Zhao Zhen's Lens had been destroyed along with the enemy cultivator's body. The dagger that had also been a sword lay on the ground beside the still-smoking crater, blade broken. Chang-li picked it up and channeled a bit of lux into it.

His palm burned immediately and he stopped. He found the broken-off blade and picked it up carefully and stowed both parts in his soulspace anyway, in case they could do something with it later.

The coil of metal that had been around Zhen's right arm lay in the center of the crater as though he had taken it off and set it there. Chang-li bent and picked it up. It was cool to the touch and vibrated along with his Lens. Curious, he allowed a tiny trickle of lux from the circuit between his Lens and his core to flow into the bracelet. Immediately it hummed.

"What's it doing?" Min asked, peering over his shoulder.

"I don't know," Chang-li said. He wanted to look into it more later, so he stowed that as well.

Sun Wukong materialized in front of them. "Well done," he said, grinning madly. "I must confess I had not dreamed that you would do so well against a cultivator not merely one tier higher than you but also armed with such interesting toys. Accept my congratulations and let's be off. We're wasting time here. No doubt you, like me, wish to reach the top and be free of this place."

"We do," Chang-li agreed.

But Joshi had already started forward. "We all could have been killed," he growled, "and you did nothing to help."

Sun spread his hands. "I said I would aid you reach the top. The way now is clear. I have aided you. I have helped Hiroko craft blue lux illusions to confuse and bewilder your opponents. Come, do you truly think you could have taken on all six at once?"

Chang-li shook his head in disgust. "What is it that you want?" He held up the token, and Sun's eyes went wide.

"You wouldn't."

"If I must," Chang-li said.

Sun crossed his arms and sighed. "As I said before, I wish to be free of this place. I have used you to aid me, and I need more help. However, I have a plan that can be to your benefit as well."

"Oh?" Joshi said. "If that's the case, why didn't you speak of it earlier?"

Sun shrugged. "First," he held up a finger, ticked off one, "because you had to defeat your rivals in order to have a shot at reaching the top and opening this tower as you had planned. Until that happened, there was no point in making an additional bargain with you.

"I see you are not willing to trust me, and that is understandable. So instead of a trade, I will offer you this first piece of information free."

Chang-li studied the trickster, knowing this offer would have a hook in it. He kept the control token tight in his fist, putting his hands behind his back as he studied Wukong. "I'm listening."

"Across this world, there are a few hundred cultivation towers. Of those, only a handful, like this one, are not under the close control of a high-ranked cultivator."

Chang-li frowned. "What does that even mean? Controlled how?"

Sun Wukong smiled. "A powerful enough cultivator can install a tower guardian willing to aid him. Then, the tower guardian will watch over the tower, regulating its creation of lux and storing up its bounty for harvest."

Chang-li thought of their time in the broken tower of Golden Moon, how they'd come to the top and thereby opened it to the emperor's lux technicians. They had come with lux crystals and other storage medium. "So the guardians prevent anyone who isn't authorized from taking the store lux?"

Sun Wukong cleared his throat. "We're wasting time. Shall we continue this conversation on our journey?" He pulled out a bottle, unstoppered it, and poured it out. The contents drained out, forming an enormous golden cloud. He leapt nimbly atop. After a moment's hesitation, Chang-li climbed up and aided the others aboard. They set off for the south, where the guardian of this floor awaited.

Sun Wukong resumed their discussion. "Take your Emperor for example. So confusing to call him that as we are on the way to speak with this tower's guardian, the Jade Emperor, but ah well. He controls several dozen towers throughout your empire and unless things have changed since I entered this one, his army of bureaucrats carefully monitors who is permitted to enter. Only low level cultivators like yourselves can enter. They are permitted to make use of the tower as they ascend, until at last they bring the tower guardian the emperor's message, telling them to open and allow the tower's bounty to be claimed."

"You mean stored lux," Joshi said.

"Not just stored lux," Chang-li said, his thoughts racing. Yes, the lux technicians had batteries to store all sorts of lux, but he remembered how full the top floors of both Golden Moon and Riceflower towers had been. "Indigo and violet luxes. Far more than there should have been."

Sun Wukong pointed a painted finger at him. "Precisely! The tower guardians are told to allow physical luxes to seep from the tower, benefiting the lands around. Green lux as well. But the spiritual luxes are kept and stored. There's not nearly as much of the indigo or violet as the other colors, but what there is, the guardians harvest and condense over the years. Imagine a beehive, buzzing with activity, filling its combs with rich honey. Most beekeepers are content with the honey and wax easily collected. Only the specialized few know what to do with the royal jelly."

"The what?" Chang-li asked, the metaphor making no sense to him.

But Hiroko chimed in. "Bees make a special rich food feed to the infant queens to raise their strength and wisdom. It's sort of like cultivating. There doesn't ever need to be much in a hive, not compared to the honey the ordinary bees eat."

"Imagine that royal jelly at the center of a tower, surrounded by very valuable honey and wax. Ordinary cultivators and lux technicians strip off the ordinary bounty, leaving the royal jelly for the tower's owner. The emperor."

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"What does he do with it?" Joshi asked, but Chang-li knew.

"That's how you ascend."

"Not the only way," Sun Wukong said. "But the easiest and the safest."

"That's what my father wants," Hiroko said quietly. "He's ready to join my mother."

"A beautiful ambition."

Chang-li thought of something. "If what you say is true, shouldn't there be more than Prism Eri and General Li here fighting over this tower?"

Sun Wukong nodded. "Indeed. But this particular tower is called Primal because it doesn't follow the usual rules and stay where it's supposed to be most of the time. A tower like this is a wild hive. The bee swarm works on its own, unguided, and its produce isn't as refined. Still, there's enough to aid an ascension. I myself had considered using it to re-ascend, though that's no longer my plan."

Chang-li frowned.

"Wait," Hiroko said. "Are you saying that you've been to these higher realms?"

Sun inclined his head. "Indeed. I ascended alongside my boon companions several, several thousands of years ago, your time."

"And in all that time, your deeds became legend," she said. "Legends from the land where my grandmother was born, before she came as a foreign princess to marry the Emperor. What I don't understand is how those legends have been taken by this tower and used to shape its theme."

"Oh, good, backing me into giving away more answers," Sun said, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hands together. "I made some foolish choices, which is how I came to find myself locked up here. In time, my prison has shaped itself to reflect me. Suitable, considering my status as the most interesting and powerful individual ever to set foot within this tower. Just as it has adjusted its levels to best suit you climbers, it has adjusted its entire milieu to honor me."

Min rolled her eyes. "Bit full of yourself, aren't you?"

"I would merely say I have an adequate sense of my own significance," Sun said. "Regardless, the point is, when you reach the top, you will have a choice to make. As you no doubt expect, as soon as you open it, your ally, General Li, and your enemy, the Prism Eri, will make their move to claim the bounty of lux. From that moment, their focus will slip from you, and you'll have a choice to make. The four of you might very well decide the balance of who claims this tower. Or," he lowered his voice, "you can help me. I swear it won't interfere with your plans to aid the general."

"How so?" Chang-li demanded.

"To open the tower, you must persuade or defeat the tower's current guardian," Sun Wukong said. "This will allow your ally outside to move in. However, if instead of merely defeating him, you destroy him, that will free me from my bonds to this tower. Then I will be able to make my own way back to the heavens."

"Why did you come down?" Chang-li asked, diverted.

Sun sighed. "I really don't want to talk about it. Regardless, I am eager to be done with this tower and with this realm of existence."

He shuddered. "You can't imagine. Even the lux levels in this place are far too low for me. Existing outside of this tower in your world would be complete torture. Help me ascend once more to the heavens, and I can give you a great gift."

Chang-li folded his arms and studied Sun as the wind whipped past them, blowing his robes. They were traveling far faster than he could have run, even with the aid of lux. Below, the landscape whipped past. "What exactly are you offering?"

Sun held up a hand.

"First, I've given you knowledge that most cultivators don't learn until they have already become Lux Dominators. Knowing the importance of securing a tower if you are to ascend to the heavens could change your entire path.

"Second, I will give you a gift, to prove my sincerity: a treatise I wrote during my long imprisonment here on the state of affairs in the heavens. This is something that not only might you find useful as you yourself consider ascending, but that any ambitious Lux Dominator cultivator you meet will pay any price for. It is a few hundred years out of date, but," Sun shrugged, "it is still the sort of glimpse that your world rarely gets.

"And third. The seed I promised. Nurture it, grow it, and it will become for you a weapon. The weapon I brought down with me and have preserved even though it became clear my plan wouldn't work. A weapon which uses the bounty of lux at the heart of a tower to power it. A weapon which can kill immortals. Gods. Emperors."

Chang-li stared. His mind raced. He had a thousand questions. They were nearing a great tree that raised itself up a thousand or more feet above the floor of this place. Its leaves were silver, and even from miles off, he could smell its sweet, cinnamony perfume.

That weapon... he could only begin to grasp the implications.

"If anyone found out you had such a thing, they would kill you, everyone you love, everything you know, in order to take it," Sun Wukong said cheerfully. "However, no one will know I have given it to you. Save it until you can best use it. You may only have one opportunity."

There was something cold in Sun's smile now, something dark. "I once knew friendships such as yours, and I would love to know it once again."

It was such a tempting offer. Knowledge, power, and potential "Why are you offering this bargain?" he demanded.

Sun shrugged. "First, because these are no use to me if I'm ascending again. Second, because I cannot succeed while you're holding the token that controls this." He grimaced and pointed to the band around his head. "This limits my ability to touch lumos. I have to have it removed before I can do what I need to do. The only way for me to do that is for you to make an agreement."

"How can we possibly trust you?" Min demanded.

"My father wishes to ascend," Hiroko said quietly. "I don't think we should so lightly betray him."

"He didn't tell you all this, did he?" Sun asked, turning to her. "That he's planning to ascend."

She gave a short, quiet nod. "I think I knew. Something he said... My mother is waiting for him. I didn't know that. She was forced to ascend before they could complete their plans. I think that must mean they knew all this about towers and intended to take one themselves. But something Eri did ruined their plans. My mother had to leave before she was ready. My father has spent all these years manipulating things so that he could have this chance. If we help you—"

Sun held up a hand. "Actually, I don't want this tower's bounty."

"What do you mean? Don't you want to ascend? Isn't that what you were saying?"

"Yes, but obviously not from this tower," Sun Wukong rolled his eyes. "The bounty here is sufficient to let me ascend, yes, but not in style. I didn't spend hundreds of years trapped in this tower so I can return to the heavens as a pauper. I have work to do first."

Oddly, Chang-li believed the bombastic trickster. "What are you proposing?"

"First, we all climb to the Jade Emperor's courts. Then I will give you the treatise I have promised. You can look it over for yourself and see that I'm telling the truth about that at least. Then you and I kill the Jade Emperor, opening the tower."

"General Li didn't say that was necessary."

"It's not necessary for him. All you have to do is ask the Emperor to open the tower and the General could enter. But if we kill him, I'll be free and it'll all work out just fine. The General will enter and install a new guardian after he bonds the tower himself," Wukong said.

His offer made sense. Chang-li looked at the others. "What do you think?"

"He's a trickster," Joshi pointed out. "It's clear he isn't telling us everything."

"We're pawns in a game," Hiroko said quietly. "Everyone here is playing at a level above what we are, and I'm tired of it." She met Chang-li's eyes. There was defiance and bravery. "I want…" She hesitated before continuing in a small voice. "I want to help my father get back to my mother.."

The others all looked away from her in embarrassment. It was hard not to sympathize with her.

"We will," Chang-li assured her. "Helping Sun Wukong is our best path forward anyway and it will help your father. It's a win for everyone." Unless what Sun Wukong wasn't saying came back to bite them, he didn't add.

He felt a stirring in his chest as the Lens twisted, and he suddenly wondered — had Noren sent him to this tower to take the bounty? Was that how he was supposed to deal with the Lens? If so, how could he possibly guess that himself?

Sun Wukong glanced at him with what Chang-li thought must be nervousness.

"Well, is it a deal?"

Min took his hand and squeezed it. Hiroko gave a tiny nod. Joshi took a deep breath, then shrugged. "It's up to you," he said.

Chang-li met Sun Wukong's eyes straight on.

"We have a deal."

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