The path of ascension is solitary, and not tread at the side of others.

Beneath brooks a different tale.

Connections are no less important a wealth than that which burdens your spatial ring, and in such plain sight that even the blind might recognize it.

Yet beyond this, is information.

As is the practice for many clans, sects and organisations, tradition in such matters is long held and vaunted. Be this the inclusion in tournaments, in fostering, the swapping of disciples, or the appearance across the Empire’s myriad gatherings.

Representatives of the younger generation are often paraded to events of such insignificance that their mere presence becomes cause for the celebration.

Lesser auctions. [Formation Realm] contests. [Dao] lectures.

The worth here lies in recognising which young scion falls prey to fluttering eyelashes, or who roils in anger in dark corners to see such a sight.

Whose clan must secure a friendship, or who indeed tries.

How best might you leverage such knowledge? What steps open on your own path for exploiting such?

Always, what might you stand to gain for extending a larger branch before another covetous hand is offered?

I would urge the reader to consider any crowd when visiting such an event, for often the true value is not what is on offer.

But those that stand idle as the deal is struck.

* ‘Refining one’s Wealth,’ by Sect Leader [Avaricious Stork]

Peaks of fluorescent canvas billowed all around the mountain top, sheets belonging to a myriad number of Sects, Halls, and other institutions whose banners stood alongside the tents erected here. Their heraldry was picked up by the warming breeze as it sharply ascended the valley to Fu’s rear, and had his new robes flutter as he stepped down from the [Spatial Array].

After giving his thanks to the attending cultivator, an exuberant woman in lilac hanfu, he moved on.

At first glance he had arrived at a temple’s base, for this tumult of tents spread for around two li until coming to the bottom of a rising staircase. Something immersed under vines of flowering blossoms, which he could tell as they likewise decorated the path where he now walked.

A festival? It is reminiscent of the travelling players that used to frequent the docks in [Summers] passed.

Fu was immediately assailed by a well-dressed youth. An urchin whose full-toothed smile was most definitely forced. “Master cultivator!” he called. “Do you seek a guide for the upcoming trial? For a nominal donation, I could lead you to a place where your tent might be pitched.”

The similarities between common sense and an assassin’s approach were many, meaning that he did

need information. Grandmother Hua had entered him blind, never stating what [Constellation Seed] he was to claim or the means of doing so.

“The trial is to begin today, is it not? A tent is of little use, young friend,” he said, and composed himself as a noble cultivator might. Only small hints of disdain to his features as he walked from the boy.

“Master cultivator!” came the call again.

Fu buried his hands within his robes, clasped as he conjured a dignified air. The boy would spill secrets if he presented as one with deep pockets. “I am away to give respects,” he said, leaving it vague.

“You know my master, [An Array in One Hand]? I might lead you to his lodgings at the mountain’s peak if you wish. Have you a token already?”

“I can climb stairs easily enough,” smiled Fu, and turned an open palm to the [Spatial Array]. “You are enterprising, young friend, but I was not born yesterday. Perhaps try your fortune with those [Foundation Realm] boys that have just arrived.”

Clearly disgruntled, the youth’s [Senses] searched for Fu’s [Dantian].

A cultivator? At no more than ten moons.

Imperiously, Fu’s brow arched. “[An Array in One Hand] would not teach one so improper,” he chided. The youth raced back along the path before anything else might occur, dodging into a channel between tents.

A master organises this trip into the [Paifang], he is of the [Origin Realm] to hold a [Dao Name], and there is a token of some sorts. To gain entry?

Ten minutes walk put him further into the field of cultivators, and he noted the obvious correlation between tent size and the wealth of those within. As he was nameless, as a ghost ought to be, he made for a mid-sized tent at random. Prying around a Sect or noble clan would earn him nothing but rebuke, but the less wealthy might well hold a more gracious outlook.

A lesser icon flared to his left, the banner-mounted serpent almost a notation in the red. This, he ignored. Ties to the Cloudy Serpent Sect would likewise only trouble his position. So he walked casually, and pulled down the brim of Mei’s douli, ever scanning the occupants of each.

Truly, the world was vast. The Heavens contained all breeds.

From [Spirit Boar] to [Spirit Fish], and Fu could not place one allegiance save for his own Sect. For one man to know all names within just one city would have them peerless, and more so for the collection from all corners that resided here.

Eventually he came to a threadbare, yellow affair. The Adamant View painted on each fold and in each direction, the half closed eyes of the Vajra. Incense wafted from the open flaps at its fore, a bitter and cleansing aroma. He drew close to the monks within, and shifted persona so he might treat with them.

“Amituofo,” said Fu, bowing to such a height that was on all fours.

“Amituofo. A wanderer comes,” retorted three at once, and put their own bows in reply to his own.

Fu went further, and clasped his hands at each in turn. Bald monks of the ascetic style, with bulbous prayer beads slung around not just their own necks, but the necks of their three, mundane-coloured [Spirit Tortoises].

“Hospitality is offered, wanderer. Amituofo, sit, the way of the [Dao] is a long road,” said the leftmost, and extended his hand in invitation.

“A kindness, [Dao] brothers. But I would not impose, my wife was of the way and this incense lifted memories of her from my nose,” he did not toil to spread a forlorn smile, for it came readily.

“Nether grass and moon jasmine,” said the same monk. “Amituofo. This humble seeker sees hardship in the wanderer’s eyes. Please, rest.”

Of the three monks, it was the speaker that remained. The other two dispensed well-meaning smiles, and pushed further into the meagre tent to begin a recital of some mumbled mantra. Thus Fu took his place at the man’s side, and greeted his absent-seeming beast.

“The wanderer has travelled far to reach [An Array in One Hand’s] peak. He seeks to test his wisdom?”

Fu nodded. “To cultivate it.”

“Amituofo, a noble goal. Perfection of the mind comes from living cleanly, but experience is prone to reveal more.” The monk slowly lifted the bitter-smelling incense and airly spread it about his person. “[Foundation Realm] is a first step, and this humble seeker spies many youths that have put the horse before the cart.”

“The immortality of youth,” chuckled Fu. “They are keen to vanquish this trial then?”

“Amituofo, it is as you say. Before these humble monks found the [Dao], they too might leap at such an opportunity. [An Array in One Hand] leaves his seclusion only once each century, to be granted a tome from his library is fate changing.”

The [Constellation Seed] is not the prize for his trial. Naturally, the [Mystic Realm] it inhabits would not stand were this the case.

“It is said to rival any tome from the Third Heavenly Archives,” agreed Fu, plucking a name that Zhu had used to have himself appear more worldly. “Brother monk, are you to lend your wisdom to this trial?”

The man shook with a pleasant grin. “Amituofo, wanderer, there is no need for scriptures when the [Dao] fill our hearts. We are aligned with [Life Qi], mandated by tradition to ease the ails of those who require it.”

Alchemist monks, or doctors. Spirit healers, I would think.

“My goal is less noble then,” said Fu. “If such righteous daoists dispense their aid freely. A challenge with the innumerable scions on this peak, I should think. More than one scrape over honour is to be had, no? For these tokens, perhaps.”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

“Amituofo, the passions are not so high as to insult their host’s honour. Any that might break peace to war over what few tokens they were gifted would lose much face.”

Fu drew in another waft of the aroma. “Gratitude,” he said, then rose. “Any longer and I fear my legs would not allow me to leave.”

“Amituofo,” smiled the monk. “It seems you need not look far for wisdom, wanderer. This humble monk extends his gratitude for the company. May you walk an interesting path.”

Clasping his hands a final time, Fu left for the path. Guesswork was cheap, but he could infer the significance of these tokens. Which meant that to complete the trial, he would have to secure one for himself.

The forest of tents swayed under another breeze, shifting the canopy so it seemed like a shifting rainbow. Hundreds upon hundreds, holding a number of cultivators within that might well possess what he sought.

“Hushi,” he whispered, stirring the octopus under his douli. “[Karma] will not judge us too harshly for what we must do, no?”

🀨

Treading the avenues between tents was a matter that praised Yunhan’s teachings, and laterally, his readings. For with such lessons Fu could parse the lines of demarcation. To where the quality of fabrics denoted wealth, or where thinly veiled, frayed edges marked the erection of a threadbare Sect’s lodging.

It was a matter of conscience, he supposed.

Fu completed his third circuit of the lesser organisations to ensure thoroughness, keeping well in mind the dwindling hours until this [Array in One Hand] would call assembly. However,a [Constellation Seed] required a [Mystic Realm], and with no fanfare about opening [Paifangs] he allowed himself this time.

His mark was ahead.

An ogre paraded the various awnings with much the same gait as he did, and at his rear did a strange predator prowl. Some beast of roughspun skin, and Fu’s eyes had it as a lizard’s cousin if not for the two-pace long snout that entrenched its many teeth.

Certainty of his token was found in his prior lap, for this ogre, this man of engorged muscle and unnatural [Spirit Beast], had exclaimed it so. When passing the mouth of a communal tent, his cries had come loud to deliver this future misery.

Fu had seen the token swept from a table of emptied jars, and spied the distress when the losers of some presumed competition had lost their chance.

It mattered little now.

The ogre ahead stirred a break in the passing cultivators, for many seemed to put a berth around him. Without the madness of crowds, Fu’s legerdemain would prove difficult. But he closed in tight regardless.

“He is there, older brother!”

A voice had cut through the ambling chorus of these tents, and returned a great many gazes to the path’s head behind.

For his part, the ogre continued to walk. Fu had no inkling that he was a Daoist, oblivious through oneness, yet many mysteries lay in count more than the stars above.

The brazen voice struck again.

An [Intent] as its second stanza. “You dare!”

If the path between tents could be named streets, then these cleared. Flaps were drawn, poles bent, and minor [Arrays] thrummed with fresh Qi to layer across the fabrics. No [Coiling Star Defensive Array] as the Green Blight Bastion had stocked, but still far above Fu’s knowledge on the subject.

Tucked back a stride, Fu saw a score of lilac-clad cultivators pour towards the ogre. A pattern of forked lightning detailed their hanfu, and each held a wooden gun with some variation of [Spirit Insect] clung tight upon them.

If a sect, the inner disciples then arrived. One, a frenetic youth that buzzed in the same fashion as his [Spirit Beetle], darting and gesturing as if the words he spoke would not dig him a deeper grave.

Yet the other…

“Elder brother,” explained the younger, his finger levelled. “I had told him not to dishonour our great sect! Warned him! But his pitious nature lowered the hearts of our juniors and in that moment he struck… did he not, juniors?”

A half-resounding cry returned from the score about this ogre.

The second disciple walked with such conviction that the younger stumbled from his path, agape and near frenzied. “Elder brother?”

“Small dogs bark the loudest,” he said. “You there, cultivator.”

No turn from the ogre.

“I am Bang Du Chen, head disciple of the Zephyrous Cicada Sect. My foolish junior has brought shame by offering a prize that was not rightfully his, and I would have you return the gifted tokens.”

Fu wondered if the ogre truly was a daoist, for the air about him held such presence that each disciple gathered moved with him in stride.

Tokens. In the multiple.

“Our demands have been voiced,” said the head disciple. “But now it is you that spurns the grace offered by our righteous Sect. Turn, cultivator, else you may see the fabled [Twelve Zephyr Strokes] up close!”

What had begun with a modicum of civility then descended into the usual fare. That which equated to Fu’s regular knowings of cultivators.

He… he only shook his head.

The light-touching side of this new world. All honour, face and challenge. If the same. A finger of disrespect and it turns to this.

Crack.

The ogre shrugged off his robes so that a palm might burst free, one now levered some ways from a fallen, lilac disciple. A string of steam rose from the pair, on knuckles, and on the body which had just crumpled twenty paces inside the nearest tent.

Fu grunted, and set himself against a tentpole.

Seeing this, the Zephyrous Cicada disciples kept themselves distant. Each looking to their young master for support.

Anonymity, or a potential ally? In unknown shores, even a leaking boat is better than naught. Preferable to gaining a token from a corpse.

Bang Du Chen regarded the spectacle as three more of his juniors were blasted into the surrounding canvases. A heavily ornate club materialised in his hand, cluttered with insectoid iconography where each lump upon it showed a bulge not unlike the folded wings of his cicada.

“Juniors, you bring shame to our great Sect,” he spoke, forcing a semblance of wisdom that had no doubt borrowed from others. Then Chen strode, and put himself defiantly at the front of the ogre. “First Form, Cicada Sings with Thunder!”

An audible stutter came from many tent flaps, some anticipatory shudder that grew as the young master’s face reddened.

“Noble master,” said Fu, [Half Cloud Step] arriving him to pin the club with his foot. “This expert uses only his fists, perhaps you have forgotten upon seeing his prowess. No righteous Sect would escalate matters, no?”

Chen’s glare lasted a heartbeat before he returned to composure. Clearly, he was weighing the arrival of this unknown factor, for a you dare seemed caught in his throat. “Fellow cultivator, it is clear your eyes are sharp. My own saw gauntlets. The Zephyrous Cicada Sect would extend its gratitude for saving an inner disciple from such shameful acts.”

The ridged [Spirit Beast] at the ogre’s side masticated loudly, displaying the full armada of teeth at its disposal. It met Fu’s attention with a feral, curious look, and lazily gestured to another intervention.

A pitched cry accompanied Chen’s offended junior as he swept a gun at Fu’s head, only for the fisherman to dodge with a step.

The choice is made, then.

Three strikes erupted in that moment. Fu parried an aerial kick from Chen, having to swivel for such a counter so that the club beneath might not be freed. The ogre’s fist summarily removed their freshest attacker from play, and another shameless disciple mounted an attack from his rear.

Fu’s step traced his foot into the [Stifling Stream Revolutions], and he swept back just as another set of disciples made for him.

Chen moved center stage. A man caught by the pressure of his subordinates’ expectations, for obligation warred with the uncertainty he wore. “Gratitude juniors,” he announced. “This unknown had made to strike me. Well caught!”

The ogre grunted derisively, and his imposing gestalt put the scene into near silence. It stilled the cries of the surrounding disciples, who stepped warily in their formation to allow him minor passage.

He stopped at Fu. “A stranger comes to silence barking dogs.”

“Fu Gao.”

“Shaokang,” the ogre returned, and his [Spirit Beast] snapped forth their [Intent].

🀨

The [Stifling Stream Revolutions] had gone unloved due to the toll of strain that [Bone Refinement] had placed it under. Three disciples of the Zephyrous Cicada Sect had fallen before the disparity between memory and the newfound values upon his [Ink] had corrected.

When Chen had come to loudly avenge the lost face of these few, the paper tiger had proved to be no difficulty. A fray of such little note that Fu had cause to wonder.

Were these not peak [Foundation] experts?

Yet expectations that this set the current standard were short-lived, as Shaokang and his [Spirit Crocodile] disabused any notion of such.

Fu accepted the token as proffered by a battered Chen. The senior disciple’s face, swollen to such an extent it seemed as if distended grapes bulged beneath his skin. “The Zephyrous Cicada Sect acknowledges Fu Gao as the victor.”

The cultivator Fu Gao showed grace, and clasped his hands. “In a group of many words, there is bound to be a mistake among them,” he said, and half-lunged over the remnants of groaning disciples that littered the space between tents.

Hushi impressed sparse understanding for these words, or rather their delivery. He carried across a query on the necessity, which Fu responded to with warmth.

Far from our lesson to impart. But perhaps fitting, for this mask we wear.

With the token stowed in his ring, Fu ascended the stairway to the peak. Another flower-thick pathway, if meticulously curated, given how no one petal crossed to the marble steps under his feet. He absorbed the fragrance as something earthy and calming, but did not linger on it.

Not as Shaokang did.

The brutish man had joined his journey in silence, and they tread in silent ascent save for the intermittent sniffs that drew a scent from the picked flowers beneath his nostrils.

He grunted, mending a group of these poppies into a chain.

An hour passed, and a verdant temple welcomed their arrival. Here was a more solemn affair, and the scores of cultivators moved in silent duties. Some practised their forms, while others sat in quiet reflection. Lotus positions abound before the [Paifang], most central in the temple that appeared to be constructed around it.

Empty spaces held in the building’s shell, which Fu found to be strangely wasteful for an artefact as mystic as the divine gateway it housed.

He bid no farewell to Shaokang, and they parted to steal their own space among the mere hundred gathered. And waited.

Stray words reached him on the nature of this trial. The enigmatic [An Array in One Hand], and the tradition of his contest. Idle whispers. A history in fractured conversation, spilling words that only revealed how the [Paifang’s] opening coincided with his appearance.

Hushi shared Fu’s concern.

The prize here is no [Constellation Seed] if this trial is recurring. It is as the monks said. My goal is to conquer what lies beyond this master’s parameters.

Then, a resonance began.

A lilac glow waxed in the cultivators at his fore, and swiftly, Fu produced his own token. Which changed in turn. The simple, octagonal disk swirled with a set of three lines, and therein only one lay unbroken.

Though he kept his surprise in reserve, the token melded to inscribe a mark upon his palm. No doubt the medium that would grant him entry.

He looked beyond the pattern, turning his hand over to glean the scene ahead. Already, those gathered were moving through. His competitors, and a more regal sort than those of the Zephyrous Cicada Sect.

To move first would lose sight of them, and with Yunhan’s lessons… no. Fu’s experience, his cultivated instinct had him latch those that carried the most menace. Those with unspoken lethality, and whose bearing presented the potential of true challenge.

Three women whose ribboned, cobalt robes marked their allegiance as the same. A swarming quantity of [Spirit Insects] that thrummed in the wake of another. The blackened, malefic axe upon the pallid, exposed back of a [Death Qi] cultivator.

Shaokang, and his peerless knuckles.

The sealed chain within his ring drew his thoughts next, and as Fu fell in line behind these enemies, he pondered on just how long it would remain within.