It took some time for the cultivator to reply, as he was still ruminating on Avery's lecture. Not that Avery minded, as he took this opportunity to recompose himself. Asking that simple question had taken more effort than he cared to admit, and he still had so much to say.

Finally, once his eyes cleared and he finally registered he was being talked to, the man jumped to his feet and bowed, clasping his hands together.

"Yes, teacher. I am Zheng Tu , deacon of the pill pavilion of the Gushanhui sect. Thank you for your grace, with it I finally have a chance of reaching Mahayana.”

Avery was glad the man correctly interpreted his continued silence and proceeded to explain himself some more without additional prompting.

“The Gushanhui sect is a subordinate branch of the Yongqihui palace, in charge of the Gushan province. Your Excellency, I see you have been traveling, would you like to go rest in sect? You would be our guest of honor, with all the accommodations we could provide, and a high grade formation that could help cultivate.”

Avery did not respond to the invitation, but rather continued asking questions, trying to gain as much information as he could while saying as little as possible. He mostly limited himself to simple sentences like “what is that” or “tell me more”, thinking that the less he said, the less likely it was he would embarrass himself.

He was still terrified of making any mistakes, but he was not sure what he was even trying to do, and what mistakes he could make.

Did he really care to know the Gushanhui sect had more than 5000 disciples, and ruled over a province the size of a small country? Did it matter that they had an immortal ancestor, or if his sermon could have given a chance to beat their lifelong enemy, a neighboring sect?

Avery was looking for information because it sounded like the right thing to do, but now that all his questions were being answered, he found he was completely devoid of interest. Perhaps they had some insight in the Tao that would be of help to him, but he was at a loss on how to ask for them.

Growing bored of this meaningless dialogue but not really knowing if he should stop or not, or indeed how to put an end to this conversation, he suddenly had an idea. There was no need to ask him all these questions, or go through all that trouble at all.

He may not use those powers often, but he was an accomplished seer, capable of peering into the past and future.

Instead of these exhausting conversations where he did not even know what he should ask, he could directly take a look and learn everything there was to know about the cultivator. Then, when he knew his life better than the man himself, surely he would know what to say and do?

The only problem was that he did not have his fortune telling coin anymore. In his rush to freedom, he had forgotten it and left it along with his blacksmithing hammer on the dragon's back. However, he was learning that runes were basically omnipotent, and he could just design one with a divination function as a replacement.

He went to work immediately, his high cultivation enabling him to multitask effortlessly. This was the source of a common misconception, that cultivation made you smarter. It was true that it improved your brain and cognitive functions, and let you handle much more information at once. This was especially for Avery who specialized in mental cultivation, as his thinking speed could put computers to shame.

This aspect of cultivation was like upgrading your computer, installing more RAM and better processor, making the machine run much smoother and faster. However, it did not update the programs that the computer ran, and still only did what the software asked of it. A poorly designed program would stay poorly designed, even if it was executed by a supercomputer.

This was how his cultivation could make him multitask and comprehend the immensity of Tao, while being utterly useless when faced with everyday conversations. It did not matter if he had a second or a year in between each question, he would still find it just as hard, and his anxiety was something he had to overcome himself.

However, when he decided to design a new low-level rune, it only took a few minutes, and he spent more time looking for an opportunity to stealthily draw a rune. Sadly, with so many people paying close attention to his every move, his chance never came. However, since they all already believed him to be some senior cultivator, then he had no real need to hide.

“Excuse me, I just have to cast a simple spell.”

Without waiting for a response, he directly drew a rune in the air, and peered into the fate of his conversation partner.

In a few instants, he saw his entire life, becoming intimately familiar with the land, learning all of his darkest secrets, experiencing the ups and down of his life.

Avery felt his pain when his little sister died, his joy when he found his Taoist companion, and the addictive ecstasy of breaking through to the next cultivation level. He saw the sinister plots he had been a part of to reach his current position, the lives he had ruined in his pursuit of power. At the same time, he saw the efforts he had made to carry out his responsibilities, and the good he had tried to do, believing that collateral damage was inevitable.

The man followed a very different moral code to the one Avery was used to, but Avery found learning about all of his good or evil the man had done did not faze him in the least. Learning he had been teaching a hardened killer did not evoke any emotions, just a cold-hearted acknowledgment of what he had done. Intellectual, he could judge him, and tailor his future interactions with him accordingly, but emotionally, he felt nothing.

Avery wasn’t sure why he felt nothing, if it was just a side effect of witnessing history through divination, if his morals had been radically changed by time pursuing the Tao, or if he simply felt himself above it all. All he knew was that he was totally apathetic to all the suffering and happiness he saw, and that he needed to take some time and reexamine himself.

However, while good and evil left him indifferent, each time he watched the man cultivate, an immense sense of disappointment welled up in him. They might cultivate their understanding of the universe in a similar way than him, but their desires were so impure it made him sick.

They seemed to regard cultivation as a chore, a boring task that they had to do to gain power, instead of this beautiful moment during which one was in complete harmony with the universe.

Their aim was never to reach the Tao, to achieve perfection or be one with the Heavens. It was to become powerful, to become beautiful, to defeat an enemy, to live a long life, to be respected. They were pursuing selfish, mundane goals while disregarding the greatest prize of them all.

Why could they not understand that the Tao was the real prize? Power and influence were only meaningless side-effects of cultivation, amusing goodies that littered the Supreme Avenue, barely worth mentioning.

They were traveling on the same road, but where Avery was looking at the final destination, and enjoying every second he spent following the Great Way, they were only looking to the sides of the road, scavenging for benefits and looking no further than the next obstacle.

This was what made him regret his sermon. He would need to do a few more divinations to confirm everyone followed a similar approach, but if they did, then they were unworthy of his time, and even more of his preaching.