"No, I refuse to believe it."

  "It's true." I said smugly.

  It was an odd little jig we danced with each other. Despite our caution and all our reservations about each other, it became immediately apparent we had something in common. A desperate sort of loneliness. How long had it been for me? Two months? Three? It sounded like nothing, in the grand scheme of things. But the all-consuming nature of the mask had ground me down me down more than I'd realized. I was starting to see now, these last few days, just how many of my choices had been shaped by fear more than reason. I could scarcely imagine what her isolation had been like in comparison.

  We danced around a great deal.

  I didn't talk about my personal past, except in generalities. It felt irrational, but I still refused to utter my old name aloud. She didn't talk about her sisters, except in the form of those dark little jokes implying they were all dead now. Neither of us immediately brought up dangerous things, like the politics of the modern sects, or what exactly she needed to return to life. Things that could give us an edge over each other. But our dead worlds, the idiosyncratic little details of everyday life.

  Those we shared freely.

  "Without meaningful access to qi, your world advanced and fueled civilization through controlled combustion of the remains of dragons?" Ye Qing summarized.

  "Dinosaurs aren't dragons." I repeated for the third time. I had no scholarly basis for this assertion, but it just felt so wrong I refused to concede it.

  "Reptilian apex predators of varied morphology who ruled the entire world in the misty era before human history. Some of which could fly. Dragons in every way that matters."

  "Are dragons less intelligent than housecats?"

  "A great many people would not disagree with that statement. In some cases it's true in the most literal of senses. Not all dragons were calculating sovereigns. Some had the minds of animals despite their heaven-shaking might. Perhaps without qi, these 'dinosaurs' were all the race ever amounted to."

  "I don't think you're ever gonna convince me a brontosaurus was a type of dragon, however distant."

  "Bu-ruo-to-suo-lu-si?" She sounded out the English word. It felt a little odd to my tongue as well, it'd been so long since I'd spoken the language aloud.

  "Brontosaurus." I repeated, emphasizing the saurus. "No wings, fat body, long skinny neck. Weighed enough that it's steps shook the earth. Ate plants in tremendous quantity."

  It frustrated me a little, that I couldn't think of a good translation of brontosaurus into this tongue. At least, not one that didn't involved calling it a dragon. I wanted to say giraffe-lizard, but I didn't have a word for giraffe either. And fat lizard or weighty lizard just sounded... Underwhelming. Heaven-shaking lizard?

  "Oil was mostly produced by plants anyway. Primarily large ferns, I think." I continued, returning to our earlier topic. "The majority of biomass is always produced by the lowest levels of an ecology's food pyramid. But it was a more poetic turn phrase to describe our fuel source as 'dead dinosaurs'."

  "I see." Ye Qing leaned back against the wall, a thoughtful expression on her face. "It strains the bounds of credulity, to imagine such wonders fueled by controlled combustion. Peasants raised to the heavens on the back of deep bogs."

  "And your sect just used qi for energy? You never discovered oil?"

  "To answer your question, we used qi in much the same way you used electricity. The great formation of the sect experienced many transformations over the years, before it's current sorry state. But over millennia of service, it's components acted in a similar manner to the 'grid' you described, effecting the transformation of one form of power to another through qi as an intermediary. We drew power from light, stone, the dragon veins, and even the spirits of our more senior disciples, turning it to every end we needed."

  "However, I'm not unfamiliar with rock oil." She continued. "Mortals have burned every form of oil beneath the heavens for light since time immemorial. But even after being told you were running out of it, the idea of it being utilized at such scales sounds fantastical. A world where the very Dao is different."

  "So, what is the Dao anyway?" I asked seriously.

  Ye Qing stared intently at me. I held on for a long moment, before a tiny smile slipped through. Ye Qing burst into raucous laughter.

  "Oh, that was a good one. What is the Dao. Even I was not so bold with my mistress to just out and ask it."

  Her face turned serious once more.

  "It's funny. I had so many thoughts about what you would ask from me in exchange for your aid. The secrets of this place. My techniques. Spiritual treasures. Instead you come to me with tales even my wild mind would struggle to invent, seeking the most basic of instruction."

  I shrugged.

  "You're not exactly what I expected either."

  "Oh, did you think I'd be stuffy? A scholar graceful and terrible, like your Meng Xiao?

  A domineering empress?"

  "There is a certain sort of gravitas I've come to expect from mighty cultivators." I politely non-answered.

  "If you're lucky enough to live that long, you'll eventually discover there are only two kinds of old women. The stuffy, and those well past fear. And I'm no coward."

  "I see."

  Ye Qing snorted, somehow managing to make the act dignified.

  "You are not tall enough to see that truth. If you're ever lucky enough to see me restored to my former state, only then you will you understand. Still though, I've come to a decision. I shall help you."

  I closed my eyes and inclined my head.

  "Thank you."

  "From small seeds, perhaps we shall see true trust blossom. The Glass Flowers have yet to obtain a terminal. In return, you will ensure that they do."

  Reading between the lines, she couldn't regularly speak with them until they did. It was a small enough thing I was willing to extend a little trust, if Ye Qing really could help me.

  "Very well. I will see that they do. Do you know where the other terminals are?"

  I was not keen on stumbling across another nascent soul level revenant, let alone one stronger. If the Lunar Solace Sect had true immortals, there might well be void-shattering corpses lying around. Even weakened far below their living strength, I wasn't sure all the cultivators present could kill one of those together.

  Ye Qing gestured, and an image of the inner sect painted itself upon the air. One after another, ghostly white images of islands received thin black marks.

  "It's been centuries since one was activated, but these are some of their last known locations. I expect they remain in the hands of the sisters who once owned them, or in their rings. I've marked only those I expect to be in the hands of sisters weaker than Little Ren."

  "Little Ren?" I regretted the question the moment I spoke it. There was only one person she could mean.

  "Third daughter of the main branch of the Ren clan of Yuhuang Mountain. She manifested her nascent soul in the 167th year of the Weathering Storm Era. She cultivated a novel variation of her family's Stillness-Shattering Fist. Quiet and dutiful, but with a heart that bled for every injustice before her, however small. Her great ambition was to establish a satellite branch of the Lunar Solace Sect in the Kingdom of Zou."

  "I'm sorry." I replied on reflex.

  "Do not be." Ye Qing's tone was heavy as a mountain, but without grief or anger. "What you destroyed was a twisted echo, long bereft of her essence. She died with her era and sisters, standing righteously against a tyrant. And so long as I endure, her memory shall not perish from this world."

  In silence, I jotted down the locations Ye Qing had marked. The map didn't lend itself to two dimensions, but I could at least write down islands in terms of their distance from the top of the inner sect, and how far from the edge of the column they floated. Fourth row down, third island in and the like. The work was a welcome reprieve. I had no idea what words you could offer, in the face of something like that. All words of comfort were far beyond trite, bordering upon insulting. A dozen questions burned within me, but I didn't give voice to those either. It wasn't the time.

  My eyes commuted between the diagram and my papers, avoiding hers. Her stare never left me.

  "Let us discuss your problems." Ye Qing said abruptly, breaking the weighty silence. "Explain to me exactly what you have attained, and yet struggle with."

  I gave her an abridged explanation of what I'd tried, and what I'd learned. My complete inability to find a stable cycling method. Some of the applications for Elder Hu's sword intent I'd discovered. What little certain knowledge I'd synthesized from reading stacks of manuals. I held back from mentioning anything about how our world had stories about cultivators, or the earthly religion of Taoism. It seemed like it would simply muddy the waters.

  "What exactly, is it that you seek? Power? Advancement? To rebuild what you have stumbled upon in a form more suitable to you?" She asked.

  "I think..." I trailed off. "I want to ensure my own safety, and Su Li's safety. I wouldn't decline out of hand any power I could grasp that would achieve that. But I think above all else, what I want is understanding. To know enough about the powers fate has given me that I can act as I am expected to and fight without giving myself away. Everything else, to advance, extend my lifespan, become stronger, or change Hu Xin's cultivation. I want it, but it is not what I need. All of that is a luxury I will not hesitate to cast aside if I must."

  Ye Qing listened patiently, and then lapsed into thought after I finished. It was several minutes, before she finally spoke again.

  "There's a great deal I would say, enough that I struggle to organize it all. Your problem is a strange one, but not without precedent in our sect's long history. There are methods that allow an ancestor to pass great portions of their cultivation to an heir. Possessions gone awry, granting power but shedding memory. I shall I think, begin at the beginning. Your education is a strange patchwork, and by repairing some of these holes, I think you might see the problems you face yourself."

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I listened in rapt attention, as Ye Qing began to lecture.

  "I think you have some misunderstandings about the realms, and how they function. Likely because you've only been exposed to materials intended for lower level cultivators. Or, perhaps because the average attainment has fallen so far in this era. In my time, no core formation cultivator would have dreamed of claiming the title of elder. An elder would have meant only immortals and those walking the long road, what the modern era calls void-shattering. Perhaps the most precocious and venerable of nascent soul cultivators as well. The realms are not merely stages marked by increasingly greater development of the quantity and power of one's qi. The first two realms largely are, but from core formation onwards, the realms mark qualitative changes in one's state of being. Core formation is the simplest. There are myriad types of cores and methods to forge them, but without exception they grant a cultivator an unflagging vitality, the power to eventually recover their own qi even without external qi to cycle. Whether a cultivator has one core or hundreds, this is always true, save in only the most degenerate and self destructive of methods. The following three realms however, are not so simple. All roads leads to immortality, but every immortal is a unique existence, united only in our great strength, and common freedom from the tyranny of time. Nascent soul, is the first true step upon that road.

  "Nascent soul as a stage is named for the manifestation of the soul, for the dawning of the ability to live on beyond the death of the flesh. But this isn't the core of what the stage actually is, any more than shattering the void is the crux of the long road. One can form a core without a Dao. One can form a core even without true comprehension, if external conditions are perfect. In the right circumstances, a core can even be stolen or gifted. But to manifest a nascent soul requires more. One's soul and qi must move closer into unity, to better embody the virtues that they cultivate. This unity allows them to exert far more influence upon the world with the same amount of qi, so long as they are acting in concordance with their fledgling Dao."

  "That's why nascent soul cultivators feel heavier." I murmured. It made sense, at least on a surface level. But what did it really mean to be in concordance with their Dao? Was taking up a sword with the intent to cut really enough to be in unity with the old Elder Hu? It didn't seem like it should be that simple.

  "Heavier is not a bad way to put it, if crudely simple." Ye Qing continued smoothly. "No matter how much qi they might bring to bear, cultivators of a lower realm will fail directly contest opponents who bear nascent souls within their own domains. The remnants of this unity are why the powers of sword intent have come so easily to you. The fire of lower cultivators might burn you, or their lightning lay you low. But even with your limited comprehension, only prodigies with peerless weapons might hope to so much as withstand a single direct blow from your sword.

  However, nascent soul is not merely a realm to be attained. It is a state of being, continuously maintained. Your soul is not yet so developed, so fixed, as to be incompatible with Elder Hu's cultivation. Why, I cannot say. Some of it is an element of age certainly, but there is likely an underlying element of compatibility as well. This state may endure for a time, perhaps even a full hundred years, but if you live long enough, grow and change, one day it will become untenable. You will be forced to either reify his nature, or reject it and attain nascent soul in your own manner."

  "So, one day I'll either have to become worthy of Elder Hu's sword intent, or lose it." I summarized.

  "Not quite. This is no matter of worth nor merit. I have no doubt my mastery of the sword far outstrips your own. But were our spirits and wills to exchange their places, Elder Hu's nascent soul would shatter in a heartbeat, reducing his body's cultivation to core formation. What I am is not what he was, and there is no room left for my nature to bend."

  "You," Ye Qing smiled. "Are a willow sapling in comparison, bent to shape by the storm of his passing. This is why I hesitate to teach you more of the sword. My sword is not his. From even that small taste in the lesser dreaming chamber, I can tell that our ways are incompatible. In time I could perhaps see what was suitable to teach you. Help you develop an understanding of the weapon that was a synthesis of our arts and your nature. But in the short term, learning too profound a secret of swordsmanship might well weaken you. If immediate power is your concern, you are best limiting yourself to what you can glean on your own from his intent."

  "I see..." That was a lot to consider. I'd known nascent soul was more profound than the realms that came before it, and suspected that was why Hu's sword intent came so easily to me. But confirmation that this was a temporary state, even if one with a relatively long grace period, was good to know. But that was a problem for the far future, I had to survive this year, before I worried about this century. It didn't help me today, beyond giving me a way to avoid a pitfall I hadn't been heading towards.

  "Do you see? We are yet early, but do you see the crux of your problem? Why you struggle to do so much that cultivators a realm beneath you manage effortlessly?" Ye Qing's inhuman eyes stared through me.

  I thought about it. What exactly was I doing wrong? From her explanation, it was related to Elder Hu having attained nascent soul. Every elemental technique I'd tried had failed, and I'd struggled with the physical precision most sword techniques described in manuals required.

  "His nascent soul tinges my innate qi with sword intent. All my qi is sword qi." I guessed. "Elder Hu had some method to produce pure or elemental qi from sword qi, and I don't know it."

  Ye Qing's eyebrow rose.

  "Correct on the second count, close on the first, missing the third entirely. From what I felt in the dreaming chamber, your innate qi is indeed heavily aspected toward swords. However, that's not a quality of your predecessor's nascent soul, but of his cultivation method itself. To merge one's sword intent with their cultivation in nascent soul, one must already be cultivating primarily sword qi by core formation. This has many advantages. It simplifies the process of cycling, and allows fighting powerful foes to act as fortuitous encounters. But the downside is that most sword cultivators must use a reverse cycling technique in order to generate pure qi. The third missing thing is simple comprehension. You know much. You have explained to me the fundamentals of gravitation and electricity, natural philosophy so advanced even in our age many core formation cultivators struggled to truly understand. But your understanding is that of a neophyte. It is one thing to describe the works of universal attraction and air flow. Another to know where exactly the arrow fired will land a thousand paces from you. You are, in a way, the product of too much education, and too little practice."

  I sighed. I'd been on the right track already, but unless Ye Qing could deduce Elder Hu's method, I was back exactly where I started.

  "And I don't know Elder Hu's cycling method. Let alone any reversed variants of it."

  "Indeed. Normally, recreating such a thing would be a difficult task, even for an immortal with a functional body. But you're in luck. I can do far better than merely recreating his work."

  Ye Qing smiled like that cat that ate the canary as my eyes widened.

  "The dreaming chambers you found in the outer sect are but early prototypes of the greatest works of our formation masters. During our prime, the Lunar Solace Sect were known far and wide as masters of the thin line between illusion and reality. Deep within the sect, there is a chamber beyond them, intended to plumb the depths of the soul. Great clans sent us their scions, to seek our expertise in cultivating their ancestral techniques. Your soul might not be that of your body's first inhabitant, but the realm of nascent soul muddies the waters. However he met his end, the first Hu Xin brought his cultivation so close to the core of what he was that traces of him will remain. Traces that a skilled immortal like myself might manifest and interrogate."

  "That would show me his cycling method?"

  "Certainly. Likely far more. His techniques and tactics. The personality and history that shaped his cultivation method. Everything you need, to, as you put it, play this role."

  I swallowed. That was a tempting prize. Exactly what I needed. The single greatest piece of good fortune I could possibly expect to find in my position.

  "Where exactly is this chamber?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

  "Get me in contact with the elders of the Glass Flowers Sect first. Then we'll see about getting you access to the Celestial Skein."

  That made sense, of course. It was the perfect bargaining chip. She couldn't give it up for nothing. That didn't make it rankle any less. Even a taste of Elder Hu's memories would change everything.

  "That having been said... It wouldn't do to leave you with nothing. You took a risk, in seeking me out, just as I did confiding in you."

  Ye Qing waved her hand, and the diagram of the sect washed away. Replacing it, was a qi flow diagram, and a few dozen lines of text. I began to copy them down even as she explained.

  "This, is another solution to your problem. Far less effective, but far more accessible. It's a simple external cycling method intended to strip sword qi of it's aspects. Internal cycling methods are highly personal, but external ones are largely standardized. The downside of course is that being performed without relying upon a meridian network, they are slower, more fragile, and vastly less effective. The White Mountain developed this one in an age past, to allow their disciples who did not practice sword techniques to cycle from their abundant natural sword qi. It is intended for late foundation establishment and early core formation cultivators, but I think it should be suitable for you."

  I studied the diagram. It was moderately complex, and sufficiently three dimensional that it was tricky to properly copy down. I did my best to commit it to both memory and paper, focusing on recall over understanding. Ye Qing's elegant illusion with it's ropes of flowing plasma turned into a series of isometric projections with little arrows to indicate flow direction. I silently gave thanks to my various art teachers. The characters at least, were easy enough to simply transcribe exactly.

  "You don't have an empty jade slip?" She asked halfway through my copying.

  "I have one, but it isn't empty, and I don't know how to overwrite it."

  "I see I have my work cut out for me. We'll remedy that lack later."

  "Thank you." My mind buzzed with ideas. Even if it was slower and less efficient than a nascent soul cultivator should be, this would allow me to eventually learn to use virtually any technique I'd run across. Nothing I could do with it in the short term would ever measure up to my sword in terms of sheer lethality. But I could learn to prepare traps before a fight, or heal after. Create immortal poisons for to coat stored weapons, or prepare spell talismans. And perhaps more importantly, learn to do all the other things cultivators took for granted, like apply telekinesis to things that were not swords. Or fly without getting the world's best core workout.

  "Does it have a name?" I asked.

  "The White Mountain Sect was a sword sect above all else, and they disdained other paths. The cultivator who invented the method shared this view, and had a rather crude sense of humor besides. This combination of factors led him to name it the Sword Swallowing Method."

  "Puh." My breath exited my chest of it's own accord, producing a noise somewhere between a cough and a chuckle. "That's hilarious."

  "I thought so as well. It's why he shared the art with me. Bear in mind it was intended to operate with pure sword qi. It is not unlikely that the late Elder Hu's cultivation base has the influence of other concepts within it. The qi should be purer, and far more amenable to non sword techniques, but it may still be unsuitable for some applications."

  Ye Qing patiently waited for me to copy down the detailed instructions she'd provided.

  "I see I've given you much to consider, as you have given me." She said as I finished. "I had considered many possibilities after you first reached out to me. But a world of apparent lower order with such a different Dao was not among them. I shall leave you to your practice. But before I do, allow me to do what your master would have, if your introduction to our world was more conventional. It is said, that to introduce another to the world of immortals is to take responsibility for them. For the karma they sow, and the trials they suffer. I have never been a great believer in obeisance before karma, and our respective positions would not allow me to accept you as a proper disciple even if I wished to. Still, I shall swear to keep to the spirit of this tradition, if not it's specifics. Whatsoever shall blossom between us in time, be it trust or strife, I shall not seek advantage over you through perverting the position of the teacher. There is much I feel I must refrain from disclosing. More secrets than any responsible teacher should have. Upon the honor of the Lunar Solace Sect, I swear that in whatsoever I teach, I will seek only to transmit a true knowledge of the Dao, to instill righteousness and resolve doubts."

  I could not name what emotion I saw in Ye Qing's face. It was a certainty beyond faith. A resolve to keep alive a tradition that had been all but exterminated I could not help but respect.

  I bowed my head deeply once more.

  "Thank you. I... I have no words so fine to match those." I hated that it was now, when I most wanted to bare my heart, that words failed me so thoroughly. "My home was a very different place than this world. Kinder in some ways, darker in others. But we had our own ideals, however often we failed to live up to them. Justice untainted by privilege or prejudice. Pursuit of truth without care for gain or loss. Equality without discrimination. Freedom despite our many differences. I swear upon that memory that I will strive, to show you the best of us."

  I looked up. As much as I wanted to immediately run for a cave and seclude myself for a few days, that was not prudent. I had a young mistress to shepherd, and two sects to keep from each other's throats. I half expected Elder Cai to have abducted a few Glass Flowers in the absence of anyone capable of and motivated to stop her. I needed to know more about what we faced in here.

  "But... Before you go, I have a few more questions."