Talk in the narrow alley

'Isn't this the commotion I noticed before?' Theo thought a mere moment after the two of them walked out of the inn and dived deep into the town. And it didn't take long for him to realize that they were heading in the exact direction of the strange event that Theo noticed quite some time ago… but an event that kept on going for days already.

"Can't you just tell me?" Theo asked after they walked for quite a while with Paichi stubbornly refusing to reveal even a single hint of what was going on.

Paichi turned his eyes toward his junior and gave Theo a thoughtful stare. Then, he suddenly turned to the side and entered a small, narrow alley that led away from the point they were heading for.

'Normally I would dislike the idea of stepping inside this place,' Theo thought as he scanned the alley with his eyes…

But Paichi didn't give him any time to think. He kept on going, refusing to even look back to check whether Theo followed him or not.

'Well…' Theo took a deep breath before releasing it all back in a sigh and picking up the pace. 'It's Paichi we are talking about. If he wanted to fuck me up, he could do so without some sort of weird tricks,' he thought as he followed after his senior into the alley.

"I can tell you've noticed we took a… longer path," Paichi spoke softly, making it a challenge for Theo to hear his words properly.

"Is there any point trying to claim that I thought you don't have the tickets or something?" Theo smiled a little.

Paichi was a simple, kind-hearted giant. There were times when Theo's past self even considered him to be slow.

But the glint that appeared in his eyes in reaction to Theo's words proved that the old Theo was wrong.

'He is intelligent enough to keep his smarts under wraps,' Theo finally realized the truth.

He knew Paichi wasn't an idiot. An idiot, even with great talent, wouldn't be able to ascend to the inner sect in the time that Paichi did, nor could he freely operate while under the scrutiny of the division elder.

Now, though, Theo learned that Paichi was far smarter than he expected him to be.

"There are all sorts of rumors about you going within the sect's inner circle," Paichi said in a neutral tone, a tone one would use to report on the weather in the passing.

Theo brought his eyebrows together. His hands involuntarily tightened into fists.

'So they took notice already?' he thought, opting to keep silent instead of trying to wring his senior out of all the secrets he held.

First, even with his system, Theo had absolutely zero confidence that he could face someone on Paichi's level. 'Not now, not yet, not before I figure out how to raise the ranks of my statistics!'

Secondly, Theo wasn't stupid either. And as much as he hated it, he knew Paichi wasn't free to share everything that he knew with someone as insignificant as him.

'I can only let him talk and hope to learn as much as possible from what he is willing to share,' Theo thought and gritted his teeth to stop his mouth from opening up.

"Outside of our division, you are still but a curiosity. But within…" Paichi spoke a few more words before coming to a complete stop.

He didn't turn around to look at Theo, he raised his eyes towards the already darkening sky instead.

"People fear what they do not understand," Paichi said after a moment of contemplating the first few stars that appeared in the sky. "And they won't stop before they crush anything that makes them scared," he added as he finally turned his head over his shoulder and threw a look at Theo's face.

"I thought about it already," Theo replied, holding up his confident front when faced with Paichi's intense stare. "I made sure to have some witnesses when I was teaching my disciples," he then explained.

"That's a good thing," Paichi said while raising his right eyebrow. "On that note, what did you teach them?"

For the first time since they stepped into the alley, Paichi's voice turned truly natural.

'Is he… just curious?' Theo thought, unsure what to think about the question.

Then, he released yet another sigh.

"It's fairly simple," Theo said as he started moving and quickly reached Paichi's side. "Rather than have them aim for the breakthroughs along with the optimal technique, I have them train their bodies until they can move no more."

Theo's idea of cultivating was revolutionary… but only in the aspect of just how far he was willing to take things. He wasn't the first to advocate the importance of physical fitness when he came to cultivators. In fact, the optimal technique itself put a massive emphasis on keeping the growth of the body up with the growth of one's spiritual techniques.

No, what was revolutionary about Theo's understanding of cultivation was merely how little importance he put into… well, cultivating. Rather than treating the cultivation as the goal, he made it to be a mere side-effect.

But in the eyes of people who only ever expected the results that the optimal technique could provide, the growth of Theo's disciple was already abnormal.

"And it works?" Paichi asked, his eyes turning a bit wider than before.

"It does," Theo confirmed with a nod of his head. "You see, for the last few years, my life was all about surviving from one harsh beating to another," Theo revealed what he was so scared of Paichi learning just a few days ago.

And just like he assumed back then, Paichi's face tensed up. The glint in the back of his eyes turned into a spark as his aura suddenly turned heavier to bear.

"I couldn't tell you before," Theo quickly raised his hands to his chest. "If I dared to distract you from your cultivation with my problems…"

The young man pursed his lips together and allowed the sound of his voice to die out in the alley.

"I can imagine what would happen," Paichi admitted with a sorrowful expression on his face. He raised his hands up a bit and looked down at his fists with a sense of helplessness appearing on his face.

'What do I need this strength of mine for if I can't use it to help those who really need it?' Theo thought, reading right through the emotions flashing on his senior's face.

"So?" Paichi raised his eyes back to Theo's face. "What made you discover your own path ahead?" he asked. "And be honest. I can tell just how much you changed in just the last few days…"

"There was this one beating that brought me to the edge of what I could actually survive," Theo admitted without even a second of hesitation.

There was no mention of techniques or cultivation paths that made use of being beaten up. Prideful cultivators would never test such a possibility out and even if someone actually discovered it… they would likely do their best to bury such even in the past.

After all, who would want to be known as the man who became powerful by being treated as a punching bag by an entire sect?

"Back then, I felt something finally clicked in me. While I was desperately fighting to regain my breath, to save myself from suffocation…"

Theo put on his best act, even going as far as to invoke what he felt when he experienced the death of his former self.

Paichi twitched.

Theo's act seemed to work.

"Back then, something clicked. And as I first studied myself and then searched for the answers in the library, I came to this simple realization," Theo masterfully weaved in truth and lies into every sentence that he uttered to make it as believable as hard it would be to disprove it.

"And by building up on this discovery, you arrived at the conclusions that you are passing over to your disciples," Paichi finished Theo's story for him.

For a moment, a look of hesitation appeared in the back of his eyes…

'Did I see it right?' Theo asked himself when his senior rapidly turned his head away, stopping Theo from reading his expressions.

"Either way, that calmed me down," Paichi said as he finally picked up his pace and moved ahead of Theo in just a few short steps. "And with that said, it's time for you to see what's going on in the sect," he added as he lead the way only to take the nearest turn out of the alley and move back towards the main street.

The alley that they took ended up bringing them over from the middle-class part of the town to the high-class area directly attached to the sect grounds. And the second they came out from the alley, an avalanche of lights assaulted Theo's eyes.