Yousti had decided to start wandering the world beyond the silk road.
The emperor had told him to ‘shepperd humanity’ so the thought rose up in Yousti’s head and he decided that he could go around and learn what he can.
‘Traveling should be a good way to learn and advance my martial arts.’
In order to advance his martial arts he would have to be able to see the 7 emotions with his intent.
And meeting people with various different circumstances would surely expose him to a wide array of emotions.
Yousti had went to Rome and quickly bought a meal for himself after travelling all day and night.
He presented himself as a far off warrior from the east wearing his silk martial robes.
This attracted plenty of attention and a whole lot of robbers.
However he could easily intercept any attempts at burglary and good luck trying to kill him.
In order to train he constantly sensed intent and consciousness every hour of every day.
Blue, red, and Purple intents intermingled everywhere.
And the dark red of hatred saturated everything only kept away by Yousti performing Heavenly Escape at constant intervals.
At first he woke up and did it every hour of his waking day before going to sleep where he wouldn’t be able to perform the Heavenly Escape and be forced to touch the World Intent.
But after doing every day all the time he eventually realized that he was performing the Heavenly Escape in his sleep.
‘Oh the World Intent is closing in again.’
Yousti quickly swung his arm and performed the Heavenly Escape.
He sat back down an continued eating.
He closed his eyes as he was eating and began sensing intent.
‘This is some really good food.’
The place was crowded with many people coming here and ordering food.
It was clearly a popular location.
The cook here was clearly an expert at what he did.
As Yousti ate the food he realized that he saw a new color!
He immediately placed his utensil down and focused entirely on sensing the intent around him.
‘It’s a silver intent.
Hmm but I can also shift it into purple?
This must be the intent of pleasure.’
Purple/Silver – Pleasure (樂)
‘But why is it both silver and purple when I shift my perspective?’
It was like looking at an optical illusion.
You could see one thing but if you shifted your thinking you would suddenly see another thing despite it being the exact same image.
Luckily the Martial Record gave a very clear answer.
‘Ah that makes sense.
It’s a combination color.
Red and blue make purple and black and white make grey, or in this case silver.
My mind is able to interpret the intent of pleasure as both Silver and Purple because of the perspective given to me by the Martial Record.
Hmm but why is pleasure made of opposites?’
Yousti opened his eyes and looked at his delicious meal that he hadn’t finished yet.
‘If I were super fat I would probably hate eating this meal even though it would bring me pleasure.
But I don’t think guilty pleasure is the reason.
The Martial Record says it’s because pleasure is about melting boundaries and converging duality.
I thought it would be deeper, well it’s just a singular emotion.
I’ve got five more to go.’
He went back to eating his meal.
Contemplating the questions of his martial arts would get in the way of enjoying life so he just stopped thinking about those things for the moment.
“I want five more!”
His metabolism as a fifth realm martial artist was more than enough to eat as much as he wants without worrying about getting fat.
Yousti was completely relaxed and at peace in the moment.
‘I’m eating delicious food.
I’ve escaped the World Intent.
I’ve even comprehended the intent of pleasure.’
‘Life is good.’
“AAAAGGGH!”
Yousti turned to the source of the noise.
He left some coins on the table to pay for the food and walked outside to see what was going on.
‘What the!’
A large group of people were holding down a small kid.
Off to the side a man was bleeding out on the ground with multiple people crowding around to help him.
“What’s going on?”
One of the people who stood back to watch responded to him.
“This kid stabbed her father!”
‘Ooh.’
In ancient Rome the father was considered the leader of the household.
And killing your father was considered a terrible crime.
The punishment for a crime like that was something called the poena cullei the penalty of the sack.
That child would get beaten and thrown into a leather sack with different animals like a chicken, dog, snake, or even a monkey.
The sack would be tied up and thrown into a river or the sea to drown in a violent and painful death.
Yousti’s face scrunched up in realization.
“Ugh”
‘I’m not in the modern era anymore.’
In this era, slaves existed, and even well renowned philosophers would make claims to slaves inferior intelligence.
Women had barely any rights, at best there were a few rich women who had attained high status, but they were the exception.
The stories they told children were of glory and survival for men but for the women the stories were of honor even at the cost of death.
Fathers could even sell their children into slavery.
He remembered what Neoth had asked of him, “Shepperd humanity.” Now he knew what he meant.
Suddenly Yousti felt like how he did when he was desperately trying to attain Internal Energy.
A sense of urgency that overwhelmed and paralyzed you.
Telling you that you had to do something.
But that something was an insurmountable wall that consumed time and sanity.
Except this time it wasn’t in progressing his martial arts, but in changing the stupid biases and changing the cruel methods of an ancient world.
‘One step at a time.’
Yousti sensed the intent of the kid on the ground.
It was a dark red intent, she clearly hated her father.
He looked at the father and he emitted an intent of…
‘Pleasure!?’
He observed the bleeding man more sharply.
‘And Hatred?
It’s something of a mix of silver and blood red.
A sadistic pleasure in his last moments.
So he hates his son too?’
Yousti felt like he was witnessing the climax of some kind of tragic drama show that he had zero context for.
Which wasn’t wrong.
‘What a messed up situation.’
“Step aside. I’ll take care of the girl myself.”
He began pushing away the people trapping the kid, anybody who objected quickly found themselves overcome by his superhuman strength.
So eventually Yousti was holding onto the kids wrist on his own.
He talked in an aggressive tone so that the people holding down the girl assumed he was taking the role of punisher himself.
“What’s your name.”
“Let go of me!”
He severed the perception of the crowd to hide his next words.
“Come with me if you want to live.”
Something about the way Yousti said it convinced her to cooperate with him.
Yousti swung his arm and performed Heavenly Escape again to sever the perception of the crowd around them.
Both of them completely dissapeared leaving the crowd in confusion and awe.
“They disappeared!”
“I think I recognized that man.”
“He wears silk robes and is a renowned warrior called the Silk Spirit.”
“I thought that was just a legend.”
“It’s only natural for such a figure to obhor parricide like the rest of us.”
“Yeah that girl deserves what she gets.”
The father who was laying on the ground had died of blood loss.
Even if somehow he survived it wouldn’t have been for long considering the lack of medicine.