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.

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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.