Blake returned to the hunters’ pavilion with howler pelts tucked into his backpack strap on one side and enormous flower petals tucked into the strap on the other side, and with a shroomclaw’s spore core in his pocket.

  Before he entered the pavilion, he knelt in front of River and whispered, “Alright. You can’t stay here. I don’t know what they’d do to you, but it probably won’t be good. Stay nearby if you want, and I’ll see if I can’t find some food for you now and then.”

  She had, of course, followed him all the way back to the sect. But now, she seemed to understand, and she trotted away into the woods.

  Although Blake was hungry, drenched, and covered head-to-toe in blood, he still walked to the desk of the storehouse once he entered the pavilion. As he crossed the paths, whispers rose up from the lounging mid-day hunters. Blake hadn’t really cleaned his rank seal off, but they could probably sense him anyway. He’d adjusted his vial of elixir accordingly, so now it would seem like he was at the start of Body Tempering.

  “He doesn’t have a Harvesting technique.”

  “Not that we know of.”

  “He’s been here for…what, a week?”

  “Does Elder Ulfreld have a plan for him?”

  Blake ignored them, then heaped his treasures in a pile. He placed the ruined parchment bounty slips on top of them and rang a bell.

  The same attendant as before rushed out. When she saw the treasures, she beamed then called for contribution points to be brought up for him. A few seconds later, she placed a heavy pouch of wooden chits in Blake’s hands, and he was staggering away.

  First, he spent two points on a long shower. Clean water wasn’t difficult to come by here, but it still had to be hauled up from the river and heated—which was the job of mortal workers. It made sense that it cost a lot.

  Once his second chit ran out, he dried off, collected his cleaned clothes, then first travelled to the technique library. Without anyone to pester him, he searched freely. This time, he hunted through the Smite techniques section, searching up and down for a lightning-aspected technique.

  That would be the easiest to alter for his own purposes, after all.

  Of course, he already had one Smite technique, but it was basic. It hadn’t done nearly as much damage to the pistilwalker as he had hoped, and he knew he could do better.

  When he finally found a lightning Smite technique, he picked it out and carried it with him. Once he found three different slates, he stopped hunting. Most cultivators, as far as he knew, focused on one technique of each type. It wasn’t that they couldn’t have more, or couldn’t develop it into something stronger, but there were only so many techniques and cycling patterns you could fit into your brain, and it was better to get really good at a few techniques than mediocre at many.

  Blake weighed the pros and cons of each of the technique slates, before finally deciding on the ‘Blue Shock Palm Art.’ It seemed the most similar to the technique he already used, but it would also work well with his immense supply of Honour. It used a ‘core draining’ amount of mana, and most cultivators could only deploy it once in a battle.

  But where other people would find themselves limited by what mana they had, and needed to conserve energy before they could pause to cycle again, Blake would only need to make sure he wasn’t using more than he was drawing in. It meant he could employ something like the Blue Shock Palm Art multiple times in a row without draining his mana reserves.

  Although Ethbin was going to be quiet for a few weeks, Blake could probably learn the technique on his own. It cost a hundred contribution points, bringing him down to fifty-eight.

  Next, he visited the armoury. He didn’t have enough to afford a custom-forged staff, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted one from the hunters anyway. A custom-forged staff would have to be special, have some kind of meaning to him. It couldn’t just be any old Hunters’ Sect making it into a staff.

  He wandered aisles of the armoury until he reached a rack laden with forty-point staves. They were all some variation of a wooden shaft with metal caps on the ends. One had carved wolf heads at its tips, but he found it slightly gaudy.

  He stared at the staves for a few minutes, until finally, he heard Froskur call, “Junior Brother! You return!”

  “He’s not going to be ‘Junior Brother’ for much longer,” Iver said. “Look at his rank seal, Brother. He made it to Body Tempering.”

  Blake turned to face them. “You guys made it back.”

  “Yesterday evening,” Konuth said.

  Blake nodded slowly. “I’m…trying to pick out a staff.” He wished he had Ethbin to help guide him, but even if Ethbin had been available to talk, Blake had stuffed the Honour Ring back into his pocket when he entered the pavilion.

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  “To be honest,” Blake continued, “I’m not even sure what’s better about these staves than my old one.”

  “You broke it already, Junior Brother?” Froskur asked.

  “Uh…yeah.” Blake looked down at the ground. “Yes, Senior Brother.”

  “Well, these would be stronger,” Konuth said. “You won’t break it, no matter how much they flex.”

  Blake considered that as a bonus. He ran his hand along the wooden poles. They were smoother, and they just radiated better craftsmanship. He couldn’t explain it. Even a simple bar of wood felt like it had more care and attention poured into it than any of the other two-point weapons he’d seen.

  “But is durability worth forty more points?” Blake asked. “Durability, and surely, I’m paying for the artistry.”

  The three boys laughed.

  “What?” Blake stared at them.

  Froskur finally looked up at Blake. “The Junior Brother doesn’t know?”

  “Know what? I never got much schooling.”

  Konuth sighed and placed a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Junior Brother.”

  “There is no weapon that is just art,” Iver explained, and Blake gave him a thankful nod. “There are only modifications to channel our mana better. A more artistic, better-made weapon will channel your mana and focus your Smite techniques. The better the weapon, the better the conduction.”

  Blake narrowed his eyes. “Ah. I see.”

  He didn’t really understand the mechanics, but in his mind, it clicked that he should take the weapon that suited his Smite technique best. The way the dark lightning had coiled through the pistilwalker and cleaved through its gut reminded him of a snake, so he picked the staff with serpent-like inlays along its end and swirling carvings along the haft.

  The ridges and notches slotted into the etchings on his hand, ready to accept Honour. He just had to figure out how that worked…

  All the forty-point staves had a name, too. This one was simply called Tailwhip. Compared to some of the other weapons? Well, at least it was only one word—some had names that ended up being three or four words long.

  “Thank you three,” Blake said. He gave a bow like he’d seen some others in the sect do, then used forty more points to purchase the staff from an attendant at the armoury. Afterward, he fitted his staff across his back, tucking it into the straps of his backpack.

  By the time he’d finished buying his staff, it was dinner time. He travelled to the main hall with Froskur and the others and ate a meal. In his case, he stuffed the food down until it felt like his throat was bulging.

  But he couldn’t afford to linger long. He saw Wind-Eyes on the way out, who said, “I expect you at training tomorrow, Junior Brother!”

  “I’ll be there, sir!” Blake called.

  “Senior Brother…” Wind-Eyes corrected with a sigh.

  When Blake returned to his room, he pored over his new technique slate. First, he needed to make some more Honour available for use outside of battle, so he spent a few minutes directly concentrating on the Lightning Crucible. He’d been running the cycling technique on his way back to the pavilion, but it wasn’t second-nature yet, and he needed to focus directly on the ‘grindstone’ aspect of the technique.

  It was odd that being a Body Tempering cultivator now…well, it didn’t feel horribly different. He thought maybe he’d feel a little stronger. Maybe a distinct pop like he had when opening his meridians.

  But that was probably the point of the last two stages of Condensation. It smoothed the step, made the advancement almost unnoticeable. At least, that was what he told himself. He glanced down at the Honour Ring. “I hope you wake up soon, Gramps. That way you can tell me these things. And that way I can actually figure out how to progress through Tempering.”

  Now that he had more Honour, though, he looked at the technique slate. It only required the Aes meridians, and at that, only the Heart, Bone, Skin, and Muscle. The loop seemed simple enough. Pass the mana—or in his case, Honour—between the Heart, through the Bone, out into the muscle, and loop it around fast enough until you feel the charge grow. When it was ready to ignite, you needed to launch it out, using your skin as a final barrier, and make it pop.

  There was nothing special about the ‘Shock Palm’ (just Shock Palm was much less of a mouthful, he decided, than the previous names). But it was more than a basic Smite technique in the concentration and deployment of the aspect. In the complex back and forth it took between the meridians before it left the body.

  He wouldn't find out what the practical difference was until he actually used it, though.

  He performed the technique exactly as shown on the slate, but nothing happened. His Honour sloshed in his channels like water, and it never ignited, not like it was supposed to. There was a little static, but nothing stronger than the basic palm art.

  The Shock Palm was supposed to call down a burst of lightning from above—or that was how it would look. You’d strike, and the built-up energy would crackle down from the sky and strike your target.

  But his lightning wasn’t like everyone else’s.

  If it was the opposite, what if he just had to…

  He ran the Shock Palm in reverse. Before he could even register what was happening, a bolt of cold black lightning raced up from the floor, letting out a hollow screech as it shot toward the ceiling. It was painfully loud, but worse was the sound of splintering wood. The sound echoed around his room, slowly fading.

  It left a pattern of frost on the ceiling, and the impact point on the floor had splintered and cracked.

  A few seconds later, someone pounded on the door. Blake pulled his desk over, toppling it onto the damaged section of the floor, then opened his door. Elder Ulfreld stood outside.

  Blake laughed sheepishly, then turned around. “Apologies, sir. I, uh, I forgot to take my staff out of my backpack, and I didn’t have the best spatial awareness. I’ll pay the contribution points to get it fixed.”

  “Hm.” Elder Ulfreld crossed his arms.

  For anyone else, the excuse wouldn’t have stood. Elder Ulfreld would’ve sensed a mana technique activating. But Blake? These cultivators couldn’t sense his Honour, that much he knew.

  “Try not to wake the others, Junior Brother. Some have begun sleeping early to get a headstart on their studies tomorrow.”

  “Apologies, sir—”

  “Senior Brother.”

  “Yes, Senior Brother. It won’t happen again.”

  Blake would just find time to practice elsewhere.