“But why does that matter?” I asked for the book. “I thought you were here to watch the array?”

  Because you are important. The first raindrop of a hurricane, the first dustmite in a dust storm. You are a harbinger, but more, you are a creator, but more, you are a broken soul. You are many small things folded over into one. Each interesting, none notable. When I write the Great history books of this era, you will not be in them. But you have piqued my interest, more with your mistakes rather than your accomplishments.

  “My mistakes?”

  Yes. You stole from a God-Imperium and assumed you could hide from him. You walked upon my lands and assumed you could hide from me. You made an array yet you were blind to such an obvious fault. Your failures make you interesting, not your acts.

  “I took precautions-”

  Ha! It laughed. There it is. There is that mortal nature that refuses to die. Do you not hear yourself? Precautions? Against God-Imperiums? You only managed to do what you did because of luck or dare I say fate. Tai Jey had many like that girl and he had tossed them among his sect to be watched in his moment of weakness. In his struggle to maintain his power, he slipped. And the only thing that could make him give such effort was another Imperium.

  Then there was Wukong, who saved you nearly in the nick of time, and then there is me. Yes, me. Who has come to see what you have and to warn you of your flaw?

  “But-”

  Your flaw, boy. You have shown me something I did not see and for that, I tell you this. Your nature is torn between one and the other, your soul wet and delicate like a frozen parchment, but your ego young like fresh ink.

  “How do I fix it?”

  Strengthen the soul. Dry out the paper. Dane tore himself in pursuit of power. He refused his humanity. You have found it, but not enough. You are like a mirror reflecting a broken man. The man is one, yes, but the cracks separate him, misalign him, mortal there, immortal there. Slow your growth but deepen it. Care for the cracks in your mind. I will leave you with something, it will be your duty to use it.

  “I understand that, but why? What have I given for you to do this? I don’t think the array is enough for all of this, is it?”

  There was nothing for a moment.

  Ah, my wisdom touches you. Very well. I knew you the moment you entered my domain. I knew all you had done, and possibly all that you could be. You are full of possibilities, many failures maybe, but something else as well. Too many things touch upon you, from your soul to Kin Jey to Wukong and even to me. It is not fate nor greatness but something far more simple and intriguing.

  “What is it?”

  Paradox. You are a paradox of sorts. From your dao to your nature, everything pushes against itself. Paradoxes are rare before the fifteenth rank, and you seem to be a great bundle of them.

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  “I don’t know if I understand.”

  You don’t, yet you do. It matters not, you will one day, and when you do, I look forward to seeing what you become, though I already know it.

  Then the book closed and reopened.

  To Heal the Soul, A Collection of Cures for the Fabric of Your Being.

  I frowned.

  Was this how Chin felt when I spoke to him?

  How cruel of me.

  I looked at the book and read its title, then read it again.

  I flipped through the first page, then the second, then the third. Eventually, I had read ten thousand pages but the pages were so thin and so small that the book looked like it was barely opened.

  I grabbed my head. This was a tome, something designed to hold nearly infinite knowledge. Even though it had so many pages, each page also seemed to contain an absurd amount of knowledge. It was unfathomable, the type of stuff that would turn mortals mad with a mere glimpse.

  But for me, it was just a very dense textbook.

  But I kept on reading.

  It turns out the soul is complicated. Extremely complicated.

  It was the one thing that allowed people to create qi. Even gods at the twelfth rank and higher couldn’t truly grasp it, and it was how Dane had died.

  As far as I could figure, mine was still broken.

  I was in awe of the meeting and while a part of me wanted to ponder over the moment for eternity, the things the Tome had said to me had stuck.

  My mistakes. In hindsight, there was nothing insane with my thought process. Not truly.

  I had miscalculated, but the miscalculations were ones that even Dane would make. My fight with Kin Jey was minor, a mere descendent of an Imperium. He was one of millions if not billions, if not trillions.

  Then there was Nai, but how was I supposed to know about her? Then there was Wukong and even then I- I did nothing wrong. I did all I could. If I hadn’t killed Kin Jey, I would have died eventually, even if I had let him go.

  How were these mistakes?

  What other options did I have?

  You could have run away. You could have lost him in the void, a part of me thought.

  But the Maidens.

  You could have tossed all your belongings and run away.

  Then they’d be in his care.

  And what of it? What do you owe them?

  “I- I had to help them? Didn’t I?”

  No, it spoke. You didn’t. You owe them nothing. You are Array King Dane. You survived untold eons by hiding. By protecting yourself, regardless of the evil.

  It was a memory, not a soul, not a mind, but a memory. It spoke of what Dane would have done. It spoke of what Dane would have planned. It spoke of Dane’s weariness, caution, and desire for detail and methodology.

  It was Dane that had kept this body alive for this long and it was Dane that had that spare realm that allowed me to avoid an attack of the fifteenth-rank caliber.

  For a twelfth rank’s ability to even avoid a World King’s attack. That spoke of intelligence, of power.

  And it was all Dane.

  Dane would have never gone to the Divine Beast Emporium. He would have captured the creatures himself. He would have hunted for them in the void.

  But my mortal ego didn’t.

  “I am not Dane. I contain all that he was but I am not him.”

  It wasn’t a matter of power or soul or even strength. It was a matter of ego. How could the personality of a mortal ever act like an immortal?

  If you took the smartest fifteen-year-old in the world and made him president, would he rule better than his predecessors just because he was smarter than them? Even if the boy was a genius among geniuses, would that make him a competent leader?

  Would that replace the things that age did to you?

  Should I be more like him?

  I am dead and whatever remains lives through you, the memory spoke.

  I could see his mouth moving. A cold still stone man looking at me with nothing but reason. A man who never smiled, a man who never cried. Someone even now from the depths of my memory held true to logic. Someone who would speak of their death as fact, nothing more, nothing less.

  And for all your faults and errors, you are alive. You are a rank higher. You are me but more. Know your failings and fix them. Remember me and remember Bill. You can live as Bill but act as Dane. As kind as a dove and as discerning as a serpent.

  Grow.

  I nodded.

  “Grow,” I said out loud.

  And then I turned the page and kept on reading.

  will be 15 chapters ahead at the five-dollar tier(up to chapter 122) and 30 chapters ahead at the ten-dollar tier (up to 137)

  Volume One is finished on

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  Next Chapter may be tomorrow, but probably Monday. I've released my three chapters this week anyway.

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