“Think it’s worth making contact with whatever of our peers are in the area?” Tian asked.
“We have to at some point. The better question is, do we try to find others from the ancient Crane Monastery?”
“Can’t be that many Core Disciples running around. What are the odds we turn up in our new robes and don’t immediately reveal our ignorance?” Tian shook his head, to which Liren grinned and raised the finger of cunning.
“But what if we wore our old robes? I thought about this waiting for you to wake up.” She paused, went through a remarkable range of facial expressions, and settled on wry. “If you think about it, the absolute majority of Heavenly Realm cultivators we know are on the other side of the ward. Other than Auntie Wu, who is still recovering at the Bamboo Medicine Hut and a handful of others, we are pretty unknown.”
“That unknown? We are kind of famous.”
“Ah, but, famous for what? When? How? With who?” She was grinning now. “We got sent aboard the Windblown Manor… what, six years ago? Five? I swear you are rubbing off on me. The point is, we look pretty different. You have all your fingers, and got pretty. I got taller and a lot darker. My facial features have shifted a little too.”
Tian nodded slightly. She was right. Her face was now perfectly symmetrical, her cheekbones were a tiny bit more pronounced, and there was an upward sweep to her eyebrows that probably shouldn’t be so fascinating, but they just made her eyes so wonderful that he couldn’t help but cherish them.
“Let’s say they don’t recognize us on sight. Which, I agree, is possible. But so what?”
“So unless they verify our identities by checking our rings against the sect rolls-”
“The what now?”
“Zihao… Brother Zihao. Dao Companion Zihao. Have you, or have you not, practically grown up inside the sect?”
“Well. Yes. So have you.”
“That’s right. I have.” She nodded, her face a mask of kindness. “And in that time, I picked up things. Things like how the sect keeps track of its membership. How they keep track of all those missions and merits.”
“Um.” Tian said, with insight and sophistication.
Liren closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. “If you ever wonder if I really do like you, just know I’m sparing you a fifteen minute roasting, complete with specific examples and props.”
“I have always said you were an avatar of mercy.”
That got him an eye roll, but she pressed on regardless. “It’s a three part system. Part one is the sect records. Short term stuff, things that only need to last for a couple of decades or so, go down on paper. Longer term storage is on bamboo slats or spiritual imprints on jade slips, but if you think about it, not that much needs to be stored long term.”
“Makes sense so far.” Tian wasn’t sure it did, but wasn’t willing to risk being wrong.
“That’s the most official, authoritative source. What goes down there is what it is. But it takes a fair bit of time to generate the records, and since we operate across a massive country, and since it’s not unusual for people to just vanish for years or, in the Heavenly Realm, decades, you need something more flexible.”
‘Okay…”
“Like our rings.” She waved her hand, the plain storage ring on display. “It is proof of membership, records our merits, lists our current mission, that kind of thing. It’s the equivalent of two or three lines on a ledger. It’s also a key for a very specific type of device. You know how they update our merits on the rings?”
“They… tap something on them. I just think of them as talismans.”
“Close enough. I don’t know how it works, so I just think of it as an array. The array works as a giant ledger, listing everyone’s name, merits, assignments, all that. But it can’t hold that many entries, and it doesn’t last that long before burning out. I mean a few years, tops. So they have to periodically replace it, after adding in all the information stowed in the records. But the reason they use it is that, one, it’s fast, and two, you can apparently change the information on it very easily. So they stay very up to date, and the temples regularly update their magic ledgers by sending copies to each other.”
“I see where this is going.” Tian started nodding with a bit more sincerity. “Our rings still list us as members of the Outer Court in good standing, but don’t specifically say who we are. They would have to check the magic ledger, but that’s not up-to-date any more, and might not even work anymore. They would check the records, but assuming those aren’t on the other side of the ward, it would take weeks or months. And they aren’t likely to be that motivated.”
“Exactly. So us companions were stuck in a hidden grotto for the last couple of years. We imply that we weren’t exactly trying to escape, and don’t elaborate. But time passed, and eventually, thanks to the intercession of our ancestors and the grace of the world, we broke through to the Heavenly Realm. Now our little grotto home can’t sustain our growth, so we are out into the wider world, wondering just what the hell happened.”
Tian looked wonderingly at Liren, then sighed. “Where is that honest girl I once knew? Now her heart is full of duplicity.”
“What lies? I’m just strategically presenting the truth. And… honestly, you are going to have to do the lying.” She looked suddenly awkward.
“I thought I was a terrible liar?” The corner of Tian’s mouth twitched.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You are, which is why you are going to tell as much of the truth as is sensible, and let people draw the wrong conclusions. The art Merciless taught me makes lying unpleasant.”
Tian grunted, then nodded. His teacher certainly didn’t have a problem with lying. Not in the sense of a moral objection, anyway. “I guess we have a plan. Let’s give that perception spell a quick read through before we head out. Last thing we want is to get ambushed.”
And besides, he could feel Grandpa Jun’s eagerness to improve the spell. It seemed like the old ghost really enjoyed doing it, and Tian was curious to see how it would turn out.
“I really should have asked this ages ago, but, could you upgrade Heavenly Swallows?”
Yes, but it’s not worth it. Not because Heavenly Swallows is bad. It’s surprisingly decent for what it is. It’s not worth it because any improvement I make would fundamentally transform the art, massively increasing the cost. A poor use of energy, especially since Heavenly Swallows will be entirely adequate for your needs for a good while.
“I was hoping for something with a bit more stopping power. The rope dart could smash things if you whacked it hard enough.”
Tian, do you remember throwing a rock at any point in your life?
Grandpa Jun perfectly hit the exact harmonic to convey to a junior that they are being dumb past the point of grandparental indulgence.
“Yes, Grandpa.”
Did you ever notice that rocks would hit harder if you threw it faster?
“Yes, Grandpa.”
Now, tabling the issues of overpenetration and force transmission with the related mechanics of wound creation resulting from a penetrative trauma, do you think you can deduce a way to improve “stopping power” while still using Imperial Heavenly Swallows?
“Make them go faster, Grandpa.”
Yep. Or increase the weight while maintaining the speed, but the things you are going to be trying to kill will be moving a lot faster from now on. Increasing the speed is the smart play. And you are a smart boy. When you pay attention. Now get back to studying. This art is RIPE for improvement.
They didn’t have it mastered by the time dinner rolled around, but by next breakfast, they had it at a usable place. “Tian’s” suggestions about how the text should be interpreted were remarkably effective. After a fortifying bowl of congee and some inferior green tea, they set out to meet their peers.
Their peer, in this case, was a distinguished looking woman, reading a book as she reclined in a rattan chair in a gazebo on top of a manor. Tian and Hong stopped outside the building and bowed politely.
“Two juniors from the Ancient Crane Monastery request to meet the Senior. Would she have a moment to speak with us?”
“Very junior juniors. What happened to your robes?”
“We were trapped in a… certain senior’s cultivation ground for a couple of years. Eventually, we managed to break through, and some time after that, we were… perhaps the best way to describe it is ‘permitted to escape.’ Contingent on certain things, as the senior would no doubt suspect. Upon emerging, we discovered the world had changed.”
Tian clasped his hand and bowed. “This Little Daoist is surnamed Tian, and this is my Sect Sister surnamed Hong. Neither of us have taken an honor name, nor has one been bestowed upon us. Might I have the privilege of knowing the Senior’s honorable name?”
The distinguished lady’s face twitched, but she set down her book and stood. “Courtesy should be met with courtesy after all. I am the wandering cultivator Wang Quing Yun, and I too have done without an honor name. I suppose you have a lot of questions.”
“Yes, starting with… what exactly is going on in the Broadsky Kingdom? We know that Ancient Crane Mountain has been sealed behind a ward, but what of the rest of the temples and convents? And those seniors trapped outside?”
She smiled and nodded. “Those are important questions. And I can give you some pretty good answers. However, that wasn’t the most important question.”
“Please, Senior Wang, what was the most important question?” Tian cupped his fist and smiled apologetically.
“‘How much will this information cost?’”
“Senior Wang, we just broke through, and our main achievement to date is surviving our first ambush out in the field. Please be merciful on my barren purse.”
“Hah. Fair enough. Well, it’s all common knowledge anyway, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I explained for free. Call it ten spirit stones.”
Tian gawped at her. “Ten spirit stones?”
The dignified woman snorted. “Now it’s too little?”
“Not… too little. I’ll have to ask my sister to make up for my shortcomings. Excuse me.”
When the exchange was made with the pitying Senior, she explained. “The official story, which nobody really believes but nobody can disprove, is that the dao reserves of the Ancient Crane Monastery burned themselves out striking a fatal blow against the Black Iron Gorge. With the last of their power, they activated a recall array that called back their direct disciples and a frankly bizarre cross section of their Inner and Outer Courts, then sealed the mountain to guard against retaliation now that their core has been dangerously weakened.”
“That matches what we have seen. A fatal blow against the Gorge?” Tian asked.
“Apparently, though I can tell you the number of old monsters from the wasteland in the kingdom has only gone up, not down. But I can also tell you for nothing that they are here because the Gorge has turned into a true hell. Nobody is entirely clear what happened, but the Iron Blood Council has descended into civil war. Since essentially all the heretics are mercenaries…” She trailed off.
“They scrammed when the money ran out.” Liren snorted.
“Just so. The remainder of the Ancient Crane Monastery has reformed around the temple complex in the Mystic Mountain Range, leaving a strong garrison in Mountain Gate City. Most of the Outer Court has vanished, but much of the Inner Court remains. That being the case, the various temples were aggressively shut down and emptied out by the remaining Elders of the Inner Court, as were the Monastery’s positions in the Wasteland. As a practical matter, they completely pulled out of the Broadsky Kingdom except for those two positions.”
The city noise seemed very loud, for some reason, and the sun was quite blinding. Tian thought he must not have healed properly. He was rather dizzy.
“Everyone gets it. They are consolidating their strength and guarding against retaliation, figuring they can endure until the mountain reopens. It’s not a dumb idea, but the consequences are rough for everyone. The long and short of it is, if you see someone in the Blue and White out in the Kingdom, they are there to show the flag or suppress anyone who looks like they are trying to take control of the kingdom. If they are out adventuring or on missions, they are moving around without their uniforms.” She gave them a meaningful look.
“We appreciate Senior Wang’s kind reminder, and will keep it firmly in mind going forward.” Tian bowed.
“It would be for the best. While no one is… bold… enough to post a bounty on you homeless birds, there are quite a few looking to discuss old matters. One day, the Monastery may return, but who knows on what hour or day that will be, or in what state they will be in when they do return? It would be wise to fly low, little bird, at least until your wings harden.”