When Chao returned to the house, Huifen was asleep, so he avoided the area. From the smell of what his father had cooking on the stove, he’d brought home some dire beast meat from his outing earlier. With Huifen’s inability to gather energy, even though she had her unique physique that absorbed qi by itself, the meat would give her a good boost that would only help her recover even quicker.

He and his father ate together in the kitchen. Besides further direction on the fairy’s care, they hardly spoke. He did notice his father hadn’t skimped on the steak strips’ seasoning. After mentioning Chao’s manners earlier, it was clear his father was going out of his way to be accommodating as well.

As was often his practice after cultivating the garden and eating dinner, Chao settled himself before the fireplace to consider his recent experiments and what he should work on tomorrow. He’d used a lot of energy today, so he’d use his energy gathering technique before bed, but while his mind was engaged, he didn’t want to waste any inspiration.

Huifen wasn’t too far away, so he made a mental note not to be loud.

With his legs crossed, he faced away from the fireplace because its light would make it difficult to see the intricate happenings of his lightning beads. Holding out his palms, he rested his elbows against his ribs since he might be in that position for a while.

Just to save energy, he Borrowed static from his pants that had rubbed together a little when he sat down. He used Create to grow the bead in size. A small ore of blue lightning appeared in both palms. The two were far enough apart that they’d yet to interact. He didn’t move them closer but supplied extra energy while growing them further.

A stream of alternating current appeared in the air, cackling between both beads. He dampened the sound so as to not wake Huifen.

He didn’t simply use more energy to create the lightning stream connecting them, but also used Enhance. The most basic use of Enhance was just that. It could give the effect of empowering a technique without growing it and without having to use as much additional energy. Of course, that was far from what Enhance was truly capable of. It could transform the lightning itself into a far more potent and deadly form. Or in reverse, it could disperse lightning altogether to defend one’s self from its harsh effects. At the small success stage, Chao had been able to summon purple lightning, which was more than twice as powerful as normal blue lightning at his nascent realm. The miracle of Enhance was that purple lightning also cost only fifty percent more energy. To forcefully summon purple lightning through Create alone… It was possible, but it would cost him more than three times the amount of energy he’d need to Create blue lightning.

He had no intention of stopping there. He was nearing large success in the lightning Enhancement law, and he knew it.

Still, tonight wasn’t the time to work on pushing Enhancement to the next stage. That would require a lot of energy. What he was doing now was trying to refine his lightning manipulation techniques.

The stream of lightning that connected both beads was mostly a straight line that took the shortest path between two points. But there were also tiny snakes of energy that would escape to chase the impurities in the air, which caused energy waste. At least, that was his working theory. Regardless of what he’d tried over all these years, he’d found it impossible to completely do away with the waste. It was simply part of lightning’s natural characteristics.

Enough fiddling.

The two beads flew up while the stream between them didn’t disappear. Dozens of beads shot out of his palms, one after another, to form the dotted outline of a lion’s face. It wasn’t just a flat outline either, but three dimensional with full facial features. In an instant, streams of blue lightning began connecting the dots. The process could happen at lightning’s speed, but he held it back so he could watch it happen at a slower rate. Once the lion’s face was completed, he didn’t move on, but started rotating the entire illusion. The problem was still prevalent as ever before. Despite the loss of energy between points, the lines were too straight. Even the beast’s eyes were round instead of the sharp ovals of a cat’s.

He stopped the lightning cat’s drifting with its eyes staring straight at him. They were an utter failure as an illusion but were pretty powerful. Maybe the deficiency was with the level of lightning…

Amping up Enhance, the entire lion soon glowed purple. He could feel the increase in danger as the hairs on his arms twitched like little swords fighting each other. If the technique were to fail and he were to take its energy head on, he’d end up in a worse state than Huifen, but he wasn’t worried. Even though his manipulation ability with lightning was limited, he could feel every fluctuation.

Beginning with the right eye, he dismissed the rest of the illusion with the wave of his hand. The energy sizzled in the air as it dissolved. The eye was little more than a ball of purple energy the size of a fist. Bringing it closer, he used both hands while trying to stretch its sides while being careful not to physically touch it.

Immediately, two separate balls of lightning separated from the main source and a chaotic mess of multiple lightning snakes struck back and forth between the smaller balls and the larger one between them. In a sense, it looked much more like an eye, even if it was multiple orbs and not one.

Playing with stretching the end points closer and further away from the center ball, Chao got it to where he liked it and then tilted the outer point so that the eye looked like it was tilted in.

Not bad.

He summoned the second eye and did the same thing. He then played with using more or less energy flow until he found the best medium. Pushing them to hover a few meters away, he was pleased with the progress. The larger orbs of lightning even looked like pupils. He still had a long way to go, though.

He heard the sound of someone clearing their voice.

Suddenly alarmed, he cut his energy to the lion’s eyes and used Enhance in reverse to snuffed them out. He gave Huifen and apologetic glance, then lowered his gaze. “Senior Sister, I’m sorry for waking you. It was foolish for me to experiment here.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” she said before making a low grunt.

He rushed to his feet and hurried toward her as she was trying to sit up. Of course, before he reached her, he stopped because he hadn’t gotten permission to touch her. He sighed with relief in seeing her make it up with more ease than before.

“Thank you for your concern for my wellbeing, but there’s really no need to rush over just to save me from a little pain,” she said sharply. “I’m a cultivator, not some delicate lady that needs your tending to.”

He was nodding before she’d even finished and accepted her rebuke with a gracious bow. “Of course. Forgive me. Long Chao thanks Fairy Huifen for her guidance.”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head to herself. “That came off more abrasive than I intended.” She tried to level her tone. “Your intentions are admirable, but part of being a cultivator is to push yourself through every kind of hardship to overcome it. I can’t very well do that while you’re helping me with every little thing. This is a good opportunity for me to learn what it’s like to be injured to such an extent. Your father was right that I’ve never experienced so much blood loss. Probing what I can and can’t do is a part of the process. It’s much like what you were doing with your lightning illusion a moment ago.”

“That… I didn’t realize I was hindering your—”

“It’s really okay,” she replied, cutting him off. “And your practice did wake me, but I’m glad it did. It has benefitted me, I think. All cultivators try to improve their techniques, but since this is a technique you’re inventing yourself, I’ve just never seen someone do it in such a raw state.”

“Senior Sister, I’m more than willing to show you as much as you want.”

“I’ll have to rely on you, then, but first, I’m getting rather hungry. Is there anything to eat?” she said weakly.

He beamed at her. “Oh, yes. Father caught a dire beast to help supplement your energy, and I made Mother’s creamy white sauce for you to try with it. I’ll be right back.”

As he hurried to the kitchen, he saw her give him an odd look.

Her plate was already sitting on the oil-treated countertop right by the stove. The thick wood was lightly tinted with thicker grains than normal wood and nearly fireproof. At least in regard to normal flames. He took the pot from the stove that swam with meat gravy and fished out a whole plate’s worth of dire beast strips. The steak was still hot and moist. Opening a jar after returning the pot, he left a small pool of the white sauce on the side of the plate. Lastly, he grabbed a jug from the icebox. Undoing the cork, he twirled his finger above the opening, used a trickle of ice’s reverse Enhancement law to thaw a portion, and drew the liquid out into the mug on her tray. That left it chilled like spring water. His father said an ice cultivator would appreciate it. Putting the jug back and with everything ready, he headed back to Huifen with the tray in hand.

His father was above them on the second floor loft that he’d long ago turned into a study, so nothing they were doing should interrupt him.

Grabbing the wooden chair his father had left at the head of Huifen’s bed, he placed it at the edge and sat the tray on top of it.

She’d regained her composure and her distant, above the world feel she gave him had returned. Despite that, she cocked an eyebrow upward.

“Is there something dissatisfactory, Senior Sister?” He probed.

“Not at all,” she replied. “It’s just a larger portion than I expected.”

He’d filled it with an entire kilogram of meat. “Instead of a lady’s portion, I tried to give you a cultivator’s.”

A croaking sound came from Huifen’s throat, and her hand shot to her mouth. She stared off in a sudden daze.

He almost asked her if she was okay but was more than half sure that she’d just choked back a laugh. He hadn’t seen her smile a single time, let alone laugh at something funny. From her follow up reaction, if he was right, it wasn’t an appropriate response for an ice fairy.

Instead of feeling apologetic, he was delighted. He wasn’t as naive as his father believed. He’d heard everything from his conversation her earlier, including his father’s advice to her about the dangers of her emotion numbing technique. He took his father’s side wholeheartedly. After seeing her holding back, he secretly set the goal for himself to make her genuinely laugh once before she left. That should be something to behold, and then he could always say he’d made an ice fairy giggle.

To save her from a moment’s embarrassment, he redirected the course of their conversation. “You’ll have to give me an honest critique on my white sauce. I went a little light on the pepper to make it easier on the stomach.”

She didn’t respond but forked a nice portion of sliced steak and generously dipped it in the sauce. Placing it in her mouth, she didn’t move for a long moment before she started to chew. Even then, she chewed slowly as if savoring it. After swallowing, she just sat there and blinked a couple times.

“It’s very good,” she eventually said. “It reminds me of my mother’s.”

He didn’t hide his smile. “Eat to your heart’s content and just ask if you want any more.”

After that, he left her there to enjoy her food and went to fetch another chair. He waited a while before returning so as not to seem too imposing. Since she’d asked him to show him more of his experiments, he didn’t want to leave her for too long either. When he came back, she was already more than halfway done with her plate.

He set his chair against the same wall the bed she sat on stood up against. He was far enough away that he wouldn’t interrupt her, but it was close enough to also make for easy conversation.

“Is your mother also a cultivator?” he said, asking a probing question to see if she’d preferred to talk or just watch.

Her fork stopped midway between her mouth and her plate. “She was also a disciple of the Ice Phoenix Sect…”

He hadn’t missed her emphasis on was, so he spoke no further. With a raising of his palm, the lightning lion’s right eye appeared before him, and he started tweaking it again.

By the time she was finished with her plate, he’d completely lost himself in his work. Tilting and rotating the eye as needed, he began focusing on its side profile when Huifen asked, “Why do you spend so much time working on your illusions? Besides scaring dire beasts, it doesn’t seem very practical.”

Without taking his eyes off the too-straight line he was trying to round, he replied. “Well, during the day, I focus more on combat techniques, so I only spend about a quarter of the day on these illusions, give or take. The benefit is that it improves my control and understanding of the element’s characteristics. Also, it’s a good step in preparing to understand the fifth law, Awaken.”

“Don’t tell me—”

He diverted his attention to look at her and saw the curbed astonishment on her face. “No, no,” he said. “I’ve only reached small success in the Fourth law of Sound and Fire, so I’m still a long way from figuring the fifth law out. The rest of my elements are still at the third law, although I am especially proud of recently reaching large success with Ice. It’s almost as difficult as lightning because of my natural yang. Only my lightning is still at small success.”

She looked back down to her plate that was now in her lap. She could accept that Chao had a unique talent with laws, but the fifth law and above were supposed to be impossible for anyone of the lower realm. Even the fourth law was probably out of the reach of most old monsters.

But then he added, “I’m just trying to follow the way my mother did it.”

The fork fell from her grip, but this time, she caught it before it was out of her reach.

He quickly looked away to pretend he hadn’t seen what happened and acted like he was focused on his illusion.

What did he do now?

“Your mother was an incredible woman,” Huifen said sincerely.

The comment caught him off guard, and a wave of emotion hit him, but his features didn’t change. He made a conscious effort to not look at her. “Thank you.”

He didn’t know why he had the sudden urge, but he decided to fill in some parts of the story she hadn’t heard. “Father didn’t meet Mother until she was well into her forties. Of course, a forty-year-old earth realm cultivator is still considered young. She was only at the fourth law, Morph, at the time, and she didn’t commonly use all of them. Ice, Water, Wind, and Nature were her main focus, and she could do the second law of most the others. She made me practice all of them though from the beginning because she felt she’d limited herself by not practicing everything when she was younger. Once she met Father, her cultivation quickly increased, and she made it to the sky realm before she died. It was only then that she figured out how to Awaken an elemental spirit in her preferred elements. I want to do it ten years younger than her and with every element.”

By the end, he was speaking through gritted teeth and his breathing had grown heavy. He’d meant to say something that might impress her, but he’d ended up directing his words as a challenge to himself.

He knew how absurd it was to talk about learning Awaken in such an arrogant manner. Awaken was the ability to enliven a soulless entity into your technique that would act with a certain amount of intelligence and according to your will. That was why the fourth law, Morph, was so important. The first three laws allowed one to manipulate an element and its natural characteristics, but Morph allowed a person to change these characteristics. It was the beginning stages of defying the heavens. Awaken was to take that absurdity one step further. It was like having a sword that could dodge, parry, and attack on its own.

“Have you heard of the tribulation realm?” Huifen said softly.

He nodded. “Only a few times in my lessons. I can’t say I know much about it.”

“Well, in this world, the overlord realm is considered the highest realm under heaven. Large sects and nations fight each other to get as many overlords to join them as possible. Without one, their future is limited. There are very few of them. On the Monolith continent, there are no more than twenty, and more than a quarter of them belong to the Fire and Ice Phoenix Sects. In all of Lifestone, there are a couple hundred at most. Some of them might be content, but most seek the same thing—to break into the tribulation realm.”

Setting her fork on her plate, she shifted slightly on the bed to face him without having to turn her head. “It is considered to be the first stage of the divine realm. At its beginning levels, a person’s Spiritual Sea is opened up so they can sense the world around them. Not only does this greatly heighten one’s perceptions, but it also makes them able to perceive the divine realm itself. Getting there is normally difficult, but Lifestone has a few sects directly associated with the divine realm, including the Ice Phoenix Sect that I’m a part of. It doesn’t happen often, but every couple centuries, someone ascends.”

Lifting his eyes, Chao lost some of his apprehension as she spoke. Her level tone might have not been emotion-filled, but it was easy to listen to.

“The point is,” she said, “it is commonly believed, even among those of the divine realm, that the earliest a person is capable of perceiving the fifth law and above is at the tribulation realm. Even the forth law should only be accessible at the overlord realm or higher. Because of the heavenly tribulation a person must face when breaking out of the tribulation realm, if they survive, they are even more sensitive to the laws because their bodies have been imbued with them by the heavens. The fact that your mother perceived Awaken at only the sky realm should be impossible. When you do it too, you may be the only other person to have ever done so for hundreds of thousands of years. Possibly ever.”

Hearing her, an ice fairy, compliment his mother to such an extent left him embarrassed beyond comprehension. So, of course, he changed the subject. “Long Chao thanks Senior Sister for her kind words, but this humble one is just thankful you’re no longer trying to freeze him.”

Her expression sharpened like a well-honed dagger. “I apologized for my earlier behavior already. Did you not also say you forgave me?”

He reduced his lion’s eye to nothing, then held out his hands as if pleading for peace. “It was a joke—I was teasing you is all. And I realized that it’s probably among one of the most foolish things I’ve ever done.” Bowing his head without daring to delay long enough to come to his feet and bow completely, he added, “Excuse my lack of discretion.”

“I’ll forgive you this time, since you saved my life…” She diverted her glance, looking as uncomfortable as he felt.

She was the first to break the silence. “Your ice laws have reached the third law? Can you show me?”

Happy to have a distraction from what had just happened, he didn’t reply with words but action. There was a jug he kept filled with water nearby that he grabbed. It was old, so he had no intention of drinking it, but uncorking it, he Borrowed from it until there was an orb the size of a marble. With Enhance from the ice laws, it quickly froze. He put the jug back, then walked over to sit down at her feet just to the side of the chair that was holding her food tray.

She made the motion of trying to scoot back, but he ignored it. Holding up the icy marble between them, he began. “We can use this as our foundation element.”

He then started to explain to her the basics of Borrowing, Creating, and Enhance while showing her examples of each. “You probably use these three laws indirectly all the time in your daily life when you do things like chilling your drinks or drawing the cold out of a bath, but because you’re relying on your energy’s natural characteristics instead of laws themselves, it acts as a crutch. The exception is the first and easiest law, Borrow. It’s so uncommonly practiced cultivators because why would you Borrow ice when it’s so easy for you to summon it with your own qi? But that doesn’t mean you can’t practice the laws yourself, even now. For Borrow, you need very little energy, so if you want to try it, then it should be safe. Just use your hand that doesn’t have restricted meridians.”

“Me? You want me to try?” She was glaring at the ice marble like it was some foreign substance.

“And why not? Forget any theory of the laws you’ve heard. You have practiced with ice qi for years. You already have a feel for what it can do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you already have a grasp of small success of even the third law, Enhance. There’s one way to find out. Let’s get you accustomed to Borrow, then in a few days, when you’re better, we can try Enhance. Now, Borrow from this marble while using as little of your own energy as possible.”

After all he said, she didn’t back down. Instead, she looked at the marble like it was her mortal enemy. She extended her hand but didn’t come near to touching it. Likely because she’d come too close to touching him.

He watched as a tiny stream of energy flowed from her palm and reached out the rest of the way to touch the marble. Almost immediately, small layers of ice began to build up on the side.

“Nope,” Chao said affably.

Her stream of energy was immediately cut off.

He didn’t give her time to object. “Don’t try to create more ice, but summon what is already there to you. This is ice, so you already know the ins and outs of how it works. Imagine your energy taking a small bite out of this marble and it floating back over to your palm.”

She then extended her hand once more and held it palm up. Her stream of energy reached out, and this time there were not extra layers that formed, but it was as if a phantom piece of ice had been summoned from the one in his hand. A smaller orb floated toward her palm and touched down. As its coolness touched her skin, it dissolved into the air like it hadn’t been there at all. Her eyes were wider than his illusionary lion’s as she gaped down at where it had been.

“I did it…” she said under her breath.

“See,” he chuckled. “Ice is easy for you because you’re so familiar with it. Trying to Borrow from anything else would be difficult for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Water will probably be especially easy for you to grasp since it’s really just a different state of Ice. We can try that, and you can also try to Enhance your ice, but not until your internally injuries have recovered at least. It does require more energy flow. Try it a few more times, then you can try Borrowing from the water in your cup.”

“Okay,” she said with determination. Her energy once again drilled into the marble in his hand.

They didn’t keep at it for just a few minutes, but into the late hours of the night. It didn’t take her long to be able to Burrow ice and hold it there without it dissipating, but Borrowing from water was much more difficult. Still, she had many small successes here and there that kept her motivated.

By the time they stopped, Chao was almost completely drained of energy from holding the ice together for most of the night. He’d already spent much of his energy during the day, so this only added to the emptiness he felt. Huifen seemed to realize this and suggested they stop.

He took her tray and cleaned her plate before returning with a wad of bedding. He was more than ten meters away, between her and the fireplace, where he sat up a place on the floor when she asked, “What are you doing? You don’t have to wait on me even in your sleep.”

He’d subconsciously glanced at the bed she was lying on before he could take it back.

“This bed is yours?” she said.

“It’s fine, really. I should probably move it further away from the fireplace tomorrow so that you’re more comfortable. I do a lot of my experimenting here, so I moved my bed closer for convenience and, because of my natural yang, I feel more comfortable here. But if this is too awkward, there’s plenty of places I can sleep.”

“No, it’s okay. I wasn’t aware.” She rolled over onto her back so as not to look at him directly.

Chao realized he was imposing on her, even if she didn’t want to admit it. He knew not everyone slept in an open-roomed cabin. Since she’d given way and this wasn’t a concession he wanted to make, he stayed. He also wouldn’t let her go without one more surprise. Pulling his mother’s old pipa he now used in place of his old miniature one, he began to play a qi empowered lullaby. Even if he was drained of energy, his sound laws were as strong as his fire, so a few minutes was easy for him. This also wasn’t the same lullaby from before, but one his mother had played when she was putting him to sleep at night.

When Huifen heard it, she stiffened but didn’t say a word. From where she laid flat on her back, he watched her nostrils flare if ever so slightly, which caused the cute end of her nose to twitch. What he was doing was totally inappropriate, but he didn’t care. He learned from her conversation with his father that she was affected by his music more than a normal person because of her Heart of Ice technique. He wasn’t exactly trying to woo her, but he was showing off just a bit while helping her sleep.

Instead of saying anything, she closed her eyes. He knew she’d yet to fall asleep, but he still whispered, “Goodnight, Senior Sister.”

Only when her breathing had stilled did he stop. Putting his pipa away, he lay down facing her and traced the lines of her face a few times before turning over on his back and closing his eyes. He hadn’t cultivated energy at all. Sleeping would at least allow his meridians to fill even if it couldn’t circulate his energy for him. It just meant that he’d have some extra cultivating to do in the morning.

***

When his son had fallen asleep, Long Zan pulled the curtain back on the window that looked down from the loft to the first floor. He saw the two youngsters had gone on past midnight. He had expected the girl’s curiosity to win out and his son to be willing to show her a few things, but the boy’s boldness was a pleasant surprise. To dare to pull out his pipa at the end there…

Long An, if you could only see your Little Chao now.

Maybe it was finally time for him to give the boy a little push to leave home… Zan hadn’t forced the issue before because even if Chao was negligent in his energy gathering and martial cultivation, that didn’t mean he wasn’t hard working. Minus the boy’s normal cultivation, it was common for him to cultivate heaven’s laws for more than twelve hours a day. Even in his sleep, his mind was busy reasoning out the most recent challenges the laws set before him.

Glancing to the ice fairy, he chuckled to himself. “Well, maybe not tonight.”

If he pressed him to leave with her, she’d undoubtedly break his heart, but that would be good for him. The question he had to ask himself was if he thought she was the kind of motivation he needed right now. He had no intention of forcing his son to pursue the apex of the martial arts, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it often. Before his late wife had passed away, he’d often spoke to her at long length of what the future could hold if she made such a decision. If he’d only had a couple hundred years more with her, he knew she’d come around. Besides, she would have reached the tribulation realm eventually with him as her cultivation partner, and he knew she’d gain interest once she was able to perceive the realm above. But now she was gone…

She was gone, but even though Chao hadn’t reached the same peak, in some ways, the boy had already surpassed her. If the divine realm couldn’t see the jewel he’d found in Long An, then perhaps it was even more appropriate that they see the heavenly jade that was her son. Yes, Zan wanted his son to pursue the highest realm, and maybe this heaven-blessed child, Fairy Huifen, could help stir up such a desire inside the boy.

In truth, he didn’t know if Chao or his mother would be able to defy the divine realm as they did this lesser one, but it was a question that burned inside him.

It was a providential meeting that had brought the girl here, so he’d wait and see what happened, but not without having a little fun of his own.