"Ya! ya! yah! Ya-ma, ya-ma, ya-mahh! ... Ya! ya! yah! Ya-ma, ya-ma, ya-mahhh!"

Aargh! Jian Cheng can't even enjoy the taste of tea... In fact, the entire atmosphere of their home has come under attack.

It’s Fen Ling's fault, she has made up some silly nonsense chant about Yama. And while her voice is actually quite lovely the lyrics were downright awful. Only Yama appears happy about it, bobbing his whole body along.

"Can you please, for the love of Zhenwu stop singing that?

"Of course Brother Cheng, I didn't see you there, I mean still there" Fen Ling says flashing an angelic smile.

Hmm, that was easy. Far too easy! Jian Cheng's eyes narrow in suspicion, sure enough, seconds later...

"Ya-ma wa yama yo! Ya-ma wa yama yo! Ya-ma wa yama yo!..."

Oh gods, she has a second song and is stomping along, around the room to it. It may even be actually worse!

Which makes Yama adore it even more, and after adjusting to the more marching cadence, he begins his full-body bobbing again

Holding his head in his hands, Jian Cheng can't help but make a sour egg-sucking face, that only encourages an encore.

"Ya-ma wa yama yo! Ya-ma wa yama yo! Ya-ma wa yama YO!"

Sitting across the table Li Feng nods in apparent sympathy.

"Overall, I think it's a slight improvement, but if you listen to it long enough your brain will melt!"

"Fen Ling please stop, I'll come up with a plan for Li Feng within the next week, I swear!"

"Ya! ya! yah! Ya-muh, ya-muh, yahh-mahhh! ..."

Now Fatty has taken up the ya-ma baton and his tuneless baritone is truly terrible. Plus, he doesn't even like the little rat... Does Li Feng just enjoy discomforting Jian Cheng even more?

"Yay, yay, yay! - yama, yamahh, yahh-mahhh!... "

Well, there is your gibberish answer... The would-be opera diva doesn't even know the words. Word actually, singular. Only one word, who could get that wrong?

"...Ya-ma yo, yama Yo! Ya-ma yo, yama YO!.."

Oh great, he's merged the two together... Making an unholy mess...

Aargh, Jian Cheng has had enough. He can't take any more. He stands up, shoving his chair backwards then stamps off to the spare room. Are they trying to drive him insane... Or maybe away?

Ah, so that was their cunning plan... Putting the pressure back on him...

Truth be told, it has been tough for the three of them - often four, with Xiao Ma in attendance most days - living in such close quarters for the last four months. Her little house and courtyard is nice - it beat his cave and Fatty's put together... And a few more, probably five or six in total...

The point is, they have overstayed their welcome and needed to get a move on.

Fen Ling delivered her ultimatum two days ago, and they've been exploring their options ever since. The other two want Fatty to ascend as soon as possible...

Fatty sees the inner court as the land of milk and honey... Correction, free milk and honey,... And rice, noodles, pork... You name it, he’ll eat it..."

Jian Cheng on the other hand has his very real reservations. He feels Fatty will draw too much attention to himself. A poor Rusty Creek orphan isn't really welcome in this snobby upper class world. If he waits another year though, he'll be even bigger and stronger in body, mind, soul and qi cultivation. Then it will be much safer. Only the weak get bullied... And at the moment Fatty is a weak kitten, a mangy one at that, with one eye... No, he has two eyes, where did that come from?

Anyway, this unwanted kitten would be entering the lion's den... No, no good. A lion might possibly adopt a little orphan kitten... Um, he would be entering.... the dragon lair?... No, uh, a dog's kennel? You know what, this is a stupid analogy, scrap it!

Huffing at his obviously flustered self, he sits on the empty pallet and begins planning properly. They still need an elder... They should screen a few, then pick one, as soon as possible...

He'd had sent Xiao Ma out weeks ago, immediately after the meeting to scrounge information about all elders. Shi-mei Ma was well versed in the art. After all, she'd been spying for Fen Ling, who absolutely adored intrigue and gathering intelligence, for two and a half years already..

Fatty had taken a fancy to Little Xiao-er, going so far as to teach her the guixigong - under the guise of the Karmic Chameleon Method, as they'd all taken to calling it. She might not thank him for it later though, not when her qi cultivation slowed... Jian Cheng doesn't really mind the breech of sect regulations, Xiao Xiao is top of his recruiting list too. She is a competent, trustworthy girl, who works hard at the sword, what is not to like?

She also has a decent cultivation, about the same as his, although she has only just turned 12, whereas he is nearly 13... Aargh! His low tier will be the death of him! As it has already been the death of countless others in the jianghu...

So far, they have narrowed the search down to six potential candidates. Earlier there had been seven, but Elder Wei had been vetoed by both boys, which only made Fen Ling - who has never met or heard of him - argue ferociously in his favour... That girl will also be the death of him!

Reluctantly, Jian Cheng mentally crosses off three more names, all of whom have recently gone into cultivation seclusion. He no longer had the time to consider them as options. That leaves three names: Elder Zhu, Elder Guotin and Elder Lang...

After considering a contrasting array of facts, Jian Cheng decides to start with Elder Zhu, Fen Ling's direct supervisor, as they already have some leverage there... She will be the first to get an audition! And will also accept Fatty into the fold. Two birds with one stone!

Then Fatty will be one of those weak wounded birds, entering... No, not going there again...

Jian Cheng has his own problems to focus on, he is only mid-tier four and has fallen too far behind... It is still fairly good progress for an outer court disciple, but he needs more. Much more, or he'd never be eligible for the inner court on his own merits. He is the senior elder of an entire sect, yet finds himself stuck in the outer court? Wallowing in mediocrity.

Fen Ling has been sharing her herbs and spirit stone allocation, also the much stronger qi in the inner court has helped immensely... The problem was with the guixigong, which improves not only qi but body, spirit and mind as it goes along. Brother Kong warned this would happen and also offered the solution: A wagon load of resources.

At his current rate, when Jian Cheng turns 14 he'd only be early tier five and still going nowhere fast. How long could this messenger ruse continue? Thankfully, it would become a bit easier once Fatty enters the inner court, as there would be one less messenger to hide, plus one more place to hide away in as well...

Another glaring and aggravating weakness of Jian Cheng's is, he has no specific techniques for either his ood major or metal minor... He'll have to snaffle some somewhere... And soon...

Speaking of techniques...

He runs his hand across the bedding beside him with the flourish of a market square magician. Instantly nine jade slips fanned out like playing cards beneath his fingers - he still can't believe Fen Ling tried to throw three of these treasures away! What was she thinking?

He picks them up, one by one and examines them yet again - desperately searching for any inspiration that might lie within. After inspecting each one he sets it aside, forming three even piles.

One pile of three were sacred Thundering Tortoise Sect body cultivation methods, that could only be begun after reaching zhuji. Their tortoise techniques sought "total growth for total domination" meaning a cultivator would walk into zhuji ahead of the curve, already stronger all over by two to three tiers. They would basically be acknowledged as being ‘country strong’ amongst other cultivators of the same tier. Natural athletes making the next nine tiers a breeze...

However, by starting out with a much stronger base, the majority of zhuji techniques are mostly redundant or simply too basic. Thus, the Thundering Tortoise Sect has developed their own body and soul techniques, which are split into specific body areas. Naturally they are streets ahead of all other techniques in this continent - even Fen Ling chose to leave these three alone...

The other six were split straight down the middle into three martial techniques and three alchemist recipes - the ones which Fen Ling decided "would taste disgusting" and tried to bin.

The mysterious three recipes were, apart from promptly handed over to Fatty to peruse and appraise, for a pill called the Po Moon Soul Pill and two elixirs: Tiger's Tail and Flood Dragon Tears.

Ai-ya-yai! It appears Brother Kong was right about the divine beast bias, nothing good ever gets named after a tortoise!? It is clearly a conspiracy...

A day after receiving the three slips, Fatty declared that only one was possible to make. However, it still required a rare ingredient - a thousand year-old Three-striped Tiger Lily, which could only be found in the very heart of a demonic beast forest.! The remaining two recipes required several such rare ingredients and were instantly shelved...

Seeing Fatty's eyes shine as he speaks so knowledgeably about stupid boring herbs, sets a fire in Jian Cheng's heart. He realises he'd been short-changing Li Feng, the breadth and depth of his herb lore was vast indeed. In the future, he'd shove his shy friend down the alchemy path, whether he wanted it or not...

The skills were a little more promising...

Heart of the Hearth, was a largely useless fire affinity skill. More of a mantra, a method for absorbing both beast flames or heavenly flames. Strangely Fatty adored it, no-one else was interested in the least... Idiot! Beast flame pies didn't, flaming well fall from the skies. Or even less likely from the heavens...

The second was called Icy Skies - which after careful investigation, appears to be the ice lightning dagger attack Kong Wang used against Yao Bao! So powerful at the yuanying stage, it is tricky to understand, but still had potential... Jian Cheng smirks, wondering if Brother Wang even realises yet, that he's given away one of his mainstay techniques... Ahh, he misses his well-meaning friend in that moment...

The third technique was Thundercloud, a special sect only skill that issued an area attack. As your tier improves, its effects grow in intensity from a mere light mist to a raging hurricane. Jian Cheng likes this one a lot. Even at its lowest level, he feels it can complement the guixiong suppression effects, letting one disappear into thin - well, actually thick - air. Also, you could use the two techniques in conjunction to mask where your attacks were coming from... It is very versatile with a lot of potential benefits...

Aargh! It is such a shame he isn't a water affinity like all the other Thundering Tortoise Sect elders...

Humph, just his luck to be the only one with the divine bloodline, yet without water affinity! It was so embarrass-- Wait, a minute...

He'd been given almost pure beast blood essence... Aargh! He'd stupidly suppressed the affinity results of his second qi orb test... Could he actually now have a water affinity? If not a major maybe a minor? Enough to experiment with Thundercloud is all he wants...

Hang on...Again... He'd given essence to Li Feng and Fen Ling too. Neither has been tested since their last tier advancement... Are they all water babies now?

... Aargh! He'll have to learn how to swim...