Chang-li carefully wrapped red lux around his hands before removing the fangs from the snake's corpse. That was exactly the sort of thing that could fetch a valuable price somewhere else.

Then the four approached the trees. Five peaches hung there. One was the size of his whole hand, a creamy, golden-pink color. It smelled delicious. Two others, slightly smaller, had a healthy, golden glow about them. And finally, two more, barely large enough to make a couple of bites, each still more pink and white than golden. There were a handful of flowers on the tree, not yet fruiting.

"Sun said these would do wonders for our cultivation," Min said. "But he didn't tell us how to know which to eat."

She reached out a hand toward them, and stopped. "I can't even get near the larger ones. They're pushing against me, telling me not to touch."

Chang-li stepped up to the tree. He raised his hand to the largest peach and felt the same warning sense. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to touch it, then yanked his hand back. "I don't think that's a good one to eat at all," he said.

The two smallest peaches gave him no sense of trouble, and the middle two gave off a lure of power that delighted him. He plucked one of them and tossed it to Joshi, who held it in his hands before nodding. "This feels right to me."

"Then here." Chang-li picked the two small whitish fruits and held them out to Min and Hiroko.

Min snatched hers up and clutched it tight before nodding. "Yes. Yes, I think so."

Hiroko took hers more delicately.

Chang-li took the remaining medium-sized peach in his hand. He held it out in front of him. The others held theirs as well.

"Try a meditation pose," Chang-li advised the women. "Start cycling whatever color of lux you prefer. Purification of Mind and Soul is a good pattern for this. Or you can use Swirling Mists."

He himself decided to use Double Branching River. Suiting his actions to words, he sat on the grass, folding his legs in front of him, and raised the fruit to his lips.

He took a deep bite and closed his eyes.

The taste of the fruit was like honey and melon and the ripest berry he'd ever had. The flesh was crisp and golden in his mouth. It melted away on his tongue, and powerful energy flowed into his body. Quickly, he took another bite and another, until all the fruit was consumed, leaving a hard pit in his hand.

His body was full of the fresh, strange energy. Chang-li cycled it around in himself, pushing it all into his core. He could sense the others doing the same thing. Right now, he was focusing on himself.

The energy, once it reached his core, began to roil, and the Lens responded. In panic, Chang-li checked. The bracer was still on his hand, but the Lens seemed to have woken up from its slumber. It was resonating all throughout his body, and the energy in his core responded, trying to push out of his core.

He knew instinctively that if he let it, the Lens would absorb all of this energy. He didn't know what that would do to him, but he didn't want to find out.

Chang-li clamped down hard on his core, focusing his will inward. He was good at that. Sun Wukong had even commented on it. With his will, he held his core tight, preventing the energy inside from leaking out. But it was still roiling in him, still responding to the Lens's actions. He couldn't stay like this. He would burst.

Chang-li wasn't breathing. He didn't need to breathe, not with so much lux in him. Every fraction of his mind and soul was focused on his core and the war going on there. He needed to control himself.

Keeping his core locked down like this was no solution. He needed the energy to cycle through his body and strengthen him. If it kept up like this, there would be a backlash.

Chang-li shifted his focus and brought part of his will down against the Lens instead of his core. It shuddered under his touch, and he felt the same sense of wrongness that so often cropped up when he was using his will on another.

That was odd. Chang-li brought more of his will to bear against the Lens. This was no part of him. The Lens was a foreign object, and it responded, rejected his will. He had no right to attempt to control it.

No right? It was in his body. He had all the right in the world.

Angry, Chang-li forced his will hard against the Lens, and it twitched.

He had become a cultivator in order to take charge of his own destiny. He was not going to let a thing like this control him. He would not suffer interference from some strange cultivating artifact that had probably been left in that vault as a trap. He was going to control his own body, whatever it took.

His will squeezed down hard, clamping around the Lens, forcing it to cease its vibration.

At the same time, he opened his channels and allowed the energy to flow through him like lux. It swept along his channels, burning them deep, cleansing them, strengthening them.

The energy from the fruit rushed through every part of his body, suffusing him from his head to his toes. Then at last, it returned to his core, sank into him, infusing his whole body, and was gone.

He opened his eyes. His friends were staring at him.

"Are you alright?" Joshi asked. "That took you much longer than the rest of us."

"I'm fine," Chang-li said. He stretched out his will and wondered at the difference he felt in it. The lessons he had been meditating on about using his will as an external force seemed finally to have sunk home. He couldn't wait for the next fight.

Now, as he felt his body, he realized something else: his body was brimming with potential, his core full of lux.

He opened his eyes, and he saw lux in all of its glory. And he knew the next step, all he had to do was use his will to shape the world around him, now that he saw it clearly enough.

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And he understood how lux would let him make the world answer to his own whims.

Chang-li took a deep breath. He rose, and then he commanded his will and pushed up off the ground. His feet hovered a foot above the top of the grass. He manipulated lux in the air all around him to support him.

Min and Hiroko gasped. "How are you doing that?"

But Joshi answered with a grin in his voice, "You've reached lux Endowment, haven't you?"

Chang-li nodded. "It feels the same, and different. I can hold just as much lux in my core as before. Well, no," he added. "The heavenly fruit has done me good. I can hold more lux in my core. But that's not the real difference. The real difference is now I understand what to do with it."

He allowed himself to descend, then strode over to the tree, where he reached up and plucked the final peach.

It came without any resistance at all, the best proof that he had indeed reached the next phase.

"Lux Endowment!" Min said happily. "You might actually be able to take on Eri's people now, especially if Joshi reaches it as well."

Joshi was shaking his head. "I can tell I'm still some way off. And anyway, Sun said that Eri's cultivators are at lux Embodiment, not lux Endowment. Chang-li might survive a few minutes in a fight with them, but he hasn't much hope of winning."

Min's face fell. "Oh."

Chang-li focused on her instead of his own excitement, and realized something. Both she and Hiroko were sitting right at the verge of the Peak of Mental Refinement. Their cores and their bodies were primed and ready for it. All they needed was to step over the edge into that domain.

He said as much, and Min nodded. "I know. I feel like I could pass the Test of Heart. I just need to contemplate a little, maybe?" There was a tentative note in her voice, so subtle he almost missed it.

"Yes!" Hiroko said, much more assuredly. "The fruit brought me to the peak. I know the step to take."

Joshi and Chang-li exchanged a glance. No need for words as the same thoughts flashed through their minds. They needed to hurry and keep ahead of Eri's cultivators, but Min and Hiroko both reaching the Peak of Mental Refinement was too great a step to miss. "Sit," Chang-li urged.

Hiroko burst into a smile. Min's face clouded. "We don't want to delay your progress, "

"You two are the weak links," Joshi said roughly. "The more Chang-li and I must hold back to make sure you keep up, or protect you, the slower we move. When you can stand beside us on your own feet and keep up, that is when we will climb fastest."

Hiroko blushed from her ears to her neck. Min looked both angry and sullen. Chang-li hastily added, "He's harsh but he's right. Min, Hiroko, sit and cycle. Hold on to those revelations. I want you both to take that step, right now."

Min bit her lip as Hiroko sat. "I," she paused, then looked him in the eye. "Chang-li, I need your help."

"I'll watch over Hiroko," Joshi said, and Chang-li followed Min back into the trees, away from the other two.

"What's wrong?"

She wasn't looking at his face but at the ground. "I don't know if I can take this step, yet."

"I thought you said--"

She held up a hand. "Yes. I know what needs to be done. I just…" her words trailed off, then she tried again. "I don't know if I can, you see?"

He didn't. Chang-li stepped close to her, took her hands in one of his, and with his other hand lifted her chin. Their eyes met. "Tell me what's wrong, so you can help me?"

"It's my training. With Sun Wukong. He told me, no, he showed me what's holding me back. That I'm not focused on cultivation. My mind is scattered on everything else I need to do, and that's keeping me from achieving what I should be. That I need to make a choice. Am I a cultivator, or am I my grandfather's granddaughter, or the Elder Sister, or…" her eyes brimmed with tears. "And I can't. I can't choose. I want all of those."

He bent and pressed his lips to hers. She was stiff at first, but then sank against him. Her arms went to his shoulders as she leaned against him. He turned his head to one side and her face pressed against his chest. "It's all right," he said, trying desperately to think how to reassure her, to find some advice he could give.

She looked up at him, blinking tears. "How are you able to give such focus and devotion to cultivating?"

Chang-li remembered his own push through the Veil of Heart, how he had been forced to recognize truths about himself, and from that, determine how he would walk his path as a cultivator.

He had been struggling with the same problem that still plagued him, his unwillingness to use other people as tools to help his own advancement. All of the other cultivators he had known to that point had climbed by stepping on the backs of others, and Chang-li refused to do that. For a time, he had worried his own advancement would be blocked because of his refusal. Only when he realized that he could advance just as far by working with his friends had the veil parted.

Even as he thought of it, he caught a quick glimpse at his Intent. It still wasn't perfectly formed, but he had the sense of it now. It resonated with the choices he'd made at the Veil of Heart, the realizations he'd had when he took the step to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

This step would be key for Min. If she pushed through despite her own fears, she might cripple herself, cripple her advancement.

"Why do you think you have to choose?" he asked her.

She pulled back a little from him, looking up through her tear-filled eyes. He wanted to wipe away all of her tears and smooth the path, but this was something she had to get through. He could help her, but she had to take the steps.

Because she was clearly fumbling for the right words, he waited patiently until at last she spoke. "A cultivator must be dedicated, focused on cultivating. You can't be half-hearted about it. You have to give everything to cultivation."

"Agreed," Chang-li said. "But what does that actually mean? Cultivation?"

She looked puzzled. "Um... purifying lux, improving yourself, advancement."

"But advancement isn't just about reaching the next Tier," he said. "Sometimes advancement can mean teaching your disciples a new cycling path pattern that makes them better able to defend your back. Or perhaps opening an ancient sect headquarters, only to have to give away most of its knowledge and treasures to others and trust them to make good use of it while you're somewhere else."

He grasped for the right words. "What I mean, Min, is we're not advancing ourselves alone. We're part of a sect now, part of Morning Mist. You feel that you have duties to the sect, to your family, because it's true. But right now, your primary duty, to the sect, to your grandfather, even to me," he added, feeling a bit embarrassed, "is to get stronger. It's not selfish to focus on yourself for a moment. You'll be more able to pick up your other burdens after you've reached this peak. Who you are is all of those things. Giving some up wouldn't make you stronger. It would make you less… you. Those things are what drive you forward, not what hold you back."

Her eyes widened, and she let out a soft little "Oh." Looking up at him, her face shone with hope and disbelief. "Could it... could it be that easy?" she whispered.

"You're carrying so many different burdens," Chang-li said. "What you need to do is let others help you with them. Right now the sect is in Brother Stone's hands and Grandmaster Noren's. There's nothing you can do for it. Your grandfather must take care of the Brotherhood himself. And me," he smiled at her. "You got me where I needed to be. I'm on the right path now, Min. I want you to focus on yourself and what you need right now."

She closed her eyes. He felt her gathering lux around her, and he stepped back, monitoring her as she drew lux into her core, more and more, deep and deeper, packing it in thick. He could feel as the pattern she cycled shifted slightly in response to the prompting from her core.

Light blossomed all around her as the lux began to glow. It was dancing, surrounding her like a cocoon. A veil of lux surrounded her. He could still see her through it, her eyes closed, her head thrown back, arms raised up with her palms pressed together as she cycled. Her chest rose and fell as she perfectly tuned her breathing to the cycle of lux.

The lux around her grew denser and denser until it was almost an opaque wall. Chang-li could feel her cycling still, and there was no disruption in the pattern. He stood calmly, with no fear, and waited.

The lux shell around her flared bright, then shrank, pressing in against her. It wrapped tight on her like a second skin, and then vanished.

Min opened her eyes, her cycling broken. She smiled at him. He held out a hand.

"Welcome to the Peak of Mental Refinement," he said softly. "But don't get comfortable there. We'll have you to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement before the top of this tower. I'm certain of it."

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