“I propose to this forum for debate, that the no-core are no demons. Since times unknown, we have assumed all living beings as demonic beasts or magical beasts, separated by their thought and form. Yet, the no-core are the only demons defined by lack. Yet, the no-core cannot successfully copulate with other demons. Yet, the no-core have mortals of a fragility several levels below other mortals! We should refer to the no-core as humans; as that which are adjacent to demons.”

—Philosopher-Warrior Xihua Krell, to the immortal forum of Panacea, ~500,000 years ago. Debate ongoing.

***

Keir Lao was impressed by the polished wooden interior and comfortable benches of the Dao Finder’s cabin. His only other experience aboard a Dao Finder was the one on which he worked as a deckhand and butcher, spending most his time cutting tumorous growths of meat from the walls, then suturing the wounds.

Seated on the bench across from him were Iah and Gabriela. Iah had explained that Keir Lao’s memory was important, and they would go into more detail in privacy. On the way, they would tour the Library. Keir Lao didn’t trust the two cultivators, but he was willing to take risks to see the Library and hear about his memory.

Having awoken without memories three years ago, he deeply desired answers.

The Dao Finder shook as it landed. Iah stood and suggested, “If you’ll follow me…?”

Keir Lao smiled. “I wouldn’t not,” he said. In his three years of awareness, he’d learned a lesson each year. Lesson one: cultivators were largely petty, vindictive, and power hungry. Lesson two: as a mortal, his survival depended entirely on his charm and wit. Lesson three: worst case, apply lessons one and two to make cultivators fight each other, and be far away when it happens. He wished he could claim Drum’s defeat, but he’d misread the situation, and had almost died.

He resolved to try harder, not that he had a choice. The singular cultivator he trusted was his crewmate, friend, and sometime bodyguard, Just Xin, and it’d taken over a year.

Iah led them from the cabin, up the hall, and out the mouth. As soon as they exited, the massive, golden furred, reanimated bat took flight, and glided back to the firepit-lit shadows of the docks below.

Between them and the interior of the Library was a plain-looking stone door. Iah said, “You are the first mortal to the Library in the last four thousand years.”

Keir Lao had to admit, Iah was very skilled in making people feel special, yet this only grew his suspicion. Someone of a no-doubt ancient age would be capable in untold ways. Keir Lao resolved to remain suspicious, no matter what happened. He smiled and said, “I’ve wanted to see it for a long time, but not for that long.”

Iah clapped, and the door slid slowly open.

The colorful, memory-filled tendrils of the Library were densely packed along the walls and ceiling. Shelf after shelf stood in the center, proudly displaying the largest collection of books and scrolls to ever exist. It stretched on the entire length of the Library, so distant that Keir Lao could only tell the end by the stream of colors. Four-Eyed workers placed or removed items in perpetual activity — chaos, Keir Lao would say, if he wasn’t nearly certain they acted to an ends.

There was plenty of room for the workers to step aside as Iah strolled through a row. He asked, “What do you know about our memory classification, Keir Lao?”

Keir Lao shrugged and intentionally revealed his ignorance by asking, “The better the memory, the more you pay?”

“Gabriela, you may teach.”

“Sir!” She placed her hands behind her back and strode with her head held higher. “Classification is based on the truth of the memory. The closer the memory is to the Dao, the more powerful it is, and thus the more it is worth. Some memories may also be more speculatory despite their accuracy, and that it also assessed. Finally, memories must carry a uniqueness of knowledge to have full value, but minimum pay is still provided to obscure Panopticon’s full knowledge.”

Keir Lao noticed something missing in the explanation. He asked, “But how do you know its truth?”

Gabriela said, “The truth is. Perhaps it is hard to understand, as a mortal?”

Keir Lao shook his head. “Not to be assuming, but what I don’t understand is how you know the truth. Who or what decides, and how?”

“Lies can be understood from intentions,” Gabriela enunciated.

“But what if they’re just wrong?”

Iah interrupted, “Gabriela is correct, but equally, she is not privy to the full and exact methods. This is not her fault, as she is easily the most knowledgeable of the Three-Eyed, but secrecy is necessary for the protection of Panopticon and its citizens. Were I to explain, the memory of it would place you both in danger, in the best case.”

Keir Lao wasn’t satisfied, but couldn’t find excuse to complain. He said, “I think I get it. Something you said before, to the cultivator that attacked us, stood out to me. About unethical behavior? As someone in charge, you must worry about that a lot.”

“I’ve rarely met other cultivators as wise,” Iah complimented. “Were you educated in your clan?”

He’s doing it again, thought Keir Lao, but I can’t avoid answering. “I don’t have a clan.”

“My truest fault for my insensitivity,” Iah said.

Keir Lao was briefly caught off guard that he hadn’t been pushed further, then wondered if that wasn’t part of a plan to create trust. He felt exhaustion over keeping his guard up, and allowed himself to frown. He hoped it’d read as sadness.

They reached the end of the room. A doorway, through which was a spiral staircase of marble, was off to the side. Iah lifted his palm and said, “You’ll see how we write our texts. While not a carefully guarded secret, you’d prefer not to share it widely, else others may assume you know more than you do.” They ascended, leaving behind the unmentioned mystery of the steps further down. Shouting swelled from above.

The circular writing room was smaller than the shelved room, yet still prodigious. Arranged in oblong loops, desk after desk of Five-Eyed hunched atop stools and scrawled, needles over pages. They were shirtless, hundreds more needles plunged into each their backs and necks, faces red and eyes bulging. Fat-stuffed rags plugged their ears. They roared incomprehensibly to the Four-Eyed beside them, who would remove and add needles from detailed leather kits.

“Each needle is infused with a memory, and they synthesize them to text,” Iah explained. “Only the powerful will not be lost among so many foreign thoughts.”

“How do they know which memories to use?” Keir Lao asked.

Iah said, “The room above organizes the kits, but that process is less interesting and more restricted.”

They ascended again, moving past a small hall with two doors on opposite ends, labeled ‘Available’ and ‘Direct’.

“About my memory,” Keir Lao began.

“If you are worried it will not be returned, be assured. All memories share certain qualities,” Iah said. “They cannot be directly replicated or stolen, only extracted or injected with an act of self-will. It is why bandits take them by threat, and why we will never do the same.”

That was what Keir Lao assumed, and wasn’t his topic. “You said it’s important, and maybe that’s because it’s so close to the truth, but just how important is it? I’m only a mortal, and you’re one of the most powerful,” he noticed Gabriela frown, “likely the most powerful cultivator here, yet hosting me. It must be greater than I can imagine.”

Iah motioned to Gabriela, who grinned and said, “Yours is a Divine Glimpse, the closest a memory can be to the truth without being the Dao itself.” She raised her voice. “It represents fundamentals of being, the nature of the five elements, and the will of qi. It’s still debated if it is the domain of literal divine beings, as there exists only untrustworthy second-hand accounts for their existence.”

“Exceedingly well said, Gabriela.” She preened her uniform as they reached the top. “To add, this is the fourth Divine Glimpse I have ever encountered. I possess but one, instrumental to my growth, my alliance with the other Six-Eyed, and ultimately the founding of Panopticon beyond a millennia of millennia ago.”

“Over a million years!” Gabriela shouted.

This is bad, thought Keir Lao. A million years? And why didn’t she already know? His sharing is still suspicious. This is dangerous. “Oh.”

The top room was a semicircle with six doors. Iah said, “Let’s discuss further, inside my office.” He walked towards the rightmost door, but Gabriela rushed ahead. She struggled with it briefly until Iah made a subtle motion, at which point she presented the open door, back straight, but head tilted low and away.

Keir Lao didn’t dislike her bowing and scraping behavior, because he was pretty sure he’d do the same in her position, at least to appear loyal. He chewed at his cheek and thought, Is that age even possible, and how powerful does that make him?

The most powerful cultivator ever witnessed by Keir Lao was during his first year of awareness. He’d lived in the poor outskirts of Huisheng. Ignorant, he resisted when cultivating bandits came to steal. They beat him for amusement, and though he learned not to resist, he became their toy to be abused daily. Eventually, another cultivator arrived.

Unlike the bandits, she appeared dignified, and wore dark green glowing robes. Keir Lao risked asking her for help, but she ignored him as the bandits beat him again. It was chance that Keir Lao was left groaning atop his own blood, far away, when one of the bandits said something she didn’t like. In response, she leapt to an unseen height.

The bandits panicked and sprinted in every direction. She dropped like a meteor, and when she slammed the earth, it rose like waves. The angry terrain shot towards all the bandits at once, cascading into them, crunching and mulching.

She then walked to Keir Lao, picked him up, and dropped him at the site. “This is all you are,” she said, and forced him — pained and retching — to pick through the slurry of mud and guts for her bounty.

She thanked him for the gifts on her two thousandth birthday, and left.

Iah’s office was small, more than Gabriela’s. He strode to his desk and seated himself on a stool, just like those below. Otherwise, the room contained a second stool, a chandelier, a tall stack of papers resting against a green jade statue of Iah with a flowing scroll, and a window presenting half the city, which the statue gazed sidelong upon.

Keir Lao sat and wondered, Other than the statue, isn’t this too simple for a powerful cultivator?

Gabriela marched to a corner and stood like a statue herself, though she glanced towards Iah before returning to a steely gaze. Iah withdrew the basin from his robes and set it open in front of him. Next he withdrew a thin, ornately carved rod. Dragons wove through clouds, devouring finely detailed beasts. Probing the memory, he said nothing. Gabriela glanced many more times as her smile slipped to an ever-deeper frown.

The rod vanished back into his robes, and Iah slid a spirit stone from his sleeve to his palm. He regarded it for a moment, then said, “Under normal circumstances, the current value of a Divine Glimpse would be two hundred and thirty billion, five hundred and fifty five million, nine hundred and eleven thousand, and four spirit stones.”

The number was so large as to be meaningless to Keir Lao.

He could not imagine it. Even Gabriela had a growing look of confusion. Yet, if Keir Lao could fully comprehend, he still would not care. He knew of nothing in the world that could extend his life beyond cultivation. It was his only path to security, and he suspected the glimpse and his missing memories would be the guide. He asked, “Under normal circumstances?”

“Yours is worth less than that, less than nothing,” Iah said. “It is poison to the Dao.”

Keir Lao could only ask, “How?”

Iah pointed to the liquid within the basin. His finger traced just above the surface, as if tracking something. “Any memory without context will turn will turn against itself. This was brewing deep in your mind, unconnected from anything that would give it truth. It starved and devoured its own meaning, becoming a lie. This is a rare problem for average memories, reserved for those who extract so many they lose all sense of self, and keep extracting. This happening to such a grand truth is altogether a greater problem. If I placed it within my own mind, madness or death would be the most probable outcomes.” Shoulders slumped and fingers steepled, he asked, “Please forgive my forwardness, but how long ago?”

There’s no point in hiding it anymore. “Three years.”

“And where you awoke?”

“Huisheng.”

“There are three possibilities. Someone discovered how to steal memories directly, you prefered ego death to physical death, or…”

“Or I wanted to forget everything.”

Iah nodded. “All three project extreme danger. I can offer you merely an opportunity to rediscover that danger, if that’s the path you wish to travel. Think deeply. Is that your path?”

Keir Lao knew if he did not, his death as a mortal was certain. He had thought deeply for three years, through hope and pain. His answer was an unspoken yes, but he wouldn’t abandon suspicion. He asked, “What do you want? The glimpse, complete?”

“I’m giving you an opportunity, so ethically I should have only an opportunity in return.” Iah withdrew a scroll from his desk, tapped it once, and unfurled it. At the top, in bold lettering, it read PANOPTICON DAO FINDER CONTRACT. “I’ve modified it. Two hundred thousand spirit stone loan to purchase a vessel, crew, and supplies, and permission to travel anywhere as an official agent of Panopticon. If and when you’ve mended your memory, you owe the loan and interest. If you cannot pay normally, you must sell the glimpse, and be paid the remainder. The only other requirement is regular reports, based on which I may approve additional loans or cancel the contract, though you’ll only need to return what you can. For that purpose, your assistant and liaison will be Three-Eyed Gabriela.”

She blurted out, “Sir?”

“Is that vital?” Keir Lao asked.

“An assistant? Yes. Gabriela? No, but I cannot recommend any better study of our regulations, or on information about other cities. I have great trust in her.”

Gabriela swayed slightly.

Keir Lao couldn’t find any good reason Iah would lie about it, under circumstance, though assumed it wasn’t all lies. That was possible, but he had no clues. “Can I think about it? Look over the contract?”

“I insist you do,” Iah said. “Making money will be approximately as difficult as finding your memories. You are unusually clever, but mortal, and I am unaware of any trade not dominated by the vastly more powerful. If you accept, it will be nearly certain you end your journey without your glimpse. That is not to put you down, but a truth I am obligated to share.”

“What about my glimpse, for now?”

Iah pushed forward the basin. “It was yours and is yours, accept or reject. It will not harm you the same as it would others, but it will try to trick you, lead you towards truth and then shove you into lies.”

Keir Lao looked into the liquid, his reflection distorted. He took a breath, and plunged his head in.