In the dimmed cave.
Li Kong sat silently while looking absentmindedly at the spectacles before him and blinking occasionally. His left hand was lifted up with palm facing to the ceiling and a white bead rested on top of it.
In front of him, there was a total of four books on the ground, each having the cover facing up to the ceiling.
After staring for a long time and the cover of the manuals hadn't changed yet, a defeated sigh coming out from the bead, followed by a dejected voice, "I'm sorry, Li Kong. It shouldn't have been like this."
Looking at these manuals, White felt his blood scorching. Half of these manuals wasn't worth more than a pile of dirt to White.
If he recalled correctly, these were the trash he randomly put in inside of the storage because he was too lazy to do something about it so he just put it away to rot in the storage and who would've thought they made an appearance back in here? The other one was decent at best while the last was infuriating to even glance.
Hearing that, Li Kong simply smiled and said, "It's okay, White. I don't mind and to my perspective, these book are still a treasure. I don't recall anyone in the village nor nearby town having something like this."
Li Kong put the bead down to the ground and stood tall. He lifted his chin up to the sky and strike a brave pose.
"And who said I couldn't be a fierce warrior just because of this? Uncle told me that the most important thing for a man is his heart and I sure do have the biggest heart inside of the village." He ended his declaration with a loud harrumph, his eyes bearing a resolute look.
"So, you don't need to feel so bad, White. I know that you've tried your best."
White remained silent and shortly after, the bead suddenly launched on its own and a crater soon created on the surface of the cavern wall.
Dusts flew everywhere, blinding Li Kong's vision and some of them even ended up sucked by Li Kong's nose causing him to cough wildly as he swatted the dust and cleared his vision.
"White! Are you okay?" Li Kong picked up the bead worriedly .
"Don't worry. I'm unscathed." White replied.
After he discovered that there was no cracks on the surface of the white bead, he breathed out a sight of relief.
"What happened? It's like some kid flicked you like a marble."
"It's okay. I just feel the need to stretch myself after hundreds of years not moving properly." White assured him.
"Uh, okay." Li Kong's mind failed to fully comprehend the meaning behind the bead's action so he shutdown his remaining brain activity and erased it from his memory storage.
While Li Kong was rebooting, White complained to himself, Wake up, White! The boy doesn't even bat an eyes so how come I was the one who was more upset than him?
After taking moment to clear his mind, White made a clapping sound, drawing the half-functioning Li Kong's attention.
"Let's not waste any more moment."
A certain manual floated in the air, inviting a "Woah!" from Li Kong.
"Firstly we got this manual—" White suddenly paused and not long after, an insidious grit echoed in the cave.
Li Kong peeked at the manual and thought to himself, 'Whatever is it. I don't think White like it.'
"You know what? Let's leave this one for later." After that, White told Li Kong to pick up another one.
Li Kong picked up another manual and carefully inspected it. The manual's cover was plain as a bread, it was just a plain paper on the cover and a little ink to write the technique's name. There wasn't any pattern nor distinguishable color either. All in all, it simply plain and stale.
"This book is called Wind Steps and it does just like what the name suggest. You able to move like the wind when finished practicing." White calmly explained, the tone was as enthusiastic as a corpse, before continuing.
"The next book is..."
Li Kong put Wind Steps aside and picked up another manual from the ground.
This time the cover was painted in a shabby color of red.
'At least they colored the cover.' Li Kong commented.
"...Flame Fist. You able to shoot out fire after you learn this." White smoothly glossed over the manual and instructed Li Kong to pick up the next.
'At least put some effort onto naming your technique, author!' Li Kong smiled wryly.
"Now on to the next."
Li Kong stacked the book on top of the plain manual and picked up the last remaining book.
Personally, Li Kong was drawn to this book more than the others because of what was written on top of it resonated deeply with him.
"Thousand-Illusory Daggers." Li Kong murmured as he examined the entire book thoroughly.
The book was different from the rest with a vibrant purple color coated the whole cover and intricate pattern ran through the front of the cover vertically.
"It's okay, I guess." Finally, a tone shift on White's voice.
"What's so special about this one?" Li Kong said while he opened the book and lifted it up high.
"It was the secret technique of an assassin clan, somewhere in the Lower Realms. The great cultivator happened to encounter them at some point in his life but something happened and they turned out to be an enemy for the great cultivator and so they engaged in a great fight and the clan perished. Later the great cultivator found this book in their library hidden in the deepest corner."
Li Kong's eyes sparkled at the mention of the great cultivator name and he eagerly listened to the story before his eyes turned gloomy out of nowhere.
"Hmm? Was there something wrong?" White noticed the change in his complexion and asked.
"Isn't it too ruthless to kill an entire clan just because some bad blood?" Li Kong said with troubled expression.
Hearing that, White fell silent for a moment, causing Li Kong's mind disarrayed as he hurriedly weaved out some words to calm the bead's heart.
"Uh, I didn't mean the great cultivator is evil or something! I just think that wasn't it cruel to slaughter a whole clan? I mean not all of them is evil right?" But White remained silent.
Li Kong's heart rate dropped even further thinking he had caused a great offense to the bead and sincerely prayed to the heaven before accepting his fate.
Instead of the quick relief of death, Li Kong experienced a weight of a cow pressing down right on top of his head.
"Argh!!!" Immediately Li Kong started rolling around the ground and screamed.
"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!" Li Kong felt like his head would shatter from the sheer impact as a blunt pain coursing through his head.
"You fool." The voice was cold.
The words caught by Li Kong's ears and he persevered through the pain and looked at the flying bead in the air.
"An enemy is an enemy, Li Kong. They won't care about your feelings or your beliefs. What matter is you're dead to them and if they weren't able to kill you, then your loved ones will be killed." A sharp gaze weighed heavily on him.
"The world you're about to enter wasn't so forgiving, Li Kong. Not everyone will like to be friend with you and many will curse you out of spite. So remember this, it's either killed or be killed." White ended his talk with a cold warning to the boy.
The boy lowered down his head, his lower lip hung low and slowly his eyes turned weak.
The white, pristine bead observed the gloomy figure with solemn look but the inside couldn't be more farther than what was projected on the outside.
White had to admit to himself that he was being strict to the youth, too strict even. But he didn't regret what he had said.
The outside world was too cruel for the naive boy in front of him and if he hadn't warned him, then who knew what would happened to him when he finally stepped outside his nest?
He would rather tell the boy the cruel truth and let the boy stayed inside the village and spent a peaceful life here than wasting his life dying a pointless death on the outside world. He had seen too much of it and he wasn't going to led another one falling into the same pit.
But all being said, this child surely made sure White feeling like the biggest bastard in the universe in this very moment.
White felt like numerous needles pricking on his heart each time he put his gaze on the youth in front of him but he gathered his resolve and refused to say anything. The boy needed a time to reconsider his choice, White thought and turned his vision away from the boy.
He gave up after a minute.
"Sigh... How do I say this?" The voice sounded weary.
Li Kong slowly lifted his head back up and watched as the pristine bead floated in front of him.
Out of a blue, a cough was heard coming from the bead and followed by strings of words.
"But even the great cultivator had forgiven his enemy at some point and he even became best friend with one of his enemy and spent a party drinking all night." At this point, White peeked a little and then, he sighed in relief, watching the light slowly brightened inside of the boy's eyes.
"But!" White emphasized the word loudly.
"That only possible because the great cultivator had a broad heart and most important, He was stronger than everyone else." White paused and smiled.
"Strength is everything, Li Kong. No one would hear anything you spoke about if you weren't strong. Word without any power backing it was as worthless as the mud puddling up on the ground. So be powerful, Li Kong. More than anyone, more than everybody. Be so powerful that no one can say anything about what you want to do and when you reached that point, you're free to do anything." White ended his explanation accordingly.
After listening to speech, Li Kong slowly lifted his right arm and stared on the his palm lines.
"Strength." Li Kong muttered quickly before he gradually clenched his palm into a dist.
Li Kong took a deep breath and hopped up, exclaiming, "Alright! I'll be so strong that no one could defeat me!" Li Kong felt his blood was boiling vigorously as he continued to stared at his fist.
"That's the spirit!" White's voice turned brighter. "But remember! Strength without compassion is cruelty so you must keep balance between the two of them, understand?"
Li Kong straightened his spine and shouted, "Roger!"
Hearing the loud noise, White seethed in annoyance and said grumpily, "Can you not be so loud and what is this "roger" supposed to mean?"
Li Kong didn't know how to reply to the question and scratched his cheek awkwardly as he let out an awkward laugh.
"I don't really know it too. Sometimes, I just feel like saying it."
"Forget it." The bead rolled his imaginary eyes. "Let's continue to the next one."
As White spoke, Li Kong fixed his sitting posture and picked up the bead again.
"The main point about Thousand-Illusory Daggers is the unique throwing technique used and the ability to make countless daggers illusions."
Li Kong raised his hand at White's explanation.
"Can I ask something, master White?"
"What is it, Li Kong?" White replied.
"What do you mean by unique throwing technique?"
"In the Thousand-Illusory Daggers, there are manuals about how to throw the daggers which is further divided to three stage according to your degree of mastery of the technique.
"Besides that, there are the illusion technique which utilizes Qi to use..." White suddenly stopped explaining.
"Li Kong." The voice called out him calmly.
"Here."
"Do you know what being cultivator mean?" White asked.
Li Kong tilted his head at the foreign term and with an innocent smile, he said, "No."
Hearing there was no response after his answer, Li Kong frantically searched for answers inside of his brain and without a though, he blurted out, "I-I remember about a story from my uncle about someone flying using a sword. Does that count?"
Li Kong nervously waited for a reply from the bead.
"Yes. That was one of the application of Qi."
Immediately after, Li Kong relaxed his body and slouched down, alleviated from the pressure.
The boy's weird action didn't bother White and he continued his explanation.
"This world is filled with energy called Qi and this energy is used by cultivator to strengthened themselves and was abundant everywhere. Every living being inside of this world have Qi inside of their body whether they realized it or not.
"Even though every living being have Qi coursing inside their body, but that doesn't mean they necessarily can see the Qi flowing in the air. For example, can you see something in the air, Li Kong?"
Li Kong squinted as hard as he possibly could but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see anything else in the air beside the cavern wall and the darkness surrounding him.
After that, Li Kong shook his head in resignation and stared back at the white bead,
"You might not be able to see it. But to me, it's like countless thread of golden vapor-like substance flowing in the air."
Li Kong was shocked and tried to find the thing White described but to no avail, he failed.
White continued his explanations, "To be able to sense Qi. That was the first step of becoming cultivator and then, you can absorb the Qi in the air and make yourself more powerful.
"There are still many explanations about Qi but for now, let's end it here. "
As White stopped explaining, Li Kong raised his eyebrows and looked puzzlingly at the bead.
"Why are we stopping?" Li Kong inquired, bewildered.
"Li Kong." White called out his name.
"As much as I like to explain the concept to you, I think you have more important thing to do than this."
'More important thing?' Li Kong thought for a moment.
Then his eyes widened at the realization and horror quickly drawn in his face. He swiftly jumped from his sitting position and stormed to the cave's exit.
A slight sting penetrated Li Kong's eyes as he looked to the sky and his mouth opened wide in shock.
"I'm dead." Voices full of fear dripping out.
Li Kong rushed back to the cave to pick up the bead and darted out from the mouth of the cave with maximum speed.
"The manuals, Li Kong! The manuals!"
"Oh, damn. I almost forgot about it."
Li Kong made one hundred eighty degrees turn and got back inside of the cave and quickly stashed the manuals into his leather pouch but the manuals were too big to fit in.
"Screw this!" Li Kong returned the leather pouch to its former position and he forcibly inserted the manuals on the gap between his clothes and immediately took off from the place as he continued his mad rush through the forest.