Aimless Ascension

Shi Fan chewed the meat slowly, stealing glances at Twilight, who for the first time dined together with him. Well, she was still ten paces away with her solitary, gothic presence. Even though they were sitting together, Twilight seemed to reside in a totally different realm. Different from everyone else.

Shi Fan chewed and thought about an opening. At last, he opened with what he was curious about. "How do I conceal my emotions from my aura?"

He wasn\'t really aware your aura gave away your emotions before, but now that he thought about it, all of that made sense. This was probably how some people could read thoughts. Shi Fan didn\'t need to become a mind reader, he needed to conceal his emotions from his aura.

He really had his hands full with Qi training and now it seemed it wasn\'t even the most important aspect. Shi Fan waited attentively.

Twilight remained silent for a while, focused on the meal. She ate without making a sound as the campfire barely illuminated her. He still couldn\'t see her face. It was only when she was done with the food did she open her mouth. And it came with a question.

"What is the most important thing a practitioner can cultivate?"

Shi Fan contemplated the question for several seconds. He considered whether the question was rhetorical. But knowing Twilight, Shi Fan was certain that she wouldn\'t want any profound answer. Virtue is the most important thing any practitioner could cultivate. And what not.

Twilight always meant business.

So, eliminating all the options, he came up with the only option remaining. "Intent."

"Intent." Twilight nodded. "What is intent?"

"The intention behind any action," Shi Fan said simply. He drew a burning wood from the fire. "In spirit arts, it\'s the intent that does half the work. Like now, I wanted this stick to stop burning. That is my intent. So I visualised my Qi intending to restrict all the air surrounding the fire."

The fire stopped shortly after as Shi Fan tossed the wood back into the fire.

"Intent is the refined visualisation method of all spirit arts."

"There you have it," Twilight agreed.

Shi Fan perked on his spot, a bit dismayed that she hadn\'t given a straightforward answer. He really had enough of the rhetorical teaching. Well, it wasn\'t as bad as his teacher.

"So you mean, I have to refine my intent more to hide my emotions from my aura?"

"No," Twilight disagreed. She looked somewhat lost for the first time, probably wondering if she should advise him more. "You have to refine your emotions into intent, just like you do with your mental image or visualisation you call it."

"Ahh," Shi Fan hummed as understanding blossomed in his mind. Then he became lost again. "How do I refine my emotion into intent?"

He didn\'t get any answer this time, only a shake of the head before the solitary figure disappeared into thin air.

Shi Fan groaned. It seemed being masterless has its own drawbacks.

***

"Achoo!"

Vale cocked his head as Gale sneezed for the second time. The mountain was a bit cold, there\'s no denying that, but Gale wasn\'t a normal person to sneeze just because of some cold.

After iron, a practitioner couldn\'t get normal affliction. Well, they could if they desired, but the curative for such affliction was twice as easy compared to getting it.

Gale was neither a sicko nor had the desire to be one. But it\'s not cold, either.

"Could be an after-effect of drinking gold spirit wine," he muttered and forgot about it.

When Gale returned to the farmland, the sky was full of stars accompanying two half moons. The red moon would appear hours later during midnight, but by then one of the other two would disappear.

Bugs started chorusing together, creating an irresistible cacophony. Gale found three men, sitting near the abandoned house, playing cards. They were Shi Jun, the master craftsman, and his two underlings, Shang and Kongmin. The rest had already left while the three of them waited for him.

"Ah, lad," Kongmin called. "If you have taken a bit longer, we might have gone to assist you in the search."

"Are you two alright?" the master crafter asked, inspecting both of their aura with a naked psychic scan.

Gale didn\'t say anything, as the inspection was like a polite nudge, not trying to diverge into anything secret or private. "We\'re fine. Are you guys ready to leave?"

Only the master crafter joined Gale as he moved towards the carriage.

"They will stay here," Shi Jun told him. "The ironwoods we collected will be a small fortune to anyone, even though you stored quite a number of them inside your dimension storage. I trust people\'s integrity, but it\'s better to be prepared. Besides, Grandma Wang warned me of the issues you might be facing."

Gale nodded in understanding. He had indeed stored dozens of logs inside his void-lock. He only stopped when he ran out of space. Still, his possession of the void-lock made the job easier for the men.

Gale couldn\'t wait to release most of the items out of his void-lock. It lacked cleaning for years.

"Grandma Wang seemed sure there will be no issue in broad daylight," the master crafter cued.

"You know Grandma Wang?" he paused. "That\'s a stupid question. It\'s a small town."

"And she introduced spirit art to me when I was young," Shi Jun added.

The master crafter proceeded to ready the horses, as Gale moved to complete one last job for the day. He crept along with Vale to the edge of the fence and brought out a wooden plate where written in bold words:

PRIVATE PROPERTY

STORMHOLD - ON MAKING

Below that, he left behind his signature full of his intent. Gale had worked on the signboard during the lunch break. He imprinted some scripts to make it indestructible to most natural elements.

"Vale, do you want your sign here, too?"

"Woof!"

Gale stooped to hold the wooden plate as the dog scratched his claws right next to Gales. It was full of intent, too.

Gale stuck the signboard high in the fence. Together with Vale, he gave it a look along with the vast space behind it.

___________

Alright, the book got successfully contracted. You guys can throw away golden stones as much as you can.

Also, the contract thing brought a few changes. First, what it means to me, well, I have to be more regular and have a proper schedule of updates. That\'s not really my strong suit. I\'ll see what I can do. Not promising my best yet.

Anyway, the book will go premium at some point. You know what it means. The chapters will be locked, and you\'ll need freepass or coins to unlock them.

Thank you.