Ultimately, the amount of preparation she had to do for her third and final attempt was incomparably less than the first two. It wasn’t that it would be hard— her realization had rely clarified, not actually simplified the process—- and more that she’d already done most of the preparation of the course of the preceding months. She’d driven herself ragged in the attempt to get ready for sothing that she’d not even fully understood, pushing further beyond what was necessary and into what might be necessary… and now that it ca to laying down the final form of things, she had everything that she needed. Not a single thing more was necessary.
She had it all. All the knowledge, all the formations, all everything… all she had to do, now, was wait for her spiritual wound to heal.
When she’d first set the tiline for her attempts— her potential attempts, at least— she’d been mistaken. Mistaken for the sa reason that her earlier attempts had failed… it was funny, how such things ca around again…
Connections.
The nature was of connections. Even separated from her spirit in every way that truly mattered, it was still a part of her. Not by sothing so vulgar as re dinsions— though she was sure, too, that there existed so lofty and unreachable dinsion of the spirit that connected them too, through which she’d been exploiting the connection to ensure that the techniques she’d been using actually worked. No, is was a connection of an altogether more taphysical nature, a connection in the path of the world, a connection that…
It defied easy description. She could feel it, because it was her; she knew its shape because its shape was her shape. Yet, it also eluded her, in the sa way that the nature of things eluded easy discernnt, even to the sages. Luckily, she didn’t have to think about it that much. With everything more or less prepared but for herself, with all that was left to do, waiting for her spirit to heal… she focused more on other things, and watched things slowly co into alignnt.
She’d thought that she’d be able to make her third attempt soti early in the last third of the academic year. Yet, for all she’d released those fragnts of spirit when she was finished with them, for all that managed to compartntalize the damage… they were connected, and the wounds were ever the deeper, each ti. She’d only have the chance to make her third attempt near the very end of the course.
So, until then, she waited.
She did classwork, making sure to be at the very top of the class. It was harder than Avyr made it look, what with how effortlessly he absorbed all the academic information and synthesized perfect argunts for everything, but she didn’t let that stop her. She had her own strengths, after all, and she ruthlessly relied on them to make sure that she stayed ahead of everyone else. It was a struggle, but it was a rewarding struggle, and every day further, she could not help but feel like her peers recognized more and more her place at the head of them.
She practiced the sword under Qinfu’s careful watch, and strove ever to further understand the nuances of the blade— to further forge herself in its rigors, that she might taste true accomplishnt. Qinfu didn’t say she was getting close— rather the opposite, actually, driving her ever further to exhaustion the more she thought she was getting good at sothing— but she couldn’t help but feel like she was.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have any peers in the university. At least not in that particularly esoteric branch of cultivation… not that the sword itself was esoteric, more that it wasn’t particularly sothing most focused on at such early levels of their path. Sotis she sparred with her liaison, which… it was not that he was incapable of lowering himself to her level, it was just that even bound, even limiting himself so that he could properly teach her, instead of just piledriving her into the ground, he was just so perfect that she could hardly see him as a real opponent. A teacher, yes, but only in the way that one looked at a masterful work of art and attempted to gather even a fraction of the skill that artist had used to make it.
She got trounced every ti, too, which might have played a small role in her feelings on the matter…
She spent most of the rest of her ti with Avyr, but she did et up with the others every now and again. Mostly Aomao, who, despite being a little awkward to talk to at tis with how clearly she was trying to suck up to her, tended to have good insights on so things. She explained to her so of the politics of the inner city that she’d never particularly bothered to learn before, concerning the various clans and political powers— of Old Saffron, mostly, and the administration upon it… ultimately, it mostly just reinforced her desire to never have to deal with that again. One ti getting robbed at gunpoint was enough, thank you very much.
She likely wouldn’t have to, either— or she’d be forced to, with no inbetween. The whole political sphere was reeling from the destruction of one of its most powerful— and least savory— mbers, and would likely be rather absorbed in their own business for a while.
And so things went, more or less, in peace. In building tension, as the sester neared its end and things beca more obvious, and things beca closer. As the razor sharp line between success and failure beca ever more obvious, and everyone gave a hundred and ten percent effort to maybe, just maybe be the one that the Bloody Saffron Sect found sothing special in. Exams ca and went, and scores were posted, and so despaired, and so only strove further…
A week from the end of the sester and the deciding of things, Lily was ready. She checked her spirit thrice over, making sure that no echo of the wound remained— not just in the wound itself, but further to the stress on her spirit— and was satisfied. Then, slowly, she set up the ritual.
It was late spring, now, and the sunlight over East Saffron was liquid, and warm, a beautiful light that bid the verdant growth to rise and beckoned forth the most gracious of offerings on its lip— to lively fun, to fill the hearts of man with its brilliance, to make warm and industrious the many hands that worked under its infinite expanse. It burst off every green leaf, suffused into every clay roof-tile, and glittered on every drop of dew, as she drew the sigils and circles with which she would sever her spirit. As she placed the standing stones, the whole world seed to hold its breath— or perhaps that was just her nerves, as the scent of the river and the scent of the loamy earth, and the scent of fresh rain all mingled together to form sothing far more rarified— free, just this once, from the acrid smoke that oft settled over the city, she almost called it the very scent of heaven.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The touch of the skies, on their little slice of earth— their little paradise beneath the firmant overhead.
The last stone settled into its proper place, and the last talisman was affixed to its preordained location, and the whole order of things was realized then, in that mont— an enormous and glabrous, perfect sphere of stillness. Holy. Had she been born in an earlier era, more rife with mysteries than her own, she realized with a start that she might have called the feeling that stole over her in that mont holy. A benediction, as though so immortal had reached down its hand and bid the world around her into a quietude, and peace…
Ready.
Ready at least to begin sothing that may determine her future. It would not help Avyr surpass his peers— she realized now how arrogant that had been, of her, to think that she was responsible for his growth. No, Avyr had managed to surpass all his peers of his own rit, even with teachers who stood in opposition to him and a liaison that had beco, at most, indifferent now that it was clear that he really was the sort of talent that he’d promised to be, in his admittance to the school in the first place.
No, no. Now, this— this thing, this effort, it was her effort to peirce the veil of the possible and grasp the impossible, and exceed herself. A cultivation, but not of qi— an intellectual, a spiritual cultivation. It was an effort that she carried through simply because she could.
On the steps, Avyr watched her intently. Waiting, for anything to go wrong… but that was uncharitable of her— it was not even her first thought when she saw the big cat staring at her so intently. No, he may be waiting for things to go wrong, but perhaps even more than that, he was waiting for things to go right— that he may be the very first witness to her success. It ignited a spark of warmth within her, an incandescent and fervent coal… one last ti, she smiled his way, and then she focused the fullness of herself down onto the ritual she sat within.
She recited the mantra.
She bled the qi.
She split apart; she remained together.
It was, in so important way identical to the nature of techniques; the very nature of cultivation beyond the pale of what was cultivation. The true depths of the art, another step on the path. A fiery brand, pressed to the shape of her spirit and split asunder, pulling it apart in a wrenching and incandescent pain that rushed furiously through her— it was agonizing, but it was ecstatic, and she thrust forward that weave of qi—
To carve, to create, to accomplish—
The cleaving line cut through her spirit and laid the foundation of sothing so much greater, and beca— in that mont— sothing greater than the sum of its parts. She gasped in surprise as the feel of it beca… tangible, in that mont, a pressing reality of what lay on the fringe of her self. A channel in her spirit, curling inwards through a fragnt, and yet still dragging on the qi of the world so gloriously. Such power! For a mont she felt what it must have been like to be an Opening cultivator— the sheer density of the power that for a mont there, curled in the center of her dantian, an imnse and liquid strength almost caustic in its blazing density. She laughed, pulling it forth, a deluge of bloody— of blood, even, racing through her veins and spirit to burst free from her hands as a coruscating wave of fierce light. It was more than just the aligned qi of the world— it pulled it in, yes, but it also transford it, and she could feel, as the virtuous cycle aligned. She could feel as the qi that she let drain from her body was once more picked up by that scrap of spirit, and that scrap of spirit was once dragged in, and she released it, again and again. She was wreathed in power. She was imbued, in that mont, with the divine mantle of the Bloody Saffron Sect. She felt herself a god.
She laughed, as she burned, and teetered on that mont halfway between sothing and sothing greater…
Yet, before she let herself get too absorbed in the success of her ritual, she curtailed her own power, bidding the technique to slow and pinching the ridian shut. She had, after all, promised that she wouldn’t do anything rash, and surely ascending to Opening in truth was very rash indeed…
The flow of qi stopped, and as she expelled the last remnants of that dense, liquid qi from her spirit, she felt so much infinitely the lesser. It was an intangible feeling, unrelated to anything of rationality— a gut feeling that hovered in the heart of herself— but in that sa breath it was so real. She mourned, for a single mont, at the loss of it…
Still, in front of her, hovering— stable by its connection, fragile by its dissolution; that shard of spirit glowed faintly in the air, visible only to those who could see that which was not truly there. Gently, she reached up a hand— her fingers brushed the broad side of its lustrous form, shivering, that ghostly material twisting away from her and slipping alongside her, the warmth of a familiar cat’s nuzzle, or of a beam of sunlight. A normal cat; she thought with so humor, that thinking of Avyr rather broke the taphor…
She laughed, though, for even as she laughed, for even as the taphor broke, her spirit did not. She could keep it forever— or at least as long as she could balance it; in the sa manner as one might hold a light object for hours. Perhaps even in the sa manner as one might wear a piece of beloved jewelry, forever. It was hers, it was her, and she did not have to surrender what needn’t be surrendered… she did not have to let go.
Yet, to not let go would be to embrace it, and to embrace it would be to welco it back. It was with a mysterious and certain knowing that she ca to recognize that— she could cast it away, or embrace it close, but it could not remain in its liminal form.
It was her little butterfly dream, so close to success that she might even think it fate… but, as with those loved things, she knew that she must let it go. With a breath, she drew up her qi one last ti, prying at the weave of the ridian and with a soft sigh— “I release you, my blessed spirit…” it just felt right, to say a few words— of power, of love, for mory— “fly free, and tell how the heavens look from above.” Then, with one last shivering sigh, it scattered, and dissolved, and transford— and beca the lesser, as it lost so key and vital thing from the construction of its constituent parts. She ached, within her, seeing it go.
Or maybe that was just the spiritual wound that she’d inflicted on herself.
Avyr bounded up, respectfully not passing the boundary of the standing stones— even though they’d been, by the course of the ritual, rendered inert. At least he was nice…
He asked, simply— “did you succeed?”
She grinned broadly, buoyed by relief, and a very rapturous joy— responded. “Yes.”
She’d won.
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