Therefore, everyone who lived here knew that valuable treasures could be found inside. He had been forced to promise a share of anything he recovered to Heaven’s Glory in exchange for access.

So, of course, he hid everything he found in the labyrinth inside his private void space.

Anses and the other elder eyed him as though they suspected him of tucking constructs into his robes, but they respected his power even now.

He had shown them only the smallest glimpse of his abilities, and that had been enough for them to treat him like a warrior descended from the heavens.

His pity for them matched his contempt. If not for that, and for the fact that he was too lazy to wash his own clothes and prepare his own meals, he would have punished them long ago for trying to poison him.

Right on cue, the woman produced a stoppered clay bottle from her robes. “Apologies, honored guest, but we have used our lacking skills to prepare a recovery elixir for you. Please taste it yourself and share some small measure of your wisdom with us.”

Wordlessly, Adama took the bottle from her. He didn’t remember her name. Frankly, he had made it a point to forget the names of every Heaven’s Glory elder. Anses had only stuck in his mind because of the man’s mangled arm.

Oh, and he remembered Whitehall, the old man trapped in a boy’s body. That was a bizarre case Adama wouldn’t have minded researching further, had he not been in Sacred Valley for a more important purpose.

Moving his gaze from one elder’s eyes to the other’s, he gulped the “medicine” down. He never looked away from them as he finished, tossed the bottle back, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Like a cool drink of spring water,” he said. “My thanks.”

Elder Anses shifted in place and his partner struggled not to move her gaze, but they both thanked him and asked for pointers in refining a new version of the elixir. He told them to add mint.

The elixir was poisoned.

They had been slipping him poison almost since his first day here. Sleeping drafts mostly, but there had been some meant to inhibit his spirit, some to paralyze him, some to meddle with his memories, a handful of others.

They were always mixed cleverly, he had to admit. Almost undetectable to the tongue or to the spiritual sense, when combined with his medicine or his meals.

Every time, they watched his reaction. At first, they could have blamed a mistake. “Oh no, we added too much Nimblethorn.” But when he never said a word, they grew bolder.

They knew he had treasures, and the longer he stayed with them, the better they understood that he wasn’t going to share. If he brought up nothing from the labyrinth, they knew his sword was valuable, and they knew he was carrying herbs and seeds and elixirs they had never seen before.

They wanted to rob him, but the joke was on them.

Nothing they brewed here could seriously affect a body thrice reborn in soulfire. If the heavens shone on them and one of their concoctions worked, he carried no void key. As a Sage skilled in spatial manipulation, he stored everything but his sword in a pocket accessible only by his authority.

If they put him to sleep and rifled through his robes, they might take his sword, but they could never bring out its power. And realistically, they couldn’t do him any harm no matter how weakened he was.

There was only one being inside a thousand miles capable of being his opponent, and that was a Dreadgod.

The two Jades flattered him for a while as they led him through the snow that surrounded the Ancestor’s Tomb and back to the Heaven’s Glory School. It was late at night, so the bright ring of light madra condensed around their mountain shone like a pale sun, and their rainstone buildings gleamed as though wet.

Once again, his pity grew to balance his irritation about the poison. They thought this pathetic collection of stone huts was a school of the sacred arts.

How would they react if he showed them his memory of the Frozen Blade School?

People like this didn’t deserve his contempt. He reminded himself of that for the ten thousandth time. They were just…ignorant. Isolated. When he and Yerin left, the natives would live out their short lives in relative contentment.

Their condition wasn’t their fault, but it was hard to remain charitable when they kept trying to rob him.

The house that Heaven’s Glory had given him was close to the Ancestor’s Tomb, and at least they hadn’t skimped on space. It was a wide three-storied construction of rainstone with its own network of constructs to regulate light and water. The basement had been reinforced into a decent training room, though of course it was only appropriate for Yerin.

The elders walked him up to the doorstep, and the woman cleared her throat.

“It was an honor to serve you today, Sage of Swords.”

That wasn’t exactly his title, but Adama had never cared much for titles anyway.

“If we could learn from you tomorrow morning, it would be our good fortune.”

He choked down a groan. Every time he came out of the labyrinth, it took him longer to recover. All he wanted to do tomorrow was sleep.

But he had to show strength.

He gave them a single nod. “Not a hair after dawn,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

Only a few hours away. That should be enough to make them think he didn’t care about his rest. He could always catch up on his sleep afterwards.

Anses looked relieved, bowing to him again. “Thank you, honored Sage.”

Adama gestured them away and opened his front door.

Before he stepped inside, he waved two fingers down the entry.

Yerin’s Forger technique, the invisible blade that she’d left hanging in the doorframe, crumbled like half-melted ice at his touch.

The Hidden Sword wasn’t a major part of his Path, but it was invaluable for practicing Forging and sword resonance. She had been slacking on her Forger training.

Although it was rare as stars at midday for her to slack on anything. She just didn’t see the point of the Forger technique, which he understood. He could let it go for the moment.

When he walked inside and down to the basement, he found Yerin sparring against the training dummy he’d left for her.

She glared out from under her straight-cut hair, holding her sword in both hands. She waited with utter stillness, letting the puppet make the first move.

Her opponent was made entirely of dead matter, looking like a stitched-together Remnant of silver, gray, black, and rusty red. Adama didn’t consider himself much of a Soulsmith, so it had been a headache to assemble the puppet from the meager Remnants of sword, earth, or force madra he could find in the Valley.

The scripts etched into its body of solidified madra kept the dummy from moving except when activated, and then only in the few patterns he had allowed. Though his limbs felt like dishrags wrung dry, Adama folded his arms and watched.

A few breaths later, the puppet moved.

It drew a training sword at its side and struck at Yerin, who deflected it with a blade that shone with the Flowing Sword technique. They traded a few moves, both emanating the spiritual pressure of Jades.

He had no complaints with her movements. She had clearly mastered these basic forms, and her madra control had improved in leaps and bounds. It wasn’t so long ago that her techniques destabilized the second her mental state did, but her Flowing Sword was steady as the moon.

He did detect some impatience, though. One strike was a little too firm, another step a shade too eager. She didn’t like being cooped up in the basement.