“Senior brother,” Wang approached Chu, who was sitting quietly on a chair. “They were too strong, I could not win against them.”

Wang watched Chu, sitting without any expression on the chair, saying nothing.

“He did not get erased from the cycle, at least,” Len grumbled. “I bet senior brother would have beat the tribulations if those people did not interfere.”

“He would have defeated all of them,” Xiu barked, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. “They only attacked when he was having the tribulations, cowards!”

Wang nodded, he could feel the power that Chu emitted before. He would’ve probably made them leave, if not defeat them outright. But with him being struck by the tribulation’s lightning bolts…

The other villagers told them about it after they woke up. How Chu was standing in defiance of heaven, how he stood with his back tall and arm pointing at the skies as one bolt after another decimated him.

He was probably tired from fighting the cowards.

“Who were those guys?” Chu asked.

Len shook his head. “I never seen them before,” they looked at Xiu who just grit his teeth in frustration, “they might be a sect that wanted to stop us from starting ours?”

That would be possible.

Wang didn’t even know how their leader managed to take them all down without moving a finger. Was his chi so strong that it just overwhelmed all of them at once? Or was it just their cultivation technique, since he assumed his men didn’t faint.

Perhaps after he got beyond the third step he could resist such an attack. It just felt like it should work.

Len huffed out and left, giving Wang a strange glance as he passed him.

“Where are you going?” Xiu croaked.

“We can stay here all day, mobbing,” Len replied. “I don’t want to.”

“He was our brother,” Xiu hissed.

Even though Wang didn’t manage to stay with the reunited gang for long, he still felt like Len was betraying them, in a way. But he could also understand wanting to go and fill your time with something more productive.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The urge to cultivate won out, eventually, and Wang found himself walking towards the shack, towards the room he used to cultivate. He ignored the death glares that Xiu shot him as he left; there would be no helping Chu if they were all this weak, after all.

He needed to get stronger.

-

Wang continued on pulling threads from the air, turning the yarn ball into a larger version, with larger threads of yarn rolling around the older ones now. The threads twisted into more threads to make the larger pieces of yarn. Made stronger, made more durable, more protective of his core.

And it still made Wang feel troubled.

Something was missing there.

The original dantian… it was so smooth and glass-like, but felt as a strong piece of heavenly metal.

That felt more natural, more… him.

Wang tried to order the threads to become more rigid, or the new dantian to become more compact. He tried ordering it, thinking about it, imagining it. Nothing worked.

“Hey,” the voice interrupted him, and he nearly jumped off his bed. “We need to talk,” Len said.

“What is it?” Wang frowned.

“I don’t think I’ll continue to cultivate,” Len lowered his head.

“What?” Wang blinked. “You shouldn’t stop, we need to get stronger, to protect everyone here, to realize Chu’s dream, to stay together.”

“We will never be together after what happened,” Len glared. “Our failure had consequences. We could never be like we were, before all of this happened. Now we can’t be anything.”

“Why are you saying this?” Wang frowned. It did not seem like the truth, they were set back some, surely, but they will be able to carry on Chu’s dream if they did well enough.

“I feel like I’ve hit a wall that I cannot surpass, there is no way forward for me,” Len admitted.

“I have a cultivation tech-”

“Oh shut up for a moment,” Len said as he fished inside his robes. He took out a couple of scrolls. “The Iron Body techniques. You can have them,” he tossed them his way.

“What, no you can-”

“I will stop cultivating,” Len insisted. “That is my final decision.”

“I see…” Wang lowered his head.

Len just raised his hand and left.

Wang opened the scrolls and examined the drawn techniques, not at all focusing on them. He lost the friends he just regained, and it felt bad.

Same things he was doing, the stance, the strike. Trying to get the feel of being hardened enough to be as strong as iron. Try to get that feeling across your entire body for other parts. And how to refine the energy you collected through-

Wait a minute.

Refine?

Wang watched the images of the glassy core, much like he was thinking earlier. The thing he felt was missing, a very lucky coincidence.

He sat down and tried it.