Seph found himself in a room full of energy, meditating. He was finally out of the various illusions, and he felt something new inside him. He opened his status screen and found out something new.

  Seph then checked his total stats.

  Seph was very confused how he got a Dao seed when he had been in constant tests and revelations for a while.

  He said out-loud, “How did I get a seed of illusion without pondering on the Dao?!”

  “It was always a possibility that whoever succeeded in the last three trials of the heart, the mind, and the soul which were all set up to be intertwined illusions, to gain a seed of illusion by the end of them. It’s, after all, what high-level cultivators like me used to create these dreamscapes. But ours is a much deeper understanding of the dao of illusion. Not a mere seed,” the soul sliver of Scorn suddenly said. He was floating in mid-air and behind his back appeared his dragon wings for the first time. They were intact though, unlike how Seph saw them in the revelation, where he had one wing cut in half.

  “Scorn!” Seph said in surprise, during the multiple revelations he had gotten way closer to Scorn than he expected. He had just seen this man executed in real time.

  He just saw this man lose everything because he trusted the wrong people.

  He felt bad for him, but he also knew just how powerful he used to be. It would be an insult in a way to show pity towards such a powerful individual.

  He had tons of questions for him, but he didn’t know where he should start.

  “Seph. Congratulations on beating my trials.”

  “Thanks! I am very sorry for what happened to you,” Seph was still very touched by the revelations he saw. The sadness in his voice was genuine and his apology sincere.

  Scorn looked at him for a second before saying, “Me too, Seph. Me too.”

  “Is Sun okay? I don’t see him.”

  Scorn answered, “Sun is doing just fine. He is waiting for you in the next room.”

  Seph sighed in relief before asking a question with one word: “The empire?”

  “The empire is no more. None of the challengers of my legacy knew the name Solea. None of you even know how the empire disappeared from the face of the Earth. I guess they got what’s coming to them in the end. I don’t think they changed their name either, because there isn’t a single empire in the world right now that is as big.”

  “How do you know what we know?”

  Scorn explained, “It’s how the illusion part of the trial works. I get close and personal with your minds, and you get close and personal with mine. I have to access your mind to make you believe you saw a mountain or are falling into an endless pit or getting pulled into a bottomless hole.”

  Seph asked, “Oh, what was up with these trials? During them, I couldn’t understand that I was inside an illusion. But after I got out, I now have a recollection of each and every one of them, and I can’t say that I understand what happened exactly or if I even passed any of them for that matter.”

  Scorn chuckled, “I thought they would be self explanatory, but since none of you understood, I think I overdid it and made these challenges too hard. In hindsight, how were you supposed to make logical decisions when I deprived you of all your memories? Sorry about that, but if I could go back in time, I would do it the same way again. After all, I got you as my winner. You will be a scary cultivator one day if you survive the cultivation world.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Scorn looked cheerful, which was weird. Seph thought something must be up. What would make the soul of a dead man this cheerful?

  “So, the first trial, the heart, was to deprive you of your memories and then check if you can instinctually go after your true goal again. Many of you succeeded in that. For you, the goal was to get as fast as you can to your mother to save her life. The trial was to entice you with different worldly desires to forget your goal. Riches, power, and the allure of a mystery you strived to know for most of your life, but you resisted all of them and you went for your goal.”

  Seph nodded his head in understanding, but kept his silence.

  “The second trial, the mind, was to make you choose to be a Yin cultivator again of your own freewill. Half of you actually failed this trial. All the other decisions were just a distraction, but they were amusing for me regardless to see what you would choose when given a second chance. Also, for your information, everyone who reached the last trial got the same revelations about my life like you, but only you got the complete story after beating the last trial. So congratulations on being the only one alive privy to my legacy, but as you saw, it’s a legacy of vengeance. You are to do with the information you learned what you want. I can’t possibly ask you to avenge me.”

  Seph felt a heavy burden on his shoulders again and said, “Yeah, I am not sure what to do with that information either, you said the empire doesn’t exist anymore, but that doesn’t mean that your friends don’t exist anymore as well.”

  Scorn smiled, “Chances are they are still alive. Their Kingdoms are small and far. They can remain entirely anonymous if they want, or they can mingle with humans and rule humans without them ever realizing that they are being ruled by Yin cultivators. If you would take my advice? I think you shouldn’t tell anyone outside these walls that you beat the trial, even your sect. Try to keep it a secret or you will all have a huge target on your backs.”

  “I haven’t thought of that. They would want to kill the only person who knows their secret for sure. What about the last trial? The soul?”

  “Ironically, this trial tests your capacity for good or evil. I used to think I am the good guy but I am not sure anymore. The more sinister you are, the tougher this trial is going to be. The souls were based on the victims of Amoria and their desire for justice, but here is what’s interesting. No one was supposed to win that trial. Meaning all of you would have drowned, eventually. If you didn’t beat the trial, Gabalawi was going to win for sure. The trial tested for who would struggle the most. Who wouldn’t accept the unknown in the pit of that hole? But you… You beat the trial. Which is insane. I think at your level I would have also drowned. I don’t know what happened there. The monkey was trying to save you. I saw that, but I am not sure how he succeeded!”

  Seph immediately said, “I am sorry, Scorn, trade secret,” Seph wasn’t about to share the information of the majestic monkey that showed behind his companion Sun and saved his life.

  Scorn laughed heartily for a while, but made no further comments on the subject.

  “Now why don’t we go meet your friend Sun?” Scorn said, ushering Seph towards another room.

  “Let’s! I can’t wait to meet that rascal monkey again.”

  ***

  Seph entered an unfamiliar room and found Scorn waiting inside already.

  Once he got in, Sun instinctively felt him in the room, and got up from his relaxed position and ran towards him.

  The monkey jumped into his arms, whining happily.

  “I am glad to see you too, buddy! How have you been?” Seph asked while smiling from ear to ear.

  Sun made a long sequence of happy screeches and hoots, like he was explaining his entire time without Seph.

  At the end, Seph said, “All of this has happened? I missed out on a lot, but we will make up for lost time after we get out of here.” Seph then directed his words to Scorn and said, “Shall we head for the reward room? I want that perfect body dismantling cultivation manual.”

  Scorn said, “Sure, but before then, I actually have a personal request. Just know this: if you refuse, you still get your prize, so no pressure.”

  Seph was surprised, but acted like he expected this and said, “Sure, tell me and I’ll see if I can aid you.”

  Scorn sighed heavily, looking extremely sad for a soul sliver of a long dead cultivator, before saying, “What you saw wasn’t the end of my story. There was more. After I got stabbed in the back by my officers, they ambushed my wife and killed her.” Scorn sighed again before continuing, “Then they captured my daughter. My beautiful daughter Lilith. They didn’t kill her, but they were going to force her into exile. She refused and asked to be sealed along with me. Nobody had attempted to kill such a powerful Yin cultivator before me. So, it was a surprise that I didn’t die from all my wounds. I got sealed away, but my baby, Lilith, asked to be sealed with me, alive.”

  Scorn gave Seph a serious, pleading look before he said, “I want you to convince my daughter to leave with you. She is in a state of suspended animation. Her body hasn’t aged a day since then. She didn’t have any intention of leaving, but her seal, which was much weaker than mine, has weakened considerably now. She only needs to have the desire to get out. That’s easier said than done. She lost her entire world that day. She hadn’t been cultivating for long, and suddenly all her father’s friends, even her godfather, the Scarlet General, all turned on her. Took her father away from her. Killed her mother. It was a harsh reality to live with. I don’t blame her for giving up, but still I would like to see her take another chance at living. Please, Seph, save my child.”

  ***

  Seph wasn’t big on life himself since he became a Yin cultivator.

  If he was, he wouldn’t have won the trial because he would have chosen to not get turned into a Yin cultivator a second time in the mind trial.

  Convincing someone he didn’t even know, from an entirely different era than himself to try life again, was a wild proposition.

  He didn’t know how old she was. He didn’t know any personal information about her, only who her father was, but the pleading look Scorn gave him moved his heart. Imagine using the last power of a soul sliver to save your daughter long after you were gone.

  All challengers got advantages in the trials, and it was always a possibility for the formidable progenitor to have demands of them, but this didn’t even sound like a demand. Scorn was beseeching him to save his daughter.

  All he had to do was to talk with her. He was afraid of not only letting Scorn down. He was afraid of failing, and living the rest of his life, knowing he couldn’t save a girl who didn’t get to live her life to the fullest because of a tremendous tragedy.

  Fate worked in mysterious ways though, and Seph’s life was about to change forever, because of answering Scorn’s prayer.

  “I’ll try my best. I’ll save your daughter,” Seph answered after thinking for a long time about if he even had it in him, to talk someone into giving life a second chance.

  Scorn waved his hand, and a portal appeared. The soul sliver became a faded imitation of what it looked like before opening the portal, but he didn’t seem to care. It was going to be enough for the job.