I felt the soft, cold grass shift beneath my feet as I practiced martial arts. The warm wind washed over my skin, and the movements flowed like a dance. Mid-way through, I used the Dancing Jade Armour Technique to form a faceless jade soldier standing in front of me.

The new jade soldier was a translucent man resembling a wooden doll. I even added intricate detail to its armor, depicting a dragon's head on its chest, and translucent green bear heads were used as shoulder pads on its shoulders.

Did this improve the technique in any way? No, but it looked much cooler than some stick-figure-like construct. I was working on making a face for the guy, but it was hard.

He tried to punch me. Sadly, I hadn't figured out how to make it attack automatically. So, since his attack came due to my order, I knew where the punch would come from.

But I stood my ground as the translucent jade fist approached my face. Just before the hit, the Qi around my face turned soft and cushion-like, absorbing most of the attack's impact. I barely felt the punch.

"Damn, not as good," I grumbled.

I was trying to create the automatic response I had achieved while fighting against the assassins. But it was hard to get into the mindset when my life was not on the line. Instead, I had to consciously turn my jade-like hard Qi soft to absorb a blow.

Perhaps what I was trying to achieve wasn't possible... However, in a weird way, that made it more fun.

Thinking about my Qi reacting automatically before my mind can, it excited me.

Well, it would be useless against higher-stage cultivators since they would break through it with brute force. But it would make me unbeatable in my own realm. The ultimate defense!

After withdrawing the jade soldier and gaining back some of the Qi I had used in creating it, I returned to practicing martial movements.

I had read about many martial arts in the library. While they were mainly used to train the body, they were also an excellent way to relax as I got used to punching with this new power. I was also trying to test how strong my newly Qi-imbued fist was and how fast I could go through the forms.

It was like a game of cat and mouse as I tried to surpass my previous record by half a second or more. Though it sounded easy, it was much more complicated than it seemed because I had to moderate the Qi flowing through my body to strengthen only certain parts.

For example, when I punched, I would strengthen my whole body. But that was amateurish as certain parts in the body, like the muscles that were supposed to stop the fist from moving a certain way, would create a slight resistance. But strengthening only the calves, a small repulsion of Qi at the top of my feet, and some more Qi to defend my hips from breaking through the rotational movement of the punch... Anyway, by the end, I could throw a devastating punch.

Thankfully, through cultivation, my strengthened body could handle these things without tearing muscles or ligaments so easily.

It has been a long time since I had so much fun practicing.

At least I did after the green-haired guy had left without saying a word, bringing me some ease as I trained, even if he had left his fishing rod rooted in the ground next to the pond.

Though I was having a good time, it wasn't as good as it could have been because I felt like someone was watching me. It was a weird feeling, like a deep emptiness in my stomach. It was hard to put into words, but instinctively, I knew someone was peeking on me.

Of course, this could also be a delusion. After all, I was in the Song Clan Compound as a "guest"; of course they were watching me. Perhaps my mind created this weird sensation to make up for how I couldn't sense my observers.

Even though that feeling didn't go away, I kept practicing. Worrying about things I couldn't change was useless.

"You are training hard as always," said a withered voice behind me.

My heart jumped, and I hurriedly turned to face the presence I only now sensed.

How long had she been there? What was it with these people that allowed them to slip through my senses so easily?

I had been quite proud of my Qi-sensing powers before this. But with the green-haired guy and now this, it had been a bit of a wake-up call.

I turned around and saw a familiar old woman. With a hunched back and so many wrinkles that she looked like a worm, she looked like a fragile old woman with a foot already on her deathbed. This was the same granny who had questioned me when I had been in prison. That felt like an eternity ago, though it hadn't been a year since then.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Was this granny also from the Song Clan? I didn't remember her name, so I didn't connect her to the clan in any way. I was pretty sure she was Song Song's teacher.

Before I could even greet her, the granny said, "Song Song has been imprisoned."

When I heard that, I clenched my fist but quickly let go and regained control over my emotions. Given what was happening, I needed to calm down and avoid such a blatant reaction.

Song Song had ended up in this position while trying to help me. How could I feel nothing about it? But now was not the time to let my feelings get the better of me.

Perhaps hiding my emotions was needless since her own teacher might not be against Song Song. But I was too weak to show such a blatant reaction. There were people here who liked to eliminate issues before they became problems. They might see my anger as a future problem. I had to stay calm and composed.

"How long is she going to be imprisoned?" I asked, hoping for more of an answer than the green-haired guy gave me.

"She will be in there until the Song Clan Leader decides it is enough," she stated.

Once again, the weak were at the mercy of the powerful. Fearing my emotions would slip through my words, I kept my mouth shut after that.

The granny and I just stared at each other, the awkward silence growing in the building, cut off from the outside by weather conditions and sound.

I looked for any signs of what she could be thinking. But her hands were steady, her fingers and purple nails didn't even twitch, and the deep blue eyes behind her wrinkled eyelids showed very little.

Her body language showed nothing; perhaps I was too bad at reading it.

"It would be nice if you came to visit Song Song with me," the Core Elder finally spoke.

"Sure," I nodded and immediately walked into the house, rummaging for anything I could wear.

Right now, I was wearing shorts and nothing else. This was not a way to go outside in a Sect full of cultivators looking for a reason to beat someone up.

The room I had woken up in had nothing more than a futon.

After rummaging through some drawers in the neighboring room, which looked messy and dilapidated, I found some casual brown robes that looked like uniforms. There were wooden planks on the ground and missing parts of the floor.

As I put the clothes on, I winced and realized something.

I think I accepted her offer a bit too fast and might have come off as too eager.

A pair of boots was also at the house's exit, and there was a ragged wooden door with inscriptions all over the entrance hallway. This would lead to the road outside, and from what I could tell, these arrays were not here to stop me from going outside but to defend against intruders.

The green-haired guy seemed to have been a paranoid man when he used to live in this place.

The boots were a size too big, but I cared little about minor inconveniences like that.

I returned to the yard and said, "I'm ready."

Usually, the Sect had strict uniform standards to show where disciples and elders belonged. But I was with a Core Elder and doubted anyone would cause trouble for me.

The granny looked me up and down, and for a second, I thought she might send me back to try and find other clothes to wear.

"Stand next to me," she said.

I did as I was told, and that was when I felt a monstrous amount of Qi released from her. It felt like I was standing next to an erupting volcano!

But almost immediately, the Qi was back under her control, forming into a translucent, elegant, feminine hand that gently grabbed me. That was followed by a feeling of blurriness as we shot toward the sky like a rocket!

It felt like an instant, but we had moved quite a distance from the outskirts of the Song Clan compound and landed in front of some weird tower. I was left disoriented; everything was blurry, and my brain felt like mush.

The granny released her hold on me, her Qi dissipating until it was barely perceivable.

Now that I was no longer enveloped by her Qi, I felt the chilly air and took a deep, comforting breath. That helped calm the weird sensation of moving at such speeds.

I took this small moment to enjoy the smell of winter and the snowy ground. Who knew how long I would spend in that building I had been assigned?

We were in front of a large tower. Though it looked like it had melted a bit, almost as if it had been hit by something hot enough to turn the stones into lava, it still somehow held its rough shape.

The tower had a small, normal-looking wooden door at its root, and the granny approached it with me one step behind her. She took a short dagger from her storage ring, made a small cut on her thumb, and pressed her finger against the door.

The normal-looking door pulsed as red lines spread like veins around it, and it creaked open. The inside was dark, illuminated only by a handful of flickering candles.

As we walked in, I got a better look at things. There was another person in here with us: an unnaturally tall woman. I was pretty tall myself, and I barely reached her bosom. The woman sported a dark cloak and held a crimson-red thorny whip in her hands. She wore dark lipstick, had pale skin, blue eyes, and long blonde hair with a red tint.

There was a look in her eyes as she glanced at me that sent chills down my spine. Then, the tall woman bowed her head and said, "Honorable Core Elder of Beauty, Master Xing. Are you here to see Song Song?"

What was up with that long title? Also, this granny was the Core Elder of Beauty? What did that position even mean?

I did my best not to stare at the granny and kept a calm facade. It was easier than usual since I was primarily concerned with seeing Song Song.

"Yes, we will be going now," said the granny as she walked past the tall woman without a care.

I followed along and respectfully bowed my head toward the tall woman. She smiled when she saw this.

Instead of going upstairs, another opening led downstairs and we walked in. The lighting was even shittier here.

This was a prison, right? I couldn't help but wonder what a prison made by the Song Clan looked like.

Walking down the stairs, we finally saw what this prison was like.

The whole underground part was a giant cylindrical hole the size of an apartment building. Stairs ran along the walls like a spiral, leading to the unseen dark bottom of the prison. Along the stairs, there were countless cells.

This place was huge, though eerily quiet.

"I would advise you not to look in the cells," the granny said as we climbed down the stairs and were about to encounter our first cell.

But due to my curiosity, I couldn't help but glimpse the cell as we passed.

I had built a tolerance for bloodshed... at least, that was what I had thought... But this was a whole other thing.

It made me want to throw up.

What kind of prison was this?