— The Emperor’s Imperial Record, Entry No. 8 —

  The little grain birds flitted across from me.

  Whatever field hand I saw as I passed back toward the city sent a wave my way, asking for the next barbecue, but I rushed past them.

  This was the third time I’d had to shake him off.

  First was after making my deal with Azul, the tanner. The second was on the street, coming home from the fields, and the third, now, was in the forest.

  I noticed when the birds started to flee, and all the prey in the area had suddenly gone extinct. Whoever it was, they may have been good at hunting in the city, but not in the forest.

  The whole event took me an hour. It was possible to escape a man in the forest. I had the scars to prove it. What was even harder was guiding him to a trap visible to the naked eye.

  But I wanted to use this as a punishment. I’d made a deal, and if the overseer didn’t want to stick with it, then he couldn’t blame me.

  When I finally came out of the forest, onto the field, the sunset had turned the weather a deep orange, so that the pudgy man standing on the hill, staring at me, looked only like a shadow.

  I knew what he wanted and that soon, he’d find out how much I had begun to make.

  Then, I was sure, he would not be pleased with me.

  –break–

  It had been four months since I left my village and entered Lunis. In that time, I had carved a routine: farm, hunt, help Huo Qianlei’s family, then do it all again.

  It was slow, taxing work, but I had been able to build up a sizeable savings in the time.

  Using Huo Feng’s training method had hardened me. The surplus coins I didn’t put into a chest for safekeeping were spent on extra food. Good quality food. Things I would never be able to get back in my village.

  Now, I no longer looked as frail as before. I could see the outline of my physique through my robes, and it was far less common for people to assume I was a child.

  I’d sprouted inches in the last few months, now I was barely below average in the Mudfoot district.

  The best part of it all was how much money I was making. It was far slower than what I would have wanted, but I was still making significantly more than a boy my age was supposed to be making.

  From the first sales when I got to Lunis, including the hunts and selling to Tarig and the tanner, Azul. I had made 749 copper coins! That was seven silver and 49 copper.

  If I took into account everything I had made during these four months, I had made 12,464 copper coins(124 silver, 64 copper). That was 124 silver and 64 copper! Every time I thought about the number, my head got dizzy, and when I thought about how much more I would need to even start a merchant caravan, I felt like I needed to lie down.

  Most households in the Mudfoot district earned less than 100 copper a week, and it was much closer to 30 than a hundred.

  Most of that money came from selling my carcasses to Azul and Tarig. After making a few deals with them, I realized how much the field overseer was underpaying me for my goods. If I hadn’t been wise enough to ask Huo Qianlei for some advice and gotten introduced to those two, I might still be slogging away, making very little to try and reach my goals.

  Making this much would have taken far more than a year to do. I could imagine how much the overseer was making by sitting around and having me bring him both food and merchandise every day.

  But what could I do? I needed his permission to go hunt in the forest. In my village, it was a different matter because we were so far away, but that also meant that transporting carcasses from there to here would have been a waste of time.

  The carcasses would rot far before we could get to the city. I tried hard to think about other things. Putting my mind on things I couldn’t change would only bring me down.

  If my father could see me now, he’d think I was rich. Then he’d have to go buy the best quality wine to celebrate.

  Today was a half day. As long as everyone filled their quotas, they could leave early. It was around the time to start harvesting all the grain.

  I was done with my work quickly and went to help Huo Qianlei finish his work so we could leave early.

  When we were done, we set up a roast as we usually did. After months of doing this, not just the farmers and the guards, even the other commoners who had heard about it had started to come over to take part in the ‘feast.’

  Meat. Good meat, like deer or swine, wasn’t very abundant for the peasants in the Mudfoot district. The best most could get was from rodents or small birds scurrying around in the district. And that was if you could catch them.

  So, now, commoners, mostly women and children, from all over the district would come after the day was over to ‘help out’.

  The overseer tolerated it as long as the field hands kept working harder, and quotas fulfilled, though, it was increasingly hard to ignore the looks he’d started to give me.

  There was never enough to go around, especially since the overseer and his guards, and then the labourers, were allowed to eat first.

  I didn’t mind, because now, a lot more people knew who I was. That meant connections. Even if it was with other peasants, I was sure it could come in handy one day. Especially since it was for something I was already doing.

  The first time they had come to ‘help’, it had started a huge argument. The women demanded extra portions with the excuse that they had starving children at home. The farmers countered with the fact that they were the ones who had helped grill the meat I had caught.

  It didn’t stop till the field overseer—Liang, came out, veins throbbing in his head, and ordered me to go quiet them down.

  It was fairly easy to stop their arguments, especially since some of the wives were married to the farmers, but some people still grumbled after that, shooting me dirty looks and turning away whenever I passed them.

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  I scoffed, ‘You were praising me just a little while ago, but now, you can’t even look at me?’ The thought made me chuckle, ‘No matter, everyone who looks like they could remember the favor have all received a portion,’ I thought back to my village and how they had left my father to rot.

  I had learned the hard way not to trust the whims of others. What mattered where my goals and how I would reach them.

  Even though the sun was still high up in the sky, Huo Qianlei and I were done with everything we had to do for the day. The only thing left to do was to enjoy the rest of it, so we decided to take the girls into the city for treats, a rare chance to relax. But first, they stopped by the butcher, Tarig, to get some smoked rat meat.

  Huo Qianlei had the girls get dressed up and throw on large scarves to cover their heads, just enough to keep people from seeing their faces too much in the crowded streets, while I trailed behind.

  There were times, like now, when I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t belong, even with how close I was getting to everyone. Huo Xue squealed, bringing me out of my reverie.

  A lumicit, a fist-sized, fiery orange fruit, was right in front of her. She dragged her father to ask him to buy her one.

  “Mornin’. How much for the lumicit?”

  “Five coppers,” the vendor replied, crossing his arms.

  “Five? They’re in season!” Huo Qianlei protested.

  “Geese are migrating,” the man said with a shrug. “They’re taking most of the fruit for their young, and prices went up. And it’s no easy task harvesting these—you have to go through hidden groves, angry mama geese... You want it or not?”

  After some back and forth, I stepped up to pay for everything. Huo Qianlei had helped me too much for me to sit here and watch him haggle over something so unimportant. Especially since I had the money.

  I didn’t notice, but he looked at me with a mix of pride and disbelief. To him, I was just a little boy. He had decided to help out one day, and now not only was I offering to buy the lumicit for them, I had been helping Huo Qianlei around the fields anytime I had free time or was waiting for an animal to fall into one of my traps, and wasn’t actively hunting. I even gave them some of the grilled meat from his catch.

  I watched as the girls devoured the lumicit. I brought my lips up into a smile as the girls laughed, but I didn’t let it reach my eyes. I shoved the warmth aside—these people were kind, but kindness had limits.

  “Thank you, kid.”

  “No problem, Uncle Qianlei.”

  Not even a second later, about 4 women came with their children in line behind them and started buying the fruits. A little bit later, even more people came to buy the fruits.

  After we were done with the fruit, we continued shopping for groceries. I made sure to pay, as I didn’t feel comfortable having Huo Qianlei pay for everything. He tried to reject, but I didn’t let him, just saying that he could pay me back by relieving me of the house chores for the next week.

  With all the goods I had bought, they wouldn't have to buy anything for another month at least.

  It was very late by the time they got back, and both Huo Qianlei and I had to sleep so we would be ready for work tomorrow. But the sisters refused to sleep without listening to my lullaby.

  Neither I nor Huo Qianlei believed it since they were wobbling around trying to run from the bed with their eyes almost completely shut. Needless to say, they fell asleep in short order.

  And then, I went back to my common routine or brooding into the night.

  The first thing I had to do was track my expenses. With all my needs over the past four months and everything I had bought, I was down to 11,844 copper coins, but I had spent an extra hundred on getting Healer Yao Po to teach me how to read and write, and even some proper calculations.

  I had realised that to even be able to read a cultivation manual. I’d actually have to be able to understand the words on the paper, and to manage a merchant caravan, I would need far more than the simple calculations I was used to when I first came here.

  I’d searched around for two weeks for a peasant who could teach me, because anyone else with a higher status than that either kicked me out or didn’t even let me in the second they found out I was a peasant.

  It was one of the workers in the field. He worked with the irrigation systems, who told me about Yao Po’s scholarly abilities. It seemed she’d worked for a noble house until they threw her out for being too old.

  At least the daily roasts and grillings had paid off; one day, when I was doing deals with nobles or other rich merchants, I wouldn’t look like a fool.

  So, in total, I had 11,744 copper coins, or 117 silver and 44 copper coins.

  But that wasn’t enough. I was mortal. That meant that whatever I did had a cost attached.

  Time.

  If it took me 30 years to save up enough money to start the merchant caravan, and hire enough people to be able to move so far across the continent that I could get nobles and cultivators whatever they wanted, faster than they could get it themselves, and with less hassle, I’d have to leave my dream to my children.

  It would be a waste of time. What I had to do was find a way to grow my money. Do something with it. That’s why tomorrow, I was going to the blacksmith.

  From what I heard, he was looking for investments. I was familiar with the concept from my village days. 3 or 4 guys would come together and bring materials, and bait, and everything needed for a hunt, and whatever you’d get after you split according to whatever everyone had contributed.

  I was just hoping that what I had would be enough.

  –break–

  Huo Feng’s dream was coming apart.

  On the first day, he’d caught the eye of Elder Sun, the Tomes and Facilities elder—though “caught the eye” was a generous term. No one else had been willing to take him, talent or not.

  Elder Sun was the weakest of the inner sect elders. He was left with the most mundane responsibilities an elder could possibly get—tomes, histories, maps, dead cultivators’ ramblings—he wasn’t even trusted with the cultivation manuals.

  Elder Sun had only accepted Huo Feng because the sect's rules and pressure from above forced him to. At 60 years old, he was still struggling to advance his cultivation.

  Their sole conversation had been brief, and it was 4 months before Elder Sun spoke to him again, and only because he emerged from closed-door cultivation to heed the sect leader’s summons.

  “Power isn’t everything, boy,” Elder Sun had rummaged, stroking his beard. His fingers traced the faded embroidery of the sect’s insignia on his robe. “If you focus on cultivation and training, success will come in time.”

  ‘Hypocrite,’ Huo Feng thought. He knew that this man was lying. He had seen him pat down a younger cultivator because he thought they had a valuable spirit herb hidden in their robe.

  Ever since he had first met this man, Huo Feng could not wipe the thought from his mind, ‘How can this man have better talent than I?’ Over half a century of effort, and Elder Sun barely outstripped the core disciples, only being at the Second rung of the Mortal Refinement stage.

  The Mortal Refinement stage had three rungs, with each rung being further divided into three tiers: the footing tier, the climbing tier, and the peak tier.

  The tome elder, Elder Sun, was 2nd rung, climbing tier.

  Huo Feng clenched his fists. He knew only one thing for certain, he couldn’t stay here for long.

  To make matters worse, there was Hung Lee. The noble’s great-grandfather was one of the sect’s head elders, and he wielded that influence as much as it would let him.

  Huo Feng watched from behind a thick column as Hung Lee strutted past, the faint glimmer of a jade pendant hanging from his belt. That was Liang’s—Huo Feng had seen it in the boy’s hands just yesterday. But no one would speak up. That was foolishness.

  The last disciple who accused Hung Lee of theft had “accidentally” fallen off the training platform and shattered his leg. It had been ruled a sad misfortune, something about not training well, but after spending two years working as a city guard, Huo Feng was not so naive.

  His jaw tightened. He was at the ‘footing’ tier of the first rung of the Mortal Refinement Realm, while Hung Lee had already reached ‘climbing’. The gap wasn’t insurmountable, but Hung Lee’s resources and connections made sure it would be nearly impossible to do so.

  That wasn’t even the worst of it. Ever since the test day, Hung Lee had done everything he could to sabotage Huo Feng. Precious herbs were swapped for fakes, and training sessions were sabotaged. Any sect tasks he got were immediately swapped for demeaning, low-status ones—cleaning latrines, tending to dangerous beasts.

  He had tried talking to the elders, but they didn’t care. In this sect, power and face were all that mattered.

  Huo Feng exhaled slowly, his breath fogging in the cold morning air. He’d dreamed of the Awoken Moon Sect as a place of opportunity, a stepping stone to greatness. Instead, it was a cage.

  But he wasn’t ready to give up.

  If he worked hard enough, if he proved his talent, maybe he could escape to a better sect. Until then, he’d endure. He had no other choice.