The days went by as usual for Jin. The morning he was either going to lessons or the library if there were none, building his common knowledge. The afternoon was spent at the arena to keep his skills from deterioring. And after that, he absorbed the spiritual energy.

Today was not going to be any different. Until he heard loud knocking at his doorstep. It was very early in the morning. To the point he had not even gotten up yet. He went to open the doors still a little out of it and was quite surprised by the unexpected guest.

It was Sang-Kyu, a friend of Soo-Hyun. He was sweating and anxious. But Jin found it particularly unexpected to see him as outer court disciples were forbidden from entering the inner court alone... That's when he saw an elder he knew a little further, outside his front-garden. The elder waved with a smile before going on his way. Turned out an elder brought the guy here.

But why? He would soon find out as he invited Sang-Kyu in. But the guy rejected saying they had no time for this. Jin asked him: "What's going on for you to be like that?" to which Sang-Kyu replied quickly "War! That's what!"

War? Wait, what? Was this guy stupid? This was the Twenty-Two Suns Sect. The strongest one around. What war? Which idiots would dare? What's more, the elder who brought him here did not seem very on-edge. If the situation was dire enough that it was a 'war', would he had been smiling? Would he even have brought this guy here? No.

So, there was no war.

Jin looked at him as if an idiot. And Sang-Kyu noticed it. Even in his state, it was very easy to read Jin's face. Sang-Kyu tried to calm down and told Jin more details: "The Empire is at war with a border country"

Oh, so that's what it was? It didn't matter to Jin. Why would he care about the Empire? Why would he care about their war? It wasn't his war. He was ready to slam the door until Sang-Kyu said: "They put up a mission to join the war efforts and Soo-Hyun took it!"

Well, now that was more of a problem. Throughout those months, Jin took quite a liking to the little girl. Always cheerful yet barbaric, she had been a good friend. He saw her quite like the little sister he never had. And while he had never gone to war, he knew what war meant: Death. Especially for weaklings like them.

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Could they face cultivators in the 10ths stages of spiritual accumulation? No. No they could not. So, wasn't the girl going to her death? No wonder Sang-Kyu rushed here so early... This guy really liked Soo-Hyun after all. But he was a coward and a weakling.

Regardless of all this, Jin didn't want the girl to die a meaningless death in a random war. He told the kid to lead the way and they rushed to Soo-Hyun's barracks. As they knocked at the door, it was open by one of her roommate. This was the outer after all, they did not have a house to themselves. But soon enough, they were facing Soo-Hyun.

She was quite surprised to see them here. Sang-Kyu aside, Jin never went to look for her, she was always the one to fetch him. Soo-hyun curiously asked them: "What's up guys?" and Jin told her: "He told me you were joining a war, is that true?" The little girl nodded and Jin screamed at the top of his lungs: "Are you fucking insane?!"

From there, it took some time to calm him down and most of the disciples that lived around had woken up. Jin had been very loud throughout his speech. In the end, she brought the two in. The house wasn't very tidy but considering five little girls lived in alone, it was expected. Soo-Hyun was rather unhappy about it. If she had known Jin would come, she would have cleaned up the place.

As they sat down in the living room, Soo-Hyun began to explain what the war was about: "Do you really think I would be dumb enough to join a war where true cultivators fought? It's not like that. It's a border battle! A border battle!"

Jin and Sang-Kyu looked at each other. Yup. Neither of them knew the difference. Soo-Hyun couldn't help but sigh. Jin had worked hard to fill his lack of knowledge but it seems there was still a lot of basics he didn't know. As for Sang-Kyu...This guy was an idiot anyway, she didn't care.

She decided to explain: "You know how strong powerful cultivators are, right? What do you think would happen to a region if hundreds maybe thousands of those battled in a war?" Jin answered: "They would destroy everything" and the two others nodded. It was obvious. Those people had powers that were too immense. A battle of thousands of those? It would leave behind nothing but ruins.

Soo-Hyun elaborated: "Now, the border battles exist so that such things don't happen. They send out warriors under the spiritual level to fight instead. That way, whoever wins, he can profit from the area's ressources. There are border battles every few years, you know? It is basic knowledge!"

It turned out that in order to preserve the ecosystem, they didn't send out powerful cultivators. It was smart in a sense but it still required both countries to agree upon it. While it was beneficial to both, if they were in a bad relationship, such things would be impossible.

And all that aside, even if only warriors under the spiritual warrior level joined, it remained a war. Jin couldn't help his anger to rise once more. Border battle and true war? Both were wars! It didn't matter who the highest fighters would be, it was a war. And wars were vastly different from spars and one on one.