Keeping Heian manifested was more difficult than Lee Jia expected. The problem wasn’t one of resources—since she was part of Jia’s domain, it actually cost nothing to simply have her appear. Instead, the problem she had run into was that Heian was terribly uncooperative. As soon as she realized that there was no particular reason to be there, she would unilaterally return to Jia’s soulscape.

On Kim’s suggestion, Jia started small—trying to appeal to some of the more basic human emotions. She could convince Heian to stay out if she was getting attention, or if there was ‘food’ to be had. Unfortunately she could be quite the picky eater—only light or dark essence for the discerning cat spirit. Shadow essence was best, but only Jia had that, and it was a rare treat.

The others—especially the girls—were more than happy to accommodate Heian’s preening desire for attention. To Jia’s chagrin, Yue was Heian’s favorite person. Her elemental affinity turned out to be light of all things, which meant that she could give Heian light and dark essence at the same time. It wasn’t quite the same as shadow essence, but Heian didn’t seem to be bothered by the distinction.

It would be a slow process of getting her used to human interaction, but Kim assured Jia that the first step would be immersion. Jia wasn’t sure what made him so certain, but she was happy to defer to his apparent expertise—his own interactions with Heian were utterly incomprehensible to her, but always productive. He would just stare and make faces at Heian, and then she’d behave better for a few hours before she got bored again. It was a slow and frustrating process.

Meanwhile, Jia and Eui had finally consulted with Yue about their new qi techniques. After some discussion, they had settled on Elder Qin’s recommendations—Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart for Jia, and Path of Heavenly Ascension for Eui. Yue actually laughed out loud when Jia showed her the jade slip manual that contained the Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart.

“Ahaha! Oh, forget that! It’s more propaganda than technique, and it’s meant for the boys. You can follow it to open your meridians, but ignore the rest.”

Jia frowned at Yue, who was lounging on the couch across from her and feeding Heian little motes of light and dark essence. It occurred to her that Yue would probably be better at Steps of the Stalker than she was, but she shook her head to prevent herself from getting distracted.

“How am I supposed to train the actual technique, then? Have you practiced it yourself?”

Yue sucked in a bit of air through her teeth, looking away and mumbling.

“W-well, sort of...”

Jia raised an eyebrow.

“Sort of?”

Yue huffed irritably and met Jia’s gaze again.

“Yes, sort of! I tried to practice it, but the technique eluded me. At the time I blamed my mother for poorly recalling the secrets of the True Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart manual, but in hindsight, I think I simply lacked the talent for it.”

“Okay, you said a lot of things there that I don’t have context for. ‘True’ Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart?”

Yue nodded.

“Our sect’s greatest treasure, and the very thing that it was founded upon—the secret to my father’s rise to greatness. It is secret, by the way—Zheng Long wouldn’t even know of the manual’s existence. I doubt even Yan Hao does. I shouldn’t, but the women of Qin are quite serious about passing down their secrets.”

“Okay...why are you telling me about it?”

Yue shrugged, dangling a bit of light ki on the tip of her finger just out of Heian’s reach. Heian didn’t actually need to physically touch the essence to absorb it, but both seemed to enjoy the game of it.

“That’s a complicated question to answer. Suffice it to say that I no longer have a future in the empire, and keeping its secrets holds little value to me.”

That gave Jia pause.

“Is it really that bad? I know what you told me about being married off, and I don’t blame you for wanting to get out of that but—”

Yue chuckled mirthlessly, cutting Jia off.

“Haha, I don’t think that’s going to be on the table anymore. Zheng Long wasn’t wrong when he said I was courting death, you know. At this point, I’d be quite lucky to be married off to some minor sect and shoved away out of sight—more likely I’d be executed for consorting with demons.”

Jia paled—it hadn’t occurred to her just how dire Yue’s situation had become. In a way, Yue was a bit like her now, without any place to belong to on the continent—aside from the academy. It was an uncomfortable thought, and Jia changed the subject.

“So what’s the difference between the real manual and this one?”

Yue hummed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Hmm, I can’t be certain—I’ve never actually seen the true manual, myself—but the original technique wasn’t meant for humans. The name isn’t for show—it actually came from dragons.”

“I thought that dragons were fiends—body cultivators. How could a powerful qi technique come from them?”

Yue blinked at Jia.

“Who told you that? I’ve never heard anything of the sort.”

“Grand Magus Do Hye said that he met dragons in his travels overseas, and that they were awakened magical beasts—fiends.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose he would know. I have no idea why a qi technique would come from them, but my mother was quite certain of its origin, and she actually did read it herself. She tried to teach me the technique, but I never really took to it. Nor did she, really—trueflame is extremely difficult to comprehend.”

Jia cocked her head curiously.

“Trueflame? Is that another esoteric element, like Shadow?”

Yue shook her head.

“Apparently not. My mother described it as the yin aspect of fire, which is why the men used a modified version—their soul alignment neutralizes the trueflame and expresses it as normal fire instead.”

Jia furrowed her brows, trying to recall all her lessons on mana theory, Dae’s tutoring, and her own research on the elements adjacent to fire—her own Lightning Element and Eui’s Destruction were also adjacent to fire, after all.

“The yin aspect of fire...plasma?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure. Dae tried explaining it to me once, but it sounded really complicated. Apparently it appears naturally, but you have to melt air or something? He said that tiny bits of plasma essence can be found around thunderstorms or really hot fires.”

“What would lightning or air have to do with trueflame? Also, how does one ‘melt air’?”

Jia shrugged.

“No idea. Magus Hwang is constantly saying that the interactions between elements are unfathomably complex, and that mana theory is just another imperfect model of the world.”

“I see. Well, I’d be happy to teach you the technique. Perhaps you’ll have a better time grasping it than I do.”

“How are you going to teach me a technique that you failed to learn yourself?”

Yue crossed her arms and leaned back, pouting. Heian meowed in protest as her source of treats moved away.

“I may not have been able to learn how to apply the technique, but I remember the lessons perfectly well, thank you! We women of Qin are—”

“‘Quite serious about passing down your secrets’, I know.”

“Tsk, then stop making me say it. What about Eui? Path of Heavenly Ascension is quite a challenge for a second stage cultivator. The Sky element is as abstract as they get, and its comprehension is absolutely necessary for successful practice of the technique.”

Jia shrugged.

“She’s working on it as we speak. We’re sort of hoping that our extra half-stage with Yoshika will help us grasp it, and...”

Yue gave her a flat look.

“You just want to fly, don’t you?”

Jia stared down at her hands in her lap, blushing.

“What’s wrong with that? It sounds like fun.”

Yue let out a long suffering sigh.

“How can you be only three years my junior and still such a child? Well, an extra dimension of mobility is a powerful tool, so I wish you the best of luck with that.”

Once again, Jia found herself wanting to change the subject. Maybe it was a bit petty, but she chose something that would turn the tables on Yue a bit.

“By the way, I was talking to Ishihara earlier about setting up a workshop for mental and spiritual defense.”

Yue nodded absently, most of her attention having returned back to Heian.

“Mhm? That’s a good idea. Normally it’s one of the first things a second stage cultivator trains, but you’ve been going too fast—skipping steps. I’d consult with Elder Qin about it as well, I’m sure he’s got a lot to say about your glaring weakness in that area.”

“I was hoping you’d be able to join us for it.”

“Of course I—”

Yue started to nod along, but froze, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

“Who else will be there?”

“Me, Eui, Yuuko, and Rika are the ones most interested in shoring up our weakness against spiritual attacks, and we were hoping that you, Ishihara, and Eunae could be the tutors.”

Yue grimaced before throwing her arms up with a sigh.

“Fine! My perfectly reasonable apprehension about Miss Seong has gotten me into unreasonable amounts of trouble already, and we’ve been practicing our martial arts together for months. I have to get over it eventually.”

Jia grinned, happy that it wasn’t her that had to squirm uncomfortably anymore.

“You’d better start by getting used to calling her Eunae, she hates her family name.”

Yue sighed, propping her chin on her hand as she grumbled.

“That’s a feeling that I am beginning to empathize rather strongly with.”

The next month seemed to go by in a blur, as Jia and Eui could finally settle down and focus properly on their cultivation and studies. For once, there was no imminent crisis, no uncertainty, nothing to hold them back—they were free to do as they liked without any major external pressures.

Well, almost free. They were still more or less housebound, and Eui was lamenting the lack of opportunities to go on dates or spend time alone together. Since they’d started dating, their relationship hadn’t really changed, and living with Yue meant that it was very rare for the two of them to get any semblance of real privacy. Jia wanted to take things slowly, and Eui was happy to accommodate, but there was slow, and then there was static.

Still, things were otherwise going extremely well, and their cultivation was advancing at an incredible pace. The bottleneck they had been suffering for the last several months was gone, and their training was seeing massive returns.

Three events stood out from the hectic cycle of training, studying, and meditating. First, Yue’s breakthrough—followed soon after by Ishihara and Rika—to a fully unified cultivation. She was extremely proud of herself, albeit a little annoyed that the other two had managed it so much faster than her. Yue’s pride was saved by the fact that the other two had only been able to break through so quickly under her expert tutelage, and the fact that of the three of them, only Yue had developed a domain.

Unsurprisingly, Yue’s domain felt like the moon to Jia. A pale reflection, a beacon in the night, lighting up the darkness. She wasn’t sure what exactly it meant to Yue, and the other girl wasn’t forthcoming about it either, but it certainly seemed to suit her.

The second event wasn’t quite as happy as the first. Xin Wei and Guan Yi had caught wind of the joint training sessions being attended by nearly everyone of any importance in the entire academy and invited themselves to join in. Normally, Jia wouldn’t have minded, as presumptuous of Xin as it may have been—Guan Yi was a friend, and Xin Wei at least managed to hover somewhere slightly above neutral.

The problem was that Xin Wei’s team included Zheng Long and Han Yu. Their arrival nearly started a brawl on the very first day, and had led to much higher levels of tension among the teams practicing together. Xin Wei’s only defense was that he got along well with Zheng Long, and simply assembled the strongest team that he could. It was a dark reminder for Lee Jia that she couldn’t always trust the friends of her friends.

The final event was the most unexpected—a surprise lesson scheduled by Murayoshi. The reclusive instructor almost never taught classes, and typically ignored entreaties from students. He seemed perfectly content to alienate most of the academy disciples so that they would leave him to his work. So it came as a huge surprise that he would suddenly call for another lesson so soon after the last—even if it had actually been quite a while.

When they arrived at the smithy, a few things stood out as unusual. First, Murayoshi was not working at his forge as usual. Instead, he was leaning against his anvil with his arms crossed, apparently waiting for them. Second, the already tiny class was even smaller than usual—Jia and Eui arrived along with Yue to find Eunae waiting for them, and nobody else.

Murayoshi began speaking as soon as they arrived.

“Yer prolly sweatin’ about the fact that ye’ ent finished yer work yet—don’t. I didn’t call ye here fer that.”

Yue put a hand on her hip and stared flatly at the ornery blacksmith.

“Please don’t tell us that you just have a thing for pretty young ladies. I get more than enough attention from lecherous old men back home, thank you.”

Murayoshi scoffed and spit to the side before pausing, looking uncharacteristically uncertain for a moment and turning away to mumble something under his breath. Jia’s ears twitched as she picked up something she was certain she was not meant to hear.

“Oi, Forge, this ent about pretty gals, is it? I didn’t think ye—no, no. Arright, good.”

Murayoshi turned back to face the girls and coughed once.

“Ahem! Nah girlie, this ent about that. Ye’re here ‘cause Forge thinks ye each made somethin’ worth workin’ on. She doesn’t wanna waste that potential. Personally, I couldn’t care less, but I do like to keep the ol’ girl happy. She’s got a fiery temper! Bahahaha!”

Murayoshi ignored the incredulous looks from the girls as he laughed at his own joke before his expression became serious again.

“We’re skippin’ some steps here, but listen close. I told ye before that ye gotta make somethin’ that embodies somethin’ outside yerself. That ent easy—understandin’ somethin’ as well as ye do yerself. S’why I told ye ta make it somethin’ else, instead of workin’ off what ye got. Forge convinced me otherwise.

“What each o’ ye made is something worth iteratin’ on. So you four will be adding to what ye got rather than makin’ somethin’ new. The creations ye already did are representations of yourselves, but to add to it, yer gonna need somethin’ external but important. Yer also gonna need to start thinkin’ about what you’re tryin’ ta create. Don’ listen to Yumi and her idjit prattle about the ‘destined shape’ of the thing. You decide what yer gonna make, what it means to ye, and then bring that meanin’ to life!”

Murayoshi met each girl’s eyes—except Eunae, who kept hers closed—and then nodded once.

“Right! Dismissed.”

Jia’s jaw dropped and she took an involuntary step forwards as she protested.

“Wha—that’s it!? How do we even do that? Where do we begin?”

Murayoshi shrugged, already digging out an ingot to throw into the furnace.

“Fuck if I know! Figger it out!”

“That’s not fair!”

At Jia’s feet Heian stood forward and meowed loudly, mimicking her. Heian still hadn’t figured out human communication, but she had taken to copying Jia, especially if she was emotionally heated. Kim Yongsun said it was a good thing.

“Nothin’ ever is, Nosey Girl. How do ye think I learned the craft, eh? Oh, I had a master what taught me to smith, but I learned how to make all on my own. All I can do is put ye on the path—ye gotta walk it yerself. I can’t make ye learn, otherwise ye’d end up like that idjit Yumi. My greatest creation, and my greatest failure.”

Jia exchanged an uneasy glance with Eui and frowned—there was no way she could just leave that one alone.

“What do you mean by that? About Master Ienaga.”

Murayoshi stopped digging around for more metals and turned back to face the girls again. She expected a frown, or an angry glare, but instead Murayoshi just looked crestfallen.

“She ent told ye?”

The girls all blinked at that.

“Told us what?”

Murayoshi growled in frustration, and shook his head.

“That idjit girl! Sorry ladies, it ent my place to say. If ye want answers, ye’ll have to bring it up with Yumi. Ask her how she did the impossible, how she transcended human limits. Ask her why her uncle Murayoshi renounced his name.”

Jia felt as though her jaw was going to drop straight to the floor as she stared awestruck at Murayoshi. She had been curious about his lack of family name, but it hadn’t seemed important before now. Suddenly she had a million questions she wanted to ask. She opened her mouth to speak, but Murayoshi preempted it by throwing a hammer at her.

“Now fuck off!”