Despite it being terribly rude, He Yu blasted through the inner sect on the winds of the Sky Dragon’s Flight on his way home. He couldn’t find it within himself to care. He’d been stuck at the early stage of the Fourth Realm for what seemed like an eternity. Within his storage treasure, he held an elixir. An elixir that had been created for him. Specifically, to push him to the middle stage.

Arriving at his home, he fetched his remaining mid-grade stones. Then he went directly to his cultivation chamber. He withdrew the scripted medicine box containing the elixir. When he cracked the lid open, qi practically flooded his cultivation chamber. The orange-red pellet that sat upon a pillow of silk looked so mundane. Just a dull little ball, the color of cinnabar, barely the size of a thumbnail. But in his spiritual sight, it shone like a sun.

The elixir’s scent was that of a summer thunderstorm. The fresh smell of new rain and the sharp scent of lightning filled the chamber. His head practically swam with the impression of dark, rolling clouds, driving sheets of rain, and brilliant flashes of lighting. The hair on his arms stood on end, and he could feel a tingle run down his spine as he sat in the chamber’s center.

When he placed the elixir in his mouth and bit down, qi flooded his entire being. It rushed through his meridians and raged at the furthest knife-edge of his control. It was all he could do to produce his mid-grade stone and cradle it in his palms as he settled in to cycle the raging spiritual energy coursing through him. He Yu closed his eyes, and the world fell away.

The gates of the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace opened. He stood at the top of a stair of unfathomable length. Below, for as far as he could see in any direction, lay a blanket of black clouds. Within those clouds, heaven’s fury flashed, and the distant rumble of thunder rolled over him like a wave. Three golden pillars rose to infinity in the distance, each of them crackling with yet more of heaven’s power. Moving within the expanse of clouds, He Yu thought he caught glimpses of a giant, serpentine figure. It was so unfathomably large that his mind recoiled at the sight, and turned away from trying to contemplate it any further.

As the incredible power of Yi Xiurong’s elixir coursed through him, He Yu turned the Peerless Judgment upon himself. He stood at the top of the golden stair, the palace itself to his back. The pillars of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering rose to heaven on three sides. The Five Crescent Winds churned around him and below. In his spiritual center, his core pulsed.

By now, the process had become reflexive. He could perform the required condensation of his cultivation base with barely a sliver of his attention. A good thing, as the splendor of what lay before him—and the insights it contained—required far more concentration.

He Yu stood at a crossroads. Two paths lay before him. Either would shape his future, and have a profound influence on his Way. He could continue to pursue greater advancement and greater power. That pursuit had gotten him to where he was now—the youngest Golden Core in the sect. A monster in the making, ascending the realms of cultivation faster than anyone he’d ever known. Should he continue like this, his desire to become a legend would be guaranteed.

Standing atop a mountain, his companions were there, but distant. Of the four of them, only Li Heng and Tan Xiaoling stood close enough that he could clearly make them out. The three of them together became core disciples of the sect. They unseated first Zhang Lifen, then the others, and finally Yi Xiurong herself. The three of them became more than legends—figures of myth. Gods.

Chen Fei and Yan Shirong became notable in their own right, but they never reached the heights that He Yu did. Their friendship was maintained, but it grew distant. They stayed at the sect and became powerful and influential. It was a destiny that, upon consideration, He Yu found acceptable.

Except for one thing.

In this future, He Yu became like Yi Xiurong. Cold, callous, and uncaring. So what if mortals died by the thousands? Let the Second and Third Realm cultivator guards worry about attacks on towns. Death was a fact of life. People like him had more important things to worry about. Real, consequential threats stalked the land. If a town wanted protection, they could always raise up a few experts.

He Yu turned away from that path. Yes, he would become a legend. He would rise to heights that he’d never thought possible. But at what cost? Was he willing to sacrifice his ideals for that? The Peerless Judgment, turned upon himself, showed him the truth of things. He found he could. He could set aside his ideals for power if that was what it took.

Another road remained. In this one, his friends were impossibly distant. Although the threads of fate and destiny that connected them were stronger here, the strongest they’d ever been, he couldn’t see them. Rather than standing at the peak, he was deep within a shrouded valley. He was no less powerful—no; it was just that his future was far less certain.

Here he was, not only a legend, but a hero as well. The source of the difference wasn’t anything he could discern. Not with the clinging mists that hugged the valley floor and the land that rose in all directions. The fact his friends seemed so distant bothered him as well. It was a small comfort, however, that their bonds endured. He’d never forgotten some of those first revelations, of standing alone at the peak and the overwhelming sense of loneliness that had accompanied.

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He Yu turned his thoughts to his Way. He sought the ease that came when he acted with that connection he’d formed with his Wayborn Seed. The guidance he’d expected didn’t come. Instead, he found either path was equally open—equally in keeping with his Way. It seemed he truly was at a crossroads.

If he was free to choose, then in his eyes, the choice was an easy one. He Yu stepped into the valley.

Even if he could lay his ideals upon the altar of advancement, he wouldn’t. He remembered the scenes of destruction left in the wake of King Hao and his men. He remembered the looks of desperate hope the miners had given him after he’d defeated the overseer. He remembered standing against Sha Xiang after she’d attacked all his friends in a moment of his weakness.

He would accept the uncertainty. He would accept the struggle. He would walk the path of a hero.

His core contracted, and his cultivation base pushed against it. Maintaining control of the advancement was trivial. His connection to his Way aided him greatly, and by now he’d plenty of practice. Even as the stench of extruded impurities broke through his cultivation trance, he kept squeezing his cultivation base into an ever smaller, ever denser core at the center of his spirit.

With his advancement came knowledge. Not quite a certainty, but something close. He would struggle, he would try. He would choose the more difficult path time and again. For that, he would build a legend. He would be a hero not only in name but also in deed. He would also bleed. How much and for how long, he couldn’t say.

It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he did everything in his power to be what those weaker than himself needed. He would not throw away the lives of mortals, or even weaker cultivators. What was the point of gathering strength if you didn’t use it for anything worthwhile?

With his resolve came certainty—certainty that he would fail. He would fail again and again—he would fail more often than he succeeded. A thousand cultivators like Zhu Fang would die for every one he saved.

Then he would simply try harder.

A dozen villages would burn while he saved one.

Then he would save everything he could of that one.

The point wasn’t that he be all things to all people. He would be enough for those that he could. Legends were inflated, and heroes were imperfect. The point was they tried when others didn’t.

He Yu exited his cultivation chamber and sloughed off the black sludge of impurities. The sky was dark and starless, something that he’d gotten used to over the past few years. To the east, the perpetual mists of the Shrouded Peaks held the faint silver promise of the approaching dawn.

Cleaned and dressed, He Yu headed out into the sect. Even in what would be the quietest part of the night in the mortal world, there were plenty of disciples about. Those disciples who cultivated aspects of lunar or shadow qi would be finishing their “day” just now. Perhaps they’d be retiring to their cultivation chambers, or maybe they’d be snatching the few hours of sleep they needed every so often.

Passing though the inner sect market and then to the paths that would take him to the outer sect mountain, He Yu simply walked, and absorbed his surroundings. He kept his presence restrained, as was only polite, but his passing was hard not to notice. Even he could tell the surrounding air was more charged than it had been the previous day. The scent of rain clung to him no matter how tightly he kept hold of his spirit. Winds that seemed to only affect him tugged at the hem and sleeves of his robe. The air was also somehow still, in the same way it was just before a storm broke.

Thankfully, the other inner disciples largely ignored him. While most inner disciples were stuck at the peak Body Refining bottleneck, Golden Cores were common enough. A few of the lower-ranked disciples—those of the late Third Realm but not yet at the peak—saluted him as he passed. Sadly, his relative anonymity didn’t follow him to the outer sect.

It was rare that inner disciples ventured onto the outer sect mountain. Rarer still that a Golden Core should do so. Most Fourth Realms simply used treasures or techniques to leave the mountain. But He Yu had a different purpose, and a walk through the outer sect was in service of that.

He similarly ignored the murmurs and salutes that followed him through the outer sect. Instead, he reflected. Reflected on his year on this mountain, that now seemed so distant. His time as a First Realm, struggling to find his feet against what had seemed like overwhelming odds. When he set his feet on the path to Xu Xiang at the base of the mountain, he felt the mist spirits flee in their terror of him.

He Yu spent most of the morning simply strolling through Xu Xiang. The mortals and lower realm cultivators there were all deferential to him, but at least here it was similar enough to the inner sect mountain. Even the inner disciples had need of the goods traders brought to Xu Xiang from the distant reaches of the Dragon Empire.

This left him more or less alone with his thoughts. The practical reality of his decision during his breakthrough settled over him. These were the sort of people he truly gathered his strength for. Sure, when he’d taken his first shaky steps into the world of cultivation, awakening himself with an old—and honestly, garbage—cultivation manual in Shulin, he’d filled his head with stories of heroes and legends.

He’d come a long way in a short time. He’d seen more of the world than he’d imagined could have existed, and come to realize many things. What, truly, was the measure of a hero?

He couldn’t say for certain. But each step along his Way, brought him closer to an answer. His answer. For the time being, at least, he had a clear enemy. A clear target to strive against. He’d seen what the enemy was capable of. He’d seen what they turned Sha Xiang into. He didn’t know whether she yet lived, but if she did, he would have to deal with her, eventually. Like he’d dealt with Cui Bao.

The Shrouded Peaks Sect existed to protect the Dawn Palace. Protect it from the Sunset Court. The court was a worthy villain in his eyes. The sect would bring the fight to them. The sooner, the better.