Adam didn't go home.

Instead he stayed with the ruthless man who called himself his master.

Sure, staying there was painful, very painful.

However, staying at home was equally painful. At least here he was getting stronger, and had someone to confide in, someone who he knew was always striving to make him better.

Not once did he go to school, and the people of the government hadn't contacted him. He still had a few belongings which were kept inside Mr. Li's house outside of the well.

That's right, he was back inside the well.

After beating him up yesterday, Mr. Li asked him about his class and the shadows which had covered his hands during the fight.

Thereafter, he dictated that Adam would become nocturnal.

"Your strength lies in night time, it is foolish to be tired when one is at their optimal fighting capacity. From now on, at every sunrise you will be locked inside the well, only to be let out at every sunset."

During night time, Mr. Li taught him, he showed him how to punch, how to move, how to think.

He demonstrated how to disarm an armed soldier, the easiest and most effective ways to kill a human.

Not once did he give Adam a weapon, only allowing him to use his hands.

"A weapon is rigid, it is but an unsophisticated piece of wood or metal used by cowards. The true way to fight is to use one's hands, we were born with them, they are the most valuable limb of any warrior and the most familiar tool for any artisan."

He showed Adam the myriad possibilities with which to kill using one's hands. The ways to block a sword without being cut and catching a flaming arrow without being hurt.

Adam saw Mr. LI do all these things, things which were impossible for any man, things even awakened would scoff at being told of someone doing them.

Nevertheless, it went without saying that Adam tried to do all of these things too, emphasis on tried.

He didn't succeed on the first try, nor the tenth or the hundredth. In fact, whenever he tried to block a sword his palm would end up slashed, or whenever he tried to catch a burning arrow his hand would be burnt.

However, as the weeks and months passed, his hands grew calloused and progressively took less damage. His internal clock adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle and his body grew accustomed to constantly exerting itself, even when sleeping within the well.

His muscles slowly took a well toned shape throughout his body, granting him explosive power beneath his naturally lanky and thin build.

Not only did his body adapt to a harsh and nocturnal lifestyle, but his combat techniques advanced by leaps and bounds. Mr. Li taught Adam his own martial discipline which was called Han Shaquan, roughly translated to Cold Evil Fist.

It was a style which revolved around the concept of cold and death, strengthening the mind and body with the Yin element in water and darkness. Just as Adam had hardened his body and willpower through living inside a damp well and practicing the Cold Evil Fist under the moonlit nights.

Adam could feel a certain resonance between his class and this martial discipline, almost as if the innate power over shadows helped Adam gain an understanding over the Cold Evil Fist at an accelerated rate compared to others.

These were Adam's gains over the past few weeks under Mr. Li's care. Now, he was beckoning him over to the dilapidated pavilion in his courtyard. Standing before him, Adam felt a certain sense of anticipation coming from deep inside himself. Usually Mr. Li would just tell him to practice in the courtyard after a quick demonstration, but today was different.

Mr. Li took up a wise pose once Adam had settled himself down in front of him and gently coughed into his clenched palm. "Adam, you have improved greatly in the Cold Evil Fist style. In fact, you have one of the greatest rates of progression I have seen in young initiates. If you weren't pampered by the comfort and complacency of modern society perhaps you could have been unparalleled in talent. Now, I can confidently say that your skill has progressed enough to the point in which I can accept you as a formal disciple of the Cold Evil Sect."

You have been invited to join the Cold Evil Sect by Master Li as a Disciple of the Cold Evil Sect and Direct Disciple to Master Li.

[Accept] [Decline]

A glint appeared in Mr. Li's eyes as he gave a knowing smile, he knew that Adam had just received a notification. Adam couldn't be more shocked, who exactly was Mr. Li? From this message he seemed to belong to a faction called the Cold Evil Sect, but was he even from Earth? Or was he one of the few awakened from other worlds who travelled here in order to set up factions?

But, the latter was impossible! It was supposedly extremely difficult for foreign awakened to enter earth, nigh impossible in fact.

Then, who was Mr. Li.

Looking up at Mr. Li, Adam held a wavering glint within his eyes. Distrust and confusion were evident within them. To this complicated glare, Mr. Li simply sighed and then responded to Adam, almost as if he could read his mind.

"Adam, I am in fact from Earth. From Manchuria actually."

"Long ago I was simply a street rat within a small town, however, in one moment on the verge of death, I was visited by an old man in black robes. He told me to climb a mountain and seek him upon it's summit. I almost died multiple times on the climb to the summit and when I finally reached it I begged to become his disciple. I knew that there was something wrong with this old man, something otherworldly about him, almost as if the very world seemed to reject him. However, I still kowtowed before him and planted my bloodied forehead upon the frigid snow of that mountain peak." At this point Mr. Li had raised his voice to a shout, his eyes widely opened and intensely focusing on him.

"I did what I did for one reason, and one reason only. I wanted power, I wanted a power to bend anything to my will, a power to pull myself up against any adversary, even if that adversary is society itself." The light in Mr. Li's eyes seemed to dim down at this point, he gave the paved floor of the pavilion a solemn stare.

"Most children my age were shielded from the harsh realities of life while they grow up, but then foreigners invaded my town and committed countless atrocities, the vast majority of my generation was orphaned in the first months of the invasion and many more were born from the sins of these foreign soldiers."

"Countless people died and it wasn't very long before I found myself alone within a sea of unfamiliar faces. Then, I resolved myself to not be swept into an early grave by this human tide and instead struggled for survival." Mr. Li then looked at Adam deep in the eyes, looking through his every secret.

"That's what I saw in you , boy. A boy that didn't belong anywhere, a boy with no-one to take care of him, a boy surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces."

The dilapidated pavilion seemed to shatter before Adam's eyes, Mr. Li fading into blackness. A green field stretched out before him. It was the middle of the day and the sparse tree cover was negligible. It should have been scorching hot but it was an overcast day with the haze of rainfall in the horizon.

The green field was laid bare with small stone structures, some the shape of crosses and others the shape of rectangles. The sparse stone erections upon this green plain evoked a choking aura of solemness, it felt as if every single cross held a pair of eyes which judged his every action.

He was back in his fathers graveyard. The last time he visited it with his mother was after they received the letter informing them of his death. Since a body couldn't be found they simply had to conduct the funeral in an empty grave.

Adam looked into the grave which had become so familiar to him in his nightmares, it had a small crack running along the centre of the marble slab. Small patches of moss thrived throughout the small grave and the pot which held the dead flowers was chipped at multiple places.

Adam looked into the name plate of the grave.

Then he rubbed his eyes and looked into it again.

'Here rests Catherine Freeman, mother of Adam Freeman and wife of...'

'Adam' smugly walked up until he stood beside him and put an arm across his shoulder, the disgusting tentacles at the end of 'Adam's' arms coiled around Adam's left arm.

"Wasn't this what you wanted, Adam? We did it. Together!"

The picture frame at the bottom of the grave held an estranged face, it's lips were twisted upwards into a charming smile. Her eyes withheld a glint of kindness, a kindness which made Adam throw up on the cracked marble slab which constituted the surface of his mothers grave.

The vile substance which forced it's way up Adams throat was a glowing and insidious green liquid, the very same one that consumed the corpse of his mother when he had murdered her. It was the essence of abyssal corruption left behind by the Shadow Monk class.

The corruption made it's way through the cracks in the marble slab and began eating away at the grave, causing a green gas to rise out from the grave and the marble to start bubbling and melting away beneath the corruption.

Adam turned to look at 'Adam', its featureless face was clearly smiling despite the lack of a mouth, its white hair had lengthened to the point that it covered the upper half of his face and the entirety of his upper back. It turned to look at Adam and beckoned him to look inside the grave.

Complying, Adam turned his head with an expressionless face, only to find the cover of the grave to have been completely dissolved. Inside the tomb lay a pool of blood in which various eviscerated limbs lay floating on the surface. Each separate piece of flesh was exactly the same as he had left it when he had killed her, the ravaged and decapitated head of his mother looked up at him with a smile from the very pool of blood which constituted her corpse. Her head had the same smile that was captured in the picture atop her grave.

Adam forced his gaze away and looked at 'Adam' again. It also seemed look at him, as if happy of what he had done.

If this was her mother's grave, then were was his father's?

'Look behind you.'

Adam once again looked at him, at first he saw nothing apart from graves as far as he could see. Even in the very distance he could only see graves. Except for a moving grave, one which was walking away from him and looked like a man which Adam knew very well, however, Adam knew better than to think it was real. 'Adam' was beside him, it was more than enough proof to constitute that this scene was taking place inside his mind.

Looking back at 'Adam', Adam raised his voice to speak.

"Why are you doing this, my father is dead and my mother doesn't even have a grave to mark her passing, just as it should be."

"Adam, this is our mothers grave, when we killed her I took it upon myself to erect this little grave in her memorial."

Adam started feeling a sense of disgust coming from deep inside him. This monster called itself his brother, the worse thing than this is that its true. Just as Catherine gave birth to Adam, it also gave 'birth' to 'Adam'. Both she and his father gave birth to 'Adam' when they parted, just as they gave birth to Adam when they came together.

Then, looking back, at least his mother had a grave, however much he despised her. 'Adam' seemed to look all that less insane and a tad bit more appealing.

"Then, why did you manifest our father there? He's already dead."

'Adam' just looked at him for a long while, eventually a thin red line formed from the bottom of where his right ear would have been and ran across to where his left ear would go. Then, the line seemed to split apart and give way to a gaping abyss that covered half of 'Adam's' face. The inside of this abyss was pitch black despite the large amount of light entering, it was as if the inside of 'Adam' was purely composed of darkness.

The gaping maw that covered half of it's face also seemed to resemble something, it almost looked like...

...a smile.

It seemed it could no longer compose itself and had to give away a devilish smile.

"Adam, what are you talking about, I haven't even seen our father before, how can I manifest him?"

Adam found his jaw slackened, staring, dumbfounded, at 'Adam'. He quickly gathered himself together and turned around to look at the lonesome figure in the distance.

Only to find that it was long gone.

'Hey, maybe you manifested him here, after all, this is your mind and he is dead.'

Yes, of course, he must have subconsciously made up his father within his mind, however, despite 'Adam' 'comforting' him, Adam couldn't shake the feeling that someone had witnessed what happened here, that his father's spirit somehow knew what he had done.

Adam couldn't withstand the sheer guilt that got caught within his throat, his face contorted into an unsightly expression when his back had turned away from 'Adam'. Then he breathed in for four seconds, held it for another four seconds and exhaled for seven seconds. His face had returned to the usual blank and cold-hearted expression, it suited a lonely man wearing a dirty black suit in a graveyard.

Then, the graveyard seemed to plummet into a single point in front of him, a singularity so to speak. The distorted figure of 'Adam' was waving him goodbye with his tentacles and his mothers grave was repaired to the point which it had been when he arrived here.

Now, he was back in the dilapidated pavilion, in front of Mr. Li, receiving an invitation to join the Cold Evil Sect. Back to reality.

Adam looked at the invitation again, it promised power, it promised strength. 'Adam' was urging him on, his mind was urging him to accept it too. However, something held him back, a picture frame seemed to pass by his mind, it was very brief, in fact a momentary scene within his consciousness.

It was an old photo within a wooden frame, it was usually held up in his mothers room before she tossed it in the trash one day. The background was a beautiful rose garden, decorated with intricate balustrades the colour of ivory. Two people were contrasted against this picture perfect background, a man and a woman. The woman had long and attractive light brown hair, a face devoid of the imperfections wrought about by age. The man had a firm jawline, protruding eyebrows, dark brown hair and sapphire eyes. His face was clean shaven and emanated a very powerful, yet gentle, aura. Like that of a chivalrous knight, a man that has great power and a noble cause. The man was wearing a black tuxedo whereas the woman, Catherine, was wearing an white wedding gown.

This picture, brought about a terrible ire within Adam, it was exactly what it looked like, picture perfect, an utopia of it's own. However reality differed from this greatly, oh ever so greatly.

That seemed to be the last straw that held back Adam. His eyes held a glint of great desire, a desire for power, a desire to be unfettered by the chains of fate. With this desire Adam reached out his hand and accepted the invitation to become a disciple of the Cold Evil Sect.

A resounding voice echoed out within Adam's head when he accepted the invitation, a voice recited by millions of others before him. Unconsciously Adam muttered along with them.

"No matter what sin I shall commit, what atrocity I will conduct or what evil I will achieve, I shall not shy away from the attainment of power for the mere protection of my conscience."

"With a frigid conviction, I shall strike down the enemies of the sect. With a nefarious mind, I shall scheme against my opposition. With patience, I will strike in the most opportune moment.

"Face is of no consequence, Pride is the root of complacency. No matter how many defeats I shall endure, the last victory is the greatest."

"Henceforth, I, with my body, mind and soul, commit myself to the Cold Evil Sect and take up the position of Disciple."

Mr. Li had a wide smile on his face, his eyes glinted with the promise of fulfilling a deal, the same one you would get from a father when he attended the 18th birthday of his son. Not that Adam would know this, of course.