I worked with Prince CaoHan every day to increase his cultivation base as swiftly and as perfectly as possible, but even with my help, his advancement was slower than he would have liked.

While I was able to stabilize his filters, alleviating him of that burden, the prince still had trouble drawing in significant quantities of qi. This was due to his lacking experience, his lacking affinities, and the fact that dragging qi through perfect filters required a considerable amount of pressure.

His anger and frustration over this situation drove him to dedicate himself to harsh cultivation every day. Still, at the end of our first year together, he had only reached Martial Disciple 4. And since each stage of cultivation would only become more difficult, there was a risk that he wouldn’t be able to reach Martial Master before the age of 20, when qi stagnation would set in.

The prince’s solution to this was straightforward. The palace had granted him a stipend of Qi Gathering Pills, and he planned to use them to push his cultivation forward as fast as possible. This wasn't a terrible idea, but when I saw the pills that he was given, I knew that I had to convince him to find a different path.

“My prince, you were given Mid-Purity pills. If you use those, it will cause severe damage to your foundation. We can find a better way. Let’s at least go out and purchase High-Purity pills.”

He seethed at my entreaty. “What do High-Purity pills cost? A gold each? Do you have that much money? I have none!”

Why hadn’t the palace given him better pills? Even Perfect Rank 1 pills would have cost them practically nothing, but they had given the prince pills that would ruin his foundation, and he had no choice but to take them. Why?

I wanted to step forward and offer my services as an alchemist, but… I couldn’t. I was already risking too much simply by training the prince as I had. Being a skilled teacher was one thing, but being a trained alchemist would be entirely different. The palace might be able to ignore my knowledge of cultivation, but if I showed off my skills as an alchemist, then they would have to take notice.

More than that, however… The thought of using my alchemy here made my soul ache. I couldn’t articulate exactly why, but I knew it would be the wrong choice.

The prince grunted and assumed his position in the center of the main hall. “Let’s continue.”

After consuming the pill, qi quickly began to gather around the prince, allowing him to progress far faster than he had before. The pill would cause damage, but I could only hope that if he didn’t take more than one per stage of cultivation, the damage would be limited.

With the prince focused on cultivating, years passed, and I came to learn more about the prince and what drove him.

He had been essentially cast out of the imperial family because of his low affinity. This seemed a little strange until I found out that, when a member of the imperial clan turned 16, they would undergo the family’s Disciple Trial. His low affinity wasn't natural. It was the direct result of his poor performance during this test. It was also because of this result that his family had severely limited the resources he received, cutting off his future.

Because of this, he was relegated to living in this rundown ‘palace.’ While other imperial scions had scores of servants, he had only me. His situation was better than mine had been in my early days, but the change in his life once his affinities were announced was more than most could bear.

I couldn’t help but feel that his situation resonated with my own.

He wasn’t only cast out because of his affinities, however. His blessing was considered equally weak since it only boosted his physical strength. Every time his cultivation advanced, the strength his blessing provided would also increase. But even if this increase was substantial, it wasn’t something that the imperial family valued.

What would they value, though? A pristine foundation? With my help, he could have achieved that, but he didn’t have the necessary time or resources. If he had been provided only a couple of gold a year, he could have had a perfect foundation as a Martial Disciple. Instead, he had one that was stuffed full of pill toxins.

When the prince was 19, he reached Peak Disciple, avoiding the risk of stagnation. He wanted to push further and enter the Martial Master realm immediately, but I saw that three years of hard work had taken a toll on him.

He needed a break.

So, I convinced him to take a trip into the city for a bit of relaxation. I was a little worried about our safety since he didn’t have any guards, but even though CaoHan had been dismissed by his family, he was still an imperial prince. There shouldn’t be many who would be willing to attack him.

Going outside the city might be risky, but there shouldn’t be much he needed to fear within the imperial capital itself. So, the two of us set out for a day in town.

This trip felt a lot like the last time I had been in the city. That time, the prince that I had been following was attacked in a test of my adherence to a slave technique. This time, I was hoping things would go a little smoother.

Our biggest problem was that Prince CaoHan didn’t have any money. The palace provided him with a small stipend, but it was not at the level that someone of his stature was accustomed to. To maintain appearances, he needed clothing that was suitable for a prince, but he was not willing to spend what little money he had on frivolities. Therefore, anything he bought needed to be maintained in top condition so that it would rarely need to be replaced.

A couple of lives ago, I had bought an extremely nice set of robes from the System with formations sewn into them that kept them clean and in good repair. I wished that the palace had been of a mind to provide all their scions with such clothing since, in its absence, maintenance of the prince’s wardrobe fell to me.

One of our top priorities during this trip was to find the prince a new set of robes that was both cheap and fashionable. If the prince wanted people in the palace to give him face, then he needed to look like someone who deserved it. Our hope was that, when presented as a Martial Master in well-tailored clothing, the palace might be willing to provide him with higher-quality pills or, at least, increase his stipend so that he would be able to purchase them.

We were walking through the city, slowly moving from the upper-class areas to the middle-class areas, when the prince froze stock still.

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He was staring at a girl buying food from a street vendor.

She couldn’t have been older than 15. To me, her appearance was ordinary. She wouldn’t have stood out when placed among any of the other women I had met in my travels. She had long, black hair and smooth skin, but that was common enough among girls of even modest means, and she wore a simple tan hanfu that showed she was likely of the lower-middle class. Overall, my appraisal of the girl was that she was ordinary.

“Beautiful,” whispered the prince. “I’ve never…”

“My prince?” His sudden change in mood worried me.

He continued to stare at the girl, mumbling to himself. “Would she? Of course. No one would deny me. Is it possible? Yes, I can accomplish anything I want…”

A gleam appeared in the prince’s eyes, and he spoke in a voice filled with reverence. “At last, I have met my first wife.”

He radiated confidence. There was no question in his mind. That girl was his wife.

He began to walk toward her, but before he was halfway there, a young man walked up to the girl and started talking to her. The prince immediately became enraged. He rushed forward and backhanded the boy, sending him sprawling to the ground. “How dare you speak to my wife!”

Both the girl and the boy were in shock and didn’t know how to respond.

The prince didn’t even notice. “Come, wife. Return to the palace with me immediately.”

The girl was frightened and could barely speak. “Who… who are you?”

“I am your husband. Follow me back home.”

This exchange had only lasted a moment, but all I could do was stand there, horrified at what was happening. Something had triggered in the prince’s brain that made him decide to kidnap a young girl. What should I do?

My ability gave me an instinctive response. In this situation, if I were cultivating the slave technique properly, I was supposed to walk up to the prince and offer him my complete support. And in this case, my ‘complete support’ meant breaking several bones in the boy’s body for daring to tarnish the prince’s woman.

No. That wasn’t going to happen.

Until this point, I had allowed that ability to guide me. I had shown more of my skills than I should have, but I never acted in a way that was contrary to the slave technique. Being able to zone out and rely on its guidance had been comforting.

The days of doing that were over.

If the ability wanted me to brutalize a child and help CaoHan kidnap a young woman, I would no longer play by its rules.

I walked up to the prince’s side. “My prince, would you please introduce me?”

“Steward Fang, this is my wife. You shall treat her with the respect she deserves.”

The poor girl was nearly crying at this point. She was shaking and afraid to move.

What was going on? What triggered in the prince’s mind to make him so certain this woman was his wife? It had to be the cultivation technique, but it shouldn’t have such an impact. Was it because of all the pill toxins?

My eyes widened when I realized something that I had forgotten. The ability to resist a cultivation technique’s influence depended on one’s soul strength. It had been a long time since I had concerned myself with this. I exercised and improved my soul through alchemy, but the prince had never done anything of the sort.

Even with a perfect foundation, with zero soul strength, he might still fall under the technique’s influence, and his foundation was far from perfect.

What had it done to him?

“My prince, mistress.” I bowed to both of them, acknowledging the prince’s claim. “How did such a union come about?”

The prince smiled. “You saw it yourself. I glanced at my wife as she was shopping and knew that she must be mine. If I decide that something must happen, then the world must bend to my will. The moment I decided to marry her, she became my wife.”

My mind raced to try and get a handle on the situation. How could I defuse it? “Of course, my prince. If your will is to marry her, then that is what will happen, but why don’t we return to the palace first to make preparations? Let this young woman return home and tell her parents the good news.”

The prince snorted. “It is my desire that she returns with me today. I will slay anyone who stands in my way.”

“Of course, my prince, of course,” I said, scrambling for a response.

The technique said that he ‘could not lose.’

“If it is your will, I am sure that the young lady would be honored to follow us back. It is only a shame that the introduction of your bride will pale in comparison to the spectacle of when your brothers introduced their wives.”

I had no idea if there was any truth in my statement. I could only hope.

The prince’s nostrils flared. “They dare!”

“My prince, let’s return to the palace first. Allow the lady to return home and coordinate with her parents while we prepare her celebration.”

He nodded firmly. “Yes, you are right. We must display her beauty properly for all to see. Come. Let us return immediately.”

Without so much as a final glance at his ‘wife,’ the prince turned and walked back toward the palace at a brisk pace. I only had a moment to give the girl a brief look of apology before hurrying after him.

I didn’t know why everything had gone so wrong in the city, but I could only blame it on a combination of powerful mental effects from a corrupt foundation, a weak soul, and a teenage boy’s hormones.

No matter what the problem was, however, I had to ensure both CaoHan and that young lady were protected. I would rather end this timeline immediately than be a party to something like what had almost just happened.

The only thing I could think of doing was to delay and keep the prince’s mind off the subject of taking a wife.

The prince, however, had other ideas. “Steward Fang, begin preparations for welcoming my wife to the palace in a grand manner.”

“Of course, my prince, but this isn’t something that should be rushed. If you show your dominance too quickly, your family might object.”

He snorted. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Your brothers may not be as intelligent as you expect. They may attempt to stop you.”

He glowered at me. “Then I will strike them down!”

“Exactly, but you must first raise your cultivation base. You cannot be stopped, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot be slowed. Please accept my guidance on this. I will begin preparations for welcoming the mistress, but we must wait until everything, including you, is ready.”

This finally calmed him. “Yes, I understand. I still need to gather my strength. I am powerful for my age, but…”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. He only turned around and returned to the main hall to resume cultivating.

Once he left, I hurried to prepare. Not to welcome a bride, but to train the poor boy.

His soul was too weak. It needed strengthening.

Early on, back in the Twin Mountains Sect, I had all but abandoned the idea of cultivating my soul. The risk of it causing me permanent harm had simply been too great. Therefore, I had neither experience nor knowledge about what soul cultivation might involve.

Thankfully, though, I had my mental library to help me. I had plundered several libraries over the years, and I was certain that there was at least one soul cultivation technique in it.

After a quick search, I managed to find three basic techniques. I didn’t know their quality, but they were all listed as being Rank 1. While none of them seemed like anything I would ever want to use personally, they were exactly what CaoHan needed.

I flipped through the manuals in my mental library and finally settled on one that seemed both easy to cultivate and had an effect that seemed like the best option available for balancing the prince’s mind.

The manual said that cultivating it would lead to a feeling of detachment from the world, making everything feel less important. It wasn’t a good effect, none of the ones I had were, but at least this one had a chance of stopping him from kidnapping that girl.

I took out several sheets of paper and quickly made a copy of the technique, then I went to deliver it. “My prince, your qi cultivation has been proceeding admirably, but you need to go further. Soul cultivation is the key to mastering the power you have gained. Only by combining both can you become truly unstoppable.”

He looked at me, and I could feel he was about to object, so I preempted him.

“My prince, as you know, in your current condition, you require my assistance to advance in qi cultivation. With soul cultivation, this will not be the case. If you practice this technique, you will gain power that belongs to you alone.”

I could see wheels turning in his mind, trying to figure out what my goal was, but his cultivation technique won out. It didn’t matter what I planned. He would always be able to win through.

“Fine. Give it to me.”