License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 14

"Well done," Eri told the victor of her challenge. The young cultivator, Li Jiya, held out a hand as Eri extended the promised elixir to her. It was contained in a small multifaceted crystal vial. The liquid inside gave off shifting colors—now blue, now purple, now green. Eri herself had brewed it, and it would, as promised, bring any cultivator to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

There were a few caveats. Eri sighed. Knowing her fellow prisms were watching, she warned the Young Master from the Morning Mist Sect, "If you give this elixir to a cultivator who has not yet reached Mental Refinement, it will overwhelm their mind and drive them irrevocably mad. If you give it to a cultivator who has not reached Bodily Refinement, they'll just explode."

Li Jiya looked at it gingerly. "I wouldn't waste this on an unworthy disciple." she said.

Eri approved. "Of course, if you take it yourself, your lux channels will be frozen in whatever pattern this elixir leaves them in. Progressing past Spiritual Refinement will be impossible, but then, for so many, it already is." Eri gave her most winning smile. "Congratulations, Li Jiya, you are the winner of this competition." She waved a hand, at the same time working an indigo weave to twist space, returning Li Jiya to her sect, just as she had sent back Li Jiya's two companions.

Eri was already pushing the patience of the other two prisms here by joining in their little competition so late and changing up the rules. She had promised not to damage any of the competitors. This forced her to pay extra attention so she could snatch competitors from the moment of harm.

Eri liked this sort of display of her power. It was good to remind the most promising of the next generation of cultivators just what a gap there was between themselves and a prism, and if it meant that some of them thought she truly had the power over life and death, so be it. She was burning copious indigo and violet lux but she was pleased with the dramatic effect. She was able to step in at the moment of a crippling or fatal blow, and then sending them away in one piece. The few she had mis-timed had cost her only a few high-quality healing elixirs.

Nai Hong didn't approve of her showing off like this. He was stodgy and growing old. The last prism of the previous generation, he ought to have moved on and ascended along with his peers, but he refused. The emperor had indulged him, probably because he was one of the few cultivators who could give the prism a decent game of shaka.

That was no excuse in Eri's mind. Lesser cultivators might believe that all prisms were equal rank and served the emperor in the same way. She knew better, just as she knew that her ranking as fifth out of the six was no actual mark of her true skill.

Now Eri appeared to the losing teams and sent them on their way, before at last joining up with her own bridal candidate, Mai Wen. Mai had lost one of her escorts. The other looked pretty tired. Eri dismissed him and wove a quick shroud around herself and Mai out of indigo and violet lux. It would hide them from the view of any eavesdropping prism. Nai Hong or Nai Lin could tear through her shroud easily enough, but she'd know if they did.

"You performed adequately," she told Mai Wen, who knelt before her. Mai Wen had, at Eri's direction, focused her attention on disrupting the efforts of the other sects. She had been responsible for eliminating six cultivators from the competition.

"I don't understand why you wouldn't let me go all out and win the prize," Mai Wen complained.

"It is far more important to put the fear of you in the lesser competitors," Eri said. "Word of your performance will spread, and they will hesitate in other contests. Besides, you didn't want that prize. I knew whoever won would be one of your strongest competitors. I am surprised it was this Morning Mist Sect, and I need to look more closely at them."

She was particularly impressed by how Li Jiya had inspired both of her escorts to sacrifice themselves in order to allow her to climb higher. She had not expected it from a sect she'd never even heard of before. Cultivators of this rank fought to gain an edge over each other, even cultivators in the same sect.

Li Jiya was impressive, to command such loyalty, but now Eri had sown a seed of discord in their ranks. The elixir would be a tantalizing boon. So few cultivators made it to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. It was easy, when lost in that slog, to be tempted by the offer of quick progression. Probably three out of five cultivators would accept, even knowing that it barred them from future advancement.

"You have pleased me today," Eri assured her. "Go ahead and celebrate. But you will need to focus on your training after this. I have gotten you entrance into this competition. You will need to do the rest."

She banished Mai Wen back to the sect's compound and allowed herself to float here in her meditation chamber. The first step was done, the first link in a chain that would lead her to greatness or to utter destruction. There was no middle ground for her here.

___

(Chang-Li POV)

"And remember," Min was telling the senior disciples, "you are now fully-fledged members of our sect and cultivators. The Gem Court will be looking at you as potential spouses. Be very careful. If you set a foot wrong, you could end up married before you know it."

She gave Chang-li a wry smile. "Ask me how I know. Don't go off in back rooms with anyone. Don't accept drinks from the Gem nobles themselves. You can take them from the servants if you have to. And remember, Purification of Mind and Soul removes contaminants from your body. So keep some lux in your core at all times. Don't use any of your other cycling techniques though. Other cultivators may see it as a challenge."

Chang-li couldn’t resist a groan. Min looked at Chang-li, biting her lip. "What?"

Chang-li raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot more information than anyone gave me before my first cultivator party. Does the Gem Court really employ that sort of trickery?"

"If they need to," Min said briskly. "I don't know most of these Gem nobles as well as I did the ones at Golden Moon Tower. Some of my peers take their duties very seriously."

She dismissed the disciples, all of whom were wearing cleanly pressed Morning Mist robes. The sect had received an invitation to the sunset soiree, which would take place up on the Crown, though not at the governor's palace. All the cultivators who had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement were invited.

Min looked around. "Where's Joshi?"

"He left already," Chang-li said. "He and Li Jiya had strategy to discuss." Chang-li had decided to wait until Min was ready. This would be their first social event as a married couple, and he was looking forward to walking in with Min on his arm. She looked beautiful tonight, having added a red sash to her sect robes and a pair of ruby earrings to complete her ensemble. Chang-li felt almost shabby beside her. He wished he'd gotten around to having a sect ring made for himself. "Shall we?"

Min followed him out of the house. It would be about a 20-minute climb to reach the Crown.

"Now that you're married, you might think you're immune from Gem Court machinations, but you're not," Min told him as they went. "The game has just changed, that's all. And of course, there's lots of sect politicking. I've been to two lunches and an afternoon tea with the other cultivator spouses here. They're a cutthroat lot." She shook her head. "They've been underestimating us, but if Li Jiya comes in the top three in the rankings, that's going to change.”

Chang-li admitted, “The Prism politics are what worries me.”

“I saw a good bit of Prism Nai Hong growing up. He often spends a couple of weeks at a time here in Vardin City, though Riceflower is only one of the provinces under his supervision. He's terrifying." She shuddered. "We had an uprising among the farmers across the valley a few years back. Their crops failed and they were making demands of the government. My grandfather called Prism Nai Hong to support him. He appeared and executed the leaders of the rebellion with the snap of his fingers. I wasn't supposed to watch, but I was there. He's definitely not a man to cross."

The gulf between where Chang-li stood and the Prism seemed unclimbable. He had yet to make any serious efforts to reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, and after that, another entire set of challenges lay ahead of him.

It was said that anyone who had a decent cycling technique and access to lux could reach Bodily Refinement. Of those who did, perhaps a quarter, would reach the Peak of Mental Refinement, and half of those would go on to reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

From there, the gap yawned. According to Scribe Wulan, only one in fifty of the disciples who had come to the original Morning Mist sect could ever take the path from Spiritual Refinement to Lux Embodiment. After that came the mysterious ranks of Lux Investiture and Lux Dominion, ranks he’d seen listed in scrolls but had no idea what they meant. None of the Grandmasters he’d met had been cultivators stronger than Lux Embodiment. Yet he hungered to know more.

“You’re lost in thought,” Min observed as they crossed another petal on their ascension.

“With this new Prism showing up, I'm worried that we're about to be caught in a power struggle between Prisms." Chang-li shuddered at that thought. "We studied the First and Second Prism Wars in school. It was part of our training to understand just how vitally important it is to maintain peace throughout the empire."

"Yes," Min agreed. "I never could understand why the Emperor allowed the Prisms to fight." The First Prism War had been over eight hundred years ago. Chang-li supposed the true history of that conflict was lost to time. The Second Prism War had been a mere two hundred and fifty years ago. It was said some regions still bore the scars. In each case, the wars had lasted for years, devastating the empire before at last the Emperor chose to intervene. Every Prism of both eras had been killed or forced to ascend.

"The Emperor protects us from threats beyond our border," Min said. "So why does he permit his own Prisms to inflict death?"

Chang-li shook his head. “It's only happened twice in the history of the empire. Everyone knows that beyond the borders of the empire, the peak cultivators are constantly fighting with each other, leaving the world devastated. To them, I guess two wars in a thousand years might sound pretty good."

"You're right about that," Min said briskly. "Anyway, according to Jai-lin, the Dowager and her people have been delivering lots of lectures to the Gem nobles, reminding them of their duty to the empire."

"What, to keep us cultivators in line?" Chang-li joked.

Min shrugged. “More or less. Especially the higher-ranked Gems have been raised knowing that's our chief purpose in life. My brothers and I were only red-ranked nobles. None of us necessarily had to marry cultivators. Well, obviously, Yuan-li is to be governor of the province. But I keep telling Jai-lin he doesn't need to find a cultivator spouse if he doesn't want to. He could focus on his music and poetry. He's quite a decent poet, actually," she added. "When we were children, it was expected he would follow in Grandfather Jiang's footsteps as Eldest Brother of the Oaken Band. But by the time he was ten and I was eight, I could tell that wasn't going to happen. That's why I convinced our grandfathers to let me take his place."

"If you were planning to lead the Oaken Band, why did you join the Court of Gems?" Chang-li asked. He'd been wondering that. Min’s dueling loyalties worried him. She'd been scrupulous so far to work on behalf of the Morning Mist sect. But from her point of view, the Morning Mist sect was really just a cultivator training program for the Oaken Band Brotherhood. When those loyalties clashed, what would Min decide?

"I came looking for a cultivator that I could bring back to the Brotherhood. With even a single cultivator at the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, none of the other Brotherhoods in Riceflower Province would have been any kind of threat to us," Min said.

That didn’t help Chang-li’s growing concern about Min’s loyalties. The Morning Mist sect had a dozen new disciples, but they weren’t truly Morning Mist. They were Oaken Band, and Chang-li knew their loyalties – like Min’s – were to the Brotherhood, not to the sect.

But how else could it be? Morning Mist wasn’t a real sect. Min knew better than anyone that it was a fraud. Only… he was striving to make it more than that.

Min hesitated. “There’s something we should discuss. Later. When we have some time. I — my grandfather has some plans that I’m worried about.”

They were almost up to the Crown ring. Cultivators from other sects were filling the walkway and ramps.

“Right,” Chang-li agreed. “After this?”

She seemed to give a little shudder, but nodded. “Yes.” As they reached the Crown, Min seemed to know where she was going. They turned left and continued along the ring.

Chang-li pulled up short as the venue for the party came into sight.

"What is that?" Min was staring too. "I've never seen anything like that."

Off the edge of the ring was another platform Chang-li was certain hadn't been there on his last visit to the Crown. It was a golden cloud, at least 300 feet on a side, 10 or 15 feet thick from what he could see, its inner mass blossoming with light like a thunderstorm was trapped inside, trying to get out. Atop the cloud was a fantastic wonderland village of buildings, two and three stories tall, with sharply sloping roofs and tall wooden spires. They were a style he hadn't seen before. The buildings themselves were made of unadorned wood, not painted, but instead of looking like a peasant's hovel, the different shades of wood seemed to complement each other. The roofs themselves were of thick thatched straw that glowed as golden as the cloud itself. The houses were straight, with tall rectangular windows looking out from under their eaves, and the higher floors overhung the lowest level of each.

A rainbow bridge led from the edge of the Crown Ring, where a section of the low parapet had been removed, out into the cloud. The bridge was thirty feet long, with no railing. It was wide enough for him and Min to walk comfortably side by side without either of them feeling as though they were going to fall off. They strode across, Chang-li's attention torn between the bridge under his feet, which gave off a soft chime with every step, and the structure ahead. The whole place reeked of lux. He could feel the density like nothing he'd experienced before. Even the Golden Moon Tower didn't have this density of lux.

They stepped off the bridge and were immediately greeted by servants wearing black robes marked with the badge of the Golden Locks School. Chang-li recognized it only from a description he'd heard from one of the disciples.

"Welcome to the Palace of Air and Dreams," the first servant said, bowing deeply.

"This is Prism Eri's sect headquarters?" Chang-li asked as he looked around, boggling.

"It is one of her headquarters," the servant agreed. "Not her largest. Just the most convenient to move across the empire when she wishes to bring a few of her followers with her."

"I thought the party was to be jointly hosted by all three Prisms," Min said.

The servant smiled and shook his head, just a hint of superiority in his gaze. "Prism Eri requested the right to host, as she is accepting the hospitality of Vardin City herself. Come, mingle with the others. The Prisms will address us all soon enough."

The cloud under Chang-li's feet felt solid enough, but little wisps of golden air pulled themselves off and drifted away. He tried not to think about just how far down it was to the surface of the lake. He and Min strolled across the surface of the cloud toward a cluster of Vardin City officials.

"Did you know Prisms could do something like this?" Chang-li whispered.

Min shook her head. "Prism Nai Hong is a solitary man. His daughter manages the sect that he once ran, but I don't think she has anything like this."

They joined the Vardin City officials. Min made introductions. Chang-li tried to keep their names straight. One of the men was the head of scribes here in Vardin City. Inspector Agra looked Chang-li over with an appraising look.

"I've heard that you were a scribe yourself until recently."

"I was," Chang-li agreed.

"I hope you haven't entirely abandoned your training."

"Not at all. In fact, I find there's plenty of work for a scribe in a sect as small as Morning Mist. We have no other scribe. Until we do, I am handling the sect paperwork and histories."

"Good, good," the inspector said. "And how are you liking Vardin City?"

"It's exceeded my expectations," Chang-li said honestly. "But this is beyond even that." He gestured around at the cloud.

"Yes, we are all awed by Prism Eri's magnificence," the inspector said. He sounded snide, and his nose rose just a bit, as though he smelled something sour.

Further conversation was cut off as abruptly Chang-li felt the overwhelming presence of a high-tier cultivator. Then there they were, hanging in midair above the center of the cloud. Nai Hong wore his scintillating robes with the air of a man who has just gotten out of bed. There was no wrinkle or stain anywhere on the robes, of course, and his hair was in good order, yet he somehow gave off the impression of being unprepared for this. His daughter, Nai Lin, was as gorgeous as the first time Chang-li had laid eyes on her. Her lips were crimson red, her flawless skin glowing from a light inside. Today she wore a tiara of diamonds atop her brow.

Eri, on the other hand, wore her robes with the front loosened, revealing her ample cleavage. Her hair was down, flowing out behind her in the wind, while a single curl framed each side of her face. She'd done something with her robes so that they parted enough to show flashes of her calves. Chang-li decided to keep his eyes fixed on her face.

"Welcome, bridal candidates and your escorts," Nai Hong said. "We are pleased to have all of you in attendance here. We are approaching the end of the first month of the tournament and thought it would be good to remind all of you where you stand."

Eri laughed. “He means to say that I've rather upset the cabbage cart here by bringing in another contestant and shaking up the standings. I have agreed that any further changes will be made only in consort with my fellow Prisms. After all, we are all united in our desire to serve the Emperor. What better way to do that than by ensuring that his bride is the greatest of all the candidates? That said, thank you for attending. The Golden Locks School is pleased to host you all here tonight."

"For those of you who have not had a chance to meet her, I would like to introduce to you my candidate in the bridal tournament, cultivator Mai Wen.” She pointed, and a beam of light extended from her finger down to a young woman standing beneath them, wearing the robes of the Golden Locks sect. She too had a yellowish cast to her brown hair. She looked supremely self-controlled. She was a little taller than Li Jiya, probably a good six inches taller than Min.

Min was frowning and drumming her fingers against her other arm. "Well, doesn't she look like the cat who's licked the cream? I see the family resemblance."

"Now the standings," Eri said. "In first place, Zhen Yi of Crimson Orchid. In second place, Li Jiya of Morning Mist. In third, Mai Wen of Golden Locks." She waved a hand dismissively, and a series of names and point values appeared in the air. "The other six don't matter very much. If you're not in the top three, what are you even doing at this competition? But there they are for any of you who wish to see."

Chang-li let out a deep sigh of relief. Li Jiya was in second place, only eight points behind the first-place contender, but only four ahead of Mai Wen. They'd have to stay wary.

Eri was still talking. “Now, in order to keep this more interesting, the Prisms and I have agreed to start allowing bridal candidates into the Tower every third day instead of every fourth, and we will be sending in three groups at a time. We’ll be watching, making sure confrontations between sects don’t get too out of hand. Though if you take on a challenge that's too hard for you and are torn to shreds by the tower beast's claws and teeth, we won’t intervene." She smiled, showing her teeth. “So, without further ado, please do go ahead and mingle. We hope all of you have a wonderful time here tonight."