Jingyi Bo was fairly convinced that she was a genius. After all, she was now a genuine article cultivator of three wholly different disciplines. There were only a handful of those in the world, as far as Bo knew, and they were all here at the Academy. Surely there was a word for what they were … not that Bo could think of one.

Elder Ienaga hadn’t been kidding about the fatigue crashing down on her after her body awakening, but it felt mostly pushed aside by the fact that her body was now so much more powerful than usual. Little scars here and there cleared up, some of her sunburn faded and, to Bo’s immense surprise, her tendency to slouch just evaporated. She barely needed to sleep, but despite being told the opposite, she was actually hungrier than usual. It didn’t feel like she needed to eat any more than usual, but her belly rumbled for meals a lot more frequently.

In contrast, the mental awakening had interesting implications, but not profound changes to Bo’s daily life. She had a whole new sense - great! But the sense let her see things that were largely academic in nature. There was no immediate convenience from being able to see mana in the air. Sure, it made it easier for her to concentrate, and her memory was amazing now, but where were the cool perks for just living? One could only assume the average cultivator was more worried about working towards ascension and almighty earth-shattering powers, not so much about how it could benefit the average coward.

Having spent a little over a week just meditating, it was time to return to classes. There was, however, a slight problem. Elder Ienaga didn’t want her in the advanced class, at least until it wouldn’t become immediately obvious she was the only Qin student there. When she showed up to the next martial art’s class, Ienaga quietly pulled her aside and explained that she would prepare something specifically for Bo.

“Your friends too,” Elder Ienaga quietly gestured to Chao and company, who were eagerly throwing themselves into the running course. “They’re quite determined to break through - along with a number of other Qin students who have returned.”

“Th-thank you, Elder Ienaga!” Jingyi Bo gave a deep bow, and Ienaga stifled a chuckle.

“Don’t thank me yet. I don’t have time to spare to tutor you personally, so you will have to make do with a jade slip for now. I will have someone bring it to you when it is ready. For now, throw yourself into your other studies. You are a talented girl - you will do fine.”

Bo’s jaw dropped as the elder said ‘girl’, and she quickly peered around. There was no one nearby - didn’t half-spirits have better hearing? Could they have heard? Would they have cared? Ienaga stifled another chuckle. She didn’t mind a skittish disciple from time to time, if they were equally eager to learn.

-

Back in Elder Hwang’s classes, things made a lot more sense. Not only did Bo have a much better time understanding the things the old owl was saying, she didn’t even have trouble remembering them. Formations, spells, talismans, mana theory, it all soaked into her mind with astonishing ease. Perhaps there was some merit to this awakening of the mind, then! One thing that interested Bo was formations. With her spiritual technique so focused on transforming things, the only obstacle between her and simply shaping things into the right shape for a formation was her lack of control.

In fact, while Elder Hwang talked, Bo quietly practiced her spiritual technique using her mana sense. It was so much easier now that she could see what she was doing. Namely, it was a lot easier to transform objects into the odd, slightly finer variations of purely elemental objects. Mud, it turned out, didn’t mind being turned into clay. Clay was not an element, but it was a kind of mud (if you thought about it hard enough), so rearranging the mixture of elements and the shape of the mud, any old bit of dirt could be Stepped into becoming clay.

As a practice for her abilities, Bo spent the lectures half-listening, half-sculpting. With a fist-sized lump of clay on her desk and a few borrowed books piled up to hide her activities from those around her, she used the Endless Steps to change the clay’s shape. At first she simply tried to replicate formations or symbols that Elder Hwang was describing, though she found that they were too complicated. Instead, she went with something a little more fun - making models of her classmates.

Her first try was a figure of Chao Da. The lanky, awkward-looking teen with the winning smile came out as a kind of hilarious stick-figure, his head barely a lump and his limbs as spindly as a water-bug. It turned out, this was hard! Jingyi Bo had only ever really just fired off her ability as though painting with a big paint-brush, and only wherever she touched. Now it was like trying to use a sculptor's tools with a set of chopsticks. However, the more she practiced, the better she got. By the end of the first lecture she did this in, Bo ended up with a suitable, if rather exaggerated rendition of Elder Hwang’s face.

It was while figuring out how to remove said clay effigy from the class that the Elder himself came to speak to her. Everyone else had mostly left (Da, De and Wei had left to meditate more), so the lecture hall was fairly empty. While Bo was thinking that she might be able to just tuck the lump of clay into her robe and flee with it, the owl-faced elder had simply appeared in her path.

“Ohoho, what a stunning sculpture you’ve made! Might I see it?” The man held out a hand, his face all smiles, but his sudden appearance had nearly caused Bo to fall over in fright. Deciding that lying to him would never work and that smashing it might be an insult, she shakily held it out to him. Staring down at her feet, and quietly quivering in fear of the repercussions of her clearly irreverent act, she muttered a quiet apology.

“What a fascinating technique you have!” Hwang grinned. “Why, this clay barely has a bit of transformative mana left in it. It’s almost as though you found it like this - not that I can imagine there are many lumps of clay with such beautiful faces, ohoho!”

Is this torture? A trick to lower my guard? A preamble to my inevitable demise?! Is this how I go out, destroyed for insulting my elder with a clay sculpture?! Bo awaited Hwang’s wrath, but never received it. The old bird, who had been momentarily awaiting Bo’s response, decided to move on instead.

“I notice you are quite diligent in your studies. An omnidisciplinary cultivator, and so fast! A shame I already have such interesting test subjects on that front. You wouldn’t happen to be a disciple of the Everchanging Way Sect, would you?”

Bo gasped. “Elder, f-forgive me for asking, but how in the world do you know the Everchanging Way Sect?!”

“Hohoho!” Hwang almost seemed to enjoy her surprise. “Not many have heard of it. I never expected to see one of its members arrive here, either - let alone by landing atop our shield formation. A story to tell, I’m sure! Ahem. I once had some correspondence with an Elder Yahui of the sect - he was very curious about mana theory, and his questions were so simply insightful that I couldn’t help but answer! In fact, I dare say he was barely asking for confirmation. But, I never did get a chance to ask what he was doing with that information - now I see! Ohoho … What do you call that technique of yours? Would you mind demonstrating?”

A little reluctant, but not in any hurry to turn down an elder, Jingyi Bo explained about the Endless Steps of Transformation. She went to demonstrate on the lump of clay, but Hwang stopped her.

“Do you mind if I keep that … ?”

“I-If you wish, Elder Hwang! I can. Um. Turn it to stone? To stop it from falling apart?”

“Ohoho! Fair enough - a demonstration with a souvenir. Proceed.”

Focusing carefully so as not to lose any of the ‘detail’ of her sculpture, Bo transformed the lump. She had to concentrate carefully as she did so - as simple an operation as it seemed, it carried some difficulty. Adding ‘yin’ to it first would turn the mud into acid, which wouldn’t be pleasant to anyone, so instead it had to lose its water. But losing the water would change its shape, so it needed to be simultaneously transformed into shape and held there as it turned into regular dirt. Then, before the dirt could fall apart, it would need to be petrified into stone. Small beads of sweat formed on Bo’s head as she concentrated.

Elder Hwang waited very patiently as the girl spent five minutes turning a small lump of clay into stone. He likely could have done it himself in an instant with a spell, but that wasn’t the point. Bo could feel his eyes staring, as well as some kind of heavy presence washing over and through her as she worked. The way she moved mana, used it to hold things in place or alter things shapes, it all seemed to intrigue the owl-faced elder. When she was done, there was a near-perfect lump of generic stone. Elder Hwang held it up and scrutinised it, grinning.

“Fascinating indeed. I think you will very much enjoy learning more about how to control your mana sense, Miss Jingyi.” Miss?! Bo panicked again. If Hwang noticed her distress, he made no effort to apologise. At the very least, no one had heard. “I look forward to seeing your growth. Continue your studies, but feel free to come to me if you need any help with mana! I would love to talk mana theory with an interested student!”

With another owlish laugh, Hwang turned and disappeared. Jingyi Bo wiped the sweat from her forehead. As stressful as that had been, perhaps it represented an opportunity. Perhaps I can ask him about this mana rock thing I’ve got, she thought to herself. Peering into her dantian, the odd octahedron was continuing its mana sifting and consuming. Just what is that thing doing, anyway?

---

The day after would have been a day in Elder Ienaga’s class. Her promised jade slip still hadn’t arrived, and Jingyi Bo wasn’t about to chase down a xiantian level cultivator to harass her about something she was doing entirely as a favour. Instead, she decided to do a little bit of work on the Endless Steps. Namely, all of the scrolls she had mostly forgotten the contents of needed to be read again - her seemingly infallible memory only extended as far back as her mental awakening. Another perk of that awakening was that she could read far faster than expected. Putting aside the fact that she had already skimmed the contents of the scrolls, Bo was able to read each and every one of them in depth in the span of a couple hours. Her previous attempt had taken the better part of the day.

As boring as it was, the pile of scrolls that simply listed combinations was now far, far more useful that Bo didn’t have to memorise them the old fashioned way. Even better, there were all sorts of useful, mundane materials that were well within her ability to transform things into - paper, ink, glass, certain kinds of metal … precious metals and gems required some kind of esoteric element the guide listed only as ‘Wealth’, putting them out of Bo’s reach for now. 

With this knowledge, Bo realised she could cultivate two birds with one training exercise. Grabbing a spare rice bag, Bo gathered up a large bundle of fallen leaves from the tree outside her shed. Taking the bundle back in, she used her Endless Steps to functionally conglomerate them all into one big, wood-flavoured mass, and then into thin sheets of paper. They were kind of rough around the edges, but they were perfect practice for transforming - and wonderful blank talismans.

Her next step was to try and record something on them. Ink was an annoying thing to transform into. It was something like Water, but also something like Miasma, but also a little bit like Stone. The simplest thing would be to convert Mud towards Miasma, but, as Bo found out after nearly burning the skin of her hands off, in between Mud and Miasma was Corrosion. There was also the roadblock of Darkness, which Bo honestly didn’t understand. Working with tangible elements was fine, but darkness wasn’t tangible - any of it that she tried to transform just ceased to exist. After a bit of work, Bo discovered a kind of roundabout path that quite conveniently filled her ink pot from simple water - so long as she left a bit of ink in there as reference material.

The final step would have been to use her ink-brush to paint the talismans. However, that would go against what Bo wanted to try and do - instead, she would use her Endless Steps to effectively ‘transform’ the ink through the air, using her aura as an extension. Her first attempts were an awful mess. She ended up with ink all over her lap and table, destroyed several blank talismans with either staining or accidentally tearing them up by transforming them together with the ink, or simply made useless, unworkable talismans. The basic mana shield talismans she was trying to make were simple to draw, but Bo had, as per usual, chosen the worst way to make them.

It was well into the following morning by the time Bo made one. A laughable amount of time to make a singular mana shield talisman, but it had been amazing practice for the Endless Steps of Transformation. The clean-up, however, was far more of a pain. Her shed was littered with a nightmare of paper, ink and spare leaves. Picking up one of the failed talismans, Bo quietly wondered how she was going to clear this all up.

Eat it.

Excuse you?!

Just eat them up. Crunchy and delicious like fried food.

Bo shut her eyes tight. Her stomach was rumbling again, but she was hit with that craving that had surfaced when she held those pieces of jade. The piece of jade, she reminded herself, she had in fact ended up eating. Between her fingers, her refined and enhanced senses couldn’t help but feel the paper. It was stiff, a bit crackly, and oh-so-edible. Surely here, in her shed, one bite wouldn’t matter?

When she opened her eyes, she realised her hand had unconsciously come up to put it in her mouth.

No! I’m not going to be that weird girl who eats random things! I’m going to be that perfectly respectable, unnoticeable girl! Or boy! Whichever gets less people to bother me! I’m not going to--

Crunch. Hm. Actually, that’s got a really appealing texture-- ugh, the taste! Bo spat out the failed talisman. The paper wasn’t offensive in taste, but the ink was awful. Being close to miasma, it was almost certainly poisonous. It was enough to knock her out of her strange craving mood, at least. All of the failed talismans were burned up in the firepit instead of ending up in Bo’s gut. She really would have to figure out why that kept happening.

Somewhere inside her soul, the octahedron rumbled like an unfulfilled stomach.