It was a large pack upon the junior’s shoulders, but he did not mind. Rice was a weight, and heavier yet with the lashing rain above.

“We are lost,” cried the merchant, and she beat her underling with the rolled map. Quite sodden, as all things were.

The junior remained still, finding the water to cleanse the grime of many days’ travel well enough. He could offer no help, for what did he know compared to the learned folk?

“These woods are endless, and we are turned about!”

“I have planned for this, and I know all the roads beneath Heaven!” returned her underling, a man of maps and great knowledge.

“Then why have we not reached the city? Why have you had us stall here?”

The underling whimpered, and the rain continued hard. Almost muffling his surprise as the Junior set down the path.

“What are you doing?” cried the merchant.

To which he replied, “To reach where one is going, do they not first have to walk away from where they have been?”

- “Parables of the Dao,” - by an Unnumbered Storyteller.

Earth dragged where Fu’s leg could not lift, and he became as a poorly used plough in the [Dao]-rich ground that surrounded the [Reliquary]. A haste was upon them as they navigated the great tree’s base, rushing to find their entrance the moment that the Blight had lifted.

A haste birthed not only for the remnants of cries that could be heard in the distance, the last vestiges of [Spirit Beasts] in each of the eight directions. But as an intense light now shone from these sounds’ points of origin.

Cheng Rao had claimed the final Bastion during their respite, and if reason still held any sway in this maddening realm, he would soon arrive.

It had been…

In truth, Fu could not say how long had passed since he and Long had emerged from the small hollow. Only that this was the second time he had called for a stop, sucking air through gritted teeth.

His hands set to rubbing the fetid pus that routinely bled from his leg.

Long held his own pause not five strides ahead, exchanging brief nods with his [Spirit Carp]. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?” he said, and it was a kindness.

“It is that [Core Formation] is…” Fu clenched his jaw, breathing through his words. “So close.”

His companion shrugged. “The simplicity of [Body Cultivation]. Though it’s no small triumph to complete the [Bone Refinement] stage. I’ve seen many a grown man reduced to tears, whimpering for all nine generations of his grandmothers to come and coddle him through the strife it inflicts.”

Fu wobbled forwards, further sharp breaths following with the pain of every second step. “The grandmother of my house would grant… Nrggh. No such coddling.”

“Would you hear more?” asked Long, continuing at the bare nod that Fu could manage. “To reach [Core Formation] your path must be followed to completion. Each [Meridian] and [Node] fully opened, laying the base for what comes after. You’ll know this, no? As this is where [Foundation] takes its name.”

Fu grunted a reply. Conversation, a passable distraction from his frailty. “The Enlightened Bandit beat around this bush.”

“If only you might have sat in all the lectures I avoided,” mused Long, speaking now from the higher root he had just leapt atop. “True [Core Formation] is a distant horizon for you, Fu, as you will learn once you get there.”

That is a riddle, and he knows it well.

“How… so?”

“[Core Formation] is the intermediary stage between the [Foundation Realm], and what’s considered true cultivation by the masses. The [Open Origin Realm]. It’s common belief in the Clear Sky Empire that one is not regarded as a cultivator until it is reached.”

Something in those words was irksome, almost false. Yet Fu could not place what exactly it was.

“It is, however, where your personal path must begin. It amounts to more than filling [Meridians] and cleansing [Impurities], as you’ve been doing,” Long continued, pausing his gait. “Not least in how cultivation varies between [Body], [Spirit], and the other paths.”

At the turning of the next root, Fu spied the reason for the stop. A screen of ribbons was draped further into the [Reliquary’s] crook, eight in total. Green, as was previously seen, save for those on the periphery of either side.

Violet, in uniform with the canopy above. More so with the streaming light that he now saw connect the center of each Bastion in sight.

If Long paid any heed to this, he did not show it. “I don’t think you a fool, Brother, but stab the dark. Tell me what one does in [Core Formation].”

“This leg has me move at the… pace of a child. It does not make-” A breath. “Make me think as one,” sighed Fu.

“Form a [Core], yes,” smiled Long. “But a core? Oh brother Long, you should cry-”

“Long.”

The [Spirit Carp] similarly chastised its cultivator, slapping lightly with a tail fin. Though in response, he further played the fool, clutching at his heart. “Why, you are a crane, sweeping in to steal my joy.”

Fu shuffled by, nearing the curtain of ribbons. Impossibly scaled, in how they trailed from the tree’s peak to form this…

A doorway?

“Recall, Fu, that the [Array] serves as key. We’ll enter once each ribbon has been imbued with the leaves’ colours. That will mark it open.”

“Then this act- as though you are injected with chicken blood, is to pass our time?”

This question was answered with a smirk. “A [Core] is formed with the consolidation of your being. That is your path, your [Arts], [Nodes], [Dao] and [Affinity]. The total, Fu. As reaching [Core Formation] reveals the stairway to that which you have missed.”

“Missed? I miss all, for I know neither where, or what to seek.”

“Further Bonds,” he said, his smile wan. “Or to have Hushi embody another path in tandem with what is walked now.”

The octopus stirred, prying back the douli. Though his impression carried an interest more muted than Fu might have expected. “He might embody-” Excitement overcame him, and with a poorly placed step, pain surged up his injured leg. “Two.”

“Three more,” Long corrected. “[Spirit], [Mind], or [Harmony], as he’s the source of your [Body] cultivation already, no?”

Fu’s hands hovered over a fresh peal of pus. Cursing as he was forced to slop it aside. “That… it is a thought,” he said, patting one of Hushi’s dangling arms. “Queer even, that we might have another with us. The cultivators of the Nineteenth tread this path, did they not? This embodiment of a single Bond? Few beasts crowded the walls besides those who would see us dead.”

“How you met Hushi isn’t the norm. Sects, their disciples, and major Clans, they’re diligent in the selection of their scion’s first Bonds. Vaulted wisdom, cultivation techniques, augury of potential [Arts], it’s no base process. Even for those in the Outer Sect, they follow tradition and- The Heavens have a mandate against those fish within your mind, Brother.”

“Tradition and Heavens,” queried Fu in half-muttered sounds. Confused at the abrupt stop to their conversation, his eyes sent scanning.

At their side the ribbons were no longer green. Now, a vibrant violet, and pulsating with a power as they neared. A Qi of dense, poisonous taint. It was an unnatural end to their exchange of words, but one taken willingly.

For nothing but the utmost focus would save them from the demonic hiss that erupted on Long’s first step.

🀧

Only as he had felt such a force before did Fu recognize the sensation around his body. A [Spatial Qi] had him bundled. Clamped tight around his body to arrive both he and Long at the peak of this mighty tree.

Where it was silent between pillars of coiling trunks, and all but the bravest rays of sun deigned to shine through.

Hushi wrenched at his shoulders, rearing Fu back a single heartbeat before his disorientation would have him tumble below.

But he was arrested a second time, as Long’s hand burrowed deep into the flesh of his collar to drag him to wood. No small amount of pain followed, breaking Fu from his momentary stupor. Having him glare at his companion’s… supplicating form.

For both Long and his [Spirit Carp] bowed, and bowed deep at that. Their heads never daring to crest the sight before them. At the figure there, who radiated such power that his gaze alone might have the oceans turn to flee from it.

They were clad in open robes, cast upon lithe shoulders. Immodest. As no shame could ever decorate one so pristine. So ethereal.

Not like Fu, and his base actions.

He marked they as her, though did so with uncertainty, even as he gazed upon this flawless body. This jade-like skin, as pale as alabaster. The oval slits within each eye, framed in violet, contemptuous of his attention.

“Covetous little cultivator,” she whispered, now by his ear. “You recognize the true treasure in my halls.” The woman pressed close, closing her robes upon him so that it draped, and each press of her flesh could be felt upon his back.

Cold clung to him at this touch, and he shuddered.

“Oh, but there is sadness in this little cultivator. Such deep sorrow. Such delicacy.” Her hands spread in gentle trails, and she toyed with his skin as Mei once had. Drifting fingertips, soft enough, and intimate enough to feel absent. “You would kneel further.”

[Intent] cloyed at the edge of Fu’s mind. An alluring thing, drawing notes of lilac to sway by his nostrils.

He had no notion of what this figure was, who, or why she delicately passed hands upon his skin.

“Kneel for me, little cultivator, further. Show the depths of your lust.”

And the fisherman coughed. Twice. For he had been obtuse in guessing what desires were at play here. “My heart holds no more than three directions, and a fourth beyond the skies.”

Yet as he spoke this rejection he found the woman to have set upon Long. A delicate whisper in his ear. Where a hiss soon followed.

In half a breath the woman appeared at their fore, her displeasure evident. “Misery stays my hand from judging this trespass, for what might this soul inflict that is more pained than the two who darken my [Reliquary]? Her scowl summoned a screen of smoking letters, a message in [Ink]. With words then forming the space between them.

Long read it aloud before Fu had finished interpreting the first set of characters “The resilient may drink deep, and be rewarded.” The [Ink] cleared as he waded through it, highlighting that the woman no longer stood before them.

She was no longer anywhere, as best Fu might tell.

As he struggled to rise however, a plume caught his eye. The same, pestilent cloud as he had come to loathe, surfacing in the steeple where trunks met above.

“What manner of [Trial] is this?” he asked, hobbling to Long at the edge of the barken floor.

“Look below. Where we’ve to see this to completion.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

With Long there to steady him, Fu gazed down a great cylindrical chasm. First, and most obvious, noting how far a misstep might take him. How swift he might plummet into the bulging Blight at the tree’s inner base. Though second, he spied the descent they were to take, one of spiral roots that clung to the trunk’s inner edge.

Suddenly, the pair were urged back. A growth of roots formed at their heels, and then their fronts as they took what space they could. The roots rose as serpents, constricting, and ballooning to have a basin spread at their navels.

Fu felt a presence of [Dao] interred there, and as such his heart shuddered with no small unease.

Surging forth thoughts of his own strength. Of disbelief, and weakness.

How have I come here?

Can I stand here?

Am I worthy to be in a [Reliquary], to claim its contents as my own?

Such thoughts were unable to be stilled by Hushi’s tender grasp. Not for long heartbeats, and not until he returned a tug.

Truly, it did not matter. As Fu did not do this for himself. Thus, he entered his hand into the basin, making to scoop a liquid that he could not see. To drink deep, as the [Ink] had stated. Bringing the feel of splintered wood upon his knuckles as they brushed by.

The precedent to further sensations.

For the [Reliquary] darkened under a stutter of Blight, beginning to fall. Followed by twinned needles, birthed by the wooden serpent that punctured both sides of his palm.

And the foreboding tone of Long, offering up his own hand as he spoke. A gift, given freely to the basin that was nothing less than the yawning mouth of a [Spirit Cobra]. “Put in your eyes, Brother, all sets.”

Words that marked his complete disappearance.

🀧

The scent of lilac grew behind Fu’s back, bringing about a pained turn. “Long!” he called, and the sound bounced in mocking return. “Long!”

Nothing came to grant confidence that he was not alone. Not a whisper, nor a speck of golden Qi. The only movement bar Hushi’s swaying arms proving to be Blight above. Descending at a steadier pace.

Fu cursed, and set to hobbling. He had to believe that the Heavens were not so cruel as to set a [Trial] that could not be completed. So moved, and reached the spiral where his passage below might begin.

Immersing himself in this scent of lilac.

Roots, he found, were a vindictive surface. Uneven, and bulging in places that had them revel in the pain they drew from him. “Hushi,” he winced. “There is air here. Let-”

The octopus impressed a rejection before these words could end. Cloudy in delivery, and much obscured.

“Hushi?”

His Bond tapped gently, and shook. Performing some dance of arms that were intent on passing along a message Fu could not sense. There was a distance between them, a fog between sentiments as thick as the Blight’s canopy above.

As though their link was in the process of severing.

Fu reached out with his [Dantian], and in return found no Qi would come. A realisation that turned his skin cold. Glacial, given his coating of sweat. “The [Trial] removes our Qi? We are unable to cultivate?”

Hushi bobbed in affirmation.

A breath was necessary to steel himself. Near choking him with the scent of lilac as he pressed ever downwards. It seemed to Fu that he made little progress. Which he reasoned was due both to his walk, and his glances at the encroaching fog. Now only metres away.

Is it a race against time? More so than we already are?

The bottom should see him safe, he prayed. Though how they might fare at Cheng Rao’s arrival, whenever it may come…

In a span of minutes, Fu had reached a level strata. Scarcely wide enough for the stumble that delivered him there. He was on his palms, gasping to recover his breath when a second basin emerged beneath them.

A mirror of the first, with all that entailed.

A hidden serpent.

“Drink deep, little cultivator.” Needles of cold pierced Fu’s spine to hear the woman- the being’s voice- come once more. But try as he might, aching, weakened and infirm, his swivelling head revealed no source.

Instead, it warned him of the Blight that may as well have cushioned his ears.

Fu granted the basin his hand, and the wood spurred to life.

Jaws snapping. Teeth, impaling through both knuckle and calloused underside. He cursed as the serpent retracted into the bark, seamless in how it faded. The wound dripped as he cradled it against his chest.

[Poison Qi] of a sort to agitate his blood.

It takes… steals something.

Obvious weakness wormed its way within him. Something unspeci- Three staggered steps and he could no longer smell the lilac.

Smell is taken.

“Hushi, are you the same?” The [Spirit Beast] slapped him to attention, rotating his head to the green fog behind. A more pressing matter. “This injury has us flounder. But-” Fu ground his jaw, and sent himself into a roll to gain distance down the slope. “Brother, find the third basin.”

His Bond’s arms wound, circulating what precious [Air Qi] he held. In response, a compressed breeze rose about each teal length.

Again, Fu rolled. Agonising what pus told to be no small infection. “Hushi?”

Hushi unfurled to show their destination. Across the chasm, and below. So, in the same breath, [Half Cloud Step] surged through Fu’s body. And he launched himself into open air with a single leg.

The ensuing crash was no graceful thing. Not as he had come to know.

Where, in health, he might have inverted or slowed with moving limbs, now he met the trunk without his prior control.

Something crunched.

A small bone within the hinge of his ankle, snapping to have him cry out. But he choked it down, and clambered to the next basin. “I drink deep,” he grunted, tonguing a copper tang at his gumline.

Another serpent pierced through his palm, and that same sensation of loss wormed through his veins. Coupled with the first sets, and the sensation… or the lack thereof, ushered in a realisation.

“The [Trial] steals our senses.” His next breath drew in tasteless air. Scentless. One void of any Qi he might touch.

And a second leap to the strata below.

Fu’s brutalised leg collapsed beneath the weight of his own body with a stomach-wrenching snap. The herald to his disjointed knee. His scream then might have made the Heavens take notice, for it had each minor frond or finger of shoots quiver with the volume.

“Not yet,” he snarled. The fisherman made to stand, warring against agony. Seeing that bone protruded from his knee, he pushed through an already sustained wound. “This scrape will not seal my fate.”

The seconds to wallow in such misery would never come. The Blight would not halt for further cries.

More than this, Fu found his feelings absent.

Without care, he unfurled his chain. A loop, and a second, winding it taught to compress the gushing trail of blood. Secured with a knot drooped over his far shoulder, this allowed his wretched form to slither to the next basin.

“But is my embrace not kinder, little cultivator?” asked the woman. Only a vision of pristine ankle in his periphery. “Show how you covet me. Give yourself willingly.”

Fu crawled on, now at the basin’s base.

From behind, her hands lathered affection on his face, so tender and welcome. A scent brushed by, impossibly, stemming from the frigid breath at his cheek. It tickled a recollection that had him pause.

Had him bask, with the Blight at his back.

“Silk tree bark,” he choked. “And salted bass.”

“This pleases my little cultivator?” The woman’s hands pressed no harder, as in a moment’s pause Fu edged into their reach. “My arms are sweet. Loving. Rest your head. Let it be cradled. You have struggled, and it is due.”

Fu slammed his palm into the basin, receiving a fourth infusion by way of punctured skin. “Mei wore it without falsehood,” moved his lips. Thrummed his throat. Though it loosed no sound that he might hear.

Perhaps this is why he allowed a single smile as [Half Cloud Step] launched him to stand. No more than a heaving chest and a waste of energy.

Resilience against temptation. This is what is challenged.

For the first time, Fu’s mind steadied. These were a test of the Six Desires, which any unlearned man might know. From what source they stemmed, these terms, he could not say. But they clung to ears of the all untalented, as these were their labels.

The aptitude required to be lecherous or weak.

Insults thrown by cultivators. By scribes. By betters. Six named for the base pleasures chased by each sense.

Six that Fu was above, by no more than fatherly duty.

“Would lullaby lift the trench of sorrow within?” purred Mei’s voice.

To which the fisherman shook, again bloodied by another leap. “Hers was a voice to shame the Heavens. Not a lacking shadow.”

His beloved did not hiss. Not like what filled his mind now. “The little cultivator grows bold.”

Fu ignored the voice, and rose in his pathetic fashion. Struggled, and fell before the next serpent’s maw. Purposefully. In place of granting a hand, he removed Hushi from his tight-clung perch.

This had his attention on the Blight above. Much like a halo behind the octopus, and a sea across all that they had travelled. Ever a few paces distant.

So Fu moved with haste, hoping to impress with sight alone what they might lose next. A touch to his eyelids, and a stroke of his skin. A final breath. Leading to his hand entering the basin, and the puncture that drained all he might feel through touch.

All of his accrued pain was washed aside. His blood, no longer wet. Sweat, no longer cold. And though a triumphant laugh escaped him, Fu was unsure. When he took a step, he-

The wood returned no sensation.

Nor did his leg.

The limb moved in a way that he could not process. The feedback was returned by motion alone, disjointed from his intent. As though he were an infant, learning to stand. Or a cripple, numbed by [Spirit Poppy] to forget the disgrace of their pus-belching leg.

Time passed in a span of no heartbeats, and yet he was mired in a glow of green. Just seconds later.

The tides wait for no man.

Fu could only tumble in his attempt to leap. The speed [Half Cloud Step] afforded him doing more to simply steer him forward than allow a bound.

Perhaps he kicked. Or perhaps, he had leapt. His world rushed with such a degree of blur that nothing was certain. Going beyond [Senses], or whatever [Insight] might grant. In that moment Fu was a moving absence.

Until he was not.

As now he was upon his back in an ocean of whirling colour. Teal, most prominent in the field of view. It spun, and spun, and Fu willed what could not be felt to move. Though try as he might, his position remained the same.

Hushi’s did not.

It grew distant, and rose exponentially. He saw a flail of arms, and his Bond rose to the top of a basin. Dozens of paces above. A range then doubled, and tripled, pushing the octopus’ form behind ascending spirals.

He is not rising. I am-

The final loss struck when Fu’s fall was ended. The blackness to claim his sight, and remove all that he knew.

🀧

“Now now,” broke a voice that could be no temptation. “Haven’t we spoken about these frequent bouts of sleep?”

Naturally, Fu rose with a start. “Hush-”

“By your side,” said Long.

The fisherman found himself upon moist ground. Joyful that it was of the sort that he could touch. Of the sort that he could see, smell and if he were so inclined, taste. But he dismissed this, waving at long through bleary eyes. “No, hush. For a moment.”

Long inflicted a reverberating laugh around the base of the [Reliquary], and there was a slosh of feet through water.

Which again had Fu joyful, for the latter at least.

The [Trial] is passed. I had thought…

He shook, and cradled his eyes with a palm. What he wished to say was along the lines of a complaint. A notion to share that what they had endured was almost as haunting as the thought of losing his children.

Though instead, he let out a sigh. “A dragon’s pool and a tiger’s den.”

He expected a laugh to come, or a retort to grant levity. Because that was how he viewed Long. With his aura of confidence, and proficiency in understanding the world of [Mystic Realms] and cultivation.

“We’ve crossed this dragon now,” he said, much to Fu’s surprise. “There are people beyond people, and heavens beyond heavens. [Demons], beyond [Demons]. With this [Reliquary] conquered, you’ve taken the first step towards the greater.” Long then bowed, and it was no cheap thing.

“Long?”

“Gratitude, for walking this path of defiance at my side.” Fu hopped to his feet, and returned the… “One of the boons granted.”

A distinct lack of malady clutched his movement. His flesh was pristine in health, and every injury he had accrued was now mended. The foulness and stains of bloodied pus still soaked his hanfu, and his nose warned him of how flavoursome a stench he carried.

Now that he stood, Fu wound his limbs in trial. Small stretches to mark how hale and hearty he felt. “Ah- This is… I would return your gratitude, Long, but such a [Trial] is nothing I would soon revisit. That we both stand is enough to be thankful for.”

“Indeed.” Long walked by his shoulder, and passed more ripples through the pool at their ankles. “Quite the beauty, though, wasn’t she? That spirit? If we’d time before Cheng Rao and our beloved Sect arrive I’d not reject a further offer.”

Fu ignored this, and turned.

This place was much unlike the Thousand Shore [Reliquary] in that there was no array of weapons and trinkets to be claimed. It was a pool, frayed by a calm surface of Blight around the edges. However, Long paid it no heed, and so Fu did the same. Focusing instead on the crooked tree at the pool’s center.

“Our lives for a fig?” he asked, joining his companion in study of three hanging fruits.

Stranger than what mundane articles Fu had ever come across. For they leaked, and radiated a cloud of fog. Its lime hue of no doubt poisonous nature. Not of the sort to inspire Fu to hunger.

The same could not be said for Hushi. HIs octopus almost writhed in excitement, and with a return of their link, impressed his longing.

A pang of shame rose as Fu realised he had neglected his Bond upon waking. “Hushi,” he said. “Are you well? The final basin, you showed great insight.” Hushi amicably swatted aside his compliments.

There is no doubt that he took the bite of blindness himself. Yet to throw me from the edge to complete this [Trial]. His wisdom outstrips my own.

Long cut free two of the figs, showing that the exuded cloud did not harm him. “The treasure of the [Green Blight Valley]. Worth more than a city of [Spirit Stones].”

“I could do much with a city of [Spirit Stones].”

“You could waste much,” laughed Long. “This is the [Hundred Immunities Fruit]. A [Spiritual Treasure] that… Let your [Ink] tell you, once it is consumed.”

Between Hushi’s desire, and his own to see this plight rewarded, Fu eagerly extended his hand. “The third- Cheng Rao’s fruit. I think we underestimate our senior. Is the treasure so great that he will believe it to be the [Mystic Realm’s] sole reward?”

“With a little help,” said Long.

Which Fu found to be a strange phrase. For the plan outlined to him was that they would leave, re-joining the Sect as they swarmed towards the [Reliquary]. Hopefully, escaping Cheng Rao’s notice as he was fixated on the [Trial].

So he arched a brow in confusion. “Help?”

Long pursed his lips, almost in condolence. Freeing his jian from Fu’s punctured belly.