The bone was quite pretty. Tian dug out a few more and gave them a quick polish, and they were all more or less the same- dense, a creamy white color more like stone than bone, and when the light caught them right, filled with a brilliant iridescence. Like rainbows trapped in jade.

Tian hadn’t seen much jade, but he had pestered Brother Long to show him a couple of pieces after the cultured young man referred to a sister as a “Jade Beauty.” He sputtered pretty impressively when Tian asked him if he preferred green women. It turned out jade came in white varieties too, and this bone looked like that white jade.

“I wonder if it’s a sculpture of some kind. Not a real skeleton I mean.” Tian softly rubbed a femur clean. It was something to do with his hands while the medicine worked.

No, this is real bone. Depending on the cultivation method, this is something that can happen. The whole body transforms and becomes more intensely spiritual. I guarantee that if you looked at your own bones now, they would strike you as unusually firm and beautiful.

“Kind of creepy to think about.”

Meh. Some people work very hard for jade bones, you know.

“Really?”

Oh yes. There are whole body cultivation arts for it. I bet you this person was strong as hell when they were alive. I kind of wonder if the Six Turns Cavern was a cultivation cave they sealed up. It’s not strange for old cultivators to die during a final meditation seclusion.

“Hmm. I think it’s getting heavier.”

The bone?

“Yes. Or, wait-” Tian slowly waved the bone around. “It’s not very strong, but it seems to be pointing back towards where I found it.”

Interesting. Check if the other bones are doing it.

They were. Tian switched to polishing the skull. Purely out of curiosity. There weren't any hidden carvings on it, which felt a little anticlimactic. It was still quite beautiful.

Check the ring.

It too wanted to go back to where he found it. It wasn’t a strong pull, but he could tell it was building.

“Things inside a storage ring can’t break out on their own, right?”

Depends on the type of storage ring, depends on the thing affecting it. But a good rule of thumb is to bet on higher realm stuff stomping all over the common sense of lower realms.

“So maybe.”

A non-zero possibility that as time goes on those bones jump straight out of your storage ring and go back where you found them, yes.

“Looks like there is a time limit for solving this mystery. I’m sure not going back into the flames.”

Fair.

Tian looked around the chamber. No sign of the entrance to the Null Cavern. No sudden burst of insight from watching the vermilion bird flutter around. He could feel the flames trying to crank him up into a state of manic joy, but the overwhelming pain tamped that down effectively.

“I really have no idea what I am supposed to do here.”

Hmm. Fire is a tough one for you. It’s restrained by water, and consumes wood. So it’s fair to say it’s the element you are most antagonistic towards. When considering your body makeup I mean. And while you are philosophically more yin, there is more fire and yang in you than you give yourself credit for.

“There really isn’t.”

Tian, one of the components of fire qi is kindness. Not a single goddamn person told you to sit with the sick and the dying. You just remembered being sick and in pain and lonely, and decided to do it all on your own. Unrelated to your current situation, but if I haven’t told you recently, I am furiously proud of you. As is Brother Fu, Brother Su, all your brothers and sisters from the West Town Outer Court are proud of you. It’s a bit of a cliche, but you really do bring them enormous face.

Tian was a bit messed up for a minute. When he composed himself, he said “That doesn’t tell me what to do next.”

No, because this is a problem for you to solve. Though if you think about how I usually operate, something might occur to you.”

Tian was a young daoist. The five elements and the study of yin and yang were every day things to him. He might be lost saddling a horse or building a bench, but those fundamental forces of the universe had at least a little familiarity to them. So he stood on his stalagmite, and thought.

“Fire- overwhelmingly yang, associated with… all kinds of things. None of which help me, because I’m stuck up here and this isn’t providing me with any kind of insight or helping me crack this storage ring.”

It was hard to be any kind of daoist sage when you were on fire not too long ago, and the medicine is still rushing around inside of you. Actually…

“Hey Grandpa? Can I run the Hell Suppressing Art without running Advent of Spring at the same time?”

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Yes, of course you can. You will just run into a qi deficit sooner rather than later.

“Right, but I was thinking, if I have all this fire qi in me and medicinal qi, one yang and the other yin…”

Oh. Interesting. Yes, by all means, give it a try.

Tian drove his attention and vital energy to the mysterious statue floating in his lower dantian. He tried to drag fire and medicinal qi towards it, with little success. Feeling helpless, he used his own vital energy to activate it. Once again, he had the sensation of a wheel spinning. He had come to think of it like a waterwheel turning with vital energy, the stones made of prayers grinding down curses and poisons, turning them into his strength.

The result was anticlimactic. It wasn’t so much that it didn’t work, it was that it did with absolutely no drama. The rampant qi was steadily pulled from his body and meridians, tamed and poured back into his flesh. His healing accelerated, and the fire qi seemed to vanish entirely. Which couldn’t be right, but it was hard to see what exactly had happened.

It incorporated the fire qi into your body. Not a massive change, you already had some in you of course, but a tiny bit distributed well. Most of it went to your heart and small intestine, which is what you would expect. That… worked really well. You are still a long way from healed, but it seems that the statue can incorporate more kinds of qi than just curses. Interesting.

“It’s not going to save me from the fire, Grandpa.”

No, it won’t. But then, does it have to? Think about this CAREFULLY. I have a sneaking suspicion about what you can get from this cave.

Tian fiddled with the ring. The pull was tiny, but steady. Some enchantment still lingered on it, or perhaps it was simply the nature of the thing. It, for lack of a better term, wanted to live where it always had. Presumably the way to crack the protection either took far more strength than could be reasonably expected at the earthly person realm, or far more understanding. Actually, did it vanish when the astrological alignment that triggered the caverns also vanished? Otherwise, what would have stopped that withered elder from popping in and grabbing it himself?

The caves had a master. Could it belong to them? Or… The elder said the master wouldn’t sabotage them, but nobody had forced Tian to try and grab the ring. It wasn’t hidden, or rigged with a trap or anything. It was just lying there. Hardly the Master’s fault if a young trial-taker made an unwise choice.

What were the clues grandpa had given him? Incorporating yang fire. Kindness. Balance. More fire in him than he gave himself credit for. The Demon Pulling art? Probably not that, but he had been repeatedly reminded that the heart and small intestine were the organ system associated with fire, and his fire qi should be directed there. The middle dantian was in the heart too, the crimson palace.

Put a candle in the palace? It was a cute idea, but even he knew that the dantian didn’t work like that. Though the Triple Burner meridian did run right through there. Regardless of their names or elemental affinities, he was quite sure that setting your heart on fire was a classic way to die. So no.

Tian balanced the storage ring on his palm. The carved patterns were still mysterious, though he liked the way the light of the flames bounced off of them. He lifted his palm up to the level of his eye and tried to sight along it. Taking his finger as the spout and the ring as the belly, could he catch a flame on the tip of his finger and make a lamp? It was just a little visual trick, but fun. It felt like he was trapping the scary fire with his fingertip. Binding it.

He got it lined up just right. It did indeed look like an oil lamp. Something clicked.

“These aren’t flames exactly, are they? They are fire qi. They can still burn me, but they aren’t quite the same thing as actual fire.”

Correct.

“And nothing is “pure” anything. The most yin place will inevitably give birth to yang. So the reverse is true too.”

Correct again.

“Which means there is a yin flame in here somewhere.”

Sort of yes, sort of no. Try again, you almost have it.

“There is a yin aspect to the heavily yang aspected Fire element?”

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

“Ding ding ding?”

The sound of a bell, not like a temple bell, a little bell, ringing when hit with a little striker. They would be used at… events where a winner could be determined. Sorry, it’s not free, and it’s not worth the expense to explain.

Grandpa’s voice had gone very soft. Tian didn’t hear him sounding sad often.

“So what’s a yin aspected flame?”

Grandpa Jun didn’t mind Tian hurrying to change the topic. It’s a human flame. Among other things, but focus on that for now. Sometimes a candle or a hearthfire, or similar.

“A lamp flame?”

Very much that kind of thing, yes. Controlled and nurturing. Helpful rather than destructive. They can become destructive of course- fire is fire. But that’s not its purpose.

“Cultivators must love them.”

They almost never try to acquire that kind of flame, actually. The only ones who might are those who pursue cooking arts or maybe alchemy. But maybe not- the alchemy and forging guys are obsessed with super high heat flames. Sun hot. Esoteric flames whose nature and origins are not easy to describe. What’s the use of a flame that nurtures and supports? If you want that, just take a pill or buy a new art.

Grandpa’s voice was sarcastic, bordering on the vicious.

“Unless, of course, you were full of Wood Qi. Then you could easily nurture the Fire Qi in you. Grandpa, is it even possible to trap a qi flame inside yourself? Or useful, for that matter?”

Yes and yes. Though usually the flames require a special tool to hold them, a special art to bind them to you, or a way to merge them with your physique. And no, the Hell Suppressing Art doesn’t count. It ripped apart the flame qi into tiny pieces and distributed it across your body, remember?

“Right, right, you just said. So how do I catch a flame?”

You don’t. Way too hard, and these flames, while made of reasonably pure fire qi, aren’t anything special in the grand scheme of things. Besides, you are hilariously under-prepared to do anything like that.

Tian deflated. He was so sure he was on the right path there. Grandpa had even gone along with him on that path. Human flames, nurturing, can’t take it from outside but…

“Do I nurture my own flame? Nurture a little bit of fire qi inside of me that will help me grow instead of burning me down?”

He heard Grandpa chuckle.

It’s not like you don’t have Fire qi in you. Even yin-phase fire is still more yang than yin. A nice mid-point for a kid who is strongly wood aligned and worried he isn’t as manly as his big bros.

“And… what use would it be? Also I’m not worried about that. I’m hitting my growth spurt. I’m going to be bigger than any of them.”

Sure you are! Cough. Other than strengthening your fire qi, providing you deeper insights into the element of fire, and improving your ability to withstand fire qi due to your greater understanding? Whatever you can figure out to use it for, I suppose. I, for one, would suggest using it to find a place in this room where you can at least sit, if not lay down. Because there is definitely a limit to how long you can stand on top of a stalagmite, and I think you are going to hit it very, very soon.