This Venerable Demon is Grossly Unqualified

I might have underestimated Elder Cai. Not her level of social acumen, I was pretty sure I was spot on about that.

I'd just spent hours watching her order disciples about, demanding they fetch things, or perform techniques for her to measure. She'd pulled aside over dozen disciples over the course of six hours. Three of them she'd addressed by the name of their cultivation method. Two had been 'you there'. Five she'd called by name. Three of those names had been correct.

Two of those disciples had politely demurred, as apparently they didn't even study under Elder Cai.

Each time, irritation had flashed across Elder Cai's face, and she'd immediately moved on to the next candidate. I still wasn't quite sure what to make of it, how she spewed out orders and then instantly moved on to the next command, if she felt the denial was for a valid reason. It probably said something about how she thought, but for the life of me I couldn't quite see it.

No, bizarre as her management habits were, they were in the ballpark of what I'd expected. That wasn't what I'd underestimated.

I’d forgotten one very critical factor in selecting any potential coworker. Core formation cultivators didn’t really need to sleep.

“Again.” Elder Cai intoned emotionlessly.

The disciple standing across from me raised one palm before him, then drew his other hand back as if nocking an invisible arrow. I took a stance I'd seen a disciple use on the ship, jian held low at my side ready for an ascending chop.

Two hundred and ninety seven, I counted in my head, as the disciple's fingers twitched. A thin sliver of moonlight raced across the space between us, almost invisible against the ambient glow of the hall.

That didn't matter. It was intended to cut it's target, and I wasn't tracking it with my eyes.

The white light sputtered like liquid as it met my blade.

As the technique shattered, the pool of shadow around our feet rippled. An invisible force clamped down on the broken fragments of light, stabilizing them like gossamer crystals, then dragged them down into the darkness.

Elder Cai called out a series of numbers interspersed with individual characters, which Fang Xiao dutifully transcribed.

Elder Cai's plan, as I understood it, was based on some form of spectral composition. She'd begun to lose me, once she'd start getting into the mathematics of it all. But I was a dab hand at spouting plausible comments that were neither nonsense nor directly betraying my ignorance. As far as I could tell, her goal was to artificially replicate whatever qi phenomena the formation used to identify authorized people. She'd gather up a variety of fragments of different types of qi and techniques, hold them in stasis somehow, and then combine them together to recreate an artificial password or authorization token.

It seemed simple enough in principle, though I wasn't actually that familiar with the concept of spectral composition generally. I knew it's inverse, spectral decomposition could be used to identify chemical compounds via their emitted light when burned. I'd had the privilege of taking general chemistry two twice during my college years, so that little factoid had stuck around. I was pretty sure composition itself was more relevant to music and optics, where the spectra themselves could be created and manipulated. I could see how it might be applied to qi, if the stuff could be modeled as a series of overlapping waves. But I hadn't the foggiest idea how to actually *do* it.

That worked well, because apparently my job here was just to cut things. I didn't need to know if we were trying to copy entire qi signatures or just the odd little qi-tumors the trials seemed to give out. That was all Elder Cai's problem.

Instead, I got to focus on my sword.

"Smaller fragments, next time. Give me less force and more light." Cai called out. "Again."

I hummed a nod of agreement, and felt for my own external qi. It was held close, solely focused on shrouding my sword. It barely took effort, the same attraction that allowed objects shrouding sword intent to be manipulated with sword qi also caused objects those same blades to draw qi towards themselves like magnets.

Was sword qi a single thing? An individual wavelength of qi so to speak, or was it a composition of other kinds?

More specifically, was my sword qi a single thing? I knew other people expressed weapon qi in different ways, like Wang Li's strange matter-consuming light. Mind seemed purer, to my mind at least, but that didn't actually mean it was. It could just be more 'cutting' qi and less 'violence' qi, so to speak.

I set those more philosophical questions aside. I didn't know how to give Elder Cai less force, but I could certainly do smaller fragments. I pushed more qi into the blade, feeling my intent shudder violently.

Another arrow flashed towards me, and was cut down.

This time, the light fell like snow, utterly shattered. It would have faded in an instant, if not for Elder Cai's stabilizing influence.

I wondered what her powers were. Lightning and darkness, gravity and stabilization. It didn't all add up to one concept. Motion perhaps? Darkness could be part of stabilization, stilling light. Lightning could be the inverse of that, transferring energy. Gravity was the odd one out. Perhaps it was just force itself?

More numbers were cast out, bound to ink. I breathed out, waiting, my world reduced to the anticipation of the next swing.

"A few more of those. The variety is good but the quantity is too small to be useful. Bigger arrows too. You're almost in foundation establishment boy, you should be stronger than that."

Three hundred.

Three hundred and one.

Three hundred and two.

At three hundred and twenty six, Elder Cai changed out the disciple. Instead of lunar arrows I cut down false images woven of stars and shadow.

I had to use my eyes for the timing, but the cut was the same.

I kept cutting, until out of the corner of my eye, I saw Su Li.

I'd never been good at reading faces or bodies. Understanding people. Even as a child I'd never been quite heedlessly abrasive as Elder Cai, but it'd taken years of effort for me to really pass as normal.

Su Li was not okay.

She held her sword awkwardly, clutched like a child's blanket. Her eyes were glued to the floor, but her posture was impossibly tense, like she wasn't sure if she wanted to lash out at someone or collapse.

The qi of the hall warped slightly around her, just like it did for so many of the Glass Flower's inner disciples and elders. She'd taken one of the trials, passed it.

"Perhaps I misjudged her." Elder Cai said, a pensive expression on her face. "It seems you saw a potential I did not. Do you think she would be attached to that spiritual organ? It seems well suited for her cultivation, but I would pay well to dissect it. Would you want pills for her? Or a weapon perhaps? I'm sure I could pay Su or Akayama for something suitable. Or I could just pay you in spirit stones. I'm flush this year, the war has been good for business. All the orthodox sects want defensive treasures and motive engines."

Some mad part of me wanted to hit her. Just backhand her as carelessly as she'd tried to do to my disciple. I pushed it down. I was getting very good at that. She'd apologized for it, after Fang Xiao had informed her in hurried whispers that Su Li was mine.

But it'd been the halfhearted apology of a scolded child who almost broke someone else's toy. I was starting to see why Elder Cai had so few apparent allies among the other elders, despite how economically valuable her work was.

"Excuse me." I said instead.

"We don't have enough samples yet. Even with a signature to replicate, I don't have enough material."

I ignored her, turning away to conceal my anger. I cleared my expression as I approached Su Li.

I didn't say anything. Our eyes met for a moment, and I stretched my mask to the limits of it's expressivity. Tried to show her how I cared and worried, without compromising the stern calm of the character of Hu Xin.

I don't think I succeeded. Wordlessly, she fell into step behind me.

I led her to a side chamber that I'd visited earlier, one that didn't contain anything worthy of a cultivator's attention. A pair of Glass Flower outer disciples were there, one watching as the other cultivated.

"Out." I said. My voice sounded even less like my own than it usually did.

One of them opened their mouth to protest. Her sister, possessing better judgement, dragged her away.

We sat in near-silence for a while. Her shoulders shuddered, as quiet noises I pretended not to hear forced their way out of her chest.

Silently, I swore that if a disciple had done this, I would set aside the urge to be the bigger person. Not death. But they would be crying properly, before I was done.

I'd never been good at comforting people. It tended to go hand in hand with struggling to understand them. But even a fool learns a few tricks. I pushed a thread of qi into my ring, and withdrew two mugs of tea, hot as the moment they were poured.

I gently peeled one hand away from her sword, and pressed the mug into it.

She looked up at me, then flinched away.

"I apologize for failing to control my emotions." She said mechanically. "The trial was more unsettling than I expected. My lack of composure reflected poorly upon you. It will not happen again."

"You succeeded. You do not need to be composed."

It wasn't what I wanted to say.

I hated how I danced around the truth with Su Li. I wanted to just pull her aside and give her a hug, to take the vengeance she fixated on off her shoulders and tell her she was allowed to live as a person and want things other than revenge before she reached Core Formation.

I worried a hug might leave her terrified I wanted the same things from her as Elder Liang. And it'd be one thing, if I just happened to kill Kang Guo one day in the future. Trying to dissuade Su Li from doing it herself was another matter entirely. It would be grievously out of character, and unwanted to boot.

Somehow, instead of convincing her to take things slowly, I'd somehow pushed her into diving headlong into the trials.

"Meng Daiyu told us to report our experiences to an elder." She said suddenly.

“Do you want to talk about your experience in the trial?”

Her hands tightened.

"It... It twisted my memories. Blended real places and real people with situations that never occurred. I remembered Geng Ru as a rival criminal. Attributed things you taught me to my father. The more I try to remember it, the less sense pieces makes. I remember fighting Geng Ru as part of a gang war. But we won the war. Even though I lost to Geng Ru, and I was the most powerful cultivator in the street gang."

She paused, then shook her head.

"I should being at the beginning. I took the trial called The Company of Moonlight. When I passed beneath the painted archway, I was drawn into an illusory world. I immediately forgot I was in a trial, and treated it as the true world..."

As she wove her tale, I couldn't help but notice certain similarities. It wasn't the story of Chang'e, or even an adaptation, but elements of it certainly rhymed. The theft of a life extension pill, the strong preying on those who could not defend themselves. It certainly wasn't particularly subtle about what it had been testing, a combination of skill, bravery, and altruism. It certainly lent credence to this temple having been a religious site, and one leaning more towards the orthodox than the demonic.

I had so many questions. Had Chang'e, or this world's analogue, fallen out of favor among her pantheon? Were her name and story wiped from history during the War in Heaven Elder Cai had mentioned?

The way it twisted Su Li's memories without changing the nature of her cultivation overmuch, that put thoughts in my mind. I wondered just how intelligent the mind behind this formation was. Could a construct really create a narrative so smooth and detailed? Or was there a still living cultivator behind this, overseeing the process? Either answer suggested possibilities both interesting and worrying.

As Su Li fell silent, her story complete, I studied her. She still wasn't meeting my eyes.

"You acquitted yourself well." I said. "Succeeded where many of your peers would fail. I am proud of your achievement. Yet you are unsettled."

I hated the weight of the unspoken question. I knew if I asked directly why she was upset, she would answer. But I wanted to give her a choice as much as I wanted to know.

"I was happy." She finally said, choking out the words. "Nothing had changed. I remained the same age. I still stood at the sixth stage of Qi Condensation. Kang Guo still lived. My father was still dead. I knew that the comradery I had found would be temporary, even in the illusion. But I was happy."

"I see."

My heart broke, and a tear formed at the corner of my own eye. I clenched my folded leg so tightly tendons threatened to pop. Squeezed my abdomen until I could no longer take the breaths I did not need. My heart could break, my mask would not.

“Master." She finally finished. "Is being a cultivator always lonely?”

Oh Su Li. It was such a simple thing in the end.

“To be a cultivator is to seek power." The worlds spilled out of me unbidden, speeches I'd planned and things I'd feared merging together of their own accord. "There is no way around that. Each of us holds the lives of our juniors in our hands. I have yet to meet a single cultivator whose practice could not be turned to violence if they so chose. Even the most peaceful of immortal doctors bears within them the seed of carnage beyond mortal imagination.

“If you continue down this road, people will want things from you. Protection. Teaching. Resources. Others will fear you. What you might do, the day you reach their realm. Friendship without thought for gain or loss is a beautiful thing. But like most beautiful things, it is rare. Sometimes it is cultivated like a garden. Other times it is born in a flash from a confluence of time and fate, a bond like a bolt of lightning.

“It becomes harder as we age. And we cultivators will live on long after mortal bones have turned to dust. Centuries of cynicism and violence will scar even the strongest hearts.

“I am old, Disciple Su. I have lost more close companions than you have ever known, to time and betrayal, or paths diverging. Yet, even knowing how some of those brotherhoods would end, precious few of them would I say were not worth the journey. A cultivator must be able to stand alone against the world, but that does not mean they must always be alone.”

I paused. I hadn't meant to say quite that much. But I meant every word of it, even if most of it was a lie.

“I ramble. To answer your question disciple, yes, it is a lonely road. But it is a loneliness to be fought with a heart as open as you can bear. Heaven is not the only thing a cultivator must defy.”

It wasn't what Hu Xin would have said. But I would die before I let Su Li become a sword. I blinked. How dramatic my inner monologue had become. Still, I meant it.

“I see.” Su Li said quietly.

I worried, at what she might have seen, but I set it aside. I'd let my fear control me for weeks, it was past time I stopped.

"Master. How do I put these memories aside? I know them to be false. But I still long for the voices of brothers and sisters who never were. I... I find myself doubting the path I walked. Wondering if there was a better way."

A way other than the Pathless Night, she meant. A thought I wanted to encourage, but not in that context. Still, this was a question I could answer. I lived a variation of it, after all.

"You cannot live in an illusion."

I paused.

"I know that, Master."

"Imagine, that you woke once more." I continued, ignoring the interruption. "That all this life was revealed to be a dream. Another trial perhaps. Myself, your family, your friends, every passing kindness a stranger showed you. Every connection you had ever known, false."

Su Li shivered.

"If that happened, and you awoke a different woman in a different life. Your memories the only proof any of these people had ever been. Would you still live as your father taught you?"

"Of course I would!"

"Why?" I asked calmly.

"I... I don't have a good answer. But how could I do otherwise?"

"Then carry forward what you can, and let go of what you must. Remember what I told Fang Xiao. Sometimes true or false is the wrong question. This is the world we live in. Even if the trial showed you a future that could have been, and I greatly doubt that it did, that does not change the fact that it is not. But if it was a fabrication, that does not make you wrong to want what you had there."

"How can it not matter? Whether a memory is true or not?"

"You remember events as you remember them. They will fade in time, absent repetition to reinforce them. But they're true to you. You can't live in an illusion, even one that could have been. Yet you can't cut a memory away just by knowing it to be false. Even my sword yet lacks that quality. That doesn't mean you can't use those experiences to make better choices tomorrow, even as they fade."

A fragile silence fell between us. Perhaps it was the wrong answer I gave. Perhaps it was different for her, now that she remembered the rest of her life again. But it was the answer that sustained me, on those long nights I spent wondering if the life I remembered had ever been real at all.

That it yet lived on in me.

Then Su Li yawned. She flushed immediately, embarrassed.

I carefully did not smile.

"Philosophy will keep." I said quietly. "Sleep, I will see that you are not disturbed."

This wasn't a bedroom, but we hadn't yet found any within the outer layer of the temple complex. And a qi condensation cultivator could sleep just fine on stone.

Su Li nodded blearily, then perked up.

"I touched something, in the trial." She said. "A moment of enlightenment perhaps. I felt the beginnings of something that seemed like it could become a technique. One for movement, or defense. It's hard to put into words. Close as the moon overhead, and as far away. Untouchable."

I did smile this time, and broadly. It was perhaps the wrong thing to encourage. But I was happy for her.

"I will give you all the help I can, to explore and develop it. Tomorrow."

I left Su Li a few blankets, before moving to sit outside the chamber's door. I pulled a small knife from the arsenal in my ring, imbuing it with intent and setting it to spin atop a finger. It'd become something of a fidgeting exercise for me these last few days, a way to work on finer control.

The elders would meet soon. If Su Li had passed a trial, I had no doubt Meng Daiyu had done the same. Our young mistress and the Glass Flowers all seemed to know something I didn't. Seemed to think that this was a race, not a conquest.

The actions of the Glass Flowers, antagonizing their host nation, rather than allying with them against us, made little sense otherwise. They had to think their was something here to acquire that could be taken from the temple, and either hidden or held against theft. An inheritance? Full control over the formation itself? Perhaps it had a further mode that would return the temple to it's hidden state?

That, or their disunity was a farce, and they were simply waiting for imperial reinforcements, before attacking us. Unlikely, given that they'd gone so far as to deny the army encamped outside entrance. But still possible.

I needed more information. Any play the other sects made would almost by definition involve taking me off the board somehow. And any plan they made to handle the old Hu would be overkill against me.

I stopped the spinning knife with a qi-coated finger, plunging it into a wall. I pulled gently on it with my aura. It was annoying me that I couldn't pull myself towards my swords. I could use the additional mobility, if I were ever disarmed. It made no sense, that I could push or pull them, and yet there was no reactionary force upon my body. That definitely violated the conservation of something. Energy? Force?

I was still missing something still. It had to be possible.

What could I do, to give myself more cards to play when the knives finally came out?

An idea struck me. It was a little reckless. But I had a bad feeling about the storm brewing around us. Perhaps it was past time for a little recklessness.