We were standing quite far away from the rest of the group now. Just inside the village up a small hill that led down to the water. The single dock that led from the village and was built out to the water was beside us. I had almost blurted out what I wanted to tell him, but in a wave of gray aura, he rushed me and put a hand over my mouth, stopping me.

  I could feel him use the mana in his body and then raise an arm as he used his technique. A faint bit of gray powder seemed to form in the air and cloud around us. It looked like snow, but…

  “Is this ash?” I asked and looked at him.

  He inclined his head. “The Cinders of Silence are the technique name, privacy field. It’ll stop any of them down by the water from trying to press in. Well, unless Kio tries. She could probably overwhelm it, but I’d feel it and we’d stop talking.”

  “Hisai, what’s your element?” I asked. I still had a lot to learn about this world, and I had already guessed the things people could cultivate went beyond the usual basic elements.

  The elder smirked. “It’s ash. Born of fire and wood, and shows rebirth and renewal. It’s rather fitting for me. Anyway, what do you want to talk about?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. There were questions there. Interesting questions about the young sect elder. Up to this point, I hadn’t seen him use any element and would have never guessed ash was an element one could cultivate here. I guess that did kind of make sense and go along with the sort of Buddhist vibe I got from the Cove Garden Retreat sect.

  The man just stared at me expectantly, and when I had tried to ask him why it was a fitting element for him, he stopped me with a raised hand. “No, Maikeru. That isn’t why we’re here. You have a lot to learn. My past isn’t one of the things you need. Maybe one day, but not today.”

  I stopped with my mouth open wide, and the question died in my mouth. Instead, I blurted out the thing that brought us away from the group. “I’m from another world.”

  Hisai stared at me. It might have been the only time I ever saw him without that little serene smile he always wore. He put a hand towards me as if to steady himself. The man even closed his eyes for a moment before he said. “You said you’re what?”

  I sighed and rolled my head back. “I’m from another world, and honestly I’m not even sure if I should be telling you this now.”

  This seemed to stop Hisai short, and he stood straight and looked at me again. “Then why are you?”

  I started to answer him, but he put a hand out, stopping me. “No, before that. How did you get here if you’re from another world?”

  I stared at him and struggled to explain it. Finally, I decided I’d just tell him what I knew. “Man, Hisai, I don’t know. One second I’m a truck driver driving through a snowstorm, and the next…” I trailed off and just kind of motioned all around me.

  “A truck driver?” He raised his eyebrow.

  “Betsy was my truck. It’s basically the same thing I’m doing now, but instead of Betsy being an ox, she was a big mechanical thing with a combustible engine,” I explained but waved it away. “Nevermind that. It doesn’t matter. I was doing my drive when there was some very odd lightning in the sky and it struck me.”

  “How odd?” he asked and just seemed to ignore all the other information.

  “Um, so you know how lightning is just like a hot white flash of light in the sky?”

  He nodded.

  “This was like a blue streak with a red light that traveled around it,” I told him.

  He closed his eyes. “That’s lightning from Kentaro. Heavenly lightning.”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, unsure of what else to really say.

  We stared at each other.

  “Oh! So, do you know about The Lying Lily?”

  He nodded. “I have yet to be able to visit, but I have heard the stories, yes.”

  “I was there on one of my first nights. I met uh…” I struggled to think of the name Soga had told me.

  “Soga told me the name of the god I met. Only I’m still not sure if I met them, or if it was a dream,” I said and put my hand to my chin. Finally, I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t a dream. Looking back, it definitely wasn’t a dream. It was a skeleton, and he said he was a god.”

  Hisai put his face in his hands. “It is said that the kami walk the mortal plane sometimes, I guess, and there was that ordeal where Kentaro was apparently pretending to be a sumo coach.”

  I nodded. “Right. So I met him, and he said that his brother is unwell. He did things he shouldn’t have been able to, and now, I and apparently others from my planet are here now too.”

  “Others? No wait, Jonii,” he said flatly.

  I nodded. “And others.”

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  He raised his eyebrows.

  “I met another girl, Kohaku. She’s from my world too. There might be others too, who knows,” I said and shrugged.

  He bent a finger under his lower lip and held his chin up with his thumb. “I should have known something was odd about Jonii. This must explain why your cultivation is so odd.”

  I nodded.

  “Alright then, why are you telling me this now?”

  My eyes went wide. I had completely lost the point of all of this. “I think I know what’s going on with that goop.”

  “The mana?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It’s space.”

  Hisai looked doubtful.

  “Well, it’s outer space more specifically,” I pointed up towards the sky. Of course, it was daytime now, so we couldn’t see the stars and space.

  He frowned. “I recognize a constellation from my world in the stars. The Big Dipper.”

  “The what?” He frowned and crossed his arms against his chest.

  “The Big Dipper. It’s like a measuring scoop constellation in the sky where I live. The point is, I know those stars I saw in that space mana.” To push my point harder, I pointed towards the group. Well, specifically I was thinking I was pointing at the beaker of mana that Niku held.

  “Space mana?” Hisai frowned and shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the aura is of the world, from the kami and gods of this world,” Hisai explained.

  I shook my head and ran through the things that I had learned from Soga. “No? I thought it was from the universe? And part of cultivation was finding our path in it.”

  He crossed his arms and smiled at me before he once more gave me one of his small nods. “Yes, you are right. Besides, Kio is getting…”

  He struggled to think of how to say it. “... bored.”

  The surrounding ash dissipated with another pulse of power. There was no evidence that any ash or anything was there. It had just vanished when he ended the technique.

  I looked around and gave a nod of approval of the technique. “That’s neat.”

  Hisai nodded. “Snow can do wonders as well, or wind. Some elements do things better than others.”

  I blinked. “Snow is an element?”

  “No, well, ice is. It combines water and metal. Snow and the winter are known to dampen sound,” Hisai explained.

  I smirked and nodded my head, thinking about those long nights driving through the lake effect areas of New York. “Yeah, I know that. It sucks.”

  “Mm, well, not if you’re wanting to hide your conversation or what you’re doing.”

  “True,” I replied.

  We started to walk back down the hill towards the group of cultivators, who had all been watching us expectantly. They all stared at Hisai and I expectantly. Hisai didn’t seem to want to say anything and just looked over the group with that smile of his. I, well, I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just kept quiet and let the elder do his thing.

  “Well…?” Kio finally broke the silence. Her calm facade cracked even more, and she sounded impatient. “What did you two have to leave to talk about?”

  “It’s spatial mana, or void,” Hisai said calmly.

  Everyone had different reactions. Niku and Moritoshi gave strangled noises of confusion, and their faces showed as much when I looked over to them. Kio and Fang Min just scoffed, and Taimei probably had the most interesting reaction. The man drew a deep breath .

  “It does make sense,” he muttered.

  Hisai looked at him with a fond smile and a nod.

  “How?” Kio demanded.

  Taimei looked towards the sky and breathed in deeply. “The universe is vast and ever-expanding. When you look at the stars, what do you see? The void of space. People have long since believed strongly in something out there, so it would make sense there was a space or void kami.”

  Kio growled.

  Fang Min shrugged. He didn’t seem to care either way. Niku just hummed in thought.

  “But how did no one know about it until now?” she asked Hisai and Taimei.

  They both shrugged.

  “There’s been evidence of the gods walking the mortal plane, but no one has ever said they’ve seen a space god,” Moritoshi said.

  “It could be they just didn’t know. Or that whoever this space god is has no interest in the planet since they’re over the domain of space,” I finally added to the conversation.

  Niku looked at me, still in thought, and shrugged. She couldn’t argue with the logic. It did make sense in a weird sort of way.

  “Yes, and if there're no shrines or anything..” Taimei trailed off and then shrugged.

  “Wait, I can’t believe it. Minoru told me a name. Is there a god named Teru?” I asked the group.

  “Minoru?” Kio cocked her brow at me.

  Hisai stepped next to me and smiled proudly. “Yes, it seems like our wagoning cultivator here has been to The Lying Lily and met the wind kami himself.”

  He looked over at me and shook his head. “No, there is no goddess named Teru.”

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s her. That’s her name. He said his sister was named Teru, and she had seen different worlds.”

  Kio snorted and then turned and walked away. “To the hells with this, I’m going to find Silas.”

  She stormed past the Chens, who were walking down the hill to the water, and the rest of the collective group watched her walk away.

  “Who is Silas?” I asked no one in particular.

  “He’s an arcanist. Silas has many titles and honorifics, my current favorite is The Thousand Tonge Hammer. He’s a blacksmith and runemaker, he makes enchanted weapons and such. He’s renowned throughout the world for his work. Bulky sort, about your height but he’s built like one of the more muscular sumo wrestlers. It’s often been said that Kio was his second wife,” Hisai explained to me.

  “Oh, I like The Anvil Saint,” Taimei offered.

  “How’d he get those names? They seem odd. Thousand Tonge Hammer?” I asked. I was still watching Kio walk away. She seemed to be in the middle of a spat with the chef and his wife.

  “I don’t care about your dinner, I’m leaving!” Kio shouted before she stormed past them.

  “The Thousand Tong Hammer would allude to how a thousand hammers speak with one voice, his voice specifically. Like I said, his work is masterful. I believe Mei has something crafted by him that she has for sale,” Hisai said.

  I nodded absently. I was still broke from buying the wagon, so I wasn’t in the market for anything made by a world-class enchanter. Mei came and stood in front of us and gave us a light bow.

  “Dinner is ready if any of you are so inclined,” she said. She sounded like she was holding back anger, probably from whatever happened between her and the Jade Mountain fairy.

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