Choosing this kind of thing was new for Chang Heng; when he was designing his Cultivation Technique with Old Man Ling, everything was based on how much it could extend his lifespan, then fighting ones he was supposed to learn were just inspiration to inspire him on how to improve it.

  Now he had to actually choose. One treasure that did the same thing, a piece of enchanted armour, and two more Techniques.

  He really, really wanted to get his hands on [Ever Growing Fists], it sounded just too good. It was nice on its own, but together with his resistance, it would make him an immensely great threat.

  Five Times Reforged Armguards would make his even better at what he already did; [Soul of Iron, Skin of Blades] was a middle point between the two, and with some practice it would be much more versatile than the others.

  The root, he wanted to discard most. Or at least, he tried to convince himself that he did. It was the most boring, it wouldn't bring him any benefits in the short term, and it would add what, a month, to his “long term”?

  There were so many more interesting, cool, and useful treasures there!

  Someone came to talk to Attendant Li, but he ignored them.

  It didn't matter how much better everything was supposed to be. Weapons and pieces of armour? They'd soon be discarded, he didn't plan to stay in the Qi Acclimation for long. Paintings, statuettes, or fruits to slightly improve his affinities? The fifth floor was filled with them, so they must have been quite the stuff, and yet he didn't even know what to do with them. Techniques? A joke. A true joke to him. He couldn't learn one tailor-made for him by the Patriarch in two weeks, how long would it take for some completely new ones?

  “I'll take the Fifteen Years Minor Sanctity Root as my reward, please.”

  He had had to choose by exclusion. Not by what he wanted most, but by what he was too sick to make use of, or untalented to learn.

  He was supposed to be sad at that, or angry, or humiliated.

  He had grown up with stories, stories of Cultivators strong enough to split mountains, wielding weapons with names so long they took half a page, comprehending the deepest secrets of life, who achieved inner peace by ending wars with their glorious might.

  He had seen that life, at least some shades of it. Two days of fighting, two weeks of training, and it wasn't fun at all!

  All he had experienced was anxiety, annoyance, and enough pain, fatigue and blood loss to knock him out multiple times! He was used to passing out from fatigue, but as a cursed sick mortal, not… everything else! And that would have been enough already, but on top of it, a guy his own age had died because of him, and he had yet to let himself think about it!

  All that, compared to the time spent with Old Man Ling, with my family, eating like a normal person without the need to puke, taking a walk in a street for the first time in years, making real all the things I’ve studied for half my life?

  He was supposed to regret being a coward, choosing something that wouldn't make him stronger, but all those “supposed to”? In that moment, with all that he had going on in his head, they could… should… be kicked?

  Wow. A small laugh came out of him. I've grown up so sheltered, I don't even know how to swear!

  He kept laughing, and wanted so much to share with the only other person there the absurdity of his line of thought, but stopped when he saw the man sweaty, with wide eyes full of worry.

  “Is… Everything alright? I swear, I had good reason to laugh, I’m not going insane, I can share-”

  “No need to, Cultivator Chang. We should be in a hurry to leave now, instead. The Palace is closing for the night, now.”

  “Y-yeah, sure, please lead the way.”

  It's not just the place closing, right? He seems so much more worried than that. And it's late already anyway…

  As they went down the stairs, people working in the Palace were rushing ahead of them, mortals scared, some accompanying other Cultivators like him. Those were a bit calmer, but not by much.

  Leaving the second floor was another attendant, running with a jar of wine with a scent so strong, it probably came from some rare variation of blessed grapes. It stained her clothes and the floor as it sloshed around, but she didn’t seem to care.

  Everything around him carried spirituality or Qi, and far too many Cultivators were moving in the place, auras unrestrained, but one stood out. In the exact centre of the building, it was one of a Qi Acclimation Stage person; it felt deeper, and somehow more… grounded, than any he had ever felt, except the City Lord and Elder Rong.

  Reaching the ground floor of the tower, he saw its source: a young man with black hair, droopy eyes, and the body of someone who pushed around boulders as a hobby, wearing light-blue clothes that didn’t try to hide much, of a quality, once again, only surpassed by what he had seen Elder Rong wearing. Most notable was the pile of people he was sitting on, and his bored expression.

  He took a sip from the wine, spat it out, tossed the jar with a face of disgust and turned to look at him.

  “Chop chop, kiddo, you are one of the last ones still here. Ya should be out already. I hope you’re not one of the Black Fist kids, or I’ll have to add you to my seat.”

  The expression, the tone, both bored in a “I’m surrounded by idiots” way, added to what he said, were more than enough to ignite anger and pride inside the boy’s chest. Just who in the Heavens does he think he is? Actually, who is this guy? Is he the reason for Attendant Li’s distress?

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

  He wanted to retort, but the pile of bodies under him was enough to shut him up. One, he even recognised, was the boy from the Sturdy Palace Sect who had fought in the tournament right before him.

  Looking down, meekly walked away, shame clawing at him from inside.

  “HEY! You sack of crap, what in the Nine Hells did you do to my Martial Brother? Get off of him, and kotow, or I’ll break all your libs!”

  It was a huge man, wearing the same grey uniform as one of those under the younger one. Chang Heng was sure he had already seen him.

  The young man wasn’t particularly impressed. His smile became more predatory as his eyes grew darker, and he slowly rose from his throne of passed-out men and women.

  “Who do you think you are, to talk to me like that? I’m Dong Juren. If some cattle like you knows anything about how this region is ruled, you’ll offer me an arm and run away like a scared mouse.”

  “You dare?! I’m a Second Awakening Cultivator, one of the top members of the Sturdy Palace Sect!” Chang Heng remembered where he had seen him. On his way to the Clan’s terrains the day of his birthday, the man was building a house, holding a log bigger than a person with one hand while extorting money with the other. “I’ve done much worse for much less, so thank me for my kindness, slam your head on the floor five times, empty your pockets and, if I’m in a good mood, I’ll let you leave! My name is-”

  Dong Juren grabbed the man’s head and slammed it on the floor. The enchanted wood boards were broken with ease, and the huge man was treated like a toy. Cultivators who had already advanced one were strong enough to punch through walls as if they were made of paper, tear down buildings made of the finest marble by accident. And one such was being beaten down in front of him.

  The man tried to defend himself, hit back, do anything, but the cruel smile stayed over him as his head was raised up and forced deeper down into the foundational stone underneath.

  The boy's body was tugged in two opposite directions at the same time.

  A part of him wanted to intervene, help the man, even if he likely didn't deserve it.

  The other had felt the shock travelling the earth when the man had impacted on the floor.

  He stood there, paralysed. A third crunch came, the huge man's voice coming out not as arrogant and commanding, but as a whimper for mercy.

  The head was raised again, but the hand pushing it stopped there, keeping it still in the air.

  The boy didn't see or hear the blood dripping. All of his focus was pointed at Dong Juren.

  He was staring back at him, eyes devoid of empathy or the smallest sort of care for another human being. His sadistic smile slowly faded as the seconds passed. Apathy was the only thing left.

  “Do you want to take the next two for him?”

  The question was genuine, not an insult or a threat. He hoped for a yes.

  Chang Heng turned and ran out of the palace.

  “People really have a knack for lowering my expectations, huh.”

  Two more crunches could be heard echoing through the whole block.

  …

  Right after the doors was a short set of stairs. Only a few steps, ornamental more than anything.

  He took the first step.

  Fear pushed his feet more than anything. The young man, nah, the “being” behind him, behind those flimsy doors, was… atrocious. Unstable, arrogant, violent, and sadistic; carrying a blade of unfair strength, boredom as the hilt to wield it and madness as its forging metal.

  Those were not the eyes of a young man. Not even of a person. Dong Juren was an entirely different type of creature from any of the few people he had met. He would have liked to say “he looked like a madman”, “those were the eyes of a killer”, or some other nice, simple sentence to describe him. But there was no way for him to truly describe what he had seen.

  Maybe he was actually just those things, a violent, crazed man. As he heard the undescribable noises coming from the palace, he felt unable to reduce him like that.

  The second step was heavy.

  While fear pushed him like a gentle breeze, guilt made his foot come down like a stone sinking in a still lake.

  That other man and that pile of people were still there. Were they alive? He didn’t know. But they could have been. Maybe they needed medical help, someone to get them to a hospital, or just someone to wake them up and a shoulder to rest on as they let the pain and the concussion pass.

  Maybe they just needed someone to take two hits in their stead, and they’d live.

  But he had not been the person they needed. Maybe, he could have stood his ground, and been of actual help. But he hadn’t.

  The number of things he had not done only kept growing.

  I can finally do something, and I still wait behind that damn window.

  The third step forced his head down.

  It brought the pain of acknowledgement, the hand holding his skull to slam him and show him the concrete under the luxurious pavements.

  Just two days earlier, he had been told by his cousin how dangerous the world was. That he’d have to fight, or be beaten down and stolen from. He had been issued a challenge, one that would push him, so that those wouldn’t have felt like empty words.

  But in the moment reassurance came, when Old Man Ling had told him he was safe, the weight of that truth had felt lighter.

  A lie. One easier to believe than the reality I simply had yet to see. I had all the reasons to believe him, learn from him, but I didn’t.

  Looking down, he stared at the small box where his prize was kept. It was a good one. In fact, it was probably the best for him, despite the doubt he felt. With the short time he had left, even a day more would have been a boon, and it would probably give him much more than that.

  Or it could be a waste. He could keep waiting behind that window for one more day, reading the same book he had read a thousand times already.

  All this, and I’ll end up reading it another thousand times if I get the chance to.

  The thought was supposed to carry self-pity, disgust at himself, regret, a sense of failure.

  His lips barely lifted, the first blossom of spring.

  It will be fine, I hope, if I walk out the door and read it under the blossoming cherry trees.

  Chang Heng had learnt a bit more that night. He had caught sight of a path forward, or the idea of it. “What he Wanted” and “What he Needed” were still as far away from each other as they could be.

  But that small root, that would give him a taste of what he wanted, came from doing what he needed, pushing himself further than he thought he could to achieve it. A small string now connected the two things.

  The lesson “This world is dangerous” had more than cemented in his heart. He had only seen a few examples, but they had been enough.

  A second one… he had still to choose what it would look like, but the foundation for it had been laid.

  His eyes went to the distance. He hadn’t achieved what he needed to achieve. He knew already he would have to walk into a dark moment when he’d come home.

  The fourth and final step was still far too burdened, but with it, a sense of calm came to support him in taking it.

  For how utterly worthless the world was trying to make him feel, he was slowly starting to learn how to walk on his path.