When I opened my eyes and found myself back in the cramped inn room in Iron Spear’s slums, the first thing I did was climb onto the hard bed and go to sleep. My body didn’t need rest, but my mind did—and so did my teammates.

The next time I opened them, I dressed in my newly bought, secondhand robes and sat down, getting into as comfortable a position as I could manage.

As I thought through the events of the previous day, I realized that I had been overlooking a key mechanic of my temporary reset points. Because YuLong and Meng LuYao had been in my inner world when I created that last reset point, they were treated exactly the same as everyone else in my inner world. When I traveled back through time, they just continued on, living out their lives in the Plane of Wood.

This meant that, if I died when they were outside my inner world, they wouldn’t return until I went all the way back to my permanent reset point. At the same time, however, it gave me the ability to perform several loops without affecting them. They would be able to just continue living out their normal, natural lives.

I had no way of knowing if this feature would prove useful, but at the cost of only a single credit, there was no reason not to take advantage of it.

“System, create another temporary reset point. One that will send me back here upon my next death.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 59,740 credits remaining.

This done, I stood up, retrieved my defensive formations, and headed out.

Leaving the inn as a group of six had drawn far too much attention, especially since I’d been the only one seen entering. Therefore, this time, I chose to make a more subtle exit.

I walked out of the inn alone and began wandering the streets of Iron Spear City without any particular direction in mind. After about a quarter of an hour, just as I passed a random alleyway, I reached into my inner world and extracted YuLong and JiuLi. Roughly ten minutes later, I found another alleyway and dropped off Meng LuYao and Kan.

I then continued my aimless ramblings for another half hour or so before finally making my way to the market we had visited the day before. When I arrived, everyone was already waiting for me, each person carrying a rucksack and looking as if like they were in the middle of a long journey.

“Have you found out where we need to go?” asked JiuLi.

I lowered my head to her. “Yes, Miss. Right this way.”

This response caused the muscles around JiuLi’s mouth to twitch, but since she was the least convincing wandering adventurer among us, she had become our nominal leader.

Turning, I led the group on the shortest path out of the city, bringing them to the paddocks where one could hire a caravan. There, I carefully studied the various coaches and drivers before deciding on an older man who was standing next to a shoddy carriage. This man had a Martial Disciple 5 cultivation base, and if my intuition was correct, he was exactly the type of person we needed.

“Excuse me, sir. How much to take us to the Broken Spear Outpost?” I asked, using the Southern Yue language.

He grunted as he eyed our group appraisingly. “5 gold. Each. Another 5 for the empty seat.”

Even with mortal horses, the outpost I’d targeted was only a few hours' ride from the city. With the carriage driver only being a Martial Disciple, this should have only cost us 30 silver.

I looked at JiuLi and spoke in Western Han. “30 gold, Miss.”

JiuLi hesitated before nodding to Kan, who reached into his belt pouch, pulled out the requested fee, and handed it to me.

I then passed the coins to the driver with a slight bow. “Here you are, sir.”

The driver grunted unhappily, but he didn’t hesitate to swipe the gold with a greedy glint in his eye. “Get in.”

Nodding, I looked at my companions and gestured for JiuLi, Meng LuYao, and Kan to take the forward-facing bench while YuLong and I sat down opposite them.

Once we were on our way, I looked around at my companions. Any discussions we had would be overheard by the carriage driver, but this wasn’t really a problem. What we needed to talk about was the same as what any young group of cultivators in our position would need to talk about. The only difference was that most groups wouldn’t have waited so long to make such an important decision.

“We need to decide the focus of our sect. What weapon will our members be expected to cultivate?”

Kan looked at me sharply, but I held up a hand to stop him.

“To be successful in this domain, we need to become weapon cultivators. You can cultivate an element as well, becoming a lightning-saber cultivator, if you want, but only weapon qi is usable in the domain’s Secret Realms. So, everyone must cultivate a weapon, and because of a few peculiarities with weapon cultivation, it would be best if we all used the same one.”

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YuLong gestured from Meng LuYao to the two youths sitting next to her, his gaze lingering on JiuLi for a beat longer than the others. “What about… talent? There might not be a weapon that we are all talented with.”

“That was always going to be a problem,” I conceded. “However… This domain has large clans and sects where every member cultivates the same weapon. This might just be a matter of children inheriting their parents’ affinities and sects recruiting the right disciples, but there are rumors…”

I glanced at Meng LuYao. “I’ve never heard of anyone who can confirm this, but it’s said that the Secret Realms are capable of enhancing a person’s talents. It’ll be a while before we can access these Realms, and even then, it might be difficult to find one that matches our chosen weapon, but it should

be doable.”

Kan looked like he wanted to offer his opinion, but YuLong spoke up first, blocking him.

“Fang, you know this domain better than us. What do you recommend?”

Tapping my leg, I thought out loud as I considered our options. “We have nine weapons to choose from: bow, guandao, fist, ji, crescent moon spade, saber, sword breaker, chain, and spear. Fist, saber, sword breaker, and spear are all rather popular, making the competition for their associated Secret Realms all the fiercer. I would recommend going with one of the others.”

YuLong nodded. “That matches my thoughts as well. This domain is supposed to be in an endless war against demon beasts, right? It would probably be best if we chose a weapon suitable for dealing with them.”

Kan glanced down at his sword with a somewhat dejected look. Then, his resolve firmed. “The guandao or ji. Chains and moon spades aren’t much use against hordes of beasts, and while bows are nice, they won’t do much good once the beasts are in close.”

I looked at Meng LuYao and JiuLi to see what they were thinking.

“Fang,” said LuYao, slowly. “The ji and guandao. They aren’t too different, are they? I mean, they’re both pointy bits of metal on the end of a stick. How does… whatever know which one we’re using? Why can’t we use ‘guandao qi’ with a ji, or vice versa?”

“No clue. There might be key features that a weapon needs to ‘register’ as one or the other, or it might be something else entirely,” I replied, honestly. “Intent, maybe? The person who made the weapon intended it to be a guandao, so that’s what it is?”

“The intent of the wielder?” asked JiuLi. “The person using the weapon believes the pointy metal stick is a sword, so that’s what it is?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Meng LuYao waved the details away. “The specifics aren’t important. I’m just wondering, well, how far can we push this? How much can we change a guandao and it still be a guandao? Surely we can change the length of the staff, right? How much? Can we, perhaps, shorten it until it’s the length of a sword hilt?”

This made Kan’s eyes light up, causing me to shake my head.

“I don’t know. Possibly. It’s worth trying, I guess, but there has to be a limit… right?”

By this point, neither Kan nor YuLong were listening. They had already made up their minds. We would be forming a sect of ‘guandao’ cultivators.

Two hours into our journey, when we should have been about two-thirds of the way to the Broken Spear Outpost, our carriage slowed to a stop, and a booming voice awoke us from our quiet meditations.

“Out of the carriage. Now!”

After checking to make sure everyone was ready, I nodded to YuLong and motioned for him to open the door.

Stepping outside, I studied the group that had surrounded us. Nine middle-aged men, all dressed in ragged clothing and carrying an assortment of rusty weapons. Most were low-level Disciples, between Martial Disciple 3 and 5, but their leader was a Martial Disciple 8, with only his lower legs not yet fortified.

When Kan climbed out of the carriage, the bandit leader shouted at him. “Drop the sword!”

Snorting, Kan threw his weapon back into the carriage.

“Toss over the valuables,” ordered the bandit leader, before gesturing at Kan’s belt pouch with his spear. “Including your storage bag. Send it here.”

Kan gave me a quick glance, then did as ordered.

When the scrawny man next to the leader picked it up, however, he scowled at Kan. “It’s not a storage bag. Just a leather pouch. Barely a dozen gold.”

I smiled at the bandit leader. “Will that be all, then? Are we free to go?”

“Oh, you’re going all right.” He waved his spear at his underlings. “Kill the men. Take the women.”

I bowed my head to the man. “Thank you. This has made things so much easier.”

As the bandits slowly closed in, clearly worried about our unnatural calm, I turned to YuLong. “What do you think?”

“Without any cultivation base? It’s going to be tough.”

I patted his shoulder. “No worries. Kan can always help you out, right?”

Then, reaching into my inner world, I pulled out two basic, mortal guandaos, handing one to each of the two young men before the bandits could react.

The fight that followed was… messy. YuLong, as competent with the guandao as with any weapon, was able to dispatch his opponents without much effort. They might have had a few levels of cultivation on him, but they were neither blessed nor talented fighters.

As for Kan, he was… decent. His years of martial arts training were obvious in the way he held himself, but it was equally obvious that he had never spent much time fighting with a polearm. I ended up having to step in a couple of times with a guandao of my own to prevent him from being badly injured.

After only a few dozen seconds, the only bandit still standing was their leader, but with his high cultivation base, he wouldn’t be going down as easily as his subordinates.

Deciding to play things safe, I reached into my inner world and pulled out the Rank 7 moon spade that was imbued with a sliver of my soul. As the bandit leader backed away, clearly terrified, I thrust the spade at him and pulled on what little environmental moon spade qi I could, funneling it into a silvery Moon Strike that leapt across the intervening distance and sliced into the man’s gut. Such a weak attack wouldn’t have done much to a normal opponent, but there was a reason these men had been forced to turn bandit, and it wasn’t because they were supremely talented warriors.

Once the bandit leader was injured, YuLong walked forward and finished him.

“Alright,” I said, looking around at my companions. “Cut off their heads and bag ‘em up. This should be enough to let us register as a Nine-Star Sect.”

I glanced over at YuLong. “Oh, and see if you can run down that carriage driver. He still owes us 30 gold.”