Chapter 207 (Patreon)

A clarification regarding what I said in the previous chapter.

Since the chapter is basically a repetition of Wen recreating the Qi-gathering formation, with the addition of Master Shi’s part, I thought that repetition might bother some people.

After hearing those words, I, who have spent a good while with my back so straight that it almost hurts, let myself drop back against the backrest of the chair and then bow toward him.

“Thank you very much, Master Shi”, I tell him.

Master Shi nods, but halfway through the gesture he stops, and his face takes on the expression of someone who has just realized something, and from what I see next, that something doesn’t please him at all, since, to my surprise, he looks embarrassed.

“Now that I think of it”, he tells me, bringing two fingers to his beard. “I still haven’t asked your name.”

“Sun Wen”, I reply.

I say it without giving it much importance, because after the exam I have just taken, the examiner not knowing my name seems like the least of the problems.

“Sun Wen”, he repeats, like someone noting it down somewhere.

And for a moment neither of us quite knows what to say, so he clears his throat and I shift in my chair, which is what everyone does in these situations in either of the two worlds.

“Well”, he says afterward, and he is himself again. “Now that you have passed and have shown that you master the creation of basic formations, you may receive lessons on the next level.”

He looks around him: the room, the drawing and the cabinets.

“But we had better discuss that somewhere else”, he finishes.

After those words he heads for the door while I follow him with my eyes, and then I look at the floor, and then I look back at him, because I have just realized something I hadn’t thought about at any point.

“Master Shi”, I tell him.

He stops with his hand on the door and turns around.

“Is it all right to smudge part of the drawing now?” I ask him. “Because if it’s a problem, I can’t get out of here on my own.”

Master Shi looks at me, then looks at the drawing, and seems to understand at that moment where I am and what it means.

“There is no problem at all”, he tells me. “Someone will come to clean the room later.”

I sigh with relief after hearing him, so I close my hands around the rims and push, making the chair cross the drawing on the floor while Master Shi waits for me at the door.

Master Shi opens the door, and as I expected, on the other side, in the corridor, Lianhua and Xia are standing, waiting for me.

Xia watches with her eyes wide.

“Well?” she asks me, only mouthing it.

I nod as I smile, and Xia’s face lights up.

Lianhua, on the other hand, looks at me and then at my hands, which are still on the rims, and makes no move to push the chair. She simply, when I set off after Master Shi, positions herself on my left and half a step behind, which is where she always places herself when she isn’t the one pushing.

Master Shi leads us down another corridor, considerably shorter than the ones before, and stops in front of another door, but before opening it, he turns to me.

“Your handmaidens can’t be present for this conversation either”, he tells me. “It would be best for them to wait for you at reception.”

I sigh after hearing him, but not because it seems wrong to me, since where a guild’s lessons are concerned it seems perfectly normal, but because that makes twice so far on this visit, and if he had told me at the beginning, they wouldn’t have had to follow me around the whole time.

“Lianhua, Xia”, I tell them. “Wait for me at the entrance.”

Lianhua doesn’t seem very pleased, and although she says nothing, she stays still an instant longer than necessary, looking at the closed door, then at the corridor we came along, and finally at Master Shi, as if calculating how long it would take her to get back here from the vestibule if she had to.

And she is most likely calculating it for real.

But in the end she bows, and the two of them leave down the corridor, although Xia turns to look at me one last time before rounding the corner.

Master Shi opens the door, and I follow him in.

This room is much smaller than the exam room, and considerably more normal. There is a wooden table in the center, several chairs around it, a cabinet against the wall and a window through which the light comes in.

Master Shi, without saying anything, pulls one of the chairs away from the table and pushes it against the wall, leaving the gap free, and I roll mine into that gap while he sits down across from me.

“From this point on, the creation of formations divides into three branches”, he tells me without any kind of preamble.

He rests his hands on the table.

“You may specialize in whichever you like”, he continues. “But I warn you now that, if you ever want to become a Master, you will need to know all three.”

Master Mu told me before she left that diversifying too much might mean I never excel at anything. And now it turns out that, in formations, to excel you have to diversify.

I say nothing, because I am fairly sure they are both right, each in their own field.

“The first branch is Enhancement”, Master Shi continues. “It is devoted to enhancing the classic formations, whether by making them more powerful or by adding more effects to them.”

“And how is that done?” I ask him.

“By extending the initial hexagon”, he replies. “The initial hexagon stops being the formation itself and becomes a kind of control node. And to each of its six sides another geometric figure is added.”

He moves a finger over the table, drawing something in the air that leaves no mark.

“A triangle, a square, and so on”, he continues. “Until, in the most powerful version, what you have is a hexagon surrounded by six other hexagons.”

And without my meaning to, they draw themselves in my head.

With triangles, the hexagon becomes a six-pointed star. With squares, something like a flower with square petals. And with hexagons, a piece of honeycomb, seven cells packed tightly against one another, as if a beehive had decided to take up formations.

“And can they be mixed?” I ask him. “A triangle on one side and a square on another, for example.”

“No”, he replies. “That is the limitation. When this is done, every side of the central hexagon has to be occupied, and the same geometric figure always has to be drawn on all of them.”

He pauses briefly.

“Naturally, that makes the formations considerably larger”, he adds. “Although, with enough skill, the runes can be made smaller, and the geometric figures can be reduced in size accordingly.”

And I, without being able to help it, think of talismans, where everything you want them to do has to fit on a paper fifteen by five, and where half the craft consists precisely of getting all the runes to fit into a small space.

“The second branch is Range”, he continues. “It is devoted to creating formations that cover a large area of ground. The most classic are protection formations, the ones that protect a piece of land.”

When I hear that, I sit up straight in the chair without realizing it.

“In these formations, a central control formation is drawn at the center of the land to be protected”, he continues. “And then, along the outer perimeter, the secondary formations are drawn, which mark out that perimeter and extend the range.”

“How many secondary formations?” I ask him.

“Up to a maximum of six”, he replies. “Which is the most the central formation is capable of handling.”

“And what are their limits?” I ask him.

Master Shi raises his eyebrows, and from the way he looks at me, I get the impression that he likes that question.

“The first, the most obvious, is the range itself”, he tells me. “At this level, they can’t yet be extended very far.”

He rests his hands on the table again.

“And the second is that the limit of six secondary formations also limits the perimeter that can be covered”, he continues. “Because every secondary formation has to have two other secondary formations within its reach so that, in that way, they can all create a chain between them.”

Six formations on the perimeter, each linked to the two on either side of it, around a central one.

And in my head there appears, once again, a geometric figure, only this time the size of an entire piece of land.

And as I think about it, I wonder whether six will be enough to surround my island in the middle of the Rong River, but that, for now, I have no way of knowing.

“The third branch is Speed”, Master Shi continues. “And this one is a little different from the other two.”

He leans back in his chair.

“It allows the vertices of a formation to be created in advance”, he tells me. “Whether by carving them on tablets, painting them on banners or with any of the dozens of methods that can be used. And then, quickly, deploying them anywhere and creating a formation instantly.”

“The advantages are obvious”, he continues. “But it also has its disadvantages.”

He raises a finger.

“Any formation created by that method will see its effectiveness reduced by half, or even more, depending on how well made the objects used to deploy it are”, he tells me.

He raises a second finger.

“And besides, that formation will always have to be powered by the person who deploys it”, he continues. “Because it doesn’t allow the use of spirit stones.”

He lowers his hand.

“This branch is also called that of combat formations”, he adds. “Because, since they can be used at any moment, they can also be deployed in the middle of a fight.”

“That sounds very useful”, I tell him.

“It sounds it”, he confirms, and half a smile escapes him. “But it is very difficult. Bear in mind that a minimum of three objects has to be deployed in very precise positions for the simplest formation, and all of that while you are in the middle of that fight.”

He pauses briefly.

“It requires a practice, a coordination and a speed that not many are capable of achieving”, he finishes.

He falls silent after that, looking at me, and I understand that the explanation is over and that it is my turn now, but I don’t have to think about it.

There is a reason I have come to this guild today, and that reason is right now on an island in the middle of the river, with a white magnolia in the courtyard, a wall that until very recently seemed enough to me and at least three groups of people who earn their living following my handmaiden every time she leaves the house.

“I would like to learn the Range branch first”, I tell him.

Master Shi nods slowly.

“It is your decision”, he tells me. “And no one can make it for you.”

He folds his hands on the table.

“And you are welcome in my classes”, he continues. “I give them every seven days, so the next one will be in seven days, since precisely today we met just after I came out of giving the last one.”

Which explains why he was leaning against the frame of that corridor, arms crossed, at the exact moment Master Qin wanted to throw me out of the guild.

Sometimes you can have the luck of arriving somewhere just as someone is coming out of their class.

“The cost of each class is ten spirit stones”, he finishes telling me as I finish thinking about my luck, or my lack of it on occasion.

I do the math, and I can’t help comparing that price with Master Mu’s, to whom I paid three hundred spirit stones back then for six months of lessons.

Ten stones every seven days comes in under that, so the price doesn’t seem excessive to me, especially considering that when I left the island I didn’t even know whether I would manage to get someone to teach me.

“That suits me”, I tell him.

And before he can consider the matter closed, I add what I have been thinking ever since he started talking about the three branches.

“Could you give me a list of books I could buy to learn on my own in the meantime?” I ask him. “That way I could make better use of your classes to ask you questions and to have you correct what I have misunderstood, instead of you having to waste time teaching me everything from scratch.”

Master Shi looks at me for a moment, and on his face appears something that, if I am not mistaken, looks a great deal like approval.

Because it is the same face I used to make, in my other life, when a student came to my office having already read the syllabus and with their questions written down on a piece of paper, which didn’t happen even once a year, but when it did, it made up for all the others.

He gets up, goes to the cabinet against the wall and takes out paper, ink and a brush. Then he sits down again, dips the brush and writes without stopping to think about a single one of the titles, like someone reciting something he has recited many times.

When he finishes, he blows on the ink, folds the paper and holds it out to me across the table, so I take it with both hands.

“Thank you very much, Master Shi”, I tell him.

He nods and gets to his feet.

“And now, if you will excuse me, I have a few more things to do today that I have been putting off”, he tells me.

And from the way he says it, I suspect he has put them off because of me.

“Thank you again for giving me your time”, I tell him, and I bow to him from the chair.

Master Shi returns the bow, opens the door and leaves down the corridor, with the same calm pace with which he brought us here.

And I am left alone in the room, with the list in my hands.

I put it away in my bag, back the chair out of the gap at the table and, after a turn on the spot that comes out considerably cleaner than the first ones in the exam room, I go out into the corridor, pushing the rims.

I have the way back stored in my memory, turn by turn, so I don’t have to look for it.

What I hadn’t foreseen is how fast you go along it, because in these corridors there are no uneven stones to slow me down, no carts crossing, no groups of people taking up the whole street, just a smooth, level floor from one end to the other, and the chair, after a couple of pushes, picks up a speed I had never managed before.

And at the first corner I nearly run down an apprentice coming around it with a pile of paper scrolls in his arms, so I squeeze the brake lever, the chair stops with a short click a handspan from his legs, and the apprentice jumps backward, dropping a couple of scrolls.

“Excuse me!” I tell him. “I’m terribly sorry.”

The apprentice looks at me, looks at the chair, looks at me again and, without saying a word, picks up his scrolls and presses himself against the wall until I have gone by.

Two corridors later, the scene repeats itself almost exactly with a man who comes out of one of the rooms without looking, except that this time I brake a little earlier, and he just presses himself against the wall without dropping anything.

“Excuse me”, I tell him as I pass.

And as I continue, a little more slowly now, I can’t help thinking that out in the street I am too slow, and in here, apparently, too fast.

When I finally reach the vestibule, I don’t need to look for Lianhua and Xia, because they find me first.

Xia comes almost running from one of the benches along the wall, and Lianhua, at her usual pace, reaches my side at exactly the same time as her.

“What did he tell you?” Xia asks me. “Are you going to have lessons? With him? When?”

“In seven days”, I reply. “I’ll tell you everything at home.”

Xia opens her mouth, but closes it right after as she looks around her at the people who, as usual, are looking at us again.

Lianhua asks nothing, but she looks me up and down, just once and very quickly, and only after checking that I am exactly as I was when she left me does she take her place on my left.

I push the chair up to the counter, and the receptionist leans over it to look at me.

“Master Shi has already informed me that you passed the exam”, she tells me, and the smile she gives isn’t the one from before, the one that seemed to be there out of habit, but a considerably more sincere one. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you”, I reply.

She takes from under the counter a sheet of thick paper with the guild’s seal in one corner and writes on it in careful handwriting, which, from the way the brush moves, I imagine is my name. Then she turns it around so that I can clearly see my name, the guild’s seal and the statement that its holder is a formation maker.

“I have to ask you to let a drop of your blood fall on the seal”, the receptionist tells me.

This time I don’t ask what it is for. I simply hold my hand out toward Lianhua and extend a finger, and Lianhua, just as that day at the Pavilion, draws one of her weapons from her sleeve and pricks my fingertip just enough to draw a drop, which I let fall onto the seal.

This time, too, I don’t notice any change in it, but the receptionist nods with satisfaction, so I take it as done.

I fold the certificate, put it away in my bag alongside my talisman maker’s certificate, and for a moment I stay looking at how the two of them sit, side by side.

Two papers, two seals and two drops of blood.

And no one gave me either of them.

But I set aside my moment of self-satisfaction to continue it later and take out Master Shi’s list.

“Master Shi recommended these books to me”, I tell the receptionist. “Could you get them for me?”

I float the list up to the counter with the Myriad, where the receptionist plucks it out of the air, reads it from top to bottom and nods.

“Wait a moment, please”, she tells me.

She calls over an apprentice passing through the vestibule, gives him the list and some instructions in a low voice, and the apprentice disappears down one of the corridors.

He doesn’t take long to come back, although when he does, his arms are full and his chin is resting on the top book so the pile won’t fall, and I, seeing the height of the pile, start to wonder whether my funds will stretch that far before the receptionist even tells me the price.

Fortunately, when she does tell me, I have more than enough for them, since they aren’t scandalously expensive books, I have to admit that.

None of them, on its own, would make me hesitate. But there are a lot of them, and the total takes a good bite out of finances that are only just starting to recover from the morning of shopping in the Ten Thousand Trades Quarter.

But I don’t hesitate, because if there is one thing I have never minded spending money on in either of my two lives, it is books.

Lianhua takes the pile from the apprentice’s hands and sets it in my lap, and I take out of my bag the paper, the ink and the seal of the House of the Long Journey, write out the authorization resting on the cover of the top book of the pile, with the exact amount and my most careful handwriting, and seal it in front of the receptionist.

Then I float it up to the counter, where the receptionist takes it, looks at it, and I see the exact moment she recognizes the format of the Tower of the Five Dragons, but she says nothing about it. She just puts it away in a drawer and thanks me.

And with that, for today, there is nothing more left for us to do at the Hall of a Hundred Circles.

“I’ll carry some for you”, says Xia, and before anyone can answer her, she has already taken several off my lap and is holding them against her chest, with her head tilted to read the titles on the spines.

I push the rims toward the exit, with Lianhua on my left and Xia on my right, and we cross the vestibule while the few heads still there turn again as we pass.

Outside, in the square, the light makes me squint.

And there is the enormous circle carved into the flagstones, with its runes packed tightly from the edge to the center, and as I cross it I look at it again, and once again I don’t know whether it is a real formation, very well hidden, or the guild’s biggest advertisement.

I head into the square, and as soon as the front wheels give their first rattle, I feel Lianhua’s hands on the handles of the backrest.

She doesn’t ask me to let go of the rims, and there is no need, since this time I don’t protest. I simply let go of the rims, rest my hands in my lap and let myself be pushed while the street of pale walls begins to slide past me, and I realize I am smiling.

Because I came looking for a formation master, and I am leaving with a master, a certificate, a pile of books and a date. And along the way I have only had to put up with a master trying to throw me out of the guild, which, by the standards of my life, counts more as an inconvenience than as a real problem.

And somewhere on this quiet street, whoever has been following us since we got off the boat is noting down right now that the girl in the chair went into the formation guild empty-handed and came out with a pile of books.

Let them note it down, because by the time anyone figures out what I want them for, I hope the island will already have its formation.