As Huang Jin hoped, the Emperor’s shunning order only went as far as his tutors. When he spoke to the Chief Archivist, the middle-aged cultivator did not turn him away. “May I please ask for a searching talisman, Master Moshui?” he asked, standing on tiptoe to reach the desk. Even on tiptoe, his eyes barely crested the edge and he had to steady himself with his hands.

  The Archivist’s eye and mouth twitched. The prince found the reaction comforting; it was the face adults- especially older cultivators- made when they tried to suppress a smile. He managed to invoke it very often, especially among the chronically serious individuals of the court.

  Silently, the man tore a small piece of parchment paper from a book of similar pages and handed it down. A curt nod later, the prince was free to wander the Halls of History.

  The Halls of Missives and Transactions, making up the Archive’s first circle, were no good. He needed to find information that even the greatest spirit doctor in the Empire had missed. The second and third circles were filled with documents, both scrolls and Southern-style books, pertaining to the Empire’s long history and general scholarship. The walls were lined with shelves and racks, stretching up to indefinite heights toward a ceiling enchanted to be indistinguishable from the open sky.

  Half library and half museum, the floorspace between the intimidating walls of literature bore countless displays. Glass and ancient formations protected inert relics from ages past, as well as portraits, statues, and plinths. Many had related scrolls chained to their bases to inform the passer-by of their relevance and history.

  To Huang Jin, this place represented paradise. The smell of paper and preserved wood, the sense of history both exhilarating and oppressive… and now, he had nowhere else to be. Cruel irony, then, that even now he couldn’t peruse at his leisure. He was on a mission.

  Only a month ago, a search like this would have taken uncountable days. Now, he was a real cultivator; he had the qi to make use of the library’s greatest boon. Taking a small knife in hand, he made an incision on the tip of his index finger. He then produced the paper talisman and let the blood drip into the center of its geometric patterns. The lines and letters sprung to life; the paper burnt away, leaving the design hovering in the air before the prince.

  Something ancient stirred all around, as if the whole grand Archive were a single living thing and somebody had poked it with a stick. A formless intelligence awoke and extended a single piece of itself through the floor. Before the prince, a translucent shape arose; robed and hooded like an acolyte, tall as a man, utterly silent. It floated through the air like a scrap of paper, but a line tethered it to an unseen point beneath the ground. The effect was humorously similar to a finger puppet.

  Huang Jin tipped his head to the spirit. “Thank you for answering my call,” he said, and held out his hand. The blood still seeped through the small cut on his finger; he had not moved his qi to close the wound. Spirits were said to love blood, even benevolent spirits… and he would be working closely with the Archive in the days to come.

  The shape wavered back and forth in the air, as if trying to make a decision. It finally answered by wrapping its hood around the prince’s hand; when it floated away, the blood was gone. It somehow looked just a bit brighter, though its body remained colorless.

  “I’m looking for scrolls containing the words, ‘coreless cultivation.’ Can you help me find some?” The spirit moved behind the prince and covered his eyes with its spectral sleeves. This did not obstruct his view; rather, he found that many of the scrolls lining the walls were now visibly glowing. He beamed and clapped his hands together. “Oh, there are so many!”

  Even a small selection of these works gave him nightmares for weeks.

  It turned out, coreless cultivation was easy, so easy that commoners often discovered such methods by accident. They went by all kinds of names, such as “internal gu cultivation” and the like, but most scrolls just called them “demonic.” Regardless of all other variations, every single one of these that Huang Jin discovered involved a whole lot of gruesome murder.

  That door closed immediately. He would need to seek older scrolls and more varied keywords as he forged onward.

  The work was hard. Every day, he would search for some related terminology or spiritual medical technique, climbing scaffolding like a monkey to reach the most remote works. Days turned into weeks as he found plenty of trivia, but precious little of real value.

  His great breakthrough occurred only half a week before his destined meeting. The searching spirit had already departed, its duty spent, and the discouraged prince prepared to head back to his chambers. A glass case the size of an armoire caught his eye, because its plaque made reference to the ocean. A vacation out East with his mother and sister flared into his mind, and somehow this seemed absolutely relevant and important.

  Drawing closer, he recognized the words emblazoned above the display. “The Lesson of the Octopus,” written in bold, ancient letters. Within lay a wooden box containing a perfectly round, lustrous black pearl. The shelf under the glass contained a scroll connected to a sturdy chain; additional information for the curious peruser.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Elder Fu came to mind. Long ago, Huang Jin made some remark about another teacher scolding him, and the boisterous Elder had laughed. “Remember the Lesson of the Octopus, and let it pass. Rebuke is an ingredient of learning. ‘Learning is done at the student’s risk and the teacher’s discretion; no matter your lineage or upbringing, humility before your educator is sacred.’” He spoke this in a voice indicating a quote.

  The prince quickly discovered where the quote came from, as he read the information in and about the display. The scroll was old, even by the Empire’s standards, preserved in its state by qi infusion, and he found the words awkward and difficult to read.

  It told the tale of one of his ancient relatives, one Yulong Weiwu, second son of the second Great Dragon Emperor. Young but honored as a warrior, Weiwu left the City of the Gate seeking enlightenment through the Dao. He went to find the Immortal of the Great River, a figure unfamiliar to Huang Jin. The text said little about this character, only that she was “the Eldest of all.” Weiwu managed to locate her through many trials and tribulations, and begged her for instruction.

  She said, “Seek Wisdom from the Souldrinker, who dwelleth beneath the Waves. Learn from him, and Bringeth back such as you have Learned.” Weiwu then dived beneath the waters of the Ocean King’s realms, battled and killed a souldrinker octopus, and returned to the Immortal with the creature’s corpse.

  It was remarkably difficult to make out her reply. The dialect shifted wildly, incorporating many words that the little prince either couldn’t read or was forbidden to say aloud.

  Reconstructed, and with a bit of guesswork, the reply went, “What the fuck, man? That wasn’t a euphemism, this is literally the exact fucking opposite of what I told you to do! Like, what was the plan here? Are you just dumb?”

  Weiwu replied in anger, saying, “Who are you, to speak thus to a descendant of Yulong?”

  The Immortal’s next line was even harder to read. Many of the words were written in phonetic characters, describing words unfamiliar to the writer, likely proper names in a foreign language. To the best of Huang Jin’s ability: “Bitch, King Solomon came to me for advice. I was Emperor Jing of Han’s midwife. I had brunch with Eleanor Roosevelt! And who are you, exactly?”

  Both of her replies baffled and intrigued Huang Jin, both in style and content. In the story, Weiwu lost himself to rage at the insults and attacked the Immortal. His scribe, apparently the writer of the tale, carried the warrior-prince’s corpse home to his father, the second Great Dragon Emperor. The 'corpse' had been compressed into a tiny, perfectly round object: the very pearl resting in the display.

  Learning this startled the boy out of his reading. He looked at the ‘pearl’ in a new light; they put a family member’s body on display in the Archive? He kept reading. The insult, and the loss of his son, moved the Emperor to action; he raised a great army and mobilized allied Sects to assault the Immortal.

  The voice of Ancestor Yulong himself rose from the palace grounds to defuse the attack. “When the Student Errs, he earns for himself Rebuke. When the Student dares raise his hand to his master, he opens himself to destruction. Such is the Proper way of things; and may the Line keep the Lesson of the Octopus forever. Lest the Line should fall into folly, and fail.” Then, the body was enshrined in the Archive as a lesson for future generations.

  Huang Jin sat and considered this story for some time. Reading between the lines, the Immortal in the story feared nothing from insulting a member of the Imperial Household. The author took her as a given, a known figure whose odd actions required no specific explanation. When action would have been taken against her, the Ancestor himself interceded to prevent the conflict.

  The Archive contained no shortage of material about old monsters and hidden masters. Yet somehow, none stuck to the prince’s mind like this one. He found his next search target; the very next day, he asked the spirit to show him works containing references to “The Immortal of the Great River.”

  He tracked her presence in literature over time. She mostly appeared in the very oldest works, and very few even of these. Whenever she appeared, the author felt no need to describe her, as if she were well-known.

  Records dried up over time. Most likely, scholars assumed she had either Ascended beyond the realms of mortality, or died in an unknown corner of the world.

  Going on another wild hunch, Huang Jin moved to a more recent corner of the Archive. The spirit accompanied him. “Mister Spirit, can you show me works with the words, ‘great river’ and ‘Immortal’ close together?” Lots and lots of scrolls lit up. Both were common, popular phrases. He needed to think of something more specific. “How about…” What would be noticeable, if a truly ancient cultivator were quietly operating today? He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he had discovered a key awaiting the right lock.

  He only wanted to confirm that this… being of ancient stories and immense power and wisdom still lived. He had this feeling. This is important, he knew. “How about ‘river,’ ‘ancient,’ uh…” Too many highlights again. “‘River,’ any word that means ‘an ancient thing,’ and ‘miracle-worker’ all close together!”

  A small number of scrolls, all detailing events only a few centuries old. There, he found exactly what he searched for in a most unexpected place: an autobiography by Yulong Cai Fu, Elder Fu himself, detailing his own Dao journey. He had met a mysterious miracle-worker of some local renown, who provided him with an outrageously powerful elixir. Most importantly, while he did not record any specific words from her, he noted that she ‘spoke in a most peculiar fashion.’

  Her name was written “Dahe Yiji,” which translated to “Relic of the Great River.”

  After three and a half arduous weeks, Huang Jin had finally found his question.