The cellar yawns open, its plank-built doors swinging wide like the maw of some great beast. A tongue of ladders leads into the soil-walled depths, the darkness within seeming to shift with every second.

  Ren's hand throbs as he stands at the precipice, fingers gripping a wooden bowl tight. Down, in the cellar, is the fox. Not the fox of the nine tails, but a fox nonetheless. Wood qi fills the air, invigorating Ren's fire-aligned spiritual roots, as the giant ginkgo proves a calming presence.

  The gingko itself rises high over the grotto it calls home, its ample boughs casting shadow over all it sees. Rocky walls eroded over generations provide shelter from the elements as a stream trickles down a series of terraces. Carefully maintained gardens grow in each terrace. With it being this early in spring, very few of the gardens have seen much in the way of attention.

  Someone sank a smooth circle of stone into the ground before the gingko, providing a stable place to meditate for any cultivators who know of this secret treasure.

  And what a treasure it is! Ren whistles, long and low, as he drinks deep of the wood qi suffusing the air. Gingkos are spiritually significant, even the mortal realm knows that, but to encounter a gingko of such potency is a rare find indeed.

  Giant gingkos are rare for two main reasons. One, it requires hundreds of years for a gingko to reach such a size. Gingkos will often die—whether to storm, disease, or the bite of an axe—long before reaching their potential enormity. Two, should a gingko be lucky enough to reach their upmost heights, they lack the ability to defend themselves from the predations of man and monster alike. Ignorant mortals might fell such a treasure for its ample wood while a monster would devour it for the boost in power it would provide.

  That the Heavenly Star Sect was able to keep such a treasure secret, even from its own Outer Disciples, speaks volumes of what else the sect might have had hidden away in some forgotten vault.

  ...He's stalling.

  Taking a deep breath, Ren closes his eyes, and quickly opens them. How foolish can one get? Clambering down a ladder with his eyes shut would be a quick way to an injury, after all! Seriously, what was he thinking? Keeping his eyes closed and shut, for crying out lo-

  Ren scowls, forcing himself to focus on the ladder. One way or another, he has to climb down, he has to face this fox. No more distractions, no more attempts to stall.

  ...This grotto is quite nice this time of year. Perhaps he shou- No!

  Ren grinds teeth as he takes a step, foot thumping against wood step. Again, his foot descends, again he progresses deeper into the depths. Darkness engulfs him as his eyes adjust to the shadows.

  The air is musty within these soil-packed walls. Sacks of dried fruit and vegetables line the walls. One of the sacks is only loosely tied, revealing the ample bounty of gingko fruit within. Winter-dried meat hangs from the roots weaving in and out of the ceiling, birch withes securing them there.

  In the back of the cellar is Ren's goal. Hanging from the ceiling by its forepaws is the fox, its head a mangled pile of bone, blood, and brains. Its hindlegs lie flat against the floor, its size too great for the cellar to easily contain.

  Ren swallows the desert in his throat, his hand shaking as he stares at the fox. Rot lacks a presence on the fox's body, which really only makes it worse. Rot is a natural part of life, the end state of all things. For the fox to refuse even that...

  Ren shakes his head, refocusing on his objective. The fox's mouth hangs open, its dry tongue lolling out like a limp fish or eel. Bits of dried blood cling to its fangs, evidence of its last feast. A scrap of cloth sticks between two teeth, the white of the Heavenly Star stained red with blood.

  Nausea broils in Ren's gut, threatening rebellion if he should dare progress in. Ren scowls, force of will silencing the protests of his stomach. He has to do this, there is no choice in the matter.

  To be a cultivator is to walk the narrow path. To be a cultivator is to demand the Heavens treat you different, to treat you as an equal. To earn that right, the cultivator must prove themselves as deserving of that treatment. The Heavens send constant tests and the cultivator must meet them all if they hope to progress.

  Failure stopped being an option the moment Ren started down this path. He killed the fox in life, it shall not stop him in death.

  Closing the distance with a handful of short strides, Ren readies the bowl. Lifting a hand, he reaches into the fox's collapsed skull, ignoring the glassy stare it sends his way, and scoops out a palmful of brains. It squishes and squelches under his fingers, squeezing out between knuckles.

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  Scraping the brains into the bowl, Ren pauses as a certain something catches the eye. Narrowing his gaze, he takes a closer look at the innards. That pattern, it almost resembles bite marks. Tiny, careful, buckteeth nibbled away a small portion of the brain. A mouse, perhaps? Yuanding should be warned of the potential for mice in his cellar, for such things are lethal problems for mortals.

  Or maybe...

  Twin glints shine in Ren's memory, the eyes of a curious squirrel. Could that squirrel have fed upon the fox's brain? He did kill the monster beneath the squirrel's tree, it is entirely possible that the squirrel feasted on what it could.

  But, *do* squirrels eat meat? Ren purses his lips as he works, scooping out and scraping the brains into the bowl. As far as he is aware, squirrels have diets of nuts and plants. However, horses have nominal diets of grass and hay and the occasional vegetable, yet they will eagerly devour meat should they find it available to them. Growing up on the banks of the River Dan, he is more than familiar with the eating habits of horses and their kin. Horse paddocks need to be built away from the chickens lest the horses snack on the chicks. If horses can suck up chicks like a riptide does a man, then it only makes sense that squirrels would take advantage of food when it presents itself.

  What would consuming the brains of a monster do to a squirrel? There is ample qi in the flesh of a monster, far too much for the meridians of a creature the size of a squirrel to handle. However, the bites were quite small and cautious, so could the squirrel have ridden out the surge of qi? Furthermore, clever creatures like foxes have magically potent brains—whenever Ren had to butcher a fox under Chen's guidance, he was always asked to give the brains to the sect's alchemists—so that could also have some kind of effect on the squirrel.

  Ren will need to find that squirrel, if only for curiosity's sake.

  Regardless, the brains fill the bowl and Ren can finally leave the fox behind. As he climbs from the cellar, however, a shiver entirely unrelated to the cold washes across his flesh.

  The fox's glassy eyes follow Ren as he leaves.

  Ren smears the fox's brains over his body as Yuanding mirrors the actions. The stink of the fox fills the air, its qi lingering even in death. While monsters would eagerly take advantage of another monster's wounded state, the amount of qi should hopefully be enough to ward away any would-be hunters.

  "Yuanding," Ren says as he rubs brains and blood into his robes, "did you see a squirrel when you found me?"

  Yuanding pauses massaging the mixture into his beard, head tilting to the side as he considers the question, "I don't quite recall. I was rather preoccupied with making sure you were alive at the time. Why do you ask?"

  Ren's lips thin, "Just curious, really. I found some bite marks on the fox's brain, you might want to set some mouse traps in case your cellar is infested."

  Yuanding hums as he shoulders a quiver of arrows—the broadhead fighting arrows in particular—and takes his bow down from the wall, "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

  As Ren and Yuanding leave the hut, Ren pauses as Yuanding quickly strings his bow and tests it with one of his arrows. About a third of the arrows in Yuanding's quiver possess fletching as long as a forearm, the purpose a mystery.

  "Yuanding," Ren begins as Yuanding careful draws an arrow to his cheek, "why do some of your arrows have such long fletching?"

  Yuanding cracks a grin as he relents his testing for a moment, "Noticed that, did you?" He chuckles as he draws another arrow, one of the more familiar, short-feathered variants. "What do you know of the Yega?"

  Ren hums as he scratches at the back of his head. Yega, Yega, where has he heard that name before? With how Yuanding says it, it's probably the name of a group of people. It doesn't sound like a Riverfolk or Valleyman name, and certainly not a Glasswalker name, so that rules out the civilized lands. If it isn't one of the civilized peoples, then it must belong to a barbarian tribe. It can't be from the Sea Peoples, or else Ren would surely have heard of it from his history classes. That leaves only the North and the Deep Desert as options. No group of explorers have ever returned from the Deep Desert—to Ren's knowledge, anyways—so that means it must be, "The Yega... They're one of the Northern Barbarian Tribes, right?"

  Yuanding snorts, "Barbarian is a relative word, but you are right." Tapping the long-feathered arrow, he says, "Arrows such as these are common amongst the Yega, my people," Yuanding is a barbarian? He does have green eyes... "as they allow arrows to impact with full force at shorter ranges."

  Drawing a short-feathered arrow to his cheek, he takes aim at a leather sack dangling from a tree branch. At only two hands of sprinting steps away, the arrow hits the sack but fails to penetrate. It bounces, twirling into the grass, as Yuanding draws and sights another arrow, this one of the long-feathered kind.

  This time, the arrow bites deep. It splits through leather, spilling sand through the broad gash in its wake.

  "Of course, the longer the feather," Yuanding explains as he collects his arrows, "the more chance there is for any playful wind spirits to foul up the shot, thus reducing the range."

  "Impressive," Ren says with a polite clap as Yuanding scoffs.

  "You don't need to flatter me, young man, for I have seen more years than you have seasons," Yuanding laughs and claps Ren on the shoulder, he nods towards the forest visible through the grotto's entrance—a natural arch of stone through which the stream trickles, "Come, let us get on our way."

  With that, Ren and Yuanding begin their journey.