"Do you remember, Lindon? A golden sky? A giant wading through mountains? A man with a scythe? The sky shattering like glass as the stars die?"

He shakes his head. He has no idea what Elder Whisper is talking about.

He feels very small, all of a sudden, and like the world is very big. Like he's just noticed something in the dark outside the reach of the firelight. Like that something has noticed him.

"A pity."

"This conversation has not played out as it should, but the script was changed even before I began to play a part in it. Nothing has changed. And the simplest answer is a false one. There were lessons I was to teach you, but you don't need them now, do you? You walk your own Path already."

That is what he's doing, isn't it? His own Path, created from the start, just like Elder Whisper did. He hadn't quite realized it before now. It's not the kind of thing an Unsouled does, inventing a new Path.

He nods.

"You asked why I'm here? Here I am high enough I can breathe freely. You do not understand that now, but you will. When you do, return to this tower. Destroy it when you're done. Burn the stones. Scatter the ashes. Tell the Phoenix I'm not who she thinks I am. If I were and I could be here I wouldn't have to be so delicate. Tell her the warning means exactly what she thinks it does. The scythe is lost, wielded by another. Tell her that reverting you would do more damage to the fate-under-fate than it healed, and to talk with the Hound if she doubts me."

A pause.

"And Lindon? You are not what you were born as. Your chances are not good, but the chance-under-chance is a different thing entirely. I will not be the first or the most exalted of beings to tell you the first, in the coming weeks, but the second will come from me alone. Risk is not as much your enemy as you think it is."

And he vanishes.

He has no idea what just happened.

Is Elder Whisper still in the room at all? Did he vanish or- vanish? Is he gone?

He goes to leave the room. It's clearly what Elder Whisper wanted him to do- wait, no, he was told just moments ago that risk is not as much his enemy as he thinks it is. He investigates the room.

He finds a note. It's a transcript of the conversation he had with Elder Whisper. He reads it again and again, committing it to memory.

It turns to ashes in his hands just as he finishes completely memorizing it.

And then he leaves. He walks down the steps, lost in thought.

What did that mean? 

He knew about Yerin already. He knew her name. But he still made Lindon tell the story. It seemed like he learned something from the telling, maybe.

He's older than Lindon knew. The Wei clan is old, but centuries old, not millennia. Not old enough for someone whose story started with the clan to be older than the mountains around the valley.

Elder Whisper was only ever in this tower because he wanted to be. 

He asked Lindon if he remembered- something. Lindon isn't sure what. He spoke in metaphors. Were those metaphors too? In the moment Lindon didn't think so, but surely there's no literal script, so it makes sense for the giant wading through mountains not to be literal.

Lindon certainly hopes the sky shattering like glass was metaphorical.

Lindon has heard myths of powerful sacred artists reading fate. It would make sense of things, somewhat, if Elder Whisper was talking about- a way fate was supposed to go. A path the world isn't following. And then he asked if Lindon remembered things that hadn't happened.

Something strange is happening with fate and Lindon is close enough to the center of it that Elder Whisper thought he might be- what, the source, somehow? He's just an Unsouled.

But then if it's metaphor what is the sky? What are the stars? The giant, the golden sky?

Who is the man with the scythe?

What if none of it was metaphor?

There's nothing else it could be, in the end. The world is bigger than he knows, but unless there's trouble in the Heavens themselves the stars couldn't literally die. And if Elder Whisper could see that what would he be doing down here, rather than up there in the higher realms the immortals go off to?

No, the outside world is going to turn out to be ruled by a clan with star motifs, or an Emperor will be styled as the lord of stars and wield a scythe, or something like that. The sky shattering- that could be ascension? He doesn't know what ascending from the world looks like, but an obvious guess is the sky cracking apart as the new immortal races off to the Heavens.

Risk isn't as much his enemy as he thinks...

If he could get away with more, what would he do?

He changes his plans.

The day the tournament is to begin, he paces nervously in his house. He's prepared as well as he can, but was it enough?

The nerves don't leave him even as he stands with the other Foundation children and bows to the Wei Patriarch.

They don't leave him until his first fight.

None of the children have any techniques. They have simple, basic Enforcing, but not an Enforcer technique. They all still have Pure madra, like him, but all they can do is make themselves a bit stronger and faster. That's enough to easily defeat him, even as literal children, before he had, well, any madra to speak of. Before the orus fruit. They would have simply overwhelmed him with greater physical might. Perhaps not the smaller children, he likely wouldn't have lost immediately. But any older ones, past ten? They would have beaten him like a drum.

But now? Now he's the size of a large grown man and he's fighting children.

He's careful not to hurt them. But he does, however, pick them up and launch them out of the arena circle the fights are being held in. It conserves madra compared to wrestling them. None of them end up hurt beyond a few little self-inflicted bruises some of them give themselves struggling with him.

One of them goes "whee!" as he's launched. Lindon decides he likes that little Kazan kid.

The Foundation tournament goes by quickly. The grand arena contains four smaller circles the Foundation fights are being held in. Copper fights will use half the arena, and Iron will use the entirety of it. But there aren't four times as many Foundation competitors as Irons, so the tournament is over quickly. Lindon launches child after child out of the arena, grinning the entire time. He's pretty sure he looks like a maniac. An evil maniac bullying children.

He doesn't care.

He wasn't supposed to have a chance. This wasn't something he was ever supposed to be able to do. He was supposed to sweep the clan archives for fifty years and then die.

If he was lucky, he would have hit copper before he died. In his old age. Instead, he's winning this tournament.

Sure, they're children, or younger teenagers. He's a year older than the oldest of them.

That wasn't supposed to matter, and now it does.

It's actually happening. It really is. He's doing it.

And then, unceremoniously, he's just. Won.

The last child is thrown out of the arena, this one a twelve year old member of the Li clan who manages to keep a dignified look of seriousness on his face the entire time and land on his feet, and Lindon is the winner of the Foundation stage tournament. It's over. 

He's won.

This time, oddly, nobody is booing him. There's even some clapping. Not a lot, and all from the Wei clan section, but it's there. The occasional bit of halfhearted shouted praise is the sweetest thing he's ever heard. They don't like him, they still feel disgusted by him, but he did well enough they feel obligated to praise him.

He moves away from the stage, distracted enough he almost walks straight into the Patriarch. Wei Jin Sairus is standing in front of Lindon, has come to intercept him. To say something. His sacred artist's robes are made of purple and gold shadesilk more expensive than Lindon's house. Before Lindon can drop into a panicked bow at the Patriarch's feet Sairus smiles at Lindon and congratulates him. He offers the congratulations of not just himself but the entire Wei clan. He mentions Lindon's "deficiency", but only to say that Lindon has achieved great honour in overcoming it to win despite it.

It's something Lindon has forgotten to dream about. A moment from the life he thought he would live before he learned he was Unsouled.

Lindon bows at the waist, self-effacing as he knows he should. He says the words, in alignment with the scripts taught to him by his family and (occasionally literally) beaten into him by his clan. “This one does not deserve such kind words, Patriarch.”

He knows how he is supposed to act, at a time like this.

The Patriarch rests his hand on Lindon's shoulder comfortingly. “A sacred artist should never be so humble as to refuse what he has earned. You have earned victory today."

Oh. Did he.

Did he do well enough those old scripts are wrong, now?

Then the Patriarch continues talking. "Let that be enough, and return to your family with honor.”

That isn't what's supposed to happen next. Next is the exhibition.

He hears what the Patriarch isn't saying. 

Leave now. Bow out of the exhibition match. Do not embarrass the clan, as your continued prominence would inevitably do.

He plays dumb. He apologizes and mentions the exhibition match that he's supposed to do next, hoping that if he simply doesn't understand what Sairus is saying it will end there.

It doesn't work. The Patriarch says the representatives from the four schools were made uncomfortable by his performance. Uncomfortable. Disgusted to see an Unsouled fail to know his proper place is the more honest telling, he wagers. The Patriarch says it would ease them if today's events ended here, instead of with the exhibition match.

That breaks his plan. He needs to get onto the mountain.

"Forgiveness, Patriarch, but the Wei clan has yet to properly demonstrate their sacred arts today. Surely if I have a bout with a member of the Li or Kazan clans it can only bring the Wei clan honor. If I make a good accounting of myself it shows our strength, that even someone with my deficiencies is made strong by the Wei. And if I don't- nobody expects better from an Unsouled."

It should be a knock-down argument. Whoever fights him will have the same issue Lindon did with the Foundation stage children. If they defeat him easily it will count for nothing, and if he makes them work for it or even manages to win it will make them look very bad indeed. It's the perfect opportunity to put a young rising star of the Li or Kazan clan into a no-win situation and smear some mud on their rivals' faces. It's the kind of situation the Wei spend rather a lot of their time scheming to engineer. And here it is, fallen into the Patriarch's lap.

Lindon feels weight press down on his shoulders. The Patriarch's annoyance is barely visible on his face, but Lindon can feel it trying to crush him into the dirt. This isn't even the product of actual exertion, this is just what a powerful Jade's anger feels like to an Unsouled.

"I would not wager the honor of the clan on an Unsouled. Give me some face, disciple, and renounce the exhibition. I do not forget my debts."

It occurs to him that the Patriarch is very wealthy. A minor debt could still amount to all sorts of things. He knows the Patriarch has more than one parasite ring, a cultivation aid that makes cycling harder but more rewarding. "Twice as hard but twice as useful" is the standard phrasing. How much faster would that make his advancement? Twice as fast, if he practices as much as he currently does. Supposedly it's sufficiently unpleasant to cycle while wearing a parasite ring that you can't just do that, but Lindon bets he could. What's a little unpleasantness compared to faster progress?

But no. He has plans. He has a life he could live outside this valley. A place where "Unsouled" is a foreign word.

He falls to his knees and bows, pressing his head to the floor.

"Forgiveness, Patriarch, but this one has a match to prepare for."

Sairus is a Ruler on the Path of the White Fox. If he wanted, Lindon would spend the next five minutes experiencing being burned alive and then have to walk on to his exhibition match, body completely unharmed by the experience. He won't force Lindon not to fight- that would truly lose him face. As it stands (if Lindon is right about what's truly going on here) he simply worries for the clan's reputation if they become associated in the minds of the four schools with an Unsouled. What does it mean if their most promising Foundation stage disciple is Unsouled? If he has to actually get involved to corral that Unsouled publicly, then he's guaranteeing that exact outcome. The Unsouled bowing out wisely before challenging one of his betters is one thing, being forced to do so makes the clan look weak, like they're afraid he'd embarrass them. 

But all of that doesn't mean Sairus can't freely take out his anger on Lindon. The Patriarch is talented. If he wanted, nobody would see Lindon as he writhed in phantom agony on the ground.

The feared pain doesn't come. Instead Sairus simply looks at Lindon like he's a fool and walks away.

Lindon isn't entirely sure where he found the courage to do that, but he's glad he did. He needs this.

This is how he gets out of the valley.