Yes!!! Should she go for number six?

...Nah. The soreness all throughout her body and the fuzzy weight on her brain is getting to the same point as when she failed, yesterday. Better not to push it. She can maybe go for one more a day, every day, until she gets to eight per day - or more!

She checks the chatroom, plays some more vidya, is called by her parents and has to bullshit about her "new job" since they've heard the small town rumors about her ducking out by now, and vegges out (and maaaybe idly fantasizes about Cocoa a tiny bit) before bed.

Someone knocks on her door in the morning.

Well, it's not her door, but she opens it and says, "Hello?" Nonetheless.

It's a fit, brown-haired woman she's never seen before. She's holding a plate of bacon and eggs with toast and jam in one hand (utensils included) and a black lacquered box in the other. A sword is hovering in the air in front of the door, hilt facing the door. 

"Hey," she says. "It's me, Ravenous Blade. Can I hand you this food?"

Blink, blink. "Uh, yeah." She takes the food. If the 'wards' she can barely sort of feel at the edge of her awareness let her in, she's probably legit, so.

The plate goes in the kitchen a seat down from where her abandoned bowl of cereal and milk is. "-I was totally picturing 'ravenous blade' as a guy. Also, Black Claw is upstairs, unless he left already. By the way."

"Yeah, we talked. You get up early as a cultivator, we let you sleep. I came to give you this." She offers the black-lacquered box. "All the other daoists were kind of shirking tradition, so I figured even something half-assed would be better than nothing. Threw this together in my forge overnight, hope it helps you out."

"The tradition of... Giving newbies stuff? I mean, I have to earn my place, right..."

She opens the box.

"That's bullshit. You need to be given a fighting chance first."

Inside the box, lying on a bed of red velvet, is a single black iron knuckle. 

"Figured you'd need a weapon, just in case. It's got amplification formations on it that'll make your blows hit an order of magnitude harder."

"-Ooh. Uh, not that I'm especially expecting to get into fights? I'm not sure how often that really happens. Does it have limited charges or anything?"

"Like I said, just in case. As long as you stay inside the building and let us restock your groceries you're fine, but there are all kinds of opportunistic types out there. No charges, I wouldn't do that to you. It uses your own qi to do its thing. Might tire you a little faster but not seriously so. Wanna try it out?"

"Yes." She picks it up, decides it'd go better on her right fist as she leads with it, puts it on. "Not that I expect this out of you or the others, but it seems like it'd be possible to make one that... Poisons me or steals my energy for you or something? I'm trying to get a feel for the, like, range of scary shit out there."

"Poison for sure, Snow Rose has some nasty trap-seals, but subtler things are harder. Maybe Silver Starlight or Eight Tails could, but I'm not sure how I'd make something that'd merely hamper rather than kill."

Nodnod.

She heads gym-wards. "Gonna punch one of the punching bags. They seem pretty tough. And later today I am gonna try to get to nine strands." Smirk. 

"Nice. If you keep up this rate people might start calling you another genius soon. I'll come along to the gym."

She follows at a lazy lope that somehow never actually falls behind.

"Determined, not a genius."

She does some punches and mobility-leaps on empty air, trying to feel for the difference wearing the knuckles.

Then she zips up and whams a punching bag!

The punching bag falls over and slides halfway across the gym. 

"Nice one!"

"Yikes! I like it! I hope I don't need to use it, but I like it."

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Ravenous Blade shrugs. "My advice is just to stay inside for now - I caught a second-rank signature lurking around the house with my sensing, but they must have noticed me noticing them because when I went looking they were gone. They won't try the formations. most likely. Just dogs sniffing around, probably won't bite. Still, be safe."

"Mmh. I was planning on ever going outside again. I can stay here for a week or two and not be super obvious about leaving and bring these knuckles. I'm assuming we're just ignoring UK weapons law at this point...?"

"There's a warding formation on it. Reach for it with your qi and you should be able to make it invisible."

She furrows her brow, then manages this without much fuss.

"Neat!"

"Not my best work but it'll do. I recommend keeping it on you in a jacket pocket or similar."

"Yeah. Are you just here to drop that off, or to uh meet the new face as well, or?"

"I was mostly here to drop that off. We could hang, but I'm probably kind of scary and I wouldn't want you to be sweating bullets." 

She frowns. "Incidentally, you didn't hear this from me, but... what do you know about Senior Red?"