That’s what I thought when I saw Fera’s array. All the runes were scribbled haphazardly and despite clearly using a compass and stencils, she clearly didn’t understand the essence of runes. The calligraphy around runes isn’t a style—it’s as essential as the rune itself. The same is true of spacing and lines. These things aren't letters—they’re concepts—and they're the same from the Mortal to Immortal realm. And even tools, it was a complete mess.

  So while she painted the right runes, they were functionally useless in their composition. I wasn’t even sure if it would work.

  “See?” she asked. “You can’t even hide your contempt. And that's with stencils. I have a feeling you botched yours. And that got me think~ing, you could become a calligrapher. It’s one of the only jobs in the cultivation arts that doesn’t require cultivation. And with your skills… I know you can get in.”

  It was a really good offer. I was found out. Trouble was coming. I’d get protection. Access to the Outer Court. Everything. Yet there were major problems that I felt I would run into, but I would find out. Because before I could refuse, she thrust robes into my hands and said, “Now get dressed. If you don't show after all of this, I'll probably kill myself.”

  —---

  Scarlet Moon’s Outer Court was spectacular compared to the Gaylond Pond Sect that I had studied in during my Mortal Plane tenure in my first life. No, it was spectacular by all standards.

  Outer courts are the first step into a sect. They are a consortium of interns and manufacturers who do the work that is too secretive to contract to Spiritless, but to beneath the Inner Court Disciples. Bottling elixirs, packaging pills, linking spirit jade to wards. It's an endless series of apprenticeships with few lectures and optional opportunities. To be an Outer Court disciple is to be a worker on their mandatory journey toward the Inner Court—

  But you would never know that at Scarlet Moon.

  There was a sense of pride in the Outer Court. The obsidian pathways were lined with Scarlet Rowes, trees with crimson leaves that bloom with white flowers in the springtime. On them walked men in flowing red robes; women wore pink. These distinctions celebrated the differences between sexes, as in in the world of cultivation, where techniques—not physical strength—is not the deciding factor in battles, equality flourished.

  We passed by cultivators in lotus positions in the park, listening to gossip of sexual relationships from women as Inner Court disciples flew on swords overhead. This was an outer court fit for an inner court.

  “You impressed?” Fera asked.

  I nodded. “I am.”

  She smiled. “Wait till you see the arraycraft district.

  The arraycraft district had tall buildings with gigantic arrays painted on them. It looked grand, but their choice of arrays was fit for satire

  “What’s so funny?” Fera asked.

  “It’s just…” I smiled. “Take that one for example.” I pointed to a five story building with a gorgeous array upon it. “There are few arrays in this area that can match its aesthetic, but it is merely an advanced polishing array for refined stones and steel. To an Outer Court disciple, it is the grandest thing in the world. But a true master would scoff at such theatrics. If this court had decency, they would create fortification arrays that showed their true splendor, then educated their guests of their might.”

  Fera stared at me with wonder, shifting between me and the array. Then she trembled with excitement and said, “Gah. I can’t wait for you to meet Flora! Come on.”

  She grabbed my hand with irritating familiarity and dragged me to a building two streets down the outer court, drawing attention from everyone present.

  I asked myself as the disciples gossiped. I pulled back my hand, but we were already walking through the building.

  Upon arrival she signaled to a woman in black attire. The woman bowed. Then, she led us up two flights of marble staircases and down a hall lined with artwork before reaching a luxurious room filled with disciples performing calligraphy as others condemned their work.

  I eyed a calligrapher's work. It was unreadable, but it was far better than Fera’s. Which didn't say much.

  But to be fair, the official arrays in the room were atrocious—and that was telling. Mortals and Immortals painted the same runes. Naturally, the use, application, and understanding is vastly superior, but the concepts remain the same. And throughout the Mortal Plane in both my lifes, I saw demonstrations of that. Yet stenciling had destroyed the essence of the calligraphy, and the Qi application was lost in the translation. As a result, most of what I was looking at was functionally useful but it lacked deeper understanding and nuance. And even then, some of the runes had malformed stencils. Just seeing them left me with complex emotions.

  “See, I told you,” Fera said to someone who had just walked in.

  I turned and saw an elder with golden accents on her robes.

  I thought.

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

  In sects, Inner Court disciples acted as managers for Outer Court businesses, and Core disciples ran operations for the Inner Court. Something must have happened to bring her to the outer court—and it must have been a cruel story.

  Despite appearing in her natural forties, she was in her eighties, judging by her soul seed. Her breathing was also in the High Core stage, a stage with boundless potential, and her blonde hair was tied up in a bun with a pin. The style came off distinguished, regal—official—and her sharp eyes told me of her station.

  I thought.

  My guess was that she had angered a higher senior and was demoted as punishment. Yet her chaste appearance and grace made it likely that she wasn’t at fault.

  The world is cruel. Cruel indeed.

  “You’re right,” said the woman. “It’s obvious.”

  I studied her to see her intentions. Just like Fera, she saw through my age at a glance—and there’s nothing I could do about that. Anyone who believes they can consistently act younger than they are is a fool and I refused to debase myself with childish acting. What mattered was that soul swapping was an advanced technique that required extraordinary resources—it shouldn’t be possible on the Mortal Plane. So try as they might to convict me of a crime, they would never succeed. That said, it could still be troublesome.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Kain Reskco, Elder.”

  “Your real name.”

  “If I may give my answer with a blunt question,” I said. “If I were, as Fera insists, another person, a victim of fate or sinister circumstances, would I admit such a thing to you? To risk disclosure as someone who could have a background in the taboo?”

  Her lips curved up into a smirk.

  “Elder Flora,” Fera whispered. “Please forgive him. This is just the way he speaks. I doubt that he could show true respect if he wished to.”

  My neck veins bulged as Elder Flora, known familially as Eina Flora, but who I will simply refer to as “Flora,” turned to her disciple and said:

  “He’s followed decorum and answered adequately, so don't worry about it.” She returned her focus to me. “Show me your calligraphy.”

  “As you wish,” I said.

  Flora whistled. “Telan.” She nudged her head and the young man painting a fortification array moved out of the way.

  I walked to the easel and analyzed the work he had already done.

  The disciple had used a compass and tools to create the circle, so I didn't have to erase what they did. So I burned the incorrect reference image into my mind as I picked up the brush.

  “You can use a fresh piece of parchment,” Flora said.

  I didn’t even look at her as I said: “There’s no need.”

  —------

  Halkan accepted a glass of wine from a beautiful blonde in her office. She worked on a high rise overseeing the city of Culan, an economic hub specializing in Mystic Tide, a sacred resource cultivated in a nearby waterfall on the edge of the city.

  Despite her young age, she had a five hundred meridian constitution, and she looked no older than twenty eight. All of these things were remarkably rare for someone in their early second century—let alone a Mortal who had risen to the Celestial Plane.

  “Kain Reskco,” she said distantly. “It feels strange to hear someone address him so… concretely. That’s rare here. He seized this city, what? {Thirty} years before I got here? And despite that, people treated me like a psychotic when I said I was looking for him. It was like he was a folk tale to these people.”

  Halkan spun the wine in his glass with a slight smile. “Can you blame them?”

  Her lips curved into a smile, then she crossed one leg over the other in her business skirt. “No.” Her eyes drifted off. “I lived with the man, and I’m still not confident I’d be able to pick him out of a lineup. It's not just his appearance. It's just that I’ve defied him so much that if I ever met him again, he’d probably be the opposite of how I remember him.”

  Halkan took a drink of wine and laughed. “With that, I will disagree. I’m sure he would be just as stoic and infuriating as you remember him.”

  She raised her glass to her lips but lowered it. “What makes you think I found him infuriating?”

  “Well, for starters, he is quite infuriating,” Halkan said, making her laugh. “And as a follow up, he is quite .”

  “Well, there's that. The day I met him, he was a lot of both. Though, it's not quite fair to say he was either.”

  “How so?”

  She looked out her office window in thought. “A lot of his distinctness came from his body. It was just so… unnatural. Even at twenty five, it felt like someone stuffed a grown man into a four year old’s body. I know that sounds extreme, but it really was. That body created this wildly disorienting contrast that you noticed immediately. But once he changed it, and his appearance matched his voice and confidence, it was the opposite. His arrogance felt justified, and his confidence was smooth and attractive. Really attractive. It was only once he started working that you remembered who he was. So yeah, while he was distinct, it's hard to say it was his personality.

  The same was true of his flaws.

  My disciple warned me that he was a rude, judgmental narcissist, but assured me that he was a great calligrapher and I needed to hire him. So I expected to meet my boss in my calligraphy studio that day, but found someone else entirely.

  Kain wasn't judgmental—he was appalled. You should've seen the way he looked at an official Scarlet Moon fortification template. It was a grotesque mixture of scorn and perplexity, as if he couldn't believe how pathetic what he was seeing was. It wasn't the skill—it was the array itself. And you could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew what he was talking about. I wanted to know if he could back it up, but I didn't know how—until he looked at me.

  It only took a glance, but that was enough to make me feel naked, exposed, and vulnerable, as if he saw everything about me, inside and out, and then captured it. The look he had said, , and I strangely trusted that he was right and that he probably knew more about me than I did. That sounds bizarre, but imagine that you looked at a young, bruised girl in ragged clothing. You can tell a whole lot about her life at a glance, so you look at them with a certain gaze. He gave that look—me, a sharply dressed core disciple—as if I were the one to be pitied.

  So I panicked.

  I snapped and said, “Show me your calligraphy,” to relieve that pressure.

  Then he smiled arrogantly and said, “As you wish,” then proceeded to prove that arrogance is sometimes warranted.

  Kain drew a perfect array. And I mean perfect. It was a simple array, but still. There was no compass for the circle. No ruler for the lines. No drying or waiting. It was freehand with beautiful calligraphy and he did it all in less than two minutes. It was so surreal that even the most competitive of disciples watched with eyes as wide as the three oceans. There was a whole chorus of , and, and Fera and I were gobsmacked.

  But not Kain.

  Kain eyed his masterpiece with contempt. He carefully placed the brush on its stand and then stared at his hands before looking up with a neutral expression. And I remembered being baffled because his frustration was so genuine. I get it now. Kain’s body couldn’t keep up with his mind; his cultivation couldn’t keep up with his desires. Despite that, his failures were masterpieces, and he knew that. So he stood stoically, awaiting lavish praise for his failure.

  And, yeah. I think you were right. The way he did it was absolutely infuriating.”