He Yu stepped out from behind the screen, dressed once again in the robes he’d received from Yongnian all that time ago. They still looked new, despite the battles and hardship they’d seen in their time with him. The shimmering gray silk embroidered with clouds and dragons was a more appropriate vestment now than ever.

  “I should apologize in advance,” Yongnian said. “I will be of little help now that you’ve exhausted what meager expertise I possess.”

  He Yu waved him off. “No apology necessary,” he said. In the fifteen years he’d spent at the shrine since fleeing Jin Xifeng’s destruction of the Shrouded Peaks Sect, Yongnian had been invaluable.

  As a spirit of storms, his very nature was attuned to He Yu’s cultivation. Although he wasn’t personally familiar with He Yu’s arts, he was a steward of the Thunder God’s Shrine. Yongnian’s nature and role gave him insight into aspects of He Yu’s cultivation that he desperately needed now that he was cut off from the resources and expertise of his former sect.

  At times, he wondered how much faster he could have advanced if he still had access to tutoring and sect jobs, but those were pointless, idle thoughts. By his count, he’d recently turned thirty-five. He couldn’t be completely certain—it had been early spring when he’d secluded himself in the shrine, and he hadn’t yet been outside. He hadn’t the slightest idea of how long this advancement had taken him. Months, at least, if he were to guess.

  “Still,” He Yu began, “I do have questions you might answer. You’ve been in the Fifth Realm far longer than I have.”

  That was an understatement. As far as he knew, Yongnian was nearly as old as the sect had been. According to the spirit, the shrine had been carved from the mountain shortly after Jin Xifeng’s initial suppression. What “shortly after” meant was a bit fuzzy, as the spirit’s conception of time differed considerably from He Yu’s own, but his best guess put it within a hundred years, or so. Yongnian had advanced to the Fifth Realm shortly after.

  Spirits advanced differently than humans, however, and that was more the root of why Yongnian couldn’t really provide any more guidance despite his hundreds of years in the Fifth Realm. Unlike humans, spirits didn’t form Nascent Souls, following a different sort of advancement that slowly made them increasingly similar to humans in their appearance and cultivation.

  It was a largely irrelevant point to He Yu, though. His questions were of things other than advancement this time.

  “That, I cannot say,” Yongnian admitted in response to He Yu’s questions about his arts, and about Jin Xifeng.

  He Yu drummed his fingers on the table and took another sip of the tea Yongnian had made for them. It had been something that had bothered him for a while now. The connection between the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace and the Thunder God Leigong had been obvious for some time. The distant beat of a drum, the appearance of the Lord of Thunder in He Yu’s meditations, and the clear path from He Yu’s increasingly firm understanding of justice to Jin Xifeng’s excess and cruelty. There was a thread.

  Was it something inherent in the art? If so, had it come from the Cloud Emperor, the art’s titular creator? Or had it come from Elder Cai’s millennia-old clash with Jin Xifeng? And why was he a part of it, seemingly so thoroughly? Some thread of fate? Or simply a natural consequence of his Way?

  The answer, it seemed, was beyond them both.

  He Yu changed the subject. “So what next, then?”

  “The path to the Soul Refining stage. As I’m sure your esteemed mentor instructed, the higher realms come by aligning oneself ever more closely to one’s Way. You must seek your Dao. And from there, endeavor to pursue it so that your Daoist Mind may become manifest.”

  He’d been afraid Yongnian would say something like that. He Yu knew precious little about what the next, more mystical, steps of his advancement would entail. He knew that a Wayborn Seed was a hard requirement for advancing to Nascent Soul. It was what prevented most Golden Cores from pushing through the bottleneck. It was also something he’d achieved when he was still in the Third Realm.

  To go beyond, he needed more. The only real insights he’d gained were from a brief conversation with Yi Xiurong. She’d told him to pursue his Way, to meditate, and discover his personal Dao. He supposed everyone had simply been under the assumption life would continue more or less as it had. Zhang Lifen had only just returned to the sect when they’d been sent after Kong Huizhong, and Jin Xifeng had broken free of the Dawn Palace formation.

  Perhaps he could seek out Zhang Lifen? He wouldn’t know where he would look. He didn’t even know if she lived—although something told him she did. She didn’t seem the type to get caught if she didn’t want to. But even if he found her, would she be able to help? She was in the Fifth Realm herself when he’d last seen her. Middle stage, sure, but as someone who’d not yet advanced to Soul Refining, could he really expect her to guide him?

  He Yu realized the truth of things, even without his cultivation technique’s help. “I need to leave, don’t I?”

  Yongnian’s storm cloud head bobbed in the spirit’s approximation of a nod. “Does the path of a hero lay within a forgotten and ruined shrine?”

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  The question was rhetorical, and they both knew it.

  “I don’t want to be alone, though.” It was something that had stuck with him since the beginning. One of the earliest insight he’d gained from his cultivation, before he’d even begun cultivating the Hidden Palace. That vision of a future, standing at the peak. Peerless and without equal. Without rivals or enemies. Without allies. Without friends. Alone.

  “What about Daughter of the Mountain?” Yongnian asked.

  “Would she come?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” the spirit countered.

  He had a point. Chen Fei had followed him here. When she’d ventured out from the shrine to find a cultivation spot of her own, she restricted her search to within a day’s journey of the shrine. She visited frequently, and He Yu went to go see her about as often. No, he admitted. She would come if he asked.

  Which was the problem. She’d followed him here, to a place far from anyone else she knew, and filled with aspects she didn’t cultivate. She’d stuck with him after the sect fell because he asked. Could he ask even more of her? Would it be fair to?

  “Go see her. I don’t know how humans navigate these sorts of things, but perhaps you could tell her she’s welcome to join you, rather than ask directly?”

  It was more than a little embarrassing that a spirit was better than he was at navigating interpersonal relationships than he was. There wouldn’t be any harm in talking to her. At the very least, it was an excuse to see her. Not that he needed one anymore.

  “Where should I go, then?” he asked, standing.

  “You should first seek a new weapon,” Yongnian answered. “Your current treasure is no longer suitable, if I’m not mistaken.”

  He Yu tried not to let his disappointment show. Yongnian was right—his guandao wasn’t suitable anymore. It would shatter the first time he tried to fight at full capacity with it. He might get a few strikes in first, but Tan Xiaoling had said it would serve him through the Fourth Realm after she’d had it reforged for him.

  He hated to part with it, though. It was the first—well, only—weapon he’d ever owned. He’d fought Sha Xiang to a standstill with it after reaching Foundation. It had carried him to second place in the inner sect tournament. When Tan Xiaoling had shattered it with her Mark of the Black Sun, he’d faced her down with one of its jagged shards. When she reforged and strengthened it as a mark of her respect, it had carried him into the Fourth Realm. He’d beaten Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu with it. He’d faced down the hordes of Jin Xifeng’s demonic techniques with it.

  It would be an understatement to say he’d grown rather attached.

  Pressing a fist into his palm, He Yu saluted the storm spirit. “This one thanks the Great Spirit Yongnian for all the guidance he’s shown over the years. This one is in your debt.”

  “I trust you will show proper respect by saying goodbye before leaving my mountain home? The both of you,” Yongnian said. Although his words carried the crackle of lighting and the distant rumble of thunder as they always did, He Yu had come to know the spirit well enough in their time together.

  “Of course,” he said. “Chen Fei wouldn’t forgive me if we didn’t.”

  A short time later, He Yu burst out from the shrine entrance. The wind caught him and lifted him to heaven. As the twin carved likenesses of the Thunder God faded to tiny specks below, He Yu lost himself to the thrill. This was, perhaps, the thing he’d been looking forward to the most.

  He could fly now.

  True flight—not the half-soaring, half-falling he was capable of before. He looped over in the air, twisting and dipping, maneuvering with the grace and majesty befitting his movement technique’s namesake. The Sky Dragon’s Flight was true to its promise, and for a moment He Yu let the apprehension of his uncertain future fall away. He let the wind cradle him, carry him, and propel him to heights he’d only ever imagined until now.

  Catching himself on currents of air, he turned towards a lone peak to the northwest. It rose high above those around it, its top capped in eternal snow. Even from this distance, he could feel the powerful thrum of qi contained there. Mountain and earth combined into metal—the perfect spot for a cultivator like Chen Fei.

  He glanced around, taking stock. It was, by his reckoning, late summer. He’d been in seclusion for far longer than he’d first thought. No matter. Chen Fei would have been cultivating during that time, anyway. They frequently missed one another. Life of cultivators, after all.

  He Yu shot off toward the lone peak where he’d find her. The mountains rushed by beneath him, and the wind followed like the faithful companion it had been for so long. Testing his newfound cultivation base, he activated the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering.

  His body enforcement had always been more one of speed than strength. Even with the drastic increase in power and durability it brought, even now it boosted the incredible speed he was newly capable of. The five pillars rose around him, reaching to heaven. Lightning sheathed him, trailing after him in a glittering tail. All around, his presence expanded. The storm darkened the sky as clouds formed from nothing. The wind picked up and howled with his passing, and deep within the inky bank of black clouds, the dragon stirred.

  Landing like a bolt from the heavens, He Yu pulled his presence back as he saluted Chen Fei. It was impossible to keep the stupid, silly grin off his face as she opened her eyes and rose to her feet. She stood motionless for a moment, looking him up and down with a critical eye.

  Her own presence, although restrained, was obviously more impressive than he remembered it. A mountain rose from the earth, solid, strong, and eternal. Fitting, as she was nearly a full head taller than he was. Her spirit reached deep, with stone and metal roots drinking power from the very earth upon which she stood. The fur-trimmed leather vest she wore, leaving her muscled arms bare despite the year-round chill on the peak, fit her better than it ever had. Peak Golden Core since he’d last seen her—half a step into Nascent Soul, if his senses could be trusted.

  Then, the pretense dropped. Chen Fei launched herself at him, wrapping him up in a hug that was half a tackle. “Congratulations!” she shouted as he struggled to remain standing.

  “Has there ever been a younger Fifth Realm cultivator in the history of the empire?”

  “Couldn’t say,” he answered with a laugh, returning her embrace before extracting himself. “Not that it matters. I came to tell you I’m leaving.” Best to get it out quickly. They’d spent too much time dancing around things that needed to be said back at the sect.

  Her face didn’t exactly fall, but the apprehension was clear. “When?” she asked. “And where?”

  “I don’t know where,” he said. “As to when, soon. That’s why I came. If you want to come, I’d love to have you.”

  “Of course,” she said, visibly relaxing. “But why?”

  The last question was pointed. He knew what she meant by it. “The path of a hero doesn’t lie within a mountain shrine,” he said. He turned to the east. To the capital. “I’m going to defeat Jin Xifeng. Want to come?”