Mitch was not sure what to do. He had known that Kanshou knew more than he was saying, but having him pop up in his apartment as a ghost, especially since he seemed entirely in control, had freaked him out.

What did he really know about the guy? Jack shit. He'd met the man randomly and had nothing to base an opinion on really. The old man had seemed kind but stern, but that was before Mitch knew the scale of the secrets Kanshou had been holding back. He was obviously more than the pre-Tolling expert Mitch had taken him for, but Mitch could not figure out how that was possible. There was no clear or reliable record of any of this prior to the Messenger, so how could someone alive today know what Kanshou knew? Maybe he was a member of a secret organization dedicated to maintaining the knowledge of the previous ages?

Mitch shook his head; conspiracy theories would get him nowhere. And, he needed to know what Kanshou was going to tell him. Anything he could learn was better than what he knew now. Yes, he felt he was making progress, but that progress always came at the risk of life and limb; which Mitch did not enjoy.

His mind made up Mitch finally made his way to the door and headed out towards Kanshou's shop.

The boy was late. Unacceptable. He had used one of the few jade chits he had to talk to his superiors through the blocking formation and was now officially tied to the boy.

His superiors had agreed that the boy's discoveries created a value which merited intervention and he had been ordered to interact more directly with the boy and had also been given permission to tell him things ahead of schedule. He was sure this would have been even more readily approved if they had known that the boy could soulwalk, however poorly, but he had not known it himself at the time.

Telling his superiors all of this had been a risky move for him. If the boy lived and contributed significant knowledge, then he would be much rewarded. If the boy died and his potential was lost, whereas before he might have escaped with no consequences, he would be severely punished.

This put him under some pressure, and he decided that if the boy would not come to him, he would just have to go to the boy.

Just as he reached this conclusion, he felt the boy's aura enter the range of his senses. He still had a gut reaction to the boy's aura; it was as calm as some of his most senior superiors. If it had been stronger, he might have been fooled into thinking the boy was much more capable than he was; but, as it was, his aura was still incredibly weak to the point of barely being perceptible.

He schooled his face to its standard passivity, the boy would be here soon, and it would not do for him to see his nerves.

Mitch stood cautiously in the doorway, the spartan vestibule suddenly seeming dangerous; there was a viper here, wearing the skin of a man.

The black mamba known as Kanshou stepped out from the back per his modus operandi. This time, however, rather than seeming mysterious, it appeared insidious. It was only a change in his perception rather than any change in Kanshou's behavior, but it was real enough to him.

Kanshou must have noticed Mitch's unease because he stopped in the doorway to the public area. He stood still for a moment, his arms behind his back once again, before nodding his head towards the hallway behind him.

"Follow me." He was using the voiceless mental communication he had used the day before. Without waiting for a reply he turned and headed down the hallway. Mitch didn't move, and when Kanshou reached one of the doors in the back, he stood to wait passively with his back straight and chin up. He met Mitch's eyes calmly, no sign of aggression or duplicity within his own.

Mitch stood for a couple of moments longer meeting Kanshou's gaze; his own gaze revealing nothing of his inner thoughts, but his body language giving away his hesitancy.

Did he really want to go anywhere with this unknown? Beyond that door could be a death trap. Some part of him knew that this was unreasonable, if Kanshou had wanted him dead he would not have interfered when he was about to destroy himself outside of his body. If that was indeed what would have happened, a more cynical portion of his mind inserted. Still, it was challenging to meet deception with trust. And his cynicism had a point; maybe touching that thread would have done nothing at all, this could all be a ploy.

Steeling himself, Mitch reaffirmed to himself that he couldn't pass up this opportunity to gain new information. Knowledge is power, especially when one has no other power of one's own. Straightening his back, dropping his shoulders and raising his chin Mitch stepped forward into the hallway.

When Kanshou saw Mitch moving toward him, he nodded slightly and headed down the stairs which lay behind the door. Basements were not common in this area due to the loose soil; Kanshou had chosen this building from among others precisely due to this feature which he had since added to. In fact, he had created four sub-basements, although he would only be taking Mitch to the first: his meditation room.

Mitch followed down the stairs trepidatiously and was made even more cautious when he got to the bottom of those stairs only to see Kanshou making some double handed gestures that could have easily been confused for finger tutting. This was different however because at the conclusion of his gesticulation part of the floor evaporated revealing a previously disguised trap door which Kanshou lifted and proceeded to head downwards again.

Even more cautious now, Mitch approached the entrance to the sub-basement gingerly. Breathing deep and fast to psyche himself up he headed down the stairs.

He was greeted by an unexpected sight. He had fully expected to find something akin to a kill room hidden at the base of the stairs; instead, it was an exceedingly peaceful room. The space was circular rather than quadrangular and had water shooting from a spigot in the walls which fell into a pool that divided into two streams which followed the circumference of the room. The ceiling was a pale shade of sky blue, but it was not painted, at least not in any way that Mitch had ever seen. There was a depth to it, and it honestly gave the impression that one was looking up at the southwestern sky: a forever deepening blue.

The walls were evergreen and the floor was legitimately a sandy soil. Several birdcages hung from the ceiling and more than a few terrariums held a collection of insects that varied from mundane to exotic. Several atmospherics could be seen as well; the giant cone from a Ponderosa Pine, juniper berries, and a significant selection of succulents just to name a few. It was actually relatively kitschy, and Mitch had a distinct feeling that it was a very personal space.

"This is my meditation chamber. I fell in love with the native environment here many years ago and adopted it in this room. You are the first person besides me to see it."

It was the first time Mitch had seen a hint of humanity from Kanshou, and it both shocked him and put him at ease. One would need to be a true sociopath to show this personal side to someone and then still be cold enough to kill them. Mitch didn't completely let his guard down, but this went a long way towards putting him at ease.

"It is a nice space," he said aloud.

"Thank you," Kanshou said mentally, then, after a moment, "If you are able to soulwalk why do you not communicate by mind?"

"What is soulwalking?" Mitch asked, again using standard words to communicate.

"You don't know? Of course you don't, foolish of me. Soulwalking is what you did yesterday when you exited your body with your mind. Anyone who has the level of control needed to accomplish that should be able to communicate mind to mind."

"Yesterday," Mitch said. Kanshou nodded affirmatively.

"Yesterday was just an accident. I don't know how that happened. Well, I know how it happened, but not why." Mitch's mouth got away from him, and he said a bit more than he had intended. None of what he said was false, or even that important; he just hadn't wanted to give his hand away altogether right at the start.

"The let's start with how."

Mitch was unsure. This may fall into the category of "tell no one; no matter what." He had decided to sacrifice an uncountable number of his lives in pursuit of his own advancement. Sharing his methods might invalidate that and make his choice worth about as much as the dogshit he had stepped in on his way over this morning.

On the opposite side of that same token was the fact that if he shared nothing, he gained nothing. He wasn't ready to start giving up secrets though so he responded with: "You told me to be here. Let's start with that."

Really his counter-proposal was utterly logical: Kanshou had not so much invited him to the shop as told him that he must be there. Since Kanshou had taken the initiative, it was his place to explain just what the fuck was going on.

Kanshou did not seem to like that. Mitch got the impression that he was the type of person who was used to getting their way, and if they didn't get their way making everyone around them suffer for it. It was the briefest flicker of irritation in his expression, but to Mitch, who was hypersensitized to everything at the moment, it told an eloquent story. A story of doubt, determination, and an indomitable will. Kanshou would not be stopped by these minor emotional conflicts.

Kanshou looked at him for a time before silently agreeing to Mitch's unspoken conditions. A simple bob of the head was all that it took.

"Very well. I will tell you something of my story so that you may understand."

He paused, but Mitch did not hurry him. Being indelicate in a situation like this would ruin the whole thing.

"I was not born to this realm. I was born in the next realm, where those who exceed the bounds of this realm eventually go. That realm is many times the size of this one. Even if you counted all the stars in the sky of this realm that would not equal the number of people in the next realm."

Kanshou sighed.

"In the next realm, the energy is everything. Your affinity for it determines how you and your family are treated, whether you get a discount in the market, who lives and who dies. Your family is only treated as well as the abilities of the most advanced member merit. If your most senior family member is strong, then you will be treated well. Otherwise, you will be looked down upon and treated poorly." Kanshou had a dark look in his eyes and sighed again before he continued.

"In this realm, I am an unparalleled power. In the next realm, I am nearly powerless. I do not say this to garner sympathy: I do not care if you feel anything about my childhood or my current situation or not. I was sent here to watch over your kind during your punishment and to make sure that nothing untoward attacked the planet. Kanshou is not my name: it is my title. The best translation of Kanshou into English is 'warden.' Which has been my role for the last one-thousand years. I was sent here to be the enforcer of the punishment for your realm."

Mitch trembled. This was a completely different outcome than he had expected. He had not expected a tale to humanize the heartless dragon in front of him. Ok, "heartless" may be a strong word, but he did not want to see the information get scrubbed and lost either.

"Part of my role here is to watch for persons who develop unique training methods, particularly those that are equally or more effective to those known by the higher realm. This is where you come in. In the years since the inception of the punishment, your method is the only one that remains unique when compared to the knowledge base of the upper realm."

Mitch could barely keep up with everything he had just heard. Practically everything was a new concept, but the most relevant facts were: Kanshou is, in the strictest sense, an alien; there are realms beyond this one, and they seemingly give zero fucks for this realm except insofar as it could benefit themselves; somehow he was creating a new method dealing with the energy and the big wigs up top were interested in it. He really wasn't sure what to make of that though. He almost started to ask what the deal was when Kanshou kept talking.

"Because what you are doing has been deemed to be of value I have been authorized to provide some degree of special treatment to you. This comes with both benefits and caveats. You will receive advanced knowledge of the effects of the Reintegration, and your current status in relation to the same. Some resources will be provided, as needed, to speed you on the path that you have discovered. You will not be assisted on your path in any way. I will not tell you how things are done or what is either possible or not. Your value to the people I represent is determined entirely by your discoveries. At the same time, your failure benefits no one so you will receive some care to help to make pursuing this path moderately easier."

Mitch started to try to ask a question but was stopped by Kanshou's raised hand.

"I will finish, and then you may ask questions; although they may not be answered."

"The methods you have stumbled upon so far have, to the knowledge of myself of the persons I represent, not been seen before. I have been watching you train since the day after you first visited me. The compass you are using is both unparalleled and incredibly dangerous. You may not have known it but your entire time using that construct has been a continuous dance with death where you have barely come out ahead. If even one thing had gone wrong, you would have been burned from the inside out into a husk which not even your mother would recognize."

At this point, even if Mitch had wanted to speak, he would have been unable to. He had known that what he was doing was dangerous, but having it put in such stark terms seemed to put it in perspective. He did not like this perspective.

"For the most part I can tell you no more than I have previously, but there is one thing I can say for sure: you have already passed the point needed to survive the next Tolling. You have been passed that point for a while. However, the energy will not be your biggest enemy this time. We are entering the next stage, and there will be additional effects."

Mitch's heart leaped when Kanshou said he would survive the next Tolling, and crashed when he said that was not the issue at hand. He had worked so hard and risked so much to survive the energies of the next Tolling. To hear that he had accomplished this goal was gratifying and edifying. However, Kanshou was saying that there was an additional danger beyond just the energy this time which meant at least a portion of his efforts had been misspent.

Kanshou spent a moment watching Mitch process all of this. The things he had said so far were a lot to absorb, and he wanted to make sure Mitch was keeping up. Oversaturation of information was almost as dangerous as the lack of knowledge.

When he felt that Mitch was putting the pieces together in his mind, Kanshou began speaking again.

"What you need to focus on now is improving your combat abilities. When the next Tolling occurs plants and animals will begin to be mutated by the energy. The mutants become aggressive towards humans and attack. If you cannot fight, you will die."