David

There was, of course, an investigation - one that would last four days. It was performed by each of the three peaks, and the way they went about it was to come to that humble little house on Earth Peak to observe them separately. Whenever David looked out the window, there was an inner disciple watching over them - for their protection, according to everyone who came in.

On the first day, Fairy Guan had escorted them back home after forcing a pill into Elder Pang's throat wound. When the elder had made no movements after nearly a minute, she'd cursed quietly and called for inner disciples from within Earth Peak. The guard had been found knocked out, but relatively unharmed, just inside and he'd woken up in time to wrap a white shroud around Elder Pang and carry him into the peak's medical bay.

While they headed back towards that little house on the hill, David couldn't contain himself - he asked Fairy Guan if the elder had died, in the hope that he hadn't. Fairy Guan did not speak, so David presumed the man had.

When they arrived, she had only one question for them - if they thought they might have done anything to cause the attack. All three of them, including Feiyan, frantically shook their heads. The peak master ushered them inside and told them, without any uncertainty, not to leave the house. She left behind only the scent of lavenders.

David decided to do something productive with his time, so he spent the rest of the day penning his foundation poem on thin sheets of bamboo paper with a calligraphy set he'd discovered in a cupboard.

On the second day, Peak Master Feng strode into the building as if he owned it - which, David realized in retrospect, was likely the case. This was Earth Peak, after all.

Leng Qitai served the Peak Master tea, both to be polite and to show off his qi technique. Feng gave Qitai a grandfatherly smile that looked out of place on his face - it was a little too youthful. Feng gave them a lecture about the currents of natural qi in regard to apertures and David took notes with his calligraphy set.

Feng then saw the pile of Kanhu's Great Men and Great Scripture cards, and the pair had a heated debate about their divergent ideas on the balance of sutra cards and cultivator cards in a proper deck, which bored everyone else - including Alice - to tears.

After spending an hour or two with them, Feng left on official business, having asked them no questions about the incident whatsoever.

On the third day, an inner disciple wearing the working boots of Sky Peak knocked at their door when the morning bells rang.

It was clear that he didn't want to be there - the questions he asked were short and clipped. Why were you there at that time? Have you offended anyone that the sect needs to be wary of? What were your names, again?

He was gone within fifteen minutes.

They were, however, still not allowed to leave. Feiyan had gotten a little stir-crazy - she paced around, complained about the lack of maids, cried into Alice's shoulder and then tried to play Alice's guqin. Feiyan turned out to be less than musically inclined.

David put his thoughts onto the topic of Core Formation and tried to put together all the things he'd learned throughout his journey. Alice was still unwilling to speak to him in private about her health issues.

On the very last day, he had a pleasant surprise. Of all the people to visit them, he didn't expect Elder Pang, sporting a high collar and a deep frown.

"You're alive!" blurted Feiyan. She had been practicing her story about the man's heroic sacrifice for his favorite outer disciples over the past few hours.

Elder Pang let himself into the living room and sat down across from David, then immediately drained the cup of tea that Qitai handed to him. "Did you expect otherwise?" he asked, with the ghost of a sneer. "I'll have you know I sustained a far greater wound when I was your age, before I had even become a cultivator. It was when the invaders from the Western Continent came - harder times."

"How did you survive?" asked Alice, who wanted to hear his story.

"I awoke, of course. I was discovered still dying by the Widow of Tianbei, and she brought me into the Sect. But enough about me," he said. He slipped a hand into a pocket hidden in his robe and withdrew a slip of paper, then passed it along to Feiyan. "The Fairy says this belongs to you."

Feiyan pinched the corners with her fingers as if it might crumble to dust before her eyes.

"Remember to keep your valuables on you at all times. Lose it again and you might not be so fortunate," he admonished.

"What is that?" asked David.

"Never you mind." "My grandmother's talisman!" Elder Pang and Feiyan had spoken at the same time.

Elder Pang pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I now understand how you lost it in the first place," he said. "On an official note, the three of you are free to continue about as before. Old Feng's lecture will happen at noon today in the main hall of Earth Peak, in case you've forgotten. Outer disciples are heavily encouraged to attend," he said.

Had it really been a week since Fairy Guan's lecture?

"All of you should know where I reside - it is where you received your sect robes. As you are aware, I am available for help if you have any issues related to the sect or adjusting to life in the sect," he rattled off. The words seemed so practiced and familiar to his voice, but his eyes were clear - don't bother me with stupid concerns.

With that, he stood, coughed lightly, and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

"Elder Pang is so friendly!" exclaimed Feiyan, still clutching onto her talisman. David was sure he had a competing definition of friendly, but he realized immediately after that it was an ungrateful thought - Pang did save their lives, after all.

After another round of tea, the five of them decided to head for Earth Peak a little bit early. Even David - who was obviously the most patient amongst them - was excited to be anywhere else in the world than under house arrest.

As with the last lesson, there was a constant stream of disciples headed towards the peak in question. To David's delight, the unmistakable pair of a young girl sitting on a burly man's shoulder began to pass them and then stopped.

"Chow, Ji and friends!" boomed the man.

"Daoists Wei and Wei," greeted Alice. David waved, along with the other three. "Where is Senior Sister Liang?"

The Weis exchanged glances, before the 'girl' spoke. "She's not been very social since the disaster at the auction."

"Disaster?" David asked. Daoist Liang had been selling her wares, but in the excitement of that night - and their own series of disasters - he'd forgotten about her entirely.

"You haven't heard? Some swindler from Qiaoxin traded her a bunk scripture for all of her tincture, then vanished. At least we think he was from Qiaoxin," said one of the Weis. He sighed. "It always comes back to bite you if it's too good to be true, at auctions, at least."

They walked as a group towards Earth Peak.

"We weren't attending the main auction," explained the smaller Wei, "we were trying to find some unworked jade and possibly other precious metals."

"Were you successful?" asked Feiyan, who loved jewelry.

Wei nodded excitedly, twirling her ponytail. "We bid successfully on three pieces of stone, and two of them contained jade of decent quality."

Feiyan and Kanhu nodded as if that were entirely normal, but David frowned. "Only two?"

Wei chuckled, picking at his beard. "You must be unfamiliar with how fresh jade is often bought, junior. It's considered inauspicious to crack open a stone with a deposit within if you're not about to create something with it, up here in the north. Over time, it's turned into a bit of a scam, how it's sold."

That seemed a bit strange to David, but he made no comment, choosing instead to nod.

There were more pleasantries exchanged as they walked into Earth Peak and along the unnaturally silent corridor.

"What's in these rooms?" Alice asked, pointing to the various doors.

"Junk," said both Weis, both shrugging. They looked at each other and chuckled.

"Thousands of years of failed experiments that no one's bothered to clean up," said Wei, checking her nails. "When you become an inner disciple, you can ask the Sect Master to use any of the rooms to store stuff if you'd like, but they're not very secure, because he forgets which rooms he's unlocked for whoever asked after a few years. Everyone tries to find something of value in them, it's a rite of passage."

"What is the Peak Master like?" asked Kanhu, who liked the man already for sharing his card game hobby.

Wei shrugged, jostling the girl on his shoulders. She glared at him. "He's a bit aloof, unless you talk about something that interests him. Good teacher, though. Not as good as the Sword Fairy, if you cultivate the Skybound Scripture, but good. If you lose his patience, he'll remember you're not worth talking to, even if he's forgotten why."

They filed into the main hall together and it was just as loud, if not louder, than David remembered from the previous times he'd been here.

Today, there were no stalls, they had been cleared away - in fact, the only things unchanged in the room were the bulletins along the walls and the lighting. Little wooden benches numbering over a hundred were populated with three or four disciples to each - it was easily as crowded here as it had been in the sword platform, though the space was significantly smaller.

The benches were arranged in a circle around the room. Disciples sat with their friends - that seemed to be quite common in the Ascending Sky.

David and Alice slid onto the same bench as the Daoists Wei, while Feiyan, Kanhu and Qitai colonized a bench behind them.

They continued to discuss nothing in particular before the lights suddenly dimmed, once, twice, then thrice. Almost immediately a hush fell over the crowd.

A voice rang out from the back of the room.

"By means of a finger to illustrate that a finger is not a finger is not a good plan - not a plan so good as to do so by what is acknowledged to not be a finger. By means of a horse to illustrate that a horse is a not a horse is also not a good plan - not a plan so good as to do so by what is acknowledged to not be a horse!"

There were some scattered chuckles in the audience. Alice grinned triumphantly at David and whispered the name of the arcane text that the quote had come from to him. Of course she knew where the quote was from.

Peak Master Feng had arrived, wearing his pill-box shaped hat. Feng was carrying an implement David had seen before in martial arts movies - a horse’s tail that had turned white with age affixed to the end of a stick roughly the length of an arm. It had always reminded David of an overly large paintbrush. As he walked, he swung it to and fro. It swished.

"That, my disciples, is one of the many verses passed onto us by our well esteemed- and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise - exceedingly wise forefathers."

The laughter grew.

"This is what it means to be a Daoist!" Feng stepped into the ring and the Yin Fire Lamps returned to their full brightness. "It is to make sense of nonsense, it is to make powerful the weak, to make impotent the strong, to make light of learning, but also to learn!"

The hundreds of disciples nodded along.

"It is to temper the body, to take in the breath of the world - this is what all of you are most interested in, is it not?"

He paused.

"Is it not?"

There were some barely verbal sounds of agreement.

"But I can tell you that the Daoism practiced by those who have come to Sever is rarely concerned with the body, and often more concerned with the spirit and the mind. Why is that the case? Why indeed?"

Feng looked skyward.

This certainly wasn't like any class David had taken before - but in the moment, he did wish he'd had the chance to go to university before they'd met the lightning.