As soon as I realized what was the solution to my problem, I moved.

My feet found themselves pointing towards another street. One which I’d forgotten the name of by now. Oh well, no point in remembering anything anyway, the city was too big and after careful consideration—which meant realizing the only land I could buy with the money I’ve saved up was far, very far away from here—I was going to leave very soon.

As in, as soon as I get a deal.

The smell of incenses, of all types, was thick in the air. Overwhelming even. It invaded my nostrils like nothing else. I thanked everything I could for the ability to tune down my senses—as I could feel my nostrils literally burning as I left the vicinity of the more modern part of the city—one that every cultivator worth their salt would have in their bag.

I looked around. The wood here, the main component of constructions in the city, looked… old. The edges were often chipped away, cracks could be found and the color simply wasn’t right.

Speaking about color, any sort of paint, whether it was blue, green, or red, was often scraped or dull, age showing at every turn of the street. The stones constituting the ground were far from smooth, the path was a mess of a straight line, and raw gravel was filling the gaps—making for an unpleasant sensation through the soles of my thin black shoes.

Beyond the dizzying mix of perfumes, another one wafted in my nose. One more hidden, but one recognizable. And one not unpleasant. The lack of a proper sewage system was evident, but it didn’t hide perfectly the scent of fragrant spices in the air. I caught signs of roasting meat in the air, carried in the same gusts as burning wood and thick smoke. Many other scents were tangled in between, most of which I couldn’t recognize, so I gave up and kept walking.

I was far from the almost artificial freshness of the previous streets. And I was even further from the gentle and pleasant breeze flowing in the sect’s compound.

No overwhelming sounds of a crowd here either, only a couple of inhabitants going past. I observed them as I walked. They were all wearing long shirts and ample pants, of few varying colors and often stained so deep I first thought they were made that way.

No stylish dresses here, only rough patches on well-worn items of clothing. I glanced at the passing faces… even those who did not have wrinkles looked terribly old—worn-down expressions with narrowed eyes—and there weren’t a lot of ‘young’ people.

I walked a tad faster, a sigh slipping past my lips, and the patter of my feet became more significant.

Even though we were in the same city, there wasn’t much cultivation grandeur here to see.

When the door slid right, the chime of a clock greeted me. I took a deep breath, the change in atmosphere visible.

“Hello?” I asked, looking around the small office I found myself in. The corridor leading to it, from the front door, was thin enough only one person could fit in, and the height of buildings here was decidedly not made for cultivators. It was a lesson I learned at the prize of a bump in the forehead.

Beige paint was the choice here, which went well with the almost walnut-colored wood.

The smell of tea and old paper was lingering in the room, recent enough I could tell someone made some of the beverage not long ago, and a glance around told me the rough scent came from the bookshelves littering the smaller part of this room.

It was a lot better than what was going on in the street.

Separating it in two—one larger square for what I assumed were the customers, and a smaller one for whoever owned this place—was a counter, a simple wooden desk, overflowing with documents in a messy manner. One paper was even on the brink of falling to the side, only retained by piles of books stacking upon it. Behind it, another door; closed.

No one was present, other than me. At least, in this part of the store. I could feel a presence deeper in it.

“Hello…?” I repeated, taking the chance to walk across the slightly squeaky tiles of the floor, to arrive in front of the desk. I raised an eyebrow as a noise came from behind the door—something falling—before I heard a hurried and almost desperate patter of steps.

“Welcome, dear customer—” The image of a jolly old man, a wide smile on his face appeared. ”—what can I do for… you…” And then he became fear incarnate, as his gaze went all the way down from my face to my shoes. His smile lowered before disappearing completely. His mouth then widened the same way his eyes did, as his skin became pale, and his lower lip quivered for a moment.

I didn’t even have time to raise an eyebrow before he threw his head down, nearly kowtowing to me, his bald head being the only part of his face I could see now.

“I-I am most ashamed! Please forgive me for my transgression, I did not know an esteemed cultivator of the Crimson Phoenix Sect would visit my pitiful abode this day!”

I opened my mouth but was too taken aback by his reaction to say anything. It was my first time leaving the compound of the sect, and was my first time meeting someone normal…

I sighed. What a disaster.

"Y-You’re Liu Wei!” shouted the man, sending his chair reeling as he stood up abruptly, his eyes shining with… something. I really didn’t want to call it worship.

I put on a smile even I knew was awkward, just as I knew I wasn’t the Liu Wei he wanted. “Yes. Yes, that’s me.”

“T-The one who rose to the Sky Realm just with the sweat of his brows, and the intensity of a thousand men burning in his eyes?!”

My lips twitched as I forced down a roll of the eyes at his words. And it wasn’t me. “Yes.”

“The one who overcame all adversity and revolted against the order of the Heavens?!”

It’s not me. “Y-Yes.”

“The one who—”

No, that’s not me. “Yes, it’s me,” I interrupted.

“F-Forgive me, I was… It’s just an honor to meet a legend. So many of our young took the chance to pursue the path of cultivation thanks to you…” He fixed me with an honest, almost earnest gaze, one filled with respect I didn’t earn.

The smile was becoming harder to maintain.

I knew what he was saying was what was believed, but not only I was the only one intimate with the true ambitions of the original Liu Wei—which were nowhere near as honorable as mentioned—but sending children into those death machines called sects was far from a win in my book.

Failing the first test would get you rejected… getting into the second one and failing would mean a sure death. Because assholes decided that the best way to judge a kid’s value was to send them to the homes of beasts dangerous even to most cultivators. Then they showed the glory of the few survivors while hiding the stack of rotten bodies underneath each of them.

“So… large pieces of land…?” He pursed his lips, his wandering to the side in an apprehensive manner.

“Really nothing?”

“No, no… it’s just, the one I own is not in an ideal place…” He scratched the back of his head. “And strange rumors are surrounding it…”

“That’s fine, I don’t mind.”

“Really? I guess cultivators are truly different from us simple folk,” he laughed in derision, infectiously.

I found myself chuckling along in no time.

After the laughter ran its course, he paused for a moment, lips thinning within the matter of a second. “Excuse my curiosity, but could I learn the intent behind such a purchase? It’s not every day I get requests like this, and maybe it’ll help me get something else for you—if we meet again in the future.” He ended his words with a wink.

I exaggeratedly rolled my eyes, amused. “Sure, if I have time or still need that piece of land.” I doubted it. “As for why, I’m creating a sect.”

He stilled, his eyes widened with confusion before they widened even further in understanding. “A sect?” he asked, looking for confirmation.

“A sect,” I confirmed.

“But I heard you had no backing…” His eyes narrowed, he was suspicious.

“I don’t.”

“...How?”

I paused for a moment, before joking, “Just like everything I did up until now, with a hearty dose of willpower and effort.”

“...Aren’t you afraid?” he asked in a lower tone, almost scared of uttered those words. His eyes were searching for something, on my face. Searching for the truth.

The immediate answer I wanted to throw was ‘why?’. But I held myself back and instead smiled.

A true smile this time.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Still going to do it.”

“...” He didn’t answer, and a surprising seriousness was seeping through his steeled expression. His mouth was closed, and his eyes found the small window at the front. I followed his gaze and found the blue sky to be its target.

“...A sect, eh,” he spoke under his breath, sourness mixed with a hint of wistfulness in his tone.

My feet hit the ground, darkening my shoes with a brown color at the same time, constant rain having turned dirt into mud in the region. I squelched across the meadow separating the road made of rough stones, sometimes slippery because of the weather, and my new property.

I glanced downward, taking a look at them. Well, used-to-be black shoes.

I didn’t expect to have to go that far away. Or needing to cross a sea. And since 'in a forest near a lake' didn't mean much when looking at a map of this small continent, the one who sold me the building told me to ask around in the village a couple of minutes away from here.

Well, minutes for me, running at full speed. For those without qi reinforcing their bodies, it would probably take at least an hour walking at a decent pace.

The rain rang against my umbrella, one I bought when seeing greyish clouds in the distance, in one of the small cities I passed through in my journey. Considering the seemingly ever-increasing weight of the drops shattering against the thin and tight fabric forming the circle above my head, it wound up being a great decision.

Even though I probably wouldn't catch a cold due to the weather, staying under the rain and getting drenched wouldn't be a great experience.

Ahead, tall trees forming a rather dense forest greeted me. Their fiery canopy was already starting to show gaps, as the heavy rain helped to detach some of the less tenacious leaves from its thick and wrinkled branches, often showing prominent twists as opposed to the straight lines I was used to.

I took a deep breath, the earthy and woodsy fragrance wafting in my nostrils. Wet trunks and open flowers, damp moss, and the overwhelming smell of rain. As I lifted my leg over an arched root, shooting from the ground in an alcove-like form, I smiled, the soothing atmosphere getting to me.

The musky but also sweet scent of the fallen leaves decomposing carried the heavy and heady odor of unrecognizable flora. The scent was so thick it felt like it was sitting on my shoulders, and was seeping into my senses.

It was the scent of nature preparing for the end of a cycle. It was Fall.

After trodding peacefully for a while, I caught sight of my target.

Snippets of white stone stacked onto one another, rising tall, slivered between large trunks. I marched on, bolstered by the view of where I would spend much of my time for the foreseeable future.

It was about time, the sun had already left the sky, and night would soon fall over the region—twilight shining through the clouds with an orange and pinkish hue, colors which reflected off the pouring rain. I traveled with nothing but myself—the previous owner of this body didn’t own much anyway, and the few things he did, were promptly buried not far from the compound of the previous sect.

A mockery of a burial, I recognized. Especially for the man whose body I essentially stole, though not by my own volution, but one nonetheless. Even though I received his memories in the form of very vague and hard-to-decipher visions, I never planned to hold any of his ambitions. Though I felt sorry for whatever became of him, that was the extent of my sympathy.

I paused, eyes going to the sky—or at least, to what I could see through the gaps of the reddening canopy above me.

A sigh slipped past my lips, and before long my feet advanced again, approaching the increasingly bigger building. Or at least, the wall surrounding it, though I could now catch glimpses of halls, with their signature curved red tiles adorning their roofs, sitting inside of the compound.

I walked and I walked, until I took one last step, finally in front of the property I bought. The previous owner had no idea what the interior looked like, as he admittedly never stepped in it, but he told me it was a big building. Not as imposing as the literal small cities sects back in the Dark Continent owned, but still as big as a sizeable mansion.

The walls were an ashy white as if the color left with age, and considering vines were entrenched on them, with moss sitting at the base, where the bricks met the ground, it was old.

Very old.

From afar, and among the brown trees, the red of the building shone like the crunchy leaves on the trees, especially when above the white stone.

Now that I could take a good look, it was far from being the striking red I thought it was, but instead was marred by a brown tint, the original color of the tiles often showing through deteriorated paint.

The wall in itself was tall, very tall, but I was already expecting its size when it never stopped increasing as I approached it. Horizontally, it also stretched far—I never got to see it in its entirety, after all, hidden by the trunks as it used to be. From close, however, it seemed to never end.

All in all, time didn't seem to have affected this building as much as I thought it would. It was in a decent state if one ignored a couple of details.

This really is a steal, I thought to myself, smirking.

It would need a bit of renovation, but this much land with a pre-built compound for the price I paid was ridiculous. Well, ridiculous for my standards. A cultivator's money was different from what normal people considered money. Beyond a few specialized shops, they would struggle to find the need for a normal people's currency, like gold coins, and instead paid with qi-filled monster cores or treasures.

I wasn't rich by either standard, even when selling the junk the previous owner of this body had, but I had more than enough to buy this. Still, I gave a few more coins to the old man, he would need it more than me anyway.

My gaze went to the ground, wet blades of grass becoming sparse as fiery leaves floated in the wind and landed among them, and I pushed.

...Nothing.

Only the sound of the falling rain came back.

I received no answer. No qi could be found here. The land was dead, for all intents and purposes. No wonder no one was willing to buy it… it simply wasn’t worth it.

Well, it isn’t worth it to cultivators… for normal people, however…

I lifted my face, narrowed my eyes, and looked at the wall in front of me. I pushed again. Traveling through stone and wood alike, my qi shifted through the air of the various halls, walked in the long corridors, and flew around the multiple courtyards.

Nothing…?

I raised an eyebrow, releasing the tension in my eyes at the same time, withdrawing my qi from the inside of the building. In one of my inside pockets, the keys of the building swirled as I brought my hand to them.

The jolt of qi inside of them surprised me, but also filled me with relief. The old man didn’t seem to care much for the building, unwilling to live across the continent, but at least the obvious contingencies were prepared for.

“Nothing but a baseless rumor, heh…” I said out loud, shaking my head ever-so-slightly. I pursed my lips before laughter overcame me, and I started to chuckle. “Don’t mind if I take it then.”

I guess, to begin with, not many normal humans have the status necessary to buy an old sect compound, anyway.

That brought the question of how this old man came to own it, however.

In the old and unwelcome corridors of the white and red compound, the walls stirred. Waking up from a long slumber, solitude, crushing solitude, an old friend greeted it again.

Then… the ground rippled… with surprise. With shock even. A shock so great it stopped breathing. It hurriedly hid its presence as something passed over every nook and cranny of it.

It took the opportunity to observe the observer… and found warmth.

No, it found fire. A flame so bright and so dense it threatened to burn everything. It shook with… emotions… and feelings. The paintings scattered across the various halls squirmed with a disturbing intensity.

It was beautiful.

Uncaring of how hot the flame was, it looked. It looked and it looked until the last second, where the flame went too far away. It was gone.

No!

The trees of each courtyard, swinging with the wind, stopped moving.

A frigid emptiness took the place of the fire.

It shivered with want. It wanted to feel the warmth again. It looked around for the flame, but could no longer find it. And so it waited. The water flowing in the small pond in the main courtyard stilled.

It waited, for waiting was the one thing it was good at.

And then the flame came back!

It was overjoyed. It greedily basked in the glorious warmth, feeling the fire infuse it with its own.

Why? It asked.

It didn’t understand. But as it continued to enjoy the newfound presence inside its walls, after what felt like eons, it understood one thing.

It was determined to find out more about the flame. And then it would forever protect it. For it didn’t want to be alone again.