Anzan floated adrift in a sea of darkness. Fragmented sounds and images of Ling and the jagged page surfaced and sunk all around him. He had no form or consciousness, but he felt like he was being pulled, twisted, ground down to nothing, and hammered into shape all at once. Pain beyond that of body or mind assaulted him, and his soul seemed to cry out in rejection as a great force began its brutal work. And though he had no way of knowing the depth of what was happening to him, somehow he was aware, and somehow he tried to push back.

As Anzan wrestled with the ineffable force, strange sensations washed over him one after the other: a biting chilliness, a lack of stability in his posture, a loss in his sense of smell. With each horrible new feeling, his sense of rejection grew stronger and he struggled more fiercely, but the force he struggled against could not be denied and only continued to press him down relentlessly.

Eventually, Anzan’s spirit wearied of the struggle and the sounds and images disappeared. A numbness overcame him, and Anzan realized that whatever work had been done was finally finished. Sweet light bloomed before him, and Anzan basked in its much-welcomed warmth. The comforting relief didn’t last long, however—the darkness was slowly disappearing along with his awareness. But before it all faded, Anzan heard a shout.

“Eh!?”

***

Anzan opened his eyes and cringed at the blinding overhead sun. Raising an arm to shade his gaze, he sat up and blinked the spots from his vision. He was back at the forest’s edge, at the bottom of the slope leading to the Great Monad Temple. Suddenly, memories of Ling and the strange world of mist and darkness came roaring back. He shivered. Anzan looked around frantically, thinking himself alone as he didn’t see Ling or Pilgrim anywhere, but then he heard a muffled squeak and turned.

Pilgrim looked up at him incredulously from behind one of their lumpy broken packs—his fur all puffy and nose twitching wildly. On top of the pack, Ling sat in her tiny form with her hands clasped to her face.

“What’s wrong?” Anzan asked reflexively. His thoughts turned to their adventure in the strange world—to cultivation and the page—and his heart jumped. He tried to get up but fell forward instead, face planting in the dirt and hissing as gritty earth scratched against his skin. “Ow!”

“Hip,” Ling squeaked.

Anzan shook himself and looked up at her confused. He dug his hands in, pushing himself up, but stopped halfway. Beneath him, dry dirt ground together between a pair of large, blocky hands—human hands with hair on the knuckles and dirt under the fingernails, but otherwise pale and spotless. Anzan was transfixed; he nearly fell on his face again. He lowered himself and brought the foreign appendages up.

“What did you do to me?”

There was no answer, a fact that seemed to prick something in him. Anzan carefully manipulated the hands, getting up this time with exaggerated tenderness. He took slow marching steps toward Ling, the effort and concentration of new mechanics etched deep in the lines of his face. He stopped shy of her and repeated himself, “What did you do to me?”

“Er, E-heh!”

A fire blazed in his chest. Anzan started to tremble, and Pilgrim slunk out of his field of view. He shuddered and looked down at his changed self again, his human self, and the horror leapt out of his throat. “You—I can’t—!” he screamed and choked on his words. “Oh!” he groaned as he grabbed his head and spat in revulsion. Everything felt wrong. He was cold. His mouth was too small. He could barely hear or smell anything. The list of things he hated about the human body grew without end. Violation and disgust overwhelmed his anger.

“You said you’d do anything!” Ling quipped out of nowhere.

Momentarily distracted, Anzan refocused. “But!” he said haltingly, “You didn’t say—I mean, I didn’t know what anything meant!”

“Well now you do!” The strange specter kept her hands clasped to her face, but she’d seemed to have gotten ahold of herself.

“Eh, but—what’s wrong with you?” Anzan asked, unable to come up with any retort.

Ling gasped as if reminded of something. “You’re indecent!"

“What?”

“You’re naked!” she declared, blushing around the edges of her hands.

Anzan furrowed his brow. “I’ve always been naked?”

“No!” Ling choked, coughing. “It’s not the same!”

Anzan didn’t see what the big deal was, but Ling’s discomfort did make him feel a little better—like he wasn’t the only one upset with the situation. A chilly mountain breeze blew by, and he hugged himself. Maybe clothes weren’t such a bad idea.

Anzan scrounged together a scraggly hempen outfit out of the scraps of their broken provisions and sat back across from Ling, his face stony and arms folded. Now that he was semi-clothed, the strange specter finally put her hands down, and her blush cooled.

“Well,” he said more sharply than he intended, “what was all that? What did you do?” He was feeling marginally less depressed about his new situation, but he still held something back inside himself—ready for Ling to explain how being a human was more horrible than he already knew.

“Oh?” She perked up as though surprised by his question. “I don’t know.”

Anzan sucked air through his teeth. He didn’t know what he expected.

“But I have theories!” the strange specter quickly interjected. She bent forward and propped one hand under her chin. “My plan was—well, it was a reckless gamble really, anyway—I wanted to take something with us, and I wasn’t sure how much longer we had. But I knew that you would need to cultivate for either of us to ever get what we want. So, I checked your affinity and took the most relevant page I could. With your connection, I thought you might be able to preserve something,” she sighed, “but the results were much greater and stranger than I expected.” She muttered to herself, “Your lacking Treasure must be a more profound thing than I thought.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Anzan said, “Affinity? Relevant Page? Preserve something? Can you at least try to explain yourself?”

“I am trying!” Ling said indignantly. She huffed, but then her expression relaxed. “The important bit, as far as you’re concerned, is that now you should be able to cultivate.”

“Really?” Anzan almost fell forward.

“Mhmm.” Ling nodded her head. “We have a real chance now.” The strange specter floated in the air and her voice grew sunny. “With a few decades or centuries of hard work—and my help of course—we’ll have you at an almost respectable level of strength before you know it. Why, I might even get to see my family this millennium!” Her face broke into a wide cat’s-grin, and she practically danced in the air.

“Uh—oh…” Ling’s phrasing put a damper on Anzan’s enthusiasm. “But how? Wait!” Anzan took a deep breath. “First, what was that place? What happened to me? To you?”

Ling’s expression soured like milk, and she sunk to the ground. She looked at him searchingly, her face even paler than usual. “The Pearl is…also one of my Treasures—” she looked at her feet, “—a very special one. One that has persisted even after my death.”

“Then you really are some kind of ghost?”

Ling smirked sardonically. “I didn’t think—or rather—I didn’t want to think I was.” She hugged her knees. “But time and circumstance have forced me to face that fact. The moment I saw the pearl, I knew deep down, but—” she closed her eyes and scrunched her forehead, “so much just doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Anzan said.

“It’s all right.” Ling looked up at him. “I’m just glad I’m not alone.”

Anzan looked down and away. “But wait, you said that that book is also one of your Treasures. It’s still here too, right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Ling said. She floated into the air and motioned at Anzan’s neck.

He grabbed the satchel with the pearl and opened it. The pearl was dark—almost black—and it no longer gave off that sharp coldness when he touched it. “Is it broken?”

“No, no,” Ling said with a laugh. “It’s dormant. The pearl’s power can only preserve a wisp of what I once was, of my other Treasures, and thus myself.” She placed one hand on her hip and a finger on her chin. “It is the only part of me that can truly be said to be alive. The rest is a phantom, like myself. The pearl merely gave me access to the other for a time.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them, rejuvenated. “But a time was all I needed, for the power of that phantom was enough to change you, and enough to give you your path.”

“My path?” Anzan asked doubtfully.

“That’s right!” Ling said. “Close your eyes and focus on your memory of the page.”

Anzan did as he was told. At first, he saw nothing but the dark undersides of his eyelids. But then something changed—something was coming toward him, as though from a long way off. He focused on it, but after only a few moments, a splitting headache assaulted him. “Ack!”

“Keep focusing!” Ling commanded.

Anzan grit his teeth and tried, but his headache grew ever more piercing. Something warm ran down around his mouth, and he started to sway on his feet. Fearing he would pass out, he opened his eyes, but not before seeing the words ‘The Way of the Formless Shadow’ appear before him.

“Hmph, well that wasn’t much of an effort,” Ling muttered.

Anzan wiped his mouth and his hand came away bloody—his nose was bleeding. “I did my best,” he mumbled breathlessly and steadied himself.

“Well, your best isn’t good enough!”

Anzan looked up at her and frowned. “Hey—”

“Don’t ‘hey’ me!” she said as she fluttered in front of his face. “The path of a cultivator isn’t easy—especially a mortal human one, and that is what you are now.” She drifted back. “You’ll need to take things very seriously if you want to get anywhere, and that means putting everything into it!”

Anzan scoffed. “So, what? I’m just supposed to sit and focus till my nose bleeds and I pass out?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Ling said. “Look, you sit and rest; I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

Anzan grumbled and sat.

Ling folded her arms behind her back. “A mortal begins on the path to immortality by cultivating their first great Treasure—usually the Treasure of the Spirit for humans.” She nodded to him. “But one is not truly considered a cultivator until they’ve succeeded in the first step: what is usually referred to as the Smelting Stage.”

Anzan nodded to show he was listening.

Ling cleared her throat and continued, “The Smelting Stage is the process of preparing the vessel and gathering the material to form the foundation of your Treasure. This is done by purifying the mortal body and spirit—or vessel—with Qi from the natural world and absorbing natural elixirs to form the base and supplementary material for your Spiritual Treasure.”

“But how would I even—”

“I’m not finished,” Ling said. “This is all done using what is commonly called an Art—or a Way at the highest level. These are techniques that bring one in harmony with some aspect of Heaven and Earth like the five elements, Yin and Yang, or some other Way. This harmony naturally opens one up to Earthly Qi and allows the absorption of elixirs.”

Anzan furrowed his brow. “Then, ‘The Way of the Formless Shadow…’”

“That’s right,” Ling said. “My Treasure recorded many such high and low tier Arts and Ways, and out of all of them, it is the one that suited you best. Now, a piece of it lies deep within your consciousness, and you possess all you need to know to reach the highest levels of cultivation—provided you have the will to reach for it. It all starts with the shaping of your first Treasure. That will determine everything; you can’t afford to slack.”

Ling’s face was solemn, and Anzan fidgeted where he sat. “I got it. It got it,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I’ll do everything I can, even if I have to pass out a hundred times.” As Ling’s stare bored into him, Anzan kept his eyes elsewhere. “Really!”

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Ling sighed. “I suppose I am being somewhat overly serious at this early stage. With me looking over your shoulder, there’s no real reason to worry.” She nodded. “It’ll be trivial.”

“Right,” Anzan said as he got up. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand. You haven’t explained exactly what these Treasures do—I mean yours are so different and—”

“All in due time,” Ling said. The strange specter started drifting away as her attention was drawn elsewhere. “It’s best we stick to the basics for now, and considering the length of our journey, we may as well make some progress while we’re at it. Oh!” She spun around in the air. “And you’re right,” she motioned at all the broken provisions around them, “we probably don’t need all this, but now that we’re finally headed in the right direction, I’ve thought of a few things we best not leave behind. This way!” The strange specter raced back up the slope, peering at various piles as she searched for whatever she was looking for.

Despite the strange specter’s urgings, Anzan hung back. He didn’t want to do any more climbing than he had to—not while he was still getting used to the ridiculous proportions of the human body. While he watched Ling, Pilgrim came to investigate and sniffed at his ankle.

“Can you believe all this?” Anzan mumbled as he turned one eye toward Pilgrim. “I never would’ve thought something like this was even possible.”

Pilgrim squeaked, and Anzan took that for an affirmative.

“But I guess that shows what I know.” Anzan laughed. “My master’s probably wouldn’t have been surprised by something like this. If Ling can do all that—I wonder how much more amazing they are? I had no way of knowing before, but now…” Yes, now he could cultivate. Anzan’s head still hurt, and he wasn’t happy about his body, but a small fire burned in him. His first experience with cultivation hadn’t been the smoothest, but the impossible was now possible. Things could only get better with time, and despite Ling’s seriousness, cultivation couldn’t be that hard, could it?