Zhao Ren barely had time to register what had happened, but a fight didn’t stop when you wanted it to. Forcing himself to move, he threw out a knife and followed it with one of Bao Hua’s talismans. Hidden Sea Sect’s Dachuan completely ignored the vine that burst from the ground to try and restrict his movement. It was sliced into pieces in an instant. He turned to face Ren, who felt a chill down his spine along with the realization that he had poked a tiger.

  Just then two of Aifei’s companions engaged the hulking Dachuan together. Ren hesitated but finally decided against joining in. He would just get in their way. He looked around briefly and saw that most of the demonic cultivators had been slain. He flanked the one Mei Ling was fighting, and together they finished him off. From a short distance away he heard furious explosions and felt an extreme heat that meant Li Xing had finally arrived to reinforce them. Her fire techniques were horrifyingly strong, but Ren was just glad she was on their side.

  Things wrapped up quickly after that. The demonic cultivators remained unyielding and fought until their last breath. Ren was bone-weary by then and could barely lift his sword. It was nothing like fighting beasts from secure battlements. These ruthless and intelligent cultivators were also mentally exhausting to deal with.

  There was some faint cheering when it ended, and then the cries of the injured took over. Mei Ling trudged off to go help, and Ren made himself useful by gathering the remains of the deceased. Their bodies would be brought back to the sect to honor their bravery and sacrifice. But as he did so, a thought finally broke through the fog around his thoughts. There was very little blood. No… there was almost no blood.

  Almost as if he had woken up, Ren finally realized that the blood of friend and foe alike was being absorbed into the soil extremely rapidly! This didn’t happen when the native blood beasts were killed. It was then that he realized this wasn’t just an inheritance trial. It was a slaughter trial as well! Trials that encouraged and rewarded killing others and unlocked events after thresholds were met. Those were some of the harshest trials, and the casualties, as he was now seeing, were always high. He knew the camp leadership would have realized it too but made a note to tell them later.

  The flip side of slaughter trials was that those who survived usually ended up extremely wealthy. But he didn’t feel guilty for his new spatial pouch that he claimed from one of those he had slain. There was no point. The rice was already cooked. They had lost almost half their numbers to secure this victory. He just had to remind himself of the cost and thank the heavens that both his friends were alive.

  His gristly work finished, he finally found a quiet place and fell deep asleep. When he finally woke, his body protested against his movements. The strain hadn’t faded like it usually did, which showed how far he had pushed himself. His thoughts were still in turmoil, so he sat up and began to meditate.

  Flashes of memory from the battle were dredged up along with a lot of feelings of fear, guilt, anger, and more that he couldn’t even name. He remembered the strength displayed by the elites. Even an idle thought of how Xi Yuan might compare to these talents floated up. He slowly cycled his qi through his meridians and focused on his breathing until the sharp edges of the memories hurt less. He tried to order his thoughts and, more importantly, address what had happened with the Aifei.

  He went over his hazy memories again and again until he felt sure about the events.

  He had seen her in danger. His only thought, ‘Must save her.’

  His desire made him inadvertently form a seed of intent and… wait! Ren checked his dantian, and sure enough, the second qi construct of the strand meant to represent karma had vanished!

  He didn’t just form a seed, he also empowered the connection on instinct! And when he failed to act according to the intent and Aifei died, the connection was cut. That must have been the pain he felt! But figuring out the events just made him more confused than ever. He had never formed a connection so quickly. In just a breath of time it had formed and bloomed!

  Ren realized he had underestimated what seeds of intent were. He had gotten used to practicing for when he could actually cultivate with Causality of Karma. He would focus on his intent on anything from growing spirit plants to making his challenge formations. But he had only truly started forming true seeds of intent a scant few weeks before the trial began. He had only formed one connection so far, and it had been a completely different experience.

  This time, during battle, his intent was so strong and simple that he had formed the seed without realizing it. Then because the intent was to go save her, it had bloomed the instant he moved in accordance with it. In fact, he suspected it had been strong enough to draw the spare strand of karma all by itself. The connection was then cut off not just because Aifei died, but also partly because he had failed to act as intended.

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  Ren had always treated Causality of Karma with great caution. His every action had been thought through and every action made tentatively with buffers and fallbacks. He acknowledged that Karma was an esoteric dao and not to be underestimated. So it scared him when he realized how lacking he still was and how much he still didn’t know if the method could just activate based on whim.

  He barely knew Aifei for a week or so. She was just a kind and friendly senior, not someone very dear to him. Yet none of that mattered, and a powerful connection had formed. If he had saved her, then he wondered if the accidental connection could even be severed. And this time it was a positive connection based on wanting to save. What if he had formed it as a killing intent against Dachuan? Then that connection with a demonic cultivator beyond his means to kill could grow unchecked, possibly staining him with irredeemable sin!

  His heart thudded in his chest and his stomach twisted in panic. But he slowly calmed himself down. What’s done is done. For all the downsides of becoming a karmic cultivator, he had decided after months of research that it had potential. It was the path he had chosen because he felt it was compatible with him. He would just need to monitor his thoughts more carefully and cultivate his heart to not get carried away by stray desires. He remembered the sect’s Hall of Scripture had some heart tempering manuals and the like that he could consult.

  Ren felt better after he decided to commit and relaxed. The flow of qi through his channels increased. A pleasant feeling enveloped him, and his body’s strain washed away. With a start he realized the situation wasn’t normal. This was an epiphany! He quickly took out three qi boosting pills and swallowed them. Then he earnestly cycled his qi according to the Causality of Karma. The path he had been forming had always felt sluggish. It was an indication that it wasn’t optimized.

  But now the qi flowed through him with ease. In his miraculous state, blockages were cleared in his meridians, and the flow of qi continued to increase. He memorized the new path and focused on what had changed. Within his dantian, the cycled qi entered and condensed before raining down to add to his spiritual sea. He felt it grow and wash against his dantian. He felt he was close to reaching the 2nd layer of the foundation establishment realm.

  Lines from Meditations on Karma, the book elder Yun Peng had given him, surfaced. Paragraphs that had stumped him were revisited in his state of enlightenment. It felt wonderful. But the epiphany was already fading, and Ren’s thoughts returned to normal. He tried his best to extend its duration, but it slipped away before he could break through. After all, he was missing a step. Still, the differences were palpable!

  Ren meditated on what had just happened to fix it in his memory. When he finally opened his eyes, it felt like nothing and everything had changed. Epiphanies like this were a gift from heaven. No one could predict when they’d occur, nor could they be forced. But having had two in just over a year made Ren think he was doing something right. It was rather reassuring.

  The sun was already high in the sky when he finally went to help around the camp. He needed to patch up what little was left of the defensive formation. He reported to Zhen Bing and received permission to use the camp resources. He wouldn’t be able to bring it back to even half its normal function, but every little bit helped. There were still the native blood beasts to defend against.

  As he worked, Ren’s thoughts drifted. Without the formation, they would have faced even higher casualties. And from the whispers of other survivors, the elites had also retained some trump cards to turn the literal blood tide. They would also surely be rewarded for slaying two core talents of the opposing sect. He also thought back to his own performance in the battle.

  He had done well to survive, but he found several flaws in his style. Fighting the beast waves had helped him unify his different techniques into a cohesive style and gain better awareness for battles. But it had also blinded him to the problems when facing intelligent opponents. He had always relied on his own dueling skills and the movement and offense based Grass Blade Manual. But he had outgrown that qi condensation technique. When used by a foundation realm, it couldn’t make the most of the increased qi.

  He also lacked a defensive technique. What if he hadn’t sent home that money to his family and invested in more skills? He had already spent spirit stones to study some cultivation manuals to form a qi cycling path from his incomplete Causality of Karma, but he had prioritized it because he needed to have a working cultivation method. He had viewed new skills and techniques as less vital.

  “I could have delayed… no. Sending that money back was more than just a duty to my family. It was to balance karma, and I don’t regret it.”

  It was too late to wonder what might have been, but he needed to make changes to prevent it from happening again. He would shore up his weaknesses the first chance he got.

  Without many people helping him, the formation still needed a lot of work. In the evening he finally got a chance to talk to Bao Hua and Mei Ling. It had been a frantic battle, and none of them had taken a life before. The mood was awkward until Bao Hua pulled out some wine.

  “My uncle Tao spoke often of the sweet taste of wine on the night after his first battle. I am glad I got to experience it together with you.”

  “Same here. I’m glad we all made it out alive.” Bao Hua looked unusually somber.

  Mei Ling simply said, “Cheers.”

  They all toasted and drank. As they continued to eat and drink, some of the fatigue in their hearts ebbed away. It also strengthened Ren’s resolve regarding what he knew they had to do next.

  Bao Hua surprisingly spoke up before he could. “We should split up.”