It was well past dark by the time He Yu and Chen Fei had finished catching up. She had reached late Foundation over the winter, cultivating higher up on the outer sect mountain. Even though she could have returned once she’d slain the spirit bear, she had elected to stay.

At first, it had simply been to give the hide time to cure before she had it fashioned into the defensive treasure she now wore. She stayed because the qi was much better for her cultivation base up there, and because she needed time to cycle the bear’s core after consuming it. It was mostly earth-aspected, with traces of mountain, so it was fully compatible with her own alignment of earth, metal, and mountain.

When it was He Yu’s time to relay what he’d been up to, she listened attentively, remarking at his fortune both in meeting Old Guo, and the storm spirit, Yongnian. She said the new robe suited him.

Although he recounted the majority of his time away in all the detail she asked after, he did leave out the final portion of their encounter with King Hao. He had a feeling that there was good reason Zhang Lifen had stopped him from speaking of the Dawn Palace and all its associated mysteries whenever they had come up.

If he’d needed any real proof of the danger involved, it had been that distant bloody presence that had claimed King Hao after his death. He needed to hear back from the investigations Li Heng and Yan Shirong conducted with their own families before he’d be comfortable sharing more.

As nice as it was to catch up, it was getting late and He Yu needed to enter seclusion. He had a mountain of spirit stones burning a hole in his storage treasure, and he was itching to use them.

“Good luck!” she said as he stood to leave. “Hopefully I’ll be able to join you in the Third Realm soon.”

He Yu stopped and turned. “That reminds me,” he said, not entirely sure how to broach the subject. “Are you going to be participating in the summer tournament?”

Although he knew that she didn’t like fighting the other disciples, a tournament had to be different, right? It wouldn’t be like they’d be really fighting. The idea of leaving her behind in the outer sect was one he didn’t want to have to face down.

“I hadn’t made up my mind,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough. Xiaoling says I’m selling myself short.”

One of the mid-grade spirit stones manifested from He Yu’s storage treasure, and he shoved it into her hands. “Here. Use this to break through.”

Chen Fei’s eyes bugged out at the stone. It was about the size of one of her fingers and glowing with a pale soft light. “I can’t,” she said, holding the stone out for him to take back.

“No,” he said. “You used expensive medicine on me twice, now.”

A small crease appeared between her brows. “I said you didn’t need to pay me back for that.”

“Then it’s a gift.”

“I can’t—”

“I don’t want to leave you behind,” he blurted out. Then, before he could regret it, or lose his nerve, he added, “I’d miss you if you stayed in the outer sect.” He kicked at a nonexistent rock on the flagstones.

For a second, she looked like she was choking on something. Then she looked away, and said, “Thank you. I’ll make sure to put it to good use.” He thought he could see a bit of a flush creeping into her cheeks.

As he made his way back to his home, he mentally kicked himself for being so awkward. It really wasn’t a big deal. He’d had such amazing fortune in his time away from the sect. While no merchant himself, he didn’t doubt that the robe Yongnian had given him was worth at least as much. And with the mountain of low-grade stones he had stuffed in his storage treasure, he probably had several mid-grade stones’ worth if he wanted to exchange them anyway.

Arriving home, he changed out of his good robe and went to the cultivation chamber on his side of the house. Li Heng was likely already secluded in closed-door cultivation, and He Yu was eager to do the same. Upon taking his elixirs, energy surged through his meridians and churned in his dantian.

As he’d been instructed by the alchemist at the outer sect market, he took the Five Phases Refinement Pill first. The balanced aspects of the pill’s ingredients would generally increase his ability to absorb and circulate qi, as well as make it easier to tolerate the higher-grade medicines he’d be taking afterward.

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The Flashing Cloud Elixir came next. His own aspects were more strongly aligned with wind and heaven thanks to his cultivation of the Five Crescent Winds and the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, so bolstering those first would further prevent an imbalance. A chill rushed through his meridians, followed by a prickly crackle. Before long, the sensation concentrated within his dantian, causing a strange sensation he could only describe as a cold buzzing to radiate outward from his spiritual center.

Finally, he ate the Hundred-Year Water Lilly. Soothing water qi gushed through his meridians and quenched the buzzing from the Flashing Cloud Elixir. The churning aspects seemed to knit themselves together into a unified amalgamation that settled into his cultivation base like slipping on a set of familiar and comfortable clothes.

He Yu began to cultivate the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment. The technique opened his inner sight to a vast collection of memories and insights—all the knowledge of his self that he’d been collecting over these months, but hadn’t yet had time to properly sort through.

His journey from the sect, accompanied by Li Heng and Yan Shirong. He noticed things now that had passed him by at the time. The snide remarks that Yan Shirong had made, and the tone he’d used that was part mocking, part judgmental, and laced with an undercurrent of envy. The slow but steady grudging respect that had formed as he spent more time with He Yu. The frowns Li Heng had given him after their fight with the serpent. The way he’d leaped at any opportunity—however small—to take the lead in the group’s decisions.

He remembered his time with Old Guo and Yongnian. As he trained his presence, his spirit fed his body and he became stronger and faster. The benefits of that training were redoubled once he gained the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. Hundreds of tiny insights, half-forgotten, flooded back to him.

He recalled in incredible detail the tiny ways Old Guo shifted before he struck or the way his muscles bunched before he transitioned from a dodge or a block into an attack. All the ways in which the old cultivator steadied himself before he simply weathered a strike from He Yu’s guandao. He noticed all the ways in which that month of near-constant sparring with a foe a full realm above him had refined the techniques he’d been using into weapons worthy of an immortal.

Those lessons fed into his fight with King Hao. The bandit king, such an insurmountable opponent that the first time they’d faced him, they had been forced to run after only a brief exchange. He had been almost laughable the second time they fought. Until he called out to his Empress—and until she had claimed him for her own.

The sense of revulsion that arose at that memory nearly disrupted his cultivation and expelled him from his meditations. The overwhelming sense of possession and want that carried with it a grasping wrongness unsettled him in a way that he couldn’t quite place.

It was difficult to fathom really, and some instinctive part of him recognized that whatever he might be able to gain from contemplating it was far beyond his current advancement—both with regard to his cultivation base and his insight into his Way.

As his contemplations turned more firmly to his Way, the sight of the ruined village returned, with its burnt homes and bodies left for the scavengers. The second village, that had suffered the same fate. The boy looking up at him brought all the questions he’d not previously been able to answer flooding back.

Within all that had happened, within the killing and the strife, could he find justice? During the journey back to the sect, he’d returned to that question and the others that surrounded it many times. He still didn’t have an answer. In the times they’d stopped to cultivate, he sought answers within the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment but found none.

It had bothered him, and the longer he went without answers, the more troubled he became. What was the judgment of an emperor for, if not to discern justice? He asked himself that question hundreds of times in the days they spent traveling. Each time he asked, he found nothing. His art had no answers for him. He was on his own.

His dantian pulsed, then constricted. The pressure he’d been feeling increased a thousand-fold, and for a moment he was afraid his spiritual core would burst, crippling his cultivation. He Yu wrestled his qi back under control and cycled it in accordance with the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment. The judgment of an emperor. The judgment he was cultivating.

The insight hit him like a bolt from the heavens. This was his Way. He would never simply be handed the answers to his most pressing questions. It was his path to seek those answers out. To test them against his ideals. To determine what it meant to be just, to be a hero—what it meant to cultivate the peerless judgment of an emperor.

The qi of the Heavenly Palace art surged through his meridians. Impurities were forced out as his qi carved into the channels, infusing his muscles and bones. Strength like he’d never known flooded his limbs, even as he sat and cultivated. Dozens of tiny aches he hadn’t even known he had disappeared, apparent only through their now-absence.

His dantian compressed like it had with his previous advancements, but his qi surged and his cultivation base remained. The density of his qi was more than double what it had been before his breakthrough. He briefly ached for the lost opportunity—if he had been able to spend the remainder of his one-year allotment at the peak of Foundation, how strong of a breakthrough could he have managed?

He Yu gagged, then retched. He opened his eyes to confirm what he’d already felt. He was covered in the black sludge of his impurities. There must be buckets of it covering him. As he stood, he took a moment to marvel at the power he felt in his new body. Well, not strictly new, but close enough.

He didn’t bother to wipe the stupid grin off his face as he stepped into the world once more.