Much could change in a year. Molecule by molecule, atom by atom, Sunwhisper had transformed his last titanosteel weapon into something more. That had been a beginning, but it wouldn’t have been enough to simply return to the academy with his advancement in hand. Nor could he have returned to Fringe Town to fight the Spiral Dragon by himself. Through his duel with Shishio, he had gained a better understanding of how far he had come, and how far he had yet to go. Much as he transformed his weapon, he had sought to transform himself. It was one thing to have a mana body, and another to perfect it.

At first, he had struggled with the idea of leaving the Spiral Dragon to its own devices for so long, but Hanayumi had convinced him not to go until she agreed that he was ready. The fact was, he had to learn to accept that there were things he could not change. Though his decision to defend the Yosei had ultimately been to his benefit, it had not been a good decision. He should have put his feelings aside and focused on his own advancement.

Mercy was the privilege of strength. Without strength, there could be no mercy. He knew that, but with only a three-star EQ, he had been unable to feel the truth of it on a visceral level. Changing one’s mind was a dangerous enterprise that would inevitably lead to unforeseen consequences. For too long, he had neglected his IQ, but to function at an optimal level, he needed it just as much as his other mental statistics.

He could not afford to be inflexible forever. He had given much thought to his resolution not to kill, and the changes in his mind that had brought him to it. Sunwhisper would still avoid ending a life whenever he could, but he knew that becoming powerful enough to truly save a world would require sacrifices. The notion that sacrifice was a slippery intellectual slope, and therefore had to be avoided at all costs, was ultimately a childish one. There would likely be situations which required him to forgo his vow; an enemy too strong to be subdued, or an urgency that would result in a greater evil if it was ignored.

They had discussed the possibility that he would have to allow the academy to continue harvesting Yosei essences, that he still might not be strong enough to make a stand. But in the end, he only needed to be strong enough to prove the worth of his method, and to develop a means of sharing it with others.

Much of his training for the past year had been an effort to codify and understand exactly what he did when he used the techniques of the Path of the Kingdom of Wild Hearts so that he would be able to instruct others in their use. In the process of his development, forging a bond with Ogumo had occurred almost as a side note. Forging a true bond with a sacred beast was the milestone that marked a cultivator as worthy of the fourth star. But it was only a single step on a much longer road he intended to travel.

He could now communicate with Ogumo at a distance in much the same way the Yosei communicated with each other. It was not telepathy, there were no words exchanged, but they understood one another well enough.

The spider had reverted to an animal state of existence after his original connection to Sunwhisper had been severed and he believed his master dead. Ogumo was averse to the cold, so he had ventured further down the mountain to subsist on small mammals, birds, and the occasional goat. He’d had no time for anything but hunting, and his hunger drove him to devour anything that moved. It meant that he was no good steward of his prey, and would empty a region of the forest before crossing into another. Weeks had passed before Sunwhisper was able to find him, and Ogumo had attacked his former master, forgetting he was anything but prey.

Now, he was a very different spider.

The bond between a cultivator and the sacred beast they chose as a companion ran deep. It could not be severed by any but the most difficult means, and doing so would have resulted in damage to them both. They could share spirit energy, even at a distance, and their cores and meridians altered to allow them to process a second color of mana.

Most cultivators simply bonded a beast that shared their affinity, as it was easier and did not carry the same chance of deviation. Sunwhisper had gone further than that. Using what the Yosei taught him, he had enacted a second bond. He was tied to Karasu as tightly as Ogumo, and it was her ability to see in the ultraviolet spectrum that had allowed him to face Shishio as an equal.

It had still been a risk, facing him like that, but a more acceptable one. The claims he made were worth taking before the academy's First Elder, and he had predicted that Shishio would not be rash enough to offend Furui. The presence of students had prevented the instructor from killing him a second time. As far as he had come, he doubted he would have been able to defeat Shishio in his final form. He was a five-star cultivator, after all.

It was the first time Sunwhisper had witnessed an ascendancy fusion technique. He could not accomplish it himself yet, but he knew it would be the next major milestone in his advancement. It was listed in his status screens as a grayed option on the ascendancy technique tree as Fusion Bond. Before he could attempt it, he needed to find his spirit armor, but he hadn’t decided yet what form that might take.

Shishio separated from his bull, shrinking back to his original size, slightly shorter than Sunwhisper.

“Walk ahead of me,” he commanded. “I won’t have you trying to disappear.”

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Sunwhisper turned to bow to Hanayumi, and she returned the gesture. No words were exchanged, or necessary. Their hearts were linked, and they understood each other almost at the level of a beast bond. Sunwhisper was grateful to her, and he had resolved to defend the Yosei as far as he could. If the academy proved willing to change its practices, they would be protected for all time.

Ogumo stuck to his side, while Karasu flew ahead. The students fanned out as a kind of honor guard, though they were not there for his protection, and Shishio kept to the rear of the procession. He didn’t issue an order forbidding them to speak with him, but the initiates asked no questions on their journey down the mountain. He could feel their curiosity all around him, but they feared offending their instructor any further by valuing the words of a man he had been about to kill.

It was well into the night when they reached the base of the academy, and Shishio instructed the initiates to return to their branches, as it was after curfew. Then they went together to see Furui.

The master of the school was meditating in his private chambers, within a large, empty room with a vaulted ceiling. Cabochons suspended on long chains cast the room in an orange glow. Furui was a saffron artist, the same affinity as the former border guardian of Fringe Town.

His eagle was preening itself comfortably on a perch. Furui shared its hard yellow eyes, and two sets of yellow orbs watched them enter.

“Ah, Shishio, what have you brought me, a familiar face?”

Shishio grunted. “This is the student who defied me last year. I thought he was dead, but he is still causing trouble.”

“And you brought him to me?” Furui said. “There must be more to him than meets the eye.”

“The boy claims he is a sage,” Shishio’s tone clearly conveyed his position on the matter.

“Let him say it then,” Furui turned his gaze on Sunwhisper. “What right do you have to make such a claim?”

“I am traveling a path that is my own,” he replied.

“Ah, but do not all cultivator’s do the same? Each of us has our own dao, and not one is quite the same.”

“As you say,” Sunwhisper bowed. “But I meant something more concrete. I have walked the Path of the Honing Edge, but it is not my own. I speak of the Path of the Kingdom of WIld Hearts, which to my knowledge, is practiced by no one else.”

“A ridiculous name,” Shishio scoffed.

“Certainly, it is descriptive.” Furui had been seated in the lotus position when they entered, and so far, had not deigned to rise. “Every few generations, a genius may develop his own path, but that does not make him a sage, and I do not know that you are a genius. To which element does this path belong?”

“I do not know,” Sunwhisper said.

“This is no time for jokes, young warrior. I remember you, and I remember being informed of your death. You refused to hunt the Snow Flowers, and there is no room for a student at this school who will not do what they must to advance.”

“My path belongs to no element that I know.” Sunwhisper clarified. “Its techniques work upon the heart.” He sighed, attempting a different tact. “When I first came to this school, you gave the initiates a lecture on the nature of life and cultivation. Pain, you said, was at the root of everything. My path deals in pain, both taking and giving, but not with a fist. I create spirit links that allow me to influence others.”

Furui raised a questioning eyebrow. “You have witnessed this?”

Shishio shrugged, answering only reluctantly. “I have witnessed something. He does use spirit links in an unusual fashion, and he has bonded with this spider.” His own bull had remained outside of the school, as had Karasu. But Ogumo had entered with them; the jumping spider crouched behind Sunwhisper almost shyly.

“I see that,” Furui said.

“I have communed with the Yosei,” Sunwhisper said. “They shared their essences with me, and I used it to forge my spirit weapon as well as my beast bond. It is proof that we do not need to kill the Snow Flowers. This is an advantage for your school. I know that the Yosei populations have been declining for generations. This places an arbitrary limit on the number of initiates the Heavenly School of the Azai can accept without threatening to lose them altogether.”

Furui was pensive, but Sunwhisper knew he was intrigued. “What are your thoughts, Shishio?”

“While I can confirm his use of a spirit weapon, I do not know how he obtained it.”

Furui nodded. “I would see this weapon. I grant you permission to call it in my presence.”

Sunwhisper obliged. His spear had always been able to retract into a rod, but now it was a part of him, and he could store its energy in his own body, bringing it back into the world with a thought. He held out a hand, and the golden object appeared in a blink. It had retained its original shape, a simple staff with sharp points on both ends without a grip or a guard. It hummed in his grip.

“What is its name?” Furui asked.

“Vel.” Sunwhisper had settled on the name one day during his meditations. Once it had occurred to him, the rightness of the choice had seemed as obvious as the name of any natural phenomenon, something that had always been. The spear responded with a throb of energy when he spoke the word.

“I don’t recognize the weapon or the name.” Furui frowned, and a moment later. His huge eyes widened even further. “This is not a reflection at all, it is a new weapon.” He rose from lotus so smoothly that it felt as if he had been standing with them all along.

“What?” Shishio shook his head, staring intently at the weapon, seeing it as if for the first time. “How can this be?”

“Rejoice,” Furui said, “for no doubt this advancement is due to your excellent instruction. Forget any ill feeling you have toward this young master, Instructor Makoto. The Heavenly School of the Azai has produced a sage.”