Lily actually found him before he found her— she’d snuck up into the third floor of the library, though sneak was a dubious word to use there. Mingtian was sure that the library’s wards had detected her passing. “Mr. Leng?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Mingtian?” A habit he’d picked up for convenience’s sake, over the years— a bit out of rebellion against the situation of his birth, and more often, at different times, out of the necessity to avoid being confused with his sister. “Have you completed today’s worksheet already?”

  Lily shook her head, looking disgruntled. “Ugh. I can’t make heads or tails of it. Why does it have to be confusing? Using such a finicky rune seems unnecessarily complicated.” Until she graduated to higher-order runes, and grand formations, where those things and the concepts behind them started to blur together into a mess of meaningless unity, where a single rune could do an essentially unlimited number of things. When she got to that point, she’d be thanking him for teaching her the right way. Which, granted, was far after she’d have ascended to immortality, but that was beside the point. “I was really just coming to make sure you were alright though.”

  Mingtian laughed, then reached down and ruffled her hair. How cute! “You don’t have to worry about me. I was just getting called away for a bad job offering.”

  Her eyes widened. “What was it?”

  “To teach formations at the academy. Obviously I’m not going to do that.”

  She cocked her head in confusion. “Why?” Well, that was a long story he’d have to be delicate with… and, also, they were standing out in the middle of the hallway, which wasn’t at all the place to have that sort of conversation.

  Waving her on after him, he quickly stepped up to his office and into the small space. The small, boring place— he’d done nothing with it since he’d gotten it, which meant it was much the same as it’d always been— an empty, blank room, with only a desk and two chairs to keep it from being nothing more than an empty box. He made a note to himself to fix that, later…

  He sat in his own chair— which was one of those cool rolling chairs— then motioned for Lily to sit. “The long and short of it, at least,” he started— “is that you just don’t teach formations to someone for money.”

  “Um… that doesn’t make sense?”

  He waved a hand. “You’ll understand when you get into the sect.” She blushed a bit, clearly unused to the praise— or perhaps to the confidence that she’d achieve her goals from anyone. Which was kinda sad. “These sorts of things represent you. Your knowledge, your life’s work, the work of all the masters who came before you. Most keep them close to their chest; it's rare you’ll find a formations master willing to teach for anything less than a truly extortionate price— in information, typically, or in favors. Some benevolent masters chose to share all they learn freely. But no true formations master will ever sell their knowledge.”

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  Lexi frowned. “What’s the difference? Between selling for favors, and selling for just… money? Isn’t money actually just like… formalized, crystalized debt?”

  “Well, um.” That’s a good point actually. The monetary system of Ca Cao was a whole lot more complex than the usual ‘trade spirit stones for goodies’ market most realms had. “There’s a difference. Definitely a difference.”

  “And… I’m not paying you anything.” She shrunk down in her chair a little, fiddling with her fingers. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you for this.”

  He laughed. “Consider this one of the benevolence moments. You don’t have to repay me anything— and, besides, I’m just teaching you some basic mortal level formations knowledge,” he lied. That there was such a thing as mortal-level formations in this world was pretty crazy, but he was 100% preparing her for cultivation formations. More importantly…

  Well, she’d figure that out on her own time. A little gift, from one cultivator to another.

  “I kinda wish you were our formations teacher. It’d have been fun to have you be my actual teacher.”

  “I’m just a librarian.”

  “I know, but…” she shook her head. “While I’m here, can you help me with this worksheet? Please?” She gave him her best puppy eyes, and… well. He was well aware of just how annoying energy modification runes could be to work with, and it wouldn’t do for her first experience with the objectively best kind of rune to be one of frustration.”

  For the next few hours, until the start of sunset stained his room red and Lily had to take her leave, he helped her get a handle on the rune, and—

  Spent time with her. It was always more fun than he’d thought it’d be. But still… eventually, he was again left alone, sitting in his chair at the center of an empty room, quietly. It really was a boring room. Now that he’d spent a few hours in it, he was sick and tired of just how soulless the space was. Something to be fixed posthate…

  Well. He smiled, letting out a brief, actual laugh. He had just the thing for that, didn’t he! A wave of his hand saw a pile of junk appear out of his spatial ring— a painting for the wall, held in place with a formation, a scroll painted in the same style as his sister’s, several ceramic jars, writing implements, paper… and it was only then he realized he had a slight bit of a problem. Sheepishly, he quickly returned everything to his ring— everything he’d brought with him from the Celestial Realm, while technically mortal, was all ninth step— Immortal Ascension-rank. He’d have to get creative.

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