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."

That does make sense. "I'm not sure if I can persuade them of that, but if I say a Jade less than sixteen summers told me it's wisest to split it between myself any my sister they'll listen. If my sister managed that they'd make her heir to the clan. Doing it without being in a clan or school is- if you don't die young they're probably going to still be telling stories about you a thousand years from now, you know that?"

He's been thrown off-balance enough by every individual feature of this interaction he didn't realize all of that himself until just now. She's- not normal. Not just not normal, but outside the way things are supposed to happen. 

"My, ah. My family is not going to believe me. But if I just eat half before I bring it home there really isn't anything they can do about it. My dad won't hit me that hard, if he does at all, and my mom probably already knows the fruit wouldn't be that useful to her or my father. My sister would want me to have half." He thinks.

"Jade at our age isn't so fancy a thing anywhere with enough Aura to be worth the air it fills," Yerin dismisses. "But it sounds like your sister's better than the pack of dogs you call Elders if she'd split the fruit with you."

Well. That's quite the thing to say. Where is she from that Jade isn't impressive? Is there a tiny family of people living around the Torchyard or something? No, that still feels wrong, people would know if that was the case. People don't say it's normal to be Jade at his age in the schools. 

Is she from outside the valley, then? But it's nothing but desolate wastes and barbarian tribes out there. Well. It's a whole world out there. Maybe there are tribes out there full of Jades who live in a valley full of absurd amounts of Aura. Most of what he knows about the outside world is that it's dangerous, full of incompetent barbarians who don't even understand that you need to specialize your techniques according to your affinity, and that said barbarians occasionally purchase orus fruit from traders in the valley. Not the natural treasure kind, the regular kind.

"Are you from- outside Sacred Valley? Somewhere with thicker Aura than we have here? Is it close to Sacred Valley?"

Yerin's cheeks color slightly, her eyes widen, and her mouth drops open for the barest moment before she composes herself again.

She should not have said that.

"Let's pretend I never hinted at there being an Outside," she replies, gamely covering her sheepishness with a wry tone. "So tell me about this sister you're scheming to split this fruit with, and how you're planning to find it."

On the one hand, she's a Jade. On the other hand there's some place outside the valley full of Aura that even children can cycle from.

"If you insist, far be if from me to try to make you talk, I'm not interested in ending today with more holes in me than I started it with, but- is it a secret in the you'd be in trouble sense or in the I'd be in trouble sense? And, uh- how much trouble? This the kind of thing I should be taking to my grave or...?"

Yerin winces slightly for a moment. "My Master said not to tell a soul, so I'd catch some trouble about it at the least. Don't know how much your Elders know. My bet is don't tell anyone else in the Valley."

Well, that's concerning. It sure doesn't sound like her Master would be fine with telling just him.

Wait. She has a Master? That's probably the more important bit.

"Is that Master why you're Jade so young? Would I have heard of them?"

He expects no, it sounds like they're from some other pocket of civilization out of the Valley. A more powerful one with enough aura Jade at their age isn't impressive.

"My Master, the Sage of the Endless Sword, is amazing," Yerin casually replies, "but no to both. He'd be even angrier about your Elders than I am, to tell it true."

Well, that's quite a name. He has absolutely no idea what it means, but it sure sounds like it means something. 

He can probably just ask?

"I've never heard someone called a Sage before, or heard of the Endless Sword. What, uh- what does any of that mean? Or is that the kind of thing you shouldn't be telling me?"

He blinks. He's completely forgotten about the fruit. 

"Oh, we should start looking for the ancestral orus tree. They're supposed to be hard for even Jades to sense, they're self-veiling, but you can probably rule trees out faster than me, sometimes."

"I very much appreciate the help."