The fire burned low.

  The spring rippled quietly beneath the moon.

  No one spoke for a moment after Zhi Yuan’s words.

  “Maybe I don’t belong to this world.”

  Lin Fan was the first to react.

  “What?”

  Feng leaned forward.

  “You’re serious?”

  Zhi Yuan nodded slowly.

  “In the world I came from – people didn’t cultivate.”

  Lin Fan blinked.

  “Then how did anyone get stronger?”

  Zhi Yuan scratched his head.

  “They didn’t.”

  The group stared at him.

  Ru Yan frowned.

  “You are saying your entire world contained no cultivation?”

  “No spiritual qi?”

  “No martial Dao?”

  Zhi Yuan shook his head.

  “None.”

  Li Wei spoke quietly.

  “Then how did you know about strange spells – or talking swords?”

  Zhi Yuan hesitated.

  Then he chuckled softly.

  “Imagination.”

  Lin Fan tilted his head.

  “What?”

  Zhi Yuan gestured vaguely.

  “In my world, we created stories.”

  “Books. Drawings. Moving pictures.”

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  “Games people played.”

  Feng scratched his chin.

  “Entertainment?”

  “Something like that.”

  Ru Yan’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “You are saying the techniques you described earlier.”

  Zhi Yuan nodded.

  “They weren’t real.”

  “They were fictional.”

  Lin Fan blinked several times.

  “So the lightning spells.”

  “From games.”

  “The talking swords?”

  “Stories.”

  Feng laughed loudly.

  “So your world was so bored it just made-up powers?”

  Zhi Yuan shrugged.

  “Pretty much.”

  He poked the fire with a stick.

  “In one story, warriors fired energy blasts from their hands.”

  Lin Fan’s eyes widened.

  “That sounds amazing.”

  Zhi Yuan lifted both hands instinctively.

  For a moment, he almost formed the pose.

  Then he stopped himself.

  “Scatter — Senbo…”

  He coughed.

  “Never mind.”

  Feng leaned forward immediately.

  “Wait. Say it again.”

  Zhi Yuan shook his head quickly.

  “No.”

  Li Wei suddenly tried to imitate the motion.

  “Kameha—”

  Zhi Yuan coughed even louder.

  Li Wei immediately dropped the pose.

  “What?”

  Lin Fan bounced excitedly.

  “What was that?!”

  Zhi Yuan sighed.

  “It’s the name of an attack from one of the stories.”

  Ru Yan rubbed her temple.

  “So let me understand this correctly.”

  “You came from a world with no qi”

  “No cultivation…”

  “No spiritual beasts…”

  “And yet your people imagined thousands of different power systems?”

  Zhi Yuan nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Li Wei stared thoughtfully into the fire.

  “Lightning spells.”

  “Elemental magic.”

  “Swords with spirits… that change shape depending on their user’s soul.”

  He looked at Zhi Yuan.

  “And you remember all of this?”

  “More or less.”

  Feng grinned.

  “So you’re basically a walking library of imaginary techniques.”

  Zhi Yuan shrugged.

  “Something like that.”

  Lin Fan suddenly leaned forward.

  “Wait.”

  “If those things weren’t real in your world…”

  He looked around at the mountain.

  “But this world has qi.”

  Ru Yan’s eyes slowly widened.

  Li Wei understood immediately.

  “You’re wondering if imagination could become technique.”

  Lin Fan pointed excitedly.

  “Yes!”

  Feng sat up straighter.

  “Hold on.”

  He looked at Zhi Yuan.

  “You’re telling me those made-up powers might actually work here?”

  Zhi Yuan smiled faintly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But qi can shape many things.”

  He picked up one of the fruits Lin Fan had gathered earlier.

  The red skin split slightly, revealing clusters of glistening seeds.

  “In my world, this fruit symbolized abundance.”

  He gently opened it.

  Dozens of seeds gleamed in the firelight.

  “One fruit.”

  “Many seeds.”

  Lin Fan stared at it.

  “So?”

  Zhi Yuan looked around the circle.

  At the mountain.

  At the four elemental cultivators sitting with him.

  At the quiet fire.

  Then he said softly,

  “Maybe the mountain didn’t give me one path…”

  “…because I might grow many.”

  Ru Yan suddenly spoke, her voice serious.

  “The world has three thousand Dao.”

  She looked directly at him.

  “So perhaps one of them will accept you.”

  She paused.

  “…Or not.”

  The fire cracked.

  Feng leaned back slowly.

  “So what does that make you?”

  Zhi Yuan tossed the fruit gently between his hands.

  “An experiment.”

  Ru Yan crossed her arms.

  “Dangerous.”

  Li Wei nodded.

  “Potentially revolutionary.”

  Lin Fan grinned.

  “Definitely interesting.”

  Feng finally said what everyone was thinking.

  “So what do we do with a walking imagination machine?”

  Zhi Yuan looked up at the stars.

  The constellations of the Four Beasts shimmered faintly above Five Elements Mountain.

  Then he answered quietly.

  “We build something new.”

  Lin Fan blinked.

  “Like what?”

  Zhi Yuan smiled.

  “A sect.”

  imagination.

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