Jingyi Bo stared up at the ceiling of her new home. A miserable little shed in the corner of the Academy was no place for some rising star, which was convenient on account of Jingyi Bo very much not being one. As much as it was an indignity to be confined to a hastily repurposed gardener’s shed, it definitely kept Bo out of the way of danger. Still, she would have to do something about this awful, lumpy bed.

“Wait a second,” Bo gasped aloud, “I never opened the box!”

Sitting up, she whirled about to scoop the fine box off the table. Bo had barely had a chance to even really look it over, let alone try and open it. Sailing through the air had made any inspections far too dangerous, and her landing and subsequent entry to the city hadn’t afforded her particularly any good opportunities. Bo hadn’t even had the presence of mind to realise that she was finally in a peaceful, safe location. Exhaling a sigh of relief she hadn’t realised she was holding, Bo began her inspection.

The box was about a hand’s span tall and deep, and twice as wide. The entire thing was made of a fine, nearly black wood that Bo didn’t recognise, glossy with some kind of lacquer. Painted in swirling, subtle colours were images representing all sorts of different elements. There were stones and flames, rivers and woods, lightning, clouds, and a bunch of other things that Bo supposed could have been the other elements. They were typically used by the Everchanging Way Sect to illustrate the concept of the primary and composite elements, but some of them were kind of unclear.

What was most intriguing to Bo was the fact that there didn’t seem to be any sort of latch. In fact, a closer inspection revealed that there wasn’t so much as a seam between the ‘lid’ and the ‘box’ - they were one solid, singular object. Still, it rattled as though it contained something, so there had to be a way to get at the goodies within. Putting it down on the table in front of her, Bo rested her chin on her fist and stared at it, considering the solution.

Assuming that tiger beast stole this from the sect, it must have been opened using some Everchanging Way technique. They must have carved this box from something and then transformed it into this wood, or caused the wood to seal seamlessly to fuse box and lid … that’s it!

With a grin, Bo grabbed the box again. Why would you go to the effort of finagling an item inside while carving it when you could just seal the lid with the Endless Steps of Transformation? It stood to reason, Bo surmised, that the technique was also the key to opening it. Concentrating her qi as carefully as she could into the tip of her nail, she slowly transformed an experimental line of wood into mud. Tertiary elements had a mysterious ‘desire’ to be simplified into secondary elements, leaving behind some rapidly-dissipating byproduct that Bo didn’t know how to conceptualise. From what she knew of elemental theory (which was almost the entirety of what she learned from the sect), it was likely ‘yang’ in this case - but to visualise ‘yang’ in one’s mind was a difficult matter. Adding it generally meant pulling it from somewhere, while removing it was as simple as letting it evaporate into the air.

After a solid twenty minutes of dedicated transforming, Bo wiped the sweat from her head and admired her handiwork. She had successfully scored a deep line where the box’s seam should be. With a grin, she put her hands under the edges of the lid and … lifted the entire box. The seam hadn’t quite made it far enough in to fully pull the lid away.

“Agh! Emperor damn you, box!”

Bo stood and hurled the thing at the floor, and cringed in immediate regret as she heard something go crack. Looking down, she was relieved to see the box itself hadn’t broken - instead, it had hit one of the legs of her table, causing it to sadly lean to one side. Frustrated, Bo fell to her knees, took the box in her hands and cracked it against the stone floor repeatedly, the sounds of wood smacking against stone deafening in this tiny room. After a minute of exertion, her currently limited stamina gave way, and she dropped the box with a groan. The wood hadn’t so much as been scuffed by her efforts.

“I suppose,”Bo sighed, standing up and shrugging, “That I will have to grow stronger before I can - COME HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!”

Dropping like a rabid animal, Bo hooked her nails into the thin seam, performing a little trick she’d tried before to turn the edges of her own nails into stone. Wrenching with all her might, one foot perched awkwardly on a corner of the small box, Bo was flung back onto her bed as the lid finally gave way. The lid pinged and bounced around the room, narrowly avoiding breaking a window, while the contents of the box spilled all over the floor. She thanked her luck that she hadn’t lit the firepit yet, as the majority of the contents were scrolls.

Bo spent a couple minutes cleaning up and getting comfortable. She retrieved the lid, transformed a bit of the table leg to reattach it, lit the fire and put on some tea. Despite the state of the shed, the firepit had some Goryeon charm that lit up the fire pit at a touch, and the kettle filled itself with water in a similar fashion. Some kind soul had left some food and tea leaves here too - Bo quietly wondered if it wasn’t some builder’s secret stash. With a mug of tea in her hands, she got to work inspecting the scrolls.

--

Night fell, but the light from the fire pit was bright enough to keep reading. Jingyi Bo had spent her entire afternoon reading through them, sorting them into a couple major categories. First were the extremely vague musings that sounded like the sort of things Elder Yahui had prattled about, which Bo assumed were guides on how to use and improve with the Endless Steps technique. In the second pile were the most boring, unbelievably dry descriptions of elemental combinations. They didn’t particularly explain how to visualise these elements, or even how to step between them, but instead formed an intense, unending list of results from extremely specific ratios of elemental mixtures. Being able to visualise the end result was part of the technique, so this information was largely useless right now - not to mention, it made Bo’s eyes glaze over.

Next, there were a couple of things that were not in fact scrolls at all. One was a book, which was like a scroll if you liked your paper in sections and bound together with a cover. Largely empty, the few pages that were filled contained weird diagrams and stylised imagery that flew entirely over Bo’s head. It did come with a brush for ink, but no ink-pot. Considering how Bo had treated the little box recently, she was quietly glad for that.

Along with the book was a small slab of Stone. It resembled what Bo knew to be a jade slip, but it was made of, well, Stone. Elemental and specifically generic Stone - a kind of rock that would give a geologist a conniption. It wasn’t inherently magical, but it was elementally pure. Bo assumed that whatever secrets it held would only be revealed if it could be transformed back into jade - a process which would have to wait for another time.

Extremely uninterested in staying up late into the evening reading old, mysterious scrolls, Bo simply packed them up back into their box, put the lid back on top (for all the good that did, now that it was functionally broken open) and settled down to sleep.

--

The next morning, Jingyi Bo woke to her bones and muscles singing a constant song of discontent. Her lumpy bed had done nothing to alleviate the pain from her bruises, having been functionally impossible to find a comfortable position on. Bo briefly considered trying to transform the material into something softer, before realising she didn’t even remotely have the know-how to do that. What kind of elements are soft? What shapes do they have to be in to make good bedding? … What even was this damnable bed made out of?!

Deciding not to ruin the mystery for now, Bo had herself some breakfast and wandered outside. It was still fairly early in the morning - she never was much for sleeping long, and awakening her qi seemed to reduce that need. Frankly, the promise of not needing to eat or sleep as much was a very appealing allure for further cultivation - she never knew when her surroundings were going to explode, taking her safety and meals with it.

Speaking of her surroundings, Bo couldn’t help but notice a lot of people heading towards the central area of the town. The vast majority of them were Qin boys, a reminder of where exactly her little home was situated. Bo realised with a bit of a start that many of them were side-eyeing her, or pointing her out to their friends. At first, Bo thought she might have been caught out - Do they know I’m not meant to be here? Which ‘not meant to be here’ do they know?! - but after some thought realised … Wait. I’m still covered in dirt.

It wasn’t like her house had a shower or anything. Bo would have to find some secluded pond or stream and take a dip at some point. It didn’t particularly help here and now, especially as a couple of boys came right her way.

“Hey, junior.” A tall, oddly lanky boy looked down at her, his faux-concerned expression as irritating as his cracking voice, or his bowl-cut hair. Bo fixed him with a cold look and hurried along, only to be stopped by one of the most plain and uninteresting boys Bo had ever seen.

“Junior, Chao is speaking to you. You should listen.” Bo would have scurried past him too, if it weren’t for the third of their little troupe blocking her way - an unpleasantly greasy teen with about three hairs on his lip, the sort that insists he’s got a mustache. She still didn’t know the rules to this place, but she assumed they wouldn’t be threatening her in any way if they could get away with it. Bo turned to the lanky boy - Chao, she presumed.

“Can I do something for you … Senior?” Bo could guess he was maybe sixteen at best, but their thinking of her as a junior for now might be advantageous. For now, she seemed like a short, scrawny boy, not a grown woman.

“Why don’t you walk with us to the initiation ceremony? I don’t think I’ve seen you around - Chao Da makes sure to know everyone.”

An initiation ceremony was news to Bo - if only anyone had bothered to tell her what was going on around here. Chao Da quickly introduced the rest of his friends - the greasy one was Youni De, the plain one Wang Wei.

“A pleasure to meet you, Senior Chao,” Bo tried her best not to sound strained, “I am Jingyi Bo.”

“What sect are you from?” Youni had asked, his voice was as unpleasant as his skin. She didn’t like the way he kind of followed slightly off to the side, but going by his smirk, it seemed like the guy was hoping a new member of the group would relieve him of the rank of bottom rung.

“I’m … from …” Bo wasn’t sure if she should answer - the Everchanging Way sect were known as fools, if they were known at all. Unexpectedly, Chao saved her.

“De, we’re not in our sects any more! You don’t need to worry about that kind of thing any longer! We’re all friends here at the Academy, right?”

“Yeah. Friends.” Wang had a rather plain way of speaking, like he had learned how to speak in the most undistinguishable and uninteresting manner on purpose. The way he walked alongside Chao closely told Bo he was second-in-command, a loyal lackey due in part to never having an original thought in his head.

Bo was knocked from her thoughts by Chao’s hand ruffling her already messy hair.

“Don’t worry, Junior Jingyi! Senior Chao will keep you safe, let you know what’s up around here - ‘course, it’s customary at the Academy to give your seniors a little gift when they help you.” There it is! He just wanted to shake me down. Well, jokes on this guy. I’m not giving him anything.

Bo smiled up at the lanky teen. “That’s real nice of you, Senior Chao, but wouldn’t you believe it? On the way in, I was robbed by … a beastkin.”

Lowering her voice conspiratorially, the boys leaned in, suddenly rather interested in listening to her story. She regaled them with the tale of a fearsome panda-man that accosted her on the road, who she bravely fought until she was battered and bruised, before being forced to flee by the beast’s overwhelming strength. Leaving out the part where she fell out of the sky on him, or stole his entry token, Bo even managed to squeeze a single tear out as she explained that she had to drop all of her possessions to escape the monster. By the end of it, the three were nodding along and offering her words of comfort.

“If I ever see that beast, he’ll pay for harming my junior!” Chao was surprisingly fired up, prompting his friends to get outraged on her behalf as well. Bo just hoped it wouldn’t become a problem.

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem. He’ll never get inside the shield formaaaaaahhhhh … ahah …”

The group of them had just arrived at the central courtyard and, despite the amount of people here, an unmistakeable panda-shaped man stood over the crowd. Chao and his gang hadn’t spotted the guy, and she really didn’t want to draw his attention.

“What’s so funny, Junior Jingyi?”

“A-Ah, haha … th-that … girl over there is really small?” Attempting to avert their eyes, Bo meekly pointed at some scrawny, weak-looking cat half-spirit. For some reason, the three boys turned and laughed along with her.

“Wow, Junior,” Chao grinned, “You’ve got some sharp eyes! That rat beastkin with her looks like she ain’t slept in months, too!”

“Yes. But I think the appropriate term is half-spirit.” All eyes turned to Wang, confused. “It’s not polite to refer to them as beastkin. They prefer half-spirit.”

“Wang, what the heck, man?” Chao punched him on the shoulder. Youni saw his opportunity and punched Wang on the shoulder as well. Bo raised a fist … and thought better of it.

“What? It’s true.”

“Yeah, but why’re you telling me now, and not, like yesterday? Junior Jingyi, did you know this? De?!”

Youni and Jingyi shook their heads emphatically. Bo would have to be more careful about her vocabulary. For reasons unknown, Chao turned and shouted “Sorry!” into the crowd - not that the half-spirit pair could have possibly heard him.

“Silence.”

A voice resounded across the courtyard. It was a normal speaking volume, but Bo heard it as clearly as if it had been spoken directly into her ear, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. There was some mumbling and muttering, but all eyes turned to the three figures on the dais. The initiation ceremony had begun.