Dong Ho didn’t fixate on the spear for very long. All it was was a weapon, with no special properties that I could access at the moment, though that would change in the future.

With that and the Starlight Sutra out of the way, we started focusing on my plunder.

“This is a runic breastplate of deflection,” Dong Ho said, holding the piece of metal up. “It won’t be very good for you as it cannot be fitted correctly without warping the scripts that enable it. In truth, it was designed to accommodate the boy you took it from, whose chest was broader than yours.”

I sighed. Maybe I should just give it back, then. I’d see if Wang Qiang was willing to bury the hatchet before doing so. I’d rather gift him than bribe him.

Dong Ho pulled something else out from his bag of holding: a large standing mirror. “This is the Celestial Insight Mirror,” he pointed it at me, and I got a look at my energy body, now made to fit the shape of my real body. “Being able to see your spirit will allow you to manipulate it more effectively, train your internal arts better, and perhaps even gain enlightenment.”

“Can only one person use it, like the Starlight Sutra?”

“No, this one can be used by all,” Dong Ho said. “Although the effects magnify from prolonged use, making sharing a difficult proposition.”

I shrugged. Didn’t matter. I didn’t need the extra help anyway.

“Moving on,” Dong Ho said as he pulled out a pair of sabers made from the same type of metal as Ahimsa. “These are the Dual Heaven’s Grace Blades. Like your Monk’s Spade, these do not confer any additional advantages this early into your martial arts journey, but eventually they will prove to be adequate conduits for the highest level of martial arts, more so than any kind of weapon known to mankind. That is the magic of Starmetal.”

“Fascinating,” I said.

“You want my advice, kid: commit to either the spade or these sabers. Don’t try to be a jack of all trades: none of the greatest truly are.”

I sighed at that. A part of me hated this sentiment, not because it wasn’t true: people always performed best in their specialization. Most of the time, I just didn’t see how it mattered. What was so bad about knowing a thing or two about everything? Or being intermediate in as many things as you can, just for the sake of seizing familiarity with this cold and dark universe?

It was hard to even put my feelings on the matter into thoughts.

I just didn’t want to be constrained.

But when it came to martial arts, which didn’t interest me to begin with, I was fine with being a one-trick pony.

“Understood, sir,” I said.

We moved on from there.

“The Heavenly Lotus Bloom,” he said, producing an actual flower from his bag of holding using telekinesis. “I suggest you don’t wait to take this. This is a treasure that boosts mental talents. It enhances your spiritual awareness and widens your ability to observe the natural universe through meditation. With this, your eventual rise to Transcendence becomes that much more likely.”

Hmm, then what was left for little Wenhao?

Moreover, what did that violent child even deserve? In the last timeline, he didn’t even use dual blades. He was a swordsman, and the Golden Emperor’s inheritance was one of sword abilities.

The morally upright thing to do would be to give Wenhao a chance to prove himself anew, with my own guidance.

Then again, who was I to guide him?

A grown man. A potential big brother figure.

Those were the objective facts. Yet, I couldn’t deny this burning feeling in my stomach that made me want to tense my fists and hit something. What was that? Hatred?

Why?

What a stupid question. I knew why. Wenhao had forced me into this position now because he was an agent of chaos that couldn’t be relied on.

Yet, he wasn’t alone in this. Mei Ying, too, had been no-less responsible for her own fair share of deaths. So was Jingshu, who I was decently certain I had a good rapport with.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Then why?

Why was Wenhao that much more detestable to me than anyone else?

I pictured him in my mind’s eye. His chiseled features, like they were hewn from stone, was framed by a shoulder-length wolf cut. If it wasn’t for his athletic build, he could be mistaken for a woman with his natural beauty. He was a main character par excellence, with all the strength of a hero but with none of their moral qualities.

The others were bad enough on their own, but Wenhao was the only one who ended up making Transcendence in the end. He had the power to end the fighting if he wanted to. But he held onto a savage world until the bitter end.

Wenhao deserved nothing.

But where would I draw the line, then? Should I cripple him now and prevent him from ever doing anything bad? Because what was the difference between doing that and depriving him of every treasure that could make his life easier?

And what if my hatred ended up creating an even worse monster?

What if, what if, that question spawned a million paths to the future in my mind, all of them as murky as the next. There was no telling what my actions could inspire him towards.

And if I wasn’t confident in playing wet nurse for a troubled teen, then… I simply didn’t have to.

If I was concerned about Wenhao, then the smartest thing to do was make sure I would never be in a position to be challenged by him.

To do so, I needed strength.

I held my hand out and Dong Ho levitated the Lotus Bloom towards me.

“Take it in like you would a qi pill, guiding it carefully through your spirit and into your core.”

I sat down and swallowed the lotus whole. It tasted sweet and floral… and buttery. It slid right down my throat despite being as wide as my hand. I closed my eyes and started meditating.

In my mind’s eye, the lotus flower seemed to naturally flow into my spirit as a matter of course, each petal thinning into streams of light that flew into my acupoints, hitching a ride through my meridians before finally hitting my core.

And in that moment, I felt a clarity of mind that I never had before in my life. Not even after I reached the Insightful stage of the Infinite Enlightenment Fist. No.

All my emotional turmoil slowly stilled, and compassion came in its wake. A compassion pointed towards myself.

I was… having a hard time. Despite the ease of my successes, despite everything falling into my lap—except for the Eye of Sages—a large part of me was exhausted beyond belief. I trudged on by using samadhi, meditating away my grief and seeking strength for another day of tribulations every night I went to sleep and every morning I woke up.

Every day in this hellworld of violence and gratuitous bloodshed was an exercise in pain for me. Even when I was ahead, it killed my soul to focus so much on hurting people when I could be focusing on learning about the food culture in Suriname or the history of the aux cord or what was stopping us from having flying cars or whatever else my brain would latch onto and think was an interesting topic to pursue.

But that was wrong, wasn’t it? It was wrong to live this way, constantly seeking gratification, even if that gratification was increased understanding. It was in the end just a blessed existence free from obligations that prevented one from chasing one’s every whim and fancy.

What had I been up to in my past life? The years were fifteen in number, and yet… they went by so fast. Had I even grown up in all that time, or was I still that scared thirteen-year-old experiencing shattered dreams and the gruesome reality of adulthood for the first time, made to kill my passion for glory and money?

My dream was to create something true. My interests were manifold, but my passions laid squarely in art. All of art. Painting, drawing, sculpting, animating, music, writing, poetry. My mind couldn’t be tamed, but I had found a way to keep myself on track, working towards a goal because at the very least, I recognized that every human needed a goal to work towards to live a fulfilling life, to find meaning in labor.

And my goal was to create an art that was true, art that incorporated all of my knowledge and experiences of the world, capturing the essence of our existence. It could be a book, a painting, a movie or an animated film. And I could produce every aspect of it, because I never saw fit to limit myself. If the end product was dogshit, I would make it better and better until it could be no better.

An impossible aspiration, but the beauty of the process was not in its conclusion, but the process itself.

And why did I have to forsake that now? Because I was in a different world, no longer able to explore more of my past world?

I couldn’t forsake my dream for just that. Maybe I could work towards finding a way back to Earth? It was possible. I had traveled back in time. Traveled dimensions.

I could work to figure out something.

But in the meantime, I would continue working towards perfecting my magnum opus. In this new world. And to do so, I required an environment that wouldn’t kill me.

It was up to me to make sure that my art studio—this entire world—remained orderly.

The lotus finished assimilating, and I felt a lightness in my spirit that I hadn’t felt before. No amount of enlightenment could compare to this feeling.

“It’s a messed up world we live in,” I said, and Dong Ho raised an eyebrow at that. “But I’m done running away from what has to be done about that. I’m not a weapon, but I will wield myself like one to get the life that I want, to pursue my own hopes and dreams.” I reached for Ahimsa to my side. It, too, yearned for an end to the violence, and knew that all it could do to achieve that was exactly what it hated. I could feel that discord, now.

She wasn’t naive. She was grieving.

I rubbed her comfortingly.

“Well said,” Dong Ho said. “All that stands in the way of your desires are those who seek to kill you and those who seek to add chaos to the world. Your enemies are ours. Remember that.”

I nodded. That was true.

For now.