Chapter 1

Tan flew twenty miles to the south of his home before putting the blindfold on. He grinned stupidly; he hadn’t told anyone this idea because, if it worked, he wanted it to be a surprise. If it didn’t work, then he didn’t want anyone around him to tease him.

Not that he thought that they would. Not where the adults could hear them, anyway.

He frowned. The other kids at the farm had been funny around him lately, and he was starting to wonder why. They were … treating him with respect. It was weird.

Not Safron. His little sister was the same as ever, even after she’d started cultivating. She wasn’t very good at it yet, but Tan was pretty certain that he hadn’t been good at cultivation at her age either. He wished that he could help her, but since she had a fire spirit in her dantian and he had a wind spirit, they were on completely different paths. His advice, while well meaning, might just confuse her or be detrimental.

For example, he’d learned that Pao drew in the Qi from the world through his feet. Tan shook his head as he tried to envision how that worked, but he really couldn’t. Tan’s own method was to breathe in the wind Qi, then cycle it from his lungs into his dantian. It was second nature by now, and he’d noticed recently that he’d begun doing it without having to think about it while he was busy with everyday tasks.

He hadn’t told his parents that yet, but he was pretty sure it was a good sign.

But that wasn’t why he was out in the middle of nowhere with a blindfold over his eyes. He was here to try something else. The blindfold was thick, and it hid his vision in darkness. He gathered his will, gathered his intent, and pushed his vision through the darkness to see what was behind it.

And…

Nothing.

He sighed. It wasn’t that easy, he realized.

He entered the Sublime State of Clarity, something he had been able to do for years now. Time slowed down. His awareness of his body increased, and his awareness of everything around him likewise increased. He tried again to peak through the veil, and --

Blurry shapes and colors.

He grinned, and he pushed harder, trying to bring the world around him into focus.

Suddenly, he could see again, except that the world was different. The trees were an orange color, earthy and faintly glowing. He could see lines in the tree that were brighter and ones that were darker. The leaves were brightest of all.

The earth was a solid black mass, except for where yellow grass grew. Not the yellow of dried hay, but the bright yellow of the sun.

The sky itself was multi-hued, with purple clouds and shiny silver firmament.

Then the flash of vision faded as abruptly as it had come, leaving Tan with a headache. He grinned despite the pain, and began wandering around. When the pain from the vision faded, he tried to bring the world into focus again, succeeding three times in five. Each time lasted only a few seconds and left him with a headache, but it was still a success.

In one of his wanderings, he saw something in his vision. A violet colored blob that was strangely shaped, sort of like a potted fern. He wandered over to it without taking his blindfold off. He touched where the shape had been and found… nothing.

A suspicion formed in his mind and he searched the ground beneath where the shape had been. The solidity of stone met his hand after a brief search, and as he scanned it with his spiritual senses his suspicions were confirmed. He’d found a spiritual stone, one with an inhabitant. He could tell that there was a fire spirit hiding within this stone.

“Hello,” he said to the minor spirit. “Are you lonely out here all by yourself?”

He waited for a response, hearing a tentative greeting in return after a few moments. The spirit wasn’t very strong, he realized, and although it could hear him, it took it effort to answer him.

“I’m going to bring you somewhere where you can make lots of friends, okay?” he said.

A very weak acknowledgment.

Tan grinned. If he’d been able to use this trick during his spirit stone hunt last year, it would have been a walk in the park to meet the quota his parents had imposed on him.

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He continued to experiment with his spiritual sight for an hour, but then he was bored. He took the blindfold off, spent a minute regaining his orientation, and then flew home.

He spotted his mother in the vegetable patch, with an impatient Safron bugging her. He landed nearby, and was about to brag about his new ability when she turned to him.

“Weren’t you supposed to weed the west field today?” she asked, sternness in her voice.

Tan winced. He had been given a task that he’d neglected. He held out the spirit stone in his defense. “I found this.”

“Very good. You can throw it in the shed with all of the others,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that you can neglect your chores, Tan. We have dozens of spirit stones. More than we need. But when your father and I tell you to do something, we expect you to—”

“I can see through the blindfold,” he said.

Wensho, his mother, paused in her tirade. “What do you mean?”

Tan grinned, certain that he’d derailed the lecture he was due. “I was sort of getting glimpses for a while. I needed to go someplace quiet, which is why I ditched on my chores today. I’m sorry, but I knew that if I succeeded you’d be proud of me.”

“What, exactly, did you see?” she asked.

“The world. Like I didn’t have the blindfold on at all, except things were funny colors. Trees were green and the sky silver, and this stone had an aura too it. Like someone was standing above it. That’s how I knew it was special,” he explained.

“Mom, you said you were going to spank him when he got back,” Safron chimed in, a malicious grin on her face.

“We’ll deal with his neglect of his duties later,” Wensho promised. “Tan, you might have just opened your third eye. Can you do it on command?”

“Sort of?” he said. “I don’t think I can do it without the blindfold, and it gives me a headache if I keep it open for very long. But I can manage it when I try more often than not.”

“I see. This is good, Tan, and I’m very proud of you. But the next time you want some time to practice with your powers, just ask for it. Especially if you’re on the edge of a breakthrough. Don’t just neglect your chores or ignore what your father and I tell you to do,” his mother said.

“Am I in a lot of trouble?” he asked.

“You were supposed to weed the west field today. It’s still today, isn’t it? As long as you get it done before the sun sets, I suppose your father and I might let you wiggle out of a punishment,” his mother said.

Tan grinned. “Okay, I’ll get it done. Sorry. I’ll ask instead of flying off the next time.”

“We thought you had gone fishing,” she said.

“I wouldn’t neglect my chores to go fishing,” Tan said, surprised that she’d think that.

“You have before.”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “But that was like two years ago, wasn’t it? I’m more responsible now. When’s the last time I didn’t do something I was supposed to do?”

“When you forgot to put the tools away like your father asked you to last week, when you ‘forgot’ to turn the compost pile and we had to remind you five times, when you -”

“You have a list?” Tan asked, surprised. “You’re not storing up for one big punishment or something, are you?”

Wensho sighed. “We were, but then you opened your third eye and derailed the lecture you were due. Tan, we’re very proud of you. And we love you very much. But you’re growing up now, and part of growing up is becoming more responsible.”

“I know,” Tan said. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better.”

“At the same time, you’re still only eleven years old, so it’s okay to still be a kid sometimes. Tomorrow, after your daily chores, why don’t you spend some time practicing opening your third eye again? Take as much time as you need until you can do it just by closing your eyes and willing the third eye open,” she instructed.

“You think I’ll do that in a day?”

“I didn’t expect you to open your third eye for twenty years, Tan,” she admitted. “But you’ve always been precocious when it comes to cultivation.”

Tan grinned. “I’m going to go do my chores then,” he announced, flying off to put the stone in the shed with the other spirit stones his family had gathered.

Wensho watched her oldest son go, shaking her head. He really was full of surprises, she thought to herself, a bit of pride welling up in her chest. “They grow up so fast.”

“What was that momma?” Safron asked.

“Nothing, baby. Help momma pick some of those peas over there, would you?”

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