The sun filtered through the canopy, past mottled, old branches of a healthy brown, midday rays forming strange patterns of light and shadow on the overgrown path below. Along this path strode one older man with wispy white facial hair; the man was sporting maroon robes and holding a small, gnarled, blackened branch ahead of himself. Every few seconds, the branch burst into flames, burned brightly for a moment... And then the flames swirled away, only embers remaining. For a moment, the embers sat still, and then they too were blown away by the breeze, spiralling into the surrounding areas... Spiralling as if searching for something.

That did, indeed, make sense, because the man actually was searching for something... danger. See, Elder Flame had already once before made the mistake of not activating his Divining Embers Vi, and as a result of that mistake, he had led our group straight into a pack of five-horned bears. That little incident would’ve put all our lives at risk... But luckily, Elder Tea had from the very beginning been using a vi plant in order to mask our scents. Due to this foresight, we’d been able to escape completely unnoticed.

Ever since, though, Elder Flame had been diligently activating his investigative vi plant. He probably knew the other elders would give him hell if he screwed up again, after all.

Eventually, the man turned around, walking backwards for a moment. Towards us — the small crowd of tier zero vi masters following him — Elder Flame smiled and said, “How’re you all holding up? Good, I hope! We’re almost there, now, provided we don’t run into another beast pack.”

Unfortunately, his smile didn’t really give us much confidence, and what little it did give was quickly dashed. See, while turning back around, he tripped on his robes and flailed for a moment... just managing to catch himself before he fell flat on his face. He coughed in embarrassment before continuing, pretending as though nothing had happened.

One of the elders behind us sighed. Elder Swan said, only just audible because I was at the back of the group, “I swear, that man is as dense as a mortal.”

At this point, I was starting to agree. One or two little things like this and I’d call it coincidence, but at this point I’d seen the dude lose so much face I was unsure how he’d even gotten to his position in the first place. Crazy luck, I could only assume.

And like, given how dumb he was, and that he was leading us... as much as I trusted Elder Swan and Elder Tea to do their all to protect us tier zeroes, I couldn’t shake my worry. We’d already been put in a risky situation due to “Little Flame” once. If something went wrong... with us having no vi plants to defend ourselves, what were our chances of survival? 

What were my own chances? 

Like, these woods were super dangerous. When mortals went into these woods, they didn’t come back. And even if we were technically vi masters, now, we were still functionally mortals.

I sighed myself, closing my eyes and trying and failing to settle my stomach. Stop freaking out, me. It’d be okay. We’d be safe, nothing would—

A tap on my shoulder startled me out of my thoughts. It was Morning, who’d been walking at the back near me. (With her lackeys, of course.) She was smirking, too. I sighed a second time, already exasperated. “What do you want, Morning?”

“Well, dear sister of mine,” she enunciated clearly, sounding as though she thought my words were just so gosh darn rude. “I just wanted to say hello, of course!”

“Right,” I said, unimpressed. “Hello.” I glanced behind me to make sure Elder Swan and Elder Tea were watching; it was unnecessary, they definitely were.

“Did you see I have a master, now?” my sister asked, gesturing back to Elder Tea and fluttering her eyelashes in the most obnoxious way possible. It wasn’t even cute... Ugh, I could do so much better than that if given the chance.

I rubbed my temple. “Yes. I did, Morning.”

“It’s just too bad that you didn’t get a master, huh...” she shook her head sadly, putting a hand on my shoulder. If it had been anyone else, it probably would’ve been comforting, but... I just shrugged it off.

She frowned. “Rude! Listen, sister, I understand you’re probably feeling pretty jealous right now, but don’t worry, you can work through negative feelings like that!”

“Yeah, and you’re such a good example of that, right?” I raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re such an angel, now?”

Morning Rain nodded, smiling widely. “I knew you’d understand!”

“You’re ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?” she asked, leaning closer.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, backing away a bit. I could only play her game, couldn’t I? “Hey, while we’re catching up, Morning Rain... Did you see that I got five Merits?”

She pursed her lips and nodded. Yup, you already see what I’m doing here, don’t you, sis? You brought this on yourself, you realise!

“It’s just too bad that you lost fifty, instead...” I shook my head sadly as well, mirroring what she’d done. “I wonder how long it’ll be before you’re able to make that up.”

She grumbled for a moment, before saying, loudly, “Well, I learned my lesson, sister. I know not to scheme against people.” Then she leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “In a way I can be caught, that is.”

She chuckled a bit as she stepped back towards her lackeys, but what little menace she’d achieved vanished as she tripped on her own robes, landing in one of the girls’ arms. I snorted. Great, now we had another Little Flame.

“Y-you pushed me!” Morning Rain accused, scrambling to regain a slight semblance of her dignity. I raised an eyebrow and looked back towards the elders.

Elder Swan rolled her eyes and Elder Tea put her hand to her forehead. Regretting your decision now, Elder Tea, mm? 

“Morning Rain, you will stop now or I’ll deduct the Demerits from you myself,” she sighed exasperatedly. “Don’t lose even more face for us.”

Morning grumbled, pushing herself out of her lackey’s arms and crossing her own as she steamed. I shook my head in amusement. 

 

---

 

To Elder Flame’s word, it wasn’t much longer before we reached the edge of the forest... And in front of us lay the most spectacular, crystal-blue lake I’d ever seen. In both of my lives. Granted, that wasn’t really saying much for this life — this was my very first time out of the village, and there weren’t even any other lakes nearby (that I was aware of, anyway.)

“We made it!” Elder Flame laughed happily and waved his arms, nearly dropping his currently-flaming Divining Embers Vi in the process.

Some of us looked towards him and had our usual reactions, but the rest of us had already learned to just ignore him, I guess?

Elder Swan spoke up, standing with her back to the crystal-blue body of water behind her. “Welcome to Sapphire Lake, kids. We’re going to split up to cultivate, now — boys with Elder Flame, girls with Elder Tea and I.”

As the boys walked over towards Elder Flame, looking a little awkward at his antics — he was still laughing to himself — Elder Tea spoke up, gesturing towards the guy, “Are they safe with him?”

“Probably not entirely,” Elder Swan sighed. “But it’s okay, he’s done this for the last twenty years and never let one die. Yet.”

“Why don’t you bring another man instead of another woman if you’re gonna split up like this?” the younger woman asked, twirling a lock of her golden hair around her finger.

“The same reason we split up in the first place — they’re mostly going for yang-type energies, and we’re mostly going for yin-type. All the yang-type energies can be cultivated in the day, which means he doesn’t need to watch them cultivate in the night, like we do for ours,” Elder Swan explained.

Morning Rain suddenly stomped over to me, giving me an irritable glare and a frown. “Why are you still over here?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m a girl? You were calling me your sister just a bit ago, weren’t you?”

She scoffed. “Well, yeah, but nobody actually considers you one, except maybe Elder Flame, and, like, well...” She glanced back at him for a moment before turning away, shaking her head. 

Ugh. Why was she always like this? Heavens, the moment she got a little taste of superiority... That was all it took, and now this was just her?

“You wanna bet?” I shot back.

“Girls,” Elder Swan scolded. “Morning, leave her alone or you’re going to lose face for your master again.”

Morning Rain sputtered. “But you can’t let him come with us!”

I winced, then opened my mouth to retort, but Elder Swan just put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a look. Well, fine then, if you’re going to defend me, that’s fine. Can’t say I expected that, though.

“Morning Rain,” Elder Tea frowned, a golden light appearing on the centre of her forehead as she made a gesture with her hand. Woah, she was activating a vi plant! One in her aperture! 

“One Demerit for talking back to your elders,” the woman said. 

Morning Rain opened her mouth and closed it a couple times. “But... you’re my master...?” she squeaked.

“If you thought that would be a form of protection from punishment, you were wrong,” Elder Tea said. “Shut your mouth before you lose us any more face, girl.”

Morning Rain did so, then choked and spun around. She stomped on the ground a couple times in anger, before taking a deep breath and turning back around, then giving me another malicious glare. At this point, though, it didn’t do much — those glares of hers were starting to look almost as ridiculous to me as Elder Flame’s antics.

(Okay, well maybe not quite that ridiculous.)

Elder Swan looked down and gave me a sly wink, then lifted her hand off of my shoulder and started along one side of the lake. “Let’s go, girls, we’re going to want to be at the campsite before dinnertime.”

“Yes, Elder!” a few of us called back.

 

---

 

We arrived at what was quite clearly our final destination only a short while later; it was pretty close to Sapphire Lake, only a few hundred metres up a winding path that ran alongside a quiet stream. Eventually, the path came to a rather large clearing, the stream running right through the middle. What attracted my attention first was not the clearing itself, though, but a wide, tall, slow waterfall just across the clearing.

Where the bigger waterfalls I’d seen in the past were very pretty, they had also all been very loud — torrents of water thundering down in a chaotic deluge — this one was different. For one thing, this waterfall had a lot less water than a normal waterfall, and for another, rather than shooting off and down the cliff in a torrent... it was... orderly? It almost formed what looked like a sheet of glass... And on top of all that, the waterfall was also in front of the gaping mouth of a shallow cave I could just barely see the back of.

In other words, where other waterfalls were pretty, this one was astoundingly so.

Finally, I tore my eyes away from the amazing waterfall to look at the rest of the scenery. Following the water down to the bottom of the falls, I saw that it collected into a deep, surprisingly calm pool. Then, at the southern side of the pool, it seemed to drain into that same shallow stream we’d been walking along this whole time — the shallow stream that winded its way down through the centre of the campsite. 

The campsite was effectively divided in two by the stream; the only way to get from one side to the other was the bridge formed by three smooth, flat rocks placed equidistant from each other.

On the left — the western side of the campsite  — was a fire pit, surrounding it a few petrified logs, and the space for multiple large tents, before a cliff face, stretching up and up... At the top, it seemed like there was more grass, though. 

On the right — the eastern side of the campsite — was a stone table and more petrified logs, plus a couple old, worn practice dummies and a few paths into the forest beyond.

Finally, I looked back at the elders, who were both smiling down at us, Elder Tea with a bit of a wistful look on her face. “Ooh!” She glanced back at Elder Swan suddenly, asking, “Can I say it?”

Elder Swan shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

Elder Tea gestured to the campsite, grinning widely. “Welcome to Site Yin!”