Fay stared into the vault and almost forgot to breathe. Chests filled the space, stacked in neat rows like offerings.

She entered the stash room and opened the nearest cache. Gold. Gems. Some with the dull sheen of precious metals she could not name by sight.

She looked around and counted about twenty in total. Beside them sat a second set, smaller chests, seven of them packed with spirit stones.

Ten thousand low grade in each, the kind of count that could buy a life, or end one. One chest held middle grade stones.

A hundred of them. Fay held it in her hand, this was her first time touching these type of spirit stones.

"How... how can a bandit have so many?" she murmured under her breath.

Poverty had limited her imagination. Fay knew she couldn't stay for long. But there was one problem. How would she carry it all.

Radeon would have planned for this. He always did. Fay forced herself to slow down and listen.

She waited until the mother and child went upstairs, their footsteps fading, the hut settling back into its tired rhythm.

Then Fay moved. She took a spare robe from a shelf and used it like a sack. She bundled the smaller chests by their handles first, the most valuable first. Spirit stones.

Her qi kept them from jingling. She held her breath when guards passed outside, boots thudding on the dirt, voices sliding by in half-bored threats.

When the moment opened, she slipped out and ran. Not down. Up. Higher into the mountain where fewer eyes bothered to look.

She found a small clearing tucked behind scrub and rock. There she tidied her rope, looped it, and let it hang in a way that would be easy to grab in the dark.

She did not linger. She went back at once. Gold came next. Two chests at a time. Fay was a cultivator now, but gold was still gold. Heavy.

It dragged at her shoulders and made her breath come harsh. When she reached the clearing again, the spirit stones were gone.

Not stolen. Taken. Radeon had already come and gone like a shadow.

Fay hauled, set it down, then came back for another load, careful to control her breath. Radeon had told her that thinking of fatigue only made it worse.

By the time Fay dragged the last chests into place, Radeon was there, calm in the dark, opening crates with quick hands.

He started with the gold, breaking down the boxes, dismantling them into usable wood.

With the scraps he began building larger caches, shifting the hoard into fewer loads.

Low grade stones was worth ten gold coins, give or take. Radeon still kept the gold.

He knew coin had its uses with normal folk, the kind who flinched from qi but trusted weight and shine.

Radeon's vision shimmered, and his eye ability caught Fay from afar. She was behind a tree, hiding, chest heaving, sweat cooling on her back.

Then he continued on his task of organization. Radeon had confidence in her training. He had oversaw myriads of races before in his life, so what was one Fay, blessed with talent by heaven itself.

Fay felt her qi bottom out. It was not a dramatic collapse. She remembered Radeon's rule at once. Always have something prepared.

She fished out a qi replenishing pill and swallowed it dry. The bitterness hit the back of her tongue.

Warmth spread through her meridians in slow pulses, not enough to make her strong, enough to keep her standing.

Radeon had made the pills beforehand. Fay had asked about it, eyes bright with the hunger of a new skill. Alchemy. Another door. Another way to be more than useful.

Radeon had denied her.

"Not yet," he had said. "You are a nominal disciple. You have proved nothing."

The words had stung, but they were clear. Fay knew the rule under them. If she wanted it, she would have to earn it.

She felt something harden in her. A story she could tell herself to make what she was doing feel clean.

What were these bandits anyway. Thieves. Pillagers. Men who stole and burned and laughed about it, all to live comfortable lives.

If she took their treasure, she was not sinning. She was correcting.

That was what she told herself, and the thought sat well enough to keep her hands moving.

Fay studied the map by moonless light, finger tracing the next names in Radeon's tight script. Shadow expert. Wandering swordsman.

She chose the closest. Fastest was safest, she told herself, and she moved before doubt could grow teeth.

Night swallowed the mountain. Wind slid through scrub and stone. Fay kept low, keeping her breath quiet, letting qi settle into her legs and eyes in thin controlled threads.

This camp was not like the last one. She saw them before she was close enough to smell their fires.

Twenty guards or so, spaced with discipline, all sword practitioners by the way they stood. Hands near hilts.

Weight balanced. Eyes that did not drift. This was a perimeter meant to catch thieves before they thought they were seen.

She could not pull the same stunt twice. Fay eased back and melted into the dark.

Better to wait. An hour might water down their resolve. Men got tired. Men got bored. Patterns loosened when the mind started thinking about sleep.

She circled to the other side of the small mountain, taking the long path through quiet rock.

There it looked empty. Too empty, but the entrance was there, a darker patch in the stone. Fay took one step toward it.

Something moved behind her.

No warning. No breath. No scrape of boot.

The man was too silent, already lunging in mid strike, blade coming for the soft place beneath her skull.

Fay reacted late. Too late.

A coin flashed through the air.

It punched straight through the man's nape and tore out the other side. The assassin's body went slack as if the strings had been cut.

Fay caught him before he could hit the ground and make noise, arms shaking under the sudden weight.

Her hands trembled as she stared at his face. Life had almost ended for her in the span of a blink.

She laid the corpse down and stripped him fast. Dark outfit. Soft cloth. The kind that drank light.

She pulled it onto herself, fitting it over her robe like a second skin.

Then she looked up into the night and mouthed a thank you.

Radeon. Her master. Timely. Precise. A reminder that he was watching even when she could not see him.

His question came to her as if he had spoken it aloud. What do you lack in battle?

Fay had thought her close combat was more than adequate. She saw the truth now, sharp as the coin hole in the man's throat.

"I clearly lacked stealth, and fast movement," she murmured.

The admission tasted bitter, but it steadied her. She was lucky, she decided, that Radeon was her master.

But for now, she needed to survive the night.

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