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“I’m telling you,” The alchemist designate whispered in a conspiratorial tone. “Look, I know that Instructor Lei tells us that if we can reach the stage of sparring with ourselves, there’s nothing left for him to teach us. But this? This,” He repeated in an impassioned tone to the three other cultivators sitting on the same bench as him.

“The recruit moved as if someone was actually there. His sword recoiled as if it had been parried. He dodged as if a demon was trying to bisect him in half,” The alchemist designate finished explaining, having worked up a bit of sweat as he got caught up in his own emotions.

“So, who won this shadow battle?” One of the other alchemists seated in a much smaller mess hall that was reserved for alchemist designates only and conveniently located down the residences pathway, asked.

“That’s the scary thing,” the alchemist designate whispered. “You would ask yourself, how could one lose to the machinations of one’s own mind. But he lost! I’m telling you, he lost to his own shadow,” He explained, his tone sounding a bit haunted.

The alchemist designate to his left tried to stifle what sounded like a cough and just about managed it. The two alchemist designates sitting facing him tried to do the same and failed, before bursting out into laughter that just about fell short of guffawing in his face.

“I think…,” One of the laughing alchemist designates managed to speak out in between bouts of laughter. “... you’ve been going a bit…. too hard on research. Take a break, Tao.”

The alchemist designate named Tao had no words left to retaliate with as his face went beet red. Only now did he realize how preposterous his words must’ve sounded to the other alchemist designates.

However, Tao knew what he had seen.

I need to learn more about that recruit, He thought. There’s something that’s not right about him.

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Back in the sanctity of his dorm room, an exhausted Xiao Feng crashed onto his bed with a groan.

“Oh, man, that was exhausting,” He complained out loud, even though he knew that the white-robed Xiao Feng was gone and would be gone for as long as he did not willingly enter that state of perfect focus again.

Xiao Feng wasn’t sure when he would be willing to subject himself to that intense training regimen again, but there was never a question of if he would be willing to do it.

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Strength was essential in the continent of Tian, Realm of Sephari. The Alchemy Division was a tranquil paradise, yes, but it stood only because of the strength of the Frontier Sect. His predecessor was willing to train him in his ways, grant him an opportunity to gain that strength— not to harm or wage war, but to protect.

He would not spurn such strength.

“I guess I’ll go again in a week,” He contemplated. “Okay, maybe three days? Learning magical martial arts isn’t all that boring, now that I think about it. It just leaves me sore all around, but that’s probably because I’m not fighting with the proper techniques yet,” He mused aloud.

Xiao Feng’s hair was still damp, from having showered after he had dinner in the junior division’s mess hall. He felt the tug of sleep weigh down on his eyelids.

A touch of Qi and all that sleep would simply vanish, Xiao Feng thought. Sure, I would eventually need to sleep to pay off that debt, but my predecessor did go on without sleep for days on end because he wanted to cultivate. I really, really, don’t want to artificially mess around with my sleep cycle, Xiao Feng concluded, really wary of doing something like that. Not because he hated cultivation, but because it would make him feel less… human. Less mortal and more immortal.

He did not wish to distance himself from a part of his mortality, the essence of the human experience.

“Oh right,” Xiao Feng’s eyelids snapped open as he remembered that he’d forgotten to check in on the egg. So much for sleeping on time, He thought wryly.

He swung open the door to his wardrobe and took in the egg’s physical form.

“Huh,” He intoned. “That’s interesting,” He muttered under his breath. Xiao Feng had poured some bi-horn milk on top of the egg and with its distinctive bluish-white color, the milk should’ve left some staining on the wardrobe’s insides.

Should have.

Xiao Feng only saw an impeccably clean wardrobe surface, with the egg resting peacefully where he had left it.

He activated his essence cultivation art.

Immediately, Xiao Feng noticed that the pulsing and dimming cycle had sped up, but not to the alarming levels he had witnessed before. If the egg’s action of draining his Qi had stabilized it to some degree, then did it absorb the milk to try and maintain that state?

“Only one way to find out,” Xiao Feng muttered under his breath as he hurriedly got up from the bed and rushed to his study table. He wrapped his hands around a vial of milk and unstoppered it.

He did not hesitate as he began to pour the precious bi-horn milk on the egg, it’s flow unmitigated.

A sizzling sound echoed out as the milk touching the egg’s surface evaporated or at least, seemed like it evaporated.

Xiao Feng’s lips curled up into a smile, for he knew better. After he poured the vial of milk past the halfway mark though, the sizzling stopped.

The egg had once again reached a state of temporary equilibrium between life and death. For to Xiao Feng, it seemed like the tempo of the pulsing and dimming cycle had returned to what it was after the egg had gotten done absorbing his Qi.

“It’s not enough,” Xiao Feng muttered. “How do I save you?” He asked the egg, but it was himself that gave the answer as the image of a woman in floral robes popped up in his mind.

“Is that the only way, then?”