Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The dark purple soul-jade badge inside Li Yu’s robes pulsed with a sudden and intense heat. He was sitting on a wooden stool in the Ward of Tranquility while watching Daiki stubbornly try to convince Sora to eat another piece of roasted thunder boar. Li Yu smiled at his friends and stood up. He pulled the glowing badge from his robes and checked the newly formed text on its smooth surface.

"Duty calls," Li Yu announced quietly. He adjusted his dark robes. "I have been summoned back to the Inner Sanctum."

Sora looked past the platter of meat and offered him a respectful nod. "Do not let the artifact break your focus. Return safely."

"Try not to destroy the pagoda," Daiki added with a booming laugh. "If you break the engine, they might actually make you pay for the repairs."

Li Yu chuckled and waved goodbye. He left the peaceful atmosphere of the medical pavilion and walked through the bustling streets of Kyokai City. He crossed the white marble boundary of the Inner Sanctum. He followed the pull of his badge until he stood before a towering structure built entirely of polished black mirrors.

It was the Pagoda of the Veiled Path.

He walked up the short steps and pushed open the heavy glass doors. He stepped into the blinding white core. The physical walls vanished instantly. However, he was not pulled into a violent battlefield of the Great Devastation this time.

The scent of burning ozone did not greet him. Instead, he found himself standing in the middle of a dense and vibrant spiritual forest. The ambient Qi here was thick and peaceful.

"Welcome to the Pagoda of the Veiled Path," Astramentis resonated. The layered voice echoed from the canopy above. "Power without direction is a disaster. A firm Dao Heart requires action to prove its truth. This trial will test the nature of your choices. There is no right or wrong, only what you make of it. Proceed."

The voice faded. The peaceful forest suddenly erupted into chaos. A deafening roar shook the ancient trees. Li Yu sprinted toward the sound and broke through the thick underbrush. He slid to a halt at the edge of a wide clearing.

The illusion was incredibly sharp and deeply personal. Daiki and Sora were standing in the center of the clearing. They were heavily injured and covered in blood. Towering over them was a massive beast that radiated the crushing aura of someone much stronger than any of them. The monster was vastly stronger than Li Yu in fact. It was a force of nature that he could not possibly defeat in a direct confrontation.

The beast raised a clawed hand to crush his friends.

Li Yu did not hesitate or calculate the odds of his own survival. He reached into his inner world and materialized Star Crusher. He surged forward and pushed his physical vessel to the limit. He summoned his Sentry clone mid stride. The clone instantly unleashed a blinding smokescreen of destructive black javelins directly into the beast’s eyes.

The monster roared at the annoyance and swung its massive claws blindly. Li Yu dove into the path of the strike. He raised the heavy staff to block. The impact was cataclysmic. His bones groaned under the immense pressure and he coughed up a mouthful of blood as he was thrown backward.

"Run!" Li Yu roared at the illusions of his friends.

Daiki and Sora did not hesitate. They fled into the thick forest while the beast recovered its vision. The monster turned its furious gaze toward Li Yu. He gritted his teeth and activated the Dao of Time from his chaotic domain. He warped the space around his own body, accelerating his movements just enough to slip beneath the beast's second sweeping strike. He scrambled into the dense underbrush and barely managed to conceal his aura before the monster tore the clearing apart.

He had survived by a fraction of an inch but he had secured their escape. The forest abruptly melted away. The pain in his chest vanished as the illusion reset.

Li Yu found himself standing on a bustling wooden dock. The smell of salt and spices filled the air. He looked up and saw a familiar banner flapping in the ocean breeze. It was the banner of the Golden Shell Guild.

A group of heavily armed thugs were surrounding a merchant ship bearing the guild's flag. They were aggressively demanding an exorbitant tariff from the terrified captain. The thugs were not incredibly powerful but they represented a local syndicate that was slowly bleeding the merchants dry.

Li Yu walked forward. This was an organization he had founded long ago. It was a piece of his legacy back in his original home. He did not draw his weapon or summon his domain. He simply flared his oppressive aura. The sheer weight of his five Nascent Souls crashed down upon the docks.

The thugs froze in terror. They dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. Li Yu walked past them without a word. He approached the trembling captain and gave him a pat on the back. He smiled at the merchant and turned away as the illusion shifted once more.

The ocean breeze was replaced by the dry and suffocating heat of a massive desert metropolis.

Li Yu stood on a wide sandstone avenue. The city was sprawling and immensely wealthy. However, the source of that wealth was displayed brutally in the main square. Hundreds of heavy iron cages lined the streets. The cages were packed with native cultivators who had been stripped of their cultivation and bound with restrictive collars. They were slaves.

Li Yu felt a deep and visceral disgust. He gripped his fists tightly. He looked at the city guards patrolling the cages. They wore heavy golden armor and radiated the power of Law Integration experts. He expanded his senses toward the towering palace in the center of the city. The local lord sitting on the throne possessed an aura so overwhelmingly powerful that it made the giant beast from the forest feel insignificant.

The problem was deeply entrenched as he had seen in other places during his travels. It was a massive, societal evil backed by untouchable power.

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Li Yu stood in the square for a long time. He wanted to break the cages. He wanted to unleash his Sentry and summon Muddy to tear the golden armor from the guards. But he didn’t. He knew his limits. If he fought here, he would die in seconds. The slaves would remain in chains and his sacrifice would change absolutely nothing.

He unclenched his fists. He lowered his head and walked silently past the iron cages. He hated the reality of the situation but he refused to throw his life away on a hopeless battle. Especially even more so when it came to helping people he didn’t even know.

The desert city blurred into a dark and rainy alleyway.

Li Yu leaned against a damp brick wall. Three terrified strangers ran past him. They were bleeding and screaming for help. A moment later, the source of their terror appeared. An ancient cultivator, dripping with fresh blood and radiating an aura of psychotic malice, stalked down the alley. The elder was vastly stronger than Li Yu.

One of the fleeing strangers tripped and fell into the mud just a few yards away. The stranger reached a desperate hand out toward Li Yu.

Li Yu stepped back into the shadows. He concealed his aura completely. He did not know these people. He did not know what they had done to anger the ancient expert and he was not going to risk his own life to find out. He stayed out of it. The blood soaked elder ignored the hidden Lio Yu and dragged the screaming stranger away into the rain.

The alleyway dissolved into a quiet and sunlit street.

Li Yu found himself standing before a small, boarded-up alchemy shop. A young man was sitting on the wooden steps and weeping quietly into his hands. Li Yu walked over and stopped near the steps. "Why are you crying?"

The young man looked up with red and swollen eyes. He explained that this shop was his family's legacy. His father had passed away and left behind a massive debt. The only way to save the shop was to complete a specific medicinal pill for a wealthy client by sunset. However, the youth lacked a single and relatively common spiritual herb to finish the refinement. Without it, the shop would be seized.

It was a minor problem in the grand scale of the cosmos.

Li Yu reached into his spatial ring. He pulled out the exact spiritual herb the young man needed. He handed it over with a gentle smile. It cost him almost nothing but it saved the youth's entire world. He did not wait for the young man’s tearful gratitude. He simply turned and walked down the sunlit street.

The illusions began to cycle faster. The pagoda was testing the boundaries of his moral compass.

The street turned into a volcanic wasteland. Li Yu walked along a narrow ridge of black glass. Below him, in a pit of bubbling lava, an arrogant cultivator was trapped inside a lethal fire array. The man looked remarkably like Jin Wu. He was screaming in agony as the flames scorched his flesh.

Li Yu looked down at the trapped rival. He did not hold petty grudges but he was not overly heroic either. He raised his hand and summoned a wave of water Qi. He crashed the water down into the pit, permanently extinguishing the fire array. He did not climb down to offer the man medicine, nor did he wait for a thank you.

He simply removed the immediate danger and kept walking. While he didn’t really like Jin Wu, he didn’t hate him either. There was no real grudge between them that Li Yu would let him die. At the same time, there was no real care for him either that Li Yu would check up on him either.

The volcano shifted into a dark and ancient temple.

Li Yu stood before a stone pedestal. A glowing, supreme artifact rested on the altar. It pulsed with tempting power. However, the floor around the pedestal was deeply stained with blood. Intricate and highly lethal sacrificial runes were carved into the walls.

The risk was obvious and fatal. Li Yu looked at the supreme treasure for a few seconds. He assessed the greed rising in his chest, acknowledged it and then ignored it completely. He turned around and walked out the side door of the temple without touching a single thing. It was tempting but not enough for him to risk his life.

The temple vanished. He was standing in the center of a mortal farming village.

A Soul Formation cultivator dressed in luxurious silk robes was holding the village elder by the throat. The corrupt cultivator was demanding an impossible tribute of grain and spiritual vegetables. He was threatening to burn the village to the ground if he did not get it.

This enemy was well within Li Yu's power. The injustice was clear and the odds were entirely in his favor. Li Yu leaped into the air. He summoned Star Crusher and dropped from the sky like a meteor. He slammed the heavy staff into the dirt just inches from the corrupt cultivator’s feet. The resulting shockwave of Qi shattered the man’s defenses and sent him flying backward into a wooden fence.

"Leave," Li Yu commanded. His voice was cold and absolute.

The Soul Formation cultivator scrambled to his feet. He took one look at the terrifying density of Li Yu’s aura and fled the village in terror. Before he could get away, Li Yu sent an Abyssal Javelin at him. He didn’t like leaving loose ends either.

The cheering villagers dissolved into a freezing and snowy tundra.

Li Yu stood in a howling blizzard. A terrifying void beast was pinned beneath a fallen glacier. The creature possessed six eyes and jagged black scales. It was bleeding out slowly into the white snow. It was a creature of chaos but it looked at Li Yu with intelligence. It was agonizingly pleading with its eyes. It was asking for a merciful end.

Li Yu stepped forward. As someone who treated and healed beasts, he understood suffering. He did not raise his staff. He placed his bare hand on the creature's cold snout. He gently and painlessly severed the beast's soul, granting it the mercy of a quiet end.

The snowy tundra slowly faded away. The blinding white core of the Pagoda of the Veiled Path returned.

Li Yu stood in the center of the empty room. He took a deep breath. The spinning golden rings of Astramentis descended from the ceiling.

"You are a fascinating person, Candidate Li Yu," the ancient artifact resonated warmly. "You possess the power, yet you are not a righteous hero. You do not carry the arrogant belief that you must save the entire cosmos."

"I am just a traveler," Li Yu replied calmly..

"You are a pragmatist," Astramentis corrected him gently. "You will offer kindness and protection when it is within your means. You will bleed for those you care about. But you will also step aside and ignore the suffering of others if the odds are too stacked against you or if the burden does not interest you. You follow your own desires and morals. Some would say you are selfish."

"Is that a flaw?" Li Yu asked.

"It depends on who you talk to. I wouldn’t say so though. It is a requirement for survival and we know a thing or two about that." Astramentis answered. The golden light pulsed with approval.

"The cosmos is filled with the graves of righteous heroes who believed they could fight the ocean. They allowed themselves to be morally blackmailed into unwinnable battles. They burned out quickly. A pragmatist survives the long dark. You choose your battles and because of that, your Dao Heart remains unburdened by the impossible."

Li Yu smiled faintly. He agreed with the artifact. He was not a savior or a hero. He was simply Li Yu. He helped where he could and he walked away when he had to. He would be willing to lay down his life for someone close to him but would walk away from a dying child if the odds were against him.

He pulled his dark purple badge from his robes. A new symbol of completion etched itself into the smooth stone. He had passed the trial of choices. He turned away from the spinning astrolabe and walked out of the heavy glass doors and was entirely comfortable with the pragmatic truth of his own self.