Lu Na could feel that she only had moments to figure this out before she burned out. She stared at the large earth structure she made. What if she drained the spirit energy into that? It worked the last time and it didn’t explode.

  Lu Na pulled the spirit energy from going down through her body and into the technique that made the structure. Then she pushed with all her might, trying to drain all the dense spirit energy.

  The entire structure glowed yellow.

  “Na Na, what are you doing? Stop! It’s going to explode.” Sun Ren threw herself at the bars. They turned into stone as soon as Lu Na pushed the spirit energy into it.

  Her friend was right. If she pushed any more spirit energy into it, the entire place will explode.

  “The young are truly foolish when they don’t know how to control their powers,” Zi Xu said.

  Lu Na glared at the ghost.

  “Help me. Please. I don’t want to kill everyone.”

  Zi Xu sucked on his teeth like he tasted something sour.

  “Fine, I’ll help, if you let me possess you.”

  “What?” Lu Na screamed. It wasn’t from the request but the burning now became a searing pain that ran up and down her entire body. “Fine, fine, do it. Help me.”

  Zi Xu walked over at his slow pace. He laid a hand on Lu Na’s shoulder.

  The whole world fell away. Lu Na felt as if someone was visiting in her head. It wasn’t the same as when she had discussions with Nugua. This was almost as if someone was moving her whole body, but she was aware of everything. Yet she didn’t feel anything. That was the only boon.

  “Oh my, your entire body is burning,” Zi Xu said, but it was Lu Na’s voice. “Let me help with that. First, you need to cut off the bracelet.”

  Lu Na felt her left hand unclench and the null metal bracelet deactivate.

  “Now that it’s no longer taking in energy, it should calm down. Next, stop pushing all that spirit energy into the earth structure.”

  Lu Na wanted to shout, to scream. Zi Xu couldn’t do that because then the spirit energy would build up in her body, burning her inside out.

  Zi Xu broke the connection to the structure, but he redirected the spirit energy toward a different route: Lu Na’s spirit realm.

  When the spirit energy slammed into her spirit realm, Lu Na felt it. She couldn’t feel the burning or anything else on her body, but this she felt it. It felt like swimming in the sea. Except instead of being near the shore where Lu Na could swim back, it was the middle of the ocean at the edge of a hurricane.

  Lu Na didn’t understand what was going on, but more importantly she was scared that this was going to kill her. Everyone from Nugua to all her past teachers have told her that she didn’t have any talent or skill with the summoner arts. They said her spirit realm was too weak to do anything. Now Zi Xu was flooding her spirit realm within her body with the densest spirit energy that would make anyone die from spirit energy sickness.

  “Oh, it seems that a few things have been lost over two thousand years in the practice of the summoner arts,” Zi Xu said. He put Lu Na’s right hand over her chest. Zi Xu made Lu Na focus on the torrent of spirit energy and then forced it to condense. “Keep doing that until it becomes the size of a lychee. I can’t do it for you as it’s spirit energy and not a part of this physical world. Don’t stop or else you will die and everyone else will too.”

  Lu Na put all her concentration on the ball of spirit energy. She didn’t understand it at first, but after feeling Zi Xu’s technique she squeezed. It was like trying to pick up spilled water. Most of it slipped through her fingers.

  The small amounts she could grab, she made sure to squish it together as if she was making dough. Little by little, she grabbed more and more and packed it in. Soon she had a ball the size of an apple.

  Lu Na’s mind tired from the task. It felt like she’d been awake for days.

  “Don’t waver now,” Zi Xu said.

  Lu Na saw Sun Ren’s face. She looked worried. She had to continue to push. If not for herself then for her friend.

  Besides, not sleeping for days at a time was something that Lu Na specialized in. All she had to do was focus on the task and why it was so interesting to her.

  Lu Na thought about the technique that she was performing. It looked similar to the technique she saw in Sun Wukong’s Scroll of Immortality. The only difference was that she wasn’t breathing in the spirit energy. It was already inside her body, threatening to burst from its bonds. Could she just push it into her spirit realm as it was?

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  “No, Young Miss Lu. Doing it now before you condense it smaller will make you explode. It has to be smaller. Here, do it like this.” Zi Xu showed Lu Na a more advanced technique to fold the spirit energy in on itself.

  That was just like what she did with her wards. The patterns she drew on the paper was just one part of it. By folding it into a triangle, she could condense the technique and make it more effective. So if she did the same thing, but with spirit energy then she could make it smaller and more efficient.

  Lu Na reached down and packed the ball of spirit energy until it was flat like a sheet of paper. Then she grabbed a corner and pulled it over on itself. She did it again and again until she had a small triangle of spirit energy.

  That’s where she got stuck. Just like with paper, no matter how many times she tried she couldn’t fold it over more than seven times.

  “Fold it one more time and it should fit,” Zi Xu said. His voice sounded far away.

  Lu Na was loosing consciousness. She felt her body slumping over.

  A hand grabbed her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.

  “Too early to sleep now. Just one more fold.” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded familiar but Lu Na couldn’t tell who it was.

  Lu Na shook her head and folded the spirit triangle one more time, using all her mental strength. It was like pushing against a heavy table and it moved inch by inch. Finally, it folded over, creating the smallest triangle she’d ever made before.

  “Now, absorb it the way you were going to do before,” Zi Xu said.

  Lu Na pulled the the spirit energy triangle into her spirit realm while holding tight to keep its form. She had never felt so tired moving something with her mind before.

  When the spirit energy entered her spirit realm, the entire world brightened to an insane degree. Lu Na forced her eyes closed, but it didn’t matter. She saw through her eyelids and what she saw frightened her.

  It was like she was using her spirit vision technique, except magnified beyond anything she could imagine. Everything around them lit up in different forms of spirit energy. Different colors of black, white, red, green, yellow swirled all around her on the very air she breathed in. Her earth wall structure lit up with the densest, darkest yellow she’d ever seen. The walls and the ground looked bright yellow. The doors of the mansion exploded with green.

  The biggest distraction came in the form of thick lines of dense white spirit energy running below the ground of the labyrinth. It ran all along the floor and went out in every direction.

  Lu Na followed one of the lines that reached the ceiling and her breath caught in her throat. Up above them, at the very apex of the labyrinth, was a large black hole that looked like it was sucking all the spirit energy within the labyrinth. Flying right below it, fighting with every flap of her wings, was a large red phoenix spirit.

  The black hole ripped out a piece of the phoenix spirit’s body, causing it to screech. The red spirit energy would flow into the black hole which was connected to the white lines that ran throughout the labyrinth.

  “Wake up, Young Miss Lu,” Zi Xu said.

  Lu Na opened her eyes. The spirit vision technique faded. Her whole body was in a cold sweat but she felt hot. She was sitting on the ground, facing the earth wall jail.

  There was no on inside.

  “Where did they go?” Lu Na looked around for Zi Xu, but he disappeared as well.

  Lu Na heard laughter coming from the mansion. It was a woman’s voice. Then she heard more laughter from more people. She got up and walked over to the mansion.

  The door opened to a large main hall. The walls had light wards lighting up the entire area. Stone reliefs of mythical creatures adorned the walls. There were large pillars with stone dragons coiled around them. The ground had a beautiful pattern that made it look like a blossoming flower.

  Right in the middle was a large round table where Lu Na’s companions and the Wintersweet disciples sat. She was surprised to see the two Elders and Senior Wong among them. What was more surprising was the gathering of spirits in one of the far corners. How did they manage to overcome the traps?

  “Lu Na, you’re finally awake,” Sun Ren said. She smiled at Lu Na. That was the first time Lu Na saw her friend smile since they started this journey.

  “What’s going on?” Lu Na said.

  “Apparently Zi Xu is not an entirely bad guy. He helped you refine the spirit energy you absorbed and helped you to reach stage two of being a summoner.”

  “None of that makes any sense to me.”

  Hen Li walked by with a cup in hand.

  “Amituofo. I’m glad you are well.”

  “Monk, explain to Lu Na what happened,” Sun Ren said.

  “When you folded the spirit energy and absorbed it into your spirit realm, you ignited the spirit energy inside. That allowed you to cycle it everywhere in your body. Don’t you feel different?”

  Lu Na did feel lighter, as if she had a lot more energy than before. That didn’t prove anything. There was something that bothered her though.

  “What happened to the ghost that was possessing you?”

  Hen Li took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes.

  “That is another thing we have to thank Zi Xu for. He negotiated with a more powerful ghost for our release. Afterwards, that same ghost made arrangements for the rest of the Wintersweet disciples to make it through with their spirits. We have a lot to be thankful for.”

  Lu Na turned to see Zi Xu standing beside her. She yelped and took two steps away from the ghost.

  “Come now. We’ve shared a body. You shouldn’t be so wary of me,” Zi Xu said.

  “You scared me. That’s all. Thank you for helping us,” Lu Na said. She had a hand over her heart, trying to calm the racing beat. “Thank you for also showing me the technique to reach stage two as a summoner.”

  “I did more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. There’s another thing we have to deal with though. The noble ghost, the one that saved your companions, has demanded payment for her services. And because I asked on your behalf, she has allowed you to determine the payment.”

  Lu Na looked to the center of the mansion. There was one ghost, dressed in a long flowing white robe with a white headdress lounged on the main seat. Her pale legs showed off a lot of skin as she laid them on top of a Wintersweet disciple’s lap.

  “Is that her?”

  Zi Xu nodded.

  “Then shouldn’t I talk with her?”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Sun Ren said. Her smile disappeared. “She’s a very powerful ghost. Most of the people lounging around her have been affected by her charms and they’re not possessed. Only standing here, away from her, has my head finally cleared enough.”

  “It is as your companion says,” Zi Xu said.

  “Then fine, what’s the payment that she wants? I’m not sure if she cares much about modern day money, but I can give her all the silver I have.” Lu Na took out her money pouch from her inner chest pocket.

  “My dear Young Miss Lu, she doesn’t want your money. She wants your people. You can only take six people and spirits with you. The rest will be in her care until you die or succeed in solving the labyrinth.”

  “What happens if I die?”

  “Then the noble ghost will torture each and every one of them to death with their greatest nightmares.”