Memories of the Fall

There are two places in the world I have come to truly despise with a dread passion worthy of the Nameless Fate itself. The sitting room of my mother-in-law… and those Inner Valleys below the Yin Eclipse Great Mount. At least where my mother-in-law is concerned I can be certain that the fates might answer my prayers, because they are certainly blind before that accursed mountain.

~Anonymous Hunter Bureau Official.

~ Ha Yun – The Herb Hunters ~

Ha Yun cursed his aching muscles as he crawled across a narrow ledge. Behind him, Sir Jing silently followed with a much more practised ease. He had regrown his arm, thanks to Kun Juni in the end. It had come as a surprise to almost all of them that a Nascent Soul cultivator’s physical recovery was also suppressed up here. More embarrassingly, it turned out that among all those present, none of their group had brought any of those types of recovery pills. While mundane, they were pointlessly expensive for the resources involved and few cultivators would bother with them.

The only reason Kun Juni had an 'Immaculate Recovery Pill', as far as he could garner from the hushed and quite judgemental discussion between the five, was that limb loss was was a not uncommon hazard up here. The pill Sir Jing used was also one of only three they had with them, so in the end Senior Huang had actually paid her spirit stones for it, which seemed over the top to him, given Hunter 'ethics' mandated the pooling of such resources on officially-sanctioned trips.

He presumed that that was yet another reason his mother had had him certified at five-star and then ensured he never take a mission over three, ever. The idea of losing an arm to a plant was... embarrassing.

Looking ahead, he shivered as another fern rained on his head. Jun Arai was scouting the path into the refuge from what he could see. It had been a shock to see Sana and Arai here, but it made sense in a way. The obfuscation was impressive, as was the desperation. The Local Bureau Authority sent the best team they could out into the deepest depths of this place to make sure they evaded censure, even being willing to risk accusations of corruption to do so. It was hardly noble, and stank of desperation, but the plot wasn’t any of his business. Over the last few days a little part of him, a part that had been hidden away since he was seven or eight at least, the part that wanted to feel like he was achieving something worthwhile with his own skill, was now finding that he was nonetheless annoyed at it. It felt dishonourable somehow, and petty... his clan shouldn't have to descend to the same level as the Bureau to achieve its goals.

He stopped letting his mind wander and focused on not falling into the vegetative hell below. The exotic mix of mid-grade spirit herbs down there meant that he probably wouldn’t know what killed him, assuming they ever found his corpse. Behind him, he could hear the steady drone of conversation between Fairy Luo and the other, who according to her was Ji Tantai. She was probably still denying how preposterous this place actually was. The squirrel had been a shock to everyone; a creature powerful enough to crack a spatial cage on a relatively high realm containment talisman with its bare paws would, outside this mountain range, be able to take human form and probably lead a mid-sized power. He had known of the squirrel already – although he had never seen it in person, it was somewhat infamous among the Hunter teams, the Beast Cadre and even the independent experts within the province. The Cadre apparently refused to hunt it down, despite several outraged demands at various points, and seemed to view the thing more like some kind of comedic or totemic mascot. That said more for their eccentric leader than anything else really, in his view. There was little comedic about a creature that had dodged an artefact-spawned lightning bolt and smashed a spatial cage seemingly at whim and did it up here, where the suppression was what it was. The lack of enthusiasm for hunting it down made sense if it was that powerful: what if there were more? If they came out of the valleys it might make the soul setting fiasco of a few years back seem tame.

Carefully moving around a slick boulder, shrouded in water fern, he eventually found the subtly hidden gap that Han Shu had slipped through. Pushing past the fern to find the overhang beyond it, carefully in case there was something nasty skulking that Han Shu had missed, he saw the Herb Hunter vanish, pulling himself up over the lip of a water-eroded hole in the side of the overhang above them. A few moments’ scrambling and he threw out a guide rope behind him to show the others following where to enter.

-Not that there is a need, really, a small voice in his mind pointed out. Lin Ling and Jun Sana brought up the rear now and, while he might dislike both of them personally, both were more than pretty faces in terms of their general competence, whatever the views around him on the Pavilion’s promotion practices. There had been two instances where the straggler – Sir Cao and then Ha Leng – had been caught by trappish vines in the hours since they made it off the ridgeline and up under this oppressive cliff face, so now the Hunters brought up the rear all the time. The others grumbled, pointlessly in this case, while he was just happy to move quickly through this hell towards somewhere hopefully a little less casually lethal.

“Up here, watch the moon rune,” came a warning from above him.

He glanced up to see Arai leaning over a further ledge that led into an enclosed cave space. His suppressed qi vision was still enough to show him that it was both sheltered and miraculously dry. As he made his way up he looked to his left and saw the barely visible moon rune ward that informed the visitor that this was a Cadre Way Station – not so miraculous then. But... Ah. He guessed they had authority talismans to find them, since this far in they wouldn't be using their own knowledge. He nodded tiredly then slid over the side, Sir Jing following. He politely pointed out the rune as he came up, just in case. Sir Jing nodded his thanks and moved to sit in front of it, forestalling any accidents with any who might follow if they scrambled up the wrong side. The thing appeared to be active.

A few minutes later, Ha Yun looked around the surprisingly spacious cave from where he sat slumped onto the ground by the far wall. Arai was busily messing with a small fire, seemingly fiddling with the ward stones that gave it its starting fuel. Han Shu was busy processing bits of the lamium. He blinked and found himself wondering where they had found the time to actually grab bits of it... unless they had been dealing with it for quite some time before their arrival, slowly suppressing it down piece by piece and harvesting its roots one at a time. He winced inwardly at that; that meant that their arrival had really been a crowbar in the Hunters’ works. The talismans had shown that the five were broadly stationary within their variance for several hours prior to the teleportation. He guessed it was because they were slowly wearing the plant down somehow without actually damaging it severely before harvesting the majority of it.

This whole thing was looking more unfortunate by the hour really. The ‘revised’ plan, such as it was, had been for them to catch up and use the Valley Master’s authority to forcibly make the Hunter team tag along with them, by force of arms if necessary. They would then have taken the combined team to check the locations that the Ha family knew of that might present viable anomalies or rare spiritual herbs that would fulfil the criteria of the trial. That another group, from Blue Water City no less, had managed the same 'bright idea' and somehow picked the same group was a bit too coincidental.

He turned that over in his mind as the others sorted themselves out. It would be necessary to try to find out why they also picked this group. He was unable to see the cultivation realm of those three, although Sir Huang had passed to him that young masters Din Ouyeng and Ji Tantai were both stronger than the mid-Golden Core cultivations they proclaimed to have. Only Luo Ling was as she proclaimed, early Core Formation. Even so, their core quality, which appeared genuine according to Sir Huang, was exceptional for their age. Thankfully it wasn't excessive for their station, which supported their claims to be minor scions of nobility and outer disciples of a branch of the Jade Gate Court. The two youths were pure gold with a white hue, while Ling Luo was pale gold with purple: All third grade, twenty-four or twenty-five rotation cores. Probably variant ‘Soul Gold’ Cores as the classifications went.

Compared to him they were actually slightly lacking, given their older ages and the hidden wealth of the Ha family – rather than clan – that had gone into his. Resources were no object for ensuring their sole male heir in this branch with a decent spirit root had an exceptional Golden Core when he broke through, particularly in a town where they controlled the vast majority of the spiritual plants market, and so his core was pure gold with a white and purple hue and had made twenty-nine rotations before he forced it to form.

When Kun Juni arrived inside, following behind the now silent and slightly tired-looking pair of Ji Tantai and Luo Ling, Arai glanced in their direction. “Sis?”

“She’s setting the perimeter wards,” Kun Juni replied before continuing, he was sure for the others’ benefit, “We want warning if we have to actually use that moon rune in the night.”

Ling Luo sniffed and turned to Sir Jing, whom she had been cosying up to quite a bit he noted during their hike. “Honoured Sir, why are we letting the indigenous do such an important task? Surely—”

Sir Huang was the one who politely interrupted her, drawing a ward so that their conversation would not obviously disturb the others in the cave. “Miss Jun Sana is a nine-star rank Herb Hunter, Miss Ling, and I am also at pains to point out, in her absence, that her record precede her significantly in certain circles and she is also not indigenous.”

Sir Jing nodded wearily and, leaning forward, spoke quietly, “Senior Huang is right. This team here is perhaps the most elite team that West Flower Picking Town is capable of fielding for exploration in these mountains.”

Sir Cao was sat by the wall, expressionless. Sir Huang had chastised him a bit for nearly letting Han Shu die, which hadn't gone down all that well, but Sir Cao seemed unwilling to pick a fight with the older man over it... for now at least.

Pausing to shift off a rock, Sir Huang went on. “Miss Sana is a nine-star Hunter. Miss Arai is a nine-star ranked Hunter authorised to carry out recovery missions, as is the lad, Han Shu, who is the only indigenous in this group by the way. Regarding the other two; Young Miss Kun Juni is an eight-star Hunter, also authorised for recovery missions, and Young Miss Lin Ling is also an eight-star Hunter in her own right. Both will soon take the nine-star certification.”

Sir Huang gave Fairy Luo a long look and added. “But as the Young Miss of the Imperial Envoy Bureau’s Deputy Chief in Blue Water City, you knew all that already I am sure, it has been a difficult trek… of course.”

That spoke to the difference in diplomatic skills really, Sir Huang was personally put in his group at the behest of the family elders apparently. Mollifying people like these city-bred young nobles was just a course of habit to someone like that…

Sir Jing nodded at the three genially and smiled. “Now comes the bit where you explain why you’re also out here. I know why you’re out there. But why are you out here.”

Ha Yun looked on from the sidelines, across the three who were frowning a bit as they gave some rather expected non-answers to Sir Jing's questions. They were not... rude exactly, but neither Ji Tantai nor Din Ouyeng seemed at all interested in explaining their motives beyond some vague attestations that it was beneficial for them to help each other.

He understood why Sir Jing was worried. Sir Teng had been the strongest out of all of the four guards and he had died… a very stupid death. He might have been saved immediately, given his cultivation, had the following teleportation not occurred and sent his soul to heaven knows where. Sir Cao was only at the Nascent Soul level, but Sir Huang and Sir Jing were both at least quasi-Immortal realm and Sir Teng...

He shivered, thinking of that stunned expression as the earth corrosion killed his body before he could even react due to the suppression. Sir Teng had been a Chosen Immortal one step away from becoming a Golden Immortal, a genuine strength within the Ha family in this region.

There would be repercussions down the line if he was indeed properly dead as a result of something so… banal. Even he, though he was from one of the inheriting branches out here, might struggle to shoulder those questions, he thought sourly. Sir Teng had been an ascender from a lower realm, someone who had advanced to where he was with an accumulation in the tens of thousands of years of hard endeavour and trial. There was a big difference between such a peak Chosen Immortal and even someone like him, let alone these three, in the family’s eyes.

Sadly the conversation between Sir Jing and the three was truncated when the blue-gowned youth, Din Ouyeng finally tired of the questions and cut him off curtly and stated that as a disciple of the Jade Gate Court, it was they who should be explaining their presence. Neither of the pair seemed at all concerned by offending the three elite guards either. Sir Jing gave them a considered look for a moment.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught the hand motion from Sir Huang to drop it... for now. Sir Jing nodded and sat back, sorting out some stuff in his pack, ignoring the smirks from the two youths who moved away and started to confer quietly with Fairy Ling Luo.

On the walk out of the valley, Sir Jing had answered some of his questions about the suppression. Ha Yun had heard of it but never been this far in. Apparently Sir Huang had, although only once, with the previous Blue Duke’s expedition thirty years previously: he had not entered the interior of the range, and instead held one of the vital retreat posts in case it all went wrong. That had been an interesting reveal, since before that point he hadn’t realised that Sir Huang, despite his lower cultivation strength compared to Sir Teng, was actually one of the Special Envoys within the Ha family who liaised with the Duke's household on certain undisclosed military matters.

In recent years he had started to suspect that the Ha family and the Ha clan were not... quite the same thing, mainly starting with the surprising preparations for his Golden Core breakthrough… this little snippet of information suggested his suspicions were closer to the mark than he had dared to wonder.

“Everyone is in bar... Sana?” Kun Juni asked, looking around.

“Yes, Miss Kun,” Sir Huang said, also glancing around.

“Yep,” Arai confirmed… “Sis will arm the exterior ward when she closes the entrance.”

“Good… it’s been a long day,” the Kun daughter sighed, finally sitting down against the back wall.

That would mean they were locked in here for the night, probably, although he supposed Sir Huang or Sir Jing might be able to disarm it. Dismissing that, he turned his thoughts back to the suppression and his experience with it so far… the influence of the great mountain that Fairy Luo had so derided was indeed a thing, although he couldn’t feel it. Eventually, he went over and asked Sir Jing for his thoughts, as he was unclear on the exact principles at play. What knowledge he knew of was locked away by rankings in the HunterBureau.

Sir Jing was quite content to talk on the matter, to his surprise, explaining that the Ha family did have their own store of knowledge. The reason he didn’t know it was because it was usually only shared with those who had formed Nascent Souls, crossing over Soul Foundation. The basis of the suppression itself, Sir Jing explained, seemed to radically limit their ability to manipulate the qi of their surroundings. At this point, Ha Leng and Ha Mao joined him, so it became an impromptu seminar for the three of them on realm suppression. Some of it he already knew; for example, while they were here, they had known that they would only have what qi they could carry in their dantian and meridians, and whatever they could replenish through spirit stones and such. What he hadn’t known was that the suppression affected the soul more than the body, and the spiritual aspects of the body’s cultivation more than non-spiritual. Everyone, regardless of their initial realm, was suppressed to at the peak of Golden Core, their Nascent Souls repressed to peak Nascent Soul and unable to leave their bodies. That certainly explained Sir Teng’s unfortunate end, he thought with a shudder.

Sir Jing also told them that he had, on previous journeys in the lower valleys, tried on several occasions to use his qi to fly or teleport short distances. The latter was apparently possible, if excessively inefficient without the use of stored qi and talisman anchors, due to the suppressions on soul perception, but flight for whatever reason was outright impossible in the shadow of the mountain itself. When Ha Deng asked if it was feasible to wait for the shadow to pass, Sir Jing had fallen silent and Sir Huang, who was nearby, just shook his head and said very firmly that the High Valleys when the shadow wasn’t in effect were not a place for them to be.

The chat lasted a bit longer than Ha Yun had expected, thanks to Ha Mao and Ha Lengs’ contributions. It was finally truncated when Jun Sana pulled herself up through the hole in the floor and pushed a brushwood cover over it once she was fully in. On the back of that cover, Ha Yun noticed another moon rune, unobtrusively carved across several of the sticks as Sana arranged them in a specific pattern. He saw Sir Jing and Sir Huang glance at it in passing and raise an eyebrow, but the others didn’t seem to notice anything.

They ate in silence, the food mostly ration pills turned into soup, with a few herbs thrown in to make them a bit more palatable. In contrast he noted that the five Hunters all had proper, albeit basic food:. bread and potted soup in jars monographed with ‘Gu’ indicating they came from Mrs Leng personally. He was almost tempted to get Sir Cao to request they share some with him, but thought better of it at the last moment. They had a long trip ahead and making those five more at odds with their personal responsibilities as mandated by the Valley Master was probably not a good idea.

He was still thinking on the day’s events when he drifted off to sleep, which was… not peaceful, he found himself waking up every hour or so or due to paranoia and then later stiffness…

~ Sir Huang – Beast Cadre Way Station ~

The five Herb Hunters sat quietly around the back of the cave, seemingly ignoring the other occupants who were asleep or meditating. To an onlooker, they would have seemed to just be fidgeting as they worked on their various tasks. However, Sir Huang – Lan Huang to give him his full name or Daoist Worldly Fisher to give him his esoteric if slightly boring title – did not consider himself ‘just another onlooker’ by any stretch. The presence of him and the other three, posing guards, on this mission was already exceeding the cost that perhaps the Supreme Elder of the Ha clan was willing to pay, now that Jing and Caos’ Senior, Sir Teng was so embarrassingly incapacitated. It was unlikely he was dead given he was an ascender with a proper Immortal baptism. But wherever his soul had been sent he would spend a long time walking back from in all likelihood, assuming it was even in this world. If there was a saving grace there it was that the three who came after didn’t yet understand their mistake. By the time the angry mortal ascension Chosen Immortal returned, he would have dealt with matters appropriately in any event, once they were returned from this place.

The enchantments disguising the cultivation of the two youths were profound, but whoever put them there probably hadn’t reckoned that the Ha family itself was beyond paranoid when it came to the way the Ha clan at large, and various outside forces affiliated with it, politicked. That was why the Old Freak’s son, Supreme Ancestral Elder Kai, had dragged him out of his exploration of the Dao of Fishing and packed him off to oversee the weedy end of his… as he put it ‘unfilial descendants, who are going to get a bit too close to the Din clan and the Jade Gate for this old geezer’s liking’.

If the Old Freak wasn’t known for being frustratingly honest in everything except his gaming habits with his eldest child and only son, he would have thought the man was plotting his demise, in all honesty, sending him in here, given the dangers this land posed to someone of his cultivation.

This body was something the Original Old Ancestor’s son had delivered a few days later. A ‘Mortal Excession Puppet’ no less, appearing to be Dao Seeking on the outside, yet with a combat power close to that of a peak Golden Immortal that could barely be suppressed in here and durability comparable to a Dao Lord. Apparently the puppet was made with arcane arts from beyond their sky, a proper treasure. It was a challenge to appear as if he had a Dao Seeking cultivation in all honesty.

There were some downsides of course, to using such a puppet, the dulling of his senses and an inability to use soul strength being foremost among them. Still, they were reasonably infamous. He would have, in his own politicking days, given his own back teeth and maybe a firstborn daughter, well married as she was into the Huang clan, to find out how the old man had actually gotten one of these weapons of a previous aeonspan into the realm plane... let alone was willing to give it up in such a manner just to protect Ha Yun.

Without the puppet, he would have probably refused, in all honesty. The danger to life and limb for someone of his realm in here was excessive. He was old enough to know the real stories, to have seen some of the things and spoken to some of those who survived trips into this place eighty thousand-odd years past, when he was just a Dao Immortal.

In the end, though, the promise given by Supreme Ancestral Elder Ha Kai, of a way to cultivate safely to a Peerless Earthly Principle before Dao Eternal, just to tag along with a Golden Core seedling like Ha Yun and see that nothing too untoward happened in the depths of this place over the next few months was, frankly, far too good to pass up. 85,000 years of fishing in quiet ponds and pools throughout the lands of the Easten continent’s far shore in search of the inner workings of Fate had brought a newer perspective on matters. Fate watching, as the various old ancestors liked to sometimes call it, was an important part of preparing for Ascension once you crossed the threshold of Dao Immortal and started to seriously consider the path before you. Before two weeks ago he had mostly resigned himself to a minor earthly state in this regard.

Whatever opportunity Old Ancestor Ha Kai and his father, Original Ancestor Ha Tai Wen, could provide was unlikely to achieve the same level as the Original Ancestor himself, who was so close to the threshold of a fundamental Supreme Truth you could practically smell the lightning in the air and see the evil little golden lily blossoms that tried to hide behind things when he was in the room. However, what he was being offered, including the use of that space, made him confident that he could at least arrive at a point where he could make the lightning really curse him when he kicked its thieving ass and trampled all over its soul-scattering flowers when he became a Dao Eternal.

And so he watched the conversation that was going on at the back of the cave, even as he mused to himself on the oddities of circumstance and happenstance that were unravelling around him. The two girls that were daughters of the war hero boy and that unusual young woman he had taken as his Dao Partner, whose death was definitely a ‘thing’ his teacher, the Original Ancestor, had talked about. A ‘flag’, whatever that was? It was from one of those odd relics that the Old Freak possessed. He was a known collector of all sorts of eccentric curios after all.

Both the Original Ancestor and his son were remarkably on edge, despite their feigned disinterest in their future generations, he had to feel. They worried, as he did in all honesty, that their Ha family was up to something stupidly devious in their current machinations, and he couldn’t blame them for their unease, really. The stupidity that had been attempted on the elder daughter here just to try to gain some minor points in local power control was just... He could barely credit it. The Old Ancestor had actually banged his head against a tree when he thought nobody was looking when they learned of it, after he was called back.

The Shu tribe boy was also edgy; it seemed he was concerned about the other three, their arrival was too pat. And they were too… easy? The sign language was really quite cunning… ‘Too easy to read’. The boy's sign dialect was fast and fluid, hard to read through intent in a puppet's body using only Immortal eyes. The other two were engaged in their own quiet conversation, held through sign and words. Different team signs? -Interesting. But banal in content, largely, as he watched them idly. Except…

The Lin girl somehow got the attention of the other three and signed that the spear the purple boy wielded was too powerful for a Qi Refinement cultivator to use. It took him a second to try to work that out, replaying the conversations of the group in his mind. -Ah yes. They had managed to insinuate that they were peak Spiritual Qi Refinement on the walk. None of the group other than the three of them, Ha Yun and Ling Luo were openly beyond Qi Refinement. Among the five here, all of them were at best peak Qi Condensation, even if they were all in Physical Refinement or Foundation. That was a good observation, for cultivators of their realm.

He was also pleased that Ha Yun hadn’t bought it, although there the fiction was that they were at Golden Core, disguising their cultivations at Qi Refinement. Yun was that level, even if his perception was lacking due to inexperience. That their cover didn't sit for him meant he had learned something at least. It sometimes grated to see the degradation in talent within the wider family, particularly in the last few thousand years.

The others all agreed and added their own little observations. Interesting, very interesting. You did indeed have to see things in a different way to survive long up here. At his realm, he took it as matter of course, but their observation methodology was well above their realm, on a par with someone at Soul Foundation at least. This cave was just another example of that. He had found it from several miles out, and two others besides, and had been curious why they came here specifically until he saw the moon rune on the wooden brush cover. Young Jing had seen it too and had the good sense to not react, making sure the three problematic ones didn't investigate it too closely. That thing was a 'Slaughter Moon' that would execute anything below Dao Lord that tried to attack this place once activated.

He almost had to do a double-take at what the younger Jun girl signed next.

She pointed out that the Ling girl ‘didn’t know how she was’. That took him a second, and some amused clarification signs on their behalf before she continued. The girl ‘didn’t know who she was’. Which was apparently impossible because she had arranged for her to carry out some special request for the Ling Big Miss in Blue Water City not a week previous, and greeted her warmly when she arrived there. She worried that something was going on with the two boys and agreed again with the Shu boy that it was too neat.

That titbit he stashed away. It seemed someone was going to have to make the trip back, or at least out of the shadow, to make some private requests for more information in the next few days. Probably Jing. He was the more trustworthy of the two, and the Cao boy wasn't impressing him. Better to keep Cao where he could direct him.

When the Kun girl signed: ‘Do you think all this… trial… has to do with the ‘shadow on the path’?’ however, it took a lot of effort not to stand up.

The other four all fell silent and then signed as one: 'Definitely. Jun Sana added: ‘And the less we have to do with that nameless-blessed phenomenon the better’.

He would have to make some very careful queries to the Kun girl about that, because the ‘Shadow’ was something that nobody in the current generation should know about, bar the Duke's forces from thirty years ago. It had never made an appearance – a recorded appearance –, since then. It was possible that the Hunter Bureau had sealed the knowledge as well and all these hunters were over eight stars, which put their clearance well above anything any of those here, bar he himself, could rival, having once, over 100,000 years ago been classified as a ten-star ranked Beast Hunter on the western continent. He had never bothered to check their sealed records before rushing out here to look after Ha Yun… that might have been a mistake.

He was just considering how best to plot that dangerous conversation when the older Jun girl, Arai, signed: ‘Don’t worry Juni.’

The younger girl, Sana, added: ‘It tilts oblique as far as we know.'

The Shu boy finished with: ‘So long as we stay on the west-facing ridges and hunt along that path we can avoid the occlusion zone for as long as we need to.’

That... Not only did they know about the Dao Occlusion, but they knew how to avoid it? Either the sealed records of the Bureau regarding this place had made a huge leap forward in the past 100,000 years or this group were really hiding their cards... Even from the Pavilion itself, which he really wouldn’t be able to criticise them for, given the way West Flower Picking was based on his updated understanding of its recent history upon returning. On reflection, as he watched them sign on, he wasn’t going to bet against the latter. Being a sneaky paranoid bastard was not a talent exclusive to the older generation and watching these five was a reminder that just because brats like Ha Yun could barely puzzle their way out of a paper sack, not everyone was that coddled.

There was a flurried few minutes’ discussion of what they could target next that would fulfil the criteria of their mission while not causing their deaths through a bunch of idiots with loud feet traipsing along behind them. The use of euphemism in the signage was impressive, their opinions of their group, not so much. He knew why the Hunters used it, most of the old ancestors and hermitic individuals who spent time in and around these mountains encountered the psychic plants; the things were a travelling menace and occasionally managed to roam out of the outer zone. Although, fortunately, they were much weakened when they did, so even mortals could overcome the problem they posed. If you spent time in the valleys and had to hunt down things that could read your mind, you got good really quickly about keeping your thoughts still and finding other ways to communicate. Or you got dead, and someone else had the sad, sorry job of coming and looking for your corpse, assuming you died with one extant.

Watching their continued conversation as he digested the surprising depth of knowledge they possessed, stuff that only the Old Freak or perhaps the previous Duke would be truly familiar with within the context of this place, he was further impressed at the perception of the five. Their recounting of their trip for the day spoke of a deep ethos of preparation and self-discipline. Their willingness to share such information as they compared notes on various observations, all through the strange sign seal language with some incidental and seemingly natural movements to punctuate complex points, spoke to prolonged experience with life and death situations. It wasn’t so much that this was unusual by itself, any Militia unit or Legion would have this ethos, the surprising thing was that these five, who were Herb Hunters from a backwater province, were so akin to an auxiliary squad in a Legion's scouting command. Now, if only Ha Yun's little band could learn from them. That was the kind of skills he should be picking up from the Hunter Pavilion, not the toadying shit he was doing at the family’s behest.

Thinking back through their trip here, as he watched their discussion he was able to see their deduction process at work. They were blending local knowledge and instinct with some surprisingly advanced, if rather niche, qi theorems for their age and purported education. They had no way of knowing that he was watching them as they compiled the information into their jade scripts, so disguised nothing.

Ha Yun had thought they were leeching off the Beast Cadre, but that was a patent disservice from what he could see now. He would have to give the boy a few subtle pointers about not dismissing the expertise of others out of hand, perhaps. Returning to the five, their respect for the dangers of this place was another area where they were far above their age. The others, even Jing, who had been here several times, didn’t have enough respect. They believed too much in their own strength to overcome obstacles here. He had already had a quiet word with Jing and Cao on the path after they moved away from that Aspen Grove.

Jing had been embarrassed by his own lack of sight and Cao was still sulking and looking for faults, their differing reactions the difference in acquired experience really. The thought that they had unknowingly teleported into the maw of what was at the very least a colossal Dao Eternal spirit plant still made him sweat. He should have been the one to lead the teleport, not Ha Teng. If it had been an active thing, they would have all died without knowing what killed them. His instincts were not suppressed by the puppet and he had felt nothing while actually inside its domain until the Ji boy did whatever he had done with that last talisman to scare off the centipede... which was another oddity, actually, that was not a talisman anyone under Immortal without huge backing should have.

After they finished and as they took turns dozing off, he found himself wondering if any of them would be interested in becoming core disciples of his own school. He had to admit he had not paid much attention to it over the last ten thousand years but he still got reports that it did well on the western continent and had good standing. There was a lot to be said for smart, observant disciples who knew when to cut and run, after all. Those kinds of students were, he pondered, frustratingly rare in a world where teenagers were able to break boulders by the age of twelve and tear holes in the fabric of reality before their voices had dropped or their assets fully matured. If they all survived, and fate willed it, he might consider a subtle invite or two. The Hunter Bureau on the western continent was one he was quite familiar with, and if their cultivations advanced suitably, to... say Dao Seeking, an easy feat with their comprehension and appropriate teaching, then they would have little issue with their current depth of knowledge making a real name for themselves. It would also be an opportunity to experience a new world, far away from the petty machinations of this subcontinent.

~ Dun Lian Jing – Blue Water City, Myriad Blossom Teahouse. ~

“Why here?” Tan Fang asked curiously as they sat on the upper veranda of the teahouse in Blue Water City.

“My Senior Sister likes food,” Huang JiLao spoke on her behalf, as she sat there looking out at the square.

“Ran Hao is late as always," she sighed.

Picking up her cup of tea she took a sip. She had provided them with some acceptable tea on her last visit, which they had now served back to her it seemed, so there was hope for this place after all... maybe.

“Brother Ran had to go see the Sect Master of the Feng Fang Pavilion,” Tan Fang supplied… “He said he didn’t think he would be late, but…”

“Some minor local clan is worth more than this Princess’s time?” she sniffed.

She didn't really mean it. His being late gave her a chance to enjoy more of the food here. Using Ran Hao, who was someone she could mostly tolerate, as an excuse for that seemed fair really. He wasn’t as easygoing as JiLao, but there was a reason they were sworn brothers. Him not caring overly that she was a ‘princess’ was just part and parcel of that. From anyone less, it would be a slight, but she could let it pass. He was a Mortal Realm ascender after all, and only affiliated with the Huang clan, not a school or organisation. A person worth cultivating, in short, who might well move beyond the confines of this world eventually.

“Where are the rest of the White Storm Sect that came with you?” she asked, changing the topic.

The fact that they weren't there was... problematic really: they were the ones sent by her teacher to act as proper muscle. If she couldn't control them, then they would have to look elsewhere.

“Err…” Tan Fang had the grace to look awkward… “They went with Yan Ju… to play around.”

It was a good thing she was wearing her veil because the temptation to curse was high. “I suppose it’s too late to get someone more reliable?”

Tan Fang winced, which was his right, she supposed, she was basically – if rightly – slandering his sect brothers.

But rather than rise to it, he just sighed resignedly. “The original missive by the Supreme Elder stated that Yan Ju was to lead out an expedition at the behest of the Honoured Imperial Teacher. I am only here… because the vice sect master thought that someone who had a better relationship with the Huang clan should come..."

“Oh,” JiLao nodded. "There was that. Yan Ju killed Huang Jurong in the last Dragon Pillar trial, didn't he?"

"He did,” Tan Fang sighed. "I know he wasn't from your Wuli branch, but still..."

She turned that over in her mind as JiLao and Tan Fang started talking about specifics. JiLao had been noticeably reticent in the last few days about the instructions they were getting. She had badgered him a bit about it but he seemed unwilling to talk, so she couldn’t really force him. She had however noticed that he was wearing an heirloom with Lady Shan’s mark on it everywhere they went, and had been ever since the day in Headmaster Lu Ji’s office, in fact. Lady Shan was someone not even the powerhouses of the Imperial Court would cross easily in her role the unofficial custodian of the Huang clan’s Wuli branch in this world. Which was to say that she was someone from the Huang's Wuli Throne World, likely a Worldly Venerate that was here to keep an eye on things with the Kong clan.

She wanted to think it was just paranoia on JiLao's part. Her Uncle, Dun Jian had always been the one who stood up for her and helped her when she was at her lowest in the Imperial Court, when her mother was being suppressed. Even though he had a bit of a dubious reputation in some quarters, he was, over the years, still the one who had looked out for her most, provided her with opportunities to rise as she had done. Without him, as much as it galled, she would barely have made it into the upper half of the Imperial Rankings, never mind her current status.

“What do you think?”

She blinked: she had missed the last bit of the conversation.

“?” she stared at them blankly… it would be beneath her to ask them to repeat it after all.

“…..”

Both JiLao and Tan Fang stared at her for second before JiLao recovered with a wry half-smile she pretended not to see.

“Brother Fang was asking if we should visit the auction house, to supplement our supplies somewhat. That way we are not relying on Yan Ju quite so much.”

“Oh…” she considered.

It would make sense certainly. Not that they were badly stocked… but getting some crappy, lower-tier talismans and artefacts to pad out their arsenal and make up for the idiots who thought playing about was more important than their 'task' would not be a terrible thing.

“Yes… that would be a good idea. You should do that,” she agreed.

“Erm… it will go easier if you come,” Tan Fang said, a bit of an edge creeping into his voice that she finally found a touch inappropriate.

“Are you suggesting that I go there and be the window dressing for your shopping spree?” She scowled behind the veil.

Tan Fang, realising that he might have overstepped a bit, coughed politely and shook his head… “Ah… no… not at all. I just meant that you are the one with the nearly unlimited supply of spirit stones, it will go faster if you are bankrolling things in person?”

“Hmmm,” she made a show of pondering that. There was some merit in it… but... -Nah.

Rather than disagree directly, she pulled out a cube which contained about twenty thousand Earthly Jades… “Take this and use it. You can spend the change on whatever.”

She pushed the cube across the table to Tan Fang and JiLao, who eyed the wealth of a mid-sized sect for one whole year askance.

JiLao swept it up and nodded. “Okay... we will go do that, and keep a low profile.”

They wasted a bit more time at the teahouse until a messenger arrived to inform them that Ran Hao’s task to whoever he was visiting had caused some complications and that he would meet with them for dinner later that evening with his sincere apologies. After the messenger left, she let the other two go off to the auction house and wandered through the afternoon streets basically at random. Her current dress was suitably ascetic that unless she took off her veil, nobody was going to recognise her as an Imperial Princess, so she was largely unbothered.

Her opinions of the city itself had not really changed in the weeks she had been here, but walking around was still somewhat better than sitting in the inn and just reading more stuff that her teacher wanted to know about the damn mountain range. She scowled at it in the distance, the mysterious peak unnaturally visible even a thousand-odd miles away. She also noted the two shadows behind her, bodyguards attached to the Imperial Family. They weren’t really ‘there’, Dao Sovereigns didn’t need to be, just their soul shadows were enough to ensure they could traverse the distance from the imperial capital in a few moments… and, she thought with a sullen pout, her rank wasn’t that important that she wanted to trust her life to them. They hadn't followed them anywhere except when she was out in the town like this in any case.

Eventually, she found herself at the waterfront gardens. They were the closest thing the city had to an actual tourist attraction. The Blue Pavilion was the only other one, really, with its strange – if derivative – architectural styles and many little ‘tests’ and ‘puzzles’ for aspiring cultivators to get some benefits from. The gardens themselves were just okay really. She was starting to think that 'just okay' kind of summed up the whole City. Still, they were harmonious for what they were, with some nice ambient qi that meshed well with her cultivation. She could see why the locals liked them, and they showed off the region's heritage in spiritual plants admirably enough as well, even if the displays and different landscapes were a bit uninspired and hand-holding. Even the great pagoda at its centre, with its biomes replicating the inner valleys, and some pseudo suppression, was just enough to impress Immortal realm cultivators at best.

“You seem lost?” a voice behind her spoke.

She turned in surprise, narrowly avoiding dropping the message talisman she had been fiddling within her hands as she walked. The person asking wasn’t someone she could ‘see’ with her soul sense, which made her panic for a split second until she realised the woman was sitting a few metres to her right side. She had turned the wrong way. How embarrassing. Looking at the speaker, she saw a woman, a beauty actually, with deep smoke blue eyes and whitish-silver hair, plaited loosely with a few strange white flowers in it that she couldn't identify. The robe she wore was somewhat eccentric, in a style vaguely reminiscent of the western continent’s fashion, but more flowing and lighter. It bore the repeating motif of a moon and three stars, rising above a wavy ocean. Most disconcertingly, there was no aura about the seated woman at all; her soul sense might as well have been cast into a bottomless pit.

If the woman took umbrage at her attempt to discern her strength, she didn’t make any comment. “Sorry I misspoke… you just seemed… lost.”

The way the woman stressed ‘lost’ left her a little off-kilter.

“No… not at all,” she said after a moment. “I was just taking in the afternoon.”

“It is a beautiful day,” the woman agreed. “I find this place to be curiously at odds with its first impressions.”

“It is?” she frowned.

The woman was probably – almost certainly – a senior, but she didn’t have the air of an Ancient Immortal from their current generation, so brushing her off was probably not advisable unless she revealed her status.

“They made this place... these gardens… to mirror the beauty of the mountains. Yet they accidentally made it mirror much more than that,” the woman mused. “I have come here a lot of… over the years. The pagoda is like the one in my hometown.”

She had to wonder where this was actually going. To try to get some purchase in the conversation she agreed, “Yes it is… interesting.”

“Haha…” the woman laughed. “You kids are all the same. You see but you do not see. One day you will, heavens willing.”

“I don’t believe I know senior’s name?” She asked, trying not to let any annoyance creep in.

“Ha,” the woman smiled faintly. “A name… hmm…you may call me Dao Mother Bright Dream.”

She flinched and nearly took a step back. Nobody would dare claim to be a 'Dao Mother' or 'Dao Father' without some purchase. That kind of reputation got tested and frauds got disgraced or died fast. So either she was very unlucky, or she was now standing before some old recluse whose eye she had managed to catch. She wasn't sure which would be more concerning, actually.

“Junior showed Ancestor disrespect,” she bowed, wincing inwardly and deciding to play it safe.

Even her status as a princess wouldn’t help her if she annoyed a Dao Ascension Fairy Ancestor. She schooled her thoughts to not say ‘Old Monster’ just in time. Female Dao Ascension experts were all notoriously touchy about their age, and the most terrifying Dao Ascension Old Ancestors in their world at the moment were all female. Fairy Meng, Demoness Mo, Lady Xiao, Lady Kai and Lady Shan. It was, now that she listed them, sort of embarrassing that there were none from the Dun on that list.

“Is Senior affiliated with an influence here?” she asked, as politely as she could.

There had been no mention of anyone of this calibre on the continent. If she was…

“I see the doubt in your eyes,” the woman chucked… “I do not need your respect, miss… I merely thought you looked a bit lost and wondered if you would like to chat… but I see now is not the time.”

“Ah… Jing!” a voice echoed over from the far path. She saw JiLao hurrying over...

"Apologies Senior... my friend—"

She was about to say, 'was rude', but the woman caught her bow and stopped her. Her hand was warm like the summer sun. She could feel it through her sleeve even.

“I will leave you to your friend… time with friends is precious after all,” the woman said from beside her, with a faint echo of amusement in her voice.

The woman was gone even as she started to speak again, as if she had never been there. Up in the tree, a squirrel chittered, birds called, the garden hummed again, and she had to quiet her suddenly racing heart. She hadn’t realised it before, but there had been no birdsong or insects, or anything, noticeable when she was talking to the woman...

-Lady Bright Dream.

-Was she a Dao Ascendant..? Probably...

-I was caught inside her ‘moment’ the whole time....

She felt even more embarrassed now, and a tiny bit annoyed.

-A senior, a female one at that and that... understanding was quite uncommon and I... Well, I wasn’t rude, but that was definitely a missed opportunity, she thought with a sigh.

-And the shadows 'noticed' nothing…

“What is it?” she asked JiLao.

“Nothing… I just came looking for you to tell you that we had found a place for dinner, then your talisman wasn’t working. So I got…” JiLao trailed off, staring hard at her hand...

She paused. The talisman was in her hand. She had had it out, yes. Looking at it now, it was dull… cracked? All the messages in it were gone and the enchantments on it were totally dispersed. When had that happened… had it been the woman? She had never sensed a thing, or was it when she touched her sleeve?

She tried to store it in her storage ring, and found that it wouldn’t…

-The spatial runes? she frowned inwardly, then quickly shoved it into a pocket of her robe before JiLao could see it properly and ask questions she didn’t necessarily want to answer, even if she could.

“Something happened to it. I guess it had a defect. I’ll have to trouble you to get a new one tomorrow,” she told him, turning to take in the garden and replaying the woman’s words in her mind. They had seemed innocuous, but why did she suddenly have a sense of foreboding?

“A defect?” JiLao frowned… “Wasn’t it a gift from Martial Teacher?”

“It was… I guess,” she was glad of the veil, her expression was probably a bit off. It was something he had given her when she first started being taught by him. It was odd that it had been broken.

“So… where are we going to have dinner?” she changed the topic decisively.

“There is an excellent teahouse that serves speciality herb wines, and food with ten-star herbs as ingredients,” JiLao said... “Tan Feng saw it on the way back from the auction house… it looks very exclusive.”

“You mean expensive. I take it I am paying,” she cast him a sideways glance.

JiLao coughed and conceded “Well. You gave us the money.”

She sighed and put the woman from her mind for now. “Really… what kind of people are you that you make me pay for everything. You are all shameful.”