She gives it to him. In fact, she had precisely this idea when she was younger. There was a tree near the edge of becoming ancestral high in the foothills of the mountains, but it was decades away.

He could find it again. There's a moderate chance it's advanced by now. Or he could find another. There very easily could be another.

He gets to looking. His mother doesn't remember exactly where, so he'll have to meticulously cover multiple square miles of ground up in the hills, half a day's walk away, examining each and every tree above a certain size.

His first trip out, he wanders through the forest for three days with barely anything eat, almost frantic to find the tree as fast as he can.

He doesn't find anything. He shouldn't be surprised. Multiple square miles of land is, uh. A rather large area.

It's weeks before he gets another chance to head out. The issue is that he needs days clear to search properly. 

This time he packs a lot more food, rather than just living off orus fruit. Nuts and dried meat should help supplement his diet. He finds the exact spot he left off searching last time and moves forward from there, meticulously surveying the land.

He's very lucky there isn't anything genuinely dangerous this close to the Wei clan.

A grumpy-looking girl his age appears, stalking through the trees. She's wearing black robes, with a blood-red rope tied around her waist like a belt in a complex bow, and a long sword sheathed at her waist. Her eyes flick cautiously around the valley as she walks, black hair cut blade-straight hanging about her face. Countless hair-thin scars littered her skin, across her face and hands. She seems to be focused on distant spirit beasts, but her eyes suddenly lock on Lindon as she comes closer.

"You're awfully big for a baby, and your elders have to be cracked if they're letting you out among all the spirit beasts."

Well, that's highly non-ideal. A non-clan sacred artist. One that looks dangerous. She might even be Iron. She probably won't risk hurting him, he's wearing Wei Clan colors, but it's not worth risking. He tries to duck behind a tree when he first spots her, but before he's even close to it she's talking.

"Uh. Baby? I've seen fourteen winters." He's never had people think he's younger than he actually is before.

She doesn't talk like anyone he's spoken to before. Maybe the wild sacred artists out at the edge of the valley speak like that?

She cocks an eyebrow and frowns at him. "You're Foundation. That's a baby by any count, even if you're old for a baby."

This is very confusing. Fifteen is incredibly slow for a clan child, but not for a wild sacred artist.

Wait. Also. Unless she's been following him around for a long time she knows that because she sensed his strength. Because she's a Jade. 

He is no longer so sure she can't simply kill him and get away with it. A wild Jade is not a normal wild sacred artist, presuming she's actually a wild sacred artist at all which is no longer seeming to be such a good presumption.

He bows at the waist and says, "This one apologizes for his lack of understanding. It is as the honoured Jade says."

Really? This crap? "Quit your bowing and scraping, I'm just a Jade. Rather rot than turn into one of those polished up idiots who thinks their rank means so much."

So, he was right when he thought she was a wild sacred artist after all. She's not a school elder, she's not somehow a member of the Li or Kazan clans, she's not even the brightest star of some backwater sect of sacred artists. She's just a girl. Who hit Jade. On her own. 

What the fuck.

Anyway, she's told him how to act. No bowing and scraping, so back to the respect he'd give to a higher ranked Sacred Artist not of his clan who was- visiting the Wei clan markets, or something.

This is a problem. That's also bowing and scraping. He's Unsouled. That's the proper way for him to interact with everyone. She's asked him to stop but she thinks he's a slow Foundation stage normal child, not Unsouled. She- might mean it anyway? Even if she knew?

He's so tempted to just not tell her. It would be so nice to have someone not look at him like that. His sister doesn't. She's- it. The list of people who look at him like he's a full person is one entry long.

What if she realizes later, though? Somehow? Perhaps it's better not to risk it. 

(He remembers the beatings he got for taking his badge off and trying to pretend to be normal with children from the other side of the Wei clan who didn't know his face.)

No. This is an opportunity. He needs to take those. He needs to take those. How else can he catch up to everyone else? How else can he make up for his weak spirit?

"Gratitude, honoured Jade," he says, tone different, the title said like it's just another pair of words used because he doesn't know her name and wants to be polite rather than something that makes a sacred artist innately above him. It does but he can act otherwise if that's what she prefers. That might still be too deferential but honestly he doesn't actually know what else to call her.

"Tch, better. Are you chipped in the head, though? What's an overgrown baby like you doing this far away from clan walls and safety? Don't you know there are spirit beasts in the woods?"

"There aren't really dangerous ones this close to the Wei Clan, we hunt them if they're valuable and drive them off if they're not. It's possible I could run into something dangerous but I think it's worth the risk. As far as the reason goes, I'm performing an errand for my mother."

If she presses he's not going to refuse to answer her in more detail but he would really rather not mention the powerful spirit fruit potentially in the area to her. She's Jade, it would help her much less than it would help him, but what reason would she have not to just take it anyway? He certainly couldn't stop her. 

"Still think you're chipped, safe for everyone else ain't the same as safe for Foundations, but you're not my lookout."

"What kind of cracked parents send a Foundation to run an errand in the woods? Do you have fifteen brothers, and they're trying to thin the flock?"

Ah. That's a solid point, actually. It's not normal for someone Foundation stage to be this far from home on their own. He's allowed because he's- well. His age. His size. The fact that he knows how to make script circles to keep remnants out, and so he's more safe than you might expect from half of the threats out here. But mostly, because he's- expendable. He's not going to be worth more some day. He isn't the future of the clan.

All of that can be seen on his face, briefly.

"Not- exactly that. I'm in less danger than you might expect. And this is a way for, ah, an overgrown child to be useful. Maybe even end up more than just that, if I get lucky."

That's more than he should have said. That's definitely more than he should have said. She might guess he's talking about a cultivation resource. Okay, deflect her a bit off that.

"Things to help you advance aren't cheap, you know."

There, now she plausibly just thinks this is something that's letting him earn some money. And possibly thinks he's still Foundation because his family is the poorest in the Wei Clan, or something like that. Which should make her less likely to try kidnapping him, or to try to shake some money out of him.

That's a complicated set of looks on his face. More complicated than she'd expect for someone slow enough to still be here. One of those looks almost looks like he's already rotted in their eyes.

"How's someone your age still Foundation, anyway? Ain't that normally done with by eight?"

How does she not even know how long it takes? Is she a prodigy who raised herself in the woods or something? Was she raised by sentient swords?

"Done with by 13 if you're slow about it, in the clans, and longer outside them." He's a bit over a year past the slowest child in the clan.

His badge is hidden by the large cloak he's wearing. It doubles as a blanket, it's very convenient. It's been odd of him to allow it to remain hidden this long at all, and that look in her eyes- yes, she suspects.

Silly of him to imagine he had a real chance of keeping what he is hidden. It's a bad idea to lie to a strange Jade, even if he wants to. An opportunity- to do what, exactly?

He pulls the badge out. The badge without a sceptre, without a hammer, without an arrow, without a shield. Just one character. Empty.

This is the face of a Yerin who has no idea why Lindon's badge looks like that. She doesn't normally put much stock in the whole badge... thing, it's a weird Sacred Valley thing, but she at least knows what they mean. But empty?

"What in blood and rot does empty mean?"

Well. That's not the reaction he was expecting. She- maybe she actually was raised by sentient swords out in the wilderness?

But he's shown her the badge. He's not going to lie now. He can't think up anything fast enough.

"It means I'm Unsouled. No affinity at all. No strength to my spirit. Empty inside."

Oh, no affinity, that's normal enough, just stuff some elixirs in his face and he'll be fi—

Wait. What did he call it?

Unsouled. His clan says he's empty inside. And he had that look. And the bowing and scraping.

"Your elders are so cracked they treat you as worthless for this. Don't they."