The air was humid on the training field as Jia and Eui waited for Yuuko’s group to arrive. Hayakawa Kaede had asked them to meet after class so that Jia could tutor them on the development of an omnidisciplinary fighting style. It wasn’t really an order per se, but though it went unspoken, it was clear that Hayakawa expected Jia to comply in order to hold up her end of their bargain. Well, Hayakawa had been pretty patient with her so far, so Jia didn’t really begrudge her the favor.

The real problem was that Jia wasn’t entirely confident in her ability to deliver to Hayakawa’s expectations. Her own fighting style wasn’t particularly well developed—in fact, Yuuko and her friends were already miles ahead in that regard. They had spells specifically designed to fit a fighting style that they had painstakingly developed from the ground up, and a level of teamwork that completely eclipsed anything Jia had accomplished.

By comparison, Jia’s fighting style was just a mishmash of whatever techniques and spells were available or convenient. She used lightning magic because it was easy for her to inscribe lightning talismans, her noxious aura was the only spiritual technique she’d been able to make any progress on, and her martial art was just the first one that Ienaga had recommended to her.

She’d only been learning cultivation for six or seven months, while most of the other students had been training since they were children. It also didn’t help that the instructors other than Ienaga seemed content to teach her theory and let her develop the more technical applications by herself. So while she pondered what she was supposed to teach a bunch of people who were already more advanced than her, Jia moodily took in the scenery.

The training field had changed significantly since winter. The dirt track surrounding it had been turned into a muddy mess from the spring rains and the frequent use—even now there were still groups of students that got up every morning to run laps until they collapsed. The inner area was a little bit better kept. Most of the vegetation had been trampled to death, but the area was frequently swept clear of water in order to keep it safe for training.

The central ring where Jia and Eui sat was unchanged. The flat, square, stone arena was a popular spot for duels and exhibitions, and Jia had fought there herself a few times. The arena was a bit worn from use, and Jia even saw a flagstone that had all but been shattered by her head slamming into it during a duel with Hayakawa—her memory of that was a bit fuzzy.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched squeal of excitement.

“Ahh! They’re really here! Oh, kami, what do I say? Minami I didn’t think you were actually telling the truth!”

Jia heard Yuuko chuckling as she saw the group of six approaching them.

“Why would I lie about that, Izumi? Just relax—you know that we’ve sparred with them before, right? It’s only been a month since then.”

“That’s not the saaaame! How am I supposed to talk to them face to face?”

Jia smiled wryly as the mousey girl panicked. Between her short stature, and her straight black hair, Izumi Makoto could be mistaken for Eui from a distance—though she lacked the tail. Jia waved as the group approached.

“You could start by saying hello! Hey Yuuko, Fujino, uh...and the rest of you.”

Jia cringed at her own awkwardness. She remembered their names, it just felt weird to try greeting them all individually, yet rude to snub them entirely. Izumi’s eyes widened with surprise and she looked back and forth between Jia and Yuuko excitedly.

“Y-Yuuko!? Since when did you two get so familiar!?”

Yuuko shook her head and sighed.

“Don’t get too excited, Izumi. Jia’s not that big on formality, and one of her friends practically refuses to use family names—you know, the fox girl?”

Izumi nodded emphatically, then made a surprised face—she seemed easily excitable.

“Seong!? Oh kami, this changes things. I need to update my chart! I wonder if Takeda...”

Izumi trailed off, mumbling something to herself as Jia raised an eyebrow at her curiously.

“Chart?”

Izumi looked up with a grin, and her eyes seemed to burn with a passion that Jia had seen in Dae when he got caught up talking about magical theory. Yuuko slapped a hand over Izumi’s mouth before she could say anything and smiled stiffly at Jia.

“Ahaha! Just a silly hobby of hers. Don’t ask about it—seriously, don’t ask.”

Jia frowned in confusion, but the rueful expressions on the rest of the group told her that they agreed with Yuuko’s sentiment, so she decided to drop it.

“Okay...anyway, should we get started? Although, to be honest, I don’t think there’s all that much we can teach you guys. I’ve been thinking about it, and you already have a more cohesive fighting style than I do.”

Fujino smiled and stepped forward, bowing in greeting.

“You do yourself a disservice, Miss Lee. You bested Yuuko and I single-handedly in our duel, and I heard that you even managed to hold your own against that third stage cultivator from Qin—that’s a remarkable accomplishment.”

“W-well, I think I got pretty lucky against Yuuko, and the fight with Zheng Long was mostly Eui—I was practically useless, haha.”

Jia laughed in self-deprecation as she demurred. She could remember fighting Zheng Long as Yoshika, and it was her lightning bolt talisman that had landed the finishing blow, but it didn’t really feel like her accomplishment.

“If you say so, but I think I speak for us all when I say that everyone here respects your ability. When Lady Hayakawa told us that you’d agreed to tutor us, we were all quite excited at the prospect.”

Fujino’s words were met with nods of agreement from the group behind him, and Jia found herself blushing at the praise, though it still felt undeserved. Eui slapped her in the back and stood up to address them.

“What Jia is forgetting is that none of you are spiritually awakened, and that while you’re all great at using techniques from different disciplines together, none of you are familiar with techniques that use more than one discipline at the same time. We can help with that, but it won’t be easy—actually, the awakening process might kill you, so be ready for that.”

Jia cast a worried glance at Eui.

“What are you doing?”

Eui returned Jia’s glance by sticking out her tongue before responding to her telepathically.

“Reminding you why we’re here. You’re supposed to be leading right now. Drop the humility, stop asking, and start telling.”

One of the other girls raised a hand and Eui nodded at her. Fujikawa Ayumi had a serious expression, and an analytical gaze that was reminiscent of Dae during a fight. Her hair was cut even shorter than Rika’s—the shortest Jia had ever seen on a girl.

“Miss An, there have been rumors that you are an oni, and that you have been feeding off of Miss Lee and Miss Yan to grow your strength using predatory dual cultivation practices. Is there any truth to this, and does it have anything to do with the awakening method you’ve alluded to?”

Jia saw Fujino and the others grimace at Fujikawa’s tactless question, but at the same time it was obvious that they were curious to hear the answer for themselves. Jia glanced nervously at Eui, wondering how she would handle the situation.

“Who the fuck cares!? What I do is my own fucking business—though for the record, I would sooner die than cultivate with Yan Yue, especially the kind you degenerates are probably thinking about. Jia’s the one that can help you awaken your qi, I’m just here because it was this or being alone in the house with Yan Yue and fuck that.”

Fujikawa stared at her feet as a few of the others snickered—Yuuko was nodding emphatically in agreement to Eui’s condemnation of Yan Yue.

“I—I see. My apologies, it wasn’t my intention to pry into private matters.”

Jia realized now why it was usually her and not Eui that got thrust into the role of leadership—Eui could be a bit tactless. She stepped up and called out in a reassuring tone.

“That’s alright Miss Fujikawa, I’m sure you were only looking out for the safety of your friends. I know there’s a lot of rumors going around after last month’s incident, but you don’t have anything to worry about from Eui or me. That said, she’s right that the spiritual awakening will be dangerous—let me explain.”

Jia was hesitant to reveal the awakening stone, but she had made a promise to Hayakawa, and at this point it was already common knowledge that she had a storage artifact that originally belonged to the Awakening Dragon sect—at this point the awakening stone was just another drop in the ocean of trouble.

She still made a point of impressing upon them that her possession of the awakening stone was very much a secret, and even went so far as to invoke Hayakawa’s name in an attempt to emphasize the gravity of what she was showing them. Fujino’s expression grew bitter as she explained.

“To think that Qin is withholding a secret like that when the other nations have been participating in good faith. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Jia chuckled wryly and shrugged.

“Well, technically the method that Elder Qin passed out is the standard technique for spiritual awakening. We’re just ten years past the recommended age to start practicing it. If you meditated on it every single day, you’d awaken eventually—it’d just be a matter of years.”

Yuuko scoffed. She was as bitter about the news as the rest of them.

“Making us spend years just to start our training when they get to awaken in an instant isn’t exactly what I would call good faith. Why didn’t they provide an awakening stone in the first place, or at least tell us that only children can awaken using the normal method.”

“These awakening stones are really rare, even in Qin. I bet even most of the academy disciples from Qin don’t even know that they exist. As for why they didn’t say anything about how early the training is supposed to start...I don’t know. Probably politics or something.”

There was a susurrus of affirmative noises and nods from the group, and Jia shrugged.

“Anyway, Eui wasn’t joking about the risks. In the worst case, the awakening stone could kill you. That...probably won’t happen, but a mistake will permanently cripple your qi cultivation and probably have long-term consequences for your other disciplines as well.”

Fujino’s expression turned grave.

“How likely is that to happen? And are you certain about the long-term consequences?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s really up to chance, but at least I’ve never seen it happen. You should be safe if you’re mentally prepared for it, but having experienced it myself, I have no doubt in my mind that it can cause permanent damage.”

A hush fell over the group as they quietly contemplated the dangers of the awakening stone. One of the boys Jia hadn’t spoken to before, Harada Jun, stepped forward to speak.

“You both underwent the stone’s trial? Senior Dae too?”

Jia scratched her cheek awkwardly, not really sure how to explain Eui’s awakening.

“Uh...not Eui, but I did, yes. Dae and the others too. Pretty much every spiritual cultivator not from Qin used the awakening stone.”

The frailer looking boy, Ishihara scoffed irritably and crossed his arms.

“So it was you! You know how many rumors have been going around about that?”

“Uh...it must have gotten lost among all the other weird rumors people have been spreading.”

Harada shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter. If Senior Dae and Lady Hayakawa vouch for it, then I’ll try it.”

Yuuko slammed a fist into her palm and grinned.

“My mind was already made up from the beginning. Of course I’ll do it.”

The rest of the group strengthened their resolve and made similar confirmations. Jia met each of their gazes before nodding.

“Okay. It’s really unpleasant and it takes a long time, so who wants to go first?”

Over the course of the next week Jia and Eui spent most of their free time with Yuuko’s group, helping each one of them awaken their qi while training and exchanging techniques with the others. They taught her their body enhancement spells in exchange for the time-saving calligraphy technique, and practiced working spellcasting seamlessly into their martial arts techniques.

As each of them completed their spiritual awakening, they encountered what was, to Jia, a familiar problem—they had no techniques to practice. Of course, Jia still had all the manuals for the Awakening Dragon style, but it wasn’t suitable for everyone—especially not the girls.

It had been the same with her friends. Rika had been lucky enough to have a yang-aligned soul, like Eui, which allowed her to practice her Valley of Illusory Mists technique without a problem, but for Eunae they had been unable to find a suitable technique for her to practice, while Dae had chosen to forgo Jia’s manuals in order to find something more suitable in the archives.

Yuuko’s group had similar problems. The girls weren’t particularly keen on the idea of practicing Jia’s Fetid Bog technique—which she couldn’t blame them for—and while the boys were interested in copying Rika’s style, they lost interest when they realized that they wouldn’t be able to accomplish the same results without the Takeda clan’s unique martial art.

For the boys, Jia was pretty sure she could work with Dae to copy some manuals from the archives in order to find them suitable techniques, but for the girls—and Ishihara, who turned out to have a rare yin-aligned soul—that wasn’t an option. Jia had been searching for months, and she was almost certain at this point that the archives had no manuals for yin-aligned spiritual arts.

It wasn’t particularly difficult to guess why—Yan Yue had pretty much already explained it to her, before. The women of Qin passed their techniques down entirely by word-of-mouth, usually from mother to daughter. The only real solutions were to either painstakingly modify existing techniques with the help of the instructors—which had not been working all that well for Jia so far—or to get direct tutoring from an advanced female cultivator from Qin.

Naturally, there was precisely one person in the academy who met that description.

“Uuuuugh, I don’t want to ask her!”

Jia groaned in frustration as she struggled with the decision before her. It should have been simple. Logically she knew what the best course of action was. It was a puzzle with an obvious solution staring her right in the face. A solution so easy to find that she would have to go far out of her way not to think of it. She was trying her best to do just that.

“There has to be another option, right? I know what Elder Qin said, but surely there’s a better way—like, anything else. Hwang seemed pretty confident that modifying existing manuals would work.”

Eui let out an irritated sigh. She was just as uncomfortable as Jia.

“Sure, if we’re willing to wait years. It’s a miracle you even got Fetid Bog as far as you have so quickly. I don’t think a thousand year old magus has the same concept of ‘soon’ as we do.”

“I don’t think Magus Hwang is a thousand years old...”

“Could have fooled me. Anyway, I hate it as much as you do—maybe even more—but at this point we have to admit that we’re letting our feelings interfere with our training. Didn’t we say we would take advantage of every opportunity?”

Jia buried her face in a cushion and groaned again. She looked across the living room at Eui and scowled.

“How come that oath only seems to come up with stuff we don’t want to do?”

Eui snickered and shook her head.

“Because that’s the point? The easy or convenient opportunities aren’t worth the oath.”

Jia threw the cushion at her.

“Bleh, stop making so much sense.”

Eui chuckled again, but quickly became serious once more.

“So, are we going to ask her or not? I think you’re more level-headed than I am, so I’ll let you decide.”

Jia raised an eyebrow at Eui.

“Weren’t you the one saying we shouldn’t let our feelings interfere with our training? Sounds like you’re the level-headed one, here.”

Eui scoffed.

“I’m willing to admit that my feelings are getting in the way, but that doesn’t change the fact that my feelings are that I’d rather string her up by the ankles and leave her as food for the beasts. The fact that you’re even considering asking her for help means you’re already more level-headed than I am.”

That...was true, Jia supposed. Not that she had much better of an opinion of Yan Yue than Eui did, but she was at least willing to consider looking past that if it meant an advantage for her and her friends. She sighed miserably.

“This isn’t fair. Why do I have to be the responsible one? Can’t we just let Yoshika decide?”

Eui shook her head.

“Nope. I want you to decide—you’re the leader. Even if we put our heads together I’m pretty sure Yoshika would respect my wishes and ignore my opinion—uh, probably. I don’t know if we can actually do that.”

“Tsk, I don’t want to be the leader. You guys just keep pushing it on me.”

Eui laughed in her signature, mocking cackle.

“Heh heh, that’s what makes you the best option.”

Jia frowned and murmured grumpily.

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

They fell into silence for a while as Jia thought about it. She glanced furtively at the door to Yue’s bedroom, where the girl in question was no doubt still sulking, as she had been all week. She’d probably heard the entire conversation, which was kind of the point—if Jia and Eui had wanted privacy they would have spoken somewhere more private.

When Jia finally spoke, she hedged her words carefully.

“It feels wrong to be the ones to ask. If...right, maybe if she was to offer to teach us I could accept. Maybe. If we asked for help, then we’d owe her, but if...if she offered to train us—maybe as a form of apology—then it would be rude to refuse. We should at least allow her the opportunity to redeem herself, right?”

Eui covered her mouth as she tried desperately to suppress her laughter.

“Pfft! Ancestors, Jia, you’re terrible. Sure, I guess if Yue was to reach out to us and offer to help with this little problem, I might be willing to give her a chance at redemption. Too bad she’d never do that unless someone prompted her because she’s completely clueless!”

Yan Yue’s bedroom door slammed open, and Yue stood red-faced in the door frame, her expression twisted into one of barely-restrained anger. Eui immediately doubled over in cackling laughter, but Yue ignored her as she spoke through clenched teeth.

“You two have all the subtlety of a brick through a window! Fine! If you would like, I will tutor you and your friends on the techniques passed down to me by my mother. Naturally, I ask nothing in return, and I hope that this token of goodwill might serve to begin the process of mending our relationship.”

Jia smiled innocently at Yue.

“How kind of you to offer, Yue! I’ll have to confer with the others, but I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

Eui fell off the couch laughing, and Yue rolled her eyes.

“If you’re quite satisfied, you can let me know any time you’d like to begin.”

Yue turned around and retreated back into her room, slamming the door behind her. Jia blushed, feeling a little bit embarrassed by her ham-handed attempt at manipulating Yue into helping them—which was not at all helped by Eui rolling on the floor and cackling like a mad woman.

It wasn’t that bad. Was it?