Before he even got a chance to sip his tea, another instructor slid in next to him. “Good work there! Ha, that’ll teach him not to mess with every new hire, the bastard.” The gruff man was… not what Mingtian typically thought of when he envisioned an instructor for children. He was, however, the exact sort of person he thought of when he envisioned a veteran. It was easy to see in the way he carried himself, in the dangerous glint in his eyes— he was someone who’d spent time in a war, too much time; he was someone who hadn’t been able to leave that war behind.

The empire expanded, after all, and the sects fought bitterly to push that back. The aftershocks of the last war were clearly still being felt. “I didn’t do anything,” he demurely responded. “If there was any perceived slight, then that perhaps speaks more to Instructor Kaihe’s insecurities than anything else.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that, else he might just challenge you to a duel!” The man looked excited at the prospect, his hands all but quivering around his own mug of coffee.

Hopefully it wouldn’t escalate that far. Mortals, at least, were able to largely avoid the pointless duels of cultivators. “I’m a mere mortal. Would he be so brazenly shameless as to challenge his junior?”

“I’ve seen your formations. If you’re a mortal, you’re a mortal only because you haven’t yet managed to ascend. I can’t imagine it’ll be long until you reach Shedding— and when you do, I expect a fight!”

“You’d lose.”

“Yeah, but that's what makes it fun!

You know, I once fought an Opening cultivator— best damn battle I ever had. Had to be bailed out by one of the Peach Blossom Sect’s foundation establishment’s disciples…” he sighed, looking out into the distance for a long moment. “Isn’t it wonderful? That we have such talent this year. Qin Xinshi is going to make it to Opening, I’m certain. He might even actually be able to make it into the sect!”

“Personally, I think Avyr has a better chance.”

“The cat? Nah, too much prejudice. The girl… whats-her-name, Yao Guandong has a better chance to get in clinging to Xinshi’s shadow than Avyr does. A shame, too,” he griped, “and a waste of good talent. That sort of body plan, with cultivation layered on top… imagine the sort of bloody devastation he could mete out on a moment’s notice. Wouldn’t it be glorious?” Mingtian could understand how Lily found the combat instructor a little too bloody-minded, hearing that… “pass it on, would you? I know you’re the kid’s sponsor, and I want him to really put his all into my class.”

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“I’ll consider it,” he lied.

“Can’t wait to see what the students do with talismans. Talismans, right? They’re not going to pull up with some sort of supreme heaven defying formation, are they?”

“Unless they have the sort of backing needed to pay an Opening cultivator— at least— to make the formation nodes for them, they’ll be largely restricted to talismans, yes.” Simple ones at that. “Anything more dramatic tends to require special techniques—”

“Which, it's impressive you know of.” Another man Mingtian wanted nothing less than to not speak with slid up next to him, all smarmy smiles and geniality, and a reminder, by his very presence, that he’d be conned into teaching. Yuxan certainly knew how to play politic— or, at least, better than any of the instructors. “Something you aspire to, perhaps?”

He shrugged. “Not particularly.” He had far better, far more profound techniques already, not that they needed to know that. “I’m an academic.”

“A well researched one, to an impressive degree. It makes sense you came to East Saffron, if you wanted to access that sort of knowledge— we’re some of the best on Aurelia for mortal studies. I’ve heard the University even inherited volumes from Catatapharus. I presume you want to work your way up to one of the major positions?”

Well wasn’t that a right bind? He couldn’t deny it, because that would shatter the whole personae he’d been cultivating— but neither did he want to enter himself into the ratrace. He wasn’t entirely sure how mortals approached these sorts of things, so he defaulted on a tried and tested excuse he’d used in his immortal days— “I’m studying to improve my own craft, at the moment. I don’t particularly seek any advancement, for now.”

Yuxan looked a bit nonplussed at that for a moment— as if the idea of anyone not trying to claw their way up the totem pole of cultivation was absurd. In a mortal realm where immortals weren’t even around to demystify the very idea of immortality it was a fairly strange attitude to take, especially— if he understood the social context of it— in the job he’d gotten hired for. Both jobs, teacher and librarian. It was why graduating from junior librarian to librarian had been so harped upon, he imagined.

Still, he recovered with remarkable adroitness. “Well, that’s good! Good, good— I’ve heard good things about your class so far. Councillor Guxi gave me her commendations for her son’s progress so far, and after a single lesson no less.” Well, he expected nothing less of himself, but if the way Yuxan looked at him almost hungrily was any indication, it probably meant trouble. How typical… “the board will need more time than usual to judge your end-semester test— because formations aren’t a class usually taught in the preparatory academies, you see— so if you can get them by the end of the week, that’d be great. Have a good day!” He smiled once more, broadly, falsely, then slipped away in the crowd, leaving Mingtian behind with his tea, a bloodthirsty combat instructor, and no small amount of sinking premonition that he’d gotten himself into something annoying.

Alas…