"Mana condensed firm, transformed into azure origin."
Li Tongya waved his hand and dispelled the pale white moon-lodge azure essence cradled within his palm, his heart stirring with quiet elation. The Azure Origin Wheel was no gate worth the name, yet as the fourth wheel of Embryonic Breathing it contented him greatly to see his mana condensed entire through half a year's smooth, untroubled progress.
"Only, this azure origin power seems somewhat out of the common. Its growth is so great it resembles the Jade Capital Wheel described in the Azure Origin Wheel-Nurturing Art. This Lunar Nourishing Wheel Scripture of our house is no common thing after all."
Li Tongya lifted his green blade, and fell to polishing it with a strip of white cloth. The folk of the Ancient Li Road made do mostly with knives and cudgels; this treasured sword he had found only after scouring four villages, until he came at last to the Liu family of Jingyang, the natal clan of Liu Rouxuan. They pressed upon him the treasure they had kept wrapped at the bottom of their chest, took no coin however hard he urged it, and declared one and all that it was Liu Rouxuan's dowry.
"Six months of practice, and at last I am through the gate, able to give forth this Dark Water Sword Aura steadily."
Li Tongya brought two fingers together and drew them slowly along the green edge. At once the blade breathed out a faint grey sword aura, thin as a cicada's wing lying close upon the keen steel, and sharp past the eye to water.
He stepped out of the courtyard, sought a lonely spot among the hills, and fell to practicing the sword unseen.
"Ha!"
When he had turned about the grounds a few times, Li Tongya lifted the green blade, flexed his wrist — and the sword flashed across the great banyan before him. The ancient tree crashed to the earth in a single thunder, raising a vast cloud of dust.
"Sharp it is indeed."
He looked upon the smooth stump, and felt his stroke had met with scarce any hindrance at all, clipping that great tree in twain as though it had been no more than a reed.
He practiced the sword a while with rising spirit, then hung the green blade at his waist, sat to summon his breath and restore his spent mana, and made his way to the small courtyard at Lijing. The white origin fruits of that courtyard were ripe, hanging white and round and glistening from the tip of every pale yellow sapling — fifteen of them at a single breath, and Li Tongya was obliged to borrow two jade boxes of Wan Tiancang before they would all be housed.
"Heaven's Store, brother, but as to the tribute—"
"Follow the Ancient Li Road east, all the way to the Crown Cloud Peak of the Xiao family," Wan Tiancang waved his hand and explained with care, "and there all the houses of Lixia Prefecture pay their tribute together. Each family brings likewise of its surplus or its specialties for trade, at the very foot of that mountain."
"Indeed."
Li Xiangping and Li Mutian having been consulted over the space of a single cup of tea, Li Tongya took up the Pine-Yue fruit the Wan family had sent, together with several art manuals, packed the spirit rice and spirit fruits of his house, and slipped silently away to the Wan household. Their carriage stood drawn up at the verge of the Ancient Li Road. Lest the Ji family learn word of it and come swooping down to ambush them, the Wan had sent out but Wan Yuankai of the Azure Origin Wheel and a lone driver, awaiting Li Tongya by the roadside.
The stores packed, Li Tongya set the spirit rice and spirit fruits upon the Wan carriage and, under shelter of night, swayed away eastward.
----
"A golden autumn in the lake — one must first find a great lake full three thousand li about; and when the shores run yellow with autumn, the heavens clear and high, the night bright and still, then draw in qi for a single night by the Bingzi breath-kindling method, and so win a portion of autumn air. Eighty-one nights to gain a single wisp of the lake's golden autumn, and ten wisps make a full portion. Thus it asks ten years — and for that reason it is also called a decade of lake-autumn qi."
Li Chijing turned the volume within his hands and committed its method silently to memory, thinking: "The Seventh Month Qi-Refining True Art that Master gave me is detailed indeed. Yet I wonder, has it any art for refining the Taiyin lunar essence?"
He rifled the pages once, twice, and murmured to himself: "Taiyin lunar essence... Taiyin lunar essence... Here it is!"
"Taiyin lunar essence, white as hoar-frost, flowing as water, bright when the moon is full, dim when it wanes."
Li Chijing stared and turned a page or two more, then parted his lips: "And that is all?"
"Ah, well."
Some days earlier Li Chijing had already brought the Spirit Initial Wheel to completion, and was separated from Qi Refining only by the slow accumulation of time. And so, while waiting for the other, he had set early about reading the essential arts of that realm. Had there been no thread at all to the Taiyin lunar essence, he would have been bound instead to cultivate the Yuanqing Rain-Commanding Art.
He looked up, and saw one of the tasks posted about the gates of the Martial Pavilion vanish from its board. The pavilion's great doors swung open, and a figure stepped slowly forth.
Li Chijing had waited three full days outside that pavilion before the task of gathering Lixia Prefecture's tribute was at last torn down. Seeing the man step nimbly upon a flying shuttle and make as if to leave, he hurried to call:
"This fellow Daoist!"
The figure bent its head: "What is it?"
Only then did Li Chijing mark that his companion was a fair-faced woman in a pale cyan robe of trailing skirts. He smiled in some embarrassment, and said by way of explanation:
"Did this friend take up the task of journeying to Lixia Prefecture to collect the tribute?"
"That is so."
The gentle woman looked Li Chijing over, and seeing he was only a boy of sixteen summers, softened her voice: "Have you kinfolks in that Lixia Prefecture?"
"Indeed indeed! I am Li Chijing of Azure Ear Peak. May I ask my lady's name?"
"Ning Wan, of Moon Lake Peak."
Ning Wan dipped her head, bidding him go on.
"I am born of the Li house at Lijing, on the very margin of Moonview Lake. My lady whose journey to Lixia gathers the tribute — I pray she might look kindly upon my family, and Chijing would be grateful beyond measure."
"We are fellow disciples of one sect; to look after them a little is only natural."
Then Ning Wan pursed her brows in a small puzzle, and asked in turn: "Since you were born at Moonview Lake, which lies within my Moon Lake Peak's own dominion, why did you not enter my Moon Lake Peak?"
Li Chijing answered with a smile: "My master Si Yuanbai passed by Greater Li Mountain; Chijing was blessed beyond his lot to find favor in Master's eyes, and so was brought back to the sect to cultivate."
Ning Wan gave a dissatisfied little sniff, and murmured: "Si Yuanbai cannot keep to his own Xunlin Plain, but must come to my Moon Lake to filch disciples — there is no justice in it."
Li Chijing could only smile wryly and feign that he had not heard the words.
"Very well then." Ning Wan pressed her lips together, and asked gently: "Is there aught you would have me carry to them?"
"There is, there is." Li Chijing, who had been fretting how to broach the matter, was overjoyed: "I thank my lady a thousand times!"
So saying he offered up a small pouch in both hands. Ning Wan took it and weighed it; a crisp chattering of spirit stones came to her ear, some four or five in number. A doubt rose in her: "You cultivate within the sect without even drawing your household's stores, and yet send things home — what manner of reasoning is this?"
Li Chijing shook his head hastily: "My family sent pills to me; the peak lacks for nothing, and I have no present use for spirit stones, while to spend them upon my cultivation would be wasteful past bearing. Better to send them home, to shore up the household's daily needs."
"I see. It is a thought to do your sincerity credit."
At that Ning Wan's heart softened, and she conceived a good liking for the boy. Smiling, she said: "Be sure that I shall carry it to them."