The next day...
Ling Hua made his way toward the Inheritance Hall, its features gradually emerging before him as he approached, until the full picture came into focus: an enormous building of three stories, the scent of incense thick throughout the place. He walked toward the gate, and his eyes caught sight of an elderly man, dignified, his face lined with wrinkles, his long white hair dancing in the wind, seated by the door.
He approached him, and the moment he drew near, the old man turned his neck, his eyes narrowing toward Ling Hua. "Who are you, boy? What brings you here?"
The moment he heard the old man's words, Ling Hua pressed his hands to his chest in a gesture of respectful greeting. "This young one is a new apprentice in the family, Elder Uncle. The ancestor sent me to you so that I might obtain the family's art, that this young one might train in it."
The elder's lips parted in a dignified smile, and he rose to his feet with the vigor of a man in his thirties. "Good, good — this is fine news indeed. Come, let us enter the Inheritance Hall."
The elder stepped into the building, and Ling Hua followed with a small child's eager curiosity, marveling at the dazzlingly ornate corridors, until they reached the first floor, packed full of scrolls and documents. Ling Hua's expression froze at the sheer number of books and manuscripts before him, and little by little his face began to fall. "Are all of these techniques I'm meant to choose from, Elder?"
The old man laughed at the boy's words, raising his hands in a gesture of protest and denial, tinged with a note of regret at the question itself, and replied in a tone both amused and mocking: "Heh, no. If all of this were an inheritance of immortal techniques, our family would be among the mightiest in this land. Little one, these books are nothing but basic knowledge — every new cultivator must learn and study them, and you are no exception."
Ling Hua was dismayed by this news, his face souring, for there was nothing he hated more than studying — but he didn't dare utter a word of objection before the elder standing before him. "Oh. This young one thanks you for the enlightenment, Elder. And where is the inheritance of the immortal arts, then?"
"Follow me!"
The elder headed toward the second floor, but his footsteps halted midway. He drew a talisman from his belt and raised it upward with his hand; after a moment, they continued on their way up. Ling Hua asked the reason, and the elder told him, "This is the key to the formation encircling the second floor, which protects it from intruders. This talisman is essential to let the array permit your passage upward — without it, should you attempt to force your way through the formation, it would attack you."
He nodded, now understanding the reason for such caution, and they entered the second floor. The moment Ling Hua stepped through with hesitant strides, he froze, staring at the shelves for a long moment, as though his eyes refused to believe what they saw: shelves standing nearly empty, holding no more than ten scrolls in total.
And in that very moment, Ling Hua truly grasped — not merely as a fact he'd been told, but as a felt understanding — just how rare the immortal arts were in this world.
The elder gestured toward the shelves with a composed hand. "This is our immortal art, the one we train in — exclusive to the Sui family alone."
The excitement flared back to life in the boy's chest like a spark catching dry brush. He thought to himself, "I'll become like the ancestor one day," and took a step toward the shelf — but the elder's commanding voice stopped him in his tracks. "Halt right there, little one. You have no right to touch this art until you swear the Blood Oath never to leak it."
Ling Hua was unsettled by the ominous weight of that name, and an image flashed through his mind — blood pouring from his own mouth, his body collapsing lifeless. He asked, his voice trembling, "And... and what is this oath, Elder?"
The elder's expression didn't shift in the slightest. "This oath is the shield that protects our technique from being lost or exposed. Without it, our enemies would have learned our weaknesses long ago, and our family would have been wiped out ages past. Know this — every one of us who has ever fallen into an enemy's captivity was mercilessly interrogated in an attempt to wrest our secrets from them."
"And how does this oath work?" Ling Hua asked, shock still gripping his features.
The elder answered with the patience of one who had fielded this question countless times before. "Whoever swears this oath — should he ever try to utter a single letter of this technique aloud, or write it down, or even seriously consider leaking it — the oath strikes like a sword through the heart. Intent alone is enough to kill him."
Ling Hua's shock deepened further, but he found no way out. He swore the oath, dread twisting in his small heart, and received a jade tablet holding the early stage of the art, corresponding to the early stage of Qi Refining. The elder explained: "This tablet holds the training method for the first level. It works through your spiritual awareness, which you'll gain the moment you enter the first level of Qi Refining. When your awareness touches it, the technique will imprint itself in your mind permanently, and the tablet will shatter afterward. But before you reach that stage, you'll need a month, perhaps two at most, of meditation, to cross from mortality onto the path of immortal cultivation."
Ling Hua nodded without a word, leaving room for the elder to continue — and sparing him, too, from his own endless stream of questions.
The elder resumed: "Now, having handed you the training method, it's time for the talismans. We have three within the family, and you may choose one of them freely — but from here on, you'll need points to obtain the rest. Never mind that for now; the treasury elder will explain it once you reach him." He paused a moment, then added: "Our talismans are divided into three categories: offensive, defensive, and supportive. The offensive one is called Pine Wood Arrows, a powerful technique of the mid Qi Refining tier. The supportive one is called Life Vein Vine, granting its wielder the ability to heal his own wounds and those of others, of the advanced Qi Refining tier. And the defensive one is called Moon Lake Shield, also of the advanced tier. So which will you choose, little one?"
Ling Hua weighed his needs in silence for a moment, then settled on his decision: Pine Wood Arrows — for what he needed most, above all else, was a means of attack.
The elder nodded in understanding, offering no comment, and went to inscribe the technique and its training method onto the jade tablet. When he finished, he handed it over.
Ling Hua pressed his hands to his chest and bowed to the elder. "This young one thanks you for his enlightenment today. Farewell, my lord."