Ming woke up fresh the following morning, surprised to see a marigold sun stretching across the horizon, though the clouds, which only allowed the occasional ray to slip through, provided much shade, sheltering him from what might otherwise be uncomfortably warm.

“For some reason, I thought this realm would be one of eternal night,” Ming said, yawning. “But I like this better. I’ve had enough eternal night for a thousand lifetimes.”

“Agreed,” Hope said, soaking in the occasional beam gracing his leaves. “This will do nicely.”

Ming noticed a set of expensive-looking splendid gray robes sitting on the lowest branch, and he dressed himself, coming to terms with the fact that he had spent the last eight millennia in the nude. It was an unpleasant thought, but he was deeply thankful that Hope had thought to sacrifice a bit of his own wood to save Ming some embarrassment.

Besides, the robes were really quite comfortable, and Ming was surprisingly clean beneath them, even if just a tinge of the void remained.

“So,” Ming said, “If I open a portal back, where will we end up?”

“Normally, the last place we were, but our location got somewhat… twisted about with the eternity spent in the void, and when this realm was finished constructing, it aligned with the heart of the Wujin plane, the center of the main continent, Shiluo.”

“That’s convenient,” Ming said, frowning, “But it makes sense, I suppose. Who knows where we would’ve ended up if the plane hadn’t pulled us back…”

“Correct,” Hope replied. “It seems fate is kind today, or perhaps the gods would rather we didn’t end up on another plane entirely, disrupting machinations eons in the making. Either way, this benefits us.”

Ming opened a rift, and the center of a busy city square appeared. He stepped through nonchalantly, and immediately at least ten high-pitched whistles sounded out around him, the nearby shoppers scrambling away.

Ming stood in place, not wanting to cause a scene, and a guard shortly approached him.

“Young Master,” the older woman said, bowing, “Please forgive this lowly guard, for I am required to ask if you are carrying any form of identification. Teleporting into the city is strictly prohibited, but if you would be so kind as to provide some documents and pay the fine, we are happy to waive all charges.”

Ming’s mind whirred at the implication, and he quickly assessed the guard. She was of the Peak Initiate Qi Gathering realm and the Early Initiate Skin Tempering realm, stronger than any elders on Minglao Island. And yet, thankfully, he felt minimal fear looking at her, his Resolve character having mostly solved that issue. He could also tell that she was near the end of her path as a cultivator, her silvery, metal spirit roots shriveling up. He sensed that she practiced a cycling technique that limited her potential. All this and more Ming gleaned in a single long look, his cognition now an order of magnitude faster with his mind cultivation’s advancement, just as his senses were enhanced to a similar capacity.

“Charges?” Ming asked, a hint of dread creeping into his voice. “I need documents?”

“Indeed,” the guard said, furrowing her brow. “We require all visitors to travel with their documents, as is standard. Where are you from, Young Master?” she asked, her tone growing curt as the exchange lengthened.

For a single breath, Ming’s gaze swept through the crowd, noticing two other guards watching their engagement, though the ward formations had finally stopped screaming. Pagodas lined the streetsides, selling various wares, and stands were scattered across the courtyard, hawking their myriad products. He spotted an alleyway to his left, though another guard was stationed by it, and he pretended not to notice. He could probably make a run for it.

Ming didn’t have great experiences with authority figures, and he was seriously considering it, though he didn’t want to make an enemy of the government that he would be living under for the foreseeable future.

Then again, he was just some kid in a gray robe. Would they truly be able to catch him, or even expend the resources to do so?

Ming took a cautious step to his left, toward that alleyway, and the guard’s countenance shifted from questioning to annoyed. Ming’s body cultivation was only the same, meager level of the guard’s, and his spirit cultivation was far inferior at only Middle Initiate, but he felt he had a solid chance at escape.

Ming dared not allow himself to be caught unawares, and he had no idea what abilities or artifices the guard could be hiding, so he immediately reached out to Mind Like Water. His senses exploded outward, and suddenly he was perfectly aware of everything within one hundred paces.

He quickly derogated his senses to his parallel mind, and he managed to avoid tripping as the mind technique activated. His second mind fed him information faithfully, letting him know about the guards’ weapons, among which were some enchanted ropes carried at their sides.

One of which was flying at him right now.

He had no time to dodge, and the rope wrapped around his body the instant it made contact, restricting his spirit and body cultivation. He stumbled, desperately attempting to push his soulforce into the artifice, but it refused to break even as he inhabited it. He quickly realized what had happened. He had wrested away control of the artifice from its original owner.

“Hope, can you control this?” Ming sent at the speed of thought, for he had only two minds and it was all starting to get a little overwhelming.

“Done,” the tree said, and Ming felt a strand of gray qi reach out from his dantian.

The rope released him, moving alongside Ming as he ran, and his second mind told him that it had briefly slithered backward to trip up the guard following from behind as he continued his mad dash to the alleyway.

Mind Like Ice, Ming thought, and his second technique activated simultaneously, granting him extreme mental acuity even as he was fed a stream of information from his second mind. Time seemed to compress for Ming, and he felt invincible. His techniques would last for only fifteen breaths like this, half of their normal thirty, but he could only hope it would be long enough.

Soon he was standing in front of the guard that had taken the alley, who was blocking the entrance.

The stocky man held his polearm extended toward Ming, threatening him with disembowelment should he proceed. He had clearly picked up on the fact that the enchanted rope had been ineffective for the other guard, as it dangled harmlessly at his side.

His spirit cultivation was low, Ming could tell, no higher than Middle Initiate, while his body cultivation was practically nonexistent, and his mind cultivation had not even progressed to the Base Initiate Thought Quickening realm. Everyone else of import he had seen thus far hadn’t managed anything in that area either, so it seemed mind cultivation was a rare endeavor.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The polearm was steel, but otherwise a mundane weapon. An idea occurred to Ming, and he decided to embrace folly.

He darted into the man’s inner guard, sliding close to the ground, but he adjusted his polearm to respond.

Even so, his adjustment was far too slow for Ming, and his Balanced Strike technique activated instantly, coating his hand in gray qi as he sloughed the head off the spear, his strike piercing straight through the wood, turning the weapon harmless. Ming was satisfied to see that the gray qi of his technique now obeyed him so easily, his new constitution fitting it perfectly, and most of the qi returned to his dantian as the technique dissipated, unlike last time.

Ming slid back to his feet, sprinting away. He drifted through many back alleys and side streets until he eventually found a suitable clothesline, at which point he stashed the rope artifice in his ring alongside the shark and ent cores. He felt bad about stealing clothes, but he knew spirit beast meat was somewhat valuable, and he had a large stock of it. A wistful smile crept onto his face as he realized that even now Uncle Guren was helping him preserve his morals.

He changed out of his gray robes quickly, putting on the average-looking set and stuffing some spirit beast jerky from his ring into the pockets of the nearby clothes, sure that the meat would be enough to pay for a new pair of robes and then some.

The transcendent gray robes disappeared into his pocket realm when he touched them.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see these again so soon,” Hope said.

Ming shook his head. “Trouble seems to follow us. It was a thoughtful gift, but they are too recognizable for now,” Ming sent, finally free to do as he pleased in the city.

He took a moment to get his bearings, eating a piece of spirit beast jerky.

His first step would be to see about entering a sect here. There was surely no way they could be anywhere as petty and self-serving as the ones from the tiny island he called home. Or, at least, he hoped.

He stopped an older man that was strolling through the area. He was emitting no spiritual pressure at all, so Ming felt somewhat comfortable approaching him. “Sorry to bother you, Honored Senior,” Ming started, “Do you have any idea where I might find a sect I can apply for?” He finished, bowing.

The man flashed him a smile, though the large scar on his lip caused it to come across a tad bit off-putting. “Of course, young man,” he said, stopping. He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you…”

“Li Ming,” Ming replied instantly.

“Wang Qingyun,” the man said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you don’t mind me asking, Ming, what realm of talent would you possess?”

“I don’t…” Ming began, genuinely caught off-guard.

The man proceeded to explain the tiers of talent, from Mortal to Heavenly. It appeared that one’s spirit roots could be analyzed and their most likely fate determined purely from something so fixed.

It seemed wrong to Ming, but he had understood it even with that guard’s limited spirit roots in the square, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t quantify it in the same way these sects did. Perhaps it wasn’t as simple as they made it out to be, but inherent talent did seem to exist in some capacity. After a few more moments of thinking about it, he realized it was probably just a more qualitative approach to the same test they had administered back on Minglao Island—so-called ‘affinity’ testing. Ming was a bit concerned about that, considering his odd constitution. He had a few more questions, and this man was surprisingly knowledgeable, so he decided to proceed in asking them.

“What about body cultivation potential?” Ming asked.

The man waved his hand dismissively. “Not measured by the local sects, though I know they care about such things in Huoxia.”

“The de facto capital,” Hope sent. “The city we found ourselves in, Xian, is nowhere near the wealthiest or most important city in Shiluo, it’s just in the middle.”

“I see,” Ming replied, continuing the discussion. “Where would I go for such a test?” He figured he might as well study at one of the local sects while he was here, since he had no idea where Bo and Shomei had gotten off to, and he still needed to make some quick progress to delay his soon-encroaching death.

A loss of vitality that had cut his spirit roots down to almost nothing, even if the affinity test on Minglao Island hadn’t been evaluating that. Ming felt sick to his stomach with the realization. From a certain point of view, it seemed like his potential was unlimited, almost divine. Alternatively, they might see him as a liability. Ming swallowed. Would he fail their test?

Ming thanked the man, wandering off to the testing center he had mentioned.

It was an imposing pagoda, painted in shades of auburn and gold. A clerk saw Ming to a room and told him an instructor would be with him shortly. The tea-brewing table in the center of the sparsely-decorated area shone as a brilliant centerpiece, and Ming made himself a cup of tea while he waited. It was delicious—the first thing besides jerky he had tasted in eight thousand years.

The examiner came in, and Ming served his tea, as was customary. He was a kind-looking bald man with glasses. Ming asked a few questions as they drank their tea, and it quickly became obvious that his worst fears would likely come to a close. They were primarily looking for length in spirit roots, as it indicated a long life ahead and much potential, whereas those with more powerful but shorter spirit roots were something of a gamble for most sects.

“Should we cheat?” Ming asked. “If you took the test instead of me, would we have a chance at doing well?”

“Probably not a good idea, Ming. My spirit roots are many times the length of any mortal human’s, so they would likely suspect you cheated.”

With that, Ming decided to take the test on his own, and as soon as he said he was ready, the proctor touched the table, infusing it with his qi, and a formation appeared atop it, rising to float slightly above the table.

Ming followed instructions, pushing his own qi into the formation, and soon it was aglow with a magnificent gray, burning so bright as to blind the instructor as his roots exploded out, extending just barely from his hand. He noticed the instructor’s eyes widened as he got his bearings, witnessing Ming’s aptitude for eclipse qi.

Then, after they had barely reached beyond his fingertips at all, those brilliant roots stopped growing entirely, disappearing from sight.

The man looked deeply bemused, and they both just sat there for a few moments before he said anything.

His shocked expression slowly transformed to one of pity. “The length of your spirit roots is so short as to be a matter of immediate concern,” the man said, wincing. “I would only expect to see something similar from a great ruler, perhaps as they slipped into the River of Souls.”

Ming nodded, having expected that response. “What grade can you give me, Honored Senior?”

The older man fixed him with a long look. “Never in my life have I witnessed spirit roots approaching such power, but they are so very short. You possess perfect aptitude for that strange gray qi, and yet you likely will not have the time to make use of it. The fates have indeed dealt you an odd hand, child.”

Ming shook his head. “I used a forbidden technique that made use of my own vitality. My spirit roots were once much longer.”

The man’s face twisted with rage. “Who would dare spoil a boy of such glorious potential? Tell me, who taught you such a thing? Did they hurt you? The Jade Stem Pagoda, no, I can inform our sponsor sect, the Jade Lotus, of this infraction, and have that fool killed for their insolence!” the proctor declared dramatically, glasses shaking precariously on his face.

“I came up with the technique myself, actually,” Ming said. “Though I appreciate your concern.”

The man stared at him. “Why in the Nine Hells would you do such a thing?”

“It was either that, or watch a friend die,” Ming said sadly, remembering that day. “I would make the same decision again, if I had to.”

The proctor blinked, gaze softening. “Never should a child have to bear such a burden,” he said simply, slipping a hand into his robe and offering up an azure token. “Normally, with such strong potential, you’d most definitely receive a Heavenly-grade test result. Yours is a unique case… take this mark. It indicates Horizon-grade potential, and will give you the opportunity to take the practical exam for any sects in the city. The lower sects might not even bother to test you at all.”

The older man put a hand on Ming’s shoulder. “This is all I can give you. Tell no one I proctored your test. Your talent is so great that anything else would be a travesty, but I’m afraid my peers might not see things that way.”

“Thank you,” Ming said, emotions welling up inside him. He wasn’t sure why, but a single tear had run down his cheek.

“Thank me, child, by jumping the dragon’s gate,” he said, walking away. “Good luck.”