59th of Season of Water, 58th year of the 32nd cycle

  While Newt fought Jade, Fourchains pulverized Gale. Another hour passed, and nobody issued new challenges.

  “Newstar Blazing Salamander has entered the core sect undefeated, welcome young man,” the venerable in charge of the trial said, for the first time showing any semblance of emotion other than terminal boredom. Her next statement, though, came out with no enthusiasm at all.

  “As for the other two places, disciples Break, Break, and Willow will fight in a free-for-all, the first one out goes to the inner sect, while the other two will enter the core sect.” She shot an exasperated look at all three of them. “I expect no mercy.”

  Newt followed his referee off the ring, as did the Break brothers. The rings sank into the ground, and a larger one, covering two thirds of the arena, rose. Newt went to the participants’ section and took a place while the three contestants entered the ring.

  The venerable once more explained the rules, and Newt was starting to understand why the woman was bored. He wondered whether the protocol was a form of punishment, or had someone at some point disregarded the rules in some way, pretending they forgot them.

  The woman left the ring, and a referee signaled the match to start.

  Fourchains and Willow charged Twochains, who just stood there, air above his head shimmering from his fury. The man gnashed his teeth, and when his enemies were mere steps away, he turned to face his brother. He sent the spiked weight straight at the man’s face. Fourchains blanked, so shocked he tripped and dodged the blow by accident. That must be what the man and most of the audience believed, but Newt saw Twochains flick his wrist and pull the weight upwards a fraction of an inch, enough to miss the certain hit.

  Willow struck, water spiritual energy flaring from his spear, but Twochains blocked with his kama. Fourchains rose from the ground, but his older brother unleashed a blast beneath his feet, flying straight at Willow. His kama was entangled with the spear, the weight out of position, but Twochains was absolutely confident, like he had already won the fight.

  As he flew beside Willow, he threw a loop of chin around the stunned man’s neck, and kept flying away. Without the spell formation shielding the arena, the chain would have decapitated the lanky man, but as things were, he just fell to the ground, limp and staring at the sky above.

  “Willow is out! The winners are Twochains Break and Fourchains Break.”

  The crowd erupted into cheers. While the battle lasted a handful of moments, it was obvious the other two had ganged up on Twochains, and despite the obvious handicap of not wanting to fight his brother, Twochains won. Newt also stood, applauding. While brief, the match showed just how excellent Twochains was with his chosen weapon.

  And I defeated him. He’s incredibly skilled, at least twice my age, and I defeated him.

  The weight of the realization just sank in when Twochains turned towards Newt and gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

  He had met another man he respected and who returned the feeling. Newt smiled and gave Twochains a warrior’s salute.

  ***

  Two moons passed. Newt split his time between cultivation and learning spell formations, with weekly sessions with his master and teacher. The life of a core disciple was much simpler than that of an inner disciple.

  They had no missions other than getting stronger and three arranged monthly spars to determine their rank and growth. The resources they got each month were ten times those of inner disciples, and Newt handily won all his matches, rising to the position of the seventeenth core disciple.

  Life was going just the way Newt believed it should when it got better.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The outer disciple managing the desk at the Chamber of Runes knocked on the door of his testing room.

  “Senior Apprentice Brother Newstar, the inner disciples you sent on a mission have reported back. They are waiting for you at the Chamber of Instruction.”

  Newt took a moment to pull his mind from heat distillation spell formation he was analyzing, then grinned.

  “Thank you, I’ll be right out!”

  Newt gathered the practice materials he had borrowed, returned them to the desk, then went down the road to the Chamber of Instruction.

  “Newt!” Obi waved as did Jas and Rose. The fourth member of the team, a woman called Spark, who had advanced to the rank of inner disciples, was much more formal.

  “Senior Apprentice Brother.”

  “Hey, guys, did you find him?”

  “Yes, he’s a very interesting person.” Rose did not hide her awe while the other three nodded. Even Jasmine was impressed. “He’s waiting for you at the pier leading to the laborer’s part of the island, since visitors need special permissions to visit other areas.”

  Newt wanted to ask what Dandelion had done to amaze his friends to such an extent, but he had better things to do. Like go see Dandelion.

  “Did you get your reward?” His friends had barely started nodding when Newt rushed to see his first ever mentor.

  Well, technically second, since Magmin has taught me so much. Even if it didn’t mean to.

  Newt ran for a few hundred yards, coming up with how to explain what he had been doing in the time since he and Dandelion last saw each other. That helped him remember that he was a core disciple of his prestigious sect and that one of his few duties was to uphold the Explorer’s Gate’s honor and dignity.

  So, he slowed to a dignified walk, all the while thinking how he was wasting time he could have used catching up with Dandelion or planning their ideal cultivation method.

  Even walking at a much slower pace, Newt took a mere handful of minutes to reach the pier shared by the laborers and outer disciples. There, standing larger than life, was a man in black robes with a massive staff strapped to his back.

  “Dan! It’s great to see you!” Newt shouted and barely contained himself from going over and hugging the man.

  “Dan?” Dandelion raised an eyebrow. “Really? All right; greetings, Star! Great to see you too.”

  “Does the nickname bother you?” Newt did a double take.

  “Not at all, how do you like yours, Living Star?” Dandelion smiled his trademark friendly smile, seemed perfectly relaxed, yet Newt could feel those two capital letters. They felt… Weird.

  Like a harmless joke, and yet not at the same time. Newt brushed away the thought. He called Dandelion to exchange cultivation tips, not quips.

  “So, Dandelion, I bet you’re wondering why I called you.”

  “You called me because you thought I had something valuable enough for you to haul me fifteen thousand miles and because you have something valuable enough for me to travel fifteen thousand miles to pay me with. I will be mighty angry if I have traveled thirty thousand miles over nothing.” Dandelion smiled. It was a smile fit for a tenth realm ancestor of the tyrannosauroidea family.

  “It is nice to see you again, Newt. I can see life has been treating you well, or better to say, you are forging a fine life for yourself.” The change from lethal carnivore to amicable old friend happened so fast Newt had every right to doubt his eyes, especially because his danger sense had not trembled even the tiniest bit.

  “Actually, I have a lot of things to discuss, but first I have to see where I can rent a soundproof room that offers total privacy.”

  Dandelion arched a brow. “That important, huh?”

  He drew his staff, hopped onto the black sand and drew a perfect circle. The staff flowed like a brush, drawing runes for a static illusion, rustling, and fragility for some reason. Newt would have failed to recognize the last one, had he not spent so much time in the Chamber of Runes.

  He motioned Newt inside, then drew the runes for spiritual energy to power the spell formation and connected them to fragility. Newt jumped in, and the air shimmered, the world outside the spell formation freezing in the moment when the spell formation had drawn enough energy to operate.

  “There, a primitive private chamber. What did you want to talk about?”

  Newt opened his mouth to ask whether the spell formation could block all eavesdropping, but the bubble burst.

  “Excuse me, Senior,” Dandelion said to nobody in particular. “We are trying to have a private conversation, I will in no way harm or interrogate your disciple about your sect’s sensitive information.”

  Dandelion drew a breath to speak more, but the illusion popped back into place.

  “I was about to ask whether this is safe.”

  “My invention. Much safer than spell formations for isolating sound. We whisper, and the noise the sphere makes cancels our speech, replacing it with the empowered sound of the surroundings. The illusion is obvious, but whoever is out there already knows we are here, talking, so all it has to do is block line of sight, and finally, the spell formation is so fragile any wisp of spiritual energy that touches it will make it collapse for a handful of seconds before it restarts itself.”

  Dandelion grinned. “Pretty neat, right?”