David

By David's estimate, Tianbei Valley was surely further north than New York. They were approaching November and the creeping chill that seeped through the streets paved with something like concrete - something that felt anachronistic and strange, but also comforting.

Earth Peak, however, was lush and green and the temperature of a jungle. If David had still been who he was before arriving at this realm, he would have been sweating bullets - he was sure of it. The blistering heat was simply pleasant, in the same way the windblasted streets of Tianbei were.

It was not quite the summit of Earth Peak, but David and the Weis were high enough to see the grey metropolis of Bei'an to the west, perched on Black Dragon Strait. His eyesight had become good enough to see the fog banks that covered the far shore - the Western Continent.

It should have been cold.

The source of the warmth was obvious. Sitting deep within a little pile of stones arrayed about it was a little, burbling spring. Steam wafted off of it. Slice of sunlight that cut through the clouds of the overcast sky cast little rainbows onto the stones. High noon gave the water a golden glow. It wasn't the only spring on Earth Peak, but it was very clearly the promised destination.

The moment David extended a foot past the unassuming group of stones surrounding the Yang Spirit Spring, the bells of Tianbei rang in his mind, as loudly as he'd heard them ever before.

It was too early or too late for the Fairy to ring the bells.

You have not made good on your promise.

David had always wondered what it would be like to hear voices - this one sounded like his own and also like bells. They were angry.

But what had he promised?

Suddenly, David could smell lavender and the shock of grassy plains and the evening breeze - they came to him clearer than any memory. He blinked hard as his vision swam. The voice in his head became the voice of Fairy Guan.

If Disciple Ji should step through the gates, he will learn the remaining words of the Skybound Scripture. Is this an acceptable condition?

It is, David affirmed in his head, feeling a touch of shame for not committing the words of the Scripture to memory, or even really paying attention to it when he'd read it idly in his room.

As quickly as it had come, the ringing of the bells faded. David smiled. It seemed to him like the test was fair - as long as David hadn't refused the covenant of the sect outright, he would still be welcome as a disciple of the Ascending Sky. He would still be welcome past this array of stones.

David stepped into the steaming spring, fully past the stones. The water seeped into his sect-standard boots and scalded his ankles.

With a start, David realized he hadn't felt pain in a while, but that was driven away by the assault of the Song on his senses. The experience most comparable to it was that wall of noise that fell on him when he entered the atrium of Earth Peak, but this was far more direct. It was something like putting on a pair of headphones that were already blasting music - just short of overwhelming.

"Remember why you are here!" The voice of Small Wei cut through the cacophony of sound like someone shouting over a swimming pool in which David was submerged.

Of course David remembered why he was here - he was here to form his Core. He took another step into the Yang Spirit Spring and found no more ground. He sank into the spring, neck-deep into the water.

The burning sensation was almost unbearable for a moment. The Yang Spirit Spring rushed at his open apertures, irrigating his unopened meridians and pooling into that space between his stomach and his groin.

David almost screamed, but then realized that he wasn't in pain at all. It was a comforting sensation. He shuddered, gasping in pleasure. He felt a tinge of embarrassment - the Weis were watching him.He looked up at the sky with hooded eyelids, his jaw hanging.

It was an overcast day - a rarity in Tianbei, indeed a rarity in this realm to begin with. He could scarcely remember a day that hadn't been bright and sunny and overcast.

David paused.

Those ideas were not his. He shook himself and closed his mouth. He tried again, marshaling his thoughts.

It was an overcast day - a rarity in Tianbei, indeed a rarity in this realm to begin with. He could scarcely remember a day that hadn't been bright and sunny and-

Yin Tian.

Overcast, cloudy, dark, suppressed, bound-

This was not David's Song. This was the song of the Spirit Spring, the Song of the world. The Song rushed through the circulation system of qi that started at that place he knew he would form his Core-

See for yourself the cruel, uncompromising chains that-

And then it was drowned out by that slice of sunlight from the overcast sky entering through the apertures not submerged in the Spirit Spring, Singing words he'd heard before, when contemplating dangerous things.

Castaway, dive, bind the skies beneath the shores-

"I will, then," said David, in defiance. He dunked his head beneath the waters and was instantly assaulted by words from his travels, words that made no sense - spoken by people who had not said them.

Starcrossed and crowned, our cities were paired. Interpreted by David - of the Iron Scripture, but he heard it in Uncle Jiang's voice, heavy and somber.

I'm your light, Dongjing by night. Spoken to him by Chang Changshou, but he heard it in English, in Alice's voice, clear, blue and bright.

Grudges held for generations, with no sure source of blame. Written on a plaque beneath a shattered statue in the Falling Leaves, but he heard it in the voice of that pretty waitress he'd met in Ping'an.

"Get it together!" came another voice - sharp and loud and big - Big Wei. "Don't let your mind disassociate, you will do irreparable harm to your cultivation. Remember who you are-"

"You are your foundation," Small Wei roared. "The Eight Pillars guide your soul and your cultivation strengthens your bones! You are all you have, and you must keep yourself whole!"

David felt himself slipping away but he caught onto that voice like an anchor weighed in a storm.

"We come and go from Cloud Mountain's village," he decided, declaring the poem to the sky for the first time since he'd composed it.

At the center of his being, he felt it - that secondary tune, that pool, that well. But it was stagnant, it was unmoving, that was wrong.

"Turn it!" commanded Small Wei, hysteria and elation in her voice. "The Taichi is but a static representation of Yin and Yang. I recognize not your words so I can only offer you the universal name of those who are Skybound as you are - Open the door and walk the plains, by light of sun and moon-"

Big Wei joined her in the recitation. "Make them your own!"

The light of the Yin from the skies above and the upwelling of Yang from the spring below came together to meet within him, through these openings in his bodies casually called apertures - like through the lens of hundreds of cameras. The spiritual and the physical coalesced and collided, shimmering, spinning-

Turning.

The sound of thunder echoed in the distance, though David couldn't say for certain that it wasn't the rumbling of a subway with scripture spray painted on its walls, couldn't say for certain that it wasn't the stomping of children up and down the staircases of tenement halls in his native Brooklyn.

It had only been a month or two, but it felt like it had been a lifetime since he’d felt that muggy summer, where rain fell three times a week. It had been a place of order - where there were libraries and schools and cement and so many mosquitoes. It had been a place where a boy named David had a mundane story.

“In peace, we carry on, dispersing, teaching,” David mouthed, even as the water rushed into his mouth.

The Yang qi of the spirit spring and the Yin qi of the skies which had been pouring into him now came in a flood, but it was nothing that the core he was trying to form could not handle - it only turned faster and faster. David was struck with a feeling - like an idle child staring into a kaleidoscope pointed at the sun and spinning it.

But the Song wasn’t quite right - David had known this all along.

Faster and faster the qi within him turned and then David heard the solution in Uncle Jiang's voice.

Retune it.

David began to spin his Core to the words of his Foundation.

"Heroes must always rush in fist first."

He pulled from the spring and pulled from the spring and his core revolved faster and faster, draining the endless supply of Yang from the earth and Yin from the skies. He heard Alice's voice now, and that trance-like quote from the first moment she'd seen the Immortal Jiang.

He exorcises specters and demons by means of charms and spells. He gathers emanations from both Heaven and Earth and collects the essences-

His Core no longer required him to consciously turn it - it was self-sustaining and the Song was right.

"Making a scene in front of Sect Aunt's grave."

David emerged from the Spring like a bullet, like a new man. And he was walking on water, he was God, he was Man, he was Truth, he’d seen the Plan- But that was not enough, no.

“Congratulations!” the Weis shouted, but David could barely hear them.

An injustice had been done to this world by the Heavens and his heart, his Dao Heart, it would not allow for such an injustice to continue.

Nothing would change if he did not change it - it didn’t matter if he was an ant or an Emperor. And David knew now why the search for Principle, the search for truth and justice and love and a light so bright it could only burn strongly was known as laying siege to the gates of Heaven.

There was the sound of thunder, loud and clear in the distance.

It was because the Heavens were unfair, and he must be the one to change the nature of-

“You cannot. You mustn’t!” Big Wei or Small Wei or maybe both screamed.

“This palm seeks no fate but to fly, to defend a friend, to live on and never rend, this palm seeks no stars but to fly, to defend a friend, to live on and never rend, this palm seeks no grudge but-”

A heavy force slammed into David’s chest, lifting him off of his toes which had been lightly caressing the Yang Spirit Spring, forcing him past the array of stone. There was the sound like a popped balloon, David realized idly that it must have been his lungs.

“Are you insane?” screamed Small Wei, her hand on his chest, her sweat ricocheting off his cheeks.

Big Wei was at his side immediately. “Sit in silence, sit in pain, mend and mend. Sit in silence, sit in pain, mend and mend.”

Big Wei’s hands were on his throat and clasped over Small Wei’s, still pushed unnaturally deep into him though she hadn’t broken skin. There was a sound like someone sucking air through his teeth - David realized it was him. His chest was reinflating and soon, Small Wei was longer leaving an imprint on his body, her palm was just touching him lightly.

“Who in their right mind would try to Ignite upon a successful Core Formation?” Small Wei howled into his face. Her wide brown eyes, full of tears - panic and fear. They splashed onto her bare arm.

David said the only thing he could think of. “Um, sorry?”