Shen swung the ax one last time. The horizontal V cut on the tree's trunk was deep enough. What remained could no longer support the tree. The thick, tall, mighty oak fell sideways.

He barely noticed the plant's passage right by his shoulder or the shaking of the ground when it hit the floor. Instead, he was staring at his arms.

His dark blue arms.

And hands.

And body.

Shen had become drow and was struggling to come to terms with it. Humans and drow were very similar, and Shen's physiology had been even closer. The entire drow race had undergone improvements over the years, which he had surpassed with the special liquid Liya had used on him.

And yet...

Those muscles were not his muscles. That skin elasticity was not his skin elasticity. That blood was not his blood.

His mind knew it; his True Self disagreed.

That gap between True Self and self-perception should be enough to kill him. Yet, here he was. Weak, but relatively well. Aware.

Alive.

He sighed deeply and raised his ax. He had logs to deliver.

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The Gardener was tending to his small garden beside a simple wooden hut in the middle of the endless forest. The man's skin was golden, and his blue eyes were the gentlest Shen had ever seen. They were so warm as they stared at the seven little yellow flowers beside the seven white ones that Shen doubted it was genuine.

Just as he doubted the man cared as much for Shen as his eyes suggested when he looked up.

"Ah!" the Gardener said with a bright smile. His long white beard and simple black robe added to a visage of kindness.

Shen couldn't accept any of it as real. No one could reach A-rank while maintaining that selflessness—and any who became kind later would leave signs of their past that were absent in the man. And Shen was sure the Gardener was A-rank. He had to be. Shen's senses were muddled, but he was confident he could feel the old guy's Realization around him, not just a domain.

"The firewood has arrived," the man continued as he stood up, cleaning his dirty hands on his average-looking black robe. "How was it? Did swinging an ax help with getting used to your new body?"

Instead of answering, Shen asked, "How am I alive?"

The Gardener's smile became even kinder, with a hint of pity. "Keep asking, and I might just answer you one day."

"Who saved me?" Shen asked.

The man shook his head. "That, I'm afraid, is a secret I'll bring to the grave."

Always the same answers. Never any anger at being confronted. Only patient benevolence.

"It helped," Shen said with a sigh, dropping the logs he was carrying on the ground. They dissipated into light as if teleported away by the system—except he couldn't access the system, so it wasn't around. "It won't be enough. I feel like I'm wearing a stranger's flesh suit on my soul."

"I'm almost done with my research," the Gardener said. "I was prepared to help a human, not a drow. That wasn't in the agreement."

"Which agreement?" Shen asked and received only an amused smile in answer.

Shen knew the drow were involved with his survival—that much was self-evident. He also knew he should never, ever get in contact with them. That was the first thing the Gardener had told him.

"Your powerful enemies don't know where you are—don't say their names, don't even think about it if you can help it. And don't let them find you through your connections. It'll only cause everyone involved to suffer their ire."

Shen didn't doubt the man. Shen should be dead. He didn't know if Valentina had died, but if so, the Primordials would be pissed. He would investigate when he had the chance.

For now, the irony of his situation wasn't lost on him. By turning him drow, whoever had done that had ensured he couldn't approach the drow ever again.

Isolated from everyone and everything he knew, Shen felt utterly alone. It was like waking up in a distant future. However, he had thought his people were around back then and had quickly distracted himself in the tutorial. Now, he was aware of his situation. It made everything worse.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Shen was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't feel the Gardener approach; he only felt the man's warm and firm hands on his shoulder. "A few more weeks, I promise," the A-rank said. "They used the blood of a very special drow when saving you. Nullifying their power on your feeble body when it's so linked to their blood is a greater challenge than expected. It's not a matter of overwhelming the blood's power but affecting it in a precise way, or you'll die."

"Why are you helping me?" Shen asked for the thousandth time this past month.

He got the same answer for the thousandth time. "Why not?" the Gardener asked with a big smile.

Shen sighed. Anything he answered would be countered with a "that doesn't matter to me." Using resources and time on someone he didn't know didn't matter to the Gardener. Risking the ire of the Primordials didn't make him tremble. For all that Shen could tell, the Gardener legitimately was trying to help him with no ulterior motive.

"I'm a bit egoistical," the golden man said as he removed his hand and returned to his little garden. "Helping you will help me advance my power." He never admitted to having a Realization, but he gave enough hints, like this one. "Turn at least half the tree you fell into logs. Then we can work on your legs."

Shen asked, "Why do that if you're doing some research that'll fix me for good?"

"Multiple reasons. Seeing your True Self working helps me with the research. Giving you tasks helps you not get lost in self-pity." A hint of playfulness appeared in his eyes. "And your questions are too annoying. I'd rather focus on my research than answer them. Did you walk the ten kilometers I asked you to before felling a tree?"

Shen sighed, turned, and returned to the fallen tree ten kilometers away.

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"He's dying," an old lady said as she watched Shen run in circles around the clearing where the house and garden were.

She had the same golden skin as the Gardener and wore colorful loose pants and shirt. The two of them were sitting on stools, each made of half one of the logs Shen had brought. She didn't lower her voice as she talked to the Gardener, allowing Shen to hear everything.

"It does seem so," the Gardener agreed calmly.

"I told you she'd screw you up," the lady replied. "That one was too pure, too blended with Reality. She's being used by Reality without realizing it, and Reality was done with this boy. It wants him gone like trash."

Shen skipped a step and almost fell. Those words all but confirmed that Darla was involved with saving him. She was the person with the purest Path he knew, and he was drow now.

Was it her blood that he had inside him? But she was B-rank. How could her blood be too strong for an A-rank to deal with?

As for Reality using then discarding him...

The Gardener's answer explained Shen's feelings well. "We aren't inside Reality; we are Reality," he said. "Our individual Wills are as much Reality's Will as our own, for all comes from it, the same Will. The matter we are made of is Reality made manifest. The Space we occupy is the same Space that is Reality. And we are Change; as much as our body uses and discards cells at will, so does Reality. What use is there in resenting a body for using its cells?"

Shen hated Reality. Yet, Shen was part of Reality and wouldn't destroy it. He could only accept he had been used and move on.

Maybe when he became Absolutely Powerful, though...

"Don't you go philosophical on me, you old fog!" the lady replied. "You're just playing nice for the boy. Boy, you're dying, and Reality is a bitch. Your master also hates—"

"That will be enough," the Gardener said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. The woman widened her eyes and immediately shut up. So, there was some fire in the kind man's heart. Or rather, that should be his true face. "Strong feelings will only hasten his decay, and the solution still eludes me. You know how I feel about anyone messing with those under my care."

Her eyes widened even more. "You make it sound as if you didn't..."

"I did not. I shall not take him as a disciple. That is all you need to know."

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Shen woke up all sweaty. He didn't feel bad, but he knew something was wrong. The blood he was sweating was enough of a sign, as was how silent he had been this past two months—and how even more silent he became as the weeks passed. Except for questions, he had little to say and didn't much care about getting answers or not.

He was dying, and today might be it.

The small bed in the small cabin was comfortable but not overly so. He slowly stood up, his muscles aching as they hadn't while he exercised. He left the building to find the Gardener carefully picking the last of the fourteen flowers he had carefully cultivated for the past months.

"They were for my grave all along, weren't they?" Shen asked.

The Gardener smiled kindly. "The old Shen has to die for the new Shen to be born. How convenient that after the Baptism of Self and the Will-Path Merging Ritual comes the Baptism of Unmaking, isn't it?" He chuckled. "I won't offer to become your master because I don't take rejections well, and you're too distrustful to accept I'm what I show you. But let me tell you one of the greatest secrets I ever learned: it's all in the details. Don't believe what people or even Reality itself tell you about others or themselves. Or even what you tell yourself. Look at the little things. You were molded into something that was destined to die, yet if you survived, you also had the tools to keep living. The blood inside you made things considerably harder, but I got it. You were used, but no one owes you anything. You can start anew, unbound by any old schemes. Do so."

"Will I still be me after I'm... Unmade?" Shen asked.

"Yes and no. Think of it as being born anew into a new version of yourself. The entire process depends on you; I'll have no influence over it at all. Whatever you become will be what you decide for yourself. And you can just give up and die at any time if you think it's better than becoming something else."

Shen's body was bleeding profusely by now.

His limbs were melting.

"Do it," he said—

Shen woke up as he felt his body fall. It lasted a single moment. Then, he was submersed into pure water.

A Realization reached deep into him and separated every piece of his existence into tiny bits.

His consciousness floated over his body, but he saw only the individual parts of his True Self, the bits of essence that made him who he was. He could put them together however he wanted. He could get rid of anything he wanted.

Unmaking himself was a way of refining himself.

But his mind could also see the endless orange skies above the ocean of pure water where his body was, and tribulation clouds were gathering. He could remake himself, but that would offend the Heavens, and they were ready to demand a price for it.

He began.

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