The next few days passed in a haze. She double checked all her preparations, searching for a point of failure that didn’t exist, trawling through each and every subtle line of her formation for a mistake that she had not made… it was frustrating. Beyond frustrating— she’d done everythingperfectly, but for something she didn’t understand, some aspect of the spirit that she could not grasp and might even, in fact, beungraspable…

She despised it. Ultimately, though, she was forced to put it aside. There was nothing more she could do after a while; nothing more to check, nothing more to alter— not with the current scope of her knowledge at least. So, for the time being, she returned to her homework and studies and various other little things, cleaning up and organizing the mess from that mad preparation and setting, to simmer, that great ambition. Avyr didn’t say as much, but she gathered from his common presence, the way he lingered in the room when she was there and stayed steadfastly beside her, that he was trying to reassure her.

It was nice, but she didn’t… she didn’twantreassurance. What she really wanted was for her formation to haveworked… but, the past was the past, and she wasn’t going to be able to change anything by whining about it. Besides, she still had University stuff to keep up with…

It was all too easy to forget herself in the work. There was so much of it, that she could just let it wash over her and numb the fervent, the burning desire to return straight to working on that project… and so, as the week progressed, as the classes ticked by one by one, and she struck forth once more to make sure that she was thebestamongst her peers— little by little, she allowed herself to forget the intenseemotion, the ever-present faint sting, the reminder of what she’d done to herself and what she’d so, almost, achieved.

Yet, it was notwhollyforgotten.

Occasionally, a thought would come upon her, and she make note of it in her notebook— or, occasionally, she’d spend a few stolen moments calculating the shape of those runes, as they shifted in their complicated, strange dance through the echo of the spirit… or, just daydream about it, when the world did not demand of her anything greater.

Sometimes…

She was snapped from her current musing as a wind rustled through the deep forest, washing against the sturdy wood walls of their little classroom house, swirling around the eddies and eaves, touching— scattering, flakes of snow dancing in the scintillation caught between lone icicles hung from the roof-edge. She blinked, staring back up at the stark tree-branches that had for a moment swam out of focus, and the sullen sky above, ashen almost bowing down between those dark borders, like a damp cloth draped over some skeleton, flame-scarred woodform. A bird cawed in the distance, the harsh sound of its call echoing out strangely muted, by the snow caught and transformed into an ethereal sound.

“I wonder,” a familiar, foreign voice said beside her; far enough away that the strange distortion of utter stillness caught it, close enough that it felt almost companionable— “what’s on your mind, to make you stay so long after class. Your peers usually have somewhere better to go than here.”

She blinked, glancing over— then hurrying into a half-bow, half stumbled, gesture of respect. “This one greets Senior Martial Brother Wang Sunliang.”

The man huffed softly, a laugh, or a smirk, she could not tell. “Find something meditative about the cold?”

“It’s notthatcold anymore.” That was the truth, even. The worst of the winter’s blast had passed them by, and by the day spring clawed its way out of the grave. Soon, the tiny little buds on the trees would burst into new leaf, and the paths would be dusted with spring’s first breath of color, and flowers… even now, she could see in the sheltered spaces of the glen where green shoots pushed themselves up out of the frozen soil.

“I notice you did not deny it.”

“There is something meditative aboutthis place.” This heartland, this… it was not herfavoriteplace to meditate, solely because of how inconvenient it was to reach, but it should have been. “The qi of the world, here…” it was not thicker; it was not notably changed, even, from the mad swirl of East Saffron’s pulsing presence on the ether. It was, however… more whole. If that could even be set to words…

“You have a very good perception for a Shedding disciple.” Wang Sunliang settled down next to her,hispoise, at least, far more tightly controlled than her own. It was a perfectly elegant sort of position, the sort of thing that a master cultivator would have spent decades upon decades perfecting. “That sort of perception will carry you far, if you cultivate it well. I won’t tell you everything about the higher realms— Heavens know you’re going to be hearing about that enough in the next few years— but to see what is not and what is, to catch in your mind’s eye the essence of things… that will open many doors. It might even save you from a bottleneck or two.”

“I… of course. I won’t fail to cultivate it.”

“You weren’t cultivating it before I arrived, I can tell. Else you would have noticed a Core Formation cultivator sneaking up on you.” That… was the truth, but it was alsoembarassing. If he hadn’t been hiding his presence at all, she reallyshouldhave noticed him before he got as close as he had. That she hadn’t… it boded ill.

Less of her ability, and more of her mental state. Perhaps her frustration, her unsubtle displeasure, was apparent on her face, because when Sunliang spoke next, it was with a much softer, morepeacefulvoice.

He looked at her, and captured in the depth of her gaze, she could see…him— his cultivation, for a moment half bare, an intent not of violence but of kindness. “What’s bothering you?”

“How did youdothat?”

This text was taken from NovelBin. Help the author by reading the original version there.

For a second, Sunliang was quiet— before he laughed. “I didn’t think that you’d notice it, but you reallyarea sharp one… it’s a… well, you know that there’s techniques, and then there’stechniques, right?” She nodded sharply. She knewthatvery well indeed. “That was one of the former, that I picked up during my time cultivating… it takes a very specific mindset, and is rather difficult to use against my fellow Core Formation cultivators, but it is remarkably good when it comes to interacting with students. A sort of… anti-killing intent, in a sense.”

“Interesting.”

“I know! The qi theory behind it’s… ah, but we’re not here to talk aboutmyspecific interest. We were talking about what’s going on withyou.”

She gave him a wary glance. Itseemedgenuine, but the University of East Saffron was not necessarily a place for the genuine. Avyr had seen that, more than once, she’d seen it with the Song brothers and her formations instructor, andAomao, and now…

Still, Sunliang thought highly of Avyr, so she supposed that she could give him the benefit of the doubt— just this once. “I’ve been working on a… project, and recently I’ve hit a dead end. It’s not that I don’t know how to do it, it’s more… I don’t even know where tostart.” She clenched her right hand into a fist, resisting the urge to scowl. “I don’t want it to get in the way of my other obligations, but still… I thought it was going sowell…” almost plaintive, and that was what shocked her back to her sullen silence. She didn’tdaregive too bad of an impression to so powerful a cultivator.

Sunliang, though, just sat silently, gaze inclined towards her. “Interesting…” murmured, after a minute of cool quiet. “What was the project? And— I can assure you, you’re probably the best student that I’ve had at this Universityever,and your biggest competition for that title is your best friend. You’re certainly not doing poorly in your classes.”

It felt… good, to have that affirmation— that slightknowingthat she wasn’t utterly failing. It… it was actually a rather greater relief than she’d expected. She just— breathed, breath pluming out in front of her as she let that pressure slip off her shoulders and disappear, caught up by some intangible force and cast away in freeing libation. It was almost funny— funny enough that she had to resist a goofy smile from pulling itself onto her face— that she’d managed to let her failure in the Meridian Opening formation make her think that she was failing ineverything.

It was just a failure… but, still, it was a failure. The faintest wisps of a smile disappeared from her face, snuffed out.

“It was a…” slowly, she quested for the proper words to describe it without justdescribing it, because to justsayit was to say something so hopelessly, stupidly naive sounding… “a spiritual formation. Made a little more difficult because I was not usingmyspirit, of course—” just to make sure he knew— “but still… everything went according to plan, more or less. I was able to create what I wanted to create, and it did what I wanted it to do, concentrated qi and aspected it, and…” she shook her head. “It was justwrongthough. I don’t know why. It lasted only a short while before it failed— rather catastrophically.”

“A technique. You’re trying to make a technique.”

“Maybe…”

He chuckled. “I’m not sure whether that’s incredibly bold or incredibly stupid. Probablyboth… I’ve never even made a technique myself, you know? Usually, that sort of thing is reserved for the Sundering cultivators and Core Formation cultivators with far more experience than I have.”

“I can do it. I’m sure I can, it’s just… it’s just like formations.”

“It’s really not.” She frowned, but before she could respond back, he continued. “In some ways you’re right, but in others… not so much. The spirit is very central to cultivation— it is the alchemical rarification, it is the pure refinement, it is the perfect formation and the masterful array, the sword and the innate and so many other things besides. To think that it is onlyoneof those things is to blind oneself.”

“I’m not dealing with the whole of the spirit, though. I’m just dealing with formations.”

“That’s part of what you’re doing wrong, then… it mayfeellike a technique is merely a formation carved into the sprit— a lot of techniques follow that sort of interpretation— but youknowthat it’s different. No formation can be controlled half as neatly as the techniques we carve in our spirits. The qi of the spirit— theessenceof it, at least, the stuff that makes up its fabric, is of a wholly different kind to the qi of the world. In many ways, itisyou.”

“That’s…” she turned it over in her head for a long while, considering it. She’d been treating the scrap of spirit like she would any other strange spiritual material— anything elsereal— but it was not justreal, was it? It was intricately, intimately, a thing of qi.Herqi. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Iama Core Formation cultivator, responsible for teaching Qi Theory to young impressionable potential disciples of the Bloody Saffron Sect. I try my best to make a habit of being right.”

“I… see.” She was too unsettled to respond back with equal snark. “Thank you…”

“You’re very welcome.” He smiled back, backed by that strange, almost eerie inversion of killing intent. “You’ll come to realize— if not now, then when you’ve joined the sect— that you arenotalone. We are above you because we have walked along the journey you’ve only just set foot on, we do not always guide you in hopes that you will guideyourself, to cultivate your inner spirit and become as the sages of the sect… but that does not mean we willneverhelp you. When you truly come to no recourse, then your peers and elders will be there for you. Avail yourself of the resources that’ve been made available to you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind…” perhaps itwouldbe a good idea, to ask the various advanced cultivators who taught their classes about the various complicated aspects she didn’t understand fully… “so, regarding the transformation between the various qi types in the spirit…”

Sunliang grinned.

It was a productive conversation.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com