Lying in bed, Seth performed another round of healing on the hole in his leg. The wound itched fiercely as muscle regrew and blood vessels re-connected. Painful twitching within his body threatened to break his concentration. The greedy little tumors can't even let him heal in peace. He took a deep breath as the pain was replaced with another round of itching.

  A smile crept across Seth's face as the last of the muscles knitted together and the skin closed. He had been at this for the past day or so. Having exhausted his supply of bound spirits, he was stuck in this cycle of healing a little and waiting for his qi to recover.

  As his mind wandered, his daydreams wandered to imagine what would happen if the tumors had their way with his healing magic. He could see it drinking in the energy and growing. It would stretch against the skin, before bursting through in a shower of blood. Once it got large enough...Seth frantically shook his head, frantically dispelling the image. Forcing the image to one side, he put a plan together.

  First was food. Then to do some research on his new healing magic. Finally, needed to resupply on bound spirits. All while keeping an eye out for something that would help him with his cancer stealing his cultivation. With his plan set, he left his room to face the trials once more.

  Three days passed, and Seth was just returning from another successful expedition into the trial. He had plenty of bound spirits and had a decent grip on his new healing magic. Unfortunately, he had a very basic version that was limited to healing basic injuries. Regenerating lost limbs or internal organs were beyond it, though apparently those spells did exist. On the cancer front, his progress had been...less than satisfactory.

  He entered the altar room and looked at the leaderboard. It had changed quite a bit over the last few days:

  Therus - Second Peak (40)

  Seth - Second Peak (38)

  Aaron - Second Peak (36)

  Xiaobo - First Peak (32)

  Jalon - First Peak (29)

  Matrim -37

  ...

  Their timer now showed twenty flames, and Seth shook his head. The hostess' question about what he actually wants had been weighing on him lately. When they started, he thought he would be content with just finding a solution for his problem. Now, though...

  A memory of a dinner with his family popped into his head.

  "How was work, dear?" Anna had asked.

  "Tiring," Seth grunted.

  "Dad, can you take me to the movies later? I wanna see Exterminator 7 with some friends," said his son Mark.

  "Your homework done?"

  "Daaaaad—"

  "Don't Daaaad me. If your homework is done, then yes, but if not..."

  "Fiiiine..." Mark deflated, slinking down in his chair. Sometimes, the kid acted like he was six instead of sixteen.

  "Daddy, can I borrow the car?" His daughter Jess asked.

  "What for?" said Seth.

  "To hang out with some friends," she said, with a twitch in her eyebrow. He knew that twitch.

  "What's the real reason?"

  "To hang out with my boyfriend..."

  "Of course. Be safe," cut in Anna, not giving Seth a chance to answer the question. Of course he was going to tell her the same thing, but...he let out a long breath and smiled, handing his daughter the keys.

  The image changed, and he saw his family in the profound blood spirit sect. He saw Mark and Jess lifted in the air, screaming and flailing. He screamed himself, but he was powerless to stop what was unfolding. He saw their bodies wrung out like sponges before being blended and refined into a pill.

  The image transformed to one with his wife and her boyfriend at the sect. Instead of the grandmaster, though, it was him on the stage. Refining people into pills and growing his power. The screams brought a small smile to his face. As he swallowed the pills he made, he didn't taste anything. He only felt the thrill of power running through—

  He shook his head and forced his eyes open. His mouth tasted of bile. Looking down, he could see the contents of his stomach splattered on the ground before him.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  He turned his attention inward, toward his tumors. The hostess had called them barely sentient, implying they weren't simple clumps of cells anymore. Terrifying, but maybe it was also an opportunity. After all, if something was sentient, how long until it had a spirit he could bind? Maybe the inheritance would give him something to bind these tumors.

  The short-term goal settled his stomach a bit. He couldn't do anything about his family. He could act on this. No, not just act. He could crush the thing that stole everything he loved. He was just returning the favor, after all.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He felt his qi reserves, and knew he was good to go back in. The goal was to figure out what the triangle challenges were. Over the last few days, he had figured out what some of the symbols meant. The fist promised a fight; the square was a binding challenge. The skull was most likely some kind of survival challenge. The triangle remained elusive. The problem was simple; there were no low difficulty triangle challenges to test out.

  Within ten minutes he was in front of a green triangle with a ten-sided shape on the sign. He had not seen a triangle one with less over the last several days and suspected there wasn't one. He could feel his heart beating in his throat and could taste bile in his mouth. His hand shook as it reached for the door.

  He took a deep breath, and the shaking calmed down. He briefly considered continuing to search for a lower level triangle but quickly dismissed it. If the hostess was correct, he would need to conquer one that was three levels above this one rather soon. For all he knew, he would find it in two minutes if he kept walking.

  With one final deep breath, he opened the door and walked through. He was in the center of a circular room of golden bricks sealed with emerald mortar. The ceiling, rather than being gold bricks, was a solid plane of gold. The room was lit from the corners by orbs of light too bright to look at directly, bathing everything in warm golden hues. Around him were twenty-seven empty golden pedestals arranged in a circle. The room ended about one-hundred feet beyond those. Each one came up to his chest. Beyond them was another circle of eighty-one pedestals.

  A gong rang out, echoing through the room before slowly fading. On the wall in front of him, one word scrawled in emerald appeared.

  Escape.

  A ring of azure flames sprung up along the walls. He rushed over to one of the empty pedestals. A diagram was carved on the surface. It took Seth a moment to realize that this was a part of a ritual. The next pedestal had another ritual-part engraved on it. Craning his neck around, he quickly confirmed all the pedestals had these carvings on them.

  He pulled some ritual chalk out of his storage ring and tried to write on one of the pedestals. The chalk refused to take hold. He tried the floor, with the same result. His eyes floated up to the surrounding flames.

  They had crept inward by the faintest of margins. Thankfully, they weren't rushing in like he had heard fires typically did. Then again, he had never heard of a fire spreading along bricks of gold.

  An idea flashed through his head. He infused qi into one of the ritual parts, and it started glowing emerald. He felt his qi drain from his body alarmingly fast, and cut the flow. Whatever plan he chose, he'd have to be quick about it. Dashing from pedestal to pedestal in the inner ring, he recognized some of these formation parts. He had an idea for how he could combine a few of them, if only he could—

  A jolt ran through Seth's mind, and he ran qi through the part once more. While still powering it, he moved his hand into the air. The charged array part followed, draining qi reserves even faster. It took a minute of experimenting to figure out how to keep it running while he wasn't directly touching it. Fortunately, the qi cost didn't rise with that trick, but the mental pressure did. It was like he was trying to remember ten numbers at the same time.

  He ran to the second part, filled it with qi, and dragged it to where he left the first part floating. Placing it in its place, and the mental strain became mental pain. Only two more parts to go.

  His focus held until he charged the third part, but that proved to be too much. All the parts in the air fell apart as he lost focus. The pain in his head fell to a dull throbbing. He saw the flames had inched ever closer out of the corner of his eye. Not close enough to be dangerous, or even worrisome. Just enough to remind him he was on a timer. Shaking his head, he tried again. This time, he lasted until he had three parts together and faltered while running over with the fourth. The flames crept closer.

  He got to three again before failing again.

  The next attempt, he had all four pieces together, but it fell apart as he was catching his breath. His head was pounding, and the slowly advancing flames were already at the outer ring of pedestals. Fortunately, none of the pieces he needed to erect the shield were in the outer part. He rubbed his temples; he could see the ritual parts floating in his mind. It felt like victory was within his grasp, yet remained just out of reach.

  He tried again, failing at the exact same step. The flames crept closer, and he wiped sweat from his eyes. Out of better ideas, he tried channeling qi into the outline in his head. The ritual part leapt out of his hand and into the air. The shock almost made him lose focus. Smiling, he got the other three pieces in order and tried activating it. The construct exploded in a waved of force, throwing him into a pedestal behind him.

  Without questioning the method, he ran from one pedestal to the next, checking the pattern on the pedestal to the one in his mind. As expected, one of the images in his head was incomplete. He channeled qi into it again, getting it to form fully in his mind and in his hand. He finished summoning the other three pieces, and a barrier sprung to life around him. He checked the drain; the barrier would hold for a while with the bound spirit in place.

  As an experiment he pulled qi from another bound spirit and linked it to the barrier. It pushed out again, this time halfway to the outer ring of pedestals. He went through another two bound spirits, linking each to the barrier before it started pushing back the flames from the first layer of pedestals. He was starting to feel an uncomfortable pressure in his meridians from the qi flowing through him. Trying to expand this more could lead to disaster.

  Having dealt with the immediate threat, he activated his qi sight. The room was drenched in qi, and the waves of information crashed into his skull, doubling him over with pain. It took all his willpower to hold onto the technique and power through. The flames and barrier were as qi-rich as expected. Beyond them, though, he could see the pattern that was generating the flames in the wall. It was a bit over his head, reminding him of the first time he encountered an electrical schematic outside of school. Fortunately, it was also polarized, so he should be able to break it with one of his ice shards.

  He channeled one of his ice shards, polarizing it. Then, he fired it at the pattern on the wall. Immediately he regretted it; why was he touching something he barely understood? It smashed into the pattern, and it unravelled as expected. The flames around him began to die out and sputtered to a stop. He held his shield, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was it really going to be this easy?

  A moment later, a wave of fire slammed into his shields, much more violent than the one before.

  It was not going to be that easy.