Cooking. Serving. Running. Cleaning. Listening. Writing. Take payments.

  A body was doing all those things, but the owner did not care for it.

  Heng’s head was focused entirely on his project with Xin. It was a complex matter, to say the least: a challenge he greatly appreciated.

  He didn’t have to think of why he wasn’t having dinner with his parents while he thought of dozens, hundreds of interactions between runes and symbols. Many of them he was familiar with, others he was making up just for her; he’d have to test their efficacy later.

  After I explained the process, she refused to tell me the elements she chose for the Call, but it’s fine. I can make a versatile framework for everything else. Hells, this may be even better. With the Call not being written in the same language, she can upgrade it over time on her own, as her comprehension grows.

  Just like I’m doing, but the opposite way. I’m too far from Old Man Ling’s understanding of the Dao.

  “Put it some more meat in that broth, kid!” Lung ordered him from the other side of the kitchen, as he fried some eggs.

  “Are you sure?” He shouted back. “The stocks won’t last much longer like this!”

  “Of course I’m sure! Now, throw it in! We are in May already, there’s no reason to be cheap with meat!”

  We are still in May! The mass butchering doesn’t start until next month, this is just a waste!

  “Are you really sure?!”

  After grabbing a too-full sandwich and bringing it to an annoying customer, the man with the shape and consistency of a steamed bun came back and slapped his forearm jovially, leaving a red mark. He had almost made him spill the steaming liquids out, but the huge smile he gave made it known it wasn’t intentional.

  “Stop being so stingy, our storage will be filled with more meat than we need soon enough, bwaha! Make that broth tasty, and quick, you gotta clean up the table near the door!”

  This time, the boy accepted, throwing in more than needed. The dried meat sank in happily, giving out a light, pork-like smell that had his mouth salivating.

  Except for the banquet, those last few days, he hadn’t eaten as much as he’d like to.

  The evening kept going, customers kept coming, and nothing out of the ordinary happened, except for one weird guy who complimented him for…something about Xin and bones. Heng wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but some rough-looking patrons quickly escorted the man out before he could ask for explanations.

  He soon forgot about it, since all her name gave him was more ideas to work on.

  By the end of the dinner shift, his head was almost exploding, and he forced himself to stop thinking and do some of the harder chores- mainly, bringing out the trash or drunk people. Not that the smell was very different.

  When he finally got to collapse on a chair, his own meal was once again not enough, despite the extra pieces of pork and beef.

  This wasn’t tiring enough, but do I even have time to train properly? I have to find a way to fit everything in my schedule.

  His muscles weren’t in any particular pain, and he didn’t feel strained at all. This work was hard, but not so hard that a budding Cultivator couldn’t accomplish it with minor challenge; only the morning loads offered one.

  He’d convince the man to order more of that stuff and make his burden a bit heavier, but that was only a start.

  Heng’s foot stopped at the first step of the stairs. He wanted to go up there. Write down all the ideas he had, read Old Man Ling’s teachings, or even just the books in the living room that had piqued his curiosity.

  But I have time now, don't I?

  First lesson: the world is dangerous. Easy. Second lesson… I don't have the words for it. Not yet. But I have to, no, I need to act, do always a bit more than what I've done yesterday.

  He looked at the door with a mix of determination and regret.

  “I'm going out, Lung!” He shouted at the man, hoping he'd be heard through the door to the basement.

  “-ppy for you! Go have some fun!”

  “Trust me, I won't.” The boy said more to himself than anything. “I'm going running…”

  …

  That night, a small cloud had decided to take away some of the Blue Moon's light. It didn't announce incoming rain, but it made the streets quite a bit darker.

  The warmth had receded, letting a slight, pleasant chill take it's place.

  Heng’s skin accepted it with gratitude.

  His quick steps brought him far and heated his body more than he'd like; ha steady stream of Stamina flowed into his legs, pushing him to speeds he had never reached for sixteen years.

  In the last month or so, he had reached more than once the limits of his pain tolerance, put the sturdiness of his body to test; that strain had made them grow, improve.

  Even his mind, in his endless research and control training, had experienced a qualitative improvement.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But it was the first time he got to truly see the capabilities of his body.

  As he rushed through the dim streets, it was easy to run faster than any boy his age was supposed to, and for much longer.

  He felt light, cutting the air like a pebble thrown by a sling, wind hitting his face and unmaking his copper red hair.

  But he could do more.

  The stream became a river, and the push of his legs became stronger and faster than anything he had felt before. His hands could barely keep up, and a smile appeared naturally on his yet-developing face.

  How much do I need to train until I can outrun a horse?

  The packed dirt under him could barely resist, as he pressed down with more than he knew he had. The world was left behind, alleys crossed in an instant, blocks traversed in minutes.

  It felt so freeing.

  Nothing and no one could stop him; he wouldn't slow down, not as the dirt changed into stone and not as the houses became richer.

  But he could do more. He was sure.

  He had reached the natural limit of what his legs could accomplish- higher than the great majority of mortals, but still within the realm of what a beginner Qi Acclimation Cultivator could achieve with their sole physicality.

  Any other Cultivator with Techniques specialized in movement would outrun him with ease.

  The river grew in size, and he pushed past that limit.

  Boundless, living energy seeped in his muscles, and he accelerated. He could feel his shoes breaking down as he left deeper and deeper footprints, the wind slapped his eyes, his joints ached. It was hard to change direction, hard to react when he saw something unexpected, hard not to stumble and fall, and it hurt.

  Everything wanted him to abandon those speeds, that freedom. The world wasn’t made for humans like him. It was openly rejecting him, trying to force him into narrow angles that almost broke his steps, doing all it could to close his eyes, make him fall, anything.

  But Heng had been rejected far too much in his life to accept it now.

  Out of any friendship, out of his clan, out of his family. Soon enough, out of his own life. It had wanted him out from the day he was born, made him wrong.

  He was tired, and hurt, and angry, and he had just one answer to give to a world that did not want him so badly:

  “GO TO HELL!”

  The world did not answer, but it didn’t matter. Likely, it knew he would be out of Stamina sooner or later, or that his legs now were hurting the right way. They burned, forced to show a power they did not have for far too long: his endurance and toughness were far from normal, but even they would reach their limit, eventually.

  He had changed part of the city again, the neighbourhood poorer.

  All it meant for him was that, once his energy ran out, he’d fall on dirt rather than stone. A small win.

  He was starting to miss his breath when he noticed he had ended in a closed-off alley, a chest-high wooden fence at the end. His instinct told him to stop, turn around, avoid making a mess, but they could go to hell too!

  He would, no, he could only force his body to go even faster, show more of its hidden strength: with every movement, Qi and Stamina danced and burned to propel him further, faster, faster, until he leapt.

  And there he was. Soaring in the sky. Light as a feather, fast as a horse; his hand could almost touch the windows of the upper floor as he joined the wind and flew.

  He took too long to notice he had jumped too early and was now descending knee-first into the fence.

  He fell on the ground in a rain of splinters and whispered curses, barely managing not to bash his skull on something hard. His run had officially stopped, but his head was still moving- or rather, spinning.

  He was there, sprawled on the packed dirt without a care for his clothes, little nubs pricking his back as he looked up at the blue cloud. There was no sound there, deep in the night, everyone miraculously asleep. Until he heard steps.

  He turned, and saw it.

  Talons, ringing the earth as it walked calmly, capable of slicing the necks of humans and its similars alike.

  Plumage the colour of flames, wild and uncared for, a mix of fresh and old blood, and glistering gold.

  Wings the size of its body, unable to fly and yet more than capable of inspiring fear.

  A beak that would pierce and ingest anything, from the smallest of grains of corn to the meat of slain foes.

  Eyes with no feeling and no thought behind, carrying only the lust for blood and a desire to create more foul beasts like it.

  The head was crowned in red, a proof of its dominant nature.

  Standing above Heng was a chicken. Or rather, a rooster.

  With no hesitation, the boy rushed away, slipping and falling and scrambling once more, until his back ended on the wall of another fence, ignoring how he may look and whether he’d tear his clothes even more apart. Gone was the adrenaline of the night in the face of genuine terror.

  Who is the crazy bastard that keeps something so dangerous behind a stupid fence?!

  The animal boked once as it stared back.

  He had told the same to Lung mere hours earlier, but it took a while for the boy to remember he was still far from the months of the Red Moon. The small creature, for the moment, was far from dangerous.

  Still, he looked around.

  The place he found himself in was poor. Whoever owned it did not have the money to send the beast to the special housing once July came, and it would become feral and actually capable of killing people.

  This is an omnivore, and the owners like eggs enough to risk their lives for half a year! Insanity. Get yourself a cow, a goat, if you like animal-based foods so much. Or a hamster if you just want a pet. Nine Hells, humankind is just too stupid.

  He barely had the time to get up and brush his clothes before the cloud got darker than it was moments earlier.

  For a moment, an impossible moment, the world was black.

  The fear that gripped the boy’s heart was an entirely different kind. It was one thing to see something scary. It was another to have lifelong beliefs shattered.

  For the first six months, the Blue Moon blessed humanity and the sapient races with its benevolent light.

  For the second six months, the Red Moon blessed Beasts and foul creatures with its cursed presence.

  The heaviest rain from the darkest of clouds wasn’t enough to dispel that truth.

  Now, neither was there. In their place, spoke the Heavens.

  Thunder smithed somewhere in the distance once, twice, thrice, in the colours of a furious rainbow, the same way it was told in legends, stories of the impossible: a Tribulation, the punishment for trying to do something impossible, something against the natural order.

  Cultivators with control over entire nations would have to suffer from it, not anyone here; it was supposed to be something far away from anyone in their small city.

  Then, another light came from the sky.

  The size of a single hair strand. No one would look away from the Heaven’s castigation, except the one who was right in front of it.

  The cold eyes of the rooster stared at Heng.

  The smallest Tribulation ever seen hit the animal.