Just as the last rays of sunlight started to strike the pool, she held in her hand an all but perfect wen. It wasn’t jade, but… it would work as the ninth and final part of the formation. Even from where she stood almost thirty feet away from the pool, she could feel it straining, the qi of the world pushing it towards the place that would see it complete.

Drawing in a deep breath… she got up, and started to walk. With every step, it only seemed to get heavier in her hands. The moment she passed the ring of formation pillars, it redoubled, and she stifled a hissed breath of discomfort as she pushed further. She wondered if every formation master had to deal with this when they were making their formations… did Master Mingtian, when he made the Unwobbling Jade Top Formation? It hadn’t looked like it’d strained him at all…

Halfway there. The tiny wen felt as heavy as the final pillar had, and it was just getting heavier— it felt like her each and every step should crater the ground, but only faint ripples in the serenity of the spring washed away from her.

Three quarters. She could barely hold onto it. The weight was a problem, yes, but less so than the amount of weight that was all concentrated into that tiny thing, threatening to slip through her hands. She just gritted her teeth— just a few more steps.

One step away— was this what it felt like, to hold up the sky? The pressure crushed down on her, and—

A paw grabbed the wen from her, and she collapsed into the spring as all the weight on her disappeared in an instant. She gasped in relief, only barely able to prevent herself from submerging completely. Stars swum in her vision, a hazy light of sudden relief, lightheaded and… and…

A paw prodded her shoulder. “Hey. Stay awake. I need you to tell me where to put this— it’s really heavy.”

That sobered her up a little. Blinking awake, she managed to push herself back up into a weakly flopped over position instead of the utterly boneless puddle she’d been before. “It needs to go…” she weakly pointed— “in the exact center.” Avyr nodded, and so gently laid it down—

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It snapped into place without a sound, with some grand sound that she could not hear but reverberated through the world around them nonetheless. Then, the qi flowed in. She could feel it— both the qi itself, dense enough that the air shimmered beneath its presence, but also because of the heat. With the amount of extreme yang qi present, the spring became almost swelteringly hot.

She wasn’t entirely sure what happened after that, she was so out of it, but when she came to she and Avyr were sitting off outside the formation itself, a small meal laid before her as the big cat ravenously devoured what had to be like half of the meat rations he’d brought with him.

He paused eating for a second, glancing at her as she groaned and grabbed the grains bar— not because she even particularly liked those, and more because it was the only thing she trusted herself to have the dexterity to handle at the moment. “So… awake again?”

She nodded, taking a bite out the bar. She was

really hungry, actually… “mmph. Mmbl mmphl mh.”

Avyr nodded. “I really understood everything you said right then.”

“I said that the formation was complete.”

“I could tell.”

“Good.” She was tired. Really, really tired. “Good… it should help you, I think. I’m not sure how much more qi it’ll be able to gather, but—”

“The qi density within the formation is almost six times more than it was before I started— and it was already high then. Every cycle of the cultivation technique, I can feel my core filling. It’s a bizarre feeling— I wonder if this is what it’s like to advance through Opening?”

“They have meridians to help them.”

“Good point…” he mewled softly— then turned back to ravenously devouring his meal. It was more than he usually ate— and messier, too— so she bet that whatever technique Master Mingtian had given him, it made him hungry. Or maybe that’s just what he got for not eating for almost two full days… she was not looking forward to grain liberation.

That was far off, though, so…

Everything was set up. Avyr had his perfect cultivation site, and she had plenty of time to play around with formations, and…

Despite all the effort it’d taken to get there, it’d all come together quite nicely. She leaned back, and took another bite of the rations bar, and grinned…

It was nice, to win.