The man walked casually among the trees enjoying the calm of the forest until it wasn’t.

  “Is that the signal?” a girl's voice sounded out over the hooting of startled birds.

  The man glanced up at the girl sitting on a particularly unique floating branch a single leaf attached on one end before looking in the general direction she was staring at.

  “No” the man shook his head “it is too early.”

  “should we check it out?”

  “Why not?” The man spoke and walked calmly into a tree.

  The next time the man appeared was from a different tree and this time he could visible see the commotion in the distance, he waited as a particularly distinct branch with a single leaf attached to one end floated to a stop beside his head.

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  “He does look like in the pictures” the man told his partner “I will go first and see what is going on. Hang back in case he is not the one we seek.”

  ...........................

  Zhao Bing was thinking, he had succeeded in preventing the flames from spreading to the rest of the forest with the ice fence. Now, he was contemplating his options to resolve the situation, either to go in through the fire and try to calm the boy down or to wait out his aether reserve before going in. Rustling leaves drew him from his musing and he turned to regard the cause. It was a monk, he was bald and had on a brown monk’s robe, a set of wooden prayer beads sat tied around his wrist.

  “Greetings, might you be Zhao Bing of the University of Aniu-lang?”

  “Yes, that is I, and who might you be, monk?”

  “You may address me as monk Chen or brother Chen, whichever suits you and i will address you as brother Zhao.”

  “Are you the ones coming from Chensun temple?”

  “Correct, brother Zhao. We are here to collect our new disciple, if you may call him for us, we would be on our way.”

  “Is that so, well your timing is just perfect, my nephew is within this barrier” Zhao Bing pointed at his wall of ice “he seems to have lost control of his aether. I hear your temple” he shot a glance at the girl hovering a ways away “specialize in instructing young people with, uhm, unique..... circumstances.”