People die for wealth like birds die for food;

I've never agreed more to this idiom. After I finished eating my pastries Richard "invited" me to come to the market pick something as a welcoming gift. I happily agreed, thinking I'd get some cool stuff for free.

How wrong was I... They made me carry all the stuff they bought, including the delicate jewelry Lyra seduced out of a few vendors. Poor guys, being scammed by this goddess must be hard, not that I'm in a much better situation altogether.

The vendors announcing their products and the crowded streets make me feel a little nostalgic. I sometimes dream about my old family, my grumpy Dad, kind Mother and the little devil that's my little brother. But strangely I never thought about going back, nor regreted coming here. I do want to see them again, but not now; I have a new path opened in front of me, one I want to follow. A path I chose for myself.

My daydreaming is interrupted by a little boy, about six years old, tugging the hem of my pants with a stoic expression. The kid was dressed in good clothes and had a healthy complexion, probably the son of a noble who got lost. Following this train of thought I ask, "Where are your parents? Where do you live?".

Instead of answering my questions, the boy just runs away. I'd normally not do anything, at most shout for him to stop. However, the Sytem's notification changes my mind.

Dynamic Quest triggered due to trait "Path Opener"

Follow the boy.

A new Path will open to you.

I disregard everything and run towards the boy, bumping into a few people in the process, but steadily catching up. I can hear Lyra and the others complaining loudly about how I just put all their stuff on the ground and started running, but I ignore them as the boy is quickly turning into alleys and I don't wanna lose track of him.

After a few more turns the boy stops before a cellar door and so do I. Surprisingly he isn't out of breath, I'm also fine as the elixirs Dad fed me while I was sick and the Burning Skies Yang Fire Technique increased my vitality considerably. He turns around and gestures with his hands for me to follow him into downstairs.

We walk down the stairway, litten by light stones, until we reach a big hall where a old man is seated, enjoying himself painting weird shapes in a canvas. I look around and realize there aren't any air paths for ventilation purposes, but the air is fresh in here.

"It's a Fresh Breeze formation, would you like to learn it, boy?" the old man calmly explains to me seeing through my thoughts, but his question makes me startled.

The Way of Formations is one of the mystic occupations cultivators can study on the Academy. However, it requires a lot of talent to learn, just like the healing techniques Lyra studies under her teacher or alchemy. So I'm very confused as to why he asked if I'd like to learn formations, like, how does he know If I have the talent, and more importantly, who is to be on the level of teaching others?

"Don't think too much, it's just some old books and brushes." he once again knows what I'm thinking about, I don't like this feeling, but despite that I'll accept the offer, "Thank you, Sir. I'll be happy to accept your gift."

"Lenus, bring the books in the second bookshelf, the second row from the top."

The boy whose name is Lenus runs to the bookshelf and skillfully grabs all the books in the second row in a specific order, using a little bench of course. He's quite strong as he can carry all these books easily with his small body, reminding me a bit of Grandpa; small but solid like a mountain.

He hands me all the books and gives me a nod as if saying 'take good care of them' and goes back to the old man's side.

I leave the underground hall as the old man gestures with his hand for me to go. My mind is filled with a myriad of questions. How does the trait "Path Opener" works? Why the old man gave me these books? And many more of such thoughts enter my mind, even though they are meaningless. I won't be able to find out the answers any time soon.

"The fuck"

I'm on the streets, I just got out of the cellar door, but it isn't there anymore. It vanished abruptly, like ghosts in the night. Could this be a formation's work? Whatever, I'll just look for those bastards, they still need to buy me something.

Speak of the devil and he shall come, I see them running towards me with angry, yet incredulous expressions. Richard expression is particularly amusing, with a mix of disbelief and foolishness. He starts swearing at me the moment our eyes meet, followed by annoyed remarks from Lyra and Doggy, but I don't even bother to reply until Lyra says, "And how the fuck did you dissapear into a wall?"

"What?"

My answer just earns me some more puzzled looks. I'm don't understand what she meant by 'dissapearing into a wall', am I a wizard?

I don't think this conversation is going anywhere, so I start explaining how the boy tugged my pants and I followed him, eventually finding the cellar door and the old man who gave me the books I'm holding right now. After I finished my epic story telling Richard and the others expressions had shifted to a grave one and started muttering one thing after another. I could only roughly hear the words 'formation', 'grandmaster' and 'illusion'.

I just brush it aside, there's no point in thinking about this. It's not like we're getting anything useful out of this conversation, besides, I still want my welcome gift.

We return to the Academy after I made them buy me a beatiful battle armor, crimson with golden and black carvings. Overall, a great worksmanship. However, the best part is that the metal used to forge this armor was Iron Bamboo mixed with volcanic ashes, making it incredibly flexible, hard and compatible to Yang energies in general. Perfect for my fight style which revolves around agile movement and counterattack, one of the most dangerous styles.

It's price was a 'little' high, being two hundred gold coins worth in value but bargained down to one hundred and seventy. But it's still an astronomical value for commoners, as they only make about one gold coin every two months. However commoners in this world aren't mistreated, at least in the Golden Crow Empire, earning quite a lot compared to other fantasy worlds I had read about, so this armor is worth roughly thirty years of commoners work.

I follow them to the first class available in the morning, Introduction to Herbs. This class is deemed as one of the most boring, yet, most important ones in the whole Academy as the ability to indentify herbs is crucial in the outside world.

The classroom has several seats, but no desks. The teacher, a middle-aged man with dark hair is standing in front of everyone, behind him is the board with abstract drawings of plants and descriptions written by the side. He makes an quick overview of the characteristics of every herb before moving on to the next one, his words flow rapidly, yet, concise.

An hour quickly passes by and the various students are getting bored, so the teacher proposes a question to us, "Let's say you see two herbs, one is a fatal poison and the other a panacea. But they are very similar, almost exactly the same, and you don't know which is the panacea and which is the poison. What do you do?"

After a brief moment of total silence a student raises his hand and says, "I take both of them and go to a city to get someone to identify it for me" to which the teacher simply responds to with one word, "Dead".

I can see the confusion not only on the that student's face, but on everyone else in the classroom, me not being an exception. However, the teacher doesn't bother to explain why he was "dead", but just points at someone else expecting him to answer. The student freezes for a second with a look of 'oh fuck' and stammers a little before finally putting together his sentence, "H-he should uh see if any uh animals have gone near the plants, if not, can't they be both poisonous?"

The teacher's eyes seem to shine for a second before he says, "Correct, but you didn't explain why they are poisonous" he writes on the board behind him 'Correlation between Herbs and Environment' and continues to speak, "This is something you must understand, everything in nature is linked, be the birds and trees or the bees and flowers. Nothing, and I mean it, nothing ever exists by itself, there's always outside interference. This was a trick question; the herbs looked alike because they were the same, you can be fooled by sounds nor smells, and more importantly, not by your eyes; these are all ways nature has to deceive you and grow stronger. I'll let you guys think about it now, class dismissed."

I walk to the dormitories with a lot on my mind. Richard and Doggy said the classes related to Herbology were boring as hell, but I like it. Well, my study method in my student's life in my previous world was one that focused on comprehending the concepts rather than memorizing everything, even if I was good at memorizing I deslike doing the tedious work I had to do for it's sake. Because of this my attention and focus peaked when the teacher asked that question, trying to understand and absorb every single piece of knowledge he gave me.

I didn't manage to answer the question, not even tried to, but I realized something much better. 'Everything in nature is linked', these words made me think of my enlightenment, I had felt that all the moves were many that came from one, all the same, yet different. They were not to be separated into steps, or 'forms" as the Technique says, but freed from their constrains and released as I will it. The waves on the oceans, the streams on the mountains, even the clouds on the sky, the cycle is always moving forward, never stopping, even for a second. This is the nature of water, always moving, shapeless and lively; this is also my simple and pure desire, to be like water.

I feel the air around me fluctuating like waves in the ocean in response to my breath and heartbeat, the Heavenly Energy starts to rush into my body like a river flowing into the ocean. I sit down just outside the dorms and start to cultivate, I can't waste this chance; my cultivation is already behind others my age.

The vortex is rapididly absorbed into my body without me doing anything, so I just focus on refining my Qi. The speed I'm converting the energy to Qi is at least ten times faster than usual, but I don't feel any loss of energy as I circulate it through my meridians. It's as if the Heavenly Energy has a mind of it's own.

I get entranced by the warm stream circulating in my body and just let got of my thoughs.

Time passes as a river; leaving nothing behind but history.

Qi Gathering 6th Stage achieved.

Qi Gatherign 5th Stage skipped due to Heaven's Aid.