Er Bao discovered Xu Hao trying to count dust.
It wasn't actual dust, though he rather wished it were. He had entered the dark hall before breakfast and noticed a single point of pale light floating near the brush. It was so small that he'd ignored it on his earlier visits. Now that the hall contained Sia's presence and two completed copies, the little speck looked almost embarrassingly insignificant.
When he opened his eyes, Er Bao was standing beside him with a bowl of porridge.
"You've been sitting there a long time," the giant said.
"I've been looking at something. A speck, near the cards. I don't remember seeing it before."
Er Bao put down the bowl.
"Describe it."
"A grain of light. Smaller than a seed. It doesn't move when I think about it, and the brush doesn't seem interested in it."
Er Bao smiled. "That's your foundation."
Xu Hao regarded him suspiciously. "I thought a foundation was something substantial. A great stone platform, perhaps. Something a person could build a house on."
"You haven't built a house yet."
"I may never build one if this is all the material I have."
"You're in the first layer of the Dust Realm," Er Bao said. "One speck is exactly what you ought to see."
Xu Hao looked down at his hands. He'd learned to enter the hall, created a living beast and made two copies. His body still bruised when Da Bao pushed him. He still tripped over roots if he stopped paying attention. It seemed odd that all these changes amounted to one tiny point of light.
"Does creating Sia mean I awakened?"
"As far as I can tell. Your power answered you. That is the beginning of cultivation, not its end."
Da Bao arrived in time to hear the last sentence.
"Little brother! First layer!" He caught Xu Hao in an embrace that lifted him off the ground. "You're a cultivator now!"
"If you crush my ribs," Xu Hao wheezed, "I may not remain one for long."
Da Bao set him down at once. Er Bao handed over the porridge before his brother could celebrate again.
* * *
They took him to the flat rock after breakfast, but there would be no dramatic breakthrough. Er Bao made that clear before Xu Hao had settled into his usual position.
"You're not going to reach the second layer today."
"I wasn't expecting to."
"You have a look on your face."
"I am a historian. We always look like we're expecting something to happen in a document. Usually it doesn't."
Er Bao smiled. "Good. Then you'll understand patience."
He explained what the speck represented. In the Dust Realm, cultivation developed through small, steady accumulations of Spirit and the capacity to contain it. Training the body mattered because a weak vessel could not safely bear stronger power. Control mattered because gathering Spirit was useless if it scattered whenever the cultivator became distracted.
Xu Hao listened, then closed his eyes and entered the hall.
"Do not try to make it brighter," Er Bao instructed. "Observe it. Notice whether your breathing changes what you feel."
He tried. At first the speck remained steady. When he breathed too quickly, the feeling around it seemed disturbed. When he relaxed, the sensation eased. That might have been his imagination; he had only one attempt to judge it by.
After a while, his leg began to ache. He shifted. The point of light vanished from his attention, though the hall remained.
"I've lost it," he said.
"Then open your eyes. Rest. Begin again."
Xu Hao opened them. "That's your entire method?"
"Father's was less comfortable. He made Da Bao hold a bowl of water above his head while sitting."
"I spilled it once," Da Bao called from below.
"Eleven times," Er Bao replied.
"I was getting better."
Xu Hao accepted that an empty bowl might still be worse than meditation. He sat again, found the speck and tried to keep his attention on it. This time he managed a little longer. He could feel the difference between reaching for power and observing what was already there. It was small and unspectacular, which made him suspect it was probably important.
By midday, he was tired and irritable. Er Bao stopped the session before Xu Hao could suggest one more attempt.
"I haven't accomplished much," Xu Hao complained.
"You noticed when your attention wandered. That's useful."
"In my old profession, nobody gave me credit for noticing I'd fallen asleep in a library."
"Perhaps they should have."
Xu Hao laughed, then winced as his stiff back complained.
* * *
The brothers used the afternoon to discuss Hibiscus Town.
It had remained a distant prospect ever since Xu Hao came to the forest. They needed salt, new cord, and a replacement blade for a knife Da Bao had damaged while trying to cut through something he admitted he should probably have left alone.
Xu Hao needed even more. Paper, ink, clothing that fitted him, and some understanding of the country in which he now lived. He had begun to think that a scholar without a notebook was more vulnerable than he had ever appreciated.
But there was a difficulty.
"Three Wind Huskies," Er Bao said, looking at the dogs. "Two earth cultivators and a boy nobody knows. People will ask questions."
Da Bao scratched Little One's ears. "They can ask. We'll tell them they're ours."
"And where did we get three matching cultivated beasts?"
"The forest."
"All three? With the same markings and abilities?"
Da Bao looked at Sia, Grey and Little One, then back at his brother.
"A very unusual part of the forest."
Xu Hao put his face in his hands.
Er Bao smiled slightly. "Father mentioned a power called the Mark of the Beast. Beast tamers travel with companions that can fight alongside them. If Xu Hao claims a bond of that kind, Sia won't look entirely out of place."
"But the copies will," Xu Hao said.
"Exactly. We shouldn't display all three in town until we know how to explain them."
Da Bao's expression fell. "Little One has only just arrived."
"She isn't being taken away," Er Bao said. "We're deciding how to keep her safe."
That reached him. Da Bao looked down at his husky, then nodded reluctantly.
"All right. But when we're back here, she comes out."
Xu Hao nodded. "Of course."
They agreed not to mention Card Drawing to anyone outside their camp. Xu Hao would be a young traveller who had become separated from his people. The brothers would say they had taken him in. Sia, if anyone asked, was his beast companion.
It was a story close enough to the truth to survive simple questions, but Xu Hao understood that serious scrutiny could tear it apart.
"And if somebody recognises a Card Drawer?" he asked.
Er Bao didn't answer at once.
Da Bao's grin was gone. "Then we leave. Quickly."
Xu Hao thought of the rich collectors he'd met on Earth, the ones who believed enough money entitled them to anything they admired. He thought of a palace with locked gates and guards who called themselves attendants.
"How often does that happen?"
"I don't know," Er Bao said. "But once would be enough."
Xu Hao raised another question before the discussion ended. What would happen if someone asked him to demonstrate the Mark of the Beast? Er Bao said he should refuse politely, or claim that Sia disliked performing for strangers. Da Bao offered to stand behind him with his club, making refusal considerably less polite. In the end they agreed that a harmless young beast tamer would attract less attention than a mysterious prodigy surrounded by armed giants. Xu Hao practised describing Sia in a few ordinary sentences. It was surprisingly difficult to leave out the truth, especially the part about remembering her from Earth. But he understood why he must. A simple explanation might satisfy a shopkeeper. A complicated one would invite a hundred more questions.
* * *
They returned to training the dogs before sunset. Xu Hao made Da Bao practise recalling Little One from a patch of interesting smells near the stream. He called her three times before she responded. On the fourth, he remembered to lower his voice and use the command they'd agreed upon. She returned at once.
Er Bao watched and said nothing.
"What?" Da Bao demanded.
"Nothing."
"You look pleased."
"I am. You listened."
Da Bao looked at Xu Hao. "He says that as though I never do."
"I wouldn't like to speculate," Xu Hao replied.
Grey performed the same exercise without difficulty, though she hesitated when Sia passed carrying a stick. Xu Hao recorded both successes and failures. He wanted to avoid the tempting conclusion that magical animals required no teaching merely because they were cleverer than ordinary dogs.
At supper, Da Bao announced that the following day would be their first proper hunt together.
"We've practised commands. We've watched them run. They're hungry, and so am I. What else is there to learn?"
"Quite a lot," Xu Hao said.
"Then we can learn while hunting."
Er Bao considered the food stores. The dried meat was running low, and their last hunting trip had been before Sia's arrival. They would need fresh provisions soon whether the new beasts accompanied them or not.
"We can begin with the lower trail," he said. "Nothing deep in the forest. Xu Hao stays with me. If I say retreat, we all retreat."
Da Bao accepted the conditions with a speed that suggested he feared further discussion might cancel the trip.
Xu Hao watched the three huskies curled by the fire. Sia lifted her head at the sound of her name and thumped her tail.
He was happy to see her again. He was happy the brothers had companions of their own. Yet a first-layer cultivator who could barely keep his footing on wet stone was about to walk into the Dark Forest with beasts he had created and still didn't understand.
He put down his bowl.
"One more condition."
Da Bao sighed. "What now?"
"Nobody mistakes an exciting hunt for a safe one. Especially me."
Er Bao nodded. "Agreed."
Da Bao gave Xu Hao a long look, then turned to Little One. "I think our little brother is going to be very difficult to impress."
Xu Hao scratched Sia's ears. "On the contrary. Bring all of us home alive and I'll be delighted."