Ivia and Estella joined me after a while, both looking worse to wear. After a few minutes of quiet did Ivia speak up, “Did you see, that Lius died? Some bandit apparently beheaded him.” I just nodded, I had been aware of it, though my mind still couldn’t fully grasp what had happened in the fight.

  I then said, “Yeah, I saw it. I killed the bandit. Almost died back there as well.” I finally turned to properly look at them, to check if I had missed any big wounds. Luckily that didn’t seem to be the case, I sighed, “It feels weird honestly. I mean we kind of knew him and now he is just gone?” This was the first time, someone I actually knew had died. I was glad that I didn’t feel anything though. It would have made it a lot harder to focus on training, if I were busy crying.

  I supressed a small chuckle as I realized how cold these thoughts were. A small part of me wondered, if the modifications of the god went beyond just the aptitude for cultivation. Though, I rationally knew that it made no sense for the god to do something like that. It would destroy the purpose of the contest after all. I stood up and walked over to Piul who was setting up camps for the coming night. He saw me and said, “We will hold the funeral in a few hours, it would be nice if you helped bury the dead at least somewhat properly.”

  I nodded and walked to the two bandits I had killed. I checked if they had anything useful on them. I only found a few pills which I didn’t know and a few copper coins. I assumed that the copper was the currency of the region or world. I would have to ask either Master or the alchemist about what they did. I then dragged the corpses to the pile of corpses of the bandits. Apparently, they would also get buried, though they seem to get their own grave.

  After I helped out a bit, did I begin to relive the fight over and over again. I clearly noticed the complete lack of emotions I felt, while my life was escaping me. I still felt it lingering in my mind like a clear pond. It was a mix between serenity and a feeling of euphoria. I had never felt so clear headed before, especially compared to what I had felt during the fight.

  I quickly noted these feelings and decided to pay attention, to not let them influence my decision making too much. I then got lost in replaying the fight over and over again. The techniques had worked like I had wanted this time. Though, I still felt that I needed to control the stone faster to make stone skin better. It felt too restrictive at the moment. I knew that the manual for it had mentioned that I could at one point move while fully covered in rocks but that was still a long way away.

  I starting to wonder, what else I was lacking at the moment, outside of a lot of practice, when Ivia poked me. I looked up and realized that it was time for the funeral. I joined the funeral procession at the side of another two earth cultivators. Piul spoke a few words about Lius, although I honestly could barely manage to not get distracted by my own body, and the fight. One of the guards, who I now presumed to be the captain held a similar speech for her fallen comrades and I, along with the other earth cultivators lowered the dead bodies into the ground.

  After the funeral was over, did I get Devi to help me remove the dirt clumps in my blood, which I had still held in place. After that did everybody go to bed, while I continued training the speed of my earth Qi control.

  We started moving again, as soon as the sun rose. We reached the town within the first few hours of the day. It seemed like the bandits had ambushed us close to the city. The guards near the gate to the city straightened as we got closer. The merchant exited the carriage and handed them a letter and one of the guards went into the city. The guards talked to the mercenaries, probably asking about the bandits, though I didn’t get closer to listen to them. I was too absorbed in thinking about ways on how the fight could have been. I then noticed that this behaviour was problematic.

  I needed information like this. Did the guards promise rewards for killing bandits? Or did they even want that? What if that left a power vacuum? It was important to know what kind of information cities wanted. I wondered, why I was wasting such a good opportunity for information, just to think more about a fight. Still, I could not waste more time doing nothing, so I went closer to listen to the conversation. Sadly, it seemed to have already ended by the time I got closer.

  I went next to Piul and asked him, “What are we waiting for? Does this city require special entry permits or something like that?” I tried to keep my voice lower, to avoid appearing overly rude towards the city guards. Piul answered after glancing at the merchant, “Recently there has been a new city lord and he decided to make sure that no bandits could enter the city. To make sure that would happen, he only allows people inside who have some sort of referral from the inside. We are currently waiting on another merchant to check the letter we handed over.”

  Right on cue did a tall person covered in loose robes rush out the gate. The insides of the robes were covered in gemstones that blinked in the sun light. The person clearly was some sort of cultivator, due to the speed at which they were approaching us. The merchant we had escorted walked to grab a box from the carriage and awaited the arrival. She then greeted the approaching person, “Ms. Nibge, good to see that you are this excited for our delivery. As promised, we have prepared the cargo.”

  Ms. Nibge stopped right in front of the merchant and practically ripped the box out of her hands, opening it in the same motion. Inside was another gemstone. It was a clear blue colour. I wondered if all these gemstones were some sort of cultivation resource or more likely treasure judging by the fact that she wore so many of them.

  Ms. Nibge then finally spoke in a surprisingly gravely voice, “It is even better than I had hoped for.” She pulled out a letter from within her robes and handed over, “I prepared a few buildings in good positions, that your group can use. If they are not to your liking tell me and I can arrange something.” She then turned back towards the city and made her way back in.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The merchant whose name I still didn’t know turned to Piul, handing him what looked like a good luck charm alongside a small stamp, “This is proof that your mission is completed. I hope you can forgive me, but I don’t think I could arrange for you to stay somewhere in the city. Safe travels.” Piul took both items and thanked her for her patronage.

  He waited until her guards left and only the seven of us were there. I realized that me and my companions didn’t really have a way to return. Piul sighed and said, “Do you four want to travel with us? It would be safer for us, since beasts would still be dangerous, and I don’t think you guys know the way back.” We quickly agreed.

  The way back was completely peaceful. Piul explained that bandits would get nothing from attacking us as we looked like mercenaries who were not protecting anything and the beasts were mostly active when the dome of darkness completely blacked out the surrounding light. Something which did not happen on our way back. In general, we were faster, since the carriage had been slowing us down and now, we were just jogging through the open plains.

  The journey took barely a day, and we separated from the mercenaries, after entering the city. The four of us made our way back to the sect, still not really talking. It was when we were almost halfway up the mountain that Estella broke the silence, “I think I will take a break for a while from adventuring. This has been far too dangerous for my liking. Sorry Miranda.”

  I was a bit surprised by this, though I quickly realized that all three of them were still minors and should not be subjected to death nor should they get this close to dying. So, I nodded and said, “It’s fine. I can understand it. Just let me know when you feel ready again.” I hoped that it would placate her feelings, but it seemed to have a different effect on the others.

  Devi asked me, “Are you planning on just continuing like always? After all of this? After Lius died?” He stared into my eyes, clearly not seeing the reaction that he hoped for “I saw you almost bleed out for heavens sake. Just a few seconds later and I would have been too late. Why?” I knew how insane I must look from the outside, but I didn’t really feel like there was much of a choice left. If I took the easy route once, who knew if I would be tempted again and again. Also, what if my opponent never took the easy route and instead gambled with their life every step of the way and won? Could I win without at least the same conviction?

  Still, this was impossible to properly explain, but I still tried, “I want to become as strong as possible within fifty thousand years. I need to risk everything at every step of the way, even if the benefit is miniscule. Otherwise, I would not be able to live with myself.” It also didn’t hurt that I had never felt as good as in the fight, when I was closest to death. But that was a feeling I wanted to stamp out of my body, to avoid taking impossible to win risks.

  We continued walking in silence. I knew that they didn’t agree with my stance on risks and the outcome of this mission, but I was not going to let that stop me. I went straight to Masters residence when we entered the sect proper. I still wanted to know what these pills were, and I wanted to discuss the fights I had with her.

  I was considering telling her about the spars, but I honestly couldn’t remember them enough to tell her any details about them. Instead, I decided to tell her about the conclusions I had drawn from them. I found Master in the courtyard practicing something like always. I went over and immediately began to recap my entire journey. In the end did I show her the pills, and she didn’t even glance at them and just explained, “It’s good that you didn’t ask your companions. These are Qi pills and like the name suggests, they are a bunch of Qi bound to materials, so normally people can sense them.”

  She sighed and continued, “They are either used in battle to recover a bit of Qi or for cultivation. I would recommend the second option for you, since that faster cultivation is more important than the slightly more dangerous fight these would allow you to take on.” Since I felt nothing from them, I guessed that none of them were earth Qi pills and would thus only help with my body cultivation. I put them back into my bag, deciding to wait until I had perfect control over my body to take them, since it sounded like it would slow the poison down otherwise.

  Master motioned me to sit down and began to go through the two fights I had described in detail with me. She pointed out how I could have been safer during the wolf fight if I had fought closer to the guards, allowing them to cover my back. She was pretty happy with my performance or at least critique of my performance against the bandits. She then asked me, “What do you think your biggest problem is right now? And how would you fix it?”

  I knew that experience would have been a good answer, since I lacked control over my techniques, and generally would have had an easier time. But I had already pointed that part out during my analysis, so I stayed quiet waiting for her. She saw my silence and said, “You need some sort of specialization. Like I promised, you will constantly be thrown into battles with opponents stronger than you. Now tell me, what kind of specialization first comes to your mind with these fights in mind?”

  It made sense, though I had hoped that I could delay such a decision until I had more battle experience. I supressed my doubts and went through the scenarios, while imagining that I had a technique that would give me more strength, made me take more hits and so on. I went through all the specialization ideas I could muster and had a clear favourite. I grinned and said, “Explosive speed would have helped me the most. I could have gotten the first attack on the wolves and gotten it while it was in the middle of the jump. During the battle with the bandits, I could have closed the distance with the saber wielding one and somewhat mitigated his range advantage.”

  It honestly just felt right. Something like being slow and defensive just wouldn’t feel right. Master nodded and stood up, “Stay here until you have perfect control. You cannot really get any experience if you go now. Your goal for the break will be to create a technique that gives you some sort of explosive speed. I will get one of the other elders to help you out with the creation of the paths for the worlds support.” She left the compound after she finished speaking and I wondered, why I couldn’t just take another technique from the library.

  Still, I trusted her enough to follow her lead. She had experience with becoming stronger after all. I began thinking about how to create a technique from the ground up. I lacked any starting point, or more accurately I lacked any ideas on how the technique could look like. So, I began to think about what could give me some sort of explosive speed without limiting to what I could actually do.

  The simplest idea was to have some sort of explosion behind me or under my feet. Something like that would catapult me forward which would fulfil my goal. Still, it felt too uncontrolled for what I wanted. If I used something like that, I could end up launching myself straight into the weapon of my opponent. I could maybe do something with just my body. I was sure that I could move the Qi inside of my body to achieve something like that. For a moment, did I want to throw away that option, since Master was getting another elder to help me with my earth Qi. Then I remembered Master could just teach me herself if I wanted to use my body.

  I liked this idea more than just exploding myself forward. I stood up and ran from one end of the training field to the other, while counting how long it took me. It took me around eight seconds to cover the entire field, and it was roughly a hundred meter long. I then tried to push some Qi into my legs and tried sprinting again. I immediately jumped a bit, while going forwards almost falling on my face while landing.

  I stood up and got the sand of my clothes trying again. This time my feet were no longer pressed against the solid stone that surrounded the sand filled training ground and my foot just sunk into the sand when I tried to run again. I still carried forward momentum and almost broke my ankle when I inevitably fell down.

  I pulled my foot out of the hole and looked at the hole. I wondered how body cultivators prevented this issue from happening. I got a simple idea to fix the issue. I could create footholds while I moved. I could angle them to allow me to even make proper turns, and they would always give me the best surface to continue forwards. The only problem was that I would need to create a lot of them, precisely where and as I would need them and it had to be fast. But I had a few days of a break, so I could just practice.