Yun Fei snickered as he sat propped up against a tree, fiddling with 6 tokens that he had wrested from other applicants.

"Hahahahahaha, is this what they call the pleasure of being wealthy. Looting others is truly the fastest way to become rich."

As he neared the mountain, his encounters with other candidates became more and more frequent. Since the rules of the competition themselves rewarded having more tokens, Yun Fei shamelessly looted each candidate that he came across.

He looted two space pouches, which were now filled with gold, spirit stones, some cultivation pills he had never seen before and many other things he snatched from people who didn't have tokens.

When he was committing crimes, Yun Fei wondered if he should behave with greater restraint. However, looking at all the new things that he got from the archer and the dumb muscle head, he changed his mind and acted like an ant after sugar.

When he was living in the monastery, he didn't even have any personal possessions. Everything was shared and nothing even remotely luxurious was allowed.

Now However, Yun Fei had a lot of things that he had borrowed indefinitely from many people he came across. He was truly pleased with his wealth.

He only left his victims with searching talismans and some food, he took everything else and decided to appraise it later when he had sufficient time.

Though there were some of them who were outraged and threatened him with their backgrounds and whatnot, Yun Fei just didn't care.

He had decided to rise through the ranks and enter the association. It would be their responsibility to shield him from any serious consequences.

Using the paralysing poison applied through his arrows, it had mostly been easy work without much danger.

Some cases were relatively trickier though. Like a weird guy on who the poison didn't work on. That was another lengthy battle with distance being the deciding factor. Yun Fei shot arrows as he moved while the guy tried to close the distance.

Originally, the guy was simply planning to escape because he realised that fighting with an archer was a pain in the ass. Yun Fei though didn't want to just let this guy off, he could see that he was relatively stronger which would translate to him having better things.

After two hours and finishing the fight at close range, Yun Fei finally was able to loot this rich kid of some affluent family and even had a very satisfied smile on his face after the whole affair.

Another dark horse had actually managed to detect Yun Fei’s ambush and even counter attack.

This black cloaked individual had a fleet footed style and combined with his strange weapon that consisted of a long chain and a vicious bloody hook attached on one end, made him a formidable opponent.

Suffering many lacerations from the tearing hook and the snake like chain that seemed to have a mind of its own, Yun Fei was faced with a rare contender.

After a gruelling but fast paced battle he managed to wrest the peculiar weapon from its master, drawing the fight to its end.

It was a shame that he could not capture the elusive warrior who succeeded in escaping after utilizing all the methods he possessed. He could only imagine what good things that strong warrior had in his space pouch.

Remembering these past fights and looking at his spoils, Yun Fei felt that it was a lot of fun. The dull life of the monastery, with a lot of scriptures and books could never compare to the experiences he had in these past two years.

However, it wasn't as if Yun Fei disliked or looked down upon the scholarly pursuits. In fact, it was quite the opposite, he liked reading books and discovering new things. An active imagination and a sharp mind were things he valued heavily.

For as long as he remembered, he was unable to walk and even missed an eye.

This led to him being distant from the other children at the monastery. His disability disallowed him from participating in physical activities, his leg rendered him unable to move properly and his single eye led to poor depth perception.

When he was very young, he had actually tried a lot to fit in and play with the kids. His constant efforts to fit in however led to him being seen as a clown and getting laughed at by the other kids.

One day, he finally had enough and stopped trying to get along with the others. He shut himself in the library at the monastery and devoured all that he could get his hands on, he even read the books on religion which he found to be boring and didn't really agree with.

People would be perplexed if they heard about Yun Fei's thoughts. For a kid that had grown up in a monastery since birth to doubt in the scriptures would be incomprehensible.

A child isn't really able to think for himself and has to depend on the environment and the teachings of the people around him to build his world view. Hence, it was a unique situation that Yun Fei didn't agree with what the environment was trying to instill in him.

One reason which had led to this situation was the contradictions that Yun Fei had experienced himself in the monastery.

Bullying someone was against the teachings of the monastery, it was supposed to be completely prohibited. It actually was completely prohibited, the perpetrators penalized heavily unless the target was Yun Fei.

This was because not having a complete body was seen as revolting. According to the beliefs, without a complete body a person couldn't enter the cycle of reincarnation properly.

This led to him being an exceptional case in the monastery who could be bullied with impunity.

As long as it wasn’t anything too excessive there would be no consequences. If Yun Moxie really cared about him, maybe he wouldn't have had it so hard.

He knew now though that to Yun Moxie he was only as valuable as a chicken whose only value lay in its meat.

Looking at these contradictions and being detached from the inner circle of the monastery, he never really took the scriptures to heart.

This was still just a minor factor. The major reason which had led to him being blasphemous towards the teachings of his environment was still Sun Ming. Yun Fei used to fear the repercussions if someone heard what Sun Ming talked to him about.

He could though understand why Sun Ming would think things through in such a manner, rather different from the scriptures. Sun Ming wasn't after all, a monk, and was only hired to look after the beasts.

Sun Ming's different takes and his open minded approach were what truly led to Yun Fei never holding much stock in the philosophy of the temple, which he even found to be somewhat stupid.

He never revealed his thoughts though and only kept them to himself, acting completely in line with the rules and beliefs set by the institution.

Getting back to Yun Fei's lonely life in the library. All his time being spent on reading and thinking, Yun Fei was very obviously ahead of all the other children in the monastery in such matters.

This further fuelled his thirst for knowledge as he finally found something he was superior in. He was very envious of the physical abilities of the 'normal' children and his superior mental capabilities were the only thing he depended on to maintain his pride.

This positive cycle of hard work and results had led to Yun Fei having a very enlightened and scientific mind frame. His excellence showed through his disabilities and even the people who despised him had to reluctantly agree that Yun Fei could indeed be classified as a genius.

His arrogance because of his superiority in intelligence and his good results also played a role in him being singled out and bullied by insecure boys that didn’t know any better.

Even though he liked studying, he likened his life in the monastery to stagnant water in a pond and his current life to a freely flowing river.

This was because of freedom. In the monastery he didn't have any options except to study. Even though he liked it, it was not like he could even do anything else.

Out here, with his body fully healed and his excellent physique. He now had a choice, he had the freedom to choose.

People could forget about him reading dogshit religious decrees ever again.

"Ahhhhhh, Freedom is where the pleasures of mortal life lie."

He sighed with a relaxed smile as he started to gather up his things.

His shadow had grown longer and longer as the evening sun set. Right at this moment though, the peaceful atmosphere was suddenly shattered as Yun Fei's instinct warned him of incoming danger.

This sense of danger came along with light footsteps which didn't seem to carry any intention of hiding themselves.

As the sound of the footsteps rapidly increased in volume, Yun Fei stood up and faced a direction into the trees and shrubs.

He didn't have to wait too long as suddenly, with the sound of shuffling robes and the rushed tapping of feet a figure was upon him.

Even with his honed reflexes, Yun Fei was taken aback by the speed of the assailant. The dark figure made no comments and unnecessary movements and just rushed straight towards him.

Not having much time to do anything, Yun Fei just threw out a punch hoping to stop the movement of this assailant.

The person in front of him effortlessly slipped passed his fist and connected a palm carrying all the momentum of his movement onto his chest.

Yun Fei felt like he had been tackled by a bull and he slid across the clearing as his chest now throbbed with pain.

The thin figure had a surprised expression illuminated by the dim light of the setting sun. The surprise however quickly vanished as the lithe attacker seemingly split into two and rushed towards Yun Fei from two directions from his front.

Yun Fei's eyes were momentarily wide open with shock as he wondered what was going on. His surprise however soon vanished as he rushed towards one of the figures.

Yun Fei was once again pushed backwards, though a little lesser than the last time because he had taken initiative to exchange moves.

The swift assailant, sure that Yun Fei had just gotten lucky once again split into two and attacked him from completely opposite directions.

He once again charged towards one of the two figures and exchanged blows before getting pushed back by the superior power of blows by the assailant.

The slim attacker stopped moving and finally spoke for the first time since he had shown up in front of Yun Fei, dropping his cold attitude.

In a tone a bewilderment he said,

"Impossible, how can you distinguish between the shadow and my main body?"

The attacker had thought that the first time was just by chance but after he observed Yun Fei's conviction and his swiftness of attacking his main body and completely ignoring any attacks by the shadow, he became convinced that Yun Fei could somehow distringuish between the shadow and the main body.

The attacker was indeed right in his conjecture since Yun Fei was really able to distinguish between the two images.

Although this technique would've worked on any normal 3rd layer Qi Condensation practitioner, Yun Fei wasn't somebody who could be classified as ordinary.

Though he was initially surprised by this technique, it took him less than a second to notice the flaws in the shadow and it's differences from the main body.

Sun Ming's Eye technique wasn't just for show, what might've been impossible for other people at his level, it was possible for Yun Fei.