The light of early morning pierced through the rubble of destroyed buildings, waking me up to find the area around me entirely undisturbed. As I stood and dusted myself off, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been too paranoid.

Emperor Chan had emphasized the dangers of this city, saying that I would need to rely on my moon spade to keep me safe, but he had also stressed the importance of not killing anyone. Since every other young cultivator who came here had likely received this same lecture—even those from the one- and two-star sects—the chances of me being randomly assassinated should be relatively low.

Also, I hadn’t seen anything in the Palace Borough to suggest that the City of Selfless Courage was actually dangerous. Yes, this borough was protected by an unusually high number of guard patrols, but the fact remained that not a single person had tried to attack me the entire day.

So, why had I felt the need to hide out in the middle of an abandoned building with several layers of formations for protection? Why had I been so worried about that innkeeper poisoning me?

Entering this rubble-strewn area had set me on edge, and something about that rundown inn had triggered my danger sense. How had that one building survived the destruction of everything around it? If that inn was still in use, why was it so dirty? Why hadn’t the innkeeper bothered to clean it up? There had to be more to this story.

The smart move would be to walk away. Dangerous or not, poking my nose into that innkeeper’s business would only cause trouble. But, wasn’t that the whole point of coming to this city? If I were just going to wander around, avoiding any signs of potential danger, then why bother with this Return in the first place? I should just hide out in the Palace and work on alchemy.

Coming to a decision, I turned and headed back to the Cross Slope Inn.

In the light of the new day, I could see the Cross Slope Inn for what it was: a simple, two-story stone building. It might have survived whatever had destroyed everything else in the area, but it hadn’t done so unscathed. The building’s walls were covered in deep gouges, and it was almost entirely encircled by a crooked, half-meter-wide trench.

Judging from appearances alone, the inn looked like the location of a valiant last stand, where the locals had rallied together and joined forces to fight off whatever was attacking them. However, as I looked at the place, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. This inn didn’t feel like a place of valor or righteous fury. It felt like a place of death and destruction. It felt like a charnel house.

I needed to keep these feelings in mind, but I didn’t want to let them control my actions. So, after taking a moment to check my moon spade, ensuring that I had easy access to it in the event of an emergency, I walked forward and entered the inn.

The innkeeper, Zeong Cing, didn’t immediately come out to greet me this time. So, I walked to the table that I had used the day before, sat down, and allowed my mind to drift into a meditative state.

Sitting there, pondering over the situation that I found myself in, I realized that the Saint’s prohibitions against cultivators were oddly flawed. I wasn’t allowed to cultivate, but this didn’t mean that I was banned from using qi entirely. I just wasn’t allowed to draw it into myself.

Focusing, I reached out with my mind and tugged on the qi that surrounded me.

Back in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had been able to mobilize the qi in the Fire Peak Trial to craft a low-level pill. That hadn’t exactly been easy, but the tunnels of the Fire Peak Trial had been flooded with pure fire qi, simplifying the process immensely.

Working with environmental qi in the outside world was far more difficult, but with sufficient effort, I could still mobilize it to craft simple pills and formations—like I had when constructing my defensive formations earlier. This took a significant amount of concentration, so it would be difficult to do in the middle of a fight, but if I could master this skill, I might be able to fight at the level of a Martial Master even without a cultivation base.

With a powerful flex of my will, I reached out and gathered up enough fire qi to create a small flame.

I then tried to pull in more energy and increase the intensity of this flame, but as I did, it slipped from my grasp and dissipated. The fire qi in this area was too sparse, and without a way to store it, collecting enough energy to create anything more than that small flame was nearly impossible.

Accepting this result, I switched my focus. I was in the middle of a rocky, rubble-strewn wasteland. There was little water, no plants, and nothing to burn. However, the entire place was covered in stones.

As I reached out with my intent, an abundance of earth qi began to coalesce in the palm of my right hand. However, just as I was about to see what I could do with this energy, a bamboo steamer basket slammed down on the table in front of me, breaking me from my concentration.

Opening my eyes, I saw Zeong Cing plop down in the seat opposite me.

“Vegetable again, right?”

Inwardly chiding myself for becoming too distracted, I nodded. “Y… Yes.”

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Like the day before, instead of biting into the buns directly, I first tore them in half and studied their contents to make sure they were safe. Because of this, the innkeeper was more than halfway through his meal before I had even started.

Once I was satisfied with the food’s safety, however, I didn’t hold back. I had been in the City of Selfless Courage for nearly a day by this point, and having only eaten a single small meal, I desperately needed something to quell my hunger. Because of this, while the innkeeper had started eating well before me, we both finished at about the same time.

Zeong Cing leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. Then, right as I thought that he was about to fall asleep, he spoke. “Four coppers.”

At my waist, I found a depressingly thin leather pouch.

After just a couple of meals, I only had two coins left. I wanted to play out the scenario that Emperor Chan had placed me in, but unless I found a way to earn some quick cash, I would be forced to make some tough decisions.

Sensing my distress, Zeong Cing grunted. “A pauper Return ain’t easy. Unless you’re willing to spend all your time doing back-breaking labor, there’s really only one way to make it work.”

I lowered my head, understanding his meaning. Was I willing to do it? Was I willing to turn bandit?

“East of here’s the Stone Borough, but don’t expect to be let through the gate without at least a few silver in your pouch.” The innkeeper’s eyes cracked open ever so slightly. “You should head southeast. A new warlord’s taken over a village down there and is terrorizing the locals. Maybe you can put a stop to it. If nothing else, you can use his soldiers’ purses to pad your own.”

Zeong Cing’s words carried a hint of viciousness, but it seemed directed at that warlord, not me.

Nodding, I stood. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

As I turned to leave, the innkeeper shouted after me, “If you want to earn a bit extra, bring me back some fresh meat. Not much comes around here anymore, and hunting it always causes too much of a commotion.”

Nodding unsurely, I opened the door and stepped outside.

As I did, the innkeeper left me with one parting line, though he spoke so softly that I could barely hear it. “The spade was a good choice. Do it proud.”

The idea behind the Return to Simplicity was strange. In a way, it wasn’t too different from how I turned back into a Su Clan orphan at the start of each loop. However, the challenges that I had faced in those ‘Returns’ were real. Here, everything was a… game.

A vicious warlord had arisen in the southeast and was terrorizing the local population. One Returnee had decided to play the warlord, and another was supposed to come by and play the hero. This allowed both the warlord and the hero to have fun while gaining ‘real’ battle experience. Then, once one or the other was defeated, and both could return home, having lived out a fantasy with no harm done.

Except, for the locals, this wasn’t a game. They were repressed, tortured, and killed.

Did I want to take part in this? If I didn’t, then that ‘warlord’ would continue doing whatever it was he was doing until someone else decided to step in. But… was that enough of a justification for me to become an active participant in this farce?

Walking down the road, following Zeong Cing’s directions, I did my best to come up with a rational answer.

I needed to reframe the question. What was the difference between what was happening in the City of Selfless Courage and what was happening in my inner world?

For the past several centuries, I had routinely sent powerful demon beasts to attack the residents of Chang’an. People were injured in these attacks, and sometimes, people died. I had accepted this as a necessity. To push people to become something greater, to create a unified society that didn’t devolve into constant infighting, the people needed an outside threat to fight against.

But, those demon beast attacks were just as much of a farce as this ‘warlord.’ The only difference was their purpose.

The purpose of the Returns was to make the Returnees stronger. The mortals were little more than fodder to fuel their growth. The purpose of the demon beast attacks, on the other hand, was to make the people of Chang’an stronger. Yes, I intended to use this growth to gain power for myself, but my goal was to raise up the members of my clan so that they could stand beside me, not to trample them under my boot.

So, how should I deal with this warlord?

I could charge in, slaughter his soldiers, and force him to fight me himself in some epic duel, but how would that help the locals? Defeating this one warlord would remove the current threat, but the cycle would only repeat itself when the next Returnee arrived. Why not try for something greater?

As ideas for how to make the best use of my Return danced through my mind, I continued my trek southeast, following Zeong Cing’s instructions. Lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed when two soldiers dressed in black robes walked up to me and lowered their spears in my direction.

“Halt! This territory has been claimed by Lord Mandakh the Radiant. State your business.”

I looked up and cocked my head. “Is ‘Mandakh’ this new warlord I’ve been hearing about?”

The nostrils of both men flared, and they shouted at me in turn.

“How dare you call the master by his name!”

“How dare you call Lord Mandakh the Radiant a warlord. He has claimed this land as our champion!”

I nodded silently. These two soldiers, at least, seemed to really like this Mandakh. Before making any big moves, I needed to get a better understanding of this place. After all, while Zeong Cing had seemed trustworthy enough, he was still a stranger who ran a creepy inn. He had his own agenda, and I had no reason to expect that his goals would align with mine.

Before I could explore Mandakh’s territory, however, I needed to deal with the two problems in front of me. Based on their aggressive posture, I doubted that I could say anything to make these soldiers just step aside. So, I walked forward without saying a word.

When I was only a few steps away, the man on the left lunged forward and attempted to skewer me.

I whipped the moon spade off my back and batted his strike aside with its shovel.

This caused the guard on the right to stab out at me as well, so I swung the crescent moon end of my staff around to block him.

Over the next minute, I exchanged a series of blows with the two men. They were decently well-trained, but they seemed more like militia men than true soldiers. They knew how to stand and how to attack, but none of their strikes were particularly dangerous.

Once I finally decided that I’d had enough, I pulled a couple of pills from my inner world and tossed them into the men’s mouths, causing them to instantly drop to the ground, unconscious. This was a slight violation of the rule that I should rely on nothing but my moon spade, but it was far more humane than smashing in the men’s skulls.

Stepping forward, I riffled through the soldiers’ belt pouches and liberated a few copper coins from each one. While I didn’t want to rob the poor men blind, I needed money to pay for food, and they did owe me for that combat lesson.

Nodding in satisfaction, I returned my moon spade to my back and continued my trek forward.