David

"Greetings, Daoist Cheng," said the boy. "I am Jiang Shangtian, a simple outer disciple of the Red Wind sect."

Shangtian smiled, looking older than his age.

"It is very generous of a sect from the Southern Continent to accept my family's invitation and give us face," he said.

One by one, the surrounding daoists introduced themselves.

"Chan Changshou, inner disciple of the Clear Skies sect."

"Daoist Gong, inner disciple of the Rolling Clouds sects."

"Daoist Li, core disciple of the Iron Scripture."

"Daoist Zhu, of the Paper Flowers. Long have I admired Eagle Peak."

David was pretty sure Eagle Peak didn’t exist.

Four more men and another woman introduced themselves, but David couldn't even remember their names by the time the next person spoke.

Their attitudes and introductions were all so similar they blended together into one entity with one incredibly fake personality. They all looked to be the same age - just a few years older than David, with the exception of Jiang Shangtian.

David looked over at Alice, who was playing a call and response duet with Jiang Meihua. He envied her - she was having fun.

After the introductions were out of the way, Daoist Chan put on his best sneer. "It is beyond belief that even the sects of the Southern Continent have to travel this far to show our empire respect. And not even to a cultivator of the Linked Cities." It was clear that he was a cultivator of the linked cities.

Daoist Chan continued, despite the fact that the group looked almost annoyed at him. "But I suppose Core Formation before the age of a hundred is the sign of true genius. If only all of us were as gifted."

He looked around. "It is a real talent to be the inheriting son of an entire city." Daoist Chan yawned dramatically.

Jiang Shangtian glared. "Everything my cousin has earned, he's earned with hard work and study."

Daoist Chan smirked at him. "But would he say the same about you? A boy trying to establish his foundations at the age of twelve. Don't you think you might seem like a bit of a threat to his position?"

A bit of pink made its way to Shangtian's cheeks. "My bone age will be twenty five, this year. I broke through when I was very young. I expect my Path to be longer than my cousin's."

David stared. This boy was eight years older than him, somehow.

Daoist Li, from the Iron sect or whatever, sighed loudly and shook her head melodramatically. "It is always a tragedy when a young genius reaches a long bottleneck in their cultivation." She looked pleased. She was generically pretty. Compared to Alice, however, whose face was painted with sharp but soft lines and whose eyes twinkled with humor and malice, Daoist Li looked very average - almost washed out.

Even Sanli had a vivaciousness to her which none of the cultivators here seemed to possess. That was a dangerous line of thought. David remembered the way Alice looked at him when he was checking out the waitress.

"My own bone age is sixty four," said Daoist Li, waving a steel fan back and forth. It had, as David expected, a generic image of mountains and a pond on it, as well as a poem. "I'll be reaching Core Formation soon - I hope to form a core in the next twenty years."

That explained it. She was older than his mother by a decade.

One by one, people gave their 'bone ages' in the circle. Most of them were between sixty and eighty years old. Most of them seemed slightly less mature than the freshmen from his high school.

Suddenly, everyone was looking at him expectantly.

"Eighteen in two months, by the way," David said, unable to resist.

The resulting glares were definitely worth it. David paid them no attention, listening to Alice, who was now playing that same call-and-response piece, but not in a duet with Meihua. Alice was now directing the other musicians like a conductor. Her guqin was played harmonically - highlighting each of the other players like they were members of a boy band at a concert. Alice's smile was so wide the other musicians seemed concerned.

"What a waste of that face on a whore," Daoist Chan remarked, staring at Alice as well.

David turned to him sharply. Alice's hairpin glinted in the morning sunlight and Daoist Chan put two and two together when he realized Alice was wearing the same sort of robe that David was.

"My apologies, I thought all the guests would be here socializing," he said, looking incredibly chagrined. Daoist Chan stared at his shoes.

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"My shimei enjoys playing music," David said, trying his best not to grit his teeth.

Daoist Li tittered. "Your qi sense is simply too poor, Daoist Chan. How could a girl like that possibly be someone ordinary? It is clear that she is a Foundation Establishment cultivator."

Alice was now pointing at a middle aged man playing the erhu with her right hand and spanning arpeggios on her guqin with her left. He fiddled frantically to her artistic direction. The man seemed more skilled than most of the other musicians and was clearly enjoying himself as well.

Daoist Li suddenly glared at David. "You said she's your younger sect sister?"

"We're the same age," David said, smiling thinly. Maybe he'd spent too much time around Alice, because he felt like her casual disregard of mediocrity was rubbing off on him.

He thought of Zhou, who had been in his teens when he had formed his dantian. Rather than having a Core Formation ceremony, Zhou said his Sect Master had pointed at the door, told him that she was hungry - and sent him to Cloud Mountain City to get her noodles.

David wondered exactly how impolite it'd be for him to say that he knew a cripple who was more talented than all of the people here combined. He almost said it, too.

Alice really was a bad influence.

The mist on the island, which had come up to their ankles, was suddenly swept away as a large ship constructed of a deep red rosewood approached from the left of the Inner City. From its mast hung banners proclaiming auspicious words; a flag at the helm proudly displayed the word Jiang.

"Older brother has always loved being extravagant," Jiang Shangtian muttered to himself, without regard for the sneers that the other cultivators threw his way.

"It's a big day for him," David said, half to be contrary, half to comfort a kid. He might have been older than David, but he really did seem young.

"Thanks," Shangtian said, looking somewhere between worried and miserable all of a sudden.

"You'll get there too," David said awkwardly.

Shangtian shook his head. "My own progress doesn't worry me. My breakthrough will happen when it happens."

He turned his gaze to the pillar, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "It's not a popular opinion in my family, but I think we're showing a lot of disrespect to our Patriarch, having a party here."

David thought of the woman who had smashed the jugs of sorghum wine, likely setting off the chain of events that led to Jing's death. The ribbon on Shangtian's spear floated lazily in the wind.

"If I married someone, and they died tragically, I wouldn't want my descendants to party at her grave," said Shangtian. "It's not a surprise that he hasn't shown up."

The boy was surprisingly talkative about what David would expect was a sensitive matter for his family. The clouds had parted to reveal a sky of the clearest blue.

The only sound that could be heard was the sound of a pair of guqins as the ship pulled into the dock and dropped its anchor.

As the young master of the Jiang family stepped off the ship, the final notes of the song played and there was silence.

As always, Alice's sense of dramatic timing was impeccable.

Jiang Tiankong's footsteps could be heard on the dock from two hundred meters away - growing louder as he drew closer, and he stepped onto the flat grey slate of the courtyard.

He was dressed in a well-embroidered robe, in the pale red of the Red Wind Sect. On his breast was the word Jiang stitched in a glittering gold thread. At his waist was the sort of sword that Wen might wear - the ruby on its pommel was the size of David's fist, and it was encased in a scabbard of the shiniest gold.

The young master's bun was held up by not a piece of jade, but with a golden ornament shaped like a dragon. He was handsome - far more handsome than the cultivators that surrounded David. This was someone who put a lot of effort into his appearance.

If there was anyone David had met so far who compared to him, it would be Wen, but instead of that aura of camaraderie in face of desperation that clung onto Wen, there was the patina of old wealth.

It was enough to make David feel a little self conscious, so he turned to Alice.

She caught his eyes, then grinned. He read her lips. "Eighty." English.

He grinned back.

Jiang Tiankong made his way to a platform that had been set up to the crowd's left, a short distance from the pillar.

"Path Friends," his voice rang out, rich and deep. "My family, my countrymen, visitors from far off lands. Thank you for coming to my little gathering!"

There was some cheering, mostly from his men in white bibs. David spied Mustache, who'd steered their boat to the Inner City with his qi, clapping politely. The man seemed exasperated.

"When I was a young boy," said Jiang Tiankong, "nobody cared who I was. This is to be expected, when you come from a family as large and as talented as my own."

Beside David, Jiang Shangtian's brow furrowed - an expression that looked very out of place on a boy who looked twelve.

"But it turned out that I too, would join the young members of my family who awakened early. At the age of six, I chose to stand by my own power and entered the first stage of qi condensation."

"Of course he chose the most pretentious way to refer to awakening," scoffed Daoist Li under her breath. Jiang Shangtian glared at her.

"I took my first step on the path at nineteen, reaching Foundation Establishment, a record that will stand for ages!"

All the cultivators around them turned to stare at Jiang Shangtian, who shrugged with discomfort.

Jiang Tiankong drew in a deep breath. "Establishing your foundations isn't easy. Luckily, my innate talent was so great, I was given access to the Jiang Patriarch's Scripture of the Mulberry Tree, which he also used to establish his foundations!"

David frowned.

"And when I formed my Foundations, I chose my Dao Path! I was able to break through to Core Formation by the age of sixty, an achievement that hasn't been seen in this part of the world for ten thousand years! In two short decades, I formed my Core and that is why we are here today. I am living proof that talent can carry you far, but hard work and perseverance are necessary to take advantage of your natural gifts."

David was sure that Jiang Tiankong was the most talented cultivator giving a speech on the island.

"And from the child who no one cared about, I became the man I am today!"

There was a lot of polite clapping. Most of the guests that surrounded him looked genuinely inspired, which was a little alarming.

David caught Alice's gaze again. Her smirk was incandescent, incredulous and more than a little bit contagious.