In this life, there was four kind of students

The first one always considers gain and loss. How do I rise above the other? How do I become the tallest tree in the forest?

It was the tallest tree that took in the largest amount of light, leaving nothing to the one beneath it. Everyone was just fertilizer.

This one is tricky. He never has a good heart, even if he does, it only serves to hinder him. The entirety of his life will be a fierce competition.

This person must not be allowed to have a great power. Even if he succeed, it will be a harsh journey.

The second is someone similar with a more suitable mindset for cultivation.

He will usually be born into a small household. He will usually not be comparable to other cultivators in advantages, in cultivation base. Everything that he has, he is always one step behind.

From that small person mindset, a great determination is born. How do I rise above the other? How do I negate my disadvantage and turn it to advantage? How do I become the tree that rise even in harsh circumstances?

This person has a suitable mindset for cultivation. Cultivation is a harsh journey, comparable to overturning the heaven. How could someone normal who has never suffered understand that kind of pain.

However, careful consideration must be made. Even though the cultivation base is not a problem, a careful cultivation of the mind is needed to steer him from the first mindset

The third is someone without any motivation whatsoever.

He does indeed struggle to improve, however it is only a half-hearted measure. In his heart, there was not a bit of competitiveness. He only cultivates because 'he should cultivate'. He exists in the world because exists.

This tree exists because it exists. It does not live. In the case it becomes a great tree whose canopy covers the forest, it is a stroke of fate through no action of it alone.

One should take in this kind of student because he is easy to train, however, it is unlikely for him to achieve any kind of greatness.

The fourth is a tree.

He is the tree that embodies everything that means to be a tree. He is the truest tree to have ever lived.

This person's future is unpredictable.

He exists to cultivate. However, unlike the third student, he does not take any half-hearted measure.

He does not causes strife, he does not compete. However he does not compete not because he only exists, he does not compete because he does not care to compete. In the metaphor about a tree, he only care about being a tree, grows, absorb nutrient, grows, repeat. He does not care about the grander tree blocking the sunlight, nor does he cares about how the other trees think about him.

At first glance, this person has the mindset fitting to be a cultivator and indeed, if he succeeds, the entire world will know of him, someone who has no worldly bond.

However, if he does not care about the scheme of other or any other thing, what will happen to him? Even the straightest tree will find it hard to see that its roots have completely been taken over a by a bigger tree.

He is not against the world, but the world is against him. That is just how the world work.

Of these four, if you could choose two, who would you pick?

The previous master of the Heavenly Sword Sect personally pick the third and fourth.

If one does not have any motivation, it is fine, that means she won't be a threat to the world of cultivation after he passed.

If one does not care about worldly matter and the scheme of the people, it is fine. He will be instructed to learn the Steel Heart Manual, going on his way to become the future sect leader of the Heavenly Sword Sect, under the protection of his master.

However, the previous sect master has a miscalculation.

When the third met the fourth there was a change in her.

People changes. The wise previous sect master of the Heavenly Sword Sect did read the future, but he did not read the ancient past. The most beautiful love story lied in the past. He discovered that the red string of fate lingering from the past did not disappear. To correct his mistake, he took them both out one day and exposed the matter to the chagrin of the female disciple

It is said that men, especially cultivator men does not understand a woman's heart.

"You may have been husband and wife in the past, however it is all in the past. To live, love and die. You were both very blessed to be able to walk the same path. But the laws of the heaven have no place for desire. The cycle of reincarnation should wash away any regret or yearning. From now on you are both a new person.

However, this too is fate. With this string of fate, I hope you work together to expand the sect in the future.

One Yin. One Yang. You walk proudly."

Like two parallel line, fated to walk together but never to meet was the finality of the master's instruction. What can be done, the matters were exposed publicly. It was a big shame and embarrassment, to the female disciple, especially to the person in front of her.

However, like a tree, he accepts the words.

In the first place, he never owed her anything.

However, in the female disciple there was change. Realizing her past through her master words, knowing that they were fated for eachother but was never to be created an obsession in her.

The obsession started from that day and while the man didn't change, the woman changed.

***

One thousand years later.

"Oh I'm so angry. I'm so angry."

A woman could be seen pacing back and forth in a place where air turns into ice due to the sheer coldness.

The purest part of the Heavenly Sword Sect, the inner sanctum of the Sword Saint abode.

It was in this cold place that the woman walks.

The cold was cold. It was extremely overbearing, hammering down at every moment of existence.

Even a cultivator has to be careful walking in these hall.

The inner sanctum of the Heavenly Sword Sect, even if a cultivator was lucky enough to get over the gate keeper, the Sect master of the Heavenly Sword Sect himself, they may find themselves frozen to death.

That is to say, even if there was a hypothetical cultivator stronger than the main inheriting disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect, the strongest in the entire cultivation world, they may not walk out alive from this inner sanctum.

It was cold. Cold. Cold and Cold like the heart of the men here.

It seems that when one reach a certain level of enlightenment, one becomes extremely cold. Colder than anything that exist. A cold that defies everything. It was the cold of 'not-existing'. The cold of an ascended person

However, there was one exception.

This is the inner sanctum of the Heavenly Sword Sect, created by the previous masters of the Heavenly Sword Sect.

It would not harm the next generation of the Heavenly Sword Sect.

The person here may be walking in the skin of an inheriting disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect, yet she is chilled to her very soul.

Still she marches on.

"Day after day, he only cares about Dao. What about me?"

The woman mutters.

Still, she paces back and forth in that cold room.

"Everyday he only cares about the Dao. What is the Dao? Why is it so great?"

In the distance, there was the sound of thunder, but the woman ignores it.

"Tell me master." Suddenly she mutters.

"Who hurted me?"

The words that come out of her mouth could probably only be understood by the person who was involved with the matter.

"The Dao. You tried to achieve it. Your master before you tried to achieve it. The people praises that every generation of the Heavenly Sword Sect, there is at least one ascended master. However master..."

The woman stops her pacing.

"Why did you lie?"

In front of the woman is a corpse.

"Tell me master..."

The woman moves closer to the lifelike corpse sitting on the floor, as if he was still alive.

"The Dao DOES NOT exist. In front of me is the conclusive proof of that."

In front of her was a corpse. The corpse of the previous master of the Heavenly Sword Sect. One thousand years ago, it was recorded that he has 'ascended'

And yet right here, his corpse is kept.

"You struggle so hard and yet in the end you still die. Why do you lead him down the same path?"

In fact, to prove that the Dao does not exist, the person who killed the previous sect master of the Heavenly Sword sect was...

Her.

And yet in Death he still haunts her. She has seen that he has died, so why did that guy...

Why did that guy believe that the master has ascended. It was that thought that leads him astray. In the final days of her master, she was supposed to correct his way of thinking, and yet, after her master has died, it only reconfirm the resolution in his eyes.

However, what he said that day has stuck with her forever.

"Master has ascended."

Ascended. Ascended. He saw with his own eyes that even such a man die. So why does he believe in that fairy tale.

There exist no ascendancy when we have achieved this level. A master at this level could live forever, so why don't we use the rest of that time to love each other forever? However, his answer to that was a resolute no and a sword to her heart.

Even she did not know how she lived through that.

Like a ghost, she has lived for a thousand years. Looking at old scenery, same people, an indescribable feeling arise inside her.

"Come back to me Zheng Jie. Come back to me.

The Dao does not exist."

However in that moment of reminiscence, she was disrupted in her most vulnerable state. Slowly, she turns to look at the intruder

"What are you doing here?"

[/hr]