Chapter 27 - Unbounded

Yu Yin was ticked off. He hadn't been in a mood this bad for a long while. A real long while. He hadn't thought that killing someone would have this kind of effect on him. It wasn't like he was devastated, but the feeling was remarkably unpleasant. Having grown up in the Yu Family, Yu Yin had naturally seen death before. Cultivators like his Mother tended to treat death as a trivial thing, something that just happened. The cultivators' philosophy of the law of the jungle was one of the other many reasons that Yu Yin never wanted to bother with cultivation, besides his abysmal talent.

Yu Yin had seen this philosophy in practice both when his father had been killed for infidelity, and when Yu Yin and his sister had been kidnapped for ransom one time. He had watched personally as Yu Jingli had rained death upon those fools whilst his Mother had coldly looked on. Death wasn't pleasent back then and it wasn't pleasant now. The point was, Yu Yin didn't want to feel this feeling a second time, if possible.

After he had killed the Priest-like man, Vakhtang had struggled to his feet and left. Yu Yin didn't stop him as he didn't see any reason to and the man seemed grateful enough that Yu Yin had spared him anyway. Yu Yin doubted that Vakhtang would cause any trouble for him in the future.

With Vakhtang now gone, Yu Yin checked the temple to find Seeker, and after confirming that the little bitch had indeed run off during the fight, Yu Yin went to find the village chief and demanded a place to rest. He was damn tired and he wanted some space to process his thoughts. The village chief hurriedly found a room in an inn for Yu Yin to stay as thanks for "saving the village from the bandits", and timidly asked if there was anything else he could do. The man had an apprehensive look in his eye and Yu Yin could tell that he wanted Yu Yin to leave as soon as possible. Yu Yin didn't give a crap though. He would stay in this village as long as he damn wanted to!

Yu Yin entered his allocated room and found a desk to sit down at. He then did the one the thing that could possibly cheer him up right now. He took out his most precious treasures and piled them up on the desk.

There on the desk were the priceless Silver Qilin Horn, the mysterious bronze locket with engraved floral patterns, the three pills he had found in the coffin, and Vakhtang's silver katana. He wasn’t sure if the katana was even that valuable, but it was new loot so therefore, Yu Yin would examine it. The katana had a crimson wolf engraved on its hilt and the entire sword gave off a bloodthirsty aura. Perhaps it was thanks to his mastery of [Myriad Blades of the Endless Night], but Yu Yin could actually feel the blade intent contained inside the katana!

After fruitlessly trying to open the locket again, Yu Yin stroked the Silver Qilin Horns and smiled. He felt like all his troubles were being washed away.

"Look my Darlings! Look at all the treasure friends that you've made!"

At this point the door to Yu Yin's room burst open.

"$%@?!"

"Bitch! Knock before you enter!" Yu Yin yelled at the newcomer.

Yu Yin looked to see who had intruded on his special treasure time to find Seeker standing in the doorway. The boy had a solemn expression and his amber eyes were filled with determination.

"Ah! This brat has come back for punishment!" Yu Yin thought

Yu Yin stood up and was about to walk over to slap the little snake a few times when Seeker threw over a sack that landed on Yu Yin's desk. The sack split open upon landing the contents spilled out on the table. Sparkling yellow jewels spread out across the table to join Yu Yin's most precious belongings. Yu Yin’s eyes sparkled and he stopped breathing for a second. Just to make sure that these jewels were what he thought they were, he looked to Seeker.

"These are…?"

"The spirit stones." Seeker responded before Yu Yin could even finish asking.

Barely contained a joyful squeal, Yu Yin ripped open the sack and rapidly began counting the spirit stones. It didn't take him long before he discovered that there were exactly 314 spirit stones that had just joined his collection. He greedily swiped them up and put them away in his storage ring before looking again at Seeker. The boy was now on his knees in a kowtowing position, looking towards Yu Yin expectantly.

"Please Immortal, you have to help me! You're an Unbounded right? That means you're my last chance! Please listen to me!"

Yu Yin stared at Seeker with a puzzled expression on his face. The strange discomfort in his soul was nowhere to be found which meant, that if Yu Yin was correct about the origin of the previous discomfort, that Seeker was 100% genuine right now. The thing that puzzled Yu Yin the most however, were the words that Seeker was saying.

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'Unbounded?' Yu Yin thought. 'The priest-like man said something similar before he attacked me…'

Yu Yin decided that he would at least hear what Seeker had to say. The two-faced brat had willingly come back to give him his rightfully owned spirit stones after all. If in the end Seeker asked something ridiculous, Yu Yin would just kick him out.

"And how would I help you exactly?" Yu Yin asked. "If you want me to kill your enemies or something I don't really feel like it."

Seeker shook his head.

"I want you to teach me cultivation" he replied.

Yu Yin looked at Seeker blankly.

'Eh?!'

"Why ask me?" Yu Yin inquired. "I'm only starting cultivation myself. Literally anybody else could teach you better!"

"No, it has to be you" Seeker explained. "Only an Unbounded can help me. Nobody else will teach me."

There was that term again: 'Unbounded'. Hearing the word a third time ticked Yu Yin off and put him back in his bad mood from before.

"I've been hearing this word all day and it's driving me insane!" Yu Yin complained. "Tell me what an unbounded is before I slap you!"

Yu Yin finally asked the big question that had been bothering him all this time. It ticked him off that there was something that everybody seemed to know other than him. It reminded him of the Spirit Stones that Mother had so kindly forgotten to tell him about before she had then ensured that he'd never discover their existence himself.

Another thing was that this Unbounded thing was obviously something important if it had caused the Priest-like man to attack him from nowhere. He had already figured out that the situation of this world was a lot more complicated than he had thought. Hopefully, Seeker's explanation could help Yu Yin avoid more crazy priests attacking him.

Seeker panicked upon seeing Yu Yin's mood deteriorating.

"Please great immortal I'll…"

The annoying soul itch from before returned to irritate Yu Yin.

"Seeker I swear to the heavens, if you keep doing that I'll tie you to a tree naked and let the Village Chief decide what to do with you. Would you like that?"

Seeker shivered at the thought and quickly began behaving himself again.

"It has to do with the Purified Church of Extreme Order" Seeker explained. "Every time a child in the Earthen Wyvern Continent is born, their parents are obliged to bring their children to the church to receive the Bounded Laws. The Bounded Laws are engraved on the child's soul, and that child must obey certain rules or else the Bounded Laws will destroy their soul. An Unbounded is a person who has not had their soul engraved with the Bounded Laws."

Yu Yin shuddered at the revelation and suddenly felt less guilty for killing the priest-like man. It seemed that this new world was called the Earthen Wyvern Continent, and it seemed that the cultivators here were seriously screwed up.

"And does me being Unbounded have to do with you learning cultivation anyway?" Yu Yin asked.

Seeker looked almost ashamed as began to answer.

"I'm actually a seeded of the Crimson Cross." Seeker admitted. "Those people are evil, almost as bad as the Purified Church of Extreme Order. They're terrorists that put their own selfish desires before the lives of others. "

Seeker's face was one of disgust as he described the Crimson Cross. Yu Yin didn't think that Vakhtang had given off the impression of an evil terrorist so he wasn’t sure what to make of Seeker's words, but he let him continue.

"I want to fully remove myself from their influence but I have no way to do so." Seeker continued to explain. "I currently have the mark of the Crimson Cross on me that suppresses the Bounded Laws engraved on my soul. If they were to remove it, I would die instantly, and if I were to go to the Purified Church of Extreme Order, they'd notice the mark and kill me also."

"The only way I can fully leave the Crimson Cross is to remove the Bounded Laws engraved on my soul and become an Unbounded myself. And the only way to do that is to become more powerful than the person who engraved the Bounded Laws on my soul in the first place. Therefore, I must learn cultivation from someone who is not associated with either the Church or the Crimson Cross. That leaves only you, an Unbounded."

'And Layla' Yu Yin added in his mind. Yu Yin wondered how the devilish woman was doing. If every man and his dog were bound by this Church, and this church were hostile to Unbounded, then Layla would probably find herself in a spot of trouble like Yu Yin did. It seems he made the right call not to follow her to join a sect. Yu Yin turned to Seeker to ask him a final question.

"One last thing. What makes you so sure that I'm one of those Unbounded that you keep talking about?" Yu Yin asked. He had a suspicion about how Seeker knew, but he wanted to confirm.

"The most noteworthy of the Bounded Laws are…" Seeker explained. "No killing unless attacked, bring all newborns to the church to receive the Bounded Laws, don't cultivate without permission, and most importantly, to obey all commands from the church if they do so in the name of the Holy White Dragon of Purity."

"You went against that priests command so you obviously weren't affected by the Bounded Laws, and you couldn't be a member of the Crimson Cross either after what you did to Vakhtang. The only possibility left was that you were an Unbounded."

Yu Yin smiled at Seeker gracefully as he finished explaining.

"I see, so you were watching our battle the entire time."

Seeker's face suddenly went as white as a sheet.

"%$@#!"

"YOU LITTLE CRAP! Come here and watch how I beat you into next week!" Yu Yin yelled.

"All that time while I was fighting Vakhtang, you could have come out and we could have escaped. That brutal fight with Vakhtang and that priest could have ALL been avoided if you hadn't been such a little %@&#!"

Having discovered that his bad mood was basically all Seeker's fault, Yu Yin was so mad he didn't even have the energy to slap Seeker. All he wanted to do now was go to sleep. Perhaps everything would be better in the morning.

“You know what? I don’t even care! Just leave and get out of my sight!”

"No! PLEASE!" Seeker seemed to realise that any chance of Yu Yin helping him was quickly disappearing. He rushed up to Yu Yin’s desk and slammed his hands down onto it. Tears were forming in his eyes.

"You're my last hope of freedom! Please don't leave me!"

Yu Yin didn't quite know what to do. There wasn't any soul itch so he could tell that these were no crocodile tears. Yu Yin had never been in a situation where an adolescent boy was crying and begging at him. The feeling was awkward to say the least.

Yu Yin was about to say something when one of Seeker's tears rolled down his face and fell onto Yu Yin's desk… right onto the bronze locket.

The floral patterns on the locket began to glow with an azure blue light as the mysterious treasure snapped open.