* * *

Xing had originally intended to sneak out into the night after receiving the improved seal and, therefore, access to the inner city to find out what was going on in the mages' towers. Gain new knowledge and then work on creating the coveted ring. But he did not even know the usual written language of the people of Akhribad, let alone the unlikeable sorcerous symbols from Sharif's puppets and the skin of a giant tortoise. So, it was still necessary to start with something more basic.

Xing could, of course, learn to read and write from some of the people in his establishment, but there were several serious obstacles. First, most of them couldn't read. Second, a new rumor would be added to all the strange rumors about him, and third... Third, he just didn't want to wait. He was impatient, and he wanted action. So much so he was ready to risk a large sum of money in case the seal was so different that it could not be corrected or repeated.

The sorcerer looked at his hand with a surprised gaze, either because he didn't like the old seal Xing had made look shabby and almost decaying or because he couldn't believe someone in this city needed a higher level so much that he was willing to pay a lot of money for it.

Examining the seal, Xing saw it was not much different from the old one. Even the gap where the qi still flowed out was still there. The only thing that had been added was a not-too-complicated pattern that Xing could repeat even in his sleep.

After patching the gap in the seal, he returned to General Feng and started cooking. When he finished, Xing picked up the basket and headed to the inner city. At first glance, going straight into the enemy's lair would be reckless, but as the Indomitable Dragon said, "If you are expected from the mountains, go around and attack from the valley," and who was Xing to ignore this source of wisdom?

The gate to the inner city alone was guarded by stone statues. When Xing crossed the thin veil of qi, the seal on his hand glittered briefly, but the guards remained motionless. Xing could, of course, try to pass through without the seal, hide his qi, or even sneak underground. But he decided not to do so for now, taking the easiest and most legal option. He would certainly test the guards in the future, but for now, there was no point.

He wandered around the city for a while, looking at a few expensive potion shops, amulets, and talismans, taking note of the sorcerers' towers, including the largest one in the center, whose spire, with its chi flowing into the sky, seemed to pierce the heavens themselves. Then he went to the outskirts of the city, almost to the very wall, where one of the most dilapidated and shabby towers he'd noticed long before he'd received the seal stood. The owner of the tower had seen better days, which was why Xing had chosen it.

"Stop, stranger!" said one of the statues as Xing tried to pass through the unlocked gate in the high fence. The guards, who looked like tall warriors with bird heads, burning eyes, and curved beaks, stepped forward, wielding their curved, short sabers menacingly. Or rather, it would have looked formidable if Xing didn't know he could break them at any convenient moment.

"Hi!" he waved cheerfully.

"Go away, stranger!" roared the second statue.

"Do you always have such a small supply of lines? Or do you pay a kasbah for each new word?"

"Go away, stranger!" repeated the statue.

"Shouldn't you have asked me what I came here for in the first place?"

"What have you come for, stranger?" The statue asked obediently.

"I am your new very pleasant and skillful neighbor! And according to the custom of good neighborliness, I brought a gift to the tower owner: delicious, fragrant, and appetizing Fujian buns!"

"Go away, stranger!"

"Fujian buns! The best buns in the world! The crunch of which makes glass shatter, and the fire energy of which makes even you, a stone dummy, turn into a dragon!"

"Go away, stranger!"

"Tell me, who are you to decide whether I should leave or not?"

"Go away, stranger!"

"You'd better call the owner and let him decide!"

"Who are you, stranger?"

"Oh, so glad you asked! I'm Xing, but everyone calls me Kasim. From General Feng's workshop, restaurant, and forge. And I've brought a gift of Fujian buns for the Lord who lives here!"

"Go away, stranger!"

Xing grimaced. These puppets were quite dumb, much more primitive than the ones standing at the gates of the city. He checked the tower and found a single source of qi there, a mage who didn't seem to be a mage. From the looks of it, it was a woman. Maybe a servant, maybe a wife or concubine.

"Hey, master!" Xing exclaimed, slightly raising his voice with qi. "The buns will soon cool down and stop crunching!"

"Go away, stranger!" the guards repeated in unison.

"Very tasty buns! The most delicious in all of Akhribad! No, the tastiest in the world!"

"Go away, stranger!"

The guards were annoying, but Xing suppressed the urge to smash them to pieces. He would probably do it, but later.

Suddenly, the door opened, and a girl stepped out. A maid, after all, Xing thought. She was dressed in a simple blouse with rolled-up sleeves and dark cotton trousers. She was still holding a small wooden bucket in one hand and a rag in the other.

"Hey, you! Why are you yelling? Who the hell are you?"

Xing stared at the girl and froze. She was very beautiful - not like Mei, of course, but still a dazzling beauty, as beautiful as Almirakh, and even her baggy clothes could not hide her slender, supple figure. It seemed that the owner of this tower was not only in need of cleaning but also something much more pleasurable. Xing checked her qi again just in case she was the owner of the tower and decided to disguise herself for some reason. But no, even though her energy level was slightly different from that of Feng's visitors, it was far inferior to even the weakest sorcerers he had met.

"My name is Xing Duo, but you, beauty, can call me like everyone else, Kasim."

"Very interesting!" The maid smiled pretentiously. "No, not really, not interesting. What's more interesting is what you're yelling about, and why don't you get out like the keepers tell you to?"

"Keepers? Those dummies?"

"Of the three of you, I only see one dummy! You still haven't answered the question!"

"I'm just visiting," Xing smiled. He liked this perky and sharp-tongued girl more and more. "So I brought some buns. The best Fujian buns you can't get for all the kasbahs in the world."

"Of course you won't!" snorted the girl. "I won't buy either because I don't need your buns!"

"Are you sure, beauty?" Xing laughed, opening the lid of the basket and waving his palm over it, directing the scent at the girl.

"Of course, I'm sure! I don't need any..." The maid paused, twitched her nose, and sniffed. "It smells very good!"

"And it tastes even better! Eat these soft Fujian buns and drink tea, and you will be in the hot heart of Lahib Shadid, but not sizzling, but warming! In my restaurant, I ask a lot of money for them, and believe me, those who want them are still fighting each other to get them as soon as possible!"

"Well, you'd better go sell it in your restaurant," the girl replied, but much softer, without any confidence she had had before. "I have almost no money. I can't fight."

"I guess I'll have to do that," Xing fake sighed. "I wanted to treat the owner of this tower, but all I got was a fierce maid and two chickens that didn't even have a proper breast."

"I like chicken breast, too," she smiled, which made Xing's face grow fonder, "but you're right, it's a little tough on the stone keepers. Alas, Xing, I'm the only one in the tower now, and I don't know when it will be."

"Master's away on business," Xing nodded understandingly, flattered to be called by his real name. "No problem! I'll be honest. It's much nicer to talk to a pretty girl like you than an old fart buried in scrolls. Okay, just because your eyes are so beautiful, take it! It was really nice to meet you!"

The girl hesitated, thinking about something.

"Don't be afraid, beauty! The buns are not poisoned. You can ask anyone in the outer city - "General Feng" always serves only the best!"

"But money..."

"Don't worry! A rich man like me," Xing waved his hand to show his seal, "can afford to treat a girl he likes. Especially if he baked the buns himself."

The girl laughed ringingly, threw the rag into the bucket, and snatched the basket from Xing's hands.

"Shadia!"

"What, "shadia?" Xing didn't understand.

"My name is Shadia, silly," the girl laughed. "All right, come in! I'll make tea."

"But..."

"Let him through!" she ordered the dummies. "He's a guest!"

The statues turned and stepped back, standing again on either side of the gate.

Xing smirked and followed the girl, admiring not at all the height of the tower or the tidiness of the small garden in the courtyard.

* * *

Xing had often met women like Shadia in Zhumen, Mogao, and Myantao, not to mention Duojia. "Such" not in appearance - girls who could rival her in beauty Xing could count on the fingers of a single hand. "Such" like Aunt Zhao or the market women. Like them, Shadia was aware of everything, or almost everything, and had an opinion on everything. The first visit to her was followed by a second and then a third.

Shadia knew a great deal and was an interesting conversationalist, so it was a pleasure to talk to her. Xing asked her for advice on how to learn to write and read, and she offered to teach him. Of course, Xing agreed. He would have loved to study other treatises with her, not only theoretically but also with practice, but he didn't want to spoil the relationship by being pushy and poisoning the budding friendship.

The girl remained a complete mystery. Her qi level was too high for an ordinary person, but too low for a mage. Her education and deep knowledge of complex topics were not suitable for a maid, but if she were a mage, even if she were the weakest of the weakest, she would not have to work so hard, run to the market, and cook. And she had no seals at all, not just the higher levels. She was essentially a prisoner, unable to go to the outer city and forced to spend the night only here in the tower with the amulets protecting her from the Marids.

Xing had helped her with her shopping a few times and had also visited the market of the inner city. The prices were a bit higher than in the outer city, but surprisingly not that much, but there were some interesting products and rare items. And then Xing helped cook, showing off his cooking skills in the small kitchen of the sorcerer's tower.

"I would like to learn magic!" He declared one day when he felt their relationship had become strong and close enough to withstand even a serious indelicacy or violation of some unknown prohibition. "How could it be done?"

"Magic..." Shadia replied thoughtfully. "Yes, it can be learned. Except it takes two things. Three things."

"What kind of things?" Xing asked.

"It is necessary to find a good teacher who is not only willing to teach you but who will open to you the Markaz al-Kuwwa, the center of power or, as it is called, the Eye of the Mind. It is also necessary to have a sufficient gift, for without a gift, any learning is useless, no matter how hard you try. And most importantly, you must be under the age of nine. I'm sorry, Xing, even if your talent is the brightest not only in Akhribad but in the entire continent, even if you find a way to pass the initiation by conquering the greatest of the Lords with the crunch and taste of your buns, you're still too old to receive a mere semblance of a mind's eye that will look like a mockery!"

A black, lingering wave flooded the girl's mind, and pain, bitterness, and despair flared in her qi so strongly that Xing stood up, tossed aside the table with the tea set, and took her into a tight embrace. He didn't care about her beauty, her slender, firm body in his arms, or even how she would react to the broken dishes later.

"I once wanted to... I was..." Shadia sobbed, but Xing interrupted her immediately.

"You don't have to say anything. I understand!"

No unnecessary words were needed to visualize her story. The story of a girl who wanted to learn magic as much as Han Nao wanted to be a hero. A girl who had found a teacher, though not as vile as the one Han had gotten, but still not the best of men. And now this sorcerer had taken all the dirty and dirty work on her, just as the bastard teacher had once taken on Han, leaving her here alone to go about his evil business for a long time.

Shadia had to use her beauty to achieve her goal, but in doing so, she received, as Han once did, only bitter disappointment. Han was in poor health and had a bad heart, but Shadia... She had a bright, sharp mind, but alas, the gods had either not given her the gift, or it was too late, and instead of a true "mind's eye," she had awakened only a pitiful semblance of it. She studied desperately, devouring all available books and scrolls, searching for bits of knowledge that might help her realize her dream - just as he had once memorized scrolls and treatises by heart.

But it was all for nothing. And now Shadia was trapped here in the inner city, unable to get out or back in without the seal.

Xing wanted to tell him that there was another path. One that did not depend on talent or other gifts from the gods but on persistence and perseverance. A path of strength and power, allowing even a peasant from a backwoods village to reach the shining peaks. To reveal her true qi, to show her all the cultivation methods that he knew. But... There was a 'but'. Right now, at the moment of her maximum vulnerability, to give her new hope was to take advantage of her situation, to open up a lingering wound. And besides, what was he going to teach someone when he hadn't even reached the Qi Condensation stage?

Xing sighed and pulled the girl even tighter against him. He would not only tell her but also help her. But not today, but later, when she came to her senses.

* * *

If there was any occupation where one could be at the center of events and be the first to get all the news, it was being a market trader, an innkeeper, or, like Xing, a diner. That something untoward was going on in the surrounding neighborhoods, he knew immediately. That night, the remains of three families had been found mutilated, all of whom had working seals, except for the children, of course.

The visitors of General Feng's weren't even talking about it with fear or doom but rather with resentment, as if it were a bad harvest or a bad weather season, something bad but familiar, something they didn't like but couldn't do anything about. As Xing found out, this had happened before, and more than once, so the townspeople were not so much afraid as hopeful that nothing would happen to them.

Xing was not going to rely on circumstances, so he did not go to the volcano to harden his body and strengthen his qi as usual but spent the night scouring the streets of the city. And, of course, he found the culprits. It was the same weird wolves.

The inhabitants of one of the houses could not be saved: when Xing arrived, three disgusting bald creatures were tormenting the bodies of the victims. Xing didn't even bother to dirty his flail, simply burning the creatures on the spot with the element of Fire. He killed another wolf before the strong door latch gave way, so the occupants of the house had only a sleepless night and more gray hairs.

Over the next two nights, Xing destroyed three more creatures and no less than a dozen marids, which, though unrelated to these deaths, were not pleasant creatures at all.

Xing continued to visit Shadia during the day to study. But now, something had shifted in their relationship, and the girl was casting strange glances at Xing and becoming pensive for a long time. Xing didn't like this very much. After all, who but he would know how severe mental wounds could be and what irreparable consequences they could lead to?

So, feeling like the last bastard to spy on his friend, Xing tossed a talisman into the tower, made in the form of a small plate of Azrak, the same metal mined at the mine and so prized by mages. As it turned out, this material, no matter what it was called, was too soft to be used as a weapon, but it was not destroyed by qi influence.

The next two days passed quietly, and Xing decided that all his worries were in vain - the girl's inner energy, which he could feel not only from General Feng but even when he was near the volcano, was still strong and healthy, so she had not done anything irreparable to herself. Her mood had also returned to normal, and everything seemed to be back to normal. So Xing decided to wait another dozen days before taking the talisman and destroying it, no longer engaging in despicable espionage.

He went out into the streets again at night, but this time without much success. Apart from a few marids, only one wolf had been killed. The man who let them out at night and hid them in a place protected from Xing's qi during the day didn't have many of them left.

And then, late in the evening, during the evening trek to the volcano, when the city gates had already closed and the bridge had been raised, Xing felt fear and pain in Shadia's qi. Next to her, he detected two new sources of power, no doubt belonging to sorcerers.

It was hard to imagine a more unfortunate timing, except if he was cultivating naked in the volcano. But Xing didn't curse fate or circumstances, focusing on the task. He rushed as fast as he could, feeling the wooden soles of his sandals begin to give in from his fast running. He wasted no time choosing a path, running straight through the forest and fields. When a chasm appeared in front of him, with the walls of the city beyond it, Xing increased his pace, increasing the circulation of qi in all three dantians. Finally, he pushed off and flew upwards, stepped into the air, pushed off invisible support, and jumped again, this time deliberately falling downwards, just below the walls. There was no collision. The sturdy stones parted beneath his body as if he were immersed in viscous, thick honey. Channeling the qi transformed into the Earth element and cursing himself for the delay, Xing swam forward until he surfaced far beyond the walls. He jumped onto the nearest flat roof and dashed towards the inner city again, realizing every moment counted. Shadia's bursts of energy indicated a terrible pain that could kill her at any moment. And then the girl's qi flashed with such desperation that Xing immediately realized - he was too late. Clenching his teeth, he rushed even faster, no longer stepping on the rooftops but jumping from one air step to another. Finally, hiding and restraining his chi to the limit, he flew through the barrier of the inner walls and collapsed not far from the tower where Shadia lived. When he ran up to the gate, he saw that the guardian statues had been destroyed, and the sturdy metal bars of the gate were now puddles of frozen metal on the floor.

Shadia's body was still writhing in intense pain, but the qi fire was still burning, which meant she could still be helped. She was not mortally wounded, so Xing intercepted the chain and decided to be cautious, not breaking through the wall but sneaking along the mages' footsteps while maintaining his disguise.

The door to the tower, made of sturdy, iron-clad wood, was smoking, its battered remains hanging on a single hinge. Xing silently ran up the stairs to the second floor, where he sensed the chi of Shadia and the two sorcerers. Cautiously peering through the doorway, he saw a very unsightly picture. The once cozy living room, where he and Shadia had spent their time so pleasantly, was now trashed, all the furniture in shambles and the carpets gaping with large scorched holes.

Thick, adult wrist-light cords held the girl in the air, stretching her as if she were on a rack. She was barely clothed, the wretched scraps of cloth unable to hide her ravishing figure or the wounds and bruises that dotted her body.

"...arrangement! You think you're just going to get away with this?" Shadia wheezed through the magical restraints around her throat.

"Already!" laughed one of the two mages.

"You probably haven't heard," snorted the other, "about the recent deaths of several Lords, have you? Do you think anyone will pay attention to yours?"

"To hear something," the first mocked, "you have to be able to hear it. And to walk around the city, you need a seal. And to put it on, you need money."

"And even if you had a handful of kasbahs," laughed the second mage, "you'd have to seal it in an outer city you couldn't enter."

"You're not going to get away with this," Shadia repeated stubbornly.

"Or what? You don't even have the sorry excuse for a Markaz al-Kuwwa you had this morning. You don't know how much pleasure it gave me to burn out this outrage on the proper order of things. Who will come to your aid? Who cares about you?"

Xing suddenly realized what had changed about Shadia. Now he felt she was just an ordinary person: there was not the slightest flicker of awakened qi, that strange substitute for the upper dantian that magicians called the "mind's eye."

"Uh, don't tell me, Siraj, I'm interested in her and I'm very interested in her."

"Kill me!" screamed the girl.

"We'll kill you!" chuckled the first mage. "But first..."

He walked over to Shadia, ran his hand over her beautiful full breasts, grabbed a nipple, and pinched it painfully. The girl cried out.

"Good, very good!" smirked the mage. "It's a shame I can't keep you."

"Hakeem, we have all night ahead of us, besides your concubines never live long enough. Hurry up, don't forget, you're not the only one here, I'm waiting my turn too!"

"But why wait?" The first sorcerer laughed and waved his hand.

The glowing fetters tightened, dragging the girl to the center of the room and forcing her into an upright position.

"Shall we flip a coin?" The second magician asked.

"Why?" wondered the first one. "I already know your preferences. I'm old-fashioned, so I'll do things as usual."

Xing realized there was no point in waiting any longer. He was unlikely to hear anything important now. Shadia was still in pain, and Xing's anger demanded an immediate outlet.

"I'm old-fashioned, too," he said, coming into the room. "And very old-fashioned in hating rapists and scumbags."

Shadia's eyes widened at the sight of Xing. The sorcerers reacted instantly, shouting something unintelligible and raising their arms, long bolts of lightning flying from them.

"Disappointing," Xing said, bending a qi of lightning, gathering it into a crackling ball hovering above his palm. "And how much talk there was of the Lords' might, their skill and power..."

The sorcerers froze, mouths ajar.

"Who are you?" finally asked the first sorcerers. "What do you want?"

Xing was trying to become a hero, so he wasn't going to tell the villains about his plans. So he quickly slid towards the mage and unleashed a ball of lightning at him, sizzling his head. Then he jumped to the second one, channeled his flail through his chain, and struck. There was a ringing sound, and the movement slowed down for a moment, but the weapon overcame the invisible barrier and dug the mage's head into his shoulders.

"Xing!" Shadia shouted as the glowing cords disappeared.

She would have collapsed to the floor, but Xing picked her up in his arms and gently lowered her to the remains of the carpet.

"What's wrong with the sorcerer?" He asked, placing his hands on her naked body and letting the healing qi flow through his palms.

"With a sorcerer? What sorcerer?" Shadia repeated absentmindedly, watching the wounds on her body fade quickly.

"Well, the owner of your tower."

The girl's eyes filled with moisture, and Xing scolded himself for the tactless question. If the sorcerers had come here, the answer was obvious.

"I... I have... I have nothing left," Shadia confirmed her guess through sobs. "And you... Why... how...?"

"Hush," Xing stroked her cheek, making a great effort of will to keep looking at her face and not to look down at her newly healthy and so seductive body. "We'll have time to talk, but for now, we have to get out of here."

The tower's master was better than the other sorcerers. Shadia either loved him or had a strong affection for him. And now that he had been killed, the girl was alone. Xing turned, pulled the cloak off one of the mages with a sharp movement, and handed it to Shadia. She nodded gratefully, stood up, and slipped it over her shoulders, not the least bit embarrassed that the cloak had been on a dead man a moment before.

"You can't stay in the tower. It's too dangerous," Xing said firmly, "Do you mind if I take all the books and scrolls out of here?"

"Of course I don't mind," the girl said doomedly, "take whatever you want. It doesn't matter now. You can't get the Eye of Mind back."

Xing understood her pain perfectly. The only thing Shadia didn't know was that crystal heroes were often crippled by the destruction of their dantian. But they always found ways not only to restore what they had lost but also to become much stronger.

"Okay, get changed, get your stuff, and let's go."

The girl grinned bitterly and extended her hand, showing the back of her palm.

"You forgot something. I'm not going anywhere. The Maridas aren't..."

"Marids? Oh yes, good thing you reminded me," Xing interrupted, smirking. He touched her hand with a finger.

An intricate seal pattern emerged on the smooth, swarthy skin.

"And by the way," he laughed, looking at her dumbfounded face, "do you happen to know where the towers of these two fools are? After a guest arrives, the rules of politeness demand a return visit!"

* * *

Living under the same roof with a beautiful girl turned out to be surprisingly difficult. And it wasn't her temperament that was the problem. There was nothing wrong with that. Xing had gotten along well with her before, and now that he looked like a hero in white robes and with a shining sword, it was no different.

Shadia's fortitude was astonishing. After learning that the loss of the Eye of Mind was just an unfortunate nuisance, she immediately became enthusiastic and began to explore another path, the path of qi and cultivation.

The main problem with living together was her beauty. Xing didn't consider himself a particularly decent or sinless man, enough to remember what he'd done to Xifeng. But to take advantage of the vulnerability of a girl who had lost her home, her power, her mentor, and perhaps her lover, he would have had to be a complete bastard, like the rogue teacher.

So Xing simply forced her to assume various stances and carry weights and raced her through the streets of Akhribad with a bamboo stick, forcing her to raise her knees high when running. But he suffered and was covered in sweat every time she performed ablutions in the courtyard, bathing in the big fountain, a glass-covered pool of water raised from the ground and heated with the help of talismans.

The customers of General Feng's were enthusiastic about the addition to the staff of their favorite eatery. Xing had to use his bamboo stick once more to get the message across: speculating about what Kasim and Shadia were doing in private, with naturalistic descriptions, was a very unhealthy and painful occupation for their heels and asses. They quickly realized that praise of Shadia's beauty using the full arsenal of poetic comparisons, even if on the edge of propriety, would be met with favor, but any vulgarity and obscenity would be immediately punished, up to and including a complete ban on visiting General Feng, as well as the purchase of items from the forge and elixirs.

Xing didn't hide anything from Shadia. He talked about his origins in a small village, his path and skills, dreams, and main goal. And the girl was very appreciative of such trust, though she giggled and blushed at the mention of some cultivation methods.

Gradually, the tumult in Akhribad subsided, caused first by the murder of many Lords and then by a series of daring robberies of their towers. A brazen thief crept into the towers that had lost their masters, destroyed the guardians, put the servants and household staff to sleep, and then left, leaving behind empty libraries and treasuries, as well as his special mark - a symbol with moons, lightning and the signature "Jan Shavan." The number of robbed towers, battles with guards, fast chases, seduced women, and other pranks of the Akhribadian Thief grew day by day. Soon, it became known that he was the child of a real genie and a beautiful maiden who had received a gift from one of the great Lords, that he was fighting to eradicate evil and injustice.

Xing was even a little offended by the visitors' stories. Firstly, they had twisted the name of Zhang Zhuan, one of his favorite heroes. Second, they had given the robberies too romantic an aura. Third, they had not even mentioned the boredom of making dozens of trips between each sorcerer's tower and the underground vault Xing had created with qi under his house. Fourth, and most importantly, hearing about Jan Shawan's bedtime activities, Shadia cast overly disgruntled glances at Xing.

After taking everything of value from the towers of the two slain sorcerers and then going through the rest of the empty towers, taking advantage of the fact that the barrier of the inner city did not react to the fully disguised qi, Xing decided to lay low. But that didn't stop the rumors - while the brave Zhiang Shawan was committing more and more daring robberies every day, Xing was working up a sweat studying secret magical writing, training Shadia, and cultivating in the volcano's vent.

Time passed. Xing used the money he had looted from the sorcerers to buy his house, this time paying a shamelessly high price. He hunted salamanders, stripped the salamanders of their remarkably tough skins, which resembled Purple Oakwood, and used the skills he had learned from Gong Buntao to create a suit consisting of baggy pants, a jacket, and heavy boots. For added strength, he dotted the jacket and belts with many rivets made of Rainbow Iron found in the stockpiles of slain sorcerers. Each rivet was not only a talisman but also enchanted with the magic of Akhribad, with which Xing had finally become superficially familiar.

He had achieved it! He had a garment that could withstand the harshest of tests, would not fall apart and crumble, not only in a fierce fire, not only survive collisions with rocks and stones but that even a sword could not take! Clothing that almost approached the strength of Xing's skin! It wasn't long before he could obtain a spatial ring, learn to fly, and defeat the bastard teacher.

There were many difficulties in accomplishing each of the goals. Xing caught Rukh, the largest bird of all the birds, circling the volcano. It took a long time to explain to it that he was not prey but master. After a long chain of entreaties and subsequent healings, the stupid creature realized that objections were useless and obediently bowed its huge head. Its large eyes glistened as if they were filled with tears.

Alas, flying the bird, no matter how majestic and proud it looked from the outside, was a disappointment. The stupid chicken flew so slowly that Xing wanted to jump down and move on his own or just run through the air. It also ate a lot so far from the volcano, which was teeming with salamanders that mostly fed on the qi from the earth it would need a herd of rams or even cows. Its stamina was also poor, and after a dozen laps along the desert barrier, it was exhausted and landed to rest. So Xing gave his horse a gentle kick in the feathery ass and set it free, once again envying the crystal heroes who had managed to find and tame something more decent.

The flying sword was also a huge challenge. Xing, of course, had easily forged the blade using rare metal ingots looted from the sorcerers and a handcrafted Azrac. Alas, no matter how much enchantment Xing cast on it, the sword would not fly. Xing could stay in the air, even move around a bit. Even though the sword was always trying to flip over or go down, it was easy to keep its balance. The obstacle was the shape of the blade itself, which prevented him from directing his qi properly and gaining sufficient speed. Xing eventually learned to summon a ghostly enlarged copy of this sword and even fly like a hero from the crystal. Except with such qi expenditure, it was much easier to fly on his own without any swords.

Xing began tweaking the design, improving, building up, and reshaping until he achieved a satisfactory result. Not only did the sword fly, not only did it do so quickly, but it consumed very little energy. There was just one "but". It was one and a half times Xing's height, two palms wide, had two hilts, and a dozen Smoky Ice Iron outgrowths that looked like small wings. Imagining a battle with his teacher in front of the entire Empire, with the citizens and the Emperor not only not honoring the new hero but pointing their fingers at him and falling laughing, Xing angrily destroyed the sword, turning it back into ingots of metal.

He rejected the idea of a flying boat, too, but for more prosaic reasons. The trees of Aлhribad were ordinary, and the "extraordinary" ones near Lahib Shadid were not very strong and did not conduct qi well enough. There was very little Purple Oak in the sorcerers' stockpile, and it was a wonder they even had any. So Xing regretfully postponed making the boat until he could return to Zhumen and get better wood.

Desperate, he almost casually grabbed the trusty flail, spinning it above his head. Xing didn't expect or anticipate anything. He simply channeled qi into the shaft as he had done dozens, hundreds, and thousands of dozens of times. But it quickly became clear if he applied the energy in a special way, increasing the rotation and creating a plane of qi on the rotating part of the shaft, he could fly not only quickly and economically but also quite comfortably. The trusty, tried and tested the weapon, made of the strongest wood and qi conducting steel, had never failed him before, nor had it failed him now! But the problem remained the same - a true hero must fly standing on a sword, not on a monstrous misunderstanding with a bunch of blades or a peasant's tool, which also needed to be constantly rotated!

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The long-awaited event soon came to pass. Shadia awakened her chi and created an upper dantian, almost in the same place where the previously destroyed Mind's Eye had been.

* * *

In honor of her diligence and to celebrate her success, Xing added a chicken breast to Shadia's dinner. Xing chopped it on a strange local cutlery called a "fork" and closed her eyes in bliss, savoring each bite.

Xing went to the kitchen to prepare food, so Shadia would have something to sell at General Feng while he was busy experimenting and cultivating. The new talismans in the pantry allowed him to do this, so not only did the food not spoil, but it didn't even get cold.

His hands flickered in the air, doing their usual work. His body absorbed qi, running it through all three dantians - it had long since ceased to require conscious control, becoming as natural as breathing or even his heartbeat.

His thoughts wandered far away. Not only was he concentrating on the design, energy structure, and enchantments on the future spatial ring, but he was also puzzling over another, more mundane question.

General Feng had gone from being a useful and important acquisition, allowing him to settle in and look around the city, to being a real burden. Xing, of course, was happy to help people: cooking, forging weapons and tools, brewing elixirs. But now, the restaurant was taking up too much of his precious time. Yes, he had Shadia to take care of the restaurant, but he didn't need her as a peddler or a cook's helper. She needed time to cultivate, and her knowledge and help in comprehending magic were invaluable. She had helped him with spatial magic, the most arcane and complex of the magical sciences, which Shadia said almost no one else could master.

He could hire an employee, or a whole bunch of cooks, for that matter. One could make another Three Knives here, stepping into the path of Master Bohai. But Xing felt that his heart wasn't in it. There was nothing more important to him than power and magic to get closer to his dream.

It hadn't even been a year since General Feng opened, but now it looked like it should have been closed.

Xing finished cooking and took the pots and pans to the pantry, adding qi to the azrak talismans. He went into the courtyard and sat down by the fountain to meditate and put his thoughts in order.

There was one more problem that should have been dealt with immediately. That problem was Shadia. She was, of course, not only a diligent student but also an excellent teacher, able to clarify a topic she knew well and help him understand an unfamiliar one by making reasonable assumptions and coming up with interesting ideas. The root of the problem lay in her beauty. And the fact Xing had chosen to meditate here, near the fountain in which she, bathing, reminded him so strongly of the Almirs, had turned out to be a big mistake. His thoughts were not in the least bit organized.

If he had been a scoundrel like the bastard teacher, he would have taken advantage of the girl's vulnerability and her dependence on his help. He would have attacked her like the two sorcerers he had killed in the tower, and he would have finished the job they had started. But he had no right to do that - and this wasn't even about their teacher-student or student-teacher relationship. Shadia didn't show it either outwardly or in her qi, being optimistic and cheerful, but the wound in her soul from the tower master's death and the sorcerers' almost successful attempt to rape and kill her was still there, just waiting for a careless word or gesture to open and bleed with renewed vigor.

Xing could temper and strengthen his spirit as much as he wanted, training his stamina and equanimity. But at the same time, he never forgot that he had long since turned a dozen and a half, and at that age, as it was written in many scrolls and treatises, the Yang in men was especially fierce and unruly and demanded its Yin, making him lash out at anything that walked on two legs and had female sex. It was possible to find a woman in Akhribad, but he had no one in mind, and he did not want to look for a casual or even corrupt meeting. There were still the Badawi women, whom Xing could reach in just a couple of days by crossing the barrier, and with the help of a flail, he could fly to in no time!

"Are you done yet?" Xing asked without opening his eyes, sensing the girl's approaching Qi. It was nighttime, but since Xing had been regularly killing bipedal wolves and marids, the former had died out, and the latter was rare, so Shadia often went outside to bathe or gaze at the stars.

"Of course not!" replied the girl. "I was standing in the dabu stance, and now I decided to stand in another stance."

"Which one?" Xing asked, leaving his eyes closed.

"Loulong, whom you called "the dragon's burden."

"But Shadia, didn't I tell you, loulong is a stand...."

"...in which the teacher sits on top of the student!"

Xing lifted his eyelids and opened his eyes in surprise. Shadia was standing in front of him, her naked body glowing softly in the light of the rising moons. Her long, slightly curly brown hair fell thickly over her shoulders, and her bright green eyes glowed with a sorcerous luster. The heavy exercise she'd been doing for the past few months had noticeably contoured the muscles of her long legs and graceful arms, but it didn't spoil her in the least. It made her look like a graceful, predatory panther.

"However," Shadia laughed, enjoying his reaction, "right now, I'd prefer a stance where the student sits on top of the teacher!"

For the first time in his new life, Xing lost by being unprepared to attack. But, as the Indomitable Dragon said, "Even a defeat can be the basis for a successful counterattack". And that night, Xing repeatedly proved the great strategist right!

* * *

Even though Xing had been strengthening his qi every day, both in the volcano and practicing dual cultivation with Shadia, the balance in the Great Triad had been disturbed. And this time, it had shifted towards the Mind. So many different complicated scrolls, books, wooden plaques, and stone plates Xing had never read before in his life.

Even the bastard teacher couldn't, if he broke all the bamboo in the province against Han's back, make him read so much. And then to meditate, circulate qi in the upper dantian, try to realize and comprehend all this knowledge, to use it to create something new, which no one, including Shadia, had any idea about.

As it turned out, neither all of Shadia's erudition nor her sharp mind and deep knowledge could help her create what Xing needed. She had heard of Aalam Mastur, hidden spaces, but those were site-bound, requiring considerable magical power, rare ingredients, and a huge supply of sikhir to set up, as well as many complex musavars to maintain. And it was only necessary to destroy the key where all the streams converged, as the contents of the "hidden world" opened up again, pushing everything outward. And, alas, it was no match for the spatial ring.

At Shadia's suggestion, Xing changed the decision to close General Feng's. The place continued to operate, but now it opened only a couple of times a month. Xing thought that he would lose his customers completely, but to his amazement, the opposite happened. When the gates opened, the street was filled with queues, quarrels, and fights, which Xing had to break up with a bamboo stick. At last, things got better. From somewhere there were signs with the number in the queue. Someone paid others a lot of money for them, but Xing did not care much about it. He and Shadia lived in a house near the volcano, which now had a second floor, a large training area, a separate laboratory for alchemy, an even larger forge, and, most importantly, a huge room fortified with various charms and talismans, where Xing practiced magic and enchanted artifacts, or, as they called them, musavars.

The first ring was huge. It fits only on my thumb, and even then, its size made it hard to make a fist. The ring didn't hold many objects and took a lot of energy to get something in or out. The extraction process was uncomfortable, and not only the things Xing grasped with his qi but also other things not far away from what he needed were falling out of the hidden space. And most importantly, the weight didn't go anywhere. Xing felt it as if he was carrying everything himself. Even though it was not difficult for him to lift even heavyweights, there was still a feeling of dissatisfaction. He was already using talismans to train his body, and shifting the balance to his arm, although it would increase his impact, could be a hindrance in battle.

The next artifacts became smaller and smaller, no longer resembling large chunks of Azrak, turning into something resembling rings of crystals. But still, Xing did not stop, trying to make the structure of the charms more and more compact, to fit it on a thin strip of metal covering his finger.

He found out it didn't matter what language the spells were written in. It was the structure and the clear intention imprinted in the qi or sikhir that mattered. And the sikhir itself was just structured qi, as Shadia had proven in time when she was able to repeat a sorcerous spell from a book of one of the Lords using the upper dantian. That day, they practiced steam cultivation so fervently that Xing later had to rebuild both the destroyed walls of the house and the sides of the hot and cold water pools.

Finally, in a burst of inspiration, Xing managed to create a structure that he embedded in a thick ring of azrak. The new artifact was a masterpiece; it could hold things the size of Xing's arms, hide and retrieve them without affecting other items, had a storage capacity the size of a room, and didn't feel the weight. Just like General Feng's pantry, it wasn't the passage of time there, so fresh food didn't lose its freshness for months - Xing didn't have the patience to check longer. Even though it was still a pitiful semblance of the rings of the real heroes from crystals who managed to store flying ships and entire buildings there, Xing was still proud - none of the heroes he knew, not even Bao Xiao, had made their ring.

Xing's pride lasted exactly until he forgot to remove the ring before cultivating in the Lahib Shadid Fire Vortex. It wasn't so much the things stored in the ring, even though there were enough valuables in there, but rather the hard work that had been done. So he clenched his teeth and went to make a new ring, much stronger than the old one.

Countless experiments had shown that he was far from a true master like the ones who created the rings for the heroes. He solved the storage space problem not with skill but with a dirty trick - by placing part of the artifact inside himself. The result was like two "rooms," one of which, the "great hall," could be made as big as the qi would allow, and a small "hallway" led into it. This caused some inconvenience in retrieval, as the items placed in the "hall" had to be retrieved in two stages, but it was still a real breakthrough, so Xing had solved the problem of storage capacity. However, the strength and durability of the ring was still a problem. Some materials and enchantments could make the musavar strong enough, but the problem was something else. These enchantments had to be applied to the part of the ring that was in the real world, and Xing simply did not have the skills to put them on the ring along with the space enchantments. One could try further, make new and new attempts, and spend another year, a couple of years, or a dozen. But he couldn't bear it any longer, being only one step away from his goal.

So, grudgingly, he abandoned the idea of the ring and created a bracelet - a pathetic semblance of a real hero's artifact. The size of the bracelet allowed him to enlarge the "antechamber" to a previously unattainable size, as well as to stuff objects of any size inside the vault, as long as he managed to cover them with his internal energy. Xing reinforced the core of the azrak with Rainbow Iron and Star Steel, forged and strengthened with qi, and then enchanted with some of the strongest spells known, but also some invented just for this occasion. Xing had conducted hundreds of dozens of tests, dipping the artifact into the fiery mouth of Lahib Shadid and pummeling it with the most powerful blows with fists, flail, and even specially crafted weapons. The new creation had withstood the tests with flying colors.

The bracelet had lost its luster during the spell, and now it was an unsightly, smoldering bauble, but Xing wasn't upset by its appearance. He hadn't made the artifact for beauty. The bracelet could only be removed or put on by breaking the hand and then healing it back, but that didn't matter either. The bracelet was simply not a ring like a true hero, and Xing was used to going all the way and not accepting failure.

As time passed, Xing grew to know Akhribad better and better, gleaning bits and pieces of its true history. And he hated the sorcerers more and more every day. After a few more forays into the inner city, when he managed to not only sneak into several towers but also weave streams of spells and infiltrate the libraries, he managed to flip through books, look through scrolls, and then leave undetected. There, he stumbled upon a pile of ghastly and soul-chilling secrets.

For example, it turned out to require a human life to create an animated statue. People were inflicted with unbearable pain, and when their souls left for rebirth, sorcerers imprisoned the remaining qi in stone and metal.

Sorcerers made up for their numbers by taking gifted children from ordinary people, not only disregarding the wishes of their parents but often eliminating the source of such an inconvenient attachment.

Xing's suspicions about the origins of the Marids were confirmed, too - the sorcerers protected the inhabitants with seals against their creations, created to maintain this terrible but strangely effective system. And the wolves... They, too, were sorcerers themselves, using transformation charms to savor the taste of the hunt and the power over life and death. They did not risk anything because the weapons of ordinary people could not do them any harm. In addition, they constantly needed victims to create their puppets, and no one would miss the people who disappeared during the massacre.

Once upon a time, cycles and cycles of years ago, it was not so. The Circle of Mages was considered a large and prosperous organization of the sorcerers of Akhribad, and the head of the Circle held a seat in the City Council, along with the city governor and the heads of the trade, craft, and mining guilds. Mages were an important part of the city, but only a part - for example, they had to not only persuade the parents of prospective students but also often shower them with gifts, but even so, they were not always successful. Their power and influence were limited - in a city near the crossroads of the most important trade routes, a rich enough person could buy an artifact or elixir from a merchant rather than ordering it from a too-greedy sorcerer.

And then something important and irrevocable happened.

Azrak, a rare metal mined in the mines along with other ores, had been valued here before but only as a material for jewelry. But that was until a mage discovered its secret, inventing a way to weave magic into the unyielding metal and combine it with known sorcerous materials. Azrak turned out to be capable of storing a great deal of sikhir, which allowed a sorcerer to use special artifacts to gain power unseen until then. The balance of power in the city shifted.

There was a faction of sorcerers called "Children of Ravda," which chose the goddess of nature and earth as its symbol and whose members maintained the current order of things. They were opposed by the "Servants of Talam," a faction that bore the name of the god of retribution and pain on their banners. The Servants believed that the city should be ruled by force, and with the amulets of Azrak, that force was with the mages.

After long battles that caused losses to both factions, the Servants of Talam were victorious, and the remaining of the Children were either destroyed or subdued. A gigantic artifact was then created using the bottomless sea of energy of Lahib Shadid, which the sorcerers used to cut the city off from the outside world with a barrier and create the Black Sands, a lifeless and violent place.

Xing looked at Shadia's dead mentor with new eyes. Judging from the library in his tower, he had once belonged to the Children of Ravda. The statues of the guardians of his house, silly and clumsy, confirmed this. They were almost the ultimate limit of what could be created without using the lives of others, requiring considerable art and profound knowledge. Shadia had inherited the spirit of her deceased master. She burned with a desire for revenge and grew stronger and stronger every day.

Xing, who had learned the truth about Akhribad's past, intended to help her in this endeavor. For he now had a spatial vault that could hold not only the contents of their towers' treasuries but also the towers. Zhang Chuan's lightning, or as the locals said, Jan Shavan's lightning, would once again shine in the darkness.

* * *

With each new day spent in Akhribad, Xing's feelings grew that he had been here for a long time. Yes. Here, he still had magic to study, experiments to conduct, and artifacts he could attempt to create. There was Lahib Shadid, into which he had already sunk to the deepest depths without the now sizzling heat. Shadia, too, had gained strength over the years and looked nothing like the weak servant girl trapped in the tower of the ever-absent sorcerer.

Except that a strange feeling gnawed at Xing harder and harder, causing him to stop and stare off into the distance for a long moment, turning eastward toward the Empire.

Here, in Akhribad, he was happy and comfortable. He had a house that now resembled a palace, a beautiful woman, an interesting conversationalist, and a reliable friend for whom he began to feel not only affection but also something like love. He had enough important things to entertain him and not let him be bored or indulge in idleness.

But there was still a heaviness in his heart, heart demons tormenting his soul, not allowing him to stay still, driving him onward and onward. Even though Shadia and Almirakh were important in his life, he thought of Mei more and more often, remembering her face. Her figure and gait. Her smile and laugh, her courage and determination. It didn't matter whether she was alive or had died a few cycles ago, whether she was still young and beautiful or had turned into a wrinkled old woman. Xing wanted to see her or at least visit her grave.

Even though he hadn't learned a single technique, despite the similarities, sorcerous spells were not techniques but only suitable for villains like Dariush of the Tsap family - Xing couldn't wait to fight his teacher. Despite his years of cultivation in the volcano, Xing had not only failed to break the Qi Condensation Barrier but was not even remotely close to it. This meant it was too early. He was bound to lose the battle with the bastard teacher, but he simply couldn't do anything else. He had to leave Akhribad. But he wanted to do it not quietly, like a thief sneaking in the night, but like a real hero.

"What are you thinking about?" Shadia asked him.

"I think it's time!" Xing said. "There's no point in waiting any longer."

A shadow came over Shadia's face.

"I knew this moment would come someday, but I was afraid," she said. "Xing, I have a confession to make."

Xing looked into her eyes and smiled.

"You don't mean that the tower we met in was yours, do you?"

"Did you know I used to be a sorceress?" She widened her eyes, taking a step back.

"I guessed it, even if I didn't realize it right away. You knew too much, you could do too much, and you were too quick to weave the qi from the upper dantian into a spell."

"But..."

"But I don't care," Xing laughed. "I care about who you are now, not who you used to be."

He took a quick step toward her, drew her to him, and kissed her tenderly, immediately experiencing a completely inappropriate urge to peel off her clothes and begin his favorite method of cultivation.

"What's going to happen next, Xing?" She asked as they reluctantly pulled away from each other.

"Will you come with me?" he offered. "I'll show you the Empire, introduce you to my masters, show you my home village."

Shadia shook her head reluctantly.

"No, darling. You are more precious to me than anything under the sun and the moon. But your heart doesn't belong to me. I can feel it. Besides, this city has been in disarray for too long. And now that your favorite maid has her powers, it's up to her to clean it up."

"A piece of my heart will stay with you forever," Xing objected.

"I'm sure you will. With me and your mermaid. Find your Mei! A man as determined as you will win her. And even if you doubt it, I don't doubt you'll win against your former master."

"Someday..."

"Not someday, but very soon. I know you'll get what you want. And then come. Introduce me to the one who took the heart of the man I loved so much."

"Shadia, I am a commoner. I have no glorious name, no noble ancestors, no estate. And I can't..."

"Your Empire has strange customs. But I don't care so much whether I become a lesser wife or remain a lover. I know you will meet other women and more than one. Don't push them away - give them what you gave me. And I'll wait. But first..."

"We have to win first," Xing smiled, a heavy weight falling from his heart.

"No, silly!" Shadia laughed. "First we'll go over all your favorite treatises!"

* * *

An unprecedented and unheard-of wave of robberies shook Akhribad. The Lords' towers, enchanted and guarded, were not as impregnable as they had been rumored to be. A skillful thief who visited each of the towers not only emptied the contents of the treasuries and libraries but also the equipment of the spell chambers or laboratories, which sometimes could not be lifted and carried by a dozen porters. Some particularly large devices were made in the towers, so it seemed impossible to take them out through windows or staircases without destroying walls and ceilings. But the thief, who always left behind him a sign with moons, lightning, and the name "Jan Chavan," knew how to do the impossible.

Guards ran through the city, breaking into houses and grabbing random passersby. The lords interrogated with interrogating musavars everyone on whom even a shadow of suspicion fell, but no trace of a huge criminal organization, whose members were able to pull off such grandiose deeds, was found.

The owner of the famous restaurant "General Feng" has disappeared somewhere. When the guards burst in, they discovered that a brazen thief had been there, stolen everything of any value, and killed or kidnapped not only the owner but also his beautiful wife.

Xing, who now wore a large turban and a thick curly beard, listened to the stories of the traders in the marketplace and clucked his tongue, agreeing that times were indeed bad now and things had been better and calmer in the past.

The small house near the inner walls where he and Shadia now lived not only allowed for convenient nighttime forays but also kept them in the loop. Xing took advantage of this, chatting with neighbors and random passersby, street vendors, and even guards.

Shadia, who had covered her face with a veil, yanked him by the wide sleeve of his robe.

"Darling, we have to go!"

Xing once again agreed with his interlocutors. The world was going down the drain. It had not been like this before, but much, much better. The guards were lazy and corrupt, and the younger generation was useless and would not make anything good out of them. He readily assented to the assertion that the Lords would take care of it and added they and they alone knew how to handle it. Then he said goodbye and, taking Shadia under his arm, headed for the gate to the inner city. They walked at a leisurely pace to where the sky was pierced by the tall spire of the Circle's tower, and from where, visible only to the spiritual eye, a powerful stream of qi flowed out of the ground into the sky, spreading a huge dome.

"Aren't you afraid?" Xing asked when they were just outside the tower.

"I'm afraid," Shadia admitted. "But I'm also impatient. I've waited so long for this, imagined it so much. Now it's here. I still can't believe it."

"We could sneak in secretly," Xing reminded.

"The Xing Duo I know is a real hero. And heroes don't sneak around in the night!"

"Well, I'm sneaking around!"

"I'm the one who knows better than anyone in the world what you can do in the night!" Shadia laughed loudly but immediately became serious. "Xing, if I don't... If I don't..."

"Shut up!" Xing commanded. "There's no one stronger than you in this city. You can handle it and not only stay alive, but you won't get a scratch! After all, you were trained by a future hero!"

Shadia smiled and began to undress. Along with the dazed tower guard, Xing watched her throw off the loose trousers, the thin silk cloak, and the colorful blouse, leaving only a dark gray salamander suit that tightened her body and accentuated every curve. She extended her arm, and the discarded garment disappeared, hidden in one of the bracelets adorning her wrists. Shadia turned her palm, and a magical wand emerged, not at all like the tools of other sorcerers. A long handle of Star Steel, a spiked, ribbed headband surrounded by sharp blades - no man in the world would call it a magical instrument but a warrior's weapon. The wand, one of the creations of Xing Duo, the best of the apprentices of the master smith Gong Buntao, was also perfect for this role.

"Stop!" one of the guards belatedly exclaimed. "Who are you?"

The guards seemed to snap out of their trance. They lowered their spears and drew their swords, and the numerous statues surrounding the tower came to life and rushed forward.

Xing smiled and folded his arms across his chest, nodding encouragingly to Shadia. She waved her staff, and a blinding bolt of lightning flew from its tip, branching out and striking the guards. They collapsed to the ground, motionless, and if Xing hadn't felt their qi, he would have assumed they were dead, not just lying there with their bodies cramped and unhurt. Shadia rushed forward, swinging her staff. Her slender figure darted between the statues, dodging fireballs, lightning bolts, multicolored beams, and arrows and daggers flying out of the statues' hands. Every time the wand made contact with the puppet, it either remained a motionless, broken statue or crumbled into a pile of stone.

Xing leisurely followed Shadia, lazily swatting away the occasional projectiles, bending or reflecting magical attacks, or destroying the occasional surviving puppet. He spent his time only retrieving anything of value from the wreckage, rightly deciding that the sorcerers would never need it again.

They approached the huge door to the tower together, holding hands. It seemed Shadia's actions had caused the sorcerers to sound the alarm, so the huge doors of dull reddish metal were now slammed shut and blocked by a large grate that had fallen from above. Shadia swung her mace.

"Wait!" Xing stopped her. "It looks quite interesting, similar to Fire Copper."

He touched the doors and bars and directed the qi. The huge flaps instantly disappeared into the spatial bracelet on his hand. Dazzling lightning discharges struck from the cut hinges, which flowed out of the qi, protecting Xing and Shadia's bodies without repercussions.

Shadia stepped inside the tower into the huge and lavishly decorated reception hall. She jumped forward again and began to smash the statues with her mace.

"You're a mage!" Xing said a little judgmentally as he watched shards of stone flying in all directions. "Don't you want to use magic?"

"Not now," she laughed, tucking her thick braid behind her back. "This is so much fun!"

Xing smirked and nodded. Indeed, there was always something special about such an orgy of destruction. And it was not for him, who also liked to swing a flail, to judge Shadia.

"Upstairs?" Xing asked, pointing to the stairs along the central shaft, beyond whose walls he could feel the blazing qi of Lahib Shadid.

"Later," Shadia said. "First, let's go down into the dungeon. If nothing has changed over the years, we might find a lot of, as you say, "interesting things!"

And she was right. They had found something interesting: an armory, a prison, warehouses, a library, and several fortified laboratories. There were many things in each room worthy of being placed in a spatial bracelet to study at their leisure. Xing didn't bother with the prisoners either. After tearing off the bars and shackles, he released them all together. Xing didn't think that the prisoners were innocent people, but he was sure that there were plenty of scoundrels and scoundrels among them, but that was for the guards to deal with.

Finally, when all the tasks were done Xing and Shadia moved upstairs.

They walked leisurely as if visiting a market, from floor to floor, not missing a single room. Some of the rooms were hidden and protected from detection by the same spell as the entire city. But to Xing, who could see the entire tower with his perception, the voids, and distortions served as colorful signs, written in large hieroglyphics, telling him to check everything here.

There were traps on every floor, hordes of puppets, and dozens of fighting musavars to stop intruders. But somehow, apart from a few frightened servants and maids, not a single person was to be seen.

"They're preparing a meeting," Xing said, enjoying watching Shadia's slender, leather-clad figure bounce seductively between the statues of the guards, leaving only the mangled, unmoving hulks behind.

"I think it's at the top," Shadia agreed, using her outstretched hand to stop the flow of fire from the glowing crystal on the pedestal and then breaking that crystal from its mount and hiding it in the space of her bracelet.

Xing extended his hand, transforming the qi into the Metal element. Small pieces of Azrac flew out of the puppet wreckage and lay in his palm, gathering into an ingot.

"Let's go," Shadia said impatiently. "I can't wait to talk to old acquaintances."

"They can't wait to chat with us either," Xing smiled. "But that's no reason to miss out on something valuable."

"You've already accumulated more goodies than you'll ever need in your life," Shadia chided him gently.

"You're one to talk!" Xing parried.

"Girls love to go shopping! Especially when all items are free at this market."

"Well, I'm from Duojia! And we don't leave things unattended."

Floor after floor, but the tower never seemed to end. Xing began to seriously fear for the capacity of his bracelet. Even though he had created a vault with a huge reserve, it also had limits. He even chided himself a bit for being greedy, but leaving some chest or casket untouched was beyond him. The same went for things created from rare metals and materials - but here the blacksmith in him spoke. As an alchemist, he could not leave aside laboratories and cabinets with ingredients, and as a scholar - racks with scrolls, shelves with books and tablets. Well, as a warrior, he was interested in weapons. The scoundrel-teacher always had enough of everything, but Xing had to fight for every coin in his life. So, there was simply no choice. He had to leave behind almost bare walls.

"This is the top floor," Shadia said, stating the obvious. "I think we're expected here."

"Not a bad barrier," Xing nodded. "But not the best either. They had to leave a gap for the qi flows from the artifact. Take advantage of it."

Shadia nodded and closed her eyes, concentrating. A bamboo stick appeared in Xing's hand and came down on the skin-tight roundness.

"Oh! I get it, I get it!" Shadia said. "I shouldn't close my eyes in a fight. I need to use all my senses. But this isn't a fight yet!"

Xing gave her a hard look.

"A warrior is vigilant always, even at night," the girl agreed meekly. "There are thirty-seven Lords there."

"And I wonder how they all got there," Xing smirked. "They couldn't have been there for days."

"After robbing all the towers? It's not hard to assume the famous Akhribadian thief would sooner or later come for the city's greatest treasure. But you're right, they couldn't wait. They must have used either charms or musawar."

"Sharif also transported me here with the help of charms," Xing reminded her.

"And I'm very, very grateful to him for that," Shadia smiled radiantly.

Xing hid the stick, drew the girl to him, and kissed her.

"Try not to kill them all," he suggested. "Maybe in the libraries I..."

"...robbed!" Shadia prompted, clinging to him even tighter. "Your beard is terrible!"

"The libraries I haven't explored yet will have something on the subject. And I don't like the beard. But a thief must be stealthy! And you not only showed your face but everything!"

"Tell me you don't like it!" Shadia laughed. "I couldn't tell from your eyes."

"Such a costume should be outlawed," Xing replied. "and I should be imprisoned for making it."

"And you're going to steal all the bars from there! Because they're made of metal, "and I'm a blacksmith, I have to work with something!" Shadia's face got serious. "When you find those charms, then you can... You can at any time....."

"I'll be back even without charms," Xing replied. "But..."

"I know. Teacher and your Mei. You'll beat him. I know that, too. I envy her."

"Something too much like goodbye!" Xing said and leaned over to kiss her on the nose. "I'm not going anywhere yet. We still have time."

"Then let's not lose it! Let's go!"

They walked up the steps and stopped near a large door made of metal that Xing was surprised to recognize as a rather rare Blood Iron.

"Xing, you can just open the door!" Shadia suggested. "You don't need it at all!"

But it was too late. The door had already disappeared in a brief flash of qi. They stepped inside, looking at the mages lined up in a semicircle, wands pointed at them.

"Jan Shavan!" shouted one of the sorcerers, the most important one, judging by his particularly lavish robes. "We knew you, you despicable thief, would surely come here! This is the end! You will not win the battle! We will torture you in such a way that your example will frighten children for ten thousand years!"

"Win? Me?" Xing was surprised. "But I'm not going to fight."

"Have you decided to surrender? I don't know if it's a wise decision or a foolish one. You could have been lucky enough to die in battle, and you could have died with little or no pain."

"Surrender? No, not at all," Xing laughed. "It's not me who will fight, but my apprentice."

Shadia rushed forward as if expecting those words. Lightning bolts shot from her wand, striking the sorcerers but failing to penetrate their defenses. The sorcerers responded with a shower of spells, but couldn't hit the nimble figure. Shards of glass rained down from the glass dome covering the top of the tower, but even when they fell on their heads, they didn't hurt anyone. Shadia shortened the distance, struck one of the sorcerers in the face with her fist, and brought her staff down on the other's head. Both went down. Spells were shouted again, and flashes erupted, but Shadia destroyed the structures of the charms before they could form.

"Why don't you do sorcery?" Xing asked.

"Because it's better this way!" Shadia shouted, making a high jump. "I've wanted to do this for a long time!"

A fist flashed and slammed into the new sorcerer's jaw. Xing nodded approvingly. He liked to work with his fists too, preferring them even to the trusty flail.

Several of the mages bent strangely, their bodies rippling, their clothes bursting, unable to contain the flesh tearing outward. Xing saw the transformation process for the first time, so he froze, trying not to miss a single detail.

"Stupid mutts!" Shadia laughed, grabbing one of the wolves by the paw and swinging it like a club, bringing its heavy body down on the other mages. "Try something else!"

Xing noted with satisfaction the good control of her internal energy - she easily compensated for her low weight by pulling herself to the floor.

Shadia had everything under control, so Xing looked around the hall, lazily waving away stray spells. There was almost nothing left of the dome, but the artifact standing in the center was still intact. Xing was surprised by the behavior of the mages who had decided to stage a battle here. After all, judging by the amount of Fire qi flowing inside, if something went wrong, the flash could destroy the entire city. But then he saw the rays of magic flying toward the huge crystal bending upward as they approached, disappearing into the magical canopy that covered the city. It seemed, this artifact could not be harmed by even the most ferocious battle. To test his hunch, Xing jumped to the nearest sorcerer, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and threw him at the artifact.

There was a flash, and no ashes left of the sorcerer.

"Xing!" Shadia shouted angrily, shielding herself from the spell with the body of one sorcerer and crushing the skull of another with her staff. "You promised you wouldn't interfere in my fight!"

"I'm sorry!" He threw up his hands. "It was just the first thing that came to hand."

Xing walked over to the artifact and looked closely at the qi flows. There was no way to destroy the artifact to remove the dome. After all, in that case, Akhribad would indeed be freed from the oppression of the sorcerers, disappearing from the face of the earth along with those sorcerers. He and Shadia would survive, of course, but the girl would be very upset. Xing couldn't just shove the crystal into the bracelet, either, because the qi flowing out of it would ruin his painstakingly collected supplies. The only thing left was to weave the spell, redirect the qi from Lahib Shadid, cut it off from the artifact, and then... Xing didn't know what he needed the crystal for, but he was sure it would be useful for something.

"Shadia," he shouted, "do you need help? I'm going to be busy for a while!"

"Have fun," the girl grinned. Her staff was now on her belt, and she was crushing her enemies with two wolves. "I'm almost done!"

Xing ensured she had everything under control, just in case, and turned to the artifact. He stretched out his arms and began to weave the currents through the crystal. It was unexpectedly hard and laborious, requiring complete concentration. He had to hold the fiery qi coming from the depths of the earth and branching in the artifact, pull out and redirect each stream of energy, untangle their bundles, and silence them one by one. He was well aware that if he slackened his attention now, the city would be finished. Not that he missed Ahribad in any way, but Shadia cared about the city. And even if it was only villains, the death of even one innocent man would be a heavy burden on Xing's soul. He wanted to be a hero, not a villain!

"I'm done!" Shadia shouted. "What about you?"

"I need some more time," Xing replied.

"Well then, I'll gather up anything of value," Shadia offered and immediately bent over the prostrate bodies.

Xing nodded and went back to work on the artifact. He grasped the particularly strong currents and carefully, so as not to cause an explosion, bent them away from the crystal. Now, it was safe to exhale. Even in the worst case, the city would remain intact. The flash would only destroy the top of the tower, half of it at most. Considering that the Council Tower was the tallest building in Ahribad, the most the blast would do was knock down a couple of sorcerers' towers and tear off a few roofs.

"Well, well, well," said a new voice. "Who do we have here?"

Xing, holding back the rushing currents, turned his head. At the opposite edge of the hall, an old acquaintance was hovering above a huge gap in the dome.

"Amira Al-Shadia Yasmin Abbadi," Sharif said, staring at Shadia with hatred. "My precious teacher! So many times have I told these lowly fools that you should have been destroyed! But no. We must honor the agreements! She's weak now, she's not dangerous, she can't do anything!"

"Teacher?" Xing was surprised, casting a questioning glance at Shadia.

"I'm sorry, Xing!" Shadia faded her eyes. "I didn't tell you everything! I was Sharif Imad Abbas al-Mazrui's teacher. I was the one who found him in the slums of the city, and I am responsible for not seeing his rotten essence! It was I who called him by that name, and it is me who bears all the blame."

"No way, teacher!" Sharif laughed mockingly. "Your duties as head of the Wizarding Circle took up too much of your time to notice that your apprentice had grown up and had ambitions of his own!"

"The heads of the Circle?" Xing exclaimed.

Shadia lowered her gaze, and pain flashed in her eyes.

"Oh, stranger! Or should I call you Jan Chavan? Didn't you know who your companion was? She was the Head of the Circle of Sorcerers. She represented us on the City Council. And it was she who discovered the properties of the Azrak that allowed us to gain ultimate power!"

Shadia was silent, her shoulders slumped, and her body shook with a fine tremor.

"Oh, that pathetic hypocritical purity of hers! "Our business is magic! Rulers should rule, not magicians!" Foolish and shortsighted. And some fools listened to those words! who followed her lead, casting spells on their brethren and raising their wands at them! We just wanted what was ours! To get the position we deserve!"

"And you, Sharif, obeyed Talam's poisonous whisper!" Shadia said quietly. "You stabbed me in the back!"

"I just jumped at the chance! With you at the helm, the Children of Ravda were winning. And who does a teacher trust more than his favorite and only student?"

Shadia shifted her pleading gaze to Xing:

"I... you... you told me everything, and I... I couldn't!"

"Oh, what have we got here?" Sharif grinned. "A nice family quarrel? Know, Jan Shavan, by taking her side, you have condemned yourself to death! You think if you defeated these weaklings, you can handle me? Back then, I was much weaker, so I gave in to the majority and let her live. And they... To please the rest of the Children of Rawda and shut their outraged mouths, they kept her Markaz al-Kuwwa intact, not destroying it, but sealing it, leaving the bare minimum to keep her alive and young. But now, I will not make that mistake again!"

"Xing!" Shadia screamed. "I..."

"Yeah, yeah, I see. You're over three hundred years old!" Xing replied with a carefree wave of his hand. "Hey you, Sharif or whatever your name is, has anyone ever told you that it's rude and unseemly to insinuate a woman's age?"

Sharif became furious:

"You fool! You worthless worm! Didn't you understand what I said?"

"You said that the girl I cared so much about was a little older than me. And that she might even be older than Mei. I'm sorry, Shadia, but that doesn't change anything. The position of senior wife has been filled, so, uh..."

Shadia looked up, and a bright smile lit up her tear-stained face.

"O gods, demons, and spirits! I'm wasting my time talking to lowlifes! Well, it's time for you to see the whole..."

"Shadia, darling," Xing grimaced. "Can you shut him up?"

The girl laughed, snatched the baton from her belt, and rushed at Sharif.

As much as Xing wanted to keep an eye on the battle, he had more pressing matters to attend to. So he returned to the qi flows. It's still trying to escape his control. Only out of the corner of his eye did he watch the flickering figures, the shouts of verbal formulas, and the flashes of spells. He heard the familiar clang of shattering defenses and the thud of something heavy. He glanced around to make sure Sharif was not wasting time with his new artifacts, but Shadia was winning.

After one of her particularly heavy blows, Xing even felt an affinity with Sharif: they were both students and dreamed of defeating the teacher, and they had both been slapped by the teacher. The feeling flickered and vanished - no matter how similar they were, the hero would not pity the villain!

"Jan Chavan!" Sharif exclaimed. "Listen to me!"

Xing again drew his attention away from the artifact and turned his head. Shadia also stopped her attacks and froze in a fighting stance, raising her baton.

"You're a thief! You seek fame and fortune! You are skillful and masterful. Your name rumbles throughout Akhribad! You wield the Sihir and are adept at handling even the strongest of streams! Why did you take her side?"

Xing pretended to hesitate:

"She's funny, smart, sweet and beautiful. She also has an amazing figure. You can see it for yourself!"

"If you become my ally, all the women of the world will be yours! I will shower you with real gold and jewels, not with these miserable, insignificant kasbahs! I'll give you palaces and even cities! Real power and authority!"

"Shadia, let us talk!" Xing asked, and the girl nodded. "Cities? Don't make promises you can't keep. Even if you give me Akhribad, it's only one city. Besides, it's not in your hands at all!"

"Akhribad?" laughed a reassured Sharif. "Who needs that miserable, lost town in the middle of the bare desert? Oh, those fools, a bunch of soft-hearted cowards, unable to follow through!"

"Only cowards huddle in a pack," Xing inserted his old quote.

"Oh, yes, a thousand times yes! Well said! These cowards have banded together, and instead of burning out all dissenters with blazing fire, they've made concessions! I knew, I always knew, that even without power, it was dangerous! And that sooner or later, they would pay. I realized that I was out of my way with such pathetic lowlifes that I had to do something for myself! So I decided to come here only occasionally and to look far beyond the sea. There is the Empire, where the cities are as rich as the treasury of the Padishah, and the women are as beautiful as the moonlit night! That's what I'm offering you!"

"An entire empire?" Xing grinned, but his heart felt uneasy. "Are you sure you can conquer it?"

"The Empire's warriors are strong and fierce," Sharif agreed. "But I didn't plan to fight them. There's a huge peninsula on the southern coast with the largest port city in the world. A few years ago, I probed their strength. The monster I tamed was defeated but helped me get an idea of what to expect in the future. I have a veritable army capable of taking over the entire peninsula!

Shadia cast a pleading look at Xing, swinging her wand as if to ask: //"Can I knock him now?" Xing shook his head, asking to wait a little longer.

"You said the Empire's warriors are strong. What's to stop them from destroying this army?"

"My army can fight on sea and land! I have hundreds of strong Guardians, majestic and intimidating fire guards, each stronger than a djinn and an ifrit! And most importantly! The strongest of the Empire's armies will be very busy with another battle. And when she returns, I will have already placed the entire peninsula in aalam mastur!"

"Aalam mastur? But what is the use of a domain cut off from the world?" Xing asked.

"Oh, I wasn't wrong about you! Not only do you know of such powerful magic, but you also have considerable ambition! This peninsula is huge. It is located in a key place and is very important for trade and navigation! And it will not be cut off from the world. Only those who have my permission will get in and out! The Empire will have to accept it. It will have no choice but to recognize the existence of the new country and trade with it!"

"Sounds very tempting," Xing said. "But no. Shadia, you can do it now!"

"But why?" Sharif shouted. Shadia, who had rushed to the attack, stopped, also waiting for an answer.

"Because I was the one who killed your turtle," Xing laughed. "It made a very nice soup!"

He released the streams of qi holding back his beard and pulled off his turban, revealing his face to Sharif.

"You?" Sharif shouted. "You-u-u-u-u-u?"

"It's nice to see you again. By the way, Shadia is my apprentice, and you are my apprentice's apprentice. So you can just call me an "honorable elder."

Xing was about to return to the artifact but saw Sharif's face contorted with anger. He flew into the air and stretched out his arms:

"You! You vile creature of the desert filth! You wretched worm, you despicable maggot! I will return to your empire and finish the job! And you will remain forever at the end of the world in the eternal ice where no one can return!"

Shadia snapped out of her seat and leaped into the air, swinging her fist and exuding a powerful blinding beam from her staff.

But Sharif managed to shout the familiar words again:

"Ibaad Ila Al-Ufuq Al-Baid!"

At another time, Xing would have easily managed to break the spell, but now, as luck would have it, his attention was occupied by the crystal. Therefore, he pushed aside the currents, wrapped his qi around the artifact, and sent it into his spatial bracelet.

A bright flash engulfed the world, but Xing barely had time to notice it as his body was sucked into a black void.

* * *

Chapter 23, in which the hero not only steps twice in the same river but also eats a chicken breast