Memories of the Fall

The desire of those later generations to take the understandings of their peers and repackage them anew is one thing, all new things are built on the foundations of the old after all. To open up the Circles of Power to all is not a thing to be decried, nor is it wrong to want all who walk our lands to prosper and be the best that they can. What is wrong however, is to do this at the cost of the depth of those systems of old. Now, the truths enshrined within those fundamentals are largely hidden away. In Supreme Magisters' ivory towers, in the vaults of Imperial Schools or the personal libraries of Dukes and Kings. Poured over by handpicked scholars and sages or bartered between powers like hogs for slaughter or treated as curious specimens to dissect.

In their place kingdoms have raised up their own systems, scholarly masquerades presented as holistic truth. Things with just enough within them to give their people means and their nations strength, yet all the while spreading misconception in the name of opportunity and deceiving with the aim of control.

Every man and woman may cast spells on the street, uses techniques in their daily work and has artefacts within their homes, but how many could tell you why their techniques and abilities do what they do? They teach the poor systems to which only the mighty of their land hold the keys and are lauded for it. Even worse, those self-same powers summon children from other skies and give them power clad in facades they can recognise. They make games, challenges and achievements of what was once hard won wisdom and grim endeavour. All this, they do in the name of control, and yet, in doing so all they have created are facades within facades that obfuscate and dilute until the names we give to things mean next nothing except to those who hold the strings.

And yet, at the heart of this, the ones who pay the price are our future generations, who having been told, through these systems that they have power, never realise that it is no better than embroidery and fancy medals without any meaning or achievement.

Excerpt from a remnant (burned) copy and translation of ‘La Grande Façade’

~ By Maria Renhallan, Saintess of Bright Wisdom.

~ Arai & Sana, Back in the square, wishing for answers ~

Arriving back at the central plaza via one of the side alleys, the first thing that stood out to Arai was that someone, probably a certain four-armed Undren, had made a serious attempt at setting it on fire. A good three-quarters of the floor was heavily scorched and there were pitted craters in the wall that looked a bit like the vestiges of lightning strikes. The second thing was that the orange dust appeared to have been totally eradicated and there was no hint of the green smog in the air.

As they made their way over to the chest and the spear, both of which were the epicentre of some particularly determined charring, the spear greeted them drily.

“I see you managed to survive…”

“Ah… yes,” she said with a grimace, looking around.

“I presume the two of you are also behind the toxically pure mana that started welling up about three months ago?” it added even more drily and now with a faint hint of amusement.

She coughed a little awkwardly and nodded while Sana replied with a half grimace. “We… er... may have had a passing responsibility for such a thing.”

“I must say you did the work of a small army of pest exterminators across a vast swathe of the undercity,” The spear snickered, making its views on this clear, to her relief. “You also forced a huge horde of spiders up to the surface, which was amusing to observe, even if my spectator seat was a touch closer than optimal. The Undren ran away with unseemly haste!”

“Uh, can I ask…?” she said after a moment.

“Why I don’t sound like {this}?” the spear giggled, sounding like a young girl again.

“Um, yes, Honoured Spear,” she replied.

“You can stop with the Honoured Spear thing, incidentally,” the spear said, sounding oddly preening. “-Anyway, before, I was mana starved.”

“Mana?” her sister asked sounding puzzled.

“That is what they called the energy you call qi. They considered ‘qi’ to be something a bit different, more akin to what you call Martial Intent as far as I can work it out,” the spear said by way of an aside, before continuing. “Anyway… Thanks to the two of you, I’ve been sitting on top of this upwelling of remarkably pure qi, having to regulate the flow of that energy, however, you managed to conjure it, for months. If I was still qi starved and recovering after that I should just get you to throw me in the harbour and be done.”

As far as explanations went, it was surprisingly mundane. It was also surprising that the qi had made it this far. Looking around the plaza she couldn’t sense anything amiss with the qi density.

“Did the Nascent Soul Undren do this?” Sana gestured around at the plaza. “The one with 4 arms…”

“Is that level what you consider ‘Nascent Soul?’ Interesting, I would call them a ‘Fourth Circle Totemic Aspirant’…although the people who control here, in all eras mostly, just called them ‘Warlocks’ and left it at that. That is not a term I believe your language is likely to have.”

“What ‘Circle’ do you consider our power at currently?” her sister asked, beating her to asking that very question.

The manuals had talked about ‘Circles’ quite a bit. Most of the arts within them were considered to be typical of the ‘First Circle’. However, they had resolutely refused to provide any wider context outside of the inner ranking within that system ranking.

The spear was silent for a few seconds before replying. “Strong, for the ‘Third Circle’, with the caveat that the realm gradations of my world do not mesh that neatly with those of the lesser realms. As I understand it, a Greater Realm, like you originate from, would likely be a supreme step adrift from the place these ruins originate in."

She sighed, that pretty much made sense, but it didn’t hurt to ask. “What grade of world does this place originate from?”

“A Supreme World, and an exceptional one within their ranks, a shining jewel of the High Heavenward,” the spear said without hesitation.

“You called it a Warlock?” her sister asked, curious.

“It is a term of the world this place originates from,” the spear mused. “Those who ruled it loved to give names and systems to things, to better understand them they claimed, but it was just as much about control. If you control the power of names and how things are defined, it becomes very easy to control the frame of how everything else works.”

“Huh,” she said, surprised at the outright candour of that statement.

Sana actually glanced upwards, which got a wry laugh from the spear.

“The sky overhead, before this place fell, had many problems but that was not one of them,” it said, sounding amused.

“But to return to the original question, a ‘Warlock’ is a term of description as much as a term of profession. They use fundamental powers of the firmament with a focus on forming alliances with otherworldly beings or sources of power and use them for personal advancement. The label itself is a touch unhelpful, but you did ask. Effectively the Undren get power from worshipping totemic forms of their ancestors or powerful creatures. This gives them unique power, but also some curious vulnerabilities, like those lizard mutations I would presume. Beyond that, they gain power much like you do, by taking in the strength of the world and adapting it to their form.”

“Oh… I see…” Sana nodded pensively.

“Well I still very much intend to catch that rat, skin it and make a hat out of its skull for dropping us down there!” she glowered, it still sat badly with her how determined it had been to grasp them.

“And if that fails, dismemberment and fire are also available!” her sister finished added shooting a nasty look in the general direction of their second descent.

The spear laughed with childlike amusement.

“You will probably be disappointed. It is unlikely it survived the Spider Queen that they inadvertently dragged out while trying to get to you, I can only presume. It had two very vengeful rampages a few months ago. The second battle was responsible for much of the damage you see around you. I would also strongly advocate you don’t mess with that Spider Queen, it had a strength close to the peak of the Seventh Circle. It is fortunate it went back into the depths and that spiders rarely come up here unless forced. They dislike the qi, there is too much thunder and earth, not to mention the ocean itself disturbs their being.

Listening to that she thought back to the dark sense that had chased after them when they peered into the pit with a slight shiver.

“I wonder how that compared to the star grades,” her sister asked, frowning.

“You ask me, but who do I ask?” she muttered.

“Not me,” the spear quipped with a more amused, childlike tone that put her in mind of someone sticking their tongue out for some reason. “I know nothing of the rankings of your world beyond what you can tell me and what I know of Heaven’s Path practitioners. All that tells me incidentally is that if they can name it in a confusing and contradictory way, they probably will.”

Shaking her head, she found herself quietly relieved though, that the spiders disliked the surface. It made sense, although she had been unwilling to be certain just based on her own hunch regarding their Yin Wood affinity. An environment above that was rich in Yang Thunder and Yang Water along with the now much more palpable aura of Yin Earth that imbued this island was a bad trifecta for them.

Above them, the thunder rumbled and the rain started to fall again.

“Tcch, it is becoming more frequent again,” the spear muttered sounding annoyed.

“What is?” she asked, curious.

“The instability. A lot of damage was done while we were sealed, the means by which this place was kept together was already dubious, and many of my kin do not answer. The thunder above is a sign that the chains that still hold Big Sister are trying to shift again. It seems that I will be unable to answer your questions for a while, so if you have anything else of import I suggest you ask.”

“Uhh, what you said before about Mortal Physiques…” she said thinking quickly.

“Haaa. Of course you pick the difficult one,” the spear spirit said with something akin to an audible eye roll. “I can only repeat what I have been told of them, which was very incidental. Those who crafted us, gave us form and future knew of Physiques, but they did not care much for the classifications others put upon them. The notable ones are: Mortal, Earthly, True, Heavenly, Sovereign, Mantled and Primordial. However, these are all just categories given by others seeking structure, much like what I said regarding rankings before. Regarding Mortal Physiques... they must be acquired, and cannot be inborn.”

She nodded, remembering that bit which had been pretty clear at least. “What did you mean by Accumulation before?”

“And you go straight for the difficult one,” the Spear sighed sounding a touch sullen she thought. “What did I say before? 'suffering, unusual thing, Big Leap, potential, Accumulation, acquire Fate, Never inborn, mortality' …”

The spear trailed off for a moment then sighed again. “Never Inborn and Mortality you grasped just fine, which is something at least.”

“If accumulation is difficult to explain, what about suffering?” her sister asked.

“Suffering… you are familiar with the conceptual idea of ‘experiencing many things in life’?” the spear asked sounding somewhat hopeful.

She rubbed her temples involuntarily, wondering suddenly if this was a good idea. The concept of mortal sufferance was known to her. Buddhists talked about it a lot, as did those more interested in philosophy and the studious aspects of the Daos of the Heavens.

“Our experiences will advance it?” she hazarded.

“That’s a good way to view it. It will also advance as fast as you can feed it basically,” the spear said with a relieved sigh.

“Is that what you meant by ‘big leap’?” Sana asked.

“And unusual thing… it’s either rare or...?”

“Not that rare, but that is based on how you define it. I would consider it an unusual thing because those who have Mortal Physiques always live interesting lives, do strange things… live in interesting times,” the spear said blandly. “They are usually born of chaos and thrive in it, compared to Heavenly Physiques which are nearly a natural embodiment of ‘order’ and absolute rigidity.”

“I see…” she muttered, turning that over in her head.

“And ‘accumulation’ and ‘acquire fate’?” her sister mused.

“Eummm…” the spear actually ‘ummm’d’ out loud, sounding really pained now for some reason. “Accumulation is the sum of your experiences… Everything you experienced in here so far, that is accumulation. It is what makes you ‘you’, if that makes sense. As for ‘acquire fate’, all physiques are like little stones cast in a pond, they make ripples that change things and the circumstances in which they thrive are different. Mortal Physiques thrive on chaos, drive, uncertainty but with that comes danger, death and frequently failure, their name originates as much from this as anything else…”

They both eyed the spear dubiously. She thought she understood the point of what it was saying; the gist seemed to be, in the end, that Mortal Physiques required their bearer to experience many things and would then… grow accordingly?

“You said the more ‘interesting’ the times we live in, the more potential for growth it has?” her sister said eventually.

“…..”

“Yes,” the spear said, sounding deeply relieved.

“Then how does that relate to the difference between Heavenly Physiques?” she asked.

“…..”

“I really regret offering you that last question,” the spear said with wry chuckle tinged with just a hint of reproach. “The best way I can explain it is with a metaphor. A ‘Mortal Physique’ is akin to being handed a fishing rod and being pointed to water and told to get cracking. You will fish for days and weeks and months and years. At first, you will catch nothing, then you get better at fishing until at last, you are a master fisherwoman who can catch anything. By comparison, a ‘Heavenly Physique’ is a fishing rod that will always catch you a fish, whenever you want it. Wherever you use it in the river, it will give you fish, more fish than your wildest dreams, but it will teach you nothing about fishing beyond that fish live in water and you catch them with a magic fishing rod.”

“Even though you might eventually reach the point where you can catch a fish at will just by learning how to fish…?” she suggested.

“Exactly,” the spear said with a happier tone. “They are not exactly two extremes, although they may seem like it at first, as they both finish up in a very similar place. In fact, if you wish to see the difference it is in this. A fisherwoman who learned over decades to fish might well be able to make a fishing rod for her fellows that allowed them to fish at will, but she can never pass on her original lifetime’s worth of fishing experience flawlessly. Even were she to draw it out of her mind and pass it to another directly their interpretation would differ. It’s not even that it would be lesser, just different and so changed. They might also rise to that point, but it would be harder.”

“Because they didn’t have the foundation of working through it from the start,” Sana said clapping her hands.

“Exactly,” the spear said, sounding awfully relieved to her ears.

As if to punctuate that, above them the thunder rumbled more ominously. The rain was also starting to fall quite a bit harder, not that she cared particularly. It was almost refreshing after the claustrophobia of below.

“Now, while it may seem somewhat rude of me, I do have to focus on that, you don’t want to find out what this place is like when the weather is being uncooperative,” the spear muttered.

They both looked up as another vast spider web of lightning sizzled across the leaden, half-light, strangely fluorescent in the rain. A heartbeat later a huge peal of thunder made the sky above ripple faintly. The spear fell silent and made no further comments as they watched the storm clouds twist and roil through the sheeting, humid rain.

They sat there in the rain for quite a while, watching the lightning skitter across the sky and the clouds swirl hither and thither, mulling over what the spear had said.

“I… got the distinct impression that what it said there was not the whole story,” her sister said after a while.

She looked up at the spear and nodded. “It didn’t seem ill-intentioned, so I guess there may be stuff it just doesn’t know…?”

Truthfully speaking, she has also marked that the spear had seemed rather… vexed seemed the wrong word, perturbed perhaps? On the other hand, it had been forthright so far and been clear that it could only explain to the best of its understanding. It was also a spirit in a spear, from another world…

Shaking her head she pushed her wet hair out of her eyes and then sighed again.

“Mother used to say that sighing too much made you an inharmonious person,” her sister said with a wry giggle.

“When mother said that she was talking about scroll paintings, not surviving in some unspeakable hellhole,” she said with a mock scowl and overly theatrical sigh.

Her sister just sighed and rolled her eyes.

“So, what do we do regarding the stuff we left down there?” she said after giving her sister a level look.

“Left… down...?” Sana asked, sounding puzzled.

“The cores, mainly, and those golden bones the slime had,” she pointed out.

“Oh…hmm…” her sister frowned as well, immediately ignoring her own suggestion. “I guess the pool may refine the cores so that’s only good. I rather doubt it will do anything beneficial to any remnant souls that are trapped within them though. I guess we just leave them where they are and let the qi there build up for a bit.”

“Yeah…” she agreed.

She had originally left the remains of the slime alone in case it was just playing dead. As to its core, she was sure now that they had been wasting a lot of potential by refining those nascent cores at the realm they were at. Most of the male spiders hadn’t left cores either, which was surprising, but she could only assume that those that died to Sana’s supercharged lightning had been thoroughly incinerated.

There was little benefit in trying to look through the contents of the chest while it was chucking it down, so after a while she contented herself with going around and re-examining their surroundings. Beyond the scarring and a few craters, the plaza was as it had been. Sana was happy to just sit around and do nothing much it seemed, so she climbed one of the buildings to look out across the city. From the top of one of the taller buildings, she could see huge swathes of the city were just rubble at this point. The areas where they had been fighting were a huge crater, which she had expected, but there were also other areas of new devastation to the north and west.

There was also a notable lack of Sar’katush corpses or Undren corpses compared to before. That was down to the Undren and the spiders, she guessed.

Eventually, after an hour or two of just sitting there watching the world go by, the rain abated and she made her way back down. Her sister was now seated on the edge of the platform, engrossed in the scrips, examining some of the discussions about array theory.

Rather than disturb her, she instead grabbed the Evokation tome and sat down, sitting against the chest to study it in a bit more detail. It held thirteen arts in total, each with an entire chapter devoted to them. Now it was one particular one that she was interested in - ‘Spiritual Blast’.

The way the art was described, it allowed the wielder to focus and project a pulse of pure qi at a target of up to fifty metres away. It had a spoken component and a particular hand gesture. The only material requirements it placed on the user was their own inner energy, the purer the better apparently, which was what made it particularly appealing over the other options available. Thereafter, she spent some time flipping through the appendix at the back of the book, reading the lengthy explanations about using neither for substantially increased activation costs.

It took about an hour for her to read through the detailed instructions to visualise, memorize and attune the art to her own qi and then run through and memorise the exercises it provided. The spoken component, like the firebolt, appeared to be a means to cut down on the actual cost of the ability, the gesture itself seemed aimed towards teaching people how to manipulate and expel qi from their hand in a controlled manner. A further hour of practice with the qi flows finally got her to the point where she was willing to actually test it.

Speaking the activation phrase which was in effect just ‘Spiritual Blast’ while visualising the array within the tome, she made the two-handed gesture and watched as a shimmering beam of qi punched across the plaza and hit the distant wall.

“Is that that ‘Spiritual Blast’ art?” Sana perked up from her own considerations.

“Yeah,” she nodded pensively. “It’s a bit involved, for all that the qi cost is basically negligible… and I don’t like the hand gesture. It’s really florid.”

“I did notice. It looks like it should be part of one of those empty hand training forms people use when trying to first perceive qi,” her sister giggled.

“Uhuh,” she nodded, considering the gesture versus the feeling of qi flowing out of her body as a ‘beam’. “I can see myself getting hit over the head every time I try that in combat!”

Focusing on that feeling she tried to use the art just with the flow of qi in her body. The beam rippled weirdly, drawing a lot more qi for very little in return. The overall feeling was a bit like striking forward with a spear but only doing the motion with her arms…

She tried once more, replicating the motion which was somewhere between stabbing with a spear and flicking a ribbon at the same thing.

This time, the result was if anything even more underwhelming, leaving her with a wavy ribbon of qi that diffused even as it hit the distant wall.

-Ribbons… ribbons... something about that twigged her memories regarding the other manual that focused on defensive arts.

Twenty minutes of pouring through the very dry appendices within it, she found what she was after. By this point Sana had gone back to her own explorations with symbol sets, so she just sat there and read the series of passages she had previously found in passing. Perhaps understandably the manual about defensive arts put a lot more store in using them with fancy gestures. Unfortunately, it was much more esoterically worded compared to the Evokation and it took quite a few careful reads through to grasp what it was trying to explain of the theory and practice of using arts without gestures.

It helped that she was already used to the way that jade slips explained techniques. Her own movement art had been a particularly egregious offender in that department. This was nowhere near that bad thankfully.

It still took hours for her to grasp the nuance of what it was proposing and to implement it in practice. The closest she could come to, by way of comparison was the way that the very basic arrays fitted together. The problem there though, was that she still couldn’t grasp in its entirety how the ‘formula’ for Spiritual Blast and the ‘formula’ for making an art activate without its gestured component properly connected to each other. The fact that it insisted on translating clearly slightly different words for ‘formula’ in both Easten and Imperial no matter how she looked at them just made her want to throw the thing away and jump on it.

Eventually, she got Sana involved, who after reading through the passage twice just tossed it away with a disgusted expression and sighed.

“It makes as much sense to me as it does to you.”

“Aaaahhhgh, so vexing!” she exclaimed to the world at large, slapping the other manual onto the chest top and barely resisting giving the chest a good kick. “It feels like it should work, but somehow it just won’t.”

Her sister nodded, and cast a dark glower at the manual she had thrown down. “At least this confirms that it’s not just people where we come from who have an obsession with writing these texts in the most esoterically obscure language they can conceive of. That ‘explanation’ of how to make things work without spoken components is like a logic puzzle where they changed their mind on the rules half way through!”

Sana nodded and flipped through the rest of the section... “Oh… here is the explanation of how to make things work without a spoken component… it’s really obtusely written. Like the author was trying to make a logic puzzle for you…no wonder I missed it before.”

“Tell me about it!” she grumbled, staring at the sky, which was still showing flashes of lightning all across the eastern horizon. “Convince the book to show you it in ‘Easten’. That will make your brain revolt and try to flee out the back of your skull.”

There was a long pause and then Sana put the book down once more with a shudder.

“That’s, interesting… Brain-jarringly horrid, but also interesting. In Easten it’s still using ‘formula’, but the context of the sentence shifts is really off. Rather than seeming to use it in the same context as a pill recipe, like the other book seemed to insist on, its clearly several different words in the original text that it insists defining as 'formula'. Here it mainly seems like it is using ‘formula’ in the context of ensuring that the spoken component provides ‘balance’ within the technique or something like it.”

She took the book and read the passage that Sana pointed out, several times. Her sister was right, she could only say that she missed it before because the whole this was preposterously gnarly as was.

With a sigh, she turned to the spear, formulating the question in her head as simply as she could.

“Um… can we ask a question about these manuals?

The spear was silent…

Feeling a bit foolish that it might just ignore them, or was somehow too engaged in whatever it was it was doing, she asked anyway. If nothing was ventured, nothing would be gained after all.

“Why is it so much trouble to use these arts without a physical gesture, but it is clearly possible to remove the spoken aspect without much difficulty?

The silence stretched on for almost half a minute and she was starting to feel a bit embarrassed with herself for bothering it, when the spear finally responded.

“With the caveat that I am not particularly knowledgeable regarding fundamental mystical theorem, show me what you are doing.”

Arai repeated the normal execution of the ‘Spiritual Blast’ which fired off successfully and then tried it without the spoken component, which also fired off successfully. She then demonstrated it while trying to incorporate the unmoving aspect of and let the Qi energy destabilize and dissipate.

The spear spirit was silent for a long time.

“Umm?” Sana spoke up?

“Sorry. I am just wondering where to start,” it said, sounding somewhere between vexed and amused.

She squirmed a bit, the implication there was hard to miss, for all that their attempts probably were as bad as it was suggesting.

“Ahem. So there are a two main things. Firstly, why are you treating ‘Mana’ like it is the energy you call ‘Qi’? Secondly, you will not be able to use two meta-arts with such a basic spell structure.”

“Didn’t you say that they are the same kind of thing before?” she said frowning.

“I said that what you consider 'Qi' is much closer to Mana than ‘Qi or Ki’ to the eyes of the people here."

“Ummm,” she tried not to sound frustrated, because there was a subtle nuance.

“The manuals translate the word as 'Qi' in both the common Imperial tongue and Easten,” she pointed out.

“…..”

The spear was silent for a moment then sighed out loud in a way that reminded her of a small child who sees a thing to be obvious that no one else does.

“Show me ‘Qi’ as you would use it, not through the cypher of one of the arts from those tomes.”

Nodding, she obligingly used her movement art to skip around the plaza, slowly so as not to embarrassingly smash into a wall due to not being used to the speed she could eke out of it, finishing back where she had started after a few moments.

“That is a basic version of the Movement Art ‘Myriad Shifting Steps’, called ‘Flickering Steps’,” she supplied helpfully.

“Hmm. I think I see the problem, or where the root of it lies. This is at least something I am familiar with,” it said sounding a bit amused or perhaps pleased with itself.

“In your society, all people who practise these arts use the word ‘Qi’ to describe the energy they draw into themselves and manipulate accordingly?”

“Eum… basically yes?” her sister chipped in, nodding affirmatively.

“So…” the spear paused and then continued speaking in a still childlike more considered tone. “The energies of a person who wields ‘Qi’ through their sword, marshalling the intent to attack give their strikes definition… That is the same as someone who draws energies from the world around them to manifest as external arts?”

“Er… I guess so,” she said thinking through what the spear had just asked.

“And that is the same as someone who takes energies of nature into their bodies and tempers themselves?”

“Yes,” they both answered, a bit more confidently that time as that was something they were on more familiar ground with.

“And someone who combines the natural energies of the world with their soul to make it stronger?”

“….well we know basically nothing about souls, but I believe so?” she replied frowning.

Thinking through these series of questions she was starting to suspect where this was going, but had never really had the means since coming here to get anywhere with that puzzling beyond some very unsubstantiated ideas.

“We have ‘Martial’, ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Body Refinement’ cultivation laws where we come from and we cultivated with a ‘Physique Mantra’ before we acquired the…

She trailed off, realising something fundamentally stupid that she had somehow overlooked until now. Everyone called them ‘Physical Cultivation Laws’ but the original term for them in Easten, which their mother, who had been brought up in the deeply traditional Ruan Clan had used was ‘Physique Law’… ‘Physical Mantra’ was structurally wrong when you wrote it in Easten, so most people just called it Physical Cultivation. The character was also much less complex… It was like a small lantern had just lit up in her head.

The spear, sadly cut off her train of thought by speaking again. “But in the end, they all use ‘Qi’ from the natural world, the ‘Heavens’ and the ‘Earth’, yes?”

Shaking her head, desperately filing that small piece of enlightenment away she nodded. “Except for those who worship idols or do things with Dharma, yes.”

“As far as we know anyway,” her sister added.

“That simplifies matters a lot. I can certainly help you with the first problem in this case. In short, your thinking isn’t quite compatible with the system…” it trailed off.

“That movement… you called it an ‘Art’?” the spear asked.

“Yes,” she replied, nodding affirmatively.

“And ‘Drusus Minor Eldritch Blast’, the thing you were trying to cast before, how would you call that?”

“An elemental art?” Her sister said, her voice pitching it as half a question.

“That makes things easier.” The spear said sounding pleased again. “You have no word in your language, or if it exists it is not associated with a concept similar to what those tomes associate it with. You seem familiar with some versions of Eastern Latin, so in that it would be called a ‘Cantrip Spell’. What you demonstrated just now, they would consider to be a ‘Technique.’ ”

“Oh…” she muttered, turning that word over in her head.

“The main issue though, is the ‘framework’ within which you are trying to cast the ‘spell’. It is strange that you have no word for it though…”

“How would you define it?” Sana asked, leaning forward with interest.

“They are a simple ‘framework’ for energies that can be ‘cast’ or ‘projected’ at will without using a ‘fixed template’ and a ‘bound medium’ that must be prepared in advance of their use,” the spear stated. “They are designed, through repeated practice, to instil the fundamentals of those templates within the caster's mind to enhance their ability to cast more profound arts that use the same fundamental frameworks. You could consider them the simplest variants of specific sets of ‘arts’ as you term them. The variants you are messing with are applications of fundamental augments to those arts that facilitate faster casting, lower upkeep, increased efficiency or increased duration.”

“Fixed template?” she asked at the same time her sister queried, “Bound Medium?”

“Spells of the first circle or higher must be cast using a medium, usually a book, although other items can be used. They also require a fixed template affixed to that aforementioned medium. The template can then be memorised and stored in the users mind space. The number of times they can memorise it depends on the mental strength of the wielder's mind and a few other factors. The spells, what you were calling arts, can then be unleashed directly using spoken phrases or physical gestures. Usually, some kind of catalyst or focal material is also employed to facilitate or stimulate changes in the natural energies of the world in a way that is sympathetic to the parametres defined in the fixed template. This largely eliminates the need for people to draw out the spells in long-form, to understand how the frameworks themselves interact or to spend years meditating on the minutiae of the fundamentals that go into them. In short, it makes spells that produce very complex, but clearly defined effects remarkably easy to learn so long as you have qi, some materials at hand and a bit of self-discipline.”

The spear trailed off, then sighed, clearly seeing their slightly glazed looks. “That is as simple an explanation as I can make it.”

She sat there in silence, rapidly shuffling that explanation into what she had already seen from the discussions in the valley, what she knew of various bits of cultivation esoterica, her own experiences and what the tomes had said.

Sana eventually spoke, after some consideration. “Could you deploy these ‘Spells’ by drawing the ‘Template’ onto another medium, say some rocks, and use a casting and catalyst derived from a much higher realmed entity as a physical proximity of an existence above a certain realm, threshold or… circle?”

“Yes. Those would be a form of passive ward.” The spear helpfully supplied.

In her mind’s eye, she was thinking back now to what they had realised regarding the array symbols…which now she was thinking about it…

“Moon Runes.” They both said at exactly the same time.

Her sister took her own qi and rapidly drew a crude facsimile of one they were familiar with and which was used to guard Beast Cadre waystations.

“Do you know what this symbol might relate to?” her sister asked the spear.

“It appears to be a very crude facsimile of ‘Medrath’s Phantasmal Slayer’,” the spear mused.

What followed was a rapid dissemination of all the moon rune designs they could remember. The spear, as it turned out, was able to identify almost a third of them. That was enough to confirm her suspicion that the two shared some kind of common origin. However, they were not actually spells themselves nor obviously derived from them. After some further consideration, the spear eventually suggested that the moon runes were likely a parallel application of the core aspects of this system. She could also see commonalities in how talismans were made and used as well. Although according to the spear those also existed in the manner they described them, albeit with different names applied in the world where these books originated... The spells themselves really put her in mind of a deployable or channelled formation... or the array symbols for that matter.

Finally, she drew out the basic array that would transform a few metres of their surroundings into a flickering puddle of lightning, asking the spirit what it would consider one of them to be.

The spear suggested that the Moon Runes were likely an imported derivative or alternative approach to that system that drew from the same root. It was also clear to both of them now that these ‘spells’ were a lot closer to a form of talisman or deployable formation than what they had considered an ‘art’ Eventually, it returned them to the problems they had wrestled with when trying to learn the array in fact.

The spear was silent for so long they thought it had just left before it spoke, sounding a bit depressed.

“Why are you messing about with those crappy tomes designed for teaching neophytes their first spells when you can successfully draw and deploy arcane arrays?”

“….”

She stared at the spear suddenly feeling remarkably stupid that they hadn’t started with this.

“Because we couldn’t work out how to deploy the arrays at range?” her sister eventually said.

“Not to mention they are somewhat indiscriminate,” she pointed out. “They also take a huge chunk more qi and we can only inscribe or imprint them on to things to make them do basic elemental attacks and cut things up.”

“Go boom, zap, thwack, shufft, pop, or gloop pretty much,” her sister added sardonically.

“What is the most advanced of those that you can draw?” The spear asked a little weakly.

“We have only tried imprinting ones with two symbols with our own qi, but we successfully drew out five symbol arrays using catalysts,” she said as she sketched out a five symbol one just as lines of glittering qi in the air.

The spear was silent and continued to be silent for long enough that it was beginning to get a bit awkward before it finally spoke again, sounding a tiny bit defeated.

“Okay. I see the problem here. Let this little sister explain it to you simply.”

Adopting a somewhat authoritative tone the spear went on. “Setting aside the question of how you are still in one piece, you won’t get anywhere with what you are after with those tomes, not as they are. The spells in the tomes, manuals as you call them, are all bound and designed in such a way that they can only have one state alteration added to them. The system was, as I noted before, designed to teach people how to make things go, as you so wonderfully put it ‘boom, zap, thwack, shufft, pop or gloop’ accordingly and not have to spend years learning why before they can make it happen. These are also not the original editions, but rather later texts that have codified them still further to make them more accessible to later generations familiar with even less comprehensive systems of spell arts.”

The spear sighed, in a way that was close to an audible eye roll. “The end goal of those tomes, in any case, is simply to impress on the user that those ‘spells’ or ‘arts’ will do what you want, if you follow those precise steps. The 'why' was peripheral at best, and those who came later were not as collegiate in seeing their own designs on those spells adapted either, which does not help you, here and now.”

While some elements of that were a bit redundant, the way the spear now couched it, with a bit of extra intent thrown in, somehow made it quite a bit clearer than it had been before. She also found it a little embarrassing that she hadn’t worked that out already in light of the evidence that the spear was stacking in front of them. In effect, what they were viewing was akin to their own movement art it seemed. That was a simplification and re-interpretation of a much larger, more profound ‘art’ called Myriad Shifting Steps. Flickering Steps was just the first chapter, long since separated out, re-codified and packaged as a beginners movement art in its own right.

“The second element to this, the unspoken question in your head of ‘why?’ is… mostly down to a matter of environment,” the spear added.

“There was an element of politics to the way in which these things have been recorded and preserved as well, but that is not important for you. The key thing for you to understand is that the natural forces of those worlds are much more concentrated. The firmament within harder to manipulate and arranged in slightly different ways compared to what you are used to-”

“Like teleportation or breaking space being harder? She interjected, thinking of the way suppression worked in Yin Eclipse and why teleport talismans generally worked much better than direct attempts at teleportation.

“Yes, like spatial manipulation, temporal manipulation and such being a lot harder. The energies of the world this place originated in were pure and stable even for a Supreme World. The realms of power as you would consider them, Qi Condensation, Qi Refinement or Core Formation were also compressed. Advancement was faster between the Circles of Power and the strength of those at the apex was not what you can imagine. It is this compression and the way it is approached in these tomes that has led to you accumulating a few understandable misunderstandings and miscomprehensions along the way.”

“Like?” her sister said, sounding eager.

“Assuming that Mana and Qi were quite the same thing. They both have a common root, but are organised in a subtly different way. That you are basically unhindered by this, despite not being of this world is almost entirely down to the fact that you arrived here weak and you are impressively adaptable.”

“We experienced supreme oppression in the place we were before,” she pointed out.

“Supreme oppression?” the spear frowned.

Sana chipped in and gave a quick summation of what they had experienced by way of an inability to touch qi with her adding some additional clarifications until the spear finally spoke again.

“I see. By our nature our kind are not limited in such a way, we are absolute within ourselves and hold our own harmony. What you describe is what the people of this land would call realm shock. If you grow up within a world, you take on aspects of it; if you arrive in another place, you have no harmony with it. At best you will just be rejected until you can find harmony, but at worst you might be labelled an ‘enemy of the world’ and suffer real calamities. Only when you have found your own inner harmony and attained some comprehensions of your own absolute state would you be able to alleviate this. Normally this is why planar exploration is limited to those over the eighth circle as I understand it. Anyone below that simply has an insufficient foundation to reject or adapt to a world’s oppression of that which does not belong. It does not matter what calibre of world it is, even a mortal world will give you some kind of penalty for descending into it, be it oppression, suppression or sealing below that realm.”

“I see…” she said a bit weakly.

“In any case, if you use that ‘Mana Blast’ Spell using the basic version with the spoken element and visualise the exercise to avoid using the hand movements you should find that it works as you expect.” The spear added.

Shaking her head, she stood once more and tested that very thing, using the mnemonic and the visualisation. The first time she did it, she made the rhythm of the qi flow too forceful, emitting it as a broad, overly diffuse, cone rather than a focused beam, making her see multi-coloured spots. The second time though, she got that right and focused on the qi just going where she pointed her hand, sending a controlled blast of qi slashing out which terminated about forty metres away.

“So it can either be silent or have no hand gestures,” she said with a sigh.

“And that presumably applies to most of the arts… spells, in both books with more than one active aspect?” her sister added.

“Yes, that you got this far with them is due to their remarkably robust foundation,” the spear said, a degree of amusement creeping back into its tone once more. “Arch Magister Drusus was widely recognised for her talents within the Eternal City for making spells that were robust and able to tolerate a lot of input variation. Her spell series were widely adopted and taught. The other author, was more theoretical and writing later.”

“So what about the arrays...?”

“I’m honestly more curious about where you managed to learn them than what you are doing with them,” the spear said drily. “However that will have to wait until the next storm passes.”

“The next storm?” she asked, looking around, as the weather was remarkably clear since the last rainstorm washed through.

“They come in waves this close to the edge. This island is one of the focal points to controlling the energies that flow within this place. The next one will probably arrive in ten or fifteen minutes,” the spear explained.

“As such, if I am already working to alleviate them before they arrive it’s somewhat easier than trying to keep things in hand…” it said sounding a bit resigned, before muttering much more quietly. “I really wish I understood what was going on up there.”

The rainstorm arrived much as the spear had said it would, enveloping the island city in a shrieking gale of humid rain that bounced off the surfaces and reduced the visibility to mere metres. It lasted for nearly a day as far as she was able to calculate and in the end they just cultivated quietly next to the spear, getting a better feel for how their cores allowed them to refine qi when they weren’t sitting in the middle of a spirit pond. The rain, to her surprise, actually turned out to be a surprisingly good cultivation environment. It was nowhere near the efficiency of the pond, but the purity of the qi within it, and the pooling of water in the plaza meant that the process was really quite smooth. She could exert a pull on absorbing qi over almost half the plaza and soon they moved to opposite sides to make the most of it.

The spear didn’t speak for another day after that before finally returning and speaking to them of its own volition, seemingly determined to make good on its promise to talk about the arrays. It was unsurprised that they had not gotten more than what was on the walls from the academy, judging that the spirit would have done quite unspeakable things to them had it known they knew anything of them. The spirit also noted that the symbols themselves meant little to it, offering it nothing it could not get by other means anyway. She was sure it had slipped that in there to make them feel a little more at ease talking to it, which made her feel bad that she was still indecisive about showing it those specific recordings.

In the end, she decided that there really was nothing to be gained by being overly paranoid. So far the spear had been entirely on the level and helpful. She was certain that the spear could easily overpower them anyway if it really needed to, in any case.

Taking up her own scrip she set in on the chest and projected the very first of the discussions for all of them to watch. When it was finally finished, the spear gave a deep sigh, that was somewhere between appreciation and awe, but tinged with a subtle sadness.

“Now… the pieces are clear. I am glad you showed this little sister this. The arrays they are presenting here are the basis for several systems that utilise the cosmos. These three were scholars, warriors, teachers who helped make the country that created all this place and so much more that you have seen a thing worthy of respect after a long period of darkness.”

The spear paused for a moment before continuing in a less nostalgic tone…

“The arrays are a powerful tool. For example, the symbols on the front of those tomes are ‘Sigils’ that encapsulate the ‘Spell School’…” it trailed off seeing their gaze slide sideways as it launched into what she suspected would be a rather technical discussion.

“Erm… that sigil of ‘Evokation’ is a physical representation of the Grand Dao of ‘Evokation’. The Saintess Maria, who spoke at length there, demonstrated one of the fundamental symbol series, perhaps one of the standard fundamental series in fact. Those symbols are not quite as profound as the one for ‘Evokation’ but they are… something like a proposed alphabet of truths derived from the way different physical laws interact based on the myriad causal principals that feed them.”

It sighed and went on…

“If you want to think of them simply, each of those symbols encapsulates a ‘path’ in its own right. No doubt you have noticed that all of them contain their own sense of lingering natural intent?”

“Yes…” she said feeling a bit shocked, as far as revelations went, that was not what she had been expecting.

“You would consider them minor Daos if I recall the rather odd terminology of Heaven’s Path practitioners correctly. They are, however, something with their roots in some very ancient eras.

“So what about these symbols?” Sana asked, bringing up the selections from the walls of the school.

“Derivative, simplified representations. They are less abstract, but not as fundamental. They are the product of scholars and sages who devoted lifetimes to determining and divining the meanings and intentions of those other symbols,” the spear explained.

“So… if scholars and sages don’t know of them… how do those three…” she asked eventually.

“I will say it simply. Certain answers will only bring you future problems and no benefits,” the spear stated. “You may eventually deduce these answers for yourselves, but I can tell you now, no good will come of that knowledge beyond these walls, only greedy eyes and vengeance.”

The emphasis that the spear put on those last words made her mind shake a touch. The symbol in her mind’s eye sent her some subtle intention that agreed with the spear, which was even more disconcerting.

Both Arai and Sana just sat there speechless considering what the spear had suggested. That meant that the symbols themselves could be considered analogous to some aspect of the Dao itself. The principles of the different paths to the Dao was hardly alien to them but this was a bit much to take in…

As if reading their thoughts the spear chuckled dryly. “You are overthinking things, from a certain perspective these things themselves are not some great secret as such. The problematic knowledge is who you got them from, not that you have them. Unfortunately, though, I cannot teach you much beyond what is already present within these recordings. The interpretations I possess for them would be close to meaningless to you.”

It was hard not to feel a little disheartened at that, she felt, having just been told what they had.

However, she was given no time to dwell on it, because the spear spoke on. “However, I have been thinking on what I might do to aid you in some small way. You freed me from my chains after all, and freed Big Sister from the pit that was dug for her through us. You also aided in my recovery and have provided some other amusement with the spiders and the Undren. Your arrival here was unorthodox, to say the least, but I can try to point you towards a route forwards that does not set you on a direct collision course with that rebellious abomination of a spirit if you are willing.”

“Anything you can offer us that would help us getting out of here would…”

“At the third circle? You might dream of ‘Exceeding’ first,” the spirit said with a sigh, making the hope that had been building in her heart crash back down to earth foaming at the mouth.

-Does it have some special talent for that? She thought a touch sourly.

“The problem is more complex than you realise,” the spear sighed. “I have no understanding of the location of this place other than that it is ‘apart’ and ‘sealed.’ The central array is severed and most of the teleportation gates that do exist in this world are too dangerous to use. For all that you freed Big Sister, she is still bound in another way and that spirit’s hold over the keys to this place is comprehensive.”

“…So we are stuck here?” she asked, trying not to sound totally despondent and largely failing.

“The means to escape directly are outside your means at least as far as I am aware,” the spear conceded, sounding a bit embarrassed. “However, much was lost down here when this place came to ruin and even more was abandoned in the years after as it fell into turmoil. I can direct you to one of the places that is most likely to hold the answers you seek, far to the east of here. The tools you have at your disposal, so long as you continue your current growth trajectory should be sufficient to see you to that place.

She almost sighed in relief at that. Her sister did actually sigh, which got a laugh from the spear, which continued sounding serious again.

“Do not thank me just yet. This island is one of the twelve locations that form the stabilization nexus for the entirety of this mine. You will need to travel beneath the ocean to get to the eastern landmass.”

“This is a mine?!” Arai couldn’t help herself, looking around at the colossal cavern.

“Hah… Yes, this is a mine. If you would let me finish... The places you need to seek are the production facilities for the land to the east. It is where I was birth-forged and my artefact soul was brought into being, where one of the largest of the strongholds of the Academy era of this place is located. To get there you must pass under the waters, through the transit canals that were built to transport materials before this place was flooded in the era before the Academy took control here. The access to those lower levels lies in the eastern harbour incidentally. Those tunnels stretch for some 200 miles and will eventually bring you to the edge of the Undergrove wetlands. There you must surface because if you continue underground you will descend into the depths and into the heartland of the Undren. The forge complexes and the central mining zones are within the cut caverns in the mountains at the heart of that landmass. Once you pass the wetland areas you will struggle to miss them. Within that region, you will have to navigate the various habitation and economic complexes and find what you can. If there is a way out it will be related to that place somehow.

“Will they not have been looted by the Undren Kin or those grey-skinned demons?” Sana queried.

“Won’t it also be guarded?” she asked, thinking back to the spiders and also of those grey-skinned demons.

“The grey-skinned… Ohh them,” the spear sounded pensive but didn’t elaborate beyond seeming to know of them. “Their territory is not on that landmass, they rove the waters and the tunnels below. As to things that might bar your way, I have only a dim grasp of the length of years that have passed since I was sealed. From the changes in the mana of the world, I can intuit that close to 30,000 years have gone by in real terms since I was sealed. Much can happen in such a time. The swamps are a place of serpents and beasts, the depths of various oddities but none had any primacy back then beyond the mushrooms and the odd slime pit… of the others, the Undren you have met. I have been here for much of the time since, and my gaze barely reaches the distant shore you will arrive on.”

“Sorry I cannot be more help. It is a poor gift I am afraid…” it trailed off sounding somewhat despondent and childlike once more.

“That… is already more than we had,” her sister said comfortingly.

“A direction is something at least,” she agreed.

“I will say this, the forces that moved in this place before the academy were dangerous, and the things they left behind of dubious provenance. Many were cleared during the early years, but perhaps some still remain. You survived this far, escaped the depths, so you have good instincts… treat those places with respect and caution, especially the old habitation zones and the mines. As for the work areas themselves and those complexes associated with them they should be relatively safe, even now.

“You mentioned this being a mine before?” she asked, -any information, no matter how inconsequential the spear believed it to be, might well be useful after all.

“Ah, yes, I did say that,” the spirit said drily. “That will be useful knowledge for you. This place was once a large complex of caverns rich in precious minerals. They were widened in the process of excavating the Locoi veins that ran deep within the crust of the world in this region. The caverns eventually joined up into this underground world, becoming a myriad maze of workings almost 100 miles deep and maybe 2000 miles across. The decoration you wield as a tool came from these pits incidentally, not here, but to the west. That this place is now flooded is because a foolish scion of the powers above, who controlled this place before the Academy, dug too deep, too greedily, and breached the edge of a vast sub-mantle ocean called the ‘Undren Mare.’”

It paused to give them time to absorb that, before continuing.

“This island city was raised up in that era as part of their strategy to control the waters and repair the damage. The waters here are the shoals and shallows on the edge of much deeper, now flooded workings. Below us lie shafts that were first mines, then sewers then prisons where the original makers of this place held the condemned who mined in the depths. The last great phase of expansion came when the Academy seized control of this place, for a thousand years they mined the rock above, cutting vast slabs of the mana resistant rock, tempered by millennia of exposure to the verdant locoi veins that ran through here to form ‘Watchtowers.’”

“What were those?” Sana asked, looking up at the vast open space with its rolling clouds above them.

“Mountain-sized fortresses containing vast array formations designed to protect the lands above from invaders from beyond their realm barrier. The mana-resistant rock here has exceptional dimensional rigidity, making it the ideal material for platforms designed for that purpose.”

It fell silent for a long moment as they both stared up at the clouds. Unbidden, those vast black towers they had seen above the mountains sprang into mind. Were those what the spear meant?

“As I said, this information is something of a meagre reward, but I have one more thing,” the spear said softly.

They both turned to look at it, curious.

“Before, you asked me if I could be wielded. The simple answer is that I cannot, we were never born to be wielded and our forms are as much a mask as a reality. I am also anchored here, an integral part of the system that keeps this world whole. Already several of my siblings appear to have vanished into darkness and the harmony of the world is decaying. If I were to leave here, I would be abetting the ruin of this place, and while that might be a good thing, the cost to all associated with that act would still be dire. I very much doubt you want to experience such a penalty.”

The symbol shifted in her mind’s eye suggesting quite firmly that she did not. Not that that was something she needed it to tell her. It made her mouth go dry just thinking about it.

“What I can give you, however, are two tokens of sorts that were left with me.”

As it spoke, a thread of red-gold flowed out of the tassel on the spear and coiled in the air like a tiny serpent. She got a strange sense of kinship with the martial form they were practising from it. When the spear finished speaking, it rippled faintly as if its form were just a mirage in the air and a small black pagoda with thirteen levels floated in the air. The pagoda seemed to have some subtle affinity with the world around them, as if by simply being there it was perfectly poised between heaven and earth.

“Which of you select which I leave up to you, but I will explain a little about each first. The thread is imbued with a martial intent that will aid you in the wielding of that sword art. The tassel is a token of the woman who birth-forged my physical form. The pagoda… is a thing left for me to learn from and which no longer needs to reside here. Its secrets are not easy to master, and are different from the sword art in many ways. However, the two complement each other in ways that you will likely find beneficial and will serve you well for a long time and aid in your future growth.”

It fell silent as they looked at the two objects that had settled onto the top of the chest.

“Neither are gifts worthy of my freedom, unfortunately. But I am otherwise lacking in ability so this is all I can do. I will have to rest and focus on continuing to stabilise myself. Manifesting the pagoda has taken a lot out of me. I wish you good luck in your endeavours. If you find a way out of here, you may be able to effect something truly remarkable. I will look forward to witnessing it.”

The spear fell silent and they both looked at the two objects sat there.

Sana squatted down beside the chest and considered them with a sigh, then back at the spear. “Really… it says this is a poor gift then what does it consider to be a worthy one?”

“You ask me, but who do I ask, the spear?” she said drily, eyeing it.

The spear remained resolutely silent, apparently happy with the ‘goodbye’ it had given them.

“The sword art is not something you particularly wish to focus on is it?” she asked her sister, staring pensively at the thread.

Her sister for a long moment then sighed softly. “Well… um… I guess not, actually …I was never any good with swords.”

“Hah. Neither was I sis, but I dunno, something about the art does seem to fit me somehow…” she mused.

They both stared at the objects sat on the chest for another long moment.

“You can have first pick-”

“You can pick first-”

Sana spoke at the same time she did. They both sighed and stared at each other before just starting to laugh. It was such a stupid thing really, but it still took them both almost a minute to regain their composure.

“In that case, I’ll take the thread relating to the sword art,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Sana frowned.

“The spear said the two complemented each other, and as your big sister, I know you really don’t like chopping things with swords. So just take it, I don’t feel anything much from it anyway,” she said, grabbed her sister's hand and moving it physically towards the pagoda.

“Well, if you’re sure…” Sana still looked dubious... which was actually kind of annoying.

Before her sister could spin in indecision any further, she reached out and picked up the thread from the top of the chest, removing any further agency from the decision. It swirled and then flowed around her hand, and flowed into her palm, turning into a stream of red-gold qi that slipped through her body like an arrow and arrived in her dantian where it began to orbit her golden core like a red ring, rippling in and out of the clouds of qi that swirled around it.

~ Sana, Island City Plaza ~

Sana sighed inwardly as her sister decisively took the thread, effectively removing her source of dithering. It made her feel bad, because on the face of it the Pagoda was almost certainly the more substantial thing as the spear has phrased it. Her sister had decisively picked the possibly worse option, just as she had helped her take that little step ahead during her core formation. It was a selflessness that she could only embrace, but it was vexing because she wished she could return it somehow.

Reaching out, she touched the pagoda. It was cool to her grasp, almost sticking to her fingers. Taking her hand away she felt a prickling as her skin stuck to it momentarily and she saw blood on it where she had touched it. Before she was sure what to make of that, it shivered and flew into her hand, materialising inside her dantian where it alighted upon the surface of the Qi Lake within it, immediately below her golden core. Stunned, she watched as the mists swirling above the golden core were dragged downwards and soon shrouded its roof layers in mysterious little eddies of misty cloud. Within ten revolutions of her core, the Pagoda was fully incorporated into the flow of mist between her Golden Core and the Qi Lake.

Frowning, she pushed a thread of her qi into the pagoda-

She was abruptly aware of being both in the plaza and standing inside the ground floor of the pagoda. It was supremely disorientating until she managed to focus her attention fully upon the pagoda. At that point, her awareness of the world outside finally faded away into the background, lingering only as a quiet reflection in her mind’s eye.

-Ah! She noted a familiar sense of constriction in her mind’s eye for a fraction of a moment before it passed as if it had never been.

The pagoda had just bound itself to her. Presumably, the thread would have bonded to her sister as well. She had half expected it, but at the same time not really expected it to do so immediately. That spoke to a degree of agency within both of the items that was well above anything she was inherently familiar with. On the other hand, it made the likelihood of them being plundered significantly less. Also, no way for her to bring her sister here either, probably not even if they got to Nascent Soul.

Exhaling, she looked around the ground floor, curious. It was open plan, with a floor covered in tastefully carved terracotta tiles inset with flowing waves and cloud patterns in the purest white marble and blue stone. Columns in blue-grey stone, carved with designs of flowing water and winds supported the interior and a double staircase swept up to the second floor, made of the same blue-grey stone and white marble.

In the centre was a raised area with a dais and throne, upon which reclined, in elegant fashion, a female figure wearing a flowing hooded gown. The statue, which was almost five metres tall, gave off a timeless, ancient feeling as she approached it. The face was hidden by the hood, but her arms, which were bare to the shoulder, were covered in the same flowing motifs that covered the floor, columns and stairs. Upon the robe itself, she could make out subtle carvings of celestial bodies and constellations in various configurations, flowing hypnotically through the folds and form of the draping style of her gown. She also found if she tried to look at any singular pattern upon it, the folds and shapes drew her eyes in weird ways making her eyes lose focus and forcing her to turn her vision aside.

Before the statue, on the lower dais, was a small marble table, or perhaps altar, containing various offerings and some incense smoking in a broad ceramic bowl. Beyond that was a triptych of carvings below and to either side of the throne and its reclining figure.

The contents of the small altar were all simple and unshowy things: A crudely carved clay figurine shaped like a girl wearing a long dress; A wax tablet upon which someone had drawn several flowers and a cartoonish face; A small bowl containing a pool of water and a miniature but very mundane water lily; A jar about ten centimetres high, with big handles and a sleek bulbous shape that had a seal on the front that depicted a stylised outline of the same jar and something in the flowing familiar text; Four iron bands that looked like anklets and bracelets; A simple iron spear blade shaped like a broad oval leaf; A carved bone blade, a beautifully knapped blade made of a lustrous black, glassy stone; a small clay box that looked like a house; and finally a potted cloud pine tree around which were arranged several more clay figures.

Walking up to the dais she politely bowed to the altar, because there was no other clear instruction and that was rarely the wrong thing to do, then looked at the carvings behind it.

The left-most carving showed a beautifully carved scene depicting a figure sitting in meditation beneath a tree with a spear and a blade resting beside them, and a simple clay lantern in their hands.

‘The soul as a lantern, the heavens are my flame, bright heart unbound.’

‘This truth only I can proclaim.’

The text below it gave her a sense of calmness and warmth just reading the words, like a mother’s caring embrace.

The right carving showed a spear. The space above it was a twisting mass of spiralling lines and clouds, rolling thunder and lightning. Within it, she could see what looked like shattered buildings and mountains falling. The twisting designs flowed down until they merged with the rolling waves and winds that made up the lower half of the carving. The waves were drowning mountains and the winds were drawing up waves and tearing down buildings. As she stared at it longer she realised there was also a second image hidden in the destruction: a new world emerging with islands, and forested mountains floating on multiple levels amid swirling oceans and rolling clouds. The two scenes somehow both converged along the spear length where they twisted around it as if the spear were the very embodiment of the forces trying to tear both heaven and earth apart and remake it anew. The text beneath settled into her mind like a twisting maelstrom shaking her consciousness and making her feel like she was standing in raging waters that were trying to pull her away.

‘The heavenly maelstrom bridges earth and sky, a single spear reordering the world. Unparalleled.’

As soon as she read that she was put in mind of that terrifying spear strike that split nihility and sundered the seal upon the little spear, of the way the world had warped with that strike and then snapped back with the gesture…

The connection between that intention and this carving seemed to resonate inside her for an instant, sending her qi into turmoil before reordering it. As it calmed, it somehow pulled her back to reality and she found herself drenched in sweat, her limbs weak and her heart pounding.

Taking deep breaths, she turned away from that carving, calming her emotions. Only when she was sure she wasn’t going to fall over if she moved suddenly did she look at the central carving, immediately before the throne.

This carving held a flowing design of at least thirteen interlocking circles that seemed to hint at a fourteenth and maybe even more as she examined it. The whole thing felt remarkably like an array formation but it contained so much information and complexity that she felt she could have looked at it for weeks and still seen new things in those circles.

Some of the circles, the most obvious ones anyway, held central designs that might have been something like the symbols they had recorded in their scrips. These ones, however, were alien and unfamiliar, reminding her of odd things as she studied them. One felt like the weight, another like fury, others were imperious or domineering, sheltering, kindly or calming. One gave her a sense of being submerged in a gentle shadow on a summer’s day while another reached into her and tried to twist her viscerally to a rage so strong she was forced backwards gasping once she focused on it properly.

All of them came together and somehow created a single unified design. Its meaning shifted oddly even as she looked at it from ‘Maelstrom’ or perhaps ‘Spiralling Heaven’ to ‘Treasure of Earth’, ‘Day Shaper’, ‘Formless’ and more before finally settling in her mind as ‘Mortal, Heaven-Earth, Unifying Maelstrom, Shaper’. It was as much a statement of intent as a name. The longer she looked, taking in the whole design as best she was able, the more stifling and oppressive it became and the harder it was to see individual elements within it.

Eventually, it became so much that she got a headache and had to look away. As soon as she did the sense of suppression vanished and it felt like a great weight had been lifted off her body allowing her to move limbs she had never realised were frozen. With a shudder she stepped away and didn’t look at it again, instead directing her attention to the rest of the pagoda layer.

It was relatively unadorned for all that it was covered in the wind and wave designs. Arrayed between the columns, flanking the throne and its awe-inspiring figure were vivid and lifelike statues of men and woman in various armours, robes and attire, all carrying the same spear. Each statue was mounted on a plinth with a stele that contained designs similar to the one before the throne, albeit far less complex. As she walked around them, she noted that unlike the one below the throne, the circles in these were all very clearly defined and numbered at most thirteen. To her surprise, two of them were actually familiar.

The first was the woman she knew as Eleanora, Elaria’s older sister. She sat in a reclining pose reading a book, dressed in a long gowned robe of green jade, a broad-bladed spear leaning against her chair. The green of the jade stood in stark contrast to her reddish-gold hair and flesh of white marble. Upon her forehead was the same symbol, picked out in gold, that was on the big handled jar, which this time translated itself as ‘Bright/Light/Ruler and ‘Lantern/Hope.’ The symbol and the design below her projected feelings of authority and kindness.

The other was a tall man with an imposing manner long hair done up in a scholarly style and a beard in a Confucian style. His robes were carved in blue-green stone and his hair in white marble. The design below his statue also held thirteen circles and translated itself as ‘Unbounded/Sky/Blue and Benevolence/West/Water.’ Unlike the others, he had no golden symbol on his forehead, but the likeness was unmistakable. There were dozens of grand statues to the Blue Water Sage, the founder of Blue Water City, through its leafy boulevards and grand gardens, although few could be considered this lifelike.

She stared at the figure for a good five minutes, her mind spinning as she tried to work out why such a figure would be here, in this place, represented in this pagoda. It shouldn't be a trick she was certain as she looked at the other statues. Clearly, the founder of Blue Water City had gained some acknowledgement from this place… but…

Rubbing her temples she stopped thinking about it as clearly no answer was likely to be forthcoming here and now. Moving on, she finished the circuit and arrived in front of the lower dais. A quick headcount told her that there was indeed an object on the small altar for every statue plus one.

Left with nothing else to look at, beyond giving herself a headache over why the Blue Water Sage was represented among those statues, she purposefully made her way up to the first floor. It was laid out similar fashion but with a much more familiar ambience. The middle of the first floor was a large central area with a vast carved design that took floor space. Around its perimeter were dozens of statues depicting the same figure displaying different forms or strange diagrammatic arrangements. In the middle of the room, where the very centre of the design was located, it flowed up and over a simple hewn cube of rock with ‘Heavenly Maelstrom Scripture’ inscribed upon it.

As she approached it, the stele’s surface shifted and the design changed to a familiar array-like framework.

As she looked at this strange twisting mirage of a symbol that was somewhere between a waterspout and a hurricane of lines and forms, something within it reached out and touched her mind.

Immediately she was frozen to the spot.

The symbol in her own mind’s eye rippled and twisted and then twisted strangely, giving her the impression it was somehow communicating with the other symbol on the stele. They did this for a few seconds and then the symbol flowed back into the stele and a swirling maelstrom of qi and characters swirled out of it, flowing into her body from the pagoda, and directly into her mind’s eye.

The force grasping her vanished as the last of the swirling energy vanished with a final flicker, leaving behind in her mind knowledge of a Martial Form for Spears and a means to develop ‘Maelstrom Intent’ and use it in various ways both with and independent of the spear form. Space wavered around her and there was a subtle ‘nudge’ that sent her back out of the pagoda and returned her focus to the plaza. Along with it came a series of impressions, presumably from the stele, that organised themselves as ‘go try this, if you master it, come back and we will see what else you can learn’.

She stumbled backwards and sat down hard, realising that her body was almost entirely devoid of qi, her legs were weak and she was covered in a cold sweat, despite the humidity in the air.

“Are you okay?” Arai said, scrambling over and kneeling down beside her.

“Uhaaaahh… whaat …just?” she inhaled desperately and dragged qi into her body even as she tried to reply to her sister.

“Er… you just absorbed the pagoda, took a step back, went white as a sheet and now fell over,” her sister said, looking concerned.

“It… Huu-huh… I may have used a lot of qi in interacting with it,” she said weakly.

“No shit,” her sister said drolly, pushing some of her own qi into her body before kneeling back to give her some space.

The knowledge of the spear form was still settling in her head…

“What good is a spear form if-?” she realised she had mumbled that out loud even as she thought it…

–I don’t have as spear…, her thoughts trailed off as the information in her head rapidly supplied the answer for her as it continued to settle.

The spear form was basically a medium to teach the basic principles of Intent and seemed fairly potent in its own right but there was…

She had a moment of further disorientation as she realised she had misjudged what was in her head. It wasn’t really a ‘Spear Form’ but something akin to the Martial Form they had gleaned. In this case, it just happened to use spears rather than swords and she had all the documentation rather than just the copied form: It also held a Cultivation Art; An Unarmed Form; A Movement Form; A Refinement Art and quite a bit ancillary of information that related to how ‘Maelstrom Intent’ worked with arrays.

“The pagoda… it’s… impressive…” was all she could manage in the end, which got a half laugh from her sister who was still squatting nearby, looking concerned.

Also… I can confirm that the pagoda soul binds… sorry,” she added with a worried look at her sister.

“I made my choice,” her sister said, giving her a poke. “The thread seems to be the same in any case, it’s just orbiting my core like some kind of primordial serpent.”

She pushed herself up on her knees and facing the spear bowed formally to it.

“Thank you for giving me this,” she said solemnly.

“It’s… nothing, just a token of gratitude…" the voice of the spear whispered ethereally in her mind at the same time it whispered faintly in the plaza, continuing for both of them to hear a moment later. “I wish you both luck on your onward journey. If circumstances are right we will surely meet again.”

Her sister also bowed towards it and echoed her sentiments.