Attempt 3: Failure. The stupid prince seems to have spent a great deal of time ingesting small amounts of Xingtang poison and has developed an immunity to its effects. He didn't so much as cough when the poison should have halted his breathing altogether. Further assassination attempts will not involve poisons until a complete list of his immunities can be determined. -From the reports of Assassin Jin Lirei of the Yellow Cloud Sect.

I focused on my core and my body. Silver was where a cultivator would improve the body by fusing their qi into every fiber of their being. The first time I'd advanced, it had been a simple matter of imagining moonlight infusing every muscle. Now, things were more difficult.

"You're forcing it," Satoro scolded.

"I am not." I countered, trying to maintain my focus through the irritating oni's commentary.

A hard object smacked into the top of my head. I flinched, opening my eyes to see that Heixin's shaft was hovering over me. I rubbed my head before glaring at my ancient rival.

"You damned little-"

"You're not a human anymore. You can't force it the way you used to," he said, interrupting me. "You are a being made entirely of qi. Picturing muscles where you have none will not work. Again."

I grumbled. "Since when did I agree to be your student?"

The stupid oni had just inserted himself into our cultivation, and I could tell that Lin was just as frustrated with it as I was. For three and a half months, we put up with his endless nagging about how 'there is no path' and 'flavors of qi are all a lie, so why bother.' He might have once been the powerhouse of the ancient world, and a king among yokai. He might even have been the founder of most modern cultivation foundations. However, he was also an insufferable moron, and the worst teacher I'd ever had the displeasure of learning from.

I sighed.

The worst part was that he had a point. I wasn't human. Picturing a human advancing to silver would only go so far.

Satoro stood and stretched. "I'm going to go play with your niece. If you don't advance soon, I might just teach her more than you want me to."

I twitched but did not answer. Satoro wouldn't hurt Xinya. He thought she was amusing. However, memories from ages long past carved trails of worry in my mind. That oni had once beat me so badly it took almost a full year to recover, and I was Salt at the time.

Taking a deep breath, I put the sour oni out of my mind. He wasn't worth punching. I'd get his stupid on my hands, and I was afraid that, with him, it may never wash off.

I took stock of my body. My core was where it always was, near to my heart. It served a very similar role, as well, pumping qi from the center of my being out to my limbs and back. I cycled my qi, letting it flow to the edges of my being and back in a soft and rhythmic feeling.

This body was void touched. My human body had long since been destroyed, and I was starting to come to terms with that more and more every day I was outside the Labyrinth's tormenting walls. Part of me wondered if I would someday be able to change shape like Shi Reili could. Though she didn't do it often, Reili had the ability to dissolve herself into a cloud of pure void mist. Since she was a void spirit, just like me, then it reasoned that I could likely do the same with practice.

But…then again…

The very idea of dissolving myself sent a cold shudder down my spine. People would be afraid of me if I did that. They wouldn't be able to see my stunning looks, nor my brilliant smile to know that I meant them no harm. Where was the use in that?

I put the thought out of my mind. That ability would not suit me, but there were other ways that the Void could manifest. I focused on those.

Settling back, I pictured myself like a bowl of water. The qi I was adding was a drop of dye, and rather than infusing muscle, I simply let the dye color the liquid within. In my mind's eye, the silver dye shifted the color and flavor of my qi, enhancing it and turning it into something else entirely.

Moon and void mixed, and soon, a light ignited within my body, and I felt my core expand to fit the Silver band that now encircled it.

* * *

"The weather is nice, today, don't you think?" I asked Lin as we walked through the market. He carried a sack over his shoulder, complete with all the items we'd purchased for the shop.

"There is no weather in this city," he countered. "Frankly, we could use a storm or two, I think."

"I used to have a weather system provide rain to the city, but it was destroyed in the raids on Half-Moon Hearth," I mused. "I wonder if there are any cultivators around who could create ra-"

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My toe slammed into a raised stone, cracking the stone itself and sending a shudder up my body. I winced and bit my lip.

"Are you alright?" Lin asked, a twinkle of amusement in his eye.

"Fine, fine." It was a lie. It hurt like hell.

I hadn't stubbed a toe since before I joined the Heaven's Blade Sect and became a cultivator. Something about doing so after Ascending, being imprisoned and reduced to nothing added far more insult than injury to the situation.

But, what's done had been done. When I reached Silver, I regained access to several techniques for altering reality around myself, but the void seemed to have other ideas about how my advancement would go. Lin had noticed dark trails of mist appearing behind me when I moved quickly, and that came with an increase to speed that I reasoned must have been due to the void's command over space.

What was more troubling at the current time, however, was that a small mote of voidlight had appeared inside my body. It infused my body with the fortune-draining power that I'd inflicted on so many of my enemies over the last year. For the first time, I was the victim of my own techniques.

It didn't make any sense! I'd planned everything and executed it as best I could. I'd used the qi infused into a moon moth from the armillary as the source of my additional qi, and the process of focusing it had gone quite smoothly once I listened to Satoro and changed the method of my infusion…not that I'd ever tell him that.

Yet, I hadn't anticipated that my dual cores would start to mingle on their own, without my command. Even some of the lunar arts I'd mastered thousands of years ago were starting to take on a blue tinge. I was even afraid to touch Lin and Xinya, for fear that my curse of misfortune would rub off on them, as it had sometimes done in Saikan.

"Are you alright, Master Tsuyuki?" asked Madame Hei, a young kitsune who ran a small stand that sold fans and combs.

I flashed the kitsune a smile. "Of course I am, you're too kind for worrying."

She raised a fan in front of her face as her eyes twinkled with amusement. A small giggle could be heard behind that fan, which caused Lin to shake his head slightly.

"Preening peacock," he muttered. Ignoring him, I waved to Madame Hei before we continued on. I only made it three steps before I stumbled over my own feet and crashed to the ground.

"I'm fine!" I said quickly, scrambling back to my feet. Several of the local merchants paused, as they'd been rushing to my aid. I smiled sweetly at them. "Thank you all for your concern."

Lin took my arm and pulled me away. "Come on, before you make every yokai on the street swoon over their local void spirit savior."

"Swoon? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"At this rate, the entire fourteenth district is going to think you're an eligible young bachelor," he complained. I shook free of his grasp and turned around, walking backwards to see him clearly.

"Awww, are you jealous? Don't worry, I'll always make time to goof off around my dearest sworn brother," I assured him with a grin. Our path turned, taking us through Armillary Square on our way back to the inn.

Lin just rolled his eyes. "Keep that up, and the rumors from Saikan might just follow us here."

"Master Tsuyuki! Master Tenri!" An older oni woman waved us over. I dug through my memory until I came upon the name of Wen.

"Madame Wen, how can we help you?" I asked with a polite smile and a bow.

"Oh, you really are a handsome thing," she said.

My smile turned sheepish. "Oh, you're just being polite. There's really no need. How can Lin and I be of assistance?"

"I just wanted to thank you," Madame Wen said. I frowned slightly in confusion.

"For the armillary? I already said there was no need to thank me for something so trivial," I answered, but she shook her head.

"No, no, not the fix itself, but the fortune it's brought us!"

Lin and I exchanged a look. I wasn't sure if I heard her correctly. No one had ever accused me of bringing good fortune, especially not after becoming the Darkened Moon and earning my title as Demon of Misfortune.

"I'm not sure what you mean. You must have me mistaken for someone else?"

She shook her head adamantly. "I've spoken with the other merchants in the square. Three of them have found gold on the ground, without an owner in sight, and no one has come to claim it! Just the other day, the jeweler said he landed a deal with one of the masters of the Storm Chaser Sect to make a lovely set of earrings for his daughter, and I heard that Madame Ichiya, the one who sells the hair oils, says that the plants in her shop have never been so vibrant!"

"I'm very happy for your fortune," I began with a smile, "but I really don't think that your praise is best placed with me."

With one last bow, Lin and I left the shopkeeper to her wares, and I furrowed my brow in thought. Surely, all the fortune was coincidence, right? After all, my voidlight was only growing stronger and more mingled with my moonlight. That would surely cause misfortune rather than fortune, yes? Never once had I seen it cause anything good to happen.

Right?

"Hey, watch-"

Lin's warning came too late as I slammed nose first into the bare pedestal where a statue of me once guarded the north side of the park. Blood began to seep from my nose.

"Stupid voidlight! Useless ability!" I said in a frustrated huff through the hand that covered my nose. "Why did my path end up so…so…"

"Self-destructive?" Lin provided.

"Yeah. That."

"Maybe the void is mad at you for taking so long to figure out what it does?"

"I'm trying. I can only listen to the voices for so long before I get a headache," I complained.

Lin shrugged. "And your blooded techniques? Why didn't Flash Forward warn you of the statue."

"Because…because…"

The truth was that Flash Forward had been completely silent since advancing to Silver. It had the same blue-silver sheen over it that it always did when the voidlight shone upon it. Now, with the voidlight inside me, causing my own fortunes to suffer, Flash Forward and Flash Back were completely locked until I could figure out how to make them work with the Voidlight.

I should have fixed that months ago…

"I'll get to it," I promised. Not that I had a choice. I spun around, very nearly ending up running into the pedestal again before stepping to the side and walking forward with purpose.

A hand yanked me back by the collar.

"Hey! What gives, Lin?"

"Shh. Look." He was peering around the statue, watching something across the park. I leaned over to join him, my curiosity getting the better of me.

On the far side of the grassy space, five cultivators in black robes and shining silver pendants strode unchallenged through the park. They paused, smartly, at the line I'd carved in the ground to indicate the point at which the voidlight would attack them.

To my great horror, one of them singled himself out from the rest, and stepped over the line.

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