It had to be emphasized that the Obsidian sect was more of a commune than anything else. Despite the racial differences, the age differences and even vast biological differences, they all acted like one big family. Someone would pick up an unruly teen and admonish them as if they were their own child. Obviously the human picking up a dwarf and admonishing her for some sort of bad behavior wasn’t their real parent. Still, Taris looked thoroughly chastised and apologized to the human like they were her own parents.

  It was nice. Ryan thought he could see himself living here.

  Then again, he assumed all cults were like this. All innocent and welcoming at the start. Then one day he’d be worshipping the very ground that Gamielle walked on. Or floated on.

  Ryan stopped looking out the window of his room and went back to meditating. Once again, he was surprised at how terrible his aura control in The Realm was. Though unlike on Earth at least here he could focus…

  He found that inner calm he was looking for.

  …for about twenty minutes. Someone shouted something from the courtyard outside his apartment in the Obsidian Sect. Ryan looked down from his window and saw two teens pointing fingers and arguing with each other.

  “That’s not fair. You made a mistake and Gamielle told you, you must do it!”

  “You owe me!”

  “It was a small favor!”

  Ryan vaguely recognized one of the teens as the kid who had beaten up Taris. They were making such a scene that they were gathering curious onlookers.

  “I challenge you to a duel! If I win you must take cleaning duty, if you win the favor is gone.”

  It was just so exaggerated, and one of the kids glanced at his apartment. One of them was clearly red-faced in embarrassment. Ryan recognized scripted drama when he saw it. The kids were yelling right outside of his apartment blockw for a reason.

  “Gamielle?”

  “Yuh?”

  She appeared like a ghost, her robes fluttering in the air.

  “Did you plan all of this?”

  The timing was impeccable, he’d only been in The Realm for thirty minutes before the drama had happened.

  “They do this on their own. They try to recreate the sect life mentioned in Baizhen’s scrolls and in stories from Earth.” Gamielle wrinkled her nose, “Though those are always exaggerated.”

  “I noticed you didn’t answer my question.”

  She blew a raspberry in his face. After wiping the spit away, Ryan went back to experimenting, or at least he tried to. A noisy crowd followed the two teens towards the training arena. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Are they really all just going to watch teens fight?”

  “They’re the two of the most talented teens we have. The winner of this bout will determine who the strongest under eighteen fighter is. Want to go watch?”

  Well, when she said it like that…

  –

  Jilar had been embarrassed as fuck Gamielle had made him say those words in front of everyone. Nobody talked like that around here, those cultivation stories on Earth were just that, silly stories. They were things the Obsidian Sect read and joked about, not acted out in real life. Jilar shook his head, no need to focus on that. He’d just tell everyone what had happened later.

  He breathed in and out, trying to tune the crowd out of his mind. There was only his opponent. This bout would technically decide who was the strongest non-adult in the Obsidian Sect. Not that it was necessarily a fair age range. Jilar was only sixteen.

  Cormax? He was almost eighteen. He’d held onto the strongest title for almost an entire year.

  Jilar was going to beat him this time.

  The crowd went quiet as they all turned away from the bout. Then came the presence.

  An adventurer walked in wearing the sect leader’s robes with Gamielle floating behind him. The crowd parted ways as Jilar held his breath. This was an adventurer, no, not an adventurer but a Trialist. Each step reeked of unfair advancement, of the path of death and slaughter. Jilar could taste it, blood and ash.

  It was hard to breathe, he was certain he was going to die he–

  “Damnit, Gamielle I told you this was a bad idea, just make me invisible or something.”

  “Why don’t you learn to manage your own damn skill first. I’m not wasting mana on your incompetence.”

  Jilar no longer felt like he was choking, most of the adults were fine. , cowering before a passive skill was cringe. At least Jilar wasn’t the only one affected, a bunch of other people shied away, or were frozen like a deer in the headlights. Perhaps even–

  No, not Cormax, the older teen had his arms crossed and was sneering at Jilar.

  “Shaking in your boots little Jilar? You should’ve done a round with the leafstalkers, fighting actual monsters instead of cultivating all day.”

  “” Jilar hissed.

  Cormax knew that his mom wouldn’t let him join the leafstalkers. This was going far beyond the script that Xie Gamielle had told them to follow. Cormax just picked at his ear, unbothered, acting like a classic arrogant asshole. The older teen took his finger out of his ear and blew on it.

  “Don’t worry, you can back out if you want. What will it be, your fourth loss in a row? Heard you’ve been stuck at your minor realm too. It’s natural for you to be afraid of your senior.”

  The bastard glanced at Gamielle. She was giving Cormax a ghostly thumbs up from behind the adventurer.

  Even that slight glance at the adventurer caused a shiver down Jilar’s spine. That was bullshit or the adventurer was a dragonslayer with a new Trial skill. This mysterious figure was the talk of the Obsidian Sect, and rumors spread fast too.

  There were arguments that the adventurer was some super secret project to Xie Gamielle playing one of her pranks on the entire sect. Nobody could really give any solid reasoning for one or the other yet.

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  Though they did agree on one thing.

  Wearing the sect leader’s robes had to be a sign of something.

  And Jilar wasn’t going to cower in fear of a . He took in a breath and his qi started flowing through his channels. Cormax was still half glancing at Gamielle, getting ready to say another round to impress her.

  –he jumped.

  Cormax hadn’t expected Jilar to run at him like this. Still, the older teen was no slouch, he slammed his left foot forward and cut out with a knife hand. His qi aligned into a single blade.

  Jilar’s fist met the blade with all his momentum. Cormax hadn’t had time to build his qi and his knife hand blew backwards.

  Jilar continued forward, building his fists in a tempo, throwing feints and real punches. Making sure to keep Cormax on the backfoot. He was building his qi until it reached the peak. Until they finally went into a blur of black.

  It wasn’t a System skill but a , one which was created by the Shadow Tyrant himself. Jilar’s arm blurred into a large shadowy mass. All of it would do damage but only a part of it had his real fist hidden within. Cormax tried to shift out of the way to dodge the entire mass.

  Jilar twisted and threw an uppercut Cormax with his other fist. The sudden uppercut hit Cormax in the jaw and lifted him into the air. The bastard fell to the ground, dazed. Jilar put his hands up in victory. His heart raced like never before, he had won, beaten Cormax in his smug ass-kissing face.

  “Yes!”

  Where were the cheers? Jilar looked around.

  The crowd was silent as half of them just looked at him in disappointment and half of them were looking towards the entrance. Jilar followed the line of sight as a very disappointed sect leader looked sternly at him. Larix had his arms crossed and was shaking his head.

  Oh right, Jilar had rushed Cormax like an asshole. He stepped back like a deer in the headlights himself, trying to figure out how to explain himself.

  Before he could, Larix’s shout echoed across the courtyard.

  “Jilar!”

  Jilar, the ‘winner’ of the spar, straightened up and bowed towards him with his hand in his fist.

  “Yes! Sect Leader!”

  “What was that behavior just now?!”

  “Cormax taunted me and I -”

  “JILAR!”

  Now Larix was angry. His qi infused voice no longer echoed just in the arena. It echoed throughout the whole sect. Jilar finally cowered fully. Normally Sect Leader Larix wouldn’t go this far for something like this. Then he understood, Jilar had disgraced the sect in front of Gamielle and her guest.

  “No excuses, sect leader! I let my head get the better of me when I should have kept it cool.”

  “Good.” This time Larix nodded in approval, “Now I understand this bout had wagers on it?”

  Jilar sagged slightly. Cleaning duty wasn’t that bad but it was still a chore and it would be a constant reminder of his shame. For some reason another voice decided to interject Larix’s ruling.

  “Aw, little Larry, don’t be too harsh on him. Jilar got affected by the Epic, it’s a good lesson for him but he did win.”

  Larix turned to the floating Gamielle, then he put his fist in his palm and bowed towards her. He did not get annoyed at her ruling over him but took it in stride.

  Of course, the stranger’s Epic was far too much for Jilar, that had been it.

  “Of course Miss Gamielle.”

  Then Larix glared at Jilar who was looking up at his savior. Jilar quickly noticed and coughed, then he turned to his opponent.

  “Apologies for my behavior Cormax.”

  Cormax said nothing, the other teen, pretty much an adult, was frustrated at himself for losing to a teen. Talented or not, Cormax shouldn’t have lost like that. He did, however, still bow to Jalir.

  Miss Gamielle had a small smile on her face. Larix let out a small sigh.

  –

  Ryan was back in one of the more official rooms. Larix sat opposite him, writing down his experiences while Elder Lindred poured him tea. Ryan carefully took the tea and wondered why the elder seemed so happy to humble himself to everyone.

  “Thank you.”

  Larix stopped writing as Ryan drank. He wasn’t much of a tea drinker but he was pretty sure ordinary tea didn’t tingle on the tongue. Ryan continued to give Larix an exposition.

  “The Grand Root Circulation felt like it’d be the most versatile but I think it’d have problems with my Epic. I also think I’d be missing out without some sort of [Parallel Minds] skill. At best I’d be waving each root together when it could do so much more if I could concentrate on moving each of them individually.”

  Lindred perked up in interest.

  “That is , most [Warriors] report that trying to adapt it into their bodies with qi made it too brittle while [Mages] say that mana leaks too easily with such free flowing tendrils. I wonder if the originator of this visualisation technique had actually used aura instead. It is quite difficult to tell sometimes. The cultivation world that Baizhen was part of seemed to treat them the same way. That or aura simply didn’t function the way it does in The Realm.”

  Gamille countered with disinterest, she waved her hand dismissively, “Or his [Aura Control] can do so much more on Earth because it’s at such a high level. It’s probably been counterleveling against his Epic in The Realm. There’s too many variables here, don’t go off experimenting on your own.”

  Lindred looked mildly offended, “I will not, those were youthful indiscretions Miss Gamielle.”

  Gamielle scoffed, “You’re older than I am.”

  “Yet younger in spirit, it seems.”

  Both Gamielle and Lindred glared at each other.

  Ryan just sipped the tea and moved onto his third experiment.

  “The Marrow Fire Visualization felt weird. It was like I didn’t have enough aura to do what was needed. I took a break and tried it again, but I think I need to try it in The Realm.”

  Ryan looked at Larix who was studiously writing every single word he said down.

  “Is this really all worth writing down? None of this feels very scientific.”

  Larix looked up, it seemed the sect leader didn’t really care that Ryan was still wearing his robes or had beaten him in a fight earlier. Ryan had expected a challenge in front of everyone but it never happened. The sect leader looked up at Gamielle. She shook her head at him.

  “Talent, Artigan. We can’t account for every single variable, but Trialists can give better intuitive direction than even a hundred experimental results. Your feelings will be guidance for anyone that comes afterwards looking for the path in aura.”

  Well that explained why Larix seemed so friendly. Ryan scratched the back of his head as the old elder spoke in confusion.

  “Artigan…?”

  Lindred froze as he stared straight at Ryan. For the first time, Lindred’s presence descended into the room–Ryan turned to Gamielle.

  As usual, when he was in danger she was gone.

  He turned back to the furious old man.

  “Now hold on, there’s a good explanation for everything.”

  Ryan put his hands up, tensing and getting ready to run. He had seen the old man fight yesterday. Lindred was at least as strong as a seventh realm, maybe higher. Ryan had zero chance against that.

  Instead of getting punched in the face, Lindred whirled on Larix.

  “You lost to a realm?”

  The sect leader wilted under the elder’s admonishing gaze. Larix looked around desperately for Gamielle, coming to the same realization Ryan had. The [Rogue] slowly put his hands down then reached for the tea, he sipped quietly while watching the drama unfold.

  Larix tried to calm down the elder.

  “It was a friendly spar, Artigan’s Epic triggered a fight or flight response which he used to mask…”

  The sect leader trailed off as he realized he wasn’t making his situation better. Lindred steeped in simmering anger. The presence was . It was greater than Ryan’s aura. Considering his aura kept getting compared to eighth realms and above, did that mean Lindred was stronger than an eighth realm? Or did it just mean he was more accomplished?

  “Are you saying that you got influenced by the aura of a ”

  If Larix had any sort of hindsight in this moment, he’d realize that he was sounding as whiny as that Jilar kid from earlier. Unfortunately, the sect leader was clearly unused to being so flustered.

  “It is an Epic, and he is a student of Gamielle. It is reasonable to think -”

  Gamielle reappeared at that moment to waggle her finger, “Ah-ah-ah little Larry, I haven’t taught Artigan anything beyond these walls. Every action he has taken has been done of his own talent and cunning.”

  Ryan smiled into his cup, happy for some actual credit. It was also funnier when someone else was being haunted by Gamielle. It took him a little too long to notice that Lindred’s deathly stare had been changed to him. Ryan blinked at the old elder and realized what Gamielle had just said.

  Lindred might have been okay with Artigan being some great plan by the Witch Tyrant or Gamielle. He was significantly less okay with Artigan’s actions being done on his own free will.

  Ryan turned, only to find Gamielle gone once again. He put his hands back up.

  “She’s not telling the whole story–I can explain.”

  In hindsight, Ryan should have run the first time.

  –

  Jilar cleaned the communal bathrooms with a medium brush. You’d think that the great Obsidian sect looked over by the great Witch Tyrant would have people respecting their bathrooms more. It turned out that everyone knew bathroom maintenance was a punishment, everyone treated them horribly.

  Jilar cursed the people that treated bathrooms so disgustingly.

  He included himself in the curse as he cleaned off a marking he had made.

  Once he was finished with the bathroom he took a good look at the spotless toilet. It would do no good to do anything less than stellar work when you were being punished.

  He sighed then picked up the cleaning tools and walked towards the next area. Jilar groaned as there was a crowd around the bathrooms. Was Cormax really that salty about his loss that he had gotten a crowd to shame him? The crowd was… all already looking towards the bathrooms and pointing and whispering to each other?

  “Sorry, coming through, punishment duty, excuse me.”

  Nobody paid attention to him, but they did let him pass. They clearly weren’t here for him or they’d be pointing and laughing. Jilar finally managed to reach the front to see the most bizarre scene.

  Sect leader Larix, the prodigiously talented cultivator that was as talented as any adventurer… was cleaning the toilet with a tiny toothbrush. Alongside him was a silver haired elf that was also cleaning the sink. Both were trying really hard to make their task go as fast as possible.

  Jilar shivered as he looked at the elf. Was that–?

  He dropped the bucket.

  Artigan looked on over at him and Jilar froze. A familiar desire to run washed over him but it wasn’t as bad as before. It was hard to take a monster Trialist seriously when said monster was cleaning a bathroom in shorts and a shirt.

  The devilishly handsome elf stopped cleaning and walked up to him, Jilar’s eyes went wider as he took a step back. The elf put out his hand.

  “Here.”

  Jilar reactively put his hand out and Artigan dropped something onto it. Then the elf bent down, swiped something from the ground then walked away. Jilar looked down at his cleaning stuff.

  Artigan had just stolen his bigger brush.

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