Chương 11: Permission to Cross

Dawn arrived grey and cold, the way it had every morning in this world, and the sect's first bell rang on the inner mountain the way it always did, and the disciples emerged from the bunkhouses the way they always did. But this time, Team Zero was packing what little they had. Viria checked her Spatial Inventory, added a few items she had accumulated, and closed it. Yukito put on his outer layer and belted his knife, which was the entirety of his preparation.

Miho checked her sword, ran two fingers along the sheath from grip to tip in the way she did each morning, and stood. Zero had nothing he needed to do, so he just looked at the room they had occupied for nearly two weeks. He looked between the musty mats, low table, dusty window, and the walls that did not quite meet the ceiling at the corners. An emotion that he had never felt bloomed in his chest. Zero closed his eyes, trying to decipher the feeling from its symptoms.

He felt sad, even though there was nothing he should be sad about. He kept looking around the room, even though nothing had changed. And didn't want to go outside yet, even though there was nothing else to do in the room. From those observations, Zero concluded that what he was feeling was that he would 'miss' the room. The feeling made no sense, and yet it felt like the most obvious thing to feel. Zero decided to think it over later. For now, he followed the others out.

The outer grounds were fully awake by the time they crossed the training yard. The junior disciples' morning session was already underway, forms running in the main yard's familiar rhythm. Zero looked as he passed. Lao Min was mid-sequence, shoulder level, grip loose before the second strike. Zero did not stop. But looking was enough. At the outer gate, Elder Meilin was waiting. This had not been expected, which Zero concluded through the others' reactions.

Miho adjusted her posture into the formal register, Viria went quiet, and Yukito went still. Meilin looked at each of them in the same sequence she always used, "You are leaving."

"Yes, Elder," Miho said.

"The crossing approval is confirmed. The path to the Cloud Sea ridge is the second trail east of the outer wall. Follow it until the trees end." She paused.

"There is a viewing platform at the ridge. Outer disciples are not permitted to use it for crossing attempts." Her eyes turned slightly warmer.

"You four, however, are not outer disciples." She stepped aside.

"Thank you, Elder," Miho said. Meilin gave a single nod and turned back toward the inner yard. They went through the gate.

Miho's farewell to Lan Suyin was not a farewell. Zero knew this only because he happened to be in the practice room when it happened: Miho had gone in alone, early, to run her forms one final time in the space she had been using for twelve days. Lan Suyin arrived twelve minutes later, the same way she had arrived every morning. She set up in her corner without speaking. Miho ran her forms. Lan Suyin ran hers.

After some time, Miho completed the final form, held the ending position for a full three count, and then lowered her sword. She looked at Lan Suyin, "Your left heel is still heavy."

"I know," Lan Suyin said.

"You have improved on the first and third form. The second still shows the same pattern." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I know."

"Work on the second." Lan Suyin nodded. Miho sheathed her sword. Lan Suyin looked at her one last time, and bowed.

"Thank you, Senior Sister Miho." Miho's ears perked up before she remembered to keep them neutral. Lan Suyin gave her a bow, one that outer disciples gave to senior members. Miho returned it, which was not customary for outsiders. She left the practice room, and Lan Suyin went back to her forms. Zero followed Miho out. He said nothing. After a moment, Miho spoke, "She will be a good cultivator."

"Yes," Zero said.

"She does not perform improvement. She actually improves." A pause.

"It is a rarer quality than it should be," Miho said. Zero thought about this for the rest of the walk to the outer gate, and about what it meant that Miho had said it without reference to herself, and whether she knew that it described her. He suspected she knew.

The path east of the outer wall led through pine trees with the cold, resin-sharp smell Zero had been learning to associate with this world. After a short walk uphill the trees thinned and ended, and the path opened onto a wide stone platform that sat at the edge of a ridge. Below it, the Cloud Sea loomed. Zero had seen it before, from a distance, from the sect's upper terraces. This was different.

The viewing platform put them at the very edge of the ridge, with the ground dropping away three meters below the platform's lip into a sea of cloud that extended to the horizon in every direction. The peaks of other mountains rose from it like islands, scattered and remote. The cloud itself moved slowly, as if breathing. The ambient qi was immediately perceptible. It pressed against Zero's skin with the light, continuous weight of something that wanted to enter.

He felt his spiritual body adjust in response, making a small automatic correction he had not requested, and noted this as the first time Spiritual Shapeshifting had operated without his direct intention.

"There it is," Viria said, beside him.

"Yes," Zero said.

"It's larger than I thought."

"Did you not know it was large?"

"Knowing and seeing are different things." Zero looked at the Cloud Sea again and acknowledged that this was true: He had known the Cloud Sea was 'large', but he had also not been prepared for the way 'large' looked when applied to something close up. Miho was already at the platform's edge. She looked out at the sea, and her ears were angled forward, and there was something in her posture that Zero had not seen there before, as if she was looking for something that she recognized.

"Qi density is high," she said.

"Higher than the outer grounds by a significant margin."

"Can we cross?" Yukito asked.

"You can survive in it. But unless you can fly like Zero probably can, or know a Cloud-Step technique like I do, crossing it is not possible." She turned to Viria and Yukito.

"You two," she said.

"Need to find another way across." Viria smirked, "Don't worry, I have a solution." She took something out of her subspace. It was a small paper scroll, tightly wound, with a single character inked on the outer layer. Viria had made it on the tenth day, according to her, working through three failed attempts before producing one that registered on Zero's Identify. Spatial Marker Scroll (Single-use) Grade: C- Function: Creates a detectable spatial marker upon activation that persists for approximately four hours.

Viria handed it to Miho.

"Tear it in a safe location once you're across," The elf said.

"I will feel the marker appear. It should last four hours." Miho held the scroll in both hands. For one moment, she did not put up a neutral front, which made her easier to read, and what Zero read was that she did not like splitting up.

"We'll be right behind you," Viria said.

"You better be," Miho said. A pause.

"Miho," Viria said. Miho's head snapped up"Don't die before you get there." Miho looked at her.

"Don't die here." Viria laughed, which was slightly too sharp to be entirely casual. Yukito said, to Zero, "Same goes."

"Understood," Zero said. Miho turned back to the Cloud Sea. Zero stood beside her and let his shoulders shift: the joints deepening, bone structure restructuring into the configuration he had built and tested twice in the smaller yard. The wings extended, dark and membrane-thin, wide enough to carry him in still air and designed to be adjusted by Spiritual Shapeshifting mid-flight if conditions required. The process took twelve seconds, which was faster than it had been in the yard.

He looked at Viria and Yukito one more time. Viria had her new sword in her left hand, and was wearing the expression she used when she had decided to be calm, even though she wasn't. Yukito was watching the Cloud Sea with the particular attention Zero had come to know meant he was calculating. When Viria looked back at him and Miho, she unexpectedly pulled both of them into a hug. Zero knew that a 'hug' was usually reserved for people that one cared about, so he allowed her to do so.

Miho tried to break free, but stopped when Viria refused to let go. When Viria finally released them, her amber eyes were puffy and red around the edges, and she sniffled back any potental tears.

"Thank you," she croaked, "for everything." Viria quickly ran back to the training grounds, her face flushed scarlet at what she had just said. Miho quickly stepped towards the ridge. Zero followed because he did not know what else he could do. He kept pace with Miho, who was silent for the first stretch. Zero didn't mind the silence though, as he was thinking about other things instead.

Specifically, about the twelve days behind them, which had changed them in ways he was still cataloguing, and the indeterminate days ahead, which he could not catalogue yet because they had not happened. He was also thinking about that very act of 'thinking' was different from anything he had ever done in the lab. He wasn't allowed to think there, only follow orders. Back there, his future was limited to the next session. Here, the future was opened wide, and he was fully inside it.

It felt, as nearly as he could say, like something he had chosen to be moving toward.