"Fine, you want me to cut off your help entirely?"
Zhou Ji said, his tone growing calmer, then continued:
"What do you make of the hawk's behavior?"
Shen Zuo answered without hesitation, sighing in irritation at the absurdity unfolding across his life...
"I see you all weren't satisfied bullying me on your own, so now you've sent a bird to finish the job."
Zhou Ji laughed a little, then said mockingly:
"Oh, and what else?"
Shen Zuo shrugged, answering in a sarcastic tone:
"Sounds like another dumb scheme of yours to help me indirectly."
Zhou Ji answered in a tone somewhere between a half-serious confession:
"Well... that's half the truth. It really would've been easy enough for me to just hand you a book telling you some Level Three beasts can talk, and let you assume the hawk was one of them. But you've got a sharp enough mind, and besides, there really are beasts capable of understanding humans, even at Level One. I just didn't want to ruin the experience for you."
Then he continued, his tone lighter but carrying real depth:
"That's not what matters to me right now, though... what do you actually think of that bird's behavior?"
...
Shen Zuo answered calmly, without any real emotion:
"It's clear it's operating on certain principles, treating me a certain way for some purpose I can't quite figure out."
Zhou Ji smiled, as though he'd been waiting for exactly that answer, then said in a calm tone carrying a lot behind it:
"Well said! Some creatures operate this way, following a particular kind of life shaped around an unspoken agreement, then they force it onto you. Let's use the hawk as a clear example of what I mean.
He took a Phantom from you in exchange for protection, but... did he ever ask you? No, he basically just ordered you around. He assumed he knew what was best for you, that he understood things better than you did.
And when he took the crystals and materials you'd gathered from the beasts, he was completely convinced he deserved them, in fact, he probably sees the half he let you keep as some act of generosity on his part.
But the truth? He was expecting you to extract them and hand over half from the very beginning.
Now, let's put ourselves in that same example.
We brought you in as an infant, raised you, picked out names for you, forced you into training because we 'thought' it was best for you, sent you on a mission so you could put what you learned into practice. And when we saw you succeeding... we changed the mission on a whim.
Here, we give you something so we can take from you later.
Everyone listens to their own inner voice... and decides what 'you' should do. Why? Simply because they think they're better than you. They've lived longer than you... they're stronger than you... or maybe, they've just... got a longer tongue."
Shen Zuo lowered his head for a moment, not knowing how to respond. The words he'd just heard weren't just dialogue, they were a slap wrapped in wisdom. Then he slowly raised his head and said:
"...But, aren't I supposed to be the one making decisions about my own life? Isn't that what's called freedom?"
Zhou Ji laughed, a short, quiet laugh, then said:
"Pretty word, freedom. But you were born into a world that doesn't really ask for your opinion all that much. Even the freedom you do have, it was handed to you within a framework someone else defined. The bird that cleans a crocodile's teeth cleans them for something in return. Don't expect the hawk to protect you for free either. He needs you for a specific purpose only, and once you've served it, he'll leave you exactly as you are.
To live, to choose, to make mistakes, to learn... all of that's good, but it's watching you. And the moment you step outside the pattern he's grown used to from you, you'll feel his anger... it's a lot like taking a job that dictates every action you take, one that doesn't ask anything of you but obedience.
You needed to feel the presence of this bird... to serve as a small reflection of the world around you."
He paused briefly, then added quietly:
"Listen to me carefully, Shen Zuo... in this world, there are those who dictate the path for you, those who force it on you, and those who simply stand beside you. But... you're the one who decides how you walk it."
Silence settled between them, threaded through with distant beast screams and roars clashing with the sound of the wind.
Shen Zuo didn't answer right away... he was thinking.
And for the first time... without mockery, without stubbornness... he was genuinely thinking.
"Alright... I don't have any advice for you right now. Go on, head back to the observation post."
Zhou Ji said in a calm but firm voice, as though he wanted to give Shen Zuo room to face reality on his own.
Shen Zuo didn't respond, just gave a brief glance before turning his face toward the path leading to the observation post.
The bird kept circling silently above him, as though watching his every move.
With slow but steady steps, Shen Zuo began climbing toward the observation post.
He sat down on the ground, pulled out the stones, and stood there studying them for a moment, staring at the small stones laid out in front of him. They were a pale blue, roughly the size of an index finger, though some were nearly as long, and irregular in shape; they followed no clear geometric pattern.
These stones didn't look anything like the pure crystals shown in books; they looked as though they'd come straight out of the earth's core without ever being shaped, just carrying something within them... something Shen Zuo knew well: energy.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then reached his right hand toward the first stone. The instant he touched it, his Aether Field began slowly opening up inside him, and energy quickly began flowing.
But this time, the flow wasn't normal.
Energy poured out of the stone like a raging current, not drops. Five times faster than usual, pulled in eagerly by the Pit.
His breathing quickened slightly with the rising aetheric pressure, but he held his position like a rock.
It only took half an hour for the stone to vanish completely from his hand, as though it had crumbled into pure atoms.
And in its place, his palm remained open and empty... but the Aether Field inside him churned with a force not to be underestimated.
The amount of energy he'd absorbed... was equal to a full day of intensive training.
He opened his eyes slowly, frowning in surprise, deep in thought.
Nearly two days passed where Shen Zuo only opened his eyes to grab another stone. Long hours of stillness, the air inside the observation post's nest carrying nothing but the sound of his own quickened breathing... and his growing hunger.
The raw meat he'd stored had begun to rot, its smell creeping into his breath until it nearly broke his concentration.
But he pushed through.
One after another, the pale blue stones turned to invisible ash, vanishing into his Aether Field.
When he finally finished, the Pit inside his field had filled up to about a quarter... but the color it now held wasn't the usual white.
It was blue... a faint, nearly invisible blue.
A blue that shouldn't be appearing right now.
This color didn't come from reinforcement points; it only showed up once a user rose to the First Rank, when the body's aetheric structure began undergoing a qualitative shift.
But Shen Zuo hadn't reached the First Rank yet.
These crystals had belonged to beasts that had already reached Level One, some possibly even beginning to gather reinforcement points of their own.
And the energy they held was fundamentally different from ordinary stones, but not in a good way.
Most of that energy simply evaporated within the Aether Barrier. He couldn't store it; his field still wasn't prepared for that.
In the end, he'd only actually benefited from about five percent of the stones' total energy.
And everything else... had evaporated into the air.
"Good experiment, but way too early..."
He thought this as he cinched his empty stomach tight before climbing down from the tree.
The smell had become unbearable, the food was gone, and time waited for no one.
Shen Zuo stepped out of the observation nest, breathing slowly, trying to fight through the waves of nausea caused by the rotting meat in his hands. He lifted a piece of it, examined it with disgust, then tossed it aside, muttering to himself:
"Damn it, of all the bad luck this time... raw meat is definitely not the best thing you could eat."
The air carried a familiar foul smell, though lighter than what he'd been breathing inside.
He followed the scent with calculated steps, until he stood before the pile of corpses, which had grown to a strangely larger size...