AIR Chapter 45-47

AN: I just posted chapters 43 and 44 so go read those if you haven't already

Chapter 45 The Village Part 2

The dinner lasted for about an hour with everyone eating their share and taking themselves to bed afterwards. Renk, having just woken up, took his apprentice Taura and his books outside and towards the Light Tower. Medin packed the man full of food and dried meat as he went out and waved him off with a satisfied smile. The man waddled out like a pack donkey and his little apprentice followed, making sure to pick up any containers he dropped along the way.

Medin then came towards me, arms full of jerky, honey, and bread.

“Medin, please-” I tried to refuse. But the woman was having none of it.

“Nonsense. We always end up over-farming for the rainy season Mister Bill. If we don’t eat the food now it’ll all go to waste!”

I smiled and nodded as I accepted my second defeat of the night. Chin and Medin, the man who overfarms and the woman who overfeeds.

Even Rin Wi couldn’t escape the situation with some packed dinners of her own. We both bowed and headed out of the village, talking a bit as we did so.

“How are all the others taking to the village?” I asked.

“Alright,” She replied. “Though Mei Shan is having some struggle.”

“Oh? How so?” I asked.

Rin Wi shrugged.

“I suppose Mei Shan was always our leader. Ever since we were grouped together, she had taken the role of leader and the burden of it as well. And now that she doesn’t need to protect us… I assume she finds it hard to find a purpose.”

I thought about that for a moment. It was true. Mei Shan was the one who had approached me when I went to the Divine Beast Emporium, and though that itself sounded innocent enough on the surface, maidens who approached the customer were more likely to be assaulted in certain ways.

I had no care for romance or sex, but I was a rarity. What I had done to my mind and soul for power had affected me permanently, making me unable to love anything romantically. But most cultivators, given power, would take what they wanted when they wanted.

That included people.

“Is she alright?” I asked, my tone carrying a certain implication.

“She bared through it like we all did,” Rin Wi replied with a stiff voice.

“We had… methods of engagement. Damaged goods were useless after all and the Emporium took care to make sure we weren’t damaged. If a customer had requests that we couldn’t handle, then we’d get other servants who could. And besides, we were convinced that we were serving gods at that time. Creatures beyond humanity,” she finished.

“And now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Rin Wi said with a light head shake.

“Now I have no duties and no masters, and I see you, someone more powerful than any master I’ve ever served and… and yet you seem so much more mortal than all of them. So much simpler. It makes me believe my past masters couldn’t have been any better. Maybe they just were simply men pretending to be gods.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could hear a bit of the fear in her voice. The sheer terror at saying this to me, and the hope that I wouldn’t take it as an insult.

“Maybe,” I replied. “But even if they were gods, gods like wouldn’t be deserving of worship, would they?”

“No,” Rin Wi said with teary eyes staring into the deep night. “No, they should not.”

Then the skies colored gray. Storm clouds centered, surrounding us from either side. That wasn’t strange, it was the rainy season after all. But these clouds were dark, almost ash colored and they thundered with qi.

Rin Wi, for her part, recognized the situation. And I had already taken to hiding the phenomena from anyone else.

Off in the distance, lighting struck mountain tops. First, it was far away, hidden deep on the other side of the region and burning small forests in its wake. But every strike seemed to bring it closed, burning the distance between us in an instant.

The thunder was like a giant’s footsteps rumbling toward us furiously and every strike seemed to shake the earth as if it was trying to spit the land in two.

Rin Wi looked forward with a straight face, a face filled with nothing but resolve. She threw off her top, revealing the oversized tunic she wore beneath it, and instead of arming herself with a blade and shield, the woman pulled out kitchen knives.

A cleaver in one hand and an oversized kitchen knife in the other. Both of the blades seemed a bit too big for her, the cleaver seeming like it was made for a man twice her size and the kitchen knife was as long as her forearm.

But the strangest thing of all was that they were both mortal instruments, hand-me-downs from Medin’s grandfather.

“Rin Wi,” I spoke.

“It is my choice,” she replied.

I nodded. If I interfered, even to give her advice, the tribulation would only grow in strength and Rin Wi knew that.

The girl had made her choice and who was I to fight it?

The other maidens appeared behind me.

“Rin Wi!” Mei Shan shouted.

“I’m fine!” Rin Wi replied. “Just fine!”

“But-”

“I know Mei. I know. But I have to try.”

There was a stubborn calmness in her voice, one that Mei Shan seemed to know very well. With a final glance of concern, Mei Shan nodded.

Then the thunder struck. The sky split open and a white jagged stick of flame and lightning split the ground before us.

I had already set up an illusory array over the region, guiding both the maidens and the tribulation inside it. A pseudo space that overlayed the regular realm and hid the divine test from all except those I allowed to witness it.

Flame spat out, burning its way towards Rin Wi and she leapt, barely avoiding it in the nick of time. But the immortal fury was far from over. It twisted and turned, redirecting itself at her. She dodged, maneuvering around the stream of fire and lightning and using movement techniques to run faster than light itself.

An immortal’s tribulation was an immense one. If I hadn’t set out the illusory realm and brought everything inside of it before it had begun, this whole region could have been burned to nothing in the process.

More bursts of flame and lightning left the clouds, each seeking Rin Wi and each failing. She could dodge efficiently, she could even try to run away, and with her movement technique she could traverse across the continent in half an hour, but the tribulation would follow.

I raised my hand, expanding the illusory array and spreading it to cover the entirety of the plant. The strongest being in this realm was a tenth-rank fella currently in secluded meditation, which was three ranks below my own, so I didn’t have to worry about someone sensing my actions, but Rin Wi’s actions were different.

Rin Wi weaved through the thunder, avoiding the fury at every turn. She ran, traversing the length of the region and back within the short span of the valley. The tribulation followed, speeding up with each attempt.

Eventually, it became too fast. Its speed and power were beyond Rin Wi and the lightning and flame became faster than light itself.

Rin Wi raised her kitchen knife, imbuing it with qi and striking back at the divine judgment. She would have been better off using her hand or clothes instead of a piece of mortal metal, but she refused to put the instruments down, chopping at the fire with the cleaver and striking at the lightning with the knife.

“Why is she doing that?” Xi Lu muttered. “She has far better weapons than that in her storage ring.”

The lightning struck again and Rin Wi defended with the kitchen knife.

“Dao,” I answered. “To become an immortal is to become your own. You refine your body, will, and soul through tribulation and overcoming. Servants are generally pushed to the peak of the fifth rank, but not higher. Because if they go beyond that then they’ll need a dao, a purpose and belief that goes beyond their master, and Rin Wi seems to have chosen cooking as that purpose.”

“Why?” Mei Shan asked me.

“Dunno,” I shrugged. “But I do know that you can find purpose in anything, whether a king or a farmer, everyone can find a reason to persist, and her reason is to make food I guess.”

Rin Wi’s blades showed a slight crack and with every move she made, the metal seemed to break even more.

“Tribulation is a product of the self,” I said to the girls behind me. “All of this qi and lightning is Rin Wi’s. It’s what she seeks and what she soon will be. It’s like the soreness of a tired muscle during practice and the effort of a hard day worked. If she can go through it, all of this strength will come to her and push her into the immortal realm.”

“What if she can’t?” Mei Shan asked.

“Death,” I answered and I saw the girl’s face twisted in fear.

“Well at least if I wasn’t here,” I clarified. “I’ll intervene before that can happen.”

Mei Shan gripped her chest and looked worriedly at her sister.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be fine,” I said to her.

Mei Shan nodded in response.

Both blades were cracked now, basically broken, and only held together by Rin’s qi and nothing else. And Rin Wi herself bled from several places. Her right hand was painted red with the blade being unable to defend her, the lightning had worked its way through it and into her body.

Fire burned her left hand as her cleaver was unable to hold on and the burning qi had worked its way deep into her core.

And yet still she stood.

Many people thought that tribulation was a test from the heavens, an act of suppression against cultivators by some divine force above them. But that was wrong. Every stage increase had some sort of turmoil and usually, it was nothing more than an overabundance of qi production, forcing the qi to flow out of the body.

But in certain stages of growth, too much qi would be expelled, making the world itself feel threatened, and the world in response would try to take that qi and shove it right back where it came from.

An immortal’s qi was different from that of a mortal. It was dense and unending, concentrated in its amount and Rin Wi in her revelations had started to create it. The newly created immortal qi, unable to be held by a mortal’s body, leaked into the world and fought with the natural qi around. Then the realm would do its best to squash out that rebellion and shove the qi where it came from.

But Rin Wi was still unable to accept it. She had to reform herself, body, will, and soul, or otherwise, she risked death.

The lightning struck again, and Rin Wi swayed, her body almost collapsing under the force. Blood leaked from every crevice of the woman’s body this time and her skin split open like cracks on a mountainside.

I smiled.

“Clever,” I mumbled. “She’s shoveling away the excess qi into the blades, that’s why they haven’t broken yet.”

“Wouldn’t a stronger weapon defend against the tribulation better regardless?” Bri Lou asked me.

“Yes,” I answered. “But a weapon would be just that, a weapon. Rin Wi carries knives, objects that align with her Dao. If she holds through with this, then the blades would be stained with her very soul.”

The lightning struck again and this time, the blade held it back.

“She’s forging a soul-bound weapon, focusing on her blades before her body. Normally that’d be a stupid thing to do, but since her dao aligns with it... well, it’s still a stupid thing to do. But she’ll come out alive at the very least.”

A flame tunnel struck out at her and she fanned it away with her cleaver.

Rin Wi leaped. With her blade crossed in front of her, Rin Wi propelled herself into the storm of qi. Her scream echoed throughout the valley and her body glowed bright orange and she committed itself into the clouds.

I watched in silence as the storm raged. The two blades had been completely imbued with immortal qi by now, each able to block and defend against the tribulation but Rin knew that those blades couldn’t last her forever.

Chapter 46 Tribulation Part 1

Rin Wi’s blades crossed together as she leaped into the midst of the storm. Her heart was firm and her body was willing, but her mind, her mind was yet to gather.

Strange feelings bubbled inside of her. Fear and joy, love and hatred, eagerness and caution, an antithesis of emotion filled her very being. She could feel her dantians, each of them as mortal as her, but pulsating immortal qi vigorously. They were trying to grow, to strengthen and leap beyond the mortal realm.

But they needed a Dao.

Rin Wi had that, she realized. She had a dao and she had discarded it and that was the thing that pushed her over the edge.

Daos were a tricky thing to understand. They were the blood of the soul, the thing that could keep an immortal’s will alive after billions of years, and so very vital to cultivation.

Rin Wi’s dao was one that had been bred into her since birth, ingrained upon her being for hundreds of years. She could see it floating and mixing with the immortal qi before her. It was trying to come back, trying to weasel its way back into her soul.

She held the blades firmly. She would not let it.

The qi coalesced, sinking into one place above the clouds. Rin Wi watched from her spot in the clouds unsure of what would happen next.

“Listen, kid,” a voice suddenly spoke.

Rin Wi spun to her left to see the honored master there floating beside her.

“You’re going to have to fight this one out,” he continued.

Thunder roared from a distance.

“This is a rare form of tribulation, and the cons-”

Then lightning struck him. It struck him with more force and fury than Rin Wi had ever witnessed. It was as if a solid pillar of qi and flame had descended upon his being and burnt him to a crisp.

The honored master sighed, completely unaffected by the attack.

“The cons-”

Then again, the lightning struck.

“Would you relax?” The man yelled up to the sky. “I’m not aiding her in combat, this is purely advice. Advice I would have gotten to give her if we were given time to prepare. Nothing less than those little scions you treat so nicely.”

Thunder roared once more.

“Yeah, yeah. Well, you don’t really have a choice, do you?”

The lightning came again, but this time before it could strike. The honored master merely raised his hand and smacked it away, sending the thing reeling back to where it came from.

Space shuttered and a moment later, held still.

“Old realm still thinks it can beat me,” the honored master muttered. “Give us a minute and I’ll let you be, alright?”

There was an almost audible silence and the honored master smiled and nodded his head.

“Alright, what you’re facing is a rare form of tribulation called a demonic self. Normally when you ascend to the immortal realm, you expel qi, the realm rapidly tries to shove it back into you and you fight the realm while slowly reabsorbing your qi until you can both settle down. But this time, you didn’t only expel your immortal qi, but you also discarded your dao in the process, immediately picking up a whole new one as you did so.”

As the master talked the dense welling of qi grew and the storm clouds started to fade, each leaking their qi into the well.

“Due to that, you’ve effectively formed a dao angel. A coalition of your immortal qi and your previous dao.”

The well of qi took a humanoid shape, settling itself into a figure. It glowed for a moment, its face and form being a vague human-like figure, but Rin Wi knew what it was.

The light faded and there stood a woman. She was draped in a long and delicate robe and on it was the emblem of a dragon on a chain, the symbol of the Divine Beast Emporium. Her hair was a long dark-gold color and reached down to below her waist. She held a sword in her hands, one that Rin Wi was all too familiar with, a sword that Rin Wi had owned and practiced with many times before.

“Look at you,” her copy spoke. “You’re a disappointment. A broken tool.”

The woman wore Rin Wi’s old clothes and held her old weapon. She was a clone of Rin, down to her very qi.

“Then what does that make you?” Rin asked curiously.

“Why I’m the working version, the undulled blade. You’ve clearly discarded your purpose, choosing to cut vegetables and serve mortals instead of those beyond you. You’ve forgotten your place, reaching to have things you aren’t meant to have.”

“Oh really?” Rin Wi asked with a spin of her cleaver. “Seems like you’re the one who's forgotten her purpose. A discarded dao rebelling against her cultivator, now that’s a broken tool.”

The clone made a disgusted face.

“Rebelling?” the copy asked. “Was it rebelling when you served your betters? Was it rebelling when you knew your place and gained joy from a job well done? You had your purpose. You had me to guide you through your journey. It was I who showed you the purpose of servitude and the glory of your masters. And it was I who fueled you through decades of punishment when you failed to do your job.”

“I showed you a path forward! I pulled you through pain and sorrows until you stood at the pinnacle of your usefulness! A blade sharper than all! AND IF YOU HADN’T WAVERED THEN THE MASTER WOULDN’T HAVE TOSSED YOU TO THE SIDE WITH SUCH LITTLE CARE!” The dao yelled out.

The honored master whistled next to her.

“She’s a pissy sport,” he mumbled.

Rin Wi was about to respond, but the man interrupted her.

“Don’t speak. She can’t see me or sense me. That is the dao of servitude, after all, if she sees me she’ll immediately declare me her master and refuse to fight. And Rin, trust me when I say you will need to fight her. There’s no way around it. Dao angels are rare and Dao angels that are the byproduct of a single cultivator are even rarer. But if you don’t end this now then the rest of your path forward will be filled with heart demons and self-doubt. She’ll worm her way into your soul and will refuse to leave. So you gotta end this, understand?”

Rin Wi was still staring at her copy, studying the woman’s figure through the clouds. Then she nodded and headed straight for her clone.

Cleaver met sword and knife met hilt during their first clash and sparks flew from the point of impact, echoing loudly through the skies. More blows were traded, one striking an ancient immortal sword and the other with a mortal’s kitchen knife.

Two hundred clashes rang in a single instant and then they both leaped back, each having tested the other.

Rin Wi was damaged, having endured injuries from the lightning tribulation, she was already walking into the fight at a disadvantage. And her clone, while unable to generate qi, due to the lack of dantians, was bursting with the bits of immortal qi that Rin Wi had failed to absorb.

She was effectively fighting an immortal, a task she would have deemed impossible if not for one fact. The honored master had told her to win. He had told her that she, Rin Wi, needed to beat this demonic self tribulation, and Rin Wi believed that the honored master wouldn’t say that unless she had a chance.

This time, the clone initiated the attacks, slashing at Rin with her sword. Rin blocked and defended with her cleaver, but the clone was fast. She struck again and Rin moved the knife to parry, but she was too slow. The copy’s blade struck through her right shoulder, barely missing the bone.

Rin pushed her foot against her opponent’s chest and propelled herself off the blade, finding herself floating a good distance away.

“You have no laws, no strengths, hells you wouldn’t even know how to swing a sword if it wasn’t for me,” the clone mocked.

Rin clutched her wound, trying her best to mitigate the invading qi. It was rough, moving through her muscles like a worm eating a leaf. The cut had been clean and the qi had been brought into her with precision, just as she would’ve done it.

Rin Wi breathed heavily as her clone approached. Could she win this?

The clone swung again and this time Rin Wi dodged, bringing herself beneath the blade and pushing against the air behind her. But again, the immortal clone was faster. Another stab wound appeared on the opposite shoulder this time.

Rin Wi grimaced as she looked up at her assailant.

“Always distracted,” her clone muttered.

Rin pushed off, unskewering herself off the woman and falling to the ground beneath. She landed with one folded and both arms limp.

“Always so stubborn,” her clone spoke, seeming to appear directly in front of her.

Rin Wi pushed back, barely avoiding the blade at her neck. The clone didn’t let up and followed her retreat, swinging lazily in her pursuit.

The attacks were simple, lacking in laws and strength, but they were from an immortal. Each swing could level mountain ranges and cut through valleys and yet for some reason, here Rin Wi stood fighting her.

“Even if I shall fade, I will make sure to take you with me,” the dao angel spat. “One last cleaning before it ends.”

Chapter 47 Tribulation Part 2

Rin Wi ran. That was all she could do at the moment. The immortal was not a creature she could keep pace with in battle.

Her copy couldn’t produce qi, but it had sucked up all of the immortal qi Rin had created during her enlightenment. Her dantians flashed, pulsating with a bit more of that dense immortal qi and while Rin Wi closed her meridians in an attempt to conserve it, it would hardly make a difference in the battle. She would, at best, accumulate a puddle while her copy maintained a pool.

It would be a battle of attrition and Rin Wi would lose.

Her feet peddled against the ground, using her movement technique to propel herself to the furthest edge of the region, but even there her copy waited.

“Weakness,” her copy said to her. “Running away from your duties, running from your own tribulation. You’re not worthy of immortality.”

The copy swung once more and once more Rin Wi dodged, but just barely. The copy was faster than her. She was outpaced in strength and speed, and impossibly outmatched in qi reservoirs.

There was no use.

“Have you given up?” The copy asked her with a smug smile. “Mere minutes since you’ve abandoned me and you fall?”

Rin Wi stood silently as she breathed.

“No,” she spat. “I haven’t given up.”

Rin Wi took a moment to take in a few breaths full of qi.

“I’m just wondering as to why I’m still alive,” she finished. “You could have killed me a thousand times over by now. I mean, you are effectively an immortal version of me, aren’t you? Your qi might be limited but even then, you outmatch me in every way.”

The copy kept staring at her, still and unbothered.

“And yet I’m still alive,” Rin Wi finished. “Why?”

The woman raised her blade to her side and swung. This time, the attack cut through the air. Though the blade didn’t touch Rin, the cut left its edges and immediately buried itself in her gut.

Rin Wi fell. A wave of pain came from her stomach. The strange qi flowed through her body, seeming eager to wreak havoc where it went. It was dense and destructive, tearing apart her meridians wherever it reached.

Rin Wi screamed, and liquid left her mouth. She coughed, choking on her own blood, struggling to breathe.

“And arrogant, oh so arrogant.” the clone mumbled as it walked towards her.

Then the clone grabbed her head and lifted it close to its own.

“I want you to suffer,” the dao angle whispered. “That’s why I haven’t yet killed you. Now run."

It threw Rin Wi across the land, tossing her further than the eye could see. Rin Wi didn’t fight it. She could barely register its words through the pain much less run.

But she could think. That was the gift of the servant, the gift of her past. Even when she was being punished she could think, that was Rin Wi's best trait. The pain was bad sure, but some of her punishments had been worse, and she’d gotten through those so truly, what was this predicament?

Rin Wi focused her mind on the invasive qi. It was spreading, but not nearly as fast as she thought it would and it was causing damage, but again, not nearly as fast as expected.

Why? She thought.

This was a blow from an immortal ranked being. She was an insect to this creature, an ant. No. Rin WI didn’t buy it’s I want you to suffer, statement.

That made no sense. This was a Dao Angel, not a person. It wasn’t capable of resentment, yet it was faking it, forcing her to run and be whittled down, little by little.

Why? She thought again.

She held herself still, pretending to be knocked out while she attacked the invasive qi within her. She retrieved her senses and buried them deep within herself. She sent qi into her eyes and ears, bursting the eardrums and forcefully ending her vision before the clone could catch up.

She didn’t know the power of an immortal, but she did know that the Servent Mothers could always tell whether you were sleeping or not by sensing the qi activity in your eyes and ears. Of course, they would die without qi but that would take time.

Then Rin Wi waited. She laid there for minutes, first five, then ten, and then twenty. Slowly working on whittling down at that immortal qi. She had no sense of the outside world aside from her skin, and even that wasn’t enough to let her figure out where the immortal was.

Rin WI thought silently during this time. What did she know of dao angels? What was their purpose? She’d had a few of them as customers back in the Divine Beast Emporium and the policy was to be kind but direct for them. They weren’t exactly people but more of a manifestation of human thought, beliefs made flesh.

Some were powerful, like the Angel of Death or the Angel of Time. Those creatures were said to be at the level of a God Imperium. What was it they said about these creatures? They weren’t the thing itself, more of a collective representation of how people viewed the thing.

But this dao angel was different. This wasn’t a collective reflection of humanity’s idea of servitude, this was her idea of servitude. It was her own insults the thing hurled at her, her own perspective and beliefs.

Her own qi as well.

Suddenly the invasive qi collapsed into her own, the difference between the two becoming unknowable. The realm had tried to force her own qi back into her through lightning and flame. The only reason it had stopped was because the dao angel had started to do the same.

Rin Wi’s eyes opened and her eardrums mended themselves, returning her to her senses. And sure enough, there was the dao angel staring down upon her.

Rin Wi smiled, slowly getting up to her feet. Her wounds leaked blood and pain still howled through her broken bones, but that was bearable. All pain was bearable.

“End this,” Rin Wi spoke. “No more waiting for me to get up. Just end it.”

“Gladly,” the angel spoke raising its blade to swing.

And Rin Wi stood, waiting for the strike to cut down on her.

But it never did.

“You can’t kill me? Can you?” Rin Wi asked. “You’re not just a dao angel, you’re my dao angel.”

The clone didn’t speak, only looking at her with unbothered eyes.

“Why do we serve?” RIn Wi asked the clone.

“To live,” the clone answered. “To be useless is death.”

And there it was. Those words were the mantra she had repeated over and over again throughout her lifetime. Her mantra. And back then, those words were true.

We live to serve, and when we become useless, we die.

That had been her reality ever since she was taken up by the Servent Mothers. Those were the words that fueled her. The words that showed the only path forward throughout the subjection process.

When she had been recruited.

When she had to say goodbye to her family.

When she was forced to live centuries in training, knowing her parents and siblings had long since turned to dust.

When she finally forgot their faces and voices.

When all she wanted was death, but couldn’t even be given that release.

That was what had kept her alive.

Those words stood before her now, strict and angry. They had been abandoned, tossed to the side for a chance at freedom.

But it wasn’t just anger. Rin Wi looked at the creature before, truly studying its presence with her senses.

A dao was the path a cultivator chose to take. It was the thing that kept them alive and breathing, the hope that allowed them to struggle through the great expanse of torment and time.

Rin Wi had never gotten to choose hers. Her dao was the only one open to her, the dao of servitude. She couldn’t have done anything else. She wasn’t allowed to do anything else. She tried to fight for a time, but it was no use. She was broken in over and over again, and each time she was quicker to give up than the last, till eventually, the rebellion was nothing more than a quick thought in her head.

And in front of Rin Wi stood the part of her responsible for it all.

The Servant Mother within.

Rin Wi swung her cleaver, aiming for the thing's throat, but the clone sidestepped and stabbed. Her opposite’s blade cut through Rin’s stomach and out her back, the invasive qi flooding through her in an instant.

Rin swung her knife, and the kitchen utensil rushed towards the clone's throat, but again, her opponent dodged with ease.

A fist slammed into Rin’s face, unskewering her from the blade and away from her opponent. Her body flung past mountains and clouds before crashing deep into the earth.

Rin wanted to scream, but the pain wouldn’t let her. Her wound blazed in silent agony and her whole body radiated pain as the invasive qi ran throughout her body.

But she still lived.

The qi moved, piercing and penetrating her meridian pathways and the pain moved with it. It bit in and out of her like a worm squirming through the soil.

Rin Wi felt herself being torn asunder.

But still, she lived.

How? She thought. How am I still alive?

The qi bit again.

How am I still alive?

It bit harder as if it didn’t like those thoughts, but not enough for her to die.

Then it struck her.

It’s still my qi, isn’t it? She thought. It’s my power.

RIn Wi looked within and called the immortal qi. It refused, tugging away from her like an angry child, but she didn’t give up. She pulled again, demanding this time instead of asking and the qi relented.

It was like a dam had burst deep within her. The immortal reflection ran at her again and speared threw her once more, but Rin Wi didn’t stop.

The pain was a distraction, the suffering was a mere illusion. The pain was there ofcourse, but the hurt, the hurt wasn’t present. The qi wasn’t cutting through her meridians, it was reforming them. The qi was pushing her body beyond that of a mortal and into the immortal.

Her clone struck once more, this time with more fury and pain, but Rin Wi smiled through it.

You gotta end this, understand? the honored master had said.

This was not a battle of strength, nor was this a battle of qi or power. It was a battle of dao. It was a battle between who she was and who she strove to be.

“YOU BARELY COOKED IN THE EMPORIUM, AND YET YOU’D CAST ME ASIDE FOR THAT?” The Dao screamed.

“SOME VAGUE HOBBY YOU BARELY UNDERSTAND. YOU’LL THROW AWAY EVERYTHING YOU ARE FOR COOKING?”

There was no sword this time, just words, but they cut Rin just the same.

It was true, she was rejecting everything she was, everything she had been, just for some hobby she had picked up this very month. Centuries of suffering, of conditioning, and pain, all thrown away for what? A distraction?

“You can still become an immortal,” the clone spoke. “Just throw those blades away and be what you truly are. Think of how valuable you could be, how useful. You could prove yourself once and for all, and show yourself as the brightest. You’d be an immortal servant Rin, that’s beyond rare, no master would ever leave you!”

That was true. Immortal servants had to have a Dao, and a dao by nature, guided you above all things, even your master. So the only way one could get an immortal servant was if you somehow managed to ingrain the Dao of servitude upon a person.

It was what the Emporium aimed for, seeking to make the ultimate tools out of beasts and humans.

It was what Rin Wi had been aiming for.

She’d met an immortal servant once, and he had been treated like the most precious jewel in existence. He was wanted, perfect and refined, and his eyes were empty of pain or suffering.

He looked almost dead and Rin Wi was jealous.

Then the blades shuddered. The mortal weapons Rin Wi had almost forgotten about shook with indignation. The cleaver and the knife surged with energy, the Dao within them fighting against the servitude.

But it was no use. Rin was no cook, she was barely a person. Why had she chosen this measly Dao anyway?

“What do you feel up for then?” Medin’s voice echoed in her head.

The woman had asked her for her preference of chores and Rin Wi had chosen to cook. It was such a silly choice. Rin would have been far more effective at other tasks. Cleaning, butchering, security, she was much better suited for everything else aside from cooking.

But Rin Wi had chosen to cook.

Rin Wi Had Chosen.

Oh, RIn Wi thought in realization. It doesn’t matter why.

The choice hadn’t mattered. The dao hadn’t mattered. Nor did the efficiency or any other practical aspect of the choice. What mattered was that she had chosen it. She had picked the chore and she had picked the cleaver.

Her Dao of cooking wasn’t important because she liked it.

It was important because she had chosen it.

Rin Wi screamed and clung her blades, funneling as much of her own will as she could into the utensils. The brittle mortal blades had already been pushed far beyond their capability, but Rin Wi refused to let them break.

“WHY??” The immortal screamed. “WHY DO YOU FIGHT ME??”

Rin Wi pulled at its qi, drawing in her own immortal qi through pain and suffering. It couldn’t hurt her, it was her qi, after all, just a little bit different.

The dao angel shrieked as it lost power.

“WWHHHYY?” The angry thing screamed, stabbing at her in an attempt to kill.

Rin Wi smiled, absorbing every strike of qi selfishly.

“Because,” She said. “I want to.”