A Far Journey
The road was long, dusty, and mind-numbingly boring.
Michael had been walking for weeks, the landscape of familiar forests slowly giving way to rolling hills he didn't recognize.
Perched on his shoulder, Umbra, back in his scruffy black cat form, was a constant, whining presence.
Are we there yet? the cat's thoughts echoed in Michael's mind for what felt like the thousandth time that day.
This mortal realm air is thin and tastes like stale bread and disappointment. My fur is getting dusty. This is no way for a Divine Beast of Chaos to travel. I demand a carriage. And snacks.
"Quit your whining," Michael muttered, pulling the worn leather map from his pouch.
He spread it on a mossy rock, tracing the faded lines with a calloused finger.
"We need a plan. According to this, we're in the Mistvale Territory."
Ah, yes. Mistvale, Umbra said with a telepathic, theatrical yawn that somehow conveyed immense boredom.
A quaint little backwater ruled by a gaggle of self-important paper-pushers who call themselves the 'Immortal Allies'.
They spend their days trying to keep the other big players from gutting each other.
Mostly, they fail. It's moderately entertaining.
Michael jabbed a finger at a name surrounded by elegant calligraphy.
"What about these guys? The Maestro Sect?"
Full of stuck-up, holier-than-thou women who think they're better than everyone else because they can freeze your nuts off from a mile away, Umbra sniffed.
They don't take boys. Next.
"Right." He moved his finger. "The Blood Divine Sect?"
Umbra hissed, his fur bristling so violently he nearly fell off Michael's shoulder.
Don't even joke about that, you insufferable child.
They're a death cult of blood-magic psychopaths who wear silly masks and think ritual sacrifice is a valid form of diplomacy.
They're our sworn enemies. We're trying to avoid them, not sign up for their newsletter.
"Fine, fine, keep your fur on."
Michael's finger landed on the last major name, a place marked with crossed swords.
"Sword Character Immortal Palace."
Slightly less stuck-up, but still teeming with arrogant pricks who think swinging a sharp piece of metal with a fancy name is a personality, Umbra grumbled.
But, they do specialize in Sword and Character arts, and they deign to accept male humans. It's your least-worst option.
And look at that. A flicker of interest.
Their once-a-decade recruitment is in three months. How wonderfully convenient.
"The Sword Character Immortal Palace it is, then," Michael decided, folding the map with a sharp crease.
"Time to go get famous."
A few weeks later, he fell in with a young couple, Cody and Elara, who were also heading to the recruitment.
They were bright-eyed, cheerful, and so hopelessly naive it was almost painful.
Michael traveled with them for a while, keeping his cultivation level suppressed to a flawless imitation of the Peak of Lo Refining, playing the part of a fellow wide-eyed hopeful.
He parted ways with them at the towering gates of Townsville, the massive city that sat in the shadow of the Immortal Palace.
Townsville was a chaotic, deafening explosion of sights and sounds.
The streets were a river of cultivators of every level, all buzzing with nervous energy for the upcoming test.
Michael, guided by Umbra's incessant grumbling, made his way to the city's most famous market, the Townsville Pavilion.
Look at this junk, Umbra complained as they passed stalls selling glowing trinkets and dubiously-sourced monster eyeballs.
In my day, we used weapons that could shatter stars, not shiny baubles that light up when you clap. Pathetic.
A slick-looking man in a corner stall, draped in what looked like a curtain, caught Michael's eye.
"Psst! You, boy!
Heading to the big test, are you?" he whispered, beckoning him closer with a grimy finger.
"I've got just the thing for you.
The official, top-secret guide to passing the entrance exam.
Every question, every trick, every secret.
A bargain at only five hundred lower-grade Primordial Stones!"
Michael raised an eyebrow. The 'manual' was a cheap, hastily-bound booklet that smelled faintly of mildew.
It's a scam, Umbra sent, his voice dripping with disdain. The paper is made from pressed sewer-reeds and bound with the hair of a mangy dog. I can smell it from here.
"I'll take it," Michael said, tossing a pouch of stones to the stunned merchant.
He walked away, flipping through the crinkling pages.
Most of it was useless nonsense about posture and positive thinking, but a single, cramped paragraph in the back caught his attention.
"The test has two parts," he read aloud to the cat.
"A Spiritual Root test, and a trial.
In the trial, you must collect tokens from a field of monsters."
He squinted, trying to read the tiny, smudged print at the very bottom of the page.
"What the…?"
What does it say, you illiterate moron? Spit it out!
"Due to overwhelming demand," Michael read, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, "the Sword Character Immortal Palace will only be recruiting one disciple from the Lo Refining stage this cycle."
Umbra was silent for a full ten seconds. …Well, shit.
"One disciple," Michael repeated, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face.
"Out of tens of thousands of applicants. This just got interesting."
Interesting? It's impossible!
How in the nine hells are you going to stand out without revealing you could level this entire city with a particularly aggressive sneeze?
"I'm not going to stand out with power," Michael said, his eyes gleaming with a familiar, reckless light.
He walked over to a talisman vendor whose stall was piled high with cheap paper charms.
"I'm going to stand out with money."
He spent the next hour buying every single beginner-level fire talisman the vendor had.
Five hundred of them. The vendor had to be revived twice.
Michael then spent the next month holed up in a cheap inn, practicing.
Not swordsmanship. Not cultivation. He practiced control.
He fine-tuned every move, every flicker of Aether, until he could flawlessly project the aura of a perfectly average, slightly-better-than-mediocre Peak Lo Refining cultivator.
On the day of the test, he stood in a vast square with what looked like the entire population of a small country.
Tens of thousands of hopefuls, all chattering nervously, their ambitions a palpable hum in the air.
Suddenly, a terrifying pressure descended from the sky like a physical weight.
BOOM!
An invisible wave of pure force slammed into the crowd.
It didn't harm anyone, but it was impossibly heavy, like a mountain had been dropped on their shoulders.
Thousands of cultivators instantly collapsed, their faces Michael, gasping for air.
More fell every second, their confidence and consciousness crushed.
Within a minute, the seething crowd of tens of thousands had shrunk to just a few hundred shell-shocked survivors.
Michael stood firm, gritting his teeth and letting out a theatrical gasp, pretending it was a struggle.
Beside him, the few who remained stood tall, their expressions a mixture of pride, shock, and dawning terror.
The first cut had been made.