The training field was unusually crowded, despite the oppressive heat of the afternoon sun bearing down on them. As cultivators, the temperature didn’t bother them as much as it might have when they were mortals, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. Most of the people present would rather be at home, out of the sun, probably meditating or something. Instead, they were here, and they were all here for the same reason.

The tournament—or rather, preparation for the tournament. Lee Jia had invited her friends to join the extracurricular training sessions with Yuuko’s group—she already had special permission for it, and it seemed more convenient than trying to arrange for more special permission to practice with her team. It also made a good opportunity for joint practice sessions with Yuuko’s team.

That alone would have been a dozen students training together, but apparently Hayakawa had decided that she would join in as well, along with her own team. With her were Miyata Toshiharu, Satou Ryuuji, Kasai Hanako, and two more students that Jia was not yet acquainted with. They seemed to know Yuuko’s group, so Jia assumed they were probably from Ienaga’s other advanced class.

Just like that, Jia’s little extracurricular spiritual training group had exploded to eighteen people. It felt a little bit overwhelming, but the teams were mostly self-managing. Taking a page out of Ienaga’s book, Jia decided it would be best to work with each smaller group one at a time. The obvious place to start was with the newcomers.

Jia waved at Hayakawa’s group as she approached.

“Hello Hayakawa! Are you here to practice with us?”

Hayakawa nodded, but before she could respond, Miyata sprouted out of her shadow like a little mushroom.

“How many times do I have to tell you Miss Lee? Watch your tone when speaking to Lady Hayakawa!”

“Sorry Miyata! I’m on a given name basis with a princess of my country, so sometimes I forget to be formal.”

Miyata clenched his teeth while Hana snickered at him. Satou and the other two seemed a bit uncomfortable, but Jia ignored them. Hayakawa sighed.

“Miss Lee, don’t tease Miyata too much. If we were in Yamato he’d be right to admonish you. We’re equals here, and he should have learned that by now, but one doesn’t easily forget years of etiquette lessons.”

Jia shrugged carelessly.

“It wouldn’t really be fair to expect me to know them either.”

Hayakawa inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“I only ask that you show a bit of patience.”

“Fair enough. Sorry Miyata! Really, this time.”

Jia bowed slightly in apology, but Miyata only turned away and clicked his tongue, not willing to gainsay Hayakawa, but clearly not pleased with the outcome either.

“I assume you’re here because you want to get a head start on qi techniques to prepare for the tournament?”

Hayakawa nodded.

“If it’s not too much trouble. I’m not comfortable holding you to the terms of our defunct agreement, but I’d like to continue working together, if that’s agreeable to you.”

A few months ago, Lee Jia might have hesitated at the idea of sharing her knowledge freely, especially with someone who she would likely have to face in the tournament. Now, she felt that the goodwill she would receive from working in a friendly relationship with Hayakawa was probably worth more than whatever small advantages she would get by keeping secrets.

“That’s fine. It’ll take a day each to awaken, and I’ll want to make sure everyone understands the risks.”

“Of course.”

Jia took a few moments to explain the risks of the awakening stone and also took the opportunity to bring up what she had discovered about her own unified cultivation method.

“You expect us to disperse our ki just on your say so? For some vague mixed discipline you claim to have discovered, without any proof. You must think we’re idiots.”

Tokuda Ryo, one of the two that Jia had only just met, protested while the other one—Ozaki Keiji—and Miyata were both nodding in agreement. Lee Jia shook her head.

“No. I’m just telling you that it’s possible, and how to do it. I had the benefit of starting all three disciplines at around the same time from nothing, but with the tournament coming up, it’s probably a really bad time to start over.”

Hayakawa stepped forward before anyone else could protest any further.

“Thank you for the information, Miss Lee. We’ll take your words under advisement, but as you say, it’s poorly timed. I personally plan on breaking through to the third stage before the tournament, and I doubt I will ever fully adopt your cultivation method.”

“Alright, well, good luck! I’ve got to go deliver the same news to Yuuko’s team and then coordinate with my own group.”

“Very well. Feel free to approach us if you’d like to do any joint training exercises or spars. Oh, and when you’re finished there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you in private.”

Jia could probably guess what Hayakawa wanted to talk to her about.

“Alright, I’ll make sure to come find you before we’re done for the day.”

After bidding farewell to Hayakawa, Jia met up with Yuuko, Fujino, and the others. They were just as hesitant about the idea of starting over in order to unify their cultivation, but Jia was surprised when Ishihara Nao stepped forward.

“I’ll do it. I’m already third rate as a martial artist, and I haven’t made enough progress in the other disciplines to matter anyway.”

The frail looking boy had always been pretty reserved, in Jia’s experience, but now he seemed determined to prove himself.

“Oh! Uh, okay! You’re a second stage martial artist, right? I don’t actually know how dispersing ki works.”

Ishihara chuckled and shook his head.

“Believe it or not, no. I never never made it past the ki circulation stage. I reached the second stage as a mage a while back, though. I’ll ask Senior Dae to teach me how to release my mana.”

“Are you sure? It’s not going to be easy to work your way back up. We don’t know much about unified cultivation, but it seems to be a lot slower than the traditional methods. I’ve been stuck at a bottleneck for most of the year without even knowing why.”

Ishihara shrugged.

“I’ll figure it out. I’m tired of being the weak link in this team. I’ll catch back up, and I’ll do it before the tournament.”

The rest of the group erupted into cheers and reassurances, and as they crowded around Ishihara, Jia felt a bit awkward as the outsider without the appropriate context. Well, good for him. She decided to leave them to it and quickly excused herself.

“I’ll talk to you guys later, I have to catch up with my own team. Good luck Ishihara!”

“Thank you, Miss Lee!”

At last, Jia returned to her own group of friends. She hadn’t even really done any real coordinating or tutoring with the other groups, but she was already exhausted. She didn’t know how she was going to manage making this a regular thing—probably by dumping most of the hard work on Yue.

Eunae, Rika, and Eui were chatting idly among themselves, while Dae was trying his best not to act as out of place among the girls as he looked. Yue was quietly meditating—within earshot, but still clearly separate and unwelcome within the group. The fact that Rika and Eui weren’t pushing her further away than that was already progress. Jia didn’t think she’d ever truly forgive Yue, but she had to admit that the girl did seem to have changed for the better. It remained to be seen how committed she was to this new path of hers.

Eui waved as she approached.

“How did it go?”

“Well, nobody wanted to start their cultivation over from the beginning before the tournament—except Ishihara. He seemed pretty excited about it.”

Dae nodded slowly.

“That stands to reason—he’s been rather self-conscious about being the weakest in the group.”

Eunae pouted and crossed her arms, grumbling a bit.

“What does that say about me? I lost a duel to him, you know!”

Dae cleared his throat, politely refraining from comment.

“Ahem, as for me, hehe—while Miss Yan’s breakthrough in unified cultivation is promising, we can’t yet rule out a balanced base of cultivation. I think I will wait until we have more conclusive evidence before I commit to releasing my mana.”

Eunae nodded in agreement.

“I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever be able to do. My cultivation speed is already extremely slow, and I’ve finally reached the second stage in a second discipline—I can’t afford to start even one of them from the beginning, much less both.”

Rika scrunched her face up into a deep frown before leaning forward and sighing.

“I think I’m going to do it. Probably as soon as possible.”

All eyes fell on her, the expressions of the group a mix of surprise and curiosity. Rika shrugged and let out a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Think about it—in terms of cultivation I’m not far behind Hayakawa in martial arts, and ahead of her in the other disciplines! And yet I can’t do more than stall her for a few seconds in a fight—she completely blows me out of the water. It’s just a difference in technique. The Takeda-style Unseen Strike isn’t actually that strong. I’ve been thinking of ways to make it better by combining it with The Valley of Illusory Mists but...I think I’ve hit a plateau. Lately I’ve been thinking—what if I really combine them. Not two complementary techniques, but a single technique that spans multiple disciplines?”

Jia’s eyes lit up.

“That sounds amazing! Except—”

“Except it’s only possible with unified cultivation, like yours. If Yan’s already proven that it can be done, then I’ll do it. I want to create a new form of the Takeda style that will make my grandfather proud!”

“You’ve got my full support! I’ll do everything I can to help you with that.”

The others mirrored Jia’s sentiment, and Rika glanced around nervously.

“You’re not going to mind that I might not be back to full strength by the tournament?”

Jia shook her head, regardless of the expectations of her instructors, there were more important things.

“Of course not—besides, I’m sure your new technique will be way stronger!”

Rika smiled and nodded.

“Thanks for the confidence.”

Dae stroked his chin, frowning.

“Then I suppose all that remains is to determine our sixth teammate...”

The group fell into quiet contemplation at that. Jia sensed Yue shifting uncomfortably. Though she was weak now, a talent like hers could easily catch up within the span of half a year. Furthermore, she was outcast from most of the Qin circles, and didn’t really know anyone else—she was guaranteed to be unattached. It was a fairly obvious choice—and yet...

“What about Guan Yi, or Xin Wei? An extra healer could be useful, and Xin has a lot of utility as a support caster.”

Yue’s shoulders fell as she heard Jia’s suggestion—she felt a little bad, but Jia still couldn’t quite bring herself to trust Yue fully. She’d make sure she’d exhausted all of her other options before bringing Yan Yue into the team.

Eunae tapped her chin in thought.

“Either would be good, but I’m not sure that we’re likely to be able to get one without the other, and though Xin doesn’t have many friends among the Qin students, he’s got enough connections to form his own team.”

Jia frowned, recalling what Elder Qin had told her about the history of healers in Qin. Xin’s family had been one of the only ones to stand against the atrocity—which was probably why his own abilities included healing.

“Okay. Any other suggestions?”

Eunae cocked her head back and forth for a moment before raising a finger.

“Kim Yongsun? He actually has his own team already, but I could probably convince him to join ours again, instead. It might be a little unbalanced with so many mages, though...”

Jia shook her head.

“Don’t do that! I wouldn’t want you to abuse your status to break up Kim’s team—although, maybe we can invite them to train with us? I’ve been meaning to ask him about Heian, but Ienaga’s classes aren't really the best time and we’re still mostly grounded.”

“Okay, I’ll ask him! I’m glad you’re finally taking my advice to speak to him.”

Jia blushed—she hadn’t been meaning to ignore Eunae’s advice, she just never seemed to get the opportunity. Rika sighed and leaned back.

“Too bad that Yuuko’s already spoken for—or even Hana would have been good. What do you think, Jia? Yuuko’s trying so hard to be like you now, that I keep expecting her to show up with cat ears one of these days. You think we could poach her?”

Jia grimaced. Yuuko really had flipped her opinion to an embarrassing degree—she was a very passionate girl, but Jia wished that she’d direct it elsewhere.

“I don’t think that will work. Yuuko might be mimicking my style, but she’s also super competitive—she’ll want to test herself against me. Besides, I wouldn’t do that to Fujino.”

The group fell into quiet contemplation once more, but Jia felt a spike of irritation from Eui, who let out an annoyed huff before addressing them.

“This is fucking stupid. We all know it’s going to be Yue, so can we stop pretending like this was ever really a question?”

Everyone stared at Eui in shock. None more than Yue herself who had completely abandoned all pretense and whirled around to gape in surprise. Eui frowned and shrugged.

“What? Our main strength is the diversity of our techniques, and we have an obvious gap to be filled by an expert spiritual artist. Yan Yue fills that gap, has every reason to want to cooperate with us, and has nowhere else to go. We have a history, but that just means she should be even more eager not to fuck with us again, and besides...”

Eui turned to meet Yue’s eyes with a savage grin.

“I know where she sleeps.”

Yue shuddered and swallowed nervously.

“Naturally, I’d be happy to join you. Once I finish this last breakthrough and begin the new cultivation method in earnest, I expect to progress quickly. I’ll work to be combat ready by the year’s end. Of course, I will also work with Miss Takeda to contribute my own experience towards making her transition to unified cultivation as smooth as possible.”

Rika let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank the Kami, I thought I was going to have to rely on Jia to teach me how to do it.”

Jia pouted, but she refrained from commenting. Eui shrugged, not nearly as bothered by their reputation as shoddy tutors.

“Sure, whatever. If all that’s out of the way, there’s one other thing we need to tell you before we can get started on training.”

Eui met Jia’s eyes, and they both nodded. That wordless exchange was enough to get them on the same page and one synchronized thought was all it took to merge their consciousness together. She was getting better at that.

“It’s a little overdue, but we’d like to introduce ourself. We are Yoshika.”

Rika actually squealed with delight and clapped her hands.

“Ahaha! Oh, that is so creepy! How are you doing that?”

Yoshika grimaced twice—that was not the reaction she had been expecting. She slapped Rika in the shoulder with Eui’s body.

“Wh—creepy!? Fuck you, Rika. We regret using the name you gave us now.”

Rika rubbed at her shoulder and bowed apologetically.

“Sorry, sorry! Seriously though, what is this?”

Yoshika explained her merged state to her friends to the best of her ability. She’d had to explain it several times recently, and she’d gotten a bit better at describing what she was. Rika’s eyes were shining with excitement, while Dae and Yue had more complicated expressions—Eunae just looked thoughtful.

“And your power is enhanced when linked like this?”

Yoshika nodded Jia’s head, speaking with only one voice at a time now.

“In a number of ways, yes. Mentally, we have a much greater capacity to focus on one thing at a time, or split our attention. We think a lot faster like this, and we’re even able to use our Absolute Awareness technique with only minor backlash. The biggest difference we’ve found so far was when we used our Corruption of the Fetid Bog technique on Sun Jaehwa—the aura alone almost killed her.”

Rika whistled appreciatively.

“Wow! That’s pretty potent. Have you tried sparring like this?”

Yoshika nodded, answering in Eui’s voice.

“Once, against Master Ienaga—but our domain was still sealed at the time so we had to maintain physical contact. We also fought Zheng Long like this, but we only had Eui’s body to work with and a lot of our focus was tied up keeping Jia’s body alive.”

“We definitely need to try it out! Also it’s super weird hearing you refer to yourselves in the third person like that. I don’t know which face I’m supposed to be looking at!”

Yoshika shrugged.

“We’re still figuring the socializing part out. Even Elder Qin seemed a bit put off by both of us speaking at once.”

“Haha! Why do you sound so proud of that?”

Yoshika averted her eyes and feigned innocence. Dae frowned and scratched his cheek.

“Miss, um—Yoshika...”

“Just Yoshika is fine.”

Dae chuckled nervously. She hadn’t seen him this awkward since the first time they’d met.

“Hehe, Yoshika then. Is this, uh, something that is likely to become permanent?”

Ah, of course he’d be worried about that, with his crush on Jia—Yoshika suffered a moment of cognitive dissonance as Jia and Eui’s emotions conflicted, but not enough to disrupt her synchronization.

“We’re not really sure. It’s an unprecedented situation. The Grand Magus seems to think so, from what he saw of our domain, but it’s hard to say anything with certainty. As far as we know our cultivation method is completely unique.”

“I see, hehe. Well I—I suppose it will be interesting to find out!”

Dae’s smile seemed forced, and Yoshika could tell he was worried. She had another spike of cognitive dissonance as her conflicting emotions tried to reconcile themselves, but she shook it off—she’d need to address it soon, but this wasn’t the time.

“Of course! In the meantime, Rika, do you want to try that spar now, before you disperse your ki?”

Rika stood up and grinned at her.

“Absolutely! I don’t think I’ll make a very good opponent for you, though. At this point you might actually be the strongest in the entire academy. Can I at least bring a partner to make it fair?”

Yoshika shrugged, that seemed reasonable enough to her. She was technically two people, after all.

“Sure.”

“Great, I’ll be right back.”

At first Yoshika had expected Rika to team up with Eunae, but when she’d walked off it seemed more likely she’d grab Yuuko or Hana. Instead, Rika betrayed all of Yoshika’s expectations by walking straight up to Hayakawa.

“Oh. Ancestors.”