The boy's name was Xue You.

That was one of the only things he knew. One of the only things he learned from his parents before they could teach him anything else. He couldn't seek any other knowledge from them though, because if he ever asked a question about arithmetic or hunting strategies to corpses lying in a ditch, the villagers would think that he had succumbed to madness.

The boy, without anyone, started to wander. At 4, he started walking around the village, knocking on doors and picking up fallen, dirt-sodded dumplings from the vendor. He had learned how to talk simply by listening to the people in the plaza and street market converse.

He liked being in the woods and hunting better. At the age of 5, he looked more feral than childlike, dirty and tanned from the sun, clothes being simply a beaten-up cloth with holes for hands and feet.

His hair was nearly outgrowing his height, tangled and unkempt, but he looked slightly better than one would think. Thorns didn't prick him, and he was less tan than someone would expect him to be. The woods provided shade and ample food. Fruits, vegetables. He learned how to catch fish, and hunt for meat.

When he woke up one day, he found a large, phoenix-like bird beside him. But apparently, it was a sparrow; it told Xue You itself. The bird had nudged a branch of berries to his cheek. He slowly got up.

"Hello, bird." Xue You said. "Are those berries poisonous?"

The bird shook its head, and Xue You nodded. He trusted animals much more than he did other people. He took the berries gratefully and at them one by one, savoring each piece.

"What's your name? I think I know mine, but I have no way of knowing if my parents were liars or not." Xue You remarked. "Don't you find that funny? That your parents know your name before even you do?"

The bird-like beast simply looked at him like he was crazy.

Xue You sighed, before standing up and brushing off his clothes. "You wouldn't care about my name, of course. But once we're friends, you surely will." He climbed up to a nearby tree and picked a peach from it, handing it to the bird. One of its wings was wounded, so it couldn't get that high.

"Here." He stuffed it into the bird's open, gaping beak. It stared in shock at him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Unbeknownst to Xue You, he just picked a valuable spiritual fruit the animal tribes have been fighting about for decades.

"This should be enough to be friends, right?" Xue You said, holding his hand out. The bird chirps happily, perching on Xue You's index finger. Surprisingly, the bird didn't feel heavy on his hand at all.

Xue You thought to himself, masking his happiness. My first friend. It feels really good to have one.

It was nice to talk to something, after talking to himself for an untrackable number of months. Better still, to talk to something that had no understanding or judgment of who he was; a dirty beggar.

The bird would not care that the first memory Xue You had was of a funeral, where he suddenly was struck with who he was— An orphan, an orphan destined to wander from the first memory he had. The bird would not care that he had to learn his name from strangers. The bird would not understand that from the moment Xue You had gained consciousness, his fate had been already been decided and sealed with ink on a ledger in the town hall.

Xue You had found himself unwilling or perhaps unable to understand the villagers that pitied him so harshly. Didn't understand why they engaged in grudges, laughed and made indulgence. So he had retreated to the forest and tried to return every few weeks. Perhaps naively, stupidly— Xue You had thought that once he returned, he would be able to understand.

He didn't.

That was how he lived; like a witless fool trying time and time again to understand something he could never. The definition of insanity, after all, was doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

But the beast wouldn't fathom any of that. All it knew was hunting and surviving. And it saw Xue You as a friend, as a boy that was feeding it, at the very least. Xue You hoped that was enough. He would make it enough.

"I need to go back to the village now."

The bird jolted, before tweeting with panic. As soon as Xue You tried to go forward into the village, he found that the bird tugged stubbornly on his robe.

"Let go."

The bird shook its head frantically.

"Fine. I guess I can skip this week's visit." Xue You relented, seemingly annoyed, but his heart felt like warm jade.

The bird chirped happily and began to lead him somewhere. In no time, Xue You found himself in front of 5 beasts. These were the representatives of the tribes, the bird told him, but beasts were beasts to Xue You.

A large, white tiger with brilliant black stripes and sharp eyes that looked like needles. A boar with a golden hide, with rich tusks that were polished to a shine. A grand bird that seemed to be a phoenix, with plumes of feathers that looked like dancing flames. A black tortoise that felt more like a dragon; and a deer that shone with silver light, with great antlers that looked sharper than a sword.

He felt unusually that they were sizing him up.

'A human cub. How strange.' He could hear faintly from the white tiger.

'This kid… I can see his spiritual root. He will be brilliant in the future.' The boar added.

'And his karma… A clean slate.' The deer looked at him, peering into his soul with jade-like eyes that caught light on its surface.

'He does not feel human. Are you sure he is? He could just be morphed into his human form. He feels like one of ours.'

'Come now, who would he be related to? Only the best of our tribes have human forms.'

'Give him to me.' The deer said. 'I am the one best suited for guiding this boy's spirit.' It's voice was soft, but firm and unshakable.

Every other animal shifted uncomfortably at that, some even growled with distaste, but they wouldn't dare do anything else. Xue You supposed that the deer was the strongest of the group.

At times, the beasts were kind to him. Let him stay in their caves. He always had something to eat, a bush of berries was always there.

It wasn't a bad life for him.

But the immortals. The immortals, they always came with all the wrong intentions. Always trespassed, always slaughtered, and killed. With time, the boy grew to hate the immortals, human as he was.

They liked to give him charity, liked to pity him, but Xue You knew what they were doing when they took his hand or discreetly felt his wrist. The beasts told him.

'Do not trust the immortals. They hold your hand to test you. We have taken great pains to hide you and your potential from those wolves. You are our kin. We will not let them rip you apart and eat you alive so easily.'

'Spiritual Root' was what the beasts called it. Every time the immortals came, Xue You made sure to wear the fur the beasts had given him. He felt it suppressing him, and he saw the immortals frown when they found that he had "no" spiritual root. Their kindness fell off their bones when that happened. Their charity stopped.

Xue You alerted the beasts soon after he saw their reaction, and they would run them into the ground and eat them alive just as they planned to eat alive Xue You if he had a spiritual root. Whatever those were.

He spent years in the forest. Maybe 3, or 4. Human speech soon became something like a foreign language to him, and the seasons passed beyond his notice. Kids his age sometimes stumbled into the wood by mistake, lost and alone in the forest. He seemed taller than them. They did not believe him when he said he was their age. They called him elder brother.

Xue You was quick to favor human children over adults. They were kinder, clean slates; but he couldn't help feeling strange at the thought that if he grew up normally, he would be just like them.

Xue You looked at the glowing deer across from him in the illuminated cave, its white hide nearly blinding his eyes. The deer began to relax, morphing into his human form in order not to blind Xue You with his light. Xue You hesitates. "..Brother Deer, can't you unseal my spiritual root?"

'If we were to release the seal on your spiritual root, it would endanger you greatly, Xue You. The immortals have no integrity. They'll make you into a pill.' His elder brother said quietly, offering Xue You the cooked fish from the fire.

"A pill? I may be small, but I'm too big to be made into a pill." Xue You said, puzzled greatly by the concept of a whole child being made into a pill. He finally takes the fish and takes a bite.

'The immortals have methods. They abuse the Dao as they wish. They consume nature for their wants as they wish. They are the reason longevity is closed. They will eat your energy and make it their own.'

"..That doesn't sound very good, Brother Deer."

'No. Not good at all. You must hunt more, and train more. We will unseal it once you are older. That is all that we can do for you. Even I cannot teach you, as powerful as I am in this wood. Animals only teach their own flesh and blood.'

"That is alright. Once I stay here enough, I'll become something equal to your flesh and blood."

The deer shook it's head. 'I worry for you, Xue You. Leave this place once you get the chance. We will only hold you back. You must develop your morals, not run with wild things like us.'

Xue You felt like he was getting kicked out. "I'm okay with not having any morals, Brother Deer."

'But I am not. Do not disobey my order. By tomorrow, you must leave this wood.'

Xue You was silent.

'Do you understand, Xue You?'

"Yes. I understand, Brother Deer."

The deer nodded with satisfaction. He was the only one who knew what was coming, the horrors that hailed on the horizon. The deer knew that the forest needed a fresh start, that it had been peaceful for far too long, for far too much time than it could hold. The immortals would come to collect soon, and he saw to it that his newfound younger brother wouldn't be caught in the crossfire.

—

In truth, Xue You didn't have a single belonging in his name. The things that Brother Deer packed for him, were Brother Deer's things only. The manuals, the spear that could be hidden at a command— and the heavy bag of spirit stones and gold that Xue You had no idea how to spend.

Perhaps his senior brother was disappointed in him. Maybe he hadn't lived up to his talent. Xue You's expression crumpled. Or perhaps this was another lesson. Xue You was to live in the human world once more and add prestige to his name while he got stronger. He looked back at the forest and promised to return in 3 years when Brother Deer could proudly call him his sworn younger brother.

Xue You smiled.

He took out the map Brother Deer gave him. The village was overshadowed by the wood beside it; the wood in which he grew up. It was called the "Perpetual Mystic Wood of The Great Hui Dynasty." Whatever that meant.

Xue You was 11, and still too weak. In order to start making a name for himself, Xue You needed to become way stronger.

As Xue You was thinking to himself about this matter, something began to tug on his clothes. He whirled around but found only a bird. The same bird that led him into the heart of the forest.

The bird chirped happily at him, and Xue You groaned. Right. This guy always followed him around, and the smell of spiritual fruits on him didn't help either. Xue You's expression softened. He seems reliable, though.

"You can tag along if you wish."

The bird began cawing in pure joy. Its wings began to beat stronger, and it picked up Xue You's heavy bag of manuals and silver for him.

"Onwards!" Xue You yelled triumphantly.

—

Through forests and collapsed shires— through ruined shrines, through plains, high mountains, and deep valleys, Xue You would walk, and the bird would trail behind him. It stayed like this, like hiking and stepping and trudging for what seemed like an eternity; for as long as the passage of time allowed. And Xue You wouldn't mind if it really was forever, just him and the bird traveling the vast realm evermore, but the destination was nearing.

He and the bird had kept to themselves, and traveled the wood instead of going through towns and cities. Food was not free where so many humans walked. Hunting came easy, and Brother Deer's gold and stones could be stolen by the greedy mortals and immortals easily.

Where the deer sent him was an unmarked place on the map; Xue You noticed easily that it was marked "The Last Stronghold." in what was unmistakably his senior brother's handwriting.

It was in the far North, which took 6 restless months to get to on foot alone. Xue You found himself nearing closer and closer to the destination, but snow blistered against his eyes so much that he walked right into the foot of the snow-covered mountain.

Xue You strapped his boots tighter for reassurance he was still standing. The warm robes seemed like overkill for the first half of his journey, but Xue You understood what they were for now.

The blizzard around him threatened to blind him cruelly. His eyes strained to find something, anything to hold on to.

Something hit the back of his head, and he turned around spontaneously to check for the threat. But all that was there was a rope that was thicker than both of his wrists combined. He looked up, following where the rope led, and it was straight up.

He gulped and held on to it tightly with frostbitten fingers. It was going to be a long climb.

----

The higher Xue You went, the clearer he saw. The blizzard began to calm, and a grey sky with clouds blotting out the very light of the sun replaced it. The rope was sturdy and held Xue You's weight. Xue You rested on the jagged, uneven faces of the cliff. The bird was an incredibly strong heat source, but Xue You saw to it that whenever the fiery feathers of its plumage weakened, the bird would eat the herbs he got from Brother Deer.

His skin began to fade whiter and whiter. He spent days climbing that mountain, and hours between the days, resting. It was like training in itself, a hellish training that ushered in no breaks from the cold or otherwise.

And when he finally reached the peak of the mountain, he didn't even look up anymore. The feeling of it would snap his neck. He had spent so much time with his head craning upwards that he needed to look down for a moment.

The Last Stronghold did not seem like an actual name, but a term to refer to it. Xue You looked slightly up from the map expecting the medium silhouette of a sizable house. However, only large, red-painted doors greeted him. The doors were connected to what was supposed to be an insurmountable wall, but Xue You saw that it was in the worst condition possible.

He looked up to see a weathered and worn plaque that looked more like a hazard than an honorable name. The frost blew off of it, and Xue You found it was named; 'The Palace of The Last Heavenly Demon.'

Xue You couldn't make heads or tales of the residence name. He found himself looking down again to see the banners beside the doors that hung with jade paper.

"The Path I have been walking is sealed now, the Dao that I have been guided by is silent now— Whose fault is it? Whose fault is it that we are all abandoned now? Of course, it is the dread and deathless immortals' fault, but I can still pave it somehow! All ye who enter here, come hither, my knowledge is now yours to endow!" Xue You muttered the words aloud, scrunching his nose in distaste at the brazenness of it.

It must have been owned by a senile old man, Xue You thought to himself.

It looked like a ruined palace gate more than it did a sturdy stronghold. The doors were difficult to push, but once Xue You opened them, they cracked slightly.

The bird squawked in surprise as one of the doors fell off of the hinge, nearly dealing a fatal blow to its head.

The inside looked like the outside, but Xue You knew it was grand in its prime. The gold was dulling and flaking off of the roofs and spires, but it was still gold. It just needed to be cleaned, and slightly repaired. Xue You liked it better like this.

There was a path leading directly to the main building that looked like a great library, with other buildings on the right and left, also behind the great building. Xue You counted 16 buildings, not including the centerpiece. There were 4 pagodas that were like watchtowers in each corner and a multitude of smaller buildings and courtyards. It looked more like an inner city than a singular palace. Along this path were two pond-like canals that remained with ice that was once water, preserved lilies encased in frost.

His new home, a ruined and crumbling inner city at the top of an invincible mountain. Xue You could work with this.

The altar in the middle of the main building cracked a bit and then flickered with subtle light. Somewhere, a dying man awoke once more. Somewhere, the legacy comes alive again. He is glad to know that he is not the last, not yet. The real Last Sage has come, and the dying man hopes Xue You will be the one to end it all.