It had now been over twelve years since Hanchen had met with his 'master', Zhang Baotian. Even if at first, Hanchen had strongly doubted the scripture he had been given, and rightfully so. However, curiously, beside a few slight details he had to correct, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it.
He had long hesitated but, eventually, had put these slight mistakes on account of the difficulty of transmitting a scripture in one go. He knew that without taking risks, his lack of resources would end up being detrimental to his cultivation, and ended up taking the bet, following Baotian's plan and invading the Liu clan's treasury.
Once again, surprisingly, he had had a resounding success, managing to steal over thirty percent of the clan's common treasury and, when it wasn't as much as one could imagine since the most precious treasures were kept in the elders' storage bags, it definitely was more than enough to sustain his cultivation for the next decades.
And as if his luck hadn't been good, the next day, he had suddenly felt a surge of enlightenment flooding into his mind, allowing him to break through the bottleneck that had bothered him for a few weeks, and create his Qi Components, advancing to the late stage of Qi Refining!
"Hehe, with such heaven blessed luck, I will start to believe that I'm not an Earthly Talent but a Heavenly one" he thought out loud.
But the next moment, he shook his head:
"Haha, how could I be a Heavenly Talent when I don't even hold a candle to the six geniuses…"
He laughed, and resumed his journey. He was travelling at a pretty fast pace as it hadn't been very long since he plundered the Liu clan, and he was very likely to be subjected to an extended manhunt.
However, at one point, he stopped, his attention catched by a noise: on the side of the road, a little kid was crying, all alone. Though hesitating to stop for a few seconds, he eventually decided to go to him:
"Sob… sniff… sob… Ahh, mother, father…"
"Hello, child, can you tell me why you are crying like this all alone? It's not really secure, you know, there is always a risk of being abducted by demonic cultivators or slave merchants"
"Sniff… sob… Waaaaah!"
The child, hearing him, began to cry even louder, making Hanchen face fall:
"Ahh… please, please calm down child, if you just stop crying and explain to me the problem, this cultivator swears he will grant you assistance" he said. "Now, now, stop crying, please…"
After a good few minutes of soothing, the child had finally calmed down enough to explain his situation: while he was playing outside, he had ended up getting lost, and didn't know the way home.
"Ah, I see" Hanchen said, not really surprised. "Then just tell me the name of your city, village or whatever and I'll bring you back there in no time"
But the kid shook his head:
"I'm sorry, mister cultivator… I don't know the name…"
"..."
Hanchen's expression cracked more. He felt a strong urge to just leave the kid in the next village and wish him luck before resuming his journey but, eventually, he sighed:
"If I manage to bring you to your village, will you be able to recognize it? Can you swear you will?"
The kid nodded energetically:
"I promise, sir immortal" he said.
Hanchen sighed again, and then grabbed the kid in his arms:
"Alright, then be ready, we're going to spend a rough while looking around"
Using a control force spell combined with a basic wind spell, though nowhere near as well as Baotian, he spent the next few days looking around until finally, the kid seemed to recognize the place. He spent a few more minutes around and eventually, they found his house. Barely Hanchen had knocked on the door that a disheveled woman came out and, upon seeing the kid, hugged him tightly:
"Ahh… ahh… Ni Kai, where were you…" she sobbed. "I was so afraid that I… I would never get to see you again"
The child began to sob too as he felt his mother's arms wrap tightly around him. Seeing this, relieved that it all ended well, Hanchen turned around, ready to leave.
"Ah, great cultivator! Please, if there's any way to repay you, tell me! If needed, I will give everything I have to the benefactor!"
Though a greedy person by nature, Hanchen smiled and shook his head:
"Just continue to think of me as your benefactor, and that alone should be enough" he said. "There is nothing more I can get from mortals than the gratefulness necessary to keep a clear mind"
On these words, using his Earth talent, the Shadow Embodying True Physic, Hanchen disappeared from the spot.
'I hope they will be alright, now' he thought.
While he lost precious days and took significant risks by helping them, he did not regret it a single bit. Hanchen wasn't someone who believed that everyone could be helped. He also recognized that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, having a totally unfair advantage compared to the majority of cultivators.
But that was precisely for this reason that he decided to help this time. After all, if someone like him, who was born with so many advantages and had so few responsibilities, didn't extend a helpful hand, then who would? He, as one chosen by the world, had to set the example: a kind gesture cost the time an incense stick needed to burn, but if even half of those blessed by heaven performed one, the world would be a little better for a hundred years. And yet, rare were the ones that ever extended their hand to the ones beneath them.
"In such a cruel world, sacrificing just a few days will always be worth it if it can help me keeping a clear consciousness"
And maybe if he remained kind, the world would keep rewarding him like it did with the Liu clan's treasury and the surge of enlightenment.
But what Hanchen ignored was that none of these two events had been an accident.
"Hmm, would you look at this, it seems that I shared my enlightenment with one of the few people who deserved it. How nice to see, it would almost make me go next to him and reveal to him how he even saved his 'master' as well"
Unbeknownst to Hanchen, who usually was the one spying on people, a slender figure clad in grey clothes with blood red patterns was looking at him from a few meters away barely. The figure, their face covered by a golden mask as their long, lustrous white air flew behind them, waited for him to have completely left, and then sat down cross-legged, calmly focusing their attention on their Spirit Core.
"Hmm, this amount of karma should be enough"
Channeling their spiritual energy, which was intertwined with a strange, ominous energy as well, they began to steadily push their core upward, toward the upper dantian. As the two finally met, the sky began to darken, as if threatening them to stop.
"I wonder what will my tribulation be"
As they thought out loud, numerous insects, and small animals breached out from the ground. These creatures, though they seemed inoffensive, rapidly grew, each the size of a building, their saliva turning into deadly poison. With deadly coordination, despite their size, they somehow managed to all attack the figure at the same time.
"Hmm, a bit disappointing"
Moving their hands and casting a spell, nothing seemed to happen, and the beasts were about to reach them. However, at the critical moment, instead of being shredded to pieces, the figure calmly watched as instead, suddenly, all of the creatures' attack deviated slightly. As a result, none of the attacks touched him and, instead, all the creatures somehow ended up attacking each other.
In an instant, they had all, somehow, been hit by the others, leaving around the masked person only a circle of mutated corpses. If one with a high enough cultivation looked carefully, they could have seen tiny silk-like strings attached to them for a moment.
Soon enough, the nightmarish creatures returned to their original size, becoming normal animals and insects once again.
"Tssk tssk, not even allowing me to conserve the cultivation resources, how mean of heavens, really"
The person laughed, shaking their head, making their long white hair dance around it.
"Well, at least, the tribulation has passed, that's the important I guess"
The person finished to merge their Spirit Core with their upper dantian, thus creating a Nascent Soul.
Without anyone knowing, the masked person had advanced, increasing by one the number of Nascent Soul cultivators in the world. Soon afterward, a small black centipede crawled the long of their arm, getting next to their ear:
"Oh, so the Child of Heaven is now advancing as well? How… absurd, truly, such a cultivation speed shouldn't even exist in a fair world"
The masked person shrugged:
"Oh, well, the world was never fair in the first place, and that mean I will soon have someone else to play with"
They extended their arms around, as if to embrace the world:
"Truly, today is a good day"