The old, dry parchment creaked and cracked as Geming Lei unfurled the ancient scroll on the table before him. Large, artful letters formed the headline: ‘Eyewitness account of the second great siege of Moonlake City during the Bloody River War’.

  He skimmed through the text below it, continuously unfurling the scroll further as he did. The black ink was faded but, besides a few words here and there, still very much readable. From what he could tell, the account itself came from some sort of messenger – or a soldier sent as one? – reporting to a sect official from the Outer Relations Hall. It was a strange thought, that this very same hall that had already existed back then was still around today…

  The way the text was written, the sect didn’t consider this occasion to be particularly important. They were merely demanding the city to justify why it hadn’t sent them its regular tribute yet. There was no clue as to how this account had made its way into the historical archives of the sect’s library.

  To think a document like this still existed! The Bloody River War had happened several thousand years ago, the exact dating was a point of contention between scholars. That was because despite its legendary status as a major turning point in the city’s history, all information about it came to them through dubious secondary, if not tertiary accounts and a couple of ancient folktales. This, however, was a true contemporary source, a wholly different thing.

  A source that, from the looks of it, nobody had so much as touched in decades, if not centuries! It had probably never been properly analyzed or even noticed as something important, considering how it had been collecting dust in some remote corner of the library’s basement.

  Sadly, this wasn’t what he was currently looking for, so he carefully, almost reverentially, rolled the scroll back up, putting it on a pile to the left of him. Then, he scribbled a short note on one of the sheets of parchment before him.

  Topic: Moonlake City, Bloody River War

  Age: over 3000 years

  Condition: aged, but undamaged

  Historical value: high

  Recommendation: restoration or copying, medium priority

  He was helping the scribes here sort through all of the works he came across, since the library section with the historical records was terribly chaotic and nobody had a damn clue where anything was. A shame, considering that this was by far not the first incredible discovery he had made down here.

  Geming Lei was currently working on a piece about the sect culture he was observing all around him and hoped to find some clues about its origin and history here. Sadly, the official chronic of sect history was kept in a separate area currently unavailable to him, so all he had to go off of was this unordered mass of documents that may or may not be of help to him.

  He stretched his back and groaned. He had completely lost track of how long he’d been in here but judging by the amount of work he’d done, it must’ve been a good while. Time to take a little break.

  He picked up his stack of notes, leaving behind the ones categorizing his findings, and got up. After maneuvering his way through the labyrinth of stacks, piles and shelves of scrolls and books, he informed the scribe at the reception that he was done for the day. Then, he stepped outside, greeted by the orange light of the late afternoon’s sun.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He had gotten here quite early in the morning, accompanied by the first rays of light. He must’ve spent eight or ten hours holed up in there! Well, books didn’t tend to write themselves… which was fortunate, because that would put him out of his job. Or rather his former job. He was primarily an educator now after all, and though he still felt like a scholar at heart, he very much enjoyed his new environment.

  Thinking of enjoyment, Geming Lei decided to use the little sunlight he had left to take a stroll through the forest. He had lived in Moonlake City for all of his life and only recently learned to properly appreciate the beauty of raw nature. The sect was really more forest than settlement after all, taken as a whole. And somehow, he was still spending most of his time inside, surrounded by books and dim candlelight. Old habits…

  The wind blew through the forest, already carrying the cold of the coming winter and the little sunlight that made it through the canopy didn’t contribute much warmth to the surroundings either. Luckily, he had already gotten himself a thick fur coat for the coming winter off the sect’s market, so he was still nice and warm.

  As he walked the winding paths through the forest, his mind wandered just the same. He thought about his soon-to-be returning students, his not-so-soon-to-be finished book and what the future might hold for either of them.

  He was certainly not as well-informed on the ongoing events as the higher-ups in the sect, but he wasn’t a fool either and he had a good enough understanding of this sect’s history to know that what was currently happening was quite out of the ordinary. And when things started changing, they tended to change a lot.

  People were strange, in a way. They could stagnate, living under and retaining a mostly unchanged status quo for generations upon generations. They would avoid challenging it, even defend it, even if it was to their own detriment.

  But once things did start to change and the status quo was challenged, it often seemed as if all of that potential lost in the time stagnating had built up and was suddenly let loose on the world all at once. One change would lead to ten more and before anyone could properly understand what was happening, the world was no longer the same. Nobody, not even the ones responsible for the change, could really tell how it would look afterwards.

  Of course, all of that was just how things worked in mortal societies. The Lunar Peaks Sect was incredibly old and, as far as he knew, had never seen change that significant. Having leaders that could remain in power unchallenged by anyone but their peers probably had an incredibly stabilizing effect.

  After all, everyone achieving the power to change things would have already lived in the sect for several mortal lifespans… And they would have acquired that power within this very system.

  Still, that didn’t mean that patterns of human behavior would be any different once the circumstances had aligned themselves correctly. Geming Lei had spent much of his life arguing that cultivators were just as susceptible to human thinking, flaws and morals as anybody else. Why would he assume any difference in this instance?

  And if stagnation really did build up potential for change and Elder Wei’s and his allies’ stirring managed to set it off, they were in for quite the storm.

  …

  The sun had almost retreated below the horizon as its last rays guided Geming Lei’s way towards the entrance of the Training Hall. He had brought a lantern with him, in case he didn’t make it, but it seemed like he was here just in time so that he wouldn’t need it.

  As he approached the entrance, he could tell from a distance that something was out of the ordinary. The streets, which would usually be empty by this time, were full of disciples. When he came closer, he also noticed several hall members amongst them.

  Things were busy, people were carrying around luggage or standing around in groups holding agitated conversations. It took Geming Lei a moment to understand what was happening: the visitors of the tournament had come back! And he had just straight up missed it…

  Geming Lei stepped into the crowd and looked around for people he knew. He wanted to ask about the outcome of the tournament and the places they had seen. Many of the faces here were vaguely familiar from sight, but he hadn’t been in the sect for long enough to really get to know many people.

  As he moved through the street, he started picking up snippets of conversations from all around him, but they were too disconnected, and he was too unfamiliar with the topics to put them together to something coherent.

  Even if he could have done so, he would have been too distracted anyways, because his mind had quickly focused in on a single word that kept coming up; A word that dwarfed all the others in its expressiveness and significance; a word that made him draw in sharp gasps of air.

  War!

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