Squaring his shoulders, Aarav decided to follow the path Feng and his cronies had fled down. It seemed as good a direction as any. What followed wasn't a cautious sneak, but a walk of pure, unadulterated swagger.
He moved with the casual, hands-in-pockets, confidence of a guy who knew, on a fundamental level, that nothing here could even mildly inconvenience him. He was less a lost mortal and more a tourist on a leisurely walk through a particularly themed park.
He passed a few low-level disciples in simpler robes, likely outer sect members tending to spirit herb gardens. They froze at the sight of him. Their eyes widened, darting from his bizarre, tattered clothing to the simple, unadorned bow on his back. But it was his demeanor that truly stunned them. He didn't bow. He didn't avert his gaze. He offered a slight, acknowledging nod as he passed, as if they were the curiosities.
The whispers started the second he was a few steps past them, hissed and frantic.
"Did you see him? Who is that?"
"His clothes…they're torn, but he looks… unbothered."
"That's the one!The one Young Master Feng ran from! I saw it!"
"Feng ran?From him? But… he has no Qi! I can't sense anything!"
"Fool!That means his cultivation base is so high it's imperceptible to us! He must be a hidden expert!"
"I heard he didn't even move.He just stood there and Feng's spirit sword… it just… exploded! From a glance!"
"A single glance shattered a spirit sword?!What realm must he be in?!"
Aarav suppressed a grin. A single glance? I like that. Much more dramatic than 'he hit my unbreakable forcefield and his sword had a existential crisis.' The rumor mill of this cultivation world was gloriously efficient. He decided to lean into it. He slowed his walk just a fraction, letting his posture relax even more, projecting an aura of bored, unshakable certainty.
His nose led him the rest of the way. It caught a welcome scent—simple, steaming vegetables, rice, and the earthy aroma of freshly baked flatbread. It was a siren's call to his empty stomach. He followed it to a large, pavilion-like building bustling with noise and activity—the sect's communal mess hall.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The effect was instantaneous. The cacophony of clattering bowls and chattering disciples died a sudden death. Every single head turned. Hundreds of eyes locked onto him. The air, once thick with the smell of food, was now thick with stunned silence.
Aarav ignored them all. His mission was clear. With the single-minded focus of a man who had faced down death-by-samosa and won, he beelined for the serving line. His eyes were on the trays of steamed greens and fluffy rice.
He was almost there when a large shadow fell over him.
"Hey!"
Aarav looked up. A burly disciple, with a neck thicker than Aarav's thigh and arms that looked like they could snap trees, blocked his path. This guy was clearly several tiers above the garden-tenders outside. He glared down at Aarav, his expression a mixture of contempt and confusion.
"Who said a mortal could eat here?" the disciple snarled, his voice a low rumble. He jabbed a thick finger at Aarav's chest. "This food is for cultivators! It's infused with Qi! It'd be wasted on trash like you. Get lost before I throw you out!"
The entire mess hall was frozen. You could have heard a pin drop. This disciple, known as Big Bo, was a well-known enforcer in the outer sect, famous for his terrible temper and his powerful Foundation Establishment realm body.
Aarav didn't flinch. He just looked at the finger jabbed against his t-shirt, then back up at Big Bo's face. He let out a long, weary sigh, the sigh of a man dealing with a particularly persistent mosquito.
"Listen, Mr. Muscles," Aarav said, his voice flat. "I've had a very, very long day. I died, I got bullied by a guy with a terrible haircut, and I'm really, really hungry. All I want is some food that didn't have a face. So, can we please skip the part where you embarrass yourself in front of all your friends and just let me through? It's rude to hold up the queue."
Big Bo's face, already red, turned a truly alarming shade of purple. The insult. The sheer, utter disrespect from something that looked like a beggar! In front of everyone!
With a roar of pure fury, he decided skipping the embarrassment part was not on his agenda. He drew back a fist, Qi flaring around it, and threw a punch with all his strength—a punch that could shatter solid rock—directly at Aarav's face.
....
The punch wasn't a technique. It was pure, unadulterated brute force, fueled by rage and a Foundation Establishment cultivator's Qi. Big Bo's fist, knuckles calloused from years of training, connected with Aarav's face with a sound that made everyone in the mess hall wince.
SMACK.
It wasn't the sound of breaking bone. It was the sound of raw, kinetic energy meeting an absolute, immutable boundary. A faint, almost imperceptible golden hexagonal pattern shimmered across Aarav's cheek for a nanosecond, dissipating the force into nothingness.
Aarav's head didn't snap back. It didn't even turn. His hair didn't rustle and his eyes didn't blink. He simply stood there, looking… profoundly, utterly bored.
In the dead silence that followed the sickening impact, the only sound was a low, pained groan. It wasn't from Aarav.
Big Bo stared, his eyes wide with a confusion so deep it was almost comical. He slowly pulled back his fist. Or rather, he tried to. His hand was a mangled, swollen mess. Fingers bent at wrong angles, knuckles pulped and bleeding. He had, for all intents and purposes, just punched a mountain made of something infinitely harder than a mountain.
The pain signals, delayed by the sheer shock, finally reached his brain. A strangled cry escaped his lips.
And at that exact moment, Aarav's jaw unhinged in a massive, unforced, jaw-cracking yawn. He didn't cover his mouth. He just let it happen, a display of such casual disregard for the violence just attempted that it sucked all the air out of the room.
He blinked slowly, as if just remembering where he was.
"Are you quite done?" Aarav asked, his voice laced with a boredom so potent it was more insulting than any shout. "You're holding up the queue. I'm sure everyone else is hungry too."
The combination of the yawn, the bored tone, and the completely unscathed face finally shattered what was left of Big Bo's sanity. The rage vanished, replaced by a primal, ice-cold terror that seized his heart. This wasn't a mortal. This wasn't even a cultivator. This was something ancient and terrifying wearing the skin of a lazy youth.
His eyes, wide with horror, darted from his shattered fist to Aarav's utterly unimpressed face. With a choked whimper that was entirely unbecoming of a man his size, Big Bo stumbled backward. He tripped over his own feet, scrambled up, and fled. He didn't just run out of the mess hall; he practically tore the door off its hinges in his desperate escape, his agonized cries fading into the distance.
The mess hall was so silent you could hear the rice cooking.
Hundreds of disciples stared at Aarav, their bowls forgotten. Their minds, trained on the hierarchies of power and the visible aura of Qi, struggled to process what they had just witnessed. A direct, full-force punch from a Foundation Establishment expert. No defense. No counter. Not even a flicker of energy.
And the victim had yawned.
To them, this wasn't a display of defense. It was the pinnacle of arrogance, the ultimate expression of power. Only an expert so profoundly beyond their comprehension could be so utterly bored by an attack that would have killed any of them. The rumor was no longer a rumor. It was confirmed fact.
He was an unfathomable expert. And they had just watched him get annoyed at being kept from his lunch.
Aarav, completely oblivious to the tectonic shift in his reputation, simply turned back to the serving counter. The cook behind it was white as a sheet, his hands trembling so violently the ladle clattered against the pot.
"Sorry about the noise," Aarav said pleasantly. "Now, about that vegetarian option?"