Prologue

I frowned into my teacup, unsure how, or even if, to bring the subject up, but it hung in the air between myself and my venerated guest as we sat on the veranda at my comfortable villa at the crest of the mountain I called home.

“Your daughter ... has she perhaps encountered a bottleneck in her cultivation? I seem to recall she was born only a few hundred years ago; much too soon to show signs of advancing age. Is there something you hope I can help you with?” I’d sensed the girl some time ago, and while I had yet to lay my eyes on her in recent decades, her cultivation level and slowing bodily functions were not normal for our kind at her age.

Cultivators like ourselves rarely had many personal attachments. As we advanced in our realms, bonds with mortals broke almost as soon as they were made. The only exceptions to these were with other cultivators, and especially with family members. Any cultivation clan considered family to be the most important resource they had; together, a strong clan of talented cultivators could dominate a region of the Endless Expanse. It was a source of pride for our kind.

Of course, that also meant that when a family member failed to show talent, it was a source of endless humiliation. Pride was a cultivator’s greatest weakness. The same attitude that drove us to push against the heavens also gave us an inherent disdain for other, lesser beings. It was almost universal.

My guest slowly sighed. Miura t’Elisante, matriarch of the Elisante Clan, also known as the Frozen Lake Fairy by admirers of her cool beauty, was an impressive woman, with nearly as many accomplishments in her cultivation as myself. She had established the Frozen Lake sect some few thousand years ago with herself as the head, and many a young woman would dream of becoming an Immortal Fairy in her sect.

Physical beauty is a sign of talent in the cultivation world. Something about the qi changes our bodies to our ideal self-image, so if you see a beautiful cultivator, or an exceptionally muscular or perfect specimen of fitness or strength, it usually implies that the individual was quite capable. Of course, if you start out beautiful, you become even more so. Still, it was a nice bonus. Cultivators generally sought power and longevity, but good looks completed the package.

Miura and I had known each other for thousands of years; sometimes fierce rivals competing for resources, sometimes allies fighting against encroaching invaders (the cultivation world was rarely peaceful, and greatly encouraged conflict and competition), occasionally as lovers in a brief but intense tryst, though I was certain her daughter was not a result of one of those. As I mentioned before, our kind has few lingering personal attachments, but over the years we’ve become something close to ... friends? An unusual thing, but not unheard of. Still, when two Spirit Severing powerhouses from different clans sat down to have a private conversation, momentous topics were usually discussed.

“Nehla is the most talented cultivator I’ve ever met, yourself included.” I nod with a light smile in acknowledgement of the subtle complement. “Her control of qi can put some of the most skilled Nascent Soul cultivators to shame. But she is lazy, unmotivated. Cultivation bores her, and the thought of immortality does not tempt or motivate her to work hard, though she clearly fears death. As you can tell, she’s at the peak of Foundation Establishment, but has refused to even attempt to break through.”

I nodded in contemplative fashion; it did seem that her daughter had accompanied her for a specific reason. As a Spirit Severing cultivator I had an enormous range to my spiritual sense, and I was aware of their approach for literally weeks. Typically, someone of Miura’s capabilities would have arrived in hours, but a Foundation Establishment cultivator would be torn apart from the forces at play; by including her daughter in her retinue, a casual visit became something much more ... purposeful. Not that either of us were the type to go adventuring on a whim, but that’s a different matter. Breaking through was always a challenge, especially for a major realm ... but to not even try?