The urge to do something, anything was back and as Jessica Kim sat in her bed, her restlessness pulled her up. She barely needed to sleep which threw her off when she would as always go to bed at the same time, and then while sleeping or cultivating, she would be up easily and well refreshed.

But she couldn’t settle down.

Jessica sighed from the depths of her soul as she decided to make one more full loop around the nearly circular school footprint. It was the third time that night, and the night watch had already stopped taking notice.

The first time, she just walked with a purpose, always keeping the wall to her right. The second and thirdtime, she had walked along the top of the wall, trying not to interrupt the watch along it. She did the same the third time, and now she decided to do the loop with the wall on her left.

It was one thing to be endlessly creative, and it was another thing to have no outlet for ones creativity. With the wall on her left, she tried to diagnose what was going on.

She didn’t know what she didn’t know and that was bothering her. Her emissaries to the Heaven’s Mountain school had not returned, and were due on the following day. Fa Za for all of his incompetence and all either wasn’t able to get his people to act or had other issues. Jessica, for the birefest moment thought that she missed his presence, then dismissed that thought with prejudice. Did she even have romantic feelings right now? How could she, when there was a slow moving disaster tromping across her continent?

People still had children even with the threat of climate change. Maybe they had less children, but it’s not like men and women lost their desire to be parents.

In the land of magical cultivation though, she hadn’t seen- besides on notable exception which she’d only heard- higher level cultivators getting into relationships. And did she need that stress in her life? She didn’t want to be stressy Jessy.

Did she even like Fa Za? That was a gut punch that she didn’t need to have handed to her right now. An arrangement with him would put all of her political problems to rest, but…

He wasn’t a savvy political operator. It was readily apparent to her that he was resting on the laurels of his own genius as well as his parents wealth. Jessica has met a few people that didn’t have to work and just had their own projects going and it didn’t seem right to her.

She hadn’t outright turned him down, and she was one thousand percent blind to his advances because of the constant problems facing the school, but he wouldn’t be the one to help her. Plus he probably just wanted the school to say that he had it.

Jessica Kim, elder of the Cold Steel Sect had doubts. She doubted that Fa Za came in wanting anything more than to overthrow her leadership, or the leadership of whoever was in charge, only to instate himself because it would look good. Why couldn’t the arrogant young master learn some bayesian probability instead and update his world view?

He clearly didn’t have an aptitude for teaching save for the one child and he either didn’t take on his own disciples or and Jessica remembered Blue. She turned, making a beeline for the main training area as the sun peeked over the eastern mountains. Little rays of light danced at the far wall as she found her disciple hard at work.

Blue was already working on something, and Jessica wanted company. Her first disciple had taken her words to heart and he was stronger for it.

“Disciple Blue.”

Mid shadow boxing, he stopped, his breath ragged as he turned to face her.

“Elder…er Master!” He bowed sheepishly, if you could call a sweaty reluctant bow anything.

“How strong are you feeling today?”

Blue, often confused, was at this point thoroughly ready for her questions. He flexed his arms in the air.

“Strong indeed!” he said.

Jessica smirked. Her own affectation and love for humor had given her this, a monster of her own creation.

“Good. Follow me.”

It was one thing to lose ones self in the calm methodical work that was regular labor. It was quite another to do it with a partner.

Master and disciple jumped up to the wall as Jessica reached out with her spiritual sense, looking for what she wanted. A trickle of qi extended her to the limit of her ability.

“Damn those aunties are really going to make my job difficult aren’t they,” she said.

Blue stood next to Jessica, curly brown hair flowing behind him, a satisfied smile on his face.

“So the aunties told you that it would be easy, did they?”

Jessica closed her eyes and cursed those blessed women.

“Easy,” she said, “They sould have told me it would be easier. Come, now I found what I want.”

With that, they were off, disciple running behind master as they sprinted all out for a mile to their destination.

The thing about exploding boulders, is eventually one runes out of boulders, and then when you want to some some bouldering, it instantly became ten times more difficult. It was just due to the placement of the boulders really. One can’t boulder shards of rock.

Jessica didn’t want to boulder. She wanted to build, specifically to build something around her school.

So when she found the first decently sized boulder, she picked it up, waifu style.

“Can you hold this?”

Blue gulped.

He’d reforged his body, and it was strong, but bones were bones.

“This one cannot. To attempt to do so would be folly.”

“Ah I thought so. I’ve got another idea then,” Jessica said, slowly spinning the rock,” Can you push it back to the sect?”

Blues expression of puzzlement was familiar to the Sect Elder, as with one hand she summoned ice to crystallize underneath the boulder.

It formed into the now familiar form of a giant sled. Jessica packed the ice in so that the ice would be strong enough to carry the load of the boulder. Sure it might feel like holding up a puppy to her, but to a second realm cultivator? He might need more of a help.

Jessica reached out, making sure that there was an even path through the evergreen trees, then she placed the giant rock gently onto the sled, putting it into position for him to go straight in.

“Stop when, well I’ll leave this up to you. You know what we’re doing after all. I trust your judgement.”

The junior disciple beamed.

“This one will not fail you!” Blue exclaimed, setting his entire frame against the rear of the sled.

After struggling for two seconds to push the sled towards the Sect, it’s bulk moved.

The elder couldn’t help but smile as cold aura whipped into a flurry around her disciple as her began to pour his qi into pushing the boulder back.

Then, they were off, him walking, then beginning a light jog as they got closer.

“It they could all be that easy,” she said, “But that’s how they get you isn’t it? Those special sleds that you need to move your boulders.”

Jessica found another boulder and moved it directly onto the path that Blue was taking. Then, she grabbed another. In all before her disciple came back, she’d gathered ten boulders.

She formed three sleds one by one back to back and then loaded three boulders up, one on each.

Blue made a move to push the first one, but she raised a hand to stop him.

“This one is mine. I’ve got to unload them on the other side first.”

She pushed her own sled and boulder down the path nearly at a full jog, and after a minute, she had to jump around it and come to a stop.

The sled slowed down a bit slower than she wanted, but she had room to spare before the first sled that Blue had brought. She picked up her boulder and walked it twenty meters east, then turned to walk back to the first one. She easily hefted it, moving it twenty meters north, then she picked up both of the heavy sleds in time to move them out of the way.

Blue came up behind her, now that the way was straight and slick, a lot faster. When he arrived, she put the two sleds back on the ground facing away from the Sect, and watched as he pushed the now empty ice sled a fair bit faster.

He even got it up to speed and had to run to keep up, then he grabbed the back and vaulted onto the top. Jessica wondered if he was enjoying the fruits of her labor.

She certainly hoped so. Now she just needed to make sure that none of the aunties used her rocks for target practice.

Blue could carry on for a minute, and Jessica waved to some of the students on duty on the walls. They must have been wondering what was going on, and a few weakly waved back.

Jessica tried to get one to come to her by waving in the come hither motion, but they were either not getting it, or they were playing dumb.

If they were playing dumb she was going to have their hide.

Jessica jumped softly, leaping the few hundred meters from where she was putting the outer wall. She landed, in what she had begun to call the iron man style, stirring up a smidgen of snow. There had been less snow as of late, making her usually cinematic landings, less so.

Three students blinked at her.

“Hey!”

They prostrated themselves before her. She didn’t need that.

“Hey, I was trying to get your attention, get up, you’re not in trouble I just need you to know,” she saidm biting her lip.

None of them had gotten up.

“No, really you’re not in trouble, you’re fine. I just need you to make sure that my aunties don’t use those boulders for target practice. They’re for the new outer wall.”

Three heads looked up and then nodded very strongly.

“I’ll be holding the three of you accountable. You know that they generally get what they want, but this is going to be a hard line.”

Jessica realized that she hadn’t ever had to be on the opposite side of the aunties, and she shuddered at the thoughts. They might not like the idea or she could imagine an intentional slowdown as the official functions of the Sect just seemed to slow.

Aunties were primed for malicious compliance. Jessica recalled a time when as a junior accountant, one of her coworkers dragged her feet. Everyone knew that she could work faster, and Jessica came to resent the one person on the team that always seemed to be on a coffee break or something. It’s not that she wasn’t social, but work was work and now, well she regretted not taking longer coffee breaks.

And she definitely missed coffee. She’d give a bunch of old gold coins to talk to someone, anyone from her old job, heck even someone that she didn’t like. It just wasn’t too common to find someone that had been summoned from her world, and none of the people she had met had seen anyone like her ever. Her distinct Korean features drew puzzled looks, but everyone here looked Chinese or Mongolian. She wasn’t too far off, and she was glad that she wasn't seen as some exotic beauty. An exotic intellect perhaps, but she was over men whose opening lines on dating apps was all about how they’d never dated or got with an asian girl.

It was a truism of Jessicas life that when she found herself missing tinder dates and misogynistic conversations, that perhaps she was having a moment. It wasn’t one of her classic canary in a coal mine moment, like when she found out that there were not stores anywhere near her college campus that stocked good kimchi. Sure, they had some kimchi, but it wasn’t fresh and it always seemed expired.

No, she was missing home something fierce and she probably needed to finish up getting the outlines of at least half of the boulders on her wall, and those three students still hadn’t gotten up.

She sighed, and once again took off, this time back to where Blue was just arriving with a boulder.

Today, she was going to play some MahJong. There would definitely be tea.

It’s too bad that none of the tea was the bubble variety.