Realm Walker

He flipped open the cover of the old journal. The pages of the Chronicle had yellowed to a pale amber, and gave off a faint musty smell. Neat, precise calligraphy filled the first page.

The Way of Water and Fire lies in balance. Transform water and fire into yin and yang, and only then can one master the sect's Frozen Flame Art. Three years after joining the sect, I have finally attained this epiphany...

More cultivation talk? Zhang Yuanqing raised an eyebrow. The last time he had encountered a description like this was back in the Temple of the Three Paths Mountain Goddess, in the notes left behind by the victims of the vengeful spirit. Those had also mentioned cultivation practices, breathing exercises, talisman drawing, and the like.

Did the various Walkers of the Ming Dynasty relied on cultivation to grow stronger, instead of Character Cards? he wondered.

He turned the idea over in his mind. Then again, it could just be background lore for the Spirit Realm. The Yin Yang Hermit and the others could all just be NPCs, just like Madam Wang and Widow Xu. Demon Lord took that questline as well, and he probably killed them at some point, but they respawned later. Unless someone can prove the Yin Yang Hermit actually existed in real history, there's no way to know for sure.

With that thought, Zhang Yuanqing opened the laptop beside him, logged into the official database, and searched for "Yin Yang Town."

Apart from a handful of sparse strategy guides, the database contained no information on Yin Yang Town whatsoever.

"They had an entry for the Temple of the Three Paths Mountain Goddess, but there's nothing about a town where people actually lived? Is the official team completely useless? What kind of operation are they running?!"

The outburst left his lips before he could stop it. He froze mid-rant, blinking in surprise.

When did I get so irritable? He mulled it over for a few seconds before the answer clicked. It was the Yin Yang Spell Robe. One of its costs was wild and unpredictable mood swings.

"Okay, easy now... keep it together," he murmured to himself as he drew a deep breath.

The Yin Yang Hermit was a figure from the Ming Dynasty, but he's long dead. From what I know so far, the only ancient powerhouse still alive from that era might be the old hag.

He read on. The traditional characters slowed him down considerably, but after a solid fifteen minutes of squinting at the dense calligraphy, he had pieced together a rough picture of the Yin Yang Hermit's background.

The man had come from a sect called the Order of Water and Fire, founded by a legendary immortal of the Song Dynasty. The order had enjoyed considerable prestige across the Central Plains, yet it had remarkably few disciples, not because the sect was selective, but because individuals with the aptitude for cultivation were exceedingly rare.

The Yin Yang Hermit had mentioned a concept in passing: A great change has swept through heaven and earth. Those who can succeed are vanishingly few.

That lines up almost perfectly with what the temple keeper said. The secret of a thousand years of upheaval. Zhang Yuanqing flipped ahead eagerly, hunting for more, but no matter how far he searched, the hermit never explained why heaven and earth had changed.

He couldn't help but curse under his breath. The hermit probably hadn't known the reason either.

One other detail caught Zhang Yuanqing's attention. According to the hermit's own account, a disciple who had mastered the Frozen Flame Art was a rarity within the sect, an elite among elites.

Such a disciple could wield both water and fire in one body. In Spirit Realm Walker terms, that's like having two classes at once. That should be impossible. If anyone in the Five Elements Alliance could do that, I'd definitely have heard about it... Unless they're keeping it secret. Could cultivation itself produce that kind of exception?

He pondered the question as he continued reading.

After mastering the Frozen Flame Art, my cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. I reigned supreme across the Central Plains, then ventured north. Few could match me. Emboldened, I traveled south to challenge the grandmasters of every major sect, winning duel after duel.

Then I heard of a fellow practitioner on Three Paths Mountain in Songfu, one skilled in summoning wind and rain, subduing ghosts and demons, and refining elixirs and talismans. I went to challenge her and was thoroughly, utterly defeated. Heartbroken and demoralized, I returned to my sect and told my master of the defeat. He smiled and said: "Your grandmaster suffered the same fate!"

Three Paths Mountain... That had to be the old hag. It was most definitely the old hag. Zhang Yuanqing sucked in a sharp breath. She's that strong? If I ever run into her in the Spirit Realm, I'd better start thinking about which kneeling posture best conveys sincerity...

He winced inwardly at the thought, but a second later, something else registered. His eyes went back to the last thing he'd read: Your grandmaster suffered the same fate.

The Yin Yang Hermit's master was saying that the sect's founder, the grandmaster, had also been beaten by the old hag.

Zhang Yuanqing's breath caught in his throat. The founder of the Order of Water and Fire was a figure from the Song Dynasty. If the old hag had beaten him too, that meant she was staggeringly ancient. The "Three Paths Mountain Goddess" identity was nothing more than a persona she had adopted in her later years.

He had to completely reassess the old hag's power level.

Time ticked by, and page by page, he made his way through the Chronicle. The later sections chronicled the Yin Yang Hermit's travels and philosophical musings on cultivation, interspersed with breathing techniques, meridian charts, and esoteric principles that Zhang Yuanqing couldn't begin to decipher.

What surprised him, though, was that over the course of his travels, the hermit had befriended practitioners from both the righteous and the wicked paths. And yes, "wicked path" meant Evil-class Walkers.

The hermit's appraisal of his Evil-class friends was glowing: bold, chivalrous, quick to repay kindness and avenge wrongs.

Zhang Yuanqing mulled over this point for a while. The Yin Yang Hermit doesn't seem like someone with a twisted sense of morality. These evil class practitioners he befriended had to have been people like Aunt Xiao Yuan. And from the account of his whole life, the righteous and wicked paths weren't exactly at each other's throats. They're completely unlike modern Spirit Realm Walkers, where Walkers of opposing factions go for blood the moment they cross paths, ready to bash each other's brains in.

Zhang Yuanqing flipped ahead quickly, skimming past the travelogues. The one thing worth noting was that the Yin Yang Spell Robe had been unearthed from an ancient tomb during one of his journeys.

After acquiring the robe, the hermit began calling himself the Yin Yang Hermit. Then, he marched back to Three Paths Mountain for a rematch with the old hag.

He was crushed again.

After that, the Yin Yang Hermit gave up entirely. He spent his days drinking, feasting, and carousing with friends. When he stumbled across injustice, he'd step in. When he encountered a corrupt official, he'd casually relieve the man of his head.

As the Chronicle reached the hermit's twilight years, the tone shifted. The old man had begun to crave immortality, lamenting that fate had been unkind, that he'd been born in an era when heaven and earth were in upheaval.

The older he grew, the deeper his obsession with immortality sank its claws into him. The Chronicle stopped outlining the hermit's thoughts on cultivation altogether and devolved into page after page of schemes for achieving eternal life. He had even entertained the idea of using infant blood as a catalyst to refine an elixir of undeath. Fortunately, he'd pulled himself back from the brink in time, but the obsession only intensified.

A chill ran through Zhang Yuanqing. Before, he had assumed the Yin Yang Spell Robe's cost wasn't particularly severe. After all, who didn't want to live forever? That hardly counted as a price.

Now, as he read about the Yin Yang Hermit spiral toward madness in his pursuit of immortality, he finally grasped just how insidious the cost truly was.

One day, the Yin Yang Hermit received word that the Three Paths Mountain Goddess had ascended to heaven. The news devastated him. In the Chronicle, he wrote: A beauty to topple kingdoms, yet even she could not escape the march of time. Alas, alas.

After that, the Yin Yang Hermit built Yin Yang Town and sealed himself away, slumbering in an undying dream.

Zhang Yuanqing closed the Chronicle and sighed. That's a lot to take in.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and organized the key takeaways in his mind.

The old hag is far older than I thought, and terrifyingly powerful. During the Ming Dynasty, the relationship between Evi-class and Lawful-class Walkers was tense, but not necessarily lethal.

Ming Dynasty Walkers advanced through cultivation, not by obtaining Character Cards.

If the Yin Yang Hermit and the old hag actually existed in real history, then everything I thought I knew about the Spirit Realm needs to change. But the only NPC I know who's still alive is the old hag.

No... maybe I don't need to ask them directly. I have a way to verify this.

He filed his questions away for later and tucked the Chronicle back into his Inventory.

Next, he planned to test his newly acquired skill: Astral Projection.

The instant the thought formed, a strange urgency flooded through him, an impatient, almost feverish need to try it right then. Nothing could be allowed to stand in his way.

***

In a luxury apartment complex in the capital of Yan Province to the north, a young man wearing a sporty headband lounged in a high-backed chair with easy, sprawling confidence. In front of him, a middle-aged man lay on a plush king-sized bed, wrists and ankles bound tight. He was bald and beer-bellied, and the black hair on his chest was thick and matted. Sweat streamed down his forehead, and his eyes were wide with terror.

A thick towel had been stuffed into his mouth, and muffled whimpers leaked around the gag. His eyes were full of desperate pleading, pitiful and meek as a whipped dog.

The young man grinned. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you. You really do look like a dog begging for scraps."

He rose from the chair and strolled to the bedside, drawing a sharp fruit knife from his waistband.

"Mmph! Mmmmph!" The middle-aged man screamed as he thrashed violently against his restraints.

"Quiet. I talk. You listen."

The young man's pupils blazed with a crimson glow, and the middle-aged man's body went rigid, all resistance draining out of him at once.

The young man sat on the edge of the bed, twirling the fruit knife between his fingers, his smile never wavering. "Here's the thing. I hate killing people without giving them a reason. So before you die, let me lay it all out, nice and clear. The first charge: accepting bribes and sexual favors, forcing women into prostitution. The second charge: serving as a shield for organized crime by covering up their murders. The third charge..."

His tone remained warm and conversational throughout. By the time he finished, the list had grown to more than a dozen offenses. When the last charge left his lips, the man on the bed had gone completely stiff.

The young man patted the corpse on the shoulder, his voice gentle. "Done already? Do yourself a favor. Don't come back as a human next time."

He stood, walked to the window, and pushed it open. The night breeze washed over him as he gazed out across a sea of city lights.

He let out a long, satisfied sigh. "The world just got a little more beautiful."

Humanity was ugly. A world with humans in it was filthy. And so the world needed to be cleansed.

His phone rang, and the young man fished it out, dangling it between two fingers at eye level. With his free hand, he extended a single finger and tapped the answer button.

"What is it, Silver Moon?"

The voice on the other end was loud and furious.

—Demon Eye, are you done playing around? Get back to HQ. The Slaughter Cessation Palace Master has been picking off our people in the Northern Territory. She's good at staying hidden, and I need your eyes.

"Watch your tone." The young man warned, smiling pleasantly. "You're a divine general. Since when do you get to talk to me like that?"

The caller grew even more irate, erupting into a torrent of profanity.

—Watch my tone, my ass! You Four Heavenly Kings are all out of your goddamn minds! Number One is off somewhere screaming about freedom, and is completely unreachable. Number Two tells me he wants to submit a formal challenge to the palace master, and if he won't fight her unless she accepts? Are you kidding me?

—Number Three, that walking murder machine, just happens to be stuck in the Spirit Realm right now. The Eight Divine Generals could handle that woman easily, but we can't find her!

The young man scratched his head. "Well, alright then. You know my rules. Give me a reason to kill her first."

—What? You need a reason to kill someone?

"Don't you?"

The line was silent for a moment as the divine general scrambled for something to say that might satisfy him.

—Well, when she was hunting our members, she accidentally injured two civilians. Does that count?

"That counts! I'll head over and take care of her right now."

—You're a goddamn psychopath. Are you even part of the Evil faction, or are you from the Lawful faction? No, scratch that, all four of you are psychopaths.

Silver Moon cursed a few more times, then shifted gears abruptly.

—Li Xianzong is dead.

"Hmm?" Demon Eye Heavenly King's eyebrow rose, and the smile vanished from his face. "What happened?"

—He ran into Yuanshi Tianzun in a dungeon and was killed.

The smile returned, curling the corners of his lips. "I see. Well then, once I've dealt with the Palace Master, I'll head to Songhai and start collecting reasons to kill Yuanshi Tianzun."

***

Zhang Yuanqing floated upward, hovering less than ten centimeters from the ceiling. He looked down. His physical body lay motionless on the bed below. There was no heartbeat, and it wasn't breathing.

A thought rose in his mind. Twenty minutes. If I don't return to my body within twenty minutes, it dies permanently.

There was an instinctive certainty to that. Without wasting a second, he shot out of the room at dizzying speed, phasing straight through the wall and into the living room. The sensation was extraordinary. Floating and telekinesis felt as natural as breathing, as if they had always been part of him.

That meant he could use items to fight while in spirit form. Knives, guns—all of it was fair game.

Furthermore, his spirit body was fueled by the Power of the Dark Moon. Night Wandering and Moon Howl remained at his disposal. He could no longer open his Inventory, and his overall combat ability was somewhat weaker in this form than in the flesh, but the trade-offs seemed worthwhile.

In spirit form, he was completely immune to physical attacks, though the flip side was a crippling vulnerability to psychic and spiritual assaults.

As he continued to assess his capabilities, Zhang Yuanqing drifted into his grandparents' bedroom. The two elderly figures were fast asleep.

He changed course, phasing through another wall into his little aunt's room.

By the window, behind sheer pink curtains, Jiang Yu'er stood in a thin nightgown, gazing silently out at the nightscape. A black lace bra lay discarded on the nightstand. It was not small.

Jiang Yu'er tilted her head almost imperceptibly, then suddenly stretched, arching her back with a yawn. "So sleepy... Bedtime, bedtime..."

Zhang Yuanqing watched her burrow under the covers and close her eyes. Her sleeping face was serene and lovely, soft and round, with a doll-like innocence.

Someday, some lucky guy is going to get to see this face every night, he thought wistfully.

He was still studying her peaceful expression and a thought occurred to him. A spirit body can possess people. Should I try possessing Auntie as a test?

On second thought, experimenting on family felt wrong. He dove headfirst through the floor and dropped into the apartment below.

The unit downstairs belonged to a young couple living with the husband's parents. The moment Zhang Yuanqing passed through the floor, he heard a rhythmic creaking, accompanied by the faint, muffled sounds of movement beneath a thin blanket.

He looked over at the source of the sound and saw two intertwined bodies. Ah. Bad timing. I can't exactly possess anyone in the middle of this.

He resigned himself to being an involuntary spectator and was about to leave when the sounds suddenly intensified, then stopped altogether. The blanket settled down, motionless.

A female voice spoke, dripping with exasperation. "Again? Already?"

"I've been working overtime. I’m tired."

"You said that last time too."

"Can you give it a rest? Let's just go to sleep. I have work in the morning."

Brother, what you need is some Endurance Spray to reclaim your masculine pride. We're neighbors. I'll give you twenty percent off.

Zhang Yuanqing floated back up through the floor and returned to his aunt's room. This time, with a clear objective in mind, he passed through the adjoining wall into his uncle's apartment and headed straight for the master bedroom.

His uncle and his wife were both still awake. She was watching a variety show with a face mask on, while he scrolled through rap videos on his phone, occasionally mumbling a few bars under his breath.

"Look at Yuanzi, eating his warm little baozi, looking all goofy like that..."

His uncle's head suddenly drooped, then snapped back up. He turned to his wife with an oddly solemn expression. "I think we should be nicer to Yuanzi."

His wife didn't look up from her tablet. "Aren't we already pretty nice to him?"

"I mean financially. We should increase his allowance. Mom gives him some, but we're his uncle and aunt. We should chip in more too."

"Oh, sure. I'll give him a few thousand a month." She said it like it was nothing.

"You're the best, Aunt—I mean, honey. You're the best, honey."

His aunt was too engrossed in her show to catch the slip.

Eyes still on the screen, she said with undisguised disdain, "That big sister of yours. All she cares about is making money. When has she ever worried about Yuanzi? She never goes to parent teacher conferences, and never checks on his schoolwork. The kid has no father, gets bullied at school every single day, and she does nothing. You're the one who had to go raise hell at the school. Then she just throws cash at him and thinks that makes her mother of the year. Tch. The money she throws around wouldn't even register as pocket change."

His uncle's expression grew pained. "Keep it down, would you?"

That's still my mom you're talking about.

His aunt sighed. "Look at how Yuanzi turned out. All these years, and he'd rather tag along to your dance lessons than take her money. When he first came to live with us, he was still in elementary school. So careful, so cautious with everything. Whenever you weren't around, he'd go out of his way to please me, terrified that I'd dislike him, terrified he wouldn't be allowed to stay.

"He was the same way with your parents. Back then, he wasn't close with Grandma and Grandpa yet, but there he was, a little kid, already learning what it meant to live under someone else's roof. Hmm, come to think of it, Yu'er was the same way when she was little. That's probably why those two have always been so close."

She looked up and saw the hollow look in her husband's eyes, then frowned, sensing something was off. "That's not like you at all."

This is the part where you're supposed to crack a joke, she thought. Something like: "With an uncle like me raising him, who needs a mom? Am I right? Am I right!"

Uncle set down his phone and pulled the covers over them. "Let's just go to sleep!"

***

The next morning, Zhang Yuanqing donned a face mask and a baseball cap and headed to the office. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, scanned the area, and walked straight up to Guan Ya.

"Sis Ya, I have a quick question."

Guan Ya had already used diluted Life Essence to heal her injuries from the dungeon. She was twirling a ballpoint pen about her fingers with practiced ease.

She flashed him a grin. "Is it whether girls prefer longer or shorter? Or thicker versus thinner?"

Zhang Yuanqing rolled his eyes and sighed. "Come on. I'm still just a kid."

Guan Ya batted her eyes innocently. "What? I was talking about high heels."

Zhang Yuanqing cleared his throat and steered the conversation back on track. "Xie Lingxi mentioned that the Xiahou Family's Great Ancestor was one of the first generation of Spirit Realm Walkers. How long has he been alive? When exactly did the first Spirit Realm Walkers appear?"