The day dawned bright and clear, and warm, and in every way too beautiful for a farewell. Sat atop the library, staring upwards as the crystal sky as its azure unfolded, As vast and empty as heaven, atop its so far flung reaches, bedecked with all the flowing winds of summer… it was a truly, truly beautiful day. Far below him, he could hear the faint sounds of children playing in the cool dawn’s light, scampering around the park, their laughter joined by the breeze and carried up to the highest spots of city.

It was too nice, almost. He didn’t want to leave. He knew he had to leave. If only for Lily and Avyr— he’d come back, of course, but they… it was their last day in East Saffron, and he would be there to see them off. For their sake.

He wondered when the last time he’d felt so strongly about anything had been. Not for eons in the Celestial Realm at the very least. For all everything there mattered so much, it also… didn’t, in a strange and involuted way. The only way to truly advance along the path of cultivation was there, at the peak of all reality where the true ceiling of power was so loftily high that not even the Sword Saint had found it yet, for all their indomitable strength. Where true immortality was necessary, because death was inevitable even to the greatest of them. An endless, slow march into ever further power… pointlessly. He’d known it was pointless. That was why he’d descended in the first place, and yet still…

He sighed. To think, all this vast cosmic power and he couldn’t even stop feeling bad. What a waste of an eternity.

“You look glum.” The soft sound of shoes against rooftop paneling, the faint swish of a robe— there was only one person who’d find him up here so easily. “I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen you this out of sorts.”

‘Way to rub it in.” That even a mortal could tell… well, he was a mortal himself at the moment, but still. It was a little demeaning, honestly. “What brings you here?”

“I was looking for you, actually.” He didn’t even look up at her as she neatly sat down beside her, folding her legs into the classic meditative pose— staring out towards the sunrise much the same as he was. She couldn’t see what he saw in that— radiance, so adorning, so crowning, drowning, solar effulgence so freely gifted that it didn’t even know it was a gift. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction, and yet still enough to nourish an entire world. She could not sense the magnitude of that. Know it, intellectually, perhaps, but there was an enormity in there that she was simply too low rank to truly appreciate.

Not that he was, at the moment, any higher rank than she was, but his domain could not— could never be— deceived so simply. To merely be lesser was insufficient to curtail it. “Well.” He sighed, and the pleasantly mild morning air swirled with the sound— “you’ve found me.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt this is where you were the entire night. You really ought to rent a house. It would make your entire performance much more believable to anyone who decided to look into the matter further.”

“I suppose I might as well,” he lied, and by the look Zhihu gave him, she knew he was lying too. “Why did you actually come, though?”

“Mostly to check on you. I’m sure Lily would want you to be there when she—”

“I’ll be there.” There was a sense of finality to that. A terrible weight of certainty. A promise from an Immortal Sovereign, with all the trappings of such. He would be there, even if he had to move mountains or seas or something far, far greater— his own reluctance.

For a long moment, Zhihu was silent, simply struck quiet by the firmness of his promise. Sitting there in meditative quiet and watching as the sun slowly rose… “I felt something yesterday.” Finally. “I was wondering if it was you. There was a… disturbance in the ambient qi of the Precinct near here. A very minor disturbance but nonetheless wide-reaching in an intriguing way.”

“I was experimenting with a formation.”

“What would you need that much qi for—” she cut herself off, breath so slightly hitching as she realized. Realized wrong, but still, it was an epiphany nonetheless. “To forge a foundation like that… you’re either suicidal, genius, or both. And we both know you’re a genius.”

“I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly genius.” It was true. Smart, yes, but not genius in the way of those who effortlessly solved everything put before them. At least not until he’d begun to cultivate that intelligence— but that was neither here nor there nor relevant at the moment, restricted to base mortality as he was. Still, the sheer doubt radiating off Zhihu was pretty funny. “After all, I’m just your ordinary run of the mill mortal.”

“Surely nobody believes that.”

“Sure.” Mingtian allowed— “but nobody is normal, are they? What am I amongst so many billions?”

“Unique.”

“Everyone’s unique.”

“But you’re uniquely unique.” Mingtian didn’t respond to that. He didn’t really need to.

It was true, after all.

The sun continued to rise.

This text was taken from NovelBin. Help the author by reading the original version there.

………

There was a small, but important group of people who’d gathered at the subway station to see the victorious trio off. It was also somewhat of an awkward group of people. As he walked down the stairs into a half-celebratory, half-tense gathering, Mingtian could tell that it was going to be interesting at the very least.

Zhihu was there, of course. She was probably the most important person there— standing right by the rails with the utter non-concern of someone who knew that between her and a speeding train, she would be the one to come out on top. Moreover, though, because she was there, it meant everyone else was there, even those who’d probably have otherwise taken a different route to the University. Xinshi, that was. Xinshi and his entourage.

Qin Guxi was there, looking… kind of unruffled, though without her signature ability to throw around her aura like an angry bully, what with how Zhihu was right there, she looked a whole lot more tame. A few other people from the Qin clan compound were milling around— a servant to hold Xinshi’s luggage, some more that’d probably just been invited to fill out the ranks… the whole thing looked very uncomfortable. Xinshi, at least, definitely looked like he wasn’t having the time of his life.

He noticed that Guandong wasn’t there. Interesting…

“Mingtian! You made it!” He stepped back neatly with the blow as Lily wrapped him in a hug, still beaming with happiness. Even a few days after graduation, she was still all grins. “I’m so glad you were able to come— I thought that you might not for a second, but of course you would you won’t not come—”

He chuckled softly. “Slow down.” She was all but vibrating in place as she fell back to Avyr’s side— who, himself, just looked amused at the entire thing. “Of course I’d make it. You didn’t think I’d miss your departure, would I?”

“I can’t believe I’m actually going to the University of East Saffron! It’s so awesome I’ll finally get to be a real cultivator. Finally! I can’t wait to be able to actually see the qi flows of my formations…” she sighed with longing, and with something deeper still— “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

“I’ll make sure to send letters as often as I can! Once a week— no, daily! I’ll make sure to send letters daily—”

“Which is discouraged.” Zhihu was just there

one moment, with barely a whisper of air to announce that she’d moved. “Not prohibited, but it would reflect poorly on you to so feverishly cling to the outside world. You are striving to join a sect, and in many ways you should consider being part of the elite cohort at the University of East Saffron a similar experience.” Then, gentler— “it’s not against the rules to send letters, but do keep in mind that you’re supposed to be divorcing yourself from the mortal world. It wouldn’t make sense for you to get only ever more entangled.”

Lily pouted, but nodded, and Mingtian… he just raised an eyebrow. “I thought the Aurelian sects had stepped away from the isolationism of the past.”

“The pre-imperial isolationism is gone, yes, but a sect is still a sect. Division remains amongst all things.”

He nodded, trying to restrain his amusement at the whole thing. “I see.” It was so delightfully… quaint. The sort of ridiculous, unorthodox solution that only could have come into being in a backwater lesser realm. “I’d love to hear from you Lily—” he would, really, ruffling her hair for good measure and eliciting a squeak of protest— “but don’t lose sight of what you’ve fought so very hard for. You’ve come too far to fail now.”

“I won’t fail—” and despite the difference between the two of them, Immortal Sovereign and young adult— her words echoed that self same, so familiar will.

She could go quite far. The potential was there… if she would only reach out and grasp it. And for whatever reason, Mingtian didn’t think she’d have a problem doing that.

Avyr just inclined his head towards him. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know how I can possibly thank you for what you did for me. We were basically strangers when we met, but you sacrificed so much to make sure that I could study at the academy.”

He dropped a hand on Avyr’s head, giving him a few scratches in just the way he knew he liked it, and luxuriated in the big cat’s low, rumbling purr. Once, when he’d first accepted the deal, he’d wondered if he’d made a good choice or not. Now… “I lost some time and a bit of dignity, and gained a friend. What could be a better trade? Keep working on your cultivation. You know what to do.”

Avyr snorted in amusement. “Your instructions were singularly unhelpful.”

“The technique did work, did it not?”

“Not those instructions. The earlier ones, about meditation.” Yes, those had been probably a bit too much at the time… but what had come of them! It was really, truly marvelous, even if Avyr didn’t quite realize it yet.

“Continue doing both. You’ll understand why one day.” Whether that be soon or… not so soon. They’d get it. “Lily…” the train was coming. He could sense it, and by the way Zhihu so probed the tunnel, so could she. “I don’t have anything quite as fun for you. The tools I gave you last time should last you well into Foundation Establishment if you’re careful, and by then you’ll have begun to lay out your own techniques for such. My advice for you is simple. Meditate on the nature of formations, and expand not just your repertoire of runes but your understanding of runes. You’ve already done well with the two dimensional runes, but there’s so much further for you to go yet. Good luck.” He stepped back as Lily’s orphanage Matron gave her own farewell words, and—

With a rush of air and a screech of stressed brakes, the train slid neatly into the station, and—

A hiss of opening doors.

The clatter of feet and a rolling suitcases—

Shut. Engines, to life, hiss and rumble and roar— and as the train pulled out of the station, it felt suddenly so very much emptier.

So simply leaving the others to their inevitable arguments, he turned around and walked away.