Shan Wangjiu walked next to Alex as they made their way through a burning section of the forest. Alex moved his hands once, causing the fire from all around to stop at once. It no longer existed as if it never did.
Not even smoke flew out from the places where the fire was extinguished.
"Woah!" Shan Wangjiu showed surprise. "How did you do that, Master?"
"Fire Dao," Alex answered simply. "Do you know any Dao?"
The man nodded. "Dao of Heaviness," he said. "I can make things heavier if I want to."
"Dao of Heaviness?" Alex thought. "Sounds like a fine Dao."
"It is," the young man said. "But… quite useless as of now. My sword is so heavy that adding any more weight to it won't make sense at all."
"That I understand," Alex said.
"So when are you going to teach me?" the young man asked. "Can we just do it here?"
"Assist, not teach. Let me find someone to fight first," Alex said. "I need to deal with that, and then I can assist you."
"Why not fight me then?" the young man said casually. "I already lost for the day anyway."
Alex paused and turned around to look at the man. He felt like slapping his face for not realizing something so simply had been in front of him the entire time.
"Alright, fight me."
One couldn't even call it a fight. It had ended before it had even started.
Once Shan Wangjiu noticed the missing points, he sighed to himself and looked at Alex once more. "Now can you teach… er, assist me, master?" he asked.
Alex nodded. "Why do you call me master even?" he asked as he searched for an open place without broken trees and branches all around them. "A lone wolf like you should favor not having a master at all, shouldn't you?"
"Being alone doesn't mean I shouldn't have a master," the young man said. "It just means that I don't belong anywhere. Once you teach me, I'll be on my way to becoming stronger all alone."
"So you will get my help and just leave, huh?" Alex asked.
"Uhh… I thought you didn't like my company," the young man said. "Do you want me to stay? I'll stay if you do. I owe you that much."
"I was just messing with you," Alex quickly said. "You can do whatever you want to. But, if you do feel like you owe me, why don't you move to the Southern Continent with me in about 5 years? How does that sound?"
"Southern Continent?" the young man asked. "I will have to think about that."
"I'm not forcing you," Alex said. "Do what you feel is right. I will tell you outright that staying here will give you more opportunity over too."
He noticed an open space, full of short, thick grass. "There," he pointed.
The young man mulled over Alex's request for the first few minutes, but once he was made to sit down and the weapon flew out, all thoughts he held melted away like snow at the first sight of spring.
"Are you aware of what Intent is?" Alex asked the young man.
"Like Sword Intent?" the young man asked.
"No, Intent is more raw. It is a base of your actions, including Sword Intent. It is what makes you use techniques, what makes you use Dao. Intent is what determines the difference between what is living and what is dead."
"Anything?" the young man asked. "Can a stone have intent?"
"It can, from what I hear," Alex said. "Anything can grow to have Intent, although I'm not sure of the mechanics behind it. Qi, for one, is the source of it."
The young man listened to his words intently.
"Since anything with Intent is living, that also means anything living has Intent. And a spirit is far from being dead," Alex explained. "Your sword has a… tug of war with you, each time you want to use it."
"You slam your Intent against it's Intent, and you mostly end up as the loser," Alex said. "I will say it outright. You have nearly no chance of winning against the sword in a battle of Intent."
The young man looked up briskly. "What?" he questioned. "Then how am I—"
"Let me finish," Alex said. "You have strong Intent, courtesy of your battle with the sword, and if you want to win over it, you can fight it with your Intent until the day you succeed."
"But, I suggest you do the opposite," Alex said.
"The… opposite?" the young man asked with a confused look on his face. He thought for a moment and asked, "Do you mean I shouldn't fight with it? Instead, I should… make friends with it?"
"Yes, exactly," Alex said. "Get close to the sword. Instead of trying to force it to submit you, ask it to. I'm sure the sword can see reason. Remember, the sword belonged to someone really strong before you, so it is strong as well."
The young man nodded. "Make friends, right," he thought. "Will that happen fast?"
Alex shrugged "I wouldn't know that," he said. "It all depends on you."
"Ok, ok," he muttered, getting ready to start. He took a deep breath and paused. "What if it doesn't work?"
"Then you go back to the old way," Alex replied. "Fight and force it to submit."
"Right, I should do that," he said. "I can do that."
He sat still and took a deep breath once more before his Qi, Spiritual sense, and even Intent covered the sword that lay by his side. He started talking to it, saying sweet greetings and whatnot.
Alex wasn't sure what he was saying, but he was sure he was doing whatever felt right to him.
He looked around where he was, the forest still around them, and a lake in the distance. Some people passed close by there, but no one ever came to challenge him.
His cultivation base scared most of them away. "I can't leave now," he thought with a sigh. "Not while he's focused on this."
He wondered how long he was going to have to remain here while the young man learned. He wanted to go and find more fighters, but it seemed that would have to wait.
There was so much of the land to still go through, but there was also a year and a half left. So, he sat down on the grass close to the young man and kept waiting.
Night fell soon enough, the silver moon hidden behind the clouds made the night a lot darker than usual.
Alex could still feel the same intensity from the young man beside him, but by now he was getting used to it. Faint lights glowed from the sword sometimes, but that didn't mean anything to Alex.
He called out Godslayer once to ask if he was indeed right in what he had told the young man to do. He knew he was, but he still wanted to make sure.
"The spirit usually copies the Intent of its master," Godslayer said. "Pray that this sword's master wasn't particularly hard to deal with. If not, it should be easy."
Alex nodded. He wanted to ask what Godslayer's master was like, but he felt that was somehow disrespectful. At the same time, Godslayer was always the master in all the times he was held by someone, so Alex wasn't even sure if there was one.
A few hours before dawn, when the night was at its darkest, Alex heard something. His spiritual sense moved out immediately to see what it was that made the noise and saw a group of 8 people making their way through the broken forest.
'That's no ragtag group of people,' Alex thought. Every single one of the people he just sensed wore a robe of white and blue patterns. They were all from the same house or sect.
Their cultivation base ranged from the Saint Core realm at the youngest to one with Saint Transformation 1st realm cultivation base. Alex remembered the person as someone who had fought against him multiple times, winning every time.
He had disappeared some 2 months ago and never returned.
Their trajectory changed after sensing Alex's spiritual sense. They sensed him as well and made their way toward him. They made a swift journey to him, arriving not even a minute later.
"Greetings, Your Majesty. I did not expect to see you here, away from the river bank," the older man with the Saint Transformation realm cultivation realm spoke. The rest of the people remained quiet, only bowing in greeting.
"I left that place," he said, looking at the group. "Are these your juniors?"
"Members of my sect," the man said with a smile.
"Why are you in a group? Are you helping them somehow?" Alex asked, wondering if helping was even possible. If someone interrupted a challenge, one would have to lose points as a result.
"It helps the weaker ones last longer, and get more training in the secret realm," the man said. He looked at Alex for a moment and realized that Alex didn't understand. "If someone comes for them early after a rest, I challenge them before they can get to one of my sect members."
"It's a good way to ward those people off," the man said. "Sometimes, they just leave because they see me. Sometimes I interfere in fights if needed."
He turned back. "Don't worry, though. We're not like those groups that only seek to ruin your time in the secret realm."
