~~~

Nail is not exactly sure how things got to this point.

He knows the individual steps well enough. He was captured by General Murong’s soldiers and taken to Cloudburst City. Never before had he imagined a building as big as the Cloudburst City Arena could exist. Never had it occurred to him that he would be made to fight to death for the amusement of a crowd.

In many ways, it was a relief. The certainty of death sounded much better than the never-ending misery of life. Never knowing when his next food would be. Never knowing whether he’d find a place to rest his head at night. Never knowing whether he’d wake up the next day. Nail was tired of it all. Maybe thinking like that made him a coward, but that was fine with Nail.

“Courage gets you killed,” his mother used to tell him before she died.

Nail certainly hadn’t been courageous when he and the others had marched out in front of the crowd. How many people had there been down at the arena? A hundred? Nail has never been good with numbers, but that felt like a good one. A hundred. A hundred told to fight to the death. And for what? The promise to survive another day? If it was only that, Nail wouldn’t have bothered.

But then he appeared.

General Murong.

He was a man that was not a man. He was a dark, stormy night in the shape of a person. He had spoken, and his words were like thunder.

Whoever won would become a Hundred-Man Commander.

Whoever won would receive women and food and money.

And just like that, Nail began to hope. Hope for something better. Hope for a life beyond uncertainty. He wasn’t the only one. He could see it all around him. His foes were hungry for what the general promised. When the fight began, they threw themselves at each other with maddened desperation.

Nail can barely remember the fight. The roar of the crowd. The beating of his own heart. The cries of people in their death throes. It all turned his hopes and dreams to ashes.

When the knife came down to end his life, he could only welcome it.

“I am done on this side. How about you?”

Nail takes a deep breath. The crimson wagon is so polished he can almost see his face reflected on it.

“I am finished here too,” he replies to Rust. He looks down at his bucket. It’s almost empty. “Think we should head to the river to get more water before we do the next one?”

Rust grunts. He does that often, and Nail would like to believe he’s getting better at interpreting those grunts. Sure enough, when Nail starts walking towards the river, Rust is only a step behind.

This is what Nail does now. Fill the buckets. Clean the wagons. Every day. Without fail.

It’s mundane work, but that’s fine by him. He gets food daily, and his sleeping bag keeps him warm at night. The weird concoctions Boss Lei makes them drink took time to get used to, but he can’t deny the results. His health has never been better.

Puking all that black bile was very scary at first, though.

“It’s just impurities leaving your body,” Boss Lei had told them as though they were being unreasonable for panicking.

Maybe he was right. Nowadays, Nail has more energy than he ever did before. Even his cultivation has improved. He and Rust are barely a few steps away from the Inner Realm, a goal that had seemed impossible to him once. They are both very excited about the prospect of finally breaking through.

It should be weird, Nail thinks as he and Rust begin filling their buckets, to be working together with the man who almost killed him. However, Nail doesn’t feel any ill will towards Rust. They both tried to kill each other, and they’re both alive. That’s what it comes down to. If anything, he’s closer to Rust than he’s to anyone else here.

After all, they’re both normal.

“Well, look what we have here. The boss’s pets.”

Nail tenses as one of the soldiers bathing in the river approaches them. He does not need to think about curving his back or keeping his eyes below the soldier’s chin. Those are all things he does naturally. Do not meet the eyes of someone stronger than you. Do not stand tall in the presence of the strong.

That is common knowledge. That is good sense.

Similarly, Nail does not speak because speaking without being asked a question can be taken as a sign of disrespect. Instead, he does his best to identify the soldier without looking at his face. His voice, at least, seems familiar. Nail is pretty sure he heard this man shouting orders on the battlefield while fighting Spirit Beasts today. He is probably one of the newly-named Five-Man Commanders.

To think it had ever crossed his weak mind that he could be a Hundred-Man Commander. What a laugh. The day Nail first saw the soldiers fighting, he understood that dream was never allowed to him.

“I’ve seen the two of you join our march lately,” the soldier says. “Of course, you didn’t run with us all day, did you? You just did a few hours. You didn’t fight with us either. And yet, you got to eat from the Spirit Beast we killed. Does that seem right?”

The Five-Man Commander looks around as if asking the other soldiers bathing.

“It doesn’t to me,” he continues. “Seems a bit unfair, actually.”

Rust and Nail wince and lower their heads even more.

“This servant doesn’t have the right to have an opinion about things like that,” Nail says. “We eat what we are given, sirs. It’s not up to us to reject the food our master gives us.”

In hindsight, Nail should have seen this coming. He had noticed their portions were getting bigger by the day. He and Rust were happy they got to eat more, but it makes sense for the soldiers to be angry about it. Nail would be pretty annoyed if he were in the soldier’s shoes. He and Rust are not part of the army. They don’t run as much as the rest, and they don’t fight at all.

Why should they get to eat the same?

“Huh, so you don’t get to have an opinion?” The soldier asks him. “Well, I do.”

The man flares his Qi, and Nail’s knees falter. It’s so sudden that the bucket slips from his hands and falls into the river. Rust’s buckets follow suit. The two men tumble and trip on each other trying to catch them and fall into the river.

“Look how kind our brother is!” One of the soldiers says, pointing and laughing at them. “He’s helping them take a bath.”

Laughter is fine, Nail tells himself as the soldiers laugh at them. Laughter doesn’t hurt his flesh or break his bones. It just makes him feel pathetic, but he’s used to that.

“Aren’t I the kindest?” The man cracks his knuckles. “Perhaps I should help them relax their muscles as well. They must be tired from their oh-so-important work, right?”

Some soldiers laugh and egg him on, but the laughter is not as loud as before for some reason.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Nail looks up in hope as one of the soldiers speaks up in their favor.

“Oh?” the Five-Man Commander says, looking at the soldier who just spoke, a lanky man with a scraggly beard. “You think you can tell me what to do, Zei? We’re both the same rank. You don’t get to order me around.”

“Relax,” Zei says, raising his hand in a pacifying gesture. “I’m not trying to order you around or anything. That’s such a hassle. I am just trying to give you good advice, Brother Quan.”

“Good advice?” Quan asks. “Why do I need your advice to play with some dogs?”

“Because you’re not thinking of who owns those dogs.”

The river goes silent. Even Quan needs a few seconds to speak again.

“You think he’ll care?” Quan asks. He gestures at Rust and Nail with one of his large arms. “What does he have to care about wretches like these?”

“I think the commander wouldn’t feed them well if he didn’t care about them,” Zei says. “If you were smart, you’d leave them be because the commander has left them be. That should be enough for us. We have a good thing here.”

“You think I’m scared of the commander?” Quan shouts, advancing towards Zei. “Scared of some child?”

The soldiers around them collectively flinch. Even Nail can tell Quan didn’t mean what he said. He’s simply trying to bluster his way past this. Unfortunately, all he’s doing is digging himself a bigger hole.

He’s lucky the commander is not here.

“There’s no way you’re dumb enough to mean that,” Zei says. “And please, don’t tell me you actually think he’s young.”

The first comment inflames Quan’s anger. The second one makes him pause.

“What?” He blinks. “What do you mean?”

Zei chuckles, but only until he notices the other soldiers are staring at him with curiosity. Even Rust and Nail look at him in askance.

“Are you serious?” He asks, looking around. “Do none of you know anything?”

He puts a hand on his forehead and shakes his head.

“Strong cultivators never look their age, you nitwits!” Zei shouts at them. “They can be over a hundred, but they’ll make themselves look like they haven’t grown their first beard if they want to. What? You really thought the commander was some youth?”

He crosses his arms and snorts.

“He’s in the True Realm. The commander’s probably twice our age. Maybe more.”

Zei’s words are like a revelation to Nail. Even the soldiers look at each other and nod in agreement because things finally make sense.

Nail has tried his hardest to avoid thinking of the commander. It is not because he hates or fears him. The man saved him, healed him, and gave him a life. Everything Nail is now, he owes to Lord Qing.

Nail just cannot comprehend him.

Lord Qing is in the True Realm. Just like Boss Lei. However, the two feel completely different. If Boss Lei lowers his Qi enough, Nail and Rust can bear to be in his presence. No such thing happens with Commander Qing. Being near him feels like standing in front of an unfathomable abyss. He looks younger than them, yet he speaks and moves as though he were decades older.

Because he is.

Commander Qing is not a child. That’s just the shape he takes. The world makes a little more sense if he thinks of it like that.

“Whatever!” Quan says, evidently not pleased. “Who cares how-”

Thunder rumbles.

It happens in the distance. A bright flash of white lightning rising into the sky like a soaring dragon. The darkening day goes bright for a few seconds.

“You were saying?” Zei asks.

No one speaks.

No one dares say anything.

No one dares bother Nail and Rust ever again.

~~~

Liu Jin takes a deep breath as he meditates far away from the camp. Red lightning growls around his body, never straying further away than an inch.

“Masterful control, my lord,” Lei Kong tells him. He’s standing a fair distance away from Liu Jin. Just in case.

“It is nothing worth praising,” Liu Jin says, his eyes still closed.

Red. Blue. White. Gold. Those are the levels of lightning affinity, red being the lowest. Anyone who learns lightning must first start with red.

With his next breath, Liu Jin’s lightning deepens into blue, the second level of lightning affinity. It spreads out in small arcs, its power harder to keep contained.

“My lord, if you will forgive this servant for saying this, you have a somewhat skewed understanding of what is worth praising.”

Liu Jin does not answer. He is already moving to the next step. Blue lightning shines white and lashes out like a wild beast, leaving black marks on the earth.

“That my lord can already summon white lightning at his age is impressive, especially considering he did not learn from childhood like some others.”

The lightning around Liu Jin rages wildly. Sweat drips from Liu Jin’s brow as his Qi rises, trying to refine his lightning into something better. Mightier. Purer. The intensity of his lightning is such that it becomes blinding, and the ground around him turns to glass. All Liu Jin can do is focus it upwards as it surges from his body, letting it roar into the sky before it fades out.

Liu Jin opens his eyes and sighs.

“Not good enough.”

“I am sorry, my lord,” Lei Kong says. “Even for you, trying to force your way into gold lightning is not possible.”

Gold lightning. Other than the purple lightning supposedly wielded by the royal family, it is the pinnacle of lightning mastery. Something most people never reach.

However, reaching it is the only way Liu Jin can return from Murong Bang’s time-wasting errand without killing an unreasonable number of people.

“If I entered the Earth Realm, would I be able to use gold lightning?” Liu Jin asks, staring at his hands.

“My lord, do not even joke about that!” Lei Kong shouts. “Your body is still wounded. Besides, even if you tried, there is no guarantee you’d reach gold lightning. The color of lightning is not an expression of power.”

He raises his hand and shows the gold sparks around it. “It is an expression of… I believe the right word is purity. Being in a higher realm of cultivation helps attain higher purity. However, it’s not a guarantee. Besides, I am pretty sure my lord has noticed already but…”

Liu Jin frowns. “I know.”

Something is happening to him. Ever since the arena. Maybe even before that. Something within him is changing. Moving. Gaining shape. His Dao, Big Sister Bai had called it. Liu Jin does not understand much about it, but he instinctively knows that if he were to try to force his cultivation as he is...

“It could be really bad,” Liu Jin whispers. Lei Kong nods.

There is no choice, then. If he wants to master gold lightning, he’s going to need to go the slow and steady way.

~~~