“She’s a mortal.”

“She’s good. Her master is better, but such is the way of masters, no?”

The inner disciple snorted. “Well, that’s true. Remember when Uma Khad tried to challenge Master Revolving Chime to a swordsmanship duel?”

Zhihu rolled her eyes. “He’s still complaining about that?”

“I still use the line whenever I have to impress someone outside the sect.”

“No. Really?” Zhihu’s eyes practically sparkled as they widened. “Tell me you don’t actually say that.”

The inner disciple stood just a little straighter, looking back out towards Saffron Lake with a look of such pretentious, self righteous superiority that for a moment Lily could imagine him the very picture of a cultivator on a movie box, or a TV show’s opening credits. “Before me, you were nothing but arrogant. Now you’re just nothing.”

Zhihu laughed. “You sound just like him!”

He crossed his arms, looking rather smug. “I try my best.” They were bantering, she realized with a small start— whoever the inner disciple was, she and Zhihu were friends. It was weird to think of such powerful cultivators having friends, if, in retrospect, kind of obvious… “anyways,” he drawled, turning back to Lily, “you’re the one who Zhihu praised so readily in the art of formations? I’ll admit to being intrigued. Now— tell me the greatest accomplishment of your art.”

The sudden intensity of his interrogation, the pressure— increasing from nothing to everything in the course of a single moment, caught Lily off guard almost enough to send her toppling face first into the dirt. It didn’t really help that she was still kneeling… “um…” she quickly thought over the various things she’d done, and what she could and couldn’t say, and— “I made a qi gathering array?”

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“I see.” He didn’t look any different, didn’t even feel different, but she could just sense the disapproval radiating off of him—

“A Foundation Establishment qi gathering formation!” She quickly elaborated. “I made a Foundation Establishment level qi gathering formation! At least, that’s what I’ve been told that it was— by a different Foundation Establishment cultivator we met. And fought. And won against.”

“I see.” This time, he looked considerably more impressed, if a little doubtful. “Forgive me for doubting, but I find it hard to imagine that a mortal could win a fight against a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Not least with formations they built…”

Lily blushed, but crossed her arms and refused to back down. Sure, there were a bunch of technicalities involved, but she had won! That was an accomplishment of hers, and she wasn’t going to let anyone denigrate that, not even an inner disciple of the most powerful sect for hundreds of miles in any direction. That also ruled over her city with absolute authority… “uh… he wasn’t really completely committed? I mean, he was committed to killing us, but only with a big gun from a mile or so away, and I had a big shielding formation that I'd built…”

The inner disciple paused, then nodded at something. “An army cultivator. Far more understandable, then… too reliant on their guns, and far too weak for their achievement. They aren’t true cultivators.” Lily was sure that Ruqian would have had a few words for him if he’d been there at the moment, but comparing the mountaineer's awe-inspiring power to… keep a bubble of breathable air around him to the actually awe inspiring power to survive hits powerful enough to shatter waves and fly and do literal magic, she couldn’t quite say that the inner disciple was entirely wrong, either. “Very well. I will accept provisionally—” he drawled the word out, placing so much emphasis on it that Zhuhu glared at him with a sort of ‘we get it’ glare— “that you can assist me. If you can complete two tasks, I will agree to make a pill of your choosing in exchange for a formation of my choosing.”