The ward stones are simply another thing that Mei Cao can take for granted. They are small round stones with a few characters of mysterious writing etched into them, placed down one every fifty feet or so along the perimeter of their woods. They were purchased partially by her father's expense, and they are still paying off the loan. The price was discounted by the grace of duchess Cai, who mandates that villagers be kept safe and treated fairly. Occasionally, a cultivator from the Ministry arrives in the village to investigate the whole perimeter and issue replacements.

They keep hostile beasts and spirits away. You never go beyond the ward stones alone, unless it's along the road back to the village, which has its own set of ward stones.

These things were told to her often enough, and implied in the stories her father tells, that it has reached the level of a subconscious, immutable fact.

Reinforcing this is that, from an early age, Mei Cao could pick out the stones from a distance of a dozen feet or so, glowing softly and feeling warm and safe like small, steadily burning embers. She could also hear the disquieting whispers of spirits, sometimes, when father's hunts take them past the ward line. The whispers and strange, unnerving feelings grow twice or thrice as strong if you step beyond the line.

Today, as she is collecting wood from a copse near the line of stones, she cannot help but see that one of them is cold and lifeless, its steady ember of protection gone dark. If she walks up to examine it directly, it proves to have cracked into two pieces.

That's not good. She will not run to warn her father, because she's carrying as much wood as she can manage and doesn't want to just drop it all and certainly doesn't want to fall in the woods and break something. But she will go as swiftly as seems feasible back to where he's already most of the way through building the second of the pits they were going to burn today. The first is already burning. 

Nothing seems to be really wrong just yet, even with the damaged stone. These woods are the same ones she knows well.

"Hey Dad! I think one of the wardstones was broken? Or something like that. It had a crack in it, it didn't look right." 

Her dad grumbles.

"Well, we'd better report it to the headman. He'll know what to do. But the fire's already burning, we can't afford to waste the fuel. So it'll have to be when we're back in the village." 

She'll trust his judgement. The ward-line can't possibly be a fragile thing, if it's kept them all safe this long. And it would be a terrible waste, to lose all their work thus far. She returns to collecting the final ingredients for the second burn. 

Things go fine and normally, for the first day. It's busy, and you can't wander far.

And then in the middle of the night, Mei Cao hears something trundling through the brush towards the charcoal burns, muttering indistinct curses and complaints in a wet and sick sounding voice.

She tears herself away from staring at the burn for any hint of escaping flame, and shouts, trying not to be so loud as to wake her father in his tiny lean-to. 

"Hey! Who is it? Be careful, we've got a burn going here!" 

She doesn't recognise the voice, but who is she kidding, she wouldn't. 

Out from the low brush comes a thing of oozing mud, almost as tall as her and thrice as wide. It does not reply so much in words as a stubborn, grumbling sound of complaint and accusation.

A spirit, or a monster, or something like that.

It doesn't have legs, merely a large pile of muck that drags itself along, leaving a stained trail as it approaches. It has something that might be called a face, at least, formed of the broken semi-hard crusts that the edges of a drying mud puddle tend to form. This face does not look happy, and is glaring at the charcoal kiln.

It pauses to regard her, raises an oozing 'arm' and points at the kiln, making more noises of complaint - they seep and shimmer across her mind, felt more than heard, and coming with a heavy, cold, stagnant feeling.

It doesn't like the burning. Fire is bad. She should put the fire out.

She's taken for a moment with the idea that the fire is burning out of control, but a glance at the mound shows it isn't, in fact. It must be ... something from the spirit. 

She's going to shout to wake her father, and then get out her sling and start hurling rocks at the spirit. It doesn't look bigger than a wolf; maybe it will go down like one. 

How annoying.

The mud thing ignores her sling stones as they sink into it with wet plops, and advances on the kiln, and begins tearing it apart with dozens of oozing tendrils of foul-smelling muck.

No! It can't do that! She's going to go grab a shovel and try and keep it away from the burn. Or fix the damage, or something. 

Her father is coming out of his hut, blearily looking for the problem, not quite sure what to do. But he's grabbing his own shovel, out of sheer ingrained reflex as much as anything else. 

The mud spirit flinches back from the heat and sparks when it breaches the outer shell of the kiln, allowing the fire to surge up vigorously and ignite all the partially-charcoaled wood with the sudden rush of air. It seems to be crusting over in the places that were closest to the sudden burst of wild fire.

Can she ... shove it further into the fire? Malicious spirits are weak to fire, right? 

Her shovel and her arms are instantly coated in the most vile sort of muck - heavy, sticky, clinging, cold.

Upon being attacked in this way, the mud spirit surges up and engulfs her entire head in muck! It tastes like dirt and winter. She can't breathe!

And then - something - She suddenly feels terribly cold and hopeless, so weak and sluggish that she could simply stop moving, then sink into the bottom of a bog and never be found.

She falls back in a panic and then - nothing. She fucked up.

She falls to the ground. 

She is vaguely aware that somewhere her father is shouting. 

She should still be fighting, but - the fire's not there, in her. 

She stops moving. 

It's as if it left something inside her, obstructive, foreign and disgustingly large, filling and clogging something inside her that is not quite her body or her mind. The sensation is incredibly alien, and rather painful.

The mud spirit sluggishly turns its attention back to the kiln, going to another spot that isn't burning so vigorously and starting to tear at it again.

Her father is going to have to drag her to safety, most likely.

She's not going to stop him. 

Is she dying? She hopes not. 

If her father has her, maybe she can just black out and when she comes round maybe she'll be in less pain. 

She drifts in and out of sleep, sitting in the village chief's house and being fed warm broth and helped to the outhouse by someone she doesn't recognize. Her father us usually there too, looking tense and miserable.

They ask her questions. What happened, exactly? When did she notice something was wrong? Why did she confront the spirit instead of running? Is she sure the ward stone only failed that day- Could it have been broken earlier, and they didn't notice? How does she feel?

(It does seem to slowly get better. The foreign fullness and the clinging ooze against her thoughts goes away, replaced with a more simple... Dirty clog sort of feeling. Even that seems to be slowly fading with time. After a week, she can move around normally. They aren't going back to their land yet, though, and nobody will tell her why, until-)

-An official arrives. Lin Shan. She has a stare that pins you in place with bright blue eyes, her robes smooth and shiny, her hair perfectly straight and pinned in place by a simple silver rod.

She bears a symbol of office, an owl's wings. Everyone gives her great deference, as an honored official of the Ministry of Integrity.

She has a lot of questions, too. For her father, for the chief, and eventually, for her. What did the spirit do? What did it say? How did it move? How did it feel when it attacked you?

She will relay her experiences basically truthfully. Lying sounds hard. The Wardstone might have broken sooner, she doesn't check them every day and she doesn't actually know what a broken or semi-broken wardstone looks like. She struggles to describe the sensations of the curse, lacking entirely the vocabulary. 

She spends a lot of time thinking about that clinging ooze sensation and how much she hates it, even so. 

Lin Shan writes things after each answer - in a tiny, tiny book covered in impossibly small writing that shines slightly gold, with a golden pen. She gives no indication of whether the answers are good or bad.

After a while, she spends a good few minutes writing things and paging through the palm-sized book.

"...Hold this," is her eventual command, as she produces a little painted wooden token. It feels... Bright. Foreign, like the mud thing, but entirely less hostile. More like the sun, if anything.

And not ten seconds after that, she snatches it back again.

"Mei Cao of Whispering Pines Village, you have the potential to become a cultivator."

She what. 

"I ... don't know what you mean by that." 

Couldn't anyone, theoretically, become a cultivator? That's how you got wandering heroes from folk-tales. 

"I mean that there is a choice you will need to make. Normally, for a mortal to become a cultivator requires strict instruction and expensive resources. However, some rare few are uncommon talents, able to cultivate without such things. One of the duties of the Ministry of Integrity is to augur the future and find catastrophes, preventing them before they occur. By the foresight and grace of the Emperor we are given this duty. You, Mei Cao, are the subject of my latest augury."

This one seems like a blunt girl. Having recently experienced defeat, she must be craving power. The path of speech to guide her into the correct decision is something that Lin Shan composes nearly automatically.

"If I had not arrived, it is likely you would have begun cultivating without proper instruction. Something that is exceedingly dangerous not just to yourself, but to everyone around you. The horror stories of times this has occurred in the past, before our great Ministry was charged with this duty, are endless- Perhaps you would anger a powerful spirit, inciting it to destroy your village. Perhaps you would mutilate your soul, losing the capacity to feel sympathy or regret. Perhaps you would unintentionally create a dreadful curse that lingers in the area for generations. All of these are things that have happened before. To prevent this undesirable outcome, I am forced to present you with a choice."

"You may have your talent sealed and continue your life here as a mortal, however it may turn out. If you take this course of action, you will never be significantly more powerful than you are now. Your life will continue in this village, and you need not worry about conflict or danger. Rest assured, the Bog Lump which assailed you will receive stern chastisement and be driven away for its unwarranted aggression, and new ward stones provided, with spares. Or... You may join one of the Great Sects of the Empire - the Argent Peak, most likely, as you dwell near the south of the Emerald Seas province. There you will receive proper training, resources with which to awaken your soul and become a cultivator, and the support and companionship of others who walk the path of immortality. You will become mighty. But as you are without resources, there is a price for such beneficence. A simple one: After being instructed in the sect and growing your skill and might and soul for five years, you will serve in the Emperor's armies for eight years. After that, you will be a veteran with great spiritual powers, certainly sufficient that no such petty spirit as that will ever be a threat again."

"I will of course do my duty to the Emperor. Whatever service you require of me, I accept."

Having reflexively given the correct answer, she can take a moment to decide how she feels about it. 

She thinks she's in favour? Cultivators are powerful. The Emperor's armies are invincible. She doesn't want to ever get attacked by whatever spirit that was again. She probably likes the idea of being someone more powerful and important than the village headman (the most powerful person she has rendered as an actual human and not a folk-tale). 

But she has no idea what any of this will entail. Her plans for the future dissolve into chaos. She imagines herself in a snow-white robe meditating on the top of a mountain somewhere. That seems fake. 

"What will happen to my father? He's getting old, won't be able to keep working forever without my help." She would also like the ask the same question about the woodlands they manage and burn, and her little garden plot where she grows onions and cabbages for their table, and the flock of crows she has an irrational affection for despite her grain-farming neighbour's hatred. But filial piety wins out, if not in her worries, at least in those worries she can express to a member of the imperial ministry. 

In the course of her duties, she sees a lot of that. Instant acceptance and instinctual deference. The Ministry of Integrity's reputation is, of course, useful, but internal policy is unclear on this matter; And thus her own path can come into play.

It should be a real choice.

"I wish to reassure you that it is a choice. One you may make freely. You have done nothing wrong, and cannot be conscripted when you have not broken the law. There are benefits and drawbacks to either side of the choice, as with any decision in one's life. But you may choose. As for your father... The details would need to be discussed with the correct officials, but as a direct family member to one who is accepted into a great sect, he would be permitted to dwell in the sect village. The conditions there are superior to those here in terms of safety, as close as it is to the sect, and rent and taxes are quite light. You can also send some of your earnings as a cultivator to him. Though you will need such things for your own advancement."

Really, as filial piety goes the burden should be light, though. How much can food and housing for a single mortal cost, 5000 silver a year?

Yeah but like. The emperor clearly wants her to do one of those things. And she wants to contribute to the empire. 

She feels as though having been ordered to second guess herself by an imperial official, she had better get started on that. 

Obviously she will have to pay for her father out of her income, that's how having ageing parents works. She's a little concerned that the cultivator thinks it might not be possible on her salary and expenses, but cultivators are richer than the village headman and he looks after his mother in law pretty well?

What would be the benefits of remaining a mortal? She would be able to continue attending to all her worries. She'd have to look after her father as he ages and find a way to have a family so that there will be someone to look after her in her own old age. She would disappoint the Duchess, who is in some abstract way the reason why they have nice things. 

"No, I'm sure." 

Lin Shao can see the resolve. And she never wanted to talk this new talent out of it, really, just ensure the gravity of the moment is impressed.

She gives a firm nod, staring with her piercing eyes.

"Very well. I have the appropriate paperwork for your enrollment, since I was expecting to find a prospective recruit. However, it will likely be some days before a carriage can be arranged to bring you to the Argent Peak. You are lucky that the Peak's intake for the new year occurs in just under two months, you'll likely arrive just in time. I will leave some silver to cover your situation in the meanwhile, and as the Empire's apology for inadequate protection. Do you wish to speak to your father before we make everything official?"

"Yes, I should."

She hesitates. 

"Do you have any advice for me? I don't know what to expect, at Argent Peak."

"Think about what you want to do. What kind of person you want to be. What kind of life you want to live. Tell me when I come back, and ask again. I will go speak to this troublesome mud spirit now, and you can speak to your father."

And she will stand and stride out of the side room where the chief has been letting her rest.

She ... doesn't know what sorts of people you can be, if you're a cultivator? That's kind of the problem. Presumably they don't have any need for folk heroes any more, since they have the Duchess and then the alternatives are ... soldiers? People who make mythical magical blades? Wardstone repairmen? Priests? Officials of the Ministry of Integrity? By extrapolation, officials of other Ministries?

She doesn't think she'd be a very good ministry official. Presumably, you have to be able to read for that. She has a vague sense that there are other further skills to be acquired, after reading, which are also important, but she has no clue what they are. 

She talks to her father. He's perhaps even more enthusiastic about her becoming a cultivator than she is; he's more aware of the amount of money involved and the amount of status possessed by cultivators. His advice to her is - "We've never had a choice of what to be. You have a choice, now. So - make sure you actually choose. Do something that will make you happy. Whatever trade you learn, at that school of theirs, will be your trade for the rest of your life and then your children's and apprentice's trade down the years. So make it a good pick. Don't become a soldier. Don't make murder your trade. Learn to protect yourself, whatever it takes - and do bear in mind I haven't the first clue what it takes, do your service if you can't do it in a forge or an office, but the Duchess knows we've got enough killers and soldiers, and not enough of everything else." 

It's the most words he's said to her in a row in months. They don't have a talkative lifestyle. It seems to have worn him out, and after speaking, he falls silent, and they sit together in silence, in a little cottage she will soon leave behind, for a while.

The day after Lin Shao leaves, she puts on her best social face and goes around to find the most worldly and well-travelled people in the village and ask them, on account of how she is to become a cultivator and wants to do best honour to the village which has been her home, what stories of cultivators and what they know about what cultivators can do and what cultivator-skills are valuable to the empire. 

The official has a few words of advice for her before she leaves, advising her to find friends and allies and stick to them, and to take advantage of whatever the sect offers to teach, and a pouch of silver she drops almost as an afterthought.

Some of the most worldly and well-travelled people in the village include:

The brewer, who occasionally goes to a larger town to sell his alcohol and bring back goods to peddle to the rest of the village. He says cultivators can cause water to well up from the ground, or turn night to day, or brew potions of unimaginable strength that will heal a man practically torn in half by a beast, or supplicate the great spirits, earning their favor and keeping their ire away from the people.

The headman's son, who had been sent to learn to read and write in the city of Nanshao. He says that cultivators often pursue arts, performing music or poetry so sublime that it has real effects on the world. They can heal or hurt with a song, and trap evil beasts with a painting, or complete a thousand scrolls of paperwork in an afternoon.

The village herbalist-healer who is largely regarded as a crazy old woman who knows little except her herbs, but does have all sorts of stories to tell. Not many of them make sense. Making deals with a fox spirit to trade secrets for gemstones. Punching a river so hard it becomes a lake. Tricking a dragon into cooking dinner. Eating poison to become stronger. Turning into a bird - or possibly merging with one - and flying through the air. Stubbornly standing in one place for a week to talk to a mountain-spirit. Offending the moon and being cursed to be constantly thieved from in revenge.

The Jo family, who have a herd of possibly magical sheep and almost rival the headman for wealth. Their stories are mostly about fighting - defeating the evil Cloud Barbarians who dare to come test the Empire's strength, building grand fortresses and fortifying roads with spirit wards, carving out fields and mines from vicious untouched wilderness and creating a place for people in the harsh world of nature.

So cultivators can do ... Probably anything then. They say the gods were cultivators, once. 

... It is not practical to choose from amongst the set of practically everything. 

She doesn't know what things are sensible, rather than possible. She doesn't know what trades lead to a good life. She still doesn't know how to read. 

She has at least outlined her ignorance. She hopes. 

She will spend the rest of her wait trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel for any other information or learning of use from her village. 

Well, surely someone must make the ward stones. That seems like a pretty dependable trade. Everyone needs ward stones.

She will bow one step deeper than would be logically reciprocal, then, she supposes, which is incredibly presumptuous of her but she's a hick and can probably get away with it, and if she can't better to learn it now. 

She has no idea what to think of all the strange and magical aspects of this conveyance and its master. 

She will load her possessions (another person might mistake her for an unusually well prepared camper rather than someone moving their entire life) and say her goodbyes and then be off. 

Does Li Kang want to make conversation during the ride? 

Waiting in the luxuriously (for her) appointed carriage is a package of supplies. There's three black and silver sect robes made of something lovely, soft, and durable, far nicer than anything she's ever owned. Because there's no way normal clothes could stand up to the rigors of cultivation training, apparently. There's soap and hairpins and a comb and sandals and a sewing kit and a brush and inkwell (and wax paper wrapped ink blocks) and a compact mirror and a small blank notebook. None of it is very fancy, but compared to the things one uses in a tiny village, it's maybe a bit overwhelming.

Li Kang wants to talk a bit after they get going! Somehow she can hear him clearly in the carriage despite solid wood being between them, and vice-versa, apparently. Maybe the sudden breeze by her head has something to do with it.

"So, you're probably signed up for the armies after your time in the sect, right? Starting from way out here and all."

"I am." She says, as neutrally as possible before she hears his opinion on that. 

"Yeah, figured as much, coming all the way out here. It's not so bad as all that. Keep your head down and say 'yes sir' a lot and don't take any stupid risks and you'll probably be fine. I was, at least."

"Makes sense. What did they have you doing?" 

"I got rolled into a line regiment, since I'm not that talented - I'm still only high yellow and silver." He sounds a bit pained at this. "But it is what it is. I'll break through eventually. We all had to learn the army-specific arts, then it was lots of marching in formation all around the southern border. Manning forts, clearing out pests, patrolling to make sure the cloud barbarians see us and know to stay away. Cai's armies are real big on discipline. Only actually fought a cloud barbarian once, and it was over a hundred of us in a line keeping some of their flying horses at bay."

"What are the army arts good for? What other arts do you know?" 

Is this secret information? How should she know. But what he can do, she can probably do, if he's right about 'yellow and silver' being unexceptional. 

"I think we're not supposed to tell new people too much about it. And I'm not really sure how to explain... There's a whole lecture they'll give you, much better than I could. But when we say 'arts', as cultivators, we don't mean like - painting. It's a process of manipulating qi. Like learning to dance or write, but with qi. There's easier ones and harder ones. The army arts I know are Thousand Spear Redoubt, Mountain's Breath Marching, and Blazing Wind Charge. They're good for standing your ground with a spear, for running long distances without getting tired, and for shooting fire. Now that I'm thinking about it there's a lot you might wanna know... But it's really hard to sum it up briefly, you know?"

"I have faith the sect will teach me everything I need to know about the theory. What I want to know is - stuff they can't tell you. What jobs suck, what career pathways have good prospects, what teachers to avoid?" 

"Oh. Uh... Any lesson from a sect elder is really good, even if they have a reputation. The training might suck a lot during, but you will learn fast. And that makes everything else easier. Don't skip any of the free sect elder lessons in your first month! They're really awful, especially the physical lessons, but they're worth it! ...What jobs suck probably depends a lot on what you're good at. So, figure out what you're good at. But don't neglect fighting too much. A lot of the best opportunities are kind of dangerous. The other big thing to know is - there's going to be a lot of noble scions around. You can try to avoid them or at least not actively offend anyone, or try to cozy up to one in hope they'll give you resources or support or protection in exchange for work and loyalty."

"... What sort of things offend noble scions?" 

Her cached answer is 'being noticed by them in any way' but that doesn't seem workable in her new situation. 

"Not knowing their names or what their families are famous for. Implying that they suck, or their families suck, or that they made a mistake."

"How would you recommend remedying not knowing the names or families of any nobles." Other than the Duchess Cai, of course, but that goes without saying. She's not even sure which baron they pay taxes to. 

"Well, there's history books. And gossip, if you listen to one of the good gossip-heads for a while maybe they make fun of you but you'll learn stuff. I'm not gonna spend the whole trip lecturing about noble houses. Deflecting about how piteous your education was and how honored you would be to learn more is a good fallback, for a while."

... she can't read and doesn't know any gossips. (To be honest she's not really sure what a history book would even be about?) She supposes she will have to fix that.

"That's fair. What would you enjoy talking about?"

"Eh, you have any interesting work to talk about? Hearing about different occupations and crafts can offer inspiration sometimes."

"I am - I was, I suppose, a charcoal burner. Me and my father harvested the local woodland, and burned the wood into charcoal, and sold it. It's not easy work. You need to watch the burn for days at a time, lest the flame grow too strong or too weak and ruin the batch. You can't even really sleep - there were two of us so we could a bit, but otherwise every nap was a terrible risk and having two people means twice as many burns. Makes it hard to socialise or attend festivals, except in the off season. But it's honest work and we could pay our taxes in cash." 

"I've seen people do pyres and kilns at the sect a few times. I think you could refine or transform qi-rich materials that way if you do it right. Qi-infused charcoal certainly sounds like it'd be useful for something. Tell me, what's too strong and too weak? What do you see and feel that tells you about it? Do you ever change the way you do a burn for different woods or the like?"

He could keep this conversation going for a good while, mostly gently steering the conversation away from himself.. Though not literally all day; Eventually he mentions that he needs to focus on the road and leaves Mei Cao to her own thoughts.

Mei Cao will talk with the blasé enthusiasm of someone who doesn't get to talk about her work much and is happy someone is listening. She will go into great detail on every matter, but broadly speaking she will convey that the core idea of charcoal-burning is that there's one part that needs to burn to nothing and another part that needs to not burn at all, and your goal then is to keep the fire just barely in the state of burning without slowing down and leaving any of the first part, but without burning too hard and burning the second part as well, which is what usually happens in a hearth or the like (though sometimes it doesn't and you get bits of black ash in your white ash). The fire itself can't be seen during the burn, it's covered in a layer of dirt, so they monitor it by the flow of smoke and wind through the air-vents; if you do ever see even the slightest lick of flame it's burning much much too fast and you have a disaster on your hands. This is all very hard at night. They tend to prefer to always use the best wood for their burns, helping manage the woods so the right trees grow and then cutting them and seasoning them prior to the burn itself, and since there's always a lot of other firewood demands in a village they can afford to be a little fussy.

"That kind of - getting the perfect steady flow without necessarily being able to see it - cultivator crafting is sometimes like that. I was never a very good refiner, I just learned enough to make my own replenishing pills, but it still runs on steady just-right heat and intensity, and hidden details that are hard to see from the outside. Take that kind of perspective and try to fit it to new kinds of processes and you might have a head start. Commoner cultivators need every advantage they can get. Speaking of which, you need to learn to read."

"How urgently? ... How do you learn to read anyway." 

"Pretty urgently. Most of the stuff about how to be a cultivator is written down. They expect you to write notes. It's - being a dirty peasant, really bad, in terms of how people will treat you. You might not get that far in a month but it'll be better than not even having started.

-Well, usually you hire a tutor and do lots and lots of difficult practice. A mortal tutor from the sect village is probably fine to get you started and that's pretty cheap by my standards. I could set it up if you'll pay me back later, much later. Like next year when it'll be easy to. I mean, don't expect people to be generous but I figure as a fellow army candidate I'd pay forward the help I got."

She wonders if it will be easier or harder than splitting wood for twelve hours. 

"I would greatly appreciate any help you can give and will trust your estimation that I can pay it back." 

"Hey, don't take it too seriously. Or maybe you should, actually. Pushing through annoying, aggravating, difficult things will be good for your cultivation."

"It helps with most things." 

She is going to take it very seriously. 

"Hold on-"

He'll actually stop the carriage. It's fiiiine, they're back on the Cai roads again. Those are safe, at least for minutes at a time.

(He does obey the law by pulling off to the side, though.)

"May I enter, to give you something? Just some blank paper and a list of characters. Even if you don't know what they mean yet, one must make good use of their time. You can practice holding a brush and copying them. Sooner started, sooner finished!"

"I will happily learn anything you wish to teach." 

She holds a brush like someone who has only used whittling knives and chopsticks. 

...Well, he can grimace, and spend five minutes showing her the proper way now, and five minutes at each meal. Being fairly harsh about proper form and precision.

She is awful at it and needs to practice, he says, and practice some more, and then more. She should dream of writing and hand cramps. They will expect better than scribbles.

(He picked writing, not reading, because she can practice on her own. Don't worry about the ink and paper cost.)

(She can in fact memorize some of these characters over time, especially if she draws little pictures on the reference copy as notes.)

The trip takes five days. The landscape changes by the hour, through hill and valley and forest and cliff. He buys a chalk slate and a chalk pen, a clever little device for those learning to write that mostly feels like a regular pen, somewhere along the way, to reduce how much paper is used.

She tries hard. She stains her hands with ink and then runs through a box of chalk. She's worried she's injuring her hands how much they hurt, but her senior says they should hurt so she keeps going. Memorising the shapes comes easily to her, but controlled, repeatable finesse is a struggle. You don't need to eat every grain of rice in the same way. 

She sleeps lightly and dreams of smoke and flame. 

By the fourth day, her hand hurts so much she can't hold a pen; she keeps trying but her fingers rebel and spasm. 

Uh. That's not supposed to happen.

...Li Kang of some sixty years, who has not been a mortal in 45, and who is not known to be particularly foresightful, appears to have been mentally treating his escortee as a fellow sect member and forgetting just how fragile mortals are.

He tries not to let it show in his attitude. Too much. But he does tell her to stop. And pauses near one of the larger towns to solicit a doctor to look at her. The doctor does a bit of acupuncture and wraps her hand in a bandage that tingles slightly and is deferential but very much unhappy with Li Kang, and not afraid to show it, stresses a bit sarcastically that aren't escorts supposed to not injure their charges? No using that hand for anything for three days. But there's probably no permanent damage. Probably.

Well this fucking sucks. She continues to be polite and deferential to both her escort and the doctor. But also this experience warrants a certain amount of cursing, and the doctor has reminded her that in the grand scheme of things Li Kang is some guy and not the supreme vessel of the Duchess's will. 

... She's probably going to keep following his advice, having little else to go on. 

He's not exactly apologetic but also does not offer any more advice. And says that he'll set up that tutor, and they're a proper tutor, a schoolteacher even, no pay back or favor.

The last day of travel to the sect is quiet, even as the huge city of Tonghou passes out the window, and then the carriage begins a seemingly endless ascent up a high, wild, beautiful mountain.

Not spending all of her time trying to learn to use a pen has lead to her noticing how surreal this situation is. This mountain doesn't feel like a real place and her relationship with Li Kang feels nonsensical. The world contains a lot of cultivators so presumably at some point her life will stop feeling like a folktale but right now it does. Hopefully it's the good sort of folktale, about the virtuous young lady who treats people well and gets a happy ending. 

She supposes that learning to eat with her left hand counts as a form of manual dexterity training.  

They stop at the Sect Village, at the base of the mountain.

It looks like no village she's ever seen, though. The place is bright, prosperous, clean and square. Full of officials and manors and lovely three-story narrow homes, patrolled by guards in shining resplendent uniforms and armor, dotted with offices and signs. More ordinary looking people are present too, in nice clean clothing, cleaning the street, selling dumplings, shopping for candles or apples or paper or thread in tidy markets, tending gardens and going for strolls.

Li Kang pulls up to the gates and presents some papers to the guards, and is permitted to pass. He drives the carriage to a stable of sorts, where others like it are also stored, and bids Mei Cao to accompany him to the Ministry of Law office, which will assign her a temporary residence until the day of the sect acceptance.

Though... There appears to be some sort of... Clerk-related problem with this? Something about the paperwork Li Kang presents. The clerk has the aggrieved manner of someone who is just... Confused and annoyed by something stupid. It seems to be that her permission to enter the sect and registration for Army service hasn't arrived yet. And no, the papers that Li Kang is carrying on him don't count, apparently.

They end up going over all the rules and conditions of Army service again, exactly the same way as the other official did, and asking her to swear compliance again. But this time on Ministry of Law paperwork, instead of Ministry of Integrity paperwork.

The whole thing smells just a bit fishy, in her gut feelings. Like the results of a petty rivalry, perhaps. For all that the clerks are very professional about it, they're clearly low-key resentful of the Ministry of Integrity. Or at least trying to imply blame to them for the paperwork problem.

She does not, actually, find the idea of reiterating her oaths and conditions to a new official that weird; she's hazy on the mechanism whereby the fact that she already did that would be communicated to this office via paperwork in a way they'd trust and it's not like she's changed her mind. 

What *is* concerning to her is that Li Kang is acting like this is enemy action. Like it's something worth being angry about. And the clerks want her to think it's someone's fault. It feels like she's been punched from behind in a way where she's not even sure how to identify what, exactly, was the wound. 

The duchess was supposed to have put an end to corruption in the imperial ministries, though. So she must be mistaken. 

She's not going to say anything. She will stoically pretend to be immune to mysterious paperwork inconvenience. 

Then she can have one of the narrow tall houses! Here is her key. There is a servant assigned to the block of four small houses, who will see to any reasonable requests.

Li Kang sticks around just long enough to bring her into a building that turns out to be a schoolhouse of sorts, and introduce her to a tall, lithe, and sun-haired woman - "Cao Shan", a distant cousin of the baronial Cao family who is not really in line for anything and is at low Yellow cultivation. (This information is delivered as if it's an obvious and natural part of an introduction.)

She hits him on the arm - not very hard - and lectures him when the sore hand story comes out, and promises to treat Mei Cao much better than this oaf who can do little but fight.

Well, it's a house far nicer than any she's previously lived in, in that it has more than one room and furnishings made by someone who was reasonably competent at making furnishings. She doesn't know what things you're supposed to ask a servant to do so she's just not going to ask anything, unless she needs directions to the well or the privy and they're the only person around. 

Cao Shan is a strange and foreign person but any servant of the Duchess is a friend of hers in spirit. She will express polite subordinate gratefulness for her generosity of spirit.

She would like to figure out a polite way to ask - if Li Kang is only good at fighting, what is she good at? Mei Cao is still trying to learn what professions are common amongst cultivators. 

Cao Shan has mostly stopped cultivating, in favor of living out her life as a teacher; She does some petty maintenance of qi-infused clothing, and makes a few low-level talismans, which are magic writing infused with qi. Mostly, she teaches. She has a calm and patient manner, and is easy to listen to. Li Kang, before being rousted, has paid her in advance for lessons until her Sect entrance. Does three hours every morning and one after lunch sound good?

Mei Cao is happy to do as much studying as her teacher deems wise. She really wants to be good at things. 

If she devotes herself quite strongly to the lessons she can make what her tutor assures her is actually quite a good amount of progress! Especially if she reads things and writes down all the characters she doesn't understand to ask about later, as suggested. She can make progress through most books alone, now, though it's slow work. She can read signs, and write without making a huge mess, just a small one.

She even begins absorbing some imperial history, at least the basics- Cai's ascension was really not that long ago. And her daughter went to this very sect a decade ago. The Empire has been around for a long, long time and so very many things have happened. Cao Shan assures her thay having at least a basic grounding in history is a good thing. It might help her recognize cultivation things, if nothing else.

The arcane world of mathematics is nearly impenetrable though. Perhaps 'zero' and 'variables' and 'orders of magnitude' are something that only makes sense when you become a cultivator? How can a number be less than nothing?

Mathematics is awful. She does well where she can just memorise things, but Mei Cao fails at this point to realise that mathematics is a procedure and not a series of cases to be memorised one by one and then keep getting blind-sided by the teacher providing new ones. It isn't helping her that cultivators apparently use different numbers than shepherds to count and she has to relearn that from scratch. She thinks she has addition down, more or less, though. 

She prefers reading and history. She's very excited to walk into the footsteps of the Cai Heiress. She likes knowing facts about the world. Reading seems hypothetically useful and people keep saying it's very important but she hasn't found things which are, to her, important to read as of yet. 

Eventually, her tutor does notice the constant struggles with mathematics, and takes the time to interrupt the usual lessons and restart on math from first principle, explaining how a number is just a symbol, not a thing, handing her copper coins and counting them out, using debt to analogize negative numbers and purchases of multiple copies of things for multiplication and division. Cao Shan is quite good at teaching, always seeming to say things in ways that just make sense.

(She also succeeds in not giving off the impression that a small child should already know these things, even while explaining that, well, the nobles and upper class will expect her to already know these things. But really, it can be learned, it's all just fancy counting in the end-)

Hopefully this will get her past the bit of a roadblock in math, because the time remaining before official sect entrance is vanishing quite quickly. Only a few days left now.

She was already completely clear she was behind, but you know. She's being rewarded by being allowed to try at all? She's going to do her best, but it's only natural if the people who started this far up already will look down on someone only getting there because the Duchess decided to be nice to her. 

She eventually understands the procedures that are addition and subtraction and some of the related abstractions. 

When the day of entry comes, she is given another carriage ride up one of the mountains. And then further up. And then further up. The peaks make a landscape framed by cloud and sky, here, sprawled out before her eyes. The air feels alive, somehow. It's a beautiful place.

She's dropped off with a polite 'goodbye' and pointed towards a two story building standing alone, looking a bit more like a shrine than most of the buildings down from the sect village. Stately stone, surrounded by pretty little gardens and well maintained paths and flowering peach trees. She catches sight of another grey-robed new disciple heading into the building, and upon entering herself- It may well be prudent that she did learn to read. A short instructional paper that was delivered the previous day indicates that she is to go to Hall 2, and one of the signs, conveniently enough, indicates the way to Hall 2.

She doesn't quite trust the ambience. Studying pushed down the sensation that everything was fake; this increases it. 

These are the most allegorical peach trees she's ever seen. She's much more used to the ones which are used to produce (in her experience) brandy and arguments with your neighbours about who gets to have the best smoked meat next year. These ones feel like they were planted specifically to make one's students forget that this is real life and not a folk tale, at great expense. 

Carrying herself with all the dignity and composure afforded a teenaged collier, she will go to Hall 2. 

It's a large lecture hall, with comfy seating arranged with plenty of space. Light snacks and juice sit on a few tables here and there, kept at the correct temperature by subtle runes. There's seven other people in here already-

Four seem to have formed a sort of clique in the corner, animatedly discussing something and facing each other. Something to do with finance, or taxes, by the occasional overheard word. She might recognize one of them as from the Teng clan, a Viscount level clan from the south of the Emerald Seas, from her past lessons. Or perhaps not.

There's a dark-skinned girl with bright white hair, sitting utterly still, with the obvious bulge of some kind of weapon under her robe.

There's a tall and lanky boy with slicked down brown hair, fidgeting with a small carrying case. Inkstains on his fingers. He's nodding along to something the last person is saying, and locks eyes with her for a moment when she enters, but evidently she is not the one he's waiting for.

There's a broad-shouldered guy with messy black hair and a soldier's countenance and muscles, steadily milling through a plate of snacks and telling some kind of war story, from the tone and hand gestures.

She will pause a moment to see if anyone expects anything of her. But then she'll go introduce herself to her nominal peers. The two talking boys? Four people is scary and finance is scary (she does not identify the clan) and the single girl doesn't look like she wants to talk to people. Also, she probably needs to learn about war eventually. She will be polite and formal as she does so. 

They introduce themselves too; Li Shen (the soldierly one) and Mo Bao (the tall, scribe-y one).

"I'm looking forward to cultivating here. I hear it's easier on the mountain, and even easier in some special spots if you can find them," Mo Bao says. "And the library here is going to be much better than the paltry family texts on formations..."

"I'll leave formations to you scholarly types, I'm going to train my body and prepare for the army. Determination and sweat and pain now will see us through. You look like someone who's not unused to hard work, sect sister Mei Cao."

"Yes, I'm here by the grace of the Duchess. I hope to learn whatever skills will let me be most useful during my service, and afterwards, but I don't know what those are yet." 

Li Shen takes this as his cue to start talking excitedly about military doctrine and the cooperation of lower and higher realm cultivators and proper exercise form and other related things!! He'll control the pace of the conversation with meathead rambling, unless something changes.

Mei Cao won't prevent this. She doesn't know the first thing about military doctrine and shamelessly asking people basic questions has worked out so far so she's going to keep doing that. 

She didn't realise exercise was a thing? Don't you end up strong by eating well and having a hard job? 

Oh no there is definitely more to it than that. Having a hard job and eating the right macronutrients surely helps compared to one who has a non-physical job and eats gruel or candy and wine, but there are depths of bodily optimization she has not yet begun to glimpse. Careful study of the ways the body can move, the strength and actions of the muscles and joints, their limits and their ability to coordinate in balance, is the essence of physical cultivation! Pushing one's limits helps one know where exactly those limits are and judge whether they can leap or dodge or strike successfully! It's crucial to have a strong foundation of exercise before cultivating the body to higher levels by absorbing qi into the bones and muscles!

(He's being kind of loud. Drawing amused and disdainful glances from the nobility clique and a few others who have trickled in during the meanwhile.)

Ah, it's a secret cultivator thing. She takes mental notes. 

As people trickle in, she's going to try to keep track of what sorts of people there are, and if this conversation peters out she's going to see if there's anyone who isn't obviously noble or fighty to talk to. 

Most of them seem to be minor or major nobility! Nobody higher than a Count clan's second or third child.

The white-haired girl is being avoided. People seem almost slightly afraid of her? A few others don't seem obviously noble, but most of those are fighty. The remainder of that small pool consist of two different scribes and a girl with scraggly hair and a fox's tail and ears, scowling at everyone.

Wow, that's a slightly alienating field isn't it. Nobles and soldiers and literate people as far as the eye can see. She hopes she doesn't read as overly a soldier-candidate to everyone here. 

She's never going to have a better chance to figure out what's going on with that, is she? Now, everyone is watching, she's understood to be some harmless hick (which is correct and will continue to be correct for far longer than people will give her slack for it, but whatever). So she should go say hi to the terrifying girl and see if it's legible why she's terrifying to everyone. 

Having extracted herself from military doctrine 101, she will wander (entirely unsubtly) over to weird scary still girl and formally greet her. 

She looks somehow both less and more scary, up close. Like a knife, being held by the handle.

She turns and nods politely. Golden eyes. Blue skin.

"Hello. This one is Sia Bis, of the Bis clan of Thousand Lakes. I look forward to becoming deadly alongside you and everyone else in the noble Argent Peak."

She's heard of Thousand Lakes. Mostly in folktales. Not happy folktales. 

"Greetings, Lord Master. This one is Mei Cao. I am but a poor collier so please forgive the inadequacy of my education, but I am not familiar with the Bis Clan." 

They're not the Bai clan, at least. 

The Bai clan, it is said, is not so much a family as an ethnicity in Thousand Lakes by now.

"I believe the correct term of address between us now is 'sect sibling'. The Bis clan is not of sufficient consequence to be known much outside of Thousand Lakes." It is quite a considerable internal scandal that they are 'Bis' instead of 'Bai', anyway, but it's best to not air that too casually. "We are a subordinate clan to the Bai, a baronial clan, of little consequence to the wider Empire. We carve weapons from bones and keep the mountain-beasts of Old Smoke's slopes afraid."

"Yes, Sect Sister." Can she make it sound like 'Lord Master' through sheer inflection? 

"I was not aware you could make weapons out of bone." 

"Not mundane bones."

She smiles and pulls the weapon from under her robes. It's a harpoon. It's snow-white, and there are silver and red runes carved on it. "From a Steeltusk Boar. Then prepared and carved with the family techniques to channel lake and thunder qi. I helped track it down."

"Wow. That's very impressive."

If Sia Bis doesn't have anything else to say. 

"Do you know why people seem to be scared of you?" 

"The Bis do not make such prolific use of poison as the Bai, but that simply means we need... Other ways of intimidation. I do intend to demonstrate to anyone who interferes with me why that is a bad decision."

The ambient gossip cloud audibly shifts at this declaration.

Well, fair enough. Mei Cao feels like she'd have a much better clue how to take this if Sia Bis was making any sort of facial expressions. 

She does her best not to visibly quail in terror though. 

"I'm sure that will serve you well?" She trails off. 

"As am I! We are, after all, all part of the same Empire."

"A fine sentiment, young one."

...It is impossible that nobody noticed the man standing at the front of the room until now. He is eye-wateringly colorful, wearing robes that are simultaneously pink and turquoise and acidic green and sunny orange, possibly deliberately designed to be as clashing as possible. His eyes rapidly shift through colors, and he stares at the group from the small stage at the front of the hall with something between amusement and boredom. And yet, as far as she can tell, he definitely wasn't there a moment ago.

"Everyone's here, so let's not waste any time. I am Sect Elder Sima Jiao, current head of the Talisman Department, and as occasionally comes to pass, it is my turn to welcome the next generation. Listen up, because I'll only say all this once."

He shrugs, the gaudy beads on his robes jangling.

"The Argent Peak is a place to train young cultivators. More importantly, it is a place to winnow the wheat from the chaff- Those with minor potential will go on to become soldiers, bureaucrats, and the like, and those with real talent- Well, many doors are open to them. Most of you will remain in the Outer Sect for your entire time here- If you have any hope of being useful and important you will actually try, and not just coast along with a 'good enough' effort."

Sima Jiao goes through a series of rules with an almost casual tone. They won't be permitted to leave the mountain for three months, and even after that they won't be able to leave the area until a full year has passed. Also, no mail in or out for the first three months. There is no fighting permitted for the first three months, outside of sanctioned and monitored spars. There is an obvious implication that fighting each other will be permitted after three months.

"Conflict is important for your growth, but it would not do to allow potential to be cut off before it can even begin to bloom. The only true rule is that you may not kill or permanently maim your fellow disciples."

All the mundane necessities will be provided for; If one needs new robes or soap or food or anything else they can simply visit the administration building. Cultivation resources are not so generously doled out, and everyone receives a fairly minor stipend of five red spirit stones per month. These are apparently both a currency and a resource one uses to cultivate faster. Finally, the provided Sect Housing is gender-segregated, no boys allowed on the girl side and vice versa. Sect officials are exempt, of course, on the rare occasion they would need to enter first year outer disciple housing.

"Rooming arrangements are for you to organize amongst yourselves. I do recommend everybody find at least one roommate," the elder says dryly, making eye contact with Sia Bis in particular. "Lone targets are far easier to ambush, if nothing else. Now, line up kids, it's time for your first monthly allowance! Spend it wisely!"

Elder Sima Jiao claps his hands, and it's as if a quietness laid over the room is dispelled, and everyone is hurrying to line up.

Well, they made it rather clear. The thing the Duchess wants from her is for her to exceed. The thing they saw in Mei Cao is inexplicable, but they clearly saw it, and she cannot possibly fail them. 

What does an exceptional effort look like here, in this place where the teacher has all but said that they're to fight each other for the sake of tutorial sadism that's frankly bizarre inexplicable beyond her paltry education to comprehend. How does she thread that needle. 

Well, she knows what the people in this room are terrified of. She knows who the teacher singled out as strong enough to potentially solo whatever gangs form, if she didn't need to sleep. 

She asks, as they're waiting in line for their 'red spirit stones'. 

"Hey. Do you want to be roommates?" 

...She doesn't blink, exactly, but stares at Mei Cao very hard. In a way that is somehow kind of scary.

"Why?"

"Because you're terrifying and I need time to actually learn how to fight if I want to defend myself." 

She doesn't think to say 'and from talking to you, you seem to be a basically reasonable person somehow'. She doesn't even really think to think it. 

She wants to say no, but she has been... Advised... To find actual connections in the sect, instead of going it alone. She doesn't even have the advantages of higher noble scions. Being here is a privilege and she cannot afford to let some sense of petty pride or disgust or whatever it is that is welling up in her get in the way of being effective.

"Okay. Just don't expect handouts, I'm rich compared to you and poor compared to some others, and if you betray me you will regret it."

"I will not betray you and do not expect handouts. The Duchess's generosity is already beyond imagining that I am permitted to study at all."

A firm nod.

"Let's get our allotment and go, then. I'll want to hurry and claim one of the smaller places- Hopefully we shouldn't have to share with a third."

They get in line. At the front, the Elder is carelessly handing out little bags with five spirit stones in them, and also a slim book, with shiny paper and a purple cover. Argent Soul Cultivation Art, Basic Form, it says.

Sia Bis bows to the Elder and turns to exit the hall at not quite a run.

She will do her mortal best to take her allotment and keep up, while wondering to herself what an argent soul cultivation art is. 

It would be unseemly to run, of course.

Out behind the administration building is another nice garden'd plaza, with two side streets sticking off it. Sia Bis takes the left one. It's full of nice houses. She takes a smaller one, sets down a messenger bag inside, and then sits out front, smiling and holding her weapon. She elects to ignore the snide remarks muttered below a mortal's hearing but not hers.

"My obvious presence is our best chance at privacy... I'll stay here for a couple of hours at least. Then I want to go scout the mountain. I noticed that you seem to be a mortal entirely - you have not even started on cultivation. Is there a particular reason for that?"

"I didn't think it was allowed and wouldn't know how?"

"...You should read the book. The classes are much more about refining what you already know. And the harder and smarter you work, the better. One thing that might stall you... There is a thing in the body called the Dantian, it's where you need to gather qi. You should be able to... Find it by feeling with your qi sense. An empty space. That's the first step. The breathing and thought exercises in a soul cultivation art are designed to help you get into the right state of mind to fill it. I'm using my family's Placid Thunder manual instead but Argent Soul isn't bad for a beginner."

She will take Sia Bis' word for it that this is an appropriate way to pace her cultivation, though a part of her rankles at that. But presumably the Duchess meant her to start now, and not tomorrow or last month. 

She will read the book. She will need to ask what some characters mean, and also what most of the allusion and metaphor is about. 

And then she will try cultivating. She supposes she's not getting any sleep tonight. But she thinks she has some good guesses as to that inner space? 

There's surprisingly little metaphor. You are, broadly, supposed to take one of your red spirit stones and hold it in your hands, and breathe in the qi that the stone contains. It's all laid out as a process to be followed, steps one two and three, like chemistry or medicine, with diagrams, if only one knows how to 'move qi' and 'open the dantian'.

It even explicitly says that these are things you must simply do, like opening and closing one's eyes, and list some common feelings and sensations associated with it.

But.

The whole mountain has been alight with some of the same odd sensations that being near spirits, or near the wardstones, gave her. It feels warm, though the temperature is chilly. It feels alive. The sensation grows starker and clearer the longer she focuses on it, and she soon starts feeling the energy in the warm coal-stone in her palms flare up with each breath in, and die down with each breath out, as she inhales the vital smoke. After some long long minutes of trying, she does manage to start consistently breathing in this smoky energy.

...Most of it immediately escapes with her next breath out, not absorbed into her body but blocked and then wasted. Still, a steady feeling of warmth kindles inside her, not quite in her belly, not quite in her heart, but in a third place that surely must be her Dantian.

It's really engrossing. Just take one more deep breath, watch the fire, and draw the smoke into your belly. It feels... Right, comfortable, warm, even as it's a new sensation and one she's unpracticed at. She slips out of the proper pattern of breathing sometimes, simply not quite timing things right and gathering less of the energy than she perhaps could have.

When the ember of power in her hand is dead and lifeless and dim, no more energy to be gathered, it's dark outside. And the warmth inside doesn't seem to be fading. It's unclear if it's doing anything besides being warm and comforting, though.

Was it not explained in her book what the point of all this was? 

The point, it is so assumed to be known that it is barely mentioned (mostly in admonishments to be patient and diligent in your pursuit of power and ability), is that cultivation makes you stronger, more present in the world, smarter, faster, more you. Spirital growth, physical growth, chasing perfection and understanding.

She's broadly in favour of that, she supposes. 

How much time does she have before classes? 

Well, the sun has set and her roommate is nowhere to be found.

...Actually there's a note on the kitchen table, once she fusses with the candles or lanterns to get enough light to read it. 

I went out for a hike. Will be back by morning.

Well, she has time then, and she doesn't feel tired. Not even 'first night of a long burn' tired, which makes sense, she hasn't been hauling wood all day. She's going to pick a spot where sunrise will be obvious to her even if she's not paying attention and keep cultivating. She can't afford to be behind the other students. 

A second one of her five small red spirit stones goes to her hand, and she can continue.

It's so very easy to lose oneself in the flow.  

Time falls away.

Qi flows in and out. The discomfort of muscles in the meditation position prescribed by the book fades away. The sense of being in a room at night fades away. 

There is only the qi, slowly, slowly filling her up. Before long it feels like she's straining something, the soreness of well-worked muscles, but somehow in her soul. But the bright ember still burns, and she's doing much better at grasping for it, pulling, banking the energy. It seems to flow in almost of its own accord as she stubbornly continues.

The soreness increases, beginning to edge towards the kind of pain that indicates real damage, but she feels like she needs to continue, like she's near something important. And- All at once the kiln inside her has accumulated sufficient fuel and ignites of its own will. The gathered warmth transforms into a new whole, sitting, alive and ready, inside her.

It's unmistakably a 'full awakening', as described by the book.

She is officially no longer a mortal, and instead what the manual describes as 'Early Red Soul'. But the energy of the stone is not quite gone, and another couple of hours can pass as she gathers more qi, making what is already there ever so slightly denser.

Twilight is creeping up on the horizon. She is barely tired. There's definitely a sort of mental and spiritual fatigue, something that makes things seem a bit floaty and too bright even in the dim predawn light, but her body feels light and ready. Faster than before. More dexterous. Stronger. Her senses sharper. And her core of qi feels healthy and full, a steady fire.

Excellent. Presumably her classmates will still be well ahead of her but at least she can say that she took the first and simplest step. 

... And then she realises with dread that she managed to spend nearly half of her monthly resource allocation in one evening. She has several insights into the true nature of cultivation and the sect. 

Sia Bis is in the kitchen, cooking venison and rice.

There's a smell of blood, and a doe skin is visible on a stretching rack through the window. The stretching rack wasn't there yesterday.

...She goggles for just a moment, surprised, when she sees Mei Cao. But then she pushes past it and continues cooking.

"Good morning. I see you got straight to cultivation."

Sia Bis is presumably surprised that she was willing to work through the night to keep up, most people aren't willing to do that sort of thing. 

"I did! Thank you for your advice! Are you willing to share your meat? I can try and catch some in the future." 

Though rabbits and trout are more her speed, really. 

"Sure. It's not a big deal, the cultivation benefits of low-grade meat like this are really marginal, though. And the bones aren't bad but aren't anything special. I mostly took it because it was right there when I was exploring."

"... Oh is it. Special deer somehow?" 

"A rank one spirit beast. Almost anything living on this mountain is going to be one, there's so much qi in the air and water and plants. Not smart, not a spirit, just a sort of - magical animal, you can think of it like that."

She brandishes a small stone. Not like the red spirit stones, it seems... Muddier, somehow. "Beast core. Useful for tons of things, as are materials from the body, but the cores are the most important. I'm terrible at refinement so I'll probably trade them to someone in exchange for pills and things once things are more settled."

She nods. "Refinement?" That sounds like a facet of the economy as experienced by cultivators that she is still unfamiliar with. 

"They make ... Stuff. Cultivation tools, weapons, pills and medicine, talismans, formations that can extend what is possible. Like the carriages, or the lock that keeps boys out of this side of the housing. Healing pills. Beast cores are mandatory for every batch of healing pills, I know, even if some of the other ingredients can change..."

A brief pause.

"I think refining particularly is more about taking basic things and - transforming, preparing, or concentrating them. And it happens to be that most of that results in pills, but not all."

"Huh. Does the sect teach that sort of thing?" 

"There's a Refiners' Hall, I think probably you should ask there? Elder Su's lecture starts soon-ish though, and the physical training is after that, so you would have a chance to investigate it without missing those in the evening."

"I think I will have a lot to investigate. I will certainly take a look." 

She is suddenly struck with the horrible possibility of arriving late to Elder Su's lesson and starts looking around for kitchen tasks which need aiding with.

Then today's portion of meat will be cooked all the quicker, and they can eat meat on rice. With salt, and a few greens.

Sia Bis eats like she's barely tasting it, and finishes first.

"...So. You ignited your qi in one night. I presume by spending the entire time since yesterday morning cultivating. With just red spirit stones. That is kind of an insane thing to do, just so you know. It took me three and a half weeks, and that was considered quick. You are either naturally talented at cultivation and very lucky, or absurdly talented at cultivation."

"I didn't realise it was supposed to be that hard, I thought it would be a given that I'd be able to make enough progress to matter since you said most people would have." 

She hopes the confusion in her voice will make that come across as less arrogant than it might. 

"That is the way everyone starts cultivating. I was expecting it to take you a few weeks. Maybe a month or two..."

She peers at Mei Cao. "...You probably feel a sort of dull empty pain in your dantian right now. I have a qi sensing art and it looks... Swollen in the way a bruise does. That's over-cultivation. I have seen it before. You will want to take a break from cultivating for a little while."

"Obviously you should try your best. Some people have more talent. Others must find other ways to keep up. Thus is the will of the heavens. Do you want to try to earn more spirit stones together, perhaps?"

Does her manual contain mention of overcultivation? If it does, she will make a note to slow down and do other things. It's not like she doesn't still need to study literacy and learn to fight and figure out what refining is like and presumably six other things that the real teachers will point out.You can avoid overtraining injuries if you train different things on rotation, right? 

"I'd love to! ... I still don't know what my schedule will look like in practice for the next" rest of her life "few weeks." 

The book did indeed warn against overcultivation! Especially when just starting out! Mostly in the context of using multiple powerful medicines and skipping sleep or food to cultivate.

"Lessons. All the lessons, until you get kicked out for underperforming. Normally you'd have to pay through the nose to get an Elder's time, I cannot emphasize it enough."

Well she arguably was missing sleep to cultivate. Not an important amount of sleep, but. 

"I was not in danger of refusing teaching from our elders while they offer it." 

"Hm. Well. The next step once you get used to Argent Soul is going to be finding more techniques to-" Sudden frown. "I'll let the Elder's words of advice come before mine." Another pause. "I am trying to be - open - and honest, here. I think you are going to end up... Strong, and powerful. So I want to help you, and be - friends?" She says 'friends' as if it's a foreign word. "-I think it's a lot better to be open about that from the beginning. I don't mean to be transactional about it, or to make it so you owe debts or anything. I mean... I don't know you yet, nor you me, and... As much as it can be... Friends would be nice. I don't know what that looks like yet, though."

That's terrifying. 

"I appreciate your honesty. To return your honesty I don't really believe you that I'm going to end up powerful or important. But you have presumably seen in me the same thing that made the Duchess's agent give a scholarship to a random peasant in the first place, so I suppose you must be seeing a real thing."

"... I would still like to be friends." 

"I suppose... Some of the things I did with people I consider friends were, hunting together, and listening to Mother tell stories, and swimming in the shallow parts of Old Smoke's Shadow - a lake... I don't think I have much experience being friends. We called it 'allies'. And then I got selected to come south, here, to Argent Peak. And Ren... Did not."

"Those seem like the sort of thing people who had friends in my village reported doing with their friends. They also went to festivals together, when there were festivals in nearby towns." Nobody in her town except maybe the headman was prestigious enough to describe themselves as having an alliance with anyone. 

They can spend the rest of breakfast speculating about possible normal friendship activities before they need to head to class. 

On the way to the lecture hall, one of the scribe-like disciples says, loud enough to be clearly heard, "Look, the brutish fish found a muddy peasant leech."

Sia Bis coldly replies, as if to Mei Cao, as if the other disciple is not even worth looking at, "Ignore that cicada's chirping. We have a lecture to attend."

What the fuck. She's not offended by the insult but it's a new layer to the creeping sense that she has enemies whose means and motives are beyond her compensation. She does not like that creeping sense, but it was creeping 24 hours ago and it's creeping today as well. She hopes her choice of alliance was sensible enough; it's certainly paid dividends in her not having fallen behind all of these people in the first day of classes just from lack of cultivation.

"Y-yeah." is what she manages to say. She also manages to not stare nervously at the other disciples, though this does result in her obviously not looking in their direction instead. 

Well, the lecture, being held by one Elder Su-

-Divides people into an 'advanced' and 'simple' class, with the kindly-looking Elder standing on the stage splitting into two as she goes. She directs Mei Cao to the left side, and Sia Bis to the right, and advises with a concerned whisper that Mei Cao should refrain from cultivating for the next day or two. Sia Bis gives her a confident nod. And then a wall of some shimmering material fades in, splitting the lecture hall in two.

This side of the hall is mostly martial types, and a few bureaucratic types. The nobles are almost all on the other side. The mood is different. People mostly aren't staring, looking at the Elder instead.

The lecture is surprisingly informative, the Elder clearly has a lot of experience compressing this information into a useful format for those who might not already know it.

Some of the highlights include:

The first few stages of cultivation- One must cultivate both body and soul, to Red, Yellow, and Green for soul, and to Gold, Silver, and Bronze for body. These stages are divided up into additional ranks: Early, Middle, Late, and Peak. Every time you advance a rank there is a qualitative change in one's body or qi, slow improvements finally realized all at once, like water turning to a boil.

There are many aspects of qi. Qi 'aspects' are something like flavors: They can be general, or very specific. They make it 'taste' different, and aspected qi is often more efficient at some things and less at others. Many of the more powerful arts require specifically aspected qi. 

You can have trouble managing your emotions if you dip too deeply into certain aspects of qi, without much balance. The imperial eight (the eight most simple and common aspects) are used as examples, a virtue and vice named for each. Earth: Selflessness, Passivity. Fire: Passion, Wrath. Heaven, Cai's element: Ingenuity, Obsession. Lake: Peace, Gluttony. Mountain: Determination, Stubbornness. Thunder: Ambition, Hubris. Water: Adaptability, Cowardice. Wind: Curiosity, Fecklessness.

This is only really something to watch out for if you use practically just one aspect, though.

Most of the qi on the mountain is 'Argent' aspect, which is very close to neutral. But there are places all over where the qi is stronger and has an aspect, like a pond that has Lake Qi, or a cave that has Darkness Qi. It's easier and more productive to cultivate in such places. Students are encouraged to find these places themselves if they wish to use them, both to practice their skills and to reward effort and competence.

Even Cultivators Live in a Society. Hermits who forget the mortal world and simply cultivate to get stronger, or advance, or learn, but don't actually use their cultivation, are useless at best to the Empire. Cultivators must participate in society, or they are failing the Empire. Whether this means fighting barbarians, or keeping spirits quiescent, or crafting tools and talismans and pills for other cultivators to use, or serving in the bureaucracy, the Empire both demands and rewards their service.

The first step is awakening your core. The next step will be unlocking meridians and then learning more arts, but she will go over that in much more detail next time.

She unironically appreciates the instructive imperial messaging about what she's supposed to do with her life! She has a list of recommended options - she can be a solider, or a priest, or a crafter, or a bureaucrat. Her father said she shouldn't be a soldier, and her last interaction with a spirit went badly, and she's still only barely literate, so she supposes she'd better try really hard when it comes to that visit to the refiners she was going to make. 

She supposes it's fine that they're covering a thing she's already done, if she isn't supposed to be cultivating for the next few days, but what does the elder seem to think someone in her position ought to be doing doing forward?

The Elder was hinting that she should make sure to do her physical cultivation diligently and consider what sorts of magic she might want to learn, perhaps research technique options open to her, in the Archives or achievable through rewards or purchase, and consider which ones might be good for her.

She could also 'cultivate the Argent Soul art', which is separate from cultivating her spirit up the Red Soul levels, and specifically means following a set of exercises of escalating difficulty in the second half of the book until she can do them easily. The Argent Soul Art is apparently specifically designed to be a good, safe, balanced starting point.

Has she been instructed on how to do physical cultivation yet? What does the schedule of tutorials from elders look like for the next few days? 

She has not yet been instructed on physical cultivation!

Looks like physical cultivation lessons start in the early morning, every morning, starting tomorrow. While spiritual cultivation lessons are every other day, in afternoons.

No more lectures are scheduled today, anyway, and it's still fairly early in the afternoon.

Is there an obvious intended solution for students who have just gotten out of class and want something for lunch or is she going to be having cold rice and some of whatever the local "making it easier to enjoy eating cold rice" condiment is?

There aren't any places serving food, no. Rice and venison back at the house she and Sia Bis claimed is probably her best option. There did seem to be some spices in the cabinets earlier.

Then she will be having cold rice and some kind of mysterious cultivator chilli oil that she hopes isn't more expensive than her house for lunch, sitting wherever nearby seems like a reasonable place to sit down. 

And then, assuming that she isn't interrupted in her lunch plans, she will go looking for the refining hall. 

People mostly aren't going to interrupt her; They have their own plans to advance, with many going straight for intensive training.

One of the scribe types will only condescend at her a little bit while pointing out the path to the refining hall.

It's a large place, but looks comparatively humble when positioned next to the fancy houses and fancy intake hall. More practical; Heavy stone construction, mostly unadorned, no windows. There's a small office with a bored looking Senior manning a desk. She raises an eyebrow at Mei Cao. "What's a new outer disciple who's barely even awakened properly doing all the way up here, hmm? I don't suppose you have the necessary sect points to rent a production space or get someone to teach you already, do you?"

"I have not." What's a suitably subordinate way of saying she wanted to stickybeak. "I have never before had the chance to witness how cultivators refine. I felt it behooved me to see what the this place was like. It seemed like it might be the work most similar to the work I have done previously." 

Siiiigh. "Have some spine, kid. You're a cultivator now too, you know? What work was that? Smithing? Herbalism?" She sniffs the air. "...Charcoaling? Yes, charcoaling. Huh. Well, you're not entirely wrong. Listen up because I'm feeling teacher-like today! The two main production arts for cultivators are arrays, which consist of writing, weaving, drawing, or carving meaningful characters in very careful patterns on appropriate materials to achieve useful effects. This is also known as talismanry. And the other is our art, refining, the art of breaking up and mixing qi-rich materials into more useful and potent forms. It's something between cooking, alchemy, and bears more than zero resemblance to charcoaling. The refiner's art is the very foundation of a cultivation sect's prowess! We make the pills that talented cultivators eat to cultivate even faster! We produce the medicines that our dear friends in the Medicinal Department use to repair cultivators who have managed to injure themselves through ignorance, ineptitude, or ill luck! We even produce the qi-rich alloys, inks, and mixtures that talisman and array artists use for their own arts! It's a noble art you're interested in! But you're not going to be able to learn it as you are. Get to high red soul at least, and open an arm, head, and lung meridian first - and then you'll be fit to study the Argent Refining Art, basic form."

She pauses.

"Though, I suppose you might find someone willing to teach you the non-spiritual parts of the work, gathering and grading spirit herbs for example, before reaching that point, likely in exchange for performing their chores, or sect points. I, myself, am not interested in such an arrangement."

Refining sounds interesting, in a way. Like charcoaling but for everything. 

"Thank you for your guidance. I will return when I have met this standard, or when I am properly able to purchase teaching." 

She's unusually enthusiastic about it; she wants to match this senior's enthusiasm.

The desk minder stares at her for a moment, then chuckles and shrugs. "I could ask around for you if you like? Not even a favor. I'm bored and might get credit for it if there's a good match. Have you spent any time in wilds? Got any special skills aside from the patience and diligence of charcoaling?"

"I would appreciate it if you could! I am a capable enough hunter and forester, by the standards of my village if not by a cultivator's standards. I never left the wardstones. I tried to fight a spirit that snuck through the wards once? It went badly." 

"As a mortal? I'd imagine so! Okay... I'm Lia Hejin and if I send someone to ask after you they'll make sure to mention 'rubies and lilies'. So you know it's not someone bullshitting you to get you alone or anything. Might come to nothing, might not."

"Well, it was threatening the burn." She says in a tone of voice that implies she understands how unreasonable this was in retrospect. 

"I appreciate it!" She makes sure to memorise the sign, and also the idea that using signs to secure messages is a thing she should be considering doing. It's nice how helpful people have been for her even though apparently in a few weeks people will also be trying to get her alone to mug her.

Next thing on her todo list: the archive. She can't read that well but it seems like an important thing to visit and comprehend at all. 

But, see, the helpful people have mostly been seniors, who have less reason to care about petty first year rivalries.

The archive is also findable! It looks like a big library. The disciple minding the front desk doesn't look up from his book the whole time he explains the place. They, again, charge Sect Points for entry unless you have a permanent pass. And even then some parts of the Archives will be off limits depending on one's access level. One sect point for a week's pass, or one red spirit stone for a day pass. This is to pay for maintenance, staff, hiring combat focused disciples for the periodic purging of ink spirits, and so on.

The usual use case is to swiftly explore the archives for whatever information you need, be it on history or cultivation or arrays or refining, and then either write down copies yourself or pay for a copy to be scribed for you (which is more expensive). They do also offer employment for scribes if your writing is good. There's also a service where the front desk disciples will allow you to order copies of specific books, if you know the name already, without needing to pay for the day pass to go fetch them, just the scribing fee itself. A copy of Argent Refining Art, Basic Form, for example, is five sect points or twenty five spirit stones. She can sign up to earn sect points at the mission hall, he mentions idly. Or sell things at the disciples' market.

That is ... way too much money. She doesn't even know if she's literate enough to benefit. She knows she has to go in just to learn what exists at some point, but she needs to have a better sense of her money situation first. 

She politely thanks the disciple and returns to the sect hall. She's going to spend a while going through all of the work and options they have for sale there. She wants to know what work someone with her skills could even do right now to earn money, and also how much it costs to hire tutors in mundane skills you need to catch up in fast, like literacy and etiquette and qi theory and fighting, but the most important thing is making it so that when people say "or you could buy it" she knows how much that would actually cost, at least approximately. 

Well, the actual missions offered at the sect hall are mostly intended for either permanent outer disciples or those with a little more advancement under their belt; There is all-but-mundane work available for one or two sect points at a time: Chop wood, carry water. Fill all the lanterns around the main training grounds with oil. There are a variety of requests and missions posted by other disciples, mostly requesting specific beasts be hunted or specific locations visited for specific valuable materials. Who knows what a crafting disciple wants with the bark and needles of the Lakedew Pine? But the sect is offering five points for a basket full of each, and it is described as not especially dangerous. Then there are tasks that are out of her league, or require extra permissions- Missions to investigate disappearances, or hunt specific menacing beasts, or harvest materials from actively dangerous places, or to teach other disciples a valuable skill.

The options for a new disciple to earn Sect Points are pretty much limited to, essentially, chore duties, but it seems to be kind of a waste of time? The rates are fantastic for a peasant but won't buy much at all here. One or two points for a whole week's worth of work. Earning spirit stones, it is gently suggested to her, might be a bit more attainable at yet another location: The disciple market. Sect Points can be exchanged for spirit stones, but not vice versa, generally, and the stones are what very young cultivators tend to need, not points. As for academic tutoring, the cost to hire a permanent outer disciple to handle the low-level skills tends to be a few spirit stones per week of tutoring- The sect hall can match you to very good tutors in exchange for sect points, but the prices are out of her range. Negotiating with older disciples directly would be more attainable.

Oh look, it's that one fox-tailed girl from the intake lecture. She still looks oddly scruffy, though something about her is different - scruffy in a pretty way, somehow? She's clean, now, and wearing one of the sect robes, but her mannerisms are still the opposite of noble as she paces and considers the work postings.

"Tch. Can't earn points without advancing, can't advance without earning points. I'd be better off just going off and hunting... Need beast cores anyway, and like hell am I going to buy them at those prices... Five red stones are gone so quickly. Right?"

"I have been a disciple for one day and I seem to have run through half my month's allocation already." She commiserates. 

"I am extremely unsure of every detail of the money situation here." 

"I think they treat spirit stones like silver, mostly. I visited the market and everything was priced in stones, or occasionally fractions of stones."

"As terrifying as that is, what I mean is, like. What level of implied difficulty should I be assuming from the fact that I can apparently get five weeks pay in an afternoon collecting pine needles? Who is paying for that? Why? What work actually pays a reasonable amount considering the other demands on our time?"

She looks at the pine needle task.

"Oh yeah, those are poisonous. Not that poisonous as poisons go. They make you stupid happy and mess with your appetite and make you see things that aren't there, so bad you can't defend yourself. Get gloves. Actually, I might take this one? The premium is because these trees are halfway up a mountain and only cultivators can get them without taking a week about it, I'd bet. Or maybe because only cultivators are permitted on the sect lands?"

"I don't believe I've acquired the ability of cultivators to hike more swiftly than mortals at my current level of progress, or else I would offer to aid you in the task. It sounds illuminating and profitable." 

"Some of the tasks are implicitly intended to give young disciples an opportunity for challenge and growth," the attendant interjects. "We even have some standing policies regarding the maximum number of low-level assignments per disciple, to support this aim."

She's even more confused! 

"I appreciate the clarification. I am sure the sect has structured these offers with our best progression in mind. Nonetheless, at this moment, I do rather have to agree with the sentiment that I lack the resources to progress and the progression to obtain resources from sect missions, which means I will need to look elsewhere when it comes to obtaining resources." Her tone indicates that this is just a true fact rather than something to complain about. 

"That's because it's, what, your second day here? Be more responsible about spending your stones, I guess."

(...Wen Huli mutters something sarcastic, too low to hear.)

Well, not all the attendants can be clever and helpful, she guesses. 

"I will make the best decisions available to me with the information that I have access to. I look forward to the day when I am strong enough to complete these missions. Thank you for your assistance."

She's going to leave now.