“Please reconsider!” Niva said, shaking. “I swear I won’t tell anyone about your technique.”

After half-bowing to her friend on the ground, her soon-to-be killer turned her way. “Your mother named you well. Sadly, however, she didn’t teach you that some things are better left unspoken.”

"Now," the older woman returned to her seat, picked up her water pipe, and took a deep tug, ”four ways out of this lay before you.”

“Spoiler, you end up dead in three of them,” the powerful cultivator breathed, and the smoke she exhaled formed snake patterns in the air.

The snakes watched Niva’s every move, their body coiled as if they could strike at any moment.

“Scenario one and two, you try to flee or fight me, of which the latter would be admirable, I will say.”

Admirable. But useless, Niva added in her head.

“Scenarios three and four,” Ms. Lyba said, the snakes getting larger by the second, their body covering the entire room, ”give you the highest chance to survive, and they depend on the outcome of my examination.”

“Pick whichever one you like.”

By now, the snakes’ heads were no longer visible, and Ms. Lyba had turned into a vague outline whose dranga was suppressing her in more ways than one.

Mutating the battlefield while you were speaking was unfair, she cursed the woman. However, even if Ms. Lyba hadn’t, nothing would’ve changed, and when she offered her hand, the elder cultivator approached her, the smoke parting to reveal a toothy smile.

“Smart girl.”

Whoever said that height advantages are the primary concern in a one-on-one battle smoked something of quality. Because even though she towered a full two heads above the maniac—

Really, what was it with her and meeting psychotic women?

–it didn't matter, and the crone grabbed her hand.

“Don’t startle.”

A biting pain in her hand interrupted her as she wanted to express her puzzlement, and she jerked back reflexively. She thought she screwed up, but the woman didn't even grunt and only held her hand tighter.

The extra pressure brought her attention back to the pain. She envisioned it as a blue ball of energy that moved throughout her body, and she watched it move toward her dantian, where it stopped briefly. When it moved to her heart and rested there for a prolonged period, tears streamed down her face.

She saw her father in front of her and laughed. There truly was no better way to imagine him at the verge of death. How many countless times had she seen his wide back as he was tending to the farmlands?

It always perplexed her, she thought offhandedly, how someone with his burly physique and cultivation level could fit in so perfectly with mortals. Was it his attitude?

“I love you, father,” she whispered, the remembrance of his laid-back demeanor suffusing her with acceptance.

He stopped his scythe mid-swing and spun around. As he peered at her, his muscles bulged. However, following a brief hesitation, he relaxed again and only smiled, tipped his straw hat, and resumed what he considered his heaven-given duty.

In the next moment, having no time to digest her father’s confusing actions, her lungs started to throb. But the sensation disappeared before she even had the time to scream.

“You are a first-year student?” Lines of blue energy ran through the cultivator’s eyes as she looked up at her.

Niva nodded.

“And your full name?”

“Niva Asturias…”

Ms. Lyba’s bony fingers rubbed over hers. “You’re not lying.”

That the woman could sense lies didn’t surprise her since she could breathe literal snakes.

“Well, you pass the preliminary test, I suppose.”

“Preliminary?”

Ms. Lyba murmured in confirmation and regarded the unconscious host as her walking stick tapped the floor. “Come accompany this old woman on a stroll.”

The woman produced a note out of thin air and dropped it on the table.

How did she–

“Also, don’t waste my time by fleeing. I branded you.”

What?! Pressing her eyes shut, she tried her best to sense something, anything, in her body, yet nothing stuck out to her. As she was rotating her hands, the front door opened, and the lady strode outside.

“Fall behind too much, and I’ll off you immediately.”

She needed to drop all concerns because Ms. Lyba set a walking pace that Niva almost couldn’t follow even with her improved constitution. So much so that she had to start a run many times when the elder glared back at her.

Finding some hidden mental energy, she thought about asking someone for help during their run in the village. But who would she even ask? Most inhabitants were mortals, with only the sentries of the village being cultivators. Moreover, she didn’t know for sure, but the sentries felt nowhere near the level of Ms. Lyba.

No. Requesting aid would only endanger others needlessly. Thus, without her making a scene, they left the village behind them and entered the mountainside, walking downstream alongside the Syorotaki river.

Syorotaki was the same river that ran through the mountain range. Better yet, it ran through the entirety of the country the sect was situated in, Bergi.

Both names were very unimaginative, really, for Bergi literally meant mountain whereas Syorotaki meant branch of Syoro.

Syoro was interesting. Most people, herself included, and especially those living near it, deified the river. The reason for this was simple; it was the largest river of Cella since it drew a cross-section through their entire continent. This was no small feat because Cella was gigantic.

To visualize the magnificence of the river, if a mortal were to walk the longest straight path, which included inaccessible lands such as the Infested Lands beset by corrupted beasts, the trip would take approximately a year.

Now, even though their walk wasn’t anything of that scale, Niva was huffing and puffing.

Whenever she asked the lady to go slower, the cultivator would merely scoff and tell her not to be such a crybaby. Eventually, though, they reached a fork in the river, and she got a reprieve.

“You have five minutes to rest up,” Ms. Lyba said when Niva caught up to her.

All but collapsing on the ground, she took her water bottle out of her satchel and inhaled the contents. After eviscerating her life support, she leaned toward the river for a refill. However, the elder stopped her.

“Don’t drink untreated water from the river.”

Niva pressed her eyebrows down. Nonetheless, she backed off.

In the next moment, Ms. Lyba removed a ball of water from the river that started to rotate and glow. And when the process stopped, she filled Niva's container.

“You are not convinced,” Ms. Lyba stated, stroking her chin for a while before asking: ”Tell me, what do you think the origin is of most human arts?”

She tilted her head, taking some time to consider the odd, unexpected question. “They are inspirations of studying the gods?”

“Close and imaginative, but no. Although arts have existed since time immemorial, their basis lies in something more grounded–”

Niva straightened. Somehow, this kidnapping was turning into an educative session with a cultivator of unimaginable heights, and she refused to miss a single word.

“–the first cultivators, believe it or not, were spirit beasts.”

“Spirit beasts?” the pitch in her voice raised an octave as she uttered the words.

“Despite it being understandable,” Ms. Lyba said, shaking her head, ”it’s a shame the sect keeps this information hidden–”

Ms. Lyba paused, refocusing on Niva, and she raised her stick in her direction. “Yes?”

“How is it understandable?” she asked, her true colors showing as she completely forgot about her current predicament.

The cultivator pivoted Niva's way. “Because it glorifies spirit animals, including corrupted beasts, and the empire doesn’t want to give corrupted beast worshippers anymore incentive than they already have.”

“There are people that worship corrupted beasts?!” Niva’s head jerked back.

Corrupted animals differed from regular ones in that they attacked humans on sight without reason. So, why would citizens of the empire worship the beasts that were killing them?

“Let’s leave that for what it is”–the elderly woman gave her a dismissive wave of the hand–“Back to arts. I said your guess was close because we derive most techniques from studying spirit beasts.

“The reason for which is that the usage of arts is as simple to them as breathing is to us. As such, they employ it for anything ranging from battling other animals and marking their territory to playing games with each other.”

The penny dropped, and she understood where this was going.

“Good, you are quick on the uptake,” Ms. Lyba nodded. ”The river is home to a mixture of spirit animals, all of whom use arts in one form or the other daily. As a result, drinking uncleansed river water is worse than drinking poison.“

She grimaced at the revelation. Plenty of times had she taken a dip in a river and partaken in some of its constituent element.

“Drink too much of it,” Ms. Lyba interrupted her mental rambling, ”and you may suddenly find yourself in the jaws of an alligator-like creature due to an attractor technique. Ask the ghosts of the many disciples preceding you for confirmation.”

Niva scooped a little further away from the waters to be safe.

Ms. Lyba’s mouth curved upward. “Arts permeate the Syorotaki, that is true. However, most of the time, they are too diluted to affect you based on proximity. The animals in this river are too weak for that."

“Moreover, the effects of techniques on the water are easy to remove once you learn how,” the woman said, leaning on her walking stick, her eyes conveying an emotion Niva couldn’t put her finger on.

She tried to figure out what it was. However, her break ended before she could, and Ms. Lyba signaled for her to get moving.

Although her legs wailed as she got up, she bit down on the pain, following the older lady, and vowed to live another day.

Hammering her legs while running, she arrived at Ms. Lyba’s side. The fork of the river they followed split into a relatively small and unassuming lake of which they stood at the edge.

“Give me your hand,” Ms. Lyba said, “I hope you’re not afraid to get wet.”

Inwardly sighing about her tunic getting drenched, again, she took the woman’s hand. She had to admit that, in spite of the bony interior, Ms. Lyba's hands felt as smooth as oiled-up salmon. Did physical cultivation do that to you?

Ms. Lyba, oblivious to her thoughts, moved in front of her and created an air bubble around Niva’s head, after which an unseen force moved them down into the water faster than she could imagine.

Schools of fish moved out of the way in a hurry. Furthermore, a shiver ran through her as the sensation of being watched washed over her.

They dove for what felt like minutes before Ms. Lyba moved toward the far side of the lake and placed her hand on the rocky surface of the wall. A script lit up in response. Whereafter, the wall parted, allowing the two of them to make their way through a series of tunnels until they finally surfaced above water.

Niva stared in awe at the sight as she wrung out her clothes.

The ceiling of the water cave, which floated so far above them that she couldn’t make out the details of it, had a large hole in the middle of it where sunlight entered through –as an afterthought, she considered how that was possible; there hadn't seen any signs of the cave on the surface. However, she couldn't find an answer and found herself attracted to the purple-colored stalagmites that littered the entire cave, some of which were so large that they connected the ceiling and the land they grew out of, while others only rose for a few meters.

“A beautiful sight, I know,” Ms. Lyba said, moving toward the wooden hut in the middle that Niva only now noticed. “Let’s get inside, though.”

What a nondescript house for such an uncommon place, Niva thought as they entered the abode. Nothing of interest, at least, nothing she saw, made the single-floor home stand out.

“Want some tea?” Ms. Lyba asked after placing her pipe in one of the closets in the living room and retrieving a teapot from the kitchen.

“Thank you…”

She noticed it before, but this switch in mood was seriously messing with her. Was she in the proximity of a threatening, high-realm cultivator, or was she under the shielding wing of an elder?

“It’s better to relax for this next part,” Ms. Lyba said at an eerie and suspicious timing.

"Just now, we spoke of a misconception supported by the sect, yes?" Ms. Lyba took a seat at the table opposite Niva when she had burned some incense that sent a spicy fragrance through the house.

“Yes, Ms–”

“Elder.”

“–elder.”

Elder Lyba wrapped her hands around the pot, and steam escaped the lid. “There are more. However, not all misconceptions are created equal.”

“Some are beneficial, like the distinction between the elements. Others are insidious.”

“Others such as?”

After handing her a slice of lemon, Elder Lyba filled both their cups.

“First, what do you think makes a talented cultivator?” The elder blew on the hot liquid in her cup.

“Affinities?”

Beyond improving the speed of your progression, affinities also increased the impact of the element you cultivated. So, they formed an essential part of an immortal’s journey.

The elder shook her head, evidently not sharing Niva’s thought process. “A riddle to perhaps lead you to the right answer.”

“Simultaneously the most overlooked and revered aspect of cultivation”–Elder Lyba procured some cake for them out of thin air–“both the talented and untalented possess it. For without it, even if they had enough essence to clog the heavens, they would be unable to exercise their power.”

“Take a moment to think on it, child,” the elder said as she bit into her snack. “And let me know what you come up with.”