The moon hangs in the sky as Raja Kint approaches a counter from the forest side of the building. After paying for the bag he begins walking back to the mountain.

  As he walks he can’t help but take in the beauty of the city. Even though his home is more beautiful. He can always appreciate beauty in all forms. Not only was the city beautiful. It was one of the safest cities to be in within the empire. With the capital being the absolute safest.

  Raja Kint notices a street vendor packing up his things. But he hadn’t yet packed up a cinnamon roll. Raja Kint walks over. “How much for a cinnamon roll?”

  The man tells him the price and Raja Kint takes one. The man happens to turn around before Raja Kint walks away and his face lights up. “You’re the kid who won the competition. Haha! I bet on you after seeing you in the battle royale and made quite a bit of money.”

  Raja Kint smiles. “That’s great.”

  “For both of us as well. Haha! You have such a great master too so you’ll only fly higher.” The man’s voice expresses happiness.

  “If I’m ever in something in the future be sure to bet on me,” says Raja Kint as he walks away.

  The man yells, “I’ll bet everything!”

  Raja Kint chuckles to himself as he continues his walk. He crosses into the capital and soon reaches the steps of the mountain. As he walks up he looks at the moon. Walking up this mountain symbolizes that I’ve already come a long way. He thinks back on his experiences so far. From being captured to joining an academy. Befriending a tribe with ancient secrets and meeting people who helped him the best they could. These same people helped to pry his heart from the darkness it was exposed to. Even though they were separated for now. He was sure they’d meet again.

  He reaches his peak and finds Master Mythos meditating amidst his plants. He walks past him and begins constructing his cabin. The night is spent constructing the cabin. When the sun shines over the peak Raja Kint looks at his cabin. A smile on his face. He looks over at Master Mythos who’s still meditating.

  He raises his right hand and calls forth the earth law. He secretly uses the earth beneath his feet as it’s less taxing than actually manifesting earth. In a short time, a star made from dirt hovers above his palm, slowly spinning. Feeling elated at his improvement he quickly pats the dirt back down. To think doing something like building a log cabin would help. He might be a weird old man. But he definitely knows his stuff.

  He mumbles, “Seems it’s fine.” He stands up and turns to enter his cabin when he notices Master Mythos looking at him.

  “What’s fine?” asks Master Mythos with a blank face.

  Raja Kint motions toward his cabin. “This cabin that I built.”

  Master Mythos walks around his cabin, flying for an aerial view and going inside. He exits the cabin and looks toward Raja Kint. “It is indeed a fine cabin.” Before Raja Kint could thank him. “It also seems a bit bare for the interior. But, as your master I can offer you some papers and pen.”

  Raja Kint’s eyelids droop. “Why would I want papers and pen?”

  Trelos Mythos strokes his beard. “You like crafting arrays. As such what better way to practice than with paper and pen?”

  Raja Kint thinks for a moment. “Wouldn’t actually crafting arrays be better? There are nuances to arrays.”

  “Nuances huh? Arrays are quite simple. Can you make the shape needed to craft an array? Have you made an array across seven pages? What about an array with a small corner piece of paper? What about rolling the paper into a ball and crafting an array? Have you ever done such exercises?”

  Raja Kint blinks in disbelief. “I’ve never done arrays as such. But do I need to do that when arrays are straight and curved lines?”

  “Of course.” Trelos Mythos walks into his cabin. Coming back outside with large stacks of paper and some pens. Sitting them inside a corner of Raja Kint’s room.

  “Can I get a desk, too?”

  Trelos Mythos glances at Raja Kint. “Would you like a soft pillow too? If you can’t make an array in these conditions. Then just give up that path now.”

  “Never.”

  “Good. You can write whatever you want on those papers. And don’t rely on me for any arrays.”

  Raja Kint blankly stares at Trelos Mythos. “Aren’t you just telling me to write random lines on a paper? How many arrays could I possibly know?” This old man is so erratic, that everything he does leaves me in shock. At the least, I do think I made the right decision.

  Trelos Mythos responds, “How many arrays do you plan on using? One should be more than enough if you know just one. Now, enough with the questions. A letter arrived yesterday.” In his right hand appears a letter and he hands it over.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Raja Kint takes the letter. “Just an invite to some party in the city.”

  “You should go.”

  “I don’t care for the politics. I only want to become stronger.”

  “Do you think cultivation is solely an act of solitude?”

  “Yes.”

  “But if you need resources you have to find others. Or do you procure everything you’ll ever need alone? Any moments of peril you find yourself in, you can escape without help. There’ll come moments when you realize cultivation isn’t an act of solitude. At least not in the earlier stages. At that point you would have grown much more.”

  “What do you think Master Mythos?”

  “I think I haven’t quite found an answer yet. Or, it’d be more accurate to say. This question is highly subjective and holds no true answer.”

  Raja Kint looks at his cabin. “I guess I’ll go. Also, you mentioned something about heading out in one year. While you were tossing me out of here.”

  Trelos Mythos holds out his hand. “Good reminder, hand me back the map and axe.” Raja Kint hands them over. “In one year the three of us will be going out for a little traveling.”

  Raja Kint nods his head and enters his cabin. He lays down and closes his eyes for a rest. Waking up he looks at the stack of papers and rips a corner off. He begins creating the array when he realizes he doesn’t have enough room. Raja Kint furrows his brows. Was the old man making a fool of me? But the wood chopping benefitted me even though I didn’t understand. Raja Kint scrunched the ripped paper into a tiny ball and threw it against the wall. Like this, he attempts to craft arrays through the many ways Trelos Mythos mentioned. In the end he didn’t succeed with a single one, besides increasing the surface area equally in all directions.

  Raja Kint says, “No wonder I had to make the tribe do so many adjustments for my array. I suck at them. If I was good they probably could’ve finished the array faster.” He messes with his hair. Deciding a walk would do him good.

  He steps outside with his messy hair and reaches the bottom of the mountain. “I should go check out a food spot.” He walks through the streets of the capital. He notices the many differing strengths present. Not only are my arrays trash. I’m so weak that some random person off the street could put me into a coliseum-type situation. With more annoyance, he finds a restaurant and enters. A young woman is at the counter.

  “How many people?” asks the young woman with a soothing voice.

  Raja Kint still grumpy says, “Just me.”

  The woman grabs a menu and smiles. “Must be a hard day. Well, food always makes one feel better.”

  Raja Kint follows her to a table, sits down and looks through the menu. He orders a dish that uses different types of beast meats over a bed of sweet rice. As he sits and waits for the order his mind begins wandering toward his cultivation. The biggest thing for me is breaking through to the limbo realm. I can improve everything, but as long as my actual cultivation is still low. It won’t matter.

  Raja Kint looks outside the window. I wonder how strong I’ll be after breaking through. Now that I think about it. I can probably beat the chieftain now. His control over law was pretty rough thinking back on it.

  A young man arrives with his food and softly places it on the table. Raja Kint eats as he continues thinking. I should be able to push all my spear techniques to limbo realm too. I also need to consider the piercing ki wind array. Once I push those to the limbo realm and reach the ki cultivation peak of the ki realms. Then I should be more than capable of killing a limbo realm. Especially, if I use the shizen spear.

  Raja Kint looks down at his partly eaten food as he scoops more. I also have the star essence. Although, that’s something I can’t just improve. That seems to be more epiphany-reliant. Plus, that technique I wanted to create. Sadly, it seems to also be pretty heavily reliant on epiphany. But maybe this is how it is beyond laws.

  Raja Kint glances at his chest. I still have no clue about how this ki actually works. I notice small stuff but I’m sure they aren’t the main effect. Raja Kint sighs. To think some things can be worked on every day while others you have to just wait for a moment.

  He finishes his food, pays and walks around some more. He finds a stunning water fountain; with a statue of a proud man standing tall, a saber in his right hand. His left hand resting on the head of a ferocious-looking lion. From the two’s mouths, water falls into the fountain.

  “Pretty cool isn’t it,” says a female voice.

  Raja Kint responds, “Yeah.” He turns to see a young woman standing close. He turns his head back to the fountain.

  “I saw your performance at the competition. You’re quite strong. You should be careful in Bisuke City and its capital. There are talks that you’ve humiliated some kids in front of the emperor and powerful cultivators.”

  “They can talk as they like.”

  “People here take strongly to matters concerning their reputation. Especially, since they are born to powerful families and are surrounded by others from powerful families. With such connections, even within a safe place. Things can go awry when involving the younger generation.”

  “I’d like to see their best efforts.”

  The girl looks at Raja Kint and shakes her head. “Guess a new lively variable has been thrown into the mix.”

  Raja Kint looks toward her. “Thanks for the information.”

  The girl smiles as she heads off. Raja Kint decides it’s time to head to his cabin too.

  Could this whole situation stem from that dinner? Probably so, I could’ve been a bit nicer, but he acted as if everything was certain. Raja Kint’s eyes become cold. What pride is worth mentioning before me?