It had been quite some time since Chang-li had had the opportunity to be out of the sect with Min. They strolled through the streets of Taishin City, enjoying each other's company, shooting each other little glances and smiles as they went.

  Chang-li was wearing his nicer set of robes, the ones they had commissioned on arriving here at the capital. The silk was the finer quality, with the grays and the whites contrasting sharply with a red sash across it from his left shoulder down to his waist. Min's matching robe edged with red marked them as a couple. He felt a bit ostentatious, wearing it around in public like this, but they were about to represent their sect in a matter of business.

  Min had made the appointment at the cultivators' bank in the center of Taishin City. Chang-li had walked past the place several times without realizing it was a bank. It had seemed yet another of the capital city's wonders, a white marble palace of spires and buttresses with gold flags all along the front fluttering in the breeze. It rose up 150 feet over the square which it dominated. In its tallest tower was a large round clock with gold hands.

  The central center of the square was a fountain, three linked pools with an enormous statue of a tower pouring water into the three basins. Each was elevated at a different height. The water flowed first into the gold basin, then the silver, then one of bronze. No doubt there was some symbolism in the statue that he wasn't aware of. People approached the various bowls and tossed in small coins. "What's that for?" he asked, curious.

  "I imagine they're wishing for good fortune on their ventures," Min said. She glanced at the enormous clock on the face of the bank. "We're early. We might as well sit and watch."

  They found a bench near the fountain. Chang-li sat back. It felt nice just to relax with Min for a moment. He was studiously refusing to think about their appointment.

  "How are the scribes coming along?" she asked.

  "I think they'll do very well," he said. "I've got one of them working with our less literate acolytes, bringing them up to the point where they'll be able to read a simplified version of most technique manuals. One of the other scribes is copying out a manual for the students attempting to reach the Peak of Mental Refinement. That's our current bottleneck, I think. I’ll have a stack of paperwork ready to go to the Office of Cultivation shortly."

  "Good," Min said. There were still bags under her eyes, and he knew she had not come to bed last night until after midnight, because he had been sitting up working on his own cultivation.

  "How about you? You need to delegate as well."

  "I know." She smoothed back a flyaway strand of hair. "I'm working on it. I've got a couple of recruits being sent in from the local Brotherhood. The problem is, this sort of work is usually done by the other sect spouses, and well..." She spread her hands. "We haven’t got any yet. Even when Hiroko joins me, I don’t know how much she’ll be able to do."

  "Some of the acolytes are married, aren't they?" Chang-li suggested.

  Min nodded. "Yes, Brother Stone is, and a few of the other older ones, but their spouses are back in Varden City. And not just that, " she looked worried. "They’re not Gem Nobles."

  "That's fine with me," Chang-li began. Then saw Min’s look, realized what Min was worried about. "Oh. Right.” Cultivators were required to marry into the Gem Court. If they already had a spouse, that marriage would be invalidated.

  “If they're willing to stop at the Peak of Bodily Refinement, they might be able to get away with it. After that point, though, they're going to get scrutinized. Any who have reached Mental Refinement? As soon as you file those papers, the gem court is going to want them married or remarried as fast as possible."

  "It's not absolutely required," Chang-li said. "Noren’s not married, and I’ve met plenty of other cultivators who aren’t.”

  “Some of them were married once. Others are married, you just haven’t met their spouse. But in other cases... well, if the gem court doesn’t think a cultivator has the chance to make it past the Peak of Mental Refinement, they may not waste too much time trying to hook them up. They’ll point a few red and orange nobles in the right direction and see what happens. Anyone who’s got a significant chance of reaching the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, and you know most of our cultivators do, are going to end up with a spouse sooner or later."

  "Which will help with your workload," Chang-li said, trying to cheer her up.

  She scowled. "Oh, and Joshi reminded me of something I knew from my reading but hadn’t really put into context. Once our cultivators do marry, we’re responsible for raising their spouses to the Peak of Bodily Refinement within three years of the marriage. If that doesn’t happen, the gem court will step in to see that the spouse’s interests are protected and will levy fines on us.”

  “That’s a concern,” Chang-li said, his thoughts racing. All of the sect’s problems came from too-fast expansion. He wanted to avoid that, but it sounded like it wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped. "But really, you need help. Hire clerks of your own. There have to be people from the Brotherhood who can help you do what you need to do. I mean, for crying out loud, you’ve been doing all of the meal planning and menu planning and shopping for the sect. That’s hardly the sort of secret we need to hold close to our chests. You can get someone to help you with that."

  She managed a wan smile. "As soon as you take my advice, you're turning it back on me."

  "Only because it’s good advice," he said seriously. He hesitated, then decided he needed to be honest. "I realized when I was bringing the scribes in that I’d been holding on to some of these duties because they felt like they were something that was part of me. Who I was before as a scribe. But that’s not who I am now. I'm not most valuable to our sect for my reading and writing anymore. I’m a cultivator. I’m not going to fail as a cultivator and have to fall back on my scribing talents. So, although I’ll always value the training I have and continue creating my own technique manuals, scrolls, I don't have to cling to that as a part of my identity anymore."

  She stared at him. "I didn’t realize you’d been thinking along those lines."

  "It wasn’t entirely comfortable for me to admit," he told her. "The thing is, I’m concerned you have the same sort of vestiges of your old life clinging to you. I don’t want you to be any less, but you don’t have to insist on always being more. You can delegate a few of your tasks without it giving up your identity as the eldest sister of our sect."

  She managed a smile. "That’s not the title. Anyway, Hiroko will be head spouse as soon as she and Joshi are married."

  "What?" Chang-li stared in surprise. "Why?"

  "It’s an etiquette thing. A violet or indigo royal will always outrank any mere noble. I don’t mind.” Min shrugged. "Hiroko and I understand each other well enough. We won’t be jostling for place."

  Chang-li didn’t believe Min for an instant. She keenly understood her rank and what it meant. The clock donged.

  Min stood up. "Time for our appointment.” She smiled. "I’ll think about what you said. You’re right. I don’t need to control our menu or be in charge of making sure we have enough material for new robes. Someone else can do that, once we’ve got the funds."

  They climbed the seven steps to the vast doors of the bank, huge wooden slabs studded with metal that opened at a single touch from Chang-li’s hand and led into an opulent lobby of polished brass and marble.

  A clerk hurried forward, bowing. "You are the senior disciple of Morning Mist and spouse?"

  Min inclined her head. "We are."

  "Come, you’re expected."

  The clerk escorted them through the gleaming lobby, past long counters where more clerks waited on people in cultivators’ robes. Apparently the banking guild in Taishin City operated multiple different facilities, there was a merchant’s bank in the market quarter, a bank just for government officials and functionaries nestled amongst the departments, and here in the center, a cultivator’s bank.

  Deep beneath their feet rested vaults for sects who had chosen to maintain such a vault in the city. Chang-li wondered what they would contain.

  The clerk ushered them to a windowless room. The walls were made of steel, and as Chang-li stepped inside, he felt a curiously oppressive atmosphere. He took a breath. It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Min’s eyes widened. "What’s wrong with this room?"

  "There’s no lux here," Chang-li realized. He had rarely been in a place completely devoid of lux even before becoming a cultivator. It felt like he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. He cycled what lux he did still have in his own core around his body, and he felt better.

  "Cycle Purification of Mind and Soul," he told Min. She nodded and did so.

  "This is one of our security features," the clerk said. "I apologize. I did not realize this was your first visit.”

  A door on the other side of the room opened, and they stepped through into a long corridor. Doors opened off of the corridor, leading into small offices. Most of the doors were shut. The clerk led them to one open door and stood beside it.

  "Senior Banker Ro Han will help you."

  Chang-li entered the office, followed by Min. Banker Ro Han stood up from the stool where he sat behind a desk. "Close the door, would you please?" he instructed the clerk. The door shut behind them. Chang-li again felt something amiss. Though there was lux here, the door closing had given him a sense of being cut off.

  The banker noted his expression. "We have various lux weaves worked into every room in this bank," he said. "In these offices, where we conduct our private business, there’s a basic privacy ward preventing anyone from eavesdropping on you, and a lux damper, proprietary make, that means no Lux scrolls can be deployed. All part of the standard protections we take to look after our customers’ interests."

  "I see," Min said faintly.

  "Please take a seat." He indicated a pair of backless chairs in front of his table. Banker Ro Han waited until they were seated, then took his own place behind the desk, steepling his hands together.

  Chang-li had to admire the neatness of his workspace. He had a tidy little brush kit off the side, and stacks of parchment with the first sheet flipped over so they couldn't read what was on it. Drawers for organization and no extraneous clutter.

  "I must say, at first glance, when I reviewed your application, I wasn't impressed," he said. "To be frank, Morning Mist does not appear to be a good investment for our bank. Yes, you are a charter sect, and we have always prided ourselves on the service we render to charter sects. But there's been nothing heard of from Morning Mist in centuries. And I looked back further in my records, the sect did have a vault and accounts here, which were closed for non-payment three hundred or more years ago.

  "On top of that, your prospectus indicates that your sect is very bottom-heavy. While it's not unusual to have dozens of Acolytes and Physical Refinement disciples for every one disciple at or above the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, the fact that you have so few high-ranking members and yet continue to add more disciples has the bank wondering if this is perhaps a classic inflate-then-vacate scam."

  Chang-li was both puzzled and annoyed.

  Min, though, just crossed her arms and glared. "We are not a scam," she said, "nor do we have any intention of taking a great deal of money from our initiates and then disappearing. That's what you're referring to, isn't it?"

  The banker nodded. "Indeed. We have seen a few of these over the years. Someone hypes up their sect as having discovered shortcuts on the path to cultivation, convinces a bunch of hopeful cultivators to join, takes their money, and leaves. It's not unknown for these scammers to attempt to get loans from the bank as well, on the strength of their sect."

  Min leaned forward and tapped a line on the document in front of Banker Ro Han. Chang-li hadn’t written it himself. He recognized the handwriting as Min's, and the signature as Noren's. "As you can see from our application, we are not asking for an unsecured loan. We are instead trying to raise capital against several sect treasures."

  "Which is why you are being extended the courtesy of this meeting," Banker Ro Han said. "However, you must know that we charge a steep fee for such a loan, and we'll be assessing your treasures. We are willing to loan you no more than fifty percent of our assessed value of these supposed sect treasures. Frankly, I doubt we can justify giving you the loan you seek."

  Min turned to Chang-li, her eyes sparkling. "Your turn," she said.

  Chang-li opened his soul space and took out the first of the treasures Noren had given them. He pulled the elixir, seemingly from nowhere, and placed it on the banker's desk.

  Banker Ro Han gasped. He dove for a chest standing against the wall behind his desk, threw it open, and rummaged through. He came up with a thick set of tomes and a small round glass with a brass surround, which he set over his left eye.

  He peered at the elixir, then grabbed the second of the books in his stack, flipped it open, and began perusing the pages.

  "The Tears of Heaven!” he gasped. "And unless my assayer is lying to me, at least five hundred years old to have had time to condense. These must be at level of a Lux Dominator."

  He looked up, his eyes wide, his hands trembling, and then, to Chang-li's utter astonishment, placed his hands on his desk and bowed very low.

  "My apologies, Cultivator Wu, Lady Morning Mist, I take back every insinuation I’ve made about your sect. This is unquestionably an ancient treasure worth at least two hundred thousand kwam. If you have more like this…”

  Chang-li pulled out the other three treasures and set them on the banker's desk.

  Ro Han’s jaw dropped open. Shaking, he started to say something, missed his stool, and fell to the ground.

  Chang-li rose, peering over the desk. "Do you need a hand?"

  The banker picked himself up and dusted off his robes. "No," he managed.

  He approached the items, held his glass to his eyes, peered at them briefly in one of the other books, then fell back to his stool, trembling.

  "Cultivator Wu, I assure you, the bank will be happy to extend you the loan on the terms you request."

  Now Chang-li was a bit worried about the way the banker was treating these treasures. "I need to know what security measures you have in place to ensure that our treasures are safe in your keeping," he said. "We do not intend to forfeit them to the bank, but rather to redeem our pledge as soon as it is possible."

  "Of course, of course," the banker babbled. "In fact, I would prefer very much if you were to deposit them in a bank vault yourself. Would you?" He made a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  Chang-li scooped the treasures back up and stored them in his soul space. After a moment of heavy breathing, the banker managed to collect himself enough and led them to the door. "This way, if you please."

  As they left his office, a pair of scribes approached. "Senior Banker, we need—“

  "No," Ro Han said, a little hysterical. "I’m busy. I’ll be there soon. Wait, Zan. Take the agreement on my desk from Morning Mist down to underwriting. I need the funds in an account and credit chits made up by the time we return from the vaults."

  "Of course, Senior Banker." The scribes fell to the side, bowing respectfully as Chang-li and Min accompanied Banker Ro Han along the hall.

  At the end of the hall was an iron grate. Banker Ro Han approached, unlocked it, slid it back, and ushered them into a tiny room, barely four feet by four feet. There seemed to be no other door.

  The banker entered, pulled the grate closed behind, and then took a controller disc from his pocket and touched it to the wall. Chang-li felt the lux technique spring to life around them, and the cage rattled and jolted downward.

  "This takes us to the vault level," Banker Ro Han explained. After a long stretch of moments where the cage rattled around them, it ground to a halt.

  Ro Han pulled back the cage grate and ushered them into a great chamber. They followed him, and it was curved in every direction, like a bowl set down over their heads, the expanse of ceiling lost above them in darkness, even as little lights twinkled here and there.

  Min exclaimed in delight. Banker Ro Han turned to her with a glimmer of a smile.

  "It is an exact duplicate of the Mural of Stars in the Imperial Palace. The Gem Court sends us updates every month or so. It helps remind the cultivators and sects of their part in our grand tapestry of being."

  On the walls were square golden doors. The doors varied in size from a foot and a half by a foot and a half to some Chang-li saw that must be six feet tall. Their handles were all chest height, so the largest of them came down below his knees, while the smallest would swing open at chest-height

  Chang-li reached out gently with his Intent. The banker didn’t seem to notice as he brushed up against the doors. He could feel their spiritual weight. The walls were festooned with interlocking lux techniques. He was careful not to disturb any of them but noted how much of the spiritual luxes each used. At a guess, most of these were security wards.

  Anyone attempting to break in here would have his mind so confused by blue lux, while violet and indigo ensured that he would be unable to proceed deeper, much less to find what he was looking for. Other techniques were clearly spatial in origin. These doors felt similar to Chang-li to the entrance to the vault of Morning Mist, which had essentially been like a giant version of his soul space, a place outside of time and space both.

  The banker led them to a two-foot tall door, took his control disc, and tapped it again, then waited. "This one is vacant. If you will place it here, you may add any weaves you like to the inside of the space only," Ron told them. "Then only Morning Mist, or senior bank officials such as myself, will have access to this space."

  "What if someone takes your disc there?" Chang-li asked, nodding at the controller in his hand.

  "It is keyed to my own core. I can recall it at will, and if they kill me, it will be destroyed," he assured them. "In addition, the bank audits all access to these vaults. If I or anyone else enters without permission, it will be recorded. You've asked for a three-year term of loan. Once you place your own treasures inside, only a Morning Mist representative will be permitted to access the vault within that time frame. If you have not redeemed your surety at the end of the three years, it will become property of the bank."

  Chang-li thought that sounded good but had never done anything like this before. He turned to Min, who gave him a tiny shrug and an expressive waggle of her eyebrows. , she didn’t know either, but thought it sounded good. "Very well.”

  The door swung open. He took the treasures from his soul space once more and placed them inside. No sense in adding any lux weaves since he didn’t know any that were relevant here. Instead, he stepped back and allowed Ro Han to close it.

  As the banker happily did something complicated with his key, Chang-li couldn’t resist pushing his Intent just a little farther. It was simple enough to wiggle past these patterns, and he even thought he might be able to disrupt some if he had time and inclination. He just wanted a hint at how many of these contained treasures on a par with theirs.

  He felt a gentle push back from the room all around. At the same time, several of the vaults' doors seemed to become translucent. With his lux vision, Chang-li glanced inside.

  The nearest seemed to have piles of gold and gems, disappointingly, nothing more than that. Some of the larger vaults contained two or three items with some spiritual weight: a fan, a sword, similar in power to the treasures he had taken off of Prism Eri’s students.

  The very largest of the vaults resisted his penetration. He guessed those must belong to truly powerful sects. That would be where the most valuable items lay hidden.

  Min was giving him a quick look. He pulled in his Intent and tried to relax. He had always imagined the wealth of the empire was in coin and industry. Now he realized it was in truth based on the items cultivators amassed or created. Knowledge, not gold, was the only true treasure. That was why sects entrusted their valuables to a bank. None of these weaves and traps really mattered, because the sects’ true wealth lay in their secrets. Morning Mist had enough of those to make him feel rich indeed.