He switches to the new cycling technique. In the evenings, he tries to practice the Empty Palm.

He doesn't get anywhere. It's no time at all before his core is empty, and he isn't even sure exactly what he should be trying for, or how to tell if it's working. It's not like he could use the Empty Palm on himself. It's his madra. His core would just absorb it like nothing happened. It would just be a very strange and terrible cycling technique that didn't do anything.

Should he be wreathing his palm in madra? Should he be trying to launch it out? Should he be- trying both at once, somehow? He has no idea.

The frustration doesn't get to him too much, though. 

He's a real sacred artist. He's trying to reinvent an ancient technique from an old scroll he found forgotten in the clan archives. 

It's like something out of one of the bedtime stories his father told him as a child.

He turns fourteen. He's the last person of his age cohort still in the Foundation stage. The only person as old as he is in the Foundation stage in the whole clan. There are probably others in the valley. There are nearly a million people in Sacred Valley, and the Wei Clan is only a tenth of them. And they're a clan. They may be below the schools, but they're above everyone else. There are probably other people in the foundation stage.

He's the only Unsouled in the clan, at the moment. Maybe the only one in any clan. 

He bows and scrapes to anyone who seems to be annoyed at him. All of the children he used to lead around in the forest have outgrown him in power if not in height. That almost makes it worse. He's taller than them. As tall as the average adult now, actually. And nearly as broad, despite his age. Something in his height and his build and his face makes it seem hollow when he bows and scrapes to the adults or the other children. It gets harder and harder to convince them he really does see himself as less than them.

He picks up the habit of referring to himself as "this one." 

"This one apologizes for getting in your way."

"This one is running an errand for his honoured mother, Copper cousin."

The shame burns. 

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't. There's no reason at all for this. Sure, he's weak. Sure, with an unaspected soul he'll never reach Jade, and if by some miracle he did he'd be the weakest Jade in the valley forever, with the possible exception of some sacred artist stupid enough to try to be something they're not. He'll have all the problems any sacred artist has if they focus too hard on abilities outside their affinity because he doesn't have one. He's innately and fundamentally crippled. But that's reason to not spend resources on him, not reason to make sure he's useless. 

The other families in the Wei clan even seem smug about it all. Like it's good, somehow. Like he deserves it. Like his family deserves it. Why? 

He can't ask. It's not his place.

He tests his attempts at the empty palm against a simple script circle he's empowered, a tiny little thing that pushes back against anything that attempts to enter it with barely as much force as a strong gust of wind. He needs to see if he's even made enough progress to disrupt that. Honestly, he should have thought of this sooner. It will be far easier than doing anything to a sacred artist's core would be, there a person has some degree of innate authority and rather a lot more madra than he can afford to spend empowering a script circle.

The issue, it turns out, is that disrupting a script circle is too easy. A burst of pure madra does it. So does a long, slow, highly diffuse gust. Disrupting the purely spiritual is the only thing pure madra can do, and it does that well. But he knows that gust couldn't be effective in battle because it's simply too easy. The Empty Palm would be taught to every Wei Clan child and a third of the clan would follow a Path focused entirely around shooting blasts of pure madra if it was that simple to disable another sacred artist. Lindon is Unsouled and he still has enough madra to send out a gust from his palm strong enough to disable a script circle. A diffuse blast that widens out to eight inches on a side and reaches perhaps twice that far by the time it destabilizes. If he can do that, a Jade with pure madra could send out a gust that was a dozen feet across and two dozen long. A technique with that broad an area that disabled any sacred artist struck would be a treasure beyond imagining. It's so easy, is the thing. It's simple enough a sacred artist of any affinity could learn it alongside their traditional techniques without destabilizing their spirit. They'd need to be on a path of pure madra, which would impair them in a number of ways, but a technique that could disable any sacred artist within two dozen feet, too broad to dodge- that would very much be worth the cost.

He realizes all of that after an hour of excitedly crowing to himself in the privacy of his own mind about how he's discovered a way for the Wei clan to completely conquer the valley. He has a technique to split cores- what if every Wei clan child learned that first, and kept one of their new cores pure and used the other for the traditional clan sacred arts? What if every member of the Wei clan had a technique that allowed them to disable any sacred artist within multiple paces of them? It would change the world.

But no, if it was that easy some sacred artist not of one of the great clans would have stumbled into the idea at some point in the last thousand years and would now be a legend every child heard of growing up. Not the core splitting, but the use of pure madra. A diffuse gust of pure madra is the simplest, least complicated striker technique imaginable. You can almost do it by accident.

But what if he's wrong? What if it does work like that? What if he dismisses the idea and passes up on the greatest technique in the history of the valley? 

He can't risk that.

He goes and talks to his sister, Kelsa. He starts by saying he's had an idea for a technique even he can use.

She does not, actually, believe that it could even possibly be useful. 

That stings.

He explains that he found a description of it in a technique manual. That she believes, at least. And once he shows her the manual, she's willing to believe it's something that could make him- well. Not not Unsouled. But not completely defenceless. It's one year to the next Seven Year festival. He'll be competing against the other Foundation stage children in the tournament. He'll be two years older that the very oldest of them, and five years older than most of them. He can't afford to lose. He can't afford to do anything but win it outright. He can't bear the thought of shaming the Wei clan, shaming himself, like that. He can't.

And he can't do that without something. This is something.

Will she help him? Please?

She agrees.

He asks her to try first with the broad, wider-ranging gust, rather than the focused jab. He says it's because it means his aim wouldn't need to be as good, keeping his dreams of Jades using blasts of pure madra to disable their enemies at range to himself. And it is true that it would be better if he could disable someone with a palm-strike to their stomach even if he missed their core by a few inches.

Her madra will not be pure madra. It will not particularly disrupt his spirit. It will not be anywhere near as good at actually piercing his core. But she is a Copper, and he is Unsouled. That difference should be large enough to make up for that.

She tries for the first time.

He blinks. Nothing? Nothing.

Too diffuse. Kelsa says she felt her madra brush against his core and simply rebound off it.

Well. His good sense that it couldn't be that is easy is probably validated, then. It's possible that the difference between pure madra and White Fox madra is larger than the difference between a Copper and an Unsouled, but he doubts it. 

She tries again.

The dirt smells like annoyance. The leaves fifteen feet above him taste odd. He's glad he has a dirtbed out here with him in the woods. It's very impressive Kelsa figured out some method to become fifteen feet tall. 

If only the grass didn't hate him.

He shakes his head clear after a few more moments of confused daze. His sister is saying- something?

"...more focused. Yes, that should help."

"Wait, Kelsa, what are you-"

"Sit up, I need to test something."

"Test what-"

She grabs his wrist and pulls him upright. Then she palm strikes his stomach again.

The world melts. One strange hallucination after another assails him. The leaves on the trees above him grow claws. The grass beneath him sharpens and nearly pierces his skin. The dirt behind his heels softens and wraps his feet up in warm coziness. The clawed leaves take flight, swirling through the air and around him.

It takes him much longer to come up from the confusion this time.

"No, no, that's not fast enough. The motion itself needs to carry the madra, transmission through contact doesn't work correctly. Up again. I need to try again."

Lindon sat up slowly. "Wait a moment. I think it's worse for me, since I'm so-"

It takes even longer this time for the world to return to normal. It seems like Kelsa's making progress.

That's not a good thing.

"I'm not doing that again."

"Then you'll be worthless for the rest of your life. You don’t want to shame the family? Sit back up. Stand up, actually, I think I'll figure this out faster that way." It's said so casually. Completely absent ridicule. It's just the way things are. It still hurts to hear. Because she's right. He is useless. If he doesn't learn this and use it to win the Foundation stage tournament at the next Seven Year Festival and prove it's worth letting him learn a Path he'll always be useless.

Kelsa stares off into the distance and thinks, not even bothering to look at him. "I've almost worked it out. It has to transmit all at once in a focused blast. Not a slow stream," she says.

There's something else, though. Something he can read in just how matter of fact she's being, in the way she's trying to puzzle out the Empty Palm even now rather than continuing to try to convince him to stand up. She doesn't doubt he'll get up, not really. She knows him.

He stands. 

"Catch me when I fall. If I land wrong I could break something."

She nods.

It takes twelve more repetitions. Twelve times he falls, twelve times Kelsa catches him, twelve times he stands again. After the fourth he turns his head to the side and vomits. After the eighth his legs won't stop shaking. It's not important.

He stands. He stands.

He stands.

And then, finally, it's over. He thinks. It's kind of hard to be sure what's a hallucination and what isn't, right now.

He stumbles as he stands up and Kelsa holds him steady. He takes a few long, slow breaths, cycling his madra as Kelsa stops him from falling. Slow, steady breaths despite the way the world hasn't quite gone back to behaving himself. Cycling his madra will help him shake it off faster, and he needs to breathe evenly to cycle.

"I think I heard you say you've got it? Or was that a hallucination?"

It was not, it turns out, a hallucination.

“Step forward and shove in one motion, focusing madra in your palm. Specifically your palm, not your entire hand. Release it in one breath, being sure to exhale and cycle to the rest of your body for stability. Understood?”

He's still swaying. He's not sure whether the things he's seeing are real. Are the leaves actually trembling like that? Is that something they do? Or is this yet another instance of hallucinating a memory?

“Please, I need... I need a moment.”

She waits. Not patiently. No, she pulls out the technique manual for the Twin Stars technique and goes over it again.

"It's hard to believe splitting your core is even possible. I almost can't believe this man did it just to get an advantage over one rival. Skilled enough to invent his own technique to split his core, foolish enough to half-cripple himself to beat one man."

Lindon cycles, slow and steady, breath even. He nods, since that seems to be what she wants from him. The time passes, as it always does. It burns, a bit, that he's got the chance to try and he can't manage to stand up and do it. But he needs to not fall over during the attempt. Or miss Kelsa's core because he's seeing everything six inches to the left of where it actually is.

It's really only the second bit that stops him from trying while his knees are still shaking. Falling over matters less than wasting one of his attempts.

And then, finally, the ground behaves itself, the sky acts as it should, and he gets to try.

He fails miserably, of course.

"No, no," Kelsa says. "All in one burst. Not a slow stream. Try again."

He does. Again, and again, never quite managing it. He tries until the drain on his madra is enough he passes out.

When he wakes up, he tries some more.

He gets it.

Sort of. It takes multiple entire seconds for him to gather his madra in his hand. That's too slow. Far too slow.

It should get easier if he hits Copper, someday. But that isn't soon enough. The next Seven Year Festival is in a year. He needs to be good enough to win the tournament. And not just that good. It doesn't matter, really, whether the wins the foundation stage tournament. He'll be fifteen next year. He'll be the size and shape of a large grown man and he'll be fighting children. If he wins, it's to be expected. It won't count for anything, not really. And if he loses, well, then it's just all the more shameful.

No, it's not the Foundation tournament. It's the exhibition match. The winner of the Foundation tournament gets to have a bout with a sacred artist of a higher stage to demonstrate their skill. It's not a true contest, actually defeating a fighter of a higher stage is hard enough that there was no shame in even the winner of the Foundation stage tournament losing to a Copper sacred artist. But, if he could win...

They'd practically have to train him.

He gets over the last lingering bits of his pride. It's foolish is what it is. It's fine for the shame to burn. Good, even. But he isn't what he thought he was when he was young. He's Unsouled. Expecting people to treat him like he isn't is nothing but foolishness. Yes, the way they treat him is- counter-productive. But it is what it is. Raging against it on the inside of his mind rather than coping with it as best he can is a poor excuse for wisdom.

He's been acting outwardly almost like already believed all of that, but thinking of the little internal resistance to it as foolish helps it all snap into place just that bit better. And it's important to get that right. He has been getting it right. But- well, it's just true that he's been foolish, if only inside his own head.

How can he make sure that he wins the tournament? What elixers can he get before it starts? Can he get any? And how can he make sure he actually gets to study the Path of the White Fox afterwards?

He could cheat, of course. A certain amount of cheating is brushed off, at least from the Wei clan. Which of the three clans hosts the festival rotates, but this time it will be hosted by the Wei clan, so it's their opinion that matters. If he cheats in a way that still entirely rests on his shoulders, he won't just get away with it, he'll be praised. 

Honour by any means.

That kind of cheating is, unsurprisingly, much harder than simply bribing the people running the tournament to schedule the matches so that the best competitors that aren't you all face off against each other early and tire themselves out while keeping your half of the bracket full of people you can beat. But that just means Lindon is in the same position as his competition. He's advantaged, really, he's older. He could bury a weapon at just the right point, maybe?  It's acceptable to use whatever is already in the arena- if he's buried something in the right spot in advance, well, he'd have to have snuck by Wei clan guards. If a Foundation stage artist can sneak past Irons, they've earned the advantage of a hidden trick.

A weapon would be enough, frankly. It's not permitted for Foundation stage artists to use them, it's far too easy for a ten year old with a sword to kill their competition by mistake, and nobody wants their children dying. It's one thing if an Iron dies in the final of the Iron stage tournament, their bodies are strong enough that if that happens it's because someone was very unwise or catastrophically unskilled. But Foundation-stage children have weak bodies and only a few years of training. Every year there would be a few children dying, and nobody wants that. His hidden weapon would have to be a staff, or something similarly helpful but unlikely to accidentally kill someone.

Much, much better not to need a weapon, though.

He needs to be better with the Empty Palm. What if one of the clans has a physically talented and martially skilled thirteen year old next year who is lagging behind in advancement? One halfway effective enforcement technique would be more than enough to ensure he lost that fight.

Well, he has a year to practice.

Then there's the last point. How to make sure this actually gets him the Path of the White Fox to study. He'd need at least one Elder in his corner. It won't be the eighth, that much is certain. The first seems perhaps a bit more likely to agree to grant permission, if he manages to win. But that's only if he gets permission first. He doesn't trust any of them to not simply brush it off if he manages it and he hadn't had an agreement from them in place already.

But if he talks to him in advance, for no reason, he seems- like he doesn't know his place. That's the issue. Without a reason the First Elder will laugh him out of the room, and think worse of him for even asking. There's a more than decent chance that seeming uppity would make the First Elder decide he never got to learn at all, for any reason, no matter what.

Another achievement of some sort first, perhaps? As a springboard? Something an Unsouled should probably not be able to do?

If he could just hit Copper-

That alone might be enough for a Path. Even if it isn't, it would be enough to ask.

Okay, elixirs, then. What does he have a chance of actually getting?

An ancestral orus fruit. It's the best option by a wide margin. The kind of thing which can get lost like a needle in a haystack, for a short time.

The whole valley has orus trees, and the area of the valley controlled by the Wei clan has the largest concentration. They're nothing special, just ordinary trees, but they produce delicious fruit, like something halfway between a peach and an apple. However, all things advance, in time, as they gather the vital aura of the world into themselves. Animals slowly become sacred beasts, beasts as intelligent as any human, and just as capable of using madra. Plants are different. They become ancestral. Or, that's the term used to describe the thing they become, anyway. They grow stronger, taller, but do not grow minds in the same way as sacred beasts and contain concentrated vital aura rather than madra. Some have natural techniques always active, a tree whose leaves are always damp or whose bark is as strong as iron on the tree but weak as paper removed from it. Most importantly, the natural materials of many of them contain large amounts of concentrated vital aura that can be processed by someone before the Copper stage.

An ancestral orus fruit is valuable even to a Jade. For him...

The Fallen Leaf school monopolizes all the orus trees which are already ancestral, but they do so by learning of such a tree from someone who has found it and paying them for reporting it to them. If he finds a tree that's just become ancestral, he can take its first fruit for himself and then report its presence to the clan, who will report it to the Fallen Leaf School in exchange for "gifts".

Finding one will not be anything like easy. But he has a year. 

He'll need his mother's help.