Chapter Three: Down the Mountain

The next morning, I took Mira down the mountain.

Before we left, she packed a bundle. Inside were the thirty-seven spirit stones, the thirteen books, and several steamed buns. I stood in the square and looked back once at the half-collapsed hall and the crooked tree growing out of it.

"Ancestor," Mira asked, "where are we going?"

"To make money."

"Make money? What money?"

"Debt money."

She froze. "We're going to... do business?"

"Yes."

"But..." She hesitated. "We're cultivators. Isn't business a little... humiliating?"

I turned to her. She shrank her neck.

"Girl," I said, "do you know our sect's current condition?"

"I know."

"Then what pride do you have left to spend?"

She stopped talking.

I took another step, then paused. "What did your master ask you to do?"

"Guard the sect and wait for you."

"And after that?"

She blinked.

"Revive it," I said. "A sect needs disciples, resources, reputation, and allies. Which of those can be built without spirit stones?"

She thought about it.

"How do you think Azure Cloud rose in the first place? By acting noble? By sitting on a mountain and waiting for people to kneel?" I shook my head. "The first ancestor started as a wandering cultivator selling spirit herbs from a street stall. He made money, took disciples, and built a sect one brick at a time."

"Really?"

"Of course." My face did not change. "It's in the sect records. You can read it later."

She believed me.

The road down the mountain was long. We talked as we walked.

I learned more about her. She had been an orphan. Master Clear-Sight found her and raised her inside the sect. He taught her to read, practice sword forms, and recite rules. He had not taught her how to bargain, how to do business, or how to survive among cultivators who ate the weak without blinking.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How long did it take you to reach Foundation Establishment?"

"Master said I had poor talent. Eight years to establish my foundation."

Eight years.

In my time, that would have been slow. Three years was considered passing. One year was not rare.

But now...

"That's good," I said.

Her eyes brightened. "Really?"

"Really."

She smiled, embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

Watching that smile, I remembered something.

"Right. Your name again?"

"Mira Stone."

"Birth name or dao name?"

"Birth name. Master named me after a heroine in a story he was reading when he found me."

"What story?"

"The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber."

I was quiet for a moment.

When I entered seclusion three thousand years ago, that book had just started appearing in mortal newspapers.

Mortal culture, it seemed, traveled farther than most sword lights.