Eclipse Academy, Paired Cultivation Book Two: Chapters 7-9 (A Threads of Fate Universe Story) (Patreon)

Chapter 7

As Kabis and his attendant bellowed and screamed in pain as the poison I’d thrown at them started disabling their nervous systems, Keiko, Ellie, Aria, Gong Jin, and I all bolted for the entranceway to the Inheritance of the Eclipse.

As we ran, I spoke very quickly. “Aria, Gong Jin, I have a way for you two to escape along with Keiko and I, but it’s going to fundamentally change how you cultivate. Is that something you’re amenable to? Otherwise, Keiko and I will make as big a distraction as we can so that you two can escape another way.

I stuffed the handful of earrings toward Aria and put them in her surprised grasp. As I pulled my hand back, I moved it up to brush aside the bit of hair that was covering the earring on my left ear, so as to explain better to Aria what I meant, without words.

We rapidly approached the two androgenous golden statues that were needed to activate the entrance to the Inheritance the Eclipse. Keiko and I each headed towards one of the statues while Aria and Gong Jin stood before the central archway talking very quickly.

From the courtyard that we had just left, I heard a bellow and then saw a massive spike of metal qi blast through the buildings between the two courtyards. The metal qi spike eviscerated everything that it touched, only to dead at a shining golden barrier, mere feet before it would’ve impacted the archway that led to the Inheritance of the Eclipse. Like Sensei said, there was no telling how well that poison would work on someone at the Duke level of cultivation, though I had hoped it would last little bit longer than the twenty-five seconds we had received.

From my hip, Sensei brought up a similar point, “That’s very strange, even a Duke cultivator like Kabis should’ve had nearly no control of their body for at least a minute before being able to start to shrug off the effects of that poison… There’s something very wrong with that person, it’s almost as if he’s not human. Anyway, hurry up and open up the portal, it’s up to Aria and Gong Jin if they want to follow you through.”

I glanced over at Keiko and saw that she was staring intently at Aria and Gong Jin, even as her eyes flitted back and forth to where we could now see the struggling form of Kabis as he worked to try and stand up. Keiko looked back to me and I nodded. In unison, we both touched her hands to the statue’s heads

we both put your hands to the nondescript humanoid statues’ heads and with a loud crackle of qi, the portal to the Inheritance of the Eclipse opened. Unlike the Inheritance of the Lovers, the portal to this Inheritance wasn’t small, rather it was nearly twenty feet tall at its highest point and twenty feet wide at ground level, forming a massive semicircle of sky-blue qi.

I nodded to Keiko and both of us started in towards the portal, crossing the twenty feet from the statues to the portal in less than a second until we joined arms in the center. We both looked back to see that Aria and Gong Jin had also joined arms and they were each wearing one white earring and one black earring. They smiled and waved for us to go ahead as we saw that Kabis was dashing toward us with incredible speed, giant blades of metal qi extended out from his arms as he ran. Thinking better on it, Aria and Gong Jin swept forward and pushed Keiko and I through the portal as they also tumbled through the portal behind us.

The last thing I heard as the portal snap shut behind us was Kabis screaming. “You think you’re safe!? You don’t know the kind of trouble you’re in now! You’ll wish that you’d stayed out here and let me eat you!”

The space that the portal emptied us out into was as grand as I’d expected it to be. We were in an enormous courtyard that was surrounded by two-story tall buildings that looked small at this distance. Beyond those buildings, I could see that we were in an enormous mountain range. Each of the peaks that I could see also seemed to be capped by a building of sorts. In the far distance I could see a single ruby and gold pagoda atop the tallest peak. Somehow, I knew that, if we succeeded, Keiko and I would end up in that pagoda and we would find something fantastic there.

I felt a sudden twinge from my connection to the Celestial Cube that Keiko and I had taken from the Inheritance of the Lovers’ vault. As the rest of the group I was with stood and gawked at the splendor laid out before us, I was instead entranced by what I found when I pulled out the Celestial Cube, which is what I called it seeing as I didn’t actually know what it was really supposed to be called. In addition to the single golden face covered in arcane writing, now one of the black faces also had strange writing, but it was an entirely different script than what was on the golden face.

As I was staring at the cube, I heard Sensei gasp in my head. “Where did you find that?!” He sounded excited and scared at the same time.

I shrugged, “I can’t tell you where I found it, but I can tell you that I think your son is the person who would have originally located it, him or his wife.” Even as I dodged the question, I felt a twinge in my soul from the oath I had sworn to not say anything about the contents of the Inheritance of the Lovers’ vault.

Sensei actually sounded more excited after that, “He found it! My boy actually found it! Do you know what you’re holding Steven?” His anticipation was palpable and I even felt myself get excited a bit, because if something like this was enough to get Sensei excited, how important must it be?”

“I have no idea what this cube is, Sensei. All I know is that when Keiko and I touched it for the first time there was a flash of light and one of the panels had writing on it that neither of us could read. I’ve been calling it the Celestial Cube.” I paused a moment, “Actually, can you read it Sensei?”

I was hopeful that Sensei would be able to read it, seeing as he was from so far in the past, maybe there was a chance that it was just an ancient language that wasn’t all that uncommon back then.

Sensei’s voice rose two octaves, almost to the point where his voice was as high as Keiko’s, “You’re telling me that you two are the reason why one of the golden panels changed? Wait, I see that another panel has writing on it. Is that a black panel? Never mind, don’t tell me that, I can tell that it’s one of the black panels. When did that happen?”

“All right, in order. Yes, Keiko and I are the reason why the golden panel has writing on in. Walking in here triggered the writing on the black panel.” I did my best to be succinct, but I was pretty sure that Sensei would get what I meant.

Sensei sounded out of breath, which made no sense, seeing as he didn’t have to breathe. “If I could hyperventilate, I would hyperventilate. My boy, which you hold is an artifact more ancient than anything even I’ve ever touched. It comes from a time back when the world was young and more powerful beings walked the land. That’s the Stellar Cube. No one knows what’ll happen when all six faces are activated, but no one’s ever been able to get even one face to activate before, so this is a truly momentous day.”

He paused for a moment, obviously considering the information that was laid before us. “From what I can tell, to be clear, the first panel to light up was a golden panel, correct?”

“Yes, the golden panel lit up the first time Keiko and I touched it.”

“Excellent, I’m not fluent in this particular ancient language, but I did have to learn some of it to go through some old alchemical journals. From what I can tell there’s something here about the birth of power. However, from what I can tell, the word birth here refers to the rebirth your body goes through when you become a Saint cultivator… That must be it! This cube has probably never been in the hands of a young couple such as yourselves that were below the level of a Duke cultivator. It appears that the Stellar Cube was waiting for someone less-developed to touch it. As for the black panel, I’m much more familiar with that language. It reads, ‘Survival of an Ancient Evil’.”

As much as I wanted to talk to Sensei more about what he’d just told me, at that point a pair of cultivators flew down to meet the group Keiko and I were with on a small golden disk that they both stood on while grasping each other’s waists.

Before they could begin talking, I gave Sensei a few things to think about while I was otherwise indisposed, “If it’s talking about ancient evil, is there a chance that there’s something more going on with Kabis? Never mind answering me now, think on it for a bit and get back to me when we have some downtime.” Sensei grunted in response, but did as I asked and refrained from speaking anymore for a while.

I snapped back to attention as the pair riding the golden disk introduced themselves.

The woman spoke first in a pleasant voice that reminded me of a garden for some reason, “Please call me Naomi. Welcome to the Inheritance of the Eclipse, better known as Eclipse Academy.”

Naomi was roughly five foot, two inches tall. Her skin was as pale as white jade and her jet-black hair was luxuriously rolling down her back until it reached the space just above her tailbone. She wore a crimson and gold yukata that it seemed she had been poured into, because with her proportions…

Next, her partner introduced himself. His voice was very deep, it reminded me of the roar of an Iron Bear, “My name is Taka. Welcome.”

Taka looks nearly identical to Naomi, though instead of being the epitome of feminine grace, he was the epitome of masculine presence. He wore a golden hilted blade at his hip and his yukata was crimson with silver accents, rather than crimson with golden accents. He was roughly the same height as Naomi, though maybe slightly taller, maybe five foot six at most. His hair was still jet black and was cut to be about an inch long, so that it raised off of his scalp and looked a bit like spikes.

Keiko immediately cupped her hands and bowed toward Naomi and Taka, the rest of us followed suit immediately afterward. Naomi and Taka both smiled magnanimously and very slightly inclined their heads toward us. As their eyes swept across us, I stood next to Keiko, who was next to Aria, who in turn was next to Gong Jin. Her eyes lit up when she saw Keiko and I and as she scanned over Aria and Gong Jin her grin widened and she chuckled a little bit.

“It appears that we have two very different situations here. Why don’t you all introduce yourselves so that I can at least try speaking intelligently about the two pairs I see.”

Keiko was first to speak up, “My name is Keiko Roh, partner to Steven Roh.” She intertwined her hand with mine.

“As Keiko said, my name is Steven Roh. It’s a pleasure to meet you” I inclined my head to her, deeper than she had to us, but not as far as Keiko had done when she originally cupped her hands to the pair.

Naomi and Taka both smiled and inclined their heads slightly, being sure to incline less than I had to them, though it was by a very small amount. It appeared that status was very important at this Academy. I guessed that I’d need to be more cognizant of that than usual during my time here. Luckily, I knew that was something that Keiko excelled with. She was going to have a blast dealing with the political intrigue that places like this gave birth to.

Aria spoke up first from her pair, “My name is Solaria Dawnrise, I am to be partnered with the man beside me, but I’ll let him introduce himself.” She intertwined her hand with Gong Jin, who looked ecstatic. The rest of us giggled as Aria looked at him seriously.

Gong Jin bowed more deeply than any of us had, “My name is Gong Jin Moonbeam. I am to be partnered with the love of my life, Solaria Dawnrise.”

I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction Gong Jim would get for that, but I was pleasantly surprised. Aria grinned and give him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back to where Naomi and Taka stood atop their golden disc.

Taka spread his arms wide, “It is lovely to meet the four of you, I hope that your time spent here in the Inheritance of the Eclipse proves as valuable to you as it did to us.” He squeezed his partner’s hand before turning his gaze to Keiko and I, “For the two of you who have already embarked on the journey of paired cultivation, we will be conducting an interview with you two understand how well you understand your bond. If the two of you would please step off to the side, we will gather you when we are ready to take you with us.”

His gaze swept over to the newly formed couple of Solaria and Gong Jin, “For you two, we are not the correct people to be greeting you. Due to the two people who activated the portal already being paired cultivators, we were summoned instead of the introductory guides. If you two would please step forward and join us on our disk,” as he spoke the disc below his and Naomi’s feet grew from five feet across to fifteen feet across, “we will get you to where you need to be for your orientation.”

Naomi spoke up with a wry smile, “it may be a bit of time before you four see each other again, we can give you a few minutes if you need to say your goodbyes. Don’t worry, this place isn’t dangerous unless you don’t follow the rules. As long as you follow the guidelines laid out in the orientation you’ll get in a bit.

Without waiting for anything else to be said, Keiko darted over and gave Aria a big hug, which she returned fiercely. When I walked over and shook Gong Jin’s hand, I heard what Keiko whispered to Aria.

“At first, it’ll feel like you’re losing a part of yourself, but don’t forget that you’re gaining something so much better in return. Cultivation always felt very lonely to me until I joined with Steven. Ever since, I’ve always felt like I had someone I could rely on. Good luck.” Tears rolled down Keiko’s face as she released Aria and instead clung to my side.

When I looked up from checking on Keiko, I saw a look on Gong Jin’s face was one of supreme concentration. I decided to figure out why, “Gong Jin, what are you doing?”

He shook his head as if I’d just woken him up, “Sorry. I really have to work on that. Sometimes it takes me a minute to collect myself after she does that. Not that it’s happened very often.” He looked over at Aria, who twinkled her fingers at him playfully, which made him blush as red as pure fire qi.

I did my best to set his mind at ease, “As someone who pined after the woman who eventually became his partner for ten plus years, it’ll be overwhelming at first, but understand that if she agreed to be here with you, she wants to be with you. Don’t allow your fear to stop you from establishing a good connection with her. The more solid your connection at the beginning, the more powerful your bond can become. Make sure to be open, honest, and kind with her. She’s used to people beating around the bush, but everything about that pisses her off to no end. The more direct you are with her, the better off you’ll be.” I patted him on the shoulder heartily and when we locked eyes, all I saw was gratitude.

“Thank you,” his voice broke, “I’ll do my best to make you proud.”

I chuckled, “It feels odd being told that by a Sage level cultivator, what a strange world we live in.”

As we stood together, two couples, we all laughed. When we turned back to see Naomi and Taka, we saw that they were both chuckling at our exchanges. Naomi’s eyes sparkled, “Gong Jin, Solaria, please step forward and take Taka’s hand. He’ll make sure that you get settled on the disc before we take off.”

She turned to Keiko and I, “As for you two, feel free to cultivate for a little while, it could be up to thirty minutes before we return.” She spared us one last glance as Gong Jin and Aria joined her and Taka on their golden disk. The four of them joined hands and a moment later, all four of them lifted off into the air on the golden disk. Keiko and I watched as they flew off to the left of the portal and then down through the clouds.

“I guess the more advanced your paired cultivation is, the higher up you move in Eclipse Academy, not your actual cultivation level. Otherwise, they would’ve gone up, not down, from here. Seeing as we opened the portal and all.” I scratched my head.

Keiko shrugged, “I’m not going to think too hard about it. That’s a great way to make ourselves crazy. Plus, Naomi said that we’d be going through orientation, they’ll probably explain how that works to us then.” She stopped and looked around before speaking again, “Did you get the feeling that we were already being tested? Like them asking us to cultivate was a way of them testing to see if we actually knew our stuff when it comes to paired cultivation?” She didn’t look concerned, but she did look mildly annoyed.

I smiled, “This is my third Inheritance, for this one and the last one I’ve always assumed that I was being tested from the moment I stepped foot in it. Should we put our best foot forward and use the Centering Lotus to really make some headway cultivating?” I lightly stroked the back of Keiko’s hand, sending a shiver down her spine. When she nodded, I tapped my spatial earring and produced the Centering Lotus. The two of us scrambled onto it after it grew to full size and started cultivating.

Over the next forty-five minutes, Keiko and I cultivated in the surprisingly dense qi of our environment. Despite not having eaten recently, we made a bit of headway in our cultivation due to the high level of ambient qi in the area. After another forty-five minutes of cultivating, no one arrived to come get us, so I figured it couldn’t hurt for Keiko and I to eat a quick meal so we could cultivate the qi within the food. I pulled out some stew from my spatial ring and each of us ate a bowl of it relatively quickly.

As we digested, we continued cultivating and saw a huge increase in the amount of qi we were able to pass back and forth with our Orbital Breathing. Between us, Ellie was doing her best to gobble down all the impurities that were stripping out of the qi and as we watched, she seemed to be growing in size. I also thought I saw a potential fourth color trying to join her silver, green, and blue. A small streak of yellow appeared to be encircling her tail, but it was very faint so it could have just been a different shade of green. After we finished cultivating our dinner, we just lay on the Centering Lotus and relaxed for a while in each other’s arms.

As Keiko dozed off in my arms, I heard Sensei speak up. “I think you’re right that there's something wrong with Kabis, the poison I had you use against him was so virulent that weaker King cultivators would’ve had issues with it, due to how well you did making it. A mere Duke should’ve been incapacitated for at least a minute solid, it was only twenty-five seconds from the time he got hit to the time he blasted off a qi attack that, frankly, is significantly too strong for a Duke cultivator to use. However, when I scanned his cultivation, he was absolutely a Duke cultivator, no higher. There’s something wrong with that man, I’ve been wondering if it has something to do with why the second panel on the stellar cube lit up.”

“Do you think I just survived an encounter with an ancient evil?” I had my suspicions, but I wanted to hear if Sensei agreed with me.

“That I do, I know there are beings and items that can enhance cultivators, but they are very rare and I didn’t sense any of them on Kabis. He may have had a metal qi focus, but even that wouldn’t have allowed him to launch a blast like that so soon after what we did to him. We’re going to need to be exceedingly careful when we leave this place.”

I took a deep breath as I ran my fingers through Keiko’s hair. She snuggled in closer and sighed contentedly. I cast my perception out into the area around me, I was just curious if there was anything unusual going on with the qi levels in the area, but what I found was stranger than that. About fifty feet above Keiko and I and twenty or thirty feet to my left I sensed a strange fluctuation in the air. I’d never seen or felt anything like it, so I asked Sensei what it might be.

He laughed, “That’s just Naomi and Taka, they’ve been observing you for the last hour. They seemed to be quite impressed at how well you and Keiko process qi with your Orbital Breathing.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that they were there?”

“If I had done that, you would’ve been distracted. I was fully prepared to warn you about them if they seemed aggressive, but they just expanded their disk a bit and sat on it while watching you guys cultivate.” He snorted, “I was also ready to let you know if you two decided to get a bit more intimate, but I was correct in thinking that the two of you weren’t exhibitionists, doing it out the open like this. Also, did you know that you can control the petals of the Centering Lotus to move them up to give you and Keiko more privacy? You been using it for a while, so I thought you must just like the fully open flower form, but eventually I figured out that you just hadn’t realized that you could control the way the petals were arranged.

“I’d like to suggest that when we practice alchemy, you pull out the Centering Lotus and pull up the petals until just a little bit of space is available at the top for ventilation, that way if something goes wrong you don’t harm Keiko or Ellie. The board containing my inheritance shouldn’t interfere with the Centering Lotus’ operation, so feel free to sit on that while you’re inside the Centering Lotus while doing alchemy. That way, you’ll have access to all the alchemical ingredients you could ever need.”

I reeled at all of the information that Sensei just dropped on me, in combination with how he had offhandedly mentioned Keiko and my intimate connections, I didn’t really know what to say. Without thinking, my eyes flashed up toward where I’d sensed Naomi and Taka before looking away quickly. Immediately after I’d did so, I knew that I shouldn’t have, but what was done was done.

I heard clapping from above and when I looked up, I saw the disk bearing Naomi and Taka lowering down to join Keiko and I. As soon as the clapping started, Keiko startled awake. I did my best to soothe her so that she didn’t do something rash in her delirious half-awake state. Naomi and Taka didn’t set the disk on the ground, rather they set it at exactly the same level as our Centering Lotus and I could see that the pair were both seated in lotus position as they observed us.

Naomi’s grin stretched from ear to ear. She chuckled as she addressed us, “That was some impressive cultivation the pair of you did, it’s unusual to see a pair of cultivators your age understanding the use of Orbital breathing the way that you obviously do.” She paused for a moment as she looked to Taka, who nodded to her.

When she looked back at me, she had a knowing look on her face, “I take it that the two of you were trained by Dawn and Dusk? You were obviously either trained by them, or by a pair of their students. That technique is something they developed themselves and they didn’t spread it around very much before they passed, besides their own inheritance.”

I was startled, how did these people know Dawn and Dusk before they passed? How did they know them? I knew that I had to find out.

“Yes, we learned paired cultivation from Dawn and Dusk. Did the pair of you know them?” I did my work best to appear casual, but I knew that I wasn’t doing a good job of it.

The other pair laughed before Taka answered my question, “Of course not, Dawn and Dusk were never students of the Inheritance of the Eclipse.  We have had a few of their students come through here over the years. Very few of them came in as unharmed as you and the pair you came with did. Do you have some kind of affiliation to the Indus tribe?”

I froze at the mention of the Indus tribe, I did my best to analyze the looks on Naomi and Taka’s faces, but they were like statues, I couldn’t get a read off of them. I figured that it was best to tell the truth, given how poorly lying could potentially paint Keiko and I, as well as Aria and Gong Jin.

“We have no affiliation with the Indus tribe, rather we are affiliated with both the Dawnrise and Moonbeam clans. Thinking on it now, you probably knew that, given the fact that Solaria and Gong Jin are both scions of their clans, with names to match.” I smiled a little bit when I saw grin quirk across Taka’s face before he quickly hid it again.

He nodded with a smile, “That’s good to hear. We need more people around here who aren’t afraid to stand up to those cannibals.” He almost snarled, there was obviously some bad blood between him and the Indus tribe. Naomi patted him on the leg as he drew some deep breaths to calm himself down.

“Sorry about that, Takas little sister ran afoul of the Indus tribe in here a while ago, he hasn’t seen her since she left the gate back to the entrance.” Taka stiffened at her words, but as she worked her hand along his knee comfortingly, he eventually calmed down.

Keiko released a big yawn as she sat up in my lap with her back against my chest. I could hear the grin on her face when she spoke, “I’m glad to hear that the pair of you aren’t pro-Indus tribe, I was starting to like the pair of you and if you were with them, I was going be very disappointed.” She yawned again as she stretched her arms and popped her shoulders. Especially when seated, I towered over Keiko, so as to have a perfectly clear view over her head with inches to spare.

Our guides and I exchanged grins before I spoke again, “Assuming that the two of you are, in fact, our guides… when does orientation start?”

Naomi smiled, “As soon as you join Taka and I on this disk, we’ll take you to a nearby building so we can get you through orientation as quickly as possible.”

Without any prompting from me, Keiko stretched and then stood up, before assisting me to my feet. As the pair of us stepped over onto our guides’ golden disk, I recalled the Centering Lotus into my spatial earring, though I made sure to use the hand that held my normal spatial ring out when I did so.

On the disk, I noticed that Naomi and Taka hadn’t stood up, so instead I pulled Keiko down so we would all be sitting in lotus poses. Our guides nodded appreciatively as we sped into the air. I had the distinct impression that, given our level cultivation, if we tried to stand up like Aria and Gong Jin had we would’ve been slammed down to the surface of the disk when we took off. The pressure was intense for a few moments before slowly tapering off to a more pleasant resistive feeling.

As we flew, Naomi chatted with us, “Seeing as you’ve already been through the Inheritance of the lovers, the basic instruction that your friends are slated for would be completely useless to you. In reality, the training you received in the Inheritance of the lovers is significantly better than what we have for lower stage cultivators, so you made a great choice going there first.”

Keiko laughed, “It’s not like we were given much of a choice, we ended up in the Inheritance of the Lovers entirely by accident,” she punched me in the shoulder, “when this guy decided to try and play at being a hero.”

I blushed slightly, which made everyone else on the disk laugh, so I guess something good came out of it.

Naomi’s laugh was like the tinkling of bells, “Yes, I’ve heard of the famous Dimensional Vulpine. Pretending to blast young couples for the last few thousand years at least. We weren’t lucky enough to have something like that happened to us, though we did have something kind of unique happen that granted us access to the Inheritance of the Eclipse.”

She pulled aside her luxurious black hair to reveal that she wasn’t wearing a set of earrings. When I checked Takas ears, they didn’t have them either.

I had to admit, I was curious, “What happened there? Did the pair of you lose your earrings that let you in here?”

Our guides just laughed before Taka started speaking, “You’re wrong there, we never had any. Both Naomi and I were both born here in the Inheritance of the Eclipse, we’re the only pair of children ever born in here. We’ve been told that the elders were livid about it. Our parents were two sets of paired cultivators who had grown close over the years. From what I’ve heard, miraculously, the anti-conception formations that both sets of our parents were using failed at the same time, or at least close. Despite the fact that they weren’t trying to have children, our parents decided that we were blessings and that they should continue with having us.

It was very nice growing up here, the ambient qi level here is incredibly high, so our Lower cores opened up at a very young age, we were both body cultivators by the time we were seven years old.”

I whistled, the earliest I’d ever heard of someone opening up their lower core without alchemical assistance was nine years old. These two opened theirs up significantly earlier.

“That’s impressive, how long have you two been cultivating together then?”

Taka blushed and Naomi started laughing, “Taka waited until we were both eighteen years old before asking me to be his partner, despite the fact that we were both Meridian level cultivators at that point.”

Taka buried his face in his hands in an attempt to hide how badly he was blushing. Naomi pointed a finger at him playfully, “I asked him to be my partner when we were ten years old, but he said we were too young to make that kind of commitment, despite our parents saying that it was fine with them. I can only imagine what we could have accomplished if we’d had those extra eight years.” Her voice grew wistful, but I could tell from the look on her face that she was just doing it to get a rise out of her partner.

Taka straightened up and looked at Naomi sternly, “Do you have to tell every single pair of cultivators we bring in here about that? It’s so embarrassing!”

She laughed, “Yes, yes I do. I’m never gonna let you live it down.”

Everyone but Taka laughed and for a minute or so we just flew along enjoying each other’s company.

Eventually, Naomi spoke again, “Like I said, we’re a unique case here. If we leave this Inheritance, we don’t have a way back inside unless we find a pair of earrings like the two of you have. Therefore, we’ve never left his inheritance.”

Keiko’s jaw dropped, “You’ve never been anywhere but here? You’ve never felt the sun on your face or run the grass in a meadow through your fingers?”

Naomi shrugged, “We’ve never felt the real sun, but I’ve been told that the formations used in here to replicate it are relatively faithful to the real thing. As for grass, there are a few courtyards that we played in as children that have grass, so we did get to experience that, though not gras from a meadow like you mentioned.”

She was a bit defensive of this place, but it made sense, she grew up here. I could tell that it was something that bothered her, saying that living her life in this Inheritance was less than growing up outside it.

I stepped in to save Keiko, even though she didn’t know that she needed saving, “What Keiko was trying to say is that she’s surprised you’ve never lived anywhere else. She grew up in a very privileged family and traveled quite a bit, at least she did compared to everyone else in our hometown. I actually find it fascinating that you two have never been to the outside world, do you ever think you’ll leave?” I had to ask; I was curious.

Our guides looked at each other for a moment, obviously having a mental conversation just like Keiko and I usually did. It lasted significantly longer than I would’ve expected. It was obvious that some kind of disagreement was going on, but I obviously couldn’t tell who was on which side. I figured it must be related to my question, so I didn’t interject myself.

A few moments later Naomi spoke up with a small frown on her face, “We might leave eventually, but not anytime soon. Our current plan is to wait until we’re at least Duke cultivators before we leave, though we’ll have to break through to peak Sage first, were only mid-Sage right now.”

I was surprised to hear that they were only mid-Sages, that was barely more powerful than Aria and Gong Jin, who were both low-Sages. However, seeing as they were paired cultivators, the two of them together could probably wipe the floor with Aria and Gong Jin a dozen times over at this point, due to the advantage they had as experienced paired cultivators.

“I think that’s great, as Duke cultivators you’ll be able to escape much more easily from the Indus tribe’s clutches so you can head out on your way to explore the world.” I clenched my fist unconsciously at the mention of the Indus tribe, but did my best to hide it behind my leg. “Anyway, how much farther away is this building we’re going to for our orientation?”

Taka grinned sheepishly, “We’ve actually been circling it for the last few minutes. We were enjoying talking with you so we decided we’d extend the trip a little bit. I hope that’s okay?”

Keiko waved off his apology, “We’ve been enjoying our time with you as well, a little bit longer on this disk isn’t going to hurt us. What can we expect in there anyway?”

Sometimes, Keiko knew exactly what I was hoping she’d say.

Naomi leaned back on her hands, accentuating her curves in a way that actually made Taka gulp, which we all found hilarious. After she finished laughing, Naomi explained what we were in for, “For the pair of you, orientation is just going to be an explanation of the big three rules. Before you ask, no, I can’t tell you what they are. Actually, we're not really supposed to tell you much of anything about life in here until after you finish your orientation.”

She exchanged a glance with Taka, who nodded, then looked back at us, “How about this? We’ll wait for you to get out of orientation and offer to be your guides to get you where you’re going after that. We’ll explain some tips and tricks we learned along the way to help you along.”

Her eyes were hopeful, she’d obviously enjoyed her time with us. I was surprised to see that, but eventually I figured out that she was used to welcoming in Indus tribe members who were probably much rougher with her. We must’ve been like a breath of fresh air to her and Taka.

Keiko looked at me inquisitively and I nodded to answer her unspoken question. She turned back to our guides with a big grin on her face, “That sounds amazing! We really appreciate all you’re doing to help us. If you ever need anything from us, let us know.”

“I’m so glad to hear that. Taka and I will work on putting together a list of information to go over with you guys when you get back.”

Over the next few minutes, we slowly approached what appeared to be a massive military compound built on top of the mountain peak. It had to be every bit of a mile across in both lateral directions and it was probably at least five hundred feet tall as well. This building was enormous and I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so big.

Naomi and Taka dropped us off on the platform before what they called the Dragon Gate. They explained that all we needed to do was step up and knock on the gate and we would be admitted entrance. They explained that they didn’t fly into the center of this location because they didn’t want to be attacked by the formations in place above the parade ground within. As we stepped off, we waved back to our newfound friends Naomi and Taka. I really hoped that we’d see them again soon. When we turned to walk toward the massive Dragon Gate, Ellie bumped her head against my chin from the place she was hiding around the top of my robe.

“Dad, do you think they’re going to have anything for me to do in there? I hope they have some trees for me to fly around!” Ellie’s voice was almost musical to me, despite the fact that she obviously wasn’t singing. I was just happy that my little girl was not so cowed by the experience of what we’d just gone through that she was afraid to talk.

I spoke reassuringly to her as I stroked her head, “I’m sure they’ll have a bunch of interesting things for you to do sweetheart, I do have to ask you to stay close to your mom and I though. Okay? I don’t know how the protections they have on us in this place will extend to you, so we’ll have to be extra careful with you until we learn more.” She hurriedly hid herself in my cowl again. From in there she spoke much more quietly, “OK, Dad, I’m in here if you need me.”

I couldn’t help but grin, she was every bit as precious as I’d hoped she would be. She was smart, kind, and brave. All of those traits are things she got from her mother, at least that’s what I thought. You might be thinking that you might be thinking that I’m crazy when I say that, but Keiko fed her qi for a week when she was an egg and felt a connection to her long before she hatched and we bonded with her.

From a conversation I had with Sensei a while back I learned that there’s every chance that Keiko’s personality would’ve influenced the Ellie inside her egg and how she’s going to develop. He was of the opinion that her connection to Keiko would be beneficial, seeing as she had all eight types of qi in her body when she did so, even if light and dark qi were in very small supplies.

Keiko took my hand as we approached the enormous door and together, we rapped on it firmly, twice. A few seconds later, the enormous Dragon Gate began to creak open and they continued opening until they stood wide. Inside the forty-foot opening was revealed an enormous parade ground full of sparring dummies and obstacle courses. I saw people running through the obstacle courses, dodging formations that seemed to exist solely for the purpose of knocking whoever was clambering upon them. Elsewhere, I saw a couple attacking a single sparring dummy that appeared to be reflecting their attacks back at them even harder than they launched them. I watched as they got blown back into the wall with a pair of loud grunts that I heard from hundreds of feet away. I watched as they slowly stood up and got into some sort of strange fighting stance before attacking the dummy again.

Before us, a woman wearing a robe of crimson and gold walked forward. She inclined her head very slightly before I could introduce yourself, “You may call me Victoria, please follow me as I lead you to your orientation.” Without another word, she spun on her heel and started marching toward a small tower set in the center of the parade ground. Her pace was brisk, so I needed to extend my stride to keep up with her while Keiko had to lightly jog.

She didn’t speak on our way to the central tower, doing nothing to assuage the anticipation and fear that both Keiko and I felt. When we arrived at the central tower, she had both of us place our hands on a black iron door set into the wall which glowed slightly golden when it recognized the earrings we were wearing, which tingled slightly upon touching the door.

“Good, head inside.” She waved toward the door and a second later it opened slightly. Keiko shrugged and pushed her way through, swinging the massive door wide open. I followed behind dutifully.

Inside the tower was a single desk with two chairs and three pieces of paper laid out upon it. There were no pens, but that didn’t surprise me. Victoria swept past us to go stand away from us by the chalkboard, fifteen feet away from the desk that was obviously for Keiko and I.

As soon as we got settled in, she began, “Welcome to the Inheritance of the Eclipse, my name is Victoria and I will be your orientator. There are only three major rules here in the Inheritance of the Eclipse, if you follow all of them you will have no problems in here. If you don’t follow them, you will have many problems.

“Rule number one is that unless you purchase the permission to teach others paired cultivation, you may not teach anyone what you learn here under penalty of cultivation destruction. If you understand, please place your hands on the contract seal to your left.” She waited impatiently as I gawked at her.

“Are we permitted to teach people the paired cultivation methods we knew before we arrived here?” I fully intended on teaching everyone who wanted to learn more about paired cultivation, there was no doubt my mind that that was something Keiko and I wanted to do later in life. If this place was going to prevent us from doing that, we’d have to find a workaround.

Victoria snapped back at me, “No! Only information gained within the Eclipse Academy is protected by the seal. Sign the seal if you understand and agree to this condition.” She tapped her toe impatiently.

Keiko looked at me meaningfully, but eventually shrugged and placed her hand on the leftmost contract seal. I hesitated a moment longer, much to Victoria’s displeasure, before eventually placing my hand beside Keiko’s. A bright flash of light later and the leftmost contract seal was gone, imprinted upon our cultivations.

Victoria didn’t wait for us to recover before beginning again, “Rule number two is that causing physical harm to another student of the Inheritance of the Eclipse outside of sanctioned combat is punishable by death. Place your hands on the central contract seal if you agree.” Again, she tapped her foot as she waited for us to approve the condition.

This time, Keiko had the question, “What about our bonded beast? Is she protected under the same rule?”

Victoria groaned, “As long as your bonded beast has truly bonded to your souls, yes, they are protected. Or, they will be as soon as you leave this room following your acceptance of all of these contract seals. Failing to do so will result in your lack of protection that would be given to any student of the Inheritance of the Eclipse.”

Inside my cowl, I heard a small cheer from Ellie. Keiko and I exchanged a look and immediately both placed our hands on the central contract seal. One more bright flash of light later and we were ready for rule three.

Victoria kept them coming, “Rule three is the most important. Each couple inside the Inheritance the Eclipse are acquired to participate in some form of combat regularly. You have a few options for that regular combat. Failure to do so will result in expulsion from the Inheritance of the Eclipse. Option one is to participate in daily sparring matches with another couple, this must be done for at least two hours each day.”

That sounded excessive, though not undoable.

“Option two is to participate in the grand melee once a week. This is the most popular option. Option three is to enter the tournament at the end of the year. You’ll have to make your decision as to which option you will choose by the time you leave this room. You can always choose a less frequent option, but once you do so, you can never go back. We can’t have people trying to cheat the system by saying that they’re going to be in the tournament for three months before saying that they would like go back to sparring from then on. Effectively, if you go more than a day without sparring, you’ll be entered in the melee. If you go more than a week without entering the melee, you will be entered into the tournament by force. If you fail in the first round of the tournament…”

I smiled, “Let me guess, we’re expelled from the Inheritance?”

Victoria smirked evilly, “No, you’ll be dead. The first round of the tournament is a match to the death. The cores of those who die each year fuel this inheritance.”

Both Keiko and I gasped at what Victoria had just said. It was utterly reprehensible to use the cores of people to power an Inheritance.

As if summoned, Sensei spoke in Keiko and my minds, “Something is very wrong in this place. Back when my son and his wife entered the Inheritance of the Eclipse, there was no combat requirement and there certainly wasn’t a tournament to the death every year. There must be something wrong with the Inheritance’s qi gathering formations. Likely, someone, or something, has interfered with the Ley lines that are sustaining this place. All Inheritances need some way to power themselves, even my own powered itself using the natural qi that the plants inside generated. Then again, things can change after so many years have passed.”

Despite what Sensei had said, I was still utterly repulsed at the idea of a place of learning devouring its students to power itself.

Keiko growled very quietly before addressing Veronica, “Let me guess, you’re related to the Indus tribe?” Her voice was perfectly even, though I knew that inside, she was fuming.

Victoria fanned her hand against her chest mockingly, “Who? Me? I wouldn’t dream of insinuating that I am affiliated with such a noble organization. I am merely a humble servant of the Inheritance of the Eclipse who does her very best to guide young cultivators towards the paths to glory.” Her voice dripped with a combination of false modesty and pure poison.

It was painfully obvious that she was lying. If I had to guess, I’d assume that if she wasn’t affiliated with the Indus tribe, she at least admired their methods. Seeing that Keiko was so angry that she was liable to attack Veronica, I placed my hand on her shoulder to stop her. She glared up at me, but stayed silent after that.

My voice was like honey, but laced with venom, “Let me make you a promise, as long as you stay out of our way, Keiko and I will have nothing to do with you anymore. If you don’t plan on staying out of our way, we’ll challenge you and your partner to a duel. Here and now!” I thumped the table with my fist to accentuate my point.

Victoria glared and I saw that her teeth were not fully sharpened, but they were slightly serrated. She glared at me while hissing, “Let me guess, those rejects Naomi and Taka told you to needle me about my situation? How small of them. Even without Genevieve, I could still kill you both where you sit.” I heard a hint of sibilance on the “S”s in that last sentence, it seemed that there might be something more to her than met the eye.

Keiko laughed out loud, “Oh? Genevieve left you? I can’t say I blame her.”

She grabbed my hand and slammed it down with hers on the third contract seal. As the third flash of light began, Victoria launched herself across the desk in front of Keiko and I with her nails held claws as she tried to rip Keiko’s throat out. “You’ll die for that!”

A single bead of blood formed on Keiko’s throat, as Victoria struggled to stop herself midair. I heard a series of distinct popping sounds, pop, pop, pop, which were followed by a scream of pain from Victoria as we watched her cultivation base implode right in front of us. Victoria slumped to the top of the desk, before sliding off to the ground, crawling, into a ball while weeping. A golden light flowed out from her silently screaming mouth and up through the door behind us, which opened with a hiss. It appeared that our orientation was over.

As I tried to get up and walk around to help Victoria, Sensei stop me, “Son, you and I both heard the penalty for attacking another student of the Inheritance of the Eclipse. Not only did her cultivation implode, but I’m relatively confident that, in doing so, it also fried her brain. There’s nothing you can do for her to help besides end her life and even that’s not necessarily a good idea because of the rules in place. I know you want to help everyone, but this woman is beyond saving, especially considering that she was an Indus tribe supporter.”

Keiko and I made haste out of the orientation room, despite looking over our shoulders at the mewling form that was all that remained of Veronica. When we exited the room, for some reason, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t nighttime. The time that Keiko and I had spent in that orientation room had felt significantly longer than the amount of time that actually appeared to have passed. Seeing as we didn’t have a better idea of where we were supposed to go, Keiko and I started down the path we had walked in along.

However, standing before us, roughly halfway toward the Dragon Gate, were two familiar figures. They were the couple of Indus tribe paired cultivators that we had fought prior to reaching Moonbeam grotto. As before, the woman with the foot long fingernails, who Keiko had been fighting was standing in a particularly daring suit of leather armor. That is, if you could actually consider it armor. She had more flesh exposed than she did covered and if I hadn’t been in a very fulfilling romantic relationship, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would’ve been ogling her.

Her partner, on the other hand, was dressed in a simple black set of leather armor, though he seemed to have replaced his spiked chain with a black whip that was wrapped around his waist like a belt.

“Well, well,” the woman grinned wickedly, while the man merely stared at me with hard eyes. I could see that some of the scarring from my Inferno qi on his face hadn’t healed, so the skin around his left eye drooped slightly still. I figured that it served him right, given his cannibalistic proclivities.

Even as I felt Keiko shake with rage from beside me, the one with the knife-like fingernails practically purred, “I’m so glad to see the two of you made it here! I imagine you managed to escape from that old grump who set up court by the entrance?” Keiko flinched at her words, which made her laugh even harder.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, I figured that if you made it here, you deserve to know my name. Call me Victrix.” She looked me up and down, her eyes felt like they were stripping me naked where I stood. “Especially you sweetheart.” She did a little turn in place, shaking her hips to flaunt her assets, which only served to make Keiko even angrier.

The man with the whip stared straight into my eyes before flicking his eyes down to my spatial ring, “The name is Bocca, I hope that when I kill you, my name is the last thing you think of.”

Without another word, he spun on his heel and dragged Victrix away with him, even as she was doing her best to accentuate her bosom and other assets in an attempt to get me staring at her. Ellie hissed at the departing pair from inside my cowl, which made me chuckle, even as they stalked away toward a different gate.

Beside me, Keiko was fuming, “That hussy!” She stared up at me meaningfully and I did my best not to ogle Victrix too much, so she quickly calmed down. “Why would those two expect that we’d want to know their names? They didn’t even ask us for ours.”

“Why would we care what their names are? They lost in a fight to the pair of us when we were just Brain cultivators, while would we care about them at all now that we’re Saints?”

She looked at me meaningfully, which I have to admit, made me feel a little bit nervous. I took a second to center myself before gently taking her hand and leading her towards the Dragon Gate.

“I think that, in their own way, they were giving us their names as a sign of respect. I’m willing to bet that they think anyone worth their time should know their names.” I shrugged, “I’m not going to worry about them too much, we beat them back then, we’ll beat them again.”

I produced Bocca’s spiked chain from my spatial ring, gave it a few quick spins, and then tucked it away again. Keiko smiled and chuckled at my antics.

I grinned and hugged her to my side as we walked, “Did you decide if we’re going to do the sparring every day, melee once a week, or tournament at the end of the year? I know I didn’t get a chance to make that decision. I wonder why?”

Keiko nodded, “There was a formation to the left of the door as we exited the orientation chamber. I signed us up for sparring. If we don’t end up doing that, it’s okay, at least it gives us the option.”

I nodded as I pondered the situation, I agreed with Sensei that there was something wrong with this Inheritance, but I didn’t know how a pair of Saint cultivators would be able to uncover the problem. Though, most pairs of Saint cultivators didn’t have access to a former Emperor cultivator in the form of a spirit hosted in an ancient alchemical pot at their beck and call.

As if summoned, Sensei began speaking into our minds, “While the pair of you are here in the Inheritance of the Eclipse, I have a pair of goals for you two. Steven, I want you to become a High-Journeyman alchemist. That won’t require much actual class time for you, it’ll mostly require you and I being uninterrupted for long periods of time, anywhere from four hours to two days. I understand that, as a paired cultivator, routine is important for you to increase your strength, so you’ll need to work out a means of performing Orbital breathing with Keiko while still maintaining an intense level focus on alchemy.

“Keiko, I want you to reach the Low-Journeyman level of formation master while you’re here. Finding an actual teacher while you’re here would be invaluable. Despite the fact that I was an excellent formation master in my time among living, it was nearly entirely because of how hard my wife worked to make me learn her skills. I didn’t learn them well enough to teach past the Advanced level.”

Keiko nodded while I scratched my chin and thought. How was I supposed to cultivate with Keiko and do alchemy the same time? It wasn’t like I could just have Keiko there with me while I was doing alchemy and focus on… Wait, why couldn’t I have Keiko there while I was working with alchemy?

“Sensei, what’s to stop me from cultivating with Keiko while I’m sitting down to do alchemy? I only use my feet for Orbital breathing with Keiko, while I mostly use my hands for alchemy. I only use my feet for alchemy when I need to set a pill with an intense blast of flame. I actually think that having Ellie between us, eating qi impurities, might prove to be beneficial to whatever kind of alchemical substance we’re creating.”

Keiko flashed me a grin and a thumbs up while we waited for Sensei to ponder what I’d just presented to him.

A minute later, just before exiting the Dragon Gate, Sensei spoke up, “I think you might be right. I’ve watched you do both alchemy and Orbital Breathing for a couple of months now and rarely are you using the same qi pathways for those two acts. As long as you understand that in the most crucial moments of alchemy, you’ll have to stop cultivating so you can finish… well, I don’t see a problem with it. Honestly, if it works for you, I’ll make sure to note down what parts of it were the most effective for future reference.”

As we exited the Dragon Gate, I saw Naomi and Taka sitting patiently on their golden disk near the end of the platform outside we had just exited. However, in addition to them sitting on their disk, there were an additional two groups of people sitting on disks just like Naomi and Taka, but, rather than sitting quietly, these two other pairs were jeering and yelling at Naomi and Taka.

I heard things like, “Inheritance-bound freaks”, “charity cases”, and other, less savory, names. To their credit, Naomi and Taka didn’t seem to be letting the jeers of their fellows get to them. They seemed to be blissfully ignoring them.

When we approached Naomi and Taka, the other groups soon turned their gazes upon Keiko and I.

“You should stay away from those losers, they’ll only lead you down the path of sucking, just like they do.” The man who had said that high-fived his partner, though she didn’t seem nearly as happy as he did with the childish insult he’d just come up with. Not to be outdone, the man on the other disk gave it his best shot, “You should come with us instead, unlike those two, at least we’ve seen the outside world. We’ll you make sure you get a good cut of meat the next time we catch somebody!”

My blood boiled and when I looked down to check on Keiko, I saw that she was starting to unlimber the Dawnblade. I quickly calm myself down and then laid a hand on the hand Keiko was using to unlimber the Dawnblade.

Under my breath I whispered in her ear, “They’re not worth it. You saw what happened to Veronica when she attacked us.”

She growled in frustration before hopping directly onto the disk beside Naomi, who stopped Keiko from catapulting off of the disk with a practiced hand.

Before stepping onto the disk, I turned to address the other two groups, “We look forward to meeting the four of you in the grand melee, maybe we’ll go there instead of sparring one day just to get a chance to kick your asses.”

Without waiting for a response, I spun on my heel and stepped onto the disk before quickly spinning down into a lotus pose next to Taka, who patted me on the shoulder appreciatively. Our disk hurtled away from the other two groups, leaving them behind as they screamed obscenities about me and how wrong I was, but the four of us on our disk just laughed them off.

Naomi giggled and splayed out on the disc beside her partner, showing very little regard for propriety as her crimson and gold robe slid apart to reveal a bit more skin than I was comfortable with.

“You two are something else, I hope you know that. How’d it go with that old battle ax, Veronica?”

Keiko gulped, even as she moved to press herself against my side.

I shrugged, “It went fine, up until she jumped across the table and tried to rip Keiko’s throat out.” My voice was level, but there was a thread of anxiety running through it that I knew Keiko and Sensei would hear.

Naomi and Taka both gasped before Taka pushed me in the shoulder so I’d look him straight in the face, “Veronica tried to rip Keiko’s throat out? We need more details!”

I ran my fingers through Keiko’s hair to soothe her, “There’s not much to tell. Keiko insulted Veronica and her partner,” both of our guides ‘oohed’, “and after a few choice words, apparently, she’d had enough. A moment later, she launched herself across the table and managed to scratch Keiko’s throat, ever so slightly. Less than a minute later, she was curled up on the ground with an imploded cultivation base, the energy from her Cores flowed out the door, and I think she was brain-dead.”

Taka whistled, then sat back against Naomi, whose robe he adjusted to sit more modestly in a way that almost seemed automatic. “So, Veronica is dead, I can’t say I’ll miss her.”

Naomi laughed out loud, “You can say that again! She’s been subtly leading the few cultivators who make their way in here that aren’t Indus tribe members over to the Indus tribe for nearly one hundred years. Maybe now there’ll be a chance for the non-Indus sect to gain some traction again, not that we’ve ever seen that, but we were told that at one time the Indus tribe’s sect was in the minority, not the majority.” Naomi snuggled up against Taka, who pulled her in tightly to his side, even as he leaned out in front of us to watch the path our disk was on.

Keiko mumbled something from my side, before shaking her head and speaking more clearly, “What happened to Veronica’s partner? She seemed exceptionally angry at my mention of them.”

Naomi and Taka exchanged glances before finally, Naomi sighed, “That’s a sad story, though it couldn’t have happened to a nicer lady.” She snorted before continuing, “Guinevere was Veronica’s partner, they’d been a couple since they were ten years old. The problem was that, while Veronica was militant about wanting to become part of the Indus tribe, Guinevere had no such desire. Rather, she was trying to convince Veronica to join the Calm River sect. After years of fighting over that, their cultivation stagnated, due to the fact that they couldn’t trust each other anymore.”

She took a deep breath and stared deep into Taka’s eyes for a moment before turning back to us, “After a particularly nasty fight, Guinevere launched herself off of that platform we were just on and fell to her death.” Naomi’s voice broke as a single tear streaked down her cheek, where she hurriedly brushed it away. “As far as I know, she only left one suicide note, which she left in the common room of the Calm River sect’s primary location, where we’re taking you now. She detailed that, due to her paired cultivation with Veronica, she saw no means to lengthen her life any further and that she didn’t want to grow old and gray while continuing to provide qi for Veronica to use to hurt people. She said that she hoped Veronica would get kicked out of the Inheritance… but that didn’t happen. I’m not sure if she left a note for Veronica, but given how awful she’s been the last five years, I’d assume she didn’t.

“You insulting Guinevere was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for Veronica. These past five years, she’s had to do the scut work for the Inheritance in order to maintain her status as a student here. From what I understood, she was researching how to splice her already formed the core onto the core of another person whose partner had passed away. Somehow, she convinced the powers-that-be in the Inheritance that her research was worthwhile, so they allowed her to stay as long as she continued do that scut work as well. I don’t know if she went so far as to kill half of a pair of cultivators, but I do know that she didn’t help at all with keeping young couples safe during combat practice.

“Rather, she was very militant about them using one hundred percent of their power at all times, so as to overwhelm their enemies. I’ve heard of no fewer than five couples having one, or both, of their members die while training with her. I would assume that none of her splicing attempts worked with the remaining partners, because most of them detonated their cultivations to avoid living without their original partners.”

That was a lot to think about, I’d never considered what life would be like if Keiko was gone, and at that point I still wasn’t going to spend any time on it. Rather, I was worried about the idea of splicing a bond as intense as the one Keiko and I shared with someone who didn’t share the same experiences I had with her in creating our cores’ link. I shivered at the thought of how invasive that would be.

“That sounds terrible! How could she think that someone would want that? Wouldn’t it be the largest invasion of privacy anyone could ever have? How could you trust someone like her with all that you are after being so open with someone previously?” I paused for a moment, “I guess I could see someone eventually becoming comfortable enough with someone else who’d shared the same type of trauma, that they’d eventually agree to try and bond cores again, but it’d take years.”

Taka nodded, even as he patted his partner on the back to calm her down, “Veronica didn’t even try to get to know them, which explains why none of the broken pairs accepted her union. She went out the Sunset Island portal about a year ago, when she came back, she had renewed vigor for finding a new partner.”

I frowned, “Veronica didn’t seem like the type to want to share any kind of power she got her hands on, is there any chance that she might have learned something that would allow her to absorb the core of someone with a broken connection?” I paused at the horror I saw on everyone else’s faces, but then kept going, “I know it sounds crazy, but I got a really strange vibe off of her and I don’t think she’d be above it.”

All four of them shuddered at the thought, before Naomi spoke up, “That’s just reprehensible enough that I think you might be right. Over the last year or so, I’ve heard some of the Indus tribe members talking about their partners like they didn’t matter to them. It makes a little bit more sense if that was the case. From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly the new arrivals who seem to be taking that tact. Those Indus tribe members who’ve been here for years that haven’t gone back to the normal world in the last year or so are still on the normal path of paired cultivation, though they still have the reprehensible trait of wanting to eat people.” She shivered again.

Keiko pulled herself free from her position against my side, “There was something wrong with the leader of the Indus tribe when we were there. He was significantly too strong and recovered too fast for a normal Duke cultivator. I wonder if there’s something about him that led his followers down a different path?”

As the four of us sat thinking about Keiko’s question, Ellie’s head poked out from my cowl, “Is it safe for me to come out? I don’t like it in the dark…” She rubbed her tiny, scaled, head against the side of my head anxiously.

Shaken free from my thoughts about the Indus tribe, I put my hands up to Ellie and gently had her slide out of my cowl until she sat coiled in my hands. I smiled down at her before looking back up at Naomi and Taka who were looking at me with strange smiles on their faces.

“Sorry for the secrecy, but wanted to make sure that Ellie would be safe around the pair of you before we let her come out. Naomi, Taka, this is Ellie, our daughter. She is our bonded beast and a very important part of our family.”

Ellie bobbed her head and did a little flourish with her tail, “It’s nice to meet both of you. I hope you’re nice to my mommy and daddy.” Keiko and I chuckled, while Naomi and Taka continued to stared at her in amazement.

Taka recovered first, “Ellie, you’re amazing!”

Naomi followed in kind, “What he said! Are those wings?”

Before Ellie could flap her wings and get rocketed off of this disk, I laid my hands against her wings and stroked them lightly, “Yes, these are her wings. I’d rather she waits until we’re not moving at an incredible rate of speed before she tries to use them, because I’d like them to remain attached to her back, not ripped off. Alternatively, her wings might be fine, but I really don’t want have to try to find my daughter in this massive skyscape. I get the feeling that it’d take a very long time.” My voice was firm, but filled with care.

Ellie bobbed her head, “Daddy’s right, I don’t think it would be fun to get my wings ripped off, I think it would hurt a lot. When we get where we’re going, will there be trees for me to fly around? Mommy and daddy said I could only fly around trees if we weren’t in the secret place.”

Naomi and Taka both nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! At the Calm River sect’s headquarters there are quite a few trees that you should be able to fly around. I’d love to watch you fly; I’ve never seen a creature quite like you Ellie.” Taka sounded amazed and I felt like I needed to know why.

Ellie trilled happily while I looked seriously at Taka, “Taka, what’s your interest in my little girl?” Subconsciously, I made to shield Ellie’s body with more of my own, jostling Keiko in the process a little bit. Keiko immediately picked up on what I was doing and moved her body into a better defensive position alongside me, we weren’t overtly aggressive, just protective.

Taka saw how we were moving and immediately held up his hands, “Hold on, I need to explain myself. I study magical beasts, I’ve seen tens of thousands of types and I’ve never seen one just like Ellie. I’ve seen a couple different kinds of Coatls, but never one with her coloring.”

From my hip, Sensei spoke to Keiko and I in our heads, “There’s a good reason he’s never seen anything like Ellie, she’s probably the last of her kind. Rainbow Coatls were always the least plentiful type of Coatl. They could reproduce with any of the other types of Coatl, though they rarely chose to do so. As long as Ellie makes it to adulthood, she could become the progenitor of an entirely new line of Rainbow Coatls, assuming you managed to reintroduce light and dark qi into the world so their eggs don’t die, seeing as they need to bond with someone that has touched those types of qi to survive.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “Ask him if he knows how the bond with a Coatl works, I didn’t know much about it except the fact that very rare types of Coatls need them to survive.”

Taking what Sensei said to account, I settled back into a more neutral posture, which Keiko mirrored. I stroked along the back of Ellie’s head, which got her trilling happily again.

“How much you know about Coatls?”

Naomi groaned and laid her back against the flat of the disk, “You’ve done it now, he’s not gonna want to shut up about them for the next hour or two. They just so happen to be his favorite type of creature.” Despite her words, she seemed excited that someone wanted to talk to her partner about his favorite thing. She was just getting comfortable for what was about to follow.

Taka’s eyes lit up, “I know a lot about Coatls, but like I said, none like Ellie. Most Coatls have control of a single element, fire, wind, earth, you know the drill. Those that have dual elements tend to want to bond with a cultivator in order to strengthen themselves. I’ve heard that three element Coatls do exist, but that they need to be bonded with a cultivator while they’re still in their eggs to survive to hatching.” He sighed, “the problem is that Coatls like the hide their clutches high in mountaintops and rarely actually lead any cultivators to their nests, due to trust issues developed over the years. Rightfully so!”

He went on to describe the type Coatls he knew about. Fire Coatls were not much more intelligent than normal beasts, but they were very fast and their fire was incredibly pure, just like every other mono-elemental Coatl. Wind, earth, and metal Coatls were very similar to the fire Coatls, except for the fact that they used different elements. Water and wood Coatls were slightly smarter than the other types of mono-elemental Coatls, but due to their rarity, they were not very well-known. Dual-elemental Coatls are almost all very intelligent, though very few of them were able to speak like Keiko at such a young age, in fact none of them were. From what Taka knew, only tri-element or more typed Coatls gained intelligence as fast as Ellie did, which confirmed Sensei’s insinuation that Ellie was actually an eight-scaled, or Rainbow, Coatl. We didn’t tell Taka that, but we did pump him for as much information on Coatls as we could get.

It turned out that we were feeding her exactly the right kind of a food, qi impurities from cultivation and incredibly qi dense food were the two things that every growing Coatl needed to grow as fast as possible. Eventually, Taka asked to hold Ellie and she agreed as long as he promised to give her extra head scritches.

I reluctantly let her go from my arm over to his and he immediately got her enraptured with spots on her that I didn’t even know would elicit such a great response. There was a scale about halfway down her body that seemed to be her new favorite spot, so I made a point to remember where that was. While Ellie was recovering from the spasms of pleasure that followed her scratching, Taka marveled at her coloring and her wings. He came to the conclusion that she must be at least a tri-element Coatl, and when he asked what her primary two elements were, Keiko and I both exchanged a glance, before finally agreeing to let him know, after Sensei said that there was no point in not telling him at this point.

I grinned sheepishly, “Her primary qi types are water and metal, they combine to make what we call Arctic qi and when we found her, we thought she might be an Arctic Coatl, though we know that she’s more than that now.”

Taka’s jaw dropped and he stared at Ellie for a few moments before looking back up at me, “She might be the last of her kind, that’s terrible. Actually, seeing as she’s a tri-element, it’s almost one hundred percent certain that she’s the last of her kind. Any combination of elements that includes metal and water have been hunted to near extinction, due to their insane healing abilities.”

He gently extended his arm toward me, which sent Ellie scuttling over to join me, where she settled into my cowl again, but this time with her head on my shoulder.

I petted Ellie’s head, “We know that she’s probably last of her kind, but we also know that as long she makes it to adulthood, there’s a very good chance that she can help repopulate the world with her kind. That is, if she wants to. She’s our daughter, not just some regular bonded beast. If she doesn’t want to do that, we’re not going to force her to do so.”

I glared at Taka for a moment when he appeared disheartened at what I’d said, but eventually he nodded, “I totally understand.” He looked down at his sleeping partner before flicking his eyes over to Keiko, who had also fallen asleep, “When Naomi and I decide to have children, I don’t want to control them, rather, I just want to make sure that they’re happy and able to do whatever it is they need to do.” He seemed to dose off for a second, obviously thinking about the future between him and his partner.

I left him to his reverie for a moment before asking a question I’d been thinking about for a while, “Taka, how much longer until we make it to where we’re going? We’ve been flying for almost three hours. Not that I’m not enjoying our time together, but I do know that we need to spar today if we don’t want to be entered in the melee later this week.”

Taka shook his head, as if to clear out the cobwebs, “Sorry, we should be arriving in the next ten minutes or so, the Calm River sect only has control over about ten of this layer; we’re heading to the heart of that area to make sure that all is well. We wouldn’t want you to get accosted on your first day here.”

I frowned, “I thought that the rules in the contract seals would prevent us from being directly harmed by other cultivators in here, is that not the case? I watched Veronica’s cultivation implode when she attacked Keiko.” My face was incredulous, what he was saying made no sense.

He shook his head, “Direct harm is forbidden, but making someone fall off a disk like this happens more often than you’d think. As long as they can prove that there was no physical contact between them and you, the assailant would get off free and breezy.” He looked down at his partner, who was snoring in a very cute way, “That’s why they sent Naomi and I to go and get you. We have the best track record of anyone in the Calm River sect of getting to and from places safely. It doesn’t hurt that we’ve been flying these disks since we were old enough to walk.”

Taka and I chatted for a few more minutes about Coatls and the different things they needed, along with different miscellaneous things about cultivating and other inane topics. Eventually, he sat bolt upright and pointed over the edge of the disk looking forward. He gently woke up Naomi, so I did the same with Keiko. Both of our partners sat up with bleary eyes as he pointed down at the scene before us.

The Calm River sect’s headquarters on this layer was set into what appeared to be a massive volcano caldera that was full of lush vegetation and in the middle, alongside a small lake, was a massive compound, which spanned at least a quarter-mile in both directions. It was styled plainly, with very few decorations besides the sloped tile roof, but when I looked at it more closely, I saw that each of the tiles was inscribed with formations. This wasn’t just a compound; it was a fortress.

Taka pointed proudly, “Welcome to the Calm River sect’s headquarters, better known as the place where Naomi and I grew up. I wish you could meet our parents, but they’re not here anymore, all of them have ascended to the next layer after reaching Duke level.”

Keiko and I gawked at the tropical splendor of the volcano caldera, that the Calm River sect called home, as we lowered down toward it. I could see dozens of different types of fruit trees along with herds of different types of magical beasts. Taka pointed out the lake where he and Naomi had learned to swim as children, while Naomi pointed out the area where she and Taka had shared their first kiss. Taka blushed, while the rest of us chuckled.

When we got to be about five hundred feet above the compound, four similar discs soared into the air to meet us, each of them guided by a pair of cultivators. The pairs were all very different, one was a pair of men, another with a pair of women, and the third were a man and a woman who were both dressed very regally, more so even than Naomi and Taka.

Taka slowed our disk to a stop before leaning over to whisper to Keiko and I, “We need to do a security check before we can land, they’ll ask a couple of questions and the sect leader and his partner will determine if you’re being truthful.” Seeing how concerned Keiko and I looked, he shook his head, “Don’t worry about the questions guys, based on what we’ve been talking about, there’s no way Auntie and Uncle won’t let you guys come in.”

So, Naomi and Taka called the sect leaders Auntie and Uncle, that was good to know. Hopefully, if we needed something in the future, we’d be able to leverage those connections to facilitate whatever we needed, or needed to do.

When we stopped, Naomi stood up on the disk, before bowing slightly to the resplendently dressed sect heads. She cupped her hands as well, “Bortus, Alayna, we are glad to have returned with two potential recruits. Their names are Steven and Keiko,” she pointed to me and her in turn. Following that, she continued, “We’ve determined that they bear no love for the Indus tribe, going so far as to actively antagonize them as we were leaving the training ground.”

Bortus smiled and nodded toward Naomi and Taka before locking eyes with me. His partner, Alayna, did the same, though she locked eyes with Keiko rather than me.

Bortus spoke, but you could tell that his voice bore with it, the weight of his partner’s might as well as his own.

“Is this true? What is your opinion of the Indus tribe?”

Seeing as Bortus was the person who spoke, Keiko and I wordlessly agreed that I should be the one who answered.

I cleared my throat after cupping my hands and bowing slightly, “My partner and I are actively in opposition of the Indus tribe. We find their eating habits reprehensible and the way they treat people before eating them to be nearly as bad.”

Without missing a beat, Alayna spoke as Bortus had, “Do you bear any members of the Calm River sect ill will, or wish to harm them in any way?”

Keiko shook her head, even if she bowed and cupped her hands before locking eyes with Alayna again, “As far as we know, we bear no members of the Calm River sect’s members any ill will.”

In unison, Boris and Alayna spoke with more power than their Sage cultivations would lead you to believe they had access to, “You are welcome in our home!”

I watched as the power that had impressed me flooded out of Bortus and Alayna, as if they had spent a great deal of effort for just those few sentences. I wondered why that was.

Bortus grinned, while Alayna was more reserved. He looked over at Taka with a nod, “Nice job, Nephew! It seems you brought us a pair of exceptional youngsters. From what I can tell, they’re both Saint cultivators and they can’t be any older than twenty years old. That’s astounding!”

He turned to look at me, “When you join us for lunch, later today, I hope that you won’t mind telling me the story of how you two advanced so quickly? It’s been years since any of us have met any people as young as you two, even the people who come in from the other portal are usually in their late twenties before they arrive here.” I nodded, after checking with Keiko to make sure that she was okay with it.

As I thought about what he’d said, I realized that a few people had mentioned different entrances to this Inheritance, but everyone had mentioned it very obliquely. I figured now was as good a time as any to ask about it.

I threw on a big grin, “sect Leader Bortus,” he waved me off with an even bigger grin than I had thrown on intentionally.

“Bortus is fine, though you can call me Uncle if you prefer. You can call my wife Auntie if you want as well, most people do, though she also answers to Alayna.”

The grin never left his face and I was inclined to believe that it was genuine. I was surprised, but not in a bad way. It was nice to find another cultivator with a good attitude, those were few and far between as far as I understood, and also had experienced.

I grinned slightly, “Uncle, I’ve heard a few different people mention the other entrance to this Inheritance, but they’ve all mentioned it very obliquely. Is there a reason for that?”

All eight of the people surrounding Keiko and I, both pairs of cultivators who I assumed were guards for the sect leaders included, winced at the mention of the other entrance.

The smile slipped off of Bortus’ face, leaving him looking forlorn, “That’s not information that most people have access to, despite the fact that you’ve heard it from a few different people. Very few people actually know the reason why we talk of it in such a way.” A thin smile stretched across his lips, “How about this? You and your partner tell us your story, and I’ll tell you the story of the second entrance to this location. Does that seem to be a suitable trade?”

Keiko laughed, “That seems fair, I hope it’s worth the trade, because our journey to get here was pretty exceptional!” She grinned, even as she climbed up my back so she could look out over top my head, which should have surprised me, but it didn’t. I was used to her antics at that point and actually found most of them adorable, including this one. Auntie, Uncle, Naomi, and Taka both laughed along with Keiko and I.

After a few hushed words between Taka and Uncle, the six other people, on their own discs, all left to head back to the compound. Taka led our disk down toward the southwestern corner of the compound, which just so happened to be the closest corner to our current location. I noticed that Uncle and Auntie had flown down toward the pagoda in the center of the compound, while the other two pairs of guards had lowered down toward the central area as well, but rather than entering the pagoda, it appeared that they were on some sort of patrol around it, working in a pattern opposite each other.

We lowered down into an enclosed courtyard that was very close to the edge of the compound. When we landed, I watched as the golden disk that we had been riding on for the last few hours shrink down to the size of a gold coin and Taka picked it up, flipped it into the air a few times, before snatching it out of the air and putting it in his pocket with a flourish of his other hand.

Naomi snorted, “Showing off a basic trick like that for the newcomers, that’s low.” Seeing Keiko and my stares, she enlightened us as to why she thought it was so derivative, “Everyone in this Inheritance can do that with the coins, that’s how we all get around. All you have to do is pull out a gold coin from your pocket and inject a bit of the ambient qi from the air into the coin. Wind qi works the best, of all the single elements, but the more elements you can successfully wrangle to control your disk with, the faster it will go, and the more stable it will be. Taka and I fly a six-element disk… that’s why our disk was so stable and fast. You’ll notice that those jerks back at the landing didn’t try and give chase, that’s because they probably have single or dual element disks. There’s no way could have kept up.”

That actually explained a lot. I’d been wondering wondering why everyone was flying these golden disks around and how they’d gotten them. It was at that point that I remembered I didn’t have any gold with me, so I would be reliant on Keiko for our mode of transportation, unless I could dive into the extra dimensional storage of the Inheritance of the Pot. Hopefully I’d find some kind of coins in there.

I needn’t have been worried, Keiko immediately pulled out a couple of gold coins and proffered them to Naomi, “Which of these would be best? I have a triangular one, a square one, a hexagonal one, an octagonal one, and a big circle. Does it matter what shape they are?”

She stared deeply into Naomi’s eyes, obviously rapt with attention.

Naomi laughed, “I’ve been told that different shapes have their benefits, but almost everyone uses a round disk, seeing as we just call them disks most of the time. I only remember a couple of the other shapes’ uses. I know that triangles are built for speed and squares are very good defensively, they’re hard to knock over, but I don’t know what would happen with a hexagonal or octagonal coin.

Circles are good all around, but not great at anything, so that’s what most people use. Every few years there’s a race on each layer, that’s where you’ll see a lot of triangles, but they’re very rare in here, seeing as they’re very unstable.”

Keiko’s face darkened for a moment, she was obviously sad about how no one liked to use triangles for some reason, “I guess that’s good to know, I guess we’ll stick with the circle most of the time, but I’d like to test out the hexagon and octagon if we have a few minutes one of these days.”

Naomi drew Keiko away, even as they chatted about how the flying disks worked.

Taka shrugged, “Yeah, there’s a good chance that Naomi is taking her to the kitchen to get started on lunch. We can just relax for a while until they come and get us…” Taka was shocked at the horrified look on my face, “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, “You don’t want to eat anything Keiko prepares, trust me on this. Between you and I, I cook everything the two of us eat.”

I smiled at him before shrugging, “I’ll send her back to you,” with that, I darted away from Taka to catch up with Naomi and Keiko, who’d made it quite a way down the hallway already.

“… Which is why we don’t focus on breathing when cultivating.” Keiko nodded when Naomi finished her explanation.

Naomi turned to look at me, “What’s going on? Did you need something?”

I shook my head, “Were you taking Keiko to the kitchen?”

She nodded slowly, “Yeah… I was going to have her help make lunch for Auntie and Uncle. Is there something wrong with that?” She looked at me with concern for a few moments before looking over to see how white Keiko’s face was.

I smiled, knowing full well how bad Keiko actually was at cooking, “I actually do all the cooking for us.” I looked to Keiko, “Do you want to go and spend some time with Taka? Maybe you can get some tips and tricks about caring for Ellie from him? I know I already talked his ear off about that while we were flying in.”

The relief that washed over Keiko’s face was priceless, “Yeah, that sounds good. See you later, Naomi!”

Without even waiting for response, Keiko zoomed off back the way we’d come, headed towards Taka, where he was barely visible sitting on a couch in a courtyard. She sprinted as fast as she could to join him, before launching herself onto the couch beside him.

Naomi laughed, “I’m glad you came to rescue her. Most couples here are very traditional, so there’s quite a few ladies in the kitchen. Not that we enforce it, but a natural division of roles seemed to form over time here. It’ll be nice to have someone who actually wants to cook in the kitchen with me, most people don’t care at all about it, seeing meals ass merely fuel for the machine that is the body.”

I laughed, “I mean, I do see food as fuel for the body, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t taste good. I just focus on very qi rich foods when cooking, that way we get to feed our bodies, and our cores.”

Naomi patted me on the back happily as we walked into a kitchen that could’ve easily handled a dozen different people cooking, but instead it was totally empty. There weren’t even any pots set out on stoves to cook soup for a while. I’d never been in a kitchen that felt more abandoned and that included the kitchen in the Dawnrise clan’s hidden hunting “lodge” where we’d found the path to their mountain sanctuary.

I grinned to try and liven up the desolate feeling space, “Let’s whip up some delicious food! When it’s done, we can head back to our partners. Hopefully the sect leaders will have joined them by then. I’m very interested to learn what we were promised.”

About half an hour through cooking, Naomi gave me a warning while she was working the Zephyr Rice, “Auntie and Uncle aren’t to be trifled with, they both could have broken through to the Duke level and ascended to the next layer, but they didn’t so we’d be protected here. Without any exaggeration, they are the most powerful beings around. Don’t let their cheery attitudes fool you, they’ve been here for a very long time, so they know most of the different avenues that someone might take to try and trick them.”

I nodded thoughtfully, “That’s good to know.”

I took a beat to look at her while she was working a pot over the stove. She appeared to be incredibly content, despite the proverbial qi blast she’d just launched at me. I couldn’t tell if she was just that cold, or if she was doing her best to remain calm to stop me from freaking out.

I didn’t see the point in being subtle, “Why are you telling me this? Do Keiko and I need to worry about them?” Ellie hissed from inside my cowl. I patted her head to try and calm her down, but she just kept on hissing at Naomi.

When I subconsciously settled into a defensive stance, Naomi waved her hands frantically, “You’ve got me all wrong! I would…” She glanced around at the enormous kitchen, but no one seemed to be coming, despite her outburst, “I would never do anything like that, neither would Taka. I just wanted to make sure you knew that, because we’ve taken in other newcomers and eventually, they tried to challenge Auntie and Uncle for supremacy over the Calm River sect. The problem is, Auntie and Uncle will only fight to the death for control over the sect, they won’t settle for anything less.”

She sighed with relief as I slowly leaned against the counter, Ellie also stopped hissing and instead was nodding her head alongside my own.

“Two good people that Taka and I knew died fighting Auntie and Uncle for control, he and I always promised that we would make sure newcomers knew that about them, so they wouldn’t think to try and take control from them.” She shrugged sadly, “There are so few people in the Calm River sect who are still trying to advance. We need new blood to compete against the Indus sect, or we’ll lose more and more territory until we have nothing left. Auntie and Uncle are incredibly strong, but they’re not omnipresent. They can only take part in so many tournaments each year. We’re already down to our last five sections on this layer, so we can’t afford to lose any more.”

She pulled out a few grains of Zephyr Rice and tasted them, before sucking the entire pot up into her spatial ring. From her movements, I could tell that she was fighting against something. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or frustration, maybe both, but I knew that I needed to know what it was.

I spoke slowly, though I did my best to imbue my voice with weight and presence, “What aren’t you telling me? What do you mean when you say that the Calm River sect is down to their last five sections on this layer? I need you to be honest with me. If not, how am I supposed to trust you?”

Ellie blurted from my shoulder, “Yeah! How can Daddy trust you if you don’t tell him the truth?”

Despite the situation, Ellie’s outburst reduced the tension in the air, like a cold summer breeze cuts through the heat on a sweltering summer day. Naomi sighed and leaned back against the counter, her beautiful gold and crimson robe creasing along the edge.

“There are four layers to the Inheritance of the Eclipse, though only three of them are actually used. The lowest layer is for brand-new pairs of cultivators, think of it as a basic schoolhouse where they don’t really teach you much, mostly just watch and see if you can succeed on your own.”

Seeing my raised eyebrows, she continued with a wry grin, “This layer’s not much better, there’s very little actual instruction in paired cultivation anymore, though I’ve been told that in the past, that wasn’t the case. The training compound you went into for orientation used to be a massive training hall where pairs of cultivators from the third layer would come down and teach those of us on the second layer the mysteries of paired cultivation, but that hasn’t happened for almost one hundred years. Other than that, the second layer is also known as the Layer of Conflict.

“This layer is octagonal in shape, and there are one hundred and twenty-eight different sections that are each octagonal in shape as well. The spaces in between, where the octagons don’t meet perfectly, are shaped like four-pointed stars. Every star is connected to four octagons and whenever there’s a contest held on one of them, there are usually four victors. Each victor’s sect will gain control over one of the four sectors that are touching the star, based on which contest they’re attached to. Does that make sense?” Her eyes were wide with worry, fear, and what appeared to be a gleam of hope.

If I was understanding what she’d said correctly, this layer was octagonal in shape. It was split into one hundred and twenty-eight different sectors. The sectors were octagonal in shape. At each junction of four octagons, there was a star-shaped location that was used as a contest ground of sorts where the competitions were held to take control of the four octagons surrounding the star. Each contest had four winners, each one taking control of one of the octagons for their sect.

I rattled that information back to Naomi and she grinned and clapped softly, “That’s exactly correct.”

“How does someone advance from the second layer to the third?”

Naomi started working on slicing up some treetop mushrooms to add into her the Zephyr Rice, “There are two ways, the first is to advance to the level of a Duke cultivator, the Inheritance forcibly pushes anyone who reaches that level into the third layer of the Inheritance, hence why Auntie and Uncle are restraining their breakthroughs. The other ways are to win ten grand melees in a row, or the sect that controls the eight central districts of the layer also gets to send one couple per year up to the third layer, though they have to control all eight sectors all year to gain that right.”

“Okay, that makes sense. You mentioned that there was a fourth layer, but that it wasn’t used much, was that it? Why would that be?”

Naomi started sautéing the Treetop mushrooms in a large pan, which she seasoned liberally, “The fourth layer is where the progenitors of the Inheritance lived, though I guess it’s more like where their proxies live now? From what I heard, the progenitors of the Inheritance didn’t figure out how to sustain themselves indefinitely, so instead their proxies have to pick replacements out of the people in the third layer every five hundred years or so. From what Auntie and Uncle told me, before this new pair took over, there was no combat requirement for this Inheritance. You still had the territorial dispute part of the Inheritance, but it made a lot more sense because it was all done in good fun. That’s why almost none of the territorial disputes are done via combat, this place is meant to be a place of learning.”

She put out the fire on the stove and mutely pulled out the pot of Zephyr Rice she had been working with and deftly folded the sautéed mushrooms into the rice, which wafted a delectable smell of umami and spice toward my nose.

“That smells delicious, but you need to explain how the sectors on this layer work and why they matter now, my curiosity has been sated.”

She laughed, “The more sectors your sect controls, the better cultivation aids they’re granted. As of now, we only control five of one hundred and twenty-eight sectors, so we get a dozen or less alchemical, or formation-based, cultivation aids for the entire sect each month. That isn’t even enough for two couples to advance their cultivation in any meaningful way.

“That’s why Auntie and Uncle have declared that no one is going to use the alchemical cultivation aids until we start taking more sectors back from the Indus sect. They’re using them as an incentive to those who would try and compete.” She let out another long sigh, “The problem is, of the people in the Calm River sect, only Taka and I ever enter the clashes for territory, besides a few random pairs who decide that it might be fun to try and take a sector for themselves for a while. They go into it saying that they want to work with us to improve our sect’s lot, but when they win, they like to claim that they’re their own sect, so they get to control what happens with the cultivation resources that come from the sector. The problem is that the Inheritance agrees and gives the resources to them. Taka and I always give our sectors to the sect as a whole. As far as we’re concerned, the sect is our family, so it just makes sense to do so.” She looked sad, but I thought I saw where the gleam of hope was coming from at that point.

I looked at her side eyed, “You didn’t just want us to join your sect, did you? You want Keiko and I to go with you to those territory matches and help the Calm River sect gain back some territory.”

I didn’t wait for her to speak, but I did see her nod. “The problem is, with just the four of us, we can only take two places, assuming that each pair goes in as a single unit. Am I right?”

Naomi flashed me a big grin, “That’s where you’re wrong. Despite this place’s focus on paired cultivation, not all of the contests are handled in pairs. Actually, most of them aren’t. I’ve always speculated that it was to help foster diversity between pairs, but no one I’ve ever talked to actually knew why.

“With you two, and another couple we found who was willing to join in on the contest as long as we could find another couple, we’ll have enough contestants to actually make a dent! If we all win, we’ll control nine sectors. That would greatly increase the number of resources the sect gets per month, which should convince Auntie and Uncle to give out the alchemical aids they have stocked up, so we can go back and take more sectors for the Calm River sect.”

“What kind of contest is this upcoming territory battle? Is it a fight, a challenge of sorts, or something else?” I wanted to know what I was getting myself into, because I knew that Keiko would want to help Naomi and Taka, even if she didn’t really want to help the rest of the Calm River sect. She was a true friend.

Naomi’s smile faltered, “That’s a bit complicated to answer. Two of the sectors are going to be taken control of by the means of an alchemy contest and a formations contest. Another is a singing contest, while the final one is a disk race. I know it sounds like a lot, but I’m pretty sure that I can win the singing contest and Taka can win the disk race. I could tell from the smell of you that you’re something of an alchemist, and Keiko was telling me about how she was learning formations, so it couldn’t be more perfect!” She tried to sound excited, but part of what she said didn’t make any sense.

I frowned, “I thought you said that we needed another couple to pull this off? Why would we need them if the four of us can each compete on our own?” Something wasn’t as it seemed.

Naomi sighed as she started walking back toward where Keiko and Taka were seated, far away, down the hall. “Not all of the territory disputes are able to be competed in by single people, but these are. The reason why we need the third couple is that in addition to the four territories we’re about to gain, one of the territories we do control is about to be up for dispute and we need someone to go in to block the Indus sect from taking control of it. The couple that Taka and I found, who were willing to help, also happen to be experts in stunt flying, which is the contest that is slated to determine the controller of one of our five current territories. It’s why we sought them out.”

Seeing the look of disbelief on my face, she snorted. “You’d be surprised at some of the crazy stuff that this Inheritance comes up with to contest the different sectors. I once heard that there was a fingerpainting contest to determine control of one of the northern sectors, but seeing as no one competed against them, the Indus tribe just took control without having to do anything.”

As I continued walking with Naomi, a thought came to mind, “Are there any other sects besides the Indus sect and the Calm River sect? I feel like if the Indus sect had so much more resources than the Calm River sect, that they would’ve just wiped you guys out years ago.”

“You’d be correct, the third sect controls about thirty percent of this layer. They’re called The Scholars and they only care about the sectors that contain the different libraries of this layer. They don’t allow anyone outside their sect entry to the different libraries, so it’s becoming harder and harder to learn new cultivation techniques. Since they came to prominence seventy-five years ago, not only are we not being taught, now we’re unable to go into the libraries to learn on our own.”

She laughed, “We actually took one of their libraries from them once and the information that Auntie and Uncle found inside is allowed them to do that thing with their unified voice. When they’re doing that, their strength doubles, but it only lasts for about ten seconds.”

There was a lot to unpack in that last little bit of conversation. The third sect, The Scholars, controlled thirty percent of this layer, roughly forty sectors. They also controlled each of the different libraries on this layer, which probably contained most, if not all, of the information that Keiko and I would be looking for about light and dark qi. The good news was that the Indus sect didn’t have their hands on any of libraries, so they wouldn’t be able to get the information we really did want them to have, but the bad news was that we wouldn’t be able to get to it either, unless we took one of the libraries back from The Scholars.

I figured it was time to gauge Sensei’s reaction, so I rattled off what I was thinking to him. His response was interesting, “I don’t know if we want to hitch our sail to a sinking ship, to put it colloquially. Actually, you’ve never been on a sailing boat, so that doesn’t make any sense to you. Let me put it another way, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and Keiko to work with the Calm River sect anymore. If there’s another sect in direct conflict with the Indus tribe that has significantly more resources, you’re probably better off working with them.”

The problem was, he wasn’t wrong. If Keiko and I were going to get the information we needed, we would need access to those libraries, and the fastest way to get access to the libraries would be to join The Scholars. The only thing stopping me from deciding that was the best plan of action was a hunch I had.

“Do the Indus sect and The Scholars come into conflict often?”

Naomi shook her head as we entered the chamber where Keiko, Taka, Auntie, and Uncle were all seated around a low table. “Of course not, they’ve had a nonaggression treaty for fifty years, ever since they almost wiped each other out, and in return the Indus sect gets access to ten different libraries of their choosing.”

Sensei grumbled to me mentally, “Never mind, we can’t trust The Scholars either. Something tells me you’re going to have to be the prevailing wind for this floundering ship… I’m the need to teach you to about sailing, that’s where a lot of my best metaphors come from. Here’s one I think you’ll get: I think that you and Keiko need to be the strong horses that’ll pull the lagging carriage, that is the Calm River sect, out of obscurity. The only thing is, you’re going to need to collect as many of those libraries along the way that you can and that’ll put you in direct opposition with both other sects. This isn’t going to be fun, but it’s necessary work. I’ll do all that I can to help you, but in the end it’s up to you and Keiko, plus potentially Naomi and Taka, to take care of things.”

As I was laying out the food that I’d prepared, Empyrean Boar with a prickle berry sauce, to pair with the Zephyr Rice and Treetop mushroom side dish that Naomi had prepared so lovingly.

I said one more thing to Sensei before eating, “Don’t forget, as soon Aria and Gong Jin learn the basics of paired cultivation, they’ll end up here, so it’ll be six of us against the entire Indus sect, plus The Scholars. It’s a lot more doable with those two, don’t you agree?” Sensei merely grumbled in response.

In unison, Naomi and I exclaimed, “Dig in!”

Chapter 8

The meal with Auntie and Uncle, along with Naomi and Taka, was a lot of fun. Auntie didn’t talk much, but when she did it was usually something witty or insightful and I came to appreciate whenever she did speak up. Uncle just seemed to be there to have a good time, he complimented all the food and even asked where Keiko and I had found the Empyrean Boar.

As part of our deal to gain the information we needed, Keiko and I told the story of our cultivation journey so far. We left out anything we promised to keep secret, like the location of the Dawnrise clan’s hidden grotto, Sun’s End. We also didn’t tell them about the tunnels that ran beneath Sunset Island, seeing as if more people knew about them, there was a much greater chance of them being compromised and we had friends who lived in a treehouse built into the walls of one of those tunnels.

By time we got through with the story of our battle with the Empyrean Boar, Uncle was laughing along and slapping his leg jovially, “You two are exactly the kind of cultivators we need here in the Calm River sect, brave, smart, and a little bit crazy!” He laughed uproariously and no one else joined in. He was undeterred, “Alright, I’m assuming that Naomi and Taka gave you the basics of the territory disputes. Is that the case?” He looked from Naomi to Taka and both of them nodded.

Uncle nodded and clapped his hands, “Excellent! Now, I think that there’s a territory dispute tomorrow afternoon that Naomi and Taka would like to take you to with to, did you agree to do so?”

I looked to Keiko, who nodded to me, so I turned and nodded to Uncle, “That is the case. We have agreed to participate in the alchemy and formation portions of said dispute. However, you still owe Keiko and I a bit of an explanation before we do anything. A deal’s a deal.”

Uncle nodded, but the jovial smile that was on his face was gone. Replacing it was something more akin to a frown, but the corners of his lips didn’t turn down. They were merely set in determination, “I can’t say that I disagree with you son, but what you’re about to hear is not a happy story.”

“There’s a reason why most people know about the second entrance, but very few know how it works or who comes through it. That’s because there’s a grave cost to fuel its use.” Bortus ran his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, as if to calm himself. “The entrance you came through would be called the ‘main’ entrance. The Inheritance of the Eclipse, Eclipse Academy, is anchored to Sunset Island. That fact is never going to change, seeing as almost all of the formations used to sustain this place are tapped into leylines that exist there. Ninety-five percent of the cultivators who are currently inside the Inheritance of the Eclipse came in through the main entrance. However, would it shock you to know that nearly fifty times as many people have attempted to come in through the secondary entrance?”

Keiko, Ellie, Taka, Naomi, and I all gasped at that astronomical fact, but Bortus didn’t wait for us to recover before continuing.

“That’s the truth. Since the time that Auntie and I arrived here, we’ve seen thousands of cultivators enter, but most of the didn’t come in through the main entrance. Most of them have come in through the secondary entrance, better known as the Paired Gauntlet.”

What was it with Inheritances and using the term ‘gauntlet’? The Inheritance of the Pot had one and now the Inheritance the Eclipse did as well. When I asked Sensei later, he explained that it was an old term for a series of challenges, but it appeared to have fallen out of use since he had been cut off from the world. He said that he was never a huge fan of the word, but it felt like the right thing to put on the door, seeing as that’s what everyone else always called that kind of thing.

Bortus stood up and started pacing as he wrung his hands anxiously. Alayna raised up her arm to soothe him, but he stepped away. He was obviously distressed at what he was thinking of, and was hesitant to actually say it. A few moments later, with a deep sigh, Bortus strode over and gently rested his hands on his wife’s shoulders, as if drawing strength from her, which he probably could’ve actually done.

“The Paired Gauntlet doesn’t sound like anything sinister, but it’s my belief that it is not what the progenitors of this Inheritance intended. Back before the most recent progenitors took over, the Paired Gauntlet was a series of tasks involving teamwork, analysis of compatibility for paired cultivation, as well as a number of other, smaller, factors. Of those couples who tried to get in through the secondary entrance, less than one couple in fifty made it in. Those that did, ended up being incredibly powerful forces for whatever sect they ended up joining.”

He looked pained, as if the mere thought of the Paired Gauntlet of times past was enough to cause him great distress.

“Why is it that you look like you’re in pain when you talk about the way the Paired Gauntlet used to be?” I did my best to keep my voice level, but I couldn’t but help but sound surprised. “That sounds a lot like what we went through to get into the Inheritance of the Lovers. Frankly, I was surprised that we didn’t go through something similar when we came in here.”

Alayna reached up and put her hand on her husband’s side before turning back to the rest of us, “What Uncle isn’t saying… is that we came in through the alternate entrance over 500 years ago. We were in the last batch of cultivators before the progenitors passed off the mantle to the previous controller of the Inheritance. Since then, control of the Inheritance has passed once more, but the most recent pair is even worse than the previous. None of them can hold a candle to the progenitors themselves.”

Bortus’s face formed into a grimace, “Unlike when Auntie and I entered, ever since the progenitors stopped running the Inheritance themselves, the secondary entrance no longer leads to a test of worth, the Paired Gauntlet we took part in back then is no more. Instead, it leads to the new Paired Gauntlet, a grueling combat tournament in which 128 couples per year battle for supremacy in hopes of being granted access to the Inheritance of the Eclipse.”

Keiko and I gasped, but Bortus continued on. “I understand that it’s horrible, there’s nothing worse than wasting potential like that. However, that is what happens. Every year, 128 couples are entered into the new Paired Gauntlet. They enter into a seven-round tournament, during which they fight to the death. The most deplorable thing is that the couples who arrived earlier in the year are allowed to train and cultivate the entire time they’re waiting for the tournament to begin. I know that the only prerequisite for entry to the secondary entrance is that the couples must come as a pair and that they can be no more advanced than peak Heart cultivators.

“However, inevitably some Body cultivators end up entering, whether on purpose or not. The good thing is, as soon as they arrive, they are granted full access to cultivation manuals on paired cultivation, so they can rapidly grow in strength, but the problem is that we’ve all seen it where a pair of Body cultivators are the final couple to enter the tournament. They are always completely slaughtered. Honestly, any of the couples who show up in the latter half of the year are usually slaughtered, unless they were already inordinately powerful for their cultivation level. The winners of these tournaments are almost always mentally scarred and usually end up joining the Indus sect, due to the experience they had prior to becoming full students of this Inheritance.”

At first, I was aghast at what we’d heard, and from the looks on Keiko, Naomi, and Taka’s faces, they were as well. I was mildly shocked to see that our guides from earlier hadn’t known exactly what happened every year, but from the look on Auntie’s face, I could tell that she had been sheltering them from that truth and she was now very displeased with Bortus for revealing it to them.

I shook my head, “Based on the research I’ve done, most Inheritances require constant influxes of cultivators and qi rich items or plants to maintain themselves. With how small Sunset Island is, and how few people live on it, I had been wondering how the Inheritance had survived so long. Now I know and I’m certain you understand as well.”

Bortus nodded sadly, “You are correct. The controllers of this Inheritance are using the qi and cores from the fallen cultivators every year to fuel the Inheritance, beyond the normal yearly tournament for cultivators inside here. I find it despicable,” he reached down and took his wife’s hand, before it squeezing tightly.

Sensei spoke up, “This Inheritance isn’t large enough that it would need more than the cores of fifty, or so, cultivators of the Heart level to survive, per year. Before you ask, I’m not going to hide the fact that I learned all of that before I finished my Inheritance. I had to figure out what form of self-sustaining method I’d need to use and that was one that I saw and immediately discarded. Something else is going on with this Inheritance, otherwise they wouldn’t need nearly so much energy.”

He paused for a moment, then continued. “Also, something strange is going on with the timeline they’ve presented. It doesn’t line up. Many years ago, when my son and his wife exited their training from here, they told me that the progenitors had just stepped down the day before they left. If that’s the case, there’s something going on with how time flows in here, and this might be a more dire situation than we’d previously thought.” He paused before quickly blurting something out, “Ask him what year they entered this place. I have a hunch that I’d like to see if it’s correct.” His voice sounded fearful and hopeful at the same time, which was a bit strange, but I knew that I’d eventually figure out why it was that way.

Before Bortus could speak, I interjected, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but would one of you two mind telling me the year that you entered the Inheritance? I’m a bit of a history buff.” I could feel Sensei’s anticipation through our link and I saw Keiko’s eyes were darting from Bortus, to Alayna, and then back to Bortus rapidly.

Alayna looked at me strangely, but answered my question. “It was the year 2,194 of the Phoenix dynasty. I’m assuming that you can do basic math, so wouldn’t that make it the year 2,694 of the Phoenix dynasty? Or did that monster, the Phoenix Emperor, finally get killed?”

Alayna sounded very hopeful that the Phoenix Emperor might have been killed. There was obviously more to it, but I knew that I’d have to get that out of her later.

Sensei laughed uproariously, startling Keiko and I, “I was right!”

“What were you right about?” Keiko asked hurriedly, as we are being stared at by Bortus and Alayna.

“I entered my Inheritance for the final time in what would’ve been the year 2,297 of the Phoenix dynasty. That’s 103 years after the date they entered this Inheritance. However, that was actually the 12th year of the Hong dynasty. My wife and I were part of the group of cultivators who joined together to destroy the Phoenix Emperor, before he could destroy his people and the world in an attempt to advance his cultivation to new heights.” His voice grew quiet, “That might explain why…”

Keiko and I were both in rapt attention to what Sensei was saying. I nudged him mentally, “Sensei? Finish your sentence.”

Sensei’s voice was shaky, “I…I… I think I know why the knowledge of light and dark qi has been lost or hidden. The Phoenix Emperor was attempting to advance to what he thought was the next level of cultivation after Emperor, but in doing so he destroyed most of the Empire he had called his dominion by trying to force dark and light qi together to reforge his body. It wouldn’t surprise me if the cultivators of the time decided that it was too dangerous for that kind of power to exist, so they hid the information away. I know that there were some cults who were doing some deplorable things with light and dark qi, primarily dark qi, but it stands to reason that the other Emperors and Kings of the time figured cultivators might not need those two types, especially if they could be used to cause such extensive and uncontrollable destruction.”

My mind reeled, if what he said was true, these people, calling themselves Auntie and Uncle, have been in this Inheritance for over 15,000 years, given the estimate I’d come up with over the last few months of talking with Sensei. A look of horror shot across my face as I realized that we may have done something quite terrible in entering this place. If I was correct, there was a chance that time inside the Inheritance of the Eclipse was dramatically slowed down compared to the regular world, the exact opposite of the Inheritance of the Lovers. I knew I needed to find out why.

My voice was shaky as I addressed Bortus and Alayna, “Do you have a means of verifying the truth? If you do, do you have any contract seals that we could make use of?” I didn’t elaborate any further, if they didn’t have what we needed, then I wasn’t going to go any further along the path I had just worked my way through.

Naomi and Taka stared at me and Keiko in confusion, while Bortus and Alayna exchanged glances before looking back at me with worry on their faces. A moment, and one obvious mental conversation, later, Bortus nodded, “Yes, we have a set of formation flags that we can set up which makes discerning lies incredibly easy. As for contract seals, we do have a few, but what is this about?” He looked nervous, but not agitated. His wife on the other hand, looked both agitated and worried.

Keiko stepped in to smooth out the ruffled feathers I’d just caused, “One, I would love to take a look at those formation flags! If I could somehow see how they were created, I think it would be incredibly helpful for us, but that’s neither here nor there. We have information that you might find incredibly valuable, but to reveal our source could be incredibly harmful to our health and safety. We’re going to ask each of you to lay hands on the contract seal and swear to not reveal any of the information you learn from us to anyone, no exceptions.” I really loved it when she read my mind, even when she wasn’t actually reading it.

Naomi and Taka gasped at what Keiko had just said. They were obviously shocked to hear someone of the younger generation request so much from their elders. Bortus merely nodded, while his wife scowled.

“I will gather up a group contract seal. Auntie, would you please gather one of the truth verification formation flag sets and bring it back to our pagoda?”

He looked over at Naomi and Taka, “Would you two please lead our esteemed guests to the sitting room on the second floor of our pagoda? Once you have them there, activate the privacy formation,” he looked at Keiko and I meaningfully, “I trust that you wouldn’t want anyone else to able to listen in on this conversation.”

Taka and Naomi sprung to their feet, before bowing deeply to Bortus and Alayna. “Yes Uncle!” They both said in unison.

Alayna languidly stood up and stretched before patting her husband on the shoulder and starting to walk down the hallway. She called over her shoulder, “I’ll see you in the pagoda, Bortus.”

Every man in the room involuntarily shivered, we all knew what that meant.

Bortus sighed, “I’m hoping that the information you have will be worth all the effort we’re putting forth. After grabbing the contract seal, I’ll need to go and check the master formation for the defensive formations over the compound. It’s been a little bit since I did that. I’m also going to have the guards put on high alert to make sure that there are no spies in our midst, or bonded beasts hidden among the animals inside the compound. I’ll join all of you momentarily in the pagoda.” He looked at his niece and nephew, “I should be there in about twenty minutes, please make sure to put some tea on. Dragonblossom is Auntie’s favorite, maybe that will help calm her down so I don’t end up sleeping on the divan tonight.” He chuckled halfheartedly, before nodding to us and slowly walking away down the opposite hallway Alayna had left from.

Naomi and Taka stared at Keiko and I for what felt like a minute, but was probably more like ten seconds or so. Keiko stood and dragged me up with her.

“Alright, we’re vertical! Take Steven and I where we need to go.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, before squeezing it tightly.

I knew exactly why she was acting the way she was; we were about to reveal what was probably our biggest secret to four people. If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew they had a contract seal we could use, there’s no way we would’ve done it. However, if what Sensei and I thought was correct, that time was dilated inside this place, we would need all the help we could get to get all of the information we needed and then get out, so as not to lose years of time in the real world inside this Inheritance.

Sensei’s voice was soothing this time, “You’re doing fine, kids. I know that if it weren’t for me that you wouldn’t have anything to worry about right now, but…”

Keiko cut him off sharply, “Stop it.” Sensei stopped immediately, even I was startled by Keiko’s tone. “If it wasn’t for you, we’d be dead and the Indus tribe would have destroyed the Moonbeam clan and would be well on their way to destroying the Dawnrise clan. Also, your many times great-grandson would’ve been eaten and your many times great-granddaughter would be dead in three months.” She huffed, “You’re fine, so stop it.”

Sensei sniffled for a second before saying anything, “I almost think I taught you too well, but I can see in you the fierceness of my wife and daughter-in-law and I’m excited to see who you grow to become. Anyway, I’m going to spend a bit of time gathering my thoughts, so let me know when you’re ready for me to speak.” With that, he went silent.

I quickly messaged Keiko, “Good job there, we’ll need to make sure that we keep Sensei on-topic. If we let him, he’ll enjoy chatting with people from his own time, and end up completely obfuscating what we’re trying to do.”

Keiko squeezed my arm in agreement as we followed Naomi and Taka. They led us toward the center of the compound, toward the sect leaders’ pagoda. Our walk to the pagoda in the center of the compound was pleasant, if a bit tense.

Naomi and Taka woodenly pointed out different points of interest along the way. There were a bunch of meditation chambers, stairs that led to the dorms for the members of the sect, an alchemy room that Sensei asked me to enter immediately, but I told him I’d try and get in there later. Finally, as we entered the central area of the compound we found the training grounds, which were very sparsely filled. There was a small vegetable patch, which didn’t seem like it’d be big enough to feed more than two or three people, and then the central pagoda itself.

Taka told us that the central pagoda was 101 feet tall. It towered over the two-story tall outer section of the compound. The pagoda’s exterior was richly decorated in motifs of dragons, phoenixes, and tigers. It was all very extravagant and matched the aesthetic of Naomi’s robes to a ‘T’.

The door to the entrance of the pagoda was what I would’ve called extravagant a year ago, before having seen the door to the Inheritance of the Pot, or any of the doors within the Inheritance of the Lovers. Compared to those, I actually found it tasteful. The gold inlay on the redwood was beautiful. There were number of formations carved into its surface that I had no hope of identifying at that point. When I asked Keiko later, she confessed that she had only seen two formations that she understood and they were for strengthening the door and setting off an alarm if someone managed to open the door without deactivating the formation first.

Naomi and Taka walked through the door like it didn’t exist, both of them merely waving a talisman from their robes as they did so. They both looked at each other and seemed to be suppressing a laugh as the doors swung open soundlessly. I was willing to bet that both of those talismans were needed to get in through that door, which would make sense for an Inheritance based on paired cultivation.

Inside the pagoda was an unusual scene. The entire first floor was taken up by what appeared to be a sandy sparring arena. The only thing on this level that wasn’t combat related was a single thin staircase leading upward along the wall to our right. Hundreds of weapons were scattered on hooks and racks throughout the room. Keiko noted that all of them appeared well worn and Naomi and Taka explained while we were walking up the stairs that Auntie and Uncle were proficient with all types of weapons, though they had mastered only a few each. Despiter us asking, they wouldn’t tell us what those weapons were, which was fair.

The next floor was more ordinarily decorated. There appeared to be four different rooms along with the staircase leading up. Keiko and I were led to the first room on my left, which appeared to be an ordinary sitting room. Inside sat Alayna, who was sitting in a lotus pose and was obviously doing her best to center herself, though she couldn’t be cultivating because her partner wasn’t nearby.

That was one of the problems with being a paired cultivator, when you found a bit of time to yourself, you couldn’t use it to cultivate, at least not your cores. Rather, I had taken to using that time to work on different alchemical preparations and Keiko used it as a bit of time to work on figuring out different formations. There was an old saying about life and lemons that my grandfather used to say all the time, something about turning bad into good, but I can’t seem to remember it right now. We decided to make the best of it, we took the fact that we couldn’t cultivate separately and turned that, potentially wasted, time into time for mastering our skills.

Alayna’s eyes had started open as Taka slid the door to the sitting room open. She smiled at Naomi and Taka, before narrowing her eyes toward Keiko and I. She took a deep breath before sighing, “Keiko, you may take as much time as it takes my husband to arrive to inspect the various formation flags around this room. I’ve turned it into a bit of a test though, as I brought three different formation flags and placed them all around the room. One of the formations has eight flags, the other nine, and the final one has ten. Therefore, there will be eight trios of flags, one pair of flags, and a single flag all by its lonesome. I’d like you to try and figure out which of the sets of flags is the formation you’re looking for, the truth verification formation. If you can, tell me what the other formations do as well.”

Her eyes darted upwards for a moment before flashing down to lock onto Keiko, “It appears that you have roughly ten minutes before my husband arrives, good luck.”

Keiko immediately darted over to the single flag, which seemed like a solid strategy to me. Meanwhile, I saw Naomi pulling out a tea pot, but I waved her off. She looked at me strangely before I smiled.

“I think this calls for something a little more special than your average teapot.” I pulled out Sensei’s pot from the bag at my hip and settled in as if I was going to work on some alchemy, which I guess was true in its own way. Alayna looked over at the pot and scoffed, but I didn’t let that deter me. She had no idea how incredible the pot I was using was, but she would eventually. I figured that it was okay to give her a sneak peek.

Before I could pull out the materials for Dragonblossom tea, an incredibly thin thread of wind qi wormed its way up the back of my gi toward my left ear, which happened to be pointing away from Alayna.

Taka’s voice came from the thread of wind qi, “Her actual favorite tea is something called Ancients’ Brew, Uncle probably didn’t want to remind her of it when he said Dragonblossom was her favorite. You probably don’t have the makings for Ancients’ Brew, but if you can get close, she might appreciate it. It’s made with Ancient Berry leaves, pulverized Ironwood Nettles, and the flesh of a ripe peach. The water has to be Aqua Vitae, or it won’t work. When she’s in her cups, she laments about how long it’s been since she’s been able to drink it, so if you can get even close… maybe it will help calm her down. It’s been forever since she’s been aggravated like this.”

I laughed internally, even as I glanced over to Taka and gave him an almost imperceptible nod. I was about to blow this woman’s mind.

I set about preparing the tea, using the meridians on the heels of my feet to produce intense blasts of Inferno qi that nearly immediately brought the Aqua Vitae to a boil. I added the pulverized Ironwood nettles immediately, because I knew they would need the longest to extract their flavor. A bit later I added the Ancient Berry leaves after crushing them with a bit of earth qi between my fingers. Just before it finished, I reached into the Inheritance of the Pot’s tile and pulled out a fresh peach, right off the tree.

It was still warm from the heat of the artificial Sun formation in there. I finely julienned the peach with knives I formed from wind and water qi, doing my best to keep it at the same temperature it was when it was on the tree. I was proud of how finely I was able to julienne the fresh peach, any normal knife would’ve just smashed it to bits, but the knives of water and wind qi I was using allowed me to be incredibly fine and not damage the fruit in any way. As I gently dropped the fruit into the pot, I heard a soft gasp from Alayna. Her eyes were locked on the pot and it was then that I knew I had her.

Following Sensei’s instructions, I allowed the pot to steep with no more influx of Inferno qi from me for an additional two minutes and fifteen seconds before immediately serving the tea into teacups that had appeared from somewhere while I was preparing the tea. Just as the final drop hit the final cup, which was for Bortus, he arrived. He started the speak, but when he saw how intently his wife was staring at the cup of tea before her, he looked around the room and saw me laughing with an enormous black pot held between my legs. He smelled the air before cracking a huge grin when he figured out what I’d made. He sat down at the only unclaimed seat with a cup of tea before it with a sigh.

I nodded my head, “Please, enjoy. This is Ancients’ Brew. Aqua Vitae is the base with Ancient Berry leaves, finely ground Ironwood nettles, and the flesh of a perfectly ripe peach added at the end. I just so happened to have access to a peach so recently picked as if to be directly off the branch, so it should be exceptional.”

Everyone around the table raised their glasses, Alayna’s hand was shaking a bit, but she was very careful not to spill a drop. She raised her glass a second after the rest of us.

“Thank you for the tea.” She took a small sip and I noticed that, as she took in one of the tiny chunks of peach, that the intense look of dislike she had on her face a few minutes ago was gone.

It was replaced by a near nirvana-esque look that I’d only seen a few times. It was the look someone gave when they had something they loved that they hadn’t had in a very long time. The first time ever seen it was my grandfather had Tempest Bull steaks for dinner that he’d received as a gift from Keiko’s father on his birthday. The steaks were incredible, but it was mostly that look of pleasure on my grandfather’s face that I remember. He told me about having them on his travels and never being able to afford them when he was in Roh City. He told me about the first time he’d ever had them as a young man and how he had cooked them on the night he met my grandmother. I would never forget the smile on his craggy face.

Everyone else took us up their tea and I was impressed by how good it was. There was every opportunity that I was going to keep that recipe to hand for important events in the future, because I had plenty of ingredients for it and it was absolutely delectable. I was very glad I had taken Miriam up on her offering for the extra leaves she’d gathered, she’d said that she had no use for them. If she’d known about this delectable tea, I got the distinct impression that she wouldn’t have given them to me, maybe she would have, but I bet not.

The tea was smooth, with a bit of a bite from the Ironwood nettles that was smoothed out by the Ancient Berry leaves. Finally, the Aqua Vitae carried the sweet notes of the peach right to the perfect finish. I set out a small jar with the peach nectar that I had gathered from the peach as I was cutting it up.

“Here’s a bit of peach nectar, if anyone would like to add it to their tea, though I don’t think it needs anything, I know that some people like their tea little bit sweeter.”

Keiko looked little bit embarrassed as she picked up the jar of peach nectar and poured a bit of it into her tea before mixing it with a thread of wind qi. Taka looked at her expectantly and held out his hand for the jar, before pouring almost all of the rest of the peach nectar into his tea.

After stirring it and taking a sip he sighed, “I’ll make no bones about it, I much prefer my tea to be sweet than natural, though this was closer than most have been to what I like. This is delicious though; I can see why it’s your favorite Auntie.”

Everyone chuckled a bit, except for Alayna, during which time Keiko snuck over and grabbed the rest the peach nectar and poured it into her tea. She glanced at me and I shrugged, before she took a small sip of her tea and sighed contentedly.

Alayna looked at me with confusion tempered by respect, “I’m assuming either my niece or nephew told you this was my favorite tea, not that Dragonblossom swill I usually have to drink.” Bortus’ face blanched, but Alayna didn’t appear to notice “ They were right, but where did you find the Ancient Berry leaves? I haven’t had any in almost 500 years. I used up the last of what I brought in with me on my third anniversary of my entrance to the Inheritance.”

I shrugged, “Guilty as charged on the hint about your favorite tea, but a friend gave me the Ancient Berry leaves and I promised not to say where I found them. That’s all I can say on that matter, but I’m really glad that like the tea. It’s delicious and I’m planning on using it whenever I need delicious tea to drink while talking about serious business.”

Alayna nodded before taking a small sip of her tea and sighing contentedly.

Bortus looked over at Naomi, who immediately stood up and walked over to the sliding door and turned a formation covered wooden dial ninety degrees clockwise. A second later, a golden flash of light surrounded the room, creating a band that circled the entire room for a few seconds before fading to a pale yellow.

She turned to look at Bortus, “Uncle, the privacy formation has been activated.” He merely nodded in response.

Keiko, having finished her tea, spoke up, “I also figured out what the three formations were, if you’d care to make sure that I’m correct?” She sounded nervous, but there was an edge to her voice they made me think that she was pretty confident in her answers.

Bortus looked at her strangely, but then Alayna laughed, “There’s no need anymore, but if you’d like to tell me, I’m all ears. It’d be nice to see how well trained our new formation master is.”

Keiko walked over to one of the trios of flags and pointed at each one in turn. “The red and gold flags are a basic attack formation. They’ll fill the area inside it with fire and earth qi and from what I can tell, these have been inverted. These would blast fire and earth qi out from the circle, rather than into it, if some kind of trigger was set off.” Alayna nodded and waved at the next flag.

Keiko made a happy noise and pumped her fist a bit before pointing to the next flag, “This is the Truth Verification formation, though it doesn’t make you tell the truth, so much as it reveals lies. This one’s already been activated, so apparently this really is your favorite tea. I’m just letting everyone else know.” Taka, Naomi, and Bortus blanched, while Keiko, Alayna, and I merely chuckled in response. Alayna nodded again and waved at the third flag.

Keiko stared hard at the third flag for a few moments, “This is the hardest one, it’s the only eight flag formation and I know that those are pretty rare. I’m pretty sure that it’s an anti-observation formation, but it doesn’t work on visual or auditory perception as far as I can tell. I’d assume it’s used to prevent the use of qi threads and other methods from observing from afar. This was also active.”

She looked expectantly at Alayna, who nodded again and clapped softly. “That was quite well done, your teacher must be very proud of you.” Keiko blushed as she sat down next to me again.

“You should put away that pot if it’s empty.” Bortus pulled out the contract seal and handed it to me.

I shook my head, “Don’t worry about the pot, it’ll make sense later.” I saw what was written on it and grinned. It was about as basic a contract as you could get, which made it strangely comprehensive.

We who seal this contract will keep Steven and Keiko’s confidence from here forward…

The other two couples walked up and placed her hands on the seals without any hesitation, which I thought was kind of impressive.

I sighed in relief, “Alright, Sensei, why don’t you introduce yourself. It’ll make this a lot easier.” Everyone but Keiko in the room looked at me like I was crazy, but I just laughed as Sensei’s voice came from the pot I was currently seated around.

Sensei’s voice came exuberantly from the pot, “It’s a pleasure to speak with you, please call me Sensei. I already know all of your names, so don’t feel the need to introduce yourselves to me. You see…” He went on to explain how he had taught Keiko and I about formations and alchemy respectively. He also explained how he’d come from the Inheritance of the Pot and that was why he was with me. The only thing he didn’t talk about was anything Keiko or I’d asked him to keep in confidence, especially about exactly how old he was. I got the impression that he was going to let me broach that subject, so he would have a framework to work off of.

Everyone in the room was agape besides Keiko and I, it was rare for anyone to have been to two Inheritances and I’d now been to three. In addition, I was now the master of the Inheritance the pot and I could take it with me wherever I went. Alayna asked if I’d gotten the Ancient Berries from the Inheritance the Pot and I told her that I hadn’t, but I still couldn’t tell her where I had gotten them from. I also revealed that I did have a few actual Ancient Berries and she nearly salivated at the idea of them.

After a while, the chatter died down and I spoke calmly, “There’s a reason why we introduced Sensei to all of you and let him explain his situation. Sensei, how long did you and I estimate you were in your Inheritance?”

Sensei’s voice was pained, “We estimated around 15,000 years. I entered my Inheritance in the 12th year of the Hong dynasty, which I believe you would know as year 2,297 of the Phoenix dynasty.”

The room went dead quiet, there wasn’t even a gasp heard before Sensei spoke again, “How many people in this place do you know who’ve been here as long as you have? Actually, how many do you know who’ve been here more than 100 years?” Sensei’s voice was calm, which brought with it an air of how important that question actually was.

Bortus sputtered, “I… I… I can’t believe that. We’ve only been in here for 500 years, there’s no way…” He buried his head in his hands.

Alayna rubbed his back in concentric circles as she addressed Sensei and I, Keiko having let us do most of the talking so far. “We’re the last cultivators who’ve been around that long. Everyone else we’ve known the last few hundred years have ascended to the third layer or died, we’re the only ones who stayed down here to protect our sect, it’s just who we are. A lot of them died, especially since the new combat rules that were put into place about 100 years ago.”

Sensei sounded anxious, “Are you sure? There’s no one in The Scholars who’s been here longer than you have? The Indus tribe? No one else has been here more than 100 years?”

I knew exactly why he was asking those questions, we discussed them on the way over to the pagoda. Anyone who’d been here as long as they had, probably knew about light and dark qi, but anybody who’d entered in the last hundred years, using the Inheritance’s warped sense of time, probably didn’t. He had explained to me that the controller of an Inheritance can change how time works inside it. The faster they accelerated time, the more energy the Inheritance would need to draw, and vice versa.

The person who took over the Inheritance the Eclipse after the progenitors passed on the reins was probably trying to conserve energy until there was a good stockpile of energy, but when the replacement came in, they probably gave up on that and set time back to normal inside. That also explained why the Indus sect had only been around inside for 100 years, given our conversation from earlier with Naomi and Taka. The Indus tribe had only grown to prevalence recently in the normal world, because of being able to enter and exit the Inheritance of the Eclipse easily.

Previously, if someone had stepped inside and thought that they spent a week training, which wouldn’t really accomplish much, it’d actually have been closer to nine months in the real world. Therefore, if someone were to have spent a year inside, they come back almost forty years later and would have been passed over by people who hadn’t gone inside dozens of times over. However, after the Indus tribe took over the Inheritance, they could now enter and exit freely and grow in strength a lot faster, which was probably how they started taking over sunset island.

Alayna spoke again, this time with a lot more confidence, “Every year a pamphlet of information is passed out to each of the sect leaders, from the largest sect down to the single couple who decided to try and survive on their own. Inside is information about who has the most advanced cultivation on the layer, the oldest pair, and each sect’s number of sectors under their control. For the last 400 years, my husband I have been the top of the age board, and no one else is even close. 200 years ago, all of our contemporaries were gone and we were the only ones left in the layer. Since then, people have ascended, but no one is nearly as old as we are.”

I looked over at Naomi and Taka before looking back to Alayna, Bortus was still hiding his head in his hands.

“Did you teach Naomi and Taka to cultivate, or did their parents teach them how?”

Alayna looked at me strangely, but shook her head, “We had nothing to do with it, their parents took care of all that. Why are you asking?”

I looked over at Keiko, before looking down at Sensei’s pot.

“Did you ever play any basic games with them as kids? Specifically games to learn the different types of qi and what they’re used for?”

She shook her head, “We didn’t really have anything to do with training them. Their parents took care of that and then when they ascended by becoming Duke cultivators, they left them in our care. We’ve always protected them as sect leaders, but it wasn’t until twenty years ago that we really took an interest in their growth. Why are you asking us these strange questions?” She sounded agitated, but very curious.

Sensei spoke in an old language that he had been teaching Keiko and I, I did my best to understand at the time, but later Sensei told us what he’d said, “Have you ever seen either of them use light or dark qi? Make sure respond in this language.” His voice was stern.

Alayna looked at us strangely, but replied in kind, “No, but that’s not abnormal. Most people don’t use light or dark qi until they’re at least Sage cultivators. They’re dangerous, everyone knows that.”

Sensei sighed, “That’s not it. They don’t know they exist.”

Chapter 9

Sensei sounded sad, as if the incredulity of Bortus and Alayna was the last straw on the hay pile that was his heart.

Alayna cut her hand sharply at Naomi and Taka, as they were obviously about to ask what was going on.

When she spoke, it was in a very clipped and staccato rhythm. “That can’t be true! Without all eight types of qi… it’s impossible to have a fully stable cultivation base. Even though Bortus and I are only Sage cultivators, we’ve been dabbling with light and dark qi since we were Saints.

“If what you’re saying is true, the knowledge contained within this Inheritance may be too dangerous for the outside world. I know for a fact that there are at least a dozen libraries on this layer alone that detail out different light and dark qi techniques. While Bortus and I never learned any of them, we did encounter them when we were a bit younger. Even then, very few people of our cultivation level ever even picked up books about them, due to their difficulty to learn and use.”

I was frustrated, even though everyone in this room was under contract seal, well at least everybody who wasn’t part of what I would call my family, Sensei and the old couple reverted to their old ways. I decided to put a stop to it.

I spoke out loud normally, like I would anywhere else, “Would the three very old people stop being so rude, please? We’re here to discuss three things. The first is that time was dilated in the Inheritance of the Eclipse, which led to 400 years turning into 15,000 years, give or take. The second is that the Indus sect is trying to gain access to knowledge that has been lost in the outside world. The third is that the knowledge lost to the outside world is the existence of light and dark qi.” Alayna looked like she wanted to throw a spear through my chest, while Bortus merely took a deep breath, before sighing.

Sensei, on the other hand, was screaming at me mentally, “We can’t trust them! What if they say something about…”

I cut them off mentally, “If we can’t trust people who are under contract seals to hold our confidence, we are in much more dire straits than I thought we were. I know you can’t breathe, but take a deep breath, and settle down. Let’s talk about this like adults.”

I knew that I was being harsh with him, but we had already gone through every safety procedure we could think of to keep this information from getting out. If we weren’t willing to speak frankly with everyone in the room after all that, what was the point? I just leveled the playing field.

Naomi and Taka just sat there, mouths agape, as they stared at Bortus and Alayna. I could see that the trust Naomi and Taka had for Bortus and Alayna was quickly dwindling. As I was trying to come up with a way to help remedy that situation, Bortus noticed it as well, so he came to the rescue.

“My dears, we had no idea that you didn’t know about light and dark qi. Back in our time, a cultivator’s initial teachers, usually their parents, would teach them about the different types of qi and how important it was to remain balanced with all the types they could wield, which would eventually include light and dark qi. We were under the impression that your parents had taken care of divulging that information to you. How were we to know that the existence of light and dark qi had been lost to the ages? I’m not going to make any more excuses for Auntie and I, but I do promise that we will make sure to make the pair of you aware of everything we know of light and dark qi, so you can eventually use them without hurting yourselves. They’re also useful for the purpose of cultivation, granting much greater stability to your cultivation base.”

Alayna was still glaring at me, but she turned, smiled, and nodded to Naomi and Taka for a brief moment before turning back, to glare at me again.

Keiko spoke up for the first time in a little while, she’d been biding her time, looking for the right moment to strike, “So, the real reason why Steven and I are inside this Inheritance, besides learning more about paired cultivation, which we haven’t gotten any information on yet, is that the Indus tribe is trying to rediscover light and dark qi. At least one of their pairs found some mention of it and since then, they have been sending more and more couples into this Inheritance to try and get more information about them. Honestly, our goal is to completely wipe out the Indus tribe, not just their sect in here. Whatever it takes to pull that off, we’re probably going to do.”

I hugged Keiko to my side gently, “I think that’s really our only goal right now, besides getting stronger. We don’t think small, it’s not who we are.” I chuckled.

Despite how angry she was, Alayna kept her mouth shut in favor of her intense glare.

Naomi was still stunned in a state of stunned silence, but Taka had recovered enough to ask a question that both he and his partner were probably wondering, “What does this mean for us?”

Bortus opened his mouth to answer, then closed it sharply. A few moments of complete silence later, he replied in a hesitant tone, “Honestly, it doesn’t mean a lot to you. Auntie and I will make sure that light and dark qi enter into your cores, to help stabilize them. That’s not a big deal in the short term. Long-term we’ll need to teach you how to use both of those qi types, but that’s not anything crazy.”

He looked over at Keiko and I before looking back towards his niece and nephew, “What Steven and Keiko brought us, however, is of significantly more importance than the very minor amount of light and dark qi you two need to stabilize your cultivation bases. If what they’re saying is true, we’ll need to step up our operations dramatically, as soon as possible.”

My lips were set in a grimace, “He’s right, were going to need to take as much territory from the Indus sect as humanly possible. The fewer sectors they control, the fewer resources they have to fuel their army. Yes, I’m thinking of them as an army. If they bring the ability to use light and dark qi back into the world, no one will know how to stop them. The only way we can protect the world from them, is to keep them trapped on this island, or wipe them out entirely.” I grinned shyly, “Personally, I’d rather wipe them out entirely, but I know that’s a tall order.” I looked Bortus directly in the eyes, “How many cultivators are on this layer of the Inheritance? Also, does the Indus sect have a presence on any of the other layers?”

Bortus looked to Alayna pleadingly and she sighed heavily before answering the questions that I’d asked, “There are never more than five hundred pairs of cultivators on this layer, the second layer. As of last week, there were four hundred and seventy-eight pairs active on this layer. I also know that there can be no more than one hundred pairs on the third layer, but that layer is rarely more than half full, currently it’s at about forty pairs. The Indus sect’s only powerbase within this Inheritance is here on the second layer.

“While they’ve had over eighty pairs ascend, one per year for the last eighty years, none of them have ever come back and we believe they were either killed or died. We don’t have to worry about the Indus sect having any pull on the third layer. As for the first layer, I know that almost all of the Indus tribe members who come in end up down there, but that the only layer we don’t have any information about numbers on, besides the fourth layer. I guess we only really have information about the second and third layer, but they’re the primary layers for the Inheritance, so that’s not unusual. I do know that there can only be two thousand different pairs active in the inheritance.”

I looked at her strangely, “Why is that?”

She chuckled, “You’re wearing the reason,” she touched the earring hanging from her right ear, “you need to have a pair of these to get in and out of this place.” She looked sadly at Naomi and Taka, “You two are a unique exception, though we all know that if you leave, you won’t be able to return without a pair. Whenever someone dies, their totem earrings disappear out into the world at large if they aren’t grabbed within sixty seconds.” She looked like she wanted to spit, “Those Indus sect bastards have gotten very good at snatching the pairs of earrings before they get released into the world at large.”

I frowned, “That’s not encouraging to hear. How many Indus tribe pairs are there on this layer?”

She scoffed, “There are three hundred Indus tribe pairs on this layer. Before you ask, we’ve got sixty-three pairs, while the scholars have one hundred, give or take a few pairs. At any given point there are ten or twenty individual pairs who are part of one of the three main sects, but they’re largely relevant in the grand scheme of things.”

She was nearly snarling at me, it appeared that I had burned off any goodwill I had generated by making her favorite tea. I made it a point to remember to make another pot of it to give her another time, so she could store it in her spatial ring and have a cup whenever she wanted one, for at least a little while. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so aggressive with me, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

I nodded, “That’s good, now at least we know what we’re working with.”

Keiko looked at me strangely, “No, that’s not good. They outnumber us nearly four to one! How are we going to combat that?” She sounded nervous, which wasn’t like her.

Sensei laughed, “My dear, we’ll fight them like every intelligent cultivator does. We’ll will hit them where they’re weakest. What is the weakest point of the Indus sect?”

There was a smattering of answers from people around the room. Taka thought it might be techniques, while Naomi thought that it was skill, Bortus thought it was honor, while Alayna thought it was discipline. Keiko was convinced it was compassion. Sensei told each of them that they were wrong.

I waited until everyone else had guessed before giving the answer I knew Sensei was waiting for, “Trust. Not a single pair of theirs actually trusts each other. We all know that they’re cannibals. When someone you grew up with will eat you if something goes wrong, you can’t trust them. Also, pride is probably another thing we have ahead of them. They’re so proud of their skills that they’ll take any challenge, no matter how one-sided it might actually be.”

Sensei sounded ecstatic, “That’s exactly it! They can’t trust each other and they are incredibly prideful. Both of those are things we can take advantage of to advance our agenda. Before we go too much farther, are the four of you with Keiko, Steven, and I on this crazy quest?”

Before anyone could answer, Ellie poked her head out of my hood, “Hey! Don’t forget about me. I count!” She left the hood of my cowl and slid down my extended arm to rest on the table, so as not to be forgotten again. She flared her silver wings agitatedly, obviously not enjoying the fact that she had been forgotten… again. I reached down and scratched the frill atop her head, which made her trill happily for moment before she leaned away and glared at me. She only stayed that way for a few seconds before turning to glare back at the pot Sensei inhabited.

He sounded very apologetic, “I’m sorry Ellie, I just assumed that you, Keiko, and Steven were unit. I won’t make that mistake again.” We all knew that he would, but he did sound apologetic.

Ellie huffed and coiled up, “Apology accepted, but don’t do it again.” She sat there, coiled up about twelve inches high beside the cup that had held my tea.

Naomi, finally having gotten over her shock, took Taka’s hand, “We’re with you. We want to get rid of the Indus sect almost as much as you do, but now we have an even better reason to do so.” She looked expectantly over at Bortus, who didn’t even notice because he had locked eyes with his wife.

A few moments later, Alayna turned to address my group, “Well, we don’t appreciate how you went about it, but the cats out of the bag now. Bortus and I have been discussing for years now that our current situation was untenable, all this means now is that we’ll need to accelerate our plans.”

She took a deep breath, “We will be releasing the cultivation aids we have stockpiled out to any of our sect members who are willing to compete for sectors in the next few weeks. We’re going to do our best take as many of them as we can, as fast as we can, so that the Indus tribe doesn’t know what hit them.”

She laughed, though it was a far cry from the happy chuckle she’d had while drinking tea, “The four of you are going to have to be the tip of that spear. You’re going to have to take those sectors tomorrow, it’ll be a great confidence booster for the rest of the sect members. Maybe it will help get them off their lazy asses.”

I got the distinct impression that Alayna didn’t approve of how lackadaisical her sect was. I’d have been willing to bet that she would much rather have been in a much more militant sect, but that wasn’t the hand fate had dealt her.

Bortus nodded along with his wife, “I completely agree. We’ll work with the rest of the sect members to ensure that we can compete in as many contests as possible in the next two weeks. After that, I’d like to have a war council meeting with the four of you, along with anybody else who won their sector contest, so we can come up with a real plan for taking down the Indus sect.”

I unlinked my fingers before cracking them, “I’ve been thinking about our situation for a little while and I think I have a plan that might help eliminate a bunch of Indus sect members, all at one time. How many people usually enter the tournament at the end of the year?”

Naomi gasped, but Taka immediately answered, “There’s no limit to the number of entries, but there are usually no more than sixteen pairs or so, give or take two or three. What are you trying to do? That’s a tournament to the death!” He sounded scared.

“If I remember correctly, every single battle in the tournament is to the death, am I correct?” Both other couples nodded, so I continued. “If that’s the case, then why don’t we let them kill each other? We should find our most powerful couple and make sure to enter them in the tournament. Actually, we don’t have to do that, but it might not be a bad idea.” I shook my head, “Anyway, the more Indus tribe members we can cajole into joining the tournament, the fewer of them will be left alive at the end of the year. Also, what are the rules of the grand melee every week?” I needed to know all of the facts so that I could make plans which would have the greatest chances of succeeding.

Alayna answered and she sounded cautiously optimistic. She obviously saw where I was going with this, “The grand melees every week are free for alls. There are no real rules, just that if the melee takes place, it must last at least thirty minutes, or until one couple is the last pair standing. Killing is allowed, but doing so generally get you ganged up on by the rest of the couple you killed’s sect. However, if what I heard about you is correct, they’re already going to be going after you, so you don’t really care. Do you?”

I grinned, “You’d be correct.” I looked to my partner, “Assuming Keiko agrees.” She nodded, even as she put her hand up to rest it on my shoulder.

“As I was saying, I think that Keiko and I are going to enter the grand melee later this week. Seeing the as this our first time entering…” I paused before my grin went from excited to wicked, “How many Indus sect pairs enter the grand melee every week?”

Alayna answered again, though she sounded confused, “Probably fifty, it’s one of the most popular options. It’s the happy medium between sparring every day and having to join the death tournament at the end of the year.”

My wicked grin grew even wider, “I just had a diabolical idea, but I’ll need a couple people who are excellent disk drivers. Taka, how do you feel about running interference for me?”

Taka frowned, “I don’t know what you mean? Do you need me to fly around to distract people? I can do that with my eyes closed.”

I shook my head, “No, I just need you to fly around and stop people from making it to the grand melee on time. If they’re late, the Inheritance will force them to join the death tournament at the end of the year. If we can do that every week, for the next forty weeks, we’ll have eliminated the entire Indus sect, besides those who only do the sparring, without actually killing anyone.”

Everyone in the room was staring at me in shock, but Sensei’s laugh cut through the tension, “My boy! That’s using your head. Taka, can you teach other people how to drive a disk like you do? If you can, this plan actually might work!”

Taka pondered that idea for moment before nodding, “Yeah, I can do that. With a week or two of training, I could have people about half as good as I am, but the other half would take years of training.” He grinned confidently, “It’s a good thing that half as good as me is better than damn near everybody else when it comes to flying a disk in here!”

I laughed, while Bortus and Alayna both looked at him reproachfully, while Naomi just gave him a huge hug.

Keiko laughed, “I think we have a good plan here. I just hope it all works out the way we think it should. I also hope that Gong Jin and Aria join up with us. With them at our side, we might actually be able to win a few melees, which is assuming that some people will manage to slip by the screen that Taka and his pupils will be putting up.”

I looked at her warmly, “We can only hope, I wonder how those two are doing down on the first layer?”

The days that followed were a blur of activity. When the more enterprising members of the Calm River sect heard that the sect leaders would be handing out the cultivation aids they’d been stockpiling to anyone who competed for the control of sectors for the sect, fifteen couples showed up to train with us on the first day.

At first, I was frustrated at how few couples had joined us, but Naomi and Taka dissuaded me of that notion. They explained that they were surprised at how many people had actually showed up. In the time that they’d been alive, fewer than twenty couples had ever competed for territory as part of the Calm River sect, who were both still alive, and still in the second layer. Over the course of two days, Keiko and I worked with Taka, Naomi, Bortus, and Alayna to help weed out those couples who were merely pretending to want to assist in the hopes of gaining cultivation aids. After that was done, we were left with seven couples in addition to ourselves, the architects of the Calm River sect’s grand plan, that had been in the meeting prior.

I was pleased to see that both pairs of guards that we had met when entering this compound had showed up for training. The only stipulation they were given is that they weren’t allowed to compete in any combat challenges, due to the high likelihood of serious injury from competing in those. I would’ve thought they’d balk at that order, but both of them merely nodded and agreed almost immediately.

When I asked Taka later about why the guards hadn’t fought back harder about going into the combat challenges, he explained how both pairs of guards had been saved by Bortus and Alayna when they were jostled off of their flying discs when they had just arrived in the Inheritance. The Industry tribe sect was known for such dastardly schemes as that, targeting brand-new cultivators to the Inheritance if they didn’t seem to be aligned with the Indus sect’s goals.

I immediately started to feel bad about how, originally, I was going to ask Taka fly around knocking people off of their disks. It was a solid plan, but it was completely without honor. At least by forcing the Indus sect members into the tournament at the end of the year, they would have some chance at surviving. From what I’d heard from Taka over dinner one night, if you fell through the clouds, down toward where the first layer was, you never came back.

When I asked why you didn’t just end up in the first layer, he shrugged his shoulders. He knew from experience that, unless the Inheritance ordered you to take someone down to the first layer, if you went down there… you weren’t coming back. Even though he had been down to the first layer a dozen times, he still didn’t know much of anything about it, besides the fact that flying down there took less than a minute. He and Naomi had always entered a very tall tower that stretched up into the clouds, where he would fly into a small room and drop off the couples they had picked up. Most of the time the couples weren’t very kind, so he didn’t really get much information out of them, besides how the Indus tribes was going to be the strongest group and take over the world eventually. Now that he knew what the Indus tribe was after, he said that it made a lot more sense what they were saying.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t Taka who I got along best with out of him and his partner. Naomi and I bonded over our love of cooking. That first week in the Inheritance the Eclipse, I learned two dozen different cooking techniques, some of which I used for years to come. In exchange, I taught her the different kinds of foods I had tried, though I wasn’t nearly as worldly as someone like Keiko was. Even she wasn’t worldly compared to someone for major city, but at least she had had the opportunity to try foods from different places, not just heard stories about them from their grandfather.

I was glad I had stocked up on different ingredients before leaving the Inheritance of the Lovers. The ingredients that the Calm River sect had access to weren’t terrible, but they also weren’t varied. They had plenty of Thunder Chicken and other domesticated beasts, but they had very few beasts that were even the equivalent of a Meridian level cultivator. Even the so-called, magical beast horde that roamed the caldera outside of the Calm River sect’s compound was merely made up of the equivalent of Heart level cultivator beasts.

They were simply hunted for food and only the ones who could procreate fast enough ended up remaining through the years. Things like Lightning Hares, with their combination of metal, wind, and fire qi were plentiful, as were the aforementioned Thunder Chicken. There was a serious lack of Earth attributed magical beasts, because they were usually much slower to procreate, though when they did, they usually had significantly more offspring.

Taka ended up joining Naomi and I in the kitchen sometimes, just to hear about the different magical beasts Keiko and I had seen. Though he had talked Keiko’s ear off about each of them already, he wanted to see what remained of the beasts. I showed him everything I had, from the Empyrean Boar all the way down to the Blazing Elk I’d procured within the Inheritance of the Lovers. He was sad to hear that I had never actually seen a Blazing Elk, but was excited to get to taste its meat in a stew I made that night, much to Keiko’s dismay.

I made it up to her the next night, when I made her favorite fruit tart, made with Tricolored Pears, red, purple, and white. They weren’t incredibly dense with qi, but they were her favorites, and they made a decent dessert. I do have to say though, the tarts were delicious.

During the day, Keiko and I each worked on our respective crafts outside of our cultivation efforts. While I took over the abandoned alchemy room on the first floor of the compound, Keiko ended up working with Alayna, who was a peak journeyman formation master. They were working within an enclosed courtyard that was so incredibly well protected from prying eyes and ears, even Sensei was impressed. Though Alayna didn’t have a formal teacher who could get her any farther along her path, leading to a stagnation in her abilities for the past fifty years, Sensei told her that what she had done without a teacher was impressive.

One day, while I was working on a particularly long burn to make a Bone Strengthening Powder, using a basic alchemical pot that had been left in the room, for some of the weaker members of the Calm River sect, Keiko came and took Sensei’s pot so he could help her with formations alongside Alayna.

Sensei joked about how I should learn how hard most alchemists had it by using the basic pot he’d set me up with. Sensei couldn’t stop laughing about how hilarious how long the initial burning process for making the Bone Strengthening Powder was taking, telling me how fast it would’ve been if I could have used his pot. I sent him along with a grimace, anything to get that old man out of the room so I could continue working, despite how agonizingly slow it was, compared to what I was used to.

The Bone Strengthening Powder came out just fine, though I did have to scramble a little bit near the end when I realized that I didn’t have enough jade vials to put all the powder I had made into. I ended up having to look all around the room with threads of air qi, hunting through the various drawers and cupboards for the inevitable supply of jade vials. I eventually found them and was able to safely store away my completed product, but the effort of searching thirty feet away from me with half a dozen threads of qi, while simultaneously maintaining the balance of heat and pressure to sustain the Bone Strengthening Powder, took a lot out of me.

Just as I was about to enter the, so called, suite that the Calm River sect had given Keiko and I to use during our stay, I heard Keiko’s mental squeal.

“You have to come join Alayna, Sensei, Ellie, and I in the courtyard, now!” Her voice was high-pitched, in what could either have been excitement or fear, and I didn’t even think about it, or ask any questions. I immediately started sprinting for the courtyard where I knew Keiko and Alayna usually worked on their formation training.

Thirty seconds later, I arrived in the aforementioned, secluded, courtyard to find Kellie flying around in circles over Keiko’s head. Keiko, herself, was clapping wildly for Alayna, who stood in the center of a massive formation made out of twenty different flags of numerous different colors. She stood triumphantly, though she was panting heavily. A few moments later, she took a single deep breath before bowing low towards the pot that was sitting on a pedestal next to Keiko.

From her bow, she straightened up before cupping her hands toward Sensei’s pot, “Sensei, you have taught me more in one day than any of my teachers did in the hundreds of years I’ve been in this Inheritance. I know that doesn’t say much, seeing as this is the Battle Layer of the Inheritance, but I don’t believe, even on the actual Academy Layer, that there could be a better teacher than you.” She bowed deeply again and held there for a moment, before straightening up. The look of joy plastered across her face was evident for the world to see

I panted lightly for a moment, as I caught my breath, before glaring at Keiko as she turned to see me. I growled, “Why did I have to immediately rush here? I am completely exhausted from the alchemical preparation I just finished.”

Keiko’s grin didn’t fall off her face, rather it widened even more, “Sensei helped Alayna break through to Expert! She’s been stuck at the peak of Journeyman rank for over three hundred years. Isn’t that amazing?”

Her excitement was infectious and even though I was frustrated at having been interrupted as I was going to rest, I couldn’t help but smile.

I shook my head, “I’m very happy for her, but you didn’t have to make it sound like an emergency. Either she could’ve come over for dinner tonight, in which case I would have made her something to celebrate, or you could’ve just told me at dinner tonight yourself.”

I stretched out a bit, allowing the qi that had built up in my legs and lower torso to relax from when I had reinforced them to run faster toward the enclosed courtyard where I knew Keiko would be. I wasn’t as naturally gifted as Keiko was when it came to reinforcing my body. Sensei thought that it was because of my enlarged Lower core. He said that I had a tendency to overfill my body parts with qi, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing, but it did mean that I wasn’t nearly as fast on the draw as Keiko was. She got the best of both worlds, she had my increased qi capacity, in addition to her own natural reflexes for perfect qi distribution. Sensei explained that it was a rare talent that some people had, usually involving a highly developed brain core.

He explained that because of my enlarged Lower core that, apparently, besides the use of qi threads, I would be less adept at using my Heart and Brain cores until I had completely adapted to my unusual physiology. He did say that, when I figured myself out completely, I would be a genuine force to be reckoned with, even among those of higher cultivation rankings. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to get to that point, but that he didn’t think I’d need to be a Duke cultivator to do so.

Alayna deactivated the formation she’d been standing inside, drawing all of the flags from it into her spatial ring with a wave of her hand and a gust of wind qi she used to get them next to her. She looked at her spatial ring with pride before walking toward me. I had no idea what she was doing, but that immediately became evident.

Alayna actually bowed and cupped her hands to me, though not nearly as deep as she had for Sensei. As she straightened up, I balked at what she was doing, but she cut me off.

Her voice was full of emotion, “If it weren’t for you, graciously allowing your teacher to join Keiko and I today, I wouldn’t have been able to break through to become an Expert formation master in the next five hundred years, I know that for a fact. While you didn’t do anything physically, you did show kindness to someone who isn’t necessarily your favorite person. For that, I will be eternally grateful.” She inclined her head deeply this time, but didn’t fully bow and cup her hands, which made me significantly more comfortable with the situation.

I bowed to her in turn, “I didn’t know what Keiko was planning, though I did know that Sensei wouldn’t be able to help himself from assisting you, seeing as he would be able to see how diligently you train every day with your craft. It’s just the kind of man he is, always wanting to help those who help themselves.” I chuckled, “All I ask is that you use the skills you develop from here on out for the good of everyone, not just yourselves. To be clear, by everyone, I mean the entire Calm River sect, plus Keiko and I.”

That was kind of a big deal, Keiko and I didn’t officially agree to join the Calm River sect, though we did agree that any territory we gained would be given to the Calm River sect immediately after we took control of it. Sensei is the one who told us not to join, he explained that, in some Inheritances, sect leaders, generally gain some control over their sect members belongings and rewards that they might gain. He wanted to make sure that we kept a hold of all of the valuable treasures that we had gained in our time as cultivators, which was actually quite a bit when I thought about it.

From the Inheritance of the Lovers, we had the Centering Lotus, the Cosmic Cube, and our Cultivator robes from Sapphire and Ruby, though we now knew them as Elliot and Chandra, respectively, Sensei’s son and daughter in law. Those were in addition to a number of other, more minor, objects.

After arriving on Sunset Island, both Keiko and I came into possession of Celestial Grade weapons, the Dawnblade for Keiko and the Duskguard tonfas for myself. Nearly any cultivator would kill for weapons like those, so we had to make sure that we kept a tight hold on them. Finally, while no other people would be able to benefit from the tile containing the Inheritance of the Pot, or the actual pot containing Sensei’s spirit, if they were stolen from me, I wouldn’t be able to use them myself.

We had to avoid that at all costs. Without Sensei, Keiko and I wouldn’t know how to advance along our, mildly unique, paths as cultivators. There was no one else who understood how the integration of light and dark qi, along with the Foundation Building pills we’d taken, would affect our cultivation in the long term. He also said that that pills we had taken were only step one, of which I was still working on finishing step two. The ingredients for the next pill were going to be incredibly difficult to locate. I only had three of the ten ingredients in the Inheritance of the Pot’s stores. Sensei said that the other ingredients I needed could likely be found within the Inheritance of the Eclipse, so I was going to need to be on the hunt for them.

Alayna smiled and patted me on the shoulder, which was weird for her, but I rolled with it. “I can agree to that, seeing as without you two, I would never have met Sensei.” She turned her head to look over at the pot that sat next to Keiko, who was looking at the pair of us and beaming like the idiot we all knew she wasn’t.