Waking up at dawn is considered late, at least by Ascetic Yang’s and Aunt Meng’s standards, because that means I would have missed a part of the first meditation session of the day. I need my sleep for no amount of medicinal baths, food and cultivation can adequately substitute it.

My body grows fast and demands more than ten hours of sleep a day – something that is only possible to achieve if I sleep the moment I finish my nightfall meditation and wake up in a moment to begin my daybreak meditation. In other words, impossible. Perhaps for cultivators like Ascetic Yang and Aunt Meng can calibrate their days that precisely, but not mere mortals like me.

So imagine my delight when Tie Lijie bursts into my room, shouting, a good few hours before daybreak. I had only been in bed for a few hours, because of the celebration party, which started after nightfall meditation. He had been the first one to retreat from the party, so it would make sense if he was relatively well-rested. But going as far to push that on the rest of us? No thanks.

But it takes one glance at Tie Lijie to see that he must have gotten less sleep than any of us. His Shanfu robes seemed to have upgraded in color – dark blues and greens, instead of his typical yellows and lighter blues. The design of various mythical beasts on his robes have disappeared for dragons and the Ying family sigil. Not exactly too much of a change in my opinion, but if I can notice it, everyone else definitely can. He grips a foldable fan tightly in his right hand, and a crumpled up scroll in his left hand.

“What calamity has occurred for you to bother me so?” I ask, getting out of bed.

“I need someone to practice my speech with.” Tie Lijie says, handing me a scroll. “There’s only a few hours until we meditate then department, so help me.”

It takes me a moment to remember why he needs to a speech: he wanted to be the guide of our trip down Orange Peak, having been the only one to actually leave the Ying estate out of the five of us.

I don’t see why I am the first one to consider asking though. I ask, “But wouldn’t practicing with Guardian Tie be much more effective? He is older and more practiced with these types of things.”

Tie Lijie shakes his head. “He left a few hours ago, after giving me this scroll. Only Guardian Meng and Guardian Chen will be going with us to Blue Terrace Hot Springs. So please help me?”

Very odd given that the main duty of the Guardians should be teaching us. What else would they be doing? “Alright. Let’s hear it.” I say.

҉҉҉

His speech is a good thirty minutes long, shorter than the entire trip, but with enough spaces in the script for the inevitable distractions that would appear during the trip, as none of the people he will speak to have left the estate before. Guardian Tie is so wise.

Alas, I am a little more curious. Orange Peak is one large plateau – the Ying Estate takes a good half of the available land, and the remaining third is available to anyone within the Colorful Peaks Sect, provided they have enough merit and desire for alchemy. A perfect place to engross into alchemy but little else. The last sixth of the plateau is just one giant glacier, one that ascends the sky but not quite visible on the Ying Estate due to the formations.

The path off the peak is through a series of tunnels and underground waterways. Formations apparently are ridden through them, preventing invasion through the tunnels and it seems that the tunnels are not empty either – restaurants, stores and more are available throughout.

Tie Lijie is only able to practice his speech four times before I need to leave to get ready. A simple hospital gown is ill-suited to represent the family, so I need to wear Shanfu robes – clothes of the people of the mountains. Basically, something similar to what Tie Lijie, and everyone else for that matter, was already wearing.

Wearing the robes is much easier this time around. Not only because I am a bit bigger and have more control over my body, but because there are other nobles from previous generations that are my size. So I have been given a hand-me-down. Ten individual parts to the clothing, three layers. Not the most easiest thing to wear, but admittedly not as hard as I once imagined. Aunt Meng rushes me through the motion so I can get to daybreak meditation on time.

҉҉҉

The daybreak and nightfall meditations, while ideal for refilling qi reserves, are not beholden to such activities. The purpose of these forced meditations has a more general purpose: helping spiritual cultivation, since the Spiritual World is closest to the Mortal World. Somehow that makes spiritual cultivation a tiny bit easier.

So I work to awaken my element. Reach tranquility by repeating the ‘Spirit Like Water’ sutra, while revolving my qi throughout my body. At first I restrict myself to the first two circuits of my meridians, but it seems inadequate to awaken my element. So I branch out to the inner circuits, the ones that pass through my internal organs – my heart and my brain. I expect resistance, difficulty. Mother’s qi has confounded me before, but I believe I can squeeze past if I must.

Yet, I meet no resistance. Her qi fuses into mine without issue, disappearing so quickly that my qi reserves increase almost by a third within a few minutes, as the rest of my meridians open in a similar manner. They seem just as need in repair as my first two circuits, if not worse, but that’s a secondary goal at the moment.

I redouble my efforts to cycle my qi, slowly at first. Bringing my qi through these new meridians is like walking into a different part of town – yes, I was aware of them beforehand, but now that I am finally exploring them, it is with trepidation. Completing each cycle a little bit faster, water begins to tickle my heels, laps at my toes, dampens my hands, then fully submerges me.

Sometime along the line I connect to a vast ocean of qi. Not mine. I could only ever amount to a nameless drop within all of it. Not all of the water is uniform. Some rages like a typhoon, others clash in interlacing waves. A brief respite within it all appears occasionally, but lasts all too short before I am whisked away by another force within the water.

Time slips through my fingers as my sheer awe finally subsides, and I finally realize my original goal: awakening my element. I have been debriefed about the process already, but finding myself in the midst of the ocean, being thrown arbitrarily like a little leaf has blindsided me. And even when the sheer immensity of the ocean of qi no longer paralyzes me, it still takes time for me to take my eyes from it. Not because I am not saying the ‘Spirit Like Water’ sutra, I have been and still am. Just that focusing slowly on the sutra prevents me from paying any attention to the surroundings.

But when I finally do, the ocean disappears instantly. Within my soul there resides a single drop of water – one that will grow and eventually fuse into my spirit as I get better at controlling it and myself. It’s not exactly clear to me yet how spiritual and physical waters differentiate, but the gist, as far as I can understand it, is the spiritual water cannot manifest outside my body. I cannot create water, nor bend it with my qi. The water serves more an auxiliary purpose of healing, mending and calming.

I may not be able to control the world throws at me, but I can control how I respond to it. The main goal of the technique does not seek to give weapons to fight others with but to remain calm enough so I can use tools granted to me by other techniques effectively and timely.

҉҉҉

I finish meditation around noon. While successful for me, as I have awakened my element, everyone else in the room is much less bemused. To be fair, I did not think I would be able to awaken my element or, if I did, it would take that long. It was described as an instantaneous process, but I suppose that assumed that I would not get distracted halfway through.

The moment I wake up, I am whisked away by my group of friends, who are strong enough to carry me – I don’t know why exactly I ever though four people bigger than me would fail to do so, especially since their physical cultivation has granted them a much greater strength increase than mine, but I am. And it is rather unpleasant. I rather be princess-carried than held like a palanquin that has four uneven legs.

I’m brought to the pinnacle of Ying family transportation: the noble carriage. No servants manning the carriage this time, Aunt Meng and Guardian Chen overtaken that job, namely because the carriage lacks the space within for them. Tie Lijie begins his speech almost immediately and, at first, it goes well. The carriage remains within the Ying Estate, and despite the variety in the gardens and the size of the mansions, all of them are similar and boring.

But maintaining anyone’s attention past that is difficult. Mainly because the glacier that Tie Lijie briefly touches upon is a giant ice castle. Kind of a giant detail to gloss over. Would have been fine if our trip skipped the hot springs for the castle, but apparently that’s a no-go. A bit of bad blood between the Ying family and the alchemist ruling the castle.

Instead, we go down one of the many underground tunnels. Yes, there are restaurants and shops, but you could almost see the farms, drug dens and more hiding down all the alleys and tunnels the carriage went to great lengths to avoid.

Eventually, Tie Lijie spoke his last piece, somehow maneuvering to a whole list of questions I did not consider and Tie Lijie had no answers to, he drops onto the floor of the carriage and looks up. “Today, I want to cry and shout, but I promised not to. So I will sleep.”

“Nobles do not sleep on the ground.” Nan Yenay says, trying to help Tie Lijie up.

“Guardian Chen only said to act like nobles at hot spring. We are not there yet.” Tie Lijie says.

Nan Yenay wants to retort, but does not know how. When Fang Wangyong and Chen Yingyue go to sleep, she gives up and does the same. Then I sleep.

҉҉҉

Blue Terrace Hot Springs covers an entire side of Orange Peak. Unlike the water sources on Orange Peak, which are all bright orange, the waters in the hot springs is a dark blue, as the ocean. About six different sets of hot springs are terraced like rice paddies on a hill. Or at least, there are six different sets of hot springs visible from the entrance. I can see two, maybe three terraces to each set of hot springs, but steam and buildings prevent me from seeing anymore.

Honestly, the place looks more a resort than anything. And each set of hot springs seem to advertise a different feature: healing own wounds, strengthening one’s body, guiding one to breakthrough and more. One even does nothing more than be the perfect vacation trip, apparently.

The decadent housing and the giant, almost comically, hot springs only make a small, small part of the resort. Carriages are not allowed past the entrance parking lot, which would be fine if we can go directly to our lodges, but we had to go through a mass of people in a different area, to hash things out properly with the family branch running the place. Had, because Aunt Meng gets tired of trying, resorting to flying three of us, with Guardian Chen flying the other two, to a six floor pagoda.

The pagoda was still flooded with people, one floor for one each type of hot spring and the phoenix hot spring I want to go to, is part of the breakthrough set of hot springs, the most expensive one of the most expensive type. We head directly to the sixth floor and pass by people of all types – commoners, nobles, vagabonds and more – even on the sixth floor. Anyone, as long as they have the spirit stones it seems, can attend, but only the bottom terraces of each hot spring. The upper terraces require a type of social standing – one not totally apparent from the six floors.

Guardian Chen is the one who brings us past rows of reception desks, speaking key words to the old lady near the back of the room. At least, that’s my best guess. Who else talks about fragrant lilies underneath the moonlight as a conversation starter? Then she goes into some long conversation with the old lady that bores me.

I turn to Aunt Meng. “Isn’t white clothing supposed to be ceremonial clothing? Why is everyone wearing it?”

“White represents the goals of the hot springs. Purity, renewal, healing and restoration.” Aunt Meng says. “They may wear the robes of servants, like you usually do, but each of them is part of the Ying Clan, the Lan branch to be precise, for the blue waters of the hot spring.”

Aunt Meng goes over to play with my friends, who are astounded that there can be so many people in a single area. It’s now, with no script to beholden himself to, that Tie Lijie really begins to shine, explaining things rooted in his own experiences and Aunt Meng can help him along when he can’t, like a two person act.

Guardian Chen walks over after some ten-odd minutes, saying, “we got the phoenix hot springs for three days, two nights, including today. Time is wasting, let’s go.”