The morning after, Yu Xiang was the first to wake up, right at the crack of dawn, just before the fake sunlight started shining through the unending plains of the hidden world.

It took him a bit of work to wrangle everyone to wakefulness after the previous day’s exertion, but thankfully he had Lin Fen and Huang Lei helping him, as he’d already talked to them about his plans the day before.

After all, while he might have possessed an uncommon, in his own humble opinion, talent in the manipulation of Intent, and even the amount of it if Lei’s reaction the day before was anything to go on, he couldn’t really train a bunch of people in its intricacies alone.

The finely robed young lady alone would be an invaluable help, as she had been training her Intent for far longer than both the young alchemist and the reincarnator combined.

“When it comes to such crucial pieces of knowledge about the secrets of cultivation, it is not uncommon for different sects to hold vastly differing policies.” She’d told the duo while they discussed the particulars of their training plans. “In fact, my original sect does not even hide the existence of Intent from its disciple in the lower realms.”

Lin Fen frowned slightly at that. “But wouldn’t that cause a bunch of issues for younger cultivators?” Yu nodded vigorously at his side, just as curious about how other sects dealt with such things.

A small, bitter smile twisted Lei’s expression at the young feline’s words, although she quickly hid it behind her fan, which was still not enough to mask the melancholy shining in her eyes.

“Do not take this the wrong way.” She started carefully. “But the Golden Peak sect is not really, ah… the norm, as far as sects are concerned.”

“Yeah, it’s the best one.” The green eyed cultivator said with a snort and a small smirk, trying to break the sudden dour spell that had fallen over the young woman.

A twinkle of amusement appeared in her expression and her face soon returned to a more relaxed cast.

A small airy laugh escaped from between her lips. “Of course.” She said then. “But returning to my point, most other sects tend to be far less… hmm.” She frowned then, as if unsure how to put her thoughts into words.

She shook her head after a moment of consideration. “Let us just say that they see such problems as just another tribulation to overcome on the road to the heavens.” She waved her fan wielding hand then, the pitch of her voice dropping a few octaves as she started quoting someone. “The truly strong will conquer this obstacle like any other, while the weak will fall to the side and meet the end of their journey.”

She let out a derisive huff then, clearly disagreeing with both the message and the sentiment behind it. The two young men looked at each other briefly, their curiosity stoked but unwilling to poke at was obviously a sensitive subject for the finely clothed woman.

“Anyway.” She continued. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been contemplating Intent as both an active user and as someone who had to struggle not to lose my way for years now, so I can easily help make sure that none of our companions fall into such a pitfall during this improvise training session.” She shrugged her shoulders then. “Although it will still be mostly on them not to let this knowledge mess with their heads.”

Both Lin Fen and Yu Xiang nodded their heads at her words, bowing to her superior experience.

So it was that bright and early Yu and Lei found themselves standing before their other companions, while the young alchemist kept watch over the injured core disciple, a score of curious and disgruntled stares watching their every move.

“So, what was it that had you waking us up so early in the morning?” Zhen Yin was the first to ask, and Yu was almost grateful that she did as the silence had started to turn a bit awkward.

“We have some dangerous times ahead of us.” Responded the young lady at Yu’s side in a lecturing tone. “So, with senior brother Chun’s permission, we are now going to share with you something that will hopefully help us tilt the scales of fate in our favor.” She motioned the green eyed cultivator with her hand and at her signal he stepped forward, a hand clutching a familiar scroll raised before him.

All eyes zeroed in on the rolled up scroll, greed evident in every single stare, but even free knowledge was not enough to quell Su Rong’s need to jab at Yu Xiang at every chance he got.

The quite literally armless cultivator let out a snort, a glare pinning the green eyed cultivator down. “Another show of clear favoritism for you, Xiang?” He asked mockingly, almost accusingly. “Not something mundane disciples like us would get to see normally, is it?”

“Yes.” The young reincarnator replied matter of factly, which seemed to leave Su Rong stumped. Then Yu raised a single eyebrow in a questioning stare, the hand holding the precious scroll shaking side to side slightly. “Do you want to read what’s in here or not?”

The gruff cultivator stopped complaining quickly after that.

After all other questions were settled Yu Xiang finally started reading out loud from the scroll, with Lei explaining the more complicated parts of the text with her far more in depth knowledge of the topic.

A round of individual meditation on the subject followed the lecture, though Yu didn’t give them too much time to ponder the implications of the new revelation since he wanted to make sure they would be able to actually use their Intent as soon as possible.

Theoretical know how and spiritual enlightenment could wait, for now, practicality came first.

“Push your auras against mine.” The young reincarnator said simply, almost immediately regretting his careless words as six different presences slammed against his own, almost sending him to the ground flat on his backside.

A scathing glare was all the retribution he allowed himself, although none of his ‘students’ seemed the least bit repentant as they grinned cheekily at him.

As the different auras reached a balance, not pushing too strongly against his own yet not too far to properly sense it, Yu Xiang accessed the dark space in the deepest recesses of his spirit where the flame of his will resided, then, with far more ease and precision than he could have before his latest round of refinement, he plucked a single, steely spark of Intent and pushed it through his aura.

A chorus of gasps and other sounds of surprise suddenly echoed through their carved room, every single one of his companions sporting similar frowns of concentration as his aura roiled and shifted against their own in a way they’d never felt before.

“Can you feel the difference?” He prodded them softly, trying not to break their focus. “There is a marked change, but don’t just compare how my presence felt before and after I infused it with my Intent.”

His eyes roved over the seated cultivators, studying every crease of their scrunched up faces as they gave their all to try and grasp the essence of his will. “Isolate the source of it with your senses, and you’ll be able to pinpoint your own Intent.”

That was how they spent most of their first day of training, with the only breaks they afforded themselves being for Yu Xiang to switch places with Huang Lei once he’d exhausted most of his Intent.

But even after the young lady’s own will waned the training didn’t stop, as the young cultivators kept meditating and trying to sense their own Intent. After they were done with that came the time for stealth training, something Chun Dai had sprung up on them out of nowhere as they recuperated.

“Your plan hinges on being able to sneak past the hordes of spiritual beasts patrolling the forest, does it not?” He’d said matter of factly. “But with your level of stealth the spider queen will sense you immediately and send its offsprings to attack you.”

Jin Shui frowned at his words. “But senior brother, shouldn’t you keep your focus on mantaining the venom at bay?”

That was an excellent point in Yu’s opinion, and his other companions soon echoed his sentiment.

The injured core disciple’s expression softened a fraction, a change so minute that the green eyed cultivator had to actually check twice to make sure he hadn’t just been imagining it.

“That may be wiser.” The crimson clad swordsman admitted. “But if your search is fruitful a bit of lost focus won’t matter in the end.” He then shook his head, after which he pinned them all to the spot with an intense and icy stare. “Neither would it if you fail because your skills were not up to snuff.”

Nobody dared to question his decision after that.

So day after day they alternated working on their Intents with learning from the core disciples about the intricacies of hiding one’s presence. Be it with specific techniques or through simple tricks of perception that could be accomplished with nothing more than one’s aura.

Surprisingly enough, Zhen Yin uncovered an unexpected talent in the art of shrouding her presence in various ways, which had left Yu vaguely perplexed for a time as he wouldn’t have bet on the wild haired red head to have such a gift for this particular discipline.

“It’s kinda like playing around in the forest back home.” She’d told him with a shrug and a cocky smile dancing across her lips. “Playing hide and seek with the other kids on the trees, but with spiritual energy instead of trees and big ass spiders instead of village children.”

The young reincarnator didn’t get it at all what she meant, but he nodded at her words anyway as they seemed to make sense to her.

On the other hand, Jin Shui was the first to manage to sense his own Intent, thanks mostly to his familiarity with the examination of his own and other people’s spirits during his practice of the healing arts, but the others didn’t take that much longer after he interrupted his training to help his fellow students.

By the end of the second day, all of them had managed to sense their own Intent.

Yu Xiang couldn’t help but smile at the rapid development, what had taken him weeks alone was accomplished in a matter of days with their combined help, while Huang Lei grumbled good naturedly behind her fan about ‘talent this’ and ‘talent that’, which only made the green eyed cultivator smile wider.

Their training continued day after day, their determination raising along with their general mood as the ray of hope they’d grasped oh so desperately crystallized into a concrete possibility.

But as much as they were feeling inspired and buoyed by their hopes and beliefs, the dread was not wholly dispersed, and still it crept along their backs as the time for their mission neared.

Until it reached a crescendo on the dawn of the seventh day, with none of them able to keep their concentration during their prolonged meditation, having at this point grown past the need to have Yu Xiang and Huang Lei pressing on them with their Intent enhanced auras.

Yu had no idea what to say to dispel the tension, even as he kept trying to find something that could help in both this life's memories and his previous ones.

But in the end, it was Su Rong that broke the tension first. He let out an explosive sigh in the middle of his pondering, immediately attracting everyone else's attention, who'd been trying and failing to clear their thoughts.

The gruff cultivator rose to his feet and left their improvised cultivation room towards their sleeping area, and a few moments later he came back holding a large flask in his sole remaining hand.

He plopped himself at the center of the room, opened up the canteen then took a long deep swig of whatever was sloshing around inside it.

A contented sigh escaped him, which briefly brought to mind the image of old men on warm Sundays to the young reincarnator.

"So?" Said Su Rong in his usual blunt tone. "You all coming or not?"

Their curiosity now peaked, the Golden Peak disciples soon sat around in a circle at the center of the room, with Su Rong handing the flask to the person on his left, which happened to be Feng Liu.

The always prim and proper young man took the offered flask gingerly before he took a whiff of the contents. His head shot up in surprise. "Is this wine?!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah." Answered the alcohol smuggler casually. Then he raised a single eyebrow. "You gonna take a sip or what?"

Feng Liu looked down at the canteen clutched in his hands for a moment, before he seemingly came to a decision and imitated Su Rong's previous actions by taking a long swig of the flask, which made the gruff cultivator smirk slightly.

Soon enough the wine was passed from hand to hand until it returned to Su Rong, who, after he gave it a brief look of contemplation, he raised it in the air for a toast. "To tomorrow!" Then he started draining everything that was left inside.

"Hey hey! Don't just finish it all on your own!"

A laugh rose between the young cultivators as for a moment they forgot about their woes, making merry among friends and companions while looked over by the stoic Chun Dai, his face set into an expression that none of them would've been able to gove a name to.

After that brief moment of respite, they returned to their training, filled with new vigor and a sense of purpose.

On the coming day, they would succeed. They had no time to contemplate failure.