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Some Learn Best in Storm
Hailey in Cultivation Chat Room
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One day, a mysterious invite to a server showed up on her home page, an invite to server called "Daoist Discord" from a user by the name of "Transcendent Tourmaline Trapmaster". 

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Huh. Hailey wasn't sure she'd met this person before? But there wasn't much harm a philosophical (or maybe RP?) Discord server could do, unless she cooperated with some scam. All else fails, it was just another thing to walk away from. Might as well join.

Swoooosh. Lightning Gale just landed.

On entry, she took a look around to see if there was any kind of intro, rules, or explanation of what this group was talking about.

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There's a rules page for the server that pops up, one of the standard isolation channels to try to make sure that the user reads the rules before going forward. 
 

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This server is supposed to be a more casual place to talk with fellow daoists from a wide variety of backgrounds and traditions and times, so the rules are going to be pretty light overall, though there's still a few things that need to be covered.

1) Be respectful of other traditions, clans and lineages - a little boasting is fine, and technical analysis is welcome (so long as you keep deeper dives in the appropriate #Sermon-Containment channels or hide the relevant content with discord's tools), but blanket statements about the strength and moral alignment of lineages will result in a temp ban - remember that there's always someone stronger out there, and there are as many ways to enlightenment as stars in the sky!

2) Keep not safe for work content in the containment channels - it's important to keep the logs clean for our juniors. 

3) Any request for cultivation resources, duel preparations, techniques, weapons, talismans, formations, food supplies and tribulation oversight should go in #request-marketplace to avoid clutter and to best ensure fair dealing. Failure to live up to agreements made shall be rectified and punished by the resident seniors discretion, alongside indefinite bans from the marketplace. If you need to negotiate in private, feel free to contact an administrator to ensure the deal works out best for both parties. 
 
 4) If you have any questions about the modern world or the fundamentals of cultivation, please check the pins in #modernity and #resources respectively before asking - it saves time for everyone. 

5) Don't forget to be kind to your juniors and pay respect to your seniors!

6) Please try to stay on topic here - digressions are fine, but make sure that you listen if the group asks you to move a conversation to a different channel, and remember we have the separate channels for a reason!

7) React to this message with a checkmark to get access to the rest of the server to show you've read the rules, and feel free to add your own pronouns, tradition, interest and DM status roles using the rolebot. 

8) Contact me, Transcendent Tourmaline Trapmaster or Glacial Glaive Grandmaster if you want to get a realm role, so we can appraise you properly!

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Okay, it was definitely reading more like RP at this point. The whole cultivator genre wasn't one she was familiar with, but new places and new scenes and new people, right? Pretty thoroughly in-character, looked like. Rules made sense though, so onward!

βœ…

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There's a bunch of reacts spaced apart onto multiple posts - it looks like it needed to be split apart to have enough room for everything, and a βœ… react on the rules themselves.

βš”οΈπŸ‘Š πŸΉπŸ—‘οΈπŸ“œπŸ–πŸ’ŠπŸ› οΈπŸ–‹οΈπŸ§­πŸŒπŸŒΏπŸŽ΅πŸͺ„

♀♂βš₯

βœ‘οΈβ˜ΈοΈβ˜―οΈβœοΈβš›οΈπŸ•‰οΈ

Most of them have about a dozen reacts, while there's 42 reacts on the checkmark and nearly as many for the crossed swords one, and significantly fewer then might be expected for the male and cross reacts.

There's a lot of channels, ranging from a general chat to seemingly an associated trade or tradition for each - ones on fighting in general, then specializations in melee weapon combat, ranged combat, and a speciality one for specifically swords, alongside #cultivation-techniques, #spirit-food, #alchemy, #forging, #talismancy, #divinations, #formations, #horticulture, #music, and #treasures, and a few more for some traditions, ranging from a taoist one to a buddhist channel. 

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Wow, there's so much! They've taken this so seriously and thoroughly. She started flitting through the channels, sampling the recent discussions in any that caught her eye β€” #spirit-food, #melee-weapons, #general, especially β€” and then suddenly stopped.

She hadn't done the roles. Back! Okay, right, gender was straightforward, and she giggled at how low the numbers were on the cross. She hadn't really put much thought into it, but she supposed calling herself an atheist was good enough for now.

β™€βš›οΈ

Back to #general she went! What was in the pins, what were people talking about now, had they noticed her apparent "Swoooosh" yet?

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She gets the role She/Her and Scholarly Faction from clicking through the roles. 

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The pins were full of a lot of inside jokes, mostly, but a few of them are weird, traceries that brought to mind silly little bounces and bright laughter and gentle kisses upon the cheek from friends and more-then-just-friends. 

Beyond that though, there's a few half-rambling notes to self of the philosophy of a wide array of things - from diagrams about weird geometries with cute cartoons of swords and swordlasers in them to more mundand arguments about what 'is' earthen, really, to a few youtube playlists of videos of martial artists, seemingly added for at least as much mockery as serious analysis. 

Right now, the channel seems to be talking about... delayed release mechanisms in pills? 

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Some of these messages were so well-written, or well-drawn, wow. They seemed to almost transport her. But how best to break into the stream of the roleplay? What would be her best option? Backgrounds varied widely, apparent clan-member cultivators mingling with freewheeling independents. Everyone seemed to be so deep in their characters' skills and abilities, the play of the expertise was so consistent...

Ahah. Best idea ever. Come at this like a new independent cultivator, trying out the disciplines for the first time. It's the most true-to-life role she could play, and would provide an easy explanation for anything she didn't know yet. The grace note of the whole plan would be that she could look through the guides and starter techniques they had, find one that looked decent (and in her style if they put that much thought and variety into their lore props), and then try the moves herself! She was athletic enough and agile enough that she could probably figure the moves out, and then she'd be able to talk from actual expertise!

It'd be great! What's it called... Method acting!

She set to tracking down information on how a newbie cultivator was supposed to start out, and then perusing through the options.

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The resources channel has a lot of things - first off, there's a lengthy explanation of the cultivation realms that they were mentioning and the associated special abilities and status, alongside a typical age range - apparently most of the members of the chat according to their roles were on the 'young genius' side rather then seniors themselves, journeymen only somewhat independent and established. There's a warning that overly detailed descriptions and understanding of some of the higher levels can be hazardous if you don't have a sufficiently good 'cultivation base', but it still tells of cultivators who can walk upon the sky, create illusory realms with their thoughts, wore power-enhancing crowns of light and even resurrect the dead with the right preparations, techniques and materials. 

The links ranged from several esoteric analyses that she can't make heads or tails of, a really long list of minor side effects of starting down the path of cultivation for things to watch out for, a fairly disturbingly detailed procedure for getting a fake ID, apparently for 'seniors who have been away from the mortal world for too long', and even a basic 'fist methodology' that was apparently designed to work for just about anyone called the "Twenty Four Flowing Fists".

And there's something weird about the image in the pin that draws her in further and deeper, some odd hypnotic moire to it that drew her in further. 

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Of course they'd have cognitohazards. There had to be cognitohazards, that made it even better. And she was very impressed with the research that went into that fake ID procedure. Serious dedication. She'd seen people actually get fake IDs with worse research and follow-through than that.

This looked like a good technique to start practicing with, a good way to really ground herself in this community. She pulled up an introductory diagram or something, attached as a pic in the pins. That image, though, something was so captivating about it...

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She's drawn into the glistening patterns, 'til suddenly she's standing in a verdant forest clearing, the cool misty of air of fall brushing against her skin. 

"Breathe."

A firm matronly voice spoke, and hands pressed across her shoulders to let her breath sink to her core. 

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The shift in surroundings overtook her smoothly enough that she didn't realize what was happening. Her whole focus was on the flow of the air, the sound of the voice.

Hailey breathed, slowly and deliberately, feeling something shift and start flowing smoother inside herself in response.

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The woman strides in front of her with each step coming in time with her breath, fox tails sticking out from beneath her kimono as she guides her hands to the starting pose and steps back herself to guide her through the kata. 

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Hailey found herself following smoothly through each motion, losing herself in the grace of the movements. The voice of the instructor carried such weight, such clear confidence, that it was easy to trust her and follow her steps and copy the kata.

(Something felt... surreal, deeper, dreamlike... about the process. So immersive and engaging, so bright and vivid, but out of sync somehow.)

But that barely registered, beneath the intense elegance of the motions of the kata, feelings changing and building as she completed each step.

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They went through the dance, slowly, and when she reached closing, her hand reached out again, pressing gently against her chest. 

"Dive in."

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And Hailey followed, and trusted, and found her attention falling further inward. Something unfolded out as she looked deeper β€” energy, motion, identity β€” an interconnected system of life filling her body, with some of the thrumming energy rising to the surface, and a void, a space, where something could be placed.

Gathering the energy felt like the natural next step, and with smooth motion it became a thread. And the only thing left to do was to slot it into place. She felt it settle and lockβ€”

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β€”and opened her eyes to her beat-up laptop that hadn't even dimmed the screen, despite however long she'd been in that forest.

What.

She'd looked at a picture and gone on a vision. That was not merely mortal mindfuckery. She'd been acting in that vision like she trusted that instructor. She'd felt it. Not the usual "humoring you and checking for where you've misled me", but actual built-up trust. In a vision. Of a forest and a martial arts kata and making energy into a thread that she placed into her heart. Led by a (beautiful) woman with fox tails, who touched her and didn't get slapped for it.

What.

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Hailey snapped her hand out across her desk, grabbed her water bottle, and started draining it. She watched the chat out of the corner of her eye. Had the conversation even gone on from where she last saw it?

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...Quick shower thought. Why don’t more alchemical pills use slow release mechanisms? It’s not like every pill out there is best taken all at once, and that just… doesn’t seem to be a thing, despite the fact that there’s already a tradition in mundane medicine of doing just that. 

 

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Yeah I wonder too! There’s so many pills that have that rush and it’s really a bit much, plus there’s some that you just sorta end up wasting β€˜cause it hits you all at once. 

 

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Harsh pills are the maker’s fault. There’s no reason not to just dose and do things properly.

 

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Yeah yeah, but it’s good to have pills that last through large ranges of cultivation, too? That can change the dosing considerations, from what I've seen....

 

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It is, but you have to keep in mind that creating something like that would likely involve just dosing it properly for a set level, and then you are back at the original problem. 

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 Oh that makes sense… But still! Suckling on pills is a bit silly. 

 

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Especially when they don’t bother to keep the size or taste to something reasonable.

 

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I think I once got one that got contaminated a little by some fire-aligned herb because my mouth just kept on burning from it :p

 

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At least it helped the effectiveness of the pill a little.

Smiley face :)

 

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Of course you’d have a pill contaminated with something that made it better…

rueful headshake

 

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But of course! The light of Radiant Heart Topaz~! Shines throughout all her life!

poses dramatically

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pfffffffffff

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Ahh...~

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little laugh

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bashful pouting noises

It’s true!!

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That’s what makes it funny, I suppose.

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Of course, the other problem is that a lot of ingredients are alchemically active in a way that interferes with them following say, some nice diffusion pattern, and there’s still some use, if only in convenience of form factor and such, that make it worth it. I’ve done some experiments with adding non-toxic alchemical slag to the pill layers to insulate it and see what that does, but introducing impurities deliberately like that is pretty dubious, and I’d have to figure out some other insulator, sometime...

writes some notes down in another tab

 

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I remember hearing about senior Glacial Glaive’s cryogenic pill furnace having some sort of exotic ice technique involved that might replicate that sort of effect? I haven’t poked at that side of her skillset too much, but it’s not necessarily a problem without known solutions. 

 

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Good to know! 

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Though gosh still feeling hyper from that body bastion pill…

bounces

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pets the hyperactive magical girl

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Broad smile emoji

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Okay. All these people were talking in a Discord server about cultivation β€” which she'd thought was an immersive roleplay group β€” with a pinned resource image that on viewing sent her on some kind of training vision (with a gorgeous inspiring elegant trustworthy charismatic instructor that vision-Hailey let touch her). Maybe this madness was real? Plan would still work, though, just even more realistically confused and "method" about the situation than she'd originally expected.

Hello! I'm not sure my invitation was intentional, but I'm glad to meet y'all. I am just about to start my path, and it seems like you have a lot of great resources and community here. After researching and then viewing the guide image about the Twenty-Four Flowing Fists, I'm currently inclined to start there.

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wave wave!

Hey~! 

Please don't worry, the invite was intentional - it's a little experiment that our lovely Senior Transcendnat Tourmaline Trapmaster dreamt up! Moonsilver accidentally ended up running here, and you read as having very... 

teehee

Good omens to come join our little group! 

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What. They planned do invite her? As a total outsider? Omens!?

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Well. Okay. Were omens really that much weirder than mindfuck vision images? No. No they really weren't.

I was not expecting omens about my arrival to become a part of my life. Love to hear more about these omens?

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I'm not a specialist in them, but apparently you have - or will have, once you properly start, really pretty excellent luck for a cultivator, and a good edge for promoting the group's success, eventually! 

I think she said it's the sort of luck one might get from a curse of 'may you live in interesting times'. 

 

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Could you tell me a bit more about what you'd like to know? I've practiced the technique and should be able to tell you most everything.

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It seemed like a little much, to be honest, but there's always time for this sort of thing if you look, and finding new opportunities is just... 

Rather lovely.

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Mhm!

"Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet!" 

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wry laugh

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Can be more true then you'd think, with the right filters.

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Yeah - though the whole concept of... luck and fate and dharma all being seperate things has always been a bit of a headache, especially through these sorts of techniques.

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Valid

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Okay. Dharma, luck, fate, all separately taken seriously. And that definitely sounded like her luck. Huh. Well, open mind?

I think she said it's the sort of luck one might get from a curse of 'may you live in interesting times'. 

I'm glad to hear it sounds like good luck, but that old curse feels very familiar to me. And does starting cultivating make it more dramatic or less? I'll stick it out either way, but forewarned is forearmed and all.

Could you tell me a bit more about what you'd like to know? I've practiced the technique and should be able to tell you most everything.

Good to see someone who has specific experience with this one, thanks for the offer. I think my main question is about... practice rates and how many threads I should aim for how often? I'm starting from a point of decent fitness β€” a lot of parkour and running every day β€” but don't have as much experience with spiritual matters.

Also, just generally, would you recommend it as a starting technique?

("don't have as much experience"... understatement of the week, that.)

Yeah - though the whole concept of... luck and fate and dharma all being seperate things has always been a bit of a headache, especially through these sorts of techniques.

Honestly I can see their being a headache all on their own, on top of keeping them untangled in my head. Not a lot I can do about it other than try to learn, though. Fate's ever a fickle bitch, in my experience, and I'm along for the ride.

Well, she was definitely looking down a rabbit hole at this point, and hopefully she'd find out a bit more about what the passage looked like, and maybe how far down it really went. (She couldn't let herself not leap even if the only answer she got to the latter was "far enough", though...)

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I'm glad to hear it sounds like good luck, but that old curse feels very familiar to me. And does starting cultivating make it more dramatic or less? I'll stick it out either way, but forewarned is forearmed and all.

It depends. It's not too uncommon for the luck of someone upon beginning cultivation to shift, and that can change in either direction - but in general more dramatic is probable.

Honestly I can see their being a headache all on their own, on top of keeping them untangled in my head. Not a lot I can do about it other than try to learn, though. Fate's ever a fickle bitch, in my experience, and I'm along for the ride.

That's a good attitude to have! It's far from impossible to modify your luck, though, and that's something you might want to check out before going into the analytical side. Have you read up on the warnings in the pins? 

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Good to see someone who has specific experience with this one, thanks for the offer. I think my main question is about... practice rates and how many threads I should aim for how often? I'm starting from a point of decent fitness β€” a lot of parkour and running every day β€” but don't have as much experience with spiritual matters.

Also, just generally, would you recommend it as a starting technique?

Part of the breathing technique is something that you can use all the time, by the way, so I'm not too sure how to answer that more directly? But in terms of actually cultivating towards strands, it's probably good to start out with the idea that you'll be getting a thread or two a day, with that gradually increasing as the effects get better. Personally, it's been an excellent starting technique for me for how good it is as a generalized foundation and soft style, but the fact that it's balanced can make it a little undesirable for those who are looking for specialization right out of the gate. Hard to get a read more generally without a chance to examine you more, though. 

The technique does include diagnostics for the sort of overstress that it can cause to cultivate too hard, though, and that can be a decent guide, especially if you are going to be doing it without any external factors influencing the process - Rabid Ruby Smelting Savant's formation work really helped me get through the earliest parts, for example. 

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Here's a write-up of it I have lying around - might help with outside perspective?

A high-quality foundation building to True Master Fist technique, derived from a simplified form of the art of Tai Chi relatively recently developed by Fox of the Sylvan Spirit Lake. 

The overall design is exceptionally thorough and gentle, allowing one to get in the door of cultivation relatively smoothly, and the balanced energies naturally refine the foundation excellently.

The fighting style itself is a soft style emphasizing efficient blocking, redirection and fine control, though it includes useful kicking and punching techniques to allow for effective energy projection.

The style is unusually hard to enter with the mentality and mental energy of a child, making it less than desirable for those who can afford something on this level.

If it can be said to have any flaws, it could be said that it lacks specialization and lack of options designed to deal with the strongest of defences and offences, relying on efficiency and control of motion, and movement techniques the user possesses for that use case. 

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That's a good attitude to have! It's far from impossible to modify your luck, though, and that's something you might want to check out before going into the analytical side. Have you read up on the warnings in the pins?

Thanks! I skimmed some of them, but I need to take a closer look.

Part of the breathing technique is something that you can use all the time

This is quite straightforwardly helpful; I haven't done any breathing techniques before, and might not have realized this.

it's probably good to start out with the idea that you'll be getting a thread or two a day, with that gradually increasing as the effects get better.

A set-point I can start with! Thank you!

Here's a write-up of it I have lying around - might help with outside perspective?

Oh, this is excellent. Just what I needed.

Hard to get a read more generally without a chance to examine you more, though. 

Examine me? What's involved in that?

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She took a look around the pins... Now where were those luck-changing warnings? Or any other warnings that she'd missed?

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Thanks! I skimmed some of them, but I need to take a closer look.

This is quite straightforwardly helpful; I haven't done any breathing techniques before, and might not have realized this. 

A set-point I can start with! Thank you!

Oh, this is excellent. Just what I needed.

Happy to help with this all. 

Examine me? What's involved in that?

Depends on the process. In practice, it'd probably involve just putting my hand on your shoulder for a few seconds while you relax back and don't resist.

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There's a post about the consequences of breaking oaths with giant bold italicized letters saying at the top of it simply "DON'T.", though there's a longer discussion to read below it, and a longer discussion on normal risks of being a cultivator. There's a handful of general note documents linked which might include that, and an offhanded mention that cultivating Light of Virtue can improve your dharma and luck in another one of them.

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All those concerns looked reasonable, looked like she could handle them as they came up. She nodded firmly to herself.

Depends on the process. In practice, it'd probably involve just putting my hand on your shoulder for a few seconds while you relax back and don't resist.

Well that's a relief~

(Certainly not a disappointment.)

Okay! I'm pretty sure I've got my head around enough things at this point, and English Lit 203 is not nearly as important as the real live supernatural, so I'm skipping and heading off to try my first strand. I'd say wish me luck, but you've already checked and mine is apparently good!

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giggle

 

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Have fun!

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Good skill.

 

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Hailey drained the rest of her water, refilled it and her spare, and threw both in her pack. Stripping off the outfit she'd picked for school that day, she switched into leggings and sports bra and tank top and running shoes and threw her pack on her back. Just before departing, she grabbed her phone and checked the chat, typing out a quick "Thanks!" in response.

And then she dashed out the door.

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Leaping diagonally across the alley from the walkway around the edge of her complex, Hailey caught tightly onto the brick face of the far wall, climbing a step and then leaping sideways onto the roof of a low building at the end of the alley. She landed in a roll, sprung to her feet, and she was off.

Along ledges, over railings, and off walls she bounded. Her feet pounded along rooftops and scaffolding. She ricocheted higher between gaps, leapt across alleys, and swung around corners.

And after several minutes she found herself in an apparently-inaccessible rooftop garden, thoroughly warmed up. She drank some water, catching her breath, and stretched.

This was it.

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Steadying her breathing further, Hailey walked through what she recalled about the technique. It started with the breath.

Slow and measured, in and out, out and in, she breathed out the chaos and breathed in balance. And then she dipped lower, bending her knees, and lifted and lowered her arms in the graceful motions of the Flowing Fists, flowing through each step of the kata with intent and care. She shifted her weight, she twisted, she moved through slow-motion strikes and smoothly sweeping blocks, the words of her Senior echoing in her mind all the while. Breathe as one with the world, and follow the steps.

Each sequence of the technique in flowed through her body and mind in turn. She built warmth and strain in her body, focus and intent in her mind, energy in both. Eventually she came to a stop, the motions of the technique complete.

She found her breath coming hard, winded but stable, and a gathered glimmer of energy under her skin, invigorating her.

She sat down, breathing carefully, leaning into the mental motion to dive into that internal spiritual place she remembered from the vision. The interconnected flow of living energy spiraled out before her view, the void of an aperture over her heart ready to receive, and the thrumming layer of energy near the surface ready to be gathered.

Carefully, slowly, she gathered the energy, holding it and shaping it into a thread. When it solidified, she gently pushed it into her heart's aperture, and it stuck.

And her focus returned to the world. She'd just taken her first step of cultivation. Wow.

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A thick black sludge coated her skin alongside her sweat, and she was out of breath like she'd spent hours exercising, her newly invigorating heart pumping hard in her chest. 

Still, she was stronger and better beneath that all, and could feel the energy inside of her flowing smoothly as she started down the road of cultivation. 

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She stood up, briefly wobbly, then steadier. Ick, all this sludge would have to go, but what a feeling! After draining her remaining water and doing some more stretches, she leapt from the rooftop and started the route back. Good thing it was mostly downhill to get home.

As she went, she found herself spotting the familiar handholds just a tiny bit faster, her leaps carrying her just the slightest bit farther. Despite how tired she was, something about the route seemed... easier now.

She finished the route by diving into a rolling landing on the walkway, utterly delighted despite the deeper-than-physical ragged fatigue that hung about her. She unlocked the door, strode inside, tossed her bag down, and grabbed her phone.

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Thread GET.

She started stripping off her tank top, then frowned. A trip to the kitchenette for a garbage bag just in case, and in everything went. Standing naked in the middle of her studio, she pick the phone back up to continue.

Okay, these clothes are just full of this impurity gunk. Should I just write them off? Off to the shower for now.

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Water on, couple minutes of warm-up waited, and then in. Getting under the warm water, she took her time scrubbing away all the grime. Washed her hair, scrubbed her back, noticed that her abs seemed a little tighter. Did Not Noticeβ„’ the way her breath wanted to catch as she scrubbed her breasts. Gasped briefly when she started washing her sex and then pointedly moved along, finishing briskly and continuing to her legs.

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Towel-wrapped and fresh, she picked her phone back up to glance into the Discord server...

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Okay, these clothes are just full of this impurity gunk. Should I just write them off? Off to the shower for now.

Honestly, sometimes your entire set of outfits are a write-off, just from the physical changes from body tempering? The gunk is possible to get out, but not quickly, and probably not worth saving it as an alchemical thing.

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Yeah! 

Don't feel super bound by any of that - poke Senior Tourmaline and she'll wire you any funds you need for that or your living arrangements... 

It's really impressive how much of a mess it is - can soak through most anything if you aren't careful, and it can even resist some really basic cleaning spells...

I'm thankful that it's doable enough to work-around that happening after foundation building. 

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Oh and @Lightning Gale, how are you feeling? 

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Oh and @Lightning Gale, how are you feeling? 

I'm feeling great! The run back was amazing β€” my leaps were lighter and my grip was tighter and the whole thing was awesome β€” despite being tired!

It's really impressive how much of a mess it is - can soak through most anything if you aren't careful, and it can even resist some really basic cleaning spells...

I'm thankful that it's doable enough to work-around that happening after foundation building. 

Honestly, sometimes your entire set of outfits are a write-off, just from the physical changes from body tempering? The gunk is possible to get out, but not quickly, and probably not worth saving it as an alchemical thing.

Okay, now I'm kinda curious what this awful stuff can even be used for!

Seriously, though, I'm glad there are ways to deal with the situation.

Hailey tied up the bagged clothes, bagged them again, and then tossed them into the garbage. Those leggings were getting old anyway.

Don't feel super bound by any of that - poke Senior Tourmaline and she'll wire you any funds you need for that or your living arrangements... 

Wow. That's really generous! I'm not really attached to any of this current situation β€” dirt-cheap studio apartment near campus when cultivating is so much more interesting than school β€” so I have some thinking to do before I get to accepting any offers like that.

Um. Um. Okay. Well, apparently the crew had some money to throw around? Leaving that be for now.

Oh and @Lightning Gale, how are you feeling? 

Um also, my skin is a lot more sensitive. Took me by surprise for a moment in the shower. Warn a girl?

Hailey blushed. Why the hell did she just write that?

Anyway, right. Had a couple more questions: y'all keep talking about things like sword techniques and fist techniques and movement techniques, but what even are those?

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Okay, now I'm kinda curious what this awful stuff can even be used for!

Seriously, though, I'm glad there are ways to deal with the situation.

It's useful for being useless, more or less - it's a terrible degrading medium for transmitting spiritual energies, so there's some applications for throwing it in with a binder when you don't need to worry about 'purity' due to other things going on, 'diluting' materials that can't be conventionally diluted by having the detrimental reaction and mix together, and things like that. Overall though, it's not rarely a first choice even for low-grade pill crafting. 

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Um also, my skin is a lot more sensitive. Took me by surprise for a moment in the shower. Warn a girl?

giggle <3 What were you expecting from a process that refines your body to its peak~?

Anyway, right. Had a couple more questions: y'all keep talking about things like sword techniques and fist techniques and movement techniques, but what even are those?

Fist techniques are for fingering your ass and pussy, Sword techinques are for dicks and dildos, and movement techniques are for thrusting into your partner as fast and hard as you can. 

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Wow. That's really generous! I'm not really attached to any of this current situation β€” dirt-cheap studio apartment near campus when cultivating is so much more interesting than school β€” so I have some thinking to do before I get to accepting any offers like that.

It's not conditional on anything, it's just money that you can spend and an idea for something to spend it on, that's all. But feel free to take your time, I suppose...? 

Also, goddess you're a horny girl Topaz.

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Lol

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Giggle

Guilty as charged~!

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Anyway, right. Had a couple more questions: y'all keep talking about things like sword techniques and fist techniques and movement techniques, but what even are those?

The more serious explanation is something like that techniques are generally broken up by affinity and application - a 'sword technique' is generally anything designed with the affinity in mind that you wield the weapon as a combat technique, a fist technique is generally any unarmed technique not explicitly designed as a kicking one, though they will use that affinity, and a movement technique is anything that lets you move faster then raw physical amplification and base statistics would normally apply as a basic part of its function.

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It's useful for being useless, more or less

That's an amazing phrase, I have to say. All of that makes some sense, and it's neat to see that even this gross stuff has some value.

giggle <3 What were you expecting from a process that refines your body to its peak~?

Fist techniques are for fingering your ass and pussy, Sword techinques are for dicks and dildos, and movement techniques are for thrusting into your partner as fast and hard as you can.

[blush] Moonsilver's right about you, Topaz!

The more serious explanation is something like that techniques are generally broken up by affinity and application - a 'sword technique' is generally anything designed with the affinity in mind that you wield the weapon as a combat technique, a fist technique is generally any unarmed technique not explicitly designed as a kicking one, though they will use that affinity, and a movement technique is anything that lets you move faster then raw physical amplification and base statistics would normally apply as a basic part of its function.

Oh wow, okay, that's so cool! How does one figure out their affinities? Is this the examination you were talking about earlier, Moonsilver?

It's not conditional on anything, it's just money that you can spend and an idea for something to spend it on, that's all. But feel free to take your time, I suppose...? 

It's kind of just a lot. I've been kind of fending for myself since leaving home, and anyone who's offered things to me before has had awful strings or told lies. Y'all don't feel like that, though. So, this feels a bit weird.

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That's an amazing phrase, I have to say. All of that makes some sense, and it's neat to see that even this gross stuff has some value.

resists the urge to link a bunch of economics explainers

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Oh wow, okay, that's so cool! How does one figure out their affinities? Is this the examination you were talking about earlier, Moonsilver?

What I was talking about was mostly a more limited technique compatibility test based off of the checks with the constituion changes and energy? I don't have a proper generalized option for that, yet. But there's a pretty similar process for testing out affinities if you use the right techniques, though you'll generally get the best results from going and just trying things out with some little toy or something. 

It's kind of just a lot. I've been kind of fending for myself since leaving home, and anyone who's offered things to me before has had awful strings or told lies. Y'all don't feel like that, though. So, this feels a bit weird.

Yeah the whole thing is a little... surreal.

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What I was talking about was mostly a more limited technique compatibility test? But there's a pretty similar process for testing out affinities if you use the right techniques, though you'll generally get the best results from going and just trying things out with some little toy or something. 

Ah, that mostly makes sense. What sort of toys would work?

Yeah the whole thing is a little... surreal.

Yeah. At least you see it. I've had people claim their "friendly offers" were perfectly natural and that it was insulting to ask what they got out of it. Cui bono, y'know?

(Why under a stormy sky was she giving that away already? Practically giving them the answer key...)

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Ah, that mostly makes sense. What sort of toys would work?

There's a lot a lot, too many to compactly list. There's a few ones that just give you the results directly, a few that you just sort of dump energy into a get a weak associated effect, that sort of thing. 

Yeah. At least you see it. I've had people claim their "friendly offers" were perfectly natural and that it was insulting to ask what they got out of it. Cui bono, y'know?

Mostly, it's a "Once you have enough savings, why not get more fun people involved in the cool stuff of our lives?" There's a thing in the cultivator community with the cycle of ancestors and forebearers, but I doubt that would sound convincing to you. 

 

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There's a lot a lot, too many to compactly list. There's a few ones that just give you the results directly, a few that you just sort of dump energy into a get a weak associated effect, that sort of thing. 

Hm. I'll have to check some out at some point. Be pretty great if an affinity or something else about cultivating made it easier to spend more time in storms, especially windy ones. The storms are the one thing I really miss about Louisiana, honestly. The ones up here just don't compare.

Mostly, it's a "Once you have enough savings, why not get more fun people involved in the cool stuff of our lives?" There's a thing in the cultivator community with the cycle of ancestors and forebearers, but I doubt that would sound convincing to you. 

[sighs] Honestly, coming from y'all, that might even work this time. Something about the literal supernatural seems to throw my whole usual math off for this sort of thing. Either that or I've got a high from this thread.

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Hm. I'll have to check some out at some point. Be pretty great if an affinity or something else about cultivating made it easier to spend more time in storms, especially windy ones. The storms are the one thing I really miss about Louisiana, honestly. The ones up here just don't compare.

If nothing else, even just cultivating the 24 flowing fists will mean that you don't have to worry about a lot of the normal risks of them from the basic upgrades to the body? It's decently likely there will be something more specific for that, though - considering it is a reflection of what is natural for your soul. 

[sighs] Honestly, coming from y'all, that might even work this time. Something about the literal supernatural seems to throw my whole usual math off for this sort of thing. Either that or I've got a high from this thread.

snort It's perfectly natural to be a little thrown off. That being said, you don't need to worry about getting a high from it any more then you would need to about mundane exercise and meditation. That being said... 

Have you read senior TTT's warnings about starting on the path? 

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If nothing else, even just cultivating the 24 flowing fists will mean that you don't have to worry about a lot of the normal risks of them from the basic upgrades to the body? It's decently likely there will be something more specific for that, though - considering it is a reflection of what is natural for your soul. 

That would be pretty amazing~

snort It's perfectly natural to be a little thrown off. That being said, you don't need to worry about getting a high from it any more then you would need to about mundane exercise and meditation. That being said... 

Have you read senior TTT's warnings about starting on the path? 

I have. You talking about the caution against mundanely-intense spiritual and meditative experiences?

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I have. You talking about the caution against mundanely-intense spiritual and meditative experiences?

A little? I was more talking about the bit about psychiatric disorders and such - I'm nearly certain you didn't really hit any novel state, since you were following the path of the technique, but it can still be somewhat more intense and 'cleared up' to work properly, if there was something holding you back, but that's a somewhat seperate concern.

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A little? I was more talking about the bit about psychiatric disorders and such - I'm nearly certain you didn't really hit any novel state, since you were following the path of the technique, but it can still be somewhat more intense and 'cleared up' to work properly, if there was something holding you back, but that's a somewhat seperate concern.

Would "ran away from an abusive adoptive home and can't really trust anyone but somehow trusts y'all anyway" count for that? I'm pretty sure there isn't and wasn't any actual high going on, nor anything resembling one, was mostly just making a joke about how different it feels to trust someone ever, and how unexpected it is. Pretty sure that trust thing is the closest to a disorder I've got.

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Would "ran away from an abusive adoptive home and can't really trust anyone but somehow trusts y'all anyway" count for that? I'm pretty sure there isn't and wasn't any actual high going on, nor anything resembling one, was mostly just making a joke about how different it feels to trust someone ever, and how unexpected it is. Pretty sure that trust thing is the closest to a disorder I've got.

...Yes of course that counts on the abuse side.

sends hugs

 

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fussily pets

 

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Basically, if you are dramatically 'off' in some way, the body tempering process will deal with that and well...

It doesn't matter if it's been 'officially diagnosed' or it's any particular disorder.

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adds to the hugs if that helps

I'm really sorry to hear that...

Trust can be weird - feel free to just try to get to know us better, first? I know that can help a lot to make things seem real.

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[tentatively leans into all the hugs and pets] Yeah, I guess that makes sense of it. Well, damn. Guess maybe I'd been underestimating how much the bastards fucked me up? Oh well. All this madness only increases my ability to stay well and truly gone.

[sighs shakily] Okay then. So... what sorts of things do y'all do for fun?

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Obviously, we cultivate.

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affectionately pokes Steely Student

We do, but that's not a good place to start :p

Trying out gymnastics as a cultivator is just really really fun.

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Yeah~!

it's also surprisingly fun to just... go out adventring, even if it's just for the sights, and it's fun to work on my singing arts and chat with lingering ghosts. There's so many different perspectives to explore when you can get a chance to explore like that. 

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...I like window shopping and experimenting with pills, I suppose? 

It's always nice to get something working with materials you didn't know could work, and it's definitely a relief on my budget :p

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Obviously, we cultivate.

affectionately pokes Steely Student

We do, but that's not a good place to start :p

Hehe, it's not the worst idea. I've enjoyed what little I've done so far~

Trying out gymnastics as a cultivator is just really really fun.

Oooh. This is a good thought, I should go do some gymnastics and a bunch more parkour! Running back was so much fun, for all that I was exhausted on a non-physical level.

it's also surprisingly fun to just... go out adventring, even if it's just for the sights, and it's fun to work on my singing arts and chat with lingering ghosts. There's so many different perspectives to explore when you can get a chance to explore like that. 

Oh my, exploring? Adventuring? Meguca Woman after my own heart there, Topaz.

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Grin

That's a good form of address~

There's a lot of basic exploration and calibration that you can do to get that better, but doing things that you are used to will generally be ok~

Curious what you are thinking of wanting to do, as a cultivator? 

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Grin

That's a good form of address~

I'll keep that in mind~

Did she really just tease back? With a flirty playful little tilde?

Curious what you are thinking of wanting to do, as a cultivator? 

To a certain extent I don't know my options very well. As far as I can just extend or pivot from how I enjoy spending my time already, I cook, I run an awful damned lot of parkour, and I try to get to high and windy places with it whenever possible. I'm currently in college studying Atmospheric Physics to become a professional storm chaser, though I don't know whether holding on to mortal world educations and career goals is worthwhile. I have traveled pretty far from my "hometown" (though I'll never consider that place "home"), and would love to have more of a chance to travel pleasurably instead of for escape.

In short, if it involves storms and sky and wind and going fast and exploring, I want it. Likewise cooking, though that winds up waiting for when I stay still long enough.

I think I saw mention of alchemy and pill-making? And something about immortal cookery? Those both sound interesting. Really everything sounds interesting, but those sound like they might extend from something I already have non-zero skill in.

Heavens, she was really just gushing. Was this what she would've been like if she'd had actual friends, and hadn't grown up with β€”

Oh well. Nothing for it now but to just be more of herself, whoever she was growing into β€” and growing much further than she would have, with the opportunities provided by cultivation...

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To a certain extent I don't know my options very well. As far as I can just extend or pivot from how I enjoy spending my time already, I cook, I run an awful damned lot of parkour, and I try to get to high and windy places with it whenever possible. I'm currently in college studying Atmospheric Physics to become a professional storm chaser, though I don't know whether holding on to mortal world educations and career goals is worthwhile. I have traveled pretty far from my "hometown" (though I'll never consider that place "home"), and would love to have more of a chance to travel pleasurably instead of for escape.

In short, if it involves storms and sky and wind and going fast and exploring, I want it. Likewise cooking, though that winds up waiting for when I stay still long enough.

I think I saw mention of alchemy and pill-making? And something about immortal cookery? Those both sound interesting. Really everything sounds interesting, but those sound like they might extend from something I already have non-zero skill in.

Ooooo~? 

Cooking is a good place to start! 

Alchemy tends to relate mostly closely to skill with chemistry, but cooking knowledge and instincts can transfer, a little, though it's not much more of an advantage then having a decent fire affinity for working the flames. 

Places with weird weather can exist in all sorts of interesting spiritual groves, and there's divinatory work that uses the weather and stuff like that for omens and portents? Not sure if that's what you have in mind. It's ok to have mortal ambitions it's just... often kinda trivialized by cultivation stuff, you know? Can even get dragged along with comprehension work, too. 

I'm the best Immortal Chef on the server, feel free to ask me anything you'd like to know about it! 

@Transcendant Tourmaline Trapmaster 

Can I get to do the testing for her? Please...?

shy excited smile

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@Mindful Master Maid 

Yeah sure. 

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Thank you senior!!

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Hmm. From that, it definitely sounds like cooking's more my speed. I'd love to learn more about what it's like to be an Immortal Chef. Is it mostly figuring out how spiritual plants and spices work together, like painting in the same spectrum with a different palette, or do spirit plants add new fundamental tastes to the five (or six, if you count fatty separately) mortal ones? Are there other things to balance, like do ingredients have affinities? Can you taste affinities? Oooh, does the wind have a taste? Like as an affinity? Can you taste the spiritual energy in foods? Does it impact your cultivation? Do you have to go weird places to find rare ingredients? Do you grow them yourself? What's it like?

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Did she really just β€”

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Um. Ahem. Well.

Yes, I'd like to learn some more about it from you. And exploring places with weird weather sounds like a lot of fun. Weather-based divination sounds interesting too.

[hides]

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Hmm. From that, it definitely sounds like cooking's more my speed. I'd love to learn more about what it's like to be an Immortal Chef. Is it mostly figuring out how spiritual plants and spices work together, like painting in the same spectrum with a different palette, or do spirit plants add new fundamental tastes to the five (or six, if you count fatty separately) mortal ones? Are there other things to balance, like do ingredients have affinities? Can you taste affinities? Oooh, does the wind have a taste? Like as an affinity? Can you taste the spiritual energy in foods? Does it impact your cultivation? Do you have to go weird places to find rare ingredients? Do you grow them yourself? What's it like?

giggle

Awww adorable.

Being a spiritual chef is about a lot of things? It's totally possible to make immortal food with mundane ingredients (more or less unlike alchemy). You can get more tastes in, but mostly that's too involved to bother with and it generally works better to work in the experiential direction or with existing palettes? Ingredients do have affinities, though that's not nesscarily what's being balanced - there's the usual flavour considerations, obviously, but also you need to make sure that the spiritual energy is aligned properly, that you get the plating right, that everything is correctly processed, that it's clean, and balancing the speed and quality of the effect? It's totally possible to taste spiritual energy in foods - though it's a good bit harder 'til the Mouth Acupoint sub-realm, and it totally does! The right herbs prepared correctly can shave off years of cultivation and really do basically anything a pill can do, long term, though that's generally pretty far away. You don't have to - as I said there's mundane options, and it's perfectly possible to just buy things or grow them at home - oooh will be ~fun~ to show you the glorious gaian greenhouse - I personally do that there, but that's generally the job of specialized Wood Cultivators and Immortal Horticulturalist, but I really really like having the start to end control of the ingredients. It's really really fun and there's a lot more then just doing normal mortal farming but there's so much to that too and --

excited fidget

You can taste the wind as a mortal, I suppose? But you know what that's like. Different qualities and parts of the Dao of Wind will taste different! Had a few things in that direction - Sky Shrub Salad is actually kinda great and ther'es that lovely aftertaste of sweet-dewy grass, though there is of course so so so so much to play with~

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Pets you both

Cuties~

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timid blush

It's not like you all don't get like that too.

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chuckle

Fair :p

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@Mindful Master Maid

starry-eyes

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@Radiant Heart Topaz~!

[blush!]

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giggle forehead kiss

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shy beam

Please send over an address so I can fly over now :p

@Lightning Gale

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giggle forehead kiss

[blush-sigh]

Please send over an address so I can fly over now :p

Will do. You're going to fly here? You can fly? I want to fly! I've always wanted to fly~.

DM:@Mindful Master Maid

<address of a tiny, third floor, studio apartment in a large building, in a terrible neighborhood near the U of T's Scarborough campus, in Toronto>

I live on the south side of the building, with the exterior walkway looking over an alley. People have presumably gotten used to my leaping around between that walkway and the nearby buildings, so they might not notice however you're flying in?

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Will do. You're going to fly here? You can fly? I want to fly! I've always wanted to fly~.

Please relax. I'd just be grabbing a plane for it. It's not really properly a thing 'til the fourth stage, anyways, and not quite there yet... Could do something to that effect with my movement technique, kinda? Not very practical. 

<address of a tiny, third floor, studio apartment in a large building, in a terrible neighborhood near the U of T's Scarborough campus, in Toronto>

Will be there in ~3 hours, if that's ok with you? 

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Please relax. I'd just be grabbing a plane for it. It's not really properly a thing 'til the fourth stage, anyways, and not quite there yet... Could do something to that effect with my movement technique, kinda? Not very practical. 

Oh. Um, that should've been obvious, I guess. [blushes, but has a new big goal]

Will be there in ~3 hours, if that's ok with you? 

That should be great. I've got nothing else important going on.

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Ok~!

Oh, and anything in particular you want to try out to cook? Might be able to grab something for that...

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This tiny kitchenette is pretty useless, for most things, so it's not really workable for anything fancy (only got a two-burner mini-stove and a toaster-oven, but somehow I get by). I do wonder about immortal enhancement of mundane recipes and I was going to make red beans and rice today. Been soaking the beans for a couple days now, and they're ready to go. On the other hand, that Sky Shrub Salad sounds pretty exciting.

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I'll bring a satchel of them over!

Please don't worry too much about the equipment - there's ways around that. 

You'll get some results out of something like that, but if you've already mostly prepared it...

Less so. 

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Oh that's interesting. So the effects are built up throughout the process, then? It makes sense, when I stop to think about it.

Yeah, soaking the beans is about a third of the work. Plenty left to do, but plenty already done. It does seem better to try doing mortal-recipe-improvement properly rather than picking up in the middle.

I'm looking forward to checking out Sky Shrub leaves for the first time! I've got enough things to make a few different types of dressing for the salad, and I'm excited to learn how everything works.

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smiles

Ok~! 

I'll check in with the seniors about getting you a basic method for all this...

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Ooh, like a chef-specific technique? Thank you!

Actually... How does getting techniques work? Is this where those trades that got mentioned in the rules come in?

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Yep! 

There's a lot of awkward things around legacy rules and conditions, plus technique suitability and just them genuinely being super duper valuable? There's also some awkward karma stuff to just give people that freely, and that's a whole another thing to handle... Not in a great position to, though I'm happy to be the vehicle of a fitting gift from the seniors! 

 

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Still a little shy about gifts, especially if they're this valuable, but I suppose it's to the Seniors' benefit to acquire fresh new faces, keep the wheel turning?

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Yep! 

Though it's a broader thing? 

It's about... keeping the traditions themselves going, to - giving them to people who would find the most useful and foundational and grow from there...~

Depending on how you count there might be like... 5 seniors inclined to give gifts like this, at least for now? Some go on walkabout or have other commitments or aren't in a great place to do things or have the physical interaction model for the gifting thing.

Should probably be something you should keep in mind. 

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Wow. I definitely want to give back, keep all this going more properly. This is the first time I'm finding something actually good, something that's apparently not full of traps and lies, and I wanna do my part to extend it forward. Just gonna have to learn quick and keep going, I guess, and keep a lookout for ways to be a good junior?

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There's options for an arrangement with me? But very understandable if you don't want to get contracted or into debt, now. 

And yeah, that's the spirit! 

 

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Oh...

 

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Do you want to get the security rant or should I just tell you not to worry about it? 

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There's options for an arrangement with me? But very understandable if you don't want to get contracted or into debt, now. 

I'm not opposed, honestly, as long as the math looks like it works out that I'll be net-positive eventually and not just spiral. Debt's a tool, and all that.

Do you want to get the security rant or should I just tell you not to worry about it? 

Yes. Security rant, please. I'm so starry-eyed about this whole situation, and I need real concerns to stay grounded on.

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I'm not opposed, honestly, as long as the math looks like it works out that I'll be net-positive eventually and not just spiral. Debt's a tool, and all that.

Basically the arrangement I have in mind would get you into my spot and get you to do some missions for... maybe a few months to a year, depending on how it goes? I'll pass on the technique, and you'll get some missions with a cut of the value and basically act as something like an apprentice to me? Details will have to depend on your affinities and the rest of the stuff that you get, though. Happy to talk more when that comes.

Yes. Security rant, please. I'm so starry-eyed about this whole situation, and I need real concerns to stay grounded on.

Ok so. 

Discord isn't exactly normally the most like paranoid suitable messaging service, but the short version is that TTT is good enough at formations and stuff for that to not be a problem? Getting you onto the server actually should protect against a wide variety of basic issues on your device, and even a bunch of analog gap attacks for spying on you, and yes there's no reason to worry about the site admins coming down on us for stuff in here. There's more to say, obviously, but that gets into cybersecurity things that I'm less an expert on. 

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We can't really guarantee it against the strongest people out there - shaky at sixth realm and easy to brute force past as a Venerable, though I know that doesn't really mean anything...

And the actual divinatory protection on your end is only around Third Realm.

But really, don't worry? 

Stuff here is the safest thing that you have on offer, other then 'come other to my house', basically.

 

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That arrangement sounds, frankly, perfect. I want to hear details, but it sounds like an excellent way to keep busy and learn bunches and still produce any value.

As for the security situation, that's frankly far less concerning than I was expecting. Though it does add an additional vote to plan "apprentice cookery".

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As for the security situation, that's frankly far less concerning than I was expecting. Though it does add an additional vote to plan "apprentice cookery".

Mhm! It's good to have things already thought out for you :p

That arrangement sounds, frankly, perfect. I want to hear details, but it sounds like an excellent way to keep busy and learn bunches and still produce any value.

I'm ok with playing around with it - there's some semi-cultivated monster gardens that are a good place to go for some interesting resources and get basic combat training even if you turn out to not have a talent for the cooking or plant management? You can keep the amount of time you commit to working there low, but if you just want to spend a day a workday week doing stuff with or for me or something like that might mean alternative arrangements would have to be made? My place is already a pretty good spot to cultivate for someone starting out like you and having that be generally accessible as a job perk makes a bit less sense in that context? But normally, I'd just want to do the basics of confidentiality agreements, and have an understanding that you'd spend at least 40 hours a week doing something to make yourself useful, even if that's just cultivating and resting and eating, and that I'd get a say... 80% cut of the stuff you make for paying it off? 

Should get you through fairly quickly, if you want to go down that route.

 

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Wow. Yeah, that sounds like a much better and faster way to get what I wanted from storm chasing, frankly β€” I want to travel, get swept up in the chaos of a storm, do useful things, and dare greatly. I love cooking during the quiet times, and other than that I need to be running and doing. Useful go-to options like that, cook or do a monster-garden run or cultivate when in doubt, make things a lot more straightforward for me.

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Awwww~ <3

Glad I can offer help! 

Could you talk to me a bit about what you want out of your cooking skills? There's some variety there, too - even if I've kinda ended up being an all-arounder. 

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Well, I love experiences β€” having them and creating them and sharing them. Cooking is is a way of giving myself or someone else an experience that's both intense and beneficial. I'm not sure what the axes of variance are for an Immortal Chef, but I don't think I could stay still long enough to maintain my own garden, really. So mimicking that aspect of your methods is probably out. I don't know much about the rest, though.

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I have a technique for cultivating my garden in my Chakras? But that isn't the most scaleable thing, and that's a bit higher level...

There's a lot of styles and effects for cultivation to focus on? But I think that does make sense for just going for something generalizable...

 

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Probably best to figure it out further once we know my affinities, I suppose?

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Yep!

 

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Anyways, see you soon with that test~!

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She raps on her door, gently.

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She texts in her DMs.

I'm here.

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Hailey looked out the peephole in her door, and sent a message at the same time.

Coming!

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She smiles, and waits patiently at the door, waving when she sees her peek through. 

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Hailey opened the door to allow her Senior in, and a cramped but efficient studio apartment came into view. A futon, blue pad on a black metal frame, rested against the wall to the left, folded up to be a couch at the moment. On the right, a small, obviously-salvaged wooden desk held a laptop that had seen better days, currently displaying a paused video featuring two people caught mid-leap between different walls. A door stands ajar into what must a bathroom in the back-left corner of the room. And occupying the entire back wall, laid out with as much care and love as could be managed with the limited resources, is the kitchen.

In technical terms it could barely even be called a kitchenette, featuring a repaired countertop mini-stove and a clearly-modified toaster oven (if the external thermometer display and connecting wires are anything to go by), an electric pressure cooker, and a mini-fridge. The bulk of the preparation and care seemed to have gone into the cookware. Stainless steel and copper pots and pans of various shapes and sizes hung from hooks in the walls, all clearly mismatched, some with faint remnants of dents that were lovingly flattened back out. A double-boiler, strainers, spoons, ladles, spatulas, and whisks hung from the wall behind the sink. Directly above the sink, a folding drying rack was mounted to the ceiling such that it could be pulled down to hold cleaned dishes.

And standing in the middle was a dark-auburn-haired nineteen-year-old girl, sporting a pair of runner's leggings in black with cyan trim and a cyan t-shirt over an olive tan.

"Welcome, Mindful Master Maid!"

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She's dressed in soft and white silken robes that drape around her curves pleasantly, a small bag wrapped with twine around her waist. She's perhaps a little softer then she expected, though the lines of her cheeks give her a bit of a noble look and everything about her muscles is corded, if you look closely. Her hair is tied back, letting her see the soft expanse of her neck and shoulders. She smiles brightly, aquamarine eyes sparkling with a touch of happiness. 

"Hello~!"

She does a little respectful bow of acknowledgement before crossing the threshold, and slips off her shoes to place to the side.

"Feel free to call me by mortal name - it's Romana. And could you tell me your preferred form of address?" 

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"Thank you! You can call me by mine too β€” Hailey."

Hailey tried her best to match the bow, err a touch lower if she couldn't, and smiled back, before striding further into the studio and grabbing her water bottle off the desk. Seeing her in motion, she was clearly a girl who'd spent her mortal life thus far in motion, edges of lean muscles visible beneath the tight shirt and leggings.

"Make yourself at home, Romana," she said with a smile. "Can I get you a water? Or I have milk and a few juices?"

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I chuckle softly. 

"Sure why not. Gosh it's... odd to be the one on the receiving end. Just water, I think." 

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With a nod and a smile, Hailey stepped across to the kitchenette. She pulled a glass from a shelf under the counter, swiftly filling it with water from a filter attached to the tap, before turning and presenting it to Romana. Something about her seemed faintly stiller and smoother through the whole process than the subtle hints of restless energy she'd shown moments earlier.

"Here you go. You normally host, I take it? I haven't done much of either."

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"Yeah. It's the least I can do when there's just... so much that I can do for free, more or less. I can do things with just serving tap water that helps, a little, and it's always... almost a little rude to not?"

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"That makes a lot of sense. So many things to learn, though. You can enhance tap water?"

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"Mhm!" 

Her finger flicks out to her glass, and there's a little... resonance of soft brown and light blue that ripples through it, leaving the water perhaps a little brighter and clearer in the glass, before she does the same to hers. 

"It's simple enough to control the temperature to get that extra pleasant cool feel, and even messing around with the mineral content and refining the energies a little with my comprehension of Water and something really simple? There's a bit more you can do if you can control the filter on the tap water or do a bunch of silly finnicky things with the pressure to get everything to mix just right or even go into messing around with the microflora, but as you might expect the results aren't especially useful - it can help your affinity with water a touch if it's something you do for months or years, but that's about it." 

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Hailey nodded, watching raptly.

"I'm so curious what my affinities will turn out to be, what the best things will be for me to focus on. There's just so much to learn. I'm looking forward to it all, though I don't know where to start."

"Well, other than continuing foundation building, of course," she added with a laugh.

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"Yeah - getting through the ranks really just... opens up a lot of doors. Can make it a lot easier to get something to work, even if you have to dig into some scholarly anti-affinity method." 

She takes out from her little sack a wooden circle, with five vials around a taijitu, labelled 'sawdust', 'phosphorus', 'silt', 'mercury' and 'water' laid out counterclockwise in a circle. There's some faint etchings on the plain oak. 

"This is the elemental testing apparatus I had lying around - it works best for Wuxing things, but should be good enough for the forseeable future for the rest. You can use it by just rest your hand and channelling a little blood and qi into it. Technically drinking the water will throw off the results a little 'til it clears your system, but that shouldn't really matter due to the size of the effect." 

She smiles encouragingly, and takes a small sip of her own cup, sighing contentedly as the cold water hits her tongue. 

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Hailey nodded, then carefully rested her hand on the center of the wooden device, considering for a moment and then closing her eyes. She calmed herself, focused, and channeled.

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The white dust glowed, softly and warmly, while the silver fluid had a faint tremble run through it, with the rest of the materials barely moving at all - especially the silt. 

There's a faint trace of lines of silver shot throughout the wood, too, and then...

A calm breeze spilled out of it, somehow tucking her hair around her ear as the wind ruffled through it, and a - 

There's a slight blur in the air, not persistent enough to really notice - 

And it dims, assuming she stops putting energy into it, returning to the resting state.

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A smile crossed Hailey's face as her hair was tucked, and she opened her eyes just as she stopped channeling.

"Wow," she said, peaceful smile lingering.

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She laughs back, quietly. 

"Already taken by the rush, I see~" 

She leans over and kisses her forehead.

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Hailey froze.

(Did she jusβ€”)

And blushed.

(Pretty mentor kiβ€”)

Her mouth fell open for a moment.

What.

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Giggles

Pet pet.

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Hailey blushed harder, closed her mouth, and smiled softly, looking very very confused.

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Gentle skritches smile down at her.

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Coherence slowly blew back into her brain like a warm breeze. Her amazing caring pretty impressive mentor(?) just kissed her forehead, and was now scritching and petting her. And it felt good.

When was the last time anyone touched her, other than occasional brushed hands? (Not since she left.)

When was the last time anyone touched her kindly? (Had they ever?)

Why was she so affected?

"Um. What? Bwuh, but I don't, or... What?"

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I press a finger to her lips.

"No need to worry about it~" 

I let out a last little laugh, and let my hands swiftly slip back to my sides. 

"Now, shall we get to the results?" 

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Hailey touched her lips briefly, where Romana had touched.

(But why did...)

Hailey blinked, once, twice, then shook her head to clear it, blushing harder.

"Um. Right. Results are a great idea. Seems like Things Happened? Maybe even Meaningful Things?"

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"That is rather the point of doing a test." 

I smile warmly. 

"For the traditional results... Seems like you have a pretty good affinity with Fire and mostly just trace ones for the rest of the Five Phases, and you're pretty typical in terms of Yin affinity for a female cultivator." 

I glance up at her ear and flushing face, taking it in a little bit more. 

"It seems like you have a pretty strong affinity for wind, and a good seed for manipulation of the Dao of Time, even. Those should both be quite useful to have." 

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Hailey nodded, contemplating all this. "Fire sounds pretty reasonable as a fit. I always did run a bit hot."

She suddenly stopped, realizing her phrasing, and snapped her mouth closed, renewing the blush that had started to fade as she considered the results, and then blushed harder as she noticed Romana's attention so closely on her.

"Ahem. Yes, I realize I just said that. Anyway! Wind makes heaps of sense, and I'm really glad to hear it. I might've mentioned something about high and windy places?" She chuckled. "Time is an interesting result β€” not one I would've considered, but... maybe it makes a kind of sense? I dunno..."

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She laughs again. 

"It doesn't have to be something you've really... expressed, yet? Souls are complicated, and there's a lot of things that just... matter less, when you aren't a cultivator."

Faint smile.

"I'm glad it came out in a way you like~"

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She nodded, considering, blush gradually fading. "That's good to know. I guess I'm just confused because it maybe explains some tiny things? But they're at a level that it could just as easily be confirmation bias."

She started to relax a bit, smiling back.

"Yeah, I'm really glad too. I know Steely Student said I'd probably get something appropriate, reflection of my soul and all, but it was still a relief to see anyway."

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"Yeah..." 

She takes a moment to bounce back to her seat a little and take a drink, giving her space. 

"Care to share? I'm curious how you could end up working with Time in that way so early on." 

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Hailey nodded, and pondered for a moment. "The most obvious and blatant β€” and this should show how fuzzy the lot of them are β€” is during and immediately after the training vision for the Twenty-Four Flowing Fists. I have this faint recollection of the whole trip feeling dimly... out of sync. And then I get out of it and it's been barely a minute or two, rather than the whole hour-plus kata's time."

She hummed thoughtfully, frowning.

"For all I know, though, it could be normal to have daydreams or visions run that fast, and all this is just confirmation bias and reinterpretation. Mine never have, but maybe I just never tried hard enough."

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"It is - the whole point of having the whole vision thing is to get a complete experience in quicker? There's lots of stories of people learning techniques in the middle of a battle by staring at just the right thing, as long as they have the right talents and the technique manuscript is compatible enough with it. It's not unusual for people to feel weird about things around that til they get used to it? As far as I understand it, the Fox of the Sylvan Spirit Lake doesn't use temporal techniques for anything but her highest grade Jade Slips because that's not her speciality? She prefers to optimize the compression and 'database' schemes. I don't think that there's any reason why a temporal effect would especially show up then, too so..." 

She laughs a little. 

"No need to worry about this, either."

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Hailey smiled and nodded, a faint flush returning. "Okay then! I'd love to see what one really feels like at some point, so I can correct my silliness more fully, but that'll just come in time, I suppose."

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She folds her hands together. 

"It's pretty normal for cultivation methods to result in a bit of messing around with subjective speeds? Subjective time is a little different, and I'm not the most qualified person to talk about it but..." 

She smiles a little. 

"I'll have to see if I can get Senior Transcendant Tourmaline Trapmaster to let you see the Temporal Grotto. It's a... really interesting place, I feel." 

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She frowned a bit contemplating that, and then nodded firmly. Then the mention of the Temporal Grotto swept her away.

"Wow, that sounds like it would be an amazing experience. I'd love to, if it wouldn't be too much bother for you or her. What's it like there, and what sorts of things are temporal techniques used for?"

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"Yeah - it's... kind of lot, though, and usually requires a bit of messing around with defensive techniques to work right." 

She runs her hands down her side. 

"Mostly it's just... an odd thing with all sorts of flickering experiences, with a lot of things that play into that? There's a lot of plants there that have there own take on things, so it's hard to really describe unless your there. As for what it's used for..." 

She hums.

"Probably the most traditional usages are divination, anti-divination, dimensional and movement techniques? Senior Tourmaline has a temporal-spatial fist technique too, and I think it's even part of one of her body refinement methods and definitely part of her skills with formations and talismans. 'Temporal talismans' for keeping things preserved are probably one of the most classic low level uses. It's pretty hard to go much beyond that, but certainly possible." 

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"It sounds fascinating. I'd love to learn a lot more about it, when opportunities work out. Between the divination and movement techniques, and everything else, it sounds like something I could devote a decade to and have only scratched the surface of. But that's for later, I suppose."

She took a look back down at the wooden testing device, thinking back to what Romana had told her.

"What are some common uses and specializations of Fire, and especially Wind? And what does one do with a typical Yin affinity?"

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"There's a Fire and Yin version of pretty much everything? But in as much that's a meaningful question, alchemy and forging (and to a lesser extent cooking) can end up rewarding a fire affinity, just because the process of making them relies a lot on things like heat tempering and getting the mixtures just right under excitation. Yin is even harder to neatly pin down, but I guess you could say it's especially good for some body tempering techniques aiming for lightness and smoothness, refining your foundation for efficiency of power, and anything flowing. Still, most of the time, the biggest difference it will make is that there'll be some techniques out there that are extra compatible with you that you should all else being equal prefer, rather than nesscarily giving you a power of your own?" 

She hums quietly, and sips down more of the water, letting out a small contented sigh as she licks her lips with her wet tongue. 

"Wind's a less standard affinity, so it tends to be focused on movement and sensory techniques - getting even an approximation of flight is something that a lot of cultivators want to do early, and a lot of things can carry across the sky. Plus, there's the obvious things about physically manipulating the air for blasts and barriers, which are pretty often mixed in with weapon energies."

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That sounded amazing. Was she really going to learn to do all of that? Well, it would take time, clearly. But wow. She looked back at Romana eagerly.

"I can't even. Just β€” I don't even know where to start with all that, there's so much cool stuff. I suppose Wind and Fire, since they're my strongest, and because movement techniques, and since Fire is good for cooking?"

Noticing Romana take a sip, Hailey remembered her own water and drank a bit more, smiling. (And blushing a bit subconsciously at the sight of Romana licking her lips.)

"Speaking of cooking, what's the first thing to learn about becoming an Immortal Chef?"

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I laugh quietly.

"That everyone thinks that they want pills instead of your food." 

I rub my forehead a little, and smile a little tiredly.

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"Oh, that sounds annoying. I remember when I realized how much I was missing out on sticking to premade stuff, and that was even just with mortal cooking! What are the main benefits of immortal meals over pills? My first guess is that there's some room for customization toward someone's individual needs?"

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"Not... nesscarily? There's plenty of room for customization in both arts." 

She taps a finger against the glass. 

"The biggest thing is that you'll generally get better results from immortal food if you're willing to tolerate the effects being spread out - it's a good bit harder to make immortal food that works like combat pills then it is alchemy, but you can get better results if you're looking for a refinement of your body over the coming months for the same cost and skill in cooking - and that you can get better results if you can control everything or if you're just working with nothing - typically, you can only really get proper results from alchemy once you get a decent flame control art, furnace, a bundle of herbs, a good process and so on, and you generally just want to increase the quality of those, whereas with cooking, if you can make everything tuned properly for your process you'll be more rewarded, but you can do it with literally anything even at the basic level." 

She gestures at the crystal-clear water. 

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"So it's more like a gradual ramp-up that rewards patience and follow-through and care? Kinda like training, that way. Cooking has been the only thing it's easy to stay still for, too, for a while now."

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Wiggle hand. 

"That's really more about the curve for the resources put in? But that's kinda true as well - it really rewards putting your heart into it." 

She hums quietly. 

"Maybe giving you the full alchemy comparison run down could help? Can dig into some of our other notes or just field questions or...?"

 

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Hailey bit her lip as she considered for a moment (definitely not because she was noticing her Senior's pretty blue eyes), then nodded. "Yeah, I think that comparison would help. Cooking definitely is the only still thing I can put my heart into, though. That much I'm sure of."

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I laugh quietly. 

"Okay!" 

I place my hands together and slide them down to my lap. 

"So." 

"You're just starting out, and you want to become an alchemist. The sort of thing that you'll start out with is grabbing a decent pill furnace, a basic pill refining method, and a bunch of recipes, alingside a bunch of normal medicinal herbs and a small bunch of low-grade spirit plants - Maybe just some Wash Water Lilies and a few other basic weeds. You'll throw them in the furnace at just the right time, control the flame as you need to, make your spiritual energy work the process, distill the ingredients down to their essence, and pop it all together into a pill. You can't do alchemy without spiritual ingredients - though you can do it without a special technique or any cultivation at all, which is why there's that warning in senior Tourmaline's post. There's a lot of other things that go into it.- just the start is how good your cultivation is on a bunch of dimensions, how well you comprehend the laws of the energies you use, the quality of your pill flame, how good your technique is, the quality of your recipe, the degree of refinement you achieved - but a lot of what determines how good your end product is just the quality of the materials you put in." 

"You follow?"

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Hailey nodded, frowning a bit. "It makes sense, yeah. But there doesn't feel like there's much... heart in it, or something. Makes sense, but doesn't draw me."

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She smiles broadly. 

"Yeah... Really, the heart in most alchemists is in... cultivating their mastery of the elements through the rest of their foundation, and going out exploring to find more ingredients to make part of their practice." 

"There's a whole seperate cultivation system for Immortal Chefs, for one, and... people just really care about subtle things in food. It's normal to like foods that are exactly in season, or have just the right color or crispness or softness, even if it's the same product, fundamentally - a decent amount of basic fruits you'll see in the store are literally all clones of each other, but there's still a substantial difference between all the ones on the shelf, if you look. You can make something basic with mundane ingredients, and yes you can get better results if you have better ones, but what's the most important is that you manage everything front start to finish to make it the best for you, and do it all skillfully and lovingly, with an understanding of what you want out of the dish and how the inputs matter! Affinities obviously help too, but a lot less then if you are an alchemist." 

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"Yes! Cooking is the only non-movement thing I ever feel like that about β€” carefully putting everything together, preparing it over days if you have to, or even longer, all to make the result just what you want. I was putting up with school so I could work in storms, but this is so much better."

She paused.

"Wait, did you say Chefs have a whole 'nother cultivation system?"

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"Yep~!"

I smile brightly.

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Hailey's mouth dropped open for a moment, and she stared.

"Wow. How does that even work? This just keeps sounding better."

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She laughs brightly. 

"Basically, you follow a chef cultivation technique, and you condense a 'chef heart' - which is kinda like a classical 'core' which adds this extra capacity to you based on your love of cooking and your understanding of the trade to be able to work wonders. The more of them you have, the better your dishes will turn out. The theoretical limit is about a chef heart per realm you advance, in most cases, and I've gotten that done, but it's still pretty forgiving as long as you keep on working on perfecting your craft and collecting more options for how to make things, and there's no tribulation system inherent in being an immortal chef, which is nice." 

 

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She grinned. "That does sound pretty great. It really sounds like a way to compound my investment, kinda, and it all runs on love of and dedication to the craft? I just love this more the more you tell me about it."

She took another sip of the supernaturally clear water.

"This really is impressively refreshing. And here I thought just adding that filter was an improvement!"

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She smiles softly, and reaches out to stroke her head again. 

"I'm glad you like it!"

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A half-remembered reaction, hands reaching far faster than that in the past, and a quick flinch took her, but she stilled it, staying put to accept the petting.

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She lets her hand draw back, slowly, petting her hair lightly before she rests her hand against hers. 

"I know this can be a lot, just... take the time to note how this can be nice too, ok?"

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The petting did feel pretty good. She leaned her head back away after it stopped though.

When Romana rested her hand against Hailey's own... she paused a moment, and then turned her hand and held her mentor's.

"Yeah, it really is nice. That's honestly what throws me the most. Cultivating is nice, Immortal Cooking sounds nice, you're really nice..."

"...I don't know how to handle that much niceness yet."

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She smiles softly, and strokes her finger down across her ear. 

"That's alright. If you'd like, I can go? I could set up a sparring spot or book a nicer kitchen around here or just take some time to find a good spot to cultivate, and you can text me when you want me back here. There's no rush."

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What, leave? Why?

Did she do somethiβ€”

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No. That was more niceness, wasn't it? Romana was offering to give her space to process.

Did she want space to process?

She wanted to do. To experience. She'd just stew in the stillness if Romana left.

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"Walk into the fire," she muttered under her breath.

She squeezed her mentor's hand. "I'd rather you stay, if you don't mind."

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She smiles softly, and squeezes her hand. 

"I don't mind at all." 

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She took a deep breath, letting the moment β€” and the response β€” sink in.

"What would you suggest we do now?"

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"It really depends? I can talk to you about your options for housing, about the sort of things that you can do with your supplies here, talk about what you want to get out of your cultivation and internship, how comfortable you are with the risks of tribulations, when that comes around, and just about your life plans, overall? There's a lot that I can teach you, and a lot of things that naturally end up kind of frontloaded, unforunately, just because the Rivers and Lakes of the cultivation world are so vast." 

Her thumb runs tenderly over the meat of hers. 

 

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Hailey hummed thoughtfully and considered the first few points, looking around at the tools she'd collected and repaired over her time in Toronto. They were hers. She'd spent time finding them at junkyards and flea markets and thrift stores, money buying them and their replacement parts, and sweat repairing them to their admirably-functional states.

And as much as she'd put into them, they didn't justify staying here. Maybe she could take them or maybe not, but she couldn't pass up leaving this place.

Wait, had she missed something? Romana was talking about life plans?

She shivered a bit, finally noticing the ongoing thumb-caress, and looked down to see her hand still clasped with Romana's.

She looked up, after a beat, eyes wide. "Bwuhβ€” Romana?"

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"Yes Hailey~?"

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"Whβ€”"

She looked down at their joined hands again, then looked back up.

"Why are you rubbing your thumb across my hand like that?"

She swallowed.

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"Because you're cute and you said that you didn't want me to leave, and part of that is just... staying as close as I was, in the way that fits."

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Romana thought she was cute?

Did she wβ€”

What shoβ€”

Whyβ€”

 

No. Stop. Walk into the fire.

"You think I'm cute?"

"Pot calling the kettle black," she mumbled as an afterthought.

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She laughs.

"'There's no inverse or conservation law of cutjitsu', as Radiant Heart Topaz~ likes to say. If anything, it's probably the other way around." 

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"Cuteness begets more cuteness?"

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She shook her head. Not the point.

"I have no idea what is going on at this point."

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"It does! People being cute to each other makes it inherently more plausible that the reactions are cute, and being cute naturally lets more people be cute." 

She smiles softly.

"And besides - the physical bit is pretty easy once you get started cultivating? An appearance touch-up is something that you'll pretty much always get from starting out." 

"As for what's going on... Do remember that the answer is allowed to be 'nothing'. Otherwise... I can serve you a meal, show you what the wind tastes like, take you for a walk, help with your cultivation, or just help with the future? It's okay if you'd just like me to pick one of those options, too." 

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She rubbed her face with her free hand. "Those all sound too great..."

"I feel like I should be figuring out plans, but that meal option sounds pretty great..."

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"Thinking over an empty stomach is never the best idea, Hailey." 

She hums quietly, and squeezes her hand. 

"Would you like me to make you something from what you have or just with what I brought?"

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She blushed softly again at the reminder of still holding the hand of her pretty mentor, but squeezed back.

"You're welcome to anything I've got. I'm curious about the Sky Shrubs you mentioned bringing..."

She blushed a little more. "Can you decide that one, though?"

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"Okay~" 

She takes out her satchel, laying onto on the table, before squeezing her hand firmly, sliding it out from her grip, and dissapearing for a moment, reappearing with two of her bowls placed in front of each of them. 

She sticks her hand into the bag, and grabs them, then - 

A blizzard falls down in front of them, a sweet wind washing through her senses, drifting down like windswept leaves as a soft brown-green light shimmers across them, before they glide into place, arrayed across the bowl like the petals of a lotus. 

The moment passes, and she smiles brightly. 

"Feel free to dig in~!"

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Why did letting go of Romana's hand feel like losing something?

Whoa.

"This looks like art, Romana. The preparation was art β€” but really fast art. It almost feels like it would be a shame to eat it."

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That was a question she remembered what to do with, though: it may be art, but it was still here to be eaten β€” and in time she'd be doing things this amazing too. She took a long moment to savor the experience before her, the lingering memory of the storm of motion that produced it, and the elegant presentation of the leaves in the salad. She leaned down, closing her eyes and inhaling slowly, enjoying the scent of green freshness and a hint of sharp ozone.

She sat back up straight, picking up a fork and taking her first bite. A crisp crunch gave way to a fresh, green, sweet taste, carrying a hint of morning drew with it. A faint sense of storm and gust blew through her briefly with the taste, carried along behind a subtle savory aftertaste that underscored the flavor and made the whole experience stand out.

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She turned to look at Romana, starry-eyed.

"This is amazing. You're amazing. I'm going to learn to do this?"

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She laughs softly, smiling warmly.

"Thank you. And yeah! The foundation of sky shrub salad I made you is the technique I was most thinking of first teaching you - then the rest are just a bunch of flourishes I've picked up along my path. If I gave you the techniques, you could make a lower grade version of this - albeit a lot less cinematically - in maybe like a day or two? It'll more realistically be a good bit longer than that, but there's all sorts of lovely things you can make even really early on."

She digs in herself, little fuzzy brown forcefields manifesting to serve as chopsticks or forks as she bites into it happily. 

"It's there to be eaten, but doesn't mean that it's not important to tend to that, too, so please don't worry! I do..." 

She waves her hand a little. 

"I guess the simplest way to put it is 'plant formations' sometimes? It's nice to get to make more permanent work, even if the mono no aware is excellent, too."  

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Hailey grinned, eyes wide. "That soon? Hell yes. And obviously not to the same degree of elegance and style you just did, not yet, but... It would be damn cool to be that awesome while I'm cooking eventually."

She paused to savor her next bite more fully again, eyes closed and a wide smile over her face as she chewed.

"Mmmm~."

Opening her eyes again, she noticed and was reminded of Romana's utensils. "Oh, and what? You have a utensil technique?"

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She laughs quietly.

"It's just a barrier technique - it's a decent control exercise and I can afford to create weak ones whenever - The Firmament Fortress Fields aren't quite designed to go this low, but that's part of what makes it fun to use them." 

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She nodded. "Yeah, I'd love to learn that too at some point, if you don't mind sharing. Ain't much you've got that I don't want to learn, though, honestly," she finished with a sheepish grin.

"Which really brings me to the question that's been tugging at me. I love my collection of cookware, but that's about the only thing I love in this city β€” and even it's not that great, no matter how much love I've put into fixing everything up. The only thing keeping me tied here is a degree I only wanted to be able to explore and work in storms."

Why was it so nervous-making to ask this? Romana was just her amazing gorgeous mentor.

"You mentioned help with the future? I don't like the future I've got in the mortal world."

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She nods understandingly. 

"Unforunately, it's an earth technique that judging from your results you almost certainly have a terrible affinity for, and it's only learnable once you hit the third realm, so it'd be a while even if you were compatible... Might be worth looking for a barrier technique that fits you better, though." 

She hums softly. 

"You'll have all the mortal money you want after you finish out your training with me, so don't worry about that? You can do whatever you'd like, in the mortal world or as a cultivator, more or less, and you don't need to follow what you thought you could do, before."

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"That's a good point about the barrier technique. Earth being a terrible fit for me makes sense, honestly, too. Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for an air-aligned barrier?"

She hummed in thought, then suddenly stepped across to her desk quickly, coming back with a notebook.

"I should make a list! So much to keep track of."

She quickly noted down the air barrier idea in swooping handwriting.

"So what are my options regarding the training? I basically want to go all-in on this."

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"Normal all-in or cultivator all-in? There's... a really large difference between those. Of course, it also depends on how much debt from resources being spent on you you are okay with? It's hard to enumerate options without talking about that..."

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Hailey gulped briefly, but nodded. "Cultivator all-in, I think. I don't know how well I understand the gap, but I've slashed and burned my life before, and I want to do it again. As for the debt... as long as it's worth it, and I've got a good shot of paying it off in a time-frame that makes anything resembling sense, I'll just handle it."

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"Yeah, I'm... not too sure? At minimum though, I can probably mostly get around any need for sleep you have and get you training harder throughout the day just from access to the cultivation spots we have around. I could probably arrange for maybe 10 hours of kitchen time, probably a lot of that hands on and with me or someone else, if I end up finding some else more suitable or if I can't be around, fill up the rest of it with some more book learning, cultivation time and such? I don't know how much you are okay with mental effects and side-effects - especially if you go for the best bang for buck pills it'll be really really painful and potentially more awkward later down the line, and it's not like that trade off totally doesn't exist in spiritual food." 

She stims, a little, fretting. 

"I don't think that it really makes sense to sign you up for the maximally intense things from the start? It probably makes more sense at that sort of budget to just try to spend a lot of time doing things in a relatively comfortable fashion thoroughly? I'm happy to support you on this, but I'm not especially willing to wreck your mind and/or foundation to give you just-below crippling levels of debt and that sort of nightmare to just get forward. It's probably more important to just get things settled, and going too hard for your current mental set-up can end up ruining your foundation or adding in some risk of death so... It might not even be worthwhile to go like that? It depends on how you end up reacting to it." 

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"Wait whaβ€”" That's what cultivator all-in looked like? She couldn't. She had to. She needed to catch up. Butβ€”

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Hailey deflated a bit, downcast. "Apparently I have even more to learn than I thought. I guess I mean normal all-in, I don't know. I don't know what I need. I just want to start fresh, have this new opportunity be my focus. I don't want to come back to a stupid tiny apartment and study for pointless classes and keep any of this senseless grinding loop I'm doing."

"I just don't know how to do better right yet..."

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Nod nod. 

"That's ok. A big part of the reason why I offered the chance to go slower is that making those judgements is pretty difficult. If you'd like, I can give you a few ideas for the level of commitment and focus I was thinking of?"

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Hailey nodded, softly. "That's probably a good idea, yeah."

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"Ok so." 

She spreads her hands. 

"The most basic option would be basically me providing you 'cultivator university'. There'd be regularly scheduled classes for say, three hours a day except Sunday, some homework, which will probably be just some reading and basic cultivation and cooking work to play around with on your own, and maybe one or two classes that involves field missions. For this, I'd probably end up mostly just making sure you get through your early stage cultivation with a good foundation and get you to the point where you can function well as an immortal chef." 

She pauses for a moment.

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"A bit more intense option might be something more like a traditional apprenticeship or salaried job. You'd work 40 hours a week on some projects I assign, be it in the kitchen or in a cultivation spot, and I'd do my best to get you a good grounding in a bunch of different techniques that fit you - grab a few wind things, a proper outfit,  make sure you have the basic weapons you need, beyond the gifts you'll get, a bit more access to some of my products and try to get you into a place where I've covered enough for field missions to be closer at hand just from the basic arrangement."

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She purses her lips, thinking. 

"I'm happy to accomodate you however helps? Going for something more flexible is definitely possible, and it's okay if you want to take the first little while on as-desired basis, even if that's a little impractical going forward. If you want to rush a bit more in your cultivation progress, I can get you better materials to work with and more of my work, for a cost in lock-in or debt, depending on what you are looking for, and the actual amount of hours can be tweaked with any of these options. There's also no need to nesscarily set this up exclusively, either - if you feel like it's a good proposition for your time, I can introduce you to some of the rest of group who can offer their own services in training and show you the open source scripture project, if you want to go for a cheaper option." 

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Wow. Okay. Hailey let out a soft, slow, contemplative sigh. These were great options. These were almost too many great options. Okay, think about it slowly. What advantages did two have over one, for what costs?

Two looked like it involved more resources, filled her time more. There was more commitment and possible debt, but it avoided leaving her idle.

One leg started bouncing subconsciously, until she noticed and tried to slow her breathing and still her leg again.

Two also sounded like she'd have more help picking things out, and getting adjusted. Which, well, it was embarrassing to need help figuring all this out, but...

Fuck, she really did need some help.

She twisted her hands in her lap for a moment, and took a few deep breaths. Opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, bit her lip, then finally spoke.

"I think I need the second option. I don't know what I don't know, and I don't know what I'd fill my time with if I had as much to spare as the first option does. Even just trying to pick through the tweaks you suggested after number two... it's overwhelming to try to decide. I don't even understand the tradeoffs properly."

She stopped, tried to keep her breathing slow. Even just saying that had felt raw, like the new-nerves sensitivity of just-healed skin.

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"Okay." 

She reaches out her hand to clasp hers, again, and squeezes gently. 

"Should be able to get that cleared past the Senior Fox pretty quickly from a standard contract - can send that to you for review once you've calmed down a little. If you'd like, we can talk a little bit more about the tradeoffs, or I can just give you some more time to rest and get into a better state of mind?"

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Hailey nodded, slowly, gratefully, and squeezed Romana's hand back. "Thanks. Yeah, I'd appreciate going over the contract after some time to take it all in."

She took a slow breath. What did she want to do right now?

"I feel like I ought to ask about tradeoffs, or what you said earlier about tribulations. But I also maybe just need a break from learning intense stuff for a minute. And then there's this separate weird feeling like I just want to sit here with you for a while? I can't remember ever wanting to spend time with someone outside of trying to accomplish something before, huh."

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She laughs quietly. 

"Yeah, the body refinement process can really do that to you. The Seniors always try to emphasize the warnings more, but it's hard to make it read as more then just a webMD side effect blob, you know?" 

She slowly strode around the table, taking the chair casually in one hand, and sat it down next to her, before resting her head against her shoulder. 

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Hailey froze again. This was not at all what she meant. She didn't know what to do. This felt really nice. She didn't understand why Romana was doing this. Why did this feel so nice? Maybe because physical contact is good for people? Maybe there were other reasons?

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She deliberately relaxed a bit. That felt even better. She tried leaning a little bit against Romana in response.

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She leans in against her a little, a quiet approving sigh as way of encouragement escaping her lips. 

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Huh. This was actually pretty nice. Nothing bad was happening. She leaned in a bit more, and relaxed a bit further.

...why did she have an urge to put her arm around Romana?

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She smiled, just slightly.

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Romana smiled... (at her?)

Hailey put the urge about the arm out of her mind for the moment, tried to relax the rest of the way.

A question bubbled to the front of her mind.

"Why does this feel so great?", she whispered.

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Wait, did she just say that out loud?

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She wraps an arm around her. 

"Because you've been starved of this, and it's a soft and good thing to have." 

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Okay, she did say that out loud, and Romana called her out, but it's okay?

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"I'm not even sure I know what this is, but maybe you've got a point," she mumbled.

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She relaxed again a bit, leaning into Romana's arm around her.

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"It's easy to put it into words that don't explain it too well? 'Intimacy' is one, 'human connection' is a pretty good noun phrase for it, but lacks a lot of the... more physical side to the craving for affection and closeness that this all is a part of."

Her arm wrapped around a little tighter, squeezing her against her.

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Okay, that kinda made sense. And the arm around her did feel good.

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...wait...

"Um, doesn't intimacy mean...?"

She tried not to tense up again.

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She laughs quietly and warmly against her. 

"Intimacy is about more than just sexual intimacy. It's about social, personal connection, in all its forms. Getting inside your guard physically is a good way to get the feeling quickly, and it's comforting, I find. It doesn't need to be anything more than that." 

Her hand stroked her shoulder lightly.

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Wow, that laugh wasβ€”

Wait, intmacy's more than that? She guessed that made sense?

"Thaβ€”"

Something felt missing?

"That makes sense?"

Why did it feel so disappointing to agree with that?

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She kisses her forehead lightly. 

"It's okay. Take your time." 

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She blushed brightly, and relaxed a bit, sagging into Romana's arms.

Take her time with what, though?

She did have that feeling of something being missing... And something about saying that sucked? Even though it made sense and she agreed.

And she kept having all these reactions to Romana's touch?

"Romana, can I ask you a question? Something feels really confusing."

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"Of course." 

She slides back into place by her shoulder. 

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Still blushing, Hailey nodded and steeled herself a bit.

"I'm feeling a whole bunch of things. Like when I agreed with you earlier about intimacy, I really agreed, it made sense, but something about it felt wrong to say. Or like I'm really really aware of it every time you touch me, and it doesn't seem to scale right from how aware I was of touches before just taken through my body being more sensitive as a cultivator. And it feels like all this means _something_ but I don't know what."

She sighs, frustrated at her confusion.

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She smiles a little amusedly, and ruffles her hair. 

"It's pretty normal for certain things to... snap into perspective, when you get started cultivating. I've heard stories of people getting back repressed memories, being aware of sealed off feelings, and getting further into insight practices then they were able to get because everything just works... smoother. You're pretty needy, right now, in a lot of ways and well..." 

She hums quietly. 

"I think it's probably something more then just being a bit more sensitive and wanting to have someone who cares about you close, but I'm not sure how helpful explaining what I think it is would be?"

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She leaned into the ruffle a little, and blushed brighter again when Romana called her "needy".

"I don't know either, but being confused about what it means really sucks."

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She laughs quietly. 

"You're probably attracted to me. I could talk all day about why I think that but... take a deep breath and try to feel what you want and how your body is reacting to me, ok?"

Her hand slides down to clutch hers gingerly, squeezing lightly to reassure her. 

 

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Wait, what did Romana just suggest? That didn't ha...

Wasn't that just something her adopters and the pastor claimed about people they didn't like?

Unless...

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Did Romana think she liked girls?!

She didn't like girls! She barely even liked boys! What the hell had she done to give that impression?!

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Well, aside from being extremely gushy. And clingy. And needy. And a mess.

Okay, maybe she had justified that impression. Sky above, she was such a fuckup.

How the hell was she going to fix this? She'd been such a clingy mess of a girl that her mentor thought she was gay. This was why she'd avoided getting close to anyone.

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Maybe she could talk through it? Explain that she was just a hot mess and needed to get herself under control? Explain to Romana that this was an understandable impression but the real cause had been her own neediness?

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Wait a fucking minute. Why was this what Romana had gone to? Was Romana gay? Was she trying toβ€”

No. Fuck no she wasn't going to start talking like her adopters. They were wrong about her and they were probably wrong about everything else too.

Damn them for all of this. Why did she have to be raised by such an aggressively terrible bunch of assholes? And if they'd been messing up her reactions, who knows what else they could've done to her thinking. Heavens they were awful.

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And then the rest of Romana's words made it through into her brain.

Oh. Oh. She hadn't been listening to her body at all. And denial was ever a thing. Damn she was a mess.

Fuck. Okay. Listen to her body. What did she feel?

She felt warmth from Romana's hand gently holding hers. She felt Romana's arm around her shoulders.

She felt a tingling electricity through herself everywhere she was in contact with her mentor.

She felt her pulse quickening and her face warming as she thought about those points of contact and her body's reactions.

She noticed an unfamiliar warmth low in her abdomen.

She noticed tension in her muscles from her stress.

She felt the cheap chair she was sitting on, and the cool air around her. Her nipples were even a little hard from the chill.

She realized that more than half of what she'd noticed herself feeling had been about Romana.

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Well fuck.

She sighed and slumped against her mentor, blushing brightly.

"You may be right. I don't understand it, and I don't know what we do about it, but you're probably right. You haven't been wrong yet. I don't get it though, I dated a boy in high school β€” it didn't go well, but I did."

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She chuckled softly as she petted her gently. 

"It's normal for this to be pretty awkward. I'm... approximately bi, and on the dating market, for what it's worth. Maybe you did that just because you felt like you were supposed to. Maybe you are attracted to multiple genders and sexes. Maybe that's shifted. I haven't seen enough to know. For now, though... I think it's wise to just take the time to let it sit in your head and think about it in the background, and maybe talk to more people about it, if you have someone to trust about that sort of thing." 

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"Huh. Yeah. that's definitely something I need to think about. I... I haven't ever thought about any of that before."

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She let out a dark chuckle at the last bit.

"Heh. Trust? I don't know anyone I could consider trusting with this except you, and maybe some of the others on the server. My advisor at the school can be mostly trusted about school-related things. That's about as far as that goes, though, and this very much isn't that."

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Quiet little sigh nuzzle a little closer.

"I understand." 

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My hand slides up to stroke through her hair.

"It's okay to wait a while for this to sink in, and it's okay to want this. Just..."

Her palm slid across her scalp, brushing back her bangs.

"It's good to get a chance to breathe some fresh air to and stay moving and working as well. This doesn't have to be the only way you can enjoy this warmth."

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A faint hum escaped Hailey at Romana's touch, and she let herself lean into the contact a tiny bit. She took a breath.

"Okay. Let's say I do want this, but staying moving sounds pretty great too. What would you suggest I do next?"

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"You know this area better then I do, but I think going out for a walk would be a good idea?"

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An eager smile slid onto Hailey's face.

"Ooh, we could. There's a tolerable little park about ten blocks east, or I could should you the rooftop garden where I go to relax, and where I made my thread today. It gets kinda prettier as the sun sets. The route back is... interesting, though, in the dark."

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She smiles warmly. 

"The rooftop garden sounds lovely~" 

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Haliey grinned and nodded. "It is! I should get us some water to take along."

She made to stand, but suddenly paused, struck with reluctance to extract herself from the snuggle with her mentor. A very faint disappointed needy whine slipped out of her without her noticing as she scooted away and stood up, and then with a breath she bounded over to the kitchen shelves to start pulling bottles out. In a crisp whirlwind of motion, she lined up six glass bottles, each wrapped in colorful silicone webbing in blue or purple or pink or green. She filled each with water, as fast as the tap would flow, capping them with silvery plastic athletic-spout lids from a small bin near the sink and then lining them up in an empty spot on the table.

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She smiled softly, and zipped around her, disappearing in motion and flickering into visibility just long enough to place a finger on each to send her qi through each bottle. 

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Hailey paused for a fractional moment, seeing Romana flicker in and out of view, before continuing.

"Oh that just won't stand. I've got to catch up soon," she said with an awed grin.

When the last bottle was done, she strode across the room to the closet, leaning in to fish out a drawstring sport pack to carry them in.

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She smiles warmly. 

"There's lots of fun to be had with movement methods! This one specifically is a stealth and illusion technique too with really specific requirements, but getting down enough to zip around is going to happen pretty early on~!"

 

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An excited smile stretched her face as she came back, University of Toronto bag in hand, and started loading the bottles in.

"Thanks for adding your special touch to these, by the way."

She took a look around, checking everything over as she closed up the bag.

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She pecks her cheek lightly. 

"No problem." 

She grasps her free hand, standing beside her, and walks her to the door.

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Hailey blushed again at the kiss, following Romana to the door and then putting her shoes on.

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She took a little look down at her feet and laughed quietly. 

"It's been so long since I've bothered with shoes that the whole thing seems a little odd to me, frankly..." 

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"Well, if body tempering will let me do without, you won't hear a word of complaint out of me," she said with a grin.

Hailey smiled warmly and opened the door, stepping out onto the walkway and locking up behind Romana once she'd exited.

"Route's got as much roof-hopping as a magical girl anime. Ready?"

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"It can. Really, the hard part is figuring out a way to keep your feet clean consistently. I think I'll throw that in once I teach you your first movement technique as a fun little sweetener...~" 

She walked out with her, her footfalls silent enough to make it easy to hear the quiet sound of her breathing. 

"But of course." 

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"Can hardly wait."

With a grin, Hailey strode out to the railing and leapt across the alley, a combination of wanting to show off for her mentor and delighting in the thrill of her improved body pushing her to dare greater in her run. She hardly paused on the far wall of the alley, bounding straight into a jump onto the roof at the end.

Roll and spring and run, the same route as before but faster, rooftops and ledges flying under her feet as she leapt further and higher along the path to her favorite rooftop in Toronto.

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She runs alongside her, hanging just a bit behind for the jumps, fading out of her perception as she goes to launch herself forward, before reappearing with the gentle brush of her hand against hers as she runs and flies forward, a small grin on her face as she goes. 

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Hailey ran. Every feeling found context in motion. Affectionate touches that might have been surprising or confusing were simply additional delights with the through-line of movement thrumming through her soul. She arced gracefully through the air, tossing a wink at Romana mid-twirl, and smoothly grabbed onto an overhanging bar with both hands, momentum wrenching her body up into a swing that carried her higher, over the edge of a taller building's roof ahead.

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She danced around her, appearing at each side, in flickering frames of motion of flips and twirls as she bounded alongside her. 

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Hailey bounded back and forth between the walls of two buildings, high over a tight alley, mixing twists and corkscrews in as she leapt β€” partly showing off to her mentor, partly stealing more opportunities to watch her in motion, and partly just delighting in the flourishes. Heavens, Romana was just so beautiful. In motion like this, it was easy to just let the feelings rush through her with the air, and that's what she felt β€” she was definitely attracted to her mentor. Hailey was so looking forward to when her eyes could keep up with those dancing flickers properly.

Overhanging the end of the alley was another sturdy bar, just before a short crosswise alley and a squat building ahead with an antenna mast standing tall atop it. Hailey leapt, grabbed, and flung herself across the gap, concrete rooftop soaring past far below her, somersaulting to orient herself properly, and then caught the shaft of the mast with a firm grip, whipping herself 'round nearly to an about-face, arcing down at a little patch of green just visible through a gap, just opposite one of the buildings they'd been bounding between.

As she passed through the gap, she soared into a clearing between the buildings, with one lower roof covered in a small park. Small and medium trees stood there, green and vibrant, along with some flowering shrubs and benches, surrounding a grassy clearing in the middle.

Hailey arced down at the grass, diving into a roll and popping upright with a hop and a mid-air twist back to face Romana, gesturing around with a smile. The view to the west was completely unobstructed, and the sun was just starting to dip closer to the horizon. Strings of fairy lights were laced through some of the trees, and a few hooded solar lights were spiked into the turf at various points.

"Welcome to the mystery rooftop garden, my favorite place in Toronto."

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"Oh..." 

She smiled widely as she took in the array of lights and trees spread out all across building, the whole place came together into something... oddly comfy, for how airy it was. Very Wood and Air, at a glance, and pretty well-done for something without spirit plants or any explicit geomancy. 

"It's always lovely to see these little hidden groves. It's... odd how rooted they can be without being really moored to the earth, how much they can grow without those restraints and bindings. This place really is beautiful..." 

She hummed quietly as she walked over to a bench, glancing around. 

"I do wonder what this is here for - It's pretty expansive for a rooftop garden."

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Hailey nodded and smiled, following to the bench and sitting down.

"It is! I've never seen anyone else up here before, not as long as I've lived in Toronto, and I haven't found any door to get down into the building below, nor a ladder."

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"Interesting... I'd think that there'd be at least some sort of emergency exit."

She hums quietly as she sits down besides her. 

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She stretched her arms out, leaning back and relaxing contentedly.

"I don't know what it is, but something about this place always feels so right. The air always felt clearer up here β€” even fresher than some of the tallest buildings in town."

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She nods, a little. 

"It feels like a remote place, really - more like what I'd expect inside a freshness formation or remote glade then... here." 

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"A freshness formation? Does that do air quality or something like that?"

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"Yeah." 

She swings her legs out as she idly strokes her hand. 

"There's a lot of pretty standard features for that sort of thing - preservation, air quality, water quality, cleanliness, even sometimes things like soil quality and light quality. They're pretty basic to alter in a space, most of the time, though there's any number of extra complications if you want to just be able to throw down a circle of ink around a place and turn it into a clean room." 

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Hailey let a pleasant shiver thrill through herself at Romana's gentle touch, smiling broadly.

"Interesting! It sounds like a very still sort of practice, and not my personal thing, but I can see the value."

She hummed softly, pondering the mystery of her favorite rooftop, kicking her legs gently.

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She smiled softly. 

"There's more dynamic options, later on - formations carved from spiritual energy is something I've heard some Spirit Venerables can do, and it's possible to do things with ink control techniques or manipulating metal and earth to form things, and weird kinda spatial tricks besides like what's in here, and I'm sure a bunch of other things to make it fast and easy, if you look." 

She taps her finger against her chest. 

"But I see what you mean." 

There's a faint sense of her breath falling into a pattern as she breathes with her, and a bit of extra strength trickling into her body, if she looks.

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Hailey raised an eyebrow at the touch, then closed her eyes and focused on the sensation and rhythm of her breath, and her body and energy. She stilled her legs and attended to the motion of her lungs, her breath, and her energy.

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She smiles gently as her thumb glides across her palm. 

"I suppose I'm skipping ahead a little but..." 

She hums lyrically beside her, her breath still following the pattern. 

"Breathing is a pretty fundamental part of cultivation and meditation. There's so many little ways that your rhythm flows from your breath, and it's something physical that you can control pretty manually to let everything else fall into place as you experience the world. Feel the way your heartbeat changes, the little extra trickle of energy running into you, and the little way that things clear because of the freshness in the air. This is a pretty good spot for it, so you won't nesscarily be able to get these results everywhere, but it can be a guide for you in memory, still." 

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Hailey nodded, smiling, and let the smooth flow of the air in and hour of her lungs. Her heart beat steadily in her chest, clear and strong. The air was fresh and sweet. Her energy flowed smoothly, song of the run still humming softly, gentle trickle of energy flowing in. The experience of the moment slowly etched brighter and clearer in her mind.

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"There we go." 

She squeezed her hand gently yet firmly. 

"I'd like it if we could go on a little walk around here and talk to you a bit about the way that it blends into things in situations beyond just sitting down and focusing all your attention on it." 

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Hailey stood up with a smile and a nod, taking her time to maintain her smooth breathing as she did. She kept hold of Romana's hand, and looked toward a gap between the trees that started a natural-looking path.

"How about this way?"

She lost the rhythm for a moment, but picked it back up.

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"Sounds lovely." 

She rises and walks hand in hand, a little tingle spreading through her hand that calms the slight fluctuation that runs through her as her breath hitches. 

"There's a lot of different ways to think about walking meditation. The first one, and probably what you thought of when I mentioned the idea, is more or less the same sort of thing as sitting meditation, where you have the extra focus beyond just your breath of the cadence of your steps, having the two cycling together, gradually pulling together into a more harmonious state as you watch the world around you go by." 

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Hailey nodded softly, considering her stride more fully, then drawing back to her breath, gradually discovering a rhythm between the two as she walked, the gentle motion steadying her enough that in some ways the breathing was even easier to maintain than sitting. The gentle nudges from her mentor certainly didn't hurt, though. She looked around at the well-kept trees and bushes along the path, smiling.

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She smiled back, and let the silence fill the air for a while. 

She nodded, satisfied, after a short while. 

"It can also be useful to think of it as something a bit more then that, though. That each breath and step you take is something more substantial, part of your practice and path, guided by your instincts of how to fight and how to move, and of course..." 

She squeezes her hand gently. 

"How to calm your thoughts, and stay in the moment. It takes a while before it becomes natural, but it's worth taking the time to make the way you move natively bleed together with how you step when you need the precision, just to get it down automatically and keep your form in place for when you need it." 

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What a thought! Every step and breath was part of the road forward, part of her growth and refinement. She stepped just a bit lighter and smoother, and smiled warmly at Romana, nodding.

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"It's a traditional part of this sort of art especially, so you should take a moment to feel what your technique has, there, both in the fist technique and the meditation sub-section."