Glossary

The two words cultivators fear most. Qi strikes the gap in an art and surges back wild: at the light end the qi sinks, at the heavy end the meridians choke dead and the mind warps.

A name given in private by a rogue cultivator at the bottom. The backlash rate has sat steady on one line for years, just under what could be called to account, just high enough to keep squeezing.

A knack for seeing the flaw. Where a thing runs wrong, which ingredient clashes with which, turns into a thin orange light. Seeing it is not the same as solving it.