Lee Jia sat in her house by herself, as grumpy as she’d ever been. This tournament was already turning out to be a disaster for her. Yue had suggested that things had been rigged against her for the entertainment of nobles, and whether it was that or just bad luck, Jia had no allies to rely on for the qualifiers. Oh, she had an invitation to work with a group, but the leaders of that group were one former, and one current enemy. It would be suicide to accept that.

The only consolation she had was that she could watch the divisions before hers, and learn what to expect. Except to make matters worse, it turned out that her house arrest still applied. So now she was stuck inside, all by herself. Only the fire and her own meditation to keep her company. She’d get to share Eui’s experience later, but that was only one division, and a limited viewpoint to boot.

The final nail in the coffin of her mood was the lack of Eui’s presence. Eui was fighting in the first division, and for the first time since their breakthrough they were not close enough for their domains to join together. It felt wrong—like a fundamental piece of herself was missing. The fact that Eui was no doubt feeling the same, and that they’d both likely have to suffer through that for most of the single-combat division was depressing.

Even Yue had contrived to get out of the house by volunteering herself as support staff for the tournament—Jia wished she’d thought of that herself. She summoned Heian in an effort to stave off the creeping loneliness. Heian regarded her with those bright blue eyes, then meowed once and curled up to sleep.

“Hey! Don’t go to sleep you little jerk! You’re supposed to be keeping me company.”

Heian reluctantly looked up at Jia with narrowed eyes.

“Meow!”

“Don’t you ‘meow’ me! I know you can understand me, and I know you can use words! Come on, I need some company that isn’t just my own thoughts.”

Heian hesitated for a moment, then jumped up onto Jia’s lap and curled up there.

“Meow!”

Jia sighed, but scratched Heian’s head softly between the ears.

“Fine. Close enough...”

She sat in silence, petting the sleeping cat spirit until she was startled by the sound of a knock on the door. Heian mewled in protest as she was woken by Jia’s start.

“Sorry!”

Jia extended her domain to see who was at the door, finding Grand Magus Do Hye waiting for her. The fact that she could sense him rather than simply being blocked by his domain was a courtesy on his part—as was the fact that he had knocked. She wasn’t about to stand up with Heian in her lap, and she knew that the Grand Magus could already perceive her, so she didn’t even bother raising her voice.

“Come in.”

Do Hye appeared in her living room a moment later with a grin plastered on his weird, hairless face.

“Good day Miss Lee! How does the morning find you?”

“Not great, to be honest. Did you guys really rig this tournament against me?”

Do Hye blinked at her, then laughed.

“Hah! What gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that none of my friends and all of my enemies are in the same qualifier as me?”

Do Hye gave her a sly grin as he responded.

“Just a coincidence, I assure you.”

Lee Jia narrowed her eyes, but refrained from commenting. He probably reveled in this kind of thing.

“Whatever. What brings you here, Grand Magus?”

“Well—ah, may I sit?”

Lee Jia gestured to the couch across from her and Do Hye took the offered seat before continuing.

“Well you see, I thought it was a little unfair to leave you here by yourself when the rest of the academy is enjoying the tournament! I petitioned to suspend your punishment of house arrest, but Qin Zhao was quite firm about it.”

Lee Jia grimaced.

“So, what, you decided to come keep me company? That seems hardly appropriate.”

“Haha, I suppose not—but I won’t actually be staying long. I have quite a bit of work to do officiating the tournament. I just came to drop off this...”

The Grand Magus held out a hand, and a large plate of jade appeared on the table, with a complex formation inlaid across its surface in gold. It reminded her of the elemental converter that Eunae had given her, but unfathomably more complex. Jia’s eyes widened when she realized that Do Hye had just demonstrated the use of a dimensional storage artifact.

“You have a storage artifact!?”

Do Hye chuckled.

“Of course! How long do you think I’ve been travelling the world? I’m one of the few people living who can make them—though it takes a great deal of effort and comes at an extreme cost. There’s a reason they’re so rare, you know. Dae’s can only hold a few cubic feet of the same material it was crafted from—paper or wood—and even that took decades off of my cultivation.”

Jia stared in slack-jawed awe at Do Hye. It was obvious that the title of Grand Magus wasn’t just for show. He waved a hand, shaking his head.

“Bah, you’ve got me bragging! The dimensional artifact isn’t important—what matters is the artifact I brought you.”

Do Hye indicated the jade plate.

“This is a scrying formation—well, not really but close enough. It took a bit of hackery to get them working since true scrying is nearly impossible. It will let you view an area within a sister formation that it’s been keyed to—the forest where the qualifiers are taking place.”

Jia’s eyes lit up as she processed what Do Hye was saying.

“So I can watch the tournament! Did you make this just for me?”

Do Hye grinned at her.

“Indeed! Well—okay, no, I created them to allow some of our more high profile guests to view the tournament in privacy. The design is the hardest part—actually producing them is quite simple for me. This is just an extra I had lying around.”

Lee Jia stared down at the artifact. Do Hye was playing it off, but it was a pretty big gesture, and she was starting to feel a bit bad for how much distrust she had given the Grand Magus.

“Thank you.”

Do Hye grinned at her as he stood up.

“Think nothing of it! Enjoy the tournament, Miss Lee. It would be a shame for you to miss all the excitement! Such things are the very privilege of youth! Now, I must be off before the others realize that I’ve been slack—I mean—ahem, I’d best get back to work.”

Do Hye excused himself, leaving Jia alone with Heian once again. She glanced down at the kitten, who had gone back to sleep during the conversation.

“Well, let’s see what’s going on, I guess.”

“I’m the first son of a sect grandmaster—groomed for leadership my entire life! I will one day inherit the sect as the new grandmaster of the Spiritual Flowing Purewater sect. Obviously I should be the one to lead our group.”

“I understand your arguments, Xin Wei, but you are the only imperial citizen among us. Since this group comprises a half-spirit majority, reason dictates that as a Goreyon high noble, I should lead.”

“Half is not a majority, Kim Yongsun!”

Eui was about to be disqualified for murder, and it wasn’t even going to be an opponent. They had been given ten minutes to enter the forest and prepare before the signal to begin fighting, but Kim and Xin had spent the entire time arguing over who should be the leader. It was a familiar argument—and come to think of it, Kim and Xin Wei had been behind the last one, too. Yuuko shook her head at them in disbelief.

“What is wrong with you two? Look, it’s simple—I’m co-captain of my own team because I’m the strongest person on it. I’ve never steered our team wrong, right Fujikawa?”

Fujikawa Ayumi looked a bit put out as Yuuko addressed her, but before she could respond the others erupted into more arguing. Eui felt a blood vessel about to burst in her forehead—she’d had enough. Focusing on her murderous intent wasn’t too difficult in this situation, and she used a little trick she’d been practicing to infuse that intent into her domain and pulse it across her team.

“Oh my ancestors, all of you just shut the fuck up!”

They were all startled into silence, and Eui took advantage of the gap before they could start shouting again.

“Kim, stop pretending I’m on your side just because I’m Goryeon—or did you forget I’m a fucking exile? Xin, Kim’s right, there’s nobody else from Qin here, but more importantly, nobody likes you. Yuuko, even if letting the strongest person lead was a good idea—which it fucking isn’t—that would not mean you, and you know it. I could flatten all five of you in ten seconds.”

Rather than any of the people she’d addressed responding, Kim’s teammate crossed his arms and glared at her. He was a half-spirit who’d had the misfortune of expressing the traits of a frog, which made the space between his beady eyes awkwardly wide, and his mouth overly large. Or maybe that was just the way he looked, Eui wasn’t going to judge.

“Then who do you propose should lead, hmm?”

Eui rolled her eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“I am Deungjeong Taeyan of the—”

“Ok, frogface, first of all there really isn’t any need for a leader, and second if it’s just a matter of strategy then there’s only really one option.”

Eui pointed at her nomination without hesitation. Fujikawa’s eyes widened in surprise.

“M-me!?”

Eui nodded confidently. Fujikawa Ayumi was a short girl—though not as short as Jia or Eui—who looked and dressed extremely plain. She had her light brown hair cut pragmatically short, and generally had a serious attitude. She was pretty cute, too—right in Eui’s strike zone, but that wasn’t why she had picked her.

“Absolutely! We haven’t spoken much, but everything I’ve heard you say has been practical, to-the-point, and insightful. I’ll bet you already know the optimal formation for us to use.”

Fujikawa furrowed her brows, looking down and mumbling to herself as she held her chin. She reminded Eui of Dae.

“Three healers...two frontline...two mage...previous cooperative experience...I’ve got it! A three-two-one formation—Kim, Deungjeong, and Xin as long range support for Minami and me. The two mages are accustomed to working together, as are Minami and I. Xin’s healing and gravity techniques should be enough to prevent the backline from being overwhelmed if we get flanked. An Eui is our trump card, and works best solo—we let her roam to wherever she’s needed in a fight to shut down major threats.”

There was a long pause, then the signal to begin went off with the worst possible timing. Eui grinned.

“Works for me! Everybody fall in! Fujikawa’s in charge.”

With nothing more than a few frustrated grunts in protest, the cobbled-together team fell into formation, and the fighting began.

Eui panted to catch her breath, stretching her domain out to search for any approaching enemies. It had been five hours since the fighting started, and her team had managed to hold out so far, but they were getting tired. Half the fighters had gone down in the first hour, but since then it had been a grueling slog as different groups met, skirmished, then disengaged to lick their wounds rather than committing. In the last four hours, there had only been three more eliminations.

It was hard to maintain her focus. Eui didn’t have Yoshika’s multitasking prowess, nor could she use Absolute Awareness by herself. While her domain had half a mile of radius in theory, in practice she could only actually concentrate on a fraction of that area at any given time. It was exhausting to maintain, but Eui wasn’t about to complain—the others were even worse off than she was.

Kim Yongsun and Frogface were almost out of talismans, and neither of them had awakened spiritually. Xin Wei had taxed himself quite hard, preventing the back line from being assaulted in order to create openings for Eui to intercede, while Yuuko and Fujikawa were both sweating profusely from the exertion of holding off attacks from the front.

Eui sensed someone and whispered for Fujikawa to hear.

“I’ve got someone. About three hundred feet north—Firestarters I think.”

Fujikawa nodded in acknowledgement.

“Are they approaching?”

Eui nodded.

“Cover their angle of approach as we discussed and keep a lookout for the others.”

Another nod. There were at least two other major teams still in the running—nicknamed Firestarters and Windcutters respectively—both teams were groups of disciples from Qin. The Firestarters had been using fire to smoke out opponents before ambushing them, while the Windcutters had opted for a more direct strategy of surrounding other groups and cutting down everything in their path.

Eui finished setting up then returned to her team. Fujikawa was looking extremely worried about something, and Eui prodded her quietly.

“What’s up?”

Fujikawa bit her lip as she glanced at Eui.

“It’s been bothering me—the lack of eliminations. The forest isn’t that big, especially after half of it’s been burnt away or cut down. I’ve given it some thought—counted and recounted the numbers—and I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“If you don’t count our group, there are exactly sixteen people left.”

Eui paled as she realized what Fujikawa was suggesting.

“You think they’re all working together?”

Fujikawa nodded.

“Almost certain of it. Can you...check a bit further out? I know it’s hard, especially while you’re concentrating on you-know-what, but I think we’re being hemmed in.”

“I’ll try it. Ugh, this is such bullshit—in what way is this a qualifier for single combat?”

Eui carefully expanded the range of her domain and began checking around the perimeter. As Fujikawa said, it was pretty difficult to do while also maintaining concentration on the approaching Firestarter and the surprise she’d left for him. After a few moments, she found one of the Windcutters just standing around as if waiting for something.

Before she could search any further, the Firestarter she’d been tracking ran headfirst into her trap like an idiot. Eui actually had to wait a moment before letting it trigger because he was too close. She released the control she’d been maintaining on the throwing knife embedded in a tree as the boy tried to sneak past, causing an explosion of destructive energy that sent him sprawling to the ground.

Eui’s team moved as one at the sound of the signal—they’d done this trick a few times already—bearing down on the caught student before he had a chance to collect himself. The Firestarter stood no chance six-on-one, and the only reason they’d been cautious was because of the chance of others hiding in ambush. Eui was pretty sure she’d spot anybody trying to hide, but Fujikawa didn’t want to take chances on that, which Eui could respect.

“Xiao Huiqing has been eliminated.”

The Grand Magus’ voice sounded out through the forest, indicating that the student they’d just defeated was out of the fight. Eui and Fujikawa frowned, that had been far too easy—something wasn’t right. On a hunch, Eui checked on the other opponent that she had spotted. He had reacted to the message by—blowing wind towards them?

“Fujikawa, I’ve got a windcutter nearly half a mile away uh...giving us a gentle breeze.”

Fujikawa’s head whipped around to Eui, her eyes wide with alarm.

“What!? Where are the others? The Firestarters?”

“I don’t know!”

“Which way is the edge of the forest!?”

Eui focused for a moment, before pointing back in the opposite direction from the Windcutter.

“We’re pretty close to it, actually. Just a couple hundred meters that way.”

Fujikawa slapped her forehead.

“Shit! We need to move! We’re going on the offensive right now—we need to end this.”

Yuuko raised an eyebrow at Fujikawa.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“They’re working together. The Windcutters are going to direct the blaze from the Firestarters to drive us out of the forest and disqualify us! We have to move now before the fire gets too big to escape!”

The six of them raced towards the one known opponent, but soon encountered a wall of fire blocking their path. Fujikawa swore angrily.

“Damnit! This is my fault! I should have come up with a more aggressive strategy the moment I realized that our enemies were using siege strategies! I should never have been—”

Eui smacked Fujikawa on the back of the head.

“Calm down! Think! Forget about what we could have done. What can we do now!?”

Fujikawa furrowed her brows.

“Does anybody have a water technique or spell?”

Everyone shook their heads except for Xin.

“I have water techniques, but they are mainly used for healing. Nothing that could put out a conflagration such as this.”

Fujikawa rubbed her forehead, mumbling to herself.

“Two mages...no spells...three healers...three healers! Pair up, Yuuko with me, An with Kim, and Xin with Frogface.”

“My name is—”

Eui cut him off.

“Shut up, Frogface—Fujikawa, what’s the plan?”

Fujikawa grimaced.

“You’re not going to like this—but we’re going to break through. As large as the blaze is, it’s mostly mundane fire, not being fueled by an active spiritual art or spell. It will be painful, but with healers we should be able to make it through relatively unharmed.”

Eui laughed as the others groaned.

“Alright, let’s do it! Come here, Kim.”

The team paired up according to Fujikawa’s instructions and got ready to run through the flames. Eui withdrew her domain to the area just around them and focused on channeling her Tranquility of the Verdant Marsh through it in order to ease the burden on the other two healers and hopefully make the experience more comfortable.

The heat was nearly unbearable as they charged through the flames, and it took every ounce of Eui’s concentration to maintain her healing technique on both herself and Kim Yongsun on top of the calming aura. After maybe a minute of running, they finally broke through to the other side, gasping for air—there had only been smoke to breathe within the blazing forest.

Frogface was coughing from smoke inhalation—the idiot had tried to breath while they ran.

“I—cough—I can’t believe we made—”

He was interrupted by a blade of cutting wind slicing cleanly through his arm, sending him to the ground bleeding and in shock.

“Deungjeong Taeyang has been eliminated.”

Eui put up her guard and she turned in the direction the attack had come from to see all fifteen of their opponents gathered together waiting for them. The apparent leader of the group—the one who had launched the attack—laughed derisively.

“Hahaha! I can’t believe you idiots actually ran through the fire! Well, it makes our job easy at least. Hello Senior Xin, no hard feelings—this is just about putting the beasts and savages in their place. Actually, since Junior Xiao’s spot is open, you’re welcome to join us.”

“I think I’ll take my chances, Shen. We only need to eliminate four of you, and you’ve spoiled us for choice.”

“Have it your way, then.”

The situation was dire, despite Xin’s bluster. The group was surrounded with their backs to the fire, and the ambush was at the optimal range for spiritual artists. Fujikawa began barking orders as the spiritual artists started their assault.

“Kim, wall! Xin, Frogface! An, artillery! Minami, overwatch!”

They were simple one-word commands that trusted the recipient to understand her meaning, but the team sprung into action at her words. Kim used his last remaining ice wall talisman to erect a barrier that would buy them time, while Eui started lobbing destruction-charged knives over the wall to scatter the enemy forces. Meanwhile, Xin knelt down next to Deungjeong and began treating his wounds—if they acted fast enough they might be able to save his arm.

Yuuko and Fujikawa held one side of the wall while Eui handled the other to prevent their enemies from circling around. Eui managed to catch one of the out-of-position opponents with a knife to the leg, which promptly exploded—only a small one, as Eui hadn’t put much power into it. The boy went down screaming—his leg was still intact, but hanging on by a thread.

“Xue Shan has been eliminated.”

Only three to go, but they were running out of time. The fire was encroaching back on their position without the constant wind pushing it in the other direction, and their wall—ice of all things—wasn’t going to hold much longer. Eui was starting to run low on essence as well, and the smoke from the fire was disrupting her combat meditation.

“Fujikawa, I’m going to try something—it might get me eliminated but I’m confident that I can take at least two down with me and get the rest of you through.”

Fujikawa shook her head.

“No! We can still—!”

“Look, I appreciate the concern, and you’ve done a great job leading us, but this is the do or die moment, and I’ve always been more of a doer.”

Ignoring Fujikawa’s protests, Eui gathered her qi together and looked up at the sky. She couldn’t really see it through the smoke and the trees, but she knew it was there, waiting for her. She just wished she could have had time to properly master her technique. Before she could get any second thoughts, she leapt into the air using the Path of Heavenly Ascension.