Seifr walked down the main street leading to the center of Vinson. It was a bright day. The clouds were scarce, a gentle breeze was blowing, and the birds were singing. Everything was peaceful. Seifr sauntered along, whistling a tune. He had nowhere to be, and nothing to do; no responsibilities.

Seifr started to feel a little anxious as he continued on his way. Everything was so peaceful and quiet, he could not place where the feelings of anxiousness were coming from. Had he forgotten something he was supposed to do? What was the last thing he remembered doing? He could not recall. He shook his head and kept walking along the street.

Wait a minute... Seifr slowly came to a stop and turned in a full circle. In every direction he could see, the city was completely empty. Not a soul traversed the streets nor occupied any of the buildings or stalls. The city was never empty, no matter what time of day it was, and it was apparently noon.

Seifr began to jog down the main street, searching down alleyways and other thoroughfares for signs of human activity. His heart began to race, and he started to panic as he picked up speed into a full run. Nothing. There were no people anywhere.

Seifr started to despair, but after looking down another large road, he finally saw a group of people some ways in the distance. They appeared perfectly normal going about their business. Seifr let out a sigh as he thought he just happened to be in a very strange coincidence.

As he slowed to a walk and made his way towards the crowd, he saw a figure burst forth from one of the side alleys and rush through the people. The figure rushed across the street towards another side alley, and large wind blades came chasing after him, slicing through many people in the crowd. Screams erupted and blood burst. The scene was horrifying, yet slightly familiar. One man had his entire left arm severed at the shoulder.

Seifr came to a stop, aghast at what he just witnessed. The source of wind blades shortly followed the man he had attacked, nobody giving a care in the world to any of the commoners caught in the cross fire.

Seifr turned around to make his way in the other direction, and he saw off in the distance a group of cultivators locked in combat. Ki techniques were being flung about wildly, causing mayhem to several people attempting to flee the scene. Storefronts and houses were damaged severely. Seifr could hear children crying and people begging for mercy. The cultivators paid no heed to anything around them as they continued to slaughter one another and everyone nearby.

Seifr was even more horrified at the death and destruction caused by this battle. He turned once again in another direction. Off in the distance, he once again saw a scene of carnage. This time it was not commoners being caught in the cross fire. It was much worse. Several cultivators laughed and joked as they deliberately hunted down and ruthlessly murdered all of the weak mortals in the streets. Seifr saw one man pick up a child, a child, and twist his head off. He then threw the child's head at another cultivator, spraying blood and gore along with it, all the while laughing uproariously. The other cultivator caught it and threw it again, creating a game of catch with several others.

Seifr collapsed to his knees with his hands on his head. What is this?! This is a nightmare a thousand times worse than the last one. Seifr despaired, because he realized that this was how the real world actually worked. Maybe not all at once, but he had seen several similar scenes, and he had even participated in similar chases.

Seifr looked up as he heard a noise. All around him, commoners with blood and gore, missing limbs, and horrible wounds were surrounding him. They slowly converged on him, and he saw several familiar faces, people he had seen caught in the mix when he was escaping the jewelry shop. For instance the man with the missing left arm and gaping wound. He was the same man he had run into in his nightmare, knocking him down into the river of blood.

"No! No, no, no," Seifr chanted. He began to panic as the people swarmed him and suffocated him. There was no escape.

"NO!" Seifr screamed at the top of his lungs as he shot upright in his bunk. There was nobody else present this time, and he lowered his face into his hands as silent sobs wracked him. Guilt gnawed at him, not just from his past participation, but from the knowledge that it was likely to happen again and again in the future.

Seifr slowly calmed down and regained his composure. He cleaned up and got dressed. It was almost morning, and he began to meditate on the issue. He cleared his mind and focused on the problems that were plaguing him. He felt guilt, but he realized that he was not ultimately responsible, and the only thing he could do was to step in to prevent what he could and avoid high profile chases.

After contemplating the issue of guilt, he slowly turned it into determination to prevent cruel and unnecessary bloodshed where he could. I'm not responsible for other people's actions, and I can only control my own. That means that I have no reason to be guilty over other cultivators directly or indirectly harming others, but I do have a responsibility to avoid causing mayhem from the consequences of my own actions. I also have a responsibility to step in and stop murders of commoners where I am able.

Seifr examined his own actions from the past several days. He approved of himself stepping in to stop the blatant murder of the young man from the burly cultivator. He was neutral on his escape from the manor, as there were no bystanders involved, but there easily could have been. He was definitely upset over the mayhem caused by his escape from William. All of these stem from one issue. In the positive instance, I was strong enough to win over my opponent. In the neutral instance, I was strong enough to fend off my opponent temporarily, sort of. And in the negative instance, I was too weak. Everything comes from personal power. I need to be stronger to be able to act on my principles, otherwise it's all just wishful thinking.

After Seifr set his resolve to work on his personal strength, he got up and sought out Shayla. He found her in the martial arts training ground and signalled for her to come over.

"I see you're up and about, and it was only a couple of hours this time. Luckily you didn't have any internal injuries, unless you count the severe blood loss internal. I mean, you are supposed to keep the blood inside you," Shayla quipped as she walked over.

Seifr gave a brief smile and then said, "I plan on taking a break from any missions for a while and focus on cultivation. I don't know how long it'll be. If it gets to be too long, I'll agree to go on an easy target with you, but for now, I'm too weak."

Shayla nodded her head and responded, "I think I'll do some cultivation, too. I've been at the Peak Elementary Realm for almost a year now, and I've been too busy to focus on attempting to break through to the Nascent Realm."

Seifr was surprised at how easily Shayla accepted his decision considering her enthusiasm for joining the Thieves Guild, but he also realized she had other goals as well. "Ok, well let's go see the Head and let him know. Oh right, how much did we get for the last job? I haven't even looked yet."

Shayla had secured the money pouch from the fence for Seifr after he lost consciousness, and she quickly handed it over, "I didn't look inside yours, but I got 18 platinum coins from everything I turned in. Since we did the job together if you got less, we'll split it even."

Seifr did not try to refuse the gesture, as he was perfectly willing to split the earnings. He did do half the work. He opened the sack and peered inside before saying, "No need. Looks like they also gave me 18 plats. I guess they knew we worked together and overcompensated me to make us equal."

After checking the funds, the pair made their way upstairs to the Head's office. Quillin was sitting at the desk, and he ignored the pair, but Shayla could feel his greasy gaze out of the corner of his eye on her. It made her shiver.

They walked into the office and closed the door. The Head saw this and motioned for them to take a seat. "What's on your mind?" He asked.

"I think it would be best if I - we - took a break for a while to focus on our training and cultivation. We just performed two high-profile robberies with blatant chases across the city, and in both instances we weren't strong enough to fend the guards completely off. We were just lucky," Seifr went right into the meat of the situation.

The Head nodded his head as he listened to Seifr. He then said, "This is the right course of action. Also, we're not just evaluating your performance to successfully steal and get away to the fence. We're also evaluating your disposition. Introspection and recognizing deficiencies is important. If you had done the same thing in a foreign nation, there would have been no halt to the pursuit, and you both would have likely died.

"You did a good job infiltrating the manor, and a good job getting to the valuables. You were unlucky that the captain recognized you from William's description. Considering he was at the Peak of the Nascent Realm, it's understandable that you wouldn't know of his connection with William, who's Mid Spirit Realm, but at the same time, you went in blind.

"I'm impressed by your actions and decisions. You're still young and have several years before we're required to make a decision. We usually force potential candidates out if they reach the age of around 24 or so, and they haven't produced the results we're looking for."

The Head opened a drawer, pulled out a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and then handed it to Seifr. He also handed another one to Shayla. "These are requisitions for some spirit herbs to assist with cultivation. I should have told you sooner, but since I've let you in on the secret of our backing, you can now travel anywhere in the underground bunker and access all of our resources. You have to work for contribution points to purchase herbs, items, and weapons and armor. This requisition doesn't come out of your points. You get one point per gold coin worth of compensation, so you two should have a lot of points stored up to get some stuff from downstairs." The Head smiled at them as he indicated that they were dismissed.

Seifr and Shayla made their exit and returned to the basement. Seifr looked at Shayla and said, "We'll part ways for now. If you need anything, though, don't hesitate to seek me out. We'll meet up once in a while to decide when we're ready to go on another mission."

Shayla nodded her head and replied, "Sounds good. Next time we meet up, I'll be in the Nascent Realm. Count on it." Shayla had a look of determination in her eyes as she walked off to begin her training.

Seifr went to the store room and used the requisition script and some points to trade for several spirit herbs. He did not feel the need to waste any points on any weapons or disposable items. He acquired several different kinds of herbs. Some were to be consumed, and then they would assist the internal meridians in circulating ki. Some were to be crushed into powder and then applied to the skin to open up the pores and assist with absorbing more spiritual energy from the atmosphere. Some simply were to be placed next to the body while cultivating to attract more spiritual energy to the local area.

After acquiring the spirit herbs, Seifr left the safe house and visited a commercial district to purchase some rations. He planned on leaving the city to go train physically in the nearby wilderness. The Dalcot Empire was fairly tame, and there was not much wilderness in the interior of the nation other than some mountain ranges and forests. There were not many wild spirit beasts in those areas, but North Squire Province was different. It was on the Eastern edge of the empire, and thus there was more wilderness and more wild spirit beasts. The local wilderness was not dangerous for anyone above the Mid Mortal Realm, though, and Seifr only needed the space and privacy to perform his training.

After purchasing the rations and some other supplies, Seifr made his way to the Northern forest. There was a small mountain range on the far side of the forest, which itself was not very big. Not many people were in this area, as the spirit beast hunters focused on the larger forest to the South and West. Seifr made his way to the mountain range and built a crude lean-to shelter.

He wasted no time getting started in his training. The first thing he did was run to the peak of the short mountain, noting several boulders along the way. After breaking into a sweat and expending some energy, Seifr practiced his swordsmanship with his katana. He did not rest between movements and only stopped once his ki and energy were restored a bit, and then he once again ran down the mountain.

Once he reached the bottom of the mountain, he did not pause, but turned back around to race back up to the mountain top again. This time he grabbed one of the smaller boulders and carried it over his head as he made his way back up. Once attaining the summit yet again, Seifr was much more exhausted than before. He quickly retrieved the three different types of herbs and began to circulate Spiritual Energy with their assistance.

After some time of absorbing the Spiritual Energy and the effects of the herbs extinguished, he began his next phase. He performed his kung fu training using the small boulder as a training dummy. He did not have to worry about injuring himself while striking the boulder, as his level of cultivation had created extremely solid and dense muscles and bones. After depleting his energy once again, he returned to practicing his swordsmanship and started the cycle over again.

He performed this set of training over and over, only stopping to rest at meal times and to sleep at night. When he destroyed a boulder with his repeated kung fu strikes, he would simply grab another slightly larger boulder the next time he was ascending the mountain.

Seifr immersed himself in his training and slowly felt his body getting more powerful and his cultivation base expanding and solidifying. He silently kept track of the days going by, but he paid the passage of time no mind. Several months passed by in this manner, and on the day Seifr ran out of rations - his signal to return to the city - Seifr opened his eyes with delight from his ki circulation.

"8th Stage of the Elementary Realm. I can feel the power thrumming through my body. I couldn't win in a fight against William or other Mid Spirit Realm practitioners right now, but I definitely would not be at a disadvantage like before. I could definitely escape without causing so much collateral damage."

Seifr was pleased with his quick results. He could tell that it was not like the last time with the Ki Vortex where he absorbed a large amount of impure Spiritual Energy. These herbs are astounding. They're better than the ones from The Misty Realm Academy. They're probably subsidized from the Imperial Government.

Seifr stood and slowly stretched his body. It was time to return to the city for a short while. He would meet up with Shayla, and he would also need to come up with some different training exercises. The ones he had performed over and over were beginning to become boring.

Seifr descended the mountain, dismantled the lean-to, and made the trek back to the safe house.