Even though treating Wang Ren would be a little gruesome, I couldn't resist the excitement. The doctor in me relished the thought of another novel procedure.

"Good news or bad?" I asked him.

"Bad first, always," he replied without hesitation.

"This is going to hurt. A lot," I told him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"That goes without saying," he sighed. "Although that means you can cure it?"

"That was the good news," I chuckled.

"How will you do it?"

"I need to cut away all of the transformed flesh and then heal it back to your old physique," I explained.

He grimaced, immediately realising this would be more akin to torture than a treatment. Often there was a fine line to be trod. This procedure was really testing the limits.

After a moment of silent contemplation, his eyes suddenly lit up. His gaze moved towards the chitinous glaives that had replaced his hands. "Is there any way I could keep these?" he said, lifting them towards me.

Realisation dawned with his words. He was lacking a weapon after Zhu Lai destroyed the glaive his master gave him. These were tough and sharp, a suitable replacement until we found a smith to repair his true glaive.

If I was precise enough with my cuts, I could maintain the form and he could perhaps use them in the interim. "It should be possible, although it means I'd have to cut a lot deeper than I was planning. If you can handle the pain, I can do it."

He nodded a few times, mulling it over. "In that case, just keep one. If the pain is manageable we can try for both. I can't wield two glaives, anyway."

"Alright, I'll do that," I replied. "Now, lie down and drink this," I said, taking out a gourd of wine from my spatial bag and offering it to him.

When he took a sip, he almost spat it out. "I thought that was water! What kind of treatment is this?"

"For the pain, fool," I snorted.

He took a proper gulp and handed it back, before lying down and clenching his fists. After taking the gourd back, I took a big swig myself and then stored it.

I ran my eyes over his body, wondering where I should start. Was it better to start with the most painful, precise cuts—removing the glaives—or to being with the easy parts and work my way up to the finale?

Understanding my thoughts, Wang Ren interrupted them. "Do the glaives first. Hopefully the pain will shock me enough to knock me out and I can sleep through the rest," he quipped.

"As you say, Senior Brother."

"Don't call me that, idiot Sect Leader," he immediately replied.

Our usual banter brought a smile to my face as I gathered my qi and formed the sharpest scalpel to date. His cultivation had reverted, but I had a suspicion this procedure would bring me to the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm.

"Here goes nothing," I announced, grasping his arm firmly in one hand and opening a deep incision with the qi scalpel.

Wang Ren winced, but didn't make a single sound of complaint. He was a warrior through and through, but this was only the beginning.

****

For the most part, the procedure went off without a hitch. Wang Ren had made a few grunts of pain while I cut away the first glaive, but after that he remained strong.

He hadn't passed out, much to his dismay. However, the wine seemed to do the trick. I had been worried I might not be able to precisely cut away the glaive and maintain its structure, but my fears were unfounded.

He sat against the wall, resting and recovering from the intense surgery. I had healed his body completely, but he was drained.

It was the first time I had regrown so much flesh in one go for a single patient. I noticed that while the physical body was healed, there was an invisible fatigue left behind.

It made sense. The energy to restore physical matter had to come from somewhere. Even in this magical world, there were laws that had to be obeyed.

They might not be exactly the same as the laws of physics from my old world, but they existed nonetheless. As I predicted, the healing had pushed me to the precipice between the Qi Gathering and Foundation Building Realms. Once again, I found myself pondering on my path. My Dao.

More than once I had felt the invisble affirmation of the world itself while advancing. Usually when I made mental breakthroughs, rather than those in my cultivation.

It was almost as though the world itself was resonating with my choices or my understanding of the world and my path. Was that what it meant to comprehend the Dao?

From what I understood, one's dao was supposed to be a personal thing. An understanding of the world and the path one wanted to tread as they advanced to its pinnacle.

For many, it was made easier by following the path laid down by their forefathers and ancestors. Common daos, such as the elemental ones—water, fire, lightning—were an example of this.

In my case, I was once again left alone. If others had walked the path of healing before me, trying to understand this complex field, I had not heard of them. Neither had the majority of those in our corner of the Celestial Jade Empire.

My confusion came from understanding the nature of the dao. Was it simply a way of understanding one's path, or did it have a form of its own?

The way more advanced cultivators spoke of it made it seem as if it were something as physical as a fist or powerful as a qi technique, yet that made little sense to me. As far as I knew, comprehending it to that extent wasn't a requirement for entering the Foundation Building Realm, but getting a headstart couldn't hurt.

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While I was contemplating these matters, Wang Ren was kneeling over the chitin glaive blade with a knife in one hand and a wooden stick in the other. He had snapped it from the foundations of the tower and was carving it into a shaft for the blade.

"Where did you learn how to refine weapons?" I asked with curiosity. As far as I knew, Elder Bang had never possessed such knowledge.

"This isn't refining, not really," he replied, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow. "Master taught me how to care for my glaive. This is closer to a poor quality repair job than constructing a new glaive. It should last until we reach our destination," he explained.

"That makes sense. I'll leave you to it. I want to see what happened to the city after I killed Zhu Jie," I replied, walking towards the stairs.

"This should only take about half an hour more. I'll meet you at the entrance of the tower," he called after me.

The first thing I noticed as I descended the tower was that it was as if a maid had scrubbed it floor to ceiling. All the webs which had covered every inch of the rooms were gone, the dust eradicated.

I greeted the two people I had cured on our way up, explaining the situation to them. When they heard that Zhu Jie was dead, they were shocked.

For a moment they refused to believe me, but then they were overcome with joy. I left them crying tears of happiness and entered the streets.

There was no trace of the walking corpses. The cobbles were coated in a thick layer of sticky ash. After a few steps my face twisted in disgust when I realised what the ash was.

I was walking through a field of disintegrated corpses.

It only took a wave of my hand to send a burning pulse of qi across the ground, eviscerating the remains of the endless dead. The least I could do was give them a proper send off.

With my senses, I could only find about half a dozen life signatures. They belonged to all of the guardians who were now free from Zhu Jie's control. Apart from them, the city was empty.

It was a far cry from the vibrant, beautiful scene that had greeted us when we first entered. The first rays of the dawn sun broke over the horizon, bathing the valley in hues of gold.

There was a strange beauty in it. I felt relieved. What was supposed to be a short, restful stay had turned into another twisted nightmare.

This time we had escaped with our lives intact, even progressing in our cultivation, but I would have preferred a journey without interruption. No more staying in unmapped cities until we reached our destination.

As he promised, Wang Ren met me at the base of the tower around twenty minutes later. In his hands, he held his new glaive. The shaft was plain wood, with twisting inscriptions carved up its length.

The blade was already hollow, formerly being attached to his arm. He had sealed it to the shaft with a fibrous string and wiped away all the blood and viscera.

The finished product was a gleaming, blue-black blade that reflected the light of the sun. It was razor sharp, a perfect weapon for a powerful warrior.

"Perhaps you should consider taking up refining," I commented, admiring his craftsmanship.

"I don't have the time for it. Once the sect is properly established and we've returned from our adventure, perhaps," he said, then his gaze hardened. "The only path ahead of me is blood and fire, until I have enacted justice for Master Bang."

I sighed. The demons in his heart would not be vanquished until he had slaughtered Elder Bang's killers. All of them.

"You will. The Blossoming Heavens is supposed to contain boundless treasures. You may find something within to assist your goals," I replied as we passed the walls, leaving the city behind us.

I hoped to never return. Whatever became of Dancing Lights City, it had nothing to do with me.

****

Much to my relief, the rest of our journey to the capital city of the Celestial Jade Empire went by without any further incidents. We stopped once more, but the town was one I had known of before our journey.

No evil beasts ruled over it, puppeteering our twisted demise. We paid a few silvers each and slept in rough beds, waking up feeling rested and ready to continue.

"Have you been to the capital before, Dan?" Wang Ren asked me as we travelled down the Imperial Road.

For the entire day, it had grown busier and busier. Thousands of pedestrians, caravans, and people riding beasts filled the wide road. All of them were travelling to the capital.

Occasionally, a beast or cultivator would fly overhead. All of the mortals would gaze up in wonder as whispers of immortals broke out.

Those cultivators like us, who had yet to gain such abilities or a beast mount which could carry us through the skies, could only stare with envy in our hearts. Who didn't grow up dreaming of flying?

"No, never," I replied. "To be honest, I've never been anywhere but the Cloudy Falls Sect, my ancestral clan home, and Million Flowers Celestial Peak. Even my memories of home are blurry."

It was the truth. Zhao Dan had been sent to the sect when he was young, the moment he displayed talent for cultivation. I could only see fragments of his childhood when I looked back.

"I am not well travelled either," Wang Ren chuckled in response. "However, my father did take me to Celestial Jade City when I was six years old, for the spring festival. It was incredible."

He went on to describe the beauty of the city's architecture, especially the towering imperial palace, from which the Celestial Emperor ruled over the entirety of the empire. He was the most powerful cultivator in this world, although there were many hidden old monsters who could likely match him.

The difference was he had the Jade Seal of Heaven, an unparalleled artifact which made him unmatched in battle. It was the seal which gave the emperor the right to rule.

Legend said it had descended from heaven onto the first emperor, giving him the strength to conquer and unify the entire continent. However, it had happened so far in the past that no one knew the truth, except perhaps the imperial family themselves.

"The lights! I've never seen qi used in such a way. It was magnificent. It's a shame we missed it this time. We'll have to return again to see the next spring festival, you have to experience it at least once in your life," Wang Ren finished as the city walls appeared on the horizon.

"I believe you. It sounds incredible," I replied, nodding along at the right moments.

It didn't take long for the tiny and distant silhouette of the city to loom into a towering monstrosity. The walls were as high as a small mountain and the spires of the imperial palace even higher, peeking into the heavens from the centre of Celestial Jade City.

The palace was made entirely of green jade and gold, sparkling in the light of the sun. It was dazzling to behold.

When we were closer to the gates, the traffic split into three separate lines. One was a sporadic stream of people leaving the city, while the other two were for those queueing to enter.

All of the caravans and carriages had to wait for inspection by the Imperial Guard, while those on foot like us could simply pay the fee and enter. When the guard told me to hand over a gold coin each I nearly fainted from shock.

This was daylight robbery!

Not that I couldn't afford it—after the discovery of the spirit stone mine I was wealthier than even most cultivators—but it was the fact that simply entering the capital cost as much as an ordinary family would earn in an entire year which left me dumbfounded.

Then again, seeing how clean the streets were and the fact that almost everyone I saw inside was at least a Body Tempering practitioner it made sense. Everywhere I turned my head, there was at least one person who equaled me in cultivation.

Outside of the Cloudy Falls Sect I don't think I'd ever seen so many cultivators gathered in one place. "Was it this busy when you visited?" I asked Ren.

"Not at all! I thought it was packed when we came for the festival, but this is…" he remarked with wide eyes.

"It must be because of the Blossoming Heavens," I said in realisation. "Everyone in the entire world is here, not just those from the empire. It will only get busier in the next few days. Do you want to stay here or should we head straight to the entrance of the secret realm?" I asked.

"Let's stay here for one day. I want to at least try and find a smith to leave my glaive with while we're inside. I want to show you the city before we enter. We might not return," he said, chuckling with mirth.

"I suppose you're right. Let's live as if it were our last day. We should try to gather information while we're at it," I replied. "Now, where's the nearest inn? The wine's on me!" I said, clapping my hand on his shoulder.

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