Immortal Paladin

When you were cultivating, time always slipped through your fingers. A month could feel like a nap, and a night could disappear in the blink of an eye. Breaking into the Soul Recognition realm gave me attributes I hadn’t expected. Since then, every “choice” around me now glowed faintly like threads waiting to be pulled. It made my cultivation smoother, my thoughts clearer, and my instincts sharper. But it also made me aware of how many decisions I had been ignoring simply because I didn’t want to think about them. Enlightenment was troublesome like that.

I sat cross-legged atop a mossy boulder in the middle of the forest, my humanoid golden-retriever body soaking in qi as if it were warm sunlight. I had already stepped firmly into Essence Gathering, the Sixth Realm. Compared to the chaos that was Soul Recognition, the Sixth Realm felt almost relaxing divided into early, mid, late, and peak. It was simple and direct. If only the actual process wasn’t such a bother.

Essence Gathering began with the spiritual roots. I had yin–yang spiritual roots, which meant I couldn’t just sit around absorbing normal qi like most people; I had to gather yin qi from the moon at night and yang qi from the sun during the day. Two sources, two flows, two completely different temperaments. If I absorbed too much yin, I froze. Too much yang, I burned. Balance was key. Balance was also annoying. This was why I hadn’t left this forest for days, maybe weeks… I needed clear sky, open ground, and uninterrupted cycles of moon and sun.

Ren Jingyi visited often, usually to “bother” me, as she liked to say. Today was no different.

“So divine transformation, how do I break through?” she asked, hovering behind me like an overly enthusiastic ghost.

I didn’t even open my eyes. “You’re already Seventh Realm. The only thing left is confidence. Bloodline Refinement is about evolution. Keep what benefits you, discard what holds you back. It’s not that hard.”

She huffed. “You say that, but your advice always sounds like you’re teaching a child how to breathe.”

“That’s because you overthink breathing,” I replied calmly. “Also, right now, you are of higher realm than me, technically… Go slay it, Jingyi’er.”

Ding Cai sat beside me, knees tucked neatly, mirroring my posture. She breathed slowly, face lit by the faint glow of her spiritual root refinement technique. She was refining her roots using the method Peng Ru had passed down, and although she tried very hard to hide it, she clearly wanted me to praise her. Her company was always a welcome thing, quiet, earnest, and simple in a way that cultivation rarely was.

There were only two official chances to refine spiritual roots: the transition from Second to Third Realm, and again at the Sixth Realm. Everything beyond that was considered an anomaly. My own roots were the result of such an anomaly. Ren Jingyi, however, was already far past the point of refinement. Her spiritual roots were… unknown. Not even I understood them fully. As for Ding Cai, she still had plenty of opportunities, and she was doing well.

Then there was Wu Chen.

She stood against a nearby tree, arms folded and eyes unblinking as she watched me cultivate. She’d been coming and going like this for days. Honestly, it was eerie how attached she’d become to me.

“Are you done yet?” she asked suddenly.

“No.”

“Tell me a story then.”

“You could just talk to people in the academy.”

“I don’t want to,” she shot back. “You said you’d introduce me to new people.”

“I said eventually.”

She stepped closer, shadows dancing around her ankles. “Story.”

I sighed. She had the patience of a ticking bomb. “Fine. Which one?”

“The fish one.”

Of course she wanted that one. I exhaled slowly, feeling yin qi swirl around me as the afternoon darkened toward evening.

“It happened in Yellow Dragon,” I began. “Back when Jiang Zhen was just a guy running a goldfish stall, but apparently, he wasn’t just some guy. I remember walking by and seeing this arcade game with  lots of fish inside. The fish I won then had now become a carp, little Ren Jingyi. She glared at me even back then, you know.”

Ren Jingyi clicked her tongue behind me. “I wasn’t glaring. I was judging.”

“Same thing,” I said. “Anyway, Jiang Zhen tried to sell me a goldfish for ten copper just to get rid of me. I told him I’d rather play. He told me I sucked at it. I played. He said more harsh things to me, quite the trolling I took, really… I won her anyway.”

“Wait, so I’m like some kind of price?” asked Ren Jingyi. “Why is this the first time I am hearing this?”

“,,,”

Ding Cai giggled softly.

Wu Chen leaned closer. “More.”

I shrugged. “That’s it. No more story for you.”

At some point during cultivation, I noticed my balance was slipping. The yin inside me was growing too much, piling up in my meridians like cold fog. If I kept cultivating through the night, I would drown in it. So I stopped. Instead, I used the nights for something else, something that kept me sane and prevented me from turning into a walking block of moonlight. I sparred with Wu Chen.

Wu Chen didn’t mind. If anything, she enjoyed it too much.

“Are you ready?” she asked, standing barefoot on a patch of grass illuminated by silver moonlight. Her expression was as flat as always, but the air around her trembled faintly, like a blade humming in its sheath.

I sank into a stance, feeling the leftover yin swirl out of me like smoke. “Hold yourself at Sixth Realm. If you go higher by accident, I’ll die, and you’ll have no one to pester.”

“I don’t pester.”

“You absolutely pester.”

She didn’t deny it, which meant she agreed.

Then she moved.

Wu Chen’s palm flew toward me like a silent guillotine, and I barely twisted aside in time. Even suppressed, her cultivation was overwhelming. Her sleeves rippled with cold spiritual force as she spun, heel cutting toward my ribs. I raised my arm just in time to block.

The impact rattled my bones.

“This is you holding back?” I grunted.

“Mm.”

That was her idea of reassurance.

We traded blows under the moon, my yang qi surging each time I exhaled, trying desperately to counterbalance the chilly yin wrapped around my meridians. I used everything I had from footwork, instinct, creativity, and pure stubborn refusal to get slapped through a tree. By the time we ended, I was sweating and panting while she looked mildly entertained.

“You’re improving,” she said.

“Thanks. I’d like to keep living.”

“Good. Then keep improving.”

I suspected the excessive yin wasn’t random. The True Self’s power lingered inside me in fragments from yin, yang, fate, karma, all twisted together. Whatever I held now was just residue. If my yin had built up this much already, I didn’t want to imagine how much the True Self carried. Probably enough to drown a small continent.

Still, it left me at an annoying bottleneck.

To break through Essence Gathering, I needed perfect balance. I wasn’t even close.

I decided to cheat.

“Jingyi’er,” I said the next morning as she walked in with a bowl of fruit. “Give me a Bless spell.”

She blinked. “Bless? For what?”

“Luck.”

“Why?”

“I need more providence.”

She stared at me long and hard before sighing. “You’re ridiculous.” Then she raised her hand, golden light blooming from between her fingers. “Fine. Luck.”

Warm light washed over me, and I felt the weight of misfortune shift just a little, like a stubborn door finally cracking open. I went my usual for the day. When night arrived, I headed for the library.

I spent the rest of the night in the Heavenly Academy’s library, flipping through everything they had on yin–yang roots and dual-element cultivation. Wu Chen dragged Ding Cai along to keep her occupied, though I suspected she just wanted an excuse to show off something.

Recently, I’d become the target of more stares than usual. Not respectful stares. Not fearful stares. Flirtatious stares. Worse, half of them were from dudes.

Half!

I rubbed my temples the moment it clicked.

“Too much yin,” I muttered. “I’m becoming effeminate.”

My face had softened slightly, my hair had grown too silky, and my aura had taken on this strange charm that I did not ask for. Even my tail swayed too gracefully. Absolutely unacceptable. I needed more muscle. I needed more yang. I needed to look like a man, not a celestial maiden with fur.

I grabbed a knife and chopped my hair off right there in front of the mirror.

The next morning, as I stepped out of my room feeling refreshed, Chen Wei passed by, took one look at me, and broke into a grin.

“Uncle, or is it auntie?”

“No.”

“You’re never beating the womanizing allegations,” he said cheerfully as he handed me a stack of scrolls. “These came for you. Marriage proposals. You’re popular.”

I stared at the mountain of scrolls, then at him. “…Chen Wei.”

“Yes?”

“Run.”

He ran.

I chased him all around the courtyard for the next hour. The little bastard had learned new tricks, freezing my legs, summoning slippery ice patches, even reversing my balance with a flick of his wrist. By the end of it, I wanted to strangle him, hug him, and throw him into a glacier all at once.

When he finally escaped, I dragged my frustrated self back to the forest.

Ding Cai spotted me instantly. She rushed over, face flushed with excitement, eyes shimmering like stars.

“Senior Da Wei! I… I awakened it!” she said breathlessly. “My spiritual root! It awakened!”

I blinked. “Already? What kind?”

Her smile widened. “Yin–yang. Just like yours.”

All the frustration melted away.

I placed my hand on her head and ruffled her hair gently. “Good job. Congratulations.”

Although Ding Cai and I had already established a master-disciple relationship, she still called me “senior” every time she opened her mouth. It wasn’t defiance. Instead, just awkwardness. She treated the idea of having a master the same way someone treated a fragile treasure they weren’t sure they deserved. Of course, another reason was because in her eyes, I was too young. I didn’t push her to change it. When she was ready, she’d call me master on her own. The same went for me revealing my true identity.

I sat down with her after she finished celebrating her newly awakened spiritual root. “Just gather essence the way I did,” I told her. “Let the energies move naturally. Don’t force anything. The more natural they flow, the faster your roots will adapt.”

She bit her lip. “I heard from others that accumulating essence could take a thousand years… Senior, I’m already old. Will I die before reaching the next realm?”

“No.” I flicked her forehead gently. “You’re my disciple. I won’t let you rot away before you break through. Be patient.”

She nodded, though her eyes still held lingering worry.

I continued observing her closely over the following months. The more I studied her, the stranger she became. Despite being “old,” she looked young enough to pass as a fresh recruit. Her body didn’t age normally. Her soul that was originally absent had grown into something unique, something new, something created. That alone made her invaluable.

The truth was simple: I wanted her as my disciple because the True Self might need her.

The more I understood about the True Self’s ability to create souls, the more Ding Cai seemed like a key to something larger. Two theories battled in my head. The first, our Six Souls split from the True Self’s soul like fractured glass, which kind of explained how he could exist as a soulless being. The second theory suggested we all came from somewhere else entirely, and perhaps “Da Wei” had been soulless in the beginning. Maybe the thing we once believed to be our soul was only a memory, or a reflection of something lost. Either way, they could both be wrong.

If Ding Cai was an example of a soul being born from nothing, then maybe the True Self wasn’t as impossible as he seemed.

Decades slipped through my fingers. Essence Gathering was slow, stubborn, and unforgiving. My yin–yang roots kept hindering progress, and balancing the energies became a battle with no end in sight. Whenever I wasn’t cultivating, I met with the Six Souls in our shared space.

The tavern again.

Human slammed a mug on the table, glaring at Asura. “I almost died last time. Alice is still injured, and is still recovering. Could you be considerate for once and stop provoking the Heavenly Temple?”

Asura leaned back, arms crossed, grin sharp. “This is the perfect time to strike. One of their Six Elders just died. We should break the Celestial Wall next and pick them off one by one.”

He jabbed a thumb toward my empty chair. “And if Animal wasn’t so useless, maybe I wouldn’t need to do everything myself. I should infiltrate and become an elder in his place.”

“I’m not useless!” I snapped, slamming my fist on the table. “I’m cultivating! And for your information, I’m making great strides stealing the Heavenly Academy!”

A snort came from across the table.

Hell rested his chin on his palm, amusement dripping from his voice. “Stealing the Heavenly Academy? Last meeting you said you secured a forest. A forest, Animal. Not even a large one.”

I was halfway out of my chair, ready to punch him, when Heaven stepped between us with a sigh.

“Hell is rage-baiting you. He’s bored,” Heaven said with weary patience. “Ignore him.”

Asura pointed at them irritably. “Both of you do nothing in the Empire. Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, help?”

“We’re guarding it,” Heaven replied calmly. “If another heavenly tribulation appears, the Empire will be crushed. Someone has to be prepared.”

Hell nodded lazily. “Protecting the Empire is still more productive than listening to Asura scream about murder every meeting.”

Before the argument could escalate further, a cold voice cut across the room.

Ghost stood from his seat, expression blank. “This is a waste of time. Call me when something important actually happens.”

He dissolved from the space like smoke, leaving the tavern silent for a moment.

Then Asura cursed, Human drank, Heaven sighed, Hell smirked, and I rubbed my temples wondering if the True Self built us like this on purpose.

Probably not. We had been spontaneous creations after all.

I decided to consult the lecturers of the Heavenly Academy about my qi imbalance. In hindsight, that was a mistake. Every single one of them, without fail, suggested the same damned thing.

“Dual cultivation,” one said with a knowing smile.

“You have yin imbalance,” another chimed in, “so you only need a partner with strong yang constitution. It would be mutually beneficial.”

One lecturer even leaned closer. “If you’re worried about commitment, it can be an on-and-off arrangement. Strictly practical.”

And then another had the gall to volunteer.

I stared at them and wondered if something in the Heavenly Temple made people lose all shame. “No,” I said flatly. “Fuck no. Absolutely not.”

I left before they could give me diagrams.

Were cultivators all just gigantic perverts? Is that what peak cultivation did to people? An enlightened state of permanent sexual aggression? What the fuck was wrong with everyone?

When I finally asked Peng Ru for help, she suggested medicinal pills instead.

“No,” I said again. “Your Heavenly Temple pills are made using methods I’d rather not think about.”

Da Ji had already given me detailed explanations about the darker side of the Heavenly Temple’s alchemy. It explained perfectly how they kept producing so many high-level cultivators. It also explained why I refused to put anything they made inside my body.

I turned to Da Ji next. She was the only sane person left.

She suggested, calmly, that I should simply expel the excess yin qi.

“That would cause misfortune,” I answered. “To the environment. To people. To animals. I’m not going to ruin someone’s life because I couldn’t balance my own qi.”

And that was that.

The only useful advice came from the Martial Mastery lecturer. Out of everyone, he spoke the most sense.

“If your masculinity feels threatened,” he said, “then exercise. Build your body. Strengthen your core. Eat a lot of meat. A man does not fear imbalance when he has a strong physique.”

It was such a refreshingly normal answer that I almost hugged him.

Since then, I hunted regularly in the outer territories of Celestial Step City, and when the hunt was quiet, I hunted deeper in the forest. I grilled everything I killed, ate half, saved the rest, and returned to cultivation with a clearer mind.

Years passed, and slowly I settled into a stable routine. As my body and roots adapted, I learned to absorb yang qi while moving. That changed everything. My days became fuller, more balanced, more productive.

Hunt. Cook. Train Ding Cai. Teach Ren Jingyi. Spar with Wu Chen. Sneak into libraries. Help Da Ji gather information. With shapeshifting, spying became laughably easy. Turning into a bird, a squirrel, a wolf, or even a fish made me far more effective than I had any right to be.

The Human Soul would’ve been better for espionage… but I made do. I wasn’t a genius like Heaven or Hell, but I was competent enough.

Eighty-eight years, six months, and twenty-two days later, everything changed.

I hit Peak Essence Gathering.

I had no idea that the harmony between yin and yang would feel so overwhelming. Every breath connected me to the sky, to the earth, to the trees, to the pulse of the world. Pure balance finally sank into my body.

That was when the sky suddenly darkened.

The forest stirred. Leaves folded. Branches curled inward. Even the beasts sank low to the ground as if trying to shield me. No wonder people with yin-yang roots were seen as “geniuses of energies.” The breakthrough stirred the world.

Soon, I should reach the Seventh Realm’s entry stages.

Wu Chen appeared suddenly in front of me in her adult form, eyes wide, voice tense.

“Run!” she hissed. “Something is coming!”

Ding Cai backed away in confusion. “Senior, what’s happening?!”

Thankfully Ren Jingyi was nowhere near. I didn’t need a second child yanked into danger because of me. The pressure grew heavier. My skin prickled. My heart pounded.

The sky opened.

A massive blue eye stared down from the heavens, cold and merciless, the same kind of eye that almost erased Ren Zhe the moment he was born.

A heavenly tribulation.

Then a deep voice echoed across the world, reciting a poem that chilled the marrow in my bones:

“The harmony of heaven and earth must not be disturbed.

Balance broken shall summon judgment.

Those who step beyond their fate

shall face the gaze of the sky.”

The eye narrowed, directly at me.

It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me, and I had no way to explain it.

The blue eye blinked.

Heaven rumbled.

Without warning, a bolt of heavenly lightning exploded downward.

It hit me square in the chest.

My entire body went numb. Pain erupted through every vein, every bone, every inch of flesh. I dropped to one knee, smoke rising from my skin as the hair on my arms stood on end.

“Da Wei!” Wu Chen shouted as she threw herself in front of me, her body wrapped in quintessence.

But the tribulation lightning passed through her like she wasn’t even there, sliding harmlessly through her barrier and striking me again.

Ding Cai shrieked as tears streamed down her face. “Senior! What’s happening to him?!”

Good question.

I spat out a mouthful of blood and watched it sizzle on the ground. Something inside me twisted. It hurt, but it also… strengthened me. Fresh energy surged through my meridians, repairing the damage just as quickly as the next bolt tore it apart again.

“What the hell…?”

Another strike.

And another.

The heavenly eye didn’t even wait between blows. Each bolt hit harder than the last until I felt my spiritual roots screaming, then expanding, then burning, and then reshaping.

My vision blurred. My knees buckled.

Somewhere between the pain, something snapped inside me, and then rebuilt itself in an instant.

I broke through the Seventh Realm. Then I broke through it again, straight into the Eighth Realm. Heart Path.

“What—what the hell?!” I wheezed through clenched teeth.

The eye blinked once more, almost in irritation, then vanished completely as if embarrassed to have been here.

I collapsed backward and stared up at the now peaceful sky.

Nothing like this had ever happened to Human. His tribulation eye tried to erase him, but it didn’t pump him full of strength like a madman throwing lightning snacks. Tribulation lightning was supposed to be natural punishment. It was absolute, merciless, and the law of the heavens. Yet that thing had been anything but natural. I knew, because of my change in perception.

Wu Chen knelt by my side, voice shaking. “Da Wei… are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I’ve literally been hit by tribulation lightning.”

Ding Cai knelt on my other side, wiping her tears. “Senior, y-you… your aura keeps changing. Is this… normal?”

“No,” I said. “Very not normal.”

What was the difference between me and Human?

I replayed the sensation in my mind. The lightning targeted my essence, my spiritual roots. It acknowledged something, and then forced it open. That was it. I had mastered my essence and my spiritual root. Was that the difference?

The tribulation reacted to that mastery in a way that wasn’t natural.

I glared at the sky. “That was artificial,” I muttered. “Just some bastard poking around.”

Because the dignity of a cultivator meant absolutely nothing at this point, I stood up shakily, raised my trembling hand, and flipped the heavens off.

“I HAVEN’T EVEN FIGURED OUT MY BLOODLINE YET, YOU FUCKER!”

Ding Cai gasped. Wu Chen choked on air.

The sky did nothing. Typical.

But then I noticed something worse. My fingers felt soft and round. My arms felt heavier. My robe clung strangely around my waist. I looked down, and my stomach… jiggled.

Just slightly. But it jiggled.

Ding Cai leaned forward, horrified. “Senior, are you sick? Did the lightning poison you?!”

Wu Chen circled me, narrowing her eyes. “You look… strange.”

I placed a hand on my belly and sighed with the weariness of a man who had suffered too much today already.

“Oh no,” I said solemnly. “It’s just fat. I got fat for some weird reason.”