These Heels Step Heavenward - A Jade Beauty's Isekai Gone Wild

[Halt]

I was inspired by Virtuous Sons, so I decided to write a xianxia meme story. The premise is relatively straight forward - take your archetypical ice queen jade beauty, dump her in an otome setting, insert memes.

Chapter 1: Truck-kun, Truck-kun, wherefore art thou, Truck-kun?
​

What is a woman to do after reincarnating? Her cultivation crippled, the realm she inhabited foreign, and even her old name lost to her. There was one familiar comfort left to Daphne in these trying times: shopping.

There were some fates worse than dying Daphne supposed. She could have been poor.

From what Daphne had surmised, her father was one of the Emperor's ministers, while her mother was the heiress of an ancient lineage. With such esteemed ancestry, the odds were good that this body of hers held some divine constitution, if only she could discover what it was! The old Daphne had done little to cultivate her qi or hone her body.

At least I'm not ugly, Daphne thought as she stared at her reflection in the hand mirror. If she had to describe her cheeks with one word, she would liken them to clouds—round, white, and too easily dampened by tears. She was a thin slip of a girl nearly seventeen, pretty and with a willowy waist, but how could she consider herself a jade beauty with such a soft body? Jade was smooth, but hard.

Like a gemstone even.

It was an intolerable state of affairs that she had to rely on others for her own protection. A pair of nights accompanied her carriage. Neither of them were dark-skinned, nor were they particularly inconspicuous in their gleaming armor, so it escaped her entirely why they named themselves that.

"Put it away," Daphne said, waving away the servant and the hand mirror she held up.

"Yes, Lady Daphne," the serving girl said. Her black dress had a white trim, with a ruffled half-apron tied at her waist. Her full skirt ended just above her knees, and a black lace garter and tights covered her lower legs. She also wore heels that were a few inches shorter than Daphne's.

The carriage shuddered to a halt at the heart of an arrogant young town cultivating the dao of civilization. It was close to breaking into the city stage, but its lower population core had not finished condensing into slums.

Daphne stuck her head out the door, sweeping both ends of the street with her eyes. Only when she was confident there were no cabbage carts in sight did she step out her carriage. She would have looked for old monsters too but her body was more insensitive to qi than a hero to a woman's feelings.

I suppose there is one benefit to this body, Daphne thought as she walked along the paved streets. It was well-accustomed to balancing on such high heels, and allowed her to look down on people even taller than herself.

The street she was on was filled with cake shops, seamstresses, and jewellers. Most importantly, it had that essential ingredient that a woman of noble birth required for any outing to be considered successful—poor orphans to perform charity upon. It was not enough to be rich, others had to know you were.

She patronized all the usual boutiques an aristocrat would at first, buying a dress here, having a half slice of desert there, letting the poor eat cake … but Daphne was here for a purpose. Beyond acquiring nice things, she was here to acquire useful things, and where better to stumble upon rare artifacts than the most rundown and dingy shops? When one mastered wei wu wei, the dao of doing non-doing, finding even a qilin's horn or a millenia old ginseng root was as simple as shopping.

Chimes rubbed and rattled as she entered her shop of choice, located in one of the seedier side alleys jutting from the main street at an angle. One of the guards stood watch outside, barring anyone else from entry, while the other filtered in behind her and loomed menacingly. Ah, what was more familiar than having one's junior stare daggers into someone for daring to breathe the same air as Daphne?

"My lady," the shopkeep said, bowing and sending the last wisps of his graying hair aflutter. "How may I be of service?"

Daphne scanned through the pieces of jewelry displayed within glass casings. "Do you have any spatial rings?"

"Spatial rings?"

"Spatial rings," Daphne said again.

"I'm not familiar with this particular design, but we have a wide selection available if you care to take a look," the man said.

Though a fish swims in the sea, it does not comprehend its depths. There were indeed many fashions of rings from simple silver bands to golden ones that twisted into peculiar shapes. Through sheer numbers alone surely a few of these must be special in some way? "How much for the rings?" she asked.

"Which one's caught your eye?"

"All of them."

His jaw hung open.

"Also, if you've come into possession of any weapons or books that you haven't been able to sell in a while, I'll take a look at those too," Daphne said.

The shopkeeper was silent for a long while, looking utterly lost. After seven long heartbeats, he answered, "My lady, this is a jewellry shop."

"I see," Daphne said with a frown. Unfortunate that they had no secret scriptures on hand. "So just the weapons then?"

Her guard cleared his throat. "Weapons aren't jewelry, Lady Daphne."

"You simply lack imagination," Daphne said. "Everything is jewelry if you add enough gems."

"As you say," the guard said. "Still, why sully your hands with one?"

Daphne scoffed. "I'm not a barbarian. Just because there are people out there addicted to courting death does not mean I cannot look fabulous while granting their wish."

"You have us knights for that," he said. "You need only give the word, and we would strike down any fool that dares besmirch your honor."

"Junior, what is your name?"

"I am William, squire to Sir Ronald the Red," he said. "I … believe I am also older than you, my lady."

Daphne flipped golden strands of hair over her shoulder. "Younger people can be senior too. Seniority is not about age."

"As you say?" Will said, his brows drawing together. "In any case, we ought to return home soon, Lady Daphne. Night is falling quickly outside."

"Call for the coachman then. I shall finish up here shortly," Daphne said. She pinned the shopkeeper with a look. "Are you certain you have no weapons or scriptures?"

"I can check my stock again, if you'd like?" the shopkeeper offered.

"Please do," Daphne said with a firm nod. Through the windows, Daphne spotted Will sharing words with the guard outside, before the guard left to summon her carriage. Was this what it was like being the heir to a sect? People just did things for you despite one's lack of strength? Daphne decided she could get used to this.

"My lady," her maid said in a small voice, "won't your father disapprove of this? This is a significant purchase."

Daphne pitied her servant, for she had eyes, but could not see Mount Tai. "I am only spending gold, but the treasures I might uncover here could be as rare as a phoenix's feather!"

The maid glanced about the shop's shelves, before turning back to her with a look. "What kind of treasure are you expecting to find here?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'll find out soon enough," Daphne said as the shopkeeper returned with a blanket. What immortal weapon or sacred treasure lay beneath the wool? Her fingers tingled in anticipation as she unwrapped the wool. It was a sword, because what else could it be? The steel was pockmarred by dried blood and rust and had lost its bite long ago. "Tell me about its history."

"A tinker who used to supply me with gems left it here one day," he said. "I never found the time to throw it out."

So it belongs to someone else, Daphne thought. Should she take it with her? There might be many crouching tigers in this realm, and even a frog in a well knew not to wake a sleeping dragon! Still, it might draw a wandering master to her and perhaps she could convince him to take her on as a disciple? So long as she did not hold onto it stubbornly when the time came, who could fault her? "To throw it out is a waste. How much for it?"

"I wouldn't dare take a copper penny for this after your patronage today!" the shopkeeper said. "If you want it, it's yours."

Her maid stepped forward to accept the rusted sword and the velvet box holding her rings as Daphne settled her account with the shopkeeper. The carriage had yet to arrive when they exited the shop. The sun had already set, and sordid men stepped out of the shadows, forming a ring around them.

They had been waiting for her it seemed.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 02: Ant...​

"Make way, or I'll cut my way through the lot of you!" Will cried out, both hands drawing on the long grip of his estoc.

It was an empty threat unless Will was actually a monster in hiding. His meter long sword was ramrod straight with edges blunter than a father's disappointment. Its tip—sharper than a mother-in-law's tongue—was made for piercing through armor. With half a dozen men closing in on all sides, the length would be more hindrance than help as soon as someone grappled him.

If she let him fight, he would die. Daphne imagined Will face down on the street with blood drenching his armor and the cruciform hilt of the just out of reach estoc. It was a scene with all the critical attributes that artists loved to immortalize—tragedy, honor, a dead hero. The dead, and this is critical, cannot talk. This means artists cannot be disabused of inconvenient things like what really happened.

No, the outcome of this fight was as sure as the sunrise. Perhaps if the other guard had returned with her carriage already and Will had someone to guard his back things would be different.

"Why are you here?" Daphne asked the men, voice calm as an ocean in a painting of an insanely calm ocean.

Their leader, a middle-aged man with a great, scruffy beard brandished his knife at her. "For you."

Not for her things, but for her. This was no mere robbery. "Are you … kidnapping me?" Daphne asked, keeping the excitement out of her words. Men were rarely so polite about it. Usually it involved a lot more shouting, or trying to sneak aphrodisiacs into her drink.

Will tensed, and pointed his sword at the man, keeping his own body between Daphne and the bandits.

"Right you are," the leader said with a wide, toothy grin. He spat to the side before raising a brow at Will. "Move or be moved, boy. I won't ask twice."

"Step aside, Will," Daphne said.

Will's muscles tensed. "My lady?"

Daphne moved past him and beamed at the bandits. "Lead the way."

"Lady Daphne, you can't!" her maid said, tugging at the ruffled, slashed sleeves of her dress. "Your father—"

Will stepped in front of her again.

Their leader blinked. "What?"

"Lead the way," Daphne said, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. A lifetime dealing with arrogant young masters had gifted her with great longsuffering. They could be particularly slow at times grasping the true meaning behind her words, like when they were being rejected.

"You … want to go with us?" the bandit said, sharing a look with his companions.

"I trust you don't want to kill me," Daphne said. If that was their goal, they would have just attacked immediately.

"No," the bandit said. "We want to ransom you."

"My father will pay handsomely when he hears about this," Daphne said, before gesturing to Will. "You'll have to let my servant go however."

The bandit nodded amicably. "Gotta leave someone alive to carry the message. Course, we don't need two people for that."

"Well, you'll have to bring my maid along too," Daphne said. She felt her maid's grip tightened.

"What for?"

"I'm a lady. I have standards."

"Fine, we'll bring the other girl along too," he said.

"Lady Daph—" Will began, but she did not let him finish.

Daphne placed a finger against his lips. Shush, Will. Your senior is speaking," she said, before turning to the bandits."So are we agreed?"

"You don't have to do this," Will said in a whisper. "I … I can hold them off for a while. You can make a run for it."

"Run?" Daphne quirked her brow. "In these heels?"

"You could take them off," Will said.

Daphne gasped at his sacrilegious suggestion. "I would rather die," she said vehemently. At least she'd look good while doing it! Besides, if these men were so confident as to steal away a woman of her station, surely they were successful in their profession. Who knows what treasures would be stashed away in their hideout? Maybe she'd even find a lost scripture to jumpstart her cultivation!

"I beg you to reconsider!" her maid said.

"You worry too much. It is only a matter of time before I am rescued. The heavens have ordained it," Daphne said. And when she was rescued, she would know where their treasures were hidden. What was a little danger in the face of such rewards? "Will, put your sword down and send word to my father. I order it."

He gnashed his teeth, but complied. "As you say, my lady."

She stepped towards the bandits. Her ears picked up on the soft pitter-patter of wooden heels on cobblestone as her maid followed behind sullenly. All that mattered was that a servant obeyed.

"So what now?" she asked.

"Usually this is the part where you scream or struggle, and I threaten you," the bandit said. "'Don't make a peep or I'll leave a red smile on your throat!' That kind of thing.

"We can skip all that I think."

He nodded. "Right, we make our getaway now then. This way," he said.

"Do you have a carriage prepared?" Daphne asked.

"No?" the bandit said.

Daphne tisked. "How inconsiderate of you. You should correct that the next time you kidnap a highborn lady. How are you supposed to make your getaway on foot?"

"We have horses nearby," the bandit said. He took off his cloak and draped it over her, while another of his men did the same for her maid. When she looked at him in askance, he explained, "You draw too many eyes to you in that dress."

"Thank you," Daphne said. "That is the intent." It was always nice when a man appreciated her clothes.

"Can't we go any faster?" another man said in an irking, nasal tone.

Daphne glared at the offending voice. "A lady does not run."

He swore. "This is the last time I'm takin' a job like this 'un."

"After this, we won't ever have to," the leader said.

Ah, so they were hired by someone, Daphne thought. Careless of them to be speaking so freely when they did not even have the gold in hand yet. Unfortunately for them, there was no pill for regret.

To their credit, not only did they actually have horses and ones with swift, strong legs. Certainly not a breed just any peasant could afford. Surely these marked these men as masters in the dao of theft! Though there were enough horses for all of them, to her surprise half the men melted back into the shadows and the silence. Daphne's hands were tied up with a coarse piece of rope, but they did not secure it very well.

The leader helped her mount, then sat behind her. Someone did the same for her maid.

"Hang on tight," he said, the warmth of his breath tickling her ear.

Being on a horse, Daphne decided, was far preferable to riding in a carriage. She was used to looking down on others from the summit of a mountain or atop her flying sword. This didn't quite capture the same magic, but it was better than nothing for now.

They rode the horses hard, encountering no resistance along the way. Once they were safely beyond the furthest possible reach of any array formations protecting the town, they switched to their spare horses, but kept up their breakneck pace. The bandit's hideout was deep within the woods, suitably far from any settlement so as to not disturb their closed door cultivation.

"Here we are," the bandit leader said, helping her off the horse and leading her into the cabin.

Her maid, the silly girl, was sobbing. What was there to cry about when the heavens had delivered this opportunity to them? Soon, untold treasures would be within her grasp!

"Slow down," the beaded leader said, perplexed that she seemed more eager than him to get indoors. "I thought ladies didn't run?"

"We don't," Daphne said. "But when the occasion calls for it, we hurry."

It was a cozy little abode and well-lived in. One of the men, made distinct by his crooked nose, went to coax the hearth back to life, while the youngest of them, about Daphne's age if she had to guess, barred the door. Her velvet box carrying the rings had been placed on the table.

"While we're waiting, do you mind if I try some of these on?" Daphne asked as the rope which bound her wrists was removed. "I hadn't finished fitting them all."

The men shared a look. "Do you even understand what situation you're in?" the youngest one asked in that awful, weasely voice of his.

"You're waiting for my parents to pay my ransom," Daphne said without blinking. "Doesn't mean I have to spend that time bored."

The men glanced at each other, before Crooked Nose shrugged. "What can it hurt, Jared? Let her entertain herself."

"No names," Weasel Voice hissed.

"Do you know how many bloody Jareds there are in this region?" the leader said with a hint of amusement. "They'd have to sift through every fifth man to find you."

"So," Daphne asked, trying on each ring in turn, and holding it up against the moonlight, "do you do this often? The kidnapping I mean? You seem quite prepared."

The leader let his shoulders slump. "Gotta make a living. You seem awfully relaxed for a woman who's just been abducted. Lots of experience getting kidnapped?"

"In a manner of speaking," Daphne said. What had she to fear from these men? All they sought was wealth. Far more dangerous were those demonic cultivators who wished to use this divine body of hers as a cauldron.

They were already a vast improvement over the usual toad lusting after swan meat.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 03: Agonist​

As the days passed slowly, Daphne continued to look for the treasures hidden in their residence. The men seemed content to let her move about as she pleased, so long as she did not leave the house itself. Crooked Nose followed her like a dog as she flitted from room to room, his unconscious soul already acknowledging her as his master, which was only appropriate.

Daphne had not found their treasures yet, but success was not acquired without a measure of sweat—metaphorical, that is. Literal sweating was for peasants and sect initiates.

"What is it you're even looking for?" Crooked Nose asked. "Nothing interesting 'ere if you ask me."

Open your eyes and see the truth for yourself! Daphne thought with scorn. "I'm just tidying up," she lied as easily as she breathed.

"Please mistress, there's no need to trouble yourself," her maid pleaded, claiming the wooden duster Daphne had been using to check for traps.

"Oh very well," Daphne said, surrendering it without much fuss. Her use for it was coming to an end anyway. So far, she had not found any statues to kowtow to, or hidden chests with false floors, or even a single book. If they had a hidden dimension, she'd not witnessed any of them access it. Perhaps these men were craftier than she thought? This might be a realm with many crouching tigers and hidden dragons if even lowly bandits practiced this much prudence!

When she was not sweeping through the house, Daphne worked on her cultivation. It was remarkably peaceful out in the woods with no one to distract her when she sat still for hours on end. Her qi sensitivity was still faint, but she could already tell the natural energies which surrounded this place were much stronger than the cold limestone and dead wood of her family's castle. A few more days here would surely see her fully awaken her qi sense and she could begin condensing her qi. If her stay lasted that long, it would have made this deviation on her way to heaven worthwhile.

There was a soft knock on the door of the room that had been set aside for her. "Lady Daphne, you're still awake?" her maid said, peeking inside. "The candle burns low."

"It's not that late," Daphne said, letting one eye open to spy on said candle. It still had an hour's measure of time in it at least!

"It's nearing midnight."

Daphne frowned as she stifled the urge to yawn. "Like I said, it's not that late." Even a lowly sect initiate was expected to be able to cultivate for hours on end, and once one finished cleansing their body by refining their qi in the foundation establishment stage, sleep was not even necessary! She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times.

"You're falling asleep where you sit," her maid said, taking note of her lotus stance. A shame that there were no mulberry trees to sit under here.

"Just five more minutes," Daphne said. What was five minutes to a one in a million genius like her? This should be well within her grasp as a disciple of the Elegant Swan Sect!

"If you fall asleep in this position, you'll be sore in the morning, my lady," the maid said. After a moment's consideration, she added, "Proper sleep is a necessity or you'll ruin your beauty."

Ah, her maid was a crafty one to resort to such terrifying logic! Even for a genius like herself, it could take years before she broke past foundation establishment and left behind the impurities of form. Until then, she would have to take care of her body, lest she leave the world lesser and bereft of her beauty. Grudgingly, Daphne allowed herself to be helped onto a bed. It had a wooden frame with a mattress stuffed with straw instead of feathers. Her captors had not a bed to spare, nor the space for it, and so her maid slept on the floor at Daphne's side with a bedding of hay, reeds, and rushes.

When morning rolled around, Daphne was treated to a peculiar sight. Only Crooked Nose sat at the dining table near the hearth to break his fast on a diet of rye bread, beer, and onions. Weasel, or Jared as he was called by the others, and the bandit leader were nowhere to be seen.

"Good news, my lady," Crooked Nose said as she sat on the seat across him, but did not partake of any food. As she'd been informed, the honorable men and women of this realm ate only two meals at midday and in the evening. To break one's fast so early was a sign of poverty, usually indicating a farmer or laborer who needed the energy to sustain their morning's work or too weak to resist hunger for a short while.

"Let's hear it," Daphne said.

"We've come to terms with your family over your ransom," Crooked Nose said. "You'll be free of us soon 'nuff."

Daphne waited for nine heartbeats—an important number matching the number of lakes in a sacred province the people of this realm had likely never heard of—before asking, "So what's the good news?"

Crooked Nose tilted his head. "That is the good news?"

"How can that be good?" she demanded. She hadn't even found any treasure yet! The heavens had not arranged this fortuitous encounter for Daphne only for her to return home empty-handed! "How soon?"

"A few hours at most," Crooked Nose said.

There was only one thing to be done now.

Daphne stood. "Do you mind if I try on a few more rings while we wait?"

"Suit yourself," he said with a shrug and returned to chewing his food.

Unlike before, Daphne picked out the rings carefully. Each one was studded with a hard gemstone, and when she finished slipping them onto her left hand, she rotated each one so that they faced her palm. "Be thankful that I, your granddaddy, am feeling merciful today," Daphne said. "As long as you kowtow to this granddaddy a thousand times, leave behind your treasures, cut off an arm and a leg, and cripple your cultivation and manhood, then I just might deign to leave you with an arguably intact corpse after taking your doggy life."

Crooked Nose kept on eating. Only when he had swallowed—good manners on his part—did he reply. "You're a woman," he said. "You're also younger than me."

What was with the people of this world focusing so much on such trivialities? How were they ever to grasp the immensity of heaven and earth while worrying about such things? "I do not have time to go into this, but a woman can be a granddaddy too," Daphne said. "Show me where you've hidden your treasure, and I will not exterminate your family to the ninth relation!"

He quirked his brow at her, a befuddled grin spreading across his face. Crooked Nose stood, and stepped up to her. "'Fraid I'm an orphan. No kids too. Besides, I don't think you want to piss me off, little miss."

"The word you're looking for is antagonize," Daphne said, examining the back of her hand one last time. "Do you know what that means?"

"No."

"Antagonize comes from two words," she explained. "The ant, an insect, and agonize derived from agony which means to suffer. When you have stood atop the heavens and looked down upon this earth, you will realize that antagonists are merely insects that suffer each time your boot comes crashing down."

She stepped down hard, driving the sharp bite of her heel into his foot. His face twisted into a rictus of pain, his grin wiped away in an instant as he hunched forward—right into her curled right fist. Daphne punched as she'd been taught, envisioning her fist going through his face instead of at it. The man was lucky she'd yet condense her qi, or she would not need to content herself to just the satisfying crack of bone and fixing his nose.

He was not down yet, and were she to give him the chance to regain his bearings, his strength would surely surpass this untoned body of hers. Daphne did then what every arrogant young master and jade beauty knew to do practically from birth—she slapped him.

The inside of her left palm, lined with stones, drew long, red lines across his forehead and close to his eye. Crooked Nose—-though perhaps it was more appropriate to call him Broken Nose—howled in pain as blood leaked down his sunburnt cheeks and seeped into his eyes.

For good measure, she kicked him in the groin, and that was the last straw which broke him. "Tell me where your treasures are hidden," Daphne asked again.

He moaned and groaned and gripped his crotch with both hands, as if that would spare him further pain. "Treasure?" Crooked Nose exclaimed. "You are looking for treasure here?"

"Yes, and be quick about it. I don't have all day," Daphne said.

"There is no treasure!" he screamed. "Not here!"

"So it does exist somewhere," Daphne mused out loud.

"You're insane."

Daphne frowned at this foolish toad. She had issued threats, and a threat not acted on was no threat at all. Now, honor demanded she fulfill her word. She stomped on him with her heel once, twice, thrice for good measure, driving the spike of her shoe into his hands and what they feebly tried to cover.

"I did say I would exterminate your family to the ninth relation. You will be the last of your line," Daphne said.

All this had occurred in the time it took to spark a light.

Her maid heard the commotion and rushed into the room from whatever it is that kidnapped maids did in the morning. She took one look at Broken Nose, before rushing over to Daphne. "What happened?"

"This junior dared defy me," Daphne said, simple yet profound.

"My lady, your hand is hurt," her maid said, gently holding up her right hand. The knuckles were sore and scraped. In the heat of the moment, Daphne had not realized, but with her dao heart no longer deviating, the pain was reasserting itself.

"Nevermind that!" Daphne said. "We have to find their treasure."

"We have to bandage your hand," her maid said. "It'll scar if you don't take care of it.

Ah, her maid was a crafty one to resort to such terrifying logic!

 

[Halt]

Chapter 04: Blood of My Blood
​

Daphne and her maid spent hours tearing through the house together with little finesse now constraining them now, but the search yielded nothing. Truly heaven disposes of even the best plans that man proposes!

​

So great was her despair that she coughed up blood.

​

"My lady!" Her maid cried out, and was quick to stain her white cotton kerchief by dabbing Daphne's mouth. "Do you feel pain anywhere? Did he hurt you?" She bit her lip. "Did the brute … try something?"

​

"He was a mere ant that dared to posture before me. Subduing him was as easy as lifting a hand," Daphne said, eyeing the hovel she'd been captive in with a mournful look. She suddenly found her face pressed against her servant's heart as she was embraced tightly. Dextrous fingers made comforting, small round circles on her back, and the sensation was not displeasing so Daphne allowed the minor insolence to pass.

​

Mercy was the privilege of the strong after all.

​

Yet Daphne clung to hope. Surely the leader and Jared would return home soon, to abscond with Broken Nose and their ill-gotten gains before her father arrived? She would ravage them then! Of course, that required preparing an ambush.

​

She'd defeated Broken Nose with ease, but her childish right hand still whined of pain from the exertion of a single strike. Truly, it was courting death! Did her hand not know what a tremendous honor it was that Daphne had graced this untrained body by practicing the Eighth Form of the Elegant Swan Scripture? In her sect, if a disciple acted like this he would not be a disciple.

​

Ah, but she would give her hand some face today and not cripple it. To cut it off would be to cut herself, and Daphne rather liked having two hands to do nothing with. How could she continue to cultivate wei wu wei, the doing of non-doing, with one hand?

​

Sparing one face was not the same as sparing one from punishment. Her hand would be taught its place in the world, the place of all things under heaven—serving her.

​

That was how Daphne was found, embraced betwixt the copse of trees with the bound form of Broken Nose but a few paces away.

​

Unfortunately, it was her father who found her, and not the returning bandits.

​

Margrave Adam Greenglade arrived atop a destrier, fitted for war in a finely crafted plate. A golden script danced across it, gleaming ever bright in the light of the sun. Her father was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties with thick trunks for arms and a receding hairline. Like Daphne, his eyes were a pale blue hue flecked with specks of grey and were crowned by full, expressive eyebrows that betrayed his feelings. Worry, Daphne recognized that look from the many arrogant toads squashed beneath her heel, but also relief, knowing that their death would be quick.

​

Mercy was the privilege of the strong after all, and Daphne was the strongest.

​

"Thank the gods!" Father exclaimed as he dismounted and ran up to her. Her maid released her, and she was enveloped by the crushing embrace of her father.

​

"Why are you here?" Daphne asked.

​

He pulled back, still holding her by the shoulders and frowned. "What do you mean?"

​

"You are the Emperor's minister," Daphne said. To leave court without leave was to court death. "How can you be away from court at this time?"

​

"You were kidnapped," Father said. "Of course I came. His Highness understands the duties of a father to his family."

​

"I suppose," Daphne said.

​

He peaked at the bound form of Broken Nose. "What happened here?"

​

"He courted death," Daphne replied, simple and profound. It explained everything, yet it explained nothing.

​

Father cupped her face, pinching her cheeks softly, then glanced down at her hands. "You're injured."

​

"Merely a flesh wound," Daphne said dismissively. "My maid has seen to it."

​

His expression likened to a storm. "There really is no honor amongst thieves! They promised you would be released unharmed." He turned to the knights accompanying him. "Take him."

​

"Yes, Lord Greenglade!" they said, thumping their right breast with mailed hands in salute.

​

"Is he the only one here?" Father asked.

​

"There were six men who attacked us," Daphne said. "Only three of them brought us here, the others remained in the city. When I woke this morning, only he remained."

​

Father nodded. "And how did you subdue him?"

​

"Easily," Daphne said.

​

His eyes softened and he embraced her again. "My brave, brave girl. Don't worry. I, your father, will bring these men to justice."

​

"But how will you find them?" Daphne asked.

​

"They dared kidnap my sole heir, and thought to barter away your life with mere gold," Father said. "Greed has ever been the downfall of men. I had one of the coins laced with a tracking spell. We'll find them, don't you worry."

​

Daphne's thoughts froze. "Are you saying they had a secret hideout elsewhere?"

​

Father bobbed his head. "This hut used to be someone else's no doubt, and they merely occupied it. If thieves were known for hard work, they would not need to be thieves."

​

Daphne sent silent thanks to the heavens. It was not that her dao of seeking could not overcome their dao of hiding, it was simply that the treasures she was looking for were elsewhere! "I would like to see this hideout of theirs when you've dealt with them." With their treasures in hand, she would be like a carp leaping through the dragon gate as she advanced by leaps and bounds, gaining twice the results for half the effort, and ascending to heaven in a single bound!

​

"There's no need to concern yourself," Father said.

​

Her maid kowtowed all of a sudden, dirtying her dress by rolling in the muck and mud. "Begging your pardon for the interruption, my lord, but I must tell you something urgently."

​

"Rise," Father said. "What is it?"

​

Her maid glanced at Daphne with mournful eyes, then she leaned close to whisper something into Father's ear.

​

His visage darkened once more, like a clan patriarch avenging himself on a hero for insults given to his sister-in-law's nephew twice removed. "They did what!"

​

Her maid lowered her eyes and she trembled before the brewing storm made man.

​

"I'll have them all killed for this! There is nowhere under heaven that the wicked can hide from tribulation, not even deep within the mountains!" he roared, the match of any storm. He turned to his knights who had grabbed Broken Nose. "End his life slowly."

​

"As you command!"

​

"This won't go unpunished, my daughter," Father said. "This I swear to you before the gods."

​

There was nothing for her to do but nod. His anger was to the point that his blood was no doubt flowing in reverse. "Is Mother with you?"

​

"She's waiting in the carriage," Father said. "Come, we'll take you home."

​

It was still a small trek to the carriage given the hut Daphne had been kept in deviated even from the dirt paths that ran through the forest. She was, of course, still wearing her heels, and as one might imagine that made walking on uneven ground difficult in the extreme. To her delight, her father swept her up and carried her in his arms. It was not quite the same as flying, but at least she was not troubling her feet by walking.

​

Her mother, Lilith, was a fair fairy of a woman. Her mother was the sun—with an ever present, almost oppressive, beauty that left the world brightened by her mere existence. Daphne could not compare—not as she currently was—for she was the moon, breathtaking in its own, subtler way, but always borrowing the light of the sun. Were she not her daughter, Daphne might have been seized with jealousy, but as her daughter it could only be seen as a fortuitous sign. Even in this world, she was a favored child of the heavens for whoever heard of a jade beauty not destined for greatness?

​

"Daphne, I was so worried!" Mother said, drawing her to the seat besides her. "I told you to take more guards. With your health as it is ..."

​

"Mother, please forgive me!" Daphne said. "I was a measly frog in the well, unable to see Mount Tai!"

​

Her expression softened. "Shhh, my lovely swan, don't say such a thing about yourself. I have told you before that you must believe in yourself if anyone is to believe in you. Purge such thoughts and words from yourself."

​

Daphne nodded solemnly. "I will intensify my efforts." She would bring shame to her venerable parents if she were not able to break into qi condensation soon.

​

"Lily," Father began, "maybe it's time we let Daphne return to the academy?"

​

"You want to send her back to where it happened? She's only just starting to recover from her accident. Not a month ago she would not even wake!" Mother said.

​

"She's nearly seventeen and the summer months are at an end," Father said. "If we delay, she will fall further behind her peers. We always knew we'd have to send her back at some point. Her education in magic is incomplete."

​

Magic, Daphne thought. What a peculiar word for cultivation these people had.

​

"Is this about Prince Hadrian?" Mother asked. "Word has reached me of his plans to transfer in from the Imperial School, but there's no reason to rush things. Our Daphne will surely charm him in her own time," Mother said.

​

Father frowned. "It's not her future prospects I worry about. We agreed long ago she was better suited as a glove than a fist, but I fear she must soon know how to defend herself," Father said.

"Dear, we have knights for that," Mother said.

​

"I fear it may not be enough," Father said, lips set in a grim line. "This blow against our family, struck by some hidden hand, has woken me to a truth I've long run from. Dark times are ahead of us."

​

"But it's so soon," Mother said. "She didn't even know who we were for a while, how can we expect her to thrive at the academy in her state? She would need to know the names of half a hundred people—"

​

"Mother, do not fret over that," Daphne said. "I shall double my efforts so that our family does not lose face before our peers." Never let it be said she was not a filial daughter, that she did not know when to exert herself to save face.

​

"Are you sure about this?" Mother asked.

​

"I am," Daphne said. At this academy, this sect, she would surely come under the tutelage of old monsters—and with that tutelage came momentary protection from the greater dangers. Of course, she would not be content to be shielded from such things by others for long, but the academy would also be where many scriptures could be found.

​

Mother sighed. "If you're sure, I won't stop you."

Daphne beamed at her. If she was lucky, she might even be able to, ahem, convince her lessers to hand over their spirit stones! How fortuitous!​

 

[Halt]

AN: My fellow disciples, I must report a deviation in my cultivation. The previous chapter has been amended so that Honored Swan Sister Daphne is now only returning to the academy, not attending for the first time.​

Chapter 05: Fair Maiden​

The great clans of this realm did not rule from within the cities, but raised limestone walls and array formations centered around formidable forts. Nor did they keep themselves entirely secluded on spiritual land so that their virtuous sons and daughters would not suffer deviation in their cultivation, as Daphne would expect from the hermit sects. No, many not of their clan were permitted entry into these castles—servants, scholars, and soldiers who were not and would never be taught the clan scriptures.

Even the scions of rival clans were shown face and allowed entry if they but presented themselves at the gate. Why some of them visited was beyond her. There was no marriage tournament being held, nor were they here to trade pointers. They would come, stay for a night, then just leave as if their only purpose was stopping by.

It was a most perplexing state of affairs.

From their castle, the Greenglades claimed dominion over a hundred li in each direction, and a hundred thousand souls. The character of that rule was not an iron fist though, but a velvet glove. Lords and warlords swore their loyalty to House Greenglade, and while subordinates were necessary for administration, those subordinates were kings in their own right within their lands. They passed their seats to their children, could rule by their own writ, and even defied theirs on occasion.

Had a lesser sect that obeyed a greater sect dared display such defiance, they would have been torn out by the roots.

Beneath these ruling lords were knights and mages-at-arms, who honed their skills at death against each other not unlike core disciples, though in her old life it usually did not involve armor. Finally, at the base of this societal pyramid were the peasants—the strawborn as her mother liked to call them. It was they who toiled in soil, herded livestock, and gathered the harvest. By the sweat of their brows were their betters clothed and fed, and for their efforts they were thanked by surrendering a portion of their produce as tax.

It was an unjust arrangement. Obviously the only fair system would be if all the people worked for Daphne.

Her father would be returning to the Imperial City soon which was to their north, but before he left there was one last piece of business to attend to.

"You don't have to watch this," Mother said, as their knights dragged the beaten and bloodied body of Broken Nose to the chopping block.

"She's your heir and the future Lady Greenglade," Father said. "One day, her hand might be forced to take up the sword in defense of her ancient rights. She cannot flinch so easily from death, not of others."

Daphne rested the side of her face on her propped up fist, resting on the arm of her seat. "To kill this man is a waste."

"After what he did to you, it is necessary," Father said.

Daphne understood the need to preserve face, for one robbed of honor was not even human anymore. Still, that did not mean restitution needed to be death. A good beating, like what she'd inflicted on Broken Nose, sufficed sometimes. "The world would be quite an empty place if we killed everyone over face each time."

"And what would you have us do with him then? There must be punishment, Daphne," Mother said.

"Make him my servant," Daphne said without blinking. "I could use a footstool." Besides, he might know more of where his friends were hiding with their treasures. That he had the gall not to tell her immediately that the hut was not the true hideout of his friend was disappointing though. She would have to train such behavior out of him.

They shared a look. "You … want him to serve you? You want to keep him around after what he did?"

"Oh, he defied me to be sure, but I made him pay for that," Daphne said.

"He defied you?" Father asked, brows drawing together. "I thought …"

"Thought what?" Daphne asked, sitting upright and turning to look at him.

"Your maid said he … tried to have his way with you."

The only thing she could do was laugh. "As if that rat could lay a finger on me!" Daphne said. That he'd been bested so easily by a girl of poor physique showed his qi was not even awakened, or even trained in any techniques. How could such a pitiful being think he was fit to do anything to her other than being a footstool? "I had him subdued in three strikes," Daphne said with a tinge of embarrassment. A true cultivator would have needed only the flick of a finger to deal with such pests.

"So he didn't touch you?" Father asked.

"Of course not. Why on earth would my maid think that?" Daphne asked, sending a pointed look at the girl in question.

She bowed her head timidly. "Many apologies, my lady! I only came into the room when he was on the floor. Before that, I heard a struggle taking place, and assumed wrongly. You were never one to resort to violence."

"He still abducted you. Such a crime against the stoneborn is punishable by death too," Father said.

Daphne sighed. This was taking too much of her valuable time. She could be cultivating right now, or learning the names of the clan heirs she would soon be meeting! "Then kill him and be done with it. I will take his head myself if it helps the proceedings end any faster."

"If Daphne is being serious, then let us put the choice to the criminal," Mother said. "Death or duty until death, as is our custom."

"Death or duty," Father agreed. He rose from his seat and gestured for Daphne to follow. "Stay your blade, Sir Ronald." The knight with a blood red tabard over his mail paused, lowering his axe back to his side. "You are fortunate that my daughter wishes you to have a choice, scum," Father said. "You may face death here and now, or death after a life of duty to the one you wronged."

"Death or death, what choice is that?" Broken Nose spat out.

"How can a man claim to be surprised that death is upon him when one is courting death?" Daphne asked. "Choose quickly, Broken Nose. I have things to do today."

He closed his eyes for several heartbeats, before bowing his head like a dog. An animal would always be true to their nature in the end. "I choose duty."

"Clean him up, heal that nose of his, and brand him," Father said.

"My name is Rhian," Broken Nose said.

Not a very heroic name, Daphne thought. Besides, with his looks, it was almost certain the heavens did not favor him. Broken Nose, then, was inconsequential to her. She turned to her father. "Will you be returning north to the Imperial City now?"

He sighed. "I should, now that you are safe again. Your mother will see to the rest of the bandits; I have given her the strings to the spell." Father glanced at the position of the sun overhead. "Though I've been gone long enough that the Imperial City should be further west now."

She blinked. "What do you mean? How can a city move?" She had seen many wonders in her old life and been privy to many secret scriptures, but what dao of civilization allowed a city to move on its own?

"The Imperial City is a castle on a cloud," he explained patiently.

"Are you saying it flies?" When he nodded, Daphne had decided. "I'm going to marry the prince." That she had to writhe in the earth like a graceful silkworm while others could look down on her from the skies was simply intolerable. Also, the prince was a prince. He was sure to be a man of great strength and character, and a most excellent partner to dual cultivate with.

If he were not, the heavens would not have blessed him with such good fortune.

"That is not a choice you should rush into lightly," Father cautioned. "You are your mother's only daughter. If you were to marry the prince, you would have to surrender your birthright, your claim to Greenglade."

"But I would be a princess," Daphne said.

"A consort," Father said. "A princess-consort, when Prince Hadrian ascends to the Starlight Throne, and only one of many. Are you sure you could live with that?"

"Of course I can," Daphne said without hesitation. The prince was destined to be a hero, and a hero was destined to have a harem. That simply was.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 06: The Last Stone in Suzhou​

Daphne growled in frustration, and quashed the urge to pull at her hair. It would be a shame to ruin it after her maid had spent an hour braiding it this morning. She was to leave for the academy any day now, and she'd yet to awaken her qi. Not even meditating beneath a mulberry tree had worked!

How was she to give her family face like this? It would be akin to attending a ball underdressed or allowing one's spatial rings to be inspected after returning victorious from an otherworldly tournament.

Just when she'd been on the verge of breaking into qi condensation too! Idly, she wondered if she should let herself return to closed door cultivation, before setting the thought aside. It was preposterous to even suggest it. Allowing oneself to be abducted twice in such a short period of time would cause her family great shame. The other option, running away of her own volition, would be even worse than getting kidnapped again. What would people think of her then?

One told the world of weakness; the other screamed of her foolishness for falling in love with a peasant.

There was only one thing to do now.

"I want you to buy me a few bags of stones," Daphne said to Broken Nose. Deep foundations were a sign of strong cultivation, and it was best not to resort to crutches like spirit stones so early on. But better than best was saving face!

He stared at her as if she'd just said something utterly strange. "Buy a few bags of stones?"

"Fine," Daphne said with a huff. It was true what they said that a tiger could not change his stripes. "Steal me some stones." It was the dao that he practiced after all, and if he wanted to put himself in more danger on her behalf to atone, then why not let him?

"You mean like a gemstone?" Broken Nose asked. It really was no longer an accurate description seeing as a medician had seen to his nose, but a tigress could not change her stripes either. He would always be Broken Nose to her.

"If I wanted a gemstone, I'd buy one for myself," Daphne said. As if a man could be trusted to pick out jewelry that suited her. "I don't care how you acquire them, just that you do it quickly."

"As you say, m'lady." He knelt down, plucking a rock from the dirt path of the gardens ever blooming and presented it to her. "I didn't buy or steal it from anyone on account of it not being worth anything, but you gotta admit it was quick. So, who we throwin' it at?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "This is not the kind of rock I'm looking for."

Broken Nose frowned. "There are different kinds?"

Only a strawborn peasant could be so ignorant. No wonder she had defeated him so easily. Daphne sighed. Good help was so hard to find. "What of medicinal pills? Do you know what those are?"

"Medicine?" Broken Nose said. "Couldn't you just ask your hystor for some?"

"I've tried," Daphne said. "He wouldn't give me the ones I wanted."

His eyes lit up in understanding. "Ah, that kind of medicine."

Finally he was catching on! "So, do you know someone who can acquire it?"

"My lady!" her maid said, unable to hold her silence any longer. "I must protest. If someone were to learn you were seeking out pills, it would cause a scandal! Please, think on this longer."

Daphne frowned. Were pills not widely used in this world? What an odd way to cultivate, but it did explain why she was having such a difficult time getting her hands on them. "That's why I'm using him to get it for me," Daphne said with a smile. "After all there are only three of us here, and I'm certainly not going to tell anyone. Are you?"

"Of course not, my lady," her maid said quickly. "I am your loyal servant."

She glanced at Broken Nose, who held his hands up in surrender. "It'd be suicide of me to try. Even if anyone believed me with this mark," —he turned his cheek, where hot iron had caressed his soul in the shape of three vertical bars, a fist gripping the left and right ones— "my life is in your hands. You could have your knights slit my throat, or hell, do it yourself and no one would blink an eye. I've sworn an oath before the great gods too, and I may steal from people, but never from the divine."

Yet you dared to steal from me, Daphne thought. The man's lies were plain as day, and the oaths of an oathbreaker might as well be written in water. Still, the other reasons he provided ought to suffice for her purposes. "It's agreed then," Daphne said. "You will get me the pills before I depart, and we will not speak a whisper of this to anyone ever."

"As you say, my lady," they said in synchrony. It was nice when the people you spoke with knew your mind.

Of course, the question remained: what was she to do while waiting for the pills? Trying to cultivate here was yielding miniscule progress for a one in a million genius like herself.

"Lady Daphne?" a woman with twin inky hexagrams on her cheeks interrupted her thoughts.

Daphne knew that to be a peculiarity of the scholar-bureaucrats of this realm. "Good day, hystor."

"You father has asked me to speak with you," the hystor said. "Might we sit somewhere?"

"Of course," Daphne said, leading her to a secluded enclave within the sprawling gardens of Greenglade Castle. There was a stone bench carved to look like the aged stump of a tree, while hanging vines partially concealed them from sight. "What does this concern?" she asked after they settled in.

"He mentioned you intend to court Prince Hadrian," the hystor said. "Given your condition, Lord Greenglade thought it prudent I speak with you over the full implications of that. Your mother, the Lady External, agreed."

"Something about losing my claim to this castle, yes?"

The hystor nodded. "This castle, and all the lands that owe it fealty. House Greenglade is an ancient one, having risen high when the Morrs still ruled the Kingdom Ever Blooming some six hundred years ago."

"Just six hundred years ago?" Daphne asked, frowning.

"Few kingdoms or great regions can claim to be as long lived as ours," the hystor said. "The Heartlands to the south, and maybe the Dunelands, depending on how one interprets their chronicles."

How could that be considered old by any sane measure? Any cultivator not destined to die a dog's death could live that long easily, and a single generation was hardly old, nevermind ancient. Were they ants to live such short lives? "I would be the wife of the future Emperor though."

"Assuming Prince Hadrian ascends to the Starlight Throne, which is not certain," the hystor said.

"He is the eldest son," Daphne said.

"But he is not the eldest child," the hystor said. "Princess Lydia is a year older, and her claim is as strong as any. In truth, despite what we hystors might preach, we have little precedent for how the succession will be handled. The Empire has not been truly unified since it fractured after the Great Conquests of Emperor Jaeson. We must also keep in mind that not all the great regions are like the Everbloom. There are some for whom being eldest is not enough to guarantee they inherit."

"In short, it's complicated," Daphne said.

The hystor smiled. "Quite."

No matter, Daphne decided. The first cultivator to reach the heavens had no precedence to follow either. What did it matter that there was no one's footsteps to follow? Everything began somewhere, and her fate was her fate. As for her inheritance, what use did she have for such worldly things, when the prize she sought was not of this world? Power brought with it wealth, but wealth did not necessitate power.

Though I suppose one's name being remembered is a sort of immortality too, Daphne thought. For her descendants to be able to look back at her, to make herself impervious to even the ravages of time … there was power in that. But for that to occur, whoever was to inherit would need to be competent. "Who will inherit after me?" she asked.

"Seeing as you are the only child of your parents, I believe your cousin Blaise is next in line," the hystor said. "He will be attending the academy this fall as well."

Then she would meet him there, and judge whether her cousin was a virtuous son, whether he was arrogant enough to be a young master.

A family was a house one never finished building, each member a stone stacked upon each other. Together, they were strong, but those stones which reached for the heavens relied on a strong foundation rooted in the earth. For a family as young as Daphne's to end so suddenly, for her cousin to be the last stone in suzhou, that was a tragedy.

AN: I recently started building up a discord server for anyone who wants to discuss any of my stories to hang out. If you wanna stop by for a chat, or just ask me stuff, feel free to join. It's open to everyone.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 07: Doing Non-Doing​

Her mother was the very picture of a proper lady, holding a thin, tall glass of Grove's Gold by its stem. A steel sword hung from the hip of her flowing, lacy dress. "Come, let me have a look at you," Mother said to Daphne.

She presented herself to her parent as any filial daughter would. Her dress was slashed at the sleeves, the periwinkle blue fabrics mixing with her beige undergown. The sleeves were tight to the elbow, but widened at the wrist. A laurel of sweet-smelling roses rested on her crown and blonde hair flowed down to her shoulders in waves.

"You are a flower, my dear," Mother said, "but even a flower must have its thorns." Her mother's personal maid stepped forward, carrying an applewood box. It was immediately obvious this was the work of a master craftsman, for the trees of Greenglade were etched finely into the grain.

Daphne received the gift graciously, which of course meant her maid stepped forward to accept. Actually carrying things was the lot of strawborn and servants. Her maid returned to her side, and carefully opened the box, revealing a set of hairpins sharpened into small staves, a small dagger, and, best of all, a pair of new stilettos. A lady could never have too many shoes to step on people with.

"Weapons," Daphne said.

"To be noble is to balance courtesy and combat," Mother said, nodding. This was not the first time Daphne had heard her say this. She was, Daphne had surmised, an avid practitioner of the Scriptures of Glove and Fist. "If you are set on returning to the academy, you must be ready to defend yourself whether with word or sword." She paused. "With summer nearly over, we don't have the time to have a runesteel sword crafted for your hand, so these will have to do."

She knew not what this runesteel was, but if Daphne had to guess it was an artifact of some sort. "I can make do with a regular sword for now." She was not a master of the sword styles, but her master had trained her in two-sword style of shuangdao, as well as the swan sword scriptures.

"There is no time to teach you the basics of swordsmanship. Besides, carrying plain steel is not good enough for the likes of us. We are not so poor that we cannot afford better for you," Mother said.

Loss of face—that Daphne understood. Better that a jade beauty wear nothing than have her perfection marred by rags! "But bronze is better?" Daphne asked, picking up the dagger and holding it up against the sun.

"You should know that bronze channels magic better," Mother said, setting aside her drink. She stood, and gestured for Daphne to follow her to the war yards where their knights traded pointers daily under the purview of the master-at-arms. "Bearing a sword is a right of the stoneborn, but rights must be defended. To your peers, they would take a sword at your hip as a declaration of your will and your willingness to defend that right."

Greetings of "Margravess" and "Lady External" filled the air at their approach. "How may we be of service?" the master-at-arms asked, stroking his thick mustache.

"I require a demonstration for my daughter," Mother said. "Steel on bronze. The classical spells will suffice."

The master-at-arms pointed to two men clad in chainmail and hauberk. They stepped forward, drawing their swords from sheaths. At some hidden signal, Daphne sensed qi flowing into their swords, taking its shape, not unlike water poured into a cup. The bronze sword had a scalding reddish tinge to its edge as it came down in a graceful arc, releasing a burst of killing intent that left a deep mark on a hardwood post twenty meters away. If it were a man, he would be gutted like a pig, causing the five viscera and six bowels to spill out.

On the other hand, the steel sword was colored by a warm pink glow, and the qi blast was more wounding than killing judging by the scratches it left. It was half a breath slower too, which might not seem much, but in a fight, to be second was to die in seconds.

All of this took some time to describe, but actually happened in the span of a single breath.

"The difference is staggering," Daphne said. Though they were both swords, the difference in their cultivation was the immensity between heaven and earth. What was a carp to a dragon? What was a regular beauty to a jade beauty?

Mother nodded. "And that is just bronze. In a formal duel, steel against runesteel can only result in ruined steel."

She committed her honored mother's wisdom to her heart. The wise woman was one who knew what she did not know. And besides, it was not unlike the differences that emerged between the stages of cultivation. It was comforting to know that even in this world the truths remained true.

"Now, with weapons like yours, surprise will always be your greatest asset," Mother said as her maid pinned her hair into a bun with the hairpins. The dagger Mother slipped into a hidden pocket inside a fold of her sleeve, and her feet slipped into the heels with a practiced ease. "Embody the flower, let others admire your beauty from afar, but if they think to pluck you, then bleed them with your thorns."

"Sir Ronald, if you will," Mother said.

The red-haired and freckled man bowed to her mother, as a dog bowed to its master. Daphne would never disgrace herself by letting her head down except to admire her shoes.

They went through some exercises in slow motion so that Daphne could comprehend their cultivation. Mother's movements were simple, yet profound, leaving little in the way of openings. She did not meet force with force, though she could have, but instead sought to redirect the knight's strength to the side before countering.

Against a mighty overhead blow, would step into his guard so that the full swing could not be finished, before sliding her hairpin into the exposed eye slits in his greathelm. Other times she flowed like water, dancing around him and driving the dagger into his back.

She could feel her awareness grow in leaps and bounds as she memorized their actions and played it back in her head. There was a rhythm to it, a flow, a dance to some song half-remembered.

All of this was to say it was a cultivation technique perfectly suited for Daphne's weaker body! She did not need so much strength to mimic these motions, only speed and style.

"Senior knight, trade pointers with me next!" Daphne declared, settling into the exact stance her mother used.

Ronald nodded. "Ready?"

"An opponent would not ask me if I'm ready. They would simply attack," Daphne said, eyes narrowing into a scathing glare. Was he looking down on her?

"Let us begin slowly then," Ronald said. "Some of these techniques are rather advanced."

So he was looking down on her! The gall of this dog! She nearly fainted from intense anger and her blood started flowing in reverse. Just because a tiger does not roar does not mean that others can take it for a cat.

As his swing came at a turtle's pace, using maybe a tenth of his power, Daphne exploded into action, driving straight into his guard. The burst of motion caught him by surprise, and he stumbled back a few steps to avoid Daphne's dagger from taking his eyes out as recompense.

"My daughter is feeling spirited today," Mother said. "If she wishes to be like this, humor her, but ensure there are no accidents."

"As you say, Lady Greenglade," Ronald said, adjusting his feet into a solid stance.

Daphne's smile widened as he attacked closer to thirty percent of his power! His speed was not insultingly slow now, and far more appropriate for the lesson she wanted. He even unleashed some of his killing intent on her, striking beyond striking range as even the wind bowed to his will and sharpened itself to a paper's edge. They danced to a tune unheard, like the soft strumming of the guqin on a rainy day. There was no time for thought in moments like these, only action and reaction.

It had to be instinctual, habitual, unconscious. Doing less and less, until doing became not doing, until fighting was simply being.

When nothing was done, nothing was left undone.

Daphne was not even close to there yet, but it was a start. The journey of a thousand li begins with the first step. These heels stepped heavenward.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 08: Interlude - Simple…​

Not for the first time in the last few hours, Rhian considered just making a run for it. He still had a few coins jingling in his pouch left over after buying the pill, a borrowed horse, and, most importantly, there was not a knight in sight to stop him.

Except it wouldn't work.

Rhian had sworn an oath to the Pantheon and the Divine Syngian to obey Lady Daphne's every word. Though he might be a thief by trade, he lived by a code like any other man, and the first rule any sane man followed was not to spite the Great Gods if you could help it. More importantly, he likely wouldn't get far even if he did try it. Even a strawborn peasant like himself knew of the Greenglade's signature spell, and he'd bet silvers to straw that the brand they'd burned into his cheek was laced with the magic.

If they knew where he was, they could catch up to him within a day from their pegasi even if he rode throughout the night.

Rhian sighed, as he squeezed his knees and urged the horse through the iron wrought gates of Greenglade Castle. This was his life now, playing errand boy to the mad whims of a rich woman.

It's not all bad, Rhian thought. His duty was to Lady Daphne and not, say, the mines, where a quick and painful death was surer than the swing of a sword. Not that death would stop them from making use of his body. It was said that in some regions of the Empire, the dead were raised by necromancers to work the deepest shafts of a mine.

As a penal laborer, at least that fate would never befall him. Neither could he be sold in service to another, or be killed without cause, which was all that marked him above the slaves outside the Empire.

He was allowed into the castle without fuss. Dawn was just about beginning to break, but he found the young misstocrat already dressed and at the stables, running her hand against a pegasus.

Daphne turned to the stableboy. "I know just what to call her—Jade."

"Jade?" Rhian repeated. "Horse ain't green."

Daphne didn't even look his way. "Welcome back, Broken Nose."

"I 'ave a name you know," Rhian grumbled.

"You aren't important enough to remember," Daphne said. "Just as my maid is maid, and my knight is knight, you are Broken Nose."

He glanced at her maid, who didn't seem the least bit insulted. "My nose isn't even broken anymore."

"We could fix that," Daphne offered.

His legs shuffled back of their own will. "No need for that," he said hastily. "Your horse gets a name, but the rest of us don't?"

"Of course," Daphne said. "The horse is beautiful. What man would not want to mount it with wild abandon to reach the heavens?"

Rhian's brows furrowed. What was with the stoneborn and all their fancy words? Couldn't she have just said it flew instead of saying all that?

"But once a hero finds a new one," Daphne continued, "she'll be discarded without a second thought. Such is life for a jade beauty."

"Sounds awfully sad," Rhian said.

"It is what it is," Daphne said, turning to him at last after she dismissed the stableboy. "Do you have it?"

Rhian bobbed his head, and pulled out the sandy pill in question. "Guy I got it from swears its from the Dunelands, which means it came from anywhere but the Dunelands," he said. "Still, he's never sold me a bad pill before."

"Well done," Daphne said, taking the pill in hand.

Rhian nodded. "Now, you'll want to—don't!" It was too late. Daphne had swallowed the pill whole in an instant, and gone completely silent. He gave Daphne's maid—who still refused to tell him her name—a look. "We, uh, might have some problems."

"Was that not silphion?" she asked.

"Did it look like silphion?" he asked with a sarcastic lilt to his tone. "Why would she ask the likes of me to get something a hystor would happily provide her for free."

"Because the hystor would tell her parents," the maid said.

"It wasn't silphion," Rhian said. "Do you know where we could get some rope?"

She glared at him. "What wicked thoughts are you thinking? I will not help you tie up my mistress!" After a pause, she added, "It would leave ugly red marks on her skin, and she'd whip the both of us for that."

That Rhian could believe. "Then help me get her into the carriage," he said. "Taking a dose that large … we have a minute at best before it starts hitting hard."

"What does that look like?" the maid asked.

Daphne's eyes were wide and wild, taking long stretches to stare at the simplest things around her. It was as if she'd been reduced to a newborn babe. "If we're lucky, like that, but she starts rambling 'bout nonsense," said Rhian.

"And if we're not lucky?"

"She could see us all as bugs with insect faces," Rhian said. Happened to a friend of his once, and why he'd never taken the pill himself. "She'll be screaming and struggling a lot in that case."

"What exactly did you give her?" she asked as they managed to seat Daphne in her carriage without anyone being the wiser.

"Exactly what she asked me to get! Refined cactus juice," Rhian said. "Do you think you could convince the knights to leave early? I'd rather not be here while this is happening to her."

The maid glared at him. "You want to travel while she's in this state?"

"She'll be fine after a few hours," Rhian said. "Just make sure she doesn't jump out of the carriage."

She paused. "Does that happen often?"

"Often enough that I wanted to use rope," Rhian said.

"This seems like all the more reason not to leave. She should be resting in bed," the maid said.

"Wu … wu … wu," Daphne murmured. "So itchy, so hot …"

"If Lady Greenglade finds out, I'm a dead man and you'll be expelled," Rhian said.

The maid raised a brow at him. "How would any of this be my fault?"

"You were there when the young miss asked me to acquire the pill for her, but you said nothing to Lady Greenglade," Rhian said. "Lady Daphne might not even be allowed to return to the academy, and then she'll be mad at you too. Call my crazy, but I don't like your odds of staying around if both your mistress and her mother are mad at you."

"Simple!" Daphne exclaimed, staring now at her fingers as if they held the secrets to the universe. "Yet, profound!"

"Can she even hear us?" the maid asked.

Rhian shrugged. "I think so, but I don't think she finds the like of us all that interesting to begin with."

"Because of the drug?"

Because that's how she is, Rhian thought. "Are we leaving or not? The choice is in your hands. There's nothing more I can do here."

She looked at him with some suspicion. "You incapacitate Lady Daphne and then insist we leave … the whole thing seems suspicious. How do I know your friends have not prepared some ambush while we're travelling?"

Rhian blinked. "Are you seriously asking? We'd be insane to try something now."

"Why is that?"

He sighed with great longsuffering. "We're thieves. The whole point is to take what others 'ave without getting killed. There must be a dozen knights, squires, and mages-at-arms escorting this carriage, and it'd take a small army of us strawborn to subdue them all."

"The wise are not learned," Daphne said. "The learned are not wise!"

It was becoming harder and harder to tell if this was just the young misstocrat's usual talk, or if the pill was just bringing out more of it.

"When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad," Daphne mumbled. "Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other…"

"Fine!" the maid said at last. "But only because Lady Daphne would be incensed if she were unable to attend the academy this season."

He breathed a little easier at that.

"You stay right there," she said. "I'm not dealing with this by myself for the entire journey."

Rhian tensed right back up as she left.

"Have you ever lusted for food?" Daphne asked. "Like a toad lusting after swan's meat, only literally?"

He frowned. "You mean being hungry?"

"Hungry," Daphne said with an agreeable nod, still with that faraway look in her eyes. "Simple, yet profound."

Rhian ought to have known better, but he asked anyway. "What's so profound about being hungry? It's the simplest thing there is."

Daphne sighed. "It is too sophisticated for you to understand right now, for you have eyes but cannot see Mount Tai. How best to put it for you?" She fell silent for a moment, eyes moving wildly. "We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use."

"What is this? Poetry?" Rhian asked. Was this what spoiled aristocrats learned all day at the schools?

She went back to ignoring him. That he was used to.

At long last, the maid returned, and began going about making the young misstocrat comfortable.

The carriage shuddered forward. It was going to be a long trip.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 09: Yet Profound
​

The world was a kaleidoscope of fractals in D Minor. Here, with the margins of the soul ripped open, time was without form or function. Daphne was without form or function. She simply was, both within her body, observing it from afar, and observing that observer. As if the tripartite soul was now each its own person instead of a unitary thing.

They heard something warm, if slightly burning. A comforting, omnipresent hum that lurked behind them. Was this the sound of love, or a sunset, or love like a sunset? Maybe all three all at once.

There was a buzzing too, a distortion in their vision as they saw—not heard—the words of those around them. "Travel on," one said to the other.

It could not hold their attention for long, not when the secrets of the universe were within reach. They were a jade beauty standing atop twin peaks, best defined by having two arms, two legs, and even a mouth that on occasion made mouth sounds! In the distance, the infinite fictional Daphne saw themselves standing before the shining gate. "Light my way," one of the infinite hers said.

The dao was infinite, eternal. Why was it eternal? It was never born; thus it could never die. They were one, yet not the same. They were one with the qi, yet the qi was with them. It was simple, yet profound.

Since they had come to this realm, they would stay forever. They were infinite. They were eternal. They would never die. Here, they would be the master of death.

This was their dao, their credo.

"I-impossible! This can't be true!" some might say.

They sighed. There were heavens beyond the heavens and geniuses beyond geniuses. The difference between those of the infinite Daphne and those without were akin to cloud and mud. Others were content to live under heaven, but a true immortal was not afraid to rebuke the heavens, to think thoughts that would have made the gods die from anger.

Was that not the essence of tribulation based on a true story?

It could not be helped if others did not grasp the truth. They were not the hero, for they lacked the symptoms of protagonist syndrome. Heroes, of course, were defined by the following things: being a boy at war, a boy who lived and let die, with a clear lack of tact and not a semblance of decency.

To be fair, one had to have an incredibly profound cultivation base to understand the dao. The simplicity was extremely profound, and without a solid grasp on the flows of your inner qi, most of its wisdom would go over a typical person's head. There was a certain nihilism deftly woven into the dao, drawn heavily from Mahayana Buddhism, for instance. The elders understood this stuff; for they had the qi condensation to truly appreciate the depths of the dao, to realize that cultivation was not just cultivation—it said something deep about life. As a consequence, people who did not comprehend the dao truly are idiots. Of course, they wouldn't appreciate, for instant, the humor in an existential catchphrase like "the dao is like an empty bowl, yet it may be used without ever needing to be filled," which itself was a cryptic reference to the pottery of the Tang dynasty.

Daphne smirked, imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as the genius of the dao unfolded itself in the apocrypha of the cultivation manuals and their variants.

What fools … how I pity them. And, of course, she did have a heavenly dao tattoo. Or at least she used to. It was for the eyes of heroes only, and even they had to demonstrate that they were within two heavens of her own cultivation (preferably higher) beforehand.

"I think she's coming down from it," someone said.

Wait, what was that? Did she just hear a dog bark? Shoo, shoo! Go crawl your way back home and find your master! She shut her eyes, embracing the darkness and the colors of phantasia to be found within that darkness.

If they continued to bother her, she would suffer from qi deviation! Then her grudge would be irreconcilable and they would not be able to live under the same sky!

Not that it would be much of a challenge. She was a huntress, and they were prey.

"A huntress is you," echoed her mind agreeably.

Daphne inhaled, letting her qi circulate, then exhaled, releasing her distractions. Such was the dao on the importance of lung usage. Such was the dao, simple, but with infinite complexities, and in the end, everything was simple.

The dragon within her woke, setting her heart aflame and her blood flowing in circles and cycles. It was fate. Her eyes shot open, and she spied her maid clutching on a rosario.

But beyond those prayer beads, she could see, truly see underneath the underneath. It was the first time since she'd awoken in this new world, and how she'd missed it. There was a faint flow of energy within and connecting everyone and everything, from the birds that flew overhead to the heads their excrement landed upon.

"I see Mount Tai," Daphne declared to the heavens and the earth.

"Maybe I was wrong about coming down from it," Broken Nose said to her maid.

Daphne smiled at him. "Very well done, Broken Nose."

He stared at her in stunned silence for several long seconds, then turned back to her maid. "Yeah, she definitely hasn't come down from it."

"Agreed," her maid said. "Lady Daphne, can you understand us?"

Ah, what a profound question. She supposed she did understand them in the same way man understood beast. They were driven by the same base instincts—hunger, rage, lust—but where beasts were slaves to their instincts, man could rise above it. Well, in theory that is. Daphne had yet to meet someone who actually had transcended such things. Rage, surprisingly, was the last shackle on the tripartite soul.

"A good question. I suppose I can," Daphne said.

"Eyes are back to normal at least," Broken Nose said. "That's a good sign. Just need to wait for her to speak normally again."

"This is how I normally speak," Daphne said.

"Never this nicely," he said. "And definitely not to me."

She frowned. It was only proper to praise one's servants when they had done well, but was this not a reward Broken Nose liked? Perhaps he was one of those deviant men who enjoyed ridicule? Far be it from her to deny him. "You speak too freely," Daphne snapped at him. "Hold your tongue. When we are at the academy, there will be many arrogant young masters who would beat you to the point of hovering between life and death."

That simply could not be allowed. Who would provide her with medicinal pills then? It would be tragic for her cultivation to suffer because of her underling's mistakes.

Broken Nose sighed in relief. It seemed her assessment of his tastes were correct. She made a mental note of this, and decided to treat him all the more harshly in the future whenever he had pleased her.

Daphne took a moment to assess the cultivation of her servants, and found that they were both quite low. It was only to be expected given they were not heroes, but she found herself disappointed nevertheless. She drew open the blinds and peered out the carriage window, spying on her knightly escorts. Each of their qi was at a much higher cultivation stage, though there were no old monsters or elders among them.

Ah, well surely she would come across one at the academy. Old monsters were drawn to the convergence of arrogant young masters and heroes like flies to a candle.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 10: The Dao of Disappearance​

The academy commanded many li of land beyond the walls which surrounded the school proper. It held dominion too over a small forest and many villages and farms which provided for its upkeep. It was easy to tell when they had crossed into these lands as even the simplest villages flew the hexagram sigil of the hystors.

When they arrived at last at the school gates, a hystor in plain wool robes was standing on ceremony for her.

"Greetings, hystor," Daphne said, stepping out of the carriage.

"The Middle School welcomes you, Lady Daphne of the House External Greenglade," the hystor said with a small bow. "The archystor requests to meet with you at your earliest convenience."

"Of course," Daphne said, tilting her head. "I would be honored to speak with the archystor." Based on her studies, the title referred to the sect leader of this school! Even as a core disciple, it was still a great honor to meet such an esteemed figure of their sect on her first day back. She directed her coachman to bring her carriage to the archystor's tower where he contemplated on the dao in closed door cultivation.

Daphne made all haste to greet the archystor, tasking her servants to bring her trunk with her. Through her awakened eyes, she could sense his potent qi circulating through his dantian cores and the twelve meridians. His cultivation was significant, far more than hers certainly, though she could not say for certain how much stronger he was. Maybe not strong enough to achieve immortality considering his aged features on display, for surely cultivation would have kept him young, but he was still surely an old monster to rule this sect where even the sons and daughters of patriarchs learned his scriptures.

"This one greets the archystor," Daphne said, bowing to him. "Would you like to inspect my trunk?" It wasn't quite a spatial ring, but alas, she had yet to find one. Such treasures were simply rarer in this realm.

The archystor's thick brows drew together. "Inspect your trunk? There's no need for that, Lady Daphne. You are a student here, so it would not be proper to treat you in that manner."

Daphne understood his meaning instantly. This old monster was giving her family great face by not inspecting her things. "Ah, of course," Daphne said, nodding. "If I might ask, why did you wish to see me then?"

"I hope you understand that I would very much prefer it if no accidents like last time were to befall you for the rest of your stay," he said, stroking his long beard.

"I would prefer that too," Daphne said.

"Good, then would you be opposed if I were to assign one of my hystors to supervise you whenever you are … experimenting with your magic?"

She frowned. What need was there to ask her about this? He was the sect leader. If he wished to assign her discipleship to an elder, who was she to refuse?

"We would swear him or her to an oath of secrecy obviously," the archystor said, "and whatever discoveries you stumble upon will be kept safe."

Daphne was being given a lot of face right now! How could she dare keep the sect leader waiting with her answer? "That would be more than sufficient. Thank you for the offer."

His shoulders relaxed and he nodded. "As always, the full resources and facilities of the Middle School are open to yourself, Lady Greenglade. You need only ask."

"Ah," she said, "I would not wish to trouble yourself with my requests, archystor." Though she did not think his odds of attaining immortality were high, she did not know the full state of his cultivation either! He could be a crouching tiger or a hidden dragon of this realm, or maybe he just liked how he looked with a flowing beard? Stroking it gave one an aura of profoundness that a clean shaven face simply could not match.

"Nonsense," he said. "My door is always open to my students."

Did he not have his closed door cultivation to attend to? Did he not practice the Dao of Disappearance? What sort of master actually taught their disciples by himself? If one did not have better things to do than teach their disciples, was he really worth learning from?

"But how can you concentrate on your own studies?" Daphne asked.

He snorted. "I am an old man now, and I have lived a long life. If I truly wanted to keep pushing the boundaries of magic, I would have refused being elected as the archystor of this institution."

Ah, of course. He would be seeing the yellow springs soon, and so wished to pass on his learnings to his disciples before that time came. What a benevolent elder! Though, in hindsight, perhaps the Dao of Disappearance simply wasn't practiced so strongly here? After all, Daphne herself had not been abandoned by her parents at some humble village at birth, which they should have rightly done considering she was a favored daughter of heaven and destined for greatness.

Being raised as an orphan was extremely beneficial for one's cultivation.

"I understand, archystor," Daphne said. "Thank you for the offer."

"Good, good. I'll leave you to settle in then. Classes begin in two days," he said.

Familiar with when an honored elder was dismissing her, Daphne tilted her head in deference before extracting herself from his office.

"Shall we head to your rooms now then, Lady Daphne?" her maid asked, pulling out a feather umbrella to hide her from the sun's glare.

"Yes, let's," Daphne said. And after that, she could survey the school grounds. She'd have to find out where all the best meditation spots were.

The student dormitories were a building entirely separate from the archystor's tower, made of brick and glass. It was a sprawling affair, richly decorated in paintings, sculptures, and tapestries in a style that was foreign to Daphne's eye. Nevertheless, Daphne loved all things beautiful.

It was why she loved herself most of all.

Everywhere she glanced about in the dormitories were arrogant young masters trading pointers in the arts and martial arts, while misstocrats cultivated the dao of stitching. A mixed group of men and women practiced playing on the harp, lute, and drum, while another of their group recited what seemed to be poetry. It shamed her to say that none of them played the guqin.

Wherever her fellow disciples cultivated, it definitely wasn't here for how could anyone meditate with so much activity around them?

As she drew near to her room, a commotion outside it caught her eye. Two well-dressed ladies bearing silk fans were trading words with what was definitely a strawborn peasant. Her dress was a simple affair of undyed wool, and the length of her heels remained at one inch. It was forbidden by law for a strawborn to wear heels higher than that, which was a right reserved for the nobility.

"You should be grateful that the hystors took pity on you and accepted you into this school again," the one with braided hair said.

"If your performance continues to be as poor as it was last year, you will definitely fail the trials," the one with dark hair said. "Still, it will not make much of a difference whether you pass or fail. None of the stoneborn think much of your talents, and without a patron, this will be your last year here. Better if you save yourself the trouble and just leave now."

Daphne scoffed. Was this how her junior sisters thought bullying worked? Clearly they had not been raised properly by their parents if this was the sum of their abuses! Worry not my juniors, she thought. This Thorned Rose shall teach you! She cleared her throat.

"Lady Daphne!" the two ladies exclaimed as they noticed her. "Are you doing well? We weren't sure if you'd be returning after the unpleasantness last year."

"I am fully recovered," Daphne said. "And why wouldn't I return? Everyone encounters a little trouble in life. It is no great surprise for us to overcome such things."

"As you say," the braided girl said.

Daphne nodded and looked pointedly at the peasant. "And who is this supposed to be?"

"No one you need to concern yourself with," said the dark-haired girl. "She'll be gone soon enough."

"Only those with talent can rise in this place," Daphne said. The qi of this peasant girl wasn't low for her age, though not as high as Daphne's. "Go home to your parents with what dignity you have left."

"I'm an orphan," the peasant girl bit out.

A fortuitous sign, Daphne thought. There were many orphans in any realm, but was she one of the fated few destined to be more? Despite her lowborn status, she had been accepted into this school and for two years now. She was starting much later than a normal disciple would—an aristocrat's child began attending at the age of twelve for comparison. If there was any talent in her, then adversity would only draw it out!

Iron sharpens iron. Truly her act of bullying served the will of the heavens and was best for all involved.

"If a servant like you wishes to stay here, then you might as well serve," Daphne declared. "I have yet to unpack my things. Perhaps you will understand your situation then."

Wisely, the girl did not protest and followed after her, for that would have forced Daphne to cripple her cultivation.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 11: Arrogance​

Daphne's new serving girl was a natural jade beauty—raw, rough, and unrefined, but brimming with potential.

Maybe with a nicer dress, Daphne thought. Cobalt or emerald would compliment her rich, dark skin and brown eyes nicely. A few hours each morning meditating on the dao of cultivating appearances would not go amiss either. Daphne nodded. Her serving girl could be a black swan, one that many arrogant young masters might not die for, but would certainly kill for.

Serving girl fidgeted as she noticed Daphne's attentions on her, which now lingered far longer than was appropriate to pay servants. Really that meant anything more than a glance, and Daphne had been observing her for much longer than that. Her cup of tea nearly drained now.

"Tracey, how old are you?" Daphne asked.

"Um, my lady, that's not my name," Tracey said in lieu of an answer, her aquiline nose wrinkling.

"My serving girl is called Tracey," Daphne said. "If I employ a Mary, I shall call her Tracey because she is my serving girl."

Tracey blinked. "I turn seventeen this year," she said. Listening closer to her now, there was a stumble in her voice as she spoke the words in the High Speech. She trilled her r's and there was a breathy quality to her words.

"And where are you from?" Daphne asked. Her appearance was uncommon within the Everbloom itself, though there were many places in the Empire one could find the likes of her.

"I don't know the name of my village," she said. "It's … near the Great Oasis?"

Dunelander blood then, Daphne thought. An odd way to refer to the Great Lake, but that was a peculiarity of the desert people to the west and their kin who lived around that immense body of water. She must have hailed from the eastern fringes of the Great Lake though, which were long under the dominion of the Everbloom.

Daphne nodded to herself. From what she understood, this would be Tracey's last year at the school if she did not find herself a patron before the next summer. It was charity on the part of the hystors to educate the most promising among the poor peasant children, but such an opportunity was not an excuse to become complacent. A journey of a thousand li did not end after the first step, nor was immortality seized after qi condensation.

If expectations were not met, even a genius could be cast aside and crippled, for jade which could not be polished was not a jade beauty.

"Your speech is unrefined," Daphne said. "Do you not speak in this tongue where you come from?"

"No, my lady, we don't speak the Stone Tongue," Tracey said.

"It is the High Speech," Daphne corrected sharply. "Only peasants refer to it as the Stone Tongue."

"I am a peasant."

"Everyone is well aware of that fact," Daphne said, "but there's no need to remind them of your origins even more."

Tracey nodded. "Yes, my lady."

"That dress won't do either," Daphne mused loudly. "Too plain to catch anyone's attention."

"I don't have another dress," she said.

"Has a young master caused a ruckus in a restaurant over you yet?"

Tracey blinked. "What?"

"Exactly," Daphne said. Could one really call herself a jade beauty without that prerequisite? Heroes best appreciated the likes of them when they had to fight for them. If they were never challenged, they took such things for granted. For a war to be fought for one's attention, to be the ruin of many cities with a glance, that was true power.

Daphne drained the last drops from her cup, and set it down on the table. "Go make me another cup," she said.

Tracey bit her lower lip, before letting out an, "At once, my lady." She picked up the cup with both hands and brought it to the side table with the silver kettle. Qi poured out of her hands in an unsteady stream, coating the kettle unevenly.

Daphne suppressed a sigh. Would she have to teach this girl everything? Were you even a human being if you did not know how to properly brew tea?

It did seem strange to Daphne how the people of this world liked to channel their qi through objects instead of through their own bodies. Perhaps they sought to raise the cultivation of the things around them, either to create artifacts and sacred relics … or even to increase their realm's overall cultivation level itself? Her old master had pondered over such things, but there had never been a way to prove that was even possible, or find enough people willing to try.

It was ambitious, but what cultivator did not bear that mark plainly on their soul? To reach the heavens and to rule as the gods did, was that not the pinnacle of ambition?

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts. Will, her junior brother, popped his head into the room. He'd been one of three people assigned to her protection at her insistence, though her parents disapproved of the notion considering his past failure. It wasn't that she was particularly fond of him, but she'd already gone to the trouble of remembering his name.

"My lady, your cousin Blaise has come to visit," Will said.

"Let him in," Daphne said. She'd been meaning to take his measure, and the sooner the better.

Her cousin was tall, even among aristocrats. The heels he wore were not particularly high but he still towered over Daphne. His hair was not golden like hers, but dark, and he had sharp cheekbones. That was all that could be said about his features in good light. It was his luck perhaps that bedding someone often occurred at night, and so his partner would not have to gaze upon his pimpled face and pig-like snout.

"I heard you wanted to see me, cousin?" Blaise said.

"Wanted is a strong word," Daphne said. How was her cousin like this? Had his cultivation deviated or were the scriptures given to him faulty in some way? Was he merely destined to die, the unfortunate casualty in a duel between a hero and an old monster? Daphne pitied him. "How have you been?"

"I should be asking you that," Blaise said, taking a seat across her. "Did I interrupt anything?"

"I was merely wondering why the magpies were singing this morning," Daphne said perfunctorily. "Would you care for some tea as we reminisce about the past and debate scripture?"

Blaise's thick eyebrows scrunched together. "You've been studying the Sayings of Syngian the Sage?"

She had heard that name uttered in passing before, when Broken Nose swore an oath of penal service to her. It was a strange custom of these people to invoke the name of an immortal, for while Daphne might give proper deference to them, she did not think such beings would pay any attention to promises made on the earth below. "No, have you?" Daphne asked. If he had, perhaps it was best for her to avoid it lest her own cultivation deviate.

"I've moved on to other things," Blaise said, finding his lap interesting all of a sudden. "The accounts of Jaeson the Conqueror, Archystor Archibald's Waging War … that sort of thing."

Tracey chose then to return with the tea. With Daphne's awakened eyes, she could already tell it was not made properly. For one, the water was only hot, but not boiling. How could that even be considered proper tea? Even if it were boiling, she was not letting it cool to the right temperature before pouring!

She suppressed another sigh. Tracey was going to be more work than she thought. She eyed her cousin as he drank the tea, preparing to lash out at Tracey for her poor work, but her cousin held his tongue. He clearly disapproved, but he held his tongue. Was he merely giving her face? A cultured man like him, being of noble birth, would surely know the tea was not made well.

Instead, all he said was, "I see you have a new servant."

"Very new," Daphne said. "Was the tea to your liking?"

"It's … acceptable."

She frowned. If Daphne had any lingering doubts before, she was sure now. His tone was too polite to be an arrogant young master, and that hinted at troubling deviations with his foundation. A young master ought to have stated his disapproval more harshly, and so long as he directed his criticisms at her servant, after she had asked, there would be no loss of face to herself. To be so polite about it … was he giving face to her servant? What need was there for that?

One was courteous to those who had earned it. To give it freely to everyone only meant one thought themselves weak compared to everyone.

After all, arrogance was the writ of the best, and courtesy the fate of the rest.

I will have to teach them that, Daphne thought, eyes moving from her cousin to her servant.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 12: Courtesy?

The ordinary woman is always doing things, yet many more are left to be done. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. This was wei wu wei, the dao of doing non-doing.

There was no need for Daphne to scheme out how to better the foundations of her lessers, it would simply be with time. Everything would fall into place. Not that she expected any gratitude from them. When the best rulers achieve their purpose, and fulfill their aims, their subjects will say: "we did it ourselves". Such was the way of things. Daphne was above such things, for to care about people's approval was to be their prisoner.

WIthin the walls of the Middle School was a vast estate at one with nature, with many groves and gazebos half-hidden by long, twisting lines of colorful hedges or old trees. Thus, even so close to the beating heart of the sect where young masters and misstocrats traded pointers with each other, it was easy to seclude oneself from sight. It was in one of these places that Daphne had brought her retinue.

For hours now, she had been honing her body while her cousin watched dumbfounded. For one's body to attain a jadelike quality, one had to do a thousand strikes with the fist, a thousand swings of a sword, and a thousand steps of a dance.

After the first ten minutes, Tracey joined her in her exercise, though she struggled with it far less. Her physique was not bad at all, though still not perfect. This was merely physicality, not enough to reach the apex! Still, it was her best trait yet.

"Lady Daphne," Tracey asked with a slight pant, "why the sudden interest in fighting?"

"What's the harm in it?" Daphne asked.

"It's just … a woman such as yourself has knights and many followers to defend your honor," she said.

"You're a lady of a house external," Blaise added. "When would you ever need to fight?"

"I am the lady of a margravate house," Daphne replied. "When would I ever not need to fight? Our home is at the edge of two great regions long known for their enmity." She turned to Tracey. "I have knights, but should one leave their fate solely in the hands of others?" One could not reach the heavens with that attitude.

"Begging your pardon, Lady Daphne," Tracey said, wiping away a trickle of sweat from her forehead, "but you were never interested in martial affairs last year. Why the sudden change?"

"Were we ever so close before," Daphne said, "that you can claim to have known me?"

Tracey bowed her head. "I wouldn't dare presume to be familiar with your esteemed self," she said. "For someone like me, it is only prudent to take notes on those above myself."

There was certainly some wisdom there. To show others too much face, of course, could be just as detrimental to one's cultivation, but Daphne was entirely deserving of this respect, and so she would spare Tracey's cheeks from the sting of her palms. "Tall trees require deep roots," Daphne said to her.

How could one withstand the tribulation of the heavens if one's foundation was lacking? How could greater pains be withstood if lesser pains could break your spirit?

Suddenly, there was a rustling among the bushes. Daphne did not fear discovery, for there was nothing to hide. She only practiced here instead of the war yards so as to not incite the many toads to lust after her swan meat. Whoever was approaching would be kept away by her knight escorts outside.

Her maid stepped forward, bringing her a cup of freshly steamed green tea. Daphne took a sip, taking a moment to appreciate its bittersweet aftertaste, before setting the cup back down. It was a great virtue of Maid to be so well-versed in the dao of tea. Though she did not have the potential to be a true cultivator, it was still important to better oneself. The dao of tea was one of the great walls that stood between civilization and anarchy!

It's trade, after all, was essential to the cultivation of arrogant young states, for how else would they reach the Empire realm? The flows of goods circulated along the river and road meridians and through the city cores? Only when a state mastered the dual cultivation of trade and war could their dao principle be established—the natural law by which all of society was ordered.

The rustling only grew louder and closer, and a man strode into her clearing. He kept his hair short and trimmed, like a crown of gold perpetually atop his head. But most striking about him were his bright eyes like a pair of silver stars, and the porcelain complexion of his skin—smooth and without flaw. He must have been a man of some importance that her knights dared not bar his path to her.

Blaise stood from his seat in an instant and bowed. "Your Excellency."

Daphne tipped her head towards the tall stranger dressed richly in silk and satin. "Your Excellency," she murmured. Excellency was a title reserved for the sons and daughters of the Son of Heaven, and there was only one prince meant to be here.

Hadrian.

It was good that her cousin was present. Based solely on his cultivation, she might not have looked twice at him, though his pure yang body was not unpleasant to look at. Still, could a person with such average cultivation really be a prince? It was not that Daphne thought he was weak. In a fight between them as things stood, surely he would overpower her as the sun's light enveloped the moon, but she had expected … more. Regardless, giving him face was only right and proper.

"Pardon the intrusion," Prince Hadrian said, "I heard strange noises and I admit my curiosity got the better of me."

From the corner of her eye, she could see her cousin Blaise giving her a sidelong glance. She was the highest ranked noble present, and thus the only one fit to address him.

"There's nothing to forgive, Your Excellency," Daphne said. "My servant and I were merely training our bodies."

"I see," he said, eyes darting to the livery stitched onto Maid's uniform, seeing as Daphne had stripped off a few layers of her dress for this endeavor. Not enough to be indecent, of course! She would not bring shame to her family in that way. "Lady Greenglade, I presume?"

"Daphne Greenglade, Your Excellency," Daphne said, kowtowing in the way of these people—her hands went to the hems of her skirt as her right foot went behind her left. Then, slowly, she bent both knees evenly with an ease born of many hours of practice.

"Please, rise," Hadrian said. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Daphne. I'd not thought you would be attending this year after the … unpleasantness."

She was getting tired of answering that question, but courtesy required her to give face here. "It would take more than a little trouble to keep me away," Daphne said.

"Such resilience is admirable," he said, smiling at her. "I shall not keep you from your training any longer. Until we meet again, Lady Daphne."

She kept studying his body with her awakened eyes as he departed, tracing the flow of his qi through his dantian cores. It really was quite average for a young master, and still at the qi condensation stage! How was it possible that a prince was not a genius among geniuses?

Perhaps … perhaps he simply had not awakened his nine secret bloodlines yet, like Daphne? If that was the case, it was understandable why his cultivation was still at the level it was at. He wasn't much older than herself after all. While it was rare that a clan patriarch would let their sons cultivate at their own pace, some were known to do so in the belief that difficulties on their path to heaven would only deepen the roots of their cultivation.

Was it so here?

The other possibility, of course, was that this was a realm where crouching tigers and hidden dragons were as common as clouds. It was not impossible for a powerful cultivator to obscure the true state of their strength from those beneath them, though Daphne knew of few people who would go out of their way to do so.

Only the wandering masters were fond of this practice, and they were a strange sort of people whose whims were beyond comprehension.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 13: Killing Intent​

The first day of classes found Daphne among the tiered seats, looking down into an open air arena. Their instructor was a man in his forties with a great beard and a cape that kept billowing despite the lack of breeze. Ten paces from him were several straw dummies dressed in farmer hats and tattered clothes more akin to rags.

"This year," Hystor Gerard began in his soft tone, though his words carried themselves to Daphne's ears with ease, "we shall be moving on from the theory of the four classical elements to focus more on the practical applications of our spellcraft."

His words caused her lips to contort into a heavy frown—not because she wished to know more theory, she knew plenty of scriptures and secrets already, but because he had said there were four elements when there ought to be five.

The rest of his speech was uninspired—some talk about changes to this year's study. It amounted to having a lot more free time to use as they pleased and to explore things which interested them, all euphemisms for "cultivate on your own time, you should know how by now". All quite sensible.

Gerard drew his sword, a thing of beaten bronze inlaid with a cursive script. They were too far and too small to make out even with Daphne's sharp eyes, but she suspected they were array formations of some sort. With an exertion of will, she called upon her qi sense to witness workings beyond the material world, and what she saw shook her to her very dantian core.

The sword's edge had turned into a scalding red as qi coated it, but it was not just any qi. The hystor had honed it with pure yang fire, which was a powerful elemental technique, and he did so with contemptuous ease. If that were merely it, Daphne would have gained great respect for the old monster instructing them, but he was also utilizing earth qi at the same time! To master two elements marked one as a genius among geniuses!

But it did not end there.

With the slightest twitch of his sword, his killing intent was unleashed. Daphne had been through countless bloody battles and had many experiences where she'd had a close brush with death. She had no fear even when she faced armies or demons. But right now, even she could not help but tremble with morbid awe before the pressure their instructor was releasing. It was as if he was a bloodthirsty beast that wanted to tear them to pieces.

In the time of a half-breath, wind blades curved out of the air before him, dicing the paltry rags on the training dummies. Not even a scrap of cloth held onto any of them, yet not a single straw was cut. What precise control too! Indeed, if Daphne were to recount this story, it would take more time to utter two words than the actual execution of his technique.

"Water, earth, fire, and air," Hystor Gerard said. "You all have spent the past four years learning how to command each of these elements by themselves, but now you will command all of them together."

Daphne's jaw nearly dropped. Only nearly, for she was a lady, and it wouldn't be proper to look impressed with anything. She had to be like ice.

Wind was not part of the five classical elements, and it sounded as if the qi here was understood as the eight trigrams, though they were missing half the concepts like thunder, mountain, lake, and heaven. Still, she would not dare question their knowledge now after such a display of power.

To command four such concepts at once … did he have some divine bloodline? Was he a hero of his own journey?

Perhaps most shocking of all to Daphne was that none of those around her, not even her cousin Blaise, looked surprised by his declaration. As if all present had already come to expect this, as if this were normal.

"You have learned power, but now you will learn control," Hystor Gerard continued in the High Speech. "Power without control is nothing. What use is it to blow up mountains to crush an ant? If you burn farmland to kill an army, have you not harmed yourself as well? If you must swing your sword, swing once and be done with it."

Daphne grasped some truth behind that. After all, one did not use three moves to end a doggy life when one was enough.

"The hystors magic is quite impressive," Daphne whispered to her cousin.

"It's the same as always though?" Blaise said. "Any graduate would be expected to be equally as capable."

"And many of us graduate?" she asked.

Blaise gave her a queer look, but humored her with a response nevertheless. "We're stoneborn, Daphne. It's expected that we do. Among the strawborn, perhaps failing would not be seen as a failing, but one cannot even inherit their family's estate without passing the trials."

That was only good sense. An arrogant young master could not become patriarch if he were not strong himself, and a hero could not ascend to the heavens without many trials. Thus, this sect emulated the ways of the universe and the great dao in order to prepare them for their life.

The lecture concluded with an exhibition match, and the hystor called on Prince Hadrian but also the young lord of the House Eminent Morgan, to whom the Greenglades and all the Everbloom swore an oath of fealty too. Lord Martyn Morgan was in his last year in the school at eight and ten, and many beauties sought to ensnare him in an engagement before he departed.

Both young men drew runesteel swords as whispers broke out in the arena.

"Their magic is quite formidable," Daphne said, taking great care to use the terminology of these people. "Prince Hadrian has called on a great deal of wind, while his opponent favors earth."

Blaise glanced at her. "How could you possibly know that? They haven't even struck the first blow yet."

She raised a brow at him. "Because I have eyes. It's plain as day to me."

Then they exploded into violence, to her eyes like two arching stars set to collide. Only Prince Hadrian stopped dead eight paces away, pivoting with his leg as he unleashed the wind in his sword into a slicing gale.

Martyn seemed to have anticipated the move just as Daphne had, charging through it as earth coated the leather armor he wore for the day. Amazingly enough, the wind did not even leave a scratch on him.

"Fire now for the prince," Daphne said, as the qi sharpened the sword with an otherworldly edge.

"Fire sharpens, wind lengthens, earth hardens," Blaise murmured, no longer looking at the exhibition below. It sounded like a chant.

The exhibition ended in a draw soon after, arranged no doubt so that neither party would lose face before the crowd.

A gust of wind blew by. "How did you know what they were going to do?" Blaise asked again, in a lower voice now and using not the High Speech which every aristocrat knew, but the Edenian language favored by the peasants of the southern Everbloom.

"Like I said, I saw it."

"Keep your voice down," Blaise hissed, eyes darting around. "My silencing spells are not the best, and someone could still steal our words. Have you discovered a new spell? Something that lets you see the deeper workings of magic?"

"Are you saying you cannot see as I do?" Daphne asked.

"No one can," Blaise said.

That was … troubling. Qi sensing was one of the first things one learned to do, before even condensation began. How could you concentrate what you did not know was there after all? And all those present were surely already in various stages of qi condensation, so all of them ought to be able to see as she was.

Still, it was not to her knowledge some special scripture, nor could she say she had discovered what every cultivator knew how to do in her old life.

"Later. Don't speak of this to anyone," Blaise whispered, as the wind around them died down.

When Daphne's attention returned to the hystor below, he was speaking of a tournament. Ah, something familiar at last! Surely she would win a great prize by winning that competition.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 14: Trading Pointers​

"You can't seriously be thinking of entering the tournament," Blaise said in an exasperated tone as they walked out of the arena at the end of class.

Daphne frowned at him. "Of course I'm joining," she said. Not only had the heavens presented her with another encounter to triumph over, but the prize she'd earn would certainly be of use to her cultivation. Already she had let slip two opportunities—while shopping, and a guest of Broken Nose's companions—to fail a third time would be a great shame. One could not just rely on the heavens presenting one with a limitless amount of opportunities for there were other heroes being tended to as well.

"Cousin, be reasonable," Blaise said. "This is your first year walking the path of the iron fist, and you've never shown talent for the sword before."

"Broken Nose," Daphne said, "step forward."

He obeyed without hesitation. "Yes, my lady?"

"Recount to my brother what I did to you."

"I heard all about that," Blaise said, waving Broken Nose away. "He's strawborn, Daphne. Perhaps he has some middling talent at magic, but anyone who actually showed potential would have been accepted into one of the Six Schools and found a sponsor. Beating him is like crushing an ant—it's nothing to brag about."

That was true enough. "I'm the heir to House Greenglade. I would not have my family lose face by refusing to represent them," Daphne said.

"What loss of face is there in knowing where your strengths lie, and acting appropriately?" Blaise asked. "Only fools compete where they are weak. Is this some ploy to pique the prince's interest in you? Because it'd be far more beneficial if you focused your efforts on what you're actually good at."

She narrowed her eyes at his insolence. As if she would ever debase herself just to capture the attention of a man, when naturally they should already be paying her attention. "Who are you to tell me what I am or am not good at?"

"I'm just concerned for you," Blaise said. "The tournaments are serious business, and you could end up badly hurt. Take some care of yourself!"

"I think you underestimate me," Daphne said.

"I think you overestimate yourself," Blaise said. "Every stoneborn aristocrat that you'll face will have years of experience on you. They've trained for this, and you haven't."

If only you knew, Daphne thought wryly. The young masters and jade beauties may have trained, but had they fought against demons? Had their lives ever truly been threatened yet? Were countless hours of martial stances drilled into their muscles that they could execute it while half-awake and hungry?

"You'd be hopelessly outmatched," Blaise continued.

"So you believe," Daphne said. "Let us put it to a test then."

He raised a brow at her. "You want to duel me?"

Daphne nodded. "If I win, I compete without further protest from you."

"And if you lose, you'll withdraw?" Blaise asked.

"I won't lose," Daphne said.

Blaise held out his arm towards her. "Shall we seal this with an oath before the gods then?"

"Does my word no longer suffice for you?" Daphne asked. This strange custom of these people rearing its head once more. She humored him, and grasped his arm as he grasped hers. "Speak your words then."

"Eirini, oh god of war and peace," Blaise began, "bear witness to our mutual oath. Should I, Blaise Greenglade, be the victor of this duel, then let my cousin, Daphne Greenglade, withdraw herself from this year's Middle School Tournament. If I be the vanquished, then let no more words part from my lips protesting her entry. May this oath bind me, or may summer scorch my skin black."

A minor punishment for a minor matter. As Daphne understood it, there was nothing incorrect about how he'd worded his oath, and so she responded as was expected. "Let it be so."

"Let it be so," Blaise said. With that, their bargain was struck. "All that remains now is for us to set a time and place."

"How about now?" Daphne asked. The sooner this was done with, the better. Some things really ought not be delayed, like slapping down arrogant toads and upstart peasants. They might get ideas.

"Now?" Blaise asked. "But it's nearly time for lunch."

"It's a duel," Daphne said. "It won't last that long."

He snorted. "Fine. If you're so eager to lose, let's have at it then."

They reversed course, heading back towards the arena. A gaggle of richly dressed young women crossed paths with them, all of them sporting the latest fall fashion—which meant a silk outer dress that ended at one's knees, high-heeled fur boots, and a sapphire bracelet. It was a look that suited them well.

"Lady Daphne," one of them greeted. Genevieve, if she remembered correctly, who was from a House Nominal. While not from a clan as great as her own, this Genevieve was still the daughter of a clan head and that meant something. "We were just headed to lunch. Would you care to join us?"

"Perhaps another time," Daphne responded in as courteous a tone as she could muster. It was important to give face to those of good standing, for if one insulted every young master and jade beauty they met, one would spend their whole life bogged down by challenges and duels instead of literally anything else. "My cousin has agreed to trade pointers with me."

"She means a duel," Blaise said.

Genevieve's brow rose at that. "I wish you the best of luck then," she said. "Maybe you could join us for tea tomorrow afternoon though? We're planning a picnic out in the woods."

She knew not what this picnic was meant to be, but out in the woods was where the qi was strongest so perhaps it was their word for cultivation? "That sounds lovely," Daphne said. If nothing else, cultivating a good relationship with a woman who clearly had good taste in clothing couldn't hurt her any.

Genevieve beamed at her. "I'll send a servant to inform you of the details later on."

"I look forward to it," Daphne said, tipping her head to the side.

"I won't keep you then," the other girl said, letting them move past her and her coterie.

The arena was already empty of life besides her and her cousin, which was just as well. The matter at hand was one that was best kept within the clan, for to outsiders they must appear to be of one will and one mind. To show dissent was to court death, for one can only count on enemies to pounce on one's weakness!

They stood ten paces apart, as was customary, and Blaise gave her a look. "You can't seriously be expecting to fight me without a sword of your own."

"Mother didn't grant me one," Daphne said.

"Gee, I wonder why," Blaise said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "This only proves my point you know."

Ah, this was really too much! "If you weren't my cousin," Daphne said calmly, "I, your father, would not be so merciful and leave you with your body and core intact." He was, she kept reminding herself, the next in line to inherit, especially if she married the prince. To cripple him would be to weaken her own clan, and what sort of barbarian did that?

She breathed out slowly, becoming aware of every inch of her skin and clothes. It was a good thing the corset beneath her dress fitted her well, and so would not impede what she was about to do. Her skirt too had plenty of fabric in it, and so kicking would not be an issue.

He blinked at her. "You're my cousin, not my father?"

"And you're not paying attention," Daphne said. She stomped the ground with her heeled shoe, causing her yin energy to drain out of her and into the world, then lifted her leg above her head. This body did not have much in the way of strength yet, but it was supple enough for her to execute this technique! "Ice Queen's Kiss!"

Sharp shards of ice bloomed into existence in the air around her, and launched themselves at Blaise. His eyes widened at the secret technique of her Elegant Swan Sect.

Her cousin drew his bronze sword in haste, letting fire energy pour into it as he parried one icy dagger and tried to dodge the rest. He was not entirely hopeless, Daphne supposed, for a lesser cultivator would have been incapacitated in the face of her opening attack, though that a few shards here and there nicked at his clothes and drew shallow lines of red on his arms showed he had much to learn.

"You're still not paying attention," Daphne chided, already a half step away from him and well within face slapping distance. For while Blaise had spent all his attention on the icy projectiles, he had taken his eyes off of her completely. Such a mistake would be fatal if this were a real fight!

She'd drawn the dagger hidden within her sleeves already, and was thrusting it at him—only for her to stumble at the last second as earth energy flowed out of her cousin. A piece of stone jutted out of the formerly even floor in an unnatural bump, robbing her strike of any strength.

Quick thinking on Blaise's part.

Still, her center mass was still moving towards him, so Daphne improvised, turning her forward motion into a perfect somersault, with her foot slamming down on her cousin's head.

He groaned from the ground. "Yield! Yield!" He eyed her warily. "Who the hell taught you to fight like that?"

"Does it matter?" Daphne asked. "I won."

"You'll win one fight in the tournament, and no more if you stick to that style," Blaise said. "Opening with a spell that flashy is always a gamble, and once your opponent knows you favor it, you won't catch a second one off guard."

Daphne shrugged. "Little is lost."

"Little is lost?" Blaise repeated, disbelief soaking his every word. "Do you even have enough magic right now to heal a cut or extend the edge of your weapon? Spells like this look nice, but there's a good reason we channel our magic through weapons when we can, and not attack with them directly."

Daphne nodded. Though she had won, her cousin's words were not untrue. She was feeling rather drained of qi, more than she had expected from an attack like she'd launched. She had to remember that her cultivation was not what it used to be, and so she could not be frivolous with her yin energy.

"You want to win this tournament, you'll need to be planning not just for the next fight, but the one after that," Blaise continued.

"Why the sudden interest in helping me?" Daphne asked.

"You're still my cousin, and you're still a Greenglade," Blaise said, pushing himself off the ground and dusting himself off. With an exertion of will and a quick stomp of his feet, he flattened the arena once more. "If I can't dissuade you, then the next best thing is to make sure you succeed. Also why do you scream your spells like that? You're giving away your attack."

"Does it matter if an ant knows where my fist will land?" Daphne asked. "It is their fate to be defeated, as it is mine to be victorious. The rest is to impress those watching."

"Anyone who can recognize your spellcraft ought to be suitably impressed, or they're not worth impressing," Blaise said.

Perhaps there was some arrogance in this young master after all.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 15: The Duality of Face​

Daphne arrived at the gates of the Middle School, where Genevieve's servant had told her they would be assembling. The midday sun was warm against her fair skin, but not scalding, so she waved away Maid when she brought out a parasol of swan feathers to shade her with. Summer was truly well and over now.

She was riding atop Jade—her pegasus, while Maid had borrowed a horse from one of her knights. It appeared they would be riding out into the woods, which suited Daphne just fine. Like her old master said, the deeper into seclusion, the better the cultivation! He was a monster who had long perfected the Dao of Disappearance, and used it frequently on her and her fellow disciples.

"Lady Daphne!" Genevieve greeted with a cordial nod. She was dressed in dyed leather from boots to bosom, and a pearl necklace wrapped itself around her tall neck. A manservant followed her every movement, making sure not even a drop of sunlight touched her light, auburn hair. "You came."

"I agreed to attend," Daphne said. "I am a woman of my word."

"You are a credit to your family," Genevieve said. "Only, I thought since Lady Victoria was also coming that you might reconsider."

Victoria of House Vyne, Daphne remembered from her studies. She was from a margravate house like herself, and a jade beauty equal to her in status and standing though she was not the heir of her house. Her qi Daphne had no measure of, but she had learned lessons in the past days of underestimating these disciples. Their dantian cores were small, but deep, and their versatility with the elements was nothing to joke about! Even with instruction from her cousin, she remained largely limited to using water and ice, and the basic applications of the other elements of this realm.

Did she have some rivalry with this Victoria? If she did, no one had thought to remind her, so how serious could it have been?

"Among the likes of us, honor must be met with honor and courtesy with courtesy," Daphne said. This was the unspoken law even among immortal cultivators of the same rank, for to engage in bloodshed over every petty quarrel would not only leave one weakened enough to be destroyed by a third party! Fighting was restrained to its proper spheres—at tournaments and restaurants, or while trading pointers at a gathering, and often between those of equal rank.

Exceptions existed, of course, for ants who did not give face to their betters, but as her master liked to say: "I am not addicted to killing. They are just addicted to courting death!"

Genevieve smiled at her. "You're as refined as always, a true flower among those of the velvet glove," she said. "I admit, I was surprised to hear you were taking up classes about war this year … and then you signed up with the tournament too!"

"There are many things I still do not know," Daphne said. "It is important to remain open to new experiences, so that one's comprehension of the world is ever more complete with each day." She paused, before asking, "Is it really so strange for me?"

"It's just you've never shown an interest before," she said. "And you gave your patronage to that new servant too."

"You heard about that?"

"Everyone heard about that," Genevieve said. "The lady of a house external does not give her patronage without everyone knowing by the end of the day."

"My patronage?" Daphne asked. "I made her a servant."

"Sure, for now," Genevieve said, waving at another arrival. "But you must be considering a formal extension of patronage if you've taken such a keen interest in that village bumpkin."

She could not truthfully say she was not. "I've thought of making her a disciple," Daphne confessed. "It remains to be seen if what I saw in her was correct." Many disciples showed potential in the beginning, but sects were known to trim their branches from time to time. Even the wisest do not see all ends, nor recognize all heroes at the start.

"What is it that you do see in her, if you don't mind me asking? Was there some potential that everyone has missed, even the hystors? They were withdrawing their patronage over her soon after all," Genevieve said, before quickly adding. "I dare not tempt her away from your service now that you've shown your interest. It's curiosity on my end."

"She has a poor foundation," Daphne said, "but in some ways, making it as far as she has as an orphan is commendable. With the right support, and the hystors are hardly that, perhaps she could be more … or perhaps she merely got lucky a few times? I do not know the answer, but it is a small matter for me to investigate."

Genevieve fell silent, a thoughtful look etched on her face. A few more minutes passed before all the ladies and lords had gathered, and their mounted party departed through the iron-wrought portcullis. It was a curious thing that many of the others had brought a knight or lesser retainer with them. The surrounding lands were not so dangerous, nor was there any word of bandits nearby. Besides, as the host, Genevieve had brought on a small host to ensure the safety of all present which was only right and proper of her.

Their destination was not a secluded mountain peak (not that the nearby hills could dare be called mountains), or some lake infused with spiritual energy. No, their destination turned out to be a grove of oaks and apple trees.

The servants laid out chequered blankets upon the grass which did not look like cultivation mats to Daphne. She was definitely sure they weren't cultivating when the baskets were opened, filling the clearing with the smell of sweets, wine, and sweet wine.

No matter what some masters said, consuming spirits behind closed doors did not make it cultivation!

The qi here was stronger than back home, but it was not so much more than the school's that it was worth the effort of venturing out. Nor could she begin cultivating when the men and women around her began gossiping like hens. Now, she was not one to shy away from such news, for every good lie had a seed of truth in them, but did their topics of conversation have to be so dull? Who cared that this knight was sleeping with that lady, or that some heiress had taken a liking to a strawborn peasant? What importance were these things in the grand scheme of the dao?

Daphne could forgive many things. Being boring was not one of them.

"Oh, Lady Daphne, I didn't see you there!"

Daphne glanced at the girl who'd spoken. It took her mind a moment to decipher her identity, but she was fairly sure this was Lady Victoria. She had a bright smile, all teeth and cutting, and wore something closer to a ballgown than an outdoor dress. She wore her own ransom, arms and fingers rich with rings and cuff bracelets, while smaller bands of silver adorned her braided hair.

"Then you ought to open your eyes more often," Daphne said.

Her eyes narrowed, and she brought out a silk fan. "It's just I didn't expect to see you back so soon. After the business last year, and then your kidnapping near the end of summer ... tell me, has your family caught those who dared lay a hand on you?"

The chatter closest to them strangled into silence as those around them held their breaths. Daphne understood why. This Victoria was challenging her, and prickling at the face of House Greenglade.

"They are being hunted down," Daphne said. "It's no matter when they are caught. Is there anywhere beneath the sun they can hide from my family?"

"Certainly not with your family's signature spell," said one of the women helpfully. Others around her tittered their agreement. She was a junior who was giving her face. Daphne made a note of her features, and her prominent, full lips that were red as the cherry blossoms.

"Of course, of course," Victoria said, "but I think it's clear the strawborn were the tools of another? After all, it is a deathwish to lay hands on the likes of us, and they would have known that. Only a powerful benefactor would have emboldened them to act so rashly."

"So powerful that they must achieve their goals through their lessers?" Daphne asked. "The bandits will be found, and then they will talk." Men always talked—whether it was bragging to friends, boasting to beauties, or betraying secrets under torture.

Victoria laughed. "I admire your confidence. You've even gone so far as to enter the tournament this year, when many in your position might have kept their heads down."

"I am from a margravate house," Daphne said, realizing now that this was no mere outing. Here they were, consuming food and drink … surely this counted as a restaurant! "It is only right that we show our strength."

"Ah, still clinging to that old title," Victoria said with a smile full of mocking mirth. "House External Greenglade has many sworn knights and retainers in the school, the same as mine, but you yourself are entering! Now that was a surprise. I suppose with Prince Hadrian here, you hoped
to catch his attention with this?"

Daphne picked up her bone porcelain teacup, sipping at it before replying. From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of these barbarians pouring milk and sugar of all things into hers. Truly these people were frogs in a well. "Hope?" She scoffed. "Hope is as hollow as fear. Both are phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as the self, what do we have to fear?"

Victoria frowned at her response, and for a brief while, the sound of silence filled the clearing as she deciphered the meaning behind her words. She was a toad who could not see Mount Tai, for she decided then to attack Daphne in other ways. At least she was just a fool, and not a great fool, for she was capable of changing tactics.

Daphne could forgive many things. Being boring was not one of them.

"I hear you've taken on a useless girl as your new servant too," Victoria said.

"You concern yourself with many things," Daphne said. "I wonder how you find the time in the day."

Victoria ignored her quip. "It's a bold move, extending your patronage to the likes of her when even the hystors have written her off their patronage lists."

"Must I do what others do merely because others do them?" Daphne asked. "Am I a sheep in need of a shepherd? House Greenglade is an ancient family. When we act, it is others that follow."

"Not when you're burying gold in a pit like some Deeplander," Victoria said. "There are better ways to waste your family's fortune."

"You speak as if you already know her fate," Daphne said.

"She's strawborn, and not a particularly talented one at that," Victoria said. "To treat her as you do is insanity."

"Only if I fail," Daphne said. "I have taken responsibility for her. I do not shirk from duty."

Victoria snorted. "You are so very confident in your servant, Lady Daphne, but words are merely words. How about a wager? Let your servant enter the tournament, and we shall see how well she fares against the likes of us."

AN: TLDR - According to my friend, my story is currently at rank 20 something on Royal Road's Trending (which is awesome!). It also just turned week 3, making this week the easiest time for Daphne to get onto the front page (Top 7 Trending). If you wanna help Daphne ascend to the heavens and look down upon the strawborn beneath her heels, leave me a rating, review (or advanced review if you're feeling very helpful) on RoyalRoad!

Omake:

I was contemplating the veracities of the universe beneath a stop sign one day when a wandering old monster came upon me. He asked, "Junior, what are you doing? The Last Ship in Suzhou is leaving soon."

I, of course, still being one of the many disciples residing in the Fledgling Court had to show this one great face, for he was likely to be senior to me based on the length of his beard. "Master, I am contemplating on the truths of the Trending Realm, but I fear my cultivation has reached a bottleneck. This Virtuous Son dares not show his face to the sect while in this miserable state."

The old monster tilted his head. "You are contemplating the Trending Realm at your stage? What is your Dao Principle?"

"This junior follows in the footsteps of Master Se Lethe. This one strives to embody the Dao of Me-mes."

"Ah, a dangerous path to walk," the old monster said, stroking his beard. "To stray by even the slightest inch to either side will be certain death and cripple your cultivation. Still, if you succeed, you might accomplish great things. Great, but terrible."

I kowtowed to him like the ant I was. "Master, you speak truly. If you have any insight to offer this one, I shall be forever grateful."

"Because you have shown me some face today, I can offer you some insights," the old monster said. "The Dao Principle of Me-mes is indeed strong enough to let you reach the Trending Realm, even the Top of the Trending Realm is not impossible for you! But do you know what it is that gives me-mes their power?"

"Please enlighten this one," I said.

"It is its power to live in the minds of others rent free. If you wish to ascend to the Top of the Trending Realm, you must spread your me-me far and wide. Second, you must believe!"

"Believe?" I asked.

"Believe," he said. "Belief is the most important component of your dao principle! If you do not believe in it fervently, even in the face of the heavens, how can you survive their tribulation? Lightning and falling stars will test you, but you must persevere in the face of adversity!"

"This one understands," I said, not understanding at all. I had to contemplate upon his words more, for they were simple, yet profound!

"You do not, but in time, you might," he said. "Seclude yourself, and listen for the sound of silence. Then, you might begin to grasp the truth."

 

[Halt]

Chapter 16: The Pillars of Power
​

Cousin Blaise was waiting in her room when she returned, his nose buried in some history textbook about a battle. Was there really so much to write about? All that changed was the when, where, who, why, how, and how many—all trivial details when the outcome was the same!

Ants get squashed. The junior that dares, dies.

"Have you been here this whole time?" Daphne asked, taking her seat across him.

"No," Blaise said, eyes moving across the page one last time before he closed its covers with a snap. "I've been here maybe an hour? You'd be returning sooner or later."

"You could have just asked a servant to go get you when I did," Daphne said.

"I didn't have much to do," Blaise said.

"You could train. You could go outside."

Blaise's brow rose. "The girl who likes to go on and on about closed door training is telling me to go outside?"

"The girl who went outside today is telling you there's more to this world than can be found in books," Daphne said. How would he ever capture the heart of a jade beauty if he never made a ruckus in a restaurant for her? Obviously that entailed first being in a restaurant! Her cousin might be lacking in looks, but his children need not be. For the sake of her family, she would ensure it. "So what brings you here?"

"I said we'd be talking about what you saw in class later. It's later."

"It's been a day," Daphne said.

Blaise scowled. "Yes, and last I checked a day later is still later. You were surrounded by servants and sycophants all day yesterday, and today you had that picnic of yours. Now, dismiss your servants and we can attend to the matter at hand."

"Dismiss them for what?" Daphne asked.

He sighed with great longsuffering. "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead," he said. "This is a matter that must be kept within the family."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," Daphne said, pointing at Tracey. "You see, I was going to teach her."

Blaise spluttered. "Teach? You can teach it and you want to teach a peasant before your own kin?"

"Don't be jealous," Daphne said. It was unbecoming. Even a jade beauty much coveted like herself would one day learn to share with other jade beauties, particularly when a hero was involved. "I can teach you as well. It's a small thing to do."

"What I take offense with is that you wish to teach her at all!" Blaise shouted. "You've gone from making her a servant to considering her as oathsworn in under a week! This spell of yours could be the pillar of our house's power, and you're just giving it away!"

"Give us the room," Daphne said, tone cutting as an icicle. She pinned her cousin to his seat with a stare, and only when the last servant left did she speak again. "I will not be spoken to in that way. Not by you, and not by anyone. Perhaps your memory fails you, but I remain the heir until otherwise."

He nodded slowly. "My apologies for raising my tone."

Daphne nodded back. "Now, what is the issue with making Tracey oathsworn?"

"It's a massive investment of resources. We'd have to arm and armor her, get her tutors to speed up her education, round out the gaps in her training…"

"It's one 'spell', as you said," Daphne said, frowning.

"A spell that you invented, and is still secret to the world at large," Blaise said. "A spell that lets you predict the attacks of others somehow. It might very well be foundational to our future power, and you cannot just give it away without precautions. Many will covet it."

It seemed to her an exaggeration. Qi sensing was as basic as bullying. Then again, the people of this world cultivated differently… "Making her oathsworn protects it?"

Blaise sighed. "No, not completely. With a spell like this, I would have preferred to keep it entirely within the family for a while. Making her oathsworn would be necessary if you insist on teaching her though, which I still am opposed to. We'd be binding her to us with oaths and obligations. The oathsworn are raised high by our hands so that they will be wary of falling. It is fear as much as duty which keeps them from treachery."

It sounded not unlike a hero's affections—given to a girl for a brief time so that they would fear losing it to another. "We'll make her oathsworn then," Daphne said.

His eyes peered into hers searchingly. "You're really confident you can teach this spell, aren't you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Daphne asked. Her word was her word, and she had no reason to fill this junior's ears with deceit.

"Because you're not even seventeen and not even a graduate," Blaise said. "People have spent their whole lives attempting to craft new spells, and few of them ever succeed. For you to do it so young…"

"You lack faith," Daphne said. "I am a genius among geniuses. Even the heavens know this."

"You might well be," Blaise said. "Can you tell me about it? What does your spell really do?"

"It is … magic sensing, I suppose," Daphne said, taking care to translate the idea into the local terminology. "When one becomes attuned with their body, and the flow of magic in the universe, one can not so much see as feel the magic of others. With some training, differentiating between the elements is very possible."

Blaise was locked in contemplative silence for several long breaths. Then, he said, "So that's how you did it. How profound!"

"Really, it's simple," Daphne said, "but even the simplest things are profound."

"Tell me again why you insist on teaching that serving girl of yours?"

"House Greenglade was challenged," Daphne said. She recounted to him what Victoria had asked of her in front of their peers.

Blaise cursed silently. "As you say, it was a trap. We cannot back out of backing Tracey now that such an issue has been challenged. Had it not, there would be no loss of face, but Victoria has brought the matter to the attention of all. They will think it is her words which have shaken our confidence in your choice. That would be intolerable."

Her cousin could be simple, but he understood some things in this world. "We can only ensure that she succeeds now, and the best way to do that is by teaching her," Daphne said. "Being able to predict the attacks of your enemy would be of benefit in a duel."

"I don't see any other choice," Blaise said. "Revealing to the world that we have a new spell in hand at the tournament is not the worst way of showing your hand. It would certainly catch Prince Hadrian's attention too."

"We're in agreement then."

"Yes," Blaise said. "How soon can you start teaching us?"

"That depends," Daphne said. "Broken Nose, Tracey, attend to us."

"You know his name's Rhian right?" Blaise said.

"I only remember the names of important people," Daphne said. "Why do you know his name?"

Blaise smiled wanly. "It's only good manners to know the name of the man I'm going to kill one day."

That was fair enough, Daphne supposed.

"You called for us, Lady Daphne?" Tracey asked.

"Yes," Daphne said. "Broken Nose, I need two more of those pills you acquired for me. How soon can you procure them?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "I'll have to make a trip to the nearest town to check. Don't rightly know the people here."

"You'll leave at once then. We're in a hurry."

"You shouldn't become too reliant on 'em," Broken Nose said. "They're not supposed to be addictive, but I've seen a few mates of mine go crazy if they go without."

"It's not for me," Daphne said, tilting her head. "It's for them."

"You want to feed me a pill?" Tracey asked with a worried look.

"Don't worry," Daphne said with a smile. "It's not an aphrodisiac." That might have been the wrong thing to say, because she looked even more worried now. "Really, it's harmless. Tell them, Blaise."

He blinked at her. "I don't know which pill you're talking about, but I've never tried one either."

Her jaw nearly dropped, but it would have been unseemly. She already knew that spirit stones either didn't exist or were hard to come by in this realm, and if her cousin was not using pills either it would certainly explain why his cultivation was at its current level! Cultivating without pills was like fighting with one hand, or courting without an aphrodisiac!

"I will awaken your eyes to the mountain," Daphne declared.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 17: Interlude - The Young Master​

She's getting smarter, Blaise thought as mist exploded outwards from Daphne, rolling off the makeshift arena. Dame Marian, a veteran of eight battles and a knight of eighteen years, peered at the fog with fear's better respected cousin: caution. It was the first time he'd ever seen her worried while practicing with them, as if losing—no matter how slim the chances—was now within the realm of possibility.

There were no fancy attacks this time from Daphne, no rain of ice shards or a whip of water to open with. She'd been moving away from such extravagances once an experienced warrior like Dame Marian became a pointed example of how it could go disastrously wrong for her. Daphne's magic was largely untrained for the rigors of martial matters, and even the best knights would find winning duels using such tricks needlessly tiring.

The fact was unless one had a signature spell to make channeling such direct magical attacks more efficient, the costs of such spells were too costly to be practical.

This new trick of his cousin's, while still largely wasteful given it was done without a proper medium, was many times better than her previous tactics. He couldn't even call it a faulty one considering he knew about her capabilities. With her sensing spell, Daphne could see through the mist with ease while her opponent remained blind to her. Further, his cousin had developed a taste for pankration, the Old Ilyosi style of hand-to-hand combat. She was actually good at it too, and every duel he'd lost to her was when he allowed her to get within striking distance of his face.

Daphne was being patient too. No sudden movements to give away her position, and every gust of wind Dame Marian sent to dispel the mist did not meaningfully improve her visibility. Quite a useful application of attrition, and he could see the knight becoming more nervous each second an attack did not come.

"She might actually win this one," Blaise muttered, wiping himself down with a towel that Rhian had offered him. Broken Nose, as Daphne liked to call him. He'd sworn before the Great Pantheon and the Divine Syngian that, one day, he would kill him for the dishonor of kidnapping a Greenglade. That day had not yet come, not while Daphne still thought to use him as a penal servant, but if he knew his cousin at all, she'd tire of him eventually.

On that day, his vow to the Great Gods Above and the Divine Syngian would be met. Perhaps after he gets the pills, Blaise thought. Rhian had returned from the nearby town just yesterday, claiming that it would take up to a week before the locals could supply him with the goods in question.

"The margravess is doing well," Tracey said besides him, before sipping on a ladle of cool water.

"Her mother is the margravess," Blaise said. "Daphne's title is Lady of the House External Greenglade, if you wish to be formal." He explained it not for her sake, but Daphne's, for a servant was a reflection on their master. If she could not get even the simplest of these courtesies right…

"Why do you call it that?" Tracey asked. "This business about being a house external. None of the villagers near the Great Oasis call it that."

"That's because they're strawborn," Blaise said. "Margrave is an old title of the Kingdom Ever Blooming, and the Emperor has seen fit to replace it since the Reunification. Technically, there are no more margraves just as there are no more kings." It was a title that the other eminent regions favored, and it galled a little that His Highness had imposed it on them instead of imposing their preferences on others. Were they not the true and righteous heirs to the Six Sorcerers?

There was nothing to be done, however. Lord Eminent Morgan had agreed, and there could be no dissent when the House Imperial and a house eminent were of like mind.

"If it's an old title, then why does Lady Daphne still use it?" Tracey asked.

"Not every stoneborn house agreed to be rid of it," Blaise said. It was a battle that they were losing, though slowly. In a hundred years, would anyone still remember these old honors and titles their family favored save for the most devout hystors? Alas, time marched onwards, heedless of mortal matters. "A word of advice—you best double your efforts in learning the courtesies."

Tracey blinked. "Whatever for?"

"The prince is holding a masquerade ball to celebrate the harvest season," Blaise said. "The whole school will be invited, but just because our identities will be concealed so that lessers and greaters might mingle freely does not mean you may abandon the necessary courtesies. You will just be treating us more like peers instead of peerage."

She gave him a determined nod. "I understand, my lord. I won't disappoint."

"See that you don't," Blaise said, turning his attention back to the duel. Daphne was still waiting her opponent out, letting Dame Marian's fear take its toll.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do we start school in the fall?" Tracey asked.

He very much did mind, but it was better she asked him her silly questions rather than embarrass them before others. "When else would it start?"

"I just mean wouldn't it make more sense to let us return to our homes for the harvest or even for spring's planting? Summer is hardly the busiest season of the year."

Blaise let out an exasperated sigh. "You," he said, "are such a peasant. What makes you think the schedules by which the Six Schools are run on is based around farming?"

"Over half the students here are strawborn. Most strawborn are farmers," Tracey said.

"Not all strawborn are the same," Blaise said. "You live under thatched straw, while others live beneath spun gold. Here is where the sons and daughters of merchants and magnates gather too, that they might one day be accepted into the ranks of the stoneborn. Do you think for a second that farming is what concerns them?" Syngian save him from such nonsense.

Slowly, she shook her head.

"The likes of you," Blaise continued, "are invited to these institutions so that the worthiest of you might be put to better use than mucking about in the soil like your ancestors have for seven generations. You are here that you might be picked out by us, or for the less fortunate, stay on with the school's patronage to become hystors. The least of you are cast out, as you should know."

"I'm aware."

"You strawborn are as much a part of our experience as the gardens and classes," Blaise said. "Do you know what it is us stoneborn do during the summer? What season it's for? What god we worship most?"

"We worship Eirini, the god of war and peace, for it is the season of either war or peace," Tracey said.

At least she understood that much. "When such wars are fought, it is us who must defend our keeps while our parents ride to war. That is why the Six Schools are run the way they are."

"But surely it's not always about war? There will be years of peace too."

"There might be, but just because there is no war between the eminent regions does not mean conflict is at an end. There will always be disagreements somewhere between the stoneborn. Before the Emperor's ascent, steel and sorcery were always the means of last resort," Blaise said. "It's what we're bred for. It's what will be expected of you as well, if you become oathsworn to our house."

He left her to ponder on those lessons. Just in time too, for Daphne was finally making her move!

Out of the mist, she struck like a particularly angry goose, screaming each attack. Some habits died harder than others. Still, she put up a good fight, moving with grace around Dame Marian. It was not unlike a stream or a river—curving aside where the earth was hard, pushing at the softest spots, and always breaking through in the end. It was the same here as Daphne kept herself behind Dame Marian as much as possible, or out of her direct line-of-sight, striking at joints and weaknesses with too much intent to be the random lashings of a madwoman.

Here and there, he could make out bits of frost sticking to Dame Marian's clothes wherever Daphne struck with her palms. A neat trick in his opinion. It wouldn't leave one too exhausted magically, while creating a great deal of discomfort for your opponent. If one was lucky, they might even choose to divide their attention by melting the ice off, and such distractions could be fatal in a fight.

His cousin lost in the end. Not for lack of skill, but because her body lacked the strength to truly harm a knight prepared for her. That would be rectified with time.

More importantly, she showed great promise even to his eyes. There was a talent for violence there, a creativity that turned the simplest spells and applied them in profound ways.

Perhaps that was what Daphne meant whenever she said something was "simple, yet profound?"

 

[Halt]

Chapter 18: The Mark of a Cultivator

The marble hall was heedy with the scent of high spirits. They were already on their third round of oaken barrels by Daphne's count, and Prince Hadrian only served the finest vintages for his masquerade ball—Ambrosia, Grandgrove Gold, Darkland Red, and even strange concoctions of fruits and spirits. Liveried servants patrolled the room, carrying silver trays of morsel-sized art, ensuring that no one would want for food tonight.

Meanwhile, men and women waltzed to a grand, old melody. One pair in particular had captured a crowd by dancing upon the large fountain in the center of the room, their every step heralding an early onset of frost on the water beneath them. Judging by the quality of their clothes and the magic on display, they could only be stoneborn, though not even Daphne with her eyes could tell who was who for certain. Until one formed a dao principle or was born to a bloodline, one's qi did not take on a unique flavor.

It was this uncertainty over the dancing pair's identity that made their display acceptable. From what Daphne understood, petty displays of cultivation were frowned upon as wasteful, much like how an old monster wasting his time on a junior disciple was deemed wasteful.

She leaned against the balcony's railing behind her, staring up at the moon, full and bright on this night. Tracey was off to the side, waiting on her. She was a guest too, but she had little in the way of friends and with her foreign complexion, even a toad in a well could perceive her true identity.

"What are you doing out here?" asked a man half a head taller than herself. His eyes were a striking silver, like the prince's and so he could only be the prince.

Daphne curtseyed, but Hadrian waved her off. "None of that now. You're not supposed to know who I am. That's the whole point of the ball."

"Your eyes give it away," Daphne said.

"Of course they do," Hadrian said, sighing. "The eyes of Synder Starbright always shine through."

"Is there no way to hide it away?" Daphne asked.

He shrugged. "Not easily. Perhaps if I stole someone else's face, but that has its own difficulties, Lady Daphne."

"You're not supposed to know who I am," Daphne repeated. "That's the whole point of the ball."

"You're not exactly trying to hide it, are you?" Hadrian said, tipping his head towards Tracey. "Your servant stands out."

Tracey bowed her head. "My apologies, my lady."

"It's done with," Daphne said. She was a crane in a flock of chickens after all. There could be no hiding her beauty in a crowd like this, for a gem always reveals itself and cannot help but catch the light. "Give us the balcony."

Tracey bowed again, and left the pair of them alone.

"I've heard," Hadrian said after Tracey had left, "that you've entered the tournament."

Daphne raised a brow at him. "Is that so surprising?"

"It certainly clashed with what I'd heard whispered about you. Would the lady forgive me for believing such things?"

"There's nothing to forgive. I like gossip," Daphne said. "I find out so much about myself that I never knew." There were still quite a few gaps in her recollection, for there were things not written in any book, nor could be shared from hystor to student. Listening in on the maidservants when they thought no one was around was a valuable source of information for example.

Hadrian waved a manservant down, and acquired from him two tall, slim glasses of Grandgrove Gold. He handed one to her, and for a moment, Daphne considered the drink. Was it laced with aphrodisiacs? As they said, nothing could be done once the rice is cooked.

"It was my mother that told me I ought to consider your hand," Hadrian said.

Princess-Consort Pauline, Daphne recalled from her readings, was a sister to the current Lord Eminent of the Everbloom. That alone might have been enough if he were any other man, but he was aiming to be the Emperor, and as far as she could tell there was no first wife in the Seraglio, what they called their Imperial Harem. When combined with the fact that it was the consorts who raised the children, Hadrian's ascension would mean there would be no heir the Everbloom could back without reserve among the next generation, hence the need for an Everbloom wife.

His odds of winning were good too. After all, Hadrian was a hero. More than that, the Everbloom had achieved many breakthroughs after centuries of state cultivation, such that the size of its army cores was indisputably the largest among those in the kingdom realm! More than a match for any two kingdoms on its own.

So this is a courtship, Daphne thought, peering at her drink. And what was a courtship without aphrodisiacs?

"Do you want to marry me?" Daphne asked.

"What I want is to be Emperor," Hadrian said simply.

How cold! He would use her pure yin body to enhance his cultivation and take the Emperorship that way. "How pragmatic."

"Its politics. If I want to win, I must be practical," Hadrian said.

"You are not without choices though," Daphne said. While she was obviously a beauty among beauties, there were others who might compare to her in looks and standing. Victoria came to mind, but even House External Woode could find a branch daughter suitable for the prince if asked.

"I'm not," Hadrian said with a nod, "but your family is by far the best one. My sister Lydia is my largest rival, and she draws her support from the Heartlands." It went without saying that House Greenglade was the largest of the Everbloom's southern houses and charged with defending against any attacks from the Heartlands. "So let me ask you this: do you want to marry me, and why?"

"I do," Daphne said. "As to why? It's simple. I wish to live among the clouds and look down on this world. I want to live in the Imperial Palace."

"How practical," Hadrian said.

She smiled back at him. "It's politics."

"You don't care that you'd have to give up your inheritance?" Hadrian asked. "There's no need for you to risk yourself in power struggles if all you wish to do is exercise power. You have the luxury of being an only child, and have no siblings with which to compete with for heirship."

"My inheritance is a small matter. How can it compare to the ordering of an Empire?" Daphne asked.

"It will be dangerous," he warned again. "There are many who would prefer one of my siblings. Not that my odds are not good, but it is not certain."

"We are stoneborn," Daphne said. Every arrogant young master and jade beauty knew that, one day, they might face a hero, a real hero. "We already lead lives of danger as a rule. What is a little more for the prize on offer?" If she succeeded, she would have access to the greatest treasures of this realm. Surely her cultivation could only benefit. Besides, it was the fate of any hero to have enemies, just as it was the fate of antagonists to be ants in agony. Adversity could enhance one's cultivation.

"There can be no backing away once you are committed," Hadrian said.

She almost scoffed, but gave him face and kept her expression schooled. "How would you describe Syngian the Sage?" she asked instead.

"Wise," he replied without hesitation.

"To me, he is arrogant," Daphne said with great admiration.

For the first time that night, Hadrian looked surprised. "That's not an answer I'd usually hear. Are you saying he isn't wise?"

"He is that too," Daphne said, "but arrogance is the highest virtue, and he embodies it."

"What a unique perspective," Hadrian said. "Do go on."

"We worship him as a god now," Daphne said. "The Divine Syngian has reached the realm of the heavens, an immortal! Man is man, the gods are gods, but for a man to become an Emperor, a god even … does that not require some ambition? Can a man ascend to such heights without the arrogance to defy his mortal fate and cast off those threads?"

"I suppose not," Hadrian said slowly.

"Of course not," Daphne said. "Arrogance is what separates us from the strawborn. It is the mark we bear plainly on our souls. So believe me when I say that I have only the highest respect for the Divine Syngian, and for you."

"To arrogance then," Hadrian said, toasting.

They drank. He was even polite enough not to spike her drinks with any aphrodisiacs. Already marriage to him was looking better than to a regular hero.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 19: A Recipe for A Slice of Life​

Classes in the Middle School always came in categorical pairs. There were courses, which were a series of lectures, and the one-off talks, closer to what Daphne was familiar with. She could not imagine an old monster setting aside time each week to actually teach his disciples anything. What of his own cultivation? How could he achieve anything behind closed doors? Surely a hystors first concern should be their cultivation, and teaching a distant secondary one?

What they taught was not even magic necessarily, but could be about the mundane too. They taught things that would have been seen as useless in her old life—literature, history, law. Did they not know that there was only one law, the iron law?

Arrogance was the writ of the best, and courtesy the fate of the rest.

Of the pairs of classes, last and most important was the difference between the rich and the poor. Not the stoneborn and strawborn, as Daphne quickly learned, for there were strawborn who could be wealthier than even the old families. Their parents paid exorbitant fees for their children to attend, having neither the aristocratic right to study, nor being valid recipients of the school's own patronage system.

They paid it happily anyway, and Daphne, begrudgingly, praised their wisdom. They understood that being wealthy was not the same as being powerful. Fortune, influence, standing—all of these could be stripped away in an instant, a twinkling, without recourse or restitution. Cultivation, magic, power—these could not be taken from you without a fight.

So whatever fees were asked of them was worth it.

Yet, the wisdom their parents showed did not reach the empty space between their children's ears. Did they understand the iron law of the world?

Not that Daphne could tell. They seemed happier by far attending parties, wining and dining their social superiors to cultivate favor instead of cultivating. This dao did not require much work, but it was a shallow foundation. Whatever fame that might be acquired this way was just some fame, not enough to enter the Emperor's eyes.

Their poorer classmates were wiser than them. Though they were born to be toil in soil, now they sought to deal with steel. In them, she saw a fire that many of the richer juniors lacked. When one had grown up their whole lives wanting for everything, their hands became greedy and grasping at the first opportunity!

This, Daphne realized, was why the Dao of Disappearance was practiced by the parents of heaven's favored. Luck, talent, and dedication were all necessary to reach the apex, but paradoxically, those born lucky would be hard pressed to muster the necessary dedication.

How many geniuses among geniuses had she seen wasting their days away on fun and festivities?

That would not be her.

For all the differences between the Middle School and a cultivation sect, both still left it to the individual to learn at their own discretion. Nothing was mandatory, and few things forbidden, so Daphne was going to learn all of it! She was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if the old monsters of this world wished to invest so heavily in their students, it was only proper to give them face and comply!

Yes, even the mundane topics were not beneath her. Power and potential alone did not impress the old monsters. Strangely, they all had their own quirks, and a soft spot for the dao of culture. Some liked ancient poems on wine and pottery, others their songs, and still more crafted beauty, things of jade and jewelry and stitches.

Many things in the world were mundane and simple, but even the simplest things could be profound.

Now, one might wonder how Daphne found the time to attend all these classes when she refused any seat but the best, and there were no reservations allowed? Would she bully her juniors into surrendering their seats? Challenge them to duels? Promise not to inspect their spatial rings and shopping bags in the future?

Such solutions were crass to her. After all, she'd be trading pointers with them soon enough during the competition, and showing her hand now would only weaken her chances of winning.

The answer was truly simple, something even the most junior sect disciple knew. If you needed something done and didn't have the time, get someone else to do it!

As Daphne entered the room with Tracey carrying her things, she headed straight for the best seat on the first row. Broken Nose stood as she arrived, relinquishing the two seats he'd held for her. One, of course, was for Daphne, and the other was for her things which Tracey carried.

If anyone thought to question his presence, the Greenglade sigil stitched into his chest would tell them who he worked for, and who they'd be challenging. No one had dared cause her offense quite yet.

"My next class is in an hour," Daphne said. "The Six Division Model of Magic to be taught by Hystor Saman. See to it."

Broken Nose bowed. "As you wish, my lady." The pills he'd ordered would be arriving any day now, but until then this was the best use of him.

"Oh," Daphne said, picking out a few tomes from Tracey's hands, "bring these back to my room on your way there. I've no need for them for the rest of the day."

Broken Nose made a sound as she dropped the textbooks into his waiting hands suddenly.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Tracey yawning. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, Lady Daphne. It's just been a tiring few days," Tracey said.

Was it? Every junior spent many long hours on mind-numbing chores before they could cultivate. This was positively pleasant in comparison. "Stretching helps with sleepiness, I find."

She'd rather not have to nudge Tracey awake with her elbow. She actually liked this series on the four defects of vows. According to these people, vows were promises sworn to gods, while oaths were merely promises sworn to other mortals to be upheld by the gods. Such a distinction was important apparently, even though breaking either would result in an early tribulation.

As a result of the consequences, it was a subject of great interest what exceptions existed that would render such promises null and void, either to the benefit of the heavens or the earth. So far, they'd covered the defect of sacrifice (such as when the offering was insufficient or with fault), and the defect of will (which covered a huge swathe of reasons including mental incapacity, ignorance, error about the facts, fraud, and countless more).

Today's lessons would be on the third defect: capacity.

"You attend all these classes, train with me or your cousin in the evenings, and even have the time to keep your skin so lustrous," Tracey said, half-whining, half-impressed. "How do you do it?"

"Practice," Daphne said. "As for the last thing, exercise helps. I recommend doing a hundred pushups, a hundred situps, a hundred squats, and a ten kilometer run."

"Not 'cultivation'?" Tracey asked.

"That is cultivation," Daphne said, "or part of it at least. You must strengthen all three aspects of the self—mind, body, and soul. Only then can you reach the apex."

Tracey hummed. "So these classes are mind. The training is body. What's soul?"

"Meditation, but that takes a while," Daphne said. "To help you along, we'll be using the pills Broken Nose bought."

She looked scandalized. "Are you sure that's safe?"

"It's perfectly safe," Daphne said, waving her concerns away. "I've already used it once, to great effect."

Strangely enough, that didn't seem to give Tracey any comfort. Still she nodded. Her fate was in Daphne's hands now, after she'd staked so much of her face for her benefit. The only path forward open to Tracey was with Daphne, and that meant doing well in the tournament. Not quite winning, expectations weren't that high, but a solid ranking in the top sixteen would be quite commendable according to Blaise. Any higher and she might invite attention from arrogant young masters wishing to use her yin body to dual cultivate with.

She'd not spent all this time and effort on Tracey only for her to be seduced away with aphrodisiacs.

I'll have to tell her about those next, Daphne decided.

Oh, class was starting!

 

[Halt]

Chapter 20: Add Fluff…​

On a cool autumn day, the Middle School turned into a field filled with fumes and clangor. One might think the estate under siege, until one realized the smoke and sounds were coming from within the school's grounds.

To Daphne's understanding, it was Artificer's Week. She had previously observed that the people of this world preferred to channel their magic through objects instead of their bodies, but such workings did not always have immediate effects as in their spellcraft. Artificing was a mixed art that seemed to combine array formations with smithing, and its practitioners sought to create objects of power.

That a major school of the Empire dedicated an entire field of study to this endeavor suggested to her that the other great sects had similar ideas. It was strong evidence in favor of the theory that these people sought to raise the realm's cultivation level through an accumulation of sacred relics.

Who was the mind behind such a scheme? The Emperor? Some wandering master who'd planted the idea within the sects? Difficult to say.

Daphne found herself both admiring that person for his arrogance, and wanting to strangle him for spreading a cultivation method that was aggressively loud. Even the deafening charms around her room failed to keep the noise out! How was she to meditate like this, or even hold a conversation?

If an arrogant young master were to scream "YOU DARE?!" right now she wouldn't even be able to hear it!

"My lady," Tracey said, "if the noise is bothering you, you could always withdraw to the library."

"Would I find refuge from this racket there?" Daphne asked, scowling.

"It has the strongest noise suppression charms on campus. If there's any refuge to be had, it'll be there," Tracey said.

Daphne rose to her feet. "Very well then. Lead the way, junior."

"Junior?" Tracey repeated, though she got up as well. "You've never called me that before."

"For better or worse, I've accepted responsibility for you," Daphne said. "I have decided to teach you my secrets, so it is only proper I address you as I would any disciple."

She was quiet for a moment, lips quivering. Tracey swallowed the lump in her throat and mustered the courage to ask, "My lady, does this mean you'll be patronizing me?"

"For now, yes," Daphne said. "If you honor me in the tournament with your performance, I will see to making this a long-term arrangement."

"You'd really do that for me?" Tracey asked. "You'd make me oathsworn?"

Daphne frowned. What was with all these questions? Tracey had been right there when Daphne had discussed this with her cousin. "I am a woman of my word, and I have said what I have said. So long as you keep faith with me, I will keep faith with you." Unsaid, of course, was that if she ever sought to court death, Daphne would cripple Tracey's cultivation herself! It would be wasteful, but not more wasteful than throwing away her face.

"I understand, Lady Daphne," Tracey said with conviction. "I won't fail you."

"See that you don't," she said as they walked through the academy's carpeted halls. There were many sights to see on the way to the library. A sculpture moved through the motions of a sword art's taolu, forms of martial arts sequences taught to disciples to familiarize them with the basics. One of the strawborn was following along its movements—and she knew he was a peasant for he used a stick instead of a training sword.

Through the windows, Daphne spotted Lady Victoria tending to her personal garden below. The flowers in their pots wiggled, as if dancing to some unheard beat. How they managed to hear anything with all the ruckus outside was beyond her though. It was interesting to see that this realm had spirit plants though. In her old realm, animals could become spirit animals easily enough, and plants like ginseng certainly had spirit roots, but this was the first time she was seeing spirit stems and spirit leaves.

She would have to be warier of Victoria in the future if she practiced such esoteric arts. Who knew what matter of trickery she might employ?

As they arrived at the sturdy mahogany double doors of the library, Daphne recognized the glowing words of Syngian the Sage etched onto the doors: "There is one virtue: knowledge."

A stoneborn woman with full, red lips entered as they did. Daphne recognized her! She was the junior who had given her face the other day at the picnic. "Lady Daphne," the woman said, curtseying.

Because she had given Daphne face, it was only proper Daphne return her face. "Good day," Daphne said, tipping her head slightly in her direction. "I remember you, but I'm afraid I don't know your name."

"Ah, my apologise for not introducing myself then," she said. "I am Lady Millicent of the House Nominal Fields."

"Well met," Daphne said. A house nominal was the lowest of the aristocratic houses, but still aristocrats nevertheless. "Are you here to escape the noise as well?"

"It is quite loud outside, isn't it?" Millicent said. "But no, I'm here to help the librarian apply the new enchantments on the books."

"New enchantments?" Daphne asked. Enchantments and curses, or katara as Hystor Maria classified them in her new Six Division Model for magical understanding, was different from artificing even though both involved magic and objects. Artificing imbued the object itself with power, while katara merely placed an effect unrelated to the object's purpose.

"Security enchantments," Millicent said, gesturing to the book in her hand. "For example."

Through her awakened eyes, Daphne saw qi flowing into the object, forming an ethereal script invisible to those who could not see Mount Tai.

"Now, if you tried to take this out of the library without checking it out first…" Millicent continued, taking a few steps back, out of the library. The book began screeching like a petulant child who'd been spared the rod, or a young master upon meeting a hero, or both.

"Strange danger!" the book screeched through some unseen mouth, flipping open. "Stranger danger!"

The noise drew some strange looks to them. With another exertion of will, Millicent silenced the book. She slammed the book shut with force, like a hero's fist slamming into a lackey's face. "That's what it does. We're hoping it'll stop people from taking books out without registering. We lost quite a few tomes last year, but thankfully nothing irreplaceable."

Daphne nodded approvingly. "I wish you great success." Theft, of course, was a most despicable act unless it was done by heaven's favored children to whom the whole earth belonged. This was only proper stewardship of their things, ensuring piddling non-beings could not escape with treasures and scriptures that rightly belonged to heroes.

And if the hero could not take these treasures for himself and overcome the obstacles, then they were no hero at all.

They entered the library at last, and she took a moment to appreciate the sound of silence. The qi here was not so strong that meditating would be a good use of her time, so Daphne picked out a table in the corner, far away from anyone else and looked Tracey in the eye.

"Today, I will be teaching you one of the most important lessons a jade beauty must learn," Daphne said solemnly.

Tracey leaned forward, expressing great interest.

"Courtship and aphrodisiacs," Daphne said.

"What."

"As a lady connected to me, there will no doubt be some men who wish to court you," Daphne said. "As a jade beauty to be, it is vital you know how to handle their advances, and how to court those you have an interest in. Be sure that the man you choose is worthy, however. I will not have you rut with some common boy."

Tracey blinked at her.

"Now, there are different strengths and types of aphrodisiacs, which we can cover at a later time. What's important is how you react to them," Daphne said. "If you accept that they are courting, and not courting death, you must repeat this line to them: 'wu, wu, wu, so itchy, so hot', while fluttering your lashes." She demonstrated. "This will let the man know you are reciprocating."

Her jaw dropped.

"If, on the other hand, someone comes to you asking for advice on how to court a man, you must tell them to slip them an aphrodisiac. As they say, nothing can be done once the rice is cooked."

"You're telling me that if I'm interested in someone, I should drug them?"

"There are other considerations regarding status and cultivation level, but yes, essentially," Daphne said, happy that she understood. "If you're worried that it is not strictly traditional for women to do the drugging, don't worry. We live in enlightened times where women can be daddy too."

Tracey's jaw opened and closed, not unlike a goldfish. After several heartbeats, she finally answered.

"What."

 

[Halt]

Chapter 21: To Thicken Plot​

The day arrived at last when Broken Nose came to them bearing pills which would be the pillars of their cultivation.

"You bought a whole bag's worth?" Daphne asked, counting the number of pills inside.

"You've asked for it twice now," Broken Nose said. "I thought it'd be better if you had a stash on hand. Won't need to keep ordering a new batch each time that way. I like to be proactive."

She couldn't fault his reasoning. "How much did it cost?"

He scratched his neck. "Eight gold crowns and nine silver clouds for twenty-one pills. That's … uh..."

"Five silver clouds apiece," Daphne finished for him. All in all, it had cost four hundred and twenty bronze quarters then. She picked one pill out of the pouch and handed the rest to Maid. "Keep this somewhere safe."

"Yes, Lady Daphne," she said with a curtsey.

"Just the one pill?" Blaise asked.

"You've never taken one before, so it would be better if we start the two of you with a half dose to see how well you take to it," Daphne said. She had no idea how potent each pill was, but if it was anything like the last one, it was too potent for anyone in the qi condensation stage. She herself had only managed its effects because of her profound understanding of the dao.

Daphne scanned the room, before her eyes latched onto a wholesome portrait of a harpist playing as tribulation clouds gathered overhead. Daphne stood up, unhooked it from its mount, and used its wooden edge to smash the pill open, setting free its white powdery content. With great care, she divided it into equal halves, and gestured for Blaise and Tracey to snort it.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Blaise asked, eyeing the white powder warily.

Tracey, on the other hand, needed no further prompting as she inhaled it. She was turning out to be such an obedient disciple.

"You'll be fine," Daphne said. "Look at Tracey. Be like Tracey."

"She's strawborn, she doesn't know any better," Blaise said.

"Maybe, but she trusts that I know best," Daphne said. "That is the first lesson you must understand. Your master is always right, even when they appear wrong."

"This sounds like a terrible method of learning," Blaise grumbled, but he snorted the powder too. "What now?"

"You'll know when you start feeling it," Daphne said. "The opening of your meridians can vary from person to person, but it is always unmistakable. I suggest taking a seat." She held out a hand, and Maid leapt into action, pouring her a cult of tea. In the time that it took her to finish sipping on it, the first effects began showing.

Tracey closed her eyes softly and leaned into her chair. "It's beautiful."

"It can be beautiful," Daphne agreed. "Focus on that sensation. Try to hold it." She could see beads of sweat forming on Blaise's forehead. "Relax. Don't force anything."

Tracey's hand reached for invisible butterflies, palms opening and closing like a newborn babe. "I don't think I can."

"Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done," Daphne quoted. "The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it."

Tracey nodded in understanding, a small smile flitting across her face. "I think I get it."

"Don't improve things?" Blaise repeated. "Accept the universe as it is?"

"Can you accept that?" Daphne asked him.

He did not answer, but the creases on his face deepened, and that told Daphne all she needed to know.

"The Dao is forever undefined. Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped. If kings and lords could harness it, the ten thousand things would naturally obey. Heaven and earth would come together, and gentle rain falls. Men would need no more instruction and all things would take their course." In between such passages, Daphne would hum a soothing melody. One of her paintings took that as their cue to begin playing their harp, helping to drown out any of the noise from outside.

Artificer's Week was coming to an end, and the explosions were significantly less frequent now, but it still occurred now and then. Such disruptions could break the meditation of her juniors, and as their senior sister, this could not be tolerated.

The door popped open slightly, and one of her knight's stuck their face inside. "Lady Daphne, an urgent message from your mother."

"Make sure they drink plenty of water," Daphne said to Maid. "Keep them calm. I'll be back soon." She stood, then paused. "It may be prudent to close the windows. We don't want them jumping out of them."

Maid frowned. "Does that happen often?"

Daphne shrugged. "Sometimes." When a junior took a pill that their body could not handle, when the excess qi could not be channeled into the dantian, it would course recklessly through the body and make one jittery.

Maid rushed to close the windows, obeying as a servant should. Daphne entrusted Blaise and Tracey to her care. "Keep focusing on the qi, the energy which surrounds anything and everything," Daphne said to them on her way out. "See how it flows, how it takes the path of least resistance? It is like water, flowing everywhere, both to the right and to the left. The ten thousand things depend upon it; it holds nothing back. It fulfills its purpose silently and makes no claim."

She stepped out of the room, and was confronted with a half-dozen knights led by Sir Ronald the Red. "What's this about?" she asked.

"We're here for your penal servant," Sir Ronald said, face set in a tight line. "Your mother has demanded he be interrogated further."

Daphne bristled. A filial daughter she might be, but Broken Nose had proved his worth to her. He was hers, to do with as she pleased, and not even the heavens had the right to take away what was hers. Only a hero had that right. "Broken Nose is my penal servant. He goes where I say he goes."

"My lady, please, step aside," Sir Ronald said. "There are … developments you don't know about."

"Then enlighten me," Daphne snapped, crossing her arms and planting her heels firmly into the carpeted floor.

"The bandit hideout was found," Ronald said.

"What did you find?" Daphne asked, eyes becoming ever more intense. What she was really asking was "Did you find any treasure?" Of course, as her master liked to say, if they were too simple to understand the question within the question, they were not ready to hear the question.

"Four corpses," Ronald said. "There were six men who stole you away, meaning all of them are dead except for their leader and your servant."

She frowned at the implication. Peeking back into the room, she gestured for Broken Nose to join her. However, when the knights moved to take him, Daphne placed her body between him and them. "I will ask the questions."

"My lady, your mother's orders—"

"She ordered that he serve me too, until his death," Daphne reminded them. "And so if you truly care about her orders, then only I may interrogate him."

"This would be highly inappropriate," Ronald murmured. "You're a glove."

"I am whatever I want to be," Daphne said, narrowing her eyes into slits. The gall of him to say she could not do as she wished! That she'd informed them of her choice was just to give face. This was no democracy where every man had a say, nor would she ever abide by a system where her say was equal to every other person's. "Broken nose, they say your conspirators are all dead save the leader, who has gone missing."

"Poisoned," Ronald added.

Daphne nodded, and pinned Broken Nose with a look. "Anything you'd like to say?"

"They're dead?" Broken Nose asked, clearly shocked. "I—I mean I knew Jared, we came from the same village. But the leader … never worked with him before. He just recruited us for the job. Never even gave us his name now that I think about it."

"What did you call him?"

"He said to call him Dolos," Broken Nose said.

"An Ilyosi name," Ronald said. "Not at all common this far south."

"Yeah," Broken Nose said, nodding. "That's why I never thought that was his real name."

Conspirators poisoning each other, dead ends, a fake name … all of this reeked of something foul and underhanded to Daphne. It was not unlike the prelude of war between great sects with their dagger games. "There's more to this than meets the eye," Daphne said.

"Politics," Ronald said.

"Go tell my mother of what you've learned here, and tell her to be careful," Daphne said. "I will do the same here, and find out what I can from my end."

"You really won't surrender him to our care?" Ronald asked.

"And risk his death in transit?" Daphne asked. "No, it's safer if he is here with me for now. Easier for him to blend in with the other strawborn." That was his greatest shield at the moment, and it was hardly worth letting so many knights die in his defense. He was no favored son of heaven.

She returned to the room, mood considerably soured. Schemes were afoot, and she didn't even get a sacred treasure out of this.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 22: Interlude - Roll It Out​

Never in her wildest dreams did she expect Daphne Greenglade to be her patron. She was under no illusions of her own importance, and even the hystors had not wanted to keep her on for another year. Her only hope had been to find service and sponsorship with one of the many aristocrats that attended the Middle School, a knight or a mage-at-arms perhaps.

"Gonna have to give them more next time. Body builds up a, uh, defense against the pill with use," Broken Nose said. He had the look of a bandit, and Daphne's maid whispered as much about him.

Give them more? she wondered. After Lady Daphne had given her so much? Did she dare even accept? Her mistress had even styled her with a new name, for she was Tracey now and no one else. Lady Daphne was never one to do anything without reason, and so Tracey suspected, though could not be sure, that it was a calculated move to make Tracey more palatable to the Everbloom aristocracy. After all, many in the school judged her for being closer to a Dunelander than a Bloomling.

"You agree then?" Daphne asked.

"Up to you, innit?" Broken Nose answered. "Doesn't matter if I agree."

Though Tracey's eyes remained shut, she thought she could make out the upturned curve of her lips. "Make a note," Daphne said, to Maid presumably, "a whole pill the next time, if needed."

An inexplicable warmth seized her. Lady Daphne had plucked her out of the crowd, from the many, many men and women who would have killed to serve her and her kin. If that were it, Tracey would be grateful, but now she was being taught a signature spell alongside Lord Blaise, and there was talk of making her oathsworn. Her! What had she done to deserve such an outpouring of trust?

Nothing, but Tracey vowed before the Pantheon and the Divine Syngian that she would be worthy one day.

"Is it wise to make a habit out of this, my lady?" Maid asked.

"Never let it be said that I did not meet my junior's needs," Daphne said.

"Gonna be honest, this ain't really a need," Broken Nose said.

"Let me worry about what is and isn't a need," Daphne said. "You—"

You have eyes, but still cannot see. It was her mistress' common refrain, and Tracey felt she was close to understanding it. There was a … flow, an energy to everything. It rang in her ears like the thrumming of a red string, and she was fairly sure it wasn't just Lady Daphne's portrait of Syla Stormsong playing her harp. That melody was closer to purple than red. No, the humming she heard came from elsewhere, nowhere, everywhere. When she listened to it, it felt like … like…

Down was up, and up was right. There was no way else to describe her floating, weightless sensation.

"I don't like this," Blaise murmured besides her. She could taste him squirming, the air thickening with salt from his sweat.

"You need to relax," Daphne said. "Release your distractions. Focus on your breathing."

Tracey breathed in, feeling the flow drawn in, but as she tried to hold her breathing, the flow escaped her anyways.

Never try to hold it, she remembered. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. It was easier said than done, and went against Tracey's every instinct, but she had gotten this far by trusting Lady Daphne. Had her advice ever failed her? Sure her mistress phrased things weirdly at times, but she never did or said anything carelessly. Like any divination, it required proper interpretation.

Gonna have to think about it to get it, as her mother used to say.

"Run far and run fast!" would have been the advice of many people Tracey knew if they heard half the things Daphne had said, especially about aphrodisiacs. But many people spoke without thinking, and considering only the surface of things. She still remembered the events of last year.

Around that time, some unspoken tragedy had befallen Lady Daphne. The hystors had clamped down on any talk about it, but that had not stopped the rumors from making their rounds around the school. If even Tracey had heard about it, then everyone had heard about it, and they did not paint a pleasant picture. With how Daphne spoke, it only proved the truth of those tales. She was attacked, assaulted in some way.

And that Lady Daphne had chosen not to hide for the rest of her days in the Green Glade, but returned proud as ever … well, how could Tracey not respect her for that? She'd been kidnapped too just before the school term began. In that light, it only made sense why her mistress had changed so much in so little time. Why she now sought out the iron fist where before she'd been content to play the games of the velvet glove.

Desert and dunes materialized before her eyes. It was a land she'd only heard about, a land many here thought she hailed from. The sands of the Dunelands and the black soil of the Great Kyroh River, which fed into the Great Oasis. It was from this that most of the Everbloom's vast river network sourced its waters from, and allowed the region its bountiful harvests.

"You."

Tracey blinked, looked at herself that was not her, dripping with sand.

"Never did I think you would set out on this path," Not Her said. "Not that you're awake yet, but it's the first step in a long journey."

"Gonna be tough," Another Her made of marble said, the sands flying off of her as time flowed in reverse.

"Make you wanna kill yourself," Not Her said.

"You sure you wanna to do this?" Another Her asked. At Tracey's nod, the two of them spoke as one.

"Cry me a river, but there's no going back now. Final chance to turn back."

"Never," Tracey said with a conviction she'd never felt before. The sun dimmed, the stars fell. The humming came back, faint, yet furious.

"Gonna need more of those pills," Not Her said, as the wind howled and took large bites out of her sand form.

"Say, if you ever get the chance, protect her will you?" Another Her said as she melted into a black pool.

Goodbye. The word was stuck in her throat, and they were gone before she could say it. Still, they were her, so were they ever really gone?

Tracey blinked, finding her eyes wide open and her throat dry. She blinked a few more times as the hum became fainter and fainter.

"Have some water," Daphne said as Maid stepped forward to hand her a glass. With an exertion of will from Maid, little ice cubes formed in the water. "How was it?"

"Odd," Tracey murmured.

"That means it worked right," Daphne said.

"I don't feel any different right now," Tracey admitted.

Daphne laughed, and what a pleasant sound that was. "Of course not. Did you think it would really be so easy?" she asked, evidently amused. "Everything in the universe is simple, but even the simplest things are hard. This trip was to get you used to the sensations, but I never expected you to awaken from one half-dose."

"You mean we're going to have to do that again?" Blaise's dry voice cracked up besides her.

"Many times most likely, unless you're a genius among geniuses," Daphne said. "My knowledge of cultivation was already very deep when I attempted this, but your foundations aren't quite so solid yet."

"Is there a trick to it?" Blaise asked.

Daphne pondered on his question for a long while. "If I had to put it into words … you have to let go of distractions without concentrating. You must grasp the flow without grasping."

Blaise frowned at her.

Not for the first time, Tracey found herself wondering how Lady Daphne had stumbled onto this knowledge, or if she's simply invented it all. If she had, she'd be a genius on the level of the Divine Syngian. Athenaeum graduates spent their whole lives trying to come up with new spells, and many of them failed. Somehow, her mistress had succeeded after applying herself for a few short months.

As she opened her mouth, Tracey frowned, staring at what she assumed was a cat sitting outside the window's ledge. Only it was green and covered with short, hair-like barbs that made it about as huggable as an uncut pineapple. Maybe the drugs hadn't quite left her system entirely?

"Is that cat green?" Daphne asked, following Tracey's eyes and peering at the creature outside.

So it wasn't just her. The cat really was green.

"Never seen a catcus before?" Blaise asked. "It's a cat, and like all other cats, a bit of a prick."

"Gonna be honest," Broken Nose said, "that thing is kinda freaky."

"Tell that to Lord Eminent Morgan," Blaise said with a snort. "He's quite fond of the creatures."

"A thing like that? Really?" Broken Nose said.

"Lie down," Daphne ordered, as if expecting the creature to understand her through the glass. Strangely enough, it did as she said. "This spirit animal stumbling upon us is fortuitous."

"...and that means what?" Blaise asked as she opened the window. "You're going to keep it? Daphne, look at the thing. It'll hurt you with a touch." The catcus meowed, and retracted its spines into its body.

"Hurt me?" Daphne asked. "This cute thing? You must be joking. You said our lord keeps them as pets, so surely they can be tamed."

"You really are going to keep it," Blaise said, more to himself than anyone else. The groan that followed was audible and politely ignored as Daphne scooped the catcus into her arms.

AN: There's a hidden scripture in the text. Can you find it?

Catcus isn't my invention. FluffyFloof had a neat concept painting of it, and I liked it so much I included it in my story. It's canon now.

Also apparently this story managed to breakthrough to the rank top 200 stage on the RoyalRoad realm, before I was hit by a one-star tribulation. Not to worry my juniors, for this tribulation will surely deepen my foundations. These Heels Step Heavenward!

 

[Halt]

Chapter 23: Familiar Issues​

Daphne stroked the catcus' back with gentle strokes, eliciting a purr from the spirit animal. Alice, Daphne decided, would be her name.

"Do you even know the first thing about raising familiars?" Blaise asked.

She had heard tales from her old monster of a master about cultivators that tamed beasts and waged war with spirit animals by their sides, but such arts were beyond her grasp. Her master never allowed his disciples any pets. Said it created too many earthly attachments and deviated one's cultivation, preventing them from reaching the apex. There had even been tales of those spirit animals whose own cultivation had grown to a point where they could take on human form.

"Animals are still animals, no matter how profound their cultivation!" her master had declared with a confidence that only came with advanced age.

Because of that, any animal that strayed near the sect too long would have been killed and cooked for dinner. Not that they'd ever had the misfortune of coming across a spirit animal with such deep roots.

"How hard can it be?" Daphne said. She tried to hand her over to Maid, but the catcus hissed, letting barbed thorns sprout out of its dry fur whenever Maid's hand neared her. Alice only relaxed when Daphne's hand returned to stroking. Clearly her new path friend was of some intelligence, and having recognized Daphne's own impeccable status, would not allow someone lesser to pet her.

"It's more about the risks involved," Blaise said. "Investing in a familiar is not lightly done. If the creature is ever caught by your enemies—"

"Caught? I'd be surprised if they could even touch her," Daphne said. "Alice is more than capable of defending herself."

Blaise groaned. "You've already named her?"

"A path friend deserves a name," Daphne said simply.

He threw his hands up in the air. "Don't say I didn't warn you of the dangers. If you've named her, you're already on the first step of forming a familiar bond."

"I'll keep that in mind," Daphne said. Maid finally stumbled upon a solution, and approached Alice while carrying a cushion. The catcus seemed to find this acceptable, and allowed herself to be deposited onto Daphne's silk sofa cushions stuffed with geese feathers. "Now let us return to the matter at hand. The tournament is less than a month away, which means to awaken the two of you, we must use an accelerated program."

"There's a way to speed it up?" Tracey asked, eyes brightening.

Daphne smiled at her. "Of course. There are two ways to do this—either drug early, or drug often."

"Drug early?" Blaise asked. "Cousin, just how young were you when you started taking these pills?"

Daphne considered the question seriously. She had begun honing her cultivation at the tender age of four, but she'd been born to a village that few cultivators paid mind to. It was only when her master had sensed her primordial yin energy while flying over her village that things changed and she'd been initiated into the Elegant Swan Sect. "My first time was when I was eight," Daphne said at last.

Jaws dropped at her proclamation. Really, it wasn't so strange. Some masters even considered eight too old to begin stepping heavenward with the aid of refining pills, though they were hardly in the majority.

"Eight years old … you'd just started fostering with the House Principal Parkins then," Blaise muttered. "Are you saying they drugged you just as you entered their household?"

"Don't be silly," Daphne said, scoffing. "I sought them out myself." Whether in this world, or the next, nothing was ever given freely. Like in any decent society, which the Elegant Swan Sect most certainly was, the acquisition of materials to help one cultivate had to be bartered for with service or spirit stones. Some fools resorted to theft, and they paid for that with the severance of choice parts.

It was Tracey that broke the silence next. "Will we really be able to see as you do before the tournament begins?"

"It is within the realm of possibility," Daphne said. "I will need you to describe to me what you saw if I'm to accurately gauge your progression, however."

Her disciple closed her eyes softly, hands reaching out for something unseen and half-heard. "I … I felt it, for a moment, I think. The energy, the flow. It was everywhere and nowhere."

Daphne hummed, and bobbed her crown of golden hair. "The endless dao. You've caught a glimpse of it."

Blaise frowned. "I have no idea what either of you are talking about."

"Of course you don't," Daphne said. "You were too busy fighting the drug, letting yourself be distracted by worldly things. How can one grasp the immaterial when still tethered to the material?" She turned back to Tracey. "When we do this next, focus on that feeling, but do not try to grasp it. When seeing becomes second nature, you will be able to witness it without aid."

"Is that really it?" Blaise asked. "That's all there is to the trick?"

She sighed. "Everything in the universe is simple, but even the simplest things are hard. I have told you the secret, yet there is a difference between knowing it and knowing it."

"Cryptic as ever," Blaise said dryly. "Unfortunately, there might be a slight problem with your plan of drugging us daily."

"Broken Nose can acquire more pills if we should begin to run out, nor are we lacking for funds," Daphne said. Broken Nose nodded his head in confirmation, confident that in his ability to acquire more pills to fuel their nascent cultivation.

"Are you forgetting the promise you made to Archystor Archibald when you first arrived?" Blaise said. "You mentioned it to me in passing not a few days ago."

Daphne thought for a moment. "He asked that one of the hystors supervise me whenever I experiment with magic."

"Exactly," Blaise said. "If we are to meet everyday like this, he will grow wise to our activities, and the archystor is not someone we should make an enemy out of. Why you've chosen to keep this from him is beyond me, but I can only advise you not to raise his suspicions against you."

"I understood the terms to mean I would be supervised while experimenting," Daphne said. "This is no experiment. I am sure of what I'm doing."

"You are playing with magic unheard of. It's arrogant to think that way," Blaise said.

Daphne beamed at him. "Thank you."

He blinked at her, and sighed. "And the archystor isn't likely to see things the way you do. Developing a signature spell, nevermind teaching other people said spell, would surely be considered experimenting by him and the hystors."

"You really think he would take offense?" Daphne asked with a hint of worry coloring her voice. Like her cousin said, it was best not to raise the ire of an old monster or to wake sleeping dragons. It was said that each star that hung in the sky was a reminder of an empire toppled or a sect exterminated by angered cultivators!

"He might not show it," Blaise said. "He wouldn't have lasted so long as archystor without some tact, but it would do our standing with him no favors."

"Are you counselling me to tell him of my cultivation then?" Daphne asked.

"Either that, or we keep to our current training schedule," Blaise said. "Allowing the hystors to witness the crafting of your spell has its own dangers. A signature spell cannot be a signature spell if it isn't secret."

It really was strange that this realm had not uncovered the basics of qi sensing yet, but their own style of cultivation could accomplish things beyond Daphne's imaginations. She dared not think of their methods as lesser, just different. "The archystor did promise the witness would be sworn to an oath of secrecy and promised to keep my cultivation a secret."

"That might suffice, if you hide the nature of the pills from them too," Blaise acquiesced.

As their session for the day came to an end, Daphne found herself reaching out to Archystor Archibald. He had a representative picked out already as it turned out—Filip. A known character, according to Blaise, who had risen high in the Archystor's esteem as of late and was raised to the rank of Polihystor—one wise about many things.

He was a bastard, as it turned out, but one born to upper nobility on both sides. It was even whispered by some that he had turned down a lordly inheritance to pursue his studies with the Middle School.

As Daphne learned more about the man, she could only extend respect to him. Many cultivators deviated from their path once tempted by worldly power, failing to realize that the only true power was one that could not be stripped from you. Titles and estates were all of the material world, and of little good beyond easing one's steps heavenward.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 24: Courting

Daphne admired herself in the mirror as one did. When a master craftsperson had devoted hours of their life to creating art, it was only proper to take a moment to appreciate its beauty.

"Prince Hadrian will be left stunned," Maid said, making small adjustments to the gold needles keeping her hair in a perfectly styled bun.

Daphne let out a smull hum of satisfaction. She was dressed in resplendent golden silk from head to heel, looking as if molten gold was flowing down her body. A cloak of stormsilk fluttered behind her, kept perpetually floating aboveground by the object's innate cultivation. As she understood it, the object was infused with such powerful wind qi that it required no prompting from her to fulfill its purpose.

Just as well, for Daphne had never considered branching out from her training in water qi. Blaise was doing his best to teach her now, but she would not dare call herself adequate quite yet.

This realm truly does have wonders and secrets, Daphne thought. To produce such artifacts who had no purpose beyond mere decoration... It showed how confident these people were that the cultivation path they walked could afford to invest so much time and effort on trivialities. For what else could it be called but arrogance to climb towards immortality, to step heavenward, yet still insist on these small vanities.

It was an arrogance Daphne could respect, even if her old master would have been apoplectic at what he'd perceive as waste. What was the point of doing something if one could not look good while doing it?

There was a knock on the door and Maid rushed over to open it, while Daphne turned around to look at the doors. With a look, she signalled to Maid to open them.

"Your Excellency," Daphne said, curtseying, as the people of this realm called their version of kowtowing.

"There's no need for that between us in private," Hadrian said, a slight smile turning the corners of his lips as he stepped into the room. "We're engaged now, aren't we?"

"I've been led to understand by my cousin that such an arrangement needs to be formalized," Daphne said.

Hadrian scoffed. "Formalities. My mother won't object, of course, neither will my father. Do you see any complications arising from your end?"

Daphne considered what she knew of her parents, before slowly shaking her head. "My house would be honored to be joined with yours."

"Then we're as good as engaged, aren't we?" Hadrian said, silvey eyes shining bright. For the briefest of moments, her qi sense honed in on that pair of stars. There was power behind them that did not belong to Hadrian himself. An imposition of will, a spell placed heedless of time by his ancestors. It was the lingering traces of legacy.

His qi remained as she'd remembered, not being particularly noteworthy in itself, but she was surer now than ever that his bloodlines remained locked. Perhaps he wished to deepen his foundations first in the four elements? There were some bloodlines and clan techniques which could interact unfortunately with one's foundations. If he were taking such a prudent path, Daphne could only commend him, for many rushed to the next breakthrough without consideration for the larger picture.

Of course, she'd never ask him that until they were intimate! It was impolite to ask such things about someone's cultivation even between path friends.

"Lady Daphne?" Hadrian asked, taking a few steps towards her. "Are you feeling well?"

"Perfectly fine," Daphne replied.

"You looked distracted by something," he said.

"Really, I'm fine," Daphne said.

Before he could take another step closer, something green and spiked fell from the ceiling. Alice landed between them, upright as if by magic and no worse for falling. Daphne had learned many things about her catcus, including her remarkable ability to climb walls using those thorns of hers. They'd learned that the first time Maid had tried giving catcus a bath.

Hadrian stared at Alice. "A catcus? I wasn't aware you kept one as a pet."

"Alice is my familiar as of yesterday," Daphne said.

Hadrian knelt and held out a hand to the catcus.

"Be careful," Daphne said. "She's not fond of other people."

On cue, Alice let her spikes show, pricking Hadrian's hand and poking his most outstretched finger. Daphne spotted a thin pool of blood forming as she strode forward. "Alice, no!" Daphne said, as her large eyes peered at Daphne, asking if she'd done well. "Prince Hadrian is a friend."

Alice slunk away, in search of the warmest corner in the room. Daphne rolled her eyes as Alice settled on where her favorite silk cushion lay, perfectly positioned so that the light of the morning sun hit it.

"I'm sorry about that," Daphne said. "I haven't quite figured out how to get her to stop pricking anyone other than me."

Hadrian chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I should have known better really. Uncle's catcus is much the same and they like being touched as much as pineapple's do."

"At least let me take care of this for you," Daphne said, taking off her gloves and pressing her skin against his. He was warm to the touch. Water qi sprouted out of her fingers and covered his wound, willing it to knit itself shut. A unique application of water qi, to say the least, and one she'd quickly mastered upon learning of its existence. "I have to ask, what made you come visit me today of all days? It took me quite by surprise."

"I hadn't seen you in a while," Hadrian said. "And with the tournament coming up … well, I'd hate to distract you from your training, but also be deprived of your company. Now seemed like the best time to see you." His eyes locked with hers. "I hope I didn't cause any inconvenience?"

"None at all," Daphne said smoothly. They'd decided not to continue with today's training anyway after speaking with the archystor. The old master who'd be supervising them from now on couldn't make it today, but had promised to carve out time for them each day for the entirety of the coming week.

He stood, and pulled her up with him, before leading them to the sofa.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Daphne asked. It was a shame that she didn't have any aphrodisiacs on hand, but that was no excuse to forget her manners. A small mercy that Tracey was not around though, or she might think Daphne a hypocrite for not following her own advice on courtship.

"A glass of water would be lovely," Hadrian said.

Daphne nodded to Maid, and she left to see to it. His hands had never left hers, and Daphne couldn't say she honestly minded.

"Was it really so surprising that I'd visit you?" Hadrian asked.

"We don't know each other very well," Daphne said. Not that that was a necessary basis for romance between jade beauties and heroes.

"Then all the more reason that I do visit," Hadrian said with a full smile that reached his eyes. "We're only going to spend the rest of our lives together."

"Assuming the engagement is formalized," Daphne said.

His smile wilted. "Do you find the thought displeasing?" he asked. "I don't mean to impose on you, despite how quickly things might seem moving." His laugh was full of nervous energy. "I realize in hindsight it must be quite a shock that I'd ask you to marry me upon our second meeting."

Well, at least you asked, Daphne thought wryly. Some men never bothered even, and just took it for granted that any jade beauty would gladly dual cultivate with them. Such affairs were far more fun when both were willing. "I've no complaints about marrying you," Daphne assured him. "Only…"

"Only?"

"A proper suitor would have brought me to a restaurant by now," Daphne said.

"Oh?" Hadrian asked with furrowed brows, his ringed fingers intertwining with hers now. "I didn't think you'd like dining in the city. I can make arrangements."

She wasn't particularly fond of restaurants, but did you really know someone until you'd seen them smack down an arrogant young master? Where better to find them than a restaurant?

"Maybe not today," Daphne said. "After the tournament, when I win perhaps?"

"After the tournament, whether you win or not," Hadrian bargained.

"Whether I win or not," Daphne acquiesced. After all, she was confident of winning, so really meeting him halfway was just giving him some face and not real surrender.

 

[Halt]

Chapter 25: Old Monsters​

The day came at last for Daphne to meet the old monster assigned to watch over her cultivation. He was a middle-aged looking man with a clean-shaven face, and certainly did not fit the image of the old monsters of her old realm who liked to sport long, flowing beards. That did not matter to her though. Young men could be old monsters too, for age was just a number.

"This one is honored to meet you, Polihystor Filip," Daphne said.

"Likewise, Lady Daphne," Filip said, speaking with the gentle air of a scholar, but the gentlest facades were the most dangerous sort in Daphne's experience. It would not stop them from killing several people. "Shall we see to the oaths?"

"The sooner the better," Blaise said from beside her.

Daphne nodded. These people and their obsession with oaths and ceremonies and invoking deities. Would any of those truly bind a cultivator to their word? In the end, the only way of holding someone to their promise was to be strong, so that any betrayal could be met with overwhelming force!

She would have preferred to stay in closed door cultivation instead of attending, but Blaise had somehow known her thoughts and broken into her room, demanding that she attend and preventing her from meditating. So here she was now, standing before the marble edifice of an ancient sect elder.

"Bear witness to my oaths, gods great and small," Filip began. "I, Polihystor Filip, do swear this of my own free will, in good faith and without deceit before the honorable stoneborn present. I swear this on the likeness of Sybil the Schoolmistress, and on my place in the Middle School. I shall keep the spell secrets that I might learn from Lady Daphne of House Greenglade, and never shall I pass on what I have learned from our time together. By the Great Gods Above and Divine Syngian, may this oath bind me to my dying day, or smite me with lightning if I forswear."

Daphne frowned. Inviting tribulation lightning hardly seemed like a punishment at all!

"Let it be so," Blaise said, nudging her in the side with the sharp of his elbow.

"Let it be so," Daphne grudgingly said.

"It is done," Filip said. "Now, let's see to your training shall we? Is there anywhere in particular you prefer to train?"

"My room usually," Daphne said. "I would not cause the cultivation of my juniors to deviate by placing them in an environment filled with distractions."

Filip blinked at her, as if taking a moment to parse her words. "Are you not worried about the potential damage your residence might suffer if a spell should misfire?"

"We're not quite at that level yet according to Daphne," Blaise grumbled. "She has us doing mental exercises."

"I see," Filip said. "An odd approach to spells, but not unheard of. Lead the way then."

As they walked along the dirt paths of the Middle School, the sounds of steel on steel rang in the air. Students practiced in pairs with blunted steel, though occasionally there were a few outliers. One boy in particular held a thin curved sword in a two-handed grip, staring down at a block of wood too far to physically hit. Layer upon layer of wind qi was shaped into the edge of his blade, before he took a single step forward and released it against the wood.

That it sliced through the wood was expected. That it had left behind a crude wooden figurine was not.

"A wasteful technique," Daphne said. The boy had expended a significant amount of qi with that one strike.

"It's not meant for actual combat," Blaise said, after following her gaze. "That particular technique is an advanced training technique to help hone one's control over wind."

"I'm surprised you're not familiar with it considering who your mother is," Filip said, raising a brow at her.

"My cousin has only recently taken an interest in martial pursuits," Blaise said.

"Ah," Filip said, as if that explained everything. "An understandable change, I suppose, considering recent events."

They passed by a few more sights—a girl kneeling by some rose bushes, whispering to the wilting flowers as if to coax them back to life. A boy seated next to a fountain had a book in hand, though was more watching than reading it. The air above the book rippled with heated qi, and an illusory battlefield viewed from the sky played out.

When they reached Daphne's room at last, Tracey was already in a meditative stance like a good disciple. A shame that there were no lotus trees to be had here to complete the picture, but perhaps Daphne could have one commissioned as a painting?

Filip waited for the door to shut behind them before getting to business. "I must confess that I haven't heard much about this spell of yours beyond requiring the use of some pills?"

"That's correct," Daphne said.

Maid brought out the pills, handing that and a glass of water to Blaise and Tracey each. Daphne sealed the pair of them in a dome of silence, surrounded by her wind qi. She could not keep it up long, but the first few minutes of meditation had an outstated effect on the quality of a cultivation session.

"I suppose I don't have to warn you of the dangers of relying on such substances?" Filip asked. "While I believe it isn't addictive due to the body's tolerance, any spell that requires it to be activated would have limited applications. You'll need much higher doses after only a few days of repeated use, making it impractical."

Daphne nodded. Though she had never heard it phrased in such terms, the effectiveness of alchemical pills was known to bleed off with daily use. After all, if the qi was not properly integrated into one's dantian core, ingesting more qi would just be like food at a restaurant scuffle—nothing but spillage. "Not to worry," Daphne said. "It is a learning aid to help one sense what they need to, but is not needed for use of the technique."

"This must be some technique if you're practicing this for the tournament," Filip said.

"I believe it is foundational," Daphne said. Could she train Tracey in the taolu of martial arts? Certainly, but it was the work of months and years so that the flowing style of the Elegant Swan Sect became second nature. Teaching them that style would not help them in the tournament.

"An unorthodox view," Filip said. "So what is it exactly that your spell can do?"

Daphne turned her head, looking into his green, almond-shaped eyes. "It will let you see the flow of magic."

His brows scrunched together. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Daphne nodded.

"That would have incredible synergy with the signature spell already in your family's grimoire," Filip said. "Did you design it with that in mind?"

Daphne shrugged. "I can't say I did."

"Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that you've tended towards this sort of spell," Filip said.

It was Daphne's turn to scrunch her brows together. "What do you mean?"

"When you did not wake last year, there were concerns raised by your family," Filip said. "Fears which I cannot say are unfounded considering the history of the stoneborn. It was thought that someone had plotted to puppet your body. That was, after all, why we sent you home so quickly."

"I do not follow," Daphne said.

"There are few spells which will allow one to steal into your body, and almost all of them would have needed unfettered access to it. By hiding you away deep within your family's keep, behind walls and wards, it would have been impossible for anyone intending that to succeed without notice," Filip said.

"You seem sure of that," Daphne said. Was that not exactly what had happened? Her soul now resided in this body.

"Magic has come a long way since the time of Empress Karah three hundred years ago," Filip said. "We have means of detecting the residue left behind by such spellcraft."

"And such tests were conducted on me?" Daphne asked with a smile. It was always amusing to hear how a few hundred years was a long time to these people.

Filip nodded. "So I've heard from the archystor. So have you done any testing with this spell of yours?"

"What sort of tests?" Daphne replied as she pondered on his words. Perhaps she had become like those old monsters who could inhabit the bodies of others? Only she could not recall having struggled to take over this body, not even a little.

"Can it see through illusions for example?" Filip asked. "Or detect runes with it?"

"I don't know," Daphne said.

"Something to cover the next time we meet then," Filip said. "It's important to understand the limits of your spells."

She nodded absently at his words.

AN:

Link to my Discord

So yeah, I'm still alive. Sorry that updates have been becoming more sporadic, but I feel like the story is starting to run into the problem all satires do eventually. It starts becoming marginally less funny with each update (which is just par for the course for the genre, it's nearly impossible to keep up this sort of content for a very long period of time as jokes get old).

On the other hand, trying to turn the story serious is where I've seen a lot of stories in the genre fail (it's fundamentally breaking the promise set out by the story).

 

[Halt]

Chapter 26: Literally Filler

The Middle School was a fief in itself, though its stewardship of many li of farms and towns was passed down through ties of blood, but by the old monsters selecting one among their number to lead. Farms were necessary to feed those pitiful sect disciples who had yet to reach the core formation stage, while the tribute of the towns came in kin and kind. A sect had a voracious appetite for servants and all sorts of specialized goods necessary to further their cultivation arts.

Of course, if Daphne had to pick which of the two were more important, it was inarguably the towns. It was fine if the farms burned and others starved, but it was unforgivable to live in squalor without tribute.

It was to one such town now that Daphne traveled towards in her carriage, accompanied by her usual entourage of Tracey, Maid, and Broken Nose.

Daphne squinted at the man in question. His nose had actually healed quite nicely in the last few days since she'd done him the favor of aligning his crooked nose. Truly her magnanimity was without bound.

It did, however, present her with a perplexing problem. What ought she call him now? Broken Nose was no longer descriptive of his state.

Should I break it again? Daphne wondered to herself.

"Is there something on my face, m'lady?" the former bandit asked.

"I'm pondering what to call you now that your nose is fixed," she said.

"My name's Rhian."

She blinked. "How is that relevant?" He was no hero, and he was definitely no jade beauty, thus he was entirely undeserving of a name. That he was even called anything was merely due to her bestowing him the grace of serving her.

"Do you hate me that much that you won't call me my name?" he whined.

"I don't hate you," Daphne said. "That would imply you're important enough in my life to hate."

"My lady still calls me Maid," Maid said helpfully.

"Her name's not even Tracey either," Broken Nose said, looking at Tracey.

"It is now," Tracey said.

"Your protests are duly noted and ignored," Daphne said with a wave of her hand. Could one's opinion even be heard if they were neither hero nor misstocrat? Else how could one explain how heroes did not go deaf after so much screaming from so many young masters?

"Why are we going into town today anyway, Lady Daphne?" Tracey asked, utterly unfazed by her words. It was good that her protege was quickly learning her place in the world.

"We are going to a restaurant so that you might learn."

Tracey tilted her head. "But I'm not hungry."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "You don't go to a restaurant to eat." Honestly, she sounded like an outer court disciple right now. After one reached the core formation stage, it was sufficient to nourish one's body with alchemical pills and qi absorption. This wasn't, of course, to say that young masters and jade beauties simply stopped going to restaurants, and one might argue that had never been the point.

Rather, they went either to court, or to court death.

In Tracey's case, it was the former. "The true test of a jade beauty," Daphne continued, "is to see if someone is willing to kill for you."

"What."

"Don't worry," Daphne said. "You're still in training. I merely wish to see how far you've progressed in your cultivation." She paused for a moment to think. "A mere maiming will suffice for today."

Tracey looked uncertain. "This is also cultivation?"

"Everything I make you do is cultivation," Daphne said. "There are many daos in the world, and who can say which dao is most right for them from birth?"

"Yes, Lady Daphne," Tracey said.

"It's a shame Blaise couldn't come," Daphne said, looking out the window as they crossed into the town proper—with fields and orchards turning into wooden houses and small storefronts. Her cousin had begged off for the day, stating a need to practice his sword intent for the upcoming tournament. The sword dao was a fine path to walk, but it was not foundational in the way restaurant encounters were, and he was still sorely lacking in experience.

After all, every hero's story involved at least one of those, but not every hero used a sword.

"The tournament is important to Lord Blaise as well," Tracey said. "His performance will also reflect on House Greenglade's standing."

"A fair point," Daphne said.

The carriage came to a halt before the Blue Rose, an establishment whose walls were more glass than wood. Being one of the closest towns to the Middle School, many students could be seen lounging inside the restaurant, each one dressed immaculately in their finest clothes for the peasants to gawk at.

Daphne wholly approved of the practice. It was not enough to be wealthy—others must be made painfully aware that one was wealthy.

As they entered the restaurant, the dim buzz of conversation quieted, with both the men and women staring at her. It was good that they knew how to appreciate beauty, but they were also toads lusting after swan meat.

"Everyone's staring at you," Tracey said, fidgeting.

"Good. That means they aren't blind," Daphne said. Staring at her was the natural state of most people in her presence. As soon as they were seated by a server, Daphne raked her eyes over Tracey's form. "Now, while you might not do much eating in a restaurant, it is of utmost importance that you still adhere to the proper etiquettes. It is only through this that you might distinguish yourself as a refined jade beauty rather than an unpolished gem, of which there are many in the world."

She unfolded her napkin with supreme grace to demonstrate her point, and was pleased to see Tracey imitating her actions.

Daphne spoke at length to Tracey while Maid and Broken Nose were seated at a side table to wait on them. They covered the correct use of silverware—such as using the outermost utensils first and working one's way in, and the optimal way to hold a knife when blinding a toad to Mount Tai.

"One must be efficient and graceful in all things," Daphne said as the salads were taken away and a dish of steamed fish took its place. The brown-skinned girl seemed to enjoy the food. Daphne thought it was just fine. "Killing is despicable. Looking good while you do it is admirable."

"Yes, my lady," Tracey said.

As they ate, Daphne spotted a carriage approaching rapidly from the corner of her qi-enhanced eyes. There were no old monsters nearby, but she knew what a panicked horse looked like even from a distance. "Excuse me for a moment," Daphne said, setting the napkin on her lap to the side of her plate before leaving the restaurant.

She did not run so much as glide out though. People seemed to finally take notice of the carriage barreling down the dirt street uncontrollably, and moved out of its way.

Everyone save for a grandmother hobbling forward with a wooden cane.

Daphne took a step forward to grab hold of the wrinkled skin, before pivoting on her other heel to narrowly avoid being bruised by the rushing horses. Oh, and the grandmother was fine too, she supposed.

"You are not to die before I allow it," Daphne said.

The grandmother blinked up at Daphne, looking quite shaken. "Countless thanks, my lady! My life is in your hands."

Daphne nodded, a twinge of annoyance crossing her face at the obvious statement. She was a jade beauty, second only to the hero in the hierarchy of the world. Of course the woman's life was in her hands—everyone's was.

She glanced at the carriage and noticed that it carried the sigil of an anchor, but that was not any lordly house that she knew of.

"Lady Daphne!" Maid exclaimed as she rushed out of the restaurant after her. "Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?"

The grandmother looked frightfully pale at Maid's words.

"I am unharmed," Daphne said, flicking her hair behind her with practiced ease. As was befitting her status, there was even a slight gust of wind to accentuate the look.

A man came rushing forth and kowtowed before Daphne. Not a bow, or a curtsey, but an honest to goodness kowtow—forehead to the ground and all. It had been a while since she enjoyed one of those. "Syngian bless you for saving my mother! Syngian bless you!"

"Think nothing of it," Daphne said. She turned to Maid. "Let's return."

"Begging for a moment please, m'lady," the man said. "We're but a poor family, and I know we have nothing of true worth to show our gratitude, but the Divine Syngian teaches us to do our best in this regard. Please, take this at least."

In his hands was a crescent-shaped slice of fruit that Daphne would've recognized anywhere. It had a luscious green skin, while its insides were a juicy red.

"You sell these?" Daphne asked, accepting the fruit.

The man nodded hesitantly.

She took a small bite out of the watermelon, enjoying the refreshing and mild taste cleansing her palette. It tasted like the end of a scorching summer day, and of long hours toiled. It was cool as a village's stream and sweet as Mother's song. Daphne took another larger bite out of it.

"My lady? You're..." Maid trailed off, as if not daring to finish her sentence.

Daphne blinked, wiping at her cheek with her sleeve. "It tastes like home," she said softly.

"Watermelons aren't native to Green Glade," Maid said.

"I know," Daphne answered sadly.




As for what I've been up to since last time, well I finally went public with a political intrigue story "The Lady's Handbook of Intrigue and Murder" on RoyalRoad (also on SB). This is set in the same world as These Heels Step Heavenward, though it's less satire and more serious.

If like me, you've ever wondered what Cersei (from Game of Thrones) would be like if she wasn't a moron, or if you're just craving good political intrigue (or want to see cool pegasi knights throwing magic javelins at peasants), then you might like this. It's the politics of GoT with the magic of Harry Potter.