There’s a time and place for everything, and in Tundra’s case, there is not enough time.

  “The merchants shipped the 3rd realm spirit beasts and spiritual plants over. It’s now in your private holding area.” Elder Jon said as the two met for tea and just to catch up. “Are you brewing some Bone Replenishment Pills?”

  Tundra smiled, and shook his head. It is fairly common to use the 3rd realm Lightboned Hollow Bulls and the White Bonetree to create Bone Replenishment Pills, which is often used to heal those suffering from heavy bone damage. It’s a pill commonly used for those in the first five realms, before the spirit gained total control over the body and thus could regenerate bone. “Oh. Something else altogether.”

  “Something else. It’s one of your experiments, then. Been a while since you did that.” Jon laughed. “Come, try this stuff. Some of our new friends brought it over from the fringes.”

  New friends was an amusing way to describe traders who wanted to make friends with them. Tia Truehaven’s presence in the Verdant Leaf Town did not go unnoticed, and many quickly speculated that the Verdant Snow Sect was now affiliated with the Ancient Titans Great Sect. Thus, merchants, the kind of money-loving, opportunity-seeking folk, wanted to get close to the Verdant Snow for a perceived link to the Great Sects.

  There are always those who think they can spot opportunities before others. And they are right.

  It was good tea, too. Good, earthy tea. “Your family seems quieter these days. Everyone’s up to their own things.”

  “Have you heard anything?” Tundra sat, and took another sip. There were cookies too, shipped from far away, all only possible thanks to preservation jars.

  “Lady Mistburn’s family is doing well. With you now in the 7th realm, and our greater pool of elders, it seems that the other sects are backing off. It’s the same with the Easthearts. The removal of their spirit beast problems brought them a new streak of prosperity.”

  “That is a good sign.” Tundra said as the door opened, in his mind, he wanted to discuss Elly’s proposal with Jon later, perhaps in a more private setting. Of his three closest elders, perhaps Jon would be more receptive to his family problems. Two of his other elders walked through the doors and joined them around the tea table.

  “You’re late.” Jon teased them, as Severian and Jashen took their seats. “We’ve started.”

  “One is never too late for tea.” The elder Jashen countered. “I had to give some guidance to Julia and Agnia.”

  “The three are doing well.” The regressor praised the three new elders. With three new elders, their workload could be spread out amongst more. “Are any of the other Core Disciples up for a promotion?”

  “Not yet.” Jon shook his head. Jon, is the de-facto Internal Affairs elder, and so he handled training, scripture distribution and other internal matters. “I believe the rest still need a few more challenges, clear a few more hunts, get more pills. ” Jon, naturally, made an unusual, lingering emphasis on that last word.

  “I’ve been making pills as fast as I can.” Tundra laughed.

  “Maybe you can get our guest elder to contribute to the cause.” Severian teased. “That woman does nothing but spy and stalk about the place all day. If you give her something to do, she’d be less irritating to deal with.”

  The regressor nodded. “I’ve been meaning to get to it, but since she’s here to spy on us, I thought I’d let her. Like how she is spying on us now.”

  That made Jashen, Jon and Severian stop, and look at Tundra. Tundra shrugged. “Right?”

  Naturally, Tia Truehaven, who was actually in an entire building away, created a small fragment of her spirit to sneak into the scripture hall. Her true body actually froze in shock. Her spiritual fragment was detected! Of course, the fragment couldn’t actually reply. All it did was listen in.

  Tundra flicked a finger, and a burst of spiritual energy chased the fragment out of the hall.

  “I didn’t know she could do that.” Jon blinked. “I must revise my expectations and countermeasures.”

  “Not that there’s anything for us to hide. What we do is fairly standard, as far as sects go.” Tundra repeated. “Anyway, where were we, oh yes, making pills. I need to go hunt for more alchemy students and disciples.”

  They nodded. When it comes to looking for talent, it’s undeniable that their Sect Master’s instincts were the best.

  “How’s the formation lady?” Tundra asked.

  “She’s behaving.” Severian answered. “It seems her old sect did try to reconnect with her, and offer some deals, but she turned them down. She seems to have realized it’s better to be part of a stronger sect, than her old one.” Severian laughed. “I’ve been taking her as part of the group to visit the nearby sects. Her presence helped spook some of them.”

  “I’m amused that you made that work.”

  The deputy sect master shrugged. “People are afraid of traitors, and people are afraid of their own people betraying them. It’s a good way to show power. Also, Sect Master Lucia Whisperwaters wanted to know when you’re visiting her with the disciples. ”

  “Ah.” Tundra blinked, as he realized he did probably promise her something of that sort. The Mystical Harbors are a friendly sect, after all, and so a visit wouldn’t be unusual. “That’s a good time to take the younger disciples and let them trade pointers.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “While you are at it, make time for a visit to the Scarlet Thunder Sect again.” Severian said. “My sources and contacts claim that they would be quite receptive to an official visit, and Duke Hadrian would love to meet you again, now that things have mostly calmed down.”

  The regressor blinked, a little unwilling to deal with a man he once murdered in order to obtain their cultivation techniques. It was a strange thing to think about that they were now on friendly terms that a formal visit was possible. “Very well, Severian, you’re coming with me?”

  “Sure.”

  ***

  4th realm. Anna didn’t often have time to think about the nature of the realms, but it is something else when father sat opposite her, and began a lecture on the nature of realms.

  “The realms are the lines where the world around us sets as boundaries. Steps, as the world so often tries, to slow our growth. The stages in them exist to denote the level of control one has over our self, our bodies, our soul, and later, the world around us. The first four realms are about the self. From mortal to the 1st realm, 1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, and 3rd to 4th.”

  Tundra sat, and gave a lecture as he often did.

  “Prior to our current notion of the 1st to 10th realm, the Old Ones referred to the first four realms, which mainly expanded our ability to control our flesh, our bones, our blood and a limited sphere around our body as the Four Flesh Realms. Ascending these four steps brought us mastery of our flesh.”

  “Why don’t we call it that way anymore?” Annaly asked.

  “We don’t know. Somewhere along the way the names fell out of favor.” Tundra said. Tens of thousands of years passed, and terms shifted. Linguistic drift, as the mortal scholars sometimes called it.

  “Do they have a name for the later realms?”

  “They do, though records are scarce. It is from an old time. Though some records seem to say they call the Fifth to the Eighth as the Four Regional Realms. In other sets of records, the Fifth to Seventh are referred to as the Three Greater Spirit Realms.”

  “Why are the Old Ones not consistent?”

  “The Old Ones are a diverse group, and just like today, split into multiple sects and factions. Each sect has their own way of doing things, and in that era of great strife with the primordial spirit beasts and the great unclaimed wilds, each sect developed their own terms with little, if any, interaction with others.”

  “Are they not powerful?”

  “They are!” Tundra said. “But the spirit beasts and the natural environment of the Old Ones were not as they are today. The Old Ones’ scriptures often spoke of the great storms that made Flying Swords difficult to use, and the Great Bird Plagues that often killed millions. Most of those problems ended when the Legendary Golden Dragon Emperor Maiharl sealed the Great Storm back to the outer heavens.”

  Everyone sat and listened. The Tale of Maiharl the Third, one of the great ancestors of the Golden Throne is a tale everyone knows one way or another.

  “The 5th to the 8th is where most cultivators expanded their influence around the world. This is also why our tribulation breakthroughs from the 5th realm onwards heavily warped the world around us. It is a sign of a cultivator’s growing influence, and the world’s resistance to our increasing power. But at this point many sects diverged on where they drew the line. Some claimed the 8th realm’s expanded ability to warp space and create standalone secret realms as a difference that separated it from the 7th. So, the Sects and factions that held this belief referred to the 8th realm and above as the Creation Realms. Cultivators could create secret realms, both within our souls, and in the world around us.”

  There was only silence and stares from his children. Anna listened, but this was not the first time Tundra gave this lecture, so the topics were familiar. He repeated some topics, especially for younger children who needed the repetition to get the message into their minds.

  Listening was one thing. Comprehension of what was said, another. Application is then in a whole league of its own.

  “Those who held other views believed the 8th realm’s ability to create small pockets of space as nothing truly substantive, so still included the 8th realm within the Regional Realms, which referred to our ability to influence the region. For these, the 9th and 10th are referred to as the World Realms, because it is understood that in the 9th realm, a cultivator gains the power to create true secret worlds.”

  “So the difference is where they draw the line?”

  “We don’t know. No one from the era survives to truly enlighten us on the details of the schism, and from my point of view, it is a fairly academic difference. In that era, surviving the Great Storms, and protecting the safe lands was all that mattered.”

  “How did they do it?”

  “The Old Ones had great primordial spirit beasts as their partners. Friends.” Tundra said. “We can owe the survival of man today to the Great Primordials who stood on our side, instead of the others.”

  Really. Anna found such a world hard to believe. Everywhere they’ve been so far, she found it hard to fathom a world where humans and the various mixed broods were not at the top. It was a tale sometimes so far away from their lived realities that it’s considered a fairytale.

  But then, one of the kids asked a really good question. It was one of his grandsons, Lucian, who then asked. “Is there anywhere in the world today that still lives like that?”

  “Oh, there is. If we sail far away from the known continents, there exists a series of islands where the Great Storms still continue to swirl. It is a difficult, dangerous land, and though there are some surviving human sects still living in a few fortresses of those islands.”

  “Why don’t they leave?”

  “They have their own reasons to stay.” Tundra answered, and yet Anna saw in his father’s eyes, things he didn’t want to say. He wasn’t telling the full picture. “Now, now, enough storytelling from me today. Time to get back to cultivation. Let me see how is everyone’s progress!”

  ***

  Annaly was at the peak of the 2nd realm, much to Anna’s amusement. It took a few more months, and yet, she was almost ready to step into the 3rd realm. The 3rd realm was a good point to start looking for a decent sized sect to join.

  Most of the greater sects, as in, sects larger and more prestigious than the Verdant Snow Sect would very rarely accept anyone in the 1st realm. It is only if they had some thoroughly unique spiritual roots, some native, inherent physiques, or some bloodlines, then the greater sects would make exceptions.

  For the others, the norm is to start around the 2nd or 3rd realms. So, it is not unusual for those in smaller sects to leave and join larger sects. Most times, this movement is fairly diplomatic.

  Each disciple gets resources based on what merit they contributed to the sect, and the movement between sects is sometimes a way for smaller sects to form connections with larger sects.

  “Anna, Annaly, since I promised, both of you will come with me to visit the Mystical Harbors and also the Scarlet Thunder. In my mind, I consider these two sects to be our peers, so, it may not be what you two want, but the visit will expand your understanding of how most sects operate.”

  Anna blinked, as she realized that things were now in motion. “Yes, father.”

  **