"To tell it true, you could make it out at Copper if you had good people at your back. Pity no one in the valley'll believe you."

Yerin shrugs, stretches, and turns toward the Greatfather. "Well, maybe if I go climb that mountain I'll find something worth fighting," she muses, walking off toward the south.

No, no, she's his only potential route to a better world. He can't just let his hope walk away.

"Wait! Just- are you- is there any chance your Master would... is he looking for more recruits?"

There's no way he qualifies, but he has to try.

"Sages don't... recruit."

"He recruited you, didn't he? Maybe he needs a full-time boot polisher. I'm well aware I couldn't do more than that now, but- you don't think there's anything important wrong with me. To you it's like I was born missing a toe. The whole world out there, where Gold is normal, and here if I'm lucky beyond my wildest dreams I'll die an Iron. I know I couldn't possibly pay you back. But I'd spend the rest of my life trying."

Blood and rot.

She doesn't want to tell him no, but Master isn't looking for another recruit.

He only picked her because she was too bloody-minded to die even when it was impossible to win.

She looks down, turning away toward Mount Samara for a moment.

"We'll be in Sacred Valley for a year or so.

"I'll find you if I change his mind."

"I'm not- I don't- safe passage out of here to somewhere with civilization and with. What was the phrase? With enough aura to be worth the air it fills.That's all. Not a Path. Just a chance."

He pauses.

"Can I ask where you're staying? I- I don't want this to be the last time I ever see you."

Also it can maybe be a feature in his schemes. It doesn't sound like showing up and begging every day is the right plan. Maybe somehow figuring out some way to kill a Sacred Beast that should be drastically beyond him? If he can kill a Jade in the Foundation stage or as a Copper that should count for something, right?

"With Heaven's Glory. He's studying the tomb.

"Defy the impossible before we leave. Might help me change his mind."

She turns back toward the Greatfather and walks away.

This time he watches her go. Saying more won't help, now.

Well, he had been planning to win the Foundation tournament. Win the exhibition match after. Suddenly that doesn't seem quite so impossible with the prospect of impressing a Gold on a one year time limit to contend with. He can't just win. He has to use it as a stepping stone. Winning is step one.

Should he just eat the whole fruit now and say he didn't find anything? They'll be expecting him in another day. He could cycle it enough to have it incorporated by the time he returns. He could just say he couldn't find it.

No. That's a bad idea. if he hits Copper before the tournament he can't win the exhibition match. He won't even make it there. He has talent at fighting but everyone else has been training for years. Everyone else will have complete Paths, or at least the semifinalists will. He'll have the Empty Palm and perhaps something else he manages to invent. Not enough. Certainly not enough to defeat an Iron. 

But that just means it doesn't matter how much of the fruit he eats as long as he's at the peak of Foundation by the time he's fighting the tournament.

He goes back home. He doesn't eat the whole fruit.

He has a plan.

His parents believe him when he shows them the tiny forged sword. In fact, they try to take it from him in exchange for letting him have the second half of the fruit.

That much sword madra is valuable, you see. Perhaps enough to purchase a second orus fruit.

He doesnt want to give it up. It's his. His bit of proof all that really happened.

Are his parents entirely sure they want to sell the gift a random wandering Jade gave their son? After that Jade gave their son not just that gift, but the gift of a son who might actually hit Copper?

Her Master is odd. She was sympathetic to Lindon, and apparently it's because of lessons her Master taught her. It's why she helped him. Her Master might even hire Lindon on as a servant of some kind if Lindon does something that should be impossible for an Unsouled. He respects effort more than strength, which Lindon supposes makes sense if you're hiring someone to tidy up your camp. 

Her Master is currently an honored guest of Heaven's Glory. Lindon will never be more than a Copper, even if he gets lucky. He will always be the shame of the clan, of their family. Please, this is the only way he might ever make something of himself. Anything at all. It's not much, but it's something. Anything at all.

This is the only way he can stop shaming them without anyone losing face.

His parents buy it. His sister doesn't.

He tells her more. Not all of it. She won't believe all of it. A whole world full of Golds? No, she'll just think he was lied to.

Sacred Valley isn't the only place in the world with civilization. There are other valleys, a long way away. Yerin and her Master are from one. And they treat Unsouled differently there. Everything he said to their parents was true. But it's because there's a place he can go to live a life like the one he thought he was going to live. A life of sacred arts, of progress, of- people not looking at him like he's a bug. Yes, he'll be viewed as weaker, because he will be, but- just in the way someone who had lost a hand would be looked at. Nothing more.

Nothing worse.

That, she believes. 

He knew better than to tell her the outside thinks of being Unsouled as just starting a few steps behind. She wouldn't have believed that.

This is what he needs from Kelsa. He needs to learn how to fight. For real. And he needs her help to develop a pure madra enforcer technique.

He's going to win the Foundation tournament, and then he's going to win the exhibition match without cheating. 

And it's not going to be close. 

It needs to not be close.

Yes, he knows it's supposed to ruin your spirit if you lean too far in any direction that isn't your affinity. His spirit is already ruined. He needs every advantage he can get, so he'll take advantage of not needing to worry about that. It's already happened, to him. he was born this way. So he might as well learn every tool at his disposal. Yes, you aren't supposed to pick up a variety of techniques at the Foundation stage, and not even usually at the Copper stage. So much the worse for everyone else.

Pure madra can't be used for ruler techniques. There's no such thing as pure aura. So he's restricted to Striker, Enforcer, and Forger techniques. Forging pure madra- he doesn't have the reserves to do anything useful there. His Empty Palm is a Striker technique. He needs both under his belt for his plan to work.

She's a Ruler, but she has a weak version of the Path of the White Fox's enforcer technique even though she's a Copper. She's ambitious, she learned it early. She knows how Enforcer techniques work. 

Will she help him?

She agrees.

The next day his mother is back from consulting with one of the clan's refiners. The fruit can be stretched, somewhat, by combining it with a few other much cheaper reagents and forming an elixir. It will be expensive- the ingredients are cheaper, not cheap. And unnecessary if they simply do the wise thing and give it all to Kelsa.

He contributes half the cost. His parents cover Kelsa's half. She's worth investing in. 

Two days later still he's only made minor progress on his Enforcer technique. It's a struggle to adapt the White Fox cycling technique to pure madra. The White Fox technique relies on all the complicated flourishes and strange behaviours of White Fox madra. It's the stuff of light and dreams, and it behaves a bit like it's made of both. Neither is easy to control. Pure madra on the other hand is incredibly easy to cycle around his body. It's- simple? It flows intuitively. 

But all of that means he needs to find the bits of the White Fox technique that are vital to performing the technique itself rather than simply there to keep the madra behaving properly.

Oh, he could skip that step. He's tried it. He can throw together a thoroughly unimpressive technique that just fills his body with pure madra in around ten minutes. It does help. It's just also not helping as much as he knows it could. The Wei Clan enforcers are stronger, and their madra type is less suited to physical enforcement than pure madra is. He can do better.