“And you’re sure that this one needs to cultivate all night?”’ Grace asked Jung.

An-Yong had arranged the meeting between the two scout leaders. As the most recent senior disciple and fourth realm cultivator, Jung had advanced to the fourth realm the week prior, shocking the aunties, who only now had a second realm cultivator going throught the paces.

“Yes. The plow and ox method worked for me, but again, it seems like you’ve picked up the technique from An-Yong as well and that may work just as well for you.”

The plow and ox method of cultivating one’s qi made the student push hard on their core as they ground the qi over and over again to make space for expansion. The expansion itself was both physical as well as metaphysical. A fourth realm cultivator with the same size core as a third realm cultivator could store five of ten times more qi in the same “space”.

It all was in how the new expanded core allowed more capacity in the same space. An-Yong had remarked on it at length to her as they had strolled to see Jung placing boulders in just the right spot as the new outer wall began to take shape.

“This one can explain the plow and ox method more thoroughly if you wish?” An-Yong said, not taking his eyes off Jung as he moved boulders and trees into position.

Smaller rocks and binding materials would need to show up soon, but he did his part barechested and he had been getting a lot of attention. It kept the aunties moving though the area in quick succession as building materials were hand carried to where they were needed.

The walls weren’t all made of ice as they appeared, but theouter layer of ice did help them with most of their issues.

“He’s doing so well,” Grace said, “I …this one can’t believe that tomorrow…?”

“The fourth realm? And before me,” An-Yong laughed, “Just as this one catches up to you two, you find a way to surpass me.”

“An-Yong, you know that you didn’t have to take me out here. Your word was enough and Jung can scarcely explain things anywhere near your level.”

Jung paused in his work, looking right at Grace, then back at An-Yong. There was something there, but Grace couldn’t parse the meaning.

“There is something else isn’t there.”

Jung nodded.

“There is something that neither of you is telling me.”

An-Yong nervously tugged on his robes.

“Would you care to tell me before my advancement to the fourth realm, then?”

“Very well,” Jung said, “But not here, we need some distance from the Sect. An-Yong?”

An-yong sighed, looking as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

Whatever they were about to tell her, it sounded like she was not tracking, but she’d moved up with Jung and he had a tendency to not obsfucate the truth.

If anything, he hated having to back other peoples lies up, but she did follow them to find out what awful thing Jung had to tell her.

***

The aunties pored over all of the scrolls in the library ceaselessly for two days Mary racked her brains trying to think of any living person she knew in Frost Haven that would have possibly attended the promotion ceremony to elder.

Wasn’t one, just selected?

But Elder Jessica wanted to make it a big deal, so she’d asked them to look into it and their efforts had borne little fruit.

For all they knew it sounded like this was a very personal affair, and Mary could not find a single place where the difference between a fourth realm cultivator and an elder was found. It was known that one could be a senior disciple in the fourth realm as indeed Jessica herself was for a time, but the selection process to create an Elder was a mystery, probably lost in the destruction.

The head librarian himself had never seen such a book, and when pressed the best he could come up with was that the Elders themselves passed down a tradition that had been lost.

That was when the aunties came up with the bright idea that they could just make up their own tradition.

What had Elder Jessica said that one time? Something about tradition being peer pressure from dead people? Or was it something done more than once?

The aunties didn’t remember and as a group, they didn’t care.

They designed a few options to create a new tradition. Elders wore the black belt of a master practitioner of the mystical arts, a step up from the red belt.

They weaved together a tapestry and when it was announced the new giant banner of the Sect was unfurled proudly above the war room. Two hundred Sect members attended the various rehearsals being poked and prodded to a drill sergeants pace.

None were saved from the aunties muster save for those that had important duties elsewhere, and there was much groaning all morning as they drank copious amounts of Auntie Lai La’s Hurry tea. Indeed, the person who smiled broadest on that day was not the newly appointed elder, not the old elder, but Auntie Lai La herself.

The aunties appreciated the amount ot tea that she had made, absolutely destroying her back up, and then the back up to the backup. She even parted with her own supply. And as Aunties always know, never get drunk on your own skunk.

Crisp rows of meticulously adorned Cultivators were for once all marching to the same tune and moving as one for one brief moment. The aunties were pleased to see such order amongst the chaos that they themselves would never had a part in.

Mary was sad that elder Fa Za wasn’t around to partake, he sure did love a spectacle. The rest of the aunties assured her that he would love her recounting of the events. He did seem to sit an take notice when she spoke. One even suggested that she offer him some of *her* private supply.

Mary laughed with the rest of her aunties. Jessica laughed harder when more than one auntie mentioned the amount of questions he’d asked which made it so clear that he was in puppy love with her. She, of course demurred to any inquiries into her own private life at most times. She spoke freely about the past and her old world, but in the world, at least on auntie saw her as a workaholic. She did happen to have the loudest voice and got the most nods, but still.

You gotta watch out for those aunties. Even the aunties had to watch out for themselves.

***

As befitting the raising of not one, but two students to Elders, Jessica allowed them to discuss if they both wanted to share the stage at the same time.

Both future Elders denied that they wanted it all to be about one or the other, and asked that they be able to be raised at the same time, so neither one would outrank the other.

Technically, one had advanced to the fourth realm a week or so earlier but it was discussed and both were in agreement.

Jess watched as the procession of cultivators walked, no marched through the training grounds and then stood at attention. The scouts formed a vanguard in front as they had been the ones to lose the most in this exchange. It seemed like they had lost the most disciples in the battle as well. It wasn’t that so many other fourth and fifth realm cultivators has died, but the amount of scouts had apparently been cut neatly in half and they felt it most as a group.

“Honored Students, Initiates, Disciples, and Sect Followers. Today marks an auspicious day. This will be the first time that I am able to raise two Elders and I wanted to take this moment for all of us to honor those that the Cold Steel Sect has lost. Please bow your heads and observe a moment of silence with me.”

Jess bowed her head and waited for a long moment before returning.

“I call upon our two cultivators to come and serve.”

Two disciples, one male and one female left from the center of the large group, leaving a gap as they walked forward to the raised stone dais where she waited. In her waiting arms, an Auntie handed her two black belts.

Two cultivators stood before her, their backs to the Sect.

“Please kneel and face the Sect, for it is not me that you serve now. Should you assume these duties, you will serve them, not me. Be ever mindful that being a leader is as much about what you do for them as it is about what you do for the Sect.”

They knelt and Jess made a show of placing the black belt in front of each.

“Repeat after me. I solemnly swear to do my best to uphold the values of the Cold Steel Sect in all that I do.”

They repeated it, loudly.

“I solemnly swear that I will no use my office or position for personal gain.”

Louder, this time almost as if they were dueling.

“I will keep the men and women of the Sect in my thoughts, and my every action will be taken out by with and through them.”

A sniff from an auntie saw a tissue immediately shoot out and then the words were repeated.

Jess reached out one arm to each person as she stood in between them.

“Now, I will have your soul promise on this.”

Two hands came up, one from each side as both felt the words binding their future actions.

Jess waited for a brief moment for the soul bond to take before stepping back.

It didn’t have to be a big deal, but for these two, she wanted it to be. Both of them took a second to reorient themselves.

“Now please, put on your belt of office. And stand and face your Sect. May I introduce to you, Elders Jung and Grace, the newest Elders of the Cold Steel Sect.”

The applause was deafening, and the hoots and hollering was even more so. Jess waited a full three minutes, she counted before she let the two go and rejoin their people, then she dismissed the group to their day of festivities that the Aunties had so lovingly planned.

The scouts mobbed them everyone slapping their backs and giving them hugs and Jess, she was here for it. She saw down in lotus pose and basked in the feeling of being among family. A real family, the kind that you grow into.

And she smiled.