Things were going terribly.

Guan Fa Lian had lived a life where the word “difficult” never mattered. If something being “difficult” was enough to give up, she would likely never leave her bed in the mornings. Despite the weight that she carried, Guan Fa Lian had both never quit and never failed. Her mind being set to a task meant that the task would be completed, without exception. She heard the voice of Shen in her head telling her to just use brute force and destroy everything like he would. Well, she wasn’t built like Guan Yo Shen. He didn’t have her hindrances, for one.

So, as she shattered what must have been the twelfth skeleton in as many minutes, she did not allow herself to think of failure. She focused on dodging the swiping claws and bizarre movements of the vicious undead. Summoning her mana, she brushed her fingertips against the spine of a wolf skeleton, deftly avoiding it’s pounce. Within seconds, the vertebrae crumbled as though they had suddenly weathered a dozen ferocious storms at once.

Lian steadied her feet, stopping them from wobbling as she landed. Her dodge hadn’t been a difficult one, but the strain within her core screamed with such distracting intensity that she nearly slipped. She didn’t, of course, and neither did she lose control of the delicate balance within herself.

Silence reigned, though it took a while for the pounding in Lian’s ears to cease. She ran her nails across her scalp, fluffing away the dust and dirt of the fight, enjoying the tactile feel of it on her head. The tension seemed to relieve. She barely even glanced at the skeleton, long since given up hope of finding a mana stone within them. Wondering if any of the other students would, or could, figure it out so quickly, Lian found a tree stump to sit and think.

She had fought monsters before, but they were normally more unique. It stood to reason that these bones were being piloted by something in the forest. Whatever that thing was, it was sure to have the mana stone she needed.

In the distance, Lian heard a scream. Was it a yell of pain? Did it matter? There were teachers and safeguards here, if the others failed it just meant she would look better when she succeeded. Deciding quickly and easily to leave them to rot, Lian continued prowling through the forest.

It didn’t matter to her what happened to others. She was the apex predator here. As long as she caught her prey, she would be content. Currently still sullen from the frustration of taking so long, and her breathing back to normal, Guan Fa Lian continued deeper into the Sasin forest.

————————————————————————

Everything was going great.

This, Dan thought, was next to the day he met Park Man-Shik as one of the best of his life. It was a little strange to think that while carrying an aggressive skeleton, and Dan still felt uncomfortable around the bones, but today… he had friends. In his time with Park Man-Shik, it had felt natural to spend each day with a strict regimen, sometimes strictly looking after the shop, sometimes exercising until he felt like he had ripped every muscle in his body.

He had needed to train harder than everyone else, he knew. With his core an empty white, not even a shade of grey, he would be at a disadvantage when it came to taking each and every step on his path. That was all fine, Dan had committed to that life and he had lived it without complaint.

When he had arrived at the Jiaoduo though, that had changed.

He still had no complaints, if anything life was far easier at the Guan family training facilities. There was no one barking at him to wake up before the roosters even did. No carts to help fill, or customers to deal with. The various teachers and staff of the Jiaoduo were only interested when you attended one of their lessons, they didn’t act as alarm clock, slave driver or really anything in between.

Dan had realised his loneliness when he had seen one of the other students, a young outsider a little like Dan or Hyun Soon, waiting patiently outside another, less punctual students, door. The simple show of camaraderie as the younger child had rolled his eyes at Dan bringing him into their fold for a moment and sharing a grievance with the gesture showed Dan a life that he hadn’t known he’d wanted.

Walking through the smelly swampy probably should have been wearing Dan down. The sticking of his feet with each step could have drained him. The struggling skeleton could have slowed his step. When they realised they had to rest for the night next to said skeleton, Dan could have grown frustrated.

None of that happened because each time he started to overthink, each time he let his face go a little sour at their long trek, whenever a slip in the mud caused Dan to curse, one of the other two would rescue him from the downward spiral. If this was what friendship was, and Dan very much thought it was, he was glad to finally join in on the fun.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Do you want me to carry Bok?” Hyun Soon was smiling like he had just told or heard a joke.

“Bok?” Dan asked, confused.

“The skeleton. It used to have a real name I guess, but now?” He flicked the skull of the creature and it made a hollow bok noise. “So, want me to take Bok back?” The boy put his thumbs into his armpits and mimicked a chicken. The punchline was worth it, Dan and Xiaomei both giving the forest a rare taste of laughter.

Hyun Soon was freshly bandaged on his ribs, the skeleton had managed to dig it’s boney fingers into his skin while he held it at bay. Dan had been the main strategist, and so had taken the entirety of the blame for Hyun Soon’s pain. To shoulder that burden, literally, Dan had carried the weight of the struggling bone pile. He had said it was to follow the thread, but that was a lie. Every time Hyun Soon winced while walking, Dan felt his pain.

“I’m okay, we should probably stop for the night soon.” The sun had long since disappeared, but now the fight for the day was over and the veil of night was falling over the forest.

“Dan thinks he’s stronger than you.”

Dan nearly hit Hyun Soon in the face with the skeleton’s feet as he spun in place. “What? No, I don’t!” Dan was suddenly confused. Why was Xiaomei lying? Had she just been acting shy, waiting to tear the group apart?

“It’s true! You do,” Xiaomei insisted, “otherwise you’d let him carry the thing. You don’t need to hold it to follow the mana.” Now, Dan looked at the taller boy. Hyun Soon raised a single eyebrow, perfectly showing that he believed Xiaomei. Had the two of them noticed before?

“I’m sorry, but Hyun Soon got hurt because of me and I just thought-”

“I didn’t get hurt because of you,” Hyun Soon’s voice was hurt, “I got hurt because the skeleton was strong. You’re the reason we might not get exiled.” Then he essentially mugged Dan for the skeleton, Dan’s exhaustion catching up with him as it did. He felt his arms rise, unbidden, as they forgot what it was like not to hold the weight. Not particularly heavy, but coupled with the struggling and unsure footing, Dan was ready to drop.

“It’s okay, Dan, but you being so tired you can’t see won’t help anything.” Xiaomei could tell that what had just occurred was about to eat away at Dan’s sleepy mind. “Hyun Soon, we should stop over there.” Xiaomei pointed to a clearing that looked like it wasn’t even muddy. Dan definitely was too tired, because he was looking for a spot exactly like that and hadn’t seen it through the haze. They all agreed that rest made more sense than continuing on, so they began to set up a camp.

As triangle stage practitioners, sleep was not strictly needed. By meditating and entering a trance, the practitioner can rejuvenate themselves. Getting sleep is still needed eventually, but going a few days without is a simple thing. Dan had slept the night before, which in itself was a rarity. His body truly was tired, though, and the rest of meditation was incredibly welcome.

The clearing they found could have been called a small hill. It was sitting comfortably surrounded by a thick collection of trees, though the mound of dirt itself was free of foliage. Around thirty square feet of space, it was perfect for Dan. Even while meditating, he could keep an eye on thirty feet easily.

Unlike himself, Hyun Soon and Guan Xiaomei were more inclined to natural rest. They, unlike Dan, were more than capable of sleeping without the worries of nightmares. They each slept for three hours, taking turns watching the skeleton with Dan so that it didn’t get free. It tossed and turned, sounding like an angry pile of sticks.

Dan turned his attention away from the outside, and looked in. He internally grasped his mana flow and slowly pushed through the barriers of the stages that he knew, as he had thousands of times. Front to back, top to bottom, inside and then out. Dan cycled through this again and again, feeling his muscles relax and strengthen with each new circuit his mana cleaned. Meticulous and calm, Dan pushed his mana through each channel of his body, enjoying the feeling over it under his skin.

Dan opened his eyes after a while, nearly as fresh as he had been when Guan Fa Lian had collected him the previous morning. Guan Xiaomei was fast asleep, Dan’s mana swelling and falling around her as she breathed. In most moments, Dan kept his mana to himself and left the others in a blank space of his vision. In the quiet, Dan couldn’t help himself from relaxing that final part of his mind and releasing that control. His mana spilled around slightly, no longer contained by intent.

Dan filled his lungs with a crystal clear breath. As always, hindering his own awareness felt like, Dan suspected, wearing a corset that was too tight. Loosening those strings made it feel as though his lungs were uncompressed, as though his heart could beat at the right speed and his mind could think properly for the first time. He left his consciousness on the edge of his awareness, slowly caressing each new leaf, blade of grass or sign of life that entered the spherical zone as it ebbed and flowed like the tide.

Dan blushed as his mana traced over Guan Xiaomei. There was nothing lecherous in his mind, but he felt a slight amount of guilt from the inspection. Dan was focused on the sleep, not the sleeper. He was unable to stop himself from watching, with his magic, the slow rise and fall caused by breathing. The slight flicker under her eyelids as her dreams took her one way or the other. It made Dan’s concentration slip as he realised he was getting angry. He was jealous, as the awareness reached the also dozing Hyun Soon, that they weren’t scared of that dark oblivion.

Dan turned away from it, agitated. To calm himself, and also because he wanted to understand his surroundings and what might be ahead, Dan turned away from his resting allies. He looked, instead, at the swath of life that filled this area of death. Dan had not had a moment where he wasn’t unsettled by the area, the history of killing surrounding the Sasin forest weighed heavy in the air, especially when you considered the local, skeletal wildlife.

Slowly, as Dan watched the swaying leaves and touched the roots with his perception, the strangeness of the forest became less overt. It wasn’t aggressive, the forest had no capacity for that. What had felt like ominous overbearing when it was unfamiliar now gave a sense of neutrality. The Sasin forest did not aspire to cause violence but instead the trees themselves seemed to be so turned away from the goings on that they repelled all mana. When they had first entered, it had seemed as though the roots, leaves, the very bark of the trees had all intentionally dispersed Dan’s mana. Now he saw that… the forest was screaming. The trees grew tall to avoid the bloodshed that had occurred throughout the years.

As he watched the sun piercing the thick cover above them, weak but present, Dan felt that today was full of promise. The trees were scared of whatever lay rotting in the middle of this forest. The thread of mana was still connected, still being followed, but now Dan had another way to give himself directions. Whichever ways the trees bent, go the other way.

Boredom was never a thing with so much to look at all the time, and the new ways to look at it. Dan often had complaints about his power, but he had to say that the unique way he could see the world was a good consolation. Even before their own bodies knew it, Dan could feel the subtle changes in Xiaomei and Hyun Soon signalling they would be ready to move soon. The plan had been for one of them to stay awake but Dan had convinced Hyun Soon it was unnecessary, and Xiaomei hadn’t stirred naturally.

Today was sure to require a lot of focus, having well rested partners was a gift Dan could give himself, at least.