Sen led Shen Mingxia over to the building where he kept most of the people who dealt with problems he didn’t want cluttering up his day. It seemed like there were more of them in there every day, some of them he had no memory of hiring, which made putting names to faces more than a challenge. As they walked through the space, Sen noticed that almost everyone was wearing a shade of blue similar to the robes he wore. It looked uncomfortably like a uniform to him. Everyone bowed and greeted him, which made him grind his teeth, but he knew that trying to put a stop to it would just create more problems. So, he endured it. Shen Mingxia looked around at the bowing people and gave him an arch look.

“Yeah, this isn’t anything like a sect,” she whispered.

“Thank you for that very helpful observation,” said Sen as he led her to what had become, mostly by accident, his working space.

He summoned chairs from his storage ring for them both and sat down. Shen Mingxia looked around at the completely barren room before turning a questioning gaze on him.

He sighed. “I used this room a few times, so everyone just thought it was mine. Now, nobody comes in here except me.”

“You should get a table or something. It’s kind of creepy when you come in and it’s just stone. Looks like a place you might take someone to make them vanish forever.”

Sen looked around at the room. He supposed it did sort of give that impression.

“I’ll get a table for it eventually,” he said. “Now, have you decided what you want in general terms? Immediate advancement? Future improvement? Stronger affinity?”

“What would you do?” she asked.

“What would I do, or what would I recommend that you do?”

“Is there a difference?”

“There is a very big difference.”

“Alright,” said Shen Mingxia, her expression thoughtful. “What would you do?”

“Nothing,” said Sen.

“I don’t understand. You’d do nothing with the flower? Like, you’d save it for something?”

“I meant a little more generally. If I had the chance to push my cultivation forward or expand an affinity or basically any of the options you have, I’d choose none of them. And to answer your next question, it’s because I don’t want to advance my cultivation, and expanding one of my affinities would be more of a distraction than a benefit. If anything, I want to slow my advancement, not speed it up.”

Shen Mingxia was very quiet for a time before she said, “That’s a strange attitude for a cultivator.”

“Probably. But that’s where I’m at. So, that’s what I’d do.”

“That’s not what you’d advise for me, though.”

“No. You seem to be advancing at a perfectly sane pace. Faster than most, based on what I’ve heard.”

“Not as fast as you or Wu Meng Yao.”

“I’m a freakish anomaly who had advancement forced on me more often than I sought it out. I can’t guess the details. In fact, you’d probably know better than I would, but I have to assume Wu Meng Yao had some lucky encounters. Maybe found a few natural treasures along the way.”

“She did,” admitted Shen Mingxia.

“Then she’s a poor example to measure yourself by. Lucky encounters and the right natural treasures have a way of unnaturally speeding advancement along.”

“Natural treasures like the flower.”

“Exactly like the flower.”

“So, you don’t think I should use it to advance?”

Sen leaned back in his chair and frowned up at the ceiling for a moment before he answered.

“There’s so much a person doesn’t know when they start out cultivating. So many things that are almost impossible to explain until someone is there. For example, it’s hard to explain how important your own thinking, self-knowledge, and intuition are to the process. So, let me ask you this. Do you feel like you still have momentum?”If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Sen watched Shen Mingxia wrestle with that question. She seemed to go back and forth with it before she finally gave a reluctant answer.

“Yes.”

“You wanted to say no, didn’t you? So, you’d have an excuse to push for advancement now?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“Why didn’t you?” asked Sen. “I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

“One, I don’t believe that for a second. Two, lying to you probably wouldn’t lead to good advice.”

“Fair. Now, here’s a harder question for you. How sure are you that you’ll reach core formation?”

Shen Mingxia took much, much longer to contemplate that question. It was also clear that she didn’t feel nearly as certain about her answer when she finally gave one.

“Pretty sure.”

“Are you saying that because you believe it or because you were told by someone that you could?”

“Does it matter?”

Sen nodded. “A bottleneck can be mental or emotional. It’s not just a question of accumulating enough qi to do it. If that’s all it took, everyone would fly through these advancements. If you don’t think you can or should, or if you think you don’t deserve it, you’ll never advance. You won’t let yourself advance.”

“Did that happen to you?”

“No,” admitted Sen. “But I was trained by people who have watched hundreds if not thousands of other people fail advancements. They explained it to me. I’m willing to take it on faith that they know what they’re talking about.”

“I guess if anyone would know, they would.”

“I have, however, been through the advancements that you’re working toward. I can tell you now that you need to know, in your soul, that you’re going to advance. If you have doubts, you’ll hesitate at a crucial moment and the whole thing will collapse. Admittedly, a failure to advance from foundation formation to core formation isn’t a complete catastrophe. At least, it’s not from a pure cultivation perspective. The failed core will simply dissolve back into qi in your dantian.”

Shen Mingxia gave him a hard look. “But? I assume there’s a but.”

“But the failure has a way of undermining people’s confidence. The way I understand it, the number of people who succeed on second or third attempts at core formation is—” Sen paused. “Let’s say that the number is very low and leave it at that.”

Sen gave her time to think while she chewed on her bottom lip in a way that looked painful to him. It got bad enough that he worried she might draw blood. She finally looked at him again.

“So, are you going to tell me what you would recommend?”

“If you’re hoping that pushing an advancement now will give you confidence later, I’d recommend that you dispel that notion. Advancement doesn’t change who you are, what you think, or how you feel. It only changes what you can do. At best, it’ll give you a bit of false confidence that won’t survive the first challenge.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” complained Shen Mingxia.

“I know. Here’s my recommendation. You need to decide if you’re going to become a core formation cultivator or not. I’m talking about a true decision one way or the other. If you decide that becoming a core cultivator is something that will absolutely happen for you, then I’d recommend having me make something that will aid in that advancement. If you decide that foundation formation is as far as you’re going to go, then ask me to make something that will help you make the most of what foundation formation has to offer.”

Sen could see the disappointment on her face, even though she nodded.

He gave her a mildly chastising look and asked, “Were you hoping that I’d tell you to go with the elixir that would help in the advancement to core formation? Use that as a confirmation that you would make it?”

Shen Mingxia averted her eyes. “Maybe.”

“Sorry. If I thought that would work, I’d have done it. Unfortunately, no one can really decide your path for you. Not in cultivation. I don’t know if it matters to you, but I’ve seen you practicing since you’ve been here. Your foundations are solid. Your control is good. I think you can reach core formation. You have what you need on the cultivation side of things. Whether you will advance is in your hands.”

Shen Mingxia huffed out a breath and said, “You certainly talk like a sect elder.”

Sen put on a wounded expression and pressed a hand to his chest.

“There’s no call to be mean.”

The foundation formation cultivator snorted and looked around at the empty room again. She shook her head.

“Seriously. Get a table in here. Maybe pile up some scrolls on it. It would help a lot.”

“Fine. I’ll get a table,” said Sen, who cycled for earth and made a stone table rise up out of the floor behind him. “Better?”

Shen Mingxia gave the table a dubious look. “Well, it’s a start, I guess. Maybe you could make it look a little nicer.”

“I’ll make that my project when I have free time again next year. This brief window of idleness can’t possibly last.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the universe hates me.”

“What? Do you think that a messenger is going to show up and tell you that the king wants to see you?” asked Shen Mingxia with a laugh.

Her laugh slowly dwindled at the aghast look on Sen’s face.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would you ever even put that idea in the air?”

“Come on. That’s not going to happen.”

Sen stabbed a finger at her. “When it happens, you’re coming with me. Because you have to know that the universe is going to take that last comment as a challenge, and you’ve now sealed it as absolute fate.”

Shen Mingxia rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s say that by some cosmic twist that it does happen, why would you take me along?”

Sen gave her a wolf’s smile. “So that you too can experience all of the exquisite joys of spending time in a room full of nobles and royals. Since you’ve opted not to join my academy, you can think of it as an alternative learning experience.”

“When you describe it like that, it doesn’t sound like a good thing. Thank goodness that’ll never happen, right?”

Before Sen could answer, the door cracked open a little. “Patriarch?”

Sen had to resist the urge to strangle the man through the door for calling him that.

“Yes?” he called out.

“There’s a messenger to see you. From the capital.”

Sen glared at Shen Mingxia who was staring at the still mostly closed door with a mix of utter disbelief and pure horror writ large across her features.

“This is your fault,” he hissed at her. “Pack for a trip.”