The Empress sat above the city for 7 days, sorting through her spacial ring. At the same time, her divine senses lay lightly across the city. During the evening of the 7th day, an event occurs that forcefully reminds her of the error in her foundation that almost caused her core progression to fail with disastrous results.
In an unremarkable alleyway, a gagged black teenager is dragged from the back of a battered white van towards a steel fire escape door.
As the Empress examines the building, her expression changes from neutral to anger as she finds three other teenagers in rooms with a single manacle around their leg attached to a long, sturdy, chain that will give them just enough space to reach the toilet.
A moment later she vanishes from her spot as she steps down to the alleyway.
A second instant later, and the three men in ABB colours fall to the floor as the Empress flicks a single drop of blood from the tip of her spear. Carefully she steps forward towards the shivering wide eyed young woman before crouching down beside them.
"Hush young one, I am not here to replace one captor with another. I refuse to see another person with a pure yin constitution be turned into a cultivation resource for greedy men. I am about to release you from your bonds, nod if you understand."
When the teenager nods, the Empress projects a tiny bit of sword qi from her fingernails as she passes them over the ropes and handcuffs.
As the teenager reaches up to remove the gag from her mouth, the Empress asks, "Do you know of any orthodox sects that might be willing to take you in and train you to defend yourself?"
With a look of confusion and fear, the teenager shakes her head.
The Empress frowns, "I have not taught a mortal in a very long time, but with no established sects it would be unsafe for you to be without a master, as I found to my cost. If one loose cultivator could find you and arrange for your abduction, so could any other. And a pure yin constitution is certainly a prize that would tempt even an orthodox elder." Her eyes go distant, as if remembering something painful, "In the unlikely event you survived dual cultivation with them, you would face being turned into a cauldron in order to produce pills to aid the cultivation of promising young masters. At which point, your only hope would be to so thoroughly destroy your cultivation that you were useless for that purpose. Then, you would need to escape and have the luck of the gods in finding a cultivation method that works with a shattered foundation. Even then, that shattered foundation would continually cause you problems with your dao."
The Empress falls silent for a few minutes as the blood from the gangers spreads towards the alley entrance.
When she doesn't move, the teenager scrambles to her feet and says, "Lady, are you shitting me?"
At that moment, the steel door bursts open and a couple of men blindly open fire into the alleyway from either side of the doorway. Before the bullets can strike home, the Empress has moved to stand between the bullets and the teenager. And explosion of bricks is all the evidence that is left from the two strikes she made with her spear, as the guns drop to the floor from nerveless hands.
Gracefully, the Empress turns around to face the teenager, "No, I am not 'shitting' you. I give you two choices. I can escort you to the P R T, and you can take your chances with the cultivators they claim to control. Or you can become my student and I will train and protect you until you can stand on your own. If you are able to reach the heavenly realm before I leave the planet, I may even take you as my disciple."
"What the hell! Why can't I just go to the police?"
"You are in the city of Brockton Bay, home of the Empire Eighty Eight, a known racist gang. From what I have been able to sense, maybe a third of the police in this city are being paid by at least two masters."
The teenager stares at the Empress for a long moment before saying, "What about the PRT?"
"I do not know, I have yet to learn how to read the local language."
The teenager hugs herself, "Can't I just go home?"
"You could, though I believe the local transport infrastructure requires some form of paper to purchase…"
The teenager sags against the wall opposite the door, "I know I need money, or I need to go to the police. Fuck, what about my family? I could call dad."
"I cannot tell you about your family, or do this call you speak of."
The teenager shivers as she tries to think, and then squeaks as her gaze falls to the floor and she sees the men that were dragging her out of the van. Their heads sliced open with with a single strike from the Empress' spear. As she does, memories of being dragged into an alleyway just after she'd left a night club in Biddeford after they closed the under 21 bar.
With a vulnerable expression on her face, the teenager looks back up at the Empress, "You said you could protect me?"
The Empress nods minutely, "I guarantee that I can protect you from any mortal threats. I should be able to protect you from any opponent that comes from the first heaven too, though it would likely be at the cost of the city."
With a shuddering breath, the teenager says, "I'll go with you."
The Empress smiles and casually tosses her spear to one side, where it hovers a few inches off the floor as it expands until the blade is large enough for a person to stand comfortably. The Empress stands on the haft of the spear and gestures to the blade, "Take your place on the blade, and I will find a place to place my residence. Oh, and I am under the impression that it is polite to know the name of your students in this realm."
The teenager stares at the floating weapon before she looks up at the Empress, "What!?"
The Empress sighs, "What is your name child?"
"Dakala Thompson."
"Dakala, while I am quite capable of flying myself, I could not do so while carrying you without putting your life in danger. Thus I am using a mortal technique to convert my spear into a flying spear so that I do not endanger you. If you feel more comfortable, you may sit on the blade rather than stand. Once you have formed your core, I will expect you to stand."
"Wait, what? Core?"
"Child, you are a toddler asking their parent why the sun shines. You cannot hope to understand the answer until you have been taught the foundations. Take a seat, and we will be off."
Gingerly and shivering violently, Dakala climbs onto the blade of the spear and sits down facing the Empress while her legs wrap around the shaft.
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A few minutes later, the two of them are flying over a large rocky hill, that's just shy of being a mountain, just outside the city.
Just after they took off, the Empress extended a fraction of her spiritual aura around Dakala to protect her from the cold.
From her storage, the Empress draws a sword that she hasn't used since she created the Empyrean Realm and, with a sweep of her arm, slices the forest and top of the hill off the rest of the hill. A second sweep of her sword sees the debris gathered up and placed at the bottom of the hill away from the nearby buildings.
Dakala stares open mouthed as the Empress returns the sword, and pulls out a model pagoda sitting in a courtyard. As the pagoda grows in size before coming to rest on the now cleared hilltop, she breathes, "Who the hell are you?"
The Empress smiles as she starts to guide the spear into the courtyard, "It took you long enough to ask. I am the Stellar Empress, and this will be your new home."
As they land, the faint sound of helicopters taking off can be faintly heard from the city behind them.
Dakala scrambles to her feet as the spear starts to shrink, and then jogs to catch up with the Empress as she walks swiftly towards the six story building. "How are you walking so fast?"
The Empress looks back briefly, "Hmm? It is merely part of the martial arts, I'm sure that you will be able to keep up once you have some training under your belt."
As they approach the building, Dakala collapses as she struggles to breathe, let alone stand. As she does, the Empress turns around and looks at her, before looking around the courtyard thoughtfully. With a gesture, the Empress' clothes disappear, before she walks forward to gently pick Dakala up in a bridal carry. "My apologies Dakala, I had forgotten just how heavy qi could be for mortals. I will take you to a bed, and erect a qi dampening formation around you."
Dakala can only grunt in pain as the pressure continues to rise around her.
A few seconds later, she's placed on a luxuriously soft pallet bed in the middle of a room that looks like it came out of a Chinese palace. Over the next couple of minutes the Empress flits in and out of her vision as she places small stones and chalk marks around the room.
Abruptly, the pressure subsides and Dakala moans in relief. A moan that turns into a groan as she tries to lift her arm, and finds that it's still pinned in place. Like she's on one of those crazy fairground rides that spin and then drop the floor away.
As she's trying to sit up, the Empress kneels down beside her and gently puts a hand underneath Dakala's back to help her into a sitting position. "You have my apologies for failing to consider the qi gathering formations I built into the foundation of my house. I also apologise that I could not reduce the spiritual pressure in this room below that of the first heaven."
Dakala croaks, "I, thought, there, was, only, one, heaven."
The Empress smiles, "As is true of all mortals. There are 888, and each one is as far above the previous realm, as that realm was above the mortal world. Beyond the heavens is the Empyrean Realm that I created. If there is an upper boundary to that realm, I have yet to find it. I created this home when I arrived in the peak heaven, and it served me well for countless years."
"Wha, what, is, qi?"
"Qi is spiritual energy, it is created by all living things and also consumed by life. You are mortal because you consume more qi than you produce, as is true of all mortal plants and creatures. As a cultivator, you have embarked on a journey to grow your spiritual core until it can produce more qi than you consume. Some call it the path of immortality, others the path of enlightenment, and a few, seeking the dao. Those last have no concept of what the dao actually is and usually stall in the middle of the heavens as their dao comes to its natural conclusion. It is a very rare cultivator that is willing to break down their cultivation and start again with a better understanding of the universe. Rarer still are those who stumble across a true dao. But enough, I can see that I am speaking of things above your understanding."
Dakala tries to raise her head off the Empress' arm so she can shake it, "No, it, was, interesting."
The Empress laughs and pulls a tiny seed out of her storage ring, "I'm sure it was. Come, eat, and then I shall provide you with a jade slip to teach you the language of the heavens while you sleep."
Dakala looks doubtfully at the poppy seed sized seed on the Empress' finger, "Uh, are, you, kidding, me?"
The Empress shakes her head, "I am not. This is a seed of a golden heavenly poppy, it contains far more qi than you would ever have produced in your mortal life. If you were to eat it without my assistance, you would have a few minutes to appreciate that fact before it killed you. However, I do not have any mortal food available, and so I will manually cycle the qi throughout your body until it can handle the remaining qi itself."
Dakala opens her mouth to say something, only for the Empress to place the seed on the back of her tongue faster than she can see. Reflexively, she swallows the sudden flood of saliva in her mouth before saying, "Why, can't, I, just, have, Mc, Donalds?"
A moment later her stomach cramps, and she starts to feel feverish as she starts to sweat. The Empress rubs her back in gentle circles as she says, "Primarily, because I do not have any local currency. The cultivator I trusted to provide me with mortal clothes, instead handed the coin to the PRT. It is currently in the building on the water. Additionally, doing it this way allows your body to keep pace with your spiritual growth until you reach the level of a flying immortal. At that point I will hopefully have built the first of the heavens, and you can be tested by the heavenly tribulations when you progress further."
"What, is, wrong, with, me?"
"There is nothing wrong. Your body is just ridding itself of a lifetime of accumulated impurities as it consumes the qi I am cycling through your system."
The Empress quiets down as Dakala's eyes roll up in her head, and she passes out.