The days passed, blending together into one long blur as he continued his endless pilgrimage through the desert.

The clothes that had once covered his body had long since been ruined and destroyed, left behind like so much else in the unending sands. They didn’t matter, he didn’t need them. He journeyed on naked, ignoring his bare body as it baked beneath the harsh sunlight that shone down upon him.

His skin had dried out under that ruthless heat, his flesh cracking open and creating weeping wounds that exposed raw nerve endings. They screamed with every step he took, the jerky movements of his body opened them up to the environment. He didn’t care. Disregarding the pain he lifted one foot before placing the next, relentlessly walking forward and leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints to mark his path.

Every moment was agony, and it had subsumed his entire being. He felt like collapsing, falling to the ground and giving up, but something within him refused. He didn’t know why, he only knew that he wouldn’t yield, no he couldn’t, it wasn’t in his nature. He’d chosen his path, and he’d follow it to the end, no matter how burdensome it became.

There was a time when he hadn’t known this about himself.

The voice had helped reveal it to him. Of course, it had demanded a price in return. What was the cost to know the truth? He’d asked. Everything, had come the whispered reply. There was no room for it to be otherwise, the journey he was on demanded no less.

He’d accepted the offer without hesitation, and the voice had attacked, greedily seizing everything that made him who he once was, except that which he truly was. He had nothing left now, except memories of memories he’d once had. There was only one thing he knew to be true, the one thing that had remained with him throughout every nerve wracking step.

He’d chosen this.

All it had taken to realize the truth was stripping away everything he’d believed he was. The person he’d thought he’d been had been scoured clean, wiped away like so much mud overlaying the surface of a priceless gem. What was revealed once that grime had been cleared away was who he truly was, the facets that made up his being now perfectly reflected within the pure light of reality, without any falsehoods or illusions to hide behind.

And now he knew.

He was diligent and earnest, a sincere lad who enjoyed hard work. He was reflective and self-aware, always examining himself in the pursuit of self understanding. He was vindictive, stubborn and unyielding, never able to forgive a slight, to retreat or give up.

He’d once had a name, but names were like clothes, you could take them off or put them on at your leisure. His was gone now, buried somewhere behind him in the sands of time. He’d once had a family, and friends as well. All that remained to him of them were vague sensations, impressions left behind by people he couldn’t quite recall. There’d also been a place he’d belonged to and teachings that had once meant something to him. Now he recognized them as nothing more than the vague idealizations of half internalized beliefs.

The folly of youth.

He chuckled, before wincing in agony as the dry skin pulled at the corner of his lips, causing them to tear and bleed. He groaned as he felt it, and his head dipped low, his spine bending under the tortuous heat of the sun. He refused to stay down, however. He proudly raised himself back up, defying the pain that threatened to cow him. He took another step, and the blazing sand shifted beneath his feet. He no longer felt it, any nerve endings there having long since burnt away.

None of this mattered. The only thing that mattered was advancing, and continuing to move forward.

He lifted a foot to take the next step, and paused, hovering there uncertain as a thought struck him like a thunderbolt from the blue. Why? He knew advancing mattered, that it was important, that to stop was to falter, to falter was to fall, to fall was to die - The thoughts ran through his head in circles but he still didn’t take that next step. There was something deeper here, something that he was still missing.

The sun beat down on his back as he considered it, gradually corralling his thoughts.

He’d had a reason to advance once, long ago. But it had been stripped from him as well, wiped away alongside all his other thoughts and memories.

But now, above all else, it mattered.

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“Purpose.” He muttered, his dry voice cracking as it came out in a hoarse whisper, unrecognizable even to himself.

Ceaselessly advancing forward, as if that was all there was in life… He laughed again, a dry, ugly sound that tugged on his sunburnt skin. How childish.

He’d had a purpose once, but he knew now that it had been but half a dream. It hadn’t been real, not real enough to survive whatever this was.

He looked up, staring at that blazing ball in the sky that reigned on high so far above him. He felt his spirit ignite as he looked at it, an intense desire welling up within him. He wanted to be able to walk beneath it without fear, to know a day where the light no longer burned when it touched him. No, he wanted to see the day where he could reach out and touch it, grasping it within his own hands.

A day when perhaps he himself shone as bright as that light in the sky.

He laughed again, but this time joy tinged it for he finally recalled - no, he hadn’t recalled, he’d realized, realized exactly what it was that drove him.

He no longer advanced without purpose, mindlessly moving forward.

He finally placed his foot down, taking that next step.

He advanced in pursuit of the heavens.

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Yu Chen snapped awake, breathing heavily as awakened. He clutched his head, groaning as he waited for the inevitable feeling of pain to wash over him. It never came, instead -

“You’ve successfully passed the trial of Mind. Remarkable results. When you are ready, you may progress onto the next.” The voice spoke, sounding out from all around him.

“What?” Yu Chen croaked out, as he heard the unexpected sound. He blinked, looking around blurrily, no longer seeing the shifting sands of that endless desert. The blinding brightness was gone as well, and his eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden change.

“Where am I?”

He could make out the room, he just didn’t recognize it. He lay within a solid square of white marble, wide enough for two men to stand arms outstretched and still not touch the walls, the same walls which shone with a faint luminescence, lighting up the space around him. He didn’t recognize the place, and he’d no idea of how he got there. His memories were full of endless scenes of that damnedable desert, and he had trouble recalling anything before that.

“You are currently undertaking the trials arranged for the disciples of Flowing Eternity. The ones put in place for those who wish to advance into the Inner Sect.” The voice said before adding helpfully. “So far, you have managed to successfully pass one such trial. I must say you’re doing quite well all things considered. Most who awake simply lie there screaming.”

Yu Chen stood up, reeling as his memories came flooding back and he recalled where he was.

Who he was.

It took some time for him to get his bearings. The heat of that fictional sun still lingered in the back of his mind, despite its irreality. He felt the muscles across his back and shoulders twitch, writhing as they responded to the imagined pain he half recalled.

No phantom pains came from within his feet. They hadn’t hurt in a long time, even within the dream. He took stock, finding his body mostly intact, his clothes present and his spatial pouch still there. Physically he hadn’t changed, but he mentally was a different matter. The experience had aged him in some strange way.

He didn’t know how long he’d spent in that other world, although it seemed not much time had passed here. He couldn’t say if it had been eons or a single fleeting moment, it made no difference. Time had lacked any meaning there, days tumbling by with the same ease that water had when poured from a cup, as his personality was ruthlessly scraped clean and measured.

Only his indomitable willpower had allowed him to endure. However painful the process he had to admit it had been edifying, bringing with it some indescribable benefits.

His conviction had been tested within and his vision had clarified. He no longer possessed doubts about who he was, or his purpose, feeling a sense of surety about himself that only much older men possessed.

He let out a low breath, banishing his lingering thoughts, and taking time to center himself before replying to the voice in the room.

“Who are you?” Yu Chen asked. His voice was hard and even now, his tone filled with a new confidence.

“I’m not really anyone at all. I simply oversee the trials. Nothing more, nothing less.” The voice replied, its tone ambiguous.

“Are you a person?”

“No. At least, not in the sense that you mean. I am not a human but a tool.”

Yu Chen looked around, seeing nothing but the blank walls that surrounded him on every side. The room he was within was completely unadorned, void of any distinguishment. Without the pull of gravity weighing him down, he wouldn’t even be able to say which was was up.

“Where do I go now?” He asked the voice.

No reply came, but the marble before him seamlessly split, revealing a path that descended downwards.

“The trial of Body awaits you below.”

Yu Chen nodded, stepping through the door and following it downwards.

He followed the path as it sloped downwards, spiralling through the earth before splitting in two. Yu Chen stood at the intersection, and he could feel two separate breezes blowing from down below, each carrying the rich scent of qi. The path on the left brought a dry heat with it, and it bathed him in the heavy sensation of rich fire qi. The breeze from the right carried a deep chill within it, and Yu Chen sensed the familiar sensation of strong water qi emanating from that direction.

The voice had called the path ahead the test of Body. Yu Chen nodded to himself before stepping down the left hand path. The heat increased as he walked until it became sweltering, and sweat began to bead across his forehead.

He continued forward, moving down the tunnel until it finally came to an end, opening up into a wide cavern that was full of a dense roiling heat that threatened to overwhelm him. Thick magma bubbled all around, occasionally popping with a splash that flung small drops of molten rock across the cave.

A single, thin band of crumbling rock snaked throughout the cavern, creating a path that was longer than it had any right to be, leading to an opening on the other side. Rich fire qi filled the air, bubbling up from the depths of the earth like a massive aspected energy well.

This place was heaven to anyone that walked a path of flames, and hell to all else. Yu Chen grinned.

Perhaps even hell could be turned to his advantage.