Noren was alone in the training room. The floor was covered in rectangular mats, and the walls were padded. Min had said that the Brotherhood used this for wrestling matches, but it made a decent training room as well. A door at the back led to the narrow hall lined with sleeping cells where Noren, Joshi, Brother Stone, and a few other disciples had bed rolls. Chang-li wondered if Joshi was back there now.

  "Where are the Acolytes?" he asked Noren as he entered the room and looked around.

  Noren waved a hand. "Helping with the cleanup. At this stage of their training, hard physical labor is as important as cycling. They've certainly had more luxes available to them than the average acolyte on his way toward Bodily Refinement does, although I believe you are an exception to that."

  Chang-li nodded. He hadn't confessed everything to Noren. Despite his willingness to learn from the man, he was wary. The so-called grandmaster was clearly not all he seemed. Or perhaps he was more than he seemed. Either way, Chang-li was wary of telling the man too much.

  Noren seated himself cross-legged on the floor and gestured for Chang-li to sit opposite. Chang-li did so, putting his hands on his knees, and without being prompted, fell into the Breath of the Heavens cycling technique. He had so much lux available to him now, his core dense enough to hold oceans of it, and yet it was never enough. As the lux quantity in the air around Vardin City decreased, he found himself hungering to enter a tower and drink the heavy, lux-rich air once more.

  "How do you feel you have done in the past week?"

  "I think I've done well," Chang-li said honestly. "We've won every fight, and we've saved people."

  Noren struck the mat beside him with a flat palm, startling Chang-li. "That is not what I meant. You are a cultivator. You should always be looking toward the next step of your climb. How has that gone? Have you received any insight into the Peak of Spiritual Refinement?"

  Chang-li hesitated. He hadn't. For most of the week, he'd been focused on his fights and the task at hand, not thinking about progression for its own sake. He tried to think of an explanation but couldn't find one that would satisfy Noren or himself. Now that Noren pointed it out, Chang-li realized how deficient his thinking had been.

  "What is your greatest weakness as a cultivator?" Noren asked, jabbing a finger out toward Chang-li, who shrank back instinctively before forcing himself into a proper, straight-backed sitting posture.

  "My greatest weakness," Chang-li thought about it. "I suppose that I rely too much on my sword and the first couple of weaves I mastered."

  Noren shook his head. "Those are symptoms of a weakness, not a cause. You are a cultivator. A cultivator constantly seeks to reshape himself, to remove weaknesses, to enhance strengths, to purify himself of anything that will keep him from his ultimate goal. If you cannot look at yourself and see what is lacking, you will never be able to climb to the heavens."

  Chang-li felt as though he had been struck. Worse, Noren was right. He thought back to his most notable triumphs along his path: the fight with Fang, taking on the rock at Golden Moon Tower, some of the challenges he'd faced here during the bridal tournament. He was proud of how he'd handled them.

  "My greatest weakness," Chang-li said slowly, "I can think of many."

  "Oh?" Noren said. "Try me."

  "Um." Chang-li scratched his head, feeling uncomfortably on the spot. "Well, I... lose focus on what's most important sometimes." He thought of nights spent translating scrolls, bleary-eyed days trying to work on his training routines, the way he constantly felt as though he was trying to juggle four separate lives. "I don't know how to do everything I need to do as a cultivator," he said slowly. "When I focus on my studies and unraveling the secrets of the sect, I forget to work with the young disciples. When I work with the Acolytes, I'm not cycling. When I'm cycling, I'm not learning new techniques. When I'm learning new techniques, I'm not improving my core and my body."

  As he spoke, his words came faster and faster, spilling out of him as he realized new truths. "I'm afraid to rely on Joshi for fear that he'll up and leave on me. I don't trust Min to put the sect ahead of her family. And I don't trust you, sir, because I don't know what it is you really want." He looked Noren right in the eyes as he spoke. "I respect that you have many things to teach me, and I'm eager to learn those things, but we both know that Morning Mist has no Grandmaster."

  "No," Noren said quietly, though he didn't seem upset. "Morning Mist does have a grandmaster. It has two young masters. It has dozens of disciples. What it had six months ago is irrelevant."

  Chang-li bowed his head. He couldn't argue with that one, and he didn't want to.

  "You are skirting the edge of your deepest problem," Noren said. "But I already told you what it was."

  Chang-li stretched his mind back to the beginning of the conversation. Then Noren's words struck him harder. "I don't think like a cultivator," he guessed.

  "Exactly," Noren agreed. "There are some admirable qualities about you, Chang-li. Your scribe's training stands you in good stead if you can get past that and start thinking like a cultivator. A scribe ponders. He follows orders. He copies down exactly without ever daring to improvise. These are all very important qualities in a scribe. But if you let them rule you, then the limits of your cultivation are set, and they are not set very high. With such a mindset, you may eventually reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, but you will not go beyond it. So I ask you, how far do you want to go?" Noren held up a hand as Chang-li started to speak. "And why? Because those answers are what will propel you forward."

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  "You're right," Chang-li said quietly. "I was trained as a scribe and not a cultivator. I honestly don't really understand what it means to climb much further than where I already am. I look from me to the prisms, and it seems like an unreachable gulf." He shook his head. "The difference between me and them, the ability to crack Lumos into lux."

  "That is not even the most important thing a prism can do," Noren observed.

  "That's just it," Chang-li said. "How can I think like a cultivator when I don't understand deep down what it means to be a cultivator? I see now the difference between me and someone like Young Master Feng, who was raised in the bosom of a sect. Even Joshi had a better foundation than me. The monks at Harupa trained him to begin this path. I just stumbled onto it."

  "You do yourself a disservice," Noren said. "You did not stumble upon it. You set your own feet on the path, despite being told it was not for you. You, shall we say, wrote your own license to cultivate?" There was an almost indulgent note in his voice.

  Chang-li blinked. How much did Noren know of the truth? "Yes," he admitted, "I suppose I did."

  Noren leaned forward. "Then that must be part of your answer about what it means to be a cultivator. For some of your answer will be true of any cultivator. Some will be special to you. It is up to you to learn what."

  "The prism said something to me.” Chang-li hesitated, trying to remember what Nai Hong had said. It had only been in passing. "He seemed to think that you would be tutoring me toward the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, that anything he told me would be redundant."

  Noren nodded. "Yes, for the average Young Master showing your level of promise, that would be true. However, you are not the average."

  Chang-li's heart plummeted. Was Noren saying he was not fit to be a cultivator? "Your, shall we say, unorthodox foundation has left you in an interesting place," Noren said. He looked Chang-li up and down. "You have seen a handful of young masters already. You must understand what I'm talking about. Think of this Feng you defeated, or Li Jiya, or the others in the bridal tournament. How did they differ from you?"Chang-li thought. "They," he said slowly, "none of them ever seemed hesitant. They're so self-assured, even too self-assured sometimes. They..."

  "But not all. Li Jiya’s brother, Li Jen, you never met him—“

  “Because he died," Noren said quietly.

  "Yes," Chang-li agreed. "He was kind. He was kinder than Li Jiya, but also less confident."

  Noren nodded. "For the average young master, being born into a sect or joining it very young due to an astonishing show of talent is common. You would be surprised how many of those prodigies come from wealthy families who donate to the sect for their offspring's upkeep," he added thoughtfully. "And how very few grandmasters I have ever seen walking the streets of the slums, looking for raw talent in the lowest ranks, but never mind. From the age of, say, five, they are cultivators. Most reach the Peak of Bodily Refinement before the age of ten. Can you imagine?" He shook his head. "The sort of arrogance it would give you to be born into a family that expects you to become a lord of creation, to jostle with your playmates from day one for position, knowing that for every dozen of you at play, only one might make it to Spiritual Refinement, and he is unlikely to go any further. What it does to warp a child's mindset? It has taken me so long to see the damage…”

  Chang-li thought back to his own childhood with his nurturing mother and dutiful older brother, the aunts, uncles, and cousins who had surrounded him with love and affection. How they had banded together to send him to scribing school in the hopes of him achieving greatness. He determined to send another letter and more funds to his mother as soon as he could. He owed them so much. More, it seemed, than he had ever realized.

  Noren was still speaking, half to Chang-li, half seemingly musing aloud. "To be brought up in an environment like that means to have no doubt about who you are and the path you are taking. Their challenges as they reach for the Peak of Spiritual Refinement are utterly different than yours. They already have their Intent, their understanding of how the world works and what their place in it is. All they need to do is sharpen their will to match that Intent. You, though, have both a challenge and an opportunity." Noren's voice dropped. "It is an opportunity because those who wish to proceed beyond, to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, often discover that their Intent is too shallow, but it is formed by others and not themselves."

  "I'm sorry, intent?" Chang-li interrupted. "I know the word, but I feel like you're using it a different way than I am."

  "Forgive me," Noren said. "Again, sometimes your lack of knowledge surprises me. It is not any deficit on your part," he assured Chang-li. "You can't be expected to understand all of cultivation theory when you are... well, what you are."

  Chang-li couldn't decide if Noren admired or despised him for being a jumped-up scribe, but nevertheless, he held his tongue and allowed Noren to speak.

  "Your Intent is the heart of the way you see the world. In order to reach the higher levels of cultivation, you must be able to condense your Intent down to a simple philosophy, perhaps as little as a single phrase, one that you can use to define yourself and the world around you. For the other young masters you have gone up against, their Intent is simple: to rise highest in their sect, to become greater than all other cultivators around them, to force their will upon the world and see it bend."

  Chang-li considered. "So Intent is the same as will?"

  Noren shook his head. "No. Will is what you use to impose your own desires on the world around you. It is an intrinsic part of cultivation. You are defying the natural laws in order to become more than human, after all. Intent is the force behind the will. Without Intent, your will is always going to be insufficient. You are a Young Master, yes, but must have seen you are not as arrogant as your peers.”

  Perhaps Noren saw the agreement in Chang-li’s expression. He continued, “What you see in their attitude is the result of growing up surrounded by those with Intent. But for most, their arrogance is hollow. It is not backed by true Intent. They spend so long faking it they have built up a force of will that carries them as far as they can go. When that fails, they are usually unable to progress further because they haven’t mastered Intent. You have a choice. You could train your will hard and perhaps still achieve the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. You have already taken significant strides toward it. But what would serve you best you should do is forget will, and refine your Intent.”

  Chang-li digested that. "Was that why Li Jiya was having so much trouble reaching the Peak of Spiritual Refinement?"

  Noren nodded. "Indeed, she had internalized what her sect had taught her: to rise to be great in her sect in order to bring glory to them. And then she divorced herself from that sect and joined a group that she never considered to be worthy of herself. Of course, her Intent became muddied. She could have recovered it in time. That woman has a strength of mind rivaling a prism's, but instead, she chose to fall back on elixirs. I will not permit this for you," Noren added, staring Chang-li in the eye. "I would rather you died trying to reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement than use an elixir and cripple your advancement."

  "So would I," Chang-li said fervently, and Noren allowed himself a smile.

  "You see, you do have what it will take. Come, it's clear you need time to consider what I've said. Come back to me when you have decided the next step of your path, and I'll tell you whether or not I think it's worth your time."