Jian only hesitated for a moment. He was already committed to a duel with Meirong in a little more than a year's time. While that didn't seem like quite the death sentence he had expected, considering her surprisingly conciliatory behavior, he still wanted to acquit himself well once that day came. If he wanted to advance more quickly than normal, he would have to take more risks than normal.

Even if the treasures hidden in the splinter plane weren't immediately useful to him, they could still be precious to others. After visiting the auction house in the capital, Jian had a deep appreciation for the power of money. He would welcome anything that could fuel a spending spree nearly as much as the treasures that he could use for himself.

"Let's go," he said.

Meirong's smile broadened in response. The two of them reached out together to lay their hands flat in the center of the formation. While deciphering or reproducing the formation was fiendishly complex, operating it was quite simple. Jian marshaled his spiritual energy, sending a trickle of it out through his palm. The rock beneath his hand responded by beginning to glow.

The rock beneath Meirong's palm soon shone with a similar light. The glowing area expanded, slowly at first and then with breathtaking speed. Once the entire center circle was filled, the light leapt off the wall and engulfed the two of them. Jian's vision went white, then black.

He couldn't see. The feeling of the floor beneath his feet and the wall beneath his hand faded away. Jian expected to start falling, but the sensation never materialized. Instead, he simply floated in place. At least, if he was moving, he couldn't tell. Just as he was beginning to wonder if the formation had trapped him in the space between planes, his vision finally returned.

All he could see was blinding white. Jian closed his eyes to protect himself, then felt himself falling through the air. Fortunately, he hadn't fallen for more than a hand's breadth before his feet touched the ground. The landing was awkward, the ground having caught him by surprise, but Jian was able to absorb the force without any serious injury. He chanced a squinted look down and found himself standing on a rocky trail.

After giving his eyes a moment to adjust, he took a look around. All he could see was fog. While at first glance the world around him was a uniform white, after staring at the mists Jian began to make out strange shapes looming out of the fog. Nothing seemed to be moving to attack, at least, however unsettling the view.

A soft sound drew his attention, and Jian turned to find Meirong alighting on the ground with her usual catlike grace. The trip through the void had left her looking serious for once, a frown of concentration on her face that didn't lighten up as she discovered that they were surrounded by an impenetrable fog.

"Not very welcoming," Meirong said.

"This place was broken free from our plane by the slaughter in the Graveyard of Dreams," Jian said. "It would be strange if it were cheerful."

He was hardly an expert on the formation of splinter planes. Anybody claiming such expertise was a fraud. Still, some things were common knowledge. The bonds of reality were weakened when powerful cultivators fought. Even more so when powerful cultivators died. When a large group fought and died together, it would naturally create conditions that were favorable to the creation of something like a splinter plane.

Anything built on such a foundation, though, would take on the color of its surroundings. In this case, Jian expected that the splinter plane would carry the resentment buried in the great graveyard that had supported its birth.

"Well," Meirong said, "we won't find anything just standing around."

Jian nodded in agreement. He let her take the lead, her sword drawn and held in front of her. He used his staff as a walking stick, ready to bring it to bear at a moment's notice. Part of him wondered what chance he would have against anything capable of fighting through Meirong, but he quashed the thought. At the very least, he wouldn't die without a fight.

The sound of rock crunching under their feet as they walked was muffled by the fog, but it still rang loud in Jian's ears due to the utter silence surrounding them. There was no wind, but the fog still moved, twisting into shapes that alway seemed to loom threateningly at the edge of his vision. He almost would have welcomed the howl of a nearby demonic beast, just to break the tension. The silence seemed to be getting to Meirong, too, judging by the tension in her shoulders.

More solid shapes appeared out of the fog, too, occasional boulders gradually turning into rock walls that disappeared into the mists overhead. The two of them were walking along the bottom of a ravine, with no idea how far it continued, how high the walls reached, or what was waiting for them at the end.

The longer their walk continued in peace the more nervous Jian felt. Sweat was starting to build up in Jian's palms. building up on his palms. The steady operation of his artificial heart felt more and more out of place.

When the attack finally came, it was almost a relief.

It began innocuously enough. Two new shapes looming out of the murk, hazy outlines bleeding into the fog. It was only when they drew closer that Jian realized that it wasn't simply another pair of boulders.

Instead, two human figures pounced towards Meirong, faces twisted into snarls of rage. They moved in silence and looked like they were made out of fog, albeit a darker, more ominous sort of mist than what surrounded them. Jian didn't know exactly what would happen if something so devoid of substance struck living flesh, but he didn't want to find out the hard way.

Meirong reacted before Jian could even shout a warning. She stepped forward, avoiding the outstretched arms of the attackers with ease as she struck out twice with her sword. Jian could barely catch the flicker of motion as the fog men were cleanly bisected. Unfortunately, while her sword passed clean through the bodies of her targets, the foggy attackers barely reacted. Neither of them even hesitated before continuing to try and grab hold of Meirong.

She froze in shock for only an instant, still managing to twist out of the way of their grasping hands and continue moving forward, turning to face the enemy once she was out of arm's reach. For his part, Jian had stopped and taken a step back. He felt a brief jolt of fear as the enemy was positioned between himself and Meirong, then relief as they turned to attack her.

Not that he wished her ill—even if he did, his own chances of surviving their trip would plummet the moment Meirong died—but she was much better equipped than he was to lead the two fog men on a merry chase until they figured out how to hurt the things. Jian could avoid an attack and possibly a second, but any more than that was liable to see him passed out on the ground whether or not he was hit.

The faster of the two fog men was a step ahead of its companion. Meirong moved to knock its hand aside, but her blade passed through its arm without causing more than a ripple in its foggy form. Fortunately, she seemed to have anticipated that result, as she was already moving backwards to maintain the distance between them.

Jian decided to try his luck now that the fog men had their backs turned to him. He took a step forward and swung his walking stick through the torso of the nearest one. As he'd feared, he did little more than stir up the monster's torso for a moment, like waving a fan at the morning mist. The monster didn't even acknowledge the blow as it continued to move forward together with its companion, trying to pin Meirong down.

She gave ground for another few paces, then grit her teeth and let out a yell. A tongue of flame blossomed into being just above the hilt of her sword, quickly expanding to engulf the entire blade. The fog men froze, but they had realized the danger too late. This time when she hit the leading attacker her sword landed with a visible shock of impact. There was an angry hissing, spitting sound, like water hitting hot coals, and then one of the monsters faded away into scraps of fog, soon vanishing entirely.

Meirong turned and cut down the other monster before it had a chance to react. Now that she had the means to hurt the fog men, they were little more than meat on the chopping board.The second fog man could do nothing more than hiss with resentment as it followed its companion into the void.

Jian sighed in relief. His breath hitched halfway through as a sudden wave of well-being washed over him. He could see just a little bit clearer, hear a little bit better, he could even smell more clearly the tang of smoke and heated metal from Meirong's flaming sword. He would have put it down to adrenaline and post-fight exuberance, but the feeling of well being persisted even as Meirong released her technique and took a wary look around.

"It doesn't look like they were guarding any treasures," she said.

"I think they were the treasure," Jian said. "Did you feel more comfortable just now?"

She frowned for a moment, thinking. "Killing them helps to refine our spirit?"

Jian nodded. "I think so."

Physical strength and spiritual energy weren't the only sources of a cultivator's prowess. The less obvious realm of the senses and spirit was also vital. A man who could see more clearly, think faster, and sense his surroundings better than his opponent would naturally do better in a fight. The only reason that developing the spirit was treated as an afterthought by most cultivators was that it was so difficult to improve it directly.

Generally speaking, the spirit was something that could be honed as a byproduct of experience. One of the reasons cultivators challenged themselves against dangerous situations was precisely to stimulate the development of their instincts and personal fortitude.

The chance to directly improve their spiritual state by killing these fog monsters was an incredible windfall. Jian couldn't even imagine what a ticket for such an opportunity would go for at auction. It was the sort of thing that you couldn't just buy because you wanted to.

Although, the fact that the fog men were so difficult to kill could easily become a problem. Jian frowned as he considered his own tools for a moment.

"How many times can you use that technique?" he asked.

"A few more times," Meirong said. "More if I use spirit stones to recharge."

It was already impressive that she could summon an elemental attack so easily, let alone do so multiple times in a day. While Meirong and Jian's friend Shan were technically at the same stage of cultivation, it was obvious that Meirong had walked much farther along the road toward refining her core. Even so, without a fully developed core, there was a limit to how many times she could use elemental manipulation in a short period of time.

In a pinch, spirit stones could be used to recover spiritual energy quickly. Jian's heart ached at the thought of such a profligate use of resources, but it was better than dying.

"Next time, leave one of them alive," Jian said. "We should see if there's a better way to kill them."

Jian didn't mind spending money to stay alive if he had to. Ideally, though, he'd rather keep both his life and his money.