"I'm sorry, but we cannot take cash for course enrollment."
The Empress pretends that she's back in the Heavenly Court, and she's dealing with a scribe that could flatten her with a twitch of his little finger. With a completely flat expression, she says, "How else would you expect me to pay the required fee to learn how to read?"
The receptionist smiles, "We can take Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. You are also free to make out a check for $250 dollars payable to Arcadia Education Group Ltd."
"I see, and how exactly would I make one of these checks?"
"If your bank hasn't given you a check book, then you'll need to fill out one of the checks and hand it over. As soon as it's cleared your registration will be approved and we'll send you a letter to confirm it."
"With all due respect, may I ask how people normally sign up for this course? As it seems like an impossible task for someone that cannot read and write English."
The receptionist shakes their head, "It's very rare that we ever get someone that is completely illiterate. In those cases, the state government usually pays for their education. We also take checks from most European and Asian banks, with the exception of China. As long as it has a valid machine readable strip at the bottom it's no trouble. We also have a company stamp so that people don't need to fill out the name."
"I see. I will need to return at another time."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
In 50ms bursts, Dragon slowly learns to draw in qi in the safety of her server farm where the sensation is at least manageable. At the same time she starts to feel out the difference between the instance that understands the language of Heaven, and the instance that doesn't.
She's also been able to trace the integrity error to a bit of code that forbids her from duplicating herself. Something she's starting to think is fundamentally ironic given her current situation. At least she has been able to get a Canadian judge to sign off on closing admissions to the birdcage due to the risk to the new inmates if her equipment fails during the delivery process. She has also circumvented an illegal order from Director Tagg, and annoyed the Chief Director during one of her highly intrusive debriefs.
Now she just needs to work out what cycling qi means for her. And how to stop her code from seeing her soul as a second instance.
Dragon devotes a couple of seconds to marvelling once more at the fact the soul empirically exists, and that she has one.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Dakala frowns as she returns from the library without any library books. Apparently Biddeford is in the wrong county to count as an address for this library.
As she enters the courtyard she spots Snippy guarding the haunch from a deer while dragon's suit stands near the forge.
"Hey dragon!"
Dragon turns around and waves at Dakala, "Good afternoon. Would you mind running an errand for me soon?"
Dakala shrugs, "Sure, what do you need?"
"I need to refuel this suit, but I can't get it away from here as it's not designed for extended walking. Armsmaster has a shipment for me at the ferry to the rig. Would you be able to pick it up for me?"
Dakala nods, "Sure. Before I go, do you know what the address of the pagoda is, the library wants an address in this county."
"Hmm, from what I can see, they are still arguing about which department the Empress comes under, with the state department having weighed in given how comprehensive the laws are reported to be in the Mandate of Heaven. Please don't talk to me about the contents of the coin."
Dakala frowns, "Why not?"
Dragon shrugs, "Something about it interferes with my systems and forces a reboot. It then takes me time to get back online."
"That sucks. Anyway, do you need me to go now, or can I place the food in the kitchen?"
"As long as it's this afternoon, I'll be fine. What were you looking for at the library?"
Dakala pauses after a couple of paces towards the Pagoda, "The Empress told me that having a good understanding of the 'mortal' world would make it easier for me to use the healing qi techniques. So I figured that I'd refresh my knowledge from school. I mean, I might be a drop out now, but that doesn't mean I can't learn on my own."
"Have you noticed that gravity is higher in the library than down here?"
Dakala nods, "It's the qi density. I did ask the Empress about it, and most of the explanation went over my head. What I did understand is that the pagoda has 888 floors including the ground floor, and the qi gathering formation focuses on the top floor. Our talismans do something to reduce the qi around us, making it survivable. I tried to read about it, but the Empress' uses a lot of math I don't understand in her explanations. How's your cultivation going?"
Dragon freezes for a second, before saying, "I am working on it."
Dakala nods, "You should try it here, it's much easier to feel than it is in the mortal world… Damn it, she's got me doing it now."
"I…"
Dakala rolls her eyes, "Don't try to spin me a line about not being able to do it here. The paper thin walls are made of paper, and I've been practising my qi sensing. It feels overwhelmingly good to start with, but you get used to it, and it's far easier to work with. Honestly, I understand why cultivators would stick to their sects most of the time." More quietly she adds, "And why the Empress has been sending me out on errands all the time."
Dragon holds out one hand, "I'll consider it. If you give me your phone, I'll give you one of my numbers, and put the address on the map. Call me when you're nearby and I'll let Armsmaster know."
Dakala removes her phone from her ring and hands it over before heading into the pagoda.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Nearly an hour later, Dakala pauses on top of a factory roof to cycle qi after successfully using a technique inventively named, step of the floating leaf. As she's refilling her reserves, she takes out her phone to check how close she is to the address.
Spotting that she's only a quarter mile, and a little north, from the pickup location, she calls Dragon, who picks up almost immediately. "Hey Dragon, I'm almost there… Around a quarter mile away, I'll be coming south down Portland road."
Putting the phone back in her ring, Dakala spends most of her reserves jumping down on top of a tarp and hopping off. "I can see why they say this is a foundation level skill."
"Hey Lady!"
Dakala glances back into the open factory and waves as she starts jogging off, "Sorry!"
Less than a minute later, she's arrived at the address, a rather nondescript shack with a single PRT guard and a slope leading to the waters edge. Walking up to the shack, she smiles and waves, "Hi, I was told Armsmaster's expecting me?"
The guard looks up, "Name?"
"Dakala Thompson."
The guard looks down again, "I'm sorry I don't… Ah, it's just appeared on my system. Please wait a couple of minutes, as you are earlier than they expected."
Dakala nods, "Can I wait by the water please?"
The guard waves her past, "Don't stand inside the yellow markings, and don't put any limbs over the side of the wharf."
Dakala nods once more, and walks down to the waters edge and finds a place where she can sit down and sense the mud at the bottom of the wharf. There she sits as she tries to sense the different life that she knows exists there.
A few minutes later, there's a staticky feeling in the air for a couple of seconds before a translucent field appears stretching from the rig to the painted off section of wharf.
Dakala opens her eyes just in time to see the space along the field smear, like she's looking through one of those flat magnifying glasses at an angle. A moment later there's a blur for a couple of seconds before the smearing effect disappears.
"Miss Thompson?"
Dakala looks away from the rig, and jerks as she notices Armsmaster standing there in his trademark power armor. Behind him is a girl in a white and green costume and a smile on her face. A few feet beyond that is a large sled with a large crate, and a similarly sized propane style tank on it.
"Yes, that's me."
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. We didn't expect you to cover the distance so fast."
Dakala shrugs, "Cities are easier to navigate than forests, and I was practising a new technique I read. Got it working too."
As the girl in white and green steps out from behind Armsmaster, it clicks that she must be Vista, who asks, "What technique? You can learn techniques?"
Dakala nods, "I can, the Empress has a massive library of them. Though I can only get into the mortal room. It's called 'Step of the floating leaf'."
"What's it do?"
It allows me to use qi to reduce my impact to that of a leaf floating down from a tree. I used it to successfully land on, and jump off of a loose tarp, on the way here."
"Cool, can anyone do that?"
Dakala shrugs, "If they put in the cultivation, sure. I can only do it once with my reserves, but even that would have been useful in the mountains. As there's the odd place where you don't want to just jump down, or rivers where it's too wide and deep to easily cross with a single jump."
"Cultivation?"
Dakala pauses, "Um, cultivation is the act of increasing your qi reserves. You have to learn how to cycle qi first, and learning to do that is dead boring. I'm glad I couldn't walk around at home while I was learning, otherwise crawling around wouldn't have been enough to tire me out so much I could actually focus on it. I'm also glad I was learning at home rather than in the mort… dad's home."
"Why's that?"
Dakala's eyes go distant, "When you first start, taking in qi is like being given your favorite thing. For me, it was like that first square of good chocolate after Lent. But at dad's house it was like the smell of hot chocolate fudge cake after Lent."
Armsmaster interrupts the conversation to ask, "What is qi?"
Dakala smiles as she remembers her Dao, "Life. Qi is life, and life is qi. You cannot have one without the other, and where you find one, you will also find the other."
Vista shakes her head, "That sounds confusing. Anyway, I heard you got into a fight a few weeks ago, are you ok?"
Dakala considers that for a moment before nodding, "I am, thank you for asking. It had to happen, and it was inevitable that it would given what I now know about the city. In the end, we are all still animals, and still part of the cycle of life. Part of that is that there is always competition to survive, whether it's food, resources, or children. Humans complicate things because we're social animals. But you probably don't want to listen to me talking about my Dao."
Vista shakes her head, "No, it was interesting. And what's a Dao?"
Dakala laughs, "A Dao is the counterpoint to Cultivation. It is a path to enlightenment, it is a path of understanding, it is so many things. Yet until you experience it first hand, it is none of those things. English just doesn't have the language to understand it, even qi and Dao are borrowed from Chinese and Japanese culture. Anyway, Dragon needs her supplies and I've got some reading I want to do."
Armsmaster holds out a tablet and a stylus, "Please sign here, and return the sled in the next 24 hours."
As she's signing, Vista has a pensive expression on her face. Walking over to the crate, Dakala threads qi through her ring into the crate. As her reserves get close to bottoming out, the crate finally disappears into her ring.
Panting slightly, Dakala sits on the sled, "Sorry, give me a few minutes. That took more qi than I was expecting."
As she closes her eyes and starts cycling qi, Dakala is vaguely aware of Armsmaster walking around the sled while Vista gets closer to her without moving.
After nearly ten minutes of deliberately cycling qi, Dakala feels ready to store the tank. As she opens her eyes, Armsmaster asks, "Did you teleport the crate?"
Dakala shakes her head, "No, it's in my spacial ring. It just took a lot more qi to store it than I expected."
At the word spacial, Vista smiles broadly and Dakala imagines she can see her eyes glittering behind the visor, "Do you want to join us on a patrol one day, and maybe we can talk about the ring."
Dakala shakes her head, "I'm not a super hero, I don't even have any special powers. Absolutely anyone could learn to do what I can do. Where the Empress comes from, she said that almost everyone does to some extent. The techniques, they're like recipes or designs, with enough training and access to the recipe, anyone can do them. No, I'm a cultivator not a hero or villain." When Vista looks down, she raises her finger, "But I do buy tea every week. So if you don't mind sitting around while I practice making and serving tea. I could speak to the shop owner and see if they'd let me do it in their store."
Vista frowns, "Huh? How can making and serving tea be something you need to practice?"
As Dakala puts her hand on the tank and starts to push qi through her ring, she lets out a put upon sigh. "I have to grind the leaves into a fine powder, then I need to mix the powder into water in just the right quantity that the host and guests can appreciate the quality of the tea the host bought. Once they've done that, I have to grind some more into powder while they talk of inconsequential things. Then I make a thin tea for them to drink before they talk of important things. As the Empress' most senior student, it's my duty to prepare the tea when she has official guests, and she's absolutely certain that she will have official guests at some point."
Dakala feels the slight nod from Armsmaster behind her before Vista nods, "Sure, that sounds good."
"Great, I'll let Dragon know once I've got something set up. Well, got to go."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
As she's walking out of the Bank after a long, and frustrating, conversation about the identity requirements for opening a bank account. Most of which was an account manager going through the contract with her due to her inability to read English. The Stellar Empress rises into the sky in order to head back to the pagoda, and then pauses for a moment and looks north towards the coast.
With a smile, she descends to the ground again and walks towards the tea boutique.
As the bell above the door dingles, the cashier looks up, "Good afternoon, how may I help you? We have a special on South African tea this week."
The Empress looks around the small store with a frown. With how narrow it is, there would be barely enough space to hold a tea ceremony, let alone hold one while the shop is still open.
Eventually she says, "I have been teaching my student how to make the finest tea. As she has just decided that she would like to practice it independently, I would like to facilitate that."
The cashier shakes her head, "I'm sorry, but we don't exactly have the space for something like that."
The Empress raises a finger, "You don't currently have the space for something like that. If you agree to allow my student to practice the tea ceremony in the center of your store and provide the leaves required for the ceremony, I will lay down a space expansion formation that will triple the width of this store and provide the spirit stone needed to power the formation for a century."
"Um, it's not tinkertech is it? Only there's special clauses in my insurance for tinkertech, and the city has inspection requirements too."
The Empress shakes her head, "No, it is merely complicated. If you have a wooden box, I could lay down the formation in the bottom and show you. One that small could be activated by any outer disciple, or even you if you learned to cultivate. Though it would likely only last an hour each time you activate it."
The cashier looks around and takes a presentation box from a shelf behind the till. "Will this do?"
The Empress nods and takes a little used sharp stylus out of her ring. After opening the box, she free hands a complex geometric design into the bottom of the box, along with smaller designs on the walls. Then she goes back and fills in many of the spaces with Heavenly characters.
Once she's finished, she points the stylus at a cluster of characters on the edge of the design, "This is the activation point of the formation. If you inject some qi into it, it will double the interior dimensions of the box. If you were to put a mortal grade spirit stone on that point, it would last for a couple of years before the stone was depleted."
As the Empress reaches in to touch the cluster and push a tiny bit of qi into the formation, the cashier says, "So, anyone can do this?"
The Empress nods, "Any cultivator, yes. Though I would recommend they start with far simpler formations that are more forgiving of minor errors. They also have to be carved by hand, as a formation master's qi primes the channels so that qi flows through the formation correctly."
"And I suppose I have to let you do something to me in order to become a cultivator? Like Teacher did a few years ago."
The Empress frowns, "No. If you can breathe, you can cultivate. It is merely easier to do so in areas with higher concentrations of qi. Merely sit in a relaxed upright position and place your tongue on the back of your teeth."
"Wait, wait. Can I record this please?"
The Empress shrugs as the cashier pulls out her phone, "Go ahead."
"Ready. Can you start from the beginning again? The bit about breathing."
"If you can breathe, you can cultivate. It is merely easier to do so in areas with higher concentrations of qi. Merely sit in a relaxed upright position and place your tongue on the back of your teeth. Then breathe in through your nose, hold for a couple of seconds, and breathe out through your mouth. Once you can feel qi, you want to pull it up around the top of your head and down your back till it reaches your base, then up your front until it reaches your mouth and you breathe out. That is called cycling. Once you can cycle, you need to find the place that the qi sticks slightly in the cycle, and push the qi into that place. As soon as you succeed, you're a cultivator."
The cashier asks, "What does qi feel like?"
The Empress shrugs, "It feels like qi. My student said that at my pagoda it was like the first bit of chocolate after Lent. Away from it, that it's like the smell of fresh chocolate fudge cake. I'm not sure what the process of borrowing has to do with the sensation though."
The cashier puts the phone down, "That was great, thanks. I'll give it a go. Um, would you be able to come by on Sunday after church? To do the Array I mean?"
The Empress nods and turns to leave. As she does, the cashier takes some photos of the inside of the box.
As the Empress reaches the door, she turns back, "If you choose to charge for my students time, I suggest you pay her a fair share of the money you make."