The fortress' courtyard is a large, wide-open space covered in dirt and soil slowly accumulated over the course of centuries. Grass and other greenery feed upon the soil, though most have long been trampled by bandit boot by this point. Clustered in the shadow of the wall is a collection of small, personal tents, nineteen in total. Each tent fits two men comfortably and four if they don't mind squeezing.

  Zhurong's gang counts six—seven now—cultivators amongst its number and each of them claims at least one tent for their own use, leaving the rest of the tents to house the mortal bandits, of which there are about three dozen. Most of the bandits are out and about, foraging the countryside for edibles while hunting whatever they can find. Some collect around a large sheet of wood supported by a quartet of empty barrels, which now serves as a makeshift bar.

  Overlooking the courtyard is a small room carved out from the wall itself. As befitting her status as the leader, Zhurong claimed this room for herself and it is in this room that Ren now sits.

  Legs crossed in the lotus, Ren sits across from a similarly posed Zhurong as his education in all things cultivation begins.

  "First things first," Zhurong yawns, the tweeting of early-morning birds sounding in the distance, "the manuals, you read 'em?"

  "I did," Ren nods, "And I think I might agree with you on their usefulness."

  "Fucking useless, yeah," Zhurong agrees, "Alright, now that that's done, I'm gonna go ahead and clear some water before it can get murky. So, while I'll be handling your cultivation training," she gestures at herself before flicking fingers towards the courtyard, "Lung'll be keeping your martial skills sharp. Guy's a prodigy, no better choice for it."

  "That makes sense," Ren tilts his head, a curious thought coming to mind. While his experience with bandits may be somewhat limited, he was under the impression that bandits rule by right of might. Admitting that one of your underlings is your superior at something would lessen your power, thereby fueling their inevitable betrayal.

  "Course it does," she grins, "I said it, didn't I?" Ah, the return of the ego. "Anyways, before I can actually begin teaching you anything, we've gotta figure out this Talent of yours. Normally," she drawls that word, "you'd just be able to sense my qi and copy what I'm doing and that'll teach you the techniques."

  "But your aura prevents that," Ren concludes.

  "Yep, can't sense my qi if my aura's knocking you on your ass."

  Ren starts to correct her, only to quickly snap his mouth shut. He *can* sense her qi, even with the aura blinding him, but... Zhurong is a bandit. Not only that, Zhurong was going to kill him. If those aren't good enough reasons to keep the true extent of his abilities a secret, thenthan what is?

  "The usual way to harden qi senses is by slowly leaking out aura, waiting for you to acclimate, and then leakin' out more till you can handle it," she shakes her head with a sigh, "But your Talent keeps fuckin' things up, eh?" She laughs, "So, we'll need to engage in a little somethin' called 'saturation therapy'," she shrugs, "fuck if I know what 'therapy' is, but I'm pretty sure it'll work here."

  "Saturation therapy?" Ren squints, not liking the sound of that one bit.

  "Mhm," Zhurong hums as she sends a nod Ren's way, "We'll keep throwing you in the deep end until you learn to swim!"

  ...This will be unpleasant.

  “Before that, however,” Zhurong’s voice stops Ren just as he prepares his third eye, a sense of relief washing over him. In the wake of relief comes bitter shame at feeling such cowardly things. How dare he, a cultivator, feel relieved at putting off hardship? “We’ve gotta cover some basic information regarding your education.”

  “Did we not just do that?” Ren tilts his head to the side, banishing his thoughts with force of curiosity.

  “Yes,” Zhurong shoots him a sullen glare, “but this is different.” With Ren suitably chastised, Zhurong nods and continues, “The Charcoal Refining Law, the Structure Law that I'll be teaching you. As should be obvious, it's wood-aligned."

  "Structure Law?"

  "Supporting Law, Structure Law, Refining Law, Reinforcement Law," Zhurong lists off a quartet of different names, "They're all the same thing, the Law that boosts your abilities and shit."

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  "I see."

  "You better, what with those funny-lookin' eyes of yours."

  Ren scowls, old wounds re-exposed to the elements. "They're not weird..."

  Zhurong snorts, "Your eyes are fuckin' *blue*, kid. And not like a little blue, they're *blue.*"

  "Not *that* blue," Ren grunts, firming his shoulders as he slouches inwards, "They're a pale color, a light blue."

  "No the fuck they ain't," Zhurong laughs outright while Ren's brows furrow, hints of confusion rising within. Zhurong is many things, but she doesn't seem the type to bully someone about something she made up. The last time Ren saw himself was before he unlocked his cultivation...

  ...Could his eyes have changed post-cultivation? *Why?* Is it linked to his Talent? It must be. What else could possibly be the reason?

  "Anyways, your eyes are blue, lets move on," Zhurong clears her throat and Ren shakes his head, refocusing on the task at hand, "The Charcoal Refining Law works by burning wood qi until it becomes earth qi, yeah? This'll let you use up enough of your fire qi so that you can actually access your other spirit roots. Plus, it'll provide a bunch of earth qi for your, uh," she snaps her fingers, "what do they call it here? The Law that you interact with the outside world with?"

  "The External Law?"

  "That's the bitch," she snaps her fingers, smiling at Ren, "You're fire-aligned, so you're probably gonna want an earth Law for your External, yeah?"

  Ren nods, carefully keeping his mouth shut. Though he may know well the nature of qi and Laws, letting Zhurong talk gives much greater insight into how she thinks. Carefree though she appears, she takes great pains to refer to Ren with the proper names. Furthermore, once she learned that Ren calls the Laws by different names, she started using his names for it. Why? Surely someone as lazy as Zhurong would just keep using the same word she's familiar with, so why put in such effort?

  Well, one reason is obvious, but it doesn't paint the whole picture. The drunken stupor, the slovenly drawl in her speech, it's all a fa?ade. All a way to throw people off her scent. As can only be expected from a social expert like Zhurong.

  Except... It's too *real*, unless she's so good at acting that she can pull such a thing off, on some level, the Zhurong before him is the real Zhurong.

  ...Is there a real Zhurong?

  "Alrighty, then, time to begin the saturation!" Zhurong's words yank Ren from his thoughts.

  ...Time for pain.

  Ren takes a deep breath and holds it before releasing. As his shoulders fall, he furrows his brow, grits his teeth, and opens his third eye.

  If it were not for him bracing, the sudden clench of his jaw might have been enough to shatter his teeth. Zhurong's golden aura washes over Ren's being, battering him about like a rowboat in the ocean. A storm of shining golden flames builds on the horizon, lashing out at all who dare exist too close.

  Of course, a little bit of qi shock could never stop Zhurong from teaching—especially if she's not the one experiencing it!

  "You know, Rou Ren, your Talent puts you in a rather odd spot," Zhurong purses her lips as she considers her sweat-drenched student, "Your typical cultivator is obsessed with breaking things into categories and figuring out ways to separate shit from scat, and they treat cultivation the same way. That's why you'll hear shit like 'Core Formation' or 'Qi Gathering' or 'Foundation Establishment' but never actually see the practical differences between them."

  "The Heavenly Star Sect," Ren forces out between gritting teeth, "had 'Qi Sensing' and 'Core Shaping'."

  "It's all fake," Zhurong says with a scoff, "like, the only actual *real* difference between any 'realm' is if you've got a core or not, and what kind of core you have. All the other shit is just adding labels to simplify things."

  "T-then," Ren says, his hand trembling, "what is Lung?"

  Fa Fo Lung is *different* than the other cultivators in Zhurong's gang. Quantifiably so, in fact. His meridians are stronger, his qi is denser, and his dantian fills with potent might.

  "Almost ready to form a core, is what he is," Zhurong yawns as she stretches arms above her head, "I guess you could say he's in the 'Core Forming' or whatever you said your old guys called it. Anyways," she wags a hand, brushing the old subject aside, "the first step in cultivation is to learn to differentiate the different kinds of qi, which you've already done thanks to your Talent, yeah?"

  Ren nods, the pressure too much for him to even speak.

  "Well, that means you're just about ready to start preparing to make a core," she gives him a flat look, "you are not ready. Not even close. You've barely got enough qi to refine even a mote of solid qi, let alone fill your dantian." Ren blinks, solid qi an unfamiliar term, which Zhurong luckily catches, "You don't know what solid qi is?" She snorts, "Alright, here's the deal. Qi is kinda like a mist, right?" Ren nods, so she continues, "refining qi gets you shen, right? Well, in order to create a core, you need to refine qi into something that *isn't* shen. You need to make normal qi wet and then make it hard, which is used to form a core. Got that?"

  Ren nods, just about the only thing he can do at this point.

  "Good," Zhurong beams and pats Ren on the head. Ren, utterly defenseless, can do nothing but suffer the indignity as his hair is jostled, "Now, cores come in three different grades, named after the color it takes. These're Copper, Silver, and Gold. The only real difference is the size of the core, as that allows you to store liquid qi without it hardening."

  Ren blinks, the corners of his vision growing dark.

  "Now, o-" Zhurong purses her lips, tilting her head to the side, "And you're fainting."

  "No I'm not," Ren wants to say as his head falls forward and darkness takes him