It took two weeks to travel to the Six Turns Cavern. The last three days of the journey were spent traveling through a suspiciously convenient cloud bank. Elder Rui didn’t say anything, and the juniors, used to complete silence after two weeks of travel together, didn’t ask. The Caverns were entered through a modest sized hill inside the bend of a river. It managed to be both spiritual, elegant, and utterly horrible.

Everything was dead. It was clear that, until quite recently, there had been sizable trees here, and shrubs and grass, but they had all withered and died. Tian reckoned it was the wall of clouds covering the entirety of the sky for days in every direction. It wasn’t night dark, but it couldn’t have been kind on the plant life.

The lone guard, an ancient Martial Uncle, carried a similar feel as the surroundings. He tossed the trial takers a necklace with a talisman on it that would summon the supervising elders in the event of fatal danger. And that, apparently, was that.

Tian didn’t get much chance to look at the other three cultivators getting dropped in the cavern. Two young, handsome men and a staggeringly pretty woman. The men were slim and immaculately dressed, the woman wore scuffed looking robes but had a wide-eyed fragility to her. Tian was certain that her robes were messy because it was her nature, not because she didn’t have anyone to wash them. He was also privately certain she wasn’t the Li clan scion. The insane boy was fancy. This sister looked like she had been dragged backwards through a hedge.

“Fifty years of accumulation for one month of miraculous display. So long as the heavenly formation is active, the magic of the caverns will persist. Once the moment is lost, once the stars move out of alignment, the magic of this place will end as well. You should all know what you need to. In you get, one a time.” The Martial Uncle’s voice was raspy and his intonation felt off. He seemed uncomfortable talking.

“You first.” A boney finger stabbed out.

One of the handsome young men stepped forward. “My thanks, Senior. I, Ma Teng, will-”

“We aren’t doing all that.” The senior disappeared from where he was standing and reappeared behind the speechifying young man for just long enough to deliver a boot to the ass. The potential hope of the sect, or at least a faction, was sent flying into the pit. A moment later, there was a soft flash of red light and a rumbling noise.

“Right. Next up. You.” He pointed at Tian. Tian bowed quickly and jumped in the hole. Which, when his brain caught up with his feet, was not the brightest idea he ever had.

Tian fell for a short distance, then hit water. Or did he? He wasn’t really sure. It felt for a moment like he had fallen into a pond. He had the barest flicker of terror, a memory of the mind destroying sensation of drowning, then his feet touched lightly on the cavern floor. He could breathe well enough. The air was dense with qi, wet and cold, but not terribly so. It was quite refreshing.

“Water Qi. My second strongest elemental alignment after wood, if I remember correctly. And water nurtures wood. I got lucky.”

The cavern was big enough to drop the barracks into without touching either side. “Huge” seemed like a fair description. It was also pitch dark. Tian had switched over to Counter-Jumper immediately and was relying on echoes and vibrations to get a sense of the space. The elder had said that the caverns’ guardians couldn’t be defeated with ‘mere’ violence at the earthly realm, but that didn’t mean they were peaceful.

Tian sent his awareness into his storage ring, then hesitated. He had a few sources of light, but he wanted to test a theory. He pulled out a bit of char cloth, some flint, and a steel striker. It was a bit fiddly in the dark, but he reckoned that he would see immediately if his theory was right. He struck the flint and steel. There were bright sparks, but even when they landed on the char cloth, there was no fire. Not even the start of an ember. The sparks went cold almost instantly too.

“Interesting.”

Tian pulled out a little crystal. There were light talismans available for purchase from the crafters or even the quartermasters, but those cost money and stopped working once the power in them was exhausted. A bit of a broken hospital lighting array saved from a trip to the trash heap, however, was free. Better still, it would work so long as he ran his vital energy through it. A little tiring, perhaps, but once he switched from Counter Jumper to the Advent of Spring, it was manageable.

When properly mounted in the appropriate spell array and activated with a spirit crystal, the little light crystal would emit a blinding, harsh white radiance that had to be shielded and focused down on the operating table. With Tian’s vital energy, it just about managed a soft warm glow. Enough to see what was around him and to cast the rest of the chamber into deep shadow.

Tian immediately discovered that having the crystal held in his hand was extremely annoying. The light was constantly swinging around. If the crystal moved around in his hand even slightly, new shadows would shift and spread. Not having both hands free meant that he couldn’t effectively use his rope dart. If he did need to fight, he would have to drop the crystal and would be instantly blinded by the dark.

He gutted it out. It was still better than fumbling in the dark, hoping that Counter Jumper would be enough to guide him.

The cavern was dim, and grey, and undulated deeper under the hill. The air felt thick and heavy, the cool, watery qi weighed down every movement. Every breath. Tian explored for what felt like hours, but never found the slightest sign of a guardian. He couldn’t find the entrance to the ‘void’ room either. The shadows were messing with his sense of space. The longer he was in the cavern, the less of a grasp he had on its exact dimensions.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Tian shook his head in frustration. He had been on the back of a giant bird for weeks, no privacy, no conversation worth mentioning, then a corpse-like senior threw him in a hole. It was all too much. He was going to have a sleep and figure it out in the morning. Besides, the way the shadows were flickering was frankly scary. He’d just… see how it all went. It would be fine. It’s not like he really wanted to come to the attention of the Monastery anyway. They were pretty blatantly cruel with their pawns. Lying safe in the dark was definitely the better choice.

Snap out of it! TIAN! SNAP OUT OF IT!

“Eh? Grandpa?”

Think! What is the nature of water? What are the attributes of the element?

“Um… extreme yin. Associated with winter and renewal. The gathering of energy before the burst of spring. Water blocks the flow of qi, or it can anyway. Traps it. Ah… wisdom. Depth.”

All the good things. And what else?

“Fear, indecision. Passivity. When out of balance, anyway.”

Anything else?

“Not really? It’s… not bad or anything. It’s just water.”

The parable of the flowing river and the rock.

“Uh… water moves easily through its channel. If there is a rock in the way, it flows around and carries on. It doesn’t fight the rock. But over time, the rock is worn away, and the river is still flowing.”

Bring it all together now.

“Grandpa, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Follow the trail. Figure it out. Just like we always do. You have all the information you need to conquer this cavern.

Tian just shook his head, but habit took over. He had everything he needed to conquer the cavern? To do that he had to defeat the guardian. But Elder Rui said that violence couldn’t defeat the guardian, so he didn’t really know where that left him. He couldn’t even find the guardian. Hmm. Water was symbolized by the color black. Could the darkness in here be related? But it wouldn’t be as simple as making light, or he would have already won with his little light stone.

Seemed like a definite post-nap question. Yeah, winter, a period of accumulation. The resting earth getting ready for the… the… oh.

“Well… fuck.”

Grandpa Jun had no comment on the crude use of an expletive. Tian could feel the old ghost nodding firmly.

“I’m inside the guardian right now, aren’t I?”

WHY YES, YES YOU ARE! And do we fall asleep while we are being eaten by giant spiritual entities?

“No, Grandpa.”

Are you sure?

“Yes, Grandpa.”

You can’t be sure, because if you were sure, you would be doing what now?

“Killing my way out, Grandpa.”

Why aren’t you doing that, then?

“Because I don’t know how to, Grandpa.”

Yes you do, I already laid it all out for you. Hell, you have prior experience with being eaten by giant yin creatures. This chamber is practically a freebie. Do better, grandson!

Tian sighed the sigh of put upon kids everywhere, and dropped into lotus pose. It really was the most comfortable way to sit for him.

The guardian was invisible, intangible, and everywhere. It somehow was the water qi in the cavern. And all that water qi was making him sleepy. He would fall asleep in here and just… never wake up. Sooner or later, the supervising elder would come and rescue him, but he would be branded forever as a person who fell at the first hurdle. Unacceptable. And there was no reason to fail either.

He was only tired. He wasn’t being compelled to sleep.

The corner of his mouth twitched in what threatened to become a rueful smile.

“Advent of Spring. From watery winter accumulation, the yin nurturing, is born new life. Yang wood grows.”

Yes indeed.

“I don’t think a good cultivation session is going to be enough.”

Not on its own, but right now, you aren’t paying attention to your cultivation much. What would happen if you gave it your full attention?

Tian nodded and took a deep breath of the qi rich air. It tasted amazing. Like water pulled from a deep well on a hot day, or scooped from a fast running stream. Buried in the cave, it was hard to imagine the tree as the span between heaven and earth. Instead, he remembered the blackwater willow tree he had harvested with Brother Wong. Long roots, stretching down into the water.

He felt the art drawing in the thick qi. In and out, growing strong. Brother Wong had explained it ages ago- the wood is just the structure. The weight of it, the mass of it, comes from the water. Pull all the water out of wood and it crumbled into dust. Even ancient furniture still had some water in it.

Draw in the water qi. Let it fill him up. The wood qi providing structure. And it all fueled his growth. The Hell Suppressing Body Refining Art was spinning its magic through his body. His flesh steadily grew more dense, his meridians and qi stronger and more pure.

Tian wasn’t drowning in the qi, he was floating on it. Drinking it in. Growing with it. All the misery and frustration of the last year seemed to melt away. He let his breath flow, let it fall from him, let his thoughts tumble like a mountain stream. He wasn’t a willow tree- he was a lotus, floating in a beautiful pond. Unwilling to share with other flowers. Though other animals were acceptable.

“That is the ugliest turtle I have ever seen,” Tian thought. He didn’t want to say it out loud. Ghostly blue threads outlined a black shape swimming through the air. It’s shell was maybe fifteen feet long, but it’s neck stretched out another few feet further. It seemed unnaturally long. But that was the least of it, really. It also had a snake growing out of its rear, a viper several times longer than the shell.

“I’m glad fighting is off the table. I’m pretty sure that thing would kill me in one blow.”

Ah, Grandson? Junior Rui didn’t say there wouldn’t be any fighting. He just said that you can’t win.