Tolson’s brow furrowed, and he cocked his head slightly to the side. “Now why would you be asking after Han?”

  “Personal matter,” Rix replied, doing his best to sound casual.

  Tolson studied him for a beat, then gave a wry shake of his head. “You’ve got a knack for trouble, I’ll give you that. The good news for you is that you’re on something of a collision course with Han already. He’s the leader of the Iron Hand, so keep pissing Yutaro off and you’ll be hearing from him soon enough. The bad news is that he’s far and away the strongest Whisper in the prison.”

  Rix took a moment to process that. Despite coming here to kill the man, he didn’t know much about him beyond his tier. Han was just a child when he’d been part of the group that killed Rix’s family. There was no telling what sort of Martial Soul he’d turn out to be. Rix had gathered scraps over time, but not enough to piece together a detailed picture.

  “He’s that tough, hey?” Rix asked.

  Tolson scoffed. “Tough doesn’t begin to describe it. He’s a certified monster. Unlike Yutaro, I have seen Han fight. He’s never lost in the arena. Not even come close. The man’s been at Peak Whisper for more than a year, but he refuses to tier up and move to the Cauldron. He’d rather stay here carving up people who can’t hope to match him week after week. Proper piece of work, he is.”

  Rix felt a cold lump forming in his stomach. “How is he so strong?”

  “I’ve heard it’s his bloodline. Apparently, it means he can handle more pills and elixirs than any ordinary Whisper. He stuffed himself full of them before he was arrested. Rumours say his potential is Peak too. Those two things combined mean his attributes are through the roof. He’s basically a god as far as the Farm is concerned.”

  Bloodline and potential. Of course. Rix swallowed hard and tried to calm his rising panic. For the second time in as many days, he felt incredibly naive. Not only had he set himself the task of surviving the unsurvivable, but now the prize that lay at the end was apparently an opportunity to kill the unkillable. He wasn’t stupid. He’d known this journey would be difficult. He was starting out from nothing to kill those who had everything. But at every turn, he was being confronted with people who claimed that it wasn’t just hard; it was impossible.

  He drew a deep breath. He was spiralling. At the end of the day, none of that mattered for one very simple reason.

  At this point, there was no going back.

  He’d committed to this goal and Spiritlock’s doors wouldn’t open again for him no matter what he did. ‘The path to ascension is paved with mortal steps.’ Despite being a mortal himself, that was another of his father’s favourite sayings. If he’d been there, he’d have told Rix that this wasn’t a reason to fret. This was a reason to celebrate. Rix’s target was here in Spiritlock, just as he’d expected. He’d simply have to find a way, as he had his entire life.

  But that way might call for some caution. If Han was the monster Tolson said, getting on his bad side before Rix was ready would be a death sentence. As much as it galled him, he might actually have to try and smooth things over with Yutaro somehow, lest things spiral out of control.

  “I appreciate the heads up,” he said to Tolson. “Out of interest, though, why didn’t I see Han at breakfast?”

  “Because he’s in the tank. That’s what we call solitary. From what I hear, he’ll be back out this morning, actually.”

  Again, a reference to the tank. “What did he do to get thrown in there?”

  “Broke a man’s neck in the training yard. Apparently he didn’t like the way the guy taunted him in the arena the other week. Got out surprisingly quick for that, though. I’ve heard his family has some sway with the prison.”

  Rix wasn’t a surprise. Han’s father, Xu Sho, was an important man in the city.

  “Where will he come out?” he asked.

  Tolson nodded to one of the tunnels. “He’ll have to wander through there.”

  “Thanks,” Rix replied. “And thanks for all your help. I guess I’m going to wait right here.”

  The man stared at him for a moment. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “One hundred percent,” Rix replied.

  ***

  ‘A debt unpaid casts a long shadow.’ This was something Rix’s father, Zao Roshon, told him more than a handful of times. An antique merchant, he was the sort of man who never liked to owe anyone anything. Debt was bad for business and bad for the soul.

  After Xu Han and his fellow thieves killed Roshon, along with Rix’s mother and little sister, this proverb took on new meaning. Rix had lived the rest of his life in the shadow of that debt. Though as a family they’d not had much, he’d always had food and a roof and people who loved him. But that day had bifurcated his life as cleanly as a soulwrought sword slash, leaving him destitute and alone.

  That time had been hard, but it had also shaped him. Forged in him a singular sense of purpose. The men and women responsible for this tragedy were all powerful. They thought themselves immune to their debt, but Rix had sworn an oath to show them the error of their ways.

  He intended to collect in blood.

  There had been eight of them in that room. Eight people whom Rix would see dead before his time was done:

  Xu Han

  Xu Sho

  The tattooed giant whose voice hurt to hear

  The woman with ice-white eyes

  The twins in the torn robes whose fingers could cut the air

  The one whose shadows moved on their own

  The man with skin that slithered

  Though their features were burned into his mind, most of their names and whereabouts were a mystery to him. Martial Souls moved in circles not open to mortals, and their pursuit of the Martial Path could have taken them to all corners of the universe. Finding them was a daunting task. All he had were his memories of that day and a single lead, a jade pendant recovered from the burned-out wreckage of his parents’ shop. He’d seen it around the neck of one of the thieves during the robbery.

  For now, he could only approach his mission one way: a single step at a time.

  And that first step was Xu Han.

  Of the seven, Rix had only been able to identify two: Xu Han and his father, Xu Sho, the First Master of the Horizon Exchange. Sho was an Omen, a man of significant importance and power in the city. What an Omen and his son had been doing robbing a mortal family, Rix had no idea. Perhaps he’d ask them before ending their lives.

  Sho’s status made him unreachable for now, but thankfully, his son was a different story. Han had been just a child when he’d accompanied Sho that day, by Rix’s estimate only a few years older than himself. While being born to such an esteemed man should have set Han on a gilded path, his nature proved otherwise.

  Unlike most Martial Souls who considered it distasteful to overtly flaunt power over mortals, Han grew into a gambler and braggart. He enjoyed regular, debauched visits to the Lantern District, leaving a trail of misery and resentment in his wake. That very public habit was the only reason Rix was able to track him at all. Mortals had no way to physically fight back against such strength, but they had one weapon. They talked.

  When word spread that Han had been thrown into Spiritlock for bypassing System rules to access illicit techniques, a quiet joy rippled through the streets. For Rix, it felt like a gift from the heavens. Everything seemed to fall into place. Here he could begin his journey on the Martial Path and kill his first target in the process.

  And now, finally, he was about to see the man for the first time in years.

  Rix held his position for what felt like an eternity. People filtered in and out of the yard. Thankfully, nobody paid him any mind.

  He knew he had other obligations today, but this felt important. He needed to lay eyes on Han, if only for a moment, to confirm for himself this had not all been for naught. As the minutes ticked by, he wondered if Tolson had been mistaken, but then, as he was moments from giving up, a man exited the corridor and strode out into the yard, and Rix’s heart seemed to leap up into his throat.

  Despite the years, he recognised Han instantly. Some faces, seared into memory by fire and blood, never truly aged. Like everyone else, he wore prison reds, but he moved with a swagger that made them look like so much more. He was tall even by Martial Soul standards, but more striking than that was the sheer brawn he carried. The man was thick all over, a wall of flesh. Where most Martial Souls moved like predatory cats, he strode through the yard like a bear, utterly confident in his strength. He wore his long black hair bound in a tight topknot and walked in easy conversation with another man and a woman. And wherever they moved, people parted, casting furtive glances in their wake.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Rix felt his muscles coil and his jaw tighten involuntarily. Hate surged like molten metal in his chest, and he had to suppress the ludicrous desire to throw himself at the man then and there.

  Be polite. Be meek. Be unobtrusive.

  With immense effort, he tore his eyes away and stared purposefully off into the distance. To let the man notice him now was to risk everything. He’d got what he came for. Han was here, and regardless of what anyone said, if he was here, Rix could find a way to kill him.

  The group passed him without so much as a glance.

  It took a full minute for the rage to fully fade from Rix’s blood. He’d thought the years would have dulled its edge, but it clearly cut as sharply as ever. He’d need to learn to control that. He’d never be able to hide his intentions if he became apoplectic every time Han stepped into the room.

  With his target confirmed, he turned his attention to actually getting strong enough to deal with him. First stop was the Quartermaster, the person who would give him the tools he needed to begin his journey down the Martial Path. That thought was enough to cool his emotions. While part of being a Martial Soul was the physical capabilities, what Rix dreamed about all those nights in the hovels and alleys of the Lantern District was being engaged in battle, a master of his weapon, flinging techniques that could splinter forests and shatter mountains. That was what he was about to be given.

  One thing everybody knew about Martial Souls was that they were bound to a certain class of weapon. They were called Martial Souls for a reason. Getting your System Seed opened the door, but bonding a weapon was to step through it. To forge your Path was to pursue martial excellence, purifying and strengthening your body, mind, and soul through training and combat. It was said that the more you progressed down the Martial Path, the tighter that bond grew, until your soul and that of the weapon were inextricably linked.

  Rix loved everything about that idea. He needed that kind of strength for what was to come.

  Following directions given by a guard, he wove his way through the labyrinthine tunnels until he found the Quartermaster’s room. He knocked on the door, and a voice called for him to enter.

  Inside, he found a large room with a desk in the centre and a row of tall cupboards lining the back wall. Like everywhere else in the prison, the room was built entirely from stone and lit by everfire. There was a second door on the wall next to where he’d entered. A System Stone hovered in the corner.

  “Prisoner name and number?” said the woman behind the desk, looking up to pierce him with her eyes. She was short for a Martial Soul and wore her hair hanging freely past her shoulders. Her skin was darker than many citizens of Cloudpiercer. That, combined with her sharp, unfamiliar accent, marked her as a foreigner of some kind, though whether that meant foreign to the city or the planet, he didn’t know.

  “Zao Rixian. 503,” he replied, offering a small martial bow.

  The woman looked him up and down, appraising. “Not much of you, is there?” It wasn’t said with any malice, just a simple fact.

  “Is that a prerequisite?” he asked.

  Amusement appeared on her face. “Not necessarily, no. They said I was too small too, so I made them eat my hammer.”

  Rix couldn’t tell if that was metaphorical or literal.

  She rose to her feet and came around to lean on the desk. She moved with the same grace and power that Rix had first seen in the guards, though like all the other officials, her exact martial strength was disguised from him. “So, why are you here?” she asked.

  Rix frowned. “The Steward said you’d give—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “I know what my job is. Why are you here?” She said this slowly and with great emphasis.

  Rix took his time answering, trying to read her intentions on her face. Nobody here had been too enthused by his desires to grow stronger, but something about her expression led him to tell the truth. “I want to dive the Fractured Realm.”

  That was apparently the right answer because a smile split her face. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Rix found some of the tension bled from his body. “I thought you were going to try and talk me out of it like everyone else.”

  She stared at him and snorted. “Talk you out of it? Kid, we need all the divers we can get. You might not appreciate it in here, but there’s a war going on out there. It hasn’t come for us so far, but that doesn’t mean it never will.”

  Rix knew on some level that she was right. The Martial Path was about more than just selfish progression. Martial Souls were the bastion of humanity, the wall that stopped everything being consumed by entropy. But in Cloudpiercer Citadel, people didn’t talk much about that. They had never been under threat. Here, the Martial Path was a cutthroat battle, a field to be pillaged. Rix knew little of the needs of those beyond Cloudpiercer’s walls. To be honest, he didn’t particularly care. He had his reasons for wanting power, and wasn’t afraid to admit they were a little selfish. The world had taken greatly from him. It was only fair he took a little back.

  But if he needed to pretend at altruism, well, that was something he could do.

  “That’s good to hear,” Rix said. “Sorry. People just keep saying it’s a death sentence for a fresh Whisper.”

  “Oh, it almost certainly is,” the woman said, far too brightly. “For the weak.” She leaned a little closer, eyes locked on his. “Are you weak?”

  It took Rix a few moments longer to reply than he was hoping, but he got there. “No.”

  The Quartermaster clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Then I’m going to treat you as though you’ve got what it takes until proven otherwise. Who knows? You might be the next Ascendant of the Chronicles.”

  Her tone wasn’t in the least bit sarcastic, which Rix found himself drawing immense comfort from. In all likelihood, she knew the reality of his chances. She almost certainly didn’t truly believe in him, but even that fleeting faith bolstered his flagging confidence.

  “Right, do you want the bad news or the good news first?” she continued.

  Rix considered this for a moment. “The bad news?”

  She nodded, and her expression grew serious. “I need to give you the technique you’ll use to complete your sentence.”

  “Ah, yeah, I heard that making heartstones is…draining.”

  She snorted. “There’s that, sure, but if you get stronger you’ll shrug that off. Your more immediate concern is that it hurts like the infinite hells.”

  “I can handle a little pain.”

  The woman laughed bleakly. “Most people think that. Then they actually experience it. ‘Like shitting out your soul,’ one prisoner said to me recently. What’s your sentence?”

  “Four thousand dross heartstones,” he said. Heartstones came in tiers, dross being the weakest. Stronger Martial Souls could make better quality stones which were consequently worth more. Rix had never handled anything more valuable than a dross before, and even those were seen rarely where he was from.

  “Do you understand the different ways to pay off your debt?” she asked.

  Rix had some idea, but he shook his head. He wanted the truth straight from the source.

  “Okay,” she continued. “It’s fairly simple. You’ve got heartstones and you’ve got treasures. The technique I’m about to give you will let you make heartstones, which correlate directly to your debt. Every stone you give to the prison is deducted from your sentence. If you fail your Fractured Realm trial,” her expression clearly showed what she thought about those people, “this is your only way to pay your debt. And it will be slow. With a sentence like yours, well, I don’t think you’ll see the end of it.”

  Rix nodded slowly. He’d already surmised that from talking to the Steward and Tolson, but to hear it put so bluntly was unnerving. It made it clear how important this trial was. In a very real way, his life rested on his success.

  “Assuming you aren’t a milksop and actually grow stronger, once you reach Spark you can produce higher quality stones that contribute more to your sentence. As for actually making them, heartstone days are once a week, and you need to produce at least one stone each of those days. Any less than that and you pay back the difference in solitary.”

  Like Tolson, the way she talked about solitary sent a hint of trepidation through him.

  “Can you make more than one a day?” he asked.

  “You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re as committed as you say to being a diver. Every stone takes a significant toll, even as you get stronger. And it builds up over time.”

  Rix gave a grim smile. “Like shitting out your soul?”

  “Exactly. Some people who don’t dive try to produce more, hoping to accelerate their release, but that usually accelerates their decline too. For divers, the gains aren’t worth the risks.” Her expression turned serious and her eyes seemed to pierce his. “If you want to survive the Fractured Realm, I recommend not being below your best.”

  That put Rix in a bit of a bind. The only way he could think of to ease tensions with Yutaro was to produce multiple stones and try to pay his tax like he’d originally asked. Rix had nothing else of value to give the man. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to fall to the first fade he met because he was busy buying off a bully.

  “I understand,” he said, projecting confidence. He’d work out what to do later.

  She gave him an approving nod. “Focusing on your diving will be faster in the long run anyway. Not only do you make better quality stones as you climb the tiers of the Martial Path, but you’ll find treasures in the Fractured Realm that also contribute to your sentence. They all have different stone values, depending on rarity and quality and a bunch of things I don’t particularly care about. You’ll learn more about that later. For now, all you need to know is that if you survive the Fractured Realm, you could be out of here in a few years. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “That sounds ideal,” he said. According to public record, Han’s sentence was eighteen thousand heartstones, which was significantly higher than Rix’s. The city took technique theft very seriously. Though the man had been arrested over a year ago now, based on what the Quartermaster was saying he’d still have a significant chunk to pay back. That should give Rix a few years to grow strong enough to do what had to be done.

  In a strange turn of fate, Han’s desire to maintain his role as the apex predator actually made Rix’s mission a little easier. Based on his lineage, Rix had assumed the man would be a Spark by now. When he’d been told Han was still a Whisper, he’d been puzzled. But it turned out his sadism simply outshone his ambition. Perhaps he was simply planning on relying on his father’s resources to make up the difference when he got out.

  Rix didn’t intend to give him the opportunity.

  The Quartermaster nodded. “Good. Let’s take care of this, then.” She walked over and laid her hand on the System Stone. “Come here.”

  Rix did as he was told.

  “The full scope of the System is not accessible to prisoners. If you were to touch one of these without first being granted permission by me or another Spiritlock official, your soul would be burned from your body. So, I’d advise against that.”

  Rix’s eyes widened, and he nodded.

  “Good. In that case, lay your hands on the stone while I authorise the technique transfer.”

  Her warning still ringing in his ears, he tentatively did as he was told. Thankfully, there was no soul-shattering pain, but a moment later he recoiled as he felt something in his mind, a sense of expansion. As before when he’d received his system, this sensation was uncomfortable, invasive. Then a System notification flashed across his eyes.

  [Technique acquired: Heartstone Creation(Common)]

  “That allows you to condense your mana into a stone that you can push out the palm of your hand. It takes quite a bit of time, particularly when you’re starting out, so settle in for a fun afternoon.”

  Without thinking, he reached for the technique. What the System had given him was like a pattern. He instinctively understood that to use the technique he had to form his mana into this specific shape in his mind’s eye, but the moment he attempted it, a stab of pain shot through his head and the technique died.

  The Quartermaster snorted. “Techniques don’t work in the prison proper. You lot would be killing each other left and right if they did.”

  Rix was hunched over now, his hands massaging his temples. The tether’s punishment had been short but sharp, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. He’d known techniques were banned here, but in his excitement it had slipped his mind.

  “The only exception to that is heartstone day,” she continued. “Once all prisoners are sealed in their cells, the limitation on techniques is lifted so you can pay off your sentence.”

  “Could I make them elsewhere?” asked Rix. “Like in the Fractured Realm?”

  “What did I say about being below your best?”

  Rix raised his hands defensively. “Okay, sorry. I get the idea.” He wasn’t intending to waste even a second in which he could be growing stronger, but it was important to know all the variables. Adaptability was one of his great assets, and that required information.

  “Is it time for the good news?” he asked instead.

  She perked up. “Sure. Now that the formalities are done, it’s time for my favourite part.” She paused dramatically. “You need to bond your weapon.”

  Rix found himself smiling back at her. This was a moment he’d been waiting for.

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