A light dusting of snow fell over the summit where Li Heng worked through his forms for the ten thousandth time. He’d been at it for the better part of a month, now. Days were spent practicing his sword forms, and nights were spent in cultivation. He’d gone through a pile of spirit stones, and half as many elixirs.

Still he stood at the threshold of late Body Refining. Still he was no closer to forming a Wayborn Seed. As he turned over the thoughts of his failure, of his falling behind, of his inadequacies, his frustration only grew. Eventually, it became too much.

With a shout, he tossed his jian—his grandfather’s sword—to the snow.

Chest heaving and breath puffing out to mist, Li Heng stared at the blade and felt shame. He was better than this, in so many ways.

It was his first real bottleneck, but that wasn’t what bothered him. He’d failed when they were out in the wilds. He’d been a burden. He’d fallen behind, and he’d forced He Yu to put himself in danger to aid him. That was the real crux of things, and he knew it.

The commoner who’d come to the sect with no cultivation and no clue had surpassed him. He’d even taken second place in the tournament, placing higher in the initial rankings in the inner sect. He’d beaten him to late Body Refining. He’d formed a Wayborn Seed without even realizing what it was—and unlike Li Heng, he’d pushed Princess Tan to actually try during their tournament bout.

Envy was too kind a word for too ugly an emotion.

To the west the sun had just touched the mountaintops—both a signal that it was nearly time to begin his cultivation and a reminder of his most recent failures. He stooped to pick up his jian, and again he felt shame. He should know better than to let his emotions get the better of him like this. He was better. At least that’s what he told himself.

After a simple meal, he settled in to cultivate under the stars and the rising moon. He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, and formed the representation of taiji in his mind. He tried to follow Elder Cai’s instruction and seek the ideal that drove his cultivation. Again he didn’t have such a simple path as He Yu.

He could say what he wanted about his friend, but Li Heng couldn’t deny that He Yu’s foolishness about being a hero had served him well. It was an ideal that he’d clung to so firmly that his time at the sect hadn’t disabused him of it. His experiences with the realities of the world of immortals—like when he’d first seen the violence inflicted by King Hao—had only strengthened his commitment to that ideal. After their fight with the bandit king, He Yu had obviously been shaken, but he’d found his way through that.

So Li Heng asked himself, what was his driving ideal? Duty? That had been the first thing he’d tried. It had been the first thing that failed. Foolishly he tried to follow He Yu’s Way shortly after. It hadn’t been much of a surprise when that didn’t work either. Li Heng had never believed himself a hero. He was too pragmatic for that. For that reason, he’d rejected Yan Shirong’s more avaricious approach as well. There needed to be a balance, after all.

That was the crux of his frustration, though. That there needed to be a balance was something he knew deep in his spirit. His training with Old Guo had shown him as much. That insight had allowed him to access the Lunar Mirror Sword Art’s third technique, the Darkmoon Strife. A balance was necessary because it allowed one to be flexible—to adapt to situations as necessary.

A spark of something greater settled in his spirit. A subtle shift occurred with his breathing, his cycling of qi in his meridians. It was nearly enough to shock him out of his cultivation. That was it? Simply acknowledging that he needed to be flexible in his approach to things?

Upon reflection, he had been rigid. He’d clung to ideals of what ought to be for so long—ideals of a noble’s place, of his place. That role had never suited him. It had never fit. It had always felt too restrictive in ways he couldn’t quite describe. For some reason, it had never occurred to him that he could simply shrug those ideas off.

Li Heng focused on the slow rotation of the taiji and advanced to late Body Refining.

* * *

A flame-wreathed fist slammed into Chen Fei’s barrier, shattering it into a thousand pieces. As she sent qi into the characters for another formation with her Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols Art, Ren Huang held up a hand to stop her. She allowed her shoulders to slump, and she looked at a spot on the ground in front of her, bracing for some litany of her failure.

“Come and sit,” he said, his voice the low rumble she’d grown accustomed to since she’d begun her training with him.

She had purchased several training sessions since returning from the wilds, and this was the last she would be able to afford for some time. Although Ren Huang’s instruction on the finer points of formation work had allowed her to considerably strengthen her barriers, she was no closer to discovering the ideal Elder Cai had told her to seek. At least she’d managed to break into late Body Refining. Chen Fei sat on the ground near where Ren Huang leaned back against a tree and instinctively began to cycle the rich qi of the inner sect mountain.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“The problem isn’t with your formation work,” he said at length. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

It was something she’d been avoiding talking about. Not just with Ren Huang, but with Tan Xiaoling as well. She’d been avoiding thinking about it too much, too. If she was unable to form a Wayborn Seed, she could at least focus on what she was already capable of.

Rather than speak, she simply nodded. The silence dragged on, and she could feel the weight of Ren Huang’s attention. Finally, he spoke again.

“Why formations?” he asked.

“It’s what I’m good at,” she answered automatically.

“You’ve taken the White Mountain Body Art further than anyone else in the Third Realm has ever managed,” he said. “You’re well on your way to mastery there. So I’ll ask again, why formations?”

That gave her pause. He was right, after all. The White Mountain Body Art had served her well, and she had advanced it considerably. Her natural affinities of earth, metal, and mountain were the same ones the art cultivated. She had effectively mastered the art’s first technique, the Eternal Mountain Root the previous winter while she was still at Foundation. The art’s second technique, the Iron Fortress Redoubt, had come almost as easily. With her quick grasp of the first two techniques, she had been able to glimpse the art’s third technique—the Titan Panoply—and then actually use it, if only for a brief time.

So why the formations, then? Why was that her focus?

“I want to be able to help,” she said.

“Again, you could help just as easily with your proficiency in the White Mountain Body Art.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. The problem with the White Mountain Body Art was that it only worked on her. Sure, she could put herself between her friends and any danger, but she could only be in one place at a time. With her barriers, she could protect multiple people at once. Or the same person from multiple attacks. Or any combination of the two.

“I don’t want the people I care about getting hurt,” she said.

It wasn’t as though the words were any sort of shocking revelation. They weren’t anything that she hadn’t thought to herself a hundred times over. But it was a sentiment she’d never given voice to. Maybe she’d thought her friends would think her foolish. They were all immortals, after all. Perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Not to mention that the lives they’d all chosen thrust them into danger. Getting hurt was part of the bargain.

Speaking something, no matter how true, had a way of making it real. A certainty settled over her. There wasn’t anything silly in wanting to protect people. In wanting to keep those she cared about safe. It was simply a part of who she was.

As she marveled at the sense of rightness that accompanied her acknowledgment of a truth she’d just assumed she accepted, she was vaguely aware of Ren Huang’s retreating footfalls.

* * *

Winter dragged on, and Sha Xiang found herself spending more and more time managing petulant nobles. Between Da Ning and Mo Zhiqiang, they had managed to gather another half dozen or so to their cause. These newest followers—no, subjects, the core reminded her—were all kept ignorant of the Sunset Court. Other than herself and Bao, only Da Ning knew where their flow of resources came from.

To his credit, Da Ning had been suitably impressed when he was finally brought before Emissary Kong Huizhong. After the meeting, he hadn’t stopped blathering about Emissary Kong’s power the whole way back to the Shrouded Peaks Sect. Fifth Realm. Such a presence. Such nobility. It had made Sha Xiang want to tear out his tongue, if only to get him to shut up until he could track down a pill to regrow it.

The meeting had done its job, though. It had cemented Da Ning’s service to the Sunset Court—to her—and had given her Emissary Kong’s approval for moving forward. It had been strange to see the way the demon core acted around Kong Huizhong, though.

Normally it would constantly whisper to her. Either telling her how much better she was than those around her, or urging her to show her strength, and remind the others of who was on top. Put them in their place. But with the emissary? It bowed—and not in the craven way that it had shrunk back and hid when Xiao Jun had been the one looming over her.

It recognized something within Kong Huizhong. It regarded the emissary as being like itself, and to Sha Xiang’s surprise, it regarded the emissary as its superior. Not simply in power, although Kong Huizhong was certainly strong enough to crush anyone in the Shrouded Peaks Sect aside from the elders and a few of the core disciples. No, it was a matter of status. Which was odd, because the demon core didn’t regard anyone else as having higher status than itself, regardless of relative strength.

Sha Xiang returned from her thoughts and regarded the scene before her. Mo Zhiqiang stood victorious over his opponent and was presently demanding they open their storage treasure. Given his rank in the inner sect, and his advancement when she’d first brought him into her circle, she’d thought the noble would have been more of a fighter. She’d been wrong.

It had taken her some work to whip the soft and lazy noble into shape. She’d beaten him within an inch of his life many times during training, then beaten him within half an inch when he whined about it. But the training had paid off. Now he could back up all his talk. Which had dramatically increased his value to her.

Although he’d only begrudgingly parted with his wealth at first, once she’d shown him what disobedience brought, he’d been more than happy to fund the expansion of their group. Which meant that she could now hoard most of the resources Emissary Kong gave them for herself.

Since she’d been gracing Mo Zhiqiang with her personal attention, he’d begun to see it as an investment on his part. Over the course of a single season, she’d brought him more strength than he’d managed to gain for himself during his entire time in the inner sect.

Yes, the core assured her, things were going better than either of them could have hoped. Soon, they would have it all.