“Phooooh…” Kenki takes a deep breath of fresh air, readying himself for what is about to happen. He takes a look around at the special meditation chamber that he had rented for the evening. Ten whole spiritual coins gone down the drain, that had been the price, each one worth a hundred golds. Thankfully it had been provided to him by his new master Rinako to be used with the sole purpose of getting this room.

The walls, ceiling and floor are made from a special material that he has little knowledge of, some type of red colored wood that produces fire attuned Qi.

And right beside him… a sealed flask filled with something he recognises all too well.

Kernels of the Sun Blessed Wheat. The boy holds his hands over the cup the same way one would over a fire. The light Qi emanated by them could be easily felt --their numbers are just great enough to bring the light and fire Qi in the room to an equilibrium.

A book in the library had provided him with greater insight on the topic of ‘beast treasures’. As it turns out plants, mushrooms and several other categories of creatures are also capable of producing treasures. The only difference is in their intensity and power. Typically, the more elevated a creature is in the food chain, the more potent the treasure it generates tends to be.

And Sun Blessed Wheat is one of the plants mentioned.

Usually Ken would not have been here. He would have done exactly what the scroll had recommended, bought some firewood and candles, and then found a secluded space to cultivate.

Well, he would have, if it hadn't been for Rinako's strict orders not to do so. By her own words, it would have taken him too long to advance in such a manner. So she had given him a pouch filled to the brim with the valuable coins and sent him here. The elements in this place are much purer, what would have taken him a week to accomplish could now be done within an evening.

All Ken had to do was to mindlessly perform what had been described inside that scroll for several hours. Joy.

Well, if it will only take him an evening to reach the second stage of the initiate realm. He'd been alarmed by such rapid advancement and told Rinako as much.

'It's impossible to experience Qi deviation in the initiate realm. That is unless you go out of your way to do specifically that, not to mention that you were approaching the second stage even before you entered the grounds of this sect. There is no need to measure ten times before you can cut once. Just trust your body, if you begin to feel pain, then stop, as simple as that. Now is the time to rush forwards and make mistakes, whatever wrong step you take can always be corrected with a little bit of effort on your part. Don't worry, I will waste no resources to bring you back to your previous level even in the unlikely event that something does happen' that is what she had relayed to him.

He'd be lying if he said that it hadn't been relieving to hear something like that from her, the words had truly felt honest and they had increased Kenki's opinion of Rinako.

It also goes to explain why the sect seems so hands off with all the disciples, they're just released in the outer sect without much of an explanation –expected to pull themselves by their bootstraps.

The wood underneath creaks as he assumes the lotus position.

Better get right down to it.

================

"What do you think?" Rinako asks Ryo, her companion. He's the red-haired cultivator that had been alongside her when the caravan carrying Kenki and the street rats had arrived.

"I really don't know about this Linlin…" Ryo presses a balled up fist against his chin and closes his eyes, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"What's there to be uncertain about? He has every attunement under the sun. To this day he's the only person, other than Elder Leishang, to possess a space affinity. Or do you want our rivals to nab him right under our eyes"

"Emperor, No" Ryo waves his hands in denial. "That's not what I meant. The one thing that we can both agree on is that he stays with us, it's every other part of your plan that I have a problem with, Linlin"

"How so?" the woman asks.

"Well, for starters, this whole idea of lying to him about his own affinities." He helpfully explains "Don't you think that it might build up some resentment in the boy? I mean look at where we got him from, Ornthar, a city that's under the rule of Elder Chen's son. Do you think that Chen's own flesh and blood would care about keeping a clean and proper city? And a natural cultivator spawned from there?" Ryo shakes his head. His eyes lose a bit of the spark that they'd had and his smile melts, the aura that he'd exuded to the outward world shifts entirely.

"Honestly… and even without that in mind, Rin, your actions have been disappointing beyond comparison. I'm honestly surprised that Kaito doesn't openly display the disdain he holds towards you."

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'Disdain?' Rinako frowns, slightly guarded at the way her companion is behaving. It's not every day that she sees his joking personality crack, and when it does, it usually leads to terrifying outcomes. One particularly gruesome case from far in the past, when they'd both been in the initiate realm, surfaces back in her mind.

However, he is also her most trusted ally and friend.

"Explain." She demands.

Ryo breathes out a long sigh at her response, some of the dread that had been wrapped around him disappearing. Just a little bit.

"Oh come on Rin, you're not pulling my leg are you?" He blinks, the flicker of disappointment in his eyes now evident "Can you really not recall a single action of yours that could have made him despise you?"

"I do not. Our relations should be neutral, maybe he holds some disdain towards cultivators in general because of the way that he'd been treated back on the caravan but nothing that cannot be smoothed over."

Ryo sighed deeply, the weight of Rinako's words hanging in the air as he pondered the situation.

'This is worse than I thought' he thinks to himself.

"Rin, for how long have you been cocooned up in the grounds of the sect? A decade, maybe two or three? How much time has passed since you've been to the outside world, seen the way that mortals live and communicate with each other? Have you considered that something very vital has gone missing?"

Rin furrows her brow, contemplating Ryo's cryptic remark "Where are you trying to go with this Ryo?" She asks him.

"What I'm trying to say is that you've been high up in the clouds and stars for so long that not only can you not see the ground below you, you've forgotten what the ground even looks like." He earnestly tries to explain.

"Let me tell you what you have done, when I learned of the extent of the mess that you had created I honestly wanted to come and strangle you. I don't mean it metaphorically or rhetorically or in any other non-serious way, for a moment I just desired nothing more than to rush right to this compound, break through the inscriptions protecting it, and kill you." Ryo seats himself down, tapping on the table with an index finger.

"Sit" he urges, his tone a heavy one. There's a trace of hesitation in Rinako's demeanor but she follows his instructions nevertheless.

"Let's begin with the story then. Try and place yourself in the boy's boots. You live in the city of Ornthar, a city that should be an absolute shithole in every sense of the word if the reports that I had gone through are anything to go by. You are powerless, you most likely have no coin, any random street thug is your better in combat" Ryo sets up the scene of what he believes Kenki's life has been like.

"Crime is rampant. Men, women and children die on the street every day. It often happens that you have to pass by a dead body when going out to collect water from one of the city's wells… it probably hadn't been as extreme as I'm describing it, but not too far off either.” Ryo stops, head indecisively tilting left and right, piecing his next words together.

“And here is where you should take a mental note. In such an environment it's only natural that Kaito has learned how to lie through his little white teeth. Past a certain point the very act of lying and cheating turns into such an innate skill that even trying to detect the deception through the change of his heartbeat would be impossible for us, Kaito does, and has done it, as easily as breathing. Don't underestimate him just because he's twelve" During his speech Ryo amplifies his aura with animated hand gestures, syncing their movement with the emotional cadence of his words.

"Now then" he continues, waving his finger around. "I don't know what exactly happened that caused him to not only trigger the Trial of the Mind, but to triumph over it as well. Needless to say it hadn't been anything enjoyable, he must have brushed with death more times than the both of us through our lifetimes combined. And then right after he survives, he's captured by Chen's progeny, gets shackled like a dog, and sent here."

"Any friends and connections that he might have had, any family that might have cared about him. Do you remember what having a family is like?" he slowly opens his fist "Poof, gone. Just like that, he's separated from them with no explanation."

Rinako wishes to ask what the actions of Chen's son have to do with her but she holds her tongue. If Ryo is telling her this then he must have a good reason to do so, she trusts him to hold steadfast in this matter.

"And then we get to the best part, a year long ride on a poorly crafted caravan. Nothing but him, chains, the twelve other urchins aaand…" Ryo drags out the word "...the most important piece in this puzzle –boredom. Now, Rin, do you remember that time when both of us were stationed in the Aernstir mountains. What do you recall?"

Rinako answers. "Back then there had been a startling increase in the number of ant spirit beasts. Fears had been that an ant colony had formed in the mountain, somehow capable of producing fully grown ant warriors on par with adept and foundation realm cultivators, all without triggering tribulations from the heavens. Ten of us had been sent to keep an eye on things." Rinako proceeds to name every cultivator that had been in their detachment.

"Ultimately it turned out that the evolutions of the beasts had been triggered by a soul-stone vein. It wasn't a cause for concern" She finishes off.

"Brillant, I wouldn't have described it better myself. No nonsense and straight to the point." Ryo happily remarks before continuing "And you should also remember it was there that Biren turned into our life long companion and friend. We had never met him before, we hadn't known that he even existed before the mission, but nevertheless he became an ally." Ryo smiles "And the seven others too, it is telling that you have not forgotten about them, that you still remember their names. Although we eventually went our different ways, it would be safe to say that we separated on friendly terms. And what were the catalysts of that friendship? Boredom and being forced to live alongside each other."

Rinako feels a pit of worry forming in her heart.

"Boredom will inevitably lead to idle chatter, idle chatter to talking about some more serious topics and from then on it spirals on and on and on. In no time whatsoever you become friends with the person next to you. That was what happened back in the Aernstir mountains and don't forget, we were there only for a short three months." Rinako's stomach drops. With Ryo framing it in such a manner, it's too obvious for her not to see.

"Ah. You get it now, don't you Linlin? I can see that spark finally lighting up" The edges of his lips climb even higher, his smile turning into something frightening.

"So to sum up what you did... You dragged what was a most likely a very cynical and bitter Kaito out of the caravan along with his good friends, evaluated the boy, and then gathered everyone in the main hall of your manor. Then you began the ritual to forcefully open up everyone's cultivation, right in front of the poor sod's eyes. In that exhilaration that you had, the glee that was swarming through your mind for obtaining such a valuable resource, you did not stop for a moment to think about the consequences of your actions." Ryo spreads his arms out wide.

"Imagine! The emotions that would have flowed through your body if you were forced to watch me, to watch Biren, to watch Serika fall to the ground, never to get back up again. What Kaito was going through in those moments."

Ryo's words hang in the air, heavy with accusation and an edge of bitterness. He reclines in the chair, legs rising to rest on the table, arms stretched behind his head.

An uncomfortable silence descends in the room, one that stretches out for minutes.

"I've messed up, haven't I?"

"You indeed have." Ryo confirms. "Fortunately it seems that the bridge has not been completely burned down. You sent him to cultivate in the meditation chambers, right?"

"Yes… he was already a half step into the second stage of the initiate realm.” Rinako pauses briefly to collect her thoughts “So all that was required was that extra push. He should advance by the end of the day."

“That’s perfect then.” He happily remarks “Since it’s my responsibility to take out the initiates on their first journey to the Emerald Forest I can take the time to get a better grasp on his personality, with a little bit of luck he might even begin to like me, who knows? It’s best that we treat him well or he mind end up slipping right out of our grasp, or do you wish to become like Elder Chen, ruling through violence and fear?”