The water's surface reflected her child's face back at her, innocent eyes holding a calculating gaze. She wondered, not for the first time, if the heavens had a sense of humor—giving such tremendous power to someone who had already learned the hard way that power alone, wasn't enough.
"Master," Little Firefly floated closer, his light dimming to a gentle, intimate glow. The spirit paused, choosing his words with the care of someone who had watched his master evolve from a deadly assassin to a child seeking to protect rather than destroy.
"I understand your concerns," he continued, his voice carrying the soft wisdom of countless ages. "But perhaps that's precisely why these gifts have found their way to you now, in this life. Think about it, you've walked through the darkest shadows of humanity. You've witnessed power corrupt and destroy. You've seen how the mightiest can fall to their own vanity."
The spirit's light pulsed gently, like a heartbeat, casting warm ripples across the spiritual water's surface. "Yet you emerged from that darkness with something far more precious than mere power or technique. You gained wisdom, Master. The kind that can only be forged in the crucible of loss and redemption."
Little Firefly drifted even closer, his glow reflecting in Li Hua's eyes like starlight on still water. "And isn't that exactly what's needed to wield such abilities responsibly? Someone who understands the weight of power because they've felt its burden? Someone who chooses protection over destruction because they've witnessed the cost of both?"
His words hung in the air between them, carried on the gentle sound of flowing spiritual water, each syllable ringing with the truth of their shared journey.
Li Hua reached over and pulled him into her arms. "Perhaps, Little Firefly. Perhaps you're right." Her fingers traced the ethereal edges of his light, remembering all the times his presence had guided her through doubt and darkness.
The chamber's treasures suddenly felt less like a burden and more like tools—tools that could have saved so many lives in her past life, had they been wielded by hands guided by compassion rather than coin. "The difference between a weapon and a shield lies not in its nature, but in the heart that wields it." She whispered softly.
"Ahem. Master." Little Firefly, awkwardly spoke. "Last thing."
"There's more?" Li Hua's eyebrow arched with equal parts amusement and disbelief. Just how many surprises could a space hold?
"Master, it truly is your good fortune." Little Firefly's light pulsed with an almost giddy excitement, like a child who had saved the best present for last. "Cultivating in this space will yield double the results, and there's more—time flows differently here. A full day spent in this space equals merely an hour in the outside world. As your spiritual powers increase, the spiritual energy in the space will grow as well. There is potential to unlock more functions but even I'm not sure what that will be. The space seems to be evolving alongside you, Master, adapting to support your new path."
Li Hua's face went blank, her expression shifting through emotions faster than a cultivator burning through spirit stones. If Little Firefly had a physical form, he would have been rolling on the floor laughing—the legendary Alpha, the shadow assassin who once made hardened crime lords weep with a single glance, now stood there with her mouth slightly agape like a startled koi fish.
For several heartbeats, she stood motionless, her genius tactician's mind appearing to short-circuit as it processed the implications. Double cultivation results? Twenty-four times more training hours in a day? A space that evolved with her? The weight of such potential pressed against her chest like a physical force. It was almost too much for even her assassin's composure to handle.
Little Firefly's initial amusement at his master's reaction quickly turned to alarm as her arms began squeezing him with increasing force. The spirit's glow started flickering like a panicked firefly trapped in a child's enthusiastic grip.
"Master!" He yelped, his voice rising several octaves. "I know you're excited but please—I'm not a stress ball! My luminescence is getting squished!"
His distress only made Li Hua squeeze tighter, her grip becoming almost frantic as her assassin's instincts screamed warnings about the universe's sudden generosity. The maniacal grin spreading across her face wasn't one of joy but of mounting hysteria—the kind of smile that appeared when everything was going so perfectly that every shadow started looking like an ambush. In her previous life, such good fortune had always been the calm before a devastating storm.
"Too much," she muttered, her bear-hug strength—terrifyingly intact despite her child's body—making Little Firefly's glow flicker like a distressed lightning bug.
"First the dragon core, then the fairy mother and dragon father, and now this space is practically gifting me immortality on a jade platter? With enough time to master it all in the span of what—mere days to the outside world? What's the catch? There's always a catch. The universe doesn't just hand out power like festival candies without expecting payment in blood later."
Her paranoid mumbling continued, each new possibility making her squeeze a little tighter, as if she could physically hold onto her sanity while it tried to grapple with the weight of so many blessings. The former assassin who had once calculated the price of every advantage now found herself drowning in an ocean of freely given power, and it was absolutely terrifying.
"Can't... breathe..." Little Firefly wheezed dramatically, before remembering he didn't actually need to breathe. "I mean—can't... glow... properly!"
Finally registering her spirit companion's protests, Li Hua loosened her death grip. Little Firefly immediately shot up toward the sky, his light pulsing indignantly as he put a safe distance between himself and his master's enthusiasm. She couldn't blame him—in her previous life, that same grip had crushed windpipes and snapped bones. Old habits died hard, even when they were meant as shows of affection.
With a long sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul, Li Hua collapsed onto the ground beside the river. "That's it. Right? No more?" Her voice carried the weary tone of someone who had endured one too many earth-shattering revelations in a single day—or what felt like a day in this space, at least.
Little Firefly, wisely hovering near the pavilion at what he calculated to be a safe distance from any potential stress-induced grabbing, flickered with what could only be described as nervousness. His master, the epitome of assassin's composure, had just cycled through more facial expressions in the past few minutes than she had shown in her entire previous life. He'd seen her maintain a blank face while defusing bombs, yet here she sat, looking like she might either start laughing hysterically or begin plotting his demise if he dared mention one more "improved feature or new function."
"Just... just give me a moment," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose in a gesture that seemed hilariously mature on her child-sized face. "My previous training didn't cover how to process getting every wish granted at once, let alone being handed control over both time and space itself."
"That...that's all master." Little Firefly spoke softly from his newfound safe perch near the pavilion's highest beam. Watching his usually composed master teeter on the edge of power-induced hysteria, he made a mental note to himself: Next time he had world-shattering news to deliver, he would need a better strategy than just blurting everything out at once. Perhaps a fortress of jade shelves between them, or better yet, shouting the news from the other end of this infinite space while maintaining a clear escape route and a carefully calculated timeline of exactly how much real-world time would pass during his escape.
After all, an immortal spirit he might be, but even immortals preferred not to be squeezed like a stress ball by an overwhelmed former assassin in a four-year-old's body, especially one who could now theoretically spend months plotting revenge while only hours passed in the outside world.