Lily found cultivation to be a lot like formations. Or perhaps it was the opposite way— that in following the essence of qi and the nature of reality, the formations art was a lot like cultivation. She wasn’t sure either way— it was simply so different from everything else she’d ever experienced that she had difficulty conceptualizing the breadth of it. Reality had loosened its grasp on her just that little bit, and through the cracks in the wall she could see… so much. A glorious and bright existence underlying existence. Qi. So much qi.

  It swirled around her as she walked down a path abloom with summer flowers, ever swirling and yet still transforming, continuous and smooth and— barely perceptible unless she looked for it, almost overwhelming if she did. The sunlight that cascaded between the towering buildings wrought of wood and tile was stuffed with heavily yang-aligned energy, while the shadows that pooled cool under the eaves were themselves quietly the reservoirs of a faint and yet poignant yin. The trees were alive with a tapestry of energies so thoroughly blended together that she could not even begin to make heads or tails of it…

  She stopped in front of one stately cypress, its proud trunk shot straight to azure skies above, its roots crawled deep into the rich ground beneath them… light and fire, dark and wet, the flowing of water, the stiff ponderousness of earth, all so slowly brought together into the natural unity of purpose, of their inborn course. Gently, she pressed a palm against its rough skin, bark cool and calming beneath her fingers, and—

  Breathed in. The scent of loam and the tree that grew there hung rich in the air, a faintest echo of nature in the university, in the vast and sprawling city… she sighed, letting out a heavy breath. It was simple. There was nothing that she needed to worry about— her liaison was her liaison, whether she liked it or not, and procrastinating wasn’t going to endear her to anyone. Still… it was her first real obligation since arriving at the University of East Saffron, and she found herself… afraid, almost.

  She couldn’t help but glance around, looking for anyone else— anything, watching, waiting, perhaps even judging her… but of course there was nothing. Just her and the garden path, and the pagodas rising high, and the tree she stood next to…

  She frowned slightly and kept walking. She really could not afford to be late… fifteen minutes, a tight, meandering path that barely let in any sunlight at all, and five flights up a set of stairs to the very top of a pagoda that’d clearly not been built with elevators in mind, she stood in a small room, alone. She was early, if only by a short amount…

  Yet.

  Yet, Lily couldn’t help but think that wasn’t the whole of it. That couldn’t be the whole of it. Frowning— after glancing around briefly— she took a seat on one of the two cushions in front of a small, circular table in the center of the room, then closed her eyes and sank into a quiet meditation.

  It wasn’t a cultivator’s meditation, in the rigorous sense— she wasn’t striving to advance her cultivation, rather more just… focusing. First, there was only her self. The orb of bloody energy that sat heavy in her spirit, as ever shifting and flowing yet still resisting her casual urge to play around with it. Then, slowly, her perception spread outwards. Unlike when she was merely looking at it, there was a… not understanding but clarity to observing things like this. Without the material world to distract her, she could feel the ebb and flow of qi as it swirled with incredible precision through the architecture and wood, and…

  She stood, and the understanding of tranquility was disrupted— but that was fine. It was faint, and required her to truly focus to bring it into clarity, but as she walked around the room, following the faint trail of it, she slowly began to find purpose in the aesthetic; madness in the art. There was a formation here. Woven into the very fundamental nature of the pagoda below her, and yet… it was not of the pagoda. Nobody had scarred the sharp lines of a formation into the wood; rather, it was as if the natural eddies and flows of the qi simply came together to form an… array. She realized— she was seeing some sort of extraordinary, building sized array. “What does it do though…”

  “It is a gift to me from my master, and to the disciple that resided here before me, and to the disciple that resided here before me.” She squeaked, taken off guard by the sudden appearance of a second voice. “I’m genuinely impressed that you managed to notice it at all— most of the Opening attendants fail to even recognize its presence. Though, it is more prevalent as you ascend the pagoda, and only a select few tend to come up here…”

  She blinked, pushing down the embarrassment that flamed on her cheeks. “What is it?”

  “Ah, right. You had a question.” The man scratched at the back of his head, for a moment looking a little embarrassed. It would almost be comical, were it not for the fact he was wearing the blue robes of an inner disciple. Whatever he was, powerful was definitely in there somewhere. “It’s a qi gathering array of a rather standard design, drawing the qi of heaven and earth together at the very pinnacle of the pagoda. It’s very obvious there— the qi pressure is about five times higher than the ambient pressure of East Saffron.”

  Lily’s eyes widened, and she quickly turned back to the array, straining to observe its effects. If she really looked hard then she thought she could just barely make out the echo of an intricate qi-gathering array— though she’d never have been able to see it if she hadn’t been told what to look for. An enormous thing, the size of a building— larger than the size of a building, if she was seeing things right. Heaven and earth… “how much qi does it collect?”

  The man laughed. “You’re asking the right questions. If I were to sit there all day, every day for… a year? Two years? Something along those lines— I might be able to gather enough qi for the next layer of my core.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re a Core Formation cultivator?” Suddenly she saw him in a new light. Core formation cultivators… “I didn’t expect that the sect…”

  “The Sect is generous. One must earn its generosity, but there the amount of resources offered to the younger generation is truly prodigious. Few organizations in the entirety of the Realm can match the Bloody Saffron Sect in the level of support afforded to the next generation.” He gave her a kind smile. “It’s no difficulty for me to offer part of that to my next generation. It’s an honor to serve the Sect in this capacity… and,” he added on, as though it were an afterthought, “I also get an entire pagoda to myself here, as though I were some sort of core disciple prodigy or lesser elder.” Lily had the slight suspicion that one of those things was a little more important than the other… finally, he waved towards the table before sitting down himself. “Please. Introduce yourself.”

  She sat, silent for a long second, just… getting her thoughts in order before she bowed gracefully to him. “Junior greets Senior Martial Brother. This one is known as Lily Ward, of the 32nd Precinct. I eagerly await your instruction.”

  “Formal.” It was an almost detached observation, simply stated— with no warmth or chill, just— said. “Very well then. Senior Martial Brother greets Junior Sister, may the tides of fortune carry you well through all endeavors. This one is Hsu Qinfu of the Lineage of the Sword Master Daoist Resolving Chime.”

  Lily bowed again. “Junior greets Daoist Hsu Qinfu.”

  “Ah, that’s something I’m going to have to explain to you…” he sighed, but there was a slight edge of amusement to it. “The title of Daoist is a… heavy one. It implies that someone has a Dao— which is itself a nebulous and— don’t repeat this to any of the elders— essentially entirely contrived thing that mostly consists of quibbling with each other over matters best left unaddressed to a cultivator at your stage. Every cultivator is a cultivator, but not ever cultivator is a Sect disciple, no? Same concept. Not every cultivator has earned the right to be called a Daoist.”

  Lily frowned. “That seems…”

  “Fake? Entirely contrived? There are elders who would be much better at explaining this than me, but you’re not wrong for thinking that. It is an incredible mark of respect, to earn that right… in East Saffron, and amongst the conventional hierarchy of the sects. Yet, there are places in the Realm that call every cultivator a Daoist, and there are some places that refused to call any cultivator a Daoist, and reserve the title only for those exalted few who ascend to the heavens.” He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  It certainly sounded complicated. “I apologize for the misstep.”

  “Technically,” he drawled out in the tone people only use when they’re about to say something really annoying— “you weren’t wrong. I do have a recognized title. You can call me Daoist Severing Dust.”

  “This one hears and understands.”

  Qinfu rolled his eyes. “Enough with the formality already. While you will need to know that sort of thing eventually, right now it just feels like you’re a character out of a bad TV drama.”

  Lily blinked. “You watch TV dramas?”

  “They’re the best thing since canned food— don’t look so surprised!” He laughed, a hearty, full sound. “One of my senior brothers used to host movie nights in the sect every time he came back from mission. We’d have such fun laughing at all the things they get painfully wrong…” he sighed, shaking his head. “Those were the days. For a less formal and far more real discussion— I will be your principal teacher for the next year. By and large many— perhaps most— of my peers believe in a more hands off approach, but I disagree fundamentally with that philosophy. So long as you listen and strive to improve, I will be there for you the entire course of your time here at the University. My favorite food is dragonfruit, I like watching TV in my free time, and I belong to the sword-cultivator path. Nice to meet you— now, your turn.”

  “Um…” she racked her brain for a long second. “I like formations— I’m pretty good at them.” Qinfu hmmed in realization at that. “I plan on getting into the Bloody Saffron Sect— no half measures, so if you can support me in that, I’ll be super thankful… other than that, I guess… I don’t know if I have any favorite food in particular, I study in my free time, and I like hanging out with friends. I’m a new cultivator, so I don’t have any path, but… formations. I like formations.”

  Qinfu laughed warmly for a moment, before flashing her a smile. “Well! I’ll see what I can do— I’m no expert in the art, even if I can make a few mortal grade little things… you signed up for the formations class, no?” She nodded. “They’ll probably teach you better than I ever could, though I’ll see about finding what the archives have to offer for you…” he shook his head. “Anyways. I plan on guiding you by and large towards the basic, well-rounded fundamentals of a proper cultivator. If you can demonstrate the basic adequacy required for the sect, you’ll be in an incredibly strong position— even if you’re not quite the best at any one thing—” and she would be. It was a demand to herself, but… for Master Mingtian, she would not let herself be anything but the best at formations… “and the elders like seeing that sort of thing. Understood?”

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  She nodded. “Understood.”

  “It will be hard work.”

  To that, she just smiled. “I’ve never shied back from hard work.”

  “Well then—” and his grin in response was brilliant. “Let's get to work.”

  ………

  Qinfu’s idea of cultivation was— perhaps unsurprisingly at first— a great deal of meditation. He removed the table and chairs, having her sit in the exact center of the room and meditate— not really doing anything per say, just letting her thoughts billow away and the quiet serenity of the action taking over.

  In that serenity was at first her own cultivation. A small ball of bloody qi heavy in her chest, rushing and rotating with all the quiet familiarity she’d come to expect from her own cultivation. In some intangible way, it was her— she could feel it, so heavily… Its presence was immense, despite how objectively small it was. It was nothing world changing— compared to some of the formations she’d made before, it was just a drop of qi. Yet, in turn… it was hers, and with it, she felt as though she could do almost anything.

  Hubris aside, though, as the meditation stretched long, slowly more began to reveal itself to her. At first was the way her qi ebbed and flowed through her body— or rather, through her spirit, the intangible shadow of her self that undergrided her flesh and sinew, bones and breath. It was a wild, chaotic thing, only controlled by the natural patterns of her body— and those were essentially nonexistent as it were. It did mostly stick to what she guessed was her veins— though for blood-aspect qi, she wasn’t sure what else she’d expected…

  Then, more. Beyond her she perceived the qi of the world, hazily, so imposingly… a vast thing touching at the edge of her perception, ponderous at times and fleet at others. It felt far less orderly than even the chaotic swirlings of qi inside of her, but perhaps that was just her lacking comprehension. She could not divine the patterns of reality.

  Not yet, at least.

  Still, she tried, letting her mind touch at the immense and lap against the shores of the unknowable. The bright and beautiful, the stark and smeared, the quiet and jarringly loud… it was a random mix of apophenic experience that nonetheless somehow, sometimes, made sense. She could sense the faint presence of the great array that underlay the pagoda, and more so also another presence… a whisper of qi, perhaps borne by her breath, the touch of a drifting feather, the sharp lancing sting of a winter’s bitter morning as it floated about her…

  “Interesting.” She tried to ignore Qinfu’s voice, focusing on her meditation— “you can stop now, by the way.” He laughed softly as Lily blinked her eyes open, shaking away the last afterimages of her meditation. “I’d suspected that was the case, but to have it confirmed… you’ve quite the talent there.”

  “Meditation?”

  “Correct mediation. Tell me— in your own words— what do you think meditation is to a cultivator?”

  “It’s how you gather qi.”

  “Blunt, but not entirely inaccurate.” With a wave of his hand and only a little bit of imploring, Qinfu placed the table back in the center of the room, resting his hand on the surface of it and whispering something to himself before refocusing on her. “Meditation is in many respects the way we get qi from the world. At core formation, that involves filtering environmental qi through our meridians to our foundations, then pulling into our cores. From there, we can use it as we want. Yet… consider, for a second. How do we gather qi?”

  She frowned, slightly confused. “By… breathing it in?” It was obvious, no? Everyone talked about that part of meditation— it was no great secret what the higher levels of cultivation involved… or, at least, the middle levels. The highest levels were actually kinda shrouded in mystery.

  “That’s correct… but, only somewhat.” He smiled softly. “This goes a little into the anthropological history of cultivation— which is a rather niche school, I’ll grant you— but one of the sect’s elders is an avid enjoyer of history and has put a great deal of thought into the matter…” he smiled softly, silent for a second. “Consider— how did cultivation first develop? There is so much of the art that is infinitely precise, more exacting than a tendon-severing-strike, high-level techniques that are so intricate they put even the modern engineering that goes into magical marvels like television and dataslates to shame. Yet, it could not have always been like that, no? Now, that in and of itself is a very controversial position that could easily net you in an endless argument with someone who believes in one of the various divine theories…” he shook his head. “Anyways. Think about it for a moment.”

  Trying her best to focus on the heart of the problem— made a little difficult by Qinfu’s rambling lecture— she tried to get at what he was trying to tell her. That there was some… “if, now,” she said slowly, “the cultivation theories are more advanced, and they continue to advance—” in the same way as the sciences did, went the assumption— “then at some point in the past they were less advanced… but what about the Empire of Twelve Constellations?”

  Qinfu waved a hand. “Unimportant. A historical anomaly, even if it's one that led to the formation of the realm as we know it— you’ll learn a lot more about the ancient Empire in your Contemporaneous Cultivator Politics and Post-Imperial Sect Ideology classes.” Which she was definitely looking forward to. Definitely. “They were a great leap forward in progress— and ironically, one of the reasons we can have this conversation in the first place, with the heavy blow they dealt to the traditional divine theories— but they were ultimately just progress, the same as always. To think of it, try— though so much was lost with the fall of the empire, and so much was gained with its creation, the empire didn’t start from nothing. Just the Bloody Saffron Sect alone is older than the Empire of Twelve Constellations— and we are not the oldest sect on Aurelia. Not even close.”

  “And before the sects…” she trailed off, then continued at Qinfu’s encouraging nod. “Before the sects, there were still cultivators, just… less organized into the traditional structures. And before the traditional structures, there were… I don’t know, clans? Apprenticeships, the sort?”

  “That’s the general jist of it, yes. The theory is that cultivation developed naturally from the world as it was in the extremely distant past. Aurelia is actually considered one of the most likely candidates for this, given how old of a world it is— though you’ll hear certain insufferable people complain that Soli is older just because it’s an ecumenopolis, or some rather well informed people claim that Catatapharus is older, even if they’re probably wrong…” he frowned. “I feel like we’ve somewhat gone on a tangent.” What was he talking about? Of course, Lily didn’t say that, but she had the slight inkling that Qinfu understood it anyways. “The first cultivators would have used the natural bounties of their world to advance. In particular, it’s hypothesized that rare mineral resources would have been far more common; some of the oldest artefacts still around, like the Peach Immortal Copper Mirror seem to corroborate this. Then, over time, they would have developed ways to cultivate without the aid of these peaches of immortality, and eventually would have developed the breathing method of cultivation.”

  “Which has to do with meditation…”

  “Because it shows that breathing in is not the only way to gather qi. The pill that you were given— that helped you break through to Shedding— was not breathed in. Yet, you claim that all cultivation is the art of breathing in the qi of the world and incorporating it into the world— yes, I see your doubt there, but you don’t have to take conjecture for it.” He smiled, the particularly smug smile of someone who knew they’d already won. “The cultivation techniques of the Bloody Saffron Sect actually rely on an advanced qi technique that someone with properly carved meridians is able to grasp as early as mid-Opening, and most should be able to at least adumbrate by Foundation Establishment. By controlling the qi outside of our bodies—” he breathed in, and Lily could feel how the whole world seem to lean in towards him for a moment, and almost wrenching pull at the qi of the tower— “we can cultivate faster, and more thoroughly than most methods can.”

  He paused, then, as they were interrupted— a servant, though calling them a servant when they were higher in cultivation than she was might be a bit disingenuous— bringing them a tray with still-steaming tea. Qinfu grabbed one cup, then slid the other to her, gesturing for her to drink. A bit awkwardly, given that she knew she was in the presence of a core formation cultivator, she did as instructed.

  It was also a spirit tea.

  She could tell immediately. Compared to the vagaries of guessing whether or not something was a spiritual material by touch and the presence of it, actually getting to taste it, smell it, everything… it was almost trivially easy to tell that it wasn’t entirely natural. It was also really good, actually. Probably the best tea she’d had since… ever. “What is this?”

  “Yin Lotus Tea. Amongst tea connoisseurs, it's considered one of the more vulgar blends— rather striking and somewhat blunt despite the typically subtle nature of yin-aligned spirit herbs, but some swear by it… I had bought some and planned to use it for the students I was assigned as a liaison to, but you clearly don’t need it to tell the difference between a spiritual material and not. Your meditation has already reached a significant proficiency… did you, perhaps, study as a monk at all before enrolling in the University of East Saffron?”

  “Are… there are monks who enroll?”

  Qinfu snorted. “Yes, actually, though there are also some methods for the monks of various orders around Ca Cao to join the Bloody Saffron Sect that’ve been grandfathered in for longer than living memory… I take it you’re not one of them, no?” She shook her head. “I figured. That you have such insights into the nature of the spiritual at such a young age is exciting. Think of how far you can go if this is where you start from?” He shook his head, still smiling. “If I may ask, how? Did you—”

  “It was my old Master. Well, I don’t think he was my master in the cultivation sense of things, but he taught at my academy and also taught me essentially everything I know about formations— he got a bunch of random spiritual materials and had me learn to recognize whether something was spiritual or not.”

  “As a mortal? And you could actually accomplish this?” She nodded again, and he laughed. “I’m half surprised you didn’t spontaneously ascend via enlightenment, if you actually managed that.”

  She cocked her head. “That’s a thing that can—”

  “For another day.” He breathed in deeply, still grinning. “For another day. Given that you’ve already stepped ahead of your peers in meditation… hm, I will have to think of how to adjust things, but our time together is coming to a close. For now… continue to practice your meditation. It’ll be too easy for you to tell apart spiritual materials that a mortal could tell apart, but I’ll see to getting my hands on some of the more subtle Shedding rank materials… and, while you’re at it, keep an eye out as you go around campus. The entirety of the university is steeped in arrays and formations.” It certainly sounded like a fun challenge…

  She considered it for a moment, then nodded. “I will do as senior commands.”

  “I look forward to seeing your progress.” He raised his tea in gentle toast, then took a long sip, then—

  They sat in silence, together, for a long moment, her and a core formation cultivator. Just drinking their tea.

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