After Old Pei left, I didn’t stay alone in his house for long. I didn’t know what his story was. His demeanor, the way he acted, it made me want to help him. His kindness to me made me want to help him. I just didn’t know what I could do for him.


    I could take him away from this place and let him live a life of luxury for what years he had remaining, but would he even want that? Would uprooting him from everything he knew be a blessing or a curse?


    I needed to leave and not look back. My presence was causing him pain. The only thing I knew to do was to leave.


    As I was walking out the door, I turned around and went back to leave most of my silver and a single gold coin under the blankets. It was the only thing I knew to do to repay his kindness. I was worried about leaving the gold since too much money was more curse than blessing, but Old Pei seemed smart enough to handle things.


    As I wandered the streets in the morning sun, I centered my mind.


    If I wanted to survive long enough to meet the Formation Emperor, I needed to become a cultivator. I could do that on my own. I had plenty of cultivation techniques that I could use to quickly raise my cultivation, but I didn’t want to do that.


    I wanted to try to understand what life was like for a normal person. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I wanted to try.


    Old Pei had mentioned that the palace would be recruiting servants and that those servants would be taught to cultivate. If I wanted to meet the Formation Emperor, embedding myself in the palace would help me do that, so I decided to try it out.


    I drifted around the streets for the entire day, listening in on people’s conversations. Finding out about the recruitment wasn’t difficult, it was the only thing most people were talking about.


    Awakening ceremonies were currently happening around the empire, and the palace was allowing one week for these events to conclude to allow time for the newly blessed to travel to the capital. Then, they would start their recruitment.


    I wasn’t sure what I should do while I waited or where I could live, but I found a small hotel that only charged 10 copper a night for a room. I handed them one silver to book a place for ten days.


    After that, I had a little over a week to do anything I wanted, but what did I want to do? I wasn’t going to cultivate before entering the palace, and there wasn’t a safe way for me to work on alchemy or formations. I didn’t want to, either. I wanted to try to just live… to be normal. What did most people in this world do with themselves? How did they spend their time? I had no idea.


    I decided to simply walk the streets, to observe people as they went about their daily tasks and see what they did.


    The answer seemed to be work. Almost everybody I saw was doing work of some kind. No one was simply relaxing. Men were carrying lumber and bricks to feed the construction projects that were happening all around the city, women were sewing and embroidering garments, and both men and women could be seen selling various foodstuffs from stalls all around the city.


    The only people I saw who were actually relaxing were two old men sitting on the side of the road playing a game of chess with a small group of onlookers watching them. I walked over and observed as they played. I didn’t know the rules of the game. It was different from the games of chess I’d seen in the past, but they were moving small wooden discs around the board, trying to capture the other person’s pieces, so had to be some relative of chess.


    I only stayed to watch for a few moments before moving along and continuing my exploration.


    After several days of this leisurely life, it was finally time for me to take the test to enter the palace.


    The palace recruitment wasn’t only for servants. There were several different jobs one could apply for with the right qualifications. For example, if one had a metal or earth affinity, they would welcome you as guardsmen. If one had a wood affinity, they could get a job as a gardener or farmer. To get a job as a palace servant, a water or fire affinity was needed.


    I wanted to stay in the palace, and I didn’t want to have to fight. I saw becoming a guardsman or soldier as the most dangerous option. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live as long as possible this time. On the other hand, if I became a gardener or farmer, they might send me away somewhere. To stay alive and in the city, the place where the Formation Emperor would most likely appear, I needed to become a servant.


    I wasn’t sure what affinity to show, though. I had more experience with fire qi, so it would’ve made sense to choose that, but I had an aversion to going with fire yet again. I wanted to break away from my last life, so I decided to go with water.


    At this point, all my affinities for all of the basic elements were mid eight-star, so if I used a testing orb, it should show that I had no affinities at all. What level of affinity was proper for a servant to have?


    If it were too high, I might get assigned to duties that I didn’t want. If it were zero, I would simply get rejected. I needed the highest affinity that would let me get a job as the lowest-level servant. That would put me in a position of authority among my peers while also being among the least valued and most overlooked.


    I wanted to find information about what affinity I needed to achieve this goal, but I didn’t know how to do so. I tried going to places where I saw other young people gathered, but I couldn’t make myself go up and talk to them. I just ended up standing alone and watching them.


    Even if I had talked to them, I reasoned, it wouldn’t have helped. They probably didn’t know what level of affinity the palace was looking for any more than I did, so talking with them wasn’t something I really needed to do.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Walking to a hidden alcove, I decided I had to lean on the only thing I knew that would work.


    “System, I want to make it so that when my affinities are next checked, the testing device shows me as having a water affinity at the level that will result in me being selected as the lowest level of servant in the palace. I want it to appear as the highest possible water affinity that will result in this outcome.”


    Calculating… Masking affinities. Cost 10,000 credits. Confirmed. 149,963,275 credits remaining.


    It would have felt like a steep price to me in the past, but right now, not having to worry about if I guessed correctly was well worth such a small percentage of my credits.


    With affinities taken care of, I went back to my rented room to await the servant selection.


    <hr>


    The servant selection was held in an outer courtyard on the east side of the palace there. An elderly man in simple, clean robes stood in front of everyone who had come to apply.


    There were only three dozen young men and women there, which was a little surprising to me. I thought that most of the people in the city would be fighting for an opportunity to enter the palace, even if it was as a servant, but from what I could tell, only the lowest of the commoners had come here. Every single person was wearing frayed and worn robes, and many of them looked like they hadn’t eaten in several days.


    Following the man’s orders, we began entering a small room off to the side one by one to test our affinities.


    When I walked in, I was seated in front of a partition and told to place my hand through an opening. The testing orb was on the other side so that the one being tested would not be able to see it. I wasn’t sure of the reason for this. Was no one in this empire told their affinities? Everyone outside should have been water or fire cultivators, so they must have been told at least that much, but they might not have been told the level of their affinity for some reason.


    Unable to guess the rationale here, I just followed their instructions and put my hand through the opening, touched the orb, and channeled qi into it. I knew it would show water, but I had no clue what level the System decided I needed. My best guess was mid nine-star since that was high enough to cultivate but low enough that no one would care.


    After I was done, I went back out into the courtyard to wait for everybody else to finish. The process took a little over two hours to complete, and when everyone was done, they dismissed all but eight of us. Then, they split those who remained into a group of four guys and a group of four girls.


    Our group was assigned to a middle-aged man dressed in clean brown robes, and we followed him into the palace complex. We were taken to a library and each assigned a cultivation technique based on the results of our test, but we weren’t told the names or levels of these techniques.


    I only caught brief glances at what the other boys were given, and they all seemed like regular Rank 1 techniques, but the one I was given was strange. The manual was a book far thicker than any other Rank 1 cultivation technique I had seen before. Even the Peak-Earth technique I had couldn’t compare to this one for sheer size.


    I wanted to open it to see why it was so different, but once everyone had a book in hand, we were quickly herded out of the library.


    Our last destination for the day was the dormitory where the four of us would live. There was only slightly more room than necessary for the four of us to all be able to lie down.


    “Your duties will start tomorrow,” said the man. “Spend the night studying your cultivation techniques and start practicing them as soon as you are able. The first person to achieve Martial Disciple 4 will be chosen as group leader and earn four copper a day instead of just two. This is your best chance to stand out, so don’t miss it.”


    After saying this, he left us alone to rest.


    I expected the others to start studying the cultivation techniques immediately, but they just threw them on their beds and started talking.


    “I’m Ko,” said a large muscular boy. “Since I’m the biggest here, I’ll be your big brother. If anyone tries to bully you from now on, just call on your Big Brother Ko.”


    Ko pounded his chest with one fist. He seemed to be staking a claim as the leader, and I expected the other two to start fighting for it, but they just laughed cheerfully at the proclamation.


    “Big Brother Ko. I was the second one here to be tested, so I’ll be your second brother. Call me Brother Hong.”


    The third man looked at me, but I didn’t know what to do. I just shook my head meekly.


    He smiled and patted me on the back. “I’ll be your third brother. Call me Brother Tu.”


    They all looked at me.


    “I’m S—” I started, but I realized no one else had claimed a clan name. “I’m Fang.”


    “Brother Fang.” Ko patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, us brothers are here to help you. You can count on us. Right?” He looked at the others.


    “That’s right Brother Fang. If you have any problems, just let us know,” said Hong, raising his arm to show his muscles.


    Tu just gave me an encouraging thumbs up.


    I nodded, not knowing what to say.


    The three boys talked late into the night about their dreams for the future, but I stayed mostly silent and sat in the corner. I was more an ornament than a real part of the conversation. Listening to them, I was able to learn a bit about the city, but most of the talk was about trivial personal things that didn’t interest me.


    It wasn’t like I had never talked to people before, but it had been so long, so very long since I’d had anything that could be considered normal human interaction. If they wanted to talk about formations or alchemy, it would be easy, but they just wanted to talk about life. What could I add?


    When everyone settled down for the night, I finally had a chance to look through the technique scroll I had been given. I didn’t have time to read the entire book in detail, and figuring out why the technique was so complex would take hours if not days, but it didn’t take me too long to come to the most important conclusion: This was a slave technique.


    That explained why only the lowest commoners were here. They were the only ones ignorant or desperate enough to be willing to cultivate such a thing. It also explained the reward for cultivating to Martial Disciple 4 as quickly as possible. They wanted the technique’s hooks to lodge firmly within our minds.


    If I made sure to use a Peak-Yellow level filter and cultivated the technique perfectly, based on my past experiences, it should only have a minimal effect on my thoughts. With the resistance to mental effects I had bought, I shouldn’t have any problem suppressing anything a Rank 1 technique might do to me.


    Still, after everything I’d been through, there was no way I was going to cultivate this technique. It may be worth studying it to understand its complexities, but I would not risk letting it control me.


    I opened my mental library and began flipping through my cultivation techniques. I found a Peak-Yellow technique that had the effect of making one less outgoing. This was the least intrusive technique I had, and using its effects might help me remain overlooked, so I decided to cultivate it instead.


    “System,” I subvocalized, “I am going to cultivate the Subdued Waves Mantra, but I want it to look like I’m cultivating the technique I was just given if anyone up to the Emperor level tries to check me.”


    Masking cultivation technique. Cost 30,000 credits. Confirmed. 149,933,275 credits remaining.


    None of the others had started cultivating, so I didn’t either. I wanted to stay ahead of them, but not by too much. I needed to always be just slightly ahead of the pack.