“I’m gonna be just fine,” said Jin, putting up a brave smile. “Don’t you worry about me, senior!”

  “Sure,” said Zane.

  They trudged up the winding, mossy path.

  A few minutes passed like this.

  Something was unusual. It took a moment for him to place it.

  The little fellow was quiet.

  “Um. Senior?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Have you ever had anything like that happen?”

  “Like what?”

  “Fei-Fei saw me get beat up…”

  He clenched his fists at the ground.

  Zane felt bad for the kid. But he really was not the guy for this sort of thing. Not his field.

  “Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want me anymore,” said Jin.

  There were only the sounds of their footsteps.

  “I don’t think so,” said Zane. The girl didn’t seem that way to him.

  Jin’s head snapped up.

  Besides—“I’ve gotten beaten up,” he informed Jin. “A lot. Sometimes in front of my Reina. But she doesn’t care about that. She just cares I get back up.”

  “But what if Fei-Fei’s not like her?”

  He blinked.

  …This relationship stuff really wasn’t for him. He figured he’d better stick to what he knew.

  “Kid,” he said. “Why do you fight?”

  Jin looked at him, stunned.

  “I fight because that’s what I was made for,” said Zane. “Is she why you fight?”

  Jin gasped.

  He seemed to be having a moment.

  “No,” he lifted his chin. “I’m not fighting ‘cause of her, I’m fighting ‘cause I wanna be the best!”

  “Sure.”

  Jin was a bit teary-eyed.

  “I’m never gonna give up, senior! Never ever!”

  “I know.”

  And like that, he was all fired up again.

  The kid was all puffed up again as he led Zane up a mountain gorge.

  He was still quiet, though.

  “You okay?” said Zane.

  Jin blinked. “Oh!” he grinned. “It’s just my Crouching Tiger’s Fist wasn’t strong enough… I think I’m gonna add another five thousand punches a day.”

  “Sure.”

  Then an idle thought came to Zane. “How many times has this Liu Yi beaten you up?”

  “Four times, senior!”

  “How many times do you punch a day?”

  “Twenty thousand now, senior!” Jin nodded proudly.

  “…”

  Sometimes, a kid would say they’d never ever give up, and the words would float right over Zane’s head.

  But something about this kid…

  He filed away the name ‘Jin’ in the back of his head, just in case.

  He wasn’t sure how real this dream-world was. But if the kid kept this up… Zane got a feeling he might hear more of him.

  ***

  Soon they came upon a land of snaking mists, mists that blotted out the skies. The light was pale and came from everywhere and nowhere. The ground grew wet, full of ponds. Some were just a foot deep. Others, Jin said, went for thousands of feet, and ice-serpent monsters lurked deep within. He sounded more excited than frightened by this fact.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The mists only thickened. Banshee sounds echoed through the fog, but Jin kept going. “We’re almost there!”

  Soon the gorge widened out. The mists unfurled before them, and a great roaring filtered in.

  Sunlight poured through. Like an eye in the storm of mists, a revelation of gold streamed from above, splashing all over the valley, burning away the murk. And the roar grew louder. Their sources revealed themselves—a thousand waterfalls, all light-blue and foaming white, glistening in the light.

  A valley full of them. Seagulls circled high above.

  If this were a movie, this bit would’ve been accompanied by soaring music.

  The waterfalls, the foam, had taken on a dreamlike energy. The mists in this valley too—the deeper he went, the more they resembled the mists of Astra.

  The biggest waterfall loomed straight in front of them. The moment Zane set eyes on it, he knew.

  That was the one.

  It was the one blazing light in the Astral Plane. That roar was thunder cascading on thunder. And though it seemed impressive in this world, its physical presence was only the tip of a vast iceberg.

  The bulk of it crashed down in the Astral Plane. And there Zane felt the roar in his soul.

  “I tried to go through it once,” said Jin. “Only… it was really cold…”

  His brow furrowed. “I don't get what happened—I went really hard, but…”

  He shook his head, baffled. “I’m gonna try again, senior!”

  Then he charged right at the waterfall, straight-up.

  The kid was fearless.

  …Then again, with that one passive, it made sense.

  Jin leaped, and broke the water.

  Instantly he was gritting his teeth. His face scrunched and reddened. It wasn’t the physical brunt. It was the mental, the pummeling of the soul.

  He let out a shout and took a step. Then another.

  This waterfall was a test of raw willpower.

  The kid was endowed with quite a big soul—one of the biggest Zane had seen. Now that it was being tested, that grew clear. Threads of Fate wrapped it tight, bolstering it.

  The two did seem to be correlated. For instance, Emeka Eze once told Zane he had the most Fate threads in his soul the fellow had ever seen.

  Those threads helped Jin throw off some of the burden. Jin put his head down and charged. The kid got a lot further than he had any right to.

  But in the end, he let out a cry and was washed out.

  Then he blinked, puzzled again, and looked at Zane sheepishly. “I don’t get it…”

  This kid definitely had a special gift with sheer will. Kind of like Evan.

  Zane got the confusion. Jin had likely never come across a problem he couldn't just will his way through before. Usually, it was other things, like his Skills or his body, that failed on him, if Zane had to guess.

  “Thanks for bringing me,” said Zane. “I’ll take it from here.”

  He stepped up to the waterfall, so close the spray misted his face—so close he felt the thunder in his soul.

  Then he stepped through.

  Instantly, the Red Moon Pagoda flickered up, but the waters crashed right through it.

  He had a moment to register his surprise. It was that Astra—something mysterious power—

  Then the full brunt of the waterfall crashed right over his soul.

  It felt exactly as one would expect several thousand tons of freezing water dumped on one’s head to feel. Straight to the dome.

  He grunted.

  He could see why it forced the kid out.

  He actually felt that.

  He forged on through, step by step.

  ***

  Outside, Jin watched senior Zane’s broad back vanishing into the distance. Lost in the rush.

  “Sheesh…” he gasped. “Senior Zane!”

  But Zane was gone.

  He’d made it.

  The feeling in Jin’s chest, staring at that waterfall, was like nothing he’d ever felt.

  He knew what it took to brave that flow… every time he went up against someone, even the Patriarch, he felt in his heart he would beat them one day.

  But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t imagine himself beating Zane.

  Zane was just different.

  Still—Jin fixed him like a star in his mind and grinned.

  “I’m still gonna try!” he declared.

  He was quite curious what the big guy found behind those flows. But an hour passed, then another, and it was clear he wouldn’t be coming out anytime soon.

  Jin left him to it. He had twenty thousand punches to do.

  ***

  Patriarch and Madam Yi were having dinner when their son burst sniveling into the great hall.

  “Mother!” he was on the verge of tears.

  Madam Yi set down her knife, gasping. “Who did this to you?”

  “He s-said his name was Zane—he humiliated me, in f-front of the whole town—”

  He spilled out the story.

  The more she heard, the more Madam Yi’s eyes narrowed.

  “So the boy let some passing barbarian get the better of him,” said Patriarch Yi. He was still chewing on a leg of lamb. “Treat it as a chance to learn! Could be good for him, who knows—”

  “He did not ‘just’ let some passing barbarian get the better of him,” snapped Madam Yi. “He let a passing barbarian shame the Yi Family in broad daylight!”

  The Patriarch winced. “Now—I hardly think—”

  She whirled back on her son, and by now the Young Master had picked himself up. His back was straight, and most of his tears were wiped away. He was just red now.

  “Dear,” said Madam Yi gently. “You were wronged. But the fact remains you made a mistake, a serious one. Can you tell me what it is?”

  “I… I let him make me—make us—look weak, Mother.”

  “That’s right. But a mistake only remains one if you don’t correct it. Are you going to sit idly by?”

  “No,” whispered the Young Master. He wiped at his face. Louder—“No, Mother. This isn’t over.”

  She smiled, and for the first time looked satisfied. “Good boy. Now tell me more about this ‘Zane.’ We’ll have his face on pamphlets by sunrise. There won’t be a plot of land in all of West Wind to shelter him.”

  “He…he was big,” said the Young Master. “And strong. Really strong…”

  Fei-Fei spoke up. “He’s very handsome, Madam. But in a rugged sort of way, like he knows what to do with his hands. He had really big hands, and this square jaw…”

  The Young Master looked at his girlfriend, speechless.

  Patriarch Yi gave a sigh. “What a mess.”

  “That’s all you have to say?” the Madam turned on him.

  “What would you have me do?” said the Patriarch, bewildered. “That Zane—you said all he did was stand there? I can hardly charge the man on that—”

  “He spit on our family name, and you’ll do nothing?”

  “I—well—”

  “How long until the Gong hears of this? Will they pay tithes to weaklings? If the Ling hear we let some barbarian bully us, they’ll shoulder us out of the Sect!” she said fiercely.

  It all seemed a bit of a stretch to Patriarch Yi.

  He wondered glumly how it came to this. She’d been so charming when he first met her—just a dusty rake-thin peasant girl. He would’ve thought she of all folk should’ve had no time for noble politics.

  “Very well,” he sighed. “Elder Zhu—head out there. Give this Zane a stern hand—”

  “Not Zhu,” said Young Master Yi. “Zhu’s too soft. I’m—I’m going to break him for all to see.”

  Madam Yi nodded her approval.

  “Hunchback!”

  A wrecking ball of a man giggled from the shadows. One of his eyes was much bigger than the other, and his face was a mess of faded scars. His nose was squashed nearly flat against his face.

  “You called, master?” he whined.

  The crew set out at sundown.

  They were off to hunt a Zane.