There were two boxes, and Lily looked at all of them with a cultivator’s greedy eyes. “What are they?” All of them were lacquered and polished, inlaid with images of dragons and phoenixes and tigers in delicate gold filigree. She’d probably think he’d bought them, but no— he’d made it in his spare time, and refined the wood to peak first-step, making it resist breaking and water damage.

He pushed the boxes towards her. “Go on, open them.” She didn’t have to be told twice. Lily pulled the lid off the first box, then gasped at what lay within— a set of brushes, ranging in size from half an inch in diameter to little more than a single hair. They weren’t perfect— he’d had to limit himself to making something that wasn’t impossible, but he still had his pride as one of the Celestial Realm’s foremost crafters. “They have a few simple formations on them. They should never get damaged by mundane use, and will clean themselves of residual ink when you place them back in the box— a minor convenience. They’ll even be able to channel the qi of a Shedding cultivator, for when you reach that rank.”

“Woah… a real divine treasure?” She beamed up at him, ecstatic— not knowing how right she’d been in calling them that. “Thank you! Thank you so much, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this— thank you.”

“You haven’t even opened the second box yet.”

Lily’s eyes widened as she eeped, reddening in embarrassment. “Right! Um, of course…” she picked it up and gently pushed it open, eyes widening again as she saw the six inch long jade stylus resting in the center of the box, looking almost comically lonely compared to the box packed full of brushes. It wasn’t any the lesser for its loneliness, though. Lily gently picked it up, holding it up to the window and watching the way the wan winter sunlight played through its form. “Is this…”

“I considered m— giving you a chisel instead, but you lack certain cultivation techniques that would be required to use a chisel to make the sweeping, smooth curves of a rune. Be careful with that— the tip of the stylus is enhanced almost to Foundation Establishment; it should be able to mark most mortal materials with ease, and even some spiritual materials.”

Lily gently put the stylus back in the box, closing it and staring off into space for a few moments before pushing them back to him. “It’s too much. I can’t possibly take these from you. You don’t make that much, and these must have cost you a lot

to get.”

He smiled, then pushed them back to her. “They didn’t cost me anything at all.” That was even true, though he had spent a fair bit of time making them. “Besides, they’ll serve you better than me. This old man has a few tricks up his sleeves. Now… winter break is upon you. Any plans?”

“I… not to disparage your generosity, but I might not be here for a while. I’ve been thinking that if Avyr still wants it, then we could go out into the countryside and try and work on his cultivation?” She sounded very uncertain towards the end there, but on the contrary— Mingtian could not have been happier. It's not like he’d been not-so-subtly pushing them towards this exact course of action for the past few months or anything, no…

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“Perfect. Then you’ll be happy to have my final gift for you.” He waved his hand again, and a third and final box appeared, the same as the rest of them. Lily reached out and grabbed it, then blinked at what was inside— a scroll, sealed with a jade token he’d inscribed with a rather complex security formation. “Let me show you how to open it. Make this handseal, and repeat after me “word of boundless radiance commanding, revelations redone: unseal.” The token clicked apart and slid off the scroll. “I don’t have qi myself, so the complex locking process is necessary— otherwise I’d have just attuned it to my personal qi.”

Lily gulped, running a finger across the supple paper, the texture of it very much different from the modern paper she was used to. “What… what is this?” She placed the seal back on it, then took it off, fumbling the handseal a few times but getting the gist of it well enough— “is this…” her voice dropped to a whisper… “a cultivation manual?”

“Ha! No.” That would’ve run contrary to her own goals of getting into the Bloody Saffron sect, and he wasn’t sure she’d even want

that. “No, this is something both far simpler and far more profound. Though, I must caution you— up to this point, everything has been in the realm of what is freely accessible to mortals. This holds secrets known only to the eyes of cultivators.” Something that most formations masters in this small realm probably hadn’t even touched on. “Let me pose you a question—”

“I’m not a birdwatcher and I don’t need to hunt mice.” She snickered at Mingtian’s glare. “Sorry, go on, I just couldn’t resist.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t…”

“Pleeease?”

He huffed a laugh. Of course he’d tell her. He’d been waiting for her to advance this far for a long while. “The essential question in the direction I’ve taken—” kinda maybe if you really stretched the truth— “and in the direction I want you to take your study of formations is such: what makes a rune a rune?”

“It’s because it's an imprint of a technique, right?”

“What makes a technique a technique?”

“Because it… reflects the universe?”

“What makes the universe the universe?”

“I dunno. The heavens? Some super powerful cultivator that can wave a hand and blow up galaxies?” It took a considerable amount of willpower for Mingtian not to laugh at the unintentional humor of Lily’s statement.

“Not quite. You’re close in some ways to touching on it, but not quite. I’d encourage you to experiment on it in your free time over the break, but the answers are in my notes if you ever get truly stuck.” She’d probably take that as a challenge, stubborn as she was. “Have a good winter break, Lily.”

For the first time since he’d known her, as she held the three wooden boxes in her hands, she actually teared up. “You— you too, Master Mingtian! I’ll make sure to keep making progress!” Then, before he could say anything else, she dashed out of the door, all but skipping with excitement.

Mingtian sighed. “Not your master…” but it was a fond sigh, anyways.

He couldn’t wait to see what she got up to while away.