Our footsteps echoed in rhythm as we made our way toward the Hall of Unbound Aspirants, moving as a loosely-formed line. We didn’t speak much—but there was a shared weight between us, a silent understanding of the work ahead.

  I kept to the back of the group, watching and listening.

  It wasn’t long before the murmurs started to rise, casual at first, then warming into more thoughtful exchanges as people slowly peeled from their silence.

  “So, what’s your guys’ plan for the future?” one of them asked.

  “Never thought much about it, honestly. But I’m thinking of going the talisman route. My soul weapon is a bone needle. Heard it pairs well with the fine control needed for symbol carving.”

  “Quill for me,” another voice chimed in. “Figured I’d end up a scribe, but… now I’m thinking of trying spirit inscription. Maybe eventually setting up arrays.”

  “That stuff’s expensive to practice,” someone muttered. “Materials alone cost more merits than we’ll make in a season.”

  “Then I’ll just have to get good fast,” she replied with a soft chuckle. “Start cheap, fail fast, get better.”

  “I’ve got a cleaver,” another said, not quite proudly. “Might go alchemy. Herb slicing and pill refining. Seems like the most practical way to survive out here, you know?”

  “Doesn’t matter what you pick if you can’t even gather the ingredients,” a taller man added from the middle of the line. “That’s why I’m thinking of learning how to track spirit beasts. High risk, but if I can survive it, the rewards will be worth it.”

  I stayed quiet, because I didn’t know how to answer the same question.

  What path did I want to walk? It hit me harder than I expected.

  I… had never thought about it.

  Not really.

  For so long, my only goal was singular, obsessive—get through the gate. Push through it and reach the realm where true cultivation began.

  And now that I had… I stood there, quietly, in contemplation.

  Without that all-consuming drive, what was left?

  What did I actually want now?

  To be strong? Maybe. But strong for what? For whom?

  Did I want to become an unparalleled swordsman—a legendary figure who cuts down his fate with a rusted blade, just like the Fate-Defying Cultivator?

  Or did I want peace? A long, quiet life where I could stretch a hundred years into two hundred, maybe three, surrounded by books and silence?

  Or… perhaps I was like these others in the Information Group. Not brave enough—or maybe not foolish enough—to throw myself into danger every day. Maybe I could be a craftsman, a scholar, a recorder of things others lived to forget.

  Would that be so bad?

  But the thought didn’t sit well. It didn’t settle.

  Because I knew something they didn’t.

  The system.

  That strange force that had embedded itself within my soul, whispering quests, rewarding growth, dangling power behind a veil of effort and danger.

  It offered me more.

  But only if I earned it. Only if I fought for it.

  Fate Points weren’t gathered through safe study or comfortable living. They came from opposition—overcoming danger, slaying spirit beasts, defeating enemies. The system didn’t reward me for existing.

  It rewarded me for surviving and defying.

  If I wanted to make use of this strange gift that had been handed to me… I couldn’t just be a scholar. Or a cook. Or a man tucked in the safety of the rear line.

  I had to walk the path of a fighter.

  Not because I sought glory. Not because I wanted death. But because growth—real world-changing growth—only came when I chose to face something that wanted me dead…

  And so, quietly, at the back of the line, I made my decision.

  Today, I begin learning about the enemy I’ll have to hunt—because growth demands it.

  When we reached the great wooden doors of the library and stepped inside, the familiar scent of old parchment and polished wood wrapped around us.

  We moved as one toward the corridor marked with its carved placard: Spirit Beasts and Celestial Creatures.

  Inside, the corridor opened into a wide chamber lined with towering shelves, each one packed end to end with books, scrolls, manuals, and illustrated compendiums. Some shelves stretched up to the ceiling. Ladders were tucked into corners. Desks had already been claimed by other readers, though this section wasn’t nearly as crowded as the foundational theory wing I had visited the day before.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  We stood there in silence for a while, staring at the sheer volume of knowledge before us.

  Thousands of books. All devoted to the beasts and creatures that walked the lands and skies of the spirit realm.

  None of us said it, but we were all thinking the same thing.

  Where do we even start?

  Eventually, someone broke the silence with a simple, pragmatic idea: “Just look around. Grab what seems useful.”

  And so we did.

  Everyone scattered between the shelves, moving independently now, running fingers along old bindings, tilting heads to read titles, pulling out whatever called to them. We weren’t organized scholars, and we didn’t pretend to be. We were just cultivators trying to learn enough to keep ourselves and our comrades alive.

  But me?

  I wasn’t looking for a list of ways to skin them or cook them or harvest their cores.

  I was looking for understanding.

  And that’s when I found it—tucked low on a shelf.

  “Understanding the Divide Between Spirit Beasts and Celestial Creatures”

  I pulled it free, brushing dust from the cover. The leather was worn, the ink faded, but the title was still legible—and somehow, it felt like it was exactly what I needed.

  Maybe it wouldn’t directly help the group.

  But it would help me.

  Because before I tried to explain these beings to anyone else… I had to understand what made them different.

  I tucked the book under my arm and turned back toward the others.

  A few of them had already found seats at one of the long communal tables in the middle of the reading hall. There were lamps spaced evenly down the center, each giving off enough space for at least ten to read side by side without crowding.

  I joined them quietly, setting my book down with a soft thump, careful not to disturb the others. Across from me, one of my teammates flipped through an illustrated manual of mountain-dwelling beasts. Another was squinting down at a thick scroll, slowly copying what looked like descriptions of a certain nocturnal creature.

  I pulled the chair out, sat down, and adjusted the lamp closest to me so the light pooled gently across the worn cover of my book.

  I cracked the cover open, and turned to the first page.

  Introduction

  For many, the distinction between spirit beasts and celestial creatures is misunderstood—or simply ignored.

  Both possess power far beyond that of ordinary beasts. Both appear in the wilds, on battlefields, and within the records of forgotten places.

  Yet their natures are not the same.

  Among such beings, two types are often mistaken for one another: spirit beasts and celestial creatures.

  Many speak of them as though they are one and the same.

  They are not.

  This text does not exist to glorify them, nor to catalog their countless forms. It serves a single purpose: To help the cultivator recognize what stands before them—before it's too late.

  Because if you fail to understand the difference…

  You may not live long enough to regret it.

  I read the last line twice.

  “Because if you fail to understand the difference… you may not live long enough to regret it.”

  A chill passed through me.

  The introduction didn’t explain much, but it didn’t need to. It wasn’t trying to inform me—it was trying to warn me.

  This book had been written by someone who had seen things. Someone who had stood at the edge of understanding and come back with just enough clarity to say: Know what you’re looking at. Or die.

  I let out a slow breath and glanced around the table.

  No one was paying me any attention. Heads were buried in texts, pens scratching against parchment. Everyone here was trying to pull meaning from text, same as me.

  I turned the page.

  Chapter One: Spirit Beasts

  A spirit beast is a creature influenced by Qi—spiritual energy that shapes the living and transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

  They are not born as monsters, nor forged as weapons by design. Many begin life as mundane animals—wolves, birds, serpents, apes—until exposure to natural Qi, spiritual veins, or remnants of cultivation battles awakens something deeper in their flesh. That exposure changes them. Strengthens them. Sometimes slowly, over decades. Sometimes violently, in moments of trauma or mutation.

  Others are born into Qi-rich environments, already saturated with latent power from the moment they inhale their first breath. These beasts, while rare, grow more rapidly and inherit instinctual traits of power that would take generations for humans to cultivate.

  Spirit beasts are not bound by human logic. They do not train. They do not meditate or form cores through formal paths. Their cultivation is instinctual, primal—driven by survival, dominance, and territory. The longer they live, the stronger they become. The more they fight, the more Qi they accumulate. And the more Qi they hold, the more unnatural they become.

  Their size does not always reflect their threat.

  A mouse-like beast infused with venomous Qi may be more dangerous than a tiger bloated on raw strength. One must never assume safety based on appearance alone.

  I paused there, my eyes lingering on the text.

  So spirit beasts weren’t just creatures of power—they were creatures of transformation. They didn’t walk the path of cultivation like we did. They lived it.

  They fought, survived, and grew because nature demanded it. They were what happened when Qi chose a host and let the world shape it however it pleased.

  Instinctual cultivation…

  An accumulative strength rather than a fixed one. Layered by all sorts of reasons.

  The phrase lingered in my thoughts, refusing to leave.

  I stared down at the page in front of me, still on the same section of the book, but the words were blurring, slipping away behind the question forming in my mind.

  Was there a method that allowed a human to cultivate like a spirit beast?

  It sounded absurd. Borderline foolish. A child’s fantasy, not a cultivator’s discipline.

  And yet… I couldn’t shake the thought.

  Spirit beasts didn't break through realms by following someone else’s scroll. They didn’t wait for enlightenment beneath the stars. They accumulated strength like clouds gathering over time.

  If it worked for them… could it work for me?

  The question burned in my chest now, foolish or not.

  And so, quietly, I leaned back, focused inward, and called out to the one thing I knew might have an answer:

  Fate-Defying Ledger.

  The air shimmered faintly in front of me as the now-familiar system interface materialized, its soft glow hovering just above the surface of the table. My hands rested still against the wood, but my mind moved with purpose.

  I moved to the search function.

  Typed slowly, deliberately the key words: “Instinctual Cultivation”