Chương 3: Chapter 2: UNDERSTAND

Amyas Auclair. That was the key to all of this, the one thing that linked everything together. And it was also the trigger. He could feel the weight of the thoughts and memories that had invaded his head last night, currently calm, simmering beneath awareness, but ready to explode into another raging, mind-shattering storm. And it was a storm that he couldn't afford to set off right now.

It'd have to wait until he'd gone over last night's matters with Daojue and Meiyao and figured out what to do about this whole situation. He felt keenly aware of the presence of Rongkai's corpse just at the corner of his vision.

"Daojue filled me in on most of what happened last night," Meiyao said.

"Rongkai tracked him down, used a dust beacon infused with Cultivator's Agony, then tried to use his bondskill to make him kill himself. Then you arrived, and together the two of you killed Rongkai."

"That sounds about right," Jieyuan said. He looked over to Daojue, who remained standing where he was, silently observing them.

"How did that all come about, anyway? Some kind of feud with Rongkai?"

"No," Daojue said, impassive. He didn't add anything to that. Not that Jieyuan had expected him to. Daojue was hardly the type to volunteer information. Or to speak anything beyond what was strictly necessary. If even that.

"But do you have any idea why Rongkai would try and kill you?" Jieyuan pressed. Daojue fixed him with one of his undecipherable, stony stares. It lasted so long that Jieyuan thought that his question would go unanswered, but Daojue eventually broke the building silence.

"Qingshi is involved."

"Qingshi," Jieyuan repeated, confused.

"As in, Dajinzhi Qingshi? The inner disciple?" Jieyuan knew Qingshi, even if only by name. He doubted there was anyone in the Gleaming Stone Sect who didn't, and one of the first things that Jieyuan had done after being inducted into the sect was go looking for rumors to get a feel for the lay of the land. Qingshi was considered by many the strongest inner disciple of the sect, and his master, Luoyefen Taishou, was not just an inner elder, but a head elder: an inner elder who headed one of the sect's divisions.

And Elder Taishou's division was the Justice Hall, the sect's most powerful division. Jieyuan frowned, uncertain; he hadn't heard about any scandals involving Qingshi or Elder Taishou. Both had spotless reputations. But this was Daojue; Jieyuan couldn't imagine the man claiming something he wasn't absolutely certain about, never mind outright lying.

"Yes," Daojue confirmed. Jieyuan glanced at Meiyao. She also wore a frown, but she didn't seem surprised or even skeptical. Just concerned. That gave some credence to Daojue's words. Jieyuan had heard she was close friends with Liangshibai Yunzhu, Elder Taishou's daughter. Yunzhu, in turn, was rumored to be close with Qingshi. Lovers-close.

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume Meiyao knew Qingshi through Yunzhu, that she'd at least met Qingshi before, so her lack of surprise at Daojue's accusation was telling. And Meiyao had grown up in the inner court. She'd know its chips and cracks better than most. It hadn't taken Jieyuan long after joining the Gleaming Stone Sect to find out just who exactly Linzushen Meiyao was in the sect, but he still had to remind himself at times that she was royalty in all but name.

That she was the daughter of the Gleaming Stone Sect's chief elder, even if rumor had it the two had had a falling out and had been estranged for a good while now.

"All right, then," Jieyuan said.

"In that case, how exactly is Qingshi involved in this mess? Actually, how do you even know he's involved, anyway? Did Rongkai let something slip?" Daojue gave him another drawn-out stare, but this time no answer came even after a long while. Jieyuan hadn't interacted much with Daojue over the past few months—only as much as the missions they went on together required, really—but he'd already cottoned onto Daojue's unique approach to speaking.

Or rather, not speaking, like he was so far above you he didn't need to explain himself. Seeing no answer was forthcoming, Jieyuan searched his memories again. The biggest question here was why exactly Qingshi would want Daojue dead. He recalled hearing that Qingshi's master, Elder Taishou, had offered multiple times to apprentice Daojue. Maybe that had to do with it. Maybe Qingshi had taken exception to his master's interest in another disciple and decided to do something about it.

Qingshi's reputation didn't suggest he was capable of arranging murder over something as petty as that, but Jieyuan knew better than to underestimate envy and jealousy. He knew first-hand just how powerful they could be, just how far they could compel you to go. As quickly as that idea took shape inside his head, though, Jieyuan found it unraveling, falling apart.

Because even if Qingshi's master had shown an interest in Daojue and offered to apprentice him a couple of times, Daojue had turned down all those offers. Anyone could tell that Daojue had no intention of staying in the sect, that he'd be accepting the scouting offer he'd no doubt get in the Radiant Gold Summit. Whereas Qingshi, who had accepted Elder Taishou's offer of apprenticeship, would be sticking around. Qingshi had even already refused recruitment in the Summit once, five years ago.

So even if Qingshi was jealous of his master's interest in Daojue, even if he felt that Daojue was a threat to his position, all he needed to do was wait a little while, and Daojue would be out of his hair, out of sight and out of mind.

"Let's shelve the Qingshi issue for now, then," Jieyuan said. He didn't bother pressing Daojue for an answer. He reckoned he'd have an easier time getting a merchant to swear off backroom dealings. Daojue's alignment was as clear as Jieyuan's own. Only in a Metalsoul did you see such a lovely marriage of apathy and obstinacy. Focusing back on Meiyao, Jieyuan asked, "What do we do now, then? Our leader for the mission is dead, and by this time we should have already been nearing the sect."

For a second-step Redrealm, the Fatebloom Woods were only a few hours' journey from the Gleaming Stone Sect on foot if they set a brisk pace, and they should have started on their way back today at daybreak.

"The sect will notice our absence soon and send an elder over," Meiyao said. She glanced up at the sky, past the red canopy of interweaving treetops.

"I'd say we have about an hour or so before that happens." Jieyuan nodded toward the corpse.

"And what do we do about that?"

"Hmmm? Nothing." Meiyao looked amused.

"What? Did you think killing Rongkai would get you and Daojue in trouble with the sect?"

"Well, yeah?" Jieyuan blinked at her, confused.

"I mean, he was an inner disciple. Wasn't he?" Back in the sect, in the outer court, inner disciples were universally viewed with a healthy dose of respect and dread. Outer disciples for the most part were little more than glorified servants of the sect. Inner disciples were the true disciples—the ones the sect actively raised, the ones who'd go on to become elders. If an inner disciple murdered an outer disciple, they'd face punishment, sure—but nothing too harsh or permanent.

Perhaps a year in seclusion, if even that. They were too precious a resource to waste (or alienate) over the loss of a measly outer disciple. The same couldn't be said about the reverse, about an outer disciple murdering an inner disciple. Death would be expected, then. And chances were it'd be a public one; the sect would make an example of it to discourage future outer disciples from doing the same. Meiyao scoffed.

"Rongkai was an unapprenticed inner disciple, and just a third-step Redrealm at that. If you and Daojue were average outer disciples, then yes, you'd be right to worry, but you aren't. You two are guaranteed to be scouted in the Radiant Gold Summit two months from now, even if you're just outer disciples. I'd say that in the sect's eyes the three of us are worth about as much as core disciples, if not even more so." She gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

"There's no doubt what the outcome of this will be. An elder will come, you and Daojue will tell them what happened, and that'll be the end of it. If anything, they'll offer to take us back to the sect on their cloudcraft to save us the time."

"If you say so." Jieyuan let the matter lie. Meiyao would know better about such things than he did.

"What about Qingshi?" Meiyao didn't answer immediately. She frowned.

"Even… Even if he did have something to do with this, it doesn't matter. Not at this point, at least." She gave Daojue a nod.

"I wouldn't mention him if I were you. An accusation like that, if you don't have any proof, would complicate things. It'd be troublesome even if you did have proof. Qingshi's no Rongkai. He actually matters."

"I won't," Daojue said, promptly and simply. Even though Daojue said no more, even though he showed no outward reaction, Jieyuan could guess what he was thinking. Daojue wanted to handle this matter on his own terms. In his place, Jieyuan would've wanted the same. Matters of revenge required a personal touch, a hands-on approach. Hands-on-the-spear, hands-on-the-throat, or however else you felt like doling out retribution.

"Then that leaves only one matter." Meiyao reached into a pocket on the side of her robes and produced something small and violet. She tossed it to Jieyuan. Jieyuan caught it. Frowning, he raised the little object to his eyes, and it glistened between his fingers. It was a little thing, prism-shaped, about the size of a thumbnail. The look and texture of it—uniform, smooth, and opaque, like color given shape and form—was the same as that of materialized chroma.

He knew of something that was supposed to look like that, of a miniature chroma prism. But that couldn't be right. Because the color of what he was holding right now was violet. A rich, deep violet. Tenth-shade violet. Meaning it was made from tenth-density violet chroma. Meaning that what he was holding was a violet skillseed, the materialized form of a Violetrealm bondskill.

"It was on Rongkai's chest, under his clothes," Meiyao said.

"Based on what Daojue said, I assumed Rongkai had used a bondskill to paralyze him, so he'd have left behind a skillseed with his passing. And he did. Except…"

"It's violet," Jieyuan finished for her.

"This is a violet skillseed." And that was ludicrous. Red skillseeds were already plenty rare in a Redrealm sect. Violet skillseeds were five realms above it. Something like this had no business being here. No business being on this island, even. The strongest sect on the island, the Incandescent Serenity Sect, was merely Yellowrealm. Jieyuan didn't have a perfect grasp on chromal economics yet; it might be he was overshooting (or maybe undershooting) its value.

But if the worth of a skillseed was proportional to its realm, then what he had in his hand was worth more than their entire island—than all of its sects combined—and then some more. He forced himself to look away from the skillseed and saw that Meiyao was staring at it like it was a puzzle.

"Just… How?" Jieyuan said.

"Rongkai must've come across it at some point by chance," Meiyao said, though she neither sounded nor looked sure.

"Other than through some ridiculous stroke of luck, I can't see how he could've gotten his hands on something like that." Jieyuan couldn't think of any other explanations either, but he wasn't thinking all that straight right now. He was still busy trying to come to terms with the sheer magnitude of what he had between his fingers. He felt like he was holding all the world's gold, and the weight of it threatened to crush him.

"So what do we do about it?" he asked. He hated how breathless he sounded.

"You and Daojue dealt with Rongkai, so it makes sense for it to go to one of you. I already asked Daojue, and he isn't interested. So it's yours."

"Mine?" Jieyuan blinked, bewildered. Then he stared up at Daojue, uncomprehending.

"Wait. You passed up on it?" Daojue remained silent but met and held his gaze evenly. In Daojue speak, that was a yes.

"What— Why?" Jieyuan pressed.

"Do you already have a bondskill?" If Jieyuan's old man could see him right now, he'd be in for some furious strangling, with his old man screaming at him that when fortune gave you a wink and a smirk, you stayed quiet, thanked the Heavens, and only later let yourself wonder what the catch was. But still. Not interested. That was what Meiyao said Daojue's reaction to the violet skillseed had been. Not interested? Not interested? Silence met his question. Daojue looked away.

He did it naturally, like the conversation was over. It wasn't even like Daojue was pretending he hadn't heard him. Daojue had clearly heard the question, acknowledged it, and simply decided not to answer. Jieyuan paid Daojue's charming manners no mind.

"Well. All right." He'd never heard any rumors about Daojue already having a bondskill of his own, but in light of everything, it was safe to assume he did. That still wouldn't be enough to explain Daojue's lack of interest in the skillseed, though. Daojue was sure to reach Orangerealm eventually, and he'd be able to hold another bondskill then. And that was assuming he didn't trade the violet skillseed away or sell it for a fortune. Meiyao's lack of greed was just as baffling.

It hardly mattered that reason dictated it should go to either him or Daojue for killing Rongkai, as she'd put it. This was the kind of thing whole sects went to war over, Jieyuan was sure. Moreover, she'd said she was the one who found the skillseed. Most people, he was sure, would've hidden it and pretended to have come up empty. Pretended that Rongkai hadn't had a bondskill after all or that if he had had one for some reason it hadn't appeared after his death. But, clearly, Meiyao wasn't most people.

"Of course"—Meiyao wasn't done speaking—"you two shouldn't mention Rongkai's use of his bondskill yesterday. That's not one of the sect's bondskills, so the elder might ask to take a look, and there's no way of telling what would happen if they saw it was a violet skillseed."

"Right." Jieyuan had a fairly good idea of what would happen. The normal, expected, perfectly reasonable reaction would be for the elder to kill them on the spot, take the skillseed, and make a run for it. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Daojue didn't reply, but he wasn't looking away anymore, so at least he was listening.

"Then all that's left is to wait," Meiyao said. She gave them both a brief nod, then walked a few steps over to the nearest tree and sat under its shade, her back to the trunk, closing her eyes. Deciding to follow suit, Jieyuan set off toward the tree beside hers, while Daojue headed for the next one over. As he walked past Rongkai's corpse, though, Jieyuan couldn't help but give it another look. It wasn't the first corpse Jieyuan had seen, but it was the first cultivator's corpse.

His eyes lingered on the armor; cultivator's gauntlets on the hands, greaves on the feet. The armor pieces weren't like their mundane counterparts. The cultivator version of gauntlets covered the hand and most of the forearm, while the greaves covered not just the shin but the foot as well. When in use, they stuck close to the cultivator's body like a second skin. With Rongkai dead, though, the armor pieces had expanded now, and one of his arms had slipped out of its gauntlet.

The sleeves of the robe had caught on the armor piece, baring most of the forearm. And there, something caught Jieyuan's eye. Scars. A group of them, just below Rongkai's wrist. They were old scars, white and faint. Frowning, Jieyuan took a step closer, turning his head to get a better look. The scars weren't random, he realized; they were precise, rather, and they formed two words. One of them was fate. The other was jade. Curious.

More of the skin past the wrist was revealed; Jieyuan couldn't see any other symbols. He gave the corpse another searching look, but nothing else seemed out of place. Jieyuan moved on. Daojue had already sat down one tree down from Meiyao's; Jieyuan went for the tree between theirs. Meiyao and Daojue would no doubt use the time to cultivate or gather chroma. Jieyuan normally would have done the same, but there was something else he needed to do first.

He set aside the matter of the skillseed and Meiyao's and Daojue's reactions to it. Right now, he had a much more pressing concern: unscrambling his mind. On the ground, legs crossed, eyes closed, Jieyuan braced himself and recalled the name that had come to him last night. Amyas Auclair. As he focused on the name, he felt the swirl of memories that had come to him last night roiling, rising, filling up his awareness.

The headache returned, but it was more of a quiet, irritant drone now, and there was none of that overwhelming, rampant confusion from before. Steadying his breath, establishing control, Jieyuan concentrated on the first of the memories swimming in the sea of his mind, like plucking a fish out of a running river. As he grasped the memory, it flashed past in his mind's eye as a brief instant of grounding realization. He didn't so much as experience the memory as he remembered it.

It settled into his conscious like slotting a piece into a great machine, perfectly falling into place. It was a memory of a thirteen-year-old Amyas Auclair at school, sitting on a bench by the entrance gate, waiting for his sister, Maeva, to pick him up, wondering why she was taking so long, and then finding out later her boyfriend had suffered an accident. Jieyuan frowned as he turned the memory over and around in his head, poking and prodding at it.

As natural as it felt, a great many things about the memory struck him as odd, if not outright alien. School? Boyfriend? He concentrated further on the memory until he could see the empty streets stretching past him in Amyas's perspective, feel the hardness of the bench underneath, the chill of the afternoon air.

Coloring his perception were Amyas's feelings and thoughts, the latter in a language unlike anything else he'd ever heard before, a mishmash of utterly alien sounds, but one he was somehow perfectly fluent in. Only growing more confused, Jieyuan pulled himself from the memory and let it fade away, then reached for another. This one was of an even younger Amyas, eleven years old now, bringing home his school report card to his parents and being summarily ignored while they discussed with his sister her grades.

Jieyuan lingered on it for a moment. The envy that welled up inside Amyas at the sight of his parents so concerned with his sister felt awfully familiar to him. The biting, burning feel of it, the need to do better, to be better, it all rang painfully, vividly true. Bringing himself back, Jieyuan moved on to the next memory, this one of an even earlier time.

Amyas, nine years old, visiting his grandparents with his parents and sisters, with more of his family gathered in his grandparents' old, massive house than he'd ever seen before. Everyone crowding around his sister, asking her questions, praising her, while he hung to the side, forgotten, tongue-tied, bitter, resigned. Again, despite all the oddities surrounding the memories, all the things that didn't make sense, Jieyuan felt perfectly at home inside Amyas's skin, perfectly himself wearing Amyas's perspective.

Jieyuan didn't linger long in this particular memory, or in the ones that followed. He took them all in, assimilating them one after the other, flowing from one memory to the next. He'd leave all the thinking and pondering for later, forcing himself not to draw any conclusions until he was done and had the full picture to work with. Three months as a cultivator—of enduring the Pain and Communing with the Heavens—had done wonders for his control over his own mind.

Amyas Auclair came together inside his mind like a painting, each memory a brush-stroke. Jieyuan got into rhythm: entire months of Amyas's life went by in a flash, long stretches of time marked by only a handful or so of standout moments with the rest being more of an understated awareness of the happenings in that period. And then he was taking in Amyas's very last memory, and this one Jieyuan fully immersed himself in, just like he'd done with the first few memories. He was in Amyas's bedroom.

He could picture it all vividly in his mind's eye. A square room with pastel white walls, a bed tucked into a corner with a large window on the wall beside it and a large bookcase filled with books across it, a small desk by the bookcase. He was sitting on Amyas's bed, back against the wall, a law school textbook propped on his bunched knees. Amyas's phone was on the bed next to him, and he was glancing at it, expecting it to start ringing at any moment.

Amyas's sister Maeva had told him the day before she'd call around this time and that she'd have some big news to share. Amyas hadn't known what the news would be, but Maeva wasn't the type to blow things out of proportion. Big news meant big news. She was supposed to be at work, but he suspected that that was a lie and that she was at the hospital. She and her husband had been trying for a baby for a while now, and he had a feeling that any moment now she'd be calling to tell him he was an uncle now.

But the call never came and Amyas never found out what the big news was, because that was where the memory ended: Amyas glancing at his phone, wondering and hoping and dreading. Jieyuan leaned back against the tree he sat under. With the last of Amyas's memories assimilated, the headache vanished, and Jieyuan finally let himself consider Amyas Auclair in full. A fatebloom blossom drifted down in front of him. He placed his hand under it, letting it land on the tip of his fingers.

Golden core, emerald stalk, and blood-red petals with little, vein-like lines of gold and green. Amyas Auclair would've thought it a bizarrely colored cherry blossom. Flowers came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, even mundane ones, so Amyas wouldn't have been too taken aback by the sight of it. But Amyas wouldn't have believed if someone had told him that this flower had chromal properties—Amyas wouldn't have even known what chromal was—and that it could be refined into chromal pills.

Amyas Auclair had grown up in a different world, a world without chroma, without cultivators. A world entirely composed of mundanes. A world called Earth. And yet Amyas Auclair was no stranger to Jieyuan. Rather, Amyas couldn't be any more familiar to him. Even though they'd grown up in completely different worlds, even though they'd led completely different lives, Jieyuan could tell that he and Amyas were, impossibly, the same person.

Amyas's memories felt as true as his own, and the way they saw the world, the way they felt, their essence: it was all one and the same. Going through Amyas's memories had been like peering through some bizarre looking-glass, a vivid showing of what his life would've been like if he'd been born on Earth rather than in the Chromajie. Jieyuan let go of the fatebloom blossom, letting it drift down to the ground.

He slowly exhaled, thoughts and ideas that before today would've seemed ludicrous now twisting and turning in his head. Before yesterday, Jieyuan wouldn't have known what a planet was, and the closest thing he'd had to notion of a universe was Chromajie, the name of the world, divided into the Firmament above, the Expanse below, and the Void beyond. He'd never heard about worlds other than the Chromajie. Never heard about there being anything beyond the Chromajie, really.

But there was plenty in Amyas's memories about alternate realities, even if Amyas had known those mostly as something that belonged in fiction. And as far as Jieyuan could tell, that was what he was dealing with here: alternate realities. It could even be that he'd been Amyas in a previous life, that he was Amyas's reincarnation. Reincarnation. Now that, at least, was a concept Jieyuan had been familiar with even before getting Amyas's memories.

People died, and their souls were dragged into the Silver Stream and cleansed by its phantom currents before being deposited into a new body and born again. Or at least that was the prevailing theory around these parts; Jieyuan had no idea how much of it, if any, was actually factual. That still begged all sorts of questions, though.

Particularly how Amyas had reincarnated in the Chromajie (not to mention whether he was really Amyas's reincarnation, to begin with), how the Chromajie and Earth's universe were connected, and all sorts of other things besides. Jieyuan combed through Amyas's memories for clues and answers, but nothing stood out to him. It was like going through a decade's worth of messy ledgers. Too many possibilities, too many unknowns, too many uncertainties.

He couldn't tell anything for certain because there just weren't enough grounds for any measure of certainty. And so it was with frustration-fueled practicality and the looming threat of another headache that Jieyuan decided he didn't care. That what exactly Amyas was in relation to him wasn't important. That the similarities between the Chromajie and Earth weren't important, either, or how closely the Chromajie resembled the setting of some fictional works from Earth.

Dwelling on those matters any further wouldn't serve any purpose. There was plenty Jieyuan didn't know about the world—or worlds, as it was—and he had no problem with leaving it that way for now. He'd just assume he was Amyas's reincarnation and that Earth's universe and the Chromajie were somehow connected, and that'd suffice until he had proof to the contrary. Setting those matters aside, Jieyuan shifted his attention to something else: how and why he'd suddenly remembered his life as Amyas.

He focused on his memories as Jieyuan next, especially recent events: everything he'd experienced last night right until he'd been knocked unconscious—until the moment his head had almost exploded with the influx of Amyas's memories. And one thing stood out to him: Amyas's memories had popped up in his head when he and Daojue shook hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Jieyuan observed the man in question. His teammate sat under the next tree over to his left, just at the edge of his soulsenses.

Jieyuan couldn't see ambient chroma as it currently was, physically intangible, but it was perceptible to his soulsenses. It flowed into Daojue's body, disappearing into his soul: a red orb sitting at the center of Daojue's chest, taking up most of his rib cage. Jieyuan was only half-seeing, perceiving color, volume, and shape on a chromal and spiritual level rather than a physical one.

Focusing on Daojue's soul with his soulsenses, Jieyuan felt its unique signature, its spiritual song: a marriage of sound and sight, melody and impression. Daojue's soul's song was a steady, intense melody, resounding on a lofty mountain peak. The sight of it was diamond-clear and chisel-sharp in Jieyuan's mind's eye, steel-gray zenith rising imperiously towards the Heavens as a wordless song rang, echoing, in cold, rigid patterns. It was, Jieyuan reckoned, fairly representative of the man it belonged to.

He looked away and off into the blood-red canopy above. Daojue was part of the puzzle. Amyas's memories had come to him right after they had shaken hands. Jieyuan would bet good, solid gold that was no coincidence.

And there was more. Other things about Daojue stuck out to Jieyuan. All three of them—Meiyao, Jieyuan, and Daojue—had turned out to have fourth-order heavenly affinity (wildly unlikely and unprecedented as that may be), so for the past three months they'd had everyone's eyes on them. It was Daojue that others focused on the most, though. Everything about Daojue shone like gold among copper. Statue-perfect looks and deep violet eyes, mysterious origins nobody had a clue of, unmatched martial prowess.

Some people had an air of mystery about them; Daojue was shrouded by a thick, impenetrable fog of it. Like some sort of enigma incarnate. With all the mysteries that already surrounded Daojue, what was one more? Reaching into his pocket, Jieyuan grabbed the skillseed. Its little sharp edges dug into the skin of his fingers. That was yet another thing. Daojue passing up on it? Just more fuel to the fire, just more gold to the business.

It was hardly the case that Daojue was just being careful, that Daojue was afraid of holding onto something that precious and the dangers inherent to it. Daojue wasn't the sort to fret over things like that. Daojue was sheer, unflinching confidence, the type that left no room for silly, useless little things like caution and prudence.

If Daojue said he wasn't interested, Jieyuan reckoned it was safe to take that as the Heavens' own truth. Jieyuan rolled the skillseed around in his fingers as he sat up straighter. He was onto something here. He could feel it. Taste it. See it, almost, in the lines of the crimson blossoms and golden branches hanging far above. There was an opportunity here, dangling right before his eyes. Now he just needed to make sense of it. To understand what exactly it was, where it lay. He went over the facts again.

At the very least, one thing was clear: eighteen years' worth of memories didn't just suddenly pop up in your head for no rhyme or reason. And Daojue had something to do with it. Sure, there was a chance it was some massive coincidence, that getting Amyas's memories and shaking hands with Daojue were entirely separate events. But Jieyuan doubted it. He doubted any of it was a coincidence, really.

Amyas's memories, the connection between the Chromajie and Earth, Rongkai's skillseed, Daojue's role in all of it. Too many major things, one after the other.

Jieyuan would eat gold if they weren't all related in some way. And just like that, Jieyuan found the opportunity. The realization came together inside him like fog congealing into water, like a faint impression turning tangible. Like a foregone conclusion. He let go of the skillseed, clenching his hands. A familiar fire bloomed inside him. Yesterday, he'd wondered what he was doing wrong. Why he'd yet to reach Daojue's and Meiyao's level, and what he could do to fix it.

Now, he might have just found a lead, even if he wasn't clear on the details yet. Amyas's memories, on their own, didn't matter much. Amyas's memories didn't matter much at face value. Amyas had been no older than Jieyuan was now, and though he'd had an exceptional sister, Amyas himself had been little more than a young man in his last year of high school. Jieyuan didn't see how Amyas's knowledge and skills could help him in any way. The fact he'd gotten Amyas's memories, on the other hand, was monumental.

Memories of another life—of another world —didn't just pop up in your head for no reason. He refused to believe it was some cosmic coincidence. Something was clearly at play here. There had be a reason why he'd gotten those memories, and Daojue was clearly part of it. Jieyuan had to know more. Had to pursue this matter and see where it led. Because whatever had happened last night clearly involved powers beyond him, workings he couldn't even begin wrapping his head around.

And coming into contact with those powers might very well give him the solution to the problems plaguing him. And his problems weren't limited to his failure at catching up to Daojue and Meiyao. That weighed on him, but he had even bigger concerns. The day after he joined the sect, he'd paid a visit to the outer court's jadebook library and looked into heavenly affinity.

He'd wanted confirmation of what Wanxin, his white-robed proctor for the last stage of the entrance trials, had said about Greenrealm being his limit. And he'd quickly found that Wanxin hadn't lied to him. You were only born with affinity for only one Concept, usually for one of the seven elements. Your heavenly affinity, called as such because it doubled as your affinity with the Heavens as a whole. And your heavenly affinity did impose a limit on what realm you could reach. Though it did so indirectly.

To advance to a specific realm, you needed to use a specific type of heavenly hymn—a coalescence hymn—of that same realm. But each heavenly hymn was associated with a specific Concept, and to use a heavenly hymn of a certain realm, you needed high enough affinity with that Concept. For a Bluerealm hymn, that was fifth-order affinity. For a Violetrealm hymn, sixth-order.

And therein lay the problem. You could raise your affinity with any Concept you could think of by pursuing it; Concept pursuit was simple enough. You entered Heavenly Communion, focused on the Concept you wanted to pursue to draw its attention to you, and then did something that had to do with it. The more meaningful your pursuit method was to the Concept, the more effective it would be, the quicker you'd raise your affinity with it. But there was a limit to Concept pursuit.

All the books Jieyuan had read agreed that it was impossible to raise any Concept affinity past your heavenly affinity. Fourth-order, in his case. Meaning Bluerealm coalescence hymns, which could only be used by those with fifth-order affinity with the Concept the hymn praised, were beyond him. Jieyuan hadn't despaired when he'd learned of this supposed limit of his. Rather, he'd vowed to himself he'd find a way around it. But he'd be lying if he said it hadn't bothered him.

These past few months he'd been plagued by a building, cloying anxiousness. A cynical, cruel voice in his head, casting doubts, incessantly prodding that sore, raw wound. Because if he couldn't even catch up to Meiyao and Daojue, who had fourth-order affinity like himself, then how could he possibly have a shot at breaking his Heavens-imposed limits and achieving something said to be impossible? Now, though? He took a deep breath. His heart drummed in his chest.

If he was right about just what was going on here, with his memories of another life and universe, and with Daojue's role in all of it, then he might have just found a lead. A lead into what, he didn't know yet. Only that the powers at work here were far above anything he knew, and that getting involved might just lead him to an answer to his problems, to finding a way to surpass his Heavens-imposed limits. It was a long shot, sure, but Jieyuan was a merchant's son; he was no stranger to gambling.

Jieyuan returned his gaze to Daojue. His teammate was still meditating under the tree over to his left, cultivating, wholly unaware of the thoughts running through Jieyuan's head, of the flames blazing inside him. Whatever was happening, Jieyuan was certain Daojue was involved. This made Daojue his one lead. What Jieyuan needed to do was clear, then: stick around his teammate for the foreseeable future, and see where that took him. It wasn't much of a plan, to be sure, but it was something.

Jieyuan nodded to himself, satisfied. More than anything else, Jieyuan was defined by his ambition. An ordinary life had never appealed to him. He'd been no different as Amyas. He'd always needed to be the best. Always strove toward perfection. Greatness. That was what he always sought, what he would always seek. He couldn't describe greatness, couldn't quantify it, but it was his purpose, his driving goal. Now a path lay ahead of him. He could see it: a road of glistening gold, stretching into the horizon.

At the end of it was greatness. Jieyuan would walk that path. It was abundantly clear to him now that greatness wouldn't come to him; it had to be seized.

So that was what he would do. He would seize greatness, by any means necessary. And may the Heavens bear witness.