“Why do you have to make it a formal invitation? It doesn’t make much difference if we train together or separately.” There was enough of a gap in their advancement, and enough of a difference in their Paths, that there weren’t many benefits they could offer one another.
“It’s romantic,” she responded. Jai Long missed a step, but she gave him a confused look. “What? I told you I was interested in you.”
“People don’t normally do that,” he said. Not just say exactly what they meant with zero subtlety, but also express interest in him. No one had done that since he had botched his advancement to Lowgold when he was a child.
“Most people like to waste time.”
Jai Long had a knot of complicated emotions to untangle, but he knew how to control himself under pressure. And he was interested. Potentially.
“If you wanted to spend some time together, we don’t have to train. There’s a new—”
“What do you mean?” she interrupted. “Training together is romantic.”
Jai Long stared blankly at her. Training was boring and repetitive work.
As he did, he felt a light touch brush across his perception, and he realized there had been a web of madra strands observing him for a while.
He glanced to his left and saw his sister smiling as she walked up to him. Fingerling was coiled onto her shoulder. She dipped her head as she reached Kelsa.
“Apologies,” Jai Chen said, which made Jai Long think they’d been around the people of Sacred Valley for too long. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
Kelsa looked from her to Jai Long, studying his eyes. “Your brother doesn’t think training together is romantic.”
“It isn’t,” he said.
“Jai Chen, what do you think?”
His sister cupped her chin and gave the question far more consideration than it deserved. “I could see that, I think. It’s personal, intimate. One-on-one. You’d have to be with the right person, though.”
Kelsa looked to him triumphantly, but now he only thought they were both crazy. He may have been out of his depth with this subject, but he had observed others. Training was just…work.
Unwittingly, he thought of Lindon. The twenty-year-old Sage who used his free time to train more.
Maybe something ran in the family.
Jai Chen gave a sharp gasp, and he immediately stretched his perception out to her. Even with the support of the sect, she’d had a difficult time reaching Lowgold. There weren’t any Remnants with her unique blend of aspects, not to mention any appropriate scales.
But since she had, her detection web had become easier to use and far more efficient. As a Truegold, his spiritual perception was naturally far beyond hers, but she could sense physical changes far faster than he could.
It didn’t take long before everyone saw what she had. A thin pillar of shadow stretched into the sky behind Jai Long. He couldn’t feel it with his perception—it was veiled somehow, or maybe just beyond his ability to detect—but he certainly felt the power of the one stepping through it.
Underlord.
So this was a portal of some kind. Without discussion, the three pushed toward the black beam stretching into the sky. Of course, they weren’t the only ones.
And a moment later, that was proved unnecessary, as a Truegold woman in the green armor of the Skysworn drifted up on a Thousand-Mile Cloud. The Underlord, whoever it was, remained on the ground.
A green construct flashed in front of the Skysworn’s mouth, and her voice echoed over the crowd. “By the order of the Blackflame Emperor, and with the support of the Akura clan, every combat-capable sacred artist of Lowgold or higher is commanded to report to the Skysworn immediately for inspection and possible transfer to battle.”
Jai Long felt a chill. The pillar of shadow was still there, which meant they might see combat today. A small army of clerks and administrators from the Blackflame Empire was flooding out of the portal now, already shouting orders and organizing those they could reach.
He straightened his spine. “Stick with me. They’ll evaluate us together.”
He was certain the other two wouldn’t pass the Empire’s examination. They were both newly advanced to Lowgold, neither were ranked on any of the combat lists, and they both had Paths better suited to support.
It was easy for those in a large clan or powerful sect to forget, but most sacred artists were not dedicated to combat and advancement. A practitioner of illusion techniques, like the Path of the White Fox, was far more common as a teacher, artist, or messenger than a fighter. Not only was raising a real warrior a commitment of time and difficult training, but it was expensive.
As expected, most of the Lowgolds—and even a large chunk of the Highgolds—he saw lined up in front of the Blackflame clerks were quickly turned away. But not as many as he expected.
It was an hour before they were seen, and Jai Long didn’t even get an examination. A Lowgold sensed his power and the soulfire in his spirit, bowed, and presented him with a chip of cheap metal that had ‘Peak Truegold’ stamped on it.
“Sect, school, or clan?” the clerk asked. He was respectful, but it had the tone of a question he’d asked a thousand times already.
“Sect of Twin Stars,” Jai Long said. Those words sounded strange to his own ears.
The clerk dutifully marked it down before asking for his name, age, and Path.
“As a peak Truegold, you’ll be a squad leader,” the clerk explained. “Wait in the designated area for your squad to be assigned to you. It’s usually three Highgolds and five Lowgolds, but it depends on who we get.”
Jai Long saw a squad matching that description pass into a nearby tent from which no one had returned. Another portal, presumably. “Loading us out quickly.”
“Emperor’s orders.” The clerk clearly wanted him to move on, but Jai Long looked over to Jai Chen and Kelsa, who were being examined nearby. A woman was poking Fingerling with a drudge shaped like a spiky ball while a man watched Kelsa demonstrate her techniques.
Jai Long pointed to one, then the other. “That is my sister, and she’s not a fighter, so I want her off the list. That one is, but she’s an illusion artist, so I want her in my squad.”
The clerk scribbled a note. “If your sister passes the examination, she’ll be fighting, I’m sorry. But I can arrange to have them both assigned to you, unless there’s someone higher-ranked who wants them.”
“Underlords won’t be fighting over Lowgolds.”
The clerk, a Lowgold himself, chuckled nervously at the words of a peak Truegold. “Heavens know that’s true.”
“Where are we fighting?”
As expected, the clerk didn’t know.
To Jai Long’s dismay, his sister passed the examination as a fighter. As did Kelsa, but he had expected that. If she had claimed to be an entertainer or even lamplighter, they would probably have believed her, but she would have certainly asked to fight.
He was assigned three Highgolds and another pair of Lowgolds. At first scan, none of them were impressive.
But they all stood stiffly and silently as he watched them, frightened of his attention. Except for his sister, who looked terrified—just not of him—and Kelsa, who scanned the situation herself with unrelieved intensity.
“Can we not tell our families where we’re going?” she asked him, voice low.
“You can leave a message with one of the clerks,” Jai Long told her, “but I’ve never seen anything like this before. If it’s such an emergency, why do they need so many Lowgolds?”
This kind of rushed recruitment reminded him of a clan scraping up all its disciples to defend against a sudden raid, but that was only necessary when the experts were already occupied. The Emperor—an Overlord—could obliterate every Gold here with a wave of his hand.
Which meant that, wherever they were headed, the most advanced sacred artists were either absent or countered.