I logged the array shop to memory as I passed. They would be the key to my foundation.

  Arrays. Alchemy. Heximedica. Blacksmithing. Music. There were many ways to earn extravagant sums of money, and arraycraft was only below alchemy. If I could sell just one low-rate array, I could buy wards and strip them for spirit jade. I could then take that spirit jade, and earn more resources. It was a positive cycle.

  That said, it came with heavy risk. Array shops in the Mortal districts were heavily regulated, as the sect, militaries, and array craft guilds throughout the world ran monopolies on them. Unless I was a disciple, I would get arrested if I tried.

  But.

  If I found a merchant with connections to the black market, I could sell the lock, the hidden part of the array, to a merchant for extravagant money—or trades.

  My goal was to find such a person.

  Fera and I finished our trip through the city, and then broke off for the night. Then, life repeated normally until the nineteenth day of my break.

  Fera said, “Hey, I’m not gonna be here tomorrow. I got some stuff to do.”

  I nodded, but my heart started thumping. I had time for my plan.

  The next morning I bought parchment, a brush, and an ink well. Then, I drew an array as sloppily as I could while ensuring it would still work. It hurt my soul to do it but it needed to be done. After all, the parchment was too new and people would think I stole it if it was too nice.

  It was a simple two layer array, meaning that the technique has two categories of elements with various applications. It was the most common type, but it had a coveted application: once someone stepped on it, it exploded.

  Simple.

  Easy to load.

  Lethal.

  The array’s “lock,” the part that's hidden to prevent replication, would sell for millions on the black market. As long as I acted ignorant of its true value and settled for a hundred thousand in wards, the merchant wouldn't complain or try to kill me.

  It was perfect.

  I studied the array and made for the door, but once I unlocked the door, I felt a piercing sensation. I activated Divine Eyes and saw Fera staring at me from a considerable distance with Divine Eyes.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and grabbed a tuft.

  I couldn't even notice when Fera was a hundred feet away from me. I was too weak, and the rawkan grew extremely slowly without resources. So I couldn’t fight back against surveillance.

  I casually slid the array under my new cloak as Fera barged through the door without my permission.

  “We will never reach a point where I allow you to enter without knocking,” I said.

  “Then you should've locked the door.”

  My eyebrow twitched. She watched it.

  Fera hopped onto my counter, wearing her robes instead of exposing her thighs in her characteristic short shorts.

  “Is there a reason you were spying on me?” I asked.

  Cultivators could sense when others used Divine Eyes and could see their rawkan light up as well. There was no sense in hiding it.

  Fera shrugged. “Is there a reason you can use Divine Eyes?”

  “Many cultivators will kill people who answer questions with questions.”

  She smiled. “That sounds unreasonable… Truth be told, I wasn’t spying on you. I was just curious if that rawkan of yours could notice me. Turns out it can—as a mighty fine distance, too. Care to explain?”

  “I met someone,” I said. “More than that, I will not say.”

  Her smile twisted into a grin. “Speaking of secrets…” She eyed the cloak. “You tryin’ to surprise me or somethin’?”

  “I am not.”

  “Aw. Come on. I already saw it but I wanna it.”

  I sighed and extracted the array. “It's an heirloom. I was gonna sell it.”

  Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “You drew this?”

  The emphasis on her question made me frown.

  I wondered. Then I looked at the messy calligraphic runes and crooked lines and grimaced.

  “What is it?” She asked. “A compression spell?”

  I studied her closely.

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  “I don't know,” I said.

  She whipped her head to me. “So what? You were just gonna sell it blind?”

  “No choice. I don't want to get robbed during the appraisal.”

  Fera rolled her eyes. “At least try it out first.” She pulled out a sealing container under her purse, and when she opened it, Qi blasted out of it. She retrieved black chalk and dropped to my wood floor, marking the symbols on my drawing.

  “You want to do that here?” I yelled. “Are you mad?”

  She grinned mischievously. “So you do know what it does.”

  My eyes flickered with murderous intent.

  “Fire… compression. Your family’s composed of Spiritless, so why would they pass down military arraycraft as an heirloom?”

  “You're an array master,” I said dryly.

  Fera wagged the chalk playfully. “You really don't remember anything…” Her smile snapped into a hardened expression. “Even the rules.”

  I lifted and dropped a cloak. “I'm better at talking than you think.”

  “And you'll still end up dead,” she said coldly. “Scarlet Moon controls the black auctions here. Corruption runs deep. If you so much as put out feelers, you'll be dead by morning.”

  I closed my eyes and took a frustrated breath.

  “Luckily, your little sis here has connects in the arraycraft world,” she chimed. “So I suppose I could help you. you told me what you wanted to buy.”

  My heart pumped in thick double rhythms.

  “Spirit jade,” I said.

  She furrowed her brow. “For what?”

  “To activate arrays. It makes my skin crawl that I can't cultivate. It makes me feel worthless.”

  Fera raised her eyebrows. “Is that all?”

  She rummaged through her purse and fished out a spirit jade shard. “Have at it, bro.”

  I accepted it with a wry smile. With the size and density, I would need a hundred to make a dent in my dantian.

  “It won't make this go boom,” she said, slapping my array twice. “But it'll do functional things.”

  I smiled and said, “Thank you.”

  “Bullshit,” she replied. “What are you really trying to do?”

  “Go home, Fera. Thank you for the jade.”

  “You don't even want some chalk?” She wiggled stick and I kept a neutral expression.

  “No.”

  “Of course you do.” Fera placed the black stick on the table. Then she paused and looked at me with these deep, enigmatic eyes.

  “I don't know why—but I like you. Like you how? I don’t know. But I do. So I wish you'd trust me. ‘Cause I’m actually on your side.”

  With those words, she walked out the door.

  I would never trust Fera Jentan. I might have grown slightly attached to her as an acquaintance, but I would never trust her. Because I would never trust anyone fully—even Rena. It wasn't a personality trait—it was a survival mechanism that all Immortals know well.

  To trust is to invite failure. That's why you should deal in incentives—even if that incentive is not to be killed. For while you cannot trust in emotions, you can trust in greed and the will to survive.

  Fera was even more extreme. She was the apotheosis of the irrational nature of humankind—the bizarre mental deficiencies that make grown women sit with their backs against a cliff’s edge to validate emotions that the other party could clearly not understand.

  No—I would never trust Fera.

  I let her into my life and bore the consequences — but I didn't trust her.

  Those were two different things.

  And cooperation did have benefits. I looked at the stick of chalk, delighted by the boom.

  With the sliver spirit jade, I could finally manipulate Inspector Gramly’s sigil on the cloak—giving me access to the Outer Court. So long as I could pass off as a disciple, I could sell an array to an ignorant disciple and get resources from it. That was the key to victory.

  The only question was how to break free from Gramly’s surveillance. After our meeting, I had trained and ran publically, and my personality had changed. There was no way I wasn't under investigation.

  That said, the investigation was to my benefit. It offered me protection, and the sect's interest. Because in the worst case scenario, I would have to show off my skills to protect my life.

  Cloak.

  Arrays.

  Skill.

  The key to survival is to have patience and make yourself indispensable. And when you can't do that, make sure you have options to help you escape.

  —---

  Fera showed up the next morning with her robes on and an extra gray pair in her arms.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Guest robes,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “The Outer Court.”

  “I can enter?”

  “Anyone can enter with an escort and an elder’s permission. And as you can see, I got the authorization. So dress up.”

  I accepted the robes and stared at them thoughtfully. “What are we going to do there?”

  “Eat food, and hang out. What do you think?” She huffed. “We’re going to the arraymaster guild, obviously.”

  “To sell the array?” I asked.

  “No, to get you a job, dummy.”

  I froze.

  “Look guy, you messed up. ‘Cause that array? It proved it. You’re not Kain.”

  I laughed. “I’m not Kain. Then who am I? A practitioner of the taboo? Someone who voluntarily injected my soul into the crippled body of a hundred year slave?”

  Fera smiled wryly. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Kain.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

  “The truth,” she said hotly. “Look guy. I’ve known Kain for ten years and you’re not even remotely like him. Hell, I visited that mountain every week before the curfew, and you were the exact same. Then you got hit in the head with a rock, and now this? Blunt force trauma makes people dumb—it doesn’t up their diction and fill them with sagely wisdom about cultivators.”

  I didn't react, so she pressed on.

  “You don't understand, Kain. Everyone knows. Your crew, your friends… hell, even the doxies are taking notice. It's only been a month and they're gossiping. And Aliana blessed Trikan with profound jealousy. He waits for me every day I leave here. He's panicking.”

  My eyes narrowed and I genuinely thought about killing my clownish coworker before he started causing me trouble. I could be on the mountain for decades, and in that time he would be a serious liability. Jealousy is the darkest of emotions and pushes even the most rational and powerful of cultivators to throw away their lives—I imagine humans would throw themselves on swords over nothing. And she proved that in her next admission.

  “And I kinda used that, you know? I found him when he was drunk one night and started complaining about how you changed all of a sudden. And he pounced, unloading about how creepy and terrible you were. And he told me something really interesting. He said Renly showed up and like you said, but he heard you thrashing like a dying animal. He said he heard you die, Kain.”

  Her eyes flashed with cold defiance.

  “But then something strange happened. He said that someone got up, but it wasn't Kain. He was confident, cold, and calculating. He said that he beat Renly savagely, telling him to kill himself to survive the shame. He spoke like a cultivator. A true cultivator. Someone like you.

  “Tell me, Kain, or whoever you are, are you really going to claim you’re him? Or are you going to keep treating everyone like they’re stupid?”

  I rolled my eyes. “If you want me to say something else, you'll be sorely disappointed.”

  “Okay, I get that. Seems smart. And look, it doesn't even matter. I wouldn't be here if I thought you killed my friend. This isn't about calling you out. It's not some confession. There's nothing I'm saying that wasn't obvious yesterday. This isn't about that—it's practical. Kain—once that curfew ends, Renly’s people are going to kill you… and that's my fault. And that's been awful knowing that. But that array of yours? That changes everything. I couldn't save Kain, but the second I saw that, I realized I could save you.”

  I leaned against the wall. “Why?”

  “It's better if you see.”

  She pulled off a satchel and pulled out a notebook and showed me arrays she drew. When I saw them, the entire left side of my face spasmed.