"Are we there yet?" I said, looking at Qīwù with a bit of a grin. She inclined her head a bit, and seemed more than happy to answer my question, which was not the reaction I was hoping to get.

"We should be to Mistral in the morning. I think you'll be impressed, Venerable. I've only been there once, but the experience was completely unforgettable," My assistant told me.

"Really," said István, leaning in. "Why so?"

Qīwù put her thumb under her chin, hooking the forefinger over it, looking up and to her right while thinking. "You can really feel the Will of the World there. Everything has a 'weight' of sorts to it. Hard to put my finger on it, but it kind of sears itself into your memories."

István leaned back, a slight smile on his face. Viktor, who was sitting next to him, was completely out, making a delicate snore every so often, a sound I'd have thought more appropriate coming out of Steeve, who was sleeping on top of his shoulder, a little bubble growing larger and smaller as she breathed.

Wait. Did Steeve even need to breathe? Or sleep? When I'd held her, she'd felt soft and warm and had a presence to her, but at the same time I'd watched her let herself down by simply falling right through my arms as if to demonstrate how tenable reality's hold was on her. It felt as though she was only as real as she needed to be for whatever adorable silliness she was getting up to at any given moment.

A kind of ontological elasticity or rule-of-cute, if you would.

I pulled my eyes away from her and looked back at Qīwù. "I appreciate your insight. Anything we should be aware of?"

"Nothing for the Elders, and certainly nothing for someone of your stature, Venerable. I might encounter a spot of trouble or two though. Mistral has a lot of… characters, and not all of them play roles that walk in the light, if you understand my meaning."

Considering where I grew up, I totally got what she meant. I'd see shady stuff weekly on my way into work, and that was just in the city. I heard that outside the population center it was even worse, because no one was around to see what happened there. I quickly tamped down any thoughts before they could show on my face through.

"As the saying goes," István grinned, "Keep your friends close, and your purse closer."

"Wise words indeed, Elder Scholar," Qīwù said. "Although it'd take quite the desperate soul to attempt such a theft on someone so clearly attired as a Sect Elder."

This was something I'd learned as we left. Celistar, 'moonlighting' as the Ancient One, had hosted a feast to send us off on our quest. During said festivities she had gifted us with ornate hanfu: robes with flowing sleeves and layers of fine fabrics, something the artisans had been working on. They had delicate gold filigree, and our group was tied together with the same azure color scheme they'd been working us towards the whole time. I was starting to suspect that Celistar was just having fun playing dress up with me at the Circle's expense.

I wasn't an entirely unwilling participant, though. The clothes were fun and comfortable to wear, once I got over my inbuilt desires to put them in a box or behind glass so they'd stay safe and clean.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Qīwù had in effect been 'gifted' to the Azure Sky Sect, so she wore something substantially similar to mine, just less ornate. There were, I was to understand, some convention to the design, with signifiers to both my position as Sect Master, as well as others to my attainments in cultivation, and even nods to the relationship we shared with the Circle.

Not that I had a damn clue how to read any of it. And I couldn't ask Celistar either. Not openly anyway. She'd declared that she was going into 'closed-door' cultivation, whatever that meant, once we left. As such, people would expect not to see her for an extended period of time. It was useful that this world had such things to help cover for the fact that she wasn't really a separate entity from me.

I had some concerns about the whole affair, such as what would happen if the Iron Veil Order returned to get some revenge while we were out, as I had nearly all of the Azure Sky's actual fighting power with me. Celistar didn't seem too worried about it, stating that she'd never known them to break decorum in such a significant manner. They'd followed the proper methods to a tee at the gate, and had remained fairly dignified in defeat, although the flabbergasted sputtering of their defeated leader was fairly amusing, at the time.

She also told me that she had left behind a fair share of contingency plans and preparations, some of which dated back to the founding of the sect. Now that she had resumed her control over them they should function as intended. Apparently Péng Fēng, the former Sect Master, had let their maintenance lapse during his tenure.

In addition to everything else, Celistar had gifted the Stormwing Elders with a small mountain of texts containing techniques and enlightenment she'd attained over the years. I didn't think much of it, but according to Brother Cháo, one of them had fainted on the spot upon seeing the treasures the sect had been given.

Apparently the payment, as it'd been described to me by him in excited tones, was for the sect to 'drill this wisdom into the disciples until no one dare challenge us'. He followed this with a ton of core exercises aimed in my general direction, as apparently the whole of the Circle had decided that the general upturn in the sect was something that could be laid at my feet.

I mean… kind of? But as I was the one that had precipitated Celistar's leaving in the first place, this felt like a misappropriation of the truth.

Well, at least that's what I had thought, until I found out that Celistar had just kinda wandered out of the sect out of boredom at one point years before I got turned into a bird; I'd only even met her because her curiosity had been piqued by the changes she felt in the Will of the World.

They were going to believe whatever they wanted to anyway - it wasn't as if any amount of deferral on my part would be seen as anything other than modesty.

A cluster of lights appeared ahead of us, towering into the sky in a way I didn't expect. It was difficult to tell at the distance we were at what was going on, and a thick fog turned most of the points of brightness into dim halos.

"That should be Mistral," Qīwù said, looking quite excited at the prospect. "We arrived earlier than expected, so we'll have to find someplace to stay the night."

"Should not be an issue," said Viktor, who'd slept long enough it was starting to stretch the credibility of the term 'nap'. He held up a bag that made metallic noises when he moved it. "We are good on money."

This was another thing I wasn't particularly happy about. The Circle had set us out with quite a bit of reserves, something I didn't feel we'd earned. They mollified me a little by pointing out that the remote location of their sect meant they produced a lot of the consumables they needed internally, and as a result were net exporters. With little along the way of material needs, thanks to the high concentration of cultivators, they had a lot to lend to us.

"More than we know what to do with," was how Celistar had put it, shutting down the conversation.

I still wasn't sure what she expected me to gain from this little adventure, but I suppose we'd find out soon enough.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.