“It was supposed to be here? No, no, it was here… Here, right? Right right right. Righto”

“What are you drawing, Oalus?”

Woah, that startled me! Wait, where was I? Damn, I forgot…

Somehow master crept up behind me as I was drawing

“I was mapping out my meridians, master”

Master showed a surprised face. That was probably because what I drew looked more like a madman’s scribbles on paper rather than a meridian map.

“Are these? I see, but if it was…”

Master carefully looked at the map and began to murmur to himself. Standing tall with a perfect elegant posture with a sheet of paper held between his long slender fingers, looking deep in thought, master looked so otherworldly, as if out of a fairytale, so I had no heart to interrupt him.

“Just how many meridians do you have, Oalus?”

“Three thousand and eleven, master!”

“Oh, I see… Eh? How many again?”

“Three thousand and eleven!”

…

After I explained him the reasons for the stupidly high number and my plans, master and I began discussing what to do. Well, I was telling him my ideas and he listened patiently.

After the third hour master finally interrupted me:

“But if I use the flooding synchronization, there’s a risk of a flood burst, causing potential Qi deviation and a chance of mutation of the-”

“Stop it here, please, Oalus. I’m afraid that this will go nowhere at this rate”

“Sorry, master”

“No, it’s alright. I am afraid I can’t help you with your problem but feel free to ask anything you may need of me. What I came here for was that I felt like I needed to test something”

“What would it be, master?”

“I wanted to see how far you progressed when it came to your fighting abilities”

“Alright? What do I need to do, master?”

“Spar with me”

It was my time to tilt my head. I mean, no matter who I was before, now I was a peak Aura-synchronization cultivator. Master, who was at the Nascent Soul stage needed a finger to subdue me. No, just a glance would be enough, actually.

“I understand your concern, so that’s why I learned this spell yesterday”

Master made a hand seal and released a little of his Qi and Nascent Soul essence.

The air crackled and sparks of many colors flew in all directions in abundance. The hut was divided into a world of ever-changing shadows and light, with master at its center.

Slowly, a small silhouette rose from the ground.

“Is that a cloning spell?”

“Yes. It lets me create avatars without using any building materials”

It’s quite incredible. Cloning techniques are very hard in general and most of them are incredibly precious. This backwater probably doesn’t have a single cloning technique in any sect.

It must mean that master has his own inheritance outside the sect. Well, as a descendant of a big shot from Divinity it’s not surprising. The question is, why is he on this planet in the first place then?

But that hand-seal… Hand-seals are a method of spell-invocation that is very rare and it requires delicate control from the caster. Master said that he learned it yesterday? As in, he started and ended learning it yesterday? What a monster. Not even I could, when I was at the Nascent Soul stage do such a thing.

Wait. If master has this much talent for learning, how could he not break through to Soul Formation? This makes no sense.

“Oalus?”

Unless… No, I can’t understand why.

“Oalus?”

In the first place, Soul Formation is a stage that is a transition between Nascent Soul and Mind Manifestation. It requires no-

“Oalus!”

“Oh, sorry, master. I got distracted for a little bit”

“Using this, I can test how far you progressed with your fighting abilities”

Master gestured me to look at the figure in front of him.

It was a little boy in a hemp robe around the same age as me, that being 10. He had very big eyes, a small nose and baby cheeks. Hair long enough to reach his shoulders cascaded behind him. He looked at me with those big cute eyes of his… GOSH! SO DAMN CUTE!

Just what is this adorable creature? Like, how could there be such an adorable being in this universe? Isn’t it totally against the laws of Heavens?

I really feel like I’m suffering a loss since I have no magic tools to store pictures. God, how can you be so cruel? Please bestow at least the simplest picture-gathering jade onto this lowly subject!

“So adorable!”

Master looked at me like I was an idiot. I’m sorry, master, for failing you expectations.

“This is an avatar I created in order to test you”

Master breathed a long sigh and closed his eyes.

The avatar came to life the very moment master closed his eyes and began to speak. He had the same dignified air around him as master but with the childish lisp he had, it felt more like it was a child pretending to be a big adult.

Too adorable. It’s bad for my heart.

“I brought a pair of practice swords for us. They’re on your training ground”

Master’s personal disciples all have personal huts with backyards with various training equipment and a sizable arena to test our abilities.

In the previous timeline, after we broke through to the Foundation Building stage, master gifted a mountain to each of us, with a fully equipped cultivation environment.

Natter already has one, actually.

When I was young I wasn’t able to appreciate all the care master gave his disciples and took it for granted. It really hurts my heart. I can’t describe the extent of shame I am feeling right now.

We walked out of my hut while I was thinking of the many ways I could help master.

The little Master grabbed a long wooden sword with practiced movements. The sword looked very natural with him and his entire temperament changed the moment the sword landed in his hand.

I wasn’t facing a little boy anymore. I was facing a tall mountain. A warrior who can cut the skies and the Earth with a flick of his wrist. A man whose heart is as sharp as the edge of a sword.

Despite not showing any hostility, I felt a little restrained.

I also grabbed my sword. My way of fighting was something I have achieved over a thousand years of hardships in this cruel cultivation world.

I have slain monsters who could chew a planet casually. There was once a time when a million practitioners ambushed me in a star sector. They thought they had trapped me but the ones trapped were they. In the end, I walked out alive, leaving behind entire planets covered with crimson.

Cruel and ruthless. Wild and yet restrained. To destroy and ruin everything in my way, until nothing is left. This is my style. It suits my wrecking ball better but the sword is also something I can use, despite my lacking talent.

There was need for words. Both of us ascended up the arena.

We put a distance of thirty steps between us and stood, looking at each other.

Master stood with his back straight and his hand was steady. One of his legs was put a little forward and the other was behind. He seemed to stand in place but I could already see him charging towards me like an unleashed arrow.

I crouched and prepare to meet his assault. I was a predator, a lion ready to jump. My sword was ready.

The fight was already on. One doesn’t always need swords to defeat the opponent. Breaking the fighting spirit of the opponent can work just as well sometimes.

I nodded. Master nodded back.

We both charged forward too fast for the eye to follow. In a moment master was in front of me, his posture every bit as perfect and refined as before. He slashed my sword aside and aimed at me in a fluid motion and I jumped away, slashing back.

My move was evaded with a simple side-step and I was faced with a strike from the side. I evaded too and prepared to slash at him but before I could, master stepped back with minimal movements and guarded against my attack.

In but a moment, I corrected my stance and prepared to meet his strikes.

We had three steps between us. The sword could only reach two steps. Neither of us took the lacking step. We looked at each other, searching for flaws, trying to trick the other party into making flaws by pretending to make a move.

We walked back and forth, trying to change the distance between us. Whenever I took a step back, master would take a step forth. Whenever Master took a step back, I followed him.

At last, I saw a momentary change in master’s stance and taking the opportunity, I took a half-step, crouched and slashed at his shoulder.

Master also understood my intentions immediately and, with a turn on his heel, he slashed my sword away yet again and during the small window that followed when I was defenseless, he used his momentum from the previous strike to slash at me from below.

I could only step back and avoid but it put me in an unfavorable position as I didn’t have the time to fix my stance.

Master followed up with a barrage of attacks. Slashes from every direction flew at me as if master had multiple swords and he used them at the same time.

I could only step back unwillingly and take the punishment while guarding with all my might. I really needed an opportunity to get out of this before things became worse.

The problem was, master would never let such a great opportunity pass from his hands. He ruthlessly stroke where I wouldn’t expect and did his best to subdue me with systematic precision.

I was slowly losing ground.

But I wouldn’t lose so easily. As another slash followed, I braced myself and with right timing, I jumped to the side, barely keeping my balance.

Master was already coming at me again but I had more time to prepare.

We were again at a stalemate. Our swords crossed in an attempt to overwhelm one another but each attempt was thwarted by the other one.

A slash

A counterattack

A slash from the side

A turn

A step back

A step forward

A slash

The sounds of wooden swords hitting each other repeated and repeated again. Time didn’t matter. We fought single-mindedly with no desire to care for such a thing.

It became a monotonous process where neither of us could defeat the other. There was no clear winner in sight. Neither of us aimed to give a winning strike. We just clashed and clashed and clashed.

Eventually, I gave out. Not because of lacking control. It was simply because I was too tired. My body was weak. I was, after all, not too different from a mortal child.

Master’s avatar put the wooden sword at my neck and the match ended. The avatar looked exhausted too but his expression stayed the same throughout the whole fight. Well, mine stayed the same the whole fight too, but that’s because it couldn’t change easily. Face paralysis, remember?

“So, haaaa, what do you think, haaa, master?”

The child’s eyes dimmed and his whole body turned to brilliant sparks and scattered with the wind. Behind me the adult version of master stood with a gentle expression as always. The wooden sword flew to his hands and he put it against the wall.

“It wasn’t bad. Just, your style lacked a soul. You fought and used your sword as a means to an end. You lacked understanding of your sword and a desire to fight and couldn’t make the most of your abilities”

“That’s because my weapons of choice are a wrecking ball and an umbrella”

“With a wrecking ball, I think you would have an understanding of your weapon but you would be driven by the desire to destroy and with an umbrella, you would have no desire to fight. Just the desire to end the fight”

Indeed. Master was right. This is exactly the way I fight. I never liked to fight. Even when I followed the Demon Way, I never wanted to fight. Though during those times, nobody would ever believe this statement.

Fighting and killing and violence overall are the kinds of things I can only abhor. It’s always been that way. I prefer to seek ways that lack violence unless there’s no other choice. It’s not because of any moral limitations, with time one would just stop caring about such things, as unfortunate as it sounds.

I simply wish for freedom of my mind. With great power, one finds that it becomes easier and easier to solve problems with their fists. But such indulgence leads to degeneration of the character. One becomes trapped by the petty and ugly parts of themselves. Acquiring freedom by such means leads to only becoming the least free kind of person of all.

One needs to put restraints on oneself in order to truly be free. One needs principles to tether oneself to who and what they truly are and who and what they want to be.

That is why cultivation of character is also very important.

Looking at such a me, master could only sigh and shake his head. I felt that he wanted to say “What do I do with such a troublesome disciple” more than he wanted to show his disappointment.

Master said he wanted to see the progress I made in my fighting abilities, but I believe that he also wanted to understand just what kind of person I am. Master was a genius when it came to the Path of the Sword. The exchange with swords we just had allowed master to understand me more than a thousand million words could even hope to achieve.

“I am not dissatisfied with your progress. Keep it up. You have important research to do, so I won’t be disturbing you. I’ll be coming by every day, so if you need anything of me, just ask”

“Thank you, master”

“Rest well”

And he flew away.

It was a rather long day. But it’s far from over.

Hm… Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to spar with master. Now that I cleared my head, I might just have something of a direction now…