Master Yan Duo was running out of time.

  Nearly two months ago, he was tasked by his superiors of the Sworn Sword Sect — the esteemed Elders — to take on Outer Disciple Ji-eun as an apprentice. The task was simple: raise her from a mortal to at least the Initiate’s Realm in time for the arrival of an Imperial Envoy, on a clandestine visit to the Sect known only to the Elders and a select few Masters.

  Yan Dao had taken the task in stride. He had seen Disciples ascend to the Initiate Realm in less time before. And this Disciple, Ji-eun, had been with the Sect for over a year now. Her foundation had to be strong, even if she had floundered in her cultivation. It was an easy assignment, he thought. Until one particular Elder approached him personally.

  “Complete this task at all costs. Do not intervene in her training, merely guide. Provide qi refinement resources and teach her the basics of qi manipulation. Nothing more. Remember this, Yan Dao: you are an observer first, before you are her master.”

  It was after this meeting that Master Yan came to an obvious conclusion: this wasn’t a matter of training a young, promising Disciple. This was a matter of Sect politics. And how he hated politics.

  But he had his orders, and he would carry them out dutifully. It was not his place to pry, nor was it to question the will of the esteemed Elders. Whatever games they played amongst themselves were far above his station. He felt guilty even referring to them as mere ‘games’.

  Standing within his workshop, Master Yan paced fruitlessly in circles. There was just a week left until the Emperor’s Envoy arrived. Disciple Ji-eun had made excellent progress, he had to admit. Unbeknownst to her, she had steadily advanced through the Foundation Realm. Another thing he had been asked to keep hidden from her. For what reason? He did not know. But it was starting to stress him.

  The Foundation Realm was nothing to get excited about. Many mortals entered this realm without even realising, a byproduct of internalising qi. In fact, within qi dense areas, mortals were often born in the Foundation Realm. Noble houses spent good money on qi rich land for this very reason. So why keep this otherwise mundane information from the Disciple? Wouldn’t knowing her progress give her motivation to continue? It was not his place to question.

  Master Yan was confident Disciple Ji-eun could enter the Initiate Realm by the week’s end. The only bottleneck would be if she could learn to harness her inner qi to refine the Sky Blue Pill properly. But that too was an easy task.

  So why was he so worried?

  It was obvious. Sect politics. The game he found himself involved in, lacking information and unable to go seeking for it. A Disciple, talented in the ways of qi projection, poisoned and suppressed within the Sect. A Disciple, deliberately kept in the dark about her progress, despite having been given to one of the limited Masters of the Sect for training. A Disciple, gifted to the Sect by the Emperor himself, expected to be trained into a Cultivator proper, destined to challenge the heavens. Destined to stand with the Great Empire Yan against the true enemy, Demonic kind. Belittled and shunned by those that should be her allies.

  Oh yes, Master Yan knew all about the discrimination between Disciples. It had existed long before Ji-eun arrived, and yet overnight, this animosity was all pointed towards her. He could understand this, at least. Nobles of the Empire finding a Savage from the North amongst their midst was bound to go over poorly. But it was still odd how swiftly the Disciple found herself at odds with, well, everybody.

  Master Yan Dao could practically feel the invisible strings tied around him. Tied around the entire Lower Sect. It was obvious. Sect politics, dictating all. It was not his place to question, nor to pry into the workings of the Elder’s greater game. But still. But still!

  The man, almost four hundred years old, had his pride. And being nothing more than a piece on a board he could not see ground against him. He was a Sword sworn to be held in service of the Empire. And yet, he found himself held aloft by hands he could not see, in service of a goal as unclear as it was unsatisfying.

  He was running out of time.

  Training Disciple Ji-eun was the easy part. Deciphering the greater game around him was what truly kept him up at night. In one week, this game would end. It was the most obvious round of manipulations and schemes Master Yan Dao had seen in decades. It was his chance to peer behind the curtains, to question the puppeteers putting on this play. In one week, that chance would slip, and he would be stuck once again blindly following the hands that guided.

  At what cost?

  —

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Cai Shufen was running out of time.

  Almost one year ago, she had been tasked by an Elder of the Sect with a simple mission: suppress an unworthy mortal who dared join the Sworn Sword Sect. What an honour! An Outer Disciple, personally asked by the Elders to complete a task. It would be a discreet mission. No one could know, not even other Elders.

  She was given supporters. A troupe of five other Outer Disciples tasked with aiding her mission, though from her discussions with them they did not know the details.

  When she first met ‘Disciple’ Ji-eun, Cai Shufen was immediately unimpressed. The woman was mortal through and through. And a savage from the North no less! She spoke rough, and had no respect for her clear superiors. And that ridiculous story about fending off Demons. She had the gall to try and deceive the Emperor to curry some perverse power?

  What a parasite. She had half a mind to quietly snuff out the little upstart, but she had her orders, and she would complete them dutifully. Cai Shufen was a true Disciple of the Sworn Sword Sect after all.

  Her plan — the plan shared to her by the Elder — was simple. An airborne poison easily distilled from herbs found readily on the Sect’s mountain would cripple the woman’s ability to internalise qi. It was devious: the poison would diffuse into the mortal body, but leave the meridians clear. No Spiritual Doctor would find anything wrong unless specifically looking for it. Within a Cultivator, their qi would move sluggish, or become unresponsive entirely. Within a mortal, who had no inner qi to resist? The poison could build and build unit qi absolutely refused to enter their body. It would take a monstrous amount of refined qi to reject once the poison begun to build. The plan was flawless. Of course it was, Cai Shufen — and the Elder, of course — came up with it.

  But Cai Shufen took it a step further. She always had quite the sway with other Disciples, and she used it to her advantage every chance she got. In hindsight, it was easy to shift the glares of her fellow Outer Disciples from each other towards the mortal interloper. Each and every one of them were honoured nobles of the Great Yan Empire! None could withstand a mortal commoner standing within their midst.

  Like that, a year passed. Ji-eun, now her ‘Sister’, made the task easy on her. She followed a rigid schedule of training and eating, day in day out. It was trivial to slip in and out of her room — always clean and tidy, in spite of how useless the servants were — and change out the poisoned incense. Every now and then she’d change the dose, or spike the bath (only when that statue of a woman Mu Yingue was gone), or powder the hilt of Ji-eun’s training swords. Anything and everything to make sure the woman stayed down.

  But despite it all, the parasite continued to try. She trained every day. She ignored the hushed words and tolerated the beatings. Cai Shufen wanted to up the ante, but she had her orders. Discretion was key.

  At least, it was until a few weeks ago.

  Something changed. Instead of tired looks and shuffling feet, Ji-eun grew more fierce in her training. So Cai Shufen upped the dose. Again and again. She was almost caught once, but thankfully her supporters were stood guard outside. It was a habit, to have them around just in case. She was glad it paid off.

  And then something unbelievable happened. One night, when entering the bath, Cai Shufen found the distinct presence of qi within the mortal. That statue, Mu Yingue, was there as well for some reason. Like always, she was impenetrable, completely indifferent to the world around her.

  Cai Shufen didn’t let it faze her. She continued to up the dosage, increasing the amount of herbs she used to mask the terrible scent, every day. And yet the qi within Ji-eun continued to grow. She could feel it every time the mortal walked through the door. It grated on her.

  She was running out of time.

  Just last night, the Elder had approached her again. She was told explicitly that she had but a week to destroy the mortal’s budding cultivation, or be lost from the Sect herself. Cai Shufen wouldn’t allow that to happen. She would not fail, by any means necessary.

  Hidden within a workshop in the Sect proper, its door conveniently left unlocked for the past several nights, Cai Shufen concocted a plan, and a poison. One she had been graciously given the recipe for by her Elder. It was similar, but far more fatal. This poison did not just cloud qi; it disrupted it violently. One had to have great control over their inner qi to resist its effects, and even then, they would be left vulnerable.

  By any means necessary, she would complete her task.

  Later that night, Cai Shufen kept her qi sense extended, feeling the presence of Ji-eun as she entered the pavilion. She would wait to strike. It was a universal truth that people were most exposed when they slept. Mortals died in their sleep all the time, right? Upstart commoners with no respect especially.

  All Cai Shufen had to do was wait.

  —-

  It was late at night, or perhaps early morning if you were pedantic about it. Two members of the Sworn Sword Sect, one a Disciple and one a Master, stayed up contemplating the same issue, unknown to each other.

  One prepared to question his orders for the first time in centuries. One prepared to take a life, for the first time in theirs.

  Both kept their senses trained on the growing qi emanating from a mortal girl, trying her best to become something she was not destined to be.

  Both felt it when her qi rippled against the world. Both understood what it meant. One through experience, one through instinct. It was a sign that the girl’s foundation was complete. Any second, any moment, she could ignite.

  For one, this was a blessing. For the other, a sign that the time for waiting was over.

  —

  Ji-eun stood stunned still in her room, but not because of the gentle rippling that continued within her chest. She recognised the smell of the incense. Or rather, what was hidden behind the incense.

  Prickling against her nose was the harsh smell of bile, mixing in the worst way possible with notes of heavy smoke and sour medicine. It smelt far too similar to the black tar Ji-eun remembered hurling against her floor weeks prior.

  Pieces began to fall into place. A story, maybe not the truth but far from incorrect, formed. Poison, slowly filling her body over months. The incense, its vector. Who had been refilling it all those nights? A servant, she had assumed, but she never bothered confirming. It was another weird cultivator thing amongst all the others. Master Yan must have known. He reacted oddly when Ji-eun told her about the first pill, but she brushed it off. The medicine then wasn’t for the pill but for the poison.

  What else had she missed? What else had she overlooked out of carelessness? She knew the Sect wasn’t safe. It was never a place meant for her. What could she do? What should she do?

  The door creaked open. It shouldn’t have been able to; Ji-eun always kept it locked. In a blind panic, Ji-eun shot out her qi sense, and recognised the soft ping it returned.

  Stepping through the doorway, dripping needles in one hand and slender silver Jian in another, was Cai Shufeng. A dark expression clouded her face.