Path of Ascension

Compared to the "One-Eyed Jellyfish" on Hugos, the phantom of the Seahorse Demon was clearer and far larger. The bone-white seahorse floating in the air was nearly the length of a child. Its mouthparts silently extended and contracted, as if sipping invisible wine.

This time, Chu Hengkong had learned his lesson. The instant the demon phantom appeared, he whipped a tentacle at it. Yet the tentacle passed straight through the Seahorse Demon's body, as though cutting through an illusion. The Seahorse Demon drifted leisurely upward and vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.

"Don't waste your effort. Phantoms can't be dispersed," Ji Huaishu said.

Chu Hengkong regretfully withdrew his tentacle and brought up another anomaly. "The foot soldiers had shadows on them too. Can demons possess many people?"

"Strictly speaking, it only possessed San Sen Wangxiang. The other bandits were victims infected by the demon. Otherwise, how could they be so organized yet so impulsive?" Ji Huaishu flexed her five fingers, miming the manipulation of puppets. "In truth, San Sen Wangxiang was the only one obsessed to the point of madness. The others were steeped in the demon's power and thought they missed their hometowns just as much as he did."

"But they missed home too," Chu Hengkong said.

He saw some of the bandits stumble dazedly out of Gray Tower and toss their firearms onto the ground. They raised their heads in silence, their gazes seeming to pierce through the curtain of water and reach somewhere far, far away.

The Tide of Weapons continued operating steadily as ever, and the sunlight shining through the water curtain carried a faint whiteness. The curtain was clearly close by, yet distant as another world. Just as the people on the ground strained to look toward the sunlight, yet could not see the sun on the other side.

"What would leaving the water curtain change?" Ji Huaishu said softly. "It would only be walking from the night into an even deeper night."

"You're very literary," Chu Hengkong casually agreed. He was busy picking through a heap of scrap metal, searching for usable spoils.

Afraid that he might pocket something dangerous, Ji Huaishu hurriedly squatted down to sort through it with him. "Literary my ass! You're an outsider, aren't you? Don't you want to go home?"

She found this man's personality strange enough. Normally, no matter how calm and steady someone was, they would ask about ways to return home. She had already prepared her speech and comfort to make him accept reality, yet Chu Hengkong had never shown the slightest emotion related to it, as if he did not care at all.

"I have nothing to miss over there, so it doesn't matter."

Even Ji Huaishu did not know what to say in the face of such composure. She could only respond dully, "...Oh."

Most of San Sen Wangxiang's modified machine guns had been shredded by his own water blades. After the two spent ages salvaging what they could, they found only several intact circular magazines and two blue stickers suspected to be Relics. Maintaining the attitude of a senior looking after a newcomer, Ji Huaishu offered to give him half the bounty, but Chu Hengkong refused.

He knew perfectly well that Ji Huaishu had been the main force throughout this assault. Had he acted alone, breaking through the tower's defenses would never have been so easy. He did want more Relics, but he never took what was not his due.

In the end, Chu Hengkong received the two stickers as consolation prizes. He casually slipped them into his large book as bookmarks, then followed Ji Huaishu down the tower. Most of the salvagers who had been driven off by the bandits earlier had returned by then. Their gazes held no small amount of awe, but not a trace of gratitude could be found.

Chu Hengkong looked around and did not see a single Resurrection Corps member. However, several people in long black robes stood watching from afar. They noticed his gaze but neither spoke nor moved, as quiet as crows eyeing a corpse.

"Forget about them." Ji Huaishu waved. "Go explain the situation to Madam Ansa, then we'll escort San Sen Wangxiang back to the Central District. After that, you need to memorize the patrol routes and several important locations. There's plenty of work waiting for you."

Chu Hengkong nodded. Thinking that routine duties like patrols would likely consume an entire day, he naturally asked, "Captain, do you have time tonight?"

Ji Huaishu immediately took a step back, the look in her eyes nothing short of horrified. "What are you trying to do, brat?!"

"I want to fight you."

7:30 p.m., Resurrection Corps cafeteria.

Not long after the shift-change period, the members who had worked hard all day took off their helmets and wolfed down squid rice and free seaweed sweet soup in the cafeteria. The place was especially lively tonight. Captain Huaishu stood with one foot on a stool, holding a bowl of rock sugar water, and spoke with exceptional cheer.

"Everyone, get acquainted. This is Chu Hengkong, the newcomer who officially joined last night. His skills are seriously solid—he took down two demon-possessed people in a single day! If you run into any tough customers in the future, leave them to him."

"Welcome, welcome." "Those tentacles didn't grow for nothing." "Brother Chu, you've got real skills!"

Everyone clapped cooperatively. The more outgoing members teased him under the guise of praise. Their hostility had dissipated considerably. First, the fact that such a dangerous person had been allowed into the corps meant the City Lord had vetted him, so he definitely was not truly demon-possessed. Second, his record was genuinely fierce. A wanted criminal whom several squads working together could only narrowly defeat had been taken down by him alone. Everyone wanted to befriend an expert like that.

"..."

Yet the members' enthusiastic greetings received no response. The star of the welcome gathering sat at a single table in the corner, staring blankly at a plate of braised crucian carp, looking every bit like a lonely person being excluded at an event.

The atmosphere became a little awkward. Seeing this, Jie An, who had been tending herbs by the windowsill, hurriedly set down his little shovel and came over. "What is it? Did Comrade Assassin discover some major problem?"

Ji Huaishu took a sip of sweet soup, her eyes rolling with vivid animation. The veteran members immediately perked up at the sight, all of them pricking up their ears.

Chu Hengkong had not noticed the commotion around him at all. He stared at his right hand, racking his brains.

"I just arm-wrestled Ji Huaishu," he said slowly.

The corners of Jie An's mouth nearly split to his ears on the spot. Pretending to be concerned, he asked, "And the result?"

"...I didn't win." Chu Hengkong could not understand it no matter how hard he thought.

The members slapped the tables and burst into laughter, filling the cafeteria with a joyous atmosphere. The more Chu Hengkong thought about it, the more conflicted he became. Earlier, Ji Huaishu had said that actually fighting would be bullying him, so they might as well compare arm strength. He had even intended to show this girl what he could do... Yet less than three seconds after they sat down, he suffered a crushing defeat. The one whose eyes had been opened was himself.

This made no sense! She was so slender, not some muscle woman built by desperately pumping drugs, and she was not a possessed person with demon power either. How could years of his hard training still leave him unable to overpower a woman's hand?

"No, hey, brother." Jie An laughed so hard he nearly lost his breath. "You haven't entered the Path, yet you went and compared physical ability with an Ascendant? How many jin did you drink?"

"You did your best, Member Hengkong." "What a valiant warrior~" "Daring to contend with Captain Huaishu is proof of courage itself! With such heroic bearing, given time, you will surely become a high-Point hunk and rise above the rest!"

The members whistled and egged him on. Chu Hengkong came back to himself, shushed the people around him, then asked, "An Ascendant is someone at 'Point One'?"

Ji Huaishu was coming over to join the fun, but she was startled when she heard that. "Seriously? You've never encountered the Path of Ascension?"

"Be more tolerant of newcomers. Some Dust Islands block information about Ascension in order to make it a privilege for a small minority. That is not uncommon," a man said with a smile.

Huaisu's Father entered the cafeteria, waving a paper fan and moving with the leisurely air of a tourist. The chatting members immediately stood and saluted him, then consciously moved to both sides of the cafeteria to leave ample open space. Only Ji Huaishu and Jie An remained seated, their expressions unchanged.

Huaisu's Father sat opposite Chu Hengkong and raised a brow. "Curious? Why, despite studying and training hard since childhood, you still could not match Huaishu's strength?"

"Very curious," Chu Hengkong said seriously.

Huaisu's Father picked up a piece of crucian carp with his chopsticks. "Imagine there is a strong crucian carp here. Every day, it practices New Crucian Carp Fist, and in battles against its own kind, it wins every fight. You could call it a genius among crucian carp. One day, this crucian carp challenges a human to a duel. The human has never studied martial arts and has an ordinary physique. Who do you think would win?"

"What suspense~" Ji Huaishu said in a bizarre tone.

Chu Hengkong's mouth twitched. "Surely not?"

No matter how much a fish trained, it was still only a fish. In human eyes, it would not be called strong but plump and tasty. Yet he absolutely did not believe he was as weak as a crucian carp.

"Reality is this cruel. The vast majority of crucian carp have no power to fight back before humans. This is a gap in 'rank' unrelated to talent or effort." Huaisu's Father closed his fan. "However! The Sinking Motion Realm is vast, and life is wondrous. Among the Dust Islands as numerous as stars, there are methods that can elevate one's 'rank.'"

"We call the rank of a lifeform its 'Point.' That method by which Points advance is called the 'Path of Ascension.'"

Chu Hengkong's gaze met Huaisu's Father's, and his mind tightened. That sharp sensation of being seen through appeared once again. This time, genuine "power" entered the other man's eyes. A blaze suddenly rose within those still-water eyes, and black flames surged out, swallowing him whole!

Chu Hengkong's head felt as if it were splitting apart, and he nearly cried out in pain. In that single exchange of gazes, an immense sea of information flooded into his mind and exploded like blazing fire. The sheer amount nearly paralyzed his ability to process it. He could only struggle to look, unable even to sustain thought. He saw a small child practicing fist techniques beneath a waterfall; a youth hammering steel before a fire; a battle-hardened general sweeping across a battlefield, ripping open monsters' throats with a sharp blade. He saw wondrous city-states in the jungle, an ancient divine kingdom beneath cherry blossom trees, machines and demons slaughtering each other in the ocean, a crimson divine dragon soaring through the skies... And all of it converged into a gigantic form, so majestic and so great, embracing countless islands within its arms...

Chu Hengkong could not keep looking. The raging torrent of thought was about to burn away his sense of self. Then the searing sensation flowed back, and clarity instantly returned to his vision.

Across the table still sat that leisurely man, his black eyes as still as an ancient well. Chu Hengkong gasped for breath, his fingers sunk deep into the wooden table without his noticing.

"What... was that?" he said in broken fragments. "Was that... an existence... above 'Points'?"

"Who knows?" Huaisu's Father said carelessly. "It is said that high-Point lifeforms can affect the world with a single thought. To us on the Dust Islands, they are gods."

He rose, walked around the table, and patted Chu Hengkong on the shoulder. "To be able to see so much, your talent is even greater than I imagined... If you want to improve, perform well, Member Hengkong."

(I originally wanted to go back to one update today, but I heard that uploading 4k words every day for the first five days gets a new-book listing... So there will still be double updates today and tomorrow...

My stockpile is going to die! scream)