Free of the burden of Jinyang’s lord seat, Fengji adapted to his new role with impressive speed.

His first contribution was a navigation chart — an optimized route through the surrounding territory — which he handed to Baoguo for forwarding to Yueyang. Then he jogged back to the lord’s residence to collect his war beast: a Long-Legged Sprinting Lizard that had survived months of shared starvation with the same loyalty that hunger tests and proves. Fengji had given it portions of his own insufficient food on many of the worst days. A war beast left to starve alongside its owner has every reason to run — the fact that this one hadn’t said something.

“Tell me you’re not planning to use that as a guide mount,” Jude said, looking at the gaunt, knob-kneed creature with the expression of a man who has seen many things and remains unprepared for some of them.

“Where’s your aerial beast?” Baoguo asked. The unspoken question was: how did this man govern a city for any length of time?

“No aerial beast,” Fengji said, with complete equanimity. “But a full stomach and this animal can outrun most flyers on flat ground. You’d be surprised.”

Zhongguan’s crew found this funny enough to produce tears.

Jude didn’t let the comedy continue. He waved a hand and ordered food and a flying mount brought over simultaneously, on the grounds that Yueyang’s time was not something to budget against a sprinting lizard’s ground speed.

The food arrived first. Fengji didn’t wait.

He and the Long-Legged Sprinting Lizard ate raw meat together, side by side, with the synchronized focus of two beings who have long since stopped having opinions about presentation. Baoguo and Jude turned away from the sight by mutual unspoken agreement.

At the tables nearby, Shatong and Ouba and the Jinyang merchants were technically observing their dignity. Their dignity lasted until the grilled meat came out, at which point everyone’s hands moved before their manners could intervene. Utensils were ignored. Seasoning was a concept for other occasions. They ate with both hands and replenished with both hands and didn’t speak.

Fengji, who had the advantage of near-Sky-rank constitution, ate faster and more aggressively than any of them and nearly choked himself to death in the process.

“The man can’t pace himself either,” Zhongguan said, watching Fengji turn an alarming shade while Shatong slapped him on the back. “Truly a well-rounded individual.”

When the meal was finished and Fengji’s stomach had achieved a profile inconsistent with imminent travel, Baoguo suggested a flying mount again.

“I appreciate the offer,” Fengji said, deploying a toothpick. “But there’s something you should know before we get into that. The thing is, I—”

Shatong, who apparently felt the situation required a representative of candor: “The city lord — the guard — has a fear of heights.”

A long silence followed.

“Near-Sky-rank,” Zhongguan said, eventually. “Doesn’t fly. Afraid of heights.“

“That’s not— it’s not a fear, exactly. It’s more of a strong preference for surfaces.”

“This is possibly the most extraordinary person I have ever encountered,” Jude said, “and I used to be a toad.”

Yueyang, informed by messenger, laughed for longer than was strictly necessary. The heavenly realm continued to provide experiences unavailable anywhere else. A near-Sovereign cultivator with acrophobia was, admittedly, not something the Sky Stairway had prepared him for.

He made his decision: Zhongguan and the main escort would stay to help Baoguo and Jude establish the mining operation. He and Qianqian would travel through Tianhua with Fengji on foot — or near-ground, at least — getting a ground-level view of the domain. More information, gathered directly, about why the snake-haired sorcerer had specifically chosen this region.

The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady and Yue Yu entered the Grimoire World. The dragon-woman attendant and the luxury airship remained in Jinyang. Jude and his team began the work of the city.

When Yueyang and Qianqian appeared before Fengji’s group for the first time, wearing matching White Tiger Silver Armor, Shatong and Ouba went briefly and simultaneously blank.

Even Fengji’s eyes narrowed.

“My apologies for what may be an impertinent question,” he said. “Which of you is the Titan lord?”

Jude took a breath of genuine indignation. “How is your eyesight, exactly? The Titan lord’s companion is Princess Qianqian — the most celebrated martial princess in the world — and you cannot distinguish her from— you know what, I genuinely question whether you can find a path through anything.”

It wasn’t really Fengji’s fault. Yueyang’s domain, when he chose to apply it, made reliable identification essentially impossible. The blurred quality of the visual impression he projected meant that different observers literally saw different things, and none of them corresponded accurately to reality. Breaking through it required either Sovereign-level perception or a very specific encounter with the edge of death that clarified things considerably.

Fengji absorbed the rebuke with the expression of a man who suspects he will be absorbing a lot of rebukes in this position and is adjusting accordingly. But the observation he’d made privately troubled him. Both of these people — his new employers, his responsibility to get safely through the Windstill Swamp — registered oddly. They felt simultaneously very strong and very modest. He couldn’t resolve the reading, and unresolved readings in dangerous territory were how people died.

He made a decision.

“I recognize that this may be overstepping,” he said, “but I have a request. Before we enter the Windstill Swamp, I need to see what you can do. The swamp will not give us warning before it tries to kill us. If your ability to respond is below a certain threshold, I would rather know now than discover it in the moment.”

Zhongguan stared at him.

“You want to test the master,” Zhongguan said, with the careful enunciation of a person who wants to make sure they haven’t misheard something.

“This man is out of his mind,” Heitu said.

Spotted Pattern and Flying Locust had stopped being entertained and started looking for the most efficient way to intervene.

Yueyang waved them back.

“Come on then,” he said to Fengji. “One punch. See what you can determine.”

Fengji knew this was probably going to be humiliating. He also knew he would rather be humiliated here than watch his employers die in a swamp because he’d been too polite to ask the obvious question. He pulled back, scaled the force to roughly seventy percent — enough to test, not enough to genuinely injure — and swung.

Midway through the motion he changed direction and hit toward Qianqian instead.

Qianqian noticed the switch. She’d been watching Fengji with the particular attention she gave to persistent people, because persistence aimed in the right direction was something she respected even when it was aimed at her. She extended one finger.

The punch stopped.

Not deflected. Not blocked. Stopped, against one extended finger, as though the force had simply decided to go no further.

Fengji stood frozen for three seconds.

Shatong’s jaw implemented a descent toward the floor.

Ouba made no sound at all.

Fengji straightened, bowed to Qianqian with the sincerity of someone whose position has been comprehensively revised, offered a brief apology — and before the apology was finished, turned and hit Yueyang at full strength, with nothing held back.

In the Windstill Swamp there were Sky-rank beasts with attacks that came from impossible angles. If these two couldn’t handle a full-force strike from a near-Sky-rank cultivator, the swamp was simply not survivable for them.

Yueyang extended one finger.

The motion was visible. Deliberately, almost insultingly visible — slow enough that Fengji could see every stage of it clearly, track the exact trajectory, could have adjusted his punch to avoid it if he’d wanted to.

He didn’t avoid it. He was committed.

The finger didn’t block. It moved around Fengji’s fist, threading through the gap where no gap should have existed, and reached Fengji’s forehead.

It flicked.

Fengji became briefly aerial. He traveled approximately ten thousand meters in a direction that was mostly away, spending the journey separated from several trees and then the surface of a hillside, and came to rest in a crater of his own making.

The sound reached Shatong and Ouba several seconds after the visual.

Both men discovered their knees had made a decision without consulting them.

Eventually, from inside the crater, there was movement. Fengji emerged from the earth, expectorated dirt, and brushed himself off with the methodical calm of someone reassessing his world.

He bowed.

“I apologize for the impertinence. However — that is exactly the reassurance I needed. With your strength and the princess’s behind us, and my navigation in front, I give us sixty percent odds through the Windstill Swamp. Add the other individual I mentioned, and his nose working with my eyes, and we’re at eighty. Even failure becomes survivable.” He straightened up, apparently unbothered by the fact that he was still embedded in the hillside from the waist down. “Lord, would you be willing to also hire a dog-tribe hunter? He won’t be expensive. Meat bones, mostly.”

“Money’s not the issue,” Yueyang said. “The swamp is the issue. Lead the way.”

Fengji lit up.

He scrambled back onto the Long-Legged Sprinting Lizard, which had watched the entire sequence with the equanimity of an animal that has stopped being surprised by its owner’s choices.

“Then we go—”

“Wait.”

Zhongguan, Heitu, Baima, Spotted Pattern, and Flying Locust had formed a loose ring around the lizard.

Fengji’s good mood encountered resistance.

“The master approved my test, and I didn’t injure him,” Fengji said, carefully. “Whatever you’re thinking—”

“Of course,” Zhongguan said warmly, clapping a hand on Fengji’s shoulder. “We have no objection whatsoever to your joining. However — we have a tradition in this unit. A welcoming ceremony. For new members.”

“A welcoming— what kind of ceremony?”

“Very meaningful. Affirms membership. Creates bonds.” Zhongguan’s expression was one of great goodwill. “Something to mark the occasion.”

Fengji relaxed slightly. “Well, if it’s that kind of thing — maybe once the mission’s done we could all go to a flower-wine house, my treat—”

Zhongguan hit him in the face.

Heitu, Baima, Spotted Pattern, and Flying Locust immediately joined the process.

Fengji, when they eventually stopped, lay in the approximate shape of a person who has received a thorough welcome.

Zhongguan helped him up, brushed the dust off his shoulders with genuine care, and spoke in the measured tone of a senior imparting wisdom: “Since you have a task in front of you, we’ll keep the full welcome brief. When you return, we’ll celebrate your membership properly. Don’t be upset — by our unit’s standards, this was a warm reception. When I joined…” He shook his head at the memory. “Young man. The traditions that survive are the ones worth preserving.”

Fengji, who had reassessed several things in the last few minutes, nodded slowly. “I understand completely. When the next person joins — I will personally make sure they understand what a fine tradition looks like.”

He meant every word of it, delivered through slightly rearranged teeth.

“Good man.” Zhongguan’s fist connected with his face a final time. “Remember: welcoming a new member is a privilege for the senior members. Everyone wants to participate. Keep that in mind.”

“Ten more minutes,” Yueyang called over, from a comfortable distance. “Then we leave.”

He had, as it happened, been the one who invented this tradition in the first place.

The logic was sound. The more someone was annoyed, the more motivated they became. The more they were looking forward to something — in this case, a new recruit to welcome — the more patiently they’d endure the present.

Not universally true. But for the kinds of people who ended up in this unit, it held up remarkably well.