Seth took a small sip of the tea served to him and smiled in satisfaction. Noticing his expression, the merchant smirked
"It's really nice, right?"
"Mmn. It is.
Seth had ended up accompanying the old merchant home despite his initial refusal. Why were things always like this for him, it was not that he was complaining, but it would be nice for his no to be taken as a no, even if he would be severely inconvenienced. Well, at least the merchant's family was nothing like Chun Hua's. The middle aged mother was very nice, their granddaughter was all smiles, giggles, and the entire family smiled quite a lot, despite not having much. Back on earth, Seth did not get to smile much. How could he smile, when he had his mother's bills to pay, restock the noodle shack, find what he would eat that day, and buy webnovel coins? OK, maybe the coins might have been sort of a bad idea, but how could he survive without them? They were his only solace, his only source of escape from his fucked up life. And now, they were his manual.
"Say, I never got your name, sir."
The old merchant smirked once again and turned his head to face the open window.
"My name, huh? Well, I am known as Shiro Matsumoto. You are?."
"Uh Huh, I'm Sethren, but my friends just call me Seth." Seth nodded and went back to his tea. The old merchant was dumbstruck, how could the youth not have any reaction? For four hundred seasons he had served, and now he was unknown?!
"Aren't you surprised or something?! I'm SHIRO MATSUMOTO."
Seth raised a brow in confusion.
"Uh, am I supposed to be?..." Only then did he remember that he was in a different world, not the perfect happy earth illusion that had taken hold of him for a second there.
"...you know I lost my memory."
Old man Shiro stroked his beard, and his rising suspicion quelled within his heart.
"Oh, right. Well, I am Shiro Matsumoto, the former head of the Golden Spring sect."
'Oh.' Seth smiled slightly in realization. The old merchant was a former sect head, and he must have been rather famous. 'If it were me, I'd probably feel the same way.'
"So, why did you leave the sect?"
The older man chuckled and took a long sip, before turning to face Seth.
"That my friend, is a story for another day." He looked out the window, and noticing the darkness gradually creeping itself in from the east as the sun slowly disappeared from view, the older man added.
"Its rather late, my friend. Why don't you stay over dinner till tomorrow?"
"Really?" Seth had his hopes high. He was homeless in this world, and did not have the face to go to the Blazing Valor sect. In fact he was rather sure that Lee Xiaoping had it out for him.
"Yes, its no problem." The old man replied.
***
Soon, obscure darkness descended upon the world, and everyone was either snoring away, or cultivating. However, Seth remained wide awake with different thoughts dancing within his mind.
"Why are they being so nice to me when they have nothing to gain?"
Seth had seen the rougher parts of life, the life of a penniless kid with a fortune's worth of responsibilities. He had been kicked to the curb, cursed, rejected, and was a friend to pain and sorrow. It was a miracle how he even managed to come out of all that as a sane person. Unfortunately, even of the scars on his body healed later on, the scars on his soul could never heal. He was friendly to those who were friendly to him, and spiteful towards those who spiteful to him. Friends and foes, allies and enemies, they all stood to gain something when they did anything for him. But this man had picked up a complete stranger, fed the complete stranger, and now, the complete stranger was sleeping in their living room.
'What if I were a serial killer and just decided to end all of their lives?'
It was a very strange line of thought, but the truth remained the fact that if was true nonetheless. There was nothing stopping him from murdering them all with his onyx blades, but why would he do so? They had fed him, housed him, and clothed him. Literally, he was wearing a wrinkled kimono with rather large arms that seemed to have fit Shiro back during his glory days. It was said that the best way to any man's heart was his stomach, and Seth really appreciated the kind gesture that no one had ever done for him before. Even Lee Chun Hua had wanted him to join their sect in exchange for a place to stay, even if he still ended up staying over either way.
Soon, his thoughts began to drift into more turbulent waters.
'What do I plan on doing with my life here?' This was a question that he had asked himself many times. Back on earth, he was a nobody, unknown, unacknowledged, and at the mercy of fate. But now, he had the chance to grow strong!
"But is levelling up and getting stronger all there is to life? When I do surpass everyone in the far future, then what happens next?"
***
Shiro Matsumoto lay smiling on his bed. It had been quite long since he had felt it. The aura of a Serpentis.
'Who knew that a Serpentis would end up walking the face of this world once again." It had been a very many seasons since Seoran Serpentis tore the spatial void, left this world, and never returned. Who would have thought that someone with the Serpentis bloodline running through their veins would eventually resurface?
'Welcome home, Seth. This is where you really belong.'
Old man Shiro knew that like his predecessors, Seth would definitely achieve great things.
"This generation's Imperial Sky Emperor's Trial is going to end very interestingly."
***
Lee Chun Hua knelt down on the blood soaked floor with a distant smile etched on her face. A few metres behind her, Wu Chun's head was impaled with a spear and pinned up from the ground. Around it, were the severed heads of other disciples who had died in a duel. If not for the other one, Chun Hua's head would have been the one on the spear instead. On the floor, were body parts littered here and there, savagely ripped off the original body with her bare hands.
After she had tortured Wu Chun to madness and finally gave him an agonizing death, Lee Chun Hua dropped of her knees, and remained so for many hours. However, it wasn't all for dramatic effect, as she was deep within her soul realm.
"You imbecile! You could have gotten us killed! You take battles way too lightly and treat everything as a spar! Is that how you want us to survive the Trial?"
Chun Hua bowed her head and took all the insults coming from herself. She would have retaliated, threatened to bound her even tighter, but she did not open her mouth. Because each and every thing that her other side said was true.
"I... I made a mistake, alright?"
The other Chun Hua narrower her almond shaped eyes and glared at her other persona in fury.
"A foolish mistake that could have been the end of us! The Wu Chun bastard started from the get go with a freaking Qi ball! But you?, you summoned your pretty toy like you were going to have a weapons practice class. Do you even know what would have happened if we had absorbed that Qi ball? It would have clogged our dantians and made our body explode into bits! But what did you freaking do? You attacked with your toy, had him right where you could have cleaved his head off, yet you gave him leeway and hit his shoulder! You're there telling him never to take his eyes off an enemy, when you did the fucking same thing and got distracted in the middle of a battle. If I did not use the little power I have left to loosen the chains, then we would have perished. I am not going to die until I have conquered all, and neither are you. Step up your freaking game! Once again, I tell you to set me free. Together, we are unstoppable, a powerhouse! You know that everything they had said were lies, they were afraid of our powers, our strength. They knew that we would overthrow them and so they broke us. But you, you can fix everything." The darker persona raised her shacked hands. "Just break these chains, me."
Lee Chun Hua sighed deeply and raised her head.
"Did you have to kill them. The innocent disciples who happened to be in the area of your attacks."
At least fifty or so disciples had perished when her other half thoroughly destroyed Wu Chun's body while keeping him alive. Chun Hua knew that her other half was vastly more powerful than herself, but she also knew that her other half could not handle power. She was a sadist, and had no regard for human lives.
"I know you killed them merely because you wanted to, and I despise that. But I also realize that you are my ace, without you, I don't think I shall survive the Trial. I shall set you free, but keep a shackle to your right foot. Deal?"
The other persona raised a brow in disbelief. For forty seasons, she had pleaded for her freedom, and now she was getting it just like that? She had even been prepared to try murdering her other half to see if the soul weakening chains would die with her, but here she was, being set partially free. Sure, she still lost ten to twenty percent of her power as far as the chains were still shackled to her figure, but half bread was better than none, was it not?
"Its a deal.'"
Now that she was almost free, she would slowly make sure to take over the body, and then, then she would show the world exactly why they should never have let someone as terrifyingly powerful as Lee Chun Hua, live in the first place.
***
A few days had passed, since Seth came to stay with the old sect head turned merchant and his family. In those few hours, he had lost a daily quests as there weren't any awakened level beasts in the beast lands, but he had gained something else. Normally, the black haired youth thought of every person he met as a cunning person with a trade by barter personality. Heck, he himself was that way. Like almost everyone on earth, he had a 'Myself first, and everything next' mentality that made him only do stiff that benefitted him. But these people were different. They had shared their meagre resources with him, when he had almost lost all hope, even if he did not show it. He had grown quite fond of the nice neighborhood. Everywhere he turned, it was either "Seth-san, come and join us for tea." Or "Seth-san, come and join us, we're going out for hunting." Another thing he had gained, was valuable Intel on the scroll. Old man Shiro seemed to know quite a lot about the ancient artifact.
"It is said that the only limit of the scroll, is it's wielder's imagination."
"Uh huh."
"The first protector had gotten a spirit grade demon sword, but that was because he was familiar with a sword. I wonder if he would have gotten something else, or even more amazingly, been able to use the scroll to its full potential."
Seth and old man Shiro had had this sort of conversation a lot. Seth had the scroll within him in the form of his dormant system, but that only made him wonder if the system was the only form that the scroll could take. It was merely a theory, but what would he lose were he to test it? He had his imagination, and he had the scroll, after all.