Three days had since crawled by since Xin walked away, leaving behind silence thick as mist, Yet Fad hadn't dared return to the Xu Sect yet.
The sect's mountain loomed in the distance, watchful and cold, but instead of climbing it, he hunted.
Not for experience nor for the next level though, he needed the rhythm of real combat to fully understand himself and how to utilize his current strength to the maximum.
After all, ever since his Evolutional, the system had stopped granting him EXP. No more rewards, no shortcuts.
Daily quests still flashed in and out, but even they no longer counted.
It made it look like Fad evolved too fast, and now the system was punishing him for it.
Anyways, the first few beast encounters were almost instinctual: novice-tier creatures fell quickly, their movements too predictable.
But intermediate-tier beasts? They pushed him, forced him to draw on reflexes he didn't remember learning, something that Fad needed desperately.
He could remember one fire-scaled boar had nearly crushed his ribs before he delivered the killing blow. Another, a mist spider with venomous silk, had cornered him for hours. And still… he emerged victorious.
Each fight had taught him something, the weight of the spear in a clash, the timing of rune activation, and the agony of burned Qi.
By now, it's fair to say that Fad had measured his own strength perfectly. But that wasn't all.
At night, he poured over guildbooks: Acupuncture, Rune Crafting, Blacksmithing.
The acupuncture guide unlocked subtle shifts in Qi channels, he could now redirect flows mid-combat, softening damages or making them more critical.
Rune Crafting was more unpredictable; he could cast basic elemental runes, yes, but their cost burned through his reserves like wildfire.
Blacksmithing had proved harder. He had no natural affinity, but one scene refused to leave his memory that forced him to continue studying the book.
He could remember, the moment he clashed with that Intermediate-tier Lust Spider, he swore he'd seen some golden lightning flickering on the spear's shaft, but passed out before knowing what was happening.
Still, something inside him knew: that spear was more than just a metal, it was something else, and the answers lie deep within the blacksmith guidebook.
Every time he held it, power surged in him, a quiet confidence like the weapon knew him better than he knew himself, buffing his physically attributes and enabling him to fight against the intermediate tier beasts. .
[+29 Qi points]
[Maximum daily Qi cultivation reached]
[Qi points: 970]
[Potential Overflow Detected]
[Limit Expansion Possible]
The text displayed.
This was another thing. Something had changed. His body absorbed Qi more efficiently now, thresholds rising with each day. He could cultivate longer without strain, as Qi felt like a second heartbeat to him.
Fad opened his eyes and brushed away the floating text. He stood, stretched, and turned toward the distant silhouette of Xu Sect. The mountain cast a long shadow, but Fad no longer shrank beneath it.
He smirked knowing full well of his plans, and now that it had come to this.
"With my current strength, I think I can handle Fei and Feng easily," he muttered, voice low and sure. "But Yeng and Lin... that's another story." He spoke.
But Fad new, if it comes to a point where he needs to face Yeng Xu and Lin Xu, top ranked martial artist of Xu sect, then he still had a trick or two that would last him a second while figuring a way out.
His fingers grazed the Rune guidebook and the spear for a moment, before storing them back in his inventory.
Alongside them were beast crystals shimmering faintly, something that Fad could sell to obtain a few coins.
"But I still need to be careful about the runes though," he whispered. "I haven't found a way to minimize its Qi costs yet, and the awakening ceremony coming soon."
He paused. Then, with a sharp exhale, he clenched his fists, wind slicing past his skin in cool, deliberate strokes.
Further ahead, the Xu Sect mountain stood like an immovable scar etched into the horizon, familiar and distant, sacred and suffocating.
Its peaks clawed the clouds like it had every other day of his life, unchanged and indifferent to the storm he now carried inside.
He squinted at its silhouette.
The place that had branded him broken.
The place that watched him bleed and said nothing.
Home, not by love, but by lineage.
He stood and looked over the the Xu sect direction, around his neck the prison cloth flapped gently, catching the wind like a battle flag torn from a fallen soldier.
His knuckles cracked with anger burning in him, forcing his lips to part ways before speaking,
"I'm going home."
Fad jumped down the stone he was sitting on and started charging towards the Xu sect at the top of his speed.
It wasn't just a simple run, Fad exploded from the ridge like a summoned storm.
His evolved legs tore through the forest floor, leaving deep impressions behind, each stride wider, faster, sharper.
The wind bent around him like thread unraveling from a spool, forced into submission by speed it couldn't contain. Leaves spiraled in his wake, caught in his draft, fluttering like startled birds.
Branches cracked, not from contact but pressure, his Qi conducted velocity warped the air into a cone of subtle distortion.
Small beasts scattered, sensing something unnatural approaching. Even the trees, centuries old and unmoved by time, seemed to sway as he passed between them.
That's just how strong his evolutional stats made him, he wasn't just at a novice martial ranked anymore, he was somethings else entirely, unable to tell after his martial rank slot removal.
If it wasn't for the system restricting his growth, he could have been far stronger than this.
His path, it wasn't linear. It was dance, and yet Fad had no difficults navigating through at the top of his speed.
His senses were sharp, reflexes perfected.
Each tree became an obstacle turned art, the twist of his shoulder here, the sideways vault over twisted roots there. A low branch rushed toward him like a guillotine; he ducked, gliding underneath with barely an inch to spare, the prison cloth around his neck rippling like a banner chasing freedom.
Nearing the edge of the forest, Fad used the knowledge he had learned from acupuncture to power his legs with Qi, the book didn't just talk of treating stickiness, it also contained information on how one can benefit through Qi flow, something that Fad was doing right now.
He exploded, leaping in the air to the heights that would otherwise be impossible.
From a distance, one might mistake him for a master of flight, but it was just a perfect Qi control.
He broke through the last line of trees like a specter drawn by fate.
His descent wasn't chaotic, it was calculated, silent, and heavy with intention.
He soared briefly above the forest canopy, wind brushing past him in shimmering sheets, the prison cloth at his neck flaring like a forgotten banner. Then, with a low thud, his boots touched the earth just outside the Xu Sect's main gate.
Not a crash.
Not a spectacle.
Just pressure.
The ground beneath him fractured slightly, a shallow crater blooming outward in response to the force. Dust curled into the evening air, like incense summoned by presence alone.
Voices stilled.
Hundreds of eyes turned in unison.
They stood in orderly lines, disciples draped in robes finer than silk, wanderers wrapped in ceremonial cloaks, merchants holding embroidered scroll cases like gifts for nobles.
Each person dressed as though attending a festival of power, their garments stitched with clan emblems and heavenly beasts.
Elegance hung in the air.
It felt less like a gate to a sect, and more like an entrance to court.
Fad blinked at the stares as he somehow didn't expect them here. He looked lost with a thought in his head.
"Crap," he muttered under his breath, lips twitching into an awkward smile. "So much for keeping this quiet."
He couldn't help but wonder what such a large crowd was doing here, and that's when it struck him. On the fourth day that he came out of the prison, Feng celebrated his seventh birthday, and at the same time proposing to Fad's fiance, Meng Lee, and surprisingly, she didn't say no.
"I could have cared back then, but things are different right now. This time, I'll take control of the constructs." He muttered while walking towards the entrance.