"What is this?" Ishin asked, examining a green-specked hard biscuit in his hand.

  "The masters call it nine-layer harvest biscuits," Hou Lei said, leaning against the wall opposite Ishin’s bed in the Reprieve Barracks. "Most of the disciples just call them moss rocks."

  Ishin flicked the biscuit with a finger. It sounded, and felt like, he had just flicked a rock. "What a fitting name." He returned the biscuit back to the bag on the floor that Hou Lei had provided. It contained eleven other identical biscuits.

  As Ishin continued sorting through his pack, moving unnecessary items out, he asked, "Why do I need to bring these on the trip?"

  "To eat, Ro Ishin. Each one has enough nutrients to replace a meal. They are far easier to carry than full rations." Hou Lei moved to stand behind Ishin, gazing over his shoulder. "What’s this?" He reached out to grab at one of Ishin’s frayed and weathered Daihu cultivation robes that Ishin was moving out of his pack.

  Ishin moved the ruined robe out of Hou Lei’s reach. "One of my last sets of robes from home." Hou Lei moved for the robe again, forcing Ishin to throw it on the far corner of his bed. "Don’t touch it, Hou Lei. It’s barely still intact as it is."

  "But you just threw it?"

  "To prevent you from damaging it." The rationale felt silly the moment it left Ishin’s lips. "Just, leave it be, please." Ishin proceeded to pull out his rain cloak. The sky was clear, so it would only take up space. He glanced at the tattered robe he’d just thrown on his pillow. Now that’s going to smell.

  "You only brought one robe from your home?" Hou Lei had returned to his position against the wall.

  "I had more, but the journey was… rough." It was true, if vague. Ishin grabbed one of the rolled-up cultivation robes in the blue and orange colors of the Eight Oaths Resolve School. "I’ll just pack this for the journey, now that I’m working with your school."

  Over the last two weeks, Hou Lei had brought Ishin a total of six sets of blue and orange cultivation robes. They were made of coarse fabric that allowed for easy mobility while also being durable enough to not tear unless caught by a weapon. They were a fine middle path between the rough wool fabric of Ishin’s former Daihu cultivation robes, but not as fine as the elegant silken robes that Ishin had seen others roam the city in when he first arrived. In short, they were practical and well designed, but not fragile.

  "Now that you’ve joined our school," Hou Lei corrected.

  Ishin paused his inventorying. "I’m still just a probationary disciple, right? Or did that change?"

  "No, you still are," Hou Lei answered unhelpfully. "But if Rhee is going with you herself, then your position with the school is essentially secured."

  Rising from his crouched position, Ishin turned to face Hou Lei. "Explain that to me."

  "She’s the Grand Master’s granddaughter and prodigy of the younger disciples."

  Ishin had learned that Hou Lei assumed many facts were common sense, and that if not prodded, he wouldn’t actually explain his reasoning. "And?"

  "And if she didn’t think you were worthy of the school’s time and resources, she wouldn’t waste her own time on you."

  Why couldn’t he have just said that at the beginning? "I see. So, was she impressed by our spars then?"

  Mischief danced in Hou Lei’s eyes. "Not for me to say," he teased. "You can always ask Rhee while you’re out together if you’re curious."

  Ishin felt his cheeks start to redden. No time for that. Ishin had to prioritize his cultivation and training. His goals were still to avenge his mother and find his clan. For both, he needed power. The Eight Oaths Resolve School was merely a resource to that end. And they’ll just use me the same. He was under no illusion that Zhu Rhee and her school were only assisting him toward their own end. That was fine. Ishin preferred it when karmic bonds were simple like this. Transactional and nothing more.

  "I’m somewhat surprised that you aren’t the one going with me," Ishin admitted. If it was only a matter of following a map to the Thunder Horned Wolves’ hunting grounds, there was no reason for Zhu Rhee herself to go. As Hou Lei had alluded to, her time was valuable, and the school could still support Ishin’s development without allocating their prodigy to assist him. Unless…

  "She volunteered to go with you," Hou Lei confessed, affirming Ishin’s theory. "Rhee said that she wanted to get to know you better and that I should take the time to focus on my own training."

  Curious. Ishin placed his final provisions into his pack, fastened the top, and returned it to his cubby beneath his bed. "Do you have any words of wisdom to offer?"

  "Don’t let Rhee die or get hurt," Hou Lei laughed. "If anything happens to her, the Grand Master will kill you."

  Ishin gave an empty laugh, alarmed by the revelation. "I’ll make sure not to."

  *              *           *

  "You truly think he’s worth your time?" Zhu Yusheng, Grand Master of the Eight Oaths Resolve Martial School, asked. The elderly patriarch of the Zhu Clan stood on a bamboo bridge overlooking a koi pond in one of the school’s many internal gardens. Dressed in silk blue and orange robes, the Grand Master had a tightly trimmed silver beard and long flowing silver hair that cascaded down his back. His back was straight, and despite his true age, Zhu Yusheng had the appearance of a man only in his early fifties.

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  "I believe so," Zhu Rhee replied from her position at the edge of the koi pond. The sun had begun to set, so only the final traces of red daylight still illuminated the garden. They were the only ones in this particular garden, since it was reserved solely for the school’s grand master.

  Grand Master Yusheng reached into the wooden bucket he was holding and threw a handful of wiggling worms into the pond. The koi fish immediately swam toward the newly available food, eagerly.

  "Why?"

  Rhee thought back to the destruction wrought in the training room by the blue and white lightning two weeks ago.

  "His cultivation base makes him a rare and deadly asset. The other teams will have a hard time handling someone like him."

  Zhu Yusheng considered his granddaughter. "His lightning chakra does make him unique, but there are reasons why most cultivators don’t aspect such a challenging qi to their first chakra. His path is likely doomed to being short."

  From the opening overhead, the blue and orange parrot flew down and settled on Zhu Yusheng’s shoulder. Rhee recognized the parrot as Cohai, her grandfather’s bonded spirit beast.

  "He doesn’t need to make it much further, Grandfather. He’s already able to fight against cultivators two stages above his own. If he can reach the third layer of the Initial Realm, he’ll be worth the same as another at the fifth layer."

  "You speak too highly of him." Grand Master Yusheng pet Cohai’s head affectionately. "Just because he has a technique that could have defeated you does not mean he’s as powerful as you are. After all, you defeated him, didn’t you?"

  "True," Rhee admitted.

  After her initial bout with Ishin, she had relayed the experience to her grandfather. She had originally been unimpressed until she’d witnessed Ishin’s final technique. Had it struck her directly, she didn’t doubt that she would have been severely injured. When she shared this detail with her grandfather, he had expressed hesitant interest in the Daihu warrior and had allowed him to remain as a probationary disciple. His only guidance had been for Rhee to remain focused on her own training, and let Ishin prove himself during the selection process two weeks from now. Rhee had mostly obeyed.

  Over the last two weeks, Hou Lei had come to her, asking permission to provide Ishin with training supplements. Rhee had used her position to authorize the usage of school resources, believing it a minimal investment. Her involvement had increased on the third day after Ishin’s arrival, when during dinner, Hou Lei shared with her and Wan Bo that he had begun sparring with Ishin.

  Wan Bo had inquired about Ishin’s abilities and the training exercises Hou Lei had assigned him. While not outwardly expressing curiosity, Rhee had listened eagerly to Hou Lei’s report. Hou Lei had revealed that Ishin was actually quite talented even without his spear. His only real shortcoming was that he was weirdly inept at cycling qi to enhance his physical capabilities. That seemed odd to Rhee. How could one with such martial skill, especially with the spear, not know how to properly cycle qi?

  The contradiction had furthered Rhee’s interest in the scarred tribesman. Starting the following day, she had used one of her darkness techniques to covertly observe Ishin and Hou Lei’s fights. As Hou Lei had said, Ishin was fairly skilled at unarmed combat. And like he had said, Ishin was terrible at cycling his qi in battle.

  For ten days, Rhee observed Ishin’s progress from the shadows. The foreigner improved at a remarkable speed, both in his unarmed combat capabilities and his qi cycling prowess. But her grandfather was right that his cultivation base was a big shortcoming. To that end, Rhee had sought out potential sources of lightning qi herself, discovering the presence of Thunder Horned Wolves in the neighboring Hollowing Scape Forest. The fact that the school maintained detailed maps of the forest and the hunting grounds of many spirit beasts was an unexpected benefit.

  "He’s stronger now though," Rhee asserted. She would still be able to defeat him, of course, as could Hou Lei and Wan Bo, but that was to be expected. "With a little more training, I think he could be a valuable addition to our team."

  "Is that why you’ve been wasting hours each day watching him train?"

  "I…" Rhee wasn’t sure what to say. She hadn’t expected to get caught. Her eyes landed on Cohai. That spying chicken. "I wanted to ensure the school’s resources weren’t being wasted without any benefit. And I saw that they weren’t."

  "Resources you allocated to a probationary disciple," Grand Master Yusheng chided. "If the boy had proved untalented, our school would have lost resources totaling eight gold and fourteen silver taels."

  Of course he conducted an audit. "But it paid off!"

  "That has yet to be seen." Zhu Yusheng shrugged his shoulder and Cohai flew off into the darkening sky. Rhee knew better than to respond immediately. "I was fine allowing you to provide resources to him under your own judgment, but you weren’t supposed to forgo your own training." Her grandfather sighed, "And now you’re going on a multi-day trip with him to the Hollowing Scape Forest to personally assist him with his progression. That is a problem."

  Rhee chose her next words very carefully. "It’s for my own sake too, Grandfather."

  One of his brows rose inquisitively. "Oh? And how is that?"

  "It’ll give me an opportunity to gain actual combat experience. I need to fight opponents where the stakes are real if I’m ever to go far on my Immortal Path. If I do it this way, against animals instead of true cultivators, at least I’ll have someone present to assist me."

  "Don’t try that excuse, Rhee. If you really wanted such an experience, I would have sent you to the forest a year ago, escorted by one of the school’s masters."

  "That’s not the same and you know it, Grandfather." Rhee never would have dared to speak so informally to any other master of the school, but this was her grandfather. "If I’d gone with one of the masters then I’d know there were no real stakes. This way, I’ll truly have to test myself. I need this, Grandfather. It’s why Lei is so skilled."

  "Disciple Hou Lei is a reckless fool who is lucky not to have been killed yet." Zhu Yusheng’s eyes narrowed. "He’s not still encouraging you to fight in the Dueling Pit, is he?"

  "No, Grandfather, he’s not." That was an old argument she wasn’t eager to start again. As the prodigy of one of the Three Martial Schools, it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to be seen fighting in the Dueling Pit like Western Quarter rabble.

  Rhee remembered Hou Lei telling her about his encounter with the Iron Mantises when he’d met Ro Ishin. She’d been jealous of his opportunity to fight the pompous Western Quarter denizens, wishing she’d been there. It wasn’t Hou Lei’s first time getting into a deadly brawl in the Western Quarter and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  Zhu Yusheng studied her with a heavy gaze, but eventually said, "I still think that Disciples Nie Hai or Ouyang Xue are likely to be selected for the team, and that this is a waste of your time. Master Guoqiang agrees. But I won’t make you go back on your word." Rhee’s shoulders relaxed in relief. "But this is the last time you will have any involvement with that probationary disciple until the selection process. You will let him succeed or fail on his own."

  "Understood, Grandfather," Rhee said with a bow. It was the best she could have realistically hoped for.

  "To ensure this," Zhu Yusheng continued, "I will personally oversee your training until the day of the selection process."

  Rhee felt a shiver run down her spine. She remembered just how intense her grandfather’s personal training could be. "Thank you," she managed.