Year 663 of the Stable Era,

  Twenty-second day of the eleventh month

  After

  Chao Ren came to to the sensation of something poking him in the cheek. His eyes snapped open, what little qi he still had surging as he swung at the source, more reflex than thought. His dantian wheezed at the effort, his muscles following suit as Bao caught his halfhearted blow between his hands.

  “Good to see that you’ve still got something in yah,” he laughed, pushing his fist down as Chao Ren felt his vision clear. He looked around, pushing himself up as he took in his surroundings. It was…familiar. The plain wooden beams, the stale taste of sweat and desperation in the air—he caught sight of the visage of the door. The familiar gnarled face in the wood, looking down at him in disappointment.

  “Look at you,” it almost seemed to say. “You left me in triumph and returned to me in defeat. What a waste, what a waste, what a waste.”

  Ah, the waiting room. Or storage room, as it would seem that someone had already started to return it to its original purpose. There was a stack of assorted training dummies and worn reed mats in the corner, their featureless wooden faces staring blankly at him. He could feel the soft spring of a mat against his palm, clearly borrowed from the stored supplies to spare him from the harsh stone.

  He groaned, then groaned again, more deeply this time, as he felt a pang of pain rumble through his sore throat at the action. A lingering tension, marked by the handprint of paper fingers.

  A surprising source of the sensation though, as he’d expected the pain of breathing to come from his chest area.

  He patted himself down as he took a more careful breath, allowing the qi to gently soothe his strained airway as he felt at his ribs. They were sore, but somehow intact. The shape of his bones were immaculate despite the blow that he knew had shattered them.

  “Ah, the physician took care of your injuries,” Bao said, handing him a drinking gourd. “Patched you right up after they dragged you out of the arena.”

  Chao Ren nodded, taking quiet sips as his friend went on about the way that the physician had healed his wounds with only three silver needles and a burst of qi. The water was soothing against his raw throat, the flesh so tender that it lent the lukewarm liquid an arctic chill. The remnants of the fire qi that he’d pumped himself so full of recoiled from its touch, starving himself of what remnant warmth he might have enjoyed from his lapse of control.

  Just as damaged on the inside as the out.

  “I lost, didn’t I?” he finally said, breaking his silence.

  “Yeah,” Bao said, patting him on his shoulder. Ren moved to stand and his arm slid under his shoulder, helping him up as he stumbled. “You put up a good fight, but Shijuushi just had too much of an advantage on you with his technique and physique. Bad luck of the bracket really. Nothing you could’ve done about it.”

  “How long have I been out?” Ren asked, taking a deep breath. His insides were in chaos thanks to his disrupted qi, the once balanced elements drifting erratically in the aftermath of his reckless improvisation. Thankfully not too far though, which meant it couldn’t have been too long.

  “Only a stick or three,” Bao replied, as his eyes drifted to his storage ring. He considered taking out a recovery pill, but decided against it after some more thought. His body still ached, but there was still a chance he might get another pill to help his recovery, so it would be better to save what he had until he found out.

  He sighed, filling his lungs with his first deep breath as he looked around for his staff to support himself. Only, it wasn’t on the ground next to the mat.

  Or behind him.

  Or in his friend’s hand.

  Or in his ring, once he felt around it to check.

  “Bao,” he asked, as he nudged the mat aside with his foot to check under it, “where is my staff?”

  “Ah,” his friend replied, looking away guiltily. He tapped his ring finger nervously against his thigh, suddenly taking a keen interest in the space just to the left of his head. After a further moment’s hesitation he reached into it, revealing what remained of his weapon.

  It was barely a third of its former length, its charred ends dusted with thin mountains of light gray ash. What little remained stiff collapsed as his fingertips grazed it, its tenuous grasp to form shattering at the slightest test of touch. Ren traced his finger along the wood, drawing a pale line along the rough wood as he felt the rough black fade into lacquered smoothness. Only a sliver of the original wood remained at the center of the staff, a band barely three fingers wide.

  “That’s all that’s left of it,” Bao said, as his friend stared at the remains of his new staff. “Your last attack was just too much for it to handle, I think. Maybe if you’d had it a bit longer, or if I’d helped you pick a better piece, it might’ve held on a bit longer, but with how much you pushed it…it’s a miracle that it even held on as much as it did.”

  The result of inadequate focus, more likely, Ren thought to himself, tapping his former weapon against his palm. He’d let his control slip too much, treating it more like a torch than staff by the end of it. Too caught up in the moment to worry about the cost of his own actions. His vision as short as the weapon in his hand.

  It was closer to a baton or a fighting stick now. An awkward length that was both too short and too long for most other uses. The most pressing of which being something to lean on. A truly sad end to the 23 spirit stones that he had spent on it.

  Almost a stone a day, if you really thought about it.

  A waste to repair, but just as much of a waste to simply discard, he thought to himself as he stowed it in his ring. Sentimentality aside, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. He was sure that he could always find a use for a decent piece of spirit wood. He replaced it with his old staff, letting the mortal wood take his weight as he unburdened his friend.

  “Thank you for retrieving it,” Chao Ren said, massaging his throat as he thanked his friend. With his qi in such disarray it would be a while before it could recover, so he made sure to keep his sentences short as he spoke. “And for the water.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He took another measured breath of qi, just as Li Lee burst through the door.

  “I got the stuff and the guy!” his fellow disciple called, brandishing a gourd over his head as he charged ahead of an older cultivator with a head of long, straight hair tied back in a delicate braid. The white bands on his sleeves marked him as a senior disciple, while the wide flaps of his tall black hat indicated that he was also an official. A ‘Prize Officiant’, if the characters stitched onto its face were to be believed.

  “Oh, you’re up! Great job on the fight! You almost had him in the last bit, when you pulled off that fire technique!” he exclaimed. “I got some spirit tea, to help you recover.” He tossed the gourd over to Chao Ren, who managed to raise his hands just enough to have it bounce painfully off his fingertips.

  “Thanks,” Chao Ren muttered, as Li Lee rushed over to retrieve the fallen drink before too much could spill from its dislodged cap. It turned out to be a mild green tea with a heavy helping of honey. Far sweeter than what he usually preferred, but he found his body enjoying the extra sugar far more than he expected as it soothed both his aching throat and meridians.

  “Well, if you’re quite finished with that, I think it would be best that we conclude the matter at hand,” the Prize Officiant said, interrupting Li Lee’s somewhat sincere-ish apology.

  With a gesture he pulled a box from his robes, the sevenfold mountain insignia of the Teal Mountain Sect bright against the darkened wood. The overlapping mountains glittered with a greenish pearlescence, a delicate luo dian pattern formed from the bright inner shells of the peak’s second most abundant resource rather than the sect’s namesake stone.

  “By the authority vested in me and my station by the Teal Mountain Sect, I hereby award Disciple”—the official flipped up a paper tag stuck between the flap of the box—“Chao Ren with his prize for his victory in the Turtle Bracket of the New Disciple Exhibition. He is to be awarded a sum of 800 spirit stones, one certificate granting its bearer five tailored body pills at the Teal Jade Pill Tower—which must be redeemed within the next two hundred years—and a wooden plaque to commemorate your achievement.”

  At this he flipped the box open, revealing eight flat slabs of spirit stone arranged around a larger slab of wood, each as ornately carved as the last.

  The plaque was made of rosewood and depicted a disciple standing with their arms raised in triumph, their face hidden by the rays of light emanating from the sword shining in their hand. They stood on the gridded diamond of an arena, their robed form superimposed over the seal of the Teal Mountain Sect. His name and tournament placing had been written at the bottom of the plaque with a fanciful flourish, the golden paint bright against the dark wood.

  The spirit stones each boasted a different pattern, the dull purple stones decorated with different animals in motion. Soaring eagles, crouching tigers, pinching crabs, and coiling dragons; each wreathed in a halo of flowers and symbols. Their many facets almost lent the stone a faint glimmer, the sign of a master artisan’s touch given spirit stone’s famous lack of luster.

  Chao Ren could tell that they were high-grade stones even from the slightest brush of his qi sense, the sort that were typically used for trade rather than cultivation. They took up far less space than the stones so commonly used for personal use did for the same quantity of qi, making them far more convenient to use for substantial purchases.

  Easier to appraise as well, as a cultivator could easily grasp their value without the need to keep a careful tabulation of the individual values of a sack of smaller stones. He appreciated this convenience as he took the measure of his prize, dutifully checking each stone in turn to ensure their value.

  The two depicting crabs were slightly larger than the rest, but the total still added up to the proper amount by the time he finished his accounting. With a polite bow Chao Ren thanked the Prize Officiant, who had been patiently waiting for him to finish inspecting his prize. He carefully closed the box, making sure to remember the pale paper certificate affixed to the inside of the lid as he did.

  “In addition to these prizes, your placement has made you eligible for the Closing Ceremony Banquet,” the Officiant declared, handing him a red paper envelope. “You will find the details enclosed within. Attendance is not mandatory, but does require a week’s notice, so please be sure to follow the proper procedures as they are laid out within if you wish to attend. Do you have any questions?”

  “No, senior disciple,” Chao Ren said, remembering to respond promptly this time. He shoved the luo dian box under his armpit as he made sure to accept the invitation with both hands.

  “Very well. Now please sign this to confirm that you received your prize. Name here, seal here, and a measure of qi in the little box. A wax impression is preferred, but blood is also acceptable. One of your two friends will need to sign as well. A witness signature is necessary to confirm a proper transfer.”

  Chao Ren passed the second sheet to Bao as he obediently followed the Officiant’s instructions. The room sat silent, save for the quiet grinding of inkstones and the swishing of brushes. The luo dian box came in surprisingly useful, providing an excellent flat surface for him to write on while Bao resorted to using Li Lee’s back for the same purpose.

  After a long moment Chao Ren breathed a sigh of qi over the head of his personal seal, first pressing red ink into his mark before imprinting it into the blob of green wax that the official had helpfully provided. He carefully wiped it off as Bao finished his, using a fingerprint in place of a stone seal of his own.

  “Good, good. Well, congrats on the victory kid,” the Officiant said, the gravitas leaving his voice as he slid the papers into his ring. “Always good to see one of us get to the finals. I’ve got to be off now. The last round should be starting soon, and they need me to be on hand to engrave the plaque.”

  And with that he was gone, his form blurring as whatever movement technique he practiced whisked him out of the room before any of the trio of young disciples could blink.

  Chao Ren waited for the door to click shut before he opened the box again, folding the certificate into a square before quickly storing it and the spirit stones in his storage ring. He added the plaque last, leaving the box sitting on the ground as he straightened up. His ring was starting to get rather full, and it would be a pain to shove in more junk that he would just have to take out again in the near future.

  “Do you want that box?” Li Lee asked, looking around him. “Cuz I can take it off your hands if you don’t.”

  “No, I’m going to be keeping it,” Chao Ren said, tucking the box back under his arm. “My ring is full at the moment, but I’ve got some…stuff that I would want to store in it.”

  “Ooh, what sort of stuff?”

  “Stuff stuff,” he snapped, as Bao laughed.

  “You two want to try and catch the last match?” his friend asked as Li Lee shrugged. “We’d have a great view from the hall. Right next to the action.”

  “Honestly, I would rather get out of this place,” Chao Ren sighed. “I haven’t had much to eat all day, and I could use a change of scenery.”

  “Fair enough,” Bao conceded. “I know there’s a good skewer stand around here. We can go grab some to hold us over while we wait for the others.”

  “I was hoping to get a real meal,” Chao Ren grumbled, having already had his fill of stick-cooked meat for the day. “Especially seeing as I can finally afford one. As my mother would say: good spirit food leads to a good recovery.”

  “Oh, the rest of the guys already made plans to take you somewhere nice,” Li Lee interrupted as he held the door open for the others. “Shen made some arrangements after you beat Lu Ri.”

  “It’s not the Slab again, is it?” Chao Ren asked. It was a fine restaurant, there was no doubt about that, but Shen seemed to like it far more than the rest of them. Always insisting that they go every time he got a chance to suggest a place to eat.

  “Nah, the Slab’s already booked solid for the next few months,” Li Lee replied as he closed the door behind them. “Every one of them visiting cultivators’ been wanting a chance to try Fatty Li’s food ever since he won the Heavenly Wok Competition. He beat a lot of their chefs this year, so they want to taste the proof for themselves.”

  “So, then do you…?” Chao Ren began.

  “Not a damn clue,” Bao laughed, raising his arms helplessly.

  “Well, just as long as it isn’t another soup place,” Li Lee added, causing Chao Ren to shudder.

  That had been a particularly unpleasant evening. Almost nothing to chew on in the entire place. Not even a bowl of rice to accompany some of the thicker broths. Not even in the after meal red bean soup, which had been served bereft of both rice balls and solid beans.

  It had been rejuvenating, sure, but it had been the meal that had made him realize that there was more to spirit food than just qi alone. Substance was as important as strength, otherwise it was no better than just drinking watery pills.

  Ancestors, he hoped that it wasn’t another weird restaurant. Or too expensive for that matter.