I was tired when I woke up. It felt like my soul had gotten into a fight and lost.

Rest, the Tome spoke.

But something in my head told me to get up, it told me to start working.

I didn't think he would go this far.

I was lying in the middle of a field somewhere. I had been stargazing, staring at all the pretty moons and twinkling stars.

"I've gotten a lot of books from a lot of libraries," I whispered, head still aching.

Yes.

"And you are by far the worst of them."

Knowledge is a burden, the damn thing said sagely.

"Can I return you?"

If you wish, although I would always be able to speak to you regardless of the distance. And besides, now that you have seen that gate and the Fisherman, my powers alone can not influence you. Nei Lo didn't care to keep her influence on you so she let go, but I've convinced her to let you have the memory.

"The what?"

A God-Imperium owns themselves, even in your mind. If she wished to do so, she could undo the moment of your meeting in an instant and rip away any influence she had on you.

"When you say undo, you mean more than erasing my memory, don't you?"

She would take the very event and make it not have happened.

I just laid there, still tired in ways I had never felt before. I ached in my core, it almost hurt to think.

His gift did come at a cost, though I believe it will be beneficial for both your soul and cultivation.

"I didn't know souls could hurt like this," I muttered.

That was not the cost.

A tingling sensation ran down my spine.

"What?"

He has changed numerous things about you.. Key amongst them being-

"No," I cut in.

Your fate. You will now draw people closer to you, powerful people of all abilities and daos.

I felt ill.

It was a fair trade. You looked at the Gate, a thing of great importance and if it weren't for your mortal nature, you would have perished entirely. But you have seen both the Gate and the Dragon, and to see the Gate is to reach for it. Most see it at the cusp of the sixteenth, some earlier. You can feel it even now, can't you? The urge to act, to move, the desire to grow and cultivate?

"I can feel it," I whispered. "Was it- did he mean to do it, or was it just the consequences of looking at the Gate?"

Neither and both, but it would not have happened had you not looked at the Gate. It did not break you because the Gate itself is empty. It is merely the path, the doorway to Imperium. It has no nature except for the nature of Imperium. If your whole being had been there, you would have been driven mad with desperation. You would have known omniscience but not had it. It would be like going from what you are now to a mere germ unable to even think. Your soul would have withered and rotted through and through.

Stolen novel; please report.

"But that didn't happen," I replied.

Yes, your soul was only destroyed and before that could even fully happen, the Fisherman touched it and kept it together. And by doing so, a bit of his nature leaked into yours.

"Can I-"

No. It provides you with no benefits, just like Wukong's nature or mine. It has only left a mark, a memory of the Gate and what you could achieve should you dare to try.

"Can I get rid of it?"

If you wish to be undone entirely, yes. Much like Wukong's nature, the Fisherman's nature represents a moment where he saved you from absolute destruction. You do not have the power to remove it but even if you did, all you would find is death.

I thought about it. Death didn't sound so bad, not when I compared it to what might come next.

War.

Maybe in a thousand years, maybe in a million or a billion or some other number. But it would come in a finite amount of time, and when it did, I imagined the small bits of existence I had witnessed and imagined it broken and dead.

Or maybe nothing would change, and we would be like the worms beneath the earth, hearing the occasional explosion and the rapid beats of gunfire, but blissfully unaware and mostly unaffected.

The moment the war started, Tai Jey would come for me, and he would try to kill, if not torment, everything I had ever touched.

From the village to the girls to Nai and even Forn, a person I would struggle to call an acquaintance. I had done something and the consequences of it would be immense.

I could hear a monkey laughing in the distance. He was watching and being entertained.

I could see a Fisherman through the murky waters, staring down at me from the river banks.

And I could see the waterfall behind, threatening to drag me down if I didn't keep swimming.

I hated cultivating. It felt like climbing up a mountain just to reach the summit and fight with the people on top.

But I wanted to do it. No matter how pointless it was, I wanted to climb. If I grew stronger, more people would live. More mortals would flourish.

I got up, closed my eyes, crossed my legs, and cupped my fist.

I was a frog in a well, and I liked it. It was quiet and peaceful. But I had been dragged out and forced into the pond, then the lake, then the ocean, and now I simply couldn't go back.

********

When Forn looked out into the trees, she felt adventure. She saw a challenge that awaited her. She saw an eternity of struggle and waiting, fights with beasts and men alike. She had spent her whole life within the Cosmic Forest, and originally, she had planned to spend the rest of her existence amongst those trees, diving ever deeper and deeper.

She wanted to bathe in that growth, in that struggle of life. She wanted to prove herself. That was where she believed her story would be; that was where she was supposed to grow.

She loved that mixture of green and animal. She loved the stalking shadows, the chasing beasts. She loved the wildness of it all, the unrestrained death and freedom.

That was the forest to her, freedom.

But what that man had said stuck with her. What was the forest now?

Now, she looked at it and saw comfort. She saw home, her own backyard mostly. She would have to venture deeper into it, into the dangerous parts. She would have to risk her life, and even then, she wouldn't really be growing.

She'd just be having fun.

Yes, it was fun mixed with danger and death. It was noble in a way, pushing yourself to the ends of your power just to prove to the rest of the world that you could. It was a cultivator's way.

But it was also something she wanted to do. It wasn't a challenge, it was a risk. She wanted to fight, and when you wanted to fight, well, it was still a fight, but it wasn't a challenge. Not anymore.

The nobility of fighting came from the suffering, from the courage and grit required to do something that would risk your life. It came from not wanting to do something and doing it anyway. That was strength; that was grit.

What she wanted to do now was nothing more than fun, exciting, and, if she were being honest with herself, not all that risky activity. She was by her grove after all. Her father could sprint by and scoop her up before she knew what had happened.

She could run to him, plead to him, or wait for the situation to force him into action. The dangers to her were imagined at best.

She was just a child playing in the backyard of her home, poking at the local wildlife and calling herself a hero for it.

She remembered the man and how he had fought, how dirty it was and how efficient. That was a battle. He could have died while the beasts left her completely alone.

But he hadn't died. He used trickery and deceit to win.

He fought like an animal, far more than her, at least. Animals fought dirty, hunting in packs and using every bit of skill they could. They aimed for the throat or belly, or even anus. They sprayed foul liquids and attacked with no pride or honor in mind, only victory.

And that was how the man fought.

He was older than her, excruciatingly so. He had climbed from the ranks of a mortal man to what he was now, and even if he was at his limit, even if he were to die today, he could at least say he had gotten there all on his own.

Could she say the same?

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