“Well, this is a little underwhelming.” I frowned.

At first glance, there was nothing wrong with the wall of water standing unsupported in front of me, held upright by magic. I poked it, and except for my finger getting wet, nothing changed. But it had taken me ages to take in the water qi from around the training courtyard and use it to form this wall. And there might not have been a lake nearby, but it had rained earlier, and the air still felt damp, with rivulets of water running down the short walls.

I cut my connection to the qi, and quickly stepped back to avoid getting splashed as it crashed down.

“Water is not well suited to defensive arts,” Aston replied. He looked as unruffled as always, not a hair out of place even though we’d been up for over twenty-four hours already.

To be fair, I didn’t feel tired either. That would take some getting used to. Cultivators could use their qi to go without food or sleep for weeks, even longer at his level. Generally, I still tried to keep a healthy routine, eating regularly and sleeping at least a few hours a day.

I’m not that pressed for time, I told myself again. And familiar activities are comforting. So it’s not a waste.

And, at least, I hadn’t had any foreboding dreams. I usually remembered my dreams, that hadn’t changed, and they were only as weird as usual.

I’d been here for more than a week at this point. A week since I’d died on Earth. Any other possibility was getting less and less likely, and I tried not to delude myself. Increasingly, even throwing myself into studying and training couldn’t keep me distracted from dark thoughts. The feeling of unreality that had been wrapped around me like a barrier was breaking down.

I shook my head to rid myself of these musings and focused back on Aston. “I still don’t know what your affinity is,” I told him. He kept his presence veiled, so I had some idea of his strength, but details eluded me.

“It’s perfectly suitable for my task, Princess Inaris.”

I snorted. I could just order him to tell me, but that felt petty. Let him be mysterious if he wants, I’ll find out soon enough.

“I’m honestly surprised at your presence,” I admitted. “Sixth-stage cultivators aren’t exactly weak or common. Wouldn’t you accomplish more with a different assignment, rather than following me around? I mean, at least here. Mother isn’t going to let an assassin succeed.”

That realization had dampened my uncertainty a lot. I’d researched all of those assassination attempts, and they’d all happened when either I or Mother was away, or she was in secluded cultivation. A light-affinity eighth-stage cultivator just would have seen something like that coming a mile away.

“With all due respect, I believe you do not realize your importance.”

“Importance? Is that why I need to have crazy progress in cultivation?” I folded my arms. “I know I’m the crown princess, but Mother has at least a thousand years in her, and I’m not even at the fourth stage yet. So please, explain.”

Aston regarded me for a moment before he replied. “As you wish. I will be blunt. You are not just an heir to the throne, Your Highness, you’re the heir. You’re a high-level genius, a cultivator with remarkable strength for your age and enormous potential. You’re the only real option. Your siblings are too young and haven’t proven their strength, and their potential doesn’t equal yours.”

“Damn it, way to put pressure on someone, Aston.” I sighed. There was enough pressure just from Mother’s deadline. That explains something, at least. I guess I underestimated this situation. “There’s really no one else? What about other scions of the family?”

“Unfortunately, Her Majesty has no other close kin. I believe the closest are second cousins too old to be realistic options.”

“Oh, right.” I remembered what I’d read. “Grandmother had no other children, right?”

He waved his hand. “In fact, she did, but they died long before the war, along with her husband.”

“So she refused to remarry or have other kids.” I nodded.

I’d read about how our dynasty came to power, two hundred years ago. Not long by the standards of this world. The previous one had declined, and when the old Emperor died without a suitable heir, civil war ensued. Before the war, the Leri clan had been a prominent noble family. My grandmother, their head, was a rare late-bloomer in terms of cultivation. She reached the highest stages late, the eighth at the start of the unrest. She was already old, and qi couldn’t reverse or even halt aging, just slow it down.

“But why didn’t she have other children earlier? Or why change her mind after all?”

“I believe she intended her nephew to succeed her, but he died in the last year of the war. Then his daughter was murdered by poison several decades later.”

I grimaced. So, eventually, she had a daughter after all. Mother must have been under so much pressure. “And that’s why there aren’t many possible heirs now.”

I paused, frowning. “Didn’t the old Emperor have children?”

“He did.” Aston’s face tightened. “Two of them died in childhood. Two of them died to assassins. The intended heir suffered humiliation after losing to a noble scion of a lower stage. He was disgraced, sent into exile and ultimately killed at the start of the war. His successor only reached the sixth stage before her Father’s death. She married into the Wei clan, which dominated at the start of the war, to prop up their pretense to the throne, and was executed afterwards. His other progeny were weak, and joined other clans or were executed.”

I whistled, feeling a cold shiver tracing down my back. No wonder rulers here have several partners, if their children die like flies. “Sounds like Imperial children live dangerously. That’s why you’re here.”

“Indeed, Your Highness. Killing you would destabilize the Empire.”

And that’s why I’m a target, I concluded. For hostile foreign powers, or just nobles who want to weaken the Crown.

I shook my head. “There’s got to be a better way of doing this. I mean, I’m not saying I’m unfit, but there’s too many risks in that system. Even if I was a fan of monarchy, that would be concerning.”

Aston frowned a little, obviously put off by my words but trying not to show it. “The system has worked for millennia. In this world, strength and familial bonds are crucial.”

“Yeah, I don’t really see that being good for a culture.”

“Maybe you would,” he snapped, “if you stopped hiding in your tower and went out into the world.”

I had an angry retort on my lips when Aston paled a bit and dropped to a knee, bowing his head. “Forgive me. That disrespect was deplorable. I have no excuse.”

“No, no!” I gesticulated quickly. “I value honesty. I want you to criticize me. Please, get up.”

I’d sort of gotten used to people bowing and even kneeling, but those were strangers. Seeing that from Aston was extremely awkward.

Luckily, he stood up again quickly, nodding his head. He still looked shamefaced, not an expression that fit the collected guard captain at all.

At that moment, a bit of dust was kicked up by the arrival of another powerful presence. I recognized Ling Ta before I turned to meet him.

“I notice you stopped training, Your Highness. Would you like some advice?”

I smiled at his timely interruption. That had to be intentional. “Actually, I was finished doing techniques. But I did have a question.”

“Of course.”

“What exactly is meant by the ‘peak’ of a particular stage? And do you need to reach it to advance to the next one?”

“It means the highest strength possible for that cultivator within that stage. Improving his cultivation any further without ascending to the next stage is impossible. Except for reaching forward into the next stage with ‘taking a half-step’ onto it. You do not need to reach it to break through, although most do. And lingering too long is often taken as a sign that someone will advance no further.”

“So, I could break through now.”

Teacher frowned. “Possibly, but I have to advice you that a failed attempt will have grievous consequences.”

I shrugged at that, unimpressed. The last few days, cultivation had felt so easy that progress just happened by itself. I’d done in days what took others months. I knew it was the aftereffects of my soul journey and discovery of my special ability. Most transmigrators got a short boost from the experiences and “enlightenment” they brought from their world.

Maybe it was arrogance, but I felt ready and itching to tackle the breakthrough. Besides, if some of it was the need to submerge myself into deep meditation, to suppress my feelings and clear my head by diving into the qi, no one needed to know. So I sat down in the lotus position and closed my eyes.

It was hard to get settled at first. The conversation had brought thoughts of my own family, my real family back on Earth. I’d tried to push it down, but now that I was free of distractions, the tension returned. I wonder how they’re doing. Have Mom and Dad held a funeral? I don’t care if I’m buried in the church graveyard anymore. Are they still sorting through my things? Is Felix studying for his exams?

Taking a deep breath, I tried to quiet those thoughts. They wouldn’t do me any good. Instead, I concentrated on my breath. In, out. In, out.

Slowly, I expanded my awareness to cover the qi in my surroundings. Distantly, I noted that the others had given me space, but I didn’t let that interrupt my focus. The noon sun shone down brightly, giving me lots of life-giving qi, and the scattered pillars cast shadows to balance it.

I dove down, deeper, until I could see the qi again the way I had before. Until I could see it layered over everything, a formless mass of potential, different states and different ideas combined into a whole.

Then I dove down even deeper. I reached until I could see something that might have been a single unit of qi, or maybe just my imagination. Trying to peer any deeper strained my senses, like trying to look at something too far away to make out the details. And from there, I widened my perception, trying not to lose depth.

Slowly, I started gathering qi into myself. It went quickly, willingly almost, its absorption as natural as breathing without it.

I circulated my qi, compacting it to make room for more. I infused some into my meridians, some into the structure of my core. At first, I alternated between light and dark, pushing until my core couldn’t take any more.

Then, I adjusted. I pulled in both light qi and darkness qi, not quite simultaneously, but close enough that I could send them together. I swirled them around and pressed them into my core, into my body.

Finally, I stopped my circulation, letting all the qi in my meridians flow into my dantian. It strained, and I compacted the qi, squeezing and pressing with all of my willpower. And all the while, I kept breathing, kept taking in new qi.

I condensed the qi until it made my core crack, then I let it go, exploding through my body again. The violent flow sent stabs of pain through me, but I was too far immersed to care. I just kept cultivating.

Then I did it again.

And again and again, until my core was barely held together as one mass, making the process even harder. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to. So I didn’t. Instead, I pushed all my qi together, drawing in more in great breaths, hammering down on my core.

Until it expanded, the invisible barrier surrounding it buckling, and it formed anew. I kept cultivating, sending the surge of qi through my meridians, strengthening them, opening new ones and washing out the impurities blocking them, and filling up my core again. And still, I breathed in qi. I cultivated until my expanded core settled.