The morning light greeted Xu Liang in his room. His eyes were bloodshot, dried blood marred his face in a line from his lower lip to the bottom of his chin.

“...This isn’t going to work,” he muttered, his voice hoarser than usual.

It was a mess around him. Between the herbs littering around like they were worth nothing, the pages of paper, and the vials, his room looked nothing like what it was a couple of hours ago.

His hands wandered around, without looking, he searched for one in particular. He tapped the ground twice, and when he felt the sensation of paper under his digits, he picked it up—crumpled sheets worsening as he grabbed it and brought it to his head.

“Not this one,” he whispered, eyes narrowing into slits as frustration filled his voice.

His whole night was spent looking for any clues, digging deep into his old papers, to look for anything that would help him. Alas, it was to no avail. While the sickness was not dangerous on a massive scale, had never shown any signs of being transmittable, and instead spiked randomly in its appearance.

But it wasn’t like the doctors of this city never attempted to pierce through its secrets.

What could he do, if they couldn’t do it?

While it was a constant thought, it didn’t stop him from searching. Still, Xu Liang endured swallowed it up and kept working. New combinations, dangerous ones, harmless… it didn’t matter. His table had cracked from one, particularly nasty—but he just worked on the floor after that.

So long as there was a chance to find a solution through alchemy, he would continue.

In his left hand, a small glass dome, covered by a small brown cloth. Hidden under it, a crimson mass.

Xu Liang stayed silent for a while. He remembered the discussion he had with his friends the previous day.

His lips thinned and his grasp on the dome tightened.

“In the end, it comes down to this…”

He couldn’t rely on luck or fleeting hope anymore.

His right hand found his book, and his palm dug into the leather cover. Whether it would be sufficient payment, Xu Liang didn’t know. Soon, he stood up, understanding filling his eyes.

He swiped at the dried blood, tried to fix his hair a bit. Though short, they still were disheveled as the small bangs pointed in every direction.

Standing up, he made his resolve, taking a deep breath.

If nothing else, only one person in this city had the potential to heal the disease.

Only one. The cultivator.

Day four of trying to find someone decent to take as a disciple.

I had mostly given up.

“I never thought I’d see the day where your kind gets bothered by this, of all things,” I heard the man who ran this stand say with a chuckle.

I turned to him, my elbow sitting on the edge of his front counter, as to not bother potential customers. He was standing behind his stand, threading red meat onto large metal skewers as a large pot boiled in the back. His thin mustache sitting atop of his lips gave him a rather unique look in the crowd, eyes filled with an aura that seemed to draw people in.

One probably developed from his years here, with his stand, though he was barely in his thirties by my estimate.

“I agree. Now I’m in the midst of a crisis, wondering if it was worth to become a cultivator,” I joked.

Instead, I talked with the locals and had fun. Since everyone gave the same answers, or slight variations of it, sprinkled with a bit of vengeance or dark desires sometimes, it was rather fast to skim through those willing to step up.

“Heh, not becoming a cultivator for the strength or the prestige… but instead to teach others. You’re really a weird one, Wei,” he commented, flipping the skewers on his grill so that they didn’t become burnt.

The gentle heat of the grill and the warmth of the rising sun made for a perfect morning. The city was waking up, and with it, the inhabitants. Since I started my recruitment before noon, I mingled with the earliest riser among them.

The sound of the voices mixed with the patter of steps served as rather relaxing background noise. The smell of food was seeped deep within this place, even this early—I reckoned this marketplace was specialized in cooking because I never saw much else here.

“Come on now, it’s… the fourth time you told me that by now?”

He shrugged. “Probably won’t be the last either. I may be old now, but you’ve pretty much destroyed every childish dream I had of, those walking the path to the Heavens,” he said, putting mocking emphasis on the last part of his sentence.

“The path to the Heavens? No thank you,” I answered, bringing my gaze to the passing stream of people, going on about their day. Some sent me looks, but it wasn’t hard to guess why. I had become rather known in the city after my exposure as a cultivator. No, even without this, I was standing head and shoulders above anyone here—even though I wasn’t that tall among cultivators.

“Hmm?” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t want any of that either?”

“I’ll let the others have fun with it. I’ll deal with my eternity in other ways, mainly not killing everyone else.”

“...That bad?”

“That bad,” I nodded.

He sighed before his lips curled a bit. “Seems like we got lucky you’re the first cultivator to step in our city in the past century then?”

“...No—” Then I thought about what those nutjobs do daily, backed up with memories from my rather short time in the Crimson Phoenix Sect. “—Yes. Yes, you are.”

“Not even going to bother faking humbleness? I am impressed,” he chuckled again.

I turned to him again. “Back there I wasn’t under the impression they tried to fake anything. No, they were entirely too confidant showing how… dangerous for society, and my sanity, they were.”

“Can’t answer that, never met one. Thank the Heavens I never did. It was good to dream of it when a teenager. Once you start experiencing the world a bit more… you realize anyone with that much power…” he trailed off, his natural smile disappearing.

“There’s quite a bit still clinging to that dream, even in their later years.”

“Fools,” he scoffed. “People with far less, even as much as a coin over the other, have done terrible things. It happens all the time. Even here, where it’s rather peaceful,” he said, his eyes glinting with the light of the sun as if reminiscing the past. “So when you give everything someone could ever get, and some more…”

A short silence settled.

“...The thing is, they never get what they need,” I said, after a bit of reflection. “Because they always greed for more. Never being satisfied. Always living in a constant struggle and the overwhelming desire for more, otherwise, they fall behind… and become vulnerable.”

“...”

“Hey, have you heard the saying of ‘dog eat dog’ world?”

He nodded to me.

“Well, at this point I’m wondering if it isn’t something they are creating for themselves. A massive illusion created from within, which influences their thoughts and actions. So tragic it becomes laughable,” I said, my smile becoming wry.

“Well, it’s none of my problems, and I would like it to stay that way.” He gave me a slightly pointed look at his words—-though the small smirk under his mustache gave it away—which I answered with a roll of the eyes.

“Still, it seems like I’m not going to get a disciple any time soon.”

“Why?” He asked me for the second time, though the first time he didn’t ask for details.

I filled him in on my experiences with the youth of this city.

The sound of money slipping in his pockets echoed as I talked.

“...Aren’t you looking for something impossible?” He asked after serving one customer.

I tilted my head ever so slightly to the side as if telling him to go on.

“Look, Wei,” he spoke after a short time of hesitation. “Everyone in this city has been fed some sort of bullshit about what cultivators are. Hell, kids are currently being taught some right now. The… perfect disciple, or whatever that is to you, won’t magically appear in front of you. Or rather, they won’t here, and I’m pretty sure the entire continent’s the same way. Plus, aren’t you the one who told me seconds ago even older people still have that vision of what cultivation is?”

I paused, lips thinning in thought. My brows furrowed as I took in what was told to me.

“See it that way: You’re one of a kind among cultivators. And for us, who had to deal with this specific kind for centuries at this point, how likely it is that one fitting your new standard comes?”

Am I… being too unreasonable with my standards?

“Plus, your questions… I don’t know your age, and maybe you were different, but most children don’t know what they want to do with their future. I sure as hell didn’t,” he laughed.

Why is it bothering me so much that people, barely adults, have unrealistic visions of cultivation when that’s all the world ever gave to them?

“...I guess I wasn’t ready to take that first step,” I sighed.

“Seems like it. If you want any change, that change has to start by your own labor—that’s what my Mother told me when I bought my first stand,” he said, before pausing for a moment. “A poor family, one I had to uplift by myself,” he admitted.

“You succeeded?” I sent him an amused look.

“You bet I did,” he grinned with dazzling confidence. The infectious kind, I realized after finding myself grinning as well.

“Well then… I guess it’s time for me to succeed as well.”

I straightened my back with a newfound fire burning within me. Time to get some disciples.

A boy, still in his teen if I had to guess, stepped up first. In his left hand, an old book, in his right hand, a dome-like object covered by a brown cloth. He gulped, lips quivering for a while before he seemingly made his resolve and fixed me with a look bordering on utter despair.

He looked like he had not caught any sleep for multiple nights in a row. I raised an eyebrow.

“Please, I need your help!” he screamed with his trembling voice, sweat running down his messy hair as he bowed. It was enough to garner the focus of those behind him, forming a line to get to me. Even if I rejected every single person so far, they kept pouring here, hoping to get a chance at an illusionary ascension to the Heavens.

“Please!” he repeated, then proceeded to kowtow to me.

The throng of young people had varying emotions running through them, but most seemed to be rather annoyed. The sound of clicking tongue and tired groans resounded.

My second eyebrow joined my first high up my face.

Well, that was one way to gain my attention.

Still, it wasn’t what I expected right after coming with better standards for my recruitment.

His forehead was stuck to the ground, waiting for my answer.

...No, it wasn’t what I expected at all.