Shen wondered about that sudden thought. What was the Void? Its name implied nothingness. Nothingness had no beginnings or ends.

To be devoid of any and all limitations for they couldn't exist where nothing existed; wasn't that the ultimate Boundlessness?

'Yes, it is,' he thought. 'Deliverance from all that was, is, and would ever be. Ultimate freedom. No longer burdened by honor or shame, self or desire, mundane or Laws. I should join the Void.'

There was no light source in the hut, but Shen had no trouble seeing. Then that changed. The ambient light started dimming, and the door started opening slowly.

Shen smiled as a feeling of liberation appeared inside him.

'This feels good,' he thought.

'To join the Void is to feel ecstasy, then never have to feel again. All those terrible emotions, gone forever. Why should I stick to them? Loneliness; everything I know is gone. Rejection; my clan is either gone or abandoned me. Confusion; I woke up in darkness, and my Emperor keeps me in the dark. Why should I go on? Why should I fight and fight when I could just let go? Why not embrace the better alternative?'

The door had opened entirely. There was only darkness outside.

Shen stepped toward it.

'Honor versus desire; none of it matters in the Void, does it?'

'No, it doesn't matter. I can feel it. I can feel the freedom coming from the inside.'

The darkness started entering the hut, and the comfortable feeling inside Shen increased. He stepped forward again.

'I shall be Boundless. I shall no longer be limited by mortal constraints. I shall be more and not be at all. This is true Boundlessness. To transcend the very self that I am, the ultimate freedom.'

A liquid black hand appeared in the darkness. It approached Shen, and he stepped toward it.

Then he stopped with a frown.

'No, that sounds wrong; I'm misleading myself. If Boundlessness became nothing, it would no longer be Boundless, for it would no longer exist. Yet if it is limited to existing, can it still be considered true Boundlessness?'

The black hand halted, and Shen stepped back.

'I am human, thus limited. Laws are limited in themselves too. They are Boundless in their own way, but that's just part of them, not their entirety. To define oneself with a single Concept is to limit oneself.'

He stepped back again, and the hand resumed its approach.

'To be is limiting. The only way to achieve absolute Boundlessness is by ceasing to be while still being. To be Real and Void together, all and nothing, a paradox. Boundlessness is paradoxical in its very nature. Even trying to define it is a form of limitation that it defies by definition.'

Shen stepped back, and the hand approached faster.

'It's not wrong to pursue my own goals. It's not wrong to determine where I shall use part of myself and where it shall cease, even if that part yearns for being released from its boundaries.'

He looked around and found a spear of pure Boundless Qi.

'I am more than Boundless.'

The hand rushed at him, and he swung his spear.

'And I am not the Void, and I shall never be.'

His spear cut through the hand, and the darkness shattered into millions of pieces.

Then Shen opened his eyes, which he didn't know were closed, and found himself panting, kneeling on the hut's floor. In front of him stood a humanoid that seemed to be made of moving white liquid.

"Inspect," he whispered and saw a red name for the first time.

| VOID HATCHLING (G~F) — ??? / ???

'I shouldn't fight,' he told himself and immediately noticed how absurd that thought was. 'I should join the Void,' the strange idea insisted. He barely noticed the strangeness of the red name. It was too hard to focus.

Once again, Shen looked sideways and found a weapon, though this one was his actual G tier one. He grabbed it, filled himself and his spear with Boundless Qi, then thrust it toward the Hatchling while standing up.

The monster didn't even move, just stood in place. His spear struck true, and the Void Spawn exploded into white smoke that disappeared quickly.

| Void Hatchling (G~F) | 7,284 → 7,294 AP

With the threat dealt with, Shen took the time to get his bearings together. Had he just suffered a mind attack? That Hatchling seemed to have lost its hold over him when he broke its illusion, but were there others around that he had to watch out for?

He grabbed his backpack, which had appeared beside his spear in this revival place. Speaking of which, he resented Achr a bit for that. He hadn't been planning on dying at this stage.

| Bounty no longer available: Investigate Possible System Breach

| Bounty Subsystem locked

Shen had expected those things to happen. He had technically left the Bounty area, after all. He wondered whether it was quick enough not to be considered an accomplice.

He wanted to take the time to reflect on his new self-realizations, but now was not the time. His mind was still filled with alien thoughts of joining the Void, which meant there was some lingering influence on him or more Hatchlings nearby.

There was a flash of light behind him, and he turned to see a youth who had probably just died and got revived too.

"Inspect," Shen and the boy said at the same time.

| Bob Timothy Junior (F) — 110 / 110

Shen vaguely remembered that name and guessed it was someone he had met while killing the first stage's final bosses.

Bob was black-skinned, had a lot of muscles, and was wearing leather equipment. A beautifully crafted dark wooden longbow rested on his back, and he had a shortsword hanging from his waist.

"Wait, I remember you," Bob said. "The guy who helped me with the final boss? God, that feels like so long ago." He extended his hand.

Shen shook it as Alicia had taught him. "Did you have a tough fight?"

"Not really; I never even saw what hit me. My guess is Void Spawn. By the way, have you seen any yet?" He glanced at Shen's spear. "Quick tip: they are a bitch to kill with weapons, but magic blows them easily. Well, the Hatchlings do. Seedlings are unkillable as far as I know."

Shen had used qi instead of magic, but it seemed it served the same purpose. It was good to know there were stronger Void Spawn out there.

"I just killed one a moment before you arrived," he replied.

"What do you mean by a moment ago? Like, right here, in the hut?" Before Shen could reply, Bob continued. "Shit, I can hear them in my mind. This place is supposed to be safe. Time to get to the final boss, I guess. Did you kill enough monsters for that? I could stay and help you kill some if you want."

"I did," Shen said with a smile.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Shen shook his head. "Don't underestimate them. They're growing stronger and smarter. Believe me, I know."

"I appreciate your concern, and I'll take your warning into account," Shen replied politely.

"Suit yourself." Bob nodded. "Teleport to final boss."

Bob disappeared in a flash of light, and Shen left the building. There were dozens of Void Hatchlings at the edges of the clearing around the hut. He couldn't see into the forest beyond, but he guessed it had some too.

He threw his backpack to the ground and rushed at them.

The Hatchlings stayed in place as Shen struck them down. It was free AP, but he realized he simply didn't have enough qi to deal with them all. Killing them didn't take as much energy as destroying mana-powered spells, but he would still be out of qi in ten or so minutes.

First, he stopped pushing qi through his body. He didn't need it to kill those weaklings. Then he tried to improve.

His ability to push qi into his spear was new, but he had used it in enough fights to get some experience with it. He willed the energy to stop covering the bottom of the shaft, and it obeyed. However, he couldn't get his qi to stay only on the spearhead no matter how much he tried.

Shen was okay with that much. He had gotten at least fifteen extra minutes.

The math after that became simple. There were so many Hatchlings around that he killed one every three seconds or so. He needed 2,700 AP to reach 10,000, which meant less than fifteen minutes.

Things went well for five minutes, then a new enemy appeared.

| VOID SEEDLING (G~E) — ??? / ???

This one was completely black and pointed an arm at Shen as soon as he got in range. Suddenly, a javelin-like black crystal came out of it at high speed.

Shen would dodge it easily—or so he thought.

The spike suddenly appeared right in front of him, as if it had blinked out and into existence. He barely managed to move sideways, and it struck his left arm.

Shen felt cold energy invading him even through the pain. He retreated and pushed his Boundless Qi into his arm, but it encountered some resistance.

'Give up, give up, give up, give up, give up, give up, give up, give up, give up...' the words repeated in his mind. They were so loud it was hard for Shen to even think. He doubted he could use a complex move like that.

Shen pulled the crystal with his other arm, and cold energy also tried to penetrate his hand's skin. He had already filled it with qi though, and it resisted well. He threw the javelin away and quickly dealt with the remnant energy in his arm. Without its source, it was weak and promptly got destroyed by his qi.

The alien thoughts went back to normal levels of loudness. Shen filled his body with qi and went back to where he had faced the Seedling.

As Bob had said, the Seedling was stronger. Killing it would make Shen spend more resources, but it gave ten times as much AP as Hatchling. It was worth it.

Not to mention Shen refused to believe he couldn't deal with that attack if he—

He didn't even see when four black crystal javelins hit his limbs right as he passed by a large tree. He was pinned to it, and before he could even register the pain, he saw another Seedling pointing its arm at him only a few yards away.

Death was coming.

Shen immediately recalled Achr's words, "Stop overestimating yourself." Bob had also told him not to underestimate the Void Spawn.

His arrogance would've gotten him killed if this wasn't a tutorial.

"Teleport to final boss," he said, and the incoming attack never found him.

Shen's father had once gone to a tournament against the Abyssal Dragon for the Second Seat. He had lost and only uttered three simple words, "Defeat is disheartening."

Translating that to Alicia's flowery vocabulary would leave Shen with something on the lines of, "Fuck this shit."

He was alone in a place similar to where he had fought the first stage's final boss, endless white space with a ground made of stone. He felt terrible but was excited to fight the final boss.

Sadly, instead of a final boss, he got a system message.

Tutorial - 2nd Stage

Please wait.

Remaining time: 3 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes

Shen had to wait for three days—which was also how much time the stage had remaining—and he pitied those who had arrived here earlier. Cultivators were supposed to be used to training for months at a time, but mortals—

He stopped that line of thought.

He had been demeaning mortals ever since he had arrived, yet not long ago, he had considered abandoning his honor for his desires. He was no better than anyone. Or rather, he might actually be worse, for he had a background no mortal did.

He knew better; thus, his choice was relatively worse.

The time for training in those three days could come, but right now, it was time to put his mind—and Path—in order.