Oh. She's from far enough into the wilderness she's never even heard of the concept. Somehow. And she sympathizes.

"Yes. Yes they do."

Something in him says he's supposed to defend his Elders. It's his clan. His heart isn't really in it.

"They're- not entirely wrong, any resources they give me could be better used elsewhere."

"Just means you'd have half a year's delay. Be a waste not to. Not like it does any less for you, and you could get to Copper, start taking in Aura, contribute somehow."

This is not a happy Sword Artist.

He- agrees? Someone else is saying the things he thinks? This is not how this kind of thing goes.

"I have had similar thoughts many times myself, not that my place in the clan is one that allows me to say them. Is it all that obvious if you've never encountered the idea before?"

He kind of wishes he had been raised by sentient swords in the woods, now.

"And that place in the clan is why you bowed and scraped so much earlier, isn't it."

"Indeed."

"Wei clan... Illusions, yeah? What do they expect you to do at Foundation stage for the rest of your life, chip mosquitos' heads until they fly backwards?"

Rot-headed fools.

"Actually they expect me to, ah- sweep, mostly. I'm not allowed to learn a Path."

It's nice that she seems to agree with him on the foolishness of it all but it still feels shameful. Deeply so.

They what!?

The anger rolls off her in waves, just barely visceral from the pressure of her spirit reacting to the strength of her emotions.

"That's a rotted waste! No it's worse, they're sabotaging you!"

"What do they even gain from that? Why bother with a prohibition?"

She's pacing now, shouting, incensed. She turns sharply and keeps going.

"No, they don't gain! They're cutting their own foot just to spite you for being weak! Pointless, self-destructive cruelty!"

Her hands come up, gesticulating angrily.

And then suddenly she stops, turning and locking eyes with him. Everything about her is deadly still.

"You're out here hunting a treasure. What grows in this forest? I'm going to help you find it, and you're going to eat it. Your Elders can go rot."

He should be afraid, he thinks, when he actually feels her power. It's a bit like something sharp is simultaneously poking him everywhere, just barely something he can feel at all. He isn't, though. It's just so clearly anger felt on his behalf. The experience is- well. Not quite novel. He has some memories of his parents doing that when he was small. But it's been a long, long time.

Can he get away with it? His mother told him where to look and taking it all for himself- it's just not done. Not even because he's an Unsouled, but because he has an older sister who could hit Iron this year with some help, because his parents are going to expect to have a say in this, because his mother helped him. He has a tablet she gave him with a script on it, a script he'll copy onto the bark of any orus tree he thinks might be ancestral. It's complicated enough he couldn't have invented it on his own.

"I'm looking for an ancestral orus tree. The orus fruit they grow are an incredible treasure before Copper, and still somewhat valuable even at Jade. But- my mother taught me the script to identify the tree, and my older sister is close to Iron. My father has a wounded leg and advancing to Jade could heal him. Taking it all for myself would be- I want to. If my mother hadn't helped me, I would. But she did. I wouldn't even know to search this area without her help."

He really, really wants to just do what she says anyway. The words come out like he's reminding himself of something because, frankly, he is.

Yerin cocks an eyebrow. "Something at that scale ain't gonna push an Iron over to Jade unless they're already on the edge. Your parents would be chipped in the head to take a third or a quarter of the fruit for themselves at the cost of not getting you to Copper where you can finally tread your own water, rather than needing to be carried. At most you should split it with your sister."