David

The qi in the Ascending Sky's Earth Peak was heavy and deep, stately and strong. It gave David the impression of a fresh coat of paint on an old wall - from the distance, it was brilliant and bright, but up close, it was easy to tell that it had seen better days.

The pair in the admissions office were unlike the disciples outside. Daoist Hao was calm and sensible despite how talkative the man was. His Song was as steady as any David had heard before - muted, but precise. Daoist Shi was every bit as contradictory as she seemed. Hers rose in volume and changed rhythmically, but never strayed from a singular motif.

David figured if most disciples were like this pair rather than the man who’d accosted Alice, he’d enjoy being part of the Ascending Sky.

Shi dug a needle out of a cabinet along the wall. She had run out of patience waiting for Hao and had decided to get started on the process.

Shi did not purify her needle the same way Hao did. It stayed flat on her palm rather than spinning through the air, and her qi burned away at the invisible detritus surrounding the needle at a snail's pace. "I'm not as good at doing this as my junior brother. We don't do any medical work in the Skyforge."

"The Skyforge?" Alice asked. She was twirling David’s flute between her fingers like it was a pen.

Shi nodded. "Earth, Sky and Sword are the three peaks of the Ascending Sky. There are exceptions in each peak, but the disciples generally follow the paths set out by their respective Peak Masters. Master Ling makes weapons, so most of us who belong to Sky Peak also make weapons."

Her Song indicated that she was having a difficult time, but the only physical sign of the exertion was a bead of sweat which dripped off her brow.

"So why are you, well, here?" David asked.

"When you're an inner disciple, you're put on a bunch of different lists. Manning the doors, running admissions, administrative work - they take up six months to a year's worth of time a century on average. They’re usually kind about the scheduling so you end up doing all of your duties one after another, and you won’t have to bother for a long time. And exceptions can always be made.”

When she saw the look of distaste on Alice’s face, Shi smiled. “A sect is more than a place where you learn to cultivate - it's a place where you contribute to everyone's cultivation. At least, that’s the idea. No one likes doing grunt work.” She turned back to David. “Now, lay down and hold still. If I miss, this will hurt a lot."

Shi pushed the needle into David’s back. He’d expected a prick, like getting a flu shot, but the only sensation was the temperature of the needle itself. After a few moments, Shi drew it out and examined it.

The seconds drew on.

“Well?” David asked, looking at the needle. When Hao had drawn the needle from Feiyan, there had been a touch of blood on it - bright and red. There was a bit more blood on David’s needle, almost a drop.

Shi didn’t respond, choosing to turn the needle in the light of the lamp.

David began to worry. “Is this when you tell me I’m dying?”

Shi sighed, then closed her eyes. “I think I might have done it wrong,” she admitted.

“Oh.”

It was at that moment the door opened again. Hao slipped back into the room and closed it firmly behind him. “There’s a line outside,” he moaned. “Four more people.” His eyes zeroed in on Shi, who was still holding the needle to the light. “Let me see that.”

Shi passed the needle to him wordlessly. He took a single glance at it and wiped it off on his robe.

“There’s no qi on the needle, so you just stabbed someone for fun,” Hao said, folding his arms. “How do you miss someone’s kidney?”

Shi gave him an embarrassed shrug. “I have no idea.”

Hao exhaled heavily, laid the needle flat on his palm and went through the same cleansing process he’d gone through earlier. This time, there was a distinct lack of showmanship - he didn’t bother to throw the needle through the air as he’d done with Feiyan, choosing instead to walk over to David and stick him.

But when he pulled the needle out, it was Hao’s turn to be quiet. After a few moments, he spoke. “I know for a fact that I didn’t miss. How is this possible?”

Alice had had enough. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?”

Shi gave her an accusatory look. “Isn’t it obvious?” She pointed at the needle. The twin bewildered looks David and Alice gave her were telling.

“I’m going to assume whoever taught you to cultivate either didn’t have much time for you, or was a bit of a fraud,” started Shi.

Alice wrinkled her nose, but Shi didn’t acknowledge her protest.

“You’ve traveled far to arrive here, so I’m going to give you a quick lesson instead of leaving you empty handed. Qi is in everything. You’re aware of this - you have to be, to begin Core Formation.”

David and Alice nodded along.

“But qi isn’t just in the air - it is the idea of a breath,” she continued. “Before you awaken, you must breathe. When you breathe, you pull in the qi of the world. You can define your dantian as the breath that you have stolen from the world - that is what a core is, qi to call your own. It is hungry, it eats, it pulls, it demands. It is the easiest thing in the world to tell when someone is forming their core.”

David had heard this before - from Daoist Nan, who’d been named after tea. He didn’t quite see where she was going with this. “But what does that have to do with the needle?”

“I’m getting to that,” Shi snapped. “Before you form your core - or to be precise, before you establish your foundations, you’re able to generate qi. That is the gift of awakening - to make something from nothing.”

David nodded slowly.

“Now, here’s a question for you,” said Shi. “Do babies have qi before they’re born? It is impossible to breathe in a womb, is it not?”

“Well, you get the air you need through your umbilical cord, don’t you?” asked Alice.

“You’re remarkably well educated,” said Hao. “That’s a detail many healers wouldn’t know. ”

Shi nodded. “It’s important to remember that while the distinctions in qi made during cultivation are of yin and yang, of their intensities, of their elements and myriad distinctions, there’s one distinction that comes first - qi from the self and qi from the world.”

David now had an idea of where this was going. “Senior Hao said earlier that you were testing for primordial yin and yang when you put a needle in an applicant. What is that?”

“That’s the right question to be asking,” said Shi. She pushed a wispy strand of hair out of her face. “Before foundations are established, there is only one place in the body where the qi of the world will collect - the kidneys. Open the door and walk the plains, by light of sun and moon - make them your own. These are words of the Skybound Scripture which aren’t secret.”

There had to be some hidden quality to David that got everyone to regurgitate cultivation scriptures around him.

“As with all great scriptures, there is much debate about what it really means, including whether it counts as immolative association per Xuan’s interpretation of-”

“Watch yourself,” growled Hao. “That line may be carved on every monument in this city, but never with esoteric analysis alongside it.”

“Right, right. Whatever. Anyway, it adequately describes the natural state of the body before awakening. Primordial yin and yang is what a kidney manages to retain from the months inside a womb before birth. It has influence over the manipulation of qi in the same way muscle memory has influence over playing that flute of yours. This is what is known as a spirit root - it is the seat of cultivation from birth.”

Shi looked at him expectantly, no doubt hoping for some kind of outburst to signal his enlightenment.

“That’s all it is?” David couldn’t believe that he’d ever thought Alice was long winded when it came to explaining things. It was clear that long lives meant that cultivators never had to get to the point. “Just qi collected from before you started breathing in your kidneys?”

“Well, yeah,” said Shi, who looked a little irritated.

“So what’s the issue?” asked David.

“Primordial yin and yang is an advantage of birth afforded to those of greater realms and the Starfields,” said Shi. “We of the earth, of a lower realm, will always start the race of cultivation a bit slower, a bit further behind.”

“Can the difference be made up?” Alice had stopped spinning the flute. “If it’s just your natural affinity towards qi?”

Shi looked more irritated now. “Yeah, but it’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? That the realm you’re born determines how likely you are to succeed?”

Alice looked at her blankly. “Of course it’s unfair. But if you can make up the difference, why complain? You could have been born blind or without thumbs or something.”

“The needle,” said David, in an attempt to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“You have no primordial yin and yang,” said Daoist Hao.

David had a pretty good suspicion as to why that was the case. Shi might have believed that it was bad fortune to have been born in a lower realm, but there hadn’t been any qi in the air back home, at all.

“You don’t look too upset,” said Shi, who had been watching him carefully.

“What’s the point?” said David. “If I’ve never had it, it’s never been missing.”

Hao nodded - a gesture of approval. “It truly is a testament to the strength of the human spirit that you’ve persevered in your cultivation for long enough to establish foundations. Most of those who spend centuries in the early stages can’t even dream of core formation.”

“We’re seventeen,” said David.

Shi gave him a look suffused with pity. “Looking seventeen isn’t the same as being seventeen,” she said, winking. “I’ve been nineteen for nearly eight hundred years.”

“No,” said David. “I’m actually seventeen years old.”

Shi looked towards Alice, but found no disagreement on her face. Her voice became soft and sympathetic. “You two said earlier that cultivators visited your village testing spirit roots. Having your spirit root stolen from you must have been a very traumatic experience - but if you wish to ever open your meridians without added risk, you must be honest with yourself.”

David supposed that Shi had come to a reasonable conclusion with what she knew about them.

She looked genuinely sad. “I didn’t think that I would ever have a hard time declining any application, no matter who it was from, but it’s my duty to inform you that the Ascending Sky isn’t the right place for you. We rarely accept anyone who’s already established their foundations to begin with. Perhaps you’ll continue to advance, and in another few centuries-”

David exploded. “What do you mean another few? I’m turning eighteen in three months.”

“Junior.” Hao had taken on a gruff tone. “We still have more applicants before the day is done. You’ve been declined. If your ambition is true, then you should travel to Dongjing. There are many decent sects there who will take you, no questions asked, because you’ve established your foundations - no matter your bone age.”

“His bone age is seventeen,” said Alice, who had become as angry as David was. “Is there a way we can prove this?”

Hao and Shi exchanged glances. “Yes,” Shi said. “There is. It requires extracting your marrow, and we don’t have the time to do so without giving you an injury. Tomorrow is the autumn festival and, with it, the initiation rites.”

“How long will getting my marrow safely take?”

“A day or two,” said Hao. “Maybe longer, if the inner disciples qualified to perform the surgery are on leave.”

“Injuries can be healed,” David said. “If I turn out to be older than seventeen, then you can let me bleed out or something.”

“Well, if you’re so willing to die on this hill, we can arrange that,” said Shi. She had lost any trace of the sympathy she’d had for him. Her Song was erratic and angry and pressed onto him. David realized with a start that this woman was very, very different from Jiang Tiankong. Her core didn’t just harmonize with her Song - they were one and the same.

When David didn’t cower at her flaring qi, it increased in intensity yet again. David didn’t think he’d come out on top in a fight, but he was sure that he wasn’t afraid of her.

“Senior sister,” said Hao. “If this room weren’t sealed, the entire peak would be here right now, wondering what the issue was.”

Daoist Shi quieted her Song. “I thought that if I pushed, he’d crack. But he really is just delusional.” The image she’d presented when they’d stepped into the room was completely gone - she was breathing heavily and her fingers had gone white from clenching her fists.

David rolled his eyes. “I’m not delusional. I’m seventeen.”

Alice let out something between a giggle and a snort.

Hao looked at him seriously. “There’s a faster way to check than taking your marrow,” he said. “I can call the Peak Master over. But you have to understand, this isn’t something I recommend. He isn’t very kind when he feels like his time’s been wasted.”

“Do it,” said David.

David wondered why Hao looked so reluctant.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” said Shi, whose scorn was audible. “Inner disciples work very hard to be noticed in a positive light by the Peak Masters and the Hall Elders. I’m not sure what will happen to you - but I do know that by the time my junior brother ignites, his Peak Master is going to have the impression that Hao is someone who has wasted his time. You’re asking him to put his reputation on the line for you, and with it, his opportunities.”

If this was meant to convince Hao that it wasn’t worth his time, it had the opposite effect. “Senior Sister, go get the peak master.”

Shi didn’t move. “I’m not going to let you ruin your future.”

“And what will my future with the sect look like if we start hearing whispers of how the Ascending Sky were blind enough to deny entry to children who reached core formation at seventeen?”

But this was only an excuse - Hao’s thoughts were plainly written on his face. His pride had been wounded by the implication that he could not overcome something as small as a bad impression.

“You can’t seriously believe them. Just listen to yourself. Core formation at seventeen. Repeat that out loud if you have to. That’s beyond abnormal.” Shi narrowed her eyes at David. “At least you could have given us a more plausible number.”

Hao pointed at the door. “Go.”

Shi slammed the door behind her. The walls shook.