Morning came and Wu Jian went downstairs to meet with the others. The crowded cafeteria was filled with noisy people making conversation, and the scent of hot food hung in the air. Everyone stopped talking when he entered the room with Youmei. At first, he thought they were quiet because of the panther, but then he overheard their conversations and realized his initial assumptions were wrong.

“Hey, hey. Isn’t that Jian Wu?”

“It is. I didn’t know he was staying at this hotel!”

“What? You didn’t see him the other day?”

“No…”

“I saw his fight against Team Sui. He took down all of them.”

“Didn’t the girl he’s with fight their leader though?”

“She did, but she couldn’t win. He’s the one who beat Xaio Shui.”

Okay. So they were talking about him. Well, he was pretty used to that. Wu Jian ignored them as he readjusted his mask and sat down at the table where Mei Xilan, Yu Chenguang, and Hua Xue were already sitting.

“Good morning,” he greeted.

The others looked at him, and while only Yu Chenguang’s eyes widened, the other two stared at him like he’d said something strange. Had he said something strange? He didn’t think so.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s nothing.” Hua Xue shook her head. “Just that you seem happy.”

“Do I?”

Wu Jian cocked his head to one side. Had he seemed unhappy before now? Granted, he had never been the happiest, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t felt moments of happiness. Even with his family gone, there were still things he looked forward to.

“You do,” Hua Xue nodded. “I’m not saying you never looked unhappy, but up to now, you always seemed somewhat melancholy.”

“The fact that you can tell as much when he’s always wearing a mask astounds me,” Yu Chenguang said.

Hua Xue tilted her head like she didn’t understand, but Yu Chenguang just shrugged and began eating again. Wu Jian and Youmei also joined them all in eating. He noticed Mei Xilan staring at him during breakfast, but he ignored it since she wasn’t saying anything.

After breakfast, they made their way back to the arena, where the matches once more got underway. Their match wasn’t first, second, or even third. When their turn finally arrived, they were faced off against the Northern Jin Kingdom. They were an isolated country far to the north where it always snowed. Wu Jian didn’t know much about them, other than they excelled at using yin chi. There was a rumor going around the Shang Kingdom at one point that stated the Ice Phoenix Sect had ties to the kingdom. The rumors were never prove and the subject was dropped relatively quickly, but it was true cultivators from the Northern Jin Kingdom used the ice element in almost all of their combat.

“Do you mind if I deal with them?” asked Wu Jian. When she just stared, he added, “I’d like to test something.”

Mei Xilan pursed her lips slightly before nodding. “I’ll leave them to you.”

“Are both teams ready?” asked Huǒ Yan. Everyone nodded and he began. “Bow to me. Bow to your ancestors. Now bow to each other. Very good. Ready… and… fight!”

From the moment the battle began, the practitioners from the Northern Jin Kingdom, composed entirely of women, attacked Wu Jian. Ice stakes flew through the sky, the ground became sleek and slippery, and something like an icy vine tried to wrap around him. These people weren’t playing around. Perhaps they had determined after their battle with Team Sui that he needed to be taken out first.

Wu Jian took a deep breath and let his chi flow through him. He visualized within his mind several thick tears in space severing everything before him. His chi manifested his desire, bringing it into reality. Dozens of spacial blades appeared as if out of nowhere and sliced all the ice techniques apart. Crystalline fragments rained through the air like so much debris. The cultivators who had launched the attacks froze and glanced at each other as though unsure of what to do.

Wu Meiying had offered him some hints last night about how to better utilize the Dao of Space before she left. That was after he kissed her silly, of course. The knowledge she told him was apparently something he had learned in a previous reincarnation. Nine Heavens Spatial Severing Cultivation Method was the method his third reincarnation had trained in. He and Wu Meiying had found it inside of a legacy tomb and realized it was the method that suited him best. Because she had seen him use this cultivation method before, and he had been at a much higher cultivation back then, she had second-hand knowledge of how can he can properly utilize the Dao of Space.

“Space is not linear. It isn’t a line from point A to point B. That’s just how most people perceive it. Right now, you’re treating space like it’s a linear thing, but if you begin treating it like a non-linear concept, you can attack from anywhere and your opponents won’t even know an attack is coming.”

Wu Meiying’s words from last night remained within his mind. He hadn’t slept at all, which was fine. Cultivators could go days without sleep before being affected. He had spent the entire night contemplating her words. The results of her small nugget of wisdom was that not only had his understanding into the Dao of Space increased, but he had gone from the seventh subrealm to the eighth in a single night. Even now, he could feel his cultivation stirring as he used what he learned to attack the cultivators opposing him and Mei Xilan.

Immediately after reducing their techniques to ice shards, Wu Jian went on the attack. He didn’t move from his spot and instead manipulated the space around everyone. Because he didn’t want to harm them since this wasn’t a fight to the death, he didn’t create spatial blades but instead used space manipulation to push them all out of the arena. No one seemed to know what was happening. He imagined that, to the average viewer, it looks like the five women were launching themselves out of the arena.

One of them did try to escape. After he launched her away, she flew into the sky, but he simply batted her to the ground with another spatial attack. He manipulated the space above her to form a gigantic hand and slapped her entire body. She struck the ground hard enough to leave indents, but he held back a great deal, so she would be fine.

He glanced at Huǒ Yan. “I think that makes this my victory, right?”

***

Wu Meiying smiled behind her veil as she saw Wu Jian put what she had told him to good use. She had only given him a little hint before leaving, but he had already learned to apply it into a combat situation. He looked a little exhausted, with sweat staining his brow and his shoulders slightly hunched, but she doubted anyone else noticed.

It’s just like him to figure out how to make the best use of his powers after only one explanation.

Using the Dao of Space like that was a lot harder than launching it from a sword or punch. It required more visualization, concentration, and chi to use it the way he was, so of course he’d be tired. He wasn’t even at the Deva Realm and he was already using the Dao of Space like someone from the Perfection Realm. The fact that he could even do it was astounding.

“Well…” Zhou Xie’e leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly. “That was quite the fight.”

“You call that a fight?” Zhe Dāozhe scoffed. “I call it a slaughter.”

“Is it just me, or has Jian Wu grown even more powerful than he was yesterday?” asked Shui Meili. She cupped a hand to her chin and studied the young man as he and Mei Xilan walked off the stage.

“It’s not just you,” Zhe Dāozhe said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “His cultivation has increased, but it’s more than that. He hadn’t used the Dao of Space like this during his previous battle. It could be that he didn’t feel the need, but Team Sui is much stronger than Team Jin, so I feel like he would have pulled out all the stops during that battle instead of this one.”

“He more than likely just learned how to use the Dao of Space like that and used this battle to practice,” said Huǒ Huangdi, clicking his tongue. “I hate to admit it, but he is very talented.”

You people haven’t seen anything yet, Wu Meiying thought as she listened to everyone praising Wu Jian with pride.

She had been giddy ever since last night. Wu Meiying could still feel Wu Jian’s lips on hers. The temptation to reach up and caress her lips as though to feel more was strong, and she could only just withstand the desire by repeating how suspicious such an action would be over and over in her head. That did not damper her spirits. She was on cloud nine.

Wu Jian had forgiven her.

He had forgiven her even though she didn’t deserve it.

No matter what anyone said, it was a fact that Wu Jian’s family never would have been killed if she had not been there. Wu Meiying would never forget that his misfortune, his sorrow, his anger, and his loss was all her fault. Forgetting what she had done was tantamount to letting it happen again. She needed to engrave what happened on her heart, to never forget it, so she could avoid a future in which this happened once more.

I can think that all I want, of course, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again.

How many times had Wu Meiying reincarnated now? She had long since lost count, and every one of those times had ended in tragedy for her and Wu Jian. All Wu Meiying could do was keep pushing forward and hope this reincarnation would be the last.

“How cometh that gent hast becometh so much stouter?” asked Huǒ Yulie.

“You mean Jian Wu?” asked Wu Meiying.

“Indeed. I has't been keeping a closeth eye on that gent, and he wast not yond powerful yesterday. His sudden increaseth in strength is most perplexing.”

Wu Meiying was still smiling behind her veil as she spoke. “Jian Wu is the kind of person who will always surprise you.”

“You say that like you know this from experience,” Zhou Xie’e suddenly said with a curious smile. “Are you acquainted with that young man?”

Everyone turned to look at Wu Meiying, who was suddenly grateful for her mask so no one could see her grimace. She shouldn’t have said that. They could ill-afford to draw any suspicion that they knew each other or all her plans would go up in smoke. Dammit. She wished she could look into the future right now, but she had cut herself off to avoid detection.

While she couldn’t see into the future, Wu Meiying did have several hundreds of thousands of years experience to draw from. Zhou Xie’e might think himself clever, but he wasn’t half as intelligent as the many enemies she had gone up against. She wouldn’t be caught in one of his traps.

“I have a good eye for people,” Wu Meiying said simply.

It wasn’t a lie, so none of the people present, experts at detecting lies from the fluctuations of someone’s chi, detected a lie in her words. Zhe Dāozhe nodded as if he had expected such an answer.

“You did tell me from the very beginning to watch out for him. Now I understand why,” he said with a smile. “Come to think of it, you’ve said similar things about other people after only a single glance, haven’t you?”

“You are correct,” she said.

Leave it to him to cover for her without meaning to. She had, in fact, said something to that effect multiple times. Zhe Dāozhe would often ask for her insight into various new disciples. She would look into their futures and tell him which ones he should focus on cultivating and which would never amount to anything no matter how much effort was put into them. Her advice had sometimes run counter to what people expected, but there had only been one time when he ignored her. She had told him that a new disciple who had placed first on the entrance exams would not be good to cultivate and they should ignore him in favor of a young woman who had been placed in the middle of the pack. Zhe Dāozhe had not taken her advice to heart and helped cultivate the young man. It seemed he had done the right thing for a while, as the young man’s cultivation did rise, but a problem occurred when the man in question became arrogant. He overestimated himself and was crippled during his attempt to break into the Deva Realm.

Zhe Dāozhe never ignored her advice after that.

Zhou Xie’e smiled. “It seems you have quite the discerning eye. Could I interest you in joining our sect instead?”

“I’m afraid my loyalty is not so easily swayed. You had best look elsewhere,” Wu Meiying said softly.

Zhou Xie’e shrugged. “I see. That’s a pity.”