Maybe I Should Just Die

That night, the stars and moon were sleepless. By the time he finished giving his statement, it was already very late. Qi Dian didn't return to the main city; he found a hotel in Seventh City to rest in for the time being instead. Lying on the big hotel bed, going over the day's encounters, he felt more and more defeated. He had been proud and high-spirited since childhood. His ideal was to become a sword hero famous throughout the age, championing justice and slaying demons and evil. After joining Linjiang Sect, he had always ranked among the more outstanding of his fellow disciples. On top of that, immortal sect disciples got flattered wherever they went, which had made him truly believe he had a chance to become one of the era's prodigies. But in Tianbei Prefecture, the place known as the "Cultivation Desert," immortal sects were too few, and he had hardly any opportunity to spar against geniuses his own age. Next year's Young Cultivators' Tournament was the stage he had always looked forward to. So long as he outclassed every hero in the City Hero Battle, he would go as Jiangcheng City's representative to meet the prodigies of the four seas. He was confident he was inferior to no one! Today had in fact been his first time going out on a mission alone. The sect had wanted to temper his real-combat ability, and he had assumed a run-down cemetery in a satellite city wouldn't harbor any major evil entity. Who could have imagined. On his very first outing, proud and haughty as he was, he had run into a heretical cultivator and nearly lost his life. It took Yue Wen, a rogue cultivator his own age, to save him. Alas. Truthfully, losing to a heretical cultivator hadn't bothered him much. That heretic had cultivated for who knew how many years and was still merely late Union Realm; demonic path methods by nature overdrew a person's potential to purchase combat power. It was perfectly normal for a righteous cultivator of the lower three realms to be no match for one. But Yue Wen had no resources and no backing, and he led Qi Dian in every respect — cultivation level and combat power alike... and he was even more handsome than him by a full octave. Even a small place like Jiangcheng City held a peer who could crush him flat. It left Qi Dian sinking into doubt. Could his talent really be worth so little? Qi Dian stayed crestfallen for a good long while. After a time, he quietly consoled himself again. The methods of rogue cultivators ran the gamut from excellent to shoddy. Perhaps Yue Wen, too, was practicing some method that trained fast and hit hard within the lower three realms. His master had said there were many extreme methods — fierce early, feeble late — and many rogue cultivators never planned for the long haul from the very beginning. Linjiang Sect's methods, by contrast, emphasized steadiness, with strength unleashed in the later stages. So long as one had comprehension enough to reach the middle three realms, one would blaze brilliantly. Exactly. Qi Dian pulled himself back together. His finest attribute in the sect was comprehension! Supernatural powers and sorcery that took other disciples three days to train took him only one; methods that took others a month took him a week. Breaking through to the Gang Realm was a nailed-down certainty. With steady, solid progress, by the time the Young Cultivators' Tournament began, he — at the Fourth Realm — would certainly be Jiangcheng City's representative! As the honored sages of the cultivation world once put it: fat early is no fat at all — the one who fattens late flattens the bed. Giddy with the thought, he moved at once to open the sect's scripture library and keep contemplating sorcery. But once inside, he found Yue Wen's training record: not long before, the man had studied for a mere twenty minutes. There was no way to comprehend them thoroughly in that time. The Thunder Roar Art and Flash Art might be only minor supernatural powers, but Linjiang Sect disciples generally took several days to learn them; even he had contemplated them for over ten hours before truly mastering them. "Brother Yue is too honorable," Qi Dian murmured. "Studying for only that long — he was probably afraid of spending my money." Though Yue Wen had stung his pride, Qi Dian felt no jealousy over the man being stronger than himself. Besides, Yue Wen had saved his life; in his heart there was only gratitude. So he made a point of sending Yue Wen a message. [Young Hero Qi, Wandering the Jianghu with His Sword: "Brother Yue, contemplate those two supernatural powers' visualization diagrams all you like. Don't worry about the charges — our sect's pricing is very user-friendly."] [AAA Head of Yue Cultivation Agency: "Thanks, Brother Qi. I've already finished learning them."] [Young Hero Qi, Wandering the Jianghu with His Sword: "Ah."] Qi Dian put down the phone, tilted his head back, and stared silently at the ceiling for a while. A moment later, he murmured to himself once more. "Maybe I should just die." ... Yue Wen had no idea how great a wound his offhand reply had dealt Young Hero Qi's spirit. He slept a few short hours and woke in the dawn light, refreshed and clear-headed. After washing up, with a little time still left before opening hours, he went over his current cultivation methods upstairs. First was Wandering Dragon Freehand, the first method he had ever trained. Among martial cultivation methods it ranked in the strongest tier, covering movement techniques as well as fists and feet — flexible and endlessly variable, with an answer for any martial method at close quarters. Then the keenly lethal sword-control art: fast, with fierce power. Its only flaw was perhaps a lack of variation; he could buy some advanced sword formulas later to make up for it. With these two in hand, he had more than enough to wander like a dragon through the lower three realms. Next came the Thunder Roar Art and Flash Art he had studied last night. Yue Wen closed his fist lightly, and rolling thunder rose from his palm, rumbling as though he were squeezing a ball of thundercloud. He dispersed the thunder, then snapped his fingers, flicking a point of starlight from his fingertip. It burst with a bang into a dazzling ball of white light that filled the entire room. When he had first seen those two sorceries the night before, an idea had taken shape in his mind. They might be minor supernatural powers, but in certain moments they could be enormously useful. For instance, in some cramped space, if he abruptly cast the Flash Art, even a cultivator's vision would go pure white, and he would be unable to see for a good long while. Even if a cultivator could lock onto his qi aura with divine sense, he certainly couldn't react that fast on such short notice. And then Yue Wen could seize the opening to strike — one sword through the heart! As for the Thunder Roar Art, its rumble stunned the senses and could mask all sorts of sounds besides; used well, it was just as crucial. Using these two moves merely to show off would honestly be a waste. The supernatural arts bought from Da Long were high in quality but steep in price — not the kind of thing to buy casually — so these minor supernatural powers were exactly what he lacked. And asking Qi Dian for two of those wouldn't make the man feel the pinch at all. He came away with gains and banked a debt of gratitude besides. If he had actually demanded a fortune or a treasure as payment for saving his life, Qi Dian would probably have paid it — but that favor would have been spent and gone. Yue Wen kept a clear ledger in his heart. Beyond that were the two visualization diagrams Da Long had stamped into his mind, neither yet mastered. The demon hide's curse-breaking method was more complicated than he had imagined. He tried visualizing it once, and in an instant it was like plunging into a blood grotto of the demon realm: thick, reeking purple blood on all sides, demon shadows massed layer upon layer, blotting out everything. Piercing it would likely cost him several extra days. Sometimes it took more than comprehension; it also depended on whether a diagram suited the one contemplating it. This curse-breaking method belonged to the dark and evil demonic path, so Yue Wen simply had to grind harder at it. Hand him some bright, sunny sorcery instead, and he would master it with ease. The other was the Gang Realm volume of the True Dragon Dao Method. No wonder the Gang Realm volume was so expensive — its complexity was nothing a lower-three-realms method could compare with. If the Flash Art's visualization diagram was like an elementary school textbook, then the True Dragon Dao Method's Gang Realm volume was the original Jin Ping Mei: a massive upgrade in the volume of knowledge, and all of it in classical prose. To break through to the Gang Realm was to refine out a full body of one's own gang qi, and the gang qi each method produced was different. The gang qi of the True Dragon Dao Method was named "Chaos Dragon Gang." As the saying goes, great fire refines gang: to refine gang qi, one had first to kindle a spiritual fire in the sea of qi — which was exactly why breaking through to the Gang Realm required preparing materials. Cultivating Chaos Dragon Gang required Purple Jade Branch, Blazing Flame Powder, Taiyi Mystic Blaze Cinnabar, and Dragon Breath Fire Seed. Every one of them costly and rare. Yue Wen was unspeakably glad he had obtained this method in advance on installments. Otherwise, if he had to save up his evil-suppressing coins first and then gather these materials on top, breaking through would have to wait until who knew when. He did a rough search on the Cult Chat forums. The price wasn't the biggest problem — the biggest problem was that hardly any of these things could be found on the market at all. It seemed he would have to go feeling for them slowly. Fortunately he was only at the late stage of the Third Realm, still some time from completing it; there was time to prepare. Anyway — run the agency well first, and the money would come, and the evil-suppressing coins would come too! ... It was also on this crisp morning. Zhao Xing'er, white shirt above and long gray skirt below, boarded a bus. A face brighter than sunshine rested against the window glass, drawing round after round of sidelong glances from passersby. Once she had settled into her seat, she took out her phone and sent a message to the person on the other end: "Mystery, I'm about to start my very first day of work! I'm a little excited!" The reply came back in seconds: "Go get 'em, Mystery! Here's my four-word gift to you: soar to great heights!" "Thank you!" Zhao Xing'er typed at lightning speed. "I'm going to work hard, slay demons and evil, and make a name for myself! Build a great career right here in Jiangcheng City! Starting today, I'm going to..."