As time passed and the Obstructions fell one by one, Shen started worrying about the lack of human presence in his chamber.

Where was his father? Where were his attendants? Why wasn't there a single servant to even check on his condition every now and then?

He had grown in a debilitated state and there was always some nearby to make sure he hadn't just... dropped dead. He had been that weak before getting healed. If it weren't for the expensive resources his father had used on him, he would've died as an infant.

The very overwhelming amount of dust he felt surrounding his body was also telling. It spoke of long-term negligence. Something was definitely wrong.

Still, he focused on cultivating for now. Thanks to the Multiverse Alliance, he didn't need food or water—though his throat was uncomfortably dry—so he didn't need to leave anyway. Even if his father's status had decreased—which could explain the lack of servants—as long as Shen came to the clan as a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment realm, they wouldn't kill him. Cultivators were too precious to waste like that, especially one with his talent.

And as long as Shen was alive, he could find out what had happened to his father and, if needed, avenge him on a later date.

After about half a day, he cleared the last Obstruction.

With clear meridians, he could now reinforce any part of his body quickly in a fight. With a few seconds of focus, he could punch as strong as someone who had trained their bodies—and hadn't reinforced them with qi—their whole lives.

He had reached the Foundation Establishment realm.

That realm was all about infusing his body with qi over time to improve it. That needed to be done the right way to avoid imbalance or self-injury. If a part of the body was much stronger than the other, it might bring issues. If too much qi was pushed into a body part before it was ready, it could simply burst open and get crippled.

Shen knew just what to do. He had been training to become the Keeper of Knowledge, and thus had read all the clan's secret manuals. He had their best cultivation method memorized.

He pulled qi from the surroundings and pushed it through his meridians in the set pattern explained in the Dragonborn cultivation manual. It would require dragon blood at later stages, but for now, he was good. While he pushed his qi around, he also let it leave the meridians and seep into his marrows at certain points.

The Foundation Establishment realm's aim was making the body strong and ready for martial arts, qi infusion, and combat. The very first step, Marrow Revitalizing, was about taking the marrow to the next level, letting it produce clearer and stronger blood, increasing a cultivator's health and recovery.

Hours later, his bones were in so much pain that he was forced to stop. One's growth in the Foundation Establishment realm was limited by one's body. But now that he had reached that realm, it would be easy enough to get some pills and medicine from the clan to speed the process up.

He considered only leaving wherever he was after finishing with the Marrow Revitalizing step, as to increase his value to the clan, but decided against it. Shen wanted to see his father and share the news of his recovery with his last living family as soon as possible.

He just had to find out how to leave.

He was in absolute darkness and couldn't even see an inch in front of him. With care, he felt his surroundings and found himself sitting inside a rectangular box made of what felt like crystal. The inside was filled with dust, almost as if someone had tried to drown him in it.

The crystal was solid, clearly a magic or enchanted material. He was anxious about trying to leave and falling into a hole or something, but faced his fear. Slowly, he tried to reach the ground with his feet, and succeeded soon enough.

As he moved, he realized then that he was naked. The ground felt earthy and irregular on his bare feet. The next step was to check his surroundings and find a way out.

A long time later, he concluded he was alone, that the rectangular box was a coffin, and that he had been entombed alive in a cave.

The realization was shocking, but he didn't dwell on it. His last memory was of fainting in the clan's library, so it wasn't a surprise they would consider him dead at last. Except... dead cultivators were cremated to make sure Yin energy didn't turn them into the living dead. He hadn't been a cultivator but belonged to a cultivator clan, and they wouldn't bury their own, not even a cripple like him.

Something was terribly wrong.

There was nothing he could do about it for now. Leaving and finding out the truth required becoming strong enough to punch through the walls. Cultivating until he was strong was a way out, but it would require him months or even years, and he had a better alternative.

The Multiverse Alliance's Guardian Tutorial.

It promised no death and was supposed to strengthen him. Volunteering was also his way of repaying them for healing his crippled meridians. Hopefully, he would also find water in there. He might not need water to survive, but his throat was really burning by now.

So, the tutorial it was.

"Join tutorial," he said, and a bright light enveloped him.

He felt like he was falling without ever reaching the ground. After what felt like forever, he finally reached somewhere. He didn't hit the floor as much as suddenly stopped falling and felt himself lying on grass.

His eyes hurt from the sudden light of a blazing sun and took a while to get used to it. On the bright side, the aching pain in his bones and his terrible thirst had simply disappeared. He guessed the light had healed him besides teleporting him away.

He opened his eyes to see a boundless blue sky. There was nothing between Shen and the heavens. He sat down and found out he was in the middle of a circular island a few dozen yards wide. He had been given a white martial arts robe just like the one he remembered to be wearing when he had fainted, expect for the lack of the sigil of the Feng Clan.

And the island was floating.

It wasn't the only one. Surrounding him, just distant enough to not be able to reach them with a jump, were thousands of similar islands, reaching as far as his eyes could see. They looked like small mountains turned upside down with grass on the top.

Most had people on them, one per island, like his own. He noticed the great majority of people wore shirts and pants of various lengths, from long to short, and of many materials, some of which he didn't recognize. Almost everyone was from a different region than his, as shown by their large and round eyes, unlike his own. Their skin colors were also many, in all shades from black to white.

Shen did see a few people with eyes and skin color similar to his, but even they didn't wear martial arts robe. He was an oddity.

As he analyzed his surroundings, light with the form of humanoids appeared on the ground of some empty islands, only to materialize into people moments later. He estimated about eighty percent of the islands were occupied, and soon, all islands would have someone on top of them.

He walked to the edge of his island and looked down.

There was no ground, no ocean, nothing at all below them, only an endless fall into what looked like more blue sky.

The strangeness made him dizzy and forced him to step back. Any thoughts of trying to reach another island, they had died right then. The Alliance had said no one would die in the tutorial, but falling forever wasn't death, was it? It was much worse. Who knew if they would allow that?

A guy from the island closest to him reached the edge of his own island, waved, and yelled, "Hey!"

Shen looked at him. He might be a cultivator, but it was unlikely. Cultivators rarely wore mortal clothing like that. He looked to be sixteen too, and was taller than Shen, which displeased him a little. The boy was a redhead with brown eyes and a sincere face. Shen waved back and nodded.

The boy opened his mouth to yell something else, but stopped when light enveloped all the islands. It was a bright flash that forced Shen to close his eyes, and when he opened them back, he saw recent additions to the scenery.

Floating weaponry surrounded each island in sets of four.

There were the ranged weapons: short bow, long bow, recurve bow, and something that looked like a bow with a perpendicular handle that Shen didn't recognize.

They were beside the throwing weapons: javelin, needle, throwing dart, and throwing axe.

Then came the swords: short sword, long sword, jian—also called gentleman's weapon, or a cultivator sword—and a thin curved blade he also hadn't seen before.

Next were the non-throwing axes: a small axe, a two-headed axe, a huge one, and one with a blade on one side and a pike on the other.

The polearms were a long spear, a short spear, a halberd, and a poleaxe.

The short blunt weapons were mace, staff, hammer, and a kind of metallic covering for the knuckles with small spikes.

There were also shields, from a small round one to a big rectangular one that could cover most of the body.

Finally, there was a set that he guessed were weapons that didn't fit the other categories: a saber, a leather whip with metallic points, a war scythe, and a barbed dagger.

As soon as the weaponry appeared, a new blue message box did too:

Tutorial Welcome

Welcome to the tutorial!

The goal of this tutorial is turning you into a Guardian. You'll go through ten stages, and you can clear each stage by killing the final boss.

You can die once in the first two stages and you'll be revived a few moments later with a perfectly healthy body. If you die again, you'll be expelled from the tutorial. Killing a stage's final boss without dying gives you extra rewards.

Each stage has a middle boss and a final boss. You'll get more information on each of them when the time to fight them arrives.

On each stage, you'll learn a little more about the tutorial, the Multiverse Alliance, the Guardian System, and the incoming challenges for Earth.

You can give up at any time by saying "Leave tutorial."

This is your only chance at completing this tutorial. Whether you succeed or fail, you shall not be allowed back into it.

Fight well!

When he finished reading the message, it changed into something else.

Tutorial - 1st Stage

Life and death, yin and yang, existence and Void. Reality is duality. If one is there, the other shall also come eventually.

The Multiverse Alliance was created eons ago and reached the pinnacle of existence. It stood the test of time repeatedly until the Laws of the Universe deemed it was time for it to go. The Void tried to consume us, but we easily resisted it, thanks to our great might.

Then an enemy we had never seen before, the Void Spawn, was unleashed on us.

As happened to the Multiverse Alliance, so it shall happen to you: you'll find yourself with little forewarning and lacking preparation, surrounded by enemies time and time again.

There will be ten waves of weaker enemies before each boss, middle and final.

Survive the first wave.

Shen had barely finished reading it when there was a flash of light and he heard some strange roars around. He looked at their source to see two green, monstrous creatures the size of children running his way.