The human body was a fine biological machine. It turned food into energy to fuel its activities, bled out when injured to keep wounds clean, and slept to conserve energy, strengthen memories, and refresh the mind.
The Multiverse Alliance had taken all three from the trainees.
Shen hadn't been enormously impressed because cultivation also decreased how much those things were needed. However, it was a progressive process, and complete removal only came at higher realms. Sleep was the last to go, and even Shen's father would take a nap every month or so. He claimed it helped keep a clear mind and deal with stress.
Shen was feeling the consequences of a lack of proper rest now. After entering the forest, he had never stopped. Endless fights took a toll, but when he had had the chance to relax in the underground maze, he had instead focused on learning, training, and the next fight, never letting himself genuinely rest.
So the first thing he did to help him with his newfound self-perception and understand what was happening was sleeping.
"Sleep for twelve hours," he said after lying on the ground.
That was a long time, but he had also been awake for a very long period.
Sleep found him at once.
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When Shen woke up from a dreamless rest, he sat up and thought things through.
To begin with, the Feng Clan might not be gone. There was a simple way to find out. If he found their Last Will on their ancestral home, they would be all dead. Otherwise, they would be out there somewhere, maybe even in the Multiverse Alliance.
The next thing he thought about was the Guardian System. Its hold over him wasn't such a big deal as he had felt because Shen had been one evil decision away from dying throughout his entire life. That had happened to his own mother; a treacherous elder had just decided to have her killed, no matter who her life partner was. Shen didn't even know the reason behind it, but his father had executed the man for treason.
Likewise, Shen's mind had never been a bastion of privacy. Some cultivators at the Ethereal Harmonization realm could read minds if they wanted. It wasn't even a qi technique; their sheer understanding of the Laws of Reality granted them that natural ability. Weaker cultivators could also do that with the right skills. Shen trusted cultivators' honor more than the Multiverse Alliance, but there were evildoers in the Empire too.
So he would keep being distrustful of the Guardian System, but he would stop fussing about it as much. He would just make the most out of it and stop complaining.
Those were the least of his issues. Shen was having the most trouble with overconfidence and arrogance—one feeding the other.
Both had to go. A wise person had once said overconfidence was a slow and insidious killer, and they were absolutely right. Shen was proof of that. He had grown overconfident over the days until he died for it.
Egocentricity was another of his failings. He only noticed it because he was told to find allies and realized he had missed that chance with Alicia. He had been so focused on his problems and goals that he knew absolutely nothing about her other than her personality. She had followed him for what, two weeks, three? Yet all along, he had seen her as nothing more than a tool.
A tool he had been ordered to kill.
That brought him to his honor, and Shen concluded he had mistaken honor for obedience for most of his life. He was supposed to obey his elders, but blind, absolute obedience actually went against being a cultivator. Cultivators challenged the very heavens because the latter were unjust; how could they not also examine the orders they received?
Shen could tell this was partly Alicia's influence. He had gotten in contact with many different viewpoints back in his clan, but they always came counterpointed by the Eternal Empire's views. Alicia was the first person he had ever talked to whose ideals he had to oppose by himself. Unfortunately, she made a lot of sense.
Power corrupts, she had said. That rung true. Shen had been told that the Immortal Emperor was incorruptible time and time again, but what if that was a lie?
Part of that belief in the Emperor came from his great experience, but Shen doubted there were no ancient beings in the Alliance—not if they could change the Laws of Life as they had done. Yet, the Alliance let automated systems dictate the life and death of their subjects while the Emperor was against it. One of them was wrong, so age didn't make one infallible.
Something else had to be the source of the Emperor's incorruptibility. Something Shen had never been told about.
Another thing that mattered here was that Shen still considered the Emperor his rightful ruler. Shen hadn't been actually abandoned because his Emperor had reached for him. A plan was afoot, and he was a pawn being used by someone much wiser than him—even if fallible. He no longer believed the Immortal Emperor was incapable of making dishonorable decisions.
Shen could see nothing morally wrong with most orders, so his duty was to obey. However, though he would ask Alicia to keep the Eternal Empire a secret, he wouldn't kill her even if she made it her life goal to tell the entire Alliance about it.
His honor wouldn't let him.
Whether others would see that as Shen being dishonorable remained to be seen. He didn't care as much as he thought he would.
That was his personal flavor of honor. To do what he saw as right even when it contradicted what others had taught him as correct.
That brought its own issues. If there were no absolute right or wrong, good or evil, people would do what they thought was right until chaos ensued. Supposedly, that's how the chaotic era before the Eternal Empire started and perpetuated. Cultivators did whatever they felt like because that was their truth, and personal success was the ultimate proof of their ideas being correct. They followed the rule of "might makes right."
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Yet he had been taught what was right kept being right if no one did it, and what was wrong kept being wrong even if everyone did it.
So part of Shen's honor would also become to find a belief he could hold to guide all his decisions. For now, he would go with his morals, but he would constantly seek self-improvement.
The next issue was related to his Path.
Shen had based it on Boundlessness, but it had been a mistake. Some people might feel fulfilled by the single-minded pursuit of one of their desires and letting it define them, but not Shen.
He needed more.
A Path's foundational Concept should hold the entirety of the Path together. How could Boundlessness do that? If every part of his Path was tainted by Boundlessness, they would refuse to get limited too. He would constantly be fighting against himself for every decision, as he had already fought with Boundlessness. That was the ultimate proof his Path was incorrect; it went against him.
One alternative was encompassing everything in his Boundlessness, which might work, but felt wrong. A Path affected a cultivator as much as a cultivator could shape their Path. Shen couldn't continue being told to give up on everything because it was limiting. That had even become a weakness that the Void Spawn had exploited! When taken to the extreme, that Concept pushed him in a direction he didn't want to go.
His Boundlessness needed limits, or it would bring him limitless problems.
But it wasn't enough to just limit his Boundlessness. He needed to replace it as the foundation of his Path. He needed to find another Concept that properly reflected himself and could encapsulate his Path—including Boundlessness.
Shen liked reading—it had started as a duty, but he had taken a liking to it—and wanted to see the world and the marvels of mortal technology. However, he didn't need to cultivate for that; thus, they didn't need to be in his Path. Those things might act as auxiliary goals or hobbies, but he found only two things he liked doing that were related to cultivation or the power it brought:
Training and fighting.
He immediately crossed the first one. Training without purpose, just for the sake of it, didn't truly reflect him. He trained to get stronger—which was even worse. He had identified his egocentricity, and training to grow more powerful to then train more sounded like a very unhealthy loop with him at the core.
That left him with fighting. Or rather, what Shen really liked wasn't fighting. He had taken no pleasure dealing with the Techmages' spells or enemies that could defend themselves well.
What he enjoyed was winning.
The idea behind victory intersected with Boundlessness, as the latter could be seen as overcoming all limits, including obstacles like enemies. However, he could circumvent that simply by limiting the type of victories he sought in his Path.
Shen only wanted to win against his enemies.
That was enough to take it further from Boundlessness. The Concept and his desire still touched a little, but they were not the same.
More importantly, having "victory over enemies" as the foundation of his Path would give it a focus that Boundlessness couldn't give him. What Concept reflected that newly identified fundamental part of him remained to be seen. Still, it would end up being a fighting Path for sure, especially if it came from the Spear too.
That felt right. It felt like Shen. It was a Path that reflected him much better than Boundlessness could.
Unfortunately, that realization brought no sudden enlightenment toward any Concept.
Shen couldn't think of anything else that needed his attention, so he meditated for a little, then started training. As much as he wanted to talk to Alicia, she wasn't around. He could only use his time to improve himself.
He trained his footwork, spear art, general skills, and qi usage. He cultivated and reflected on himself and what Concepts he might be seeking.
Time passed.
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Three days later, Shen had had no enlightenment on his Path, but he had made strides on limiting his Boundlessness. Now it felt like a part of himself under his control rather than the sole focus of his existence.
He finished his wait by sleeping a couple extra hours and meditating for ten minutes.
At long last, the system sent him a message.
Tutorial - 2nd Stage
You found many enemies that you couldn't defeat alone in this stage. Power is essential for surviving the Void Spawn, but many forget that connections and companions are also a kind of power.
The war against the Void will not be won by a single being, no matter how powerful.
As stated in the previous stage, each final boss comes with special rules. This final boss is about teamwork.
You and everyone eligible for fighting the final boss will be teleported to a new area.
Light enveloped Shen as soon as he finished reading, and he then found himself in an endless grassland, besides two people in a line that contained many more to both sides. He stepped ahead and saw that he was in an endless row.
Tutorial - 2nd Stage
By final boss, we mean a final challenge that involves fighting one or more strong beings. In this case, it will be multiple beings.
Your challengers will be every remaining middle boss in the second stage.
After a flash of light, uncountable enemies of all kinds and sizes, from small gnomes to big wyrms, appeared on a row a few hundred yards away from the humans.
Some people panicked, but Shen saw that the bosses weren't attacking yet and focused on the system.
Tutorial - 2nd Stage
To pass this final boss, you must team up with at least one person, and each team must kill a total of two middle bosses for each team participant. If a team is wiped out without meeting the quota, all members of that team will be eliminated from the tutorial.
Teams will be assembled when two people say each other's names, including those already in any team. The teams will stop growing after ten people are together. If two people already in teams with less than ten members pick each other, the teams will merge even if the result surpasses ten people.
If any person fails to find a team, they will be immediately eliminated. All of you were given a chance to meet others in the previous stage and to talk to at least three people in this one. You should've taken the opportunity to learn their names.
Until the team-picking phase has ended, you will not be able to see or hear each other's movements.
Teams will be teleported together as they assemble.
You won't be told the names of those who said your name, but you will see a count of how many they are.
You can say however many names you want.
You have ten minutes starting now.
Shen wasn't sure how to feel about that.
To request something unexpected from people like that was unfair, but there were many more than three opportunities to learn other people's names. The first stage's final boss was an excellent place for that. Everyone here had had access to the list of people to help except the very last one to pass the stage. Most people would've tried to get more AP by helping or would have been supported by someone.
Also, checking people's names and not being an asshole to everyone you met was basic courtesy, so it wasn't hard for at least one to call for you.
The worst issue was the luck factor. What if the people you had met had just been expelled from the tutorial already? Even perfect memory couldn't account for that. Then again, the system had said that luck was also needed to survive the Void.
Either way, Shen knew who he wanted to team up with.
"Alicia Winter," he said, and she immediately appeared beside him.