Kai Jin let out one last hearty laugh at the chaotic scene, gave Alex a final, appraising nod, and then, with a single, light step, vanished into the crowd, leaving Alex to face the wrath of his friends.
The walk back to Barrack 32 was a long one, filled with the deafening sound of overlapping lectures.
"...completely reckless, Alex, you can't just challenge people like that!" Elara chided, her concern manifesting as stern disapproval.
"...could have been turned into a paste! A paste! Do you know how hard it is to get cultivator paste out of sect robes?" Lily ranted, her face flushed.
"...a level of power you can't even comprehend. It's like an ant picking a fight with a dragon," Jay tried to explain, his usual calm completely gone.
"A dragon who was forced to acknowledge the might of a true genius!" Finne proudly declared from the rear.
Alex walked in the center of the storm, nodding and making the appropriate apologetic noises, but he was only half-listening. His mind was elsewhere. The bruise on his cheek had vanished, but the phantom impact of Kai Jin's fist still echoed in his bones. It was a terrifying power, yes, but it was also a benchmark. A summit he could now see in the distance.
His thoughts raced. The fight had been a revelation. Kai Jin hadn't just used his fists, but the wind itself as a weapon. He shot a pocket of air. The realization was like a lightbulb going off in his head, a sudden, brilliant flash that illuminated a path he never knew existed.
He could do that. He had his Immortal Eyes to see the elements. But it would take a massive amount of energy to compress and launch... wait.
That was it. The Millstone. It hadn't just given him stamina; it had given him freedom. With his ridiculously large Qi reserves, he could afford to experiment. He could develop something new without the constant, nagging fear of running out of Qi mid-fight. For other cultivators, every wisp of Qi was a precious resource to be managed. For him, it was fuel to burn on the forge of innovation.
And it wasn't just wind. What if he wreathed his fist in fire Qi like Kaelen, turning a simple punch into an explosive strike? What if he coated his legs in water Qi like Elara, making his movements as fluid and unpredictable as a river's current?
The possibilities were endless. His fighting style wasn't just about punching and dodging anymore. It was a blank canvas, and the elements were his new palette. The spar had fired up a hunger in him, a desperate need, not just to get stronger, but to get smarter and use his power in a more meaningful manner.
Tuning out Lily's ongoing lecture about the cost of high-grade restorative salves, he delved inward. He opened the book to his status page, not expecting to see much change, and just curious about how much further he had to go to reach Kai Jin's level. What he saw made him stop in his tracks.
*************************
[ STATUS ]
Name: Alex Steele
Age: 22
Affiliation: Outer Disciple, Azure Plum Blossom Sect
[ CULTIVATION ]
Qi Cultivation: Foundation Establishment Realm - Stage 2 (4.3%)
Body Cultivation: Ironbone Realm - Stage 4 (22.8%)
Elemental Affinity: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water
[ RESOURCES ]
Qi: 650/650
[ TECHNIQUES ]
Immortal's Qi Cultivation Technique: 56% Mastery
Immortal's Body Refinement Technique: 73.5% Mastery
Art of the Headless Body: 74.1% Mastery
Immortal's Simple Movement Skill: Mastered
*************************
His jaw went slack. A single, one-minute spar had pushed his Ironbone progression by more than ten percent. His mastery over the Art of the Headless Body and Body Refinement had surged by nearly 3% each. This was a gain that had taken him more than a week of relentless training with his friends to achieve.
The epiphany hit him with the force of Kai Jin's punch. This is how it works. Sparring with his friends was practice, good for honing the basics. But true, rapid progression for his Immortal arts came from one thing: pushing his body to its absolute limits against an overwhelmingly superior force. The danger was the catalyst. The pressure was the forge.
He now understood. To walk this path, he couldn't just train. He had to seek out walls and learn how to break them, or be broken himself.
He finally tuned back to the real world just in time to hear Lily finishing her point.
"...and if you ever pull a stunt like that again without telling us, I will personally tie you to a training dummy and let the other disciples practice their whipping arts on you! Got it?"
Alex looked at her furious, concerned face, at Elara's worried eyes, and at Jay's stern expression. He saw Finne beaming proudly behind them.
"Got it," he said, a slow, determined grin spreading across his face. It was a grin that held the secret of his newfound path. "But you guys might want to step up your training."
His friends just stared, completely baffled by his sudden, confident shift in mood. They had no idea that their magnificent idiot hadn't just survived a spar; he had just discovered a key to his own ascension.
As they continued the walk back to Barrack 32, the previous lectures forgotten, replaced by a buzz of confused energy, Alex broke the silence. The epiphany about his progress was still burning in his mind, and his next step was already taking shape.
"So," he began, his tone all business. "What's the fastest way to become an inner disciple?"
The question was so out of left field that it stopped the group in their tracks.
Elara was the first to recover. "An inner disciple? There's an annual assessment, but it we just had one recently, that's when I got my promotion."
"Brother, with your talent, you should already be a Core Disciple!" Finne declared. "An Elder, even! We should petition the council!"
Jay just shook his head. "That's an even longer process, man. Not something you just decide to do."
"Why the sudden rush?" Lily asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "What are you planning?"
"I'm looking to fight," Alex said, the hunger in his voice undeniable. "A real fight. The only way to do that is to take on beast subjugation quests, and I thought only inner disciples could do that."
A long, weary sigh escaped Lily's lips. She looked at him with an expression that was one part disbelief and three parts exasperation. "Have you been listening to a single rule since you got here?" she demanded.
Before Alex could answer, she jabbed a finger at his chest. "First, you are Elder Ming's direct disciple. That's a status some can't even dream of. It means your authority, in many ways, already outranks a normal inner disciple. You could probably walk into the inner sect library's upper floors and no one would dare stop you."
She then jabbed a second finger at him. "And second, you don't need to be an inner disciple to take hunting quests. The only hard requirement is that you have reached the Foundation Establishment Realm. You dense idiot."
Alex froze. The words hit him harder than Kai Jin's punch. Not the insult, but the information. It made him realize how little he had been paying attention to how the sect operates and made him feel like an even bigger fool.
His mind exploded with possibilities. I can test my elemental fists on a real target. I can push my Ironbone Realm to its limit. I can see what the Art of the Headless Body can do when my life is on the line.
Then, a second, far more practical thought crashed in right behind it. I can make money.
The staggering cost of the Storm Roc pearl and the other ingredients for Lily's pill had wiped him out completely. He was, for all intents and purposes, flat broke. The life of a cultivator was expensive, a lesson his empty pouch had been teaching him all morning.
"Alex?" Elara asked, seeing the strange, almost manic glint in his eyes.
He didn't answer. He just spun on his heel and broke into a dead sprint, not towards his cabin, but back towards the main plaza.
"Hey! Where are you going now?!" Lily yelled after him, completely caught off guard.
"To the Quest Hall!" he shouted back over his shoulder, his voice filled with a giddy, desperate energy. "No time to waste! I've got bills to pay!"
The four of them were left standing in the middle of the path, stunned by his abrupt departure.
Finne was the first to react, his face beaming with pride. "An excellent decision, Brother! Let us find you a worthy beast to test your might against!" He immediately took off in a sprint after Alex.
Elara looked at the other two, her face a mask of worry. "Bills? And also shouldn't he rest? He just fought a Nascent Soul expert."
Jay sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "He'll be fine. Probably."
Lily just stared at Alex's retreating form, a slow, exasperated smile finally breaking through her frustration.
"That magnificent idiot," she muttered, shaking her head. "He's going to be the death of me."
Jay clapped her on the shoulder. "Come on. We'd better make sure he doesn't accept a quest to hunt a dragon."
With a shared sigh, the three of them turned and began the walk back to the Quest Hall, already resigned to whatever new chaos their friend was about to unleash.
When they arrived at the Quest Hall, it was a hive of activity, buzzing with the energy that Alex had grown to expect from the disciples of the sect on special occasions. Disciples of all ranks crowded around the massive bulletin boards, jostling for position and shouting out quest numbers to the overwhelmed clerks behind the counter.
"Wow," Alex muttered, trying to peer over the shoulders of a burly inner disciple. "Why is it this busy?"
Finne, ever eager to be useful, puffed out his chest. "I shall find out, Brother!" He politely but firmly tapped a stressed-looking junior disciple on the shoulder. "Excuse me. Could you enlighten us as to the source of this commotion?"
The boy shot Finne an annoyed glare. "What do you mean, 'commotion'? How could you not know? Every Nascent Soul expert and their dog are back in the sect. Everyone's inspired. Or terrified. Either way, they're grabbing every available quest before the real monsters decide to take them all for pocket change." He grumbled and turned back to the board.
Finne returned to the group, looking pleased with his reconnaissance. "It seems the return of the sect's experts has ignited the fire in everyone."
"Encourage them to take all the good jobs, you mean," Lily grumbled, gesturing at the bulletin board. "Look at it. It's bare. Mostly just D-Rank gathering quests and a few escort missions. Everything decent is already gone."
Jay's eyes scanned the chaotic room. "Fighting this crowd is a waste of time." He made a decision. "Stay here. I'll talk to a clerk to see if there's anything."
The group watched as Jay navigated the sea of people and managed to get the attention of a weary-looking clerk. They saw the clerk shake her head dismissively, pointing to the board. Jay said something else, his expression firm. The clerk sighed, gesturing impatiently. Jay then held up his hand and waved the group over.
As they approached, the clerk's weary eyes landed on Alex. "You," she said, her voice flat with disbelief. "Are you the direct disciple of Elder Ming he's talking about?"
"Uh, yes?" Alex said, a little taken aback.
The clerk looked from Jay's earnest face back to Alex's plain outer disciple robes, her expression a mask of pure skepticism. "Show me your token."
Alex placed his simple wooden token on the counter. The clerk placed it on a small, runic array. The array glowed, and a line of text materialized in the air: Alex Steele. Outer Disciple. Affiliation: Elder Ming (Direct).
The clerk's jaw went slack. Her professional, tired demeanor evaporated, replaced by a flustered panic. "My deepest apologies, Disciple Alex!" she stammered, giving a hurried bow. "I... I thought... of course. It is not my place to question an Elder's direct disciple. While the main board is crowded, we do keep a reserve of lower-priority, standing requests here at the counter for disciples with the proper authority."
Her demeanor had shifted completely. She was no longer a dismissive gatekeeper, but a helpful administrator. She reached under the counter and pulled out a thin ledger, flipping it open.
"These are mostly E-Rank subjugation requests," she explained, her voice now filled with a professional respect. "Tasks that need doing but are not urgent enough for a priority posting on the main board. They are available for any Foundation Establishment disciple."
She turned the ledger for Alex to see. The pages listed several manageable but unglamorous tasks.
Eliminate the Glimmerwing Finches at the Western Orchards.
Subdue the Stone-Shelled Tortoise, disrupting the river flow.
Exterminate the pack of Razor-Clawed Badgers digging under the farm walls.
Hunt the Shadowcat that has been preying on the sect's messenger birds.
The creatures were weak, barely considered a threat. But the rewards were decent for the low risk: a handful of spirit stones and a good number of contribution points for each.
"So, which will you take?" the clerk asked.
Elara leaned in. "The Razor-Clawed Badgers sound like good practice for your close-quarters combat," she suggested.
"I'll take all of them," Alex said, his voice firm.
Everyone, including the clerk, stared at him.
"All... four?" the clerk asked, her professional calm faltering again. "At once?"
"Yes," Alex confirmed.
"Disciple Alex," the clerk said carefully, "I must remind you of the rules. There is a penalty for accepting a quest and failing to complete it within the allotted time. Your next monthly resource allowance from the sect will be forfeited upon failure."
The thought of losing his ten guaranteed spirit stones was a painful one. But he looked at the descriptions again. Weak beasts. Four separate but manageable tasks. It was a perfect opportunity to test his new ideas, to see what elemental move he could develop. And more importantly, he looked down at his nearly empty coin pouch. He was flat broke.
He met the clerk's worried gaze, a determined glint in his eyes. "I accept the risk."
The clerk could only nod, stamping each of the four quest parchments and handing them to Alex. As they walked away from the counter, Lily just shook her head, a familiar, exasperated smile on her face.
"One of these days," she muttered to Elara, "he's going to accept a quest to fight the moon, and I am not going to be surprised."