2 Different Perception

Ren was lying on his straw bed, shivering.

The injuries he had sustained appeared more severe than he had thought. His cheap ointments weren't even enough to ease his pain.

''Haaah, cough, cough, cough~'' From the opening of the crude, wooden ceiling, a ray of moonlight was shining down upon a lonely figure, curled into a ball, shivering from cold and convulsing from pain.

Periodically, he would break out into a coughing fit. His pale face absentmindedly stared at the familiar wooden wall of the shack. His breathing was long and strenuous. Every inhale brought a searing pain to his lung. The slight movement of his chest made from breathing brought upon fiery pain to his broken ribs.

'Am I going to die here?' He thought sadly. He didn't want to die a dog's death. He still wanted to do and experience many things. Instinctively, his mind searched for a pleasant memory. Reminiscing about his simple, yet happy childhood brought a small smile on his face, which was soon replaced by pained one, as the injury reminded him of itself.

The colder he felt, the more frightened he grew. He didn't want to die yet. Instinctively, he sought salvation, but there was none. Suddenly, his eyes brightened as he remembered the people around him surrounded by subtle colors.

'Was it my imagination?' He doubted. He didn't even know what this had to do with everything. He had a strange feeling. Something was different. Something was strange about him.

'What is it?' He searched for an answer, but in vain. Soon, his thinking died down as he solely focused on enduring the waves of pain coming his way, and then, suddenly...' Huh?'

He finally realized what was wrong. Looking around his dimly lit broken down abode, he noticed, he could see everything in much more detail. If he focused, he could even see flying dust at the end of the room. 'But how is this possible?' He pondered bewilderedly.

'Could this have something to do with what happened earlier?' He suddenly remembered the excruciating pain his head had experienced. Just recalling it made him shudder.

'Wait, if I can see better...then doesn't it mean I can...?!' Coming to an unbelievable conclusion, his breathing got rougher, but even as it brought more pain, he didn't care. Closing his eyes, he started sensing the world around him. The pain, however, was greatly affecting his concentration. Still, he didn't give up.

He struggled for the whole night, trying to concentrate on meditating, while at the same time fighting off against the pain. Evidently, he couldn't hold out for long in such condition. Before he could prove his hypothesis, he fell unconscious, drifting into the sweet embrace of sleep.

While he was comatose, a graceful beauty appeared in his dilapidated shack, like a celestial descending.

She looked at unconscious Ren with a complicated expression behind her white mask. Stretching out her delicate hand, she tapped his chest, a pure flow of energy diffusing from her palm, spreading in Ren's body.

After feeding him the grain sized pill, she sighed, as if some kind of burden had been lifted off her chest. Moments later, she was gone like a wind, leaving her pleasant scent behind.

Ren awoke as soon as the dawn broke.

''Huh...?'' Instantly, he was reminded of his grievous injuries, but feeling no discomfort to his body, he became dumbstruck.

After doing some stretching exercises, Ren was convinced there was nothing wrong with his body, instead, somehow, he felt even more vigorous than yesterday morning. ''It's no use thinking about it.'' He shook his head with scrunched eyebrows.

Ren was sure there was nobody capable enough, who he had relations with to help him. If he had such backing, how would he be thrashed so miserably?

He was also sure he hadn't done anything, the consequences of which could be his complete healing. 'Something must have happened after I fainted.' He thought. It was also the dead end of his deductions.

Even after wrecking his brain for an answer, he couldn't come up with any. He decided to temporarily put away this matter at the back of his head for a while.

Abruptly, his eyes shone as he was reminded of something. Plopping down on his butt, he crossed his legs and closed his eyes, continuing with yesterday's practice.

Without pain distracting him, he easily fell into a profound state of full concentration. Unbeknownst to him, yesterday's practice had benefitted him a lot in terms of easily entering this special state.

In this state, the sense of self was lost. He only focused on how inhaling brought heaven and earth energy to his body while exhaling discharged impure energies. After repeating this cycle for hundreds of times, he finally began sensing these energies much clearer than before.

If previously every speck of beneficial energy absorbed was slowly polluted over time and eventually discharged from exhalation, with his guidance, a minuscule amount of pure energy actually remained and merged with his body.

This accomplishment subconsciously arose certain emotions in his heart. His concentration broke, as he opened his eyes, which now gleamed with immense excitement. His face broke into a heartfelt smile, which he hadn't shown for ages as he had an urge to scream in excitement. 'I can finally sense Qi! I can finally start cultivating!'

It took him a great deal of self-restraint to not overly exhibit his happiness. Still, he couldn't calm down for a long, long while.

'I can't show I can cultivate, else they surely won't let me off.' He thought cautiously. His eyes flashed coldly, remembering yesterday's humiliation. He made up his mind to remain low-key and reveal devastated front, while in secret accumulating power to one day get back at the offenders.

After yesterday's incident, his perception suddenly changed. It could truly be considered benefitting from misfortune. He discarded the reckless thoughts he had had yesterday and decided to enter hibernation.

After preparing, Ren staggered out of his shack with dead eyes. Even if he was completely healed now, his torn clothes dyed in his own blood remained the same.

His goal was to show himself in a miserable state, so Nero's gang wouldn't pick on him for a time being, giving them an impression if he received any more beating, he would die.

While they could get away with murdering a servant disciple, actually doing it would bring them trouble. As long as he wasn't a threat to them, they wouldn't resort to killing.

As expected, as soon as he went out, the people cast him peculiar glances and avoided him like a plague, while whispering to each other.

Ren proceeded to sweep floors feebly, maintaining his lifeless expression. In secret, he was observing the people around him. Just like yesterday, their bodies were surrounded by subtle colors. Most people's bodies emitted weak, gray glow.

'What do these colors mean, after all?' He mused, but couldn't come up with anything. 'I'll observe some more.' He decided, but even after an hour of observation, there were no results.

Finally, he lost his interest and decided to return to his shack and start cultivating, but suddenly, he halted, turning his head. 'Eh? What's this?' He saw a person, who was giving off different glow than others. He was surrounded by pitch black hue. Looking around, Ren understood, except for him, nobody had noticed this peculiarity.

He decided to stay and observe some more. The man with the different glow acted like a normal person, cheerfully talking with his small clique, before going off on his way in the direction of servant distribution hall with his fellows.

Unable to see more of him, Ren went home, while putting the matter away in his mind. As expected, nobody bothered him today. As for what others thought of him, he didn't care. Their ridiculing sneers had a fart's worth to him. He secretly chuckled, imagining what sort of expressions they would have when he showed his strength.

'I still don't have any power to show, though. I have to work hard.' Closing his eyes, he started practicing diligently.

A whole week has passed in such a dull manner. He was seemingly forgotten by everyone, as he was treated like air, which was also what he wanted. Even Nero and his gang didn't bother with him anymore.

They only came to ridicule him once. He had a hard time playing dull in front of them, while his heart was seething in anger and hatred. Fortunately, he controlled himself well.

Nero wasn't in their group anymore. Later, he understood that he had become an outer sect disciple, which was the talk of the servant disciples for the day. Now, the short ugly youth led the same gang.

Ren was surprised, that unlike the majority of people who gave off a gray glow, and a rare few, who had a blue glow, the short, ugly youth gave off green radiance. Once again, he wondered what this all meant.

Ren himself was like most others. His body was giving out subtle gray hue...

Another thing which interested and surprised him was the youth with pitch black glow. He hadn't seen him after that day. Later, he was shocked to accidentally hear of his death from his clique, who were discussing it in a downcast mood. He seemed to have died to some beast while gathering herbs.

This news shook him. Was the pitch black aura related to his death?

'Does this mean I can foretell when somebody's about to die?!' Once again, he was given a riddle...

''Whoops, my bad, hehehe~'' While he was lost in contemplation, tall servant disciple crashed into him, causing the contents of his plate to spill on the floor. The youth grinned at him evilly, as he stepped on his free food, scattered across the dirty floor. The onlookers merely chuckled or simply ignored him.

Ren crouched down and picked up relatively intact bread in slow motion. His dead eyes creeped the people out.

''Ugh, sicko.'' The grinning youth's face turned as sour as grapes. Cursing, he strode off, no longer bothering with him.

Ren clearly remembered the face of the youth. He swore to avenge every bit of grievance in the future to rid himself of his heart demons, but for now, he decided to continue acting.

Ren was becoming increasingly immune to the ridicule of others, not because he didn't have his own pride, but because he had long since seen through what kind of people they were - they feared the strong and bullied the weak.

All he needed was time, really, and before long they would be groveling at his feet. After the revolutionary change in his perception, he was filled with confidence.

Walking out of the busy distribution hall while munching on the hard, black piece of bread, his mind was tranquil. He started seeing things differently after experiencing so much suffering.

Now, for him, every single obstacle was considered a whetstone to temper himself. Before he knew it, he had adopted a mentality of the hunter. With his world view changing and mental fortitude solidifying into what it was now, he was bound to become some of the more extreme and frightening existences in the cultivation world.

Ren had never forsaken his pride and dignity. Everything was now just considered a form of training for him...

Just because he endured, didn't mean he didn't feel anything. Instead, his feelings were repressed and magnified, waiting to erupt. His credo became to repay humiliation manyfold and kindness even more.

''Creep...'' The young servant disciple muttered as she passed by him, looking at him like he was some alien. Ren couldn't be bothered with it, as he inwardly smiled while munching on his bread and going back to the little shack he had built for himself.

On the way, he remembered how Nero's gang ridiculed him today, telling him to give up and scram to the mortal world and die off somewhere nowhere like a dog.

Indeed, the years of his efforts were wasted by them. If not for his perception magically increasing, if not for him suddenly gaining the ability to sense heaven and earth energy, currently, he would be devastated. No matter how much he endured, it wouldn't mean anything.

He had already wasted 3 precious years saving up for Qi gathering pill, in hopes of the scant chance of starting on the path of cultivation. Even then, if they hadn't ruined his works over and over, minimizing the points he could acquire monthly for his work, he would have gotten the pill much earlier.

'Avi, Nero, little bastards, we can't live under the same sky.' His heart was filled with seething wrath for a moment and peaceful tranquility in the next second.

With steadfast steps, he returned to his shack to continue cultivating.

Powerful people with fiery temper weren't scary. Calm, yet weak people, who knew how to endure and wait for the right moment were...

In terms of dangerousness, Ren was only below lunatics who didn't care about their life.

Of course, a personality without sufficient strength was nothing...

Ren didn't know, but what he was doing was slowly strengthening his soul.

The soul was incorporeal and omnipresent within one's body. It was hard to perceive it, not to mention train it at the lower stages of cultivation.

However, enduring physical pain and overcoming mental attacks, all while not losing faith and determination just happened to be one of the ways for strengthening the soul.

Cultivation was hard. It was just a tasteless practice of sit down, breath in a certain pattern, empty your head of distractions, try to sense the heaven and earth energies, attract and refine your body with the remnants of it...and repeat again and again.

The most challenging part was the focus. It was hard to wash your brain from distracting thoughts. Ren, however, had formed an incredibly firm will throughout the years.

Especially now, that his perception of the world heightened to a new degree, and after experiencing everything he did, he had gained great control over his emotions.

In less than one minute, he had entered the cultivation state. If people heard of his achievement, their jaws would figuratively drop to the ground.

Unless reaching the certain realm in which the practitioner requires strengthening one's soul in order to advance further, it was a challenge for everyone to enter cultivation state.

The difficulty was similar to trying to fall asleep as soon as your head reaches the pillow, only much harder.

Even the sect master of the Earthern Willow Sect might not be able to achieve what Ren did, even though he was rumored to be in the late stage of Houtian.

Of course, Ren neither knew it nor would he care if he knew.

His cultivation practice was simple and generic. He didn't have any cultivation manuals. Cultivation manuals were only available to outer sect disciples in the sect.

Cultivation manuals described different ways of attracting, absorbing, circulating and integrating Qi. They were created with powerful cultivators' insights as a base and increased one's cultivation speed, the absorption rate of certain elements, the purity of the absorbed Qi and so on. Basically, the effects varied from one to another.

The human body was full of mysteries. Combining efforts of different channels, pores, and internal organs, using different breathing techniques and circulating the energy in varied ways brought different results. Even then, as there were countless possibilities, one couldn't just rashly experiment with oneself. It was simply courting death...

Considering the difficulty of energy accumulation, which required a lot of time, using cultivation manuals was a must. However, as Ren was only attempting to reach the first level, he could get by even without a manual...

Seconds turned into minutes, then into hours. Without him knowing, Ren had lost himself in cultivation. There existed many levels of cultivation states. Entering deep into cultivation state resulted in practitioner remaining wholly ignorant of the passage of time and his/her efficiency of cultivation increasing.

With a clear mind, Ren cultivated for hours, until his stomach growled, reminding himself, that he was starving.

'Oh, it's already evening...' He deducted. The orange sunlight was passing through his roof without obstruction. Sighing, Ren stretched his sore body and headed out to get his free food.

Low-grade food and meat was something the sect least lacked. Many mortal kingdoms were offering tribute to the Earthern Willow sect and in exchange, the sect sent them their less valuable representatives, who most of the time had low talent.

There were hundreds of mortal kingdoms affiliated with the sect. Their sovereigns were appointed by sect's authoritative personnel - the elders. In truth, the kingdoms were informally ruled or overlooked by the sect's representatives.

In some cases, with the sect's consent, the representatives were allowed to regicide, overthrow the throne and rule themselves, becoming monarchs of the said mortal kingdom.

Considering the sect's unshakable influence and dominance, free food wasn't that surprising...

As the night was approaching, there were not many people left in the distribution hall.

Ren found a seat at the corner of the dining hall. The round wooden table gave a light clanking sound as he put down the tray full of food on it, following which he took a seat and proceeded to eat quietly.

Everyone was allowed to choose food to their liking. Ren always ate little bits of everything so his body wouldn't lack nutrients. For dessert, he always chose banana and an apple.

He was casually peeling an apple, having finished his dinner, when the doors were swung open. The newcomer's shadow stretched across the room. Ren couldn't help but cast a glance at the unfamiliar, happy figure, who rolled into the hall and stopped to the counter.

''Give me some pork, two chicken drumsticks, three, no, four bowls of rice, duck soup, grapes...''

Ren speechlessly listened as the fatty enthusiastically stated at least a dozen or more types of food. The receptionist didn't complain, but he stared at fatty like he was some prehistoric monster as he made several circles and finally handed over three fully packed trays.

Fatty excitedly grabbed them one after another, as drool threatened to drop from his mouth. Looking around, he gave a disappointed look, noticing nobody in sight. Finally, he noticed Ren at the corner, as his eyes lit up in happiness.

''Haha, hello, fellow brother, can I sit with you?'' He asked, but didn't wait for an answer as he rolled to his table and banged three trays full of food one after another, then aligned two chairs against each other and sat down.

''My name is Ruka, nice to meet you.'' He grabbed his hand without permission and firmly shook it. Ren almost failed to maintain his dead expression as the knife and apple fell from his hands.

''Ah, sorry, let me get that for you.'' The fatty apologized with a panicked face as he prepared to bend down and take them from the floor.

''I'll do it myself!'' Ren couldn't hold anymore as he shouted with eyebrows twitching. It had to be said, it wasn't easy to make Ren force to stop acting. He was used to insults and bullying, which couldn't faze him, but this irregularity, which straightaway bordered abnormality forced him to openly retort.

His face reddened as he noticed how receptionist gave him a shocked look. Ren cursed the fatty, as he bitterly thought in his head. 'Shit, I'm busted!'

Everybody knew, if the innocent looking outer court distribution hall receptionist was aware of something, then the whole sect, or at least every servant disciple knew about it!

''Sigh.'' Ren gave a depressed sigh as he no longer bothered about acting dull.

''What the fuck is wrong with you?'' He shouted at fatty as he banged on the table. The fatty showed pitiful expression as he bowed his head. ''Forgive me...I...I ruined your apple, oh, I'll give you grapes. Do you like grapes?'' Ruka glanced at his now dirty apple, thinking Ren was mad because he accidentally made him drop it, but his face brightened as he grabbed some grapes from the tray laying to his left and kindly offered it to him as a recompense.

Ren didn't know whether to cry or laugh as he shook his head. 'It's useless getting angry at this fellow.' He sighed as he got up, ready to leave.

''W, wait, keep me a company, just for a bit. I can't enjoy my food if someone's not around, please.'' Ruka panicked and pleaded as he grabbed Ren's sleeves. ''Let go!'' Ren rudely slapped his hand away, still angry at him for blowing his cover, but looking at the fatty's pitiful expression, he just sighed and dropped on his seat.

He gritted his teeth as he noticed the receptionist stealing glances at him. When Ren looked at him, the thin receptionist panicked and shifted his head.

''Th, thank you!'' Fatty looked at him gratefully as he proceeded to devour his food like a beast starved for a whole month.

''You can grab somethin' 'om mine. I've got a lot.'' Fatty urged him as he masterfully waved his plump, now greasy hands, devouring a piece of pork along with a bowl of rice.

''Are you a newcomer? I've never seen you before.'' Ren asked dispiritedly as he casually grabbed a cookie from fatty's tray.

''Y, yeah, just got accepted yesterday. I heard they had free food. I couldn't believe it, and guess what, it was true! Haha, this place is heaven. I don't have to hear my pops scolding me for eating to my fill anymore.''

Ren just listened to the fatty speechlessly. 'Fuck, this fellow joined the sect for free food!' He cursed in his mind. He completely missed the Keywords in fatty's sentence ''got accepted.''

''So, you came here just for the food?'' Ren asked, feeling funny.

Fatty's face reddened as he noisily gulped his food, elongated his head and whispered. ''Keep it a secret.''

Sighing, Ren pointed towards receptionist without casting a glance. Fatty yelped as he noticed the shifty-eyed thin man. ''B, brother, good brother, can you...'' He wanted to plead, but Ren rested his hand on fatty's shoulder and shook his head.

''The only way to keep our little secret is to kill him,'' Ren said half seriously. The receptionist paled as he took a few steps back.

''Is there no other way to shut him up?'' The fatty asked seriously with a frown. Ren was completely surprised by this question. 'This funny fellow is fine with killing?' He thought in shock.

''Y, you...I won't say anything. If you dare do something, I'll scream.'' The ashen-faced receptionist pleaded and threatened at the same time, appearing funny.

''Okay, if I hear some strange rumors, the first person I'm going to visit will be you.'' Fatty nodded seriously and continued devouring his duck soup, which he drank in two gulps.

''I won't dare! I won't dare!'' The receptionist nodded several times vigorously.

''Keep mine a secret too,'' Ren added pensively, not expecting fatty's threat to work. He never knew the chatterbox was so easy to pick on...

''Of course. I'll keep your secret too.'' He nodded with a reassuring face.

''What secret?'' Fatty asked curiously.

''It's nothing.'' Ren dismissed his question. Ren accompanied fatty for a while until he was done eating. When they came out of the hall, it was already a night as the bright moon was spreading silver moonlight all over the field.

''See ya.''

''Thanks for keeping me a company. Let's meet again some time.'' Fatty waved enthusiastically. Like that, they parted ways.

On the way, Ren was lost in thought, unable to reason out why he bothered to spend his time with the fatty. In the end, he deducted it was because fatty was unlike others, as he appeared more honest and simpleminded. Ren was sick of calculative people around him, who only chased after benefit.

''Well, it's good to speak to someone once in a while.'' He muttered as he returned to his shack.