A soldier took me to a small cultivation room on the edge of the palace complex. Once there, he opened a jade bottle, took out a pill, and shoved it into my hand.

“Swallow this.”

Not recognizing the pill, I wanted to take a couple of seconds to examine it, but the soldier’s demeanor indicated that he wanted me to take it without delay. I didn’t know what the exact effects of this pill would be, but I could tell that it was some type of poison. Still, I didn’t seem to have any choice here, and I didn’t think he wanted to kill me, so I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed it down.

Pain lanced through me as all of the qi in my body trembled at once.

The soldier had indeed given me a poison pill, but it was not a poison for the physical body. It acted on a person’s energy body. My cultivation base fell into a weakened state that felt as if it were on the verge of collapsing entirely. I was a Martial Disciple, and what he had given me had to be at least a Rank 2 poison. My energy body couldn’t resist its effects at all.

He handed me another pill. “Swallow.”

This time, I easily recognized what he handed me as a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill. Usually, giving such a pill to a Martial Disciple was one of the worst ideas imaginable, but this soldier just looked at me emotionlessly. He wasn’t willing to take ‘no’ for an answer.

I swallowed the pill.

“Give me access to your qi,” he commanded.

Relying on my ability, I instinctively gave him control. Then, he reached into my body and twisted my qi, similar to what I had done for… for Mei…

He began braiding my qi into meridians, and everywhere he worked, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain. The poison he had given me earlier acted to alleviate the problems caused by calcification, but the way it did so was torture. My body was in agony, both from the poison coursing through my system and the feeling of my flesh being ripped apart as the man slowly wove meridians throughout my torso.

Thankfully, the soldier was skilled enough to complete both of my torso meridians in less than a day. This told me that, not only did he have high affinities, but he also had a lot of experience doing this.

My biggest worry now was that these shiny new meridians followed the palace’s slave technique, putting me in a far more dangerous position than I had been in before. I considered trying to disperse these meridians and forge new ones on my own, but this deep into calcification, I wasn’t sure I could manage it. If I significantly increased my water affinity, maybe, but it would be a risk.

However, I had cultivated a different Rank 1 technique, I had the resistance enhancement from the system. I also didn’t have any plans to advance past Martial Master 1. This should be enough for me to protect myself against the mental influences of only two meridians. If not, then I would need to make sure I ended my life before I was too far gone.

Once he was finished, the soldier spent several minutes examining my body and confirming that the job had been done correctly. He had created a network of tiny capillary meridians that was far more complex than any technique that I had ever cultivated, but the soldier seemed satisfied with his work and chose not to make any changes.

Once he was satisfied, the soldier nodded his head and looked me in the eye. “Follow.”

I was taken to a dilapidated building on the western edge of the palace complex.

The gardens were overgrown, and weeds were poking out everywhere. The cobblestones and the sides of the building were caked in dirt, and I didn’t hear any sounds of movement from within the courtyard. Above the entrance hung a sign that read, “Cold Wind Palace.” This ‘palace’ was large enough to house dozens of people, but it felt abandoned.

The soldier led me to the main hall where a young man was sitting alone in the lotus position. The young man was trying to focus on his cultivation, but the soldier didn’t seem to care about interrupting him.

“Prince CaoHan, Steward Fang has been assigned to the Cold Wind Palace as your assistant. If you have any further requests, he may deliver them to the head steward in your stead.”

After saying this, the soldier didn’t wait for a reply. He simply turned around and walked out of the building.

I felt awkward just standing there, but what was I supposed to do? My ability told me to just stand still and wait for orders from the prince, so that’s what I did.

The prince continued cultivating silently for several hours. He didn’t even look at me, so I just stood there and waited. While I waited, however, I took the opportunity to examine the prince with qi vision.

He was a Martial Disciple 1 who had never drawn any energy into his body. He was practicing the creation of his first qi filter, but his movements were rather inept, and he struggled with creating even the most basic of shapes. Whenever he did complete the creation of a shoddy, experimental filter, he would try passing qi through it, but each one immediately collapsed.

When he finally gave up, he gave me a cold look. He was angry, not at me, but at the world.

“Prepare dinner.”

This story originates from NovelBin. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I gave a bow, turned, and did as ordered.

Over the next several days, this situation continued as the prince spent all his time working on basic cultivation while I performed simple tasks to keep him fed and clothed.

After days of practice, the prince was finally able to create a filter capable of remaining intact as he drew in qi, but the purity of this qi was abysmal. It wasn’t my responsibility to step in and point this out, but he didn’t have a teacher, and if he continued along the path that he was going down, he was going to ruin his future.

I probed my ability to see if it was appropriate for me to step in, but I didn’t receive a clear answer. I had never demonstrated any ability to help someone cultivate, and I wasn’t officially the prince’s teacher, so I had no responsibility to step in. At the same time, there was nothing that would prevent it. If I had the ability to help, then I would be expected to do so.

In the prince, I saw a lot of myself from my early days in this world. He was going down the same path I had walked when I first started cultivating, and I knew where it would lead him. I didn’t want someone else to make the same mistakes that I had, if I could prevent it.

Beyond that, if the prince continued down this path, he would have no future. And, if the prince had no future, then I doubted that I would have much of a future, either. Our fates were interconnected now, and if I wanted to survive long enough to learn more about Du XiongMing, then it was in my best interest to keep him as sane as possible.

Making my decision, I stepped forward and spoke in a commanding voice. “Prince CaoHan, stop.”

He ignored me and continued cultivating.

Not knowing what to say that could make him listen, I crossed the room, walked to his side, and pressed heavily on his shoulder to get his attention. “Stop, prince.”

His qi scattered, and his eyes opened wide in anger as he slapped my hand away. “How dare you!”

I gave him a deep bow. “Prince, this is not the way. You need to perfect your qi filter first.”

“You dare lecture a prince on how to cultivate!?”

I kowtowed before him. “Apologies, prince, but I must. Cultivating like this will only harm you. Please allow me to assist.”

He visibly struggled with this request. He clearly wanted to send me away, but he also had to know the path he was on would only lead to failure.

“Fine, assist me then,” he snarled.

Prince, please allow me to look at your cultivation technique.”

He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, but he relented and pulled a scroll from his robes. “This is the Indomitable Earth Mantra. It is a secret technique of our dynasty. You shall never speak of it to anyone. It is said that whoever successfully cultivates this technique can never lose.”

I opened the technique and quickly read through it. It was a basic Peak-Yellow earth qi technique, so I just needed to note down the filter design and the details for each acupoint.

The prince’s words about a person who cultivates this technique ‘never being able to lose’ worried me. It was a basic technique. There was nothing about it that made a cultivator special in any way. Therefore, the technique either had to be creating a mindset that would make a cultivator believe they were unbeatable, or it would make it so that a cultivator was unwilling to accept any loss. It was a dangerous technique, but looking at the prince, I could sense that I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of using it. The best that I could do was to help him cultivate it as well as possible.

Before I could help, however, I needed to know what I was working with.

“My prince, what is your earth affinity?”

His eyes blazed with anger, but his voice was cool and detached. “I was only granted a mid nine-star affinity.”

That was going to be a problem. Getting him to the point where he could perfectly cultivate a Peak-Yellow technique would take years, and I doubted he would be willing to wait that long.

The thought of using credits to boost his affinities popped into my mind, but I instantly dismissed it. That would have been beyond foolhardy. I needed to take a different approach.

“My prince, please form a qi filter on your upper right arm.”

He was angry with his situation, but he was smart enough to know that he needed help. So, after a quick snort, he complied.

I reached out with my affinities to try to fix the problems, but I didn’t have sufficient strength. I was only a Martial Master 1 with a mid eight-star earth affinity. Forcibly manipulating the qi in someone else’s body required either a high cultivation base or a high affinity, preferably both.

I considered my options. I couldn’t raise my cultivation base, but nothing was stopping me from raising my affinity. And since I had a Peak-Earth earth qi cultivation technique that I wanted to try out in my next life anyway, there was no reason not to go ahead and raise my affinity a bit early.

Turning my head away, I subvocalized, “System, permanently raise my earth affinity to peak seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 172,500 credits. 149,660,775 credits remaining.

That was more than enough for what I needed to do.

I reached out and manipulated the prince’s qi filter. As I did, his face showed discomfort, but he didn’t speak. “My prince, this is the proper filter for your technique. Try to draw energy through it.”

As he began to draw in energy, I slowly relaxed my hold over the qi filter, expecting the prince to instinctively take control to stabilize it.

He didn’t.

The qi filter began to wobble, so I reasserted my control. “Prince, try to keep the filter steady.”

He tried, but he simply didn’t have the strength. The filter was too complicated for him, and managing it while also keeping the qi flowing at the right angle and velocity was beyond him.

“Stop, my prince. We need to discuss this.”

I saw frustration on his face, but he relented and let go of his qi. “Speak.”

I had started down this path, and I didn’t know where it would lead me, but I had to commit myself to it because, if I didn’t, then I would be trapped as the servant of a cultivation-mad prince until I died.

“My prince, you need to make a decision about your future as a cultivator. There are a few ways that we can proceed, and you need to choose your path while knowing the consequences of that choice.”

He simply nodded in acknowledgment.

“The first option is to proceed as you were before. Cultivate on your own and try to advance immediately. This will result in a severe mental influence that will control you for the rest of your life.”

“No.” His left eye twitched with annoyance.

“Second, you can try to find a way to increase your affini—”

“No.”

I nodded at his quick response. “I can train you so that you will be able to cultivate on your own. With your current affinity, you will need a significantly stronger soul to cultivate that technique properly. I can help you with this as well, but it will still take time.”

“How long?”

“I cannot be certain. At least ten year—”

“No.” He glared at me. “I must reach Martial Grandmaster before thirty.”

I sucked in a breath. “Then I will need to assist you directly whenever you cultivate. The only options you have are how much assistance I provide. The more I help, the better your foundation will be. However, if I control too much of the process, you may not have the experience you will need at later stages.”

He looked me directly in the eye. He was burning with a fiery determination. “Do everything you can to make it perfect. I need a flawless foundation, but we must hurry. The faster I reach Martial Grandmaster, the better.”