloping valley. It would have been a perfect vista if not for the large swath devastated by a battle between master cultivators, which they edged around. Conversation was sparse as everyone except Laurel focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Laurel was content with that; she was pushing them and as long as they did what was needed she wouldn’t begrudge them a little grumbling. Leander in particular was glaring daggers at her back. The first spirit beast that they happened upon had been terrified when Laurel flared her cultivation. It ran away, as did every other spirit beast they came across, without any fighting at all. She put it down to another hidden bonus of being sectmaster.

They stopped for the evening in the lee of one of the larger remnants of the fallen city. Protected from the wind and roaming eyes, a hasty camp came together. It had been a long, hard day for most of them and they couldn’t muster the motivation for much more than a small fire and rolling out their sleeping pads.

“You should all cultivate a bit before bed.”

“I thought you weren’t helping us any more.” Reynard was usually affable, but even his mood had been tested being asked to go on a high pressure hike after creating his meridians.

“This is basic enough that I can share it. The day after an intense workout you might massage or gently stretch your muscles. This is the same thing. The mana should already be flowing through your meridians, try and push it a little faster while you meditate for a while, then go to bed. I’ll keep watch tonight.”

That last promise was enough to get everyone to forgive her for most of the day’s torment as they followed her advice and then went to sleep. When they woke up the next morning there was a marked improvement in attitude that she knew was directly correlated to the state of their meridians. Reynard even came over and apologized for snapping the day before.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Reynard, earlier this week a man did his best to kill me while throwing my worst fears in my face. A snippy comment here or there doesn’t even register.”

With that they were off. The valley had been sloping down from their lake-side camp, and they were far enough away now that the view of the top was blocked by the rise and the jagged rocks sticking out of the earth at odd angles. There was a flavor to the ambient mana Laurel couldn’t quite identify. Her memories of the place told her it should be some combination of air and earth, but that was obviously not the case. Air, she was intimately familiar with, and earth, while present, was not dominating the local mana landscape.

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Almost lost in thought, she didn’t react in her usual manner when some small animal dared out of the brush nearby. Instead of flaring her mana or something else to mess with Leander, she punted the animal back the way it came. She kept walking for a few steps but realized everyone else had stopped.

“Did you kick a dog?” Rebecca sounded horrified.

“What? No it was some sort of stone fox thing. You all would never have gotten through its skin, you’re welcome.” Seeing they weren’t convinced she added, “Unless you all want to go back to dealing with the spirit beasts yourselves?”

That got them moving and they continued down the basin. Now the formerly floating rocks were large enough it was easier for them to climb up the sides and walk over them than try to go around each one.

“Try reaching out with your spiritual senses. You’ll find everything much easier to feel now that your mana is constantly flowing. They did as she asked, murmuring at the difference.

“Why does everything feel heavy?” Reina asked.

“Yes, Gravity, that's it!” Laurel shouted. “Ahem. I mean, the ambient mana has a gravity aspect. The trauma, for lack of a better word, of everything crashing out of the sky was enough to leave an impression in the local mana. When levels started to rise, a gravity attuned natural treasure formed, which is what we’re going towards. Keep an eye on your breathing, if it starts getting difficult let me know.”

“Umm, are we going to put something in the city that makes it harder to breathe?”

“Not a bad question, Reynard. Short answer is no. Long answer is that I’m not sure if this one will go to the city or the sect, but if it does go to the city, the effect will only be positive. So it might make it impossible for enemies to fly in, or we could use it to direct enough mana to a single spot to cause a hidden realm to appear, or something else, who knows.”

The confirmation that the goal was at hand spurred the group on. Moving at a slightly faster hobble, they hurried downhill. Right before midday they reached the lowest area and the widest fallen platform. Here was true evidence that a city had once existed that defied belief. Ruins sprawled across the rock. This had been where the City Core was anchored, the heart of the then-ruling sect. Even the intervening centuries hadn’t been enough to entirely erode the elegance of the stonework, or the intricate artistry of the friezes that had adorned the buildings. Sparkling reflections showed where some gemstone or piece of untarnished metal remained, between the crumbling stone.

The band of cultivators climbed over the rubble, carefully dodging piles of crushed glass still lingering in corners the wind and rain couldn’t reach. Laurel wasn’t surprised the natural treasure was in the sect house. The connection to the City Core would have made it the area of most concentrated mana in the city. She slowed, letting her students go in ahead of her. It was remarkably similar to visiting the remains of her own sect. There, the mana hadn’t yet flooded back into the world, triggering the rapid growth of natural treasures. She had also been alone. Laurel took a moment to look at each of her students, feeling their cultivation with her own. The last years had been a trial she was in no way prepared for. It was all worth it.

They were close enough now that even her newly-minted initiates could feel the pull. She let them lead the way, testing out their new ability to interact with the magic in the world. Laurel followed them to an empty room. The ceiling was still intact, and she could see why. The infusion of mana over centuries had turned the building into a single piece of stone. Even the entire island crashing down hadn’t been enough to shatter this room, and centuries of weathering hadn’t yet eroded the structure. She meandered up behind Leander, the only of her students shorter than her, and took a look at the object they were gathered around.

“Huh.”

An obsidian disk was lying on the floor. The light warped around it in strange ways, like the whole room and space itself was leaning in. A faint blue spiral started on the edge of the disk, and wound around and around until it reached the center and went down, somehow, while staying in the same plane.

“Who wants to do the honors?”

None of them would make eye contact with her. In fact, all of them inched slightly away from the thing on the ground between them. Leander was the unlucky one with nowhere to go. Both hands came down on his shoulders and gave a soft shake.

“Thanks for volunteering, Leander. Now, remember what I told you and get in there. Do you have one of the boxes?”

His shoulders slumped as he opened his pack, removing the harvesting knife and box. Kneeling he felt along the edges as Laurel had shown him. Having the whole team practice on various plants they had come across on the journey was paying off. His hands were shaking but he took a deep breath and forced them to relax. Laurel approved. When he was ready, Leander moved with confidence. Knife sliding under the disk, he carefully detached it from the ground and slid it into the box. Then he slammed the lid and took four large steps back.

“Well done! And there’s not even a horrific sea creature lurking around so I think you have the best harvest so far.”

“Yup, good job kiddo. Now we just have to climb all the way back to the top. Unless our lovely and supportive teacher would like to teach us all how to fly, now that we can use external techniques,” Reynard said.

Laurel burst into laughter. After a minute of wheezing she had calmed down enough to answer. “Excellent effort, but you all are still years away from a movement technique like that. Flying is complicated, you’ll need to aspect yourself to some concept that makes it easier or spend years and years practicing. You might be at a point where you can run faster though. Not too fast or you’ll rip your legs apart, but faster than normal.”

With that pronouncement they all started the hike back up the valley. Laurel letting out little giggles occasionally along the way.