As they made their way down the hall, a man emerged from one of the side rooms. He looked up, his face displaying shock and dismay. His clothing was a bland gray, the cut of a government functionary. He had a Riceflower Province device on his collar, and a badge showing him as a member of the Imperial Order of Lux Technicians. Chang-li supposed a repository like this might need a technician on staff.

The man's eyes were wide

"I wasn't aware anyone had been approved to enter this repository today. I'm sorry, you'll have to leave—"

"We are cultivators on a journey and have stopped, as is permitted by the emperor, to replenish our lux," Chang-li said. "Should we not have?"

"Ah. No, of course, it's fine. We just... we weren't expecting... excuse me." The technician turned and fled.

Chang-li peered into the room where he'd been. The room was empty, just a sleeping mat and a jar on the floor, white with a green design about eight inches tall. There'd been a similar jar in the first room, but it looked more like an urn than a chamberpot. There was a lid on it.

Curious, Chang-li entered, while Joshi remained in the corridor. Chang-li picked the jar up and peered inside. There was a lux crystal, partly full. He set it back down, and as he did, his fingers brushed the floor. A note chimed in his mind. Green lux. He peered closer, and now he could see it. The lux was so thin he hadn't noticed, but lines spread out, like a technique had been painted on the floor.

"Do you see that?" he asked Joshi. "Green lux all around." Now that he was looking for it, he could sense it. The pattern ran all through the floor and wall.

Joshi frowned. "Hmm, is that how this repository works?"

Lux was flowing into the circle in which sat the jar. As Chang-li watched, he could sense the crystal absorbing luxes. He stepped out into the hall and reached out with his senses.

"Do you see this?" There was an enormous weave worked all through this repository, lines of different colors of lux flowing from the center out to the individual rooms. Chang-li followed a pattern of red lux into a room with another jar, this one white with a red design. The crystal inside was almost half full.

Now it all made sense. "They're skimming off lux," he said, staring around in amazement. "The magistrate must be in on it, and all these technicians."

"Not very much, though," Joshi said, picking up the crystal and holding it in his hands. He quickly drained the lux therein. "I need a hundred times as much to fill my core."

"Right," Chang-li said. "That's how they're keeping it from being noticed. But do you know what even a little bit of unregulated lux is worth on the black market? They won't be selling this to cultivators. They'll be offering it to people who don't have licenses but own devices capable of harnessing luxes. Or maybe someone trying to make it to the Peak of Bodily Refinement on their own, without a license."

His mind spun. "What do you think we should do about this?"

Joshi was cycling rapidly. "I don't think it's any of our business," he said. "We're here to fill our cores with lux and then be on our way."

"But this sort of smuggling ring is highly illegal," Chang-li pointed out. "It's our duty to report."

"It is not our duty to do any such thing," Joshi interrupted. "You are not a scribe anymore. You are a cultivator. Surely, you've seen enough of how the imperial system works to know that it's corrupt from top to bottom. Leave them alone. If they're getting a little extra money for themselves or their town by skimming off lux that no cultivator is going to use, what does that matter to us or the emperor himself? You just said yourself that it's collected from the river waters flowing down from the mountains. Shouldn't that belong to this town?"

"The emperor has final say over where all lux goes," Chang-li said hesitantly.

Joshi glared at him. "Really? You sound like Hiroko."

Chang-li flushed. He did realize how naive he was, but at the same time, "We could get in trouble for not reporting this."

"And who's to say we even noticed it? This is a subtle working. Let's leave them to it and gather our lux. At this rate, if you sit and concentrate on filling your core, we should be able to move on in the morning. We're here to look for the sect of Morning Mists, not to break up a gang of lux smugglers."

Chang-li didn't like that answer, but he subsided. Joshi was right. They had a goal, and getting involved in this scheme didn't advance it.

He and Joshi sat themselves against a wall in the nearest cell and began to cycle. Chang-li didn't fall asleep, but cycling in a lux-rich environment with no active threats had a soporific effect.

Hours passed. He was concentrating on the feel of his core and of moving lux around his body in precisely the right path when he heard shouts in the hall. He leapt to his feet, and Joshi beside him, and they peered out.

A man had just come into the repository. It was one of the brotherhood workers that Chang-li had spoken to earlier. His robes were disheveled, and as he hurried toward them, Chang-li spotted a purpling bruise on his cheek that hadn't been there before.

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"Young masters, you must hurry. They're coming."

"Who is?" Joshi demanded at once.

"The town cultivators."

Chang-li swore. His core was nearly full. He didn't want a confrontation with other cultivators if it could be helped. "What cultivators?"

"I don't know," the man shook his head. "One of the local brothers knew someone in the cultivation office. He was able to get a look at their books. There's more, there's a lot of corruption here. The eldest brother will want to hear about it. The next thing we knew, one of our connections here in town came to warn us about a bunch of cultivators. They're wearing orange and blue robes."

That wasn't a pattern Chang-li recognized. "I think they're working with the masters of the town," the man continued. "The magistrate burst in with a bunch of soldiers and ordered me and Bai and Lang locked up. They dragged us off to a laundry somewhere in town and locked us in the cellar all night. When they came down this morning, Bai and Lang overpowered one and we made a break for it, but I think I'm the only one who got away. Heard them chasing me all the way here."

This was more serious than he thought. Chang-li shot a glance at Joshi, who was looking grim. "You see? we can't just leave criminals like this."

"Then let's handle this," Joshi said. They grabbed their packs and started down the hall.

"Stay back," Chang-li told the Brotherhood man as they reached the exit. The man stopped where he was.

They left the repository and pulled up short. Magistrate Noor stood there, flanked by four cultivators, three men and a woman in the blue and orange robes. Magistrate Noor had her arms crossed.

The sky was a pale blue, the sun not quite over the hills to the east. Streaks of pink still hung in the sky. So they'd been in the repository all night. Chang-li cycled lux. He wasn't quite full, but he had enough for this. "Good morning, Magistrate," he called. "We're just finishing here, so we'll be on our way soon enough."

"You couldn't just wait until we had the place cleaned up, could you?" she demanded. "Well, you're not the first wanderers we've had to deal with."

Chang-li frowned at the cultivators. Two of them seemed to be at the Peak of Mental Refinement. The other two were Bodily Refinement cultivators. They were outnumbered, but the newcomers looked nervous. They all carried long staffs and held themselves alert.

"What do you want with the pitiful amounts of lux they're collecting in there?" he asked the cultivators, still trying to figure out the point of this scheme.

The female cultivator, one of the two at Mental Refinement, snorted.

"Pitiful to you maybe. Anyway it's the money and the credentials we're after. It's been a very profitable arrangement, and we're not inclined to let you mess with it. Deepwater Sect, end them." Even as she spoke she was weaving red lux around herself.

But neither Chang-li nor Joshi had been standing idle. As the enemy cultivators stepped forward, Chang-li infused his sword with the Bloodflame Toxin pattern while weaving a Blindfold. He tossed the Blindfold at the woman cultivator. She had seemed to be in charge. It struck her, to his surprise, and wrapped her face. She immediately began clawing at it. It was hardly a weave that should disturb a cultivator at this rank.

Joshi was diving forward onto a pair of male cultivators, the other Mental Refinement and one of the two Bodily Refinement. He had gauntlets on both hands, not bothering with a shield. The two of them had simple red weaves in their hands. One flung his at Joshi, who slashed out with his claws, breaking through the weaves, and then was on him, pounding, punching, his orange lux claws stabbing.

Chang-li turned on the other Bodily Refinement cultivator. It wasn't a fair match, but they had come four-on-one and attacked. He threw a Firepot that exploded in the man's face. As the cultivator blinked in astonishment, Chang-li stepped in and sliced the man's arm with the sword. Then he whirled and slashed the woman as she freed herself from the Blindfold. Neither wound was deep. He grazed an arm on the man and the woman's cheek, but it was enough to set his Bloodflame Toxin weave in them.

The other Mental Refinement cultivator had Joshi flanked and was throwing a tricolor weave over him, some sort of net. It slipped off of Joshi, who laughed as he whirled and struck the man with his closed fist. He had retracted his lux claws, but his punch sent the cultivator flying 30 yards backward.

Chang-li darted in under a strike from the Bodily Refinement cultivator's staff, which was reinforced with orange lux. He brought his sword down hard against it, and the wood of the staff splintered into pieces, but the orange lux held it together. Chang-li reversed his swing and struck the man again, slicing through his robes and opening a gash on his chest. The man fell back, cycling technique in a pattern similar to purification of mind and soul. By now, the Bloodflame Toxin was seeping into his veins, and he'd need to focus if he didn't want to be destroyed.

Magistrate Noor turned tail and ran. Chang-li ignored her, focusing on the Mental Refinement cultivator woman. She tossed a half-formed technique, pathetically weak. He barely had to brush it aside. Were they toying with him? No, he realized. This woman might be at the same tier, but she was not at his level. He and Joshi were simply better than they were.

The man Joshi had punched lay on the ground, moaning. The other, the Bodily Refinement cultivator, backed away. Chang-li cast a strand of blue lux outward, finding his Bloodflame Toxin patterns in the wounds of the two he'd injured and enforcing them. The man screamed out and fell back. The woman had a hand on her cheek as she wove a green pattern directly against her skin.

"Stand down," Chang-li demanded, "and we'll let you live."

The woman glancing over her shoulder at the man 30 feet away who lay on the ground without moving. "What did you do to him? Bastards!"

"You attacked us," Chang-li pointed out, "and you did a terrible job of it."

"If we'd known you were hiding your level, we never would have," the woman muttered. "It's unfair, pretending to be Mental Refinement cultivators when you're clearly Spiritual Refinement."

Chang-li laughed at her. "We're not pretending to be anything. We are exactly who you see. But your sect, it seems, needs more training."

"And that's exactly why we've been working with these fools," she spat. "We can't afford the fees for a tower often enough to progress. The Magistrate has us over a barrel."

Joshi dismissed his gauntlets. "We're just going to let them go after they attacked us?"

The woman's face twisted. "You well-connected sects are all the same," she snarled. "I heard about it in town. A half-dozen commendations in your licenses already, and the magistrate said you're barely 20 years old, and that he's to marry an indigo princess. Why do some sects have all the funding, and the rest of us scrape by on pittance, just waiting for the next uprising or tower break so we can maybe have a chance at things?"

Chang-li held up a hand. "Hold. I think we can settle this without more violence. That is, unless you insist on holding my associates prisoner any longer, in which case, I'll be happy to take your town apart."

He wasn't bluffing. The woman seemed to sense it. She deflated. "What would you have us do, Young Master?"

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