The herbs Dorian had stolen soaked in a bowl of water mixed with a dash of the Elixir of Minor Healing. He wiped off his hands, breathed out, and set the bowl down in a secluded corner of the tent. Done. It’d only need a few hours more before it was alchemy-ready.

Smiling, he drank the rest of the Elixir in two big swigs. It staved off his lingering nausea and upset stomach, driving back the poison another few steps. Now it only felt like a lingering unease. Soon, he hoped, it wouldn’t feel like anything at all. Tonight.

From outside he heard the soft crush of footsteps on sand, heavy. A moment later his sister poked her head through the doorway and gave him a once-over.

“‘Ello!” she grinned. Then she poked her head back out. When she came back a second later it was sideways, like a crab; she hefted a long stick laden with two giant water-jugs over her shoulders. After a few puffing breaths, she dropped them by the side of the tent.

“I’m baaack!” she said. She threw her arms out in a pose, like she was expecting applause from an imaginary audience. “Two full 10-ulma jugs tapped straight from the core of a cactus. Carried them seven miles in the heat, alone. Almost got skewered by a Wyrmtrap cactus on the way back, too. You know how many girls in this godsforsaken tribe could’ve done that?”

Dorian blinked. “…Just you?”

“Damn right,” said Kaya. Then her fierce grin shifted a little. She stalked over, wiping her sweat with a spare tunic. “Y’know who should’ve been out there?”

“…Me?”

“Right again,” she said. She knelt down, taking a close look at his temple. “Feelin’ better? Does your head still throb? Didja drink that Elixir of Minor Healing I hadja buy?”

“Yup. I’m all—“

“Great!” She gave him a hearty pat on the head. It felt almost like a slap. “You get one free day to heal up your dull lil’ head. Then, back to training!”

Another reason the old Io loathed his sister? Even though she was only three years older, she mothered him to death; she was always pushing him to be not-him; less weak, less wimpy, less small. More like her. Of late—just after his last birthday— she’d taken to subjecting him to daily drill-sergeant workouts. After all, he was already fifteen and weak as a lamb; he didn’t have a single Spiritual Vein, either, and none seemed forthcoming. At the very least, she’d decided, he needed some muscle. She made it a personal project to fix him up.

But unlike with most everything else Kaya tried, here she didn’t succeed. By some miracle of physics, Io had come out of months of training looking even thinner. The only gains he’d made were in his dislike of exercise and his sister.

She looked at his spindly arms, squinting. “I’ve seen cactus thorns thicker than that. We’ll need to double your barrel-lifts. That, and a few more dune-runs, should do.” She paused, waiting for Io’s usual groan.

But Dorian just nodded. “Good idea.”

She stared at him. “Wha?” Then she pinched him on the cheek. “You realize I’ll work you harder, right?”

Dorian kept nodding, his eyes wide. “In the past, I was wrong to discount training. But after last night… I realized if I didn’t get stronger I’d only hurt myself, and you, more.”

He bit his lip. He’d need to sell this next bit. “I haven’t been putting in effort like I should. From now on, I’ll try my best!”

He channeled his best impressionable young cultivator impression; throw a stone in any Outer Sect and it’d bounce off a menagerie of such hopefuls. The best kind of hope: young, dumb, five-year-life-expectancy hope.

She tilted her head, a strand of short black hair falling across her eyes. “You must’ve hit your head harder than I thought,” she said at last. Then her grin returned. “Heh. Alright. Full of air today, are you? I like it. Keep that same spirit when you’re puking at the bottom of a dune.” She ruffled his hair heartily. It felt like someone was drubbing his skull with a ladle, and Dorian suppressed a hiss. Kaya hadn’t just been boasting; for someone in the fourth level of the Origin realm, she was freakishly strong.

“About that…” he said, ducking out of her assault.

“Yes?”

He took a deep breath. “…just today, I broke through to the first Level of the Origin Realm!”

“Oh?!”

She took him by the shoulders, eyes intent. “Don’t joke.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Look!”

He held out a hand and cycled his little splutter of qi there. A faint sheen of white covered his digits. “See?”

She looked at his hand, then at him, then at his hand again.

“You cycled past the first level?”

He grinned mirthlessly. “It only took me fifteen years. Is it so surprising?”

For a long moment, she studied him again.

“You should hit your head more often,” she declared.

He hid a smirk and gestured to the soup. “Look—I even gathered some Spirit herbs to help me cultivate!”

“…Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

He grinned and sighed. “You’ve found me out. In truth, I’m a reincarnated Godking who threw out your brother’s soul and took over his body.”

She gave him a deadpan stare. “Right. Very funny.”

“Jokes aside…” He paused. “Now I’ve finally got qi, I’m eligible for hunter training, aren’t I?”

Now she looked at him like he’d truly lost it. “Is this a trick? Am I dreaming? You, in hunter training?!”

Dorian winced. He spread his hands. “…is it so hard to believe I’ve decided to change my ways?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m off to afternoon training regardless.” He shrugged, walking over to the door. “Oh—and don’t drink that soup! My life depends on it.”

Even though Dorian couldn’t see her, he could feel her eye-roll through his back.

“Your jokes are getting worse and worse.”

Jokes? If only…

***

“You are our tribe’s greatest hope,” said Master Tocho as he paced. “Hunters are the lifeblood of Rust tribe. It is hunters who beat back Spirit Beast hordes when they threaten; it is hunters who battle for the Beast-remains that make up our rations!”

He stopped to glance at the sordid cluster of half-naked, loincloth-laden teens before him, twenty or so in all. They stood in a flat plain hemmed in by a circle of stones, just a few minutes’ walk from the main camp. A flag hung off a totem pole to to the circle’s side. It was a makeshift training ground.

“This class is the first step in becoming a hunter. Here you’ll be taught the fundamentals of our tribe’s art, the [Fist of the Rising Sun].” He stopped to scan his audience. The faces seemed to change by the week; this class was a constant churn of drop-outs and move-ups. Most dropped out within a few months—about the time it took to see their dreams of hunter glory vanish behind a mountain of grueling work.

“Do not come to this lightly,” he breathed. “By the gods! You do not join this class to gain a hunters’ rations come dinner time. You do not join this course to impress your mahjong friends! This is a fundamentals course, true, but it is also a years-long commitment. I shall break you, and remake you, and break you yet again. I shall forge a new you in a smithy of your sweat and blood. That I promise you.”

He paused to let his words sink in. “By the end—should you make it that far—you should hate me and love me in equal measure. For only then shall you be warriors worthy of a place as a hunter trainee. Worthy of learning the [Fist]’s elite techniques.”

He nodded to the handful of faces whose names he bothered to remember. Each had been training under him for the best part of two years. He’d taken them all in soft, doughy, and carved hard edges of their bodies and their minds. They had steel in their eyes.

The rest… not so much.

There was one little stick of a boy who hadn’t even come in proper uniform. He was still in his day’s rags and sported a silly smile to boot. Everyone around him at least looked the part—stern faces, buffed bodies; they carried themselves with honor.

Hmph. Tocho lived to extinguish the light from dumb, naive eyes. He’d enjoy breaking this one.

“Our work starts now,” he spat. “Observe.”

He settled into a fighting stance.

“The first form of the [Fist of the Rising Sun]: [Ray]!” He shouted.

He twirled his arms about his head and, in the same move, qi cycled through his body in a complex pattern, gathering heat; with a feral roar, he expelled it and punched out, thrusting with his whole body.

It looked like a shooting star had birthed in his hand. The bolt burst out with a shrill roar, trailing fiery qi, before it cratered into the black sands with a loud whump.

He nodded smugly. His [Ray], practiced over decades, was nearing level 7. A fearsome weapon, it’d saved lives—his own and of his hunter team—on countless occasions.

A rustle of ‘ooh’s’ went up from the trainees.

“It is said that the founder of the technique was inspired by the Phoenix,” said Tocho. “The brighter the flame, the higher-pitched the roar, the more powerful the technique.”

He sniffed at the array of dumbstruck eyes. “Don’t be too thrilled. It’ll be months yet before any of your sorry hides manages even a low rumble, I imagine—and this is only the art’s first form.”

Winding his arms back, he resumed his starting position. “I’ll do it once more, but slower. Watch closely, for it’ll be your turn next.”

He did, narrating as he went. Describing the precise flow of qi through his body; describing the exact visualizations he’d done, the way it took in the heat of the world and returned it in equal measure. He noted in painstaking detail the placement of the feet, the whirl of the arms, the thrust of the body—all of it, put your hips into it!

Only for all of it to vanish the moment he left them to their own devices.

Typical novices.

Sounds splattered the air, “Hup!” and “Kee-up!” and “Ha!”, as they tried to produce the form. A big oaf of a boy tried twirling, lost his balance, and fell over his feet in a cloud of dust. Others—the more experienced ones—tried punching out with all their enthusiasm, forgoing the setup, to no effect. Tocho pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

The tribe’s greatest hope, indeed.

Forget a low rumble. Most of the youngsters barely managed to even externalize their qi. Their feeble efforts looked like more like tricks of the light than combat techniques. Rags-boy—must be his first time—hadn’t even given it a try; he just sat there, brows scrunched. Even worse.

Sighing, he whipped out his greatest teaching device. A five-foot-long pole he’d bought years ago from a merchant from Velsia, made of a material he’d never seen—Iron Bamboo. Half the pupils flinched.

The other had never had a class with him before, evidently.

Chuckling, he walked up to the oafish, twirling boy the way an Endspider stalks a grub. He couldn’t recall the boy’s face, which either meant it was his first class or Tocho hadn’t cared enough to memorize it in classes prior. Probably the latter.

“Master!” said the boy with a toothy smile. “I’ve got it!” He twisted into another flamboyant try. “Kee—ow!”

He fell over himself, clutching at his thigh. A welt was starting to form where Tocho’s bamboo stick had struck. Such tender, unmarked thighs! Tocho’s fingers itched.

“Your step’s too long, your stance’s too wide! Again!” He barked.

Groaning, the boy got up and made another go at it, slower this time. He didn’t get three seconds in before a slap buckled his arm.

“Tuck the elbow! What are you, a crippled Vordor? Again!”

It was six more bruises before Tocho moved onto his next victim.

Five were for the techniques. The last was to toughen him up—and to warm up Tocho’s wrist. There would be much slapping before the day was done, after all.

The next half-hour was fully of yelps and squeals. One tall, thin boy, the head chef’s son, quit on the spot. “You’re a sadist!” He crowed, eyes full of tears. “My father will hear of this, mark my words!”

“I am,” grinned Tocho. “What of it? Sadists make the best teachers. Scuttle off.”

Finally, three-quarters of the way through a line that’d shrunk by one-quarter since the class’s start, he got to Rags-boy.

Unmarked arms, marked legs, sootless face. Probably hadn’t done a hard day’s labor in his life. He’d seen this boy’s kind as cook’s assistants, or cleaners, or tailor’s apprentices, or any number of grunt roles. Not hunter material. Not in a thousand years.

His fingers drummed on his bamboo stick eagerly.

“Well?” he said. “I’m waiting.”

He smiled, showing two rows of teeth, and raised the stick pre-emptively. It hung in the air like an executioner’s blade.

The boy smiled back at him as though he didn’t see the stick at all. He looked at Tocho with eyes calm as a spring pond, and for an inexplicable, infinite, skin-crawling moment, Tocho felt like he’d been seen—past the skin, down to the muscle and tissue and bones.

The boy moved.

There was a clarion-call sound like the chime of a divine bell, like the screech of a phoenix upon seeing the first morning’s light, and for an instant the world was drenched in a fire bright as the sun.

There was a silence. A long, drawn-out silence. Twenty-odd pairs of wide eyes all swiveled to stare at one person.

Then, a new, foreign sound broke that silence—A meaty, hollow THUMP, as Tocho’s bamboo stick slipped from his trembling, frozen fingers and crashed flat on the sand.

Time Elapsed: 12 hrs.