Huang Jin sat in the shade, beneath a palm tree, just after noon. The week was up. In one hand, he held a black ball, looking for all the world like a polished lump of coal. He stared at it as though it had personally insulted his entire family.

  The foliage rustled behind him, accompanied by that ever-familiar feeling. Master had come to check on his progress.

  “I like that cauldron. That is a nice cauldron,” she said first. He looked back to follow her gaze. Just inside the jungle canopy lay the little shelter he’d built, and the green-tinted sunlight glittered off of the glass vestibule within. Qi-tempered glass, etched with complex formations and forged from beach sand, no small feat in and of itself. Master had insisted he use all-local materials for the project, while she returned home alone.

  He didn’t respond. She approached, and he noticed she wore her ‘cultivation’ robe now rather than her beach attire. “Ah, that’s some dank stuff there!” she said. “Just in time, too, not that I doubted you for a minute.”

  The prince shook his head, still holding the medicine as if he were on the verge of throwing it away. “I think maybe you should have, Master. Behold.” He said this with no energy, only holding up the round, faintly burnt-smelling object. “The finest, most potent poison I’ve ever mixed. Guaranteed to cause catastrophic internal damage within three hours of use, even at the Master level.”

  She leaned in, squinting at the black ball. “Kinda valuable in its own right. What, did you have trouble getting ingredients?”

  “No…” he started. In fact, he’d found he could trade for or gather everything just fine. He’d encountered plentiful spiritual seaweed, a hermit crab willing to point out caches of rare seagrass for a minor enchantment etched onto its shell, glowing seaslugs and giant fish, etcetera. Rather… “I didn’t think this through. I kept thinking I’d work out the problem somehow. Even through the final refinement cycle, I thought that big brain of mine would come up with something. Nope.” He hung his head. “I think it’s just impossible to cause a seventy-five percent affinity swing without killing the user.”

  Master cocked her head at the medicine. “Hey… when the Souldrinker in question gave you the commission, did he actually specify non-lethality?”

  “Master,” the prince started, then bit back his first response. He released it, instead, as a question. “Wouldn’t that make me just like one of those shady back-alley alchemists?” The world was full of folk going about selling ‘miracle cures’ and ‘elixirs,’ even tainted spirit-refining pills mixed to enthrall or poison the patient. The very idea was utterly disdainful.

  “Look, it’s one thing when you’re crafting something for sale. You always want to make your wares safe and effective. Commissions are a whole different ball game.” She raised one finger to the tropical blue sky. “You make the product they asked for, nothing more and nothing less. If you can make it healthy, great! If it’s impossible, that’s on them, not you.”

  “But-”

  “I, your Master, give you this advice: give him the product as-is. This is the important part! Tell him all of the side effects, in detail, before handing it over. That’s how you avoid being shady. If he doesn’t like it, keep the yang murder orb and give back the dragon scale. Simple as that.”

  Huang Jin still had his doubts. “What if he gets mad?”

  “Then you talk fast and flutter those eyelashes like your life depends on it.”

  There was nothing else for it. He suspended the Yang Affinity Shift pill in water contained in a glass jar, to protect it from pressure. After changing into his swimsuit and donning the Water Breath Amulet, he made his way back below the waves.

  Even after a week in these environs gathering materials, the exotic beauty of the reef soothed him. As he crept between safe corals and harrowing open patches, he let his mind slip away to avoid thinking about the task at hand.

  Even after three years living with it, [Cognitive Enhancement] was a marvel. For the average person, the subconscious formed the bulk of the mind. [Cognitive Enhancement] did not remove this divide, rather the opposite. Sometimes, the prince felt as though he were a thin film covering a vast machine he could not understand or control. As he sunk into a relaxed state, that intricate and inscrutable machine picked up the slack.

  He found himself meditating on the nature of coral. They looked like plants, or rocks, but in fact were colonies of tiny animals. And such fascinating animals! Most corals lived in symbiosis with tiny, single-celled organisms, which processed sunlight in the manner of plants. While the animals fed on detritus in the water column, these microorganisms also fed them a steady stream of energy from the sun.

  That tickled Huang Jin’s subconscious for some reason. Humans, too, lived in symbiosis with microorganisms. The gut was full of them, processing food and regulating hormones… the gut, the dantian, microscopic life, symbiosis, jing. He let his hind-brain churn with all these seemingly random thoughts, until he finally made it back to the little clearing in the living stone jungle.

  There waited the brain coral. This time, the Souldrinker unfolded immediately as the prince entered the clearing.

  

  With some hesitation, the prince drew the jar from his bag. The octopus had its suckers around the jar in an instant, pulling it away before Huang Jin could react.

  

  The client sounded ecstatic, which made the next part that much harder.

  

  

  

   he finally broke through with a mental shout.

  For a moment, there were only the ambient sounds of the reef. The ever-present whalesong, the grinding of distant coral-chewers, the gentle current passing through arches. Then, laughter sounded in the prince’s mind, carefree and gentle. It was the laugh of a kindly grandfather, responding to a small child.

  

  As the Souldrinker’s merriment continued, he swept to Huang Jin’s side, wrapping a tentacle conspiratorially around his shoulder. The arm was cold and slimy, the suction cups felt weird, but there was no denying the warmth of the gesture. The boy was so taken aback he couldn’t respond. Only when the octopus’ laughter subsided did he find his mental voice again.

  

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The prince, once again, could say nothing. The spirit beast’s presence overwhelmed him, and his words baffled. With another appendage, the spirit beast plucked a little flake of soapstone from an unseen outcrop and handed it to the boy.

  The prince held the soapstone numbly, letting the moment wash over him.

  One question. Several possibilities arose from that seething mass of thought underneath the prince’s mind, but he was too distraught to pay them much attention. One line of inquiry managed to rise above the throng: were all of this creature’s kind so apt to perish? But a simple ‘yes or no’ question would never do for the occasion.

  Most creatures, and plants, and even microscopic life could process qi. In each case, rare individuals could rise to new heights, Ascending from the ranks of their peers and forebears to become something greater. In a way, the process was analogous to humanity’s drive to cultivate and Ascend to immortality, even godhood. How did it work for a species of spirit beast that did not seek immortality? This presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

  

  The octopus grew still, and those strange, alien eyes looked deep into Huang Jin’s. He pulled the boy closer, as though someone might overhear the conversation of their minds. Perhaps some spirit beasts could.

  

   The voice paused, as if lost in thought or wonder. 

  The prince could not imagine it.

  

  Huang Jin had no response. A sucker peeled itself off of his skin, then reapplied itself; a comforting pat on the arm. it said, voice still laced with humor,

  And that was it. The Souldrinker needed time to prepare for his paramour’s arrival, and so the prince had to go. He bid farewell, head still spinning, and turned for the shore.

  Master waited on the beach, but she did not ask her student what happened, or what he had learned. She let him remain in thoughtful silence as he dried himself off. Then, he sat down in the sand out of the tides' reach, and just stared out at the sea. The depths of his mind seethed with activity, trying to make room for this new information. Connection after connection, building up to a shape he did not like.

  The orange sun sank beneath the cloudless horizon far to the West, on the other side of the world, and still he sat there with his Master by his side. Stars twinkled to life overhead, and the prince instinctively turned his face upward to read them.

  “Auspicious night,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  The sound of waves that had grown so familiar over the past week, Master’s warmth next to him, the open sky and the cold stars above… it was the perfect environment for him to let go. But he just couldn’t. When he could bear it no longer, he asked the question tied to that horrible little string.

  “Master. Isn’t immortality the ultimate goal of cultivation?”

  Her response cut right through the question. “You usually revel in learning new things. What’s so different this time?”

  He wet his lips, hesitating to answer. “You’ve taught me so much… but Elder Fu taught me first. He taught me how to cultivate, and a little about the gods, and humanity, and the world…”

  “And you know just what I think of that!”

  “Yeah.” Then, the hard part. “Master, he’s gone. I can’t remember his face anymore. Not his face, or his voice, no words or phrases. Only the general shape of his teachings.” He paused again, gathering for the final admission. “If I accept this line of thought… I have to let go of it. All of it. I don’t want to let go.”

  “What do we call an easy truth, love?”

  “‘A lie wearing a funny hat,’” he recited.

  “And what is this new line of thought you’ve got bubbling up in there? I’ve given you enough time. Now, you must tell me the wisdom you’ve gleaned from the Souldrinker.”

  He breathed deeply, and gave her the sequence. “Why would an octopus not want to live forever? That led into the question of why a human would. I think it’s because great apes are gregarious; we live in family groups where the elderly stick around to help raise the young. Long life, therefore, conveys a multigenerational survival advantage. Then it kind of spiralled out from there.

  “Humans need a Path. We must seek understanding of the Dao to Ascend, so that makes us different from spirit beasts, right? But it comes back to survival advantage. We, as a species, have evolved to seek understanding in our environment. Qi follows biological routes.”

  He paused again, turning his eyes from the stars down to the sand. “If… if spirit beasts can birth gods, and do so in a way that aligns with their own life history, where does that leave us?”

  “... Well?” Master prompted.

  “We’re not special. Cultivation isn’t this profound spiritual journey… It’s all just a byproduct of qi interacting with biology. Godhood is the natural endpoint of a metaphysical lifecycle. Is that wisdom? Is that conclusion arrogant? I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He heaved another heavy breath and returned his gaze to the gentle waves lapping the shore. “Maybe it’s blasphemy, even if it’s true.”

  “Well, you made some wild leaps in logic getting there, but it’s a good start. And don’t worry. Truth is only blasphemy to tyrants, and most of the gods remember how they got there. Worship in peace; their power is real enough, as are their portfolios.”

  “May I ask, what was the intended lesson?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, you basically got it. Other species have their own shit going on, cultivators could use a lesson in perspective and de-anthropocentrism. Question is, what are you going to do with this newfound perspective?”

  He didn’t have an answer, and that was okay. “I guess I just… make this another part of me, and whatever it changes, changes. And, I have to try to hold on to Elder Fu some other way.”

  “That’s the spirit,” she said, ruffling his hair. The two remained there together under the stars, the student leaning on his Master’s arm. The work wasn’t quite over yet.

  -

  Dahe Yiji did not consider herself among ‘The Wise.’ This was partially because ‘The Wise’ were invariably people she found abhorrent, these days. Of course, one would never catch ‘The Wise’ sitting on the beach sipping an ice-cold pina colada.

  Her eyes penetrated all. The waves, the animals, the calcified bones of the reef itself, nothing could stop her gaze from reaching her protege. There he was, butchering the carcass of a massive spirit octopus, weeping all the while. She’d never actually seen him cry before, even after three and a half years together. But, sensitive as he might be, he would adapt, and press on. His focus could not be denied; his ability to analyze context, meanwhile, remained hilariously situational.

  She prepared to depart as he began the long journey back to the beach. Not that it needed much prep work, she kept the teleportation formation juiced up at all times and she wouldn’t change her clothes until they got back. She stretched and drank in the tropical sunlight. Songying continued to heave under winter’s weight, and she wanted to enjoy this while it lasted.

  The kid stopped, for a long time. He looked a growth of coral up and down, eyebrows knitted up as though thinking hard. He stroked his little chin thoughtfully. What was he thinking about, down there? She didn’t know, and that was glorious. The next trial awaited, and this one would be a doozy. A treat for her, and a chance for him to show his stuff in full.

  She could hardly wait.