“I see.” The elder sounded disappointed, if anything. “Apologies again for presuming, honored customers. I won’t trouble you further by asking further.” A hint of surprise, too? Maybe, but it was difficult to tell when it came to someone who’d spent so long mastering themselves. “Regardless, if you would like access to a location, we will need to discuss payment of some sort.”

“I have talismans.”

The elder raised an eyebrow in what was— now that she knew what he was like when he was truly interested in something— clearly feigned interest. “Oh? What kinds? The Association is always on the lookout for rising talisman artists and formation masters of every stripe, so don’t doubt this old man’s ability to judge the quality of your offerings!”

“Protection talismans mostly.”

“Of what design? We’ll take An’aizen Pattern talismans preferentially, but we’ll also be able to make use of Ukkan-hai and Yewhsen Shan Patterns. We won’t, however, accept Jiandan Script varieties; their usefulness is insufficient for their qi price, and unhelpful even for practice due to the… well, you must know the reputation of those.”

“Um.” She blinked, taken off guard. Talismans had patterns? Or… no, varieties, or instructions for the creation of high-functioning versions, she surmised. She really shouldn’t have been so surprised— thousands of hours, the work of hundreds of cultivators must have gone into perfecting those talismans— hers probably didn’t even hold a candle to them. Sheepishly, she admitted, “of my own design, sorry…”

The elder looked at her blankly for a long moment. “Your… own design? Truly?”

She rolled her eyes. Hadn’t she just said that? “Yeah? It probably doesn’t compare to anything you have access to.”

“I’d be interested in seeing one nonetheless. It’s not very often that you see someone pushing the boundaries of conventional talisman artistry— and very rarely indeed at your novice level. Perhaps I could secure a sample or two as teaching… aids…” he fell silent as he looked at the talisman Lily had slid onto the table, scribbled on a third of a regular sheet of paper she’d ripped up on the train ride over.

For a long moment, that was all he did, just… looking at it, occasionally engaging his Overwatching Dragon something something she forgot the name technique before flicking it off just as fast.

Almost five minutes later, he tore his eyes away from the strip of paper, expression oddly solemn. “Junior Member Lin, retrieve the Map Enclosures Book and the copying formation. The Young Master—” he nodded to her

, and she realized she was being address as Young Master. It was a disquieting feeling, to become that which she’d so fiercely competed with for years at this point… “will have her pick of locations.” Then, to her— “the talisman itself is… subpar. Good for a mortal— a single shield that will activate when anything over a certain speed passes its influence, relying only on passive spiritual observance— but the design! It’s entirely novel! You, young woman, are supremely talented.”

She blushed, ducking her head. “It’s really not anything of mine— I’m just following the teachings of my instructor.”

“If you’re this good, then your instructor must be favored by heaven itself. You made this with entirely mortal ingredients, no? And yet I would describe it as Shedding-rank, demonstrating a deep understanding of the laws that most talisman artists fail to grasp until they reach my— ah, there, thank you, Junior Member Lin.” A massive book dropped onto the table with a thud, almost two feet thick and twice that big in either direction. The receptionist looked like she’d struggled mightily to bring it to them, but the elder merely waved his hand and the book automatically opened to some specific page in accordance with whatever arcane technique he was using. “Anyways. How many of those talismans are you willing to spare?”

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They were more valuable than she’d expected, so… maybe only a quarter of what she’d made? “Fifty or so?”

The elder staggered as though struck. “Fifty? I’m honored you think so highly of our Association, but I can’t accept such generosity, and the Patriarch is unavailable to negotiate the release of a truly valuable territory at this moment. I can only accept ten in good conscience.”

“Oh.” She blushed sheepishly, then glared at Avyr as he snickered. “Sorry… I’ll give you the ten. Can I have the location now?”

“Yes, yes… hm, a few options. This one here is a small mountain nearby that we’ve been keeping an eye on just in case a migratory population of Five-Fire Albatross we know of decide to settle there. There’s this one—” he waved his hand, and the book flipped to a different page— “which contains an abundance of hot springs and is easily accessible; a trader we have an acquaintance with travels there every week. Another one, here,” the book flipped again, “is further out of the way, too far into the Dragonspine Mountains’ core regions for easy access but far richer for it. If you’re looking for rare spiritual ingredients, those will certainly abound there…”

“The second one,” she decided before the elder could go any further. “We need to be able to leave at the end of the month and get back to East Saffron, so… that one’s perfect for us.”

“Very well.” He waved his hand one last time, the heavy book shutting with a snap of leather impacting paper. “Junior Member Lin, retrieve the paperwork necessary to formalize this deal, please— oh! And—” Lin paused halfway out the door— “make sure to get reference form 2-19b, the one for affiliate contractors; I need to write up the Young Master’s referral.” Then, as his junior left the room, he turned back to her with a saccharinely sweet smile. “Remember me when you get into the sect, will you? And if you don’t— not that I don’t think you will, of course— know that there’ll always be a place in the Chongtian-Dragonspine Association of Alchemists, Formation Masters, and Explorers if you need it.”

Twenty minutes later, an exchange of ten protection talismans for one officious looking form out of a whole stack of that she was very glad she didn’t have to fill out, and a short walk later, they were away from the Association headquarters. “That,” she finally broke the stunned silence they’d been laboring under, “was weird.”

Avyr snorted. “Tell me about it. They didn’t even more than glance at me the entire time. I talked to them, and they dismissed me.”

“Sorry about that.”

The big cat just huffed and shook his head. “Not your fault. I’m honestly more surprised that they were so surprised at what you had to offer.”

“Chongtian’s a backwater. They probably don’t have anything better.”

“But they have access to the networks, don’t they? We had access to the networks on occasion, and we were the next best thing to an isolated tribe in the jungle. Surely they shouldn’t be this surprised…”

Lily frowned. “Maybe it’s just Master Mingtian. He’s…”

“Unusual,” Avyr finished, mewling softly. “Very, very unusual.”

And as they continued through the streets of Chongtian— as sunset painted the mountaintops above them red and cast long the shadows of heavens-over-Aurelia, and the whole world seemed to bask in the day’s end tranquility— she didn’t know what else to add to that.

She didn’t know what she could add to that.

Her favorite librarian was a little strange…