Yoonji amused herself by tabulating all of the crimes against the Imperium she saw committed as she waited for Eri to reveal herself, or General Li to take the inevitable step into treason.

There were several thousand counts of cultivating without a license from the Darwur barbarians who were coming and going into the tower without so much as a by-your-leave. That would be multiplied by the offense of not submitting paperwork to the Office of Cultivation for exploit of a tower. General Li, as the highest-ranking Imperial officer in the region, was ultimately responsible for the lack of failing to register tower exploit plans with the Office of Cultivation.

The dozens of cultivators wearing Morning Mist robes who entered the tower with the explicit purpose of instructing unlicensed cultivators, as well as, no doubt, pursuing their own cultivation without leave just added to the stack of violations.

Noren, as Grandmaster of the Morning Mist Sect, should receive an additional charge of flagrant misuse of Imperial property, promoting unlicensed cultivation, and general moral turpitude. Just what she was watching here ought to be enough to have his sect once more made non-viable, and his own cultivation stripped from him.

Even if she ever reported all of this back, she somehow doubted it would stick. The edges of Empire always were a bit more lax than the properly governed center, and when a man like General Li set his mind on lawbreaking, it was often hard to properly restrain or constrain him. And anyway, Yoonji wouldn't be reporting any of what happened here, because even if she survived this, she would be a marked woman.

The oath she had taken wrapped around her core like a band of iron, pressing against her, fighting against everything she stood for. In the terrifying moment when she'd known she was going to die, she'd agreed, thinking she'd find a way to wiggle out of it later.

But Eri knew how to exact a soul oath.

Eri's intent was the strongest and purest Yoonji had ever sensed. It wasn't a particularly original intent, "I take what I desire" could be said of thousands of cultivators out there, but Yoonji had rarely met someone so in tune with that sentiment. And so, the soul oath she had forced Yoonji to swear was much too strong for Yoonji to wiggle out of. And she'd tried. But to no avail. After a while, Yoonji had gotten tired of the whole thing and decided to make time pass a little more quickly.

For a cultivator at Lux Dominion, with Imperial permission to use violet lux, waiting a couple of weeks in the middle of the wilderness was no great hardship. Yoonji spun a violet lux cocoon around herself, blocking out sight, letting her will sense the world around. She would know when it was time.

Even with the speeding up of time, she found herself alone with too many thoughts. It had never bothered her to be alone before. Her sense of duty and purpose would keep her moving, but here, waiting to betray the vows she'd made on becoming an Inquisitor in order to assist someone who represented everything she hated, Yoonji found herself examining her own life with new eyes, and she didn't like what she had seen.

She had climbed the path of cultivation hard and fast, achieving a rank few cultivators from as humble a background as she could have dreamed of. She had shed her former sect gratefully when approached to join the Office of Inquisition, and had climbed that ladder just as doggedly as she'd pursued cultivation. And there she had stuck, for decades now. She had sought to bury herself in her work, hunting down miscreants and ensuring the security of the Empire. Had told herself it was the most important work she could do, protecting the Empire from rogue cultivators.

And now what was she doing but assisting one rogue against another?

The only reason Yoonji could even live with herself was it was clear now that Noren and Li were just as much rogues and rebels as Eri had ever been. Her instructions from the Emperor had been to accompany Noren and witness his deeds. Well, he had vowed not to let Eri take this tower. She had made no such oath. Yoonji wasn't a fool. She knew when it came time to give an accounting that her rationales would be stripped away. There didn't seem to be much future left for her, not here, not inside the Empire.

But where else could she go? Beyond the borders of the Empire lay the world of barbarians, where laws of culture and cultivation changed very much. She would rather die than go there.

She had, in her mind, only one choice. She had to salvage something from this debacle, enough to conceal her own shame. If she could prove that Noren was just as much a traitor, if she could bring the Morning Mist Sect in and present them to the Inquisition, perhaps her own failings would go overlooked.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She felt a brief nudge of intent against hers and thinned down the violet shell, peering out. Outside, Noren waited there, a smug look on his face. She dismantled the rest of her shell. "What is it?"

"Prism Eri is skulking about. Li and I sense her, but she hasn't revealed herself yet. She must believe that the tower will be defeated soon."

Yoonji stretched and absorbed lux into her core to replace what had been depleted while she was inside the violet shell. "Perhaps she is able to communicate with her disciples more than you can with yours."

"Perhaps," Noren said. He smiled gently. "My disciples reached the penultimate floor of this tower about three days ago. I expect they will reach the top soon. Of Eri's, I have no idea. I expect at least some of them are dead by now."

Yoonji stared at the sect leader. "You sent in two disciples who hadn't even reached Lux Endowment against, we think, six or seven of Eri's Lux Embodiment cultivators?"

She knew for a fact that it was six. She had helped conceal their entrance into the tower, just as Eri had instructed her, but that didn't matter.

"Yes, but you see," Noren said, "one of my disciples is Chang-li, and that boy is a cultivation genius. The sort who proves the whole current sect system is absolute nonsense. He comes from illiterate peasant stock, you know; one of the finest minds I've ever met, and driven in a way few young masters can match."

Yoonji had spent only a handful of hours around the cultivator in question, but her assessment of him differed very much. "He is self-effacing and far too open to sharing what he knows with others," she countered.

"Precisely," Noren said. "He is exactly what your current sect system needs. Depending on what happens when we get out of here, I may have a few nudges for him."

Yoonji, frustrated, stretched out her will, trying to sense Eri. She didn't. Instead, she realized hundreds of people were leaving the tower. The Darwur were retreating alongside the Morning Mist cultivators. "What's this?"

"We don't want to risk them being inside while ownership of this tower is contested," Noren said. "It can be very dangerous for less advanced cultivators to be around a battle of that sort. I've instructed them to withdraw several miles back. My junior disciples will protect them."

Yoonji stared. Even from here, she could feel just how many of the Darwur had achieved the Peak of Bodily Refinement. There seemed to be several dozen Morning Mist cultivators at the Peak of Mental Refinement. And at least four, she sensed, who had reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. "How is your sect gaining in strength so quickly?" she demanded.

"Well, that's an interesting question, and I'm glad you brought it up." Noren sat cross-legged in mid-air. He was working some sort of technique that Yoonji couldn't quite follow as she tried to take in everything that was going on around them. "The libraries at our sect headquarters are a treasure trove of techniques. We were able to select appropriate training paths for each member of my sect. Your ordinary sect these days has three or four paths which it forces on all of its disciples. Should an acolyte not be suited for one of those, he must either continue cultivation using a suboptimal training regime, or he must find another sect to take him in. And we all know how difficult the bureaucracy can be there."

Noren shook his head at that. "Merely having access to the right cycling patterns, the right foundational techniques, is a huge advantage. Then, of course, is the fact that this primal tower has been untapped for over a century now. If we didn't have so many low-ranking cultivators ready to use it, I would have expected a tower eruption by now.

"You know, the Darwur have legends of tower eruptions from this place every four or five generations. It's part of why they don't see any benefit from the Empire system, you see, you know, no one has ever come to their aid. They've had to make do."

He raised an eyebrow. "I think you, at least, Inquisitor, ought to see the implications of a nomadic people with no cultivation of their own who have learned how to handle tower eruptions."

Yoonji waved it off. She wasn't interested in his rationalizations. "It's Eri I care about," she lied. "She'll be making her appearance as soon as the tower is open."

"Yes, that's what we expect," Noren said. "General Li and I are prepared to deal with her."

She kept her face perfectly placid to give nothing away. She didn't relish her role in the things to come. Noren and Li's preparations would be worthless when she made her move. As annoying as Noren was, it sickened her to know they would get such an unjust fate. Noren's crimes should be tried in the cultivation court. As for the general, the Emperor alone had the right to declare his actions justified or condemn them. Eri woudn't be likely to let either of them live. It was just not right that their fate wouldn't come through the proper legal channels.

He cocked his head, as though hearing something. "Huh. Well, that's a complication I was not expecting." He frowned. "I may have more than Eri to deal with. It seems like my acolytes have been busier than I expected."

Yoonji turned. She reached her will out toward the tower, trying to sense if it was opening. There was a disturbance there. She could feel the lux roiling off of the tower. Its output had increased even in the last day. She did believe someone was nearing the top. And that meant it was time for her to get to work.

"One more thing," Noren said. He straightened up and pulled an artifact from void space. It glinted golden, small and round. A couple of inches across. He popped open the golden cover and stared down. Yoonji could see glass inside, numbers written across a white circle, and two pointing arrows that moved across the face of the object.

He infused the object with the lux technique he'd been using. Yoonji noted how much indigo and violet it had and registered another violation.

Then he looked up. "I'm going to need a brief time-out here," he said, and tossed the artifact at her.

Instinctively, Yoonji reached to catch it. She felt it touch her palm.

Lux flared all around.

Yoonji's eyes widened as she realized this was a trick. Then Noren was gone, and so was everything else.

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