the multi

Chapter 59 Anxious

The world is strange, Cai Xuin thought to himself.

No, for someone like him, the world was small indeed. He had journeyed across the Five Sects before and witnessed the culture and actions of many people. He had even seen an immortal man drinking with a mortal farmer.

And yet, it was home that felt the strangest. The people here, his so-called clan, and the sect that had hated him as their shame and sin for so long. They bowed around him now. Elders called him to their homes almost every day, tutoring him in the ways of the blade, each hoping he would call them their master.

His cousins groveled, and those who knew he wouldn't forgive them had hidden for fear of his wrath. He was valuable, no longer a pawn but a player, a man to be respected. His potential shone brighter than anyone here and yet.

Yet, he hadn't changed. Not truly. His soul had changed, his mind had changed, but they couldn't see that. They hadn't known him before he went to the desert and met that immortal. They had only seen his blade during that moment. They had seen flowers meet water and blossoming strokes of qi, and that was what they loved.

Not Cai Xuin, but the potential he held. Not his soul but his power. Something had changed about him since that day but that wasn't what they coveted. Power, politics, position, and wealth were what they saw.

Cai rose from the bed and a servant came to greet him. They were new, recently hired from some foreign stock. Everyone he knew had offered him some of their own but he had refused. The ones they sent would be spies no doubt, watching and documenting his every move for their true masters.

Though he didn't trust the one in front of him either.

The servant came in and bowed.

"Good morning Young Master Cai," she asked.

A female servant, that had been a mistake. The woman had tried to sleep with him right after he had gotten home, thinking that to be the reason he hired her. In truth, he had gotten her for her lack of connections or family, something that could be used to extort her for information.

That and her small talent for cultivation would allow him to nurture her into someone capable.

Oh well, she had improved since.

The servant, Peng Li, put a clean set of robes onto the chair in front of him and cleared the mess of plates he had left by his bedside. He had taken to late-night meals, spending most of the day bowing like a doll to his elders.

They hadn't left him alone for days. Every day, he would have at least three meetings with important individuals and each meeting would waste two hours of his time. There would be gifts for him, acts of hollow goodwill given too late.

He now had ten flying swords, three fighting swords, talismans and amulets of all variants, and enough treasures to weather through ten assassination attempts. But that was only after, after that moment.

Everything since then felt so strange. He had walked through the desert with the five sects to meet the immortal, but when they started to make their way back, they had carried him. They had laughed at his light remarks and called him a gifted child.

Yet when they reached the clan, they didn't even know what district he lived in. Of the sect's living area, he resided in the outer districts where all the weaker bloodlines and lesser nobles resided.

His cousins had tried to seduce him fifteen times by now and he had to reject five marriage proposals.

He hated it.

Everything was awful before but it was honest. It was a hell he knew. Now there were lies, deceit, and deception, and even more hatred.

Someone had tried to kill him, someone within the sect had hired a fourth-rank assassin from a different clan. That cost money and time, resources that only elders and powerful members of the clan had. There was someone very powerful who wanted him dead. Maybe they would leave him alone now, but there was no certainty. They might be waiting, crawling through the thick grass like a snake.

He had enemies and they wanted to drink with him.

Cai Xuin coughed, breaking the line of thought. It was too early to be this paranoid. He dressed himself and walked out the door, watching the servant start making his bed as he left.

It was strange. He had cleaned his own house and made his own bed for years now, ever since his cousins had killed his old servants and left their corpses on his lawn.

But now he had servants again, and guards at the fourth rank. Warriors trained within his grandfather's clan, within Cai's clan technically, though he hadn't thought of it as his own clan for nearly a decade, and the sudden acts of kindness didn't change that now.

He had moved away from the Broken Isles where his grandfather had given him a home. Sure it was a better spot for cultivation and full of qi, but it was also full of political tension and power struggles.

And moving back to his old home did help. Here were the outer sects and lesser bloodlines, people too afraid to talk to him. He was a big fish in a little pond here, though that didn't stop the sharks from coming by.

Cai Xuin took a deep breath.

"Peng Li, let's go."

Peng Li nodded and followed him out with a number of servants, two of them being his sworn guards, the ones that his grandfather had given him. They were his now, technically, but Cai knew that wasn't the truth.

His grandfather had offered up a lot of resources to him, several new properties, guards, servants, and enough spirit stones to run a small sect. But he would be stupid to confuse that for love. It was merely a deterrence, a political move to mark Cai as his grandson.

He was now a competing figure for the throne of patriarch. His grandfather was aging and in a few centuries, he would start dying. And Cai, with his newfound power and strength, was a strong bet for his heir.

If other clans within the sect could control him or persuade him to join them, it would spell wonders for their clan.

And then there was the Raging River Sect. He had received one letter from them.

Come to the Raging River my son.

-Mai Fei

When he had read it, he had almost shattered the jade that held the message. That woman, she had tossed him to the side and watched him hurt all this time and now she wanted to claim him?

He would have been happier if she had just disappeared. At least then, he could comfort himself with her selfishness. She was insane, incapable of love, and as horrible as that was, he could believe it wasn't his fault.

But now some man had come by and she had followed after him like a dog. And at the behest of that man, she had written him.

She was alive and thriving and the two sects were even thinking of making the marriage official among them. People had visited her a few times and from what little he heard, she was fine and untouched, laughing in the hands of his father, her lover.

His grandfather had read the message no doubt and had left immediately with a convoy to the Raging River Sect.

Maybe to plead, maybe to rage, who knew?

But Cai wasn't planning on staying here and he certainly wasn't going to the Raging River's territory. He would be leaving, heading down to the Hidden Viper's territory on some personal business.

The Hidden Viper, cloaked in its green forest of beasts and plants, was the best place to get a spirit beast companion. A tiger or maybe a boar of some sort. That was what he would be getting. His grandfather had offered him the opportunity and Cai had been eager to jump at it.

Not so much for the beast, but rather for the peace it would grant him. He could afford it and it would be one of the few things that would offer him solace while not insulting his elders.

He needed a few days of silence. Ever since he'd returned, the world seemed to have focused on him. From the immortal to the assassination attempt, and now to his new technique, eyes fell on him from everywhere and all sought his favor.

That was the real reason for the trip, the beast would be pleasant, but the time away would be useful. He needed to plan. He mattered now and he needed to think carefully about what that implied.

Pen Li left the room and Cai readied himself and his weapons, though he doubted he would need them. The guards would be coming with him and while he didn't trust them at the very least they wouldn't hurt him. He would be traveling to foreign lands after all, and as a guest this time, not as a rogue.

He'd journeyed across the five regions before, every cultivator did if they could afford it. In times of peace when there was no tension between the sects, traveling was seen as a sign of goodwill and fostered political kinships.

Friendships between two young men could grow into an old brotherhood between different sects. It was the thing young masters of every sect did, for both their own merit and the clan's merit.

Then the more connected you were, the more power you would have. Members with connections were considered to be pillars of the sect. They offered ways to trade, bargain, and gather resources not readily available through the sect's current means.

But Cai had never experienced that. Oh, he had traveled the lands but he had not made any connections or friends, at least not before. But now with his name and influence, there would probably be a line of people seeking to meet with him.

What a thought.

Chapter 60 Heading Out

The preparations had already been completed. The food had been gathered and the pack animals had been secured. The proper seals and letters had been sent out beforehand, a formality that Cai had never bothered with before, but with influence came politics and it would be considered unbecoming for him to visit without warning.

"Peng Li, let's head out."

The servant nodded and led him outside where a carriage awaited. The guards were already on their horses, qi beasts that could traverse five hundred miles in one hour. Overall, there was about a fifth-rank spirit stone's worth of wealth traveling with him, counting the carriage, the guards, the beasts, the servants, and of course his weapons.

It was a fortune and it had all been gifted to him.

His stomach turned. Cai felt uneasy. This felt wrong, undeserved, and… dangerous. Yes, that was the feeling.

It didn't feel right. Something was off about all of this.

But that feeling had been there since he'd returned. It flared up at times but he wouldn't let uncertainty get in his way. Cai got on the carriage followed by Peng Li. She was his only personal servant that would come with him. Cai wanted to go alone but servants were a sign of wealth.

He could feed and cloth himself, but he would need someone to follow him around to demonstrate his significance, a human decoration. He hoped the poor girl could take the trip, though it should be safe and fast she was still a mortal.

A part of him felt disgusted with the thought of using people as a display of ability. But that was the way of the world and he had to follow it.

He entered the carriage. It had already been loaded with his luggage and other necessities and Peng Li followed after him, sitting on the opposite side of the thing.

"Comfortable," he muttered to himself.

The carriage was luxurious and as the driver pushed the horses forward, Cai Xuin felt uneasy.

He swallowed the feeling down once more. This was his life now. He'd have to get used to it.

The horses trodded slowly through the streets and outside the city limits, eventually hitting the clear and wide road. Then, with a whip of the reigns, they started to pick up their pace, pushing further and further till they were at their top speed. The land next to the blurred and the road became one giant drawn-out mass of dirt.

Within minutes, they were out of civilization. The driver wouldn't have to worry about running over people out here. The land between villages was vast and unoccupied, and the few villages that were out here had light towers for communication, and those were visible from a hundred miles away.

The guards, Cai's guards, were actively projecting their aura all around them as they rode, pushing away any bandits and beasts. Cai would see glimpses every now and then, eyes and auras, flashes of qi from the side of the road. Threats he'd normally have to avoid and maneuver around had he been traveling on his own.

Now they looked at him with fear.

He wondered what that assassin would have to go through to get to him now. That felt so long ago, and yet he remembered it like it was yesterday. The sand, the exhaustion, the fight, his arm.

It hurt.

It went away if he forgot about it, but when he remembered, his arm stung like a fresh wound, as if it still hadn't healed quite yet.

He could see death and the blade. The clean stinging cut and the cruel eyeless smile.

"Master Cai."

His mind snapped back to the moment.

"Yes?"

"It's time for lunch Master Cai," Peng Li replied.

"Is it?" He mumbled.

That happened too, sometimes time would just slip away. Hours would crumble and the world would simply run away while he wasn't thinking.

"Alright then," Cai replied.

He left the carriage and reached into his storage ring, taking out the already prepared meals as Peng Li and the guards set up his dining area. He felt nasty, watching as the girl worked away.

It wasn't much, just setting down a blanket and a small table from the back but the new servant struggled with it nonetheless. The ground was lumpy and the winds would not let the blanket stay on the ground. Cai decided to help her. He took the blanket and laid it out in one swoop, having chosen the flattest spot within the area.

"Thank you, Young Master Cai," Peng said with a bow.

Cai nodded.

Young Master.

Uneasiness came again but this time it did not go. This wasn't some mere discomfort, this was instinct.

Of all the times in his life, things had only seemed stable right before his world quickly came apart. He felt fine, he was fine.

But Cai knew the quiet before the storm. When his cousins stopped tormenting him, it had been only to plot. When his mother had last hugged him, it was right before she left.

Even now, when he had everything and more, he could still feel it. Where were his opponents, his enemies? Surely they hadn't all hidden, surely there was something else, someone else, waiting to take him down.

There must have been clans within his sect that he had offended merely by daring to gain power, people who didn't want him to even be a candidate for the throne of Patriarch. Where were they? Why was everything so silent?

"Young Master Cai?"

Reality snapped back.

"Your food's getting cold, Young Master Cai," Peng Li commented.

"Eat quickly," Cai replied, bringing his own chopsticks to his mouth.

Afterward, Cai had the driver completely rework his course. They were now driving a few miles away from the Great Desert Strip. The roads here were occupied and the driver would have to slow down and work the horses through caravans and merchants every now and then, but it was safer here.

For one there were more witnesses, so if something should happen to Cai, it would be seen. And two, well, it was close to the honored master's territory. At worst, he could run to the strip and pray the immortal would uphold his rule of no violence.

He had saved him once and Cai would shamelessly throw himself into his care again.

Cai looked towards the desert and saw the small light tower peaking at him at the edge of the horizon. That was where the honored master stayed, the immortal.

The man was strange, but he was honest. The five sects had taken to calling the sect The Immortal Oasis Sect and had spread the word of avoiding violence when crossing the region.

And since it was the rainy season, a lot of the lesser clans and smaller sects were treading through the desert and bringing their trades and goods through that village, if only for the chance of meeting an immortal. Massive beasts of burden were everywhere, and pack beetles could be seen scurrying across the sand in the distance.

A huge wave of merchants came from the Hidden Viper's land. They were the decorators of fashion and such after all, and they had the most interaction with the world outside of the five sect's region. But even aside from that, they were the leaders of high fashion and alchemical herbs throughout all of the five regions and almost all the beasts cultivators used had originated from their green jungles.

Cai wondered what it would be like down there. Green, no doubt. He'd been there a few times but as a wandering cultivator touring through their cities, never as a guest.

They were a matriarchal folk down there. The Hidden Viper bloodline did well with yin energy and manifested more in women. Over the millennia, the mortals there had taken to their approach and followed similar social standards.

Not that Cai knew what mortals thought. He lived in a different world from them. A mortal could at most travel a few hundred miles, see only the few cities that surrounded them. Cai could cover that distance in a day.

Just now he was thousands of miles away from where he had woken up. The languages and dialects here were different. Of course, everyone here spoke common, but that was because cultivators considered the language to be universal. And Cai had heard various variations of the language, passed down and changed by the mortal who spoke it. It was barely recognizable after a few centuries and completely different within a millennia.

Mortals.

He thought about that farmer, the man the immortal was talking to. Now that had been strange. He looked at Peng Li, the girl sat perfectly still with her eyes closed but Cai knew that she was sleeping.

He smiled. She had stayed up and prepared for the trip, plotting the course and organizing the required materials for the journey. She deserved a break.

And that farmer man, what was his name? Chin?

Cai had called him an honored master right before he left. He hadn't misspoke, rather, he had spoken on instinct.

It had felt right. The man was older than he was. He had lived longer and taken care of his people. He deserved respect.

Since that day something had been different within him. He was troubled by his path, his desire. All that he sought, all that he wanted, it felt empty now.

Then the world turned upside down.

Chapter 61 Confrontation

A thin blade of qi cut through the carriage, cutting the thing in two before they had even seen the blade. A small beam of light came in as the carriage divided itself slowly and Cai looked forward. He saw the carriage split in half and the pink inside of the carriage driver split in two.

The man was a cultivator, one of the second rank, yet he had been cut cleanly in two.

Cai looked towards Peng Li and panic sped up his mind. The girl's hair had been cut, but she had been sitting at the other corner of the carriage and her body was unharmed. The same could be said for Cai.

Then the carriage split and fell, and the poor girl was pulled under it.

Cai leaped out of the carriage, readying his blade and looking up towards the threat.

His eyes flashed behind him, searching for his guards, only to see two headless men still riding their horses.

What?

They were of the fourth rank, experts. Surely they could-

"Blossom," a voice spoke.

Then a wave of sword qi came for his flesh. Cai had heard the words but he had not seen the attack. He had not sensed the qi till it was already there, mere inches from his face.

All he could do was raise his blade and even that was useless. Three talismans broke, shattering with an audible rip and his body flew backward as the life-saving treasures gifted to him broke.

Footsteps.

Cai looked up to see a masked man standing in the sky. He carried a simple unmarked blade, one that could be found anywhere within the region and he wore plain grey clothes as well.

But Cai didn't need to see the crests or clothes to know what he was looking at. This was an elder, a fifth-rank member of the Flowering Sword Sect. The man walked with pride and power and the Dao of the Flowering Sword was strong with him.

He walked leisurely. His hands were low and his sword cut the grass as he approached him.

"Such a troublesome young man," the masked man said. "First surviving the assassination attempt, then coming back with news of an immortal of all things, and now… now this new abomination of a technique you might make."

"It is wrong," the man spoke. Then he swatted with his sword, not swung, swatted as if he were striking a fly from the air.

And Cai held onto his blade with desperation. The cut left the blade and came slicing at him and the blade Cai had been gifted crumbled like dry grass. Most of the cut had been absorbed by the blade but not all of it.

"Wait!" Cai screamed. "Wait! Don't you want to know how-"

A coughing fit interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. That cut had dug into his stomach and his arm. He looked down at it, his sword arm was mangled. Tendons and bone mixed together in a stringy mess of flesh.

His mind screamed.

Someone grabbed him but Cai could barely see them. It wasn't his assassin, no, he was being carried-

The Pain.

No. Cai circulated his qi, killing the nerve endings in his right arm. He'd picked it up after the last attempt, just in case.

But here he was using it not even two months later.

His mind blurred back into the moment and he looked over a shoulder. Not his, but his rescuer's. He expected to see his pursuer right behind but he saw nothing.

"Young mistress of the Raging River, I would advise you to not engage."

"Nonsense," his rescuer spoke. "You seek to kill my half brother, I will not have it."

Half brother?

Cai turned his neck to look at the face of his rescuer. She was a woman of the fourth rank, and if her body was honest to her age then she was maybe three years his senior.

Then he turned his head to look at the man she was talking to, the assassin.

"To call him your brother is too much Young Mistress, at best he is an unknown relative. No one worth dying for," the man replied.

"Are you saying you'll kill me if I don't hand him over?" The girl asks. "You know who he is so I assume you know his father, and if you know of his father then I assume you know of me?"

"Of course, I know Young Mistress Xaio Wang," his assistant replied.

"And you would dare to threaten me?"

There was a moment of tense inaction. Cai's mind ran. Why wasn't the attacker cutting through them both? They were both lower ranks than him after all. But no, this woman, this person who claimed to be his sister was not protected by might or sheer strength alone, but also by political threats.

He wasn't too aware of the political positions of other sects, but he had seen Xaio Wang before. She'd won numerous tournaments and had beaten down all the prodigies of the other sects many times. She was talented and already had the strength of a weak elder at the young age of twenty-three. She was everything he wasn't and she was… his sister?

"No," the man replied. "I wouldn't have to kill you to kill him. I would simply prefer making less of a fuss, young mistress."

Cai set his feet on the ground and slowly let go of the woman's body. He looked around for a moment, somewhat dazed.

Behind them were the horses of the two fourth-rank guards that had been assigned to him. They galloped towards them, still carrying the bodies of the headless guards.

Hadn't the horses run away from the fighting? He looked over to Xaio Wang and saw her still staring at the masked assassin.

It was as if he didn't exist to them.

Then Cai laughed. He laughed and his qi swarmed. The horses turned and swerved to the left of him and for once, the two warriors looked in his direction.

"Aren't you curious?" Cai asked the masked man. "Don't you want to know why I changed my route?"

"I didn't think you had a reason," the masked man replied.

Yes, of course, the man knew where he was going. All those delegations and announcements wouldn't be that hard for a clan elder to get their hands on.

"No, I knew," Cai replied.

He just needed time.

"Do you know how?" Cai asked again.

"No," the assassin replied. "Humor me."

"It was too calm," Cai answered. "All the days went as planned and for a whole month, everything went quiet. I had no enemies and I had no contenders. Even when I had returned from the Great Desert Strip with news of an immortal I still had enemies, but then I was left alone."

"It made me wonder. It made me think, what if all the things that had happened to me up till now, what if it wasn't just bad luck? Even before the assassination, why did my mother suddenly allow my cousins to hurt me? Why did my grandfather never care for me? Why did my mother suddenly leave? Bad fortune seemed like the easy answer, and I believed it too until everything went quiet."

Then Cai smiled. He was terrified on the inside and the smile was more of an act of fear than madness, but he needed time. He hoped and prayed but he needed time.

"In one night all my enemies disappeared. In one day my reputation had changed. Even if I was fortunate and even if I was talented, I should still have people who hate me and honored elders who dislike me. I should still hear disrespectful words. But wherever I went I heard only praise. At first, I thought it was due to the fear, fear of me and my potential. But no, it wasn't me, was it? A mere second rank, no matter how talented can't change the situation."

"I do not hate you boy, but your death would have been a convenient tool for my goals," the masked man replied.

"Would have?" Cai questioned.

"Yes, would have. Now you're just a threat, a seed I can not let sprout."

He was afraid of him. Cai almost laughed at the response. He had tried to kill Cai for some political reason but now he was afraid of Cai growing in power and seeking vengeance.

"I will not name you, honored elder. But I know you. I know who you are."

There were many elders within the sect, each of at the fifth rank, and many disliked him, even despised him, but one elder had always been indifferent. Indifferent until now. It was a guess, a conjecture really, but very few people had been indifferent towards Cai.

Tai Lui.

The elder had been a firm supporter of his since his return and he had come with the delegation to meet the immortal, even though most elders feared the occasion Tai Lui had been eager to meet the man.

And more than any other, he had been pleasant to Cai. He had suddenly become Cai's greatest supporter. Malice had always been with Cai his whole life, so he ignored it. But kindness from a man who seemed to not have even known his name burned like a thousand suns.

"Be wary of those that defend you. When it comes to cultivators, if they butter you up they're probably planning to eat ya."

That was what the immortal had said. Thinking back now, those words seemed prophetic. A shame he didn't heed their wisdom sooner.

"And why would that be?" The masked man asked. "Why not name me?"

"I am certain that if I did, not only would I die, but this lady here would as well."

"Speak his name!" Xaio Wang yelled. "He wouldn't dare to--"

But before she could finish her sentence, there was already a blade at Cai's throat.

Chapter 62 Purpose

But the blade never touched his skin.

The world held still and the sun itself seemed to stop in the sky. Cai, the assassin, Xaio Wang held. It wasn't that they were afraid of moving, merely that they couldn't.

"Alright, where are their heads?" A voice asked.

Over the attacker's shoulder was a familiar figure dragging two headless corpses. The immortal walked along, pulling the fourth-rank bodies as if they were bags of rice on sale at the market.

Cai would smile if he could move his face.

Thank the Dao. Thank the Dao it worked.

His little flare of qi had seemed to be a thing of insanity to the assassin, but that was the point. To one side of them lay the Great Dessert Strip, home of the immortal, and to another was the Flowering Sword Sect's land.

It was a gamble as the men had already lost their heads but it was the only thing Cai could do. That little threat of qi had pushed those horses toward the Desert Strip purposely. And though they were miles away from the strip, the horses could cover that within a matter of seconds if not minutes.

The immortal looked into the distance and blurred. His grey robes rippled and then he came back into focus, carrying two heads with him this time, along with a sleeping Peng Li.

"Chin, look after the girl will you," the immortal spoke.

A confused farmer suddenly appeared by the immortal's side. He carried a scythe and wore a rice hat and dirty brown clothes stained with black dirt.

"What-" the farmer yelped. Then he looked around and glared at the immortal. Then he grumbled.

What was his name?

Chin, Cai recalled.

"Why am I here?" The old man asked.

"We have a lesson today, a special one."

The old man frowned even more.

"First, a lesson on death. You see Chin, cultivators are more than normal people. Dying for them isn't the same as dying for mortals."

The immortal lifted the dead heads of the fourth-rank immortals and compared them to one another like a man comparing apples at a market. Then he chose one, put down the other, and… screwed the head back onto the corpse.

"What exactly do we cultivate Chin?"

"The body?"

"No," the immortal replied as he picked up the other head and began screwing that onto the other body.

"That's where we start. The lower dantian which is responsible for your body and health, but we don't just stay there now, do we?" He asked the farmer.

"Then the soul?" The farmer replied.

The immortal finished screwing their heads back on.

"Close but no cigar," he replied.

"What's a cigar?" The farmer asked.

"Focus Chin, focus."

"The self," Cai replied. "We cultivate the self."

He was surprised to feel his lips move and hear his voice speak. But time seemed to loosen. The air was coming back into his lungs and he found he could move again.

"Correct!" The immortal replied.

"We do indeed cultivate the self. We start at the body then the spirit then the soul. The first rank is the body, the second rank is the spirit, and the third is the soul. Then we repeat the cycle to reach immortality and beyond. That's all to say that those past the third rank are different. Dying takes time for them, the soul sticks around longer, and the heart will refuse to stop beating, even without a head. Which means if you fix the body and push a bit of qi into the nearly dead-"

Both guards awoke their eyes wide open and each taking a large gasp of air.

"And voila, they live. Or more like they never truly died to begin with."

The two men then immediately slumped over and slept.

"They just need to sleep off the resurrection for a bit," the immortal said with a shrug.

Cai moved and Xaio Wang gasped for air but the assassin held still.

Xaio Wang and Cai immediately kneeled.

"Honored Master, this Cai Xuin-"

"None of that now Captain Hook," the immortal said to him. "You and your arm really don't get along now, do you?"

Cai kept his head down. He could feel Xaio Wang's aura tremble in fear but he wasn't afraid. This man was more honest than any he'd ever met before. If he wanted to kill them, they'd be dead.

"Let's fix that real quick," the immortal said.

Cai hesitated.

"Oh?" The honored master replied. "You don't want to fix your arm?"

Cai was silent for a moment deep in thought.

That idea went against everything he had ever learned. To be strong was right and to be weak was wrong. The weak could only blame themselves for their suffering and the strong do as they please.

That thought had governed his world and the people in it for as long as he could remember. His mother was awful, his grandfather was awful and his cousins were awful. They hated him for something he couldn't control. They had hurt him for it.

And it was all because he was weak. The moment he gained strength, political or otherwise, everyone had changed. Even his grandfather, who had talked to him less than ten times in his whole life, had started treating him differently. His mother wanted him, his cousins feared him, elders who had never spared him a glance sought to be his mentor and villains he couldn't touch sought to kill him.

It was all so… empty. They just wanted to take and to keep. Humanity, kindness, and empathy were all secondary to power.

Rather, they sought the praise of righteousness without being righteous. Good was a farce, evil was a farce, and the strong decided which was which.

But then there was this immortal standing beside an old mortal farmer, a dichotomy of power and weakness.

A god next to an ant. It didn't make sense, but it felt all the more right.

"I don't think I'm better than him. The man toils tirelessly to feed his village and keep his people afloat. I mean, sure, if he died they could find someone to replace him. And I'm certain I've saved more lives than he ever has, but… it takes a certain type of lifelong dedication to do what he does. One that most people, even us cultivators lack. It's the same with those crabs. They die to make sure their kids live. I think there's a certain nobility there."

Those words had stuck with him.

Power was a possibility. Power could make anything happen.

"Then… then what would you call good if not strength?" Cai had asked him.

"Me? I'd like to think that weakness isn't a sin and that strength isn't a virtue. Mortals or immortals, elders or bastards, people are people. What makes a person good or virtuous, isn't their strength, but rather their actions. The choices they make and the way they live their lives. Basic stuff really."

But it didn't do anything, did it? Strength for strength's sake was nothing more than instinct. That was what animals did. That was how insects fought.

And that was not the way Cai wanted to live. His strength would get him nothing but pain. He had faced death twice, and both times there had been some relief. He had been ready to die, eager to in the moment. Was a life like that worth living?

He might fight one day. He might become strong enough to rule his sect, but he would become strong once he found a reason. He would not waste away his life running from threats in search of vengeance or security.

He could regret this choice. No. He would regret this choice. But it would bring him peace, at least. It would give him freedom.

That mortal man had been right. Cai was stronger than the farmer, but his soul was empty, he had no purpose. And what was power for power's sake? What was a blade that only served to take and cut?

An empty thing. 

It would be a wasteful effort, a prideful walk to his own demise. Was the idea of vengeance worth a lifetime of suffering? Was his arm worth the price he'd pay to keep it?

"As long as I wield a blade, I am a threat, honored master."

"So you'd rather lose your power than fight for it?" The immortal asked him.

"Excuse my shamelessness, honored master!"

Cai's head touched the ground in his apology. It had been a month since he's had power. A mere month and he already had fifth-ranked enemies. It had been worse when he was weak but at least they were honest then. He knew where he stood back then and he knew his enemies.

"Nothing shameful about it kid," the immortal replied.

Then he produced a pill in front of him.

"Here take this. It'll close your wounds and heal you up, but it will prevent your arm from regrowing as well."

Cai studied the pill, then gulped it down without a second thought.

Instantly he felt old flesh drip from his mangled arm. Soft thumps hit the floor and his arm sizzled as the wound closed in on itself. A stump appeared right where Cai's wrist would have been. He still had his elbow and half of his forearm, but his wrist was gone and with it his hand.

Cai felt the stump. His stump.

It felt strange but… it felt right.

"Weakness is not a sin and strength is not a virtue," he spoke.

He saw now his sister, Xaio Wang glare in silence at his actions. Where there had once been fear, now was outrage.

A cultivator's body was everything to them, particularly in the lower stages. You built your meridians and strengthened them with lesser dantians. The path your qi would take throughout your body was traced and reinforced over and over again, making an attack from your trained limb much stronger than an attack from your untrained one.

It was years worth of work, thrown away in a moment's choice.

Cai could only smile.

He regretted it already, but that was fine.

He would be weak for now, and he when had a reason, he would be strong.

Chapter 63 Dao

"Now, second, a lesson on Dao," the immortal replied.

Then the frozen assassin moved. He leaped, pushing himself back for a long distance before he stopped.

"Hey kid," the immortal said to him. "Let's trade some pointers."

To call a fifth-rank elder kid, it would be wrong in any other mouth but it held true for an immortal.

"This one is not worthy of-"

"I won't kill ya," the honored master replied. "And it's the least you can do for starting a fight on my land, no?"

The assassin frowned. He hadn't started a fight in the desert strip and even if the bodies of the guards had been delivered there, they were almost dead and the conflict had happened outside of the area.

But he wouldn't dare question that.

This was a challenge, not a choice, at least that was the way Tai Lui perceived it.

Cai didn't know if Master Bill would have just let him go had he refused the fight, but it probably wouldn't have hurt to ask.

But of course, Tai Lui would never dare to do that. To the fifth rank, the world worked one way and one way alone. The strong commanded and the weak obeyed, and now he was the weak so he obeyed.

So, with fear in his aura, the fifth rank walked up to the immortal and bowed.

********

The first attack was nothing but a moving blade. It had no soul, no technique, just strength.

Tai Lui frowned. He was afraid, but worse than that he was angry. Who was this man, this immortal to get in his way? This dying old bastard with a broken dao should stand aside and let talent like him through.

But still, he was stronger for now so he had no choice but to raise his blade.

Tai Lui swung again and cut through the air once more. The immortal countered. The cut dissipated and died.

Again, Tai Lui moved. Well, if he wouldn't die then he'd at least test his metal. How often did one get to trade blows with an immortal anyway?

He jumped, propelling himself to the side of the immortal, and cut again. This cut was meaningful and contained almost all of Tai Lui's power.

And yet it was beaten all the same with a wave of the hand.

"Do you remember what Dao is Chin?" The immortal asked.

"No," The old man that Tai Lui had paid no mind to answered.

"Really? Not even a bit?" The immortal asked.

Tai swung again, coming from behind him this time, but the man's palms met the sword qi with disinterest.

"Well, I remember somethings," the mortal replied.

Tai Lui stepped back and thought. He was of the fifth rank and though no immortal had been birthed from this region for tens of thousands of years, he had seen a few passing by. Merchants from other regions, imperial census takers, and many others have visited this region over the millennium.

And this one was the strangest immortal he had ever met.

He was strong but it was in a peculiar way. There was an absence to him, a lack of presence. The sects had only learned about him recently but their spies and the village folk claimed he had been here for hundreds of years.

And even now, in person, he seemed empty, lacking.

Mortal.

"Well, take notes this time. It's a lot of things but for this case, it's the binding aspect of the soul. It centers a person and aligns them with a way, a path. And that path serves as a method of perseverance."

Tai Lui cut and cut again. Once, twice, thrice. His attacks danced and curved, aiming for the immortal's vitals with every thrust.

But the immortal moved. No, he shrugged and dodged his blade with crude movements.

Inelegant unrefined spasms of muscle somehow move the man out of the path of attack. Tai kept striking, trying to see the technique in the movement, but there was none. No pattern, no reason, no pace, just movement, concise and small.

Martial arts were somewhat useless to a cultivator but at a similar rank, they meant everything.

Martial arts were methods of movement made to be graceful and fluid, a way of fighting while conserving one's strength. You could turn back your opponent's weapon or turn their own punch against them. It was the rope through which pure power was tamed and made stronger.

And this man had none of it.

Tai grew angry. He wasn't stupid enough to assume the man was uneducated in the ways of martial movement, but rather that he wouldn't do it. After all, what use was a proper punch against an ant? What use was a strong kick against beetle?

The immortal was looking down on him.

Disrespect.

"Dao leaks into everything you do Chin. It's infectious like that. But by the same doctrine, it's controlling as well."

Tai's attacks grew furious and their speed increased with every thrust. Soon the air roared as Tai Lui's sword pushed faster than it could move and minor explosions came with every strike.

Tai didn't believe he would strike the immortal. He only sought to make the man move in a graceful manner, to rip away this facade of vile movement, and to make the man act with grace.

He wanted the immortal to dodge properly.

"This guy for example, what do you think his dao is?" The immortal asked.

For some reason, his voice carried over their fighting. This enraged Tai.

Tai Lui's blade roared. It was all out now. Every swing of his could trim summits and destroy villages. His strongest strikes could flatten out cities and his weakest cuts could crumble pavilions.

"FIGHT ME!" He roared. "STOP TALKING TO THAT MORTAL AND FIGHT ME!"

Insanity, he thought. That was the only reason he would have made such an outburst.

But that man, that damn lower being. How could he be an immortal? How could he have faced tribulation?

Tai Lui bent space. His blade, his cut, and the immortal's neck coalesced in the same plot of space and-

His blade shattered.

The sword made from old dragon bones and star iron shattered.

"Well that was dumb," the immortal spoke.

"Yes," Tai replied. "My apologies-"

"Arrogance," a voice spoke.

Tai Lui moved.

In an instant he was at the mortal's side, his hand reaching for the old man's throat. He'd had enough. This pest had stained his ear far longer than he deserved. He would squash the damn insect like the small thing it was-

A sharp pain came from his kidney and he flew to the side.

"Close," the immortal shrugged, with his one leg slightly lifted as if he had been kicking a rock into a pond.

"It's pride. He could have killed Cai with the first swing, but he didn't. Instead, he beheaded his guards and let Cai flee for a bit. Even as an assassin, he couldn't help but flare his power. And even now, all it took was some disrespect for him to lose his composure."

Tai Lui opened his mouth and spat out blood.

"He reminds me of that annoying monk," the immortal added.

"The one that wanted you to kill him?"

"Yeah, that guy. Actually, he reminds me of him too much," the immortal answered.

Then he walked over to Tai Lui and pulled. 

For a faint second, Tai Lui thought he saw a string, an ethereal thread floating off and into the distance. And when the immortal pulled at it, he felt the end of the string pulling on him as well. It was like something was tugging at his very existence, at his very soul.

"Oh wow, look at that. Birds of a feather I guess," the immortal mumbled.

Tai Lui stood, propelling himself to his feet and pulling out his second blade.

"What's with that monk anyway? You two planning something?"

Tai swung, ignoring the immortal's comment.

This time he used the Flowering Sword Lotus Form, weaving each strand of sword qi into a binding web of interconnected strength. The FloweringSword worked by giving one attack the strength of multiple. Each sword swing weaved with the others, the sword qi piling up in the metaphysical webs.

And with each strike, the strength grew. There was no wasted qi, any sword qi that wasn't punishing the opponent would be absorbed back into the Lotus formation. It was one of the strongest techniques of the Flowering Sword Sect and when used by an elder, it was beyond deadly.

Mountains would crumble to dust and valleys would become canyons if they were even grazed by this attack.

This was his strength, his power, and Tai Lui poured it all into the blade. He could not win. He could not even hope to wound this man, it was stupid to even dream of it. But that was not what he needed. He needed courtesy. He needed to see the man fight.

Not once had the immortal used qi. Not once had the immortal used a technique. Up till now, it had been nothing but crude movement. It wasn't a fight, no man would call this a fight.

This had no respect, no honor, no pride.

Tai couldn't feel the immortals' aura but he knew what the immortal felt nonetheless.

Disdain.

He talked to the mortal like they were equals but to Tai Lui he had barely spared a word. He talked to the crippled bastard with kindness but to Tai Lui, he had no such emotions. Not even hate, just apathy.

Tai Lui refused this.

"LOOK AT ME!" The fifth rank yelled, sending all he had and all he was into his blade, fighting for his pride.

Chapter 64 Technique

The sword held still. One instant it was full of more strength than most fifth ranks could expend in a full fight and the next, nothing. The blade met the immortal's hand- no finger and all that energy disappeared.

No Tai realized. Not disappeared but devoured.

The man hadn't dodged the attack nor had he dissipated it. He had merely taken it head-on. His qi has disappeared like a drop of water in an ocean.

Pride.

"You are wrong," the fifth rank whispered. "All this power and all this ability and yet so simple. You are wrong!"

Insane. He was going insane. No, he wasn't. This man wouldn't kill him for this. A man who walked around with mortals wouldn't dare-

"Calm down kid," the immortal said.

And Tai did. The world snapped back into its proper place. The shapes returned to everything.

"See Chin, that's the problem with Daos. This specifically is called a narrowing Dao, a path that forces its cultivator to walk down one way and only wield one perspective. A dao exists to serve the cultivator and to eventually become a part of him. No two daos are exactly the same and no two people are exactly the same. Focusing on a concept or a truth you've observed in the universe can be a good starting point, but you should use that truth to build yourself. Not use yourself to prove that truth? Got it?"

"No," the mortal replied.

"See Chin, that's the problem with Daos. This specifically is called-"

"Alright, alright," the old man grumbled. "I heard ya."

Tai Lui listened.

"It's sort of like domesticating a plant or an animal. You should gather the food and only replant the seeds that hold the trait you desire the most. A dao must be learned and it must also be made. A dao that takes over the cultivator makes them less able to grow and change."

"But what's wrong with pride?" Tai spoke. "Shouldn't we who break the heavens and fight for our presence be proud? Shouldn't we who bring down mountains and strive for eternity bend the world to our wants? You are strange, but the world works as it does and the strong will always rule the weak. Pride isn't the byproduct of my power but the reason I searched for it in the first place. Power serves pride. Strength serves pride. Pride is power recognized and it is the thing that makes people move to serve you. Why shouldn't I be proud?"

The immortal turned to him.

"You can be," he replied. "But look what happened here, kid. Your dao consumed you and were I not a strange fellow, you would have died a thousand times over, and were you not consumed by your pride you would have killed the boy with only one swing of your blade."

The immortal called him a kid and treated him like he was nothing more than a child. He was five hundred years old. He had seen the five sects and had even left the region a few times to see even beyond there. He was old and yet in front of this man he had barely left the womb.

"The world isn't so simple kid. Just because it worked the way you believed it should up to now, doesn't mean you've observed a fundamental truth, merely a common occurrence. Pride is not a law but a trait. There are beings stronger than me who are also kinder than me. And there are beings weaker than me but still all the more prideful."

Something clicked within Tai's mind. A truth had been spoken and he had felt it.

"I see. My apologies."

His soul fluttered and mixed, and then it calmed down.

"Now, it's my turn" the immortal spoke. He picked up the broken blade that Tai Lui had thrown down.

"Third and final lesson Chin, technique. Techniques, much like daos, need to be held and shaped to fit one's strengths and abilities. They were made for one purpose in the beginning and a lot of them were made with only one person in mind, most of them anyway."

The man twirled the broken blade, more like a child with a stick rather than a cultivator.

"Most Sacred Techniques that are passed down in the sects or clans were originally made for one person but as the person grows and develops, so does the technique. Then those that come after them tread the very path they made to grow in power."

The sword hummed.

"It's a good way to grow stronger, but there's a problem there. Do you know what it is, Chin?"

"No."

"Guess."

The mortal let out an annoyed sigh.

"Is it the same problem as the dao?" The old man guessed.

"Close but no cigar," the immortal replied.

"What's a cigar-"

"See," the immortal interrupted. "Techniques, like daos, are a path to power in the physical sense. Daos give your soul strength and laws give your body presence, but techniques are where the two marry. They are an expression, a release of both of these things and more. They are the materialization of your impact and the legacy of your being. People spend countless decades, centuries, and millennia carving out these techniques from nothing. They are the understanding of your laws, the expression of your dao. They are your memoir and your tombstones and the strongest techniques will persist long after you leave the realm. It's why so many old masters leave their legacies lying around, just in case they pass away they can leave a mark on the world declaring their presence."

Then he cut.

"Pride, presence, the urge to not be forgotten, and the need to let your fellow man know that you were here, that you existed. It's another form of immortality in its own way."

Tai did not move and even if he tried to dodge, the cut would have reached before he could move muscle. A small gash appeared on his left cheek. Strangely enough, the cut had only cut his flesh and not the mask he was wearing, which had remained undamaged this whole fight.

"It's an important thing, pride. Anything worth doing is worth taking pride in. But like all things, it's best in moderation."

Then his blade started to move in a familiar pattern.

"The Flowering Sword technique, for example. You look at it and say what a graceful beautiful technique. Power through elegance and efficiencies, beauty in technique and dominance, no?"

Tai nodded.

"But the maker of the technique didn't care for that at all. You let your pride, your understanding of the world, and inner desire blind you."

The blade moved faster. Each stroke weaving with the others. Tai Lui's senses stretched but he couldn't feel an ounce of qi from the attack.

"This technique for example. It isn't about beauty or strength or ability. It's about efficiency. It was created by a weak man with very little qi reserves trying his best to conserve his energy."

A simple lotus form shone, holding at the immortal's blade. Clearly, it was qi but still, Tai Lui could sense nothing.

"It's simple, true, contained. The flower is not a denotation of deliberate beauty or greatness but rather the beauty of efficiency. The Flower is not beautiful for beauty's sake but for its own survival. It's bright and bold so the bees and birds can know it. It smells fragrant so that the insects will come to it. It is beautiful to survive and that is the core of this technique."

The folds aligned. The sword qi weaved and became one. It held together like an ethereal lotus, pure and beautiful, and not a single drop of qi was left to waste.

"The Flower is weak and frail and dead within the season. So it has to be beautiful, it has to bloom to survive. There is no pride within this technique, only desperation and need. It blooms like the flower because the warrior had no qi to waste. It cuts a thousand times in one because the warrior could not cut a thousand times."

Then the cut left the blade and Tai Lui watched in awe as it came to him. He raised his blade to meet it. He held it up in defense, and yet it was not enough.

His sword shattered once more and a thousand cuts scarred his hand. The immortal had held back, but the attack had cut something more than his skin.

His pride, his dao, his very being had fallen into question.

"Well that's enough for today," the immortal spoke tossing the sword over to Cai Xuin and turning around.

"That's a warning kid, take it to heart okay?"

Then he and everyone else walked away.

Chapter 65 Xaio Wang

Her eyes had seen but she still didn't understand. The fight had been one-sided and incredible. It was a thing to witness, a gift of wisdom and strength.

But the villain lived. She had come here and traversed across the region in search of her half-brother.

Xaio Wang knew her father. The man was a disaster. He was powerful and one of the elders of the Raging River clan, but he was a selfish fool. He had a hundred bastards within the Raging River's territory and two hundred more outside of it. The man was an animal.

So as soon as she had heard of her brother, as soon as she had known of him, she had come. Her father had too many children to save, but she knew what it was like to unlock the talent in her blood. The politics, the pressure, the unending wave of judgment she had gotten. She had intervened trying to spare him the same fate.

But she was too late, someone was trying to kill him. And then someone had saved him, an immortal. The immortal.

Xaio Wang had seen immortals before, whenever they visited they would normally stay at the Raging City seeing as the Raging River Sect was the most powerful out of all the five sects.

They were rare, but every few decades they would grace the region with their presence. They were ethereal and amazing, a thing of myth and mystery, and yet this one wasn't. He came with a mortal old man and talked to him while he fought a fifth rank.

He wasn't noble. He wasn't beautiful. He was…not dull, but lacking. The thing that made immortal ethereal, he lacked it.

And he had let the enemy live. He hadn't even shattered the assassin's cultivation, and more than that, he had let Cai Xuin cripple himself. What sort of cultivator would allow something like this?

If he cared for her brother he could have healed his arm and taken him in underneath his wing. But his actions, while they were kind, were light, undecided. He lacked resolve.

She walked with Cai, who carried his mortal servant in his arms while the immortal guided the horses while carrying Cai's guards. She hadn't ever heard of immortals reattaching heads, or anyone else for that matter.

Sure it was possible for small attacks, but an attack from a fifth rank? A cultivator was more, and a fifth rank was just a step away from the immortal realm. If a mortal's actions were charcoal on a rock then a fifth rank's actions were gashes in the stone.

They were just more. And yet the man had treated him like a child. They had fought, and yet the attacks were contained, making it so that not even she could feel the shockwaves.

The immortal's aura had done that, not a technique. The man's sheer residual qi that leaked passively from his body, without any instruction had restricted the fifth rank's attacks.

It was a sight to behold.

And yet… she felt disappointed. Sad even.

There was a fundamental lack of demeanor and elegance, but it was more than that. The things the immortal had said and the way he had spoken were as if he disliked cultivators.

Xaio Wang walked in silence. Cai was looking around in awe. The space was being bent and compressed, making every step they took equivalent to ten miles worth of travel. It was a movement technique, one that she was using unknowingly.

She observed and soaked in the phenomenon. All the sects had teleportation enchantments, but those were enchantments, made with the labor of a hundred years, and even then, they could only transport them across the region, not beyond it.

It was more of a sign of wealth really. Any fifth rank could traverse the whole region within the hour and the fastest among them could do it within minutes, but to casually bend space like this, it spoke of power and understanding beyond her own.

And yet, it was unnecessary. She and Cai could traverse the distance within the day, within the hour if Cai let her carry him. This confounding of time and space wasn't being done for them.

It was for the mortal that walked with them. It was for the old man with the scythe.

Even now, after all that talk of pride, she still wasn't willing to just let it go.

"The inn is full," the old mortal spoke. "I don't know where you're going to put them."

"I'll give them a house around your place. It'll be fine. Rin Wi's staying there, right? She can look after them."

"Oh the poor girl's busy enough as it is, she doesn't need this as well."

"Relax Chin, this'll barely be a bother to her. Besides, it'll just be for a few months I think."

"You think?" The mortal scorned.

"Depends if that kid back there takes my warning seriously. If he does, it might be years before Cai can leave the area safely, but… I don't think he will."

"That cultivator guy?" The mortal asked.

"Yes, him."

"A bit too full of himself that one," the mortal quipped.

Xaio Wang almost bit her tongue. A mortal daring to speak of a cultivator who lived his lifespan five times over in such a way was unheard of.

Insanity.

"You're telling me," the immortal replied. "But I doubt he'll change much. Maybe he'll master the Flowering Sword to its full potential, but that was never his problem in the first place. If he does master the Flowering Sword, he'd be treating the symptom and not the problem."

"A narrow dao," the mortal spoke. "What a strange thing."

"It's quite common. A wide dao is one that tries to encompass everything and tries to derive a fundamental truth about existence. A narrow dao is the opposite, taking one minor truth and applying it everywhere you go. Either way, a dao isn't supposed to be a truth, it's supposed to be your own. Your will, your way, your path. It's not an observation of the world but an observation of you instead. Tying your dao to the world, as reasonable as it might seem, makes it all the weaker. You cannot rebel against the Heavens by submitting to them, after all."

She listened. There was truth in every word he said. Wisdom many would die to know, but hearing it be tossed so cheaply in a conversation with a mortal nonetheless. It soured something.

"Honored Master," she said gently. "Forgive this Xaio Wang's audacity, but I seek insight."

The honored master turned to her, still carrying the two passed-out guards upon his shoulder like a mortal carrying bags home from the market. She almost asked to take them from him.

"Ask away then," he replied.

"I do not understand the current situation," she replied.

"Specify."

"I…I do not understand."

"What exactly is it that you don't understand?"

"Everything," she sighed. "This was not what I was expecting to witness."

The immortal raised an eyebrow, turned around, and kept walking.

"Well, start with the basics then."

"The assassin. He was of the fifth rank, an elder of the Flowering Sword Sect. Why did he try to kill Cai Xuin?"

"Oh, Cai can answer that one, right?"

"Yes Honored Master," Cai replied. The boy was distant, one hand still rubbing the spot where his hand used to be. Xaio Wang was pained at the sight. Her brother was a cultivator, carrying the blood of two of the greatest sects within the region. And now he stood here, crippled.

His sword hand was gone and it would take years to build up the proper strength in the other hand, and even then he would still be a cripple. Another wave of confusion hit her.

"I was a pawn, I believe. The elder had been using me for several years, though I know not why. And when I showed potential, he wanted to kill me before I could grow powerful and hunt him down."

"Do you truly know his name?"

"I don't know," Cai replied. "I thought I did, within the moment I guessed, but I do not-"

"You know his name," the immortal interrupted. "Tai Lui, I recognized him from the delegation."

How had the immortal know Cai's thoughts? Was it a mind-reading technique of some sort? Was he reading her mind-

"Relax," the immortal spoke. "Cai's aura reflect Tai Lui's memory. I couldn't help but notice."

Xaio Wang turned quiet at the revelation.

"Is that what it's like?" She asked. "Is that the world in the eyes of an immortal? Everyone laid bare and open?"

"It is for me," he replied. "So stop beating around the bush and ask your question already. Your aura is practically yelling it at me."

Then he already knew what she was thinking. He knew what she was feeling.

"Then why?" She asked. "Why would you let a villain like that go? Why let him leave? Why teach him his faults? How… how could you allow such a man free?"

The immortal chuckled.

"It ain't his job that's why," the old man answered. "He's not a jailer or a policemen, so he won't jail anybody."

"He has power and those with power should exercise it to the best of their judgment," she replied.

"Well, that's what he did then," the old man replied.

"What if he comes back then? Tai Lui is a capable cultivator. If he receives a breakthrough somehow and reaches the immortal realm and comes back for vengeance, then what?"

"Dying is the burden of the weak," the immortal replied. "Killing is the burden of those above them. I have no such burdens. If he comes back I'll handle him. But he's still a child. So I'll give him a chance."

A child. A fifth rank who had lived half a millennium was called a child. If he was a child then what was she? Then her eyes saw it, the mortal, Cai Xuin, herself, and even Tai Lui, they must have seemed so young to this man, so small.

The mortals who she towered over were no different from herself in his eyes. And the old man, the loud brash old man spoke what was on his mind, to an immortal that was her equal. No, possibly her better.

Was that what it was like in the eyes of an immortal?

Chapter 66 Peace Part 1

Chin and I sat at a table drinking tea. Medin had seen us walk into the village and since it was time for lunch, she had huddled us over, along with our new guests and two freshly awoken fourth-rank guards over for lunch. The guards had freaked out at first but quickly settled into place after the girls showed up with Nai for lunch. 

I was just glad Reck was sleeping. As stubborn as Chin was, his younger brother was even more hateful of cultivators than he was. Thankfully the Light Master had to sleep during the day and mostly operated at night. But his disciple was still awake and so were Chin's grandkids. 

And they weren't passing up the chance to study 'real cultivators.' I had feigned insult at the term and the kids had spent five minutes telling me that it was my fault for not using secret techniques or flying on swords or something. To them, I was just the old village hermit, not a cultivator. 

"So you really come from the Raging River sect? Is it wet over there? Do you have a lot of beaches? We have a pond and a lake but it's not that deep and you have to go into the forest for a swim and lately, there are these little animals swimming there. We try to catch them but we never can because-"

Xaio Wang just sat there, confused by the girls and the children and occasionally sipping her tea while looking at everything with curiosity. I'd already given her free roam of the area, her and Cai. 

I assumed she'd leave in a bit. Cai however would have no choice but to stay. I'd already sent word of the assassination attempt to every one of the sects through way of a talisman and I was fairly certain that Tai Lui wouldn't try to kill him again, but I told the boy to stay here regardless. He was lost and the last thing he needed was to consider his future. 

And I was also a little busy finding my own dao. It was maturing quickly, though I wasn't too sure how my present state would react to it. I had seen the grander multiverse and I wouldn't dare consider myself special, but I was rare, if not unique. 

Most humans had their dao developed before making their way through the immortal gates. If existence was a forest then a dao was the path you took, trodding through with your soul and chosen way. I had just stopped walking, at least my soul had. 

I had studied insect souls and managed to make my soul act the same way by turning off very specific parts of it through lack of stimulation. I had become an unfeeling robotic shadow of a man, something barely human. 

But even then I had fallen, or rather Dane had fallen. The original Dane's death was directly connected to his lack of dao. He had killed himself, sure by accident. But the willingness to risk all of that was born from an eternity's worth of weariness. 

He had grown tired. 

And now, I was here. 

There was evidence of daoless humans, but not many made it past the twelfth rank, much less to the thirteenth rank. I'd been meaning to ask the book about that stuff. I'd given the Library Dane's inheritance back then, but not my own. 

I was still the Array King even if someone new would get the name in the next few years, that wouldn't take away my knowledge or abilities. And while the peacemaking array was still in the womb, it was growing and churning. 

It was something new and even before it was awake, I'd gathered a heap of knowledge the Library could take. 

My tail flickered. I frowned. That was also something new. One of the gifts Wukong had left me, was a malleable piece of his own qi. It wouldn't overpower me and was useless in terms of power, or at least I believed it was. But it was a fragment of a God-Imperium making it so that anyone trying to divine me would also have to divine him. 

It gave me weight, in a metaphysical sense. Sun Wukong was more than me, his impact resounding across all of reality, his qi warming into the minds of many and becoming myth and religion.

One that I didn't particularly want. 

The tail waved, seeming to know my thoughts. 

"Didn't know you were half monkey," Chin quipped. 

He was across the room and it was loud and bustling, but he knew I'd hear it. 

I shrugged and sat silently, observing Cai and Xaio as they interacted with the locals. Xaio Wang seemed to be at a loss for words, getting overwhelmed by the children's questions and then slowly answering them one by one. She had shown them a traditional bow, one hand open and palming a fist, then bowing with a straight neck and now the kids had gone off to practice it with one another.

She still tossed a few awkward glances towards the maiden, especially when she saw Rin Wi was the one doing most of the cooking. Her eyes had almost left her head when Rin came out with several bowls full of soup and a plate of small bread. 

And the food was good, no it was great. Rin Wi had been trained to cook for literal gods and even with mortal ingredients, she was making delicious food. I was a little worried about her. Her choice of dao seemed to have been made in a rush. 

And the driving force behind her dao seemed weak. She had chosen to cook merely because she could, as an act of defiance against her past self. But she had stuck to it and there seemed to be genuine love for the craft. It was strange but when I asked her about it she only said one thing. 

"The choice I made was arbitrary, but it was a choice that I made and to that, I must be true."

It was a strange approach. To cook, to live to cook. But it was the only thing she had felt connected to, and you couldn't just pick a dao. It had to be something you understood, something you desired.

So in search of a meaning, anything besides a life of servitude she had chosen cooking.

Rin WI frowned, and then her form flickered as she instantly disappeared. She had also taken to policing the area, smacking down anyone who dared to fight within the whole desert. 

Many people thought they could get away with violence at the edges of the desert. Many people were met with a slap from Rin Wi. One-fourth rank had been sent flying towards the ends of the region. The woman took face-slapping to another level.

Medin, who would normally be shoveling food down my mouth specifically because she knew I had no real limit and got some sick joy from stuffing people full of food, was sitting in a corner and cradling a small child. 

"Open wide," she cooed. 

Nai smiled and opened her mouth. It was a battle of two beasts. One seemed to be able to cook a village's worth of food in an hour and the other was able to devour that food in a minute. 

This was Nai's tenth plate. I was counting. I wanted to see how far this would go, considering Medin's need to overcook and overfeed, I wanted to see if the grandmas to rule all grandmas would fail. 

And by the looks of it, she had. 

Medin wasn't frowning per se but there was a tight smile of stress on her face. Each plate she had fed Nai could have made a grown man full and then some. The poor woman wouldn't be able to ship me off with a week's worth of food, at least not today.

Rin Wi was smart enough to not give Nai more food. The child could eat a country's worth of food and be ready for more in an hour. Ten minutes later everyone was full, except for Medin and Nai. I eventually yanked the little monster from Medin's hands and freed the poor woman from Nai's bottomless stomach. 

Medin seemed sad, almost ashamed at her defeat. 

"She could eat three cows and still have room for more Medin. You know how it is, cultivator stuff."

"I understand Mister Bill, but if a child is hungry, they should be fed."

"She's not hungry, Medin. She just likes eating."

"But if she's eating then she's hungry."

Grandma logic. Couldn't beat it. My own grandmother had been the same, feeding me till I was round and full. I'd been a fat kid most of my life and that was mainly her doing. 

It was strange. I knew a lot and I remembered everything, but my memories, Bill's memories, shined brighter than most. 

It was interesting, warm even. Everything else was remembered and cataloged like files on a computer. Dane had done his best to rip the humanity out of his life. That was why his personality had been so easily destroyed, it was never there to begin with. 

Dane. He was me and I am him, but even when he was a god, an immortal beyond a mortal's mind. In the end, he was small. I was mostly Bill, a mortal given an immortal soul. 

Maybe that was why I didn't feel so out of place here.

Chapter 67 Peace Part 2

I said my goodbyes and walked with Nai on my shoulders. We were small again, taking our time and strolling through the forest and I was back to thinking. 

A dao was a big part of a person, but it started somewhere. It started with a feeling. Daos and Laws were different, but in a way, they were the same thing. They were rules, authorities, and concepts. 

While laws ruled over physical realities, daos ruled over souls. Things like gravity and time were akin to love and hatred within the human heart. But unlike laws, most of the concepts in a person's head couldn't persist forever. Time wore down the human mind. Love once and it feels real, so passionate and amazing, but if you live for ten thousand years and love a hundred women, then what?

It felt dull and faded. It unravels and frails at the edges. Then what about norms? Manners? Sanity? The things people held in their minds and never questioned. Morality? Emotions? Purpose? Self?

It would break and crumble. Unlike plants and insects, who lived because they had to, we humans only live because we want to. Whereas a tree grows because it must, we choose to live.

We didn't know it for the first few hundred years of our life of course. It's natural. Socially and biologically, we tended to ignore that reality. But the truth is that we choose to live and make that choice over and over again with every breath we take. 

But you noticed it with enough time. You felt it, and eventually, you realized there was another choice. Silence, freedom, absolute oblivion. It was inevitable. Some people found a way to live forever, physically that is. 

They were called false immortals because while their bodies persisted for eternity, their souls would degrade further and further until they either went mad or became frozen still in apathy. 

Others tried to freeze their soul, capturing their personality and trying to put it in permanent stasis. It never worked. The soul was an adapting thing, and it desired to experience, eventually, every safeguard would break.

Even Dane had fallen. He had lasted longer than most. He had wiped out his past emotions, restructuring his soul in some strange ways. To live without a dao, he had broken the part of himself that felt.

I looked towards a group of beavers that huddled in single file towards the center of the forest. Animals. Powerful animals beyond a mortal's comprehension but animals still. 

They were like insects and plants. They lived to conquer, to grow, to be a beast. 

Or at least they had. 

I still hadn't had that talk with Lin Tai. Beasts could gain a dao. It wasn't unheard of. The Dao of The Dragon, the Dao of Tiger. But unlike humans who searched their hearts for their dao, beasts searched their nature. They became more of what they were, and in that, they found meaning. 

"Ugh," Nai said from my shoulders. 

"You want to follow the beavers?"

"Ugh." 

We followed them, silently watching the small gods trod their way through the forest floor. 

"I don't get it," the big one spoke. "If the birds want all the food from the trees, then what are we supposed to eat?"

"The ground stuff," the smaller beaver yelped. "And the stuff from the waterways. But don't worry big, that won't happen."

Big. What a clever name. 

"And why is that?" Big asked. 

"Because it's all upsey downy. At least that's what the House of Wisdom has said."

"What do you mean?" Big replied. "Upsey downy?"

"Upsey downy, the laws are all manifesting in the places where they shouldn't be," the small one answered. 

This was true. The array had grown, and in its growth, it had started to harvest the laws manifesting around here on its own. It was also manipulating where they manifested. It was the first thing the array had ever done. Ground laws were now manifesting in the air and air laws were manifesting in the ground. The rivers held fire laws and water laws were born in the salamanders' dwelling. 

It was strange, but it was also the reason the beasts were getting along. The array, at its core, was something designed to bring peace. And by forcing the beasts to trade with one another, that was exactly what it was doing. 

I was tinkering with it, feeding it my own understanding of peace now and then. But it was its own thing. It was alive and growing and the forest belonged to it. 

It forced the beasts to interact and by interacting they had to get along. It was making peace, all on its own accord, and by taking away their struggle it took away their need for nature. And when beasts deserted their nature, then what were they but humans?

I frowned. I didn't like that. Part of the reason why I felt so okay with using beasts as a source of laws was their nature. They would kill me if they could, so I would use them like metaphysical batteries, and even then, I offered them freedom with a memory wipe. 

Thank the Dao that none of them had taken me up on that offer. I had made that deal back when I believed myself to be in the clear. I wouldn't dare to release one of them now that I knew Tai Jey was after me. 

I wouldn't dare to give him a single clue. But now what? Was I enslaving people? Thinking sentient caring individuals?

I frowned and stared off at the beavers as they waddled on through their territory. My soul fluttered and my dao pushed. Was it peaceful? 

What is peace? Is it freedom?

No. It is not freedom, but in a way it was. 

Was it strength? 

No. It was not strength, but in a way it was.

It was a paradox. Freedom protected by rules. Weakness made possible through strength. 

Was keeping the beasts here right?

If they were not here, then they wouldn't be people. They'd be animals killing and fighting one another for their own instincts. 

If they were in the wild, many of them would be dead. 

What they wanted would lead them to death and violence and in turn make them unworthy of being free. 

A paradox. 

My dao settled. 

Peace in the self.

Peace in others. 

Peace in the world.

Then it clicked and settled, like a puzzle finding its final spot. Enlightenment struck me.

"I see."

Is that what it was? A paradox,? A limit? Order within chaos and chaos within order. 

The memory of the primordial qi flooded me and my crippled soul shivered. What was, what is, and what could be.

Then Nai started tugging on my hair while mumbling some well-organized gibberish. It almost sounded like a language. 

"I'm fine," I replied. Reach up above my head to pat her. "Just thinking."

We started to walk back home and Nai sat atop my head, banging my skull like a bad bongo player. 

Peace was had. Peace was given. And peace was kept. 

And each peace was different, and yet very much the same. 

My dao broke into the immortal realm as I walked back home. There was no tribulation or divine lightning. I was already beyond the immortal stage, and there was no progression of power or strength. 

But there was a little bit more of me than there was before, and there was a warm feeling in my soul that came with it.