[ Viewpoint: Alice Black ]
My name is Alice, I'm sixteen and it's been a year since I joined the Higher Body Sect.
I lived with my parents in Black Clan territory, and although all family members have a status superior to any ordinary person in the city, there is a difference in status between members, the smaller their blood relationship with the main family, the smaller their privileges are to the point that my parents apart from having clan membership status are nothing more than ordinary people who need to worry about putting food on the table every day.
We never went hungry until there was an accident that completely changed our lives.
My parents worked as guards in the black iron mines, they just had to keep order inside the mines, it's in the Black Clan territory, so there was no worry about outsiders wanting to steal them with brute force.
The clan does not trust outsiders to work in the mines for fear of espionage or theft, so this work is left to clan members with low status like us, my parents were lucky to work as guards, most worked as miners, and it's certainly not the kind of service you want to work.
One day a group of bandits invaded the mine that my parents were patrolling and took everyone by surprise, in the end the invaders all ended up dead, but many people were injured, including my parents, unfortunately we did not have enough money to buy medicine and to make the Clan worse it was not willing to provide us with help.
In a moment of desperation trying to help my parents I went to the gate of the main house of the clan and kept asking for help from anyone who came in or out of the gate, even spending the whole day there nobody even stopped to listen to me.
My world fell, my hope evaporated and then I collapsed without strength in my legs crying on the floor, with my eyes still blurred I felt a rough and warm hand caress my head and ask me if I was okay, at that moment my eyes shone as if I saw an angel in front of me, then I quickly explained what happened to the young man.
What surprised me was that he really helped me and provided the money needed to get medicine for my parents, not only that, knowing about what happened at the mine he also made a point of helping all the other families who worked at the mine and suffered losses, not satisfied with just providing money for my parents, the young man changed their job of guarding the mine to become guards of the gate of the main clan house.
With the higher salary for the change of function our quality of life has become much better, I also discovered that this young man is called Arthur and is the son of the current patriarch of the clan, this surprised me a lot, I always thought that a person with this status would be extremely arrogant, fortunately this is not the case with him, Arthur always greets everyone who passes by with a warm smile on his face.
So my admiration for Arthur just grew, he became a figure of inspiration to me, I started to follow him innocently everywhere, he always took care of me, bought me beautiful clothes and many sweets, as time went by I started to consider him the older brother I never had, I can say that I was certainly the happiest child in the world at that time.
Unfortunately, my happiness did not last long, a year later Arthur turned fifteen and joined the Higher Body Sect, the whole clan celebrated that achievement, I begged him to take me along, but since I was only five years old, that was impossible, I was desolate for days, with a void in my chest, I didn't care about the sect, I only wanted my big brother back.
However, he never came back, years passed and my only alternative to meeting him was to go the same way he went, I trained hard every day and then, when I turned fifteen, I managed to join the same sect as my big brother.
I was happy that I could finally meet him, but again this would not happen even though he was so close to me, at that time I was treated as a talented girl and many people approached me, through conversations with these disciples I discovered that for some reason my big brother was treated as a piece of trash to be avoided, obviously I did not believe these rumors and decided to investigate further, unfortunately everything pointed to the fact that he really is complete trash.
Although I knew there was something wrong with this story I was just a novice disciple and had no way to prove anything, so I decided to forget him momentarily and become strong enough not to be ignored, then I would show these people how incredible my big brother is.
But one day rumours began to circulate that I was his little sister, from that moment on everyone who was close to me turned their backs on me and I began to be persecuted in every possible way as if they were trying to make it difficult for me to become strong.
Whoever it was, they were wrong if they thought I would give up because of these little impediments, I just have to cultivate more time than anyone else and one day I can show the truth to everyone.
I'm always cultivating all night long just sleeping enough to stay awake and as always, today I was cultivating in my room, so I felt a cold wind blow across my face, my eyes widened and my mouth opened in surprise, in front of me there was a tall man in an novice elder's cloak looking at me with a warm smile on his face.
When I went to shout his name he lifted a finger in front of his mouth asking me for silence, while his other hand landed on my head.
"I'm sorry I never visited you, you must have suffered greatly for my incompetence"
Hearing his thick voice whispering to me as familiar feelings from that warm and rough hand invaded my mind was the fuse for my eyes to fill with tears, I spent the next few minutes crying like a child while a complex mixture of feelings like joy, relief, sadness, anger and powerlessness appeared within me as I cried, he hugged me as he caressed my head, letting go only when I calmed down.
"I know you have a lot of questions for me, but this is not the right time, I just came to give this paper to you, if you want to see me again appear in marked location on paper in the morning, as soon as the sun comes up."
Opening the paper, I realized it was a map, when I went to question what was happening, he was already gone, but I wasn't disappointed because I can finally see it again.
I completely forgot I was cultivating and went to sleep with a bright smile on my face while a feeling of joy and relief dominated my body.