Jianmo sat lounging on the table, on top of the book and scrolls that Yoshika and Dae had been working on, her bare legs spilling shamelessly out of her rather revealing robes. She beamed proudly at Yoshika, enamored with herself for having managed to startle her. Yoshika hissed under her breath, glancing nervously around the room—she was alone with Dae, but it would be a problem if anyone else spotted the demon inside of a Goryeon city.

“Jianmo, what in the ancestors’ names are you doing here? How are you here? Don’t tell us you can casually bypass the shield formations.”

Dae cast a confused glance at Yoshika.

“Miss Yoshika, is something wrong?”

“Do you not see—?”

Yoshika cut herself off, then leveled a very unimpressed stare at Jianmo, who seemed content to continue grinning at her.

“You’re not actually here, are you? Sorry Dae, Jianmo just appeared in front of me, but I think it’s a trick.”

Jianmo—or her image—clapped slowly.

“Clever girls. That’s right, I’m just an illusion. A little trick constructed by the real me—oh, make sure to tell her that I got you when we meet again, she’ll be so jealous!”

Yoshika sighed, shaking both her heads in exasperation.

“How? I assume it’s something you left behind in the divine essence?”

“Right again, sweetie! You’re on a roll today. Memories and personality are quite easy to emulate if you know the right methods—my master loved this trick. Quite similar to the technique the gods used to create the avatars they sent to this world—albeit infinitely simpler.”

Yoshika’s eyes widened in realization as Jianmo gave her an idea.

“Wait, would it be possible to copy a mortal’s memories like that?”

Jianmo’s face hardened for a moment before she shook her head and sighed, giving Yoshika a look of pity.

“Oh, honey, no. I can only guess what you’re thinking, but take it from this soul-devouring monster that you do not want to go down that road. There’s more to a person than just their memories, and the soul is much harder to replicate. I’ve known a few naughty cultivators who’ve tried to solve that problem by just supplying another soul as a catalyst, and that leads to some rather dark places.”

Yoshika frowned, but didn’t argue. She’d find another way to help Lee Jung—besides, Jianmo’s words reminded her uncomfortably of what her martial arts instructor, Master Ienaga Yumi, had told her about how her uncle had transferred her soul into a homunculus using the core of a fiend and a willing spirit as catalysts. Jianmo ignored her cloudy expressions and clapped once to regain her attention.

“Anyway! Well done eating that divine essence—it took you long enough to get the hint. As you’ve just learned, it’s quite possible to take essence into yourself without making it part of you. Normal essence would be rejected or absorbed as a matter of course, but divine essence is made of sterner stuff than half-baked immortals like yourselves.”

Yoshika stared flatly.

“Wow, thanks.”

“Anytime, dear. Now, the next step is to learn how to shape essence—divine or otherwise—that isn’t yours. It’s an invaluable skill, not just so that you can cheat your way into crafting your own sacred arts before you break through, but also because it’s a real bitch of a move to pull against an opponent who’s not ready for you to just unravel their techniques directly.”

“Okay, how do we do that?”

Jianmo placed a hand on her hip and gave Yoshika the most condescending smirk.

“Now now, lovely, I think we both know that’s not how this works. As much as I would love to simply give you point by point instructions, this is the sort of thing that you figure out by feeling as much as by thinking. I will however, recommend that you practice with regular essence first. If you fuck up and destabilize that divine essence while it’s inside of your soul, the best case scenario is that it forces a breakthrough into the xiantian realm. That would cause us all sorts of problems, the least of which being that you would be dead.”

Yoshika grimaced—Jianmo had already mentioned that would happen if she absorbed the divine essence into her cultivation.

“What’s the worst case?”

Jianmo’s smile grew a bit stiff.

“Anyway, good luck with that! I’m rooting for you, don’t die and all that good stuff. Bye!”

“Wait—!”

Jianmo’s image faded before Yoshika could protest, leaving the table beneath her completely undisturbed, and Yoshika with more questions than answers—as usual. Dae looked up from the book he’d been scribbling in as he waited patiently for Yoshika to finish.

“Is she gone?”

Yoshika slumped back and nodded.

“She was never really here. Just a little trick she left in my head to show up after I solved her dumb puzzle so that she could give me another, even dumber one.”

Dae chuckled at that.

“Sounds familiar enough. What’s the goal this time?”

“Directly shape essence that isn’t ours. Without cultivating it first.”

“Ah, another impossible task then. I can see a pattern emerging.”

Yoshika scowled irritably.

“You don’t have to remind us.”

Dae grinned at her.

“In my experience, you also have a rather remarkable track record of doing the impossible. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. All you can do is trust that your master has your best interests in mind, even if you don’t understand their reasoning, right?”

Yoshika paused, giving Dae a long look. He seemed entirely at ease with the whole situation, but she didn’t miss the note of melancholy in his aura, despite how well he hid it from his voice.

“Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about Jianmo anymore.”

Dae averted his eyes, scratching the back of his head. A small, self-deprecating laugh died in his throat.

“Ah, I suppose not, hehe. My apologies, Miss Yoshika. I didn’t mean to distract from the discussion.”

Yoshika shook both her heads, reaching out with Jia to place a comforting hand on his back.

“No, we’re sorry. We’ve been so caught up in everything going on that we never got the chance to stop and make sure you’re doing alright. Do Hye was kind of like a father to you, right? Actually—come to think of it, you’ve never really talked about your past much.”

Dae sighed and nodded.

“I suppose we have that much in common, yes. There’s not much to tell, truth be told. Do Hye was my master as far back as I can remember. I might be an orphan, or perhaps my biological parents are still out there somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find them. Master never told me how he discovered me or why he took me in—’not important,’ he said.”

Yoshika grimaced.

“It was important to you, though, wasn’t it?”

Dae shrugged.

“I don’t know. I didn’t really think it was—just a passing curiosity. Seeing the lengths you’ve gone to for your family, however—and having been abandoned by what I thought had been mine...I don’t know.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

“That’s a question that’s haunted me for two years. The context that you’ve added certainly puts things in perspective, but it doesn’t truly answer that question. Perhaps he was trying to protect me, in his own way, from whatever his machinations are. Or maybe he needs me here, to perform some function that he didn’t see the need to inform me of—he does that, sometimes.”

The mystery of Do Hye’s motivations was something that had weighed on Yoshika as well. What did he seek to gain from aiding Jianmo? Did he have designs on the Sovereign’s Tear himself? Any cultivator would covet the kind of power that artifact represented, yet power seemed almost too mundane a reason. But to Dae, all of that paled in comparison to his beloved master’s apparent betrayal. Yoshika squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.

“You’ll find him—we know you will. If anyone can, it’s you. Just tell us if you need anything at all. We’ll be there for you.”

Dae smiled sadly.

“Thank you, Miss Yoshika. In truth, you’ve already done quite a bit. It wasn’t quite how I would have gone about it, but capturing Seung alive has already led to some key discoveries. I think we may finally have a lead towards discovering one of my master’s agents. You just focus on handling things in Songdo—I’ll find Do Hye.”

“Oh! That reminds us! Magus Hwang was here asking us questions about the day of the descent and your master. We told him about Jianmo as well, and he ended up taking off to go look into something. You might want to contact him, if you haven’t already.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve been in communication with Magus Hwang, though I didn’t realize he was in the city—the dangers of clandestine operation. I’ll be sure to compare notes with him once we’ve finished following up on Seung’s leads. In the meantime, let’s try to finish this formation! Look, I think I made some progress while you were meditating.”

Yoshika couldn’t help but be endeared by the way Dae’s tune changed so quickly once he got talking about magical formulae. Once he got talking about his arcane notes, there was no sign of the lonely melancholy he’d just displayed—replaced entirely by a genuine passion for his craft. She gave Dae her full attention, spending the rest of the day helping him to draw and test prototype formations using the techniques that Do Hye had left for him.

Deep into the middle of the night, approaching the morning, Yoshika and Dae had two mostly-finished formations. The first was a carefully crafted amalgam of complicated multi-dimensional matrices which would hopefully enable them to see into the spirit world. The other was a recreation of the barrier formation that Yoshika had copied from Do Hye—something she’d attempted on numerous occasions without any success.

Dae was in the process of trying to finish the missing pieces of the first formation by trial and error—insisting that it should be possible, if he could just find the right symbols to complete the spiritual connections. Heian had returned from playing with Narae some time in the evening after Lee Jung had put her daughter to bed, and was enthusiastically failing to provide any meaningful help.

“No, that part doesn’t connect to that part. You need to draw a path between these parts!”

Dae scratched his head with frustration.

“I know that, Miss Heian, but it’s impossible! If I link those symbols together, it will intersect the mana-gathering circle and disrupt the entire formation.”

“No it won’t. You’re just drawing it wrong.”

“And how might I draw it correctly, dare I ask?”

Heian shrugged.

“I dunno.”

Yoshika stifled a giggle as Dae groaned. Heian could see the parts of Dae’s work that he could not, and had actually been quite helpful at pointing out otherwise invisible errors, but while she understood what would cause the formation to fail—and had been quite good at copying the things she’d been shown—she lacked a fundamental understanding of the theories involved. Yoshika had suggested fusing with Heian so that she could combine her own knowledge with Heian’s sight, but Dae refused.

“I need to understand what I’m doing myself if I’m going to meaningfully expand upon it. Besides, as I understand it, that would be a tremendous waste of resources on your part—don’t underestimate the value of a trump card that will allow you to escape even most xiantian cultivators—aha! That’s done it!”

Dae’s outburst was matched by the formation lighting up with a subtle glow as it began to collect mana to power itself. Strictly speaking, that only meant that the configuration was valid—not that it necessarily worked as intended, but Dae seemed confident in his solution. He took a cautious step into the center of the circle and Yoshika watched as his aura condensed around his face, causing his eyes to glow a pale green color, reminiscent of the green flames created by Seong Eunae’s soulfire. Looking around the room, Dae’s gaze lingered on the unfinished barrier formation with a frown.

“Oh, this is very disorienting. It’s going to take some practice before I can make sense of anything I’m seeing right now.”

Dae turned to look at Heian, grinning at her.

“Oh! You look remarkably different this way—how strange. And this is how you see the world all the time?”

Heian giggled and waved at Dae, and he returned the gesture before moving on to look at Yoshika. He froze as his gaze settled on her, and she had the oddest feeling that he wasn’t looking at either of her bodies, but her. The very core of her domain was laid bare before his eyes, and she suddenly felt a bit self-conscious as he stared at her soul.

“Oh, ancestors. Miss Yoshika what—what am I looking at right now?”

Yoshika frowned—that was a stupid question.

“Um...us? We don’t really know what you’re seeing.”

Dae blushed, but didn’t look away.

“R-right, of course, hehe. Er, I’m—not sure how to describe it. It’s certainly...you. You look beautiful.”

This time it was Yoshika’s turn to blush.

“Well thank you, but we’re pretty committed to our relationship.”

“S-sorry! I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just—it’s difficult to explain. Your soul is remarkable.”

“Thank you. Can we take this to mean that the formation works?”

Dae nodded enthusiastically.

“It works perfectly! It will take some getting used to, but I think this will be an excellent tool for pushing forward our knowledge of formations, and a good basis for forming a mental technique for soul sight!”

“Great! Except uh, we’re kind of out of time. I’m pretty sure Rika said that we’re leaving tomorrow morning and...”

Yoshika looked pointedly at a window, where the first rays of sunlight were already beginning to cast a soft glow over the horizon. Dae followed her gaze, blinking away the effect of his soul sight formation and frowning.

“Hm. Oh dear.”