Eight year old Yong Lei Cao did not know what to expect as he waited beside his uncle in a secluded courtyard of the Hidden Heart sect. Both still wore the travel stained gray cloaks they’d worn at their departure from the family compound almost three weeks ago, and while neither wore the bags they’d carried with them, those bags didn’t sit far away, still in sight on the cobbles of the courtyard shaded by an apple tree gnarled and massive with age.
So many of his expectations had already been exceeded. He kept catching himself listening to the sounds of the veritable city on the opposite side of the courtyard’s wall, or staring, in his mind’s eye, at the edifice of brown stone that greeted them when they’d arrived only that morning.
When he’d been told he’d be moving to the compound of the Hidden Heart Sect he’d expected something like the Cao family compound deep in the wilderness beyond the valley walls. The wooden palisade beneath brooding trees. The sucking bog of mud between sprawling homes of piled dirt and split lumber shared by Zufu and Zumu, their four married sons and single bachelor, the four wives they’d brought home and the thirty seven grand children that ran wild within the walls or contributed to the future of the clan in their own ways.
His home made some villages look small. This though… The sect… made every village look meaningless.
Uncle Bao stood like a stump in the midst of it all, not quite scowling but barely moving in the shadow of the apple tree. His jaw moved rhythmically as he chewed on the Casia bark he’d made a point of harvesting anytime they passed through a patch of the stuff, very occasionally scratching at his beard or shifting the pack on his shoulders while he leaned on his walking stick.
The wall of the compound itself was not the thing that occupied Yang’s attention. It was the people pouring in and out of the gate. There had easily been over a hundred people moving around the gate, sitting at tents, or carts, shouting to one another, or to anyone who would listen. Showing off goods for sale or simply watching the crowd moving about, and each of them had been different. Not in the incidental ways that made every Cao different from any other, but as though each were a member of a different family. Like strangers. Visitors from across the empire he’d always heard of but never known.
And some of them were cultivators.
Just like he would be someday.
One of them in particular.
The boy following the green robed elder who’d brought he and uncle Bao here after they announced themselves at a small clerk’s office wore a look of barely disguised shock as they rounded the corner of the little courtyard. He looked hardly a boy to Yang’s eyes, but a man grown, if still a young one, and clearly a Cao, at or near the age when most of Yang Lei’s male cousins began talking about building their own household, of leaving to find a wife, or when his female cousins did leave, usually in the company of Uncle Bao, to join families in other villages or other compounds beyond the shadow of the trees Yang called home.
“Cousin Yi!”
The look on his cousin’s face transformed as the eight year old boy sprinted towards him from the look of shock to one of horror as Yang Lei skid to a stop in front of him and stood staring, wide eyed, up at the cousin he’d heard so much about, oblivious to the internal battle playing out in Yi Cao’s expression.
Yi Cao’s attempt at a smile came out as more of a grimace, though he didn’t look away.
Yang Lei frowned. “Why aren’t you wearing green?” The boy blurted.
A stick thwacked him on the back of the head and Yang hissed as he rubbed the spot.
“Manners.” Bao Cao intoned. He stood chewing his bark just a few steps away. Placid as an ox, or as though he hadn’t just struck Yang across the back of the head with his walking stick. He nodded to Yi Cao who made a small bow in return.
“Uncle.”
Bao chewed a few times then made a small bow of his own. “Nephew. You look well.”
Yi Cao watched his uncle. “I am.” He said.
Bao nodded and chewed at his bark while he thought. After a moment he reached into his mouth and removed the bit of masticated wood to study it before he popped it back into his mouth and continued chewing. “Your cultivation has been progressing I hope.” He said around the bark.
“As well as one could expect.” Yi Cao replied.
Bao nodded and looked him over. From his head to his toes, as though taking an inventory. “Still an outer disciple I see.”
“Yes. I… hope to take the test… soon.”
“That’s good.” Bao replied. “The family could always use a little more money, and you have your own future to think of.” Bao’s eyes withdrew into his own thoughts. “Your brother, Zhi Peng, wants me to accompany him on a search for a wife, after I return.” He added after a moment. “And your sister Liu had two babes of her own when I went through Yingzi this spring.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a piece of bark the length of his finger which he broke in half. “Feels like that trip gets colder every time I make it.” He said to no one in particular. He slipped one half of the piece of bark into his mouth and the other back into the pocket before refocusing on Yi Cao.
“Is there anyone else you’d like to know about?”
Yi Cao hesitated, then shook his head.
Uncle Bao just nodded. “The family sends its regards.” He said. “Any message you’d like me to send back?”
Yi Cao started to shake his head then stopped himself. “Tell… tell mother, thank you, for the blanket she sent last year.”
He could barely remember his mother. Just a smiling face in a few blurry memories that meant little ten years later.
Bao nodded. “I’ll let her know.” The older man shifted the bag on his shoulder then turned to the elder who stood just behind the knot of family. The elder pulled a string of coins from one pocket and handed it to him. Uncle Bao did a quick count, then tucked it into a side pocket of the pack before he turned back to Yi Cao.
“Then I’ll be off.” He said. “Places to be.” He turned to little Yang and ruffled the youngster’s hair. “Listen to your cousin.” He told him.
“Yes Uncle.”
Bao nodded, put a hand on Yi Cao’s shoulder with a “Be Safe.” Then bowed to the elder, and left. “Until next year.” He added over his shoulder and waved one hand.
“Until next year.” Yi Cao replied.
“Until then!” Yang cried.
They both watched him go until he turned a corner and disappear.
Neither said anything for a minute or two afterwards, though Yang snuck a glance up at his cousin once or twice before looking quickly away again. Eventually it fell to the elder to break the silence.
“Why don’t we go about settling our business,” he said with a thin smile for Yi Cao, “then you can help disciple Yang here settle in. I’m sure we’ll all be more comfortable once that’s out of the way.”
Yi Cao’s face twisted into a frown and he curled a fist, but he nodded, and permitted the elder to lead them out of the courtyard after uncle Bao. Yang had to turn back after just a few paces and run back for the bag he’d almost left underneath the apple tree.
Yang Lei wanted to ask a million questions as they walked. He stared at the people that passed them as they made their way through a dizzying maze of two story wooden buildings with walled courtyards and temporary tents scattered throughout. Green pennants waved from every window and even from strings strung across the streets and he kept seeing flashes of light accompanied by loud bangs that he thought must be some kind of cultivator technique. After his initial bout of nervous enthusiasm he felt a strange reluctance, in the absence of his uncle, to address the quiet scowling cousin who was a stranger to him in all but name.
So, he stared instead. At the women, who looked nothing like the cousins and aunts he’d grown up around, the men who leaned over barrels to speak with them, and the cultivators who mingled among them all, sword’s peaking out of sheaths buckled at their waist.
The elder led them up the slope of the wide hill the sect was built on until they approached the tall inner wall of the hidden heart of the Hidden Heart Sect. A broad low building of stone jutted out from one side of the hill in a space less heavily trafficked than the districts close to the gate, with wide low stairs that led up to a set of four pillars carved from stone and a wide door paneled with copper and bronze plate cut to look like dragons snarling at those who entered.
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“The lesser treasure hall.” The elder said. He pressed a hand to the door and did something that Yang Lei felt in his palm, close to the spot where the sect agent said he’d cut his first channel over the long four days of agony everyone else thought was a fever.
The dragons carved on the outside of the door hissed, and Yang thought he’d just been hearing things until the figurines moved across the door, shifting aside while Yang stared up at them, wide eyed at his first glimpse of magic.
The elder glanced back at them both and gave them a wan smile. “Don’t try getting in here without an elder.” He told them. “Or a doorkeeper, though an elder is better.”
He led them inside, past the hissing door guardians and into a room that made the channel in Yang Lei’s hand burn white hot with the power of the ambient Ki and even cousin Yi stop and stare.
“It would go badly for you, if you did.” The elder added.
A monster stared down at them from the opposite wall, A thing of shifting light and whirling power. Chains marked by glowing scripts pinned the monster above the inner door of the sanctum but there were stretches where the links seemed to disappear or turn to intangible mists where they wrapped around the creature, holding it fast against the stone.
The thing rattled at its chains as the elder passed beneath it and Yang Lei heard a howl like that of a wolf but distant and ethereal, as though it were miles away instead of right over their heads.
Yang found his hand somehow wrapped tight around cousin Yi’s and he jerked it away to rub at the throbbing vein of power in his palm while he stared at the manshaped thing above them.
“What is it?” He asked in a whisper.
Yi Cao just stared at it. “Elemental.” He said. “Failed cultivator. I think.” Cousin Yi turned away, refocused on the door and pushed on while Yang Lei stuck close behind him. The boy glanced up at the failed cultivator as it rattled its chains and they passed underneath.
“Overwhelmed by his own Ki.” Cousin Yi muttered. “What a way to go.”
Then they entered the lesser treasure hall, and all thoughts of the monster guarding the door fled from Yang Lei’s mind.
The Elder smiled as cousin Yi joined him while Yang froze once more in the doorway, staring at the collected treasures stored in shelves along the walls of the vaulted room.
Lights hung suspended in the air, flickering like candle flames with no visible source of tallow or means of support to hold them in the air. They drifted to congregate six feet above their heads, or above the heads of the few other cultivators present in the hall. An old white bearded man who sat poring over a book chained to the work tables that ran down the center of the hall. A pair examining the scripts along a blade that glittered in the Ki Lights, and A man sitting at a dais that overlooked the entire hall, a look of stern boredom across his features and a long spear standing upright at his side, the red ribbon tied at its tip dancing erratically above his head despite the absence of any wind.
Magic.
Cultivator magic.
More than he had ever imagined he would ever see.
“Come along.” The elder told him with a wave. “We’ll be quick so you can go about getting settled in.”
Yang gulped and tugged his pack higher onto his shoulder then jogged to catch up with the elder and cousin Yi. Cousin Yi ignored all the gathered treasures that surrounded them, while the eight year old gawped in undisguised wonder at racks of weapons behind scripted glass. Boxes whose scripts pulsed with light, and objects on special pedestals or chained to shelves he could not begin to describe.
If this was the lesser treasure hall, he couldn’t imagine what a greater treasure hall might contain.
The stern faced guard stood and bowed as the elder led them to his dais at the opposite end of the hall. “Elder Xia.” He said. “How may this one serve you.”
Elder Xia fished in his robes and removed a leather token which he handed over to the guard. “I wish to withdraw some pills from the fifth cabinet.” He told the guard. “And to examine one of the treasures on the workbench next to it.”
“Certainly.” The guard said. He accepted the elder’s token and then scanned a rack of keys in front of him before removing one and handing it to the elder. “Please make a note of which pills you remove from the cabinet.” He said. “Otherwise elder Bo Cong will throw a fit. Treasures chained to the shelf are, of course, always available for examination. If you wish to have them unshackled one of the vault keepers will be required to accompany you.”
“Of course.” Elder Xia replied.
The guard bowed again as he handed him the keys. “Please let us know if there is anything else we can do.”
Yi Cao watched the elder as he led them back down the steps of the guard’s dais and along the central tables to a cabinet that hung against one wall. The cabinet was huge, but the door that Elder Xia opened with the key sat near ground level, sliding out to reveal dozens of partitioned boxes covered by thin strips of scripted wood. Each partition held a pill, and elder Xia flipped through them until he found the one he wanted.
He met Yi Cao’s eyes as he pulled it out and seemed to weigh it in his palm, then he flipped it to the eight year old standing next to Yi Cao.
The boy almost jumped out of his skin as he fumbled to catch the thing.
“What’s this?” The boy asked in surprise.
Elder Xia smiled, still looking into Yi Cao’s eyes before that smile slid down to the new junior disciple. “It’s called a Mountain’s Recovery Pill.” He waved a hand. “A semi-valuable pill. Cultivators of the second rank use them sometimes to repair trauma to their foundation. It’s one of the first truly spiritual pills the alchemist allows his apprentices to make on their own, and even then, only apprentices who are in the second rank themselves. As I understand it requires quite a bit of Ki, and a strong command of that Ki’s laws. I believe this one was made using Shadow Garden Ki. A shadow aspect, and a bit of life aspect as well.”
Yi cao could feel nothing coming off of the pill, but as a cultivator of only the first circle of the first rank, that was no surprise.
“Fixing foundations is not the only use for such a pill.” The elder added. “At the earliest stages of cultivation, before you’ve even obtained a rank, it can give you the first steps of your actual cultivation. Get you through the initial outline of your foundation over a couple of days.”
The eight year old looked up at the elder, eyes shining in the Ki Lights overhead.
“Right now you can’t do anything with your spirit. Finish processing that, and you’ll at least register when you take the test with the rest of the junior disciples next year.” Xia smiled. Not at Yang, but at Yi Cao. He leaned back in the chair he’d used while rifling through the contents of the drawer and ran two fingers across one side of his thin mustache. “Think of it as an investment.” He said with a thin smile. “A payment, for future promise.”
Neither Yi Cao nor the elder spoke as Yang held the pill up to the light, then elder Xia’s attention snapped back to the boy.
“Don’t take it here. Wait until you’ve settled in.”
Yang nodded and tucked the pill into one pocket of the pouch he wore around his waist.
“Now.” Xia said, voice soft as silk as he turned his eyes back to Yi Cao’s. “Give us a moment, will you. Go and look at the swords. Just, don’t touch any of them.”
Yang nodded eagerly and moved off while Yi Cao and elder Xia returned to their staring contest. After a moment Yi Cao broke the silence.
“Is that safe?” He asked.
Xia raised his eye brows. “What, the pill? Perfectly. With someone there to guide him.” He glanced past Yi Cao to the guard still at his post, then he leaned forward to grip the partitions of the drawer in front of him with both hands. “It’s not much stronger than the Ki build up that gave you both your first channel in the first place. Just a bit more concentrated, more malleable to a cultivator’s will than the sort of ambient build up you’d get in the wild.” With a jerk elder Xia ripped the partitions out of the drawer, then he reached underneath to pull a thin leather pouch from underneath them before setting the partitions gently back in place and checking that the guard hadn’t been watching.
He held the package up for Yi Cao to see. “I have a gift for you as well.” He said. He extended the slip of leather and tapped it with one finger of the hand in which he held it. “A key, as we discussed, and more, after.”
Yi Cao stared at the leather slip but made no move for several moments. Abruptly, he thought of the noise Yuo made while the willows whispered in the breeze and he snatched the object from the elder’s hand.
Xia smiled. “Fate is not so fixed as many like to pretend.” He said. He turned and slid the pill cabinet closed then locked it shut again. “The strong bend fate to their will, while the weak walk the path laid out for them by the heavens.” He stood and tucked the keys back into one of his pockets. “And cultivation has always been the realm of the strong.” He looked at Yi Cao, then gestured with one finger for Yi Cao to follow and led him down the rows of shelves along the wall until they stopped in front of a glass enclosed cabinet full of what Yi Cao could only assume were natural treasures.
“The Rose of Heaven’s Chosen.” Xia said. He tapped the glass in front of a rose that seemed to glow scarlet against the shadows cast by the Ki Lights. “A rather grandiose name for what amounts to a rather unique treasure.” Xia leaned close and went on in a conspiratorial tone. “Do you know what it does?”
Yi Cao shook his head. He’d heard of natural treasures, heard, specifically, that the sect paid a fortune in bounties for returning such treasures to one of the clerks, and that some of the masters of the various trades fought viciously over certain kinds of treasures important for their trades. Things like heavenly metals, or Ki Oil collected from grottos where flame and decay aspected Ki were strong enough to spontaneously generate it from thin air.
“Natural treasures are not generally preferred when it comes to advancement. Their aspects are usually too mixed, or unbalanced.” Xia said. “But there are some circumstances in which they should be. This, item, in particular.” He tapped the glass again. “Contains enough life aspected Ki to open an entire node on its own, with the unique property that, combined with the proper source, you can flush the life aspect as you fill it in order to create a node aspected however you please, if tainted very slightly, by the aspect of life. The only downside, besides its rarity, is that it is not uncommon for plants of this aspect to come with a particularly virulent law amplified by pre-existing nodes. The more nodes, the greater the chance that a cultivator who takes this will find themselves like the elemental chained outside this vault.”
Xia smiled. “A useful downside, for a cultivator with no pre-existing nodes to put them at risk.” He straightened and glanced towards the guard before looking down at Yi Cao.
“Succeed, and I will give you a chance at power.” He glanced at the key still clutched in Yi Cao’s hand. “Fail, or attempt to involve anyone else.” He said, and glanced in the direction of Yi Cao’s wide eyed little cousin as he browsed racks of magic weaponry a dozen yards away along the wall. “And I’ll have wasted a semi-valuable pill on a boy I’ll have to kill.”
The elder looked back to Yi Cao and met his eyes. They held for a long moment before the elder flicked a hand towards the rose still behind its case. “Your first node is the start of true cultivation.” He said. “Imagine what it would feel like to throw lightning bolts from your fingertips, or wield swords forged from ice in an instant. Think on it during the testing. That is what I am offering you. If you succeed.”