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Jian Yi however seemed to be reading it with ease.

She and Gui Zu had met with her in the middle of the square and now she was spending close to twenty minutes reading every single line of characters on the papers. It was still early morning, but the crowd from breakfast had cleared out, leaving the square mostly empty where the three of them were now sat around a table––four, if you included Su Ling, who played with a pair of chopsticks in her lap.

Yu Li gave a questioning glance to Gui Zu, but the big man only shrugged.

After another few minutes, Jian Yi finally set the papers down.

“Well, I have to hand it to him,” Jian Yi said. “This is all legit. Chun’s done it. He’s established himself as a B-class citizen and created a new sect.”

Yu Li lowered her brows with irritation. Maybe this girl wasn’t as smart as Yu Li thought she was.

“It took you all that reading just to figure that out?” Yu Li said with a huff. “Even I knew that much at a glance. We already know he created a sect, but what does it mean for us? Can we use this to stop Hein?”

“It will help,” Jian Yi said, either ignoring or not perceiving the dig at her. “But Chun already cut that deal with Hein in front of an Imperial Guard. An unofficial Trial by Might. It’s not enforceable by the throne, but it carries much weight in terms of face.”

“Which means what?” Yu Li asked again.

“It means the match must still take place,” Jian Yi said. “But this officiates it somewhat more so now. As a B-class citizen, the results will be binding. And Chun is officially representing all of us now as both Leader and Warden of the Terran Sect. In effect, the threat Li Fet made to triple our rent is being challenged by Chun, with Hein as Li Fet’s proxy and Chun as our advocate. Li Fet may think twice when he sees this because it will mean he will legally lose his property under the law if Chun wins. Before, even if he lost, he would have been able to weasel his way out of it by merely suffering a small loss of face by reneging on the agreement. And for a man like him, with too little face to lose to care, he probably would have. But now, he’d be dead to rights in the eyes of not only his peers, but the law.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Gui Zu asked.

“Because I study the law,” Jian Yi said. She then took one of the papers, which had an imperial seal made of silver and waved it in the air. “And with this, I can now aim to become even a magistrate someday if I wish.”

“What is that?” Yu Li asked.

“It’s our establishment certificate as the first Chapter of the Terran sect,” she said. “We’ll be considered C-Class citizens under it. Which means we all have the right to attend post-Foundational studies. And people like Hein won’t be able to bully us so easily now either. Well… assuming Chun wins the match, of course.”

“I have all confidence that he will win,” Gui Zu said, folding his arms across his big chest with a smile. “He’s fought against some pretty tough customers already.”

“What? When?” Yu Li asked, but Gui Zu suddenly looked sheepish and didn’t answer.

“The main thing is that Chun needs to show up on time,” Jian Yi said. “If there is a no-show, Hein and Li Fet win by default.” She then looked to Gui Zu. “You need to make sure he’s here early, okay?”

“Ah…” Gui Zu had that sheepish look again. “That was the other reason we wanted to talk to you, Jian Yi. We were wondering if you’d seen him.”

“What?” For the first time Jian Yi looked concerned, her brows shifting downwards into a scowl. “Please don’t tell me he’s going to flake on us again!”

“No way he will!” Yu Li said emphatically. “He would never do that, especially not now.”

“So where is he then?” Jian Yi asked.

Silence fell around the table as three of them found no answer.

Finally, Gui Zu offered something.

“I’m sure he’s out preparing for the match somewhere,” he said. “I’ll take a look for him at the arena stables later. It’s not unusual for him to disappear for a couple days after all.”

“That’s true,” Yu Li said, feeling only slightly better.

“Well, be that as it may, we should be prepared for the worst.”

“If he doesn’t show up, you mean?” Gui Zu said slowly. “What would happen? Would we just have to accept Li Fet’s and Hein’s demands?”

Yu Li opened her mouth to protest, but then Jian Yi spoke ahead of her.

“No,” she said and then, looking directly across the table, Jian Yi made eye contact with her. “If your brother taught me one thing, Yu Li, it’s that we can indeed stand up for ourselves and fight back.” She then shook the papers in her hands. “We just need to arm ourselves with the right tools.”

“What do you mean?” Yu Li said.

“It means I’m going to make some preparations.” Jian Yi then stood from the table. “Do you trust me with these?”

Yu Li paused for a moment but then nodded. “What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going to ensure a proper representative from the empire is here to officiate the match tomorrow. That way Hein can’t just declare himself the victor if Chun is five minutes late or something. By law he’ll have the entire day. Till midnight.”

Yu Li blinked, confused yet impressed. Gui Zu was right to have trusted coming to her with this.

“What else can we do?” Yu Li asked.

“Find Chun,” Jian Yi said. “I can hopefully buy him more time, but that idiot needs to show up. The sword of imperial legitimacy cuts both ways.”

“Meaning what?” Gui Zu said.

“It means if we win, we own the place,” Jian Yi said. “But likewise, if Hein wins, even by default, we’re all going to be legally indebted to Li Fet…and when we can’t pay the rent, we won’t just be kicked out…the empire will declare us his slaves.”

* * *

Sweat poured from my brow as I struggled up the steep forest incline.

Kelsey aided me as best she could, tucked under my sweat-soaked armpit as she pushed me up the uneven ground made of rocks, moss and undergrowth. I reached for a small sapling, and enduring the sharp pain in my ribcage, used it to pull my bodyweight the rest of the way up the small hill. By the time I reached the top I was winded and bleeding through my bandages. I collapsed against a tree, panting hard.

The walk had been a lot tougher than I had figured it would be.

It’d only been an hour or so, the sun barely cresting over the horizon, but it felt like I’d just run a marathon. I hadn’t felt this weak since Foundation school, where the Yee students–– conditioned since birth––ran circles around me on the practice field.

“I need a quick break,” I said.

Kelsey frowned at me. “I really hope you’re not bullshitting about having magic powers man, because you’re looking like crap right now. If we get stuck out in this forest after dark we’re done for.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said with a weak smile, still catching my breath. “I lived to tell the tale remember?”

“Uh huh.”

Kelsey looked around, spinning in a circle before lowering herself to the ground and fingering through the dirt. “We need to change course a bit. Something big came through here not too long ago. Heading northeast. Same way we got to go.”

I furrowed my brow and looked at the trail. Sure enough, I saw the tell-tale signs of a clawed creature having already scaled the hill we were on. A rapling likely. A pushover were I back in fighting form, but now I was as weak as a mortal again.

Weaker even.

“You know, you’d make a pretty decent handler,” I said as we got back underway.

“What’s that?”

“My job back home,” I said. “Or what I do to earn a living anyway.”

I went on to explain how the whole system worked—the clients and how they had to pay for access to the wild and our role in ensuring they didn’t get themselves or us killed in the process of seeking rare cultivation materials. That led to more questions about the city and what daily life was like. I gave her a balance of the good and the bad, the oppression of the empire and haughty cultivators at every corner, but also the small luxuries we got to enjoy if we came upon a little extra coin.

“Sounds like heaven compared to the bunker,” Kelsey said with a grimace. “I’ve got to get out of there. All of us do.”

“You were saying before that your CO was heading to a sister bunker?”

“Yeah,” she said. Kelsey stopped for a moment before pushing aside a fern to check for tracks. “We’re part of a network of underground bases the military built back in the 1950s. For nuclear war and stuff. That’s why the place is so run down. No one was even using it anymore. Luckily my mom was dating one of the duty officers who was still running the place when the attack happened. He got us inside.”

“Where is he now?” I asked. “Is he back there?”

“Nah,” Kelsey said, starting off again. “He died a couple years in, according to Mom. I didn’t really know or remember him. Was too young. I don’t remember a lot of stuff thankfully. My mom says I probably blocked it all out. Those first few years were wild.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever seen rats trapped in a cage?” She looked at me with hollow eyes. “That’s what Mom said it was like. We were cut off from everything with only monsters outside. People started turning on each other. I think we only got by because the military was still in charge, but the soldiers brought their families and stuff, so things started getting territorial and personal. Jim kept law and order though. I remember him doing some crazy shit to keep us all in line.”

I was curious as to what, but I didn’t want to push any further. It was obviously traumatic, and I didn’t want her to have to relive things like that if she didn’t have to.

“I can imagine,” I said, pressing along the trail behind her.

“Anyway, they built a few of these places and they’re apparently all connected via hardwire using these small communications tunnels. The closest one is like 100 miles away. We were in contact with them for a couple of months my mom said, but then they got breached or something and the communications stopped. We sealed up the tunnel after that and it’s been closed since. But then about a year back, we ran out of food.”

“You still had food? After twelve years?”

Kelsey shrugged. “Hey, it was the military. They stocked the place with MREs to last like ten years or something.”

“MREs?”

“Meals ready to eat,” Kelsey said. “Pretty darn good compared to what we’re eating now. We made that stuff stretch for twelve years instead of ten. But after we ran out, we figured there might be a whole lot of supply left in Base Armstrong since they went down so quickly.”

“The sister base you mean. So that’s where Jim has gone?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “And they have to travel by foot since the tunnels are barely big enough to fit a couple people side by side. Not that we could drive through it if it were big enough anyway. We burned up all the diesel on the generator like two years ago. We don’t even have electricity anymore. Well, we do sorta. Some photocells to keep the lights working and once a year we crank up the generator to watch the reels.”

“Reels?”

“Old news clips from the attack. To help us remember why we’re still in hiding, I guess.”

“Damn,” I said. “That sounds pretty bad. Not that we have electricity either but at least we have Qi. Or rich people do anyway.”

“Sounds like the same stuff to me,” Kelsey said. “When I was younger things seemed a lot better. The teachers in school showed us movies and stuff. Cartoons.”

“You have teachers here?”

“My mom became one. As did others. She taught me and a whole lot of other kids how to read and write. History. Geography. Not that any of that matters anymore, of course.”

“No, you’re wrong,” I said and stopped her by placing my hand on her shoulder and spun her around to look her in the eye. “That stuff matters a whole lot now, Kelsey. Perhaps way more than you can even imagine. The Yee have erased our identity. Who we are. What you’ve kept alive here, are the very embers of human society that we need to breathe back into life.”

She stared back at me with a furrowed brow, as if I were putting her on or something.

“You’re really intense, you know that?” she said. “But like I said. None of it will matter if we don’t get food. And I don’t know when or if Jim will make it back.”

She turned and started off again, and I understood now why she had been so skeptical with her mom. 100 miles through a tiny underground tunnel and heading into the unknown? Hell, the place could be teeming with rapling nests or worse. And these guys were only mortals.

“I don’t know who Jim is,” I said, following after her. “But he’s a very brave man.”

“They all are,” Kelsey said. “He took the last platoon with him. It’s only Richards and a handful of the younger guys left here now. I was really hoping he would have left someone other than Richards in charge though. That guy is mad stupid.”

I burst out laughing unexpectedly, and regretted it immediately, clutching my side in pain. “Oh man,” I wheezed. “I haven’t heard someone say something like that in ages.”

Kelsey cracked an amused smile. “You really are a weird guy, Max. But I’m hella glad you found us. We were all starting to lose hope in there. I really hope you can bring us back some from whatever the heck it is you’re looking for out here. What are you looking for anyway?”

I stumbled over some loose rocks as I scanned the horizon. The heavy forest had transitioned to shrubland, but I couldn’t recognize a single landmark. “I don’t know to be honest. It’s more like something I just feel. Are we close to where you found me?”

“Not far now,” she said. “Come on.”

Kelsey assisted me again as we pushed on through the trail. I was gaining more and more respect for her. I’d had a rough childhood, but compared to what Kelsey had been through, I had nothing to complain about. Young, tough as nails, and pretty quick-witted to boot. It made me wonder just how many more like her had been forged in that dark dungeon of hopelessness.

A dungeon the Yee had forced them into.

Living like rats.

That’s all we were to them as mortals.

Rats.

The thought brought on a sudden anger and I sensed the heating of my Flame. I focused on it, eager to reignite my core, but then I realized it wasn’t all coming from me.

In fact, most of it wasn’t.

Coming to a stop, I attuned my senses.

Searching…

And then I felt it, like a crisp morning breeze.

Pure Frenzy.

It permeated my soul and within my mind’s eye I saw the lump of tar encasing my Flame begin to smolder. I headed in the direction of where I thought it was coming from and felt it getting stronger.

“It’s here,” I said, hobbling forward. “This way!”

Kelsey tucked herself under my arm again to give me support as the two of us began running in a three-legged race. We crested a small rise as the Frenzy grew stronger and then reaching the top, I found myself on the lip of a massive crater that looked to be at least fifty feet wide.

Holy shit, I thought. What was this?

A small object stood in the center, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.

“Come on,” I said, urging Kelsey forward as my heart began to race.

As we got closer, I made out more details, the Frenzy growing stronger.

It was about four feet tall, made of metal, like a plank of wood with a long cylindrical shaft sticking out the top. I recognized it immediately.

Threja’s sword…!

My heart leapt with excitement as I broke into a run to reach it.

It was like approaching a roaring fire, the metal radiating Frenzy like the sun.

I fell to my knees before it, still not believing it was even there.

Was this where she had ascended, I hoped?

Or perhaps where she might have failed?

“What is it?” Kelsey asked, peeking timidly over my shoulder.

As I looked at it closer, I saw an inscription etched into its surface in Yee.

‘For you, little brother, should you find this.’

My heart swelled with emotion as my eyes welled with tears.

Big Sis…

I could hear her voice as I read the words over and over in my head. I could barely believe it. She’d thought of me. Enough to leave me this. I took that as a good sign. For her to no longer need her blade, meant she’d outgrown it.

If that wasn’t proof of ascension, I didn’t know what was.

It made me wonder if that dream I’d had was more than just a dream.

Could it have been the real her? I didn’t know. In fact, I had no clue how the celestial world truly worked, but I liked to think that Threja was still looking out for me from somewhere up there.

And this sword was proof of it.

“You made it, big sis,” I whispered as I placed my hand on the sword. “Good on you.”

A jolt of energy coursed through my arm as I touched it—Pure Frenzy force feeding itself into my soul. It was so sudden and unexpected that I pulled my hand away.

“What happened?” Kelsey said. “Did it zap you?”

“Kind of,” I said as I struggled to get back to my feet. “But in a good way.”

“So again…what is it?” she asked.

“That,” I said, smiling at the hilt of the massive blade. “Is the sword of an ascended immortal.”

“A what…?”

“You may want to step back a bit.” I removed the poncho and flexed my hand, preparing to grip the sword.

Kelsey shook her head as she backed away. “No way…You’re actually going to try to King Arthur that shit? How deep is that thing even buried?”

I couldn’t focus on answering her as I instead looked inside my soul.

The lump of black tar was already bubbling and smoking, energized by the Frenzy radiating from the sword. I braced myself, engaging my meridians and then took hold of the metal shaft.

Frenzy coursed through my soul at the speed of light, igniting the tar on fire.

It burned with thick black smoke, the Flame red and angry.

I released a howl of immeasurable pain as the power streamed through me, breaking through the chunks of demon-ridden filth clogging my soul. As I cried out, black venomous smoke poured from my mouth and pores and Kelsey let out a scream.

I shook violently but I didn’t dare let go of the blade.

The smoke continued to belch from my lungs as I cycled the Frenzy though my system. The smoke grew less as my Flame grew brighter, shifting from red to orange, then orange to yellow and finally turning a brilliantly intense blue once again.

As the last of the tar left, I finally felt my own strength return, powered by something deep inside me. When I looked within, there at the base of my brilliant blue Flame, was a solid yellow gem.

My frenzied core.

With a thought, I engaged my powers, channeling my Frenzy into [Mark of the Giant].

Bones and sinew snapped and popped as my body mended itself in real time, growing more than a foot in just a few seconds.

Kelsey screamed again and fell back on her ass, scrambling away from me on her elbows.

I slid the giant ten-foot blade out of the hardened rock as easily as if it were buried in potting soil and then hefted it effortlessly into the air. Kelsey was staring at me with her mouth open, but no words came out.

I channeled my solid Frenzy to my Jing and let loose a thunderous bolt of lightning into the sky. To my surprise, the bolt was not yellow but blue, the same color as my augmented Flame.

I released a yell and thundered away again, celebrating both Threja’s ascension and my own.

I’d done it. I was back.

A full-fledged Core Realm cultivator with a brand-new demon’s heart to boot.

I then noticed something else about the sword.

It was glowing now.

At first, I thought it was a residual effect of my lightning, but when I looked closer, I saw thousands of tiny characters etched into the blade.

No way...

I almost expected to see the all too familiar characters from the orb. It had to be made of the same material after all. But the words were different. Shuras starting after those that ended in the orb.

Holy shit… had Threja written these for me?

Was this the true gift she had given me, not just the sword?

I was so caught up in the possibilities that I barely noticed that Kelsey was whimpering on the ground. She was still on her ass, looking up at me with terror in her eyes and fear in her soul.

I probably couldn’t blame her.

I was the first cultivator she’d seen up close and witnessing what I’d just done was an unnatural as you could get.

“Fear not, Kelsey,” I said with a smile. “It’s still just me. Got my magic back is all.”

I laid on the words with [Struggler’s Resolve] and the effect plus the smile eased her soul some. Eventually her hyperventilating subsided and she was able to look upon me with eyes wide with wonder instead of terror––fear replaced by awe.

“I can’t believe this,” Kelsey said as she got to her feet, unable to take her eyes off me. “Is this real? Like really real?”

I grinned at her. “You’re seeing for yourself, aren’t you?”

She paused for a moment, staring at me without words.

And then suddenly she screamed ecstatically.

“Holy shit, man!” Kelsey yelled, hands atop her head, flooding with lemonade. “This isn’t magic… you’re… you’re like Thor! You’re a freaking god!”

I chuckled as I hefted the blade onto my shoulder, Threja style. “Nah, Kelsey. The woman who owned this sword before me… Threja…she’s a god. I’m just her kid brother.”

Kelsey looked at me even more strangely and I laughed.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s time to get back to the bunker. Pronto.”

Before she could even respond, I scooped her up in my arm with a squeal of surprise and then slung her onto my back.

“Hold on tight,” I said, channeling solid Frenzy into my power-starved limbs.

“Okaaaaaaaay—!”

Her words stretched into a yell as I took off in a sprint, leaving a trail of dust behind us. Eventually the yell turned into a laugh of ecstatic delight as Kelsey locked her arms around me.

“Holy shit, man!” she screamed above the rush of the wind. “Faster! Faster!”

I let out a laugh and obliged her, tearing up the ground as I sped faster than a car.

My confidence and conviction had returned along with my Flame.

My Frenzy was back.

And so was I.

I had new enlightenment.

A thousand new Shuras to explore.

And I was every bit as powerful as the god Kelsey saw me as.

There was nothing holding me back now.

It was time to save my people.