Uncle Kho wore a decidedly grumpy expression when he came out to the courtyard where Sen was waiting for him.

“Uncle Kho,” said Sen cautiously, nodding at the elder cultivator.

“You interrupted storytime,” complained Uncle Kho.

“Storytime?”

“Yes. Storytime! I tell her stories about the adventures I’ve had, complete with tiny lighting people to act it all out.”

Uncle Kho held out a hand, palm up, where a tiny version of him made entirely of lightning appeared. The miniature Uncle Kho thrust a spear in Sen’s general direction, and a slender forking arc of lightning leapt the distance to hit Sen in the ear.

“Ouch!” shouted Sen, rubbing his ear with a hand. “Was that necessary?”

Drawing himself up and assuming a mantle of supreme dignity, Uncle Kho said, “Yes.”

“Okay. I’m sorry I interrupted storytime.”

Uncle Kho’s dignified visage cracked into one of amusement. “I suppose I’ve had my revenge. You needed something?”

“I do,” said Sen before he reconsidered. “What kind of stories are you telling her? I mean, it’s nothing too scary or gruesome, is it?”

“Of course, it’s not. What kind of person do you take me for?”

“Well, it’s just... I’ve heard some of your stories. There’s a lot of destroying entire sects, and lighting leaving the earth a scorched ruin for miles in every direction.”

Uncle Kho lifted a finger, frowned, and then nodded.

“That’s fair,” he said. “I just tell her about things like me fighting spirit beasts.”

“Oh,” said Sen with a rush of relief. “She likes stories where monsters lose.”

“Yeah. I figured I’d save those other stories for when she’s older.”

“For the best, I expect. On the topic of when she’s older, you have told Auntie Caihong that she can’t just keep Ai, right?”

Uncle Kho gave him a look of such profound pity that Sen found himself shuffling his feet a little bit.

“Sen, you can tell her that if you want, and you’re feeling especially brave. I, your much older and wiser teacher, know better than to challenge powers that far beyond me.”

“You’re a nascent soul cultivator. Aren’t you preparing to challenge the heavens themselves to ascend?”

“Yes. I picked a battle I at least have a chance of winning.”

“I have no answer to that,” said Sen.

Uncle Kho let out a light chuckle and said, “So, what are we talking about today?”

“A couple of things actually. The less interesting question is, would you be willing to step in and do a little teaching while I’m gone?”

Uncle Kho’s brow furrowed a little. “Explain how much teaching we’re really talking about here.”

“The townspeople are covered. The advanced students can handle running them through drills and like. Wu Meng Yao is dealing with most of the sword instruction for the cultivators who are here. I still need to recruit someone to teach the lower-level cultivators the spear. So, that’s who you’d be teaching. The cultivators. I’ve limited them to the first couple forms you taught me.”

“That sounds simple enough,” said Uncle Kho, his expression smoothing out. “So, you were serious about not providing cultivation instruction here?”

“I was. I mean, didn’t you agree that a sect would be more trouble than it was worth?”

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“I did. I just didn’t think you’d actually take that advice.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Youth, mostly. Young people often ignore the very good advice their teachers and elders offer them. Also, founding a sect can have an appeal that overrides good sense. There is a kind of prestige that goes along with it.”

Sen supposed he could see it, but the appeal was lost on him. He had more than enough fame to suit him. He didn’t want to add anything more to that absurd legend that was growing up around him.

“Nope,” he said. “Still too much trouble for not enough benefits. So, are you in?”

“As long as it doesn’t go on for too long. It’s sort of a pain to hide the fact that I’m a nascent soul cultivator when I’m in the same room as other cultivators. If people figure it out, they’ll become very tedious.”

“I’m hoping this trip won’t last very long. I expect that traveling there and back will take a lot longer than my actual stay in the capital.”

“Good plan. The less time you spend in places like that the better.”

“Places like that?”

“Places where mortal power and large sects converge. It’s easy to get dragged into things that have nothing to do with you in places like that.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience,” noted Sen.

“I didn’t move to that mountain just because I like the view. So, you said that teaching was the boring question. What’s the interesting question?”

“What’s the next spear form?”

Uncle Kho quirked an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think that there is one?”

“Intuition. I’ve been working with the spear a lot lately, and I can just feel that there’s something more after what you taught me.”

That statement brought on a protracted silence that made Sen nervous. When he did finally speak, there was a contemplative air around Uncle Kho.

“So, that’s where you are. I did wonder if you’d get there. Not everyone does.”

“And where is there, exactly?” asked Sen.

Instead of answering, Uncle Kho posed a question of his own.

“What do you think a form is?”

Sen squinted in confusion and said, “A series of prescribed movements designed to impart fundamentals of motion, defense, and attack.”

Uncle Kho nodded. “An accurate enough answer, but you’re thinking about it too individually. Most of the martial forms that cultivators practice didn’t originate with cultivators. They originated with mortals. We might enhance them with cultivation, but go far enough back and you’ll find mortals with sharp sticks trying to find a better way to survive. Another way to think of the forms is that they’re general patterns that work for most people. After all, what good is a form to a mortal army if only one person can do it?”

“Not much good, I’d imagine,” said Sen.

“Precisely. So, all of those idiosyncratic forms designed by geniuses for their own needs typically fall out of use as soon as they die.”

“While the forms that work for everyone live on.”

“Yes. At a certain point, though, if you go far enough with any weapon, you bump up against the limits of those general forms. You intuitively know that there’s something more, or rather that there’s something else that would work better for you. Something designed around your exact strengths and weaknesses.”

“You’re saying that I need to create my own… What did you call it? My own idiosyncratic form?”

Uncle Kho shrugged. “No. You can use what I already taught you to excellent effect, probably for the rest of your very long life. Innovation isn’t inherently a good thing. It can even be a bad thing if it draws your attention away from more immediate and pressing needs. What I’m saying is that you've gone far enough now, developed sufficient insight, that you can develop your own form if you decide you want to.”

“If I want to,” murmured Sen. “This isn’t quite how I thought this conversation was going to go.”

“What were you expecting? That I decided to only teach you some of what I knew?”

“Well, yes, but not in a bad way. I just assumed that I needed more experience before I was ready to learn it.”

“Nope. You’re going to discover more and more that the things you learn will be things that you develop on your own. Teachers can only guide you so far because, at a certain point, everyone walks a path shaped by their own insights, affinities, and experiences. The longer you live, the farther you go, the more those paths diverge. And that’s not a bad thing. If you had good teachers, you should outgrow them and chart a path for yourself.”

Sen saw the wisdom, but there was something melancholy about it too.

“That sounds lonely,” said Sen.

“Cultivation is lonely. For all that cultivators gather into sects or travel in groups, it is a harsh truth that, if you reach that moment of ascension, you will face the heavens alone. Just you. No one else can face that final tribulation for you. You cannot carry another person with you. But that doesn’t mean you have to be alone on your way there.”

Sen smiled as a memory surfaced.

“I seem to recall you saying the same thing to Master Feng.”

“Many, many times. It’s worth repeating, even if I know he never really hears the words. It seems that you, at least, heard them. It’s a strange little family you’ve built for yourself, but a family all the same. After all, how many little girls get a mad aunt and a spider on speaking terms with the Great Matriarch for an uncle? To say nothing of a legendary father.”

“Infamous, maybe. And I’m not sure I’m not more of an uncle, myself.”

“You should just go ahead and bury that lie,” said Uncle Kho.

“I suppose that makes you her grandfather.”

“No. I’m just the much and rightly adored Uncle Kho. Or maybe Great Uncle Kho. Yes. Great Uncle Kho. I like the sound of that. Let Ming be her grandfather. He needs it,” said the elder cultivator before giving Sen a sly look. “Although, I will give you five thousand gold tael if you tell Caihong she’s very grandmotherly.”

Sen lifted an eyebrow and said, “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Please don’t,” said Uncle Kho as panic and dread went to war on his face.