Jingyi Bo sat solemnly at the edge of a cliff, staring at the distant pillars of her sect. For the last hour, the place she called home had been under attack by some unknown force. The only thing that had prevented her from becoming a fine stain upon the floor was that she was so far away, having just completed a pilgrimage to a distant mountain top shrine.

A normal person might have been devastated, and Bo would have been lying if she said she wasn’t upset, but having been an initiate of the often-overlooked Everchanging Way Sect for less than a month, she was just glad to have survived it. Bo had done a lot of surviving, having grown unfortunately used to the shock of loss in her nineteen years in this forsaken realm of mortals. Her father had died before she was born, her mother in childbirth, her adoptive family wiped out by bandits when she was five, her bandit kidnappers (who she was honestly quite fond of) all gone by twelve, her noble rescuers nearly perishing to a pack of beasts while finding her some place to go … Bo wasn’t sure if she was blessed to survive, or cursed to kill those around her.

Her latest refuge, which the slight, short-haired girl regretted was going the way of the rest, had taken her in when she approached the gates. The Sect wasn’t big, nor powerful, nor particularly interested in the squabbles and wars of the rest of the world - but it did need recruits, and took them where they could. Ms Jingyi turned out to be something of a natural when it came to cultivation - at least, on the path that this peculiar sect subscribed to. To hear it explained, it was simple to learn, nigh impossible to master - the Endless Steps of Transformation. The words of the Sect’s elders rang in Bo’s head as she thought about it.

“Just take one step at a time, then another … it’s as simple as that!”

Comforting words, especially when repeated over and over for a full week, as though they would somehow miraculously cause her awakening. Perhaps the vague instructions, like, “You need to see where you’re walking before you can take a step,” or “Please don’t throw around the cushions, Ms Jingyi,” were the reason why she didn’t seem to be entirely upset about the current crisis facing the sect.

Bo had been watching for the duration of the attack. She couldn’t have missed it, despite the distance - it had started with an almighty crash, as a tower had been cleft cleanly in half. Unable to help, given that returning would take days (and unwilling to get closer, as she would surely perish), the young cultivator consigned herself to simply watch, wait and speculate. Who was attacking? No sects big enough to threaten the Everchanging Way cared about its existence - they weren’t violent, villanous, or particularly wealthy - though Bo admitted that the mind of a high-level cultivator was beyond her, and that some slight might have caused it all.

However, she thought to herself, if this was a sect attacking, why do all the attacks seem to be concentrated in one place at a time?

Perhaps Elder Yahui had invited some barbarous Yamato warrior, who had decided the tower would look better upon the ground, along with its inhabitants. Elder Yahui was an eccentric, enjoying the company of foreigners - perhaps he had done this himself, out of some anger over not being accepted to teach at that big, new school Bo had heard him rambling about.

No, she shook her head, even Elder Yahui wouldn’t be so petty.

Still, Bo’s mind ran with possibilities - A bloodthirsty beastkin mage, come to sacrifice everyone for some sinister experiment, an elemental who had lain dormant under the sect now come to life, a monstrous--

Thud.

-- Beast. Bo leapt to her feet at the sound and turned around, only to come face to face with the terrifying visage of a monster. It was the largest tiger that Bo had ever seen in her life, which on reflection was not a particularly difficult feat, as Bo had never seen one outside of paintings. The immense beast towered over her, its vicious maw large enough to swallow her up in a single gulp. She trembled as it seemed to grow larger, suddenly remembering that she had been seated on the edge of a cliff - suddenly realising it wasn’t growing,but standing.

The tiger stood in the centre of clearing, a modestly sized plateau of rock before the simple shrine Bo had come to visit, towering over her like some colossal statue. Trying to stand equally as still as such a sculpture, several moments passed before Bo came to the conclusion that it had simply overlooked her. The beast turned towards the shrine and seated itself with barely a sound, where it simply began to stare. What in the world is it doing?! Bo realised she could no longer hear the sounds of the battle, though she didn’t dare turn to see. Had this orange menace finished pushing over towers and high-level cultivators, and come to this distant mountain to finish the job?

A full minute passed before Bo dared to do so much as blink. Another five minutes passed in absolute silence, before she could hold her pose no longer. Teetering on the edge of the cliff, she carefully took a single step away from the precipice … only to step on the world’s loudest pebble. Bo felt the soul leave her body as the tiger slowly turned its gargantuan head towards her. As soon as its eyes locked on to her, dread overcame her body and she began to run. Her foot didn’t even make that second step before the monster swiped clean through her.

---

This is it, Bo thought to herself, her eyes squeezed shut, I’ve finally succumbed to my curse. This beast has come to take me into that dark, horrible place that all the cursed souls get trapped in. This crushing weight all around me are all the people I condemned to death … Mother, Father, adoptive Mother and Father … Boss Guan … that one guy that tried to marry me off to his manure-stinking son … please forgive me!

It took young Jingyi Bo the better part of twenty minutes to regain consciousness. When she came to, she realised she wasn’t in some dark, hellish void, or gripped by the souls of the damned … but curled into a ball on the ground, the darkness stemming from part of her outer robe having been tangled over her face. Still, she was certainly dead, so Bo decided to at least own it with some grace. She stood up, fixed her robe, and took in her surroundings.

Her surprisingly corporeal spirit observed the fact that she was still at the mountaintop. Likely bound to wander this place until I am avenged, Bo nodded sagely. Sure enough, the culprit was mere metres away, currently shoving the remains of the ancient stone shrine back and forth along the ground between its paws. Not only had the beast destroyed her sect and turned her body to pulp, it was using the old shrine as a toy! All of these things might have left any reasonable person in awe of its almighty power, but Bo was already dead. Was there even a way to harm the dead? Of course there wasn’t - which meant she was entirely within her rights to give this creature a piece of her mind.

“Listen here, beast!” Bo pointed an accusatory finger at the tiger, though her confidence wavered slightly as its golden eyes turned to face her. What could she even say here? Certain that being reduced to mincemeat had reduced her ability to construct sentences, she went with the first thing that came to mind.

“You … you’re a … bad cat!”

… A choice she regretted. Was she going to admonish some ancient and terrifying beast like it was a naughty household pet-- wait, why did it look upset about that?! No matter, Bo! Keep telling it what-for!

“You rude animal, knocking over the shrine! That’s sacred, and ancient! Not to mention the whole sect - I bet you finished killing everyone and then leapt right over here to get the last straggler. Me, by the way! I’m not going to forgive you, even if you do that very sad face you’re doing, seeing as you killed me!”

Sure enough, the tiger looked genuinely distressed - the very figure of sorrow, a sorrow that slowly crept into Bo’s heart. She didn’t know how she knew, but it was very sorry for what it had done … and maybe a little confused. An image flashed in her mind, nearly knocking her over with unseen force - an image of Bo’s body tumbling over the edge of the cliff. An image of the tiger’s paw scooping her up. An image of Bo, tangled in her robes, curled into a ball at the tiger’s feet.

Wait. Did it not kill me? Bo considered the possibilities. She was always good at thinking those up, even if she was frequently wrong on her best guesses. Bo touched her arm - solid, but of course a spirit would be solid to a spirit. She touched the ground - as hard and cold as it was when she spent the night meditating here. Finally, the young woman picked up a rock and threw it, watching it clatter across the ground and off the edge. Wait. Wait wait wait. I’m not intangible. I’m not a spirit. I’m … alive. The tiger didn’t kill me … it saved me!

Bo’s eyes went wide. I’m alive!

Then, she looked at the tiger, still making a sad face. But not for long!

Bo screamed, concerns of a mortal end rushing back into her body - she had called this legendary beast a bad cat, and spoken to it like a misbehaving child--

All of a sudden, a massive claw was pressed to her face - not to hurt her, but to shush her. Confused and panicked, Bo stopped screaming. What did it want?! Was it going to play with her like it ‘played’ with the shrine? Was it going to eat her for a light snack? Perhaps it was going to pull her apart piece by piece! Any other cultivator worth their salt would be desperately trying to think of some way to get out of this certain doom, but Bo was fairly certain that even if she suddenly underwent three breakthroughs right here on the spot, she still wouldn’t have the skill or power to defeat this beast.

The Endless Steps of Transformation technique was … not for combat. Frankly, Bo wasn’t sure it was really for anything - it was just an incomprehensibly long list of ways of channeling qi to turn it into some other element, or to push something some miniscule fraction of the way towards being considered another element. One could shape the physical forms of non-living matter like a sculptor … if one could tolerate the glacial pace of building anything with grains of sand. The better you were at it, the more ‘steps’ you could take at once - though Bo had only recently learned it, she was quite proud of her ability to take three steps at once! That was almost, kind of, sorta part of the way between altering elemental alignment and shape!

While Bo pondered her dismal suite of skills, the tiger crumbled the stone shrine in its claws. Extracting some curious gem from within its heart, it pinched it between two claw-tips and squeezed. The whole thing rippled with a violent and dizzying array of colour, its shape changing as though it was becoming an entirely different gemstone, before snapping back to its original form - an opaque black octahedron that seemed to absorb light.

“Perhaps I could step some air into heat and surprise it … if it didn’t take me several hours to do so,” Bo mumbled to herself, “Or perhaps the earth at its feet into … well, not magma, but maybe some toasty dirt … hm?”

Looking up, Bo nearly jumped a metre into the air to see the tiger’s face inches from her own. Her wordless scream came out as a muffled squeak, devolving into a confused and partially indescribable noise as it held out the miniscule gemstone. At least, it was miniscule in the claws of the tiger - it took both of the woman’s hands to cover it.

Staring it over in confusion, Bo was unceremoniously pushed to the ground - an image flashed in her mind, of a cultivator in meditation, and she understood. If it meant not being a snack for a curious beast, she would do just that. Crossing her legs and closing her eyes, she held the odd gemstone in her hands and began to meditate.

Focusing like this was something of a task, so she started by just concentrating on the gem. It felt deathly cold to the touch, but also painfully hot at the same time - it felt slimy, but dusty, rough yet smooth, heavy but feather-light … it just didn’t make sense! It was like it was everything, all at once, condensed into a singular object.

Wait, what if it is? Bo had something of a revelation. I’ve seen elements crystallised into beast cores before - admittedly, low-grade ones. This thing is like … a core of every element!

Functionally, it didn’t make sense. Elements like this should be cancelling each other out … what let them stay together like that? Perhaps it was no coincidence that the Everchanging Way sect sent its disciples out here to--

Somehow, Bo had almost forgotten. The Everchanging Way sect had been destroyed - by this tiger, no less!

“Why did you destroy them?” Bo glared up at the tiger, who had been staring expectantly at her this entire time. She remembered her position here, and added, “... i-if you don’t mind my asking.”

Images assaulted Bo’s mind in rapid succession, each more nonsensical than the last. A kitten pushing things off a table. A child joyfully breaking a fine piece of furniture. A tiger grabbing someone and hurling them into the sky … followed by an image of them safely landing in a distant land. Then, an elder - Was that Elder Yahui? - shouting angrily at the same tiger … before being thrown also. Escalating scenes of conflict followed, before the first image was shown again - this time, that same kitten gently batting over a tower. Then, an expression of sorrow, an image of gift-giving.

“You got into a fight with an elder that got out of hand after causing some mischief, and just pushed over the entire Everchanging Way sect?!” Bo looked at the beast, flabbergasted. The tiger hung its head shamefully and drew from seemingly nowhere, an elegant wooden box. It pushed it forward - was this a bribe? Sorry I shoved over your sect, here’s some treasure. Still, Bo wasn’t going to say no to free stuff. She picked up the box-- and was grabbed again by the tiger.

“Wha … ?”

Three images flashed in her mind at once. A beaming smile, an old woman waving goodbye … and a girl flying through the air.

“Wait. Wait wait waitwait NOOOO--!”

Screaming, clutching her only earthly possessions tightly to her chest, Jingyi Bo was launched high into the sky, off to new adventures in parts unknown.