Kate and a New Purpose

A couple months had passed since Shui's trip to the ancestral lands. The state of his injuries was about the same, but his comprehensive strength had continuously improved. One clear mark of this was how the psuedo-true core left by the elderly scaled woruse could no longer be used to nourish his soul and was but a dull orb that served as material for a future artifact.

Even after using up the psuedo-true core, he hadn't lit a new star in his soul cultivation, but he was nearing the peak of nebula two-star. From now on, he planned on improving his mental control skill and finding out more about the 'Still Heart' state. He now had two successful cases of linking two different symbols together, but he didn't want to even remember the number of failures. Even though he started making money from forging again, the amount of funds he burnt practising inscriptions and arrays still felt like a stone burning through his pocket.

Furthermore, he also had to buy spirit gems for the array in the siblings' house. Now that he had to hide his condition, besides buying spirit gems for the array, he also gave Lily the talismans to send to Ulus. He made a 'Hide' cloak and mask for Lily as well but the cloak was white and the mask needed holes for her eyes. Anyone could tell that it was a different person, but with his skill Shui doubted even Ulus would be able to tell that it was Lily. The first time he had Lily send the talismans, he made sure to follow behind her just in case in his scholar form, but she got the money that was agreed upon and walked out of the building unharmed. Shui wasn't sure if Ulus was aware of his situation, but it seemed that he wouldn't cause trouble as long as their business wasn't affected.

In the Heaven clan, meetings among the parents and elders were more frequent. This was because there was a need to select those of the younger generation who would head to Crystal City to be tested to enter Storm Sky Manor. Every five years, people from Storm Sky Manor would come to the city in order to find talented disciples. There used to be an obvious list of youths to pick from but after the assassinations, there was a big commotion among the parents for who should get a chance to go since most of the spots had opened up. The basic requirements to enter the sect was already known to them, but if the elder that came from Storm Sky Manor saw something special in a child, then even if he didn't meet the requirements he might be able to enter the sect.

This was a rare event that only happened once every ten times or so of course. Even so, it was enough for these parents to turn into beasts ready to tear apart all competitors for their child to have a chance of experiencing this event. Kate was basically a shoe-in to make it into the sect, but Bartos and Lilia both agreed that she wasn't ready to leave. Especially not in her current state.

Kate had reached the peak of Mortal Realm, but that was her best. It was her first major bottleneck, and to make it worse, this wasn't a bottleneck that was caused by a lack of comprehension but one caused by a deficiency in mentality. Therefore, as long as her problem wasn't fixed Kate would never make it to the Soul Realm.

'Seems like the perfect time.'

Since Bartos and Lilia were out in a meeting, Shui was alone with Kate in the house. Perfect limit wasn't something that could be explained or guided so he had no way of helping her with that, but fixing her mentality was something he could at least try to do.

Shui strolled to Kate's room and knocked on her door. He could sense that she had clearly heard him knocking, but just chose to ignore it. This wasn't the first time she acted like this, but Shui had no intention of backing down this time. He used mental control to unlock the door from inside, opened the door and entered. Even after he entered, Kate only glanced at him with a bit of surprise and then continued to ignore him.

Shui moved himself to her side as she lied on the bed, and tickled her. She tried to remain unresponsive but that eventually became too hard to do. After all, with his medical knowledge it was simple to find the right places on her side to tickle.

"Ssssstop it!"

While suppressing her laughter and squirming, only when she asked him to did he stop tickling her.

"Will you stop ignoring me?"

She turned towards him but didn't say anything so he raised his hands once more.

"Okay okay! What do you want?"

"Why have you been avoiding me lately?"

When he asked that question, she opened her mouth to respond, then Shui noticed her gaze focusing on his legs and then she frowned.

"It's my own problem."

She wasn't wrong, Shui also knew that this was her own problem. However, he also knew the reason why she didn't want to tell him and that made him irritated.

Shui put his elbow on top of a small wooden cabinet that was by her bed.

"Arm-wrestling. If you beat me then I'll walk out, but if you lose then you have to tell me what you're worrying about."

Kate hesitated to take his offer. On one side she wanted him to give up, but on the other side she would feel bad for competing with him in his condition. Her face hid nothing from Shui so he just gave her one more push.

"Well, I guess I can't force you. You know, if you're too afraid to lose."

"Let's go."

Right after his taunt Kate slammed her elbow on the desk and grabbed his hand. As for the result of their match,

"Ho, how?"

He had even given her a chance to push his hand back but even if his muscles were in bad condition, that didn't disregard the fact that he had a two-star saint body.

"So, what's bothering you loser?"

"Urk. I, I don't know if I can reach the Soul Realm. This is the first time I've ever had a bottleneck, so when I heard everyone else talking about it, it felt weird to me. But now, I don't know what to do. ...I wonder, what if, what if I just stay like this?"

As she spoke, Kate's gaze lowered to her own hands instead of Shui. As a girl who hated acting weak, especially in front of Shui, this wasn't something she would normally do.

'It's time to set her on the straight.'

Shui laid his hand on her head and she looked up at him with confusion.

"Kate, why do you cultivate?"

"Huh? It's to protect y-, umm..."

"And that's your problem."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't even beat me in arm-wrestling, how are you supposed to protect me?"

Kate wanted to argue, but she had literally just lost against him so she even though her lips opened and closed, nothing came out of them. During this time, Shui continued.

"Instead of trying to protect me, just try to watch my back. We're friends aren't we?"

In response to his words, Kate could finally reply in a shaky tone.

"But but, I promised your mother, that I would stay and protect you."

"And can you do that? Even if you did promise that to my mother, she wasn't the type to put that much of a burden on a kid. Besides, friends help each other out don't they? Don't think about only protecting me. You support me and I support you, is there anything wrong with that?"

"So... I don't have to protect you?"

"Nope. That can't be the reason why you cultivate. You have to find your own path."

"But I don't..."

Kate finally began to question what other reason she could have for cultivating. However, nothing came to mind. This entire time she thought her most important role was to protect Shui, even if she wasn't strong enough yet. But Shui erased that idea from her mind. She couldn't use him as her reason, protecting him would be fine if he needed help, but she needed something else as her drive to keep cultivating. And Shui couldn't provide that core reason.

"That's something you have to come up with yourself. I won't force you to keep going on this path. But if you're going to keep going then you have to find your own reason. For now, why don't you continue so you can see a little further?"

"A little further?"

"Yeah, don't you want to at least make it to the Soul Realm?"

Kate didn't answer. Rather, she surprisingly leaned her head on Shui's shoulder. She rarely showed so much weakness to him, but this was a sign that she was changing for the better. After a few minutes of silence, Kate asked, "Is it okay? For me to keep going with that kind of reason?"

"Why not? Even if you can't find a good enough purpose for the power you get. You can just keep getting stronger while you think about it. Just because you're not trying to avenge your family or desperate to see the peak, there's no reason to stop. As long as it's what you want to do, go right ahead."

Once again, there was a period of silence. Kate closed her eyes and looked back at her life so far. If she took out her desire to protect him, then there wasn't much significance left in her cultivation. But she had to admit,

'It was fun.'

If she didn't obsess over protecting him, then all that was left was how much fun she had reaching new heights and getting stronger. Kate lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him with a soft smile.

"Thanks."

For the first time, as the dim light hit her face and revealed to Shui the young fairy before him, he felt his heart skip a beat.

'Woah heart. Settle down there.'

After shaking off that unfamiliar feeling, Shui returned a smile, and then he was stupefied.