Hiroko was enjoying the techniques that Sun Wukong taught her.

"You focused so much on blue, you've come to think of it as standing apart from all of the other luxes," he told her. "The truth is, you can treat any lux just as you do blue. Most of these cultivators are too brute force to try. They smash lux together like it's a couple of bricks to be pounded. I think of lux as a song to be sung and coaxed along. You, Hiroko, are brilliant at singing in blue. What you need to do is use the blue to shape everything else."

He lifted his fingers and traces of blue and green lux flowed easily. "Already, I think you have the trick of it with green."

She nodded. In recent weeks, she'd come to handle green almost as easily as blue, though she still couldn't get the hang of any pure green healing techniques. Even the most basic seemed to slip away and evade her, as focused as she was on how to achieve the same effects with blue. green was close enough that many of her weaves could be adapted to either.

"There's so much yellow here," Sun said. "Just reach out and embrace it. Let it flow into the cracks of your blue. Meld them like streams of liquid poured from several jars into the same container."

She let herself imagine that for a moment, and the luxes flowed easily. She tried a simple three-color weave that Chang-li had shown her. It fell apart almost at once.

"Now you are trying to weave water," Sun said, sounding amused. "The patterns you use will be different from those of other cultivators. Look."

He showed her, layering yellow and blue together to form a shifting, scintillating pattern that rippled and responded like liquid. Then he released it and it sprang forth. She felt warmth on her face, smelled the flowers, and heard the noise of birds, an illusion, but one enhanced by including yellow lux for warmth. Smiling, Hiroko copied him.

"Well done, Princess," Sun said. "We'll keep working at that. You have a real talent for this. I'm impressed." His smile seemed almost genuine.

Hiroko smiled back. He was easy to talk to, not hiding his true meaning behind slippery words like the courtiers she was used to, but conversational and genuinely interested in her. He'd asked a few questions during their training and she'd found herself telling him all about life in the Imperial Gardens, growing up as one of the privileged descendants of the God Emperor, about her duty to Empire and how she was questioning it. Things she had never intended to say, hadn't even said to her father, certainly not her father, or to Min, or, Emperor forbid, Joshi.

There was a wall between her and Joshi now, or perhaps there always had been, and though there were things she wanted to say, she didn't have the first clue how to break it down.

This, though, this was easy. It was like having a friend.

Sun rose. He offered her a hand and helped her up. His grasp was warm on hers.

"Come, my fellow Master of Illusions. I have a few things to teach you, ways to make your illusions seem more real. Blue is well and good, but add some red and yellow to your illusion and no one will be able to break them easily."

Laughing, Hiroko followed him over to the pool by the river. "Kneel," he said.

She did, and he knelt beside her. "Look in the water."

She bent over and saw her own face reflected there. It was a little more brown than she was used to, a result of travels, perhaps. Her hair hung across her face, concealing part of one eye. She thought it looked fairly awkward, so she brushed it back.

Sun reached up and caught her hand. "Don't. I like it that way." He smiled at her. She felt warmth kindling inside her.

"Now," he said, "we're going to play with faces."

He passed a hand over his, and Hiroko found herself staring into Chang-li's face. She blinked, then laughed. "Oh, well done." She tried to see past the illusion mask and couldn't.

"Would you like to learn how to do this?" he asked, and his voice was that of Chang-li's.

She nodded. "Yes, I would."

"Then let's begin."

For the next few minutes, they discussed until finally she was ready to try it herself. She focused, weaving a blue mask, then layered it over her own face. Hiroko looked back at the water. Features that were not quite hers looked back. The face slightly more rounded than her own, a chin weaker than hers, a nose a bit more pert. More of a change, though, was the hair, which now was hanging in curls, framing her face.

"Lovely," Sun said. "You look absolutely gorgeous."

She looked up at him, a little taken aback. His face had changed again. She was staring into Joshi's face now, but wearing an expression she'd never seen on him. A smile played on his lips that was almost cruel. She shrank back, and he leaned in, as though to kiss her.

Hiroko leapt to her feet, letting the illusion fall. Sun transformed his face at once and stood. He bowed.

"Forgive me for startling you, Princess," he said quietly. "But learning to disguise your face is one thing. You must also learn to disguise your heart and your feelings. Only then will you be able to pass unseen, or take the form of someone else."

"I understand," she said, her heart racing.

"Then, let's continue to practice."

She shook her head. "I need to think."

She walked over, sat down on the grass, and began cycling Purification of Mind and Soul.

Sun Wukong strode over across to her, leaning down.

"You are very far from the Veil of Heart," he said quietly. "Your feelings for the bald one are confusing matters. You will never reach the Peak of Mental Refinement while your heart is in so much turmoil. He has shut you out. You must cut him free."

"I don't want to talk about Joshi, to you or to anyone," Hiroko said flatly as she continued to cycle.

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"No? Then you're going to ignore my advice?"

She looked up at him. "I'm going to take the advice I like and leave the rest of it. I know what you are, Master of Illusions. There are many stories told in the Emperor's household. I've heard of you before," she glared at him, "even if you have hidden your tail."

His eyes widened and he took a step back.

"I see. Well," he shook himself and seemed to recover. "You do have depths to you, Princess Hiroko. I'll give you some time to cycle then, and we'll resume your training when you're ready."

Joshi sparred with Sun Wukong. His punches were invariably blocked by the opponent's spinning staff, but that was alright. He wasn't trying to hit Sun with his fists, but with his will.

As they sparred, the opponent kept his own will focused on Joshi, pressing hard against him. They weaved, ducked, bobbed, jumped, strides taking them across the grassy banks of the river for a quarter mile, then back again.

Joshi wondered at the creature's strength of will. Sun Wukong had split himself into four pieces for this training, and yet Joshi could not match even a fraction of his will. Still, the constant pressure was having an impact. Joshi hardened his will and tried again.

"Your problem," Sun Wukong commented as he dodged under one of Joshi's fists, then brought his quarterstaff up sharply, hopefully for Joshi to knock it to the side with a kick and attempt to come spinning in for an unexpected blow, "is that you are cutting your will off from your core. It is the opposite problem to what your friend has. His will is so entirely internal, he's having trouble using it outside of himself. You have determined to impose your will on everything around you, and yet you will not use it on yourself."

"Why should I need that?" Joshi demanded. He balanced his weight on his left foot and brought his right up in a swinging kick. Sun Wukong easily slid away from that, just as Joshi had expected. He followed with a series of punches designed to take advantage of Sun's forced movement. The man laughed as he spun his quarterstaff and knocked Joshi back.

None of the others seemed to be having so much difficulty. In fact, they weren't sparring with Sun Wukong directly. Min was practicing with her arrows. Chang-li and Wukong seemed to be doing some sort of elaborate weaving. And every time he looked over at Hiroko, she and Sun were deep in conversation, their heads bent together like two women over a pot of tea.

He couldn't help looking now. The two of them were kneeling at the bank of the river, looking in. The copy of Sun next to Hiroko raised his head, and for a moment his eyes met Joshi's. He gave a wicked smile and bent his head again as he placed a hand on Hiroko's shoulder, clearly whispering in her ear.

Joshi felt a stab of jealousy.

The Sun Wukong with whom he was sparring brought his quarterstaff down too fast for Joshi to block and rapped him on the head.

"Ow!" Joshi complained as he sprang backward. The blow had actually hurt. He cycled a bit of red lux to compensate.

"Pay attention to what we're doing," Sun snarled, "or you'll get worse than that."

"I don't appreciate you confusing Hiroko like that," Joshi said. "She's been very sheltered her whole life and barely seen anything of the world. She certainly doesn't know how to deal with your flirtations."

"You think a girl raised in the backbiting circles of the imperial harem doesn't know how to handle herself?" Sun asked, raising an eyebrow and grinning. "Besides, what business is it of yours?"

Joshi glared. He had no good answer for the man. He wasn't Hiroko's fiancé anymore, and what she chose to do with herself was up to her.

"I just don't want to see her get hurt," he said lamely.

"There is no chance of my doing that," Sun declared flatly. "You, on the other hand..." And his quarterstaff came spinning in for another blow. Joshi blocked it with his raised forearm.

Wukong said, "This isn't working, so we'll switch to something else. I am going to break your will. Resist me as long as you can."

Joshi barely had time to gather himself. He thrust his will out around him like a barricade, and Sun Wukong's own will came crashing down. Joshi held for a second or two before his will crumbled. The enemy's will pressed on him like heavy stones. Joshi found himself kneeling, one hand on the ground as he gasped for air.

Sun Wukong stood over him, though his will lightened briefly. "You have no real strength in you if I'm able to do this so easily."

Joshi looked up as he collected his scraps of will and forged them back together. "Again," he said.

Sun Wukong smiled, his eyes glinted gladly.

Joshi lost track of how many times Wukong crushed his will like a bug crashed under a boot heel. Every time, Joshi demanded they go again, until at last, as he lay on the ground panting up at the sky, Wukong standing over him shaking his head, he said, "Wait."

"Good," Wukong replied. "Because you're not learning a damn thing here."

Joshi sat up and began cycling. He closed his eyes and refilled his will, pressing it out from himself. He could feel it was stronger than when they had begun. Despite what Sun Wukong said, this training was helping him. But it wasn't good enough. Their strengths were too different.

"What cultivation tier are you?" he asked.

Sun snorted. "You think I'd tell you that?"

"You're supposed to be training me."

Wukong sighed. "I would suggest you instead worry about the minions of Prism Eri, who are even now trying to force their way onto this floor. All at Lux Embodiment. As I told Chang-li, if the two of you do not at least reach Lux Endowment, you have no chance against the others, not in a fair fight." He paused. There seemed to be something else he was considering saying, but instead, he finished with, "So what are you going to do about it?"

"My will isn't the secret to reaching Lux Endowment," Joshi said. "Understanding the nature of lux, being able to distinguish the different variants within a single color, is. Or at least, that's what Chang-li said. And he's farther along the path than I am. He can sense the different hues of yellow, he can differentiate them into 32 categories."

"But there are 128 hues to master," Wukong said, "and it only gets harder in the last two branchings."

"So many..." Joshi was fairly confident of distinguishing eight different hues of yellow. He hadn't tried with any of the other colors yet. To go from there to so many more seemed impossible. "My point is, why are we spending all of this time focusing on my will?"

"Because it is absolutely foundational to your continued progression. Your will and your Intent need to be firm. Chang-li is farther along with his Intent. You have not so much as touched yours yet."

Joshi opened both eyes and stared up at Sun Wukong in surprise. "No. No, that can't be. I know my Intent." He had known that ever since Noren had explained what Intent meant.

"Really?" Sun Wukong said. He made a gesture. "Stand."

Joshi rose, unconsciously dropping into a fighting position as he cycled lux through his body. His pain and fear melted away as he prepared for the next round.

"If you truly know your Intent, you will be able to use that to enforce your lux. I will put my will up, and you crash against it this time, just with your own will, at first, so we can establish a baseline."

Joshi felt Sun Wukong's will snap into place around him. He gathered his own, readying it to aim like a hammer blow against the other man's shield of will.

This he was good at. He'd used his will in this crude offensive manner many times. He brought his will down, hard and firm as he could, against the other man's. Sun Wukong didn't so much as quiver. Joshi's will shattered against the bulwark. Joshi grit his teeth but remained standing.

"Not bad. You have a lot of raw power if you could learn to properly use it," Sun Wukong said. "Now, we'll repeat, but this time, as you bring your will to bear, focus your Intent on it. Speak it aloud if you must."

Joshi smiled to himself. He was going to enjoy this. He collected his will again, and as he brought it down, he spoke the words he knew to be true:

"I will not be bound."

He could feel it. Feel the Intent as it touched his will, enforcing it, hardening it, making it sharp as a knife. It crashed down against Wukong, and Wukong blinked as his will shook but held. Joshi's again dissolved.

Wukong studied him for a long moment before nodding. "Interesting. You are closer than I thought. You do have a hint of your Intent. But it is not correct."

Joshi stared at him in confusion. Anger began to rise in him. Who was this person to tell him what his Intent was or wasn't? The fellow had been trying to get him upset all day, dallying with Hiroko, taunting him. And now to tell him he didn't even understand his own Intent?

He shook his head. "No. That's my Intent. You felt it."

Sun Wukong's eyes met his. "With as much raw will as you possess, if you had enforced it with a properly formed Intent, you would have passed my shield. No. As I said before, your will is entirely focused outward, away from yourself. You have not looked inward enough to understand yourself. That's why you haven't made any real progress with Lux Endowment either."

Wukong stroked his beardless face. "But that gives me an idea…."

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