Now that Jon was no longer in a rush, he began to wander a little on his journey back to the Jian clan. It was a new world, after all. He could not deny that he was interested in it. The night was cool, but the full moon made travel and some small instances of exploration possible. The trees that dotted the left-side of the road, for instance, were oddly warm, like living flesh. Their bark was scaly and smelt faintly of vanilla. Strangest of all, Jon swore he could feel a heartbeat when he laid his palm against the trunks.

He never strayed too far from the road, but he began to find… things. Sometimes they were manmade: A traveler’s lost bag or an iridescent medicinal pill lying in the weeds. Other times, they were natural: a waist-high tree that bore only a single, fist-sized fruit glistening with dew. Jian Chen’s memories turned up a blank, but after plucking it, he felt compelled to eat it. He brought the fruit to his mouth and bit into it. It had a strange consistency, like a mango. Without thinking, he devoured the fruit down to only a single, dime-sized seed. Aside from the sweet aftertaste and the surprising fact that he did not feel satiated whatsoever, there was nothing else of note. Shrugging, he tossed the naked seed into his recently acquired travel bag and carried on.

Not even twenty steps later.

“Who…?” A voice whispered to him from deep in the trees. Jon sighed and turned to face it. Locating a disembodied voice should not have been so easy, yet it came naturally.

The voice continued whispering to him, “Do you… dare to inherit the legacy of Daoist Foursword…?”

Jon had no reaction. The voice appeared to interpret this as shock. It continued: “Calm yourself, young one. My legacy lies here.” Along with the fading voice, a wisp of ghostly light slipped into his head. The wisp forcibly implanted a memory in his mind, revealing the location of the inheritance—down to the precise details. As convenient as it was, the sensation was unpleasant in a kind of way that he had never experienced and so lacked the words to describe. He had no desire to experience it again.

“How’d you do that?” He asked, to no one in particular.

“My time is waning, young one. You must not tarry,” The voice whispered back, weaker than before.

Typical.

With the new memory as his guide, Jon made a beeline to the inheritance ground. Naturally he was cautious, but given his measly strength, it was probably doing him no favors. The inheritance was deeper in the forest than he was comfortable with. If it were not for the memory, he would not have strayed so far from the relative safety of the road.

Persevering through the thicket and the loose branches that persistently caught in his robes, Jon eventually arrived at a clearing. Freeing himself from a branch stuck in the shoulder strap of his travel bag, he took a wide step to span the remaining brush. Looking back the way he came, the road was no longer visible, but he could probably just walk in a straight line until he exited the forest. Worst case, he could just climb a tree for a better vantage point.

His attention returned to the clearing. The ground was blanketed in verdant, blueish-green grass that caught the moonlight in such a way that the blades turned soft, even fluffy. In the middle of the clearing was a mossy stone slab with faded markings inscribed across the surface. Not far above, a ghostly figure floated in the air. Jon could not make out its face, but it appeared to be a man. It was within the bounds of what he was expecting, so he was not too surprised. After so many years of being desensitized to fantasy through film and literature, it was difficult to treat the ghost as anything but a trick of the light. He felt like he was in an amusement park.

“Don’t be afraid, young one. I mean you no harm,” The ghost assured him, “I deactivated the illusion array guarding this place. Lift the stone tablet and retrieve your inheritance from beneath it.”

Jon followed the voice’s instructions. If not for the sunshine breathing technique, this would have been a challenge. The stone slab weighed at least 90 pounds, but he handled it easily enough despite his scrawny body. After lifting it up so that it was perpendicular to the ground, he gave it a gentle push and let it fall backwards. It hit the ground with a muffled thump.

Brushing away a few ordinary looking grubs, Jon pulled a palm-sized bamboo container out of the ground. It was worn, but sturdy. Back on Earth he was the proud owner of a little garden that he had nurtured all throughout university, but he had never personally grown bamboo shoots before as they were much too big for his little garden to handle. He ran his fingers along the protruding ridge—a “node”—he recalled from some documentary. The plant was strange but familiar, just like this world. His eyes glazed over a little and he suddenly felt very… alone. He missed his apartment. He missed his ex, Lea. He missed his little garden. It was doomed to wither and die without him.

“Getting emotional?” The ghostly voice pulled him from his thoughts, “When you completely inherit my legacy, you will be undefeatable under heaven, a lion amongst sheep, indomitable—”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jon uncapped the bamboo container and shook the contents out into his waiting palm. There was a necklace with four finger-length wooden swords. Presumably some sort of life-saving treasure, which the voice confirmed.

“I fashioned that necklace to guarantee the life of my inheritor. Each sword contains a fragment of my full power.”

Jon put it on, feeling a connection with the four swords the moment he did. Looking back to his palm, he picked up one of the four identical pills.

The voice enlightened him, “Ascending-Dragon Pills,” The voice laughed, “Are you aware of how many people would hunt you down to the ends of the land to obtain just one of those?”

Jon shrugged.

“Forget it. At your level, its arrogance to even think about those powerhouses” The voice prodded, “now, see those grubs that were hiding beneath the stone?”

“Mhm.” Jon kneeled down, examining the fleshy white creatures wriggling about in the sodden earth. As a gardener (hobbyist) himself, he was not very fond of them.

“Those are Heaven-usurping Dragon grubs,” the voice continued, “When I was alive, consuming these grubs was the only known method of raising a human’s natural talent.”

Talent!

What is talent?

Talent decided a man’s worth from birth! It was karma! Fate! Talent could turn a child into an emperor! It brought kingdoms and empires to their knees and—

—Jon was not interested. If he was right, and this world adhered to common cultivation tropes, then talent was worthless, a token hurdle for the protagonist to overcome in the early stages of his cultivation career. In truth, the only thing that mattered was how many medicinal pills he could snarf down. The more he ate, the higher his power level would rise.

“Not interested.” Jon stood back up, depositing the bamboo container into his travel bag.

“What?” The ghost did a double take “Did you mishear me, young one? These are heaven-defying grubs that can raise your natural talent! Think carefully before you spit on this opportunity.”

“Nah,” Jon said, waving the ghost off.

“You…!” The ghost’s voice was tinged with anger, “...Not going to eat? Then you can forget about leaving!”

Jon ignored the ghost and started walking back the way he came. He walked for around a minute before stopping. He looked back at the displaced stone slab, then back at the forest line. He had not moved an inch, despite walking, as he perceived, in a straight line. Grumbling, he sat down in place. 'What an annoying inheritance,' he thought, lying down on his back. Whether it was an illusion or not, the grass was unnaturally comfy. It was not inferior to any bed he had used on Earth.

“…What are you doing?” The ghost asked.

“Sometimes,” Jon yawned “The only way to win is not to play.” He eased his body into the soft grass. He still had energy from cultivating, but he wouldn’t mind spending the night here, regardless. The cloudless night sky was a feast for his eyes.

“Eat them!” The ghost screamed “Eat them, or else I will never let you leave! You will die here and no one will ever find your—”

“Look, dude.” Jon interrupted the ghost’s ranting “I’m not eating any grubs. So, find another chump to possess or mindfuck or whatever.”

“Why… Why will you not eat…?” Perhaps it was just his personality in life, or maybe it was the fact that he was dead, but the ghost of Daoist Foursword began sobbing ghostly tears.

“Common sense? What else could a ghost want? Not to mention, you didn’t waste time teaching me any techniques, guess that means you didn’t intend for me to survive—”

The ghost twitched

“—or maybe it was just a lucky guess?” Jon laughed.

“I… I WILL possess your body!”

“Really?” He sat up.

“YES!” The ghost shrieked and lunged at him

A ray of blue sword light lit up the grove and the surrounding trees, decapitating the ghost immediately. One of the four wooden swords hanging around Jon’s necklace crumbled to ash, staining the top of his sackcloth tunic and some of the skin beneath.

Jon laughed. “Say that before you give me the lifesaving treasures, dumbass.”

“NO…OOoo…ooooo” The ghost’s headless body stumbled around blindly. Its severed head fell onto a patch of grass not far from where Jon was sitting. It did not appear to be in any physical pain. Existential anguish, perhaps.

“The world… The immortal world will know the name of Daoist Foursword!” The ghost’s headless body was on its knees, arms splayed up to the heavens. “I… I cannot die here. I barely lived! Where is my kingdom? Where are my beauties? My blood brothers? My heavenly tribulation? My ascendence?” The severed head’s face was angled up at the heavens. Wispy Tears and ectoplasm coursed down its cheek. Eyes wide, it was as if they could pierce through the firmament to see immortals fighting, phoenixes rising and dragons soaring. The body’s hands trembled in the air, grasping at things they could not reach.

Jon followed his gaze up. All he saw was the night sky. This being a different world, it was presumably different from the one he could see from earth, but he was no astronomer and the differences were lost on him. What did strike him was how bright the stars were—much brighter than what he could see from his little apartment in the city, surrounded by constant artificial light that washed out the sky’s natural luster.

They sat in silence for a while, just watching the sky.

“Hey,” Jon said.

There was no response.

“Foursword,” He said, louder.

There was silence, but the ghostly head eventually responded, “…what?”

“That big red one,” Jon pointed up at a red star, much brighter than the others, “Do you have a name for it?”.

The ghost head was silent again, but a response eventually came “…the Eye of the Emperor,” it muttered “…legend has it that…” The ghost paused. It chuckled sadly, then sighed, “…who cares about legends anyways? That star existed long before humans did.”

Jon nodded, committing the name to memory. “Are you afraid of death?” He asked.

“No,” the ghost head stated flatly “I prepared myself for it all those years ago, when I first stepped onto the road of cultivation. I just never thought—” The ghost’s words trailed off, too quiet for Jon to hear.

“What about being forgotten?” Jon asked.

The head stayed silent for a few seconds before responding, a little venom seeping into his words: “Enough with the personal questions, young one. We are not friends. You killed me.”

“Fair,” Jon said.

Aside from the rustling of the tree branches in the cool breeze, it was quiet. Foursword’s ghostly form soundlessly dissipated.

And then he was gone.

Jon sat alone in the moonlit clearing. Not far from him, the little grubs lay dead.