When Nyx’Sol descended through the wooden obstacle course a few hours later, his body was frozen stiff. His internal body temperature was quickly dropping, with any available storage space in his newly created skin cells already used up. He had assumed that he could handle the creation of new un’gholor-plated scales but had neglected the fact that using up all his stored energy would accelerate his Yin-Yang imbalance due to the cold and harsh winds high above the snowpit.

  Nyx had a good grasp of his Qi intake now, so he was limiting himself to small trace amounts of Qi, which meant that if he stayed in this cold area, it would take several hours to resolve the imbalance. To make matters worse, he had dropped the Qi-balancing necklace his sister had given him because of his stiffened fingers. It could have quickly alleviated his problems by increasing his Qi intake and balancing it out for him, saving him a painfully cold descent into warmer areas.

  Instead of falling all the way into the soft white of the snowpit, the necklace had landed on an obstacle below his platform. This was usually impossible, lest students fall from one obstacle onto another, breaking bones and injuring themselves in the process, rather than landing in the soft snowpit or water below.

  However, this obstacle was of a special variety, connecting loose threads of silken strands through wooden rings over a vast area, like a tensed spiderweb. One had to carefully balance their weight, like a spider balancing on multiple strands of her web. If Sol had fallen onto it, the silk would have quickly given way and, besides slowing his fall, done nothing to stop him.

  Sol had seen some of the other students attempting it, but it seemed to train a very specific skill set that not many initiates fancied.

  Sol had no delusions. He would not even know where to start with something like this. Luckily, he did not need to, since all he had to do was shake the strands and hope his necklace would fall.

  It took him twenty more minutes before he finally stood at the edge of the artificial net. With cold fingers, he grasped the net and shook it, realizing two things in the process. Firstly, the net was sticky. Like a spiderweb, it softly clung to his fingers, refusing to let go easily. Secondly, the same seemed to apply to his necklace. Even if he failed and fell through the net, destroying it in the process, the necklace would still silently cling to the strands and remain in the exact same spot once the net had magically repaired itself.

  Suddenly, he felt a shiver run through his body. It was not his own. His focus skill had activated and sent a disapproving, shivering feeling throughout. Sol sighed apologetically and tried to relay that he was working on it. Instead of approval, his unfamiliar companion activated. His mind grew razor-sharp, and with a childlike feeling of happiness and wonder, he was emotionally drawn to touch the string.

  He felt his Qi rush through his fingertips, gently aligning itself against the web and hooking into it. His hold on the sticky surface was now much more solid, and his slight movements shifted the silken strands, the minute feedback of their vibrations revealing the secrets of the net. He felt a wave of childlike nostalgia and immediately knew what he had to do.

  Nyx’s focus skill vibrated the Qi in his fingers as he concentrated on it—freeing him from the solid hold on the sticky surface. Quickly, he pulled his sandals from his feet, storing them away in his ring, and walked onto the web with smooth steps. His focus kept him upright, walking confidently. Only after he had passed the outermost ring did he duck down and grab a few strands with his fingers.

  Pulling left, then right, then left again, he steadied his march forward, adjusting the net’s fragile integrity through his hands as well as his carefully placed weight. The focus skill retreated after a few minutes with a mischievous sort of happiness.

  With all that concentration gone, it was hard to remain upright, and his progress slowed down. But Nyx sent a grateful nod inward and, without paying any further attention to his skill, struggled onward. By the time he approached the necklace, he was crawling on all fours, holding six strands between both his hands as well as his teeth. He knew he would fall the instant he grabbed the necklace from that unstable section of the web.

  With a desperate groan, he snapped his neck to solidify his foothold and jumped for it. His middle finger caught the necklace and pulled it free, down toward the snowpit.

  Welcomed by the cold powder, the necklace wormed its way into his clothes, quickly accelerating his temperature imbalance. The snow was much colder down here, below the surface.

  Putting on his necklace, he sighed in relief as a steady trickle of warmth slowly filled his body, and he fought his way out of the pit. As he broke through the surface near the edge of the snowpit, he heard a rapid clapping sound. When he spotted the source right in front of him, he quietly debated taking off his necklace again, just in case it could stop the heat rising to his ears and cheeks.

  A slender figure in a smooth white mask and black clothes sat on a light blue and white blanket in the grass. A tea set and a small plate of paka cookies rested on a thin stone plate next to her. He even noticed a second, still empty cup.

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  “You know, you are quite good at this. I think I can see a spider weeping for its web somewhere.” She shook her head mockingly. “If you had wanted to be pushed into the snow, you could have asked me. I would have obliged.”

  Sol felt his ears heat up even more. What could he even say in this situation? How long had she been sitting here? He eyed the untouched cookies and still-filled teacup. Unless she had refilled it… not very long.

  The snow was slowly melting in every corner of his robes, so he quickly freed his muscular upper body from its prison and began to pat the stuck remnants of snow from the robe’s insides. He then noticed the girl averting her gaze and holding a hand in front of her face.

  “You know, it is quite the bold statement to undress in the presence of women.” Her voice was flustered, and she spoke a little faster than she usually did.

  Nyx felt his face flush again, internally thanking his black skin with its red hue for not revealing how awkward he always felt when talking to her. He turned his upper body away from her, revealing only his muscular back, and quickly finished clearing out his clothes. “You could also just not look. I would prefer not walking around with snow melting down my body for the next hour. This is not the private show you seem to pretend it is.”

  “I—I am not looking! And I would have a better show watching the snow melt!” she snapped at him and quickly turned away, sitting with her back to him to make it clear she had no intention of looking. Then she paused briefly before quickly adding, “Just the snow, not the snow on you.”

  He sighed as he felt a chunk of snow slip through his clothing and slowly melt as it descended down his leg. “At least I made it halfway across the net and got my necklace back. That has to count for something.”

  “I give you a six out of ten,” she teased again, her mask still stubbornly averted from him, despite the fact that Sol had already dressed again. There was a quiet laugh of amusement in her voice. “You started skillfully, but then you got worse and worse as you progressed.”

  Eying her with a raised brow, he decided to defend himself a little. “Oh, so you can do it better? Alright, show me then.”

  She sighed and helplessly raised her hands. “If I ever show you the beauty of my skills, you might fall in love with them, and I am not ready to deal with a disciple yet.”

  Taken aback by her wording, he just stared at the blanket, frantically searching for a comeback in his mind before she turned to face him again and tapped the blanket she sat on.

  “I will share some tea with you. Come, sit.” She then tilted her mask in the way she usually did when she was about to ask an honest question. She contained her curiosity until he had seated himself and she had served him some tea. “This necklace is… special to you?”

  Nyx nodded. “Yes, it was a gift.”

  “Fiancé?” she teased, making his ears feel hot again.

  “No,” he said far too quickly, his mind racing at the question. Why would she ask him that? “No. It was a gift from my older sister.” After she nodded, he hastily added, “I do not have a fiancé. I know it is a custom for many families to engage their children when they are young, to encourage them to live their lives before reclaiming their memories, but my clan does not practice that.”

  She took a cookie from the plate and brought it to her face, eating it through the mask playfully. “I see. A lot of my brothers and cousins are, so I was wondering.”

  He wanted to ask her the same question, but the girl would tease him about it again and… Was it too revealing? Would it show that he quite liked their little conversations?

  And it was bad etiquette to ask a girl about such things when he did not even know her name, much less her face! He could hear his mother chiding him, just as she always had when he put both elbows on the table during his meals.

  Quickly, he diverted the topic. “How did your breakthrough attempt go? Was the practice of your—” He paused, realizing he had never asked her what her innate ability was.

  “Thank you for asking. I broke through quite easily,” she exclaimed proudly with a huff. “Hardly a problem at all after only a few days of training.”

  “Congratulations,” Sol said, nudging his teacup in her direction. “Are you just taking some free time before moving on?”

  “Something like that.” Her voice sounded introspective and distant. “I had planned to leave earlier, but I wanted to see if you managed the challenge on that net.”

  “Sadly not,” Nyx sighed. “Maybe I will try again. It was fun. You wanted to leave without saying goodbye?” He added with a raised eyebrow.

  She huffed at that. “I wrote you a letter, you know? Besides, you will catch up in no time anyway.”

  Sol frowned. “A letter?”

  “Yes, yes. But never mind that now.” She spoke with concentration, raising her sect point token in front of her, seemingly paying for something. A blank white card materialized and fell into her lap. She quickly read it and frowned. “It seems I ought not to keep you distracted much longer.”

  The slender girl rose to her feet gracefully and adjusted her clothing before executing a graceful dip toward Sol. “I will have to ask you to deliver my tea set back to me once you have caught up. It would not do to let you sit idly in the grass, reading the letter I have left you.”

  Sol was confused at her sudden departure. She seemed a bit apprehensive before chuckling at his expression. “Here.” A slender, gloved hand reached out to pass the white card to him. “One of the older disciples sells information about the Skin Tempering Garden to the disciples here. You will have to pay ten points to read it.”

  Before she could turn to leave, Sol paid the card no mind, focusing on the important question that had lingered in his mind. “The letter?”

  She paused a few steps away from the blanket to turn her mask toward him in confusion. “What about it? It is a letter; it will explain itself.”

  “Will you not give it to me?” He teased her, pointing out that he had, in fact, not received it yet. She seemed to be in a hurry to leave.

  The white mask tilted slightly with her head. “You are sitting on it, silly.”