Crap. Shit. Damn.

  Cultivators!

  Fuck.

  Two of them. Both glaring at me through silken veils. Even with those gossamer barriers, their gazes felt like icy daggers pressed against my throat. I did my best to keep my back straight and a smile on my face as the grizzled, older guard nervously stood off to the side.

  He didn’t want to be a part of this any more than I did.

  “Um,” said the captain. “I’ll leave the discussion up to the three of you. Please come and find me at the gates if you have any questions.”

  “Thank you,” I said to him with a nod.

  The two Shining Mountain Sect cultivators didn’t even pay him any attention.

  He was already hurrying out the door, quickly followed by everyone else in the inn who were slurping down the last of their drinks on the way. The rush was so mad that someone tripped and fell, and I was half-tempted to go over and help them up if it meant I could vanish into the crowd.

  But, alas…

  In under a minute, it was just me, the two lady cultivators, and Cabbagy. I suppose the innkeeper was hiding somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “You should try and charm them,” Cabbagy whispered. “If you want any help seducing these goddesses in the flesh, these jade beauties amongst jade beauties, just ask —”

  “I don’t need your help,” I hissed down at him.

  The two women stiffened, and the one with silver hair stood from the bench.

  “Oh, you don’t, do you?” she asked.

  ###

  Qian Ling didn’t even try to suppress her rage.

  Thick tendrils of killing intent and anger radiated from her body and filled the inn like the cold light of the full moon. The mortal innkeeper choked where he hid behind the bartop. Mu Min stiffened. The mortals eavesdropping outside scrambled away, stumbling in the mud and over each other as their bodies compelled them to flee.

  But the stranger didn't even react. He casually dismissed her and Mu Min as he placed the dirty cabbage on the table.

  “Don’t move,” he said with a scowl. “Don’t talk.”

  Nobody has ever spoken to Qian Ling like that and lived.

  Tables shuddered, thatch shifted and rained down as Qian Ling’s rage grew incandescent.

  This man humiliated and maimed her junior, taunted her as she hunted him, dismissed her cultivation to her face, and now treated her as though she were a child!

  She felt blood welling in her mouth from how tightly her rage held her muscles. It took all her effort to unclench her jaw so she could mutter the only two words that were appropriate.

  “You —”

  Mu Min grabbed Qian Ling’s sleeve and cut her off.

  Qian Ling glanced back and saw the pale tension in her friend’s face. Mu Min gripped tightly. Even barely able to move under the weight of Qian Ling’s suppression, Mu Min was doing everything she could to stop her.

  A table cracked.

  The man still hadn’t even noticed. He was looking around at everything except for the two of them.

  When he finally faced Qian Ling, she understood Mu Min’s warning, and her rage stuttered to a halt.

  His expression was placid and unconcerned. If he'd noticed the waves of her suppression, they didn't warrant a reaction. He'd felt nothing from her, and now she felt nothing from him.

  Not the qi-filled meridians of Body Tempering, nor the accumulating dantian of Qi Condensing, nor the thrumming pillars of Foundation Establishment.

  Not even the radiant power of Core Formation that she knew so well as the constant, familiar pressure suffusing her sect from the various elders going about their business.

  No qi leaked from this man.

  Not the flickering qi of a mortal.

  It made her skin crawl.

  And it could only mean one thing…

  Qian Ling quickly bowed deeply.

  “Junior greets her senior,” she said, hoping it would be enough.

  Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Outwardly, she was calm, but inwardly, she trembled. Mu Min copied her actions. Both women were silent. Qian Ling swore to herself that she would repay her friend.

  Her blood ran cold to think how — mere seconds ago — she had been about to challenge the stranger. If not for Mu Min’s cautious insight, Qian Ling had no doubt they would both be a smear at the bottom of a very deep crater right now.

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  She expected a rebuke, or at least an acknowledgment, but he said nothing, and so, after a long, almost embarrassing bow, she raised her eyes.

  ###

  There was nothing inside my head except for silent screaming.

  This beautiful silver-haired woman had bowed to me, and the beautiful dark-haired woman beside her had bowed to me. They called me senior. A pulsating fear told me that they thought I was some kind of cultivator.

  It had been bad enough when the family of farmers and the guard had assumed I was some kind of cultivator, but at least they were mortals like me. Honestly, it was kind of a convenient lie, since they would chalk up any displays of blood-enhanced strength as typical cultivator behavior.

  But cultivators…

  Thrice damned cultivators!

  I had to get away from them before they exposed me for the fraud that I was.

  The two veiled women stood and straightened. They both wore the silver-accented grey robes of the Shining Mountain Sect. Their expression were matching, intent, and focused as they studied me.

  It took me a moment to realise they were waiting for me to say or do something.

  I glanced down at Cabbagy, but he wasn’t offering anything since I’d so rudely told him to shut up.

  I was fucked.

  “Excuse me,” said the silver-haired cultivator with intense eyes. “I failed to introduce myself and my companion. We are Qian Ling and Mu Min.”

  The dark-haired woman nodded as she was introduced.

  “A pleasure to meet you both,” I said warily.

  “We are inner sect disciples of the glorious Shining Mountain Sect.”

  “I recognized your uniforms.”

  Every second dragged like a wonky plow through a rocky field. They moved with deliberate, controlled movements as they stored their pillows and tea set in a storage ring, and waited for me to say something.

  For the first moment since escaping, I wished I were back in the facility. At least there, I knew how to avoid pissing off cultivators. The rules were different out in the world.

  My throat was too dry to speak, and even if it wasn’t, I had no idea what to say. I could only catch the barest suggestion of their expressions through their silken veils, but I saw frustration build on Qian Ling’s face.

  “Excuse me, senior?” she asked.

  “Yes?” I hazarded.

  “May I ask who you are, and who you represent?”

  “Yes,” I said with a nod. “Of course.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Qian Ling and Mu Min exchanged a glance. Finally, Qian Ling looked back at me, an expression of barely suppressed murderous rage on her face.

  “What is your name?”

  Oh.

  I hadn’t introduced myself.

  Awkward.

  Cultivators killed mortals for lesser mistakes than that. They were going to attack me. Could I even hope to fight them off? How long did I have left as a free man?

  My pounding heart almost made me forget that I still hadn’t introduced myself.

  “I’m… my name is… my name…”

  I frowned.

  Wait.

  What was my name?

  I had three sets of lives, so surely I had at least one name. Right?

  Right?!

  “Careful, kid,” Cabbagy said. “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm.”

  I ignored him as I tried to remember.

  “My name… my name…” I muttered as blood trickled down my nose. “I don’t…”

  Mu Min stepped away from me, tension in her body, but Qian Ling stepped closer.

  “Are you alright?” she asked. “I mean no offense by my question.”

  I shook my head, and it sounded as though a bell tolled through the village. My aching brain against the walls of my skull? I couldn’t be sure.

  “No, you’re fine,” I said slowly to the silver-haired woman. “My name seems to be gone.”

  “Gone?” she said.

  I frowned as I scrambled to understand and think of an excuse at the same time.

  “Yes, that appears to be the case. I believe it’s a… cultivator thing?”

  “What do you —” Qian Ling began, before Mu Min tugged on her sleeve.

  Qian Ling glanced back at her friend, and the two women whispered something to each other.

  While they spoke, I looked around the inn. The front door remained open. If I was quick, I could make a run for things. The two cultivators were fast, so I needed to find a way to distract them.

  I was about to open my mouth when a young guard barged into the inn. She panted as she leaned against the door frame, her heavy armor creaking with every breath.

  “Honored cultivators,” she said. “The spirit beasts have returned.”

  I almost let out a sigh of relief as I met the guard’s panicked eyes.

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  I’m positive I looked somewhat composed as I hurried to the door.

  ###

  Qian Ling watched as the monster left the inn with urgent determination. She dared not even shudder. If it hadn’t been for Mu Min’s quick warning, she was even more sure that she would be dead. Not even a smear at the bottom of a crater, but something eradicated from history entirely.

  The man — the thing — which just left wasn’t merely beyond her realm of cultivation; he was beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

  To leave the Core Formation realm, a cultivator hatched the soul developed in their core to become a being of energy and power. The Shining Mountain Sect’s founding patriarch was a Nascent Soul cultivator. He hollowed out the Shining Mountain to build their sect with a single technique, but that was over a thousand years ago.

  Any stages beyond Nascent Soul were rumors and myths, but it was said that after Nascent Soul, a cultivator fused with their soul to become an Immortal. Such methodology was unheard of in the Black Tiger Kingdom, but there were always fragments of crumbling scrolls to suggest what came next.

  The World Severing Realm.

  When a cultivator moved beyond human, beyond qi, beyond spirit, and approached the void. At this stage, the cultivator who passed beyond mortal flesh into pure energy now passed beyond human constraints by cutting away the things that bound them. Just as walls must be cut to create windows and doors, so too was the cultivator cut to attain new functions. Physical and conceptual constraints were severed, letting this new being — no longer human — advance into the heavenly courts of power.

  And one of the most dangerous — the most mythical things — that a cultivator could cut away…

  Qian Ling could still see that trickle of dark blood leaking from the stranger’s nose when he tried to recall his name. That thin red line scratched into her memory, all because he tried to answer her question — a question which no longer had an answer…

  She felt ill.

  “He spared you,” Mu Min said with awe in her voice. “He could have struck us both down for that question, but he spared you.”

  “I know,” Qian Ling said with a voice that was little more than a whisper.

  The two cultivators stood silently for a moment, contemplating the brush they’d had with death and the glimpse they'd had of immortality.

  “What shall we do now?” Mu Min asked.

  Shouts came from outside. People ran past the open door to the inn. All of it so clear even through Qian Ling’s silken veil.

  “Qian Ling?” Mu Min asked. “What shall we do?”

  Qian Ling shook herself.

  “We told the town we would deal with the spirit beasts,” she said. “We shall honor our word and uphold the glory of the Shining Mountain Sect.”

  “But what use are we? That man could clear out every spirit beast in the region without even trying. Without even moving!”

  Qian Ling nodded.

  “Exactly.”

  “What?”

  “He could, but he hasn’t. What does that tell you?”

  Mu Min gasped as her mind caught up to Qian Ling’s.

  “You don’t think…”

  “I do.”

  “A test?”

  “A test,” said Qian Ling with grim resolve. “And he shall not find the cultivators of the Shining Mountain Sect wanting.”

  Mu Min nodded, clearly feeling the gravitas of the situation, before she tilted her head in confusion.

  “Qian Ling?” she asked.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you think he wants us to bring that cabbage he left behind?"

  Both cultivators stared at the dirty green vegetable. Was this a part of the test? Would he reward them for returning the vegetable? Or would he punish them for ignoring the situation?

  For the first time since she donned the robes of an inner disciple, Qian Ling felt truly nervous... who was she to predict how a hidden master might react? With her fingers trembling and heart pounding, she met Mu Min's gaze and made her decision.

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