Tales of the Teal Mountain Sect

Year 663 of the Stable Era,

Eighth day of the eleventh month

What feels like an age into the 2nd Inner Hour

With an exhalation, qi unfurled. Fiery reds curved around leafy greens, their delicate spirals drawing close without ever overlapping. Dark, earthy browns wrapped around them before golden threads traced a final flourish, the eternity of the short moment ending as Chao Ren finally breathed in again.

"Here you go, young master," he said, handing the fully-blown sugary confection to the child in front of him. They took the sweet with an excited smile, before promptly shoving the entire thing down their gullet. A second later a loud crunch followed as they bit directly into his latest creation in an act utterly devoid of any sort of refinement or patience.

"Now, what do you say to the nice man?" the older boy accompanying them asked, turning towards his brother with the sort of almost parental admonishment that only siblings seemed to develop. Their brother chewed contemplatively, or at the very least contentedly, before slowly looking back to Chao Ren.

"Tank you for the da candy mister!" the child said, teeth still covered with flecks of colored sugar as he excitedly waved the now-clean stick with every word. Chao Ren nodded his appreciation faintly, with a slight bow of his head in acknowledgement as he continued to focus on his work, his tools never halting in their quick, practiced motions.

"Your eagle, young master," he said after a few more moments, passing the elder sibling a comparatively simple bird pulled from a block of warm sugar. The older brother took it with a proper bow and a 'thank you', breaking off a wing for their somehow still hungry sibling as the two disappeared into the crowd.

The small line filed forwards, each glancing excitedly between the last customers and the pretty sign decorated with prices and goods, clearly trying to figure out how to get the most for their money. His next customer looked over to the left as a bell rang, her attention briefly stolen by the celebration of another winner of one of the festival's many competitions, before she remembered where she was. She hurriedly turned back to Chao Ren, putting a handful of wooden coins down on the counter and asking for a whole dragon.

Chao Ren sighed patiently as he counted the payment, gently reminding her that big pieces cost an extra two festival coins. The child slowly counted them out, and Chao Ren thanked her for her patronage as he stored them in the moneybox and reached for another stick.

The Youth Fair was certainly the place to be, although for the majority of its attendees that was more by design than intention. It was, after all, a place where the youngest members of the Teal Mountain Sect could play without the risk of being caught up in anything dangerous.

The general festivities of the Great Meeting of the Sects were always quite hectic, and while it had somehow managed to stay relatively relaxed despite the presence of the Thousand Li Immortal, there was simply too much trouble that unruly children could get into even if the sect could spare the manpower to watch over them. The Youth Fair was their solution to this, as the last thing the sect wanted was an incident starting over a stained robe or the bruised knee of a youthful squabble.

Over thirty stalls had taken over the courtyard just down the slope from the recently rebuilt Formation Division, their brightly colored awnings offering a diverse mix of various foods and games for the youngest members of the sect. Assorted performers danced under strings of red paper lanterns, ensuring that even those waiting in line had something to enjoy.

Chao Ren had worked the booths for the last three years, ever since he had been recommended for the position by Shifu Yeung Lin. It paid well, at a rate of 74 Teal Mountain Tokens per day, which was an extraordinary amount for a task that required as little hard labor as it did. His task was far more skill intensive than it was manually taxing, and it even had a few perks to it, such as free food from his fellow vendors.

The real hard part was the children.

Many cultivators lacked the temperament to tolerate youthful exuberance and, as it was generally considered bad manners to yell at the kids for being too slow to order or for not addressing them properly, positions at the festival were rarely filled by cultivators above the second stage. There were a few elderly disciples and full sect members among Chao Ren's now-familiar yearly companions, but for the most part they were just like him: cultivators that still remembered their mortal days and mortal skills.

Chao Ren fit this criteria well. Back home, his branch of the family had always been responsible for running the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it brought back fond memories to participate every year. A possible weakness, perhaps, to allow himself to grow too close to the past. But if that was the cost to his participation, he could stand to bear it.

This year he was even in charge of the sugar sculpting booth. Chang Peizhi, the cultivator usually responsible for it, had taken the year off to prepare for his breakthrough to the Body Moulding stage, so Chao Ren had been called upon to take his place.

Thankfully, his skills hadn't grown too rusty, thanks in no small amount to his training. He'd been making great strides with his body cultivation, especially in regard to his manual dexterity, so he was more than ready to handle anything that the kids could throw at him. He could sculpt the scales on a sugar dragon in seconds, even doubling the amount that he'd been able to add back home in half the time.

Shaping the last of the dragon's mane with an expert flourish of his trimmers, he pulled a dollop of hot sugar from the waiting vat, using it to affix the head to its already completed body. He handed it to his waiting customer, who immediately ran off, excitedly parading it over her head in her best imitation of a lion dance. The rest of the line looked at her jealously, and Chao Ren prepared himself for the inevitable duplicate order before it even escaped the child's mouth.

Not that it wasn't good practice to get to do so many large, complex pieces in a short period of time, he thought to himself as he set to work on the next of what was looking to be a long series of loongs. It would let him refine his control of his hands, as well as his qi. By infusing a measure of warm fire qi into his tools he was able to keep the thick sugar malleable for longer, which was a big part of what allowed him to sculpt faster than he did when he was a mortal. It let him keep pushing the quality of his work further and further, and the children had started to take notice, which had already led to at least three crowds today alone.

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Which, extra work aside, was great. There was a small prize for the top ten booths at the festival, and he thought that he had a good chance at getting into the bottom three this year.

He just wished that he could do more of the truly complex sculptures, which required more than just slightly varying up the stance of each dragon so that none of the kids got mad that theirs was in any way less special than the others. The special vat was still sitting at three-quarters full, its rich qi gently tempting him to take a spoon to it.

He swallowed that thought, instead distracting himself with a small stick of its more mundane cousin as he started work on another dragon, this one gween, because it was his customer favowite color.

The special vat contained a form of spiritual food, made from a mix of special ingredients that allowed it to be suffused with mild measures of elemental qi. Its simplicity was perfect for children with developing meridians, as it was easier for their bodies to accept than anything too complex. It was also too fragile to accept strong doses of qi, which seemed to be by design, as such quantities could overwhelm or even damage the undeveloped spirit roots of his youngest customers.

The only issue with the substance was that it was incredibly fickle, prone to hardening or cracking if his control was even a little bit off. Not the greatest medium for easy sculpting, but certainly one that was useful for him to practice his qi control, especially against the impatient demands of the line and the constant distractions of the festival.

Chao Ren suspected that this was part of the reason that he had been assigned to the booth, as he was aware that Shifu Yeung Lin had no small influence over the task assignments. It would be just like him to do something like this. He handed the gween dragon over to its awaiting devourer, just as someone to the side of his booth spoke.

"What sorta cultivator areyah mistah?" a voice asked, and Chao Ren quickly took the order from his next customer before he turned to address them. A trio of young kids around 12 or 13 years old stood there, dressed in blue and red festival robes and holding an assortment of treats and trinkets from the various stalls.

"Well, I am but a humble disciple," Chao Ren replied, carefully flicking the feathers onto a sparrow's wing with his knife. He spun it around his fingers at the end of each motion, adding a bit of showmanship for the line's benefit. "Still at the beginning of his journey."

"Can you do any cool techniques?" another asked.

"Shoot fire!" the youngest of the trio exclaimed, and the taller boy next to him nudged him gently in the side.

"I'm afraid I can't do that yet," Chao Ren said, finishing up the sparrow's eyes.

"A really big dragon!" the kid in the front of the line requested, and Chao Ren took his coins as the trio persisted.

"So, what techniques can you use?" the middle of the trio asked, taking a bite out of a roasted squid on a stick.

"At my stage, I doubt that I would be able to offer you a good show," Chao Ren replied, stretching a long string of sugar into the dragon's spine as he deflected the question. "I am only at the Refining stage. If you want to ask a real cultivator about their techniques, you should ask Uncle Liu."

He gestured to the aforementioned cultivator, who was busy performing at the center of the courtyard with a trio of blazing torches twirling between each hand. A flock of blazing birds swooped after them, flitting back and forth in the bright curves that lingered in their wake. Occasionally a child would try and touch one, but the cultivator would simply snap his fingers and the bird would nimbly divert their course. Chao Ren knew that he could just as easily do it with a thought, but it was as much a part of his performance as the rest of his dance, and they were here to entertain the kids, after all.

"Nah, Mr. Butterfly doesn't like fire," the taller kid said, patting the small creature atop his shoulder. Chao Ren looked closer, realizing that what he had taken to be a small spirit pet at first glance was actually something entirely different.

It was a butterfly in shape, but its body was made completely of paper rather than chitin or flesh. Its brilliant wings were a collage of differently colored sheets, each carefully layered atop each other with an abundance of glue.

A minor artifact perhaps? Or maybe something from the Great Dessert? The existence of the papermen had always made him curious about what sorts of strange creatures existed in that Immortal-formed place, and perhaps all manner of paper creatures dwelled within it. He really should really look into it more.

Once he had more time, of course.

Or, perhaps, now could work just as well.

"Ah, I'm sure he doesn't," Chao Ren said with a solemn nod. "Say, what sort of spirit beast is Mr. Butterfly exactly?"

"Oh, Mr. Butterfly isn't a spirit beast," the taller kid replied, his eyes twinkling.

"He's a technique," the middle kid said, taking another bite of squid.

"I see," Chao Ren said, hiding his shock as he handed off the big dragon, which had almost ended up needing a third stick to support it. "That's very impressive for your age."

"It's just a mortal technique an old teacher taught me," the tall kid said, scratching his head embarrassedly. "I'm sure that you know much more impressive ones than this."

"Ah, I see," Chao Ren said, turning back to his line only to find it surprisingly empty. "Well, I suppose that I could demonstrate one or two of my own. My main technique isn't quite meant for displays, but I can demonstrate a few mortal techniques of my own."

He focused as he said this, letting a faint trace of wood and metal gather in his middle finger before he let a wisp of fire qi shoot through his thumb, snapping his fingers as he merged the two. A small firework erupted, its green flare a miniature of the displays that the Thunderous Calm Sect had been putting on just about every night since the opening ceremony. The kids gasped, as the paper butterfly edged slightly away from him.

"Unfortunately, I don't have the materials on hand to show you anything else," Chao Ren said, patting his pockets dramatically. "But, if you could bring me a piece of paper, a brush, and some ink, I could show you something even more impressive."

The kids immediately shot off in all directions, leaving Chao Ren alone at his booth. When nobody came over to inquire about getting him to make a sweet, he let himself relax. Pulling a small dollop of qi-filled sugar from the special vat, he rolled it into a thin stick as he enjoyed the brief lull.

Of course, he had all the materials he needed in his storage ring, but there was no sense in telling the kids that. Better to play the part of the cool, mysterious senior for now, and to let them come to their own conclusions. He only knew a handful of mortal techniques, after all, and most of them were quite mundane in their purpose.

Like his charm for removing stains from clothing. Quite good for a social occasion or for keeping his lucky robe pristine, but far from the sort of thing that children would find even the slightest bit exciting.

His little firework was the closest thing he had to a party trick, but it was truly closer to a trick than it was a real technique. He'd discovered it by accident while trying to practice a different technique, so it was more the derivative of a failure than anything else. It was essentially just mixing extra metal qi into it and hoping it produced the same results, relying far more on instinct and gut feeling than any sort of precision or understanding.

If he ended up cultivating the Five Elements Unification Technique, he could perhaps make it into a true mortal technique, but that was also for the future. For now, it would be far better to focus on his fundamentals. As he took in the qi of his embezzled sweet, the line began to reform, and he quickly crunched it down as he took the first of his new orders.