Yulin silently snarled. He placed both me and the sword on the ground. I frantically waved my eye tentacles, crying out, ‘Elder sister Harl! What are you saying!’

‘What? A boy needs motivation. Besides, his stoic face is really pissing me off. Look, he’s getting all protective over you. Isn’t that cute?’ Harl grinned.

I took a peek at Yulin’s face. It was true. When he looked so angry at the thought of someone taking me away, it made my little snail heart flutter just a bit. But I wonder if it said anything that Yulin had no human friends and was so attached to me, his pet snail.

The image had an unpleasant atmosphere.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not bullying him for no reason,’ Harl assured me. “So! If you’re just about ready, I think we can start, don’t you?” Clasping her hands behind her back, she winked. “Just one hit. Not so hard, is it? Unless you want me to take that snail from you?”

His eyes twisting, Yulin charged at her.

I shivered at the cold smile on Harl’s face. When Yulin came into range, she moved at the speed of light. Blood choked out of Yulin’s mouth as Harl rammed her foot into Yulin’s stomach, launching him into the trees.

“Ohhh~ My bad~~ Did I make it seem like I was just going to stand there?” She laughed loudly while holding a hand to her mouth like a villainess. Yulin, collapsed on the ground and covered in tree branches, weakly flinched.

Yulin! My immediate instinct was to race over and heal him, but an enormous pressure weighed me down. The message from Harl was clear: ‘Don’t interfere.’

“Was that it? Oh well. Guess it’s time for me to take my prize. And what’s this?” Harl stepped forward to Yulin’s things. She picked up the sword and unraveled the cloth around it. She held it up to the light, angling it this way and that. “Oh~ Not bad. This is a pretty decent sword. I’ll be taking this too.”

In an instant Yulin appeared at Harl’s feet, his hand outstretched to take back the sword. Without blinking an eye Harl backhanded him, sending Yulin tumbling onto the ground.

“What, are you stupid? Are you some brainless pig that only knows how to charge using brute force?” Harl clicked her tongue.

Firmly gripping the sword, Harl waved it in the air. A trail of ripples followed the blade’s path, making the world appear as if underwater.

“Since you don’t know the first thing about using this sword, let me show you how it’s done.” Grinning, Harl darted forward and flashily swung. Though it wouldn’t be known to anyone else, I knew that she purposefully moved at an exaggeratedly slow pace. In this fraction of a second, Yulin rolled out of the blade’s path. The ground below where he had been and the bushes and trees in the back erupted into a cloud of dust and mist, the force of the blade so powerful that it pulverized them.

The water droplets in the air condensed into a couple of glistening pearls. The pearls orbited Harl’s body.

There was a split-second pause as Harl allowed Yulin to stare at the destruction in shock. She raised the sword again and struck. Channeling qi to his legs, Yulin jumped out of the way. Another explosion tore apart the ground and forest, and another few pearls rose from the remains to circle Harl.

“Is your qi only good for letting you jump like a jackrabbit? Ah! How disappointing. Like that, you don’t even know how I’m using my power to control the sword. You can run with your feet and punch with your fists, but you haven’t bothered to train your eyes or your brain. With that kind of sightless and mindless life, you’re not any better than a worm. In fact, you’re not any better than an amoeba!” With a cruel laugh Harl continued to slash at the air, forcing Yulin to dodge and tumble across the increasingly scarred shrine yard. Sweat poured down his face, the intensity and pressure emanating from Harl putting his body under extreme stress. More and more pearls accumulated around Harl, looking like underwater bubbles frozen in the air. They moved in waves, swaying in a rhythmic pattern.

Yulin’s movements became strange, his focus seemingly diverted. He hesitated at some points, and moved jarringly at others. When he stood in front of Harl he darted toward her side, but before he could get within arm’s distance of her his sleeve accidentally brushed one of the pearls. The pearl burst open, spreading ice across Yulin’s arm. He fell to the ground and hissed in pain, the flesh turning a chilly dark blue.

“Ah~ That’s bad for you~ Touching one of these li’l things will give you frostbite. If you don’t treat it you might even lose your limbs, you know?” Harl savagely grinned, twirling the shiny sword with a despotic air.

‘Elder sister!!’ I harshly bucked against the pressure placed on me, but Harl didn’t relent one bit.

‘Shut up, he won’t actually lose an arm,’ she replied with annoyance. ‘… Probably.’ She considered, ‘Well, even if he does, I can make him grow it back. My experiments with the newts and lizards turned out really well.’

Forget not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I was definitely crying.

Yulin bowed his head, his dark bangs casting a shadow over his eyes. Crouched on the ground, he was unnervingly still. Harl merely gazed at him dispassionately, the sword still twirling around in her hand, the ripples flowing back and forth, the sea of pearls swaying in the air.

I silently despaired. With that many orbs forming a cage around Harl, it would be impossible to reach her.

Yulin’s breathing picked up.

A faint surge of spiritual power flowed around him.

I stuck my eyes out as far as they could go. C-Could it be…?

‘Why are you so amazed? He only figured it out because I pushed him so much.’ Pouting, Harl slashed the sword again in Yulin’s direction. Instead of dodging to the side, however, Yulin dove straight forward.

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It was at the moment that Harl swung the sword that the pearls around her parted, making way for the fan-shaped surge of energy which exploded from the sword. Yulin, charging ahead, angled himself to just barely scrape by. His clothes tattered and frayed from close proximity to the sizzling blast; small pinpricks of blood started to flow from his front; yet Yulin didn’t waver, his gaze resolutely on Harl.

A slight smile formed at the corners of Harl’s lips. She slid backwards, deftly dodging Yulin’s kick and releasing the sword. Yulin’s hand, which had been reaching for her arm, changed direction and snatched the sword out of the air.

A kickback of power burned Yulin’s arm. Too much energy was needed to maintain the hundreds of orbs in the air. They exploded, popping like bubbles.

“Oh~ Not bad,” Harl complimented, smiling at the gasping and pained Yulin. “So you finally figured out how to ‘see’ and ‘think’. How does it feel to use your neglected channels? It’s burning you up inside, right? Makes you wanna die?” She giggled as if she had just said something hilarious. Trembling, Yulin tightened his grip around the sword’s hilt. The energy he poured inside the sword spiked and quavered wildly, completely opposite to how Harl had dominated the sword with a control so smooth that it was as if the energy didn’t move at all.

But Yulin didn’t give up. Gathering all of his strength, he swung the sword.

Harl raised an eyebrow at the uncontrolled blast headed her way.

‘I… guess that’s not too bad for a first try?’ she asked indecisively.

‘Of course it’s good!’ I hastily defended. However, I, who lazily dozed all my life, had never even held a sword in my hand. How was I supposed to know what a beginner’s sword technique should look like?

Holding a finger to her lips, Harl considered Yulin’s attack. After a moment’s deliberation, she judged: ‘Eh, whatever, it’s good enough.’ She turned and flew off right before the blast struck her.

When the dust cleared, Yulin stared in shock at the empty space in front of him. To him, it seemed as if Harl had completely disappeared.

“I suppose you had a decent performance,” Harl’s voice echoed in the air. Yulin spun around, searching for the origin, but saw nothing. Harl was already far away. “But really, you were taking too long. You didn’t even get a hit in. You know how boring it is to beat up someone who can’t fight back? It’s so boring! I got bored! Next time you better make it more interesting, or I really won’t hold back!”

I wanted to faceplant.

Elder sister… You put us through so much trouble and now you’re nonchalantly running back like it had nothing to do with you??

‘Hey hey, I was doing you a favor,’ she told me, feeling the conflicted emotions in my aura. ‘You interfered when his village was getting ransacked by bandits. If it weren’t for you, he would’ve had his first kill already. He’d know how it feels to take a life and the desperation which comes from almost losing his own. But instead, because of you, he ended up this wimpy and inexperienced of a kid! I’m just giving him a taste of what he should aspire to, okay?’

…

After getting scolded with truths, I could only bow my head.

The blue barrier shattered. The sound of the city’s bustle returned: the murmuring of distant voices, the clatter of carriages on stone paths, the occasional strike of metal. Yulin stood alone at the ruined shrine, fatigued and battle-weary, his body wobbling and unable to stand upright.

With Harl’s pressure gone, I quickly crawled over to Yulin. Seeing my approach, a faint helpless expression crossed Yulin’s face. He bent over to pick me up but lost balance. Fainting as he fell, Yulin collapsed in a sprawl on the ground. I just barely avoided getting smushed.

This was no good… Yulin wouldn’t be able to properly rest if he slept out in the open here. I analyzed his state with my senses. When I was sure that he wouldn’t wake up anytime soon, I changed into my human form and picked him up. I speedily flew through the city, landing outside the window of the inn room. That nervous guy, Lauran, was muttering to himself in the corner again. I sent a small mental push to make him even more absent-minded and quietly climbed in through the window. I laid Yulin into bed, carefully removing his tattered clothes so that they wouldn’t get stuck in his wounds.

He was in a sorry state, blood oozing from his front and his arm blue with frostbite. Pulling a bottle of salve from my sleeve, I applied the concentrated medicine onto his body. His wounds instantly began to seal, his body easily absorbing and making use of the spiritual power within the salve. This kind of medicine was most useful for cultivators; normal humans couldn’t fully take in the medicine, meaning most of its effects were lost. Yulin was able to use this medicine at about 20% efficiency, so I was relieved that he would be fully recuperated by tomorrow.

After slathering Yulin up with medicine, I waited for all of his surface wounds to heal. An hour or two passed until the last scar disappeared. I tucked a blanket around Yulin’s shoulders and shifted back into snail, crawling onto the pillow to nestle in the crook of his neck. Warm and relieved, I easily fell into sleep.

“We’re back!”

Vita threw open the door, Troy and Derrus trailing behind her. She froze upon seeing Yulin in his bed. Her panicked eyes darted away and swiveled around the room.

Stiffly backing away, Vita bumped into Troy, who craned his head around to peek at what startled her. He snorted and gave her a shove. “Stop blocking the damned door.”

“Shut up,” she muttered nervously. Squeezing herself against the side of the hall, she gave a fake smile. “You can go first!”

Troy shot her a look which said, Seriously?

Derrus sighed. Sliding past Troy, he entered the room and looked around for the heinous snail which caused their group leader so much discomfort. Spotting the shell peeking out past Yulin’s shoulder, he turned and beckoned quietly. “It’s over here.” He pointed at Yulin’s sleeping head.

Vita cringed, a revolted expression on her face. Troy rolled his eyes and stomped into the room. Having been left alone in the hallway, Vita began to sweat. Troy and Derrus shared a look of vague disappointment and resignation.

“Okay, you can do this, you can totally do this…” Hearing the crazed muttering from the hall, they sighed in unison.

Shaking his head, Derrus went over to Lauran, who hadn’t reacted to their return but wasn’t psyching himself out as usual, either. “You feeling okay, Lauran?” Derrus lightly shook the limp Lauran’s shoulder. The boy flinched and fell over, his limbs flying akimbo. “Whoa!” Derrus quickly supported him.

“Huh?” Lauran blinked sleepily at Derrus’s face. “Wha? You guys’re back?” he slurred. Right after saying that, he passed out, drooling like a sloven drunk.

Troy whistled, already sitting and unraveling the bandages on his fists. “Man, told you he’d knock himself out one of these days.”

Derrus sighed again. Dragging Lauran over to a bed, he said dismally, “Even I’m starting to think we’re a lost cause.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Done taking off the bandages, Troy flexed his meaty hands, the scarred red skin rippling. The aura around him strengthened, clear and brilliant in comparison to the mediocre atmosphere he had before. “We’re not here to go all out. These dumbasses don’t have to pull their shit together if they don’t want to.”

Derrus shrugged. “Still, I don’t like it. It sucks how the big sects are throwing their weight around. Half the preliminaries were cut because some jerks went around ‘cleaning up’ the streets last night. Two hundred people – dead, just like that. And no one cares ‘cause Clear Water passed over it and said it didn’t matter.”

Troy rolled his eyes. “So Clear Water did it, right?”

“Yep,” Derrus said, popping the p. “In hindsight, makes me glad that Vita invited that guy over.” He tilted his head in Yulin’s direction.

Glancing over, Troy nodded. “Guy like that? They’d have to get rid of him.” He snorted. “Can’t let the precious little geniuses get upstaged by a sectless cultivator. His level’s as high as theirs.”

Derrus grimaced in response. Really, Yulin sure was lucky to have dodged that blow. “I just hope there isn’t any more trouble for the rest of the competition,” Derrus sighed.

With a distressed look, Troy helplessly said, “Dude. You just jinxed it.”