Ling Hua left the Treasury Hall, and a breath of fresh air struck him, rousing him slightly from the daze he'd been in since entering the Inheritance Hall. His steps toward home weren't as brisk as usual; his mind was still absorbing everything he'd heard, and along the way he found himself thinking about what awaited him after this quiet stretch of time. He knew that in this world, everything was weighed and measured — there was no room for carelessness. A single moment of distraction could mean your undoing.
His thoughts were broken only by his mother's voice, calling gently:
"Ling Hua, are you coming?"
He knew this peaceful stretch wouldn't last more than a week, so he cast the weight of his thoughts aside for a moment and decided to enjoy what remained of it.
"Yes, Mother, I'm coming."
A month and a half passed in strange stillness, like one long breath the whole world had been holding without anyone noticing.
When Ling Hua opened his eyes that night, what greeted him first wasn't morning light or his mother's usual voice, but a foul stench assaulting his nose — something like the smell of decomposing corpses. He lay there for a moment, unwilling to believe this smell was coming from his own room.
At first he had no idea what was happening to his body, but he felt a deep unease, as though his entire body had turned soft and loose. His eyes shot toward himself, and he was startled to find a foul black fluid covering every part of him, so much so that the whole room had begun to reek of it.
The moment he tried to stand, he felt his body remarkably light, and noticed his senses had sharpened beyond what they'd been before. But what caught his attention most was a strange sensation between his eyebrows. He didn't know what it was, but he felt an itch in that exact spot.
He focused on it without meaning to, as if his own hand were being drawn there by some instinct he didn't understand.
Then he closed his eyes.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the world around him began to shift — not suddenly, but like a thread of light slipping slowly beneath a closed door. Everything within a three-meter radius around him became clear before him, every detail, as though he were seeing it with open eyes, not closed ones.
He stayed like that for a moment, not daring to move, afraid of shattering this strange, beautiful sensation.
Then he understood.
This was spiritual awareness. The thing he'd heard about so often without ever imagining what it would actually feel like.
He remembered the tablets, and pulled them from his clothes with a hand still trembling slightly from excitement, raising one toward his forehead.
The instant he touched his spiritual tablet, information poured into his head all at once like a crashing flood, and the sheer volume of this new knowledge made his head ache.
But what roused him from that pain was the sound of the jade tablet shattering.
The moment he thought about the training method, every technique and means of practice recorded on that tablet surfaced in his mind at once. Excitement seized him, and he wanted to begin training immediately and establish his cultivation foundation — but another voice entirely disagreed:
"Grrrrrr..."
He paused, glancing down at his stomach with silent reproach. He remembered then that he hadn't eaten in ten days, and that first he needed to clean his body of the mortal-body waste still clinging to him.
He opened the door and took two steps into the hallway before his mother's face suddenly twisted in disgust as the smell reached her from a distance. She stepped back, then screamed:
"Go straight to the river this instant, you little pig, and wash off that filth! I honestly don't know if you were training or swimming in a pigsty! I truly pity the fish this smell is about to kill — but I can't let you bathe in here!"
He looked up at her and thought to himself:
"Back to the same old tune. The honeymoon period is over, and the real personality is back." Of course, he'd never dare say that to her face, or she'd truly break his bones and show him no mercy after that — especially since she was already at the second level of Qi Refining.
He hurried out to the river and washed thoroughly, then made his way back home, where he found his mother had already prepared food for her son, as if nothing had happened.
The moment he finished eating, he went to his room, sat cross-legged, and pulled out the two tablets holding the techniques he needed to learn: "Pine Wood Arrows" and "Spiritual Rain."
He began training, and felt a strange energy coursing through his veins, all of it converging toward the center of his belly, where the dantian sat. He recognized it as something like a reservoir where energy was stored.
He began moving according to the recorded motions, shaping the patterns of the technique with his hands, but after two hours he noticed no change at all, except that the energy had become slightly faster than before, and the air around him had begun to shift.
So he knew he was on the right path, and continued through the whole night, repeating the same motions, until exhaustion overtook him just before dawn.
With the first threads of morning light, Ling Hua gave himself no time to rest.
He rushed straight to the Treasury Hall, excitement outpacing his footsteps, and said, louder than he meant to:
"Elder! Elder! Look at my immortal technique! Can I finally get a chance to start earning points?"
The elder raised his eyes slowly, showing no sign of surprise, and watched Ling Hua wave a thin wooden arrow through the air, delighted with it like a child thrilled with his very first toy.
The elder could do nothing but bear the sight patiently; this was what happened with every new initiate, every single year, without exception.
He finally said, "I saw it."
Ling Hua asked eagerly, undiminished, "What did you think?"
The elder said coldly, "A thin wooden arrow in the air, about to fall to the ground."
He paused for a moment, letting the words settle, then added, "But for someone who learned it in a single night, it's not bad. Now — you're eager to get to work, aren't you?"
A broad smile spread across Ling Hua's lips, any trace of disappointment from the previous remark vanishing at once.
"Yes, yes, Elder! I ask that you point me to the tasks I can take on."
The elder studied the boy's enthusiasm for a moment, and, wanting to match it, picked up the task ledger before him and began flipping through its pages with deliberate slowness.
He cleared his throat and said, "Yes, yes... there are many tasks that need doing."
He paused at the first page.
"First, there's a task concerning a level-five beast located on Fire Mountain. They need someone strong to kill it, in exchange for a hundred points."
Ling Hua swallowed silently. A hundred points was a tempting number — but the name "Fire Mountain" alone was enough to send a chill through him despite the warmth of the morning.
The elder turned the page, not noticing the boy's sudden silence.
"Ah, and here's another task. Its poster wants someone to retrieve spirit squid ink from the depths of Mirror Lake, in exchange for sixty points."
This time, Ling Hua didn't even need to think about it. The depths of a lake, while he could barely stand steady at the first level? He shook his head to himself in silence.
The elder turned another page, as though secretly enjoying watching the boy's enthusiasm retreat with each new task.
"And what do we have here as well? Ah, yes, there's this one. Lovely... it asks for someone to retrieve a spirit locust flower from the Marsh of Death, in exchange for fifty points."
At the words "Marsh of Death," whatever remained of Ling Hua's initial excitement vanished completely. He no longer needed to hear the point value to know this task wasn't for him either.
The Second Elder fixed his gaze on Ling Hua questioningly. "Which one do you choose, little one?"
Ling Hua smiled a wry smile, more at himself than at the elder, realizing the old man had been mocking his enthusiasm from the very start — but he accepted the mockery without taking real offense.
"Heh... no, I mean tasks suited to my level, if you don't mind. I don't want to leave the family grounds — you know I'm still weak and can't protect myself."
The elder snorted at the boy's naive view of life, wanting to teach him a quiet lesson about just how dangerous the world truly was; he had no wish for this little one to grow used to the idea that the family would always shield him, and come to believe the world was a peaceful place.
He closed the ledger and looked at him with a seriousness different from his earlier mocking tone.
"Yes, well, well. You're in luck. Tianmu came by yesterday and asked me to post a task for tending two low-grade fields. But given your low level, I can't give you both fields — only one."
Then he looked at him and added, "And you won't take this field until you first reach the Entry stage of the Spiritual Rain technique. It seems you won't need more than two days to learn it, just as you did with that technique you're so proud of."
Then he gestured toward the door, ending the conversation without preamble.
"Now, off you go, little one. I'll hold this task for you, but don't take more than three days, or I'll give it to someone else."
Ling Hua thanked him, slightly deflated by the day's dose of reality after the previous night's excitement, but he knew deep down that he needed to start reining in his unreasonable expectations from here on out.