Xu Hao had been a third-layer cultivator for less than an hour, and already his new ability was asking him to make a decision he disliked.
Superimpose Sia?
Tame New Beast?
The two choices hung beside the blank cards in his mind palace. He could feel the brush waiting, almost politely, as though it had never dragged him through a night of exhaustion and left his brothers wondering whether he would wake.
"You could at least provide a set of instructions," he told it.
The brush remained still.
He examined the second choice again. The words sharpened, and a smaller line formed beneath them.
Requires blood essence of the target beast.
"Blood essence. Naturally. As if blood by itself weren't sufficient to complicate matters."
The phrase meant something in the cultivation stories Er Bao had told him. Ordinary blood was one thing; blood essence was a concentrated substance found in some beasts, and extracting it without ruining the material was a specialised business. He had neither the necessary training nor a suitable beast to attempt it on.
Perhaps he could ask the brothers. Da Bao would undoubtedly propose catching something enormous. Er Bao would ask reasonable questions that the cards could not answer. Then both would worry when Xu Hao explained that a failed attempt might consume an irreplaceable blank.
He counted the cards. Ninety-seven.
An impressive supply, until one considered how he had come by them: they had appeared in a strange hall that he could neither explain nor replenish.
His other choice was familiar. He knew what Superimpose had done once. Sia had risen three layers. Grey and Little One had gained strength along with her. He also knew what the process had cost him.
He left the hall.
* * *
The morning after a breakthrough should have been devoted to celebration. Da Bao agreed wholeheartedly, by which he meant that Xu Hao ought to celebrate by running farther than the previous day.
"A new layer!" the giant declared, striding down the path ahead. "Your legs should feel lighter. Show me."
"My legs do feel lighter. That doesn't make them belong to a horse."
"You could try keeping pace with me."
"I am keeping pace with you. You're the one jogging backwards to make a point."
Da Bao grinned and turned around before he ran into a pine.
Er Bao followed more slowly, watching Xu Hao's breathing. They had agreed that the third layer did not make him invulnerable. The brothers' promise to take him to Hibiscus Town stood, but Er Bao wanted three days to finish preparing supplies and ensure the breakthrough had not left him unwell.
Xu Hao found the delay tolerable. Barely.
He had seen paper at last, and knew there was a shop in town willing to sell more. After weeks writing on bark, the prospect of a clean page had acquired an almost ridiculous emotional significance.
When they stopped beside the red boulder, Xu Hao reached the stone without gasping. His legs burned, but he could speak in complete sentences. He regarded that as evidence of progress even if Da Bao refused to applaud.
"Could you tell me something?" he asked Er Bao while they drank.
"Of course."
"Blood essence. How is it different from ordinary blood?"
Er Bao studied him over the rim of his cup.
"Some beasts carry concentrated Spirit in their blood. The essence is difficult to extract and valuable to craftsmen, alchemists, and certain cultivators. Why?"
"Because my cards offered me a new option. I don't intend to use it yet."
Er Bao lowered his cup. Xu Hao described the two choices, including the lack of anything resembling a proper explanation.
Da Bao listened with growing excitement.
"We could find a beast with blood essence!"
"There it is," Xu Hao murmured.
"There what is?"
"The suggestion I predicted before asking."
Er Bao ignored them both. "What happens to the essence if your attempt fails?"
"I don't know."
"And to the card?"
"Possibly lost. The brush doesn't say."
"Then I agree with you. Not now."
Da Bao looked disappointed. "But we'd help him catch one."
"I know you would," Xu Hao said. "That's another reason to wait. I don't want to put all three of us in danger just to satisfy my curiosity."
Da Bao opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment he nodded.
"All right. Sia first, then. She's worth making stronger."
Xu Hao glanced towards the enormous husky waiting by the trail. She had been inspecting a clump of grass with extraordinary interest. When she heard her name, she looked up and wagged her tail.
"She is," he said. "But making her stronger isn't free either."
* * *
Er Bao insisted on a careful discussion before they tried anything.
"At the second layer, you used a card to strengthen Sia, and all three beasts changed," he said over breakfast. "Did the strength come from your own cultivation?"
"I don't think so. I stayed at the second layer."
"But it drained you."
"Rather thoroughly."
"Then using a blank card isn't the whole price."
Xu Hao nodded. He had been thinking about the same problem. Card Drawing let him create results far beyond what he could produce with his own body. That didn't mean it demanded nothing of him; it might mean the demand came in a form he barely understood.
Da Bao produced a blanket, a water skin and enough food for two breakfasts.
"There," he said. "Last time you nearly collapsed. This time we're ready."
"Are we expecting the blanket to defend me?"
"The blanket is for after. The food is for before. I've got a better idea about the rest."
The giant sat down next to Xu Hao, folded his arms and settled into a determined silence. It lasted so long that Xu Hao became suspicious.
"What are you doing?"
"Watching you. If you start looking unwell, I'll know."
"That's the best idea you've had all week."
Da Bao looked pleased, then ruined the effect by asking whether watching also meant he could eat the extra breakfast.
They decided to wait until evening, when the day's work was finished and the brothers could both remain awake. Er Bao checked each dog, noting their condition before the attempt. Xu Hao examined the original card once more. Little One and Grey were strong enough to run freely around the camp; neither seemed distressed. He hoped the next change would be equally safe.
"No experiments on the new skill until we've checked their health," he told Da Bao.
"I hadn't said anything."
"You were thinking loudly."
Er Bao almost smiled.
That afternoon Xu Hao worked at his practice target. He had reached fifteen paces with some reliability, but the farther stump still defeated him whenever the wind changed. He fired six arrows, struck the bark twice, and stopped when his shoulder grew sore.
"A disappointing day," he said while recovering the shafts.
"Two hits from twenty paces," Er Bao replied. "The first time you tried, you had none."
"I preferred it when my brothers weren't armed with statistics."
They walked home through the pines. Xu Hao kept thinking of the option awaiting him. On Earth, a grant application required a justification, a risk assessment and a plan for dealing with failure. In the mind palace, the equivalent appeared to be one word: Yes.
It was a system designed by someone who had never supervised a research committee.
* * *
At night, the brothers sat on either side of him. Sia rested with her chin against Xu Hao's knee; Little One and Grey lay nearby. The fire had burned down to steady coals.
"Do you want me to stop you?" Er Bao asked.
Xu Hao looked at him. "If I change my mind, yes. Otherwise, watch the girls. And please don't attempt to interrupt a process none of us understands unless I ask you."
Da Bao frowned. "I hate that part."
"So do I."
Xu Hao closed his eyes and entered the hall.
The three specks of his foundation floated near the deck. Sia's original card waited apart from the ninety-seven blanks. He brought his attention to the new options.
Tame New Beast remained unanswered. He set it aside.
Superimpose Sia?
He thought about the tiger's roar. He thought about the long road to town, where two giant brothers might not always be standing between him and trouble. More than either of those things, he remembered Sia stepping between him and a stranger in a car park six years earlier.
"Let's see if we can look after each other a little longer," he whispered.
Yes.
A blank card slid from the deck. The brush began to draw. His familiar husky appeared in quick, confident strokes, down to the folded tip of her ear.
The copy moved towards the original. They touched, and both pictures vanished into white light.
Xu Hao felt his stomach drop.
"Sia?"
The brush moved again. Within the light a new outline formed, taller and broader than before. The familiar eyes appeared last, one blue and one brown.
Then the draining sensation began.
He tried to keep his breathing steady as strength flowed out of him. It felt as though the brush had reached past muscle and bone to draw from something he could neither see nor protect. He remembered the brothers waiting beyond the hall. He held on to the thought and counted breaths, although the numbers soon lost their meaning.
At last the brush stopped.
Sia's card settled beside the deck. Xu Hao reached for it with trembling attention.
The first line was unchanged.
Name: Sia.
The next line made him forget his exhaustion for one astonished moment.
Rank: Firefly Realm, First Layer.
His dog had crossed an entire major realm.