When he left the catacombs, his eyes widened in shock. The land before him was like a fantasy. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but nothing changed when he looked again. Going to another world had never felt real in the catacombs, but it hit him like a sack of bricks now. 

Gigantic mountainous boulders floated in the air unassisted, like islands in the sky. Buildings were built on them, and rope bridges connected them. They stretched for as far as the eye could see. Each island was about half the size of the moon, and from Wang Tao’s memories, each housed a sect. 

Travis had come to a cliff face, and sweat trickled down his back as he looked down. Mist and clouds were like a blanket under the islands, so he couldn’t see the ground, but he knew that falling would be a long drop to his death.

It seemed as though the sect Wang Tao was from lived above, so Travis pondered about how to get back up. He cursed the disciples that had dumped him in the catacombs. He searched around the ledge he was on until he found a flight of stone steps. They were cracked and dilapidated, but Travis shrugged and took a step. It was weird, every step he took was harder and harder to take, until he was on his hands and knees crawling. 

“Why is this so hard?” Travis said through gritted teeth. His eyes were bloodshot - the pressure on the steps made him feel nauseous. 

Finally, the pressure grew so great Travis had no choice but to collapse. He panted. 

“These steps… are so damn hard to climb up! Don’t they have magic elevators here?” 

Sweat covered his whole body. Travis then remembered something he had seen in Wang Tao’s memories. “Oh right, that white light! If I use it on myself I shouldn’t be having such a bad time.” He probed his body with his mind like Wang Tao used to do. His consciousness rushed through his meridians, and broke into his dantian. 

“I’ve…I’ve seen the inside of a body before, but this is…” Travis’ breath stifled at the scene in his abdomen. 

It was like its own little world.

There was a tree. It was ethereal, imposing, otherworldly and corporeal all at the same time. Thin, silvery threads hung loose as branches. It was archaic but pulsed with vitality. The tree was a contradiction in every way, and Travis got the feeling that if the tree was in the real world, the cosmos and nebula would fight amongst themselves for the pleasure of smiting it. This was the Bodhi tree, the tree of enlightenment. 

It represented the martial way, the way of going against the heavens and the earth to temper oneself. 

Travis walked towards the tree, but quickly realised a problem. Every step he took was a conundrum.  

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“I’ve taken so many steps and I’m still no closer to the tree.” Travis snapped out of his reverie and realised the meaning of cultivation. 

A vision flashed before his eyes. Him, crosslegged under the tree. The look on his face was mesmerising - he had never seen such a look on anyone’s face before. It was the look of a higher being, totally looking down on the world. 

“It seems like that’s the goal of cultivation - to reach the tree’s shade and meditate under its leaves.” 

Travis had only penetrated a thousand miles towards the tree, and if he tried to go any further, he would just walk back where he had started. Each cultivator started off with ten miles, and each level they broke through increased their miles tenfold. Travis could walk a thousand miles, so Wang Tao had broken through to the third level of cultivation. 

Siphoning the white energy out of the domain, he circulated it through his body tentatively. He sighed as it soothed his veins. An aura came off his body, and he clenched his jaw. He walked. The steps were much easier to walk up this time. 

“The end! Finally.” Travis rushed up the steps with a second burst of wind. 

He froze. 

A sharp claw whizzed through the air and missed his throat by a sliver. He felt the tip of the talon just clip the tiny hairs on his neck. His heart leapt as he paled and rubbed his throat - panting as he recalled how close to death he had been. 

“Oh… that’s interesting.” A nonchalant voice sighed. 

“Who… who are you?” Travis’ voice quaked. 

“Hey brat, how did you evade my attack?” The voice completely ignored Travis. “If your answer bores me, I’ll kill you.” 

Travis’ heart dropped. ‘Fuck, is this guy really going to kill me just like this? What do I say?’ 

A billion possibilities raced through his head. Sweat dribbled down his forehead; the veins in his temple quivered as he desperately thought of something that would get him out of the situation he was in. 

A glimmer of hope revealed itself in Wang Tao’s memories

Travis cleared his throat. “No milord, I didn’t evade your attack.” 

The voice was silent for a few seconds. You could detect an air of curiosity in the silence. 

Travis carried on. “Truth is, I’m a spirit. I was slain by traitors in the sect. I offer this bone to you, the Void Immortal Sect’s Sphinx to avenge my wrongful death!”

Travis grinned as he respectfully offered the bones he had taken from the catacombs. 

Laughter; raspy laughter rang out through the skies. “You really thought this would fool me? You’re more ignorant than I thought!” 

Travis’ smile froze in place. 

“You know, I really ought to kill you, but the bones are a treasure for me, so I will turn a blind eye to this.” The bones quivered, then floated away. 

Travis let out the breath he had been holding the whole time. He looked up, and saw a flash of a golden light dropping towards him. A golden feather landed in his hand. 

“These stairs are a taboo, if you got to the top of the stairs, you would have died without even knowing who had killed you.” The Sphinx laughed its raspy laugh once more. 

Travis shuddered. The golden feather started to pulse, and a golden light encompassed Travis. In the blink of an eye, he vanished. 

He reappeared in a room. He looked around, dazed and confused, wondering where he had been teleported to. It was Wang Tao’s… his room. Travis let out the breath he had been holding the whole time. 

That had been the Sphinx, the legendary sect protecting beast of the Void Immortal Sect. Apparently, it had been protecting the sect since its inception. It was unimaginably old, and unimaginably powerful.

Travis felt a strange energy in his body, disputing quickly. “It must be what allows people to teleport.” A thought jumped into his head. “If I can figure this out, I should be able to teleport!” However, as soon as the thought entered his head, he quickly shot it down. 

“It’s basically impossible. The sect doesn’t have teleportation manuals and even if they did, I’m not qualified to look at them.” Travis went over to his bed and sat down. He thought about his life on Earth, and how he had died. 

He murmured, “even if I went back, would my life be better than it is here?” He turned his fireplace on and lit a blunt in it. He took a deep breath. He stared at the ceiling, running his eyes along the spidery cracks that lined it. 

“They treat lives like nothing here, but at least it’s based on power. There’s no police, no concept of racism. I can do whatever the hell I want here. I’ve got enough weed to last a few years. Do I really want to go back?” Travis asked himself. He quickly got rid of his thoughts. 

Thinking about them would just waste time and depress him.