Xiao Su of the Xiao clan

It was evening, the sun was close to setting.

Arma City, Xiao family clan, general library.

A loud clap sounded as a book was shut hard. The perpetrator was a young girl of 14 years of age, she was of average height, cute and developing curves, but she still gave off an immature

half-done impression that could only be found in adolescence.

"Gaaaah, another waste of time," The young girl said as she slammed the book back onto the shelf before turning to leave. The few others in the library frowned as they glanced at her before quickly turning away. Though annoyed by her behavior, no one here dared to confront her about it, for she was Xiao Su, one of the greatest talents of the clan and a core-disciple, while they were just regular outer-court disciples.

Walking out, Xiao Su looked up and realized how late it'd gotten. "He's probably waiting by the usual spot by now" she mumbled, a big grin spreading across her previously gloomy face. Her body blurred as she hurried to her new destination with renewed vigor.

About half an hour later, Xiao Su arrived at an old abandoned court yard. The sun had just set and the old courtyard was eerie and looked haunted, but Xiao Su dived in with no hesitation as she yelled, "Reeeeen!, You here Ren?" with her hands cuffed around her mouth.

"Is there even a need to ask? I'm always on time, unlike some people." A voice mumbled from the edge of the courtyard.

"Sorry, sorry. Got stuck at the library." Xiao Su said cutely with a smile as she turned around.

Xiao Ren snorted dismissively and said, "it's because you waste so much time there that you're still stuck at the third rank of the human path despite getting so many resources." With some envy in his voice.

Xiao Su turned a bit red at that and smacked him lightly on the head before saying, "I don't want to hear that from someone who's at the second rank of the human path." With a displeased look on her face.

Xiao Ren glared at her with irritation and anger, causing her to flinch. "It's not the same!" he roared. "Your mother's an elder, you have lots of resources and you were even blessed to be born with the strongest ancient ability of our clan! Yet you squander your time in the general library, never competing for quotas to visit the martial library!"

Xiao Ren's body was shaking violently, Xiao Su couldn't help backing away in shock and a little fear.

"You're so blessed. Did, did you ever think about how many of us would kill to be in your position." His body was still shaking but his tone became soft and hollow as tears leaked out of his eyes. "So many of us don't have anything to fall back on, even though we train to the point of collapse every day we can't improve, no matter how much we long to become experts, it's impossible for us" Ren collapsed onto his knees and whispered, "And yet, you don't even appreciate any of it." while sobbing.

Watching the sobbing Xiao Ren, Xiao Su just stood there in shock. Soon, tears started coming to her eyes too. "what the hell are you saying!" she yelled in anguish. She couldn't understand it, it wasn't supposed to be like this. It should've been like their usual session, they'd talk about anything interesting that happened, relax for a bit and then she'd tutor him on his skills and techniques for a while. So why was he suddenly saying all of this? She'd heard it all before, that she's a disappointment, that it's all wasted on her, but she never thought she'd hear it from him, he who'd always been like an oasis to her, he who she thought was one of the few people who understood her. It hurt, it hurt so much she wanted to scream. No, it hurt so much she did scream.

"What do you know!" she screamed. "You think it's that simple? That I didn't try? That I just didn't care? If that were the case how much easier would my life have been?" The last line came out trembling as her tears began to flow freely. The anticipation of her mother, the expectations of the clan, the regrets of her father, she wanted to meet them all. That's why she pushed herself so hard, tried too many things out of desperation and, eventually, made a horrible mistake.

Right here, right now, accused by the person she trusted most, the feelings of frustration, anger, pain and sadness all came back to her. She couldn't take it, so she ran. Leaving Xiao Ren and the courtyard behind, she ran without looking back, she was too scared and angry to. She didn't pay attention to anything and just ran, she wanted to get away from everything.

"Hey!" Someone called out to her after she'd run for quite a while. Naturally, she ignored them and continued running. "Hey! I was talking to you!" That person yelled and then intercepted her along with someone else. With the two in front of her, Xiao Su was finally forced to stop and the two finally got a good look at her.

The two gawked in surprise upon realizing her identity and one of them started to get nervous. The one who'd yelled out, the calmer of the two, smirked and said "My apologies, I didn't realize it was the esteemed Xiao Su who was running through our training ground."

Xiao Su narrowed her eyes at his clearly mocking tone and said, "Well you do now, so piss off!" in a cold tone before walking past them. She recognized the two, Xiao Peng and Xiao Wang. They were decently talented among their peers, being at the same cultivation rank as her, but their status in the clan couldn't compare to hers so she didn't need to mind them. Still, she'd usually try to be more civil, especially since she was the one intruding, but her mood was awful tonight and Xiao Peng's tone was not helping.

Xiao Peng's face flushed red in anger. "You think you can keep acting like you're some queen? I know the truth, you're just a disappointment. Soon, the entire clan will know when you lose your seat!" Xiao Peng yelled spitefully as he turned to her.

The average disciples wouldn't dare to say anything to her but those with some connections and knowledge of the situation had very little respect for her 'glass' title and frequently made jabs at her. Usually, she'd ignore it, but tonight, she couldn't help but stop as Ren's words ran through her mind again. "I'm not in a good mood right now, it's in your best interest to shut up" She said ominously, the pain from Ren's words wracking through her again.

Xiao Peng felt a chill go down his spine. but that feeling only served to enhance his anger. It was just the worthless Xiao Su, the weakest among the Golden Generation despite being crowned queen of it. Of the three youngest members of the Golden Generation, two were at the sixth rank already while she was at the third rank, same as him, plus Xiao Wang was with him, what was there for him to fear? "What, does hearing the truth hurt?" He mocked. "It's already common knowledge that the elders are ready to give up on you, you don't even compete in any contests and just spend your days in the general library."

"I'm warning you." Xiao Su said through clenched teeth and tightly gripped fists as she struggled to control herself. The general library only held knowledge and skills of the origin rank. Skills were ranked origin, human, and saint in an order of least to greatest. In the Xiao clan, origin skills are kept in the general library while human and saint skills are kept in the martial library, for which a quota must be won to gain entrance. Xiao Su had been allowed to enter once to pick a skill, but she'd never competed for a quota and so hadn't entered again.

Xiao Peng was on an emotional high now and naturally paid no heed to her warning and continued talking fervently. "There's no need to try and act tough, the tear marks are plain to see. It's not your fault, you just happened to be given a position that didn't belong to you. Don't worry though, looking closely you're rather cute, you should know who my brother is, if you act appropriately I could put in a good word for you." He said with a lecherous laugh and reached out to touch her shoulder.

Xiao Su's arm moved in a flash and grabbed his wrist. "Don't touch me" She said, her voice seething from the disgusting implications of his words.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He screamed as his wrist was squeezed with an extreme force.

Xiao Su snorted in disdain as she threw his hand aside and turned to go. She had to leave, she was at the breaking point and the consequences wouldn't be worth it. But how could a boy like Xiao Peng let this go?

"Hold it you bitch!" He yelled in rage. "You think you can just walk away after slighting me like this! Come on Xiao Wang!" He ordered as he charged at her. Xiao Wang hesitated, he didn't have a powerful support like Xiao Peng so he honestly didn't wish to offend Xiao Su. However, after weighing the costs of offending Xiao Su or Xiao Peng's brother, plus thinking back on all that he'd done to finally get into Xiao Peng's good graces, he charged as well.

"Meteor fist!" Xiao Peng yelled as he flung his red fist towards Xiao Su.

"Iron Bell!" Xiao Wang followed with his own skill, scared to be left behind and therefore offend Xiao Peng.

Xiao Su was perfectly capable of running, but she'd snapped. She'd been shown a lot of disdain in her life, but even the arrogant Golden Generation members hadn't dared to actually attack her, she couldn't contain her rage any longer.

Her finger quickly drew a small translucent symbol with her finger and flicked it at them. The symbol let out a bright light that forced the two to shut their eyes. The moment their eyes shut Xiao Su moved between them in a flash. Her hands moved with a steady continuous motion like flowing water. They attached to the two's attacking fists and guided them to head towards each other.

With a loud bang, the fists collided with undefended chest and both spat blood as they yelled in pain.

However, Xiao Su wasn't done with them yet. As the two were about to be sent flying, her hand followed them and grabbed the back of their heads. With a strength you wouldn't believe came from her slender body, she withstood the repulsive force from the two blows and then banged the two's heads together, sending them into a daze. Letting go of the two barely conscious boys, she moved her hands towards their injured chests and said, "Energy Wave." As she released a pulse of Qi through her hands. The two spewed more blood and were finally sent flying, becoming two unconscious bleeding piles on the floor a few feet away from her.

She coldly snorted as she glanced at the two before taking her leave. She walked steadily at first but quickly picked up the pace until she was in a dead run. She ran with a desperation and didn't stop until she reached her residence.

"Young lady, there's a message for you from— "

A bubbly maid tried to tell her hurriedly when she yelled "Later! I wish to be alone right now, no one is to disturb me!" in a savage voice that caused the maid to cower before heading to her room and shutting the door loudly.

She trembled as she walked two steps before collapsing onto her knees and violently coughing up blood. Pain spread from the center of her abdomen, her dantian outwards and encompassed her entire body. Her muscles contracted and released over and over in an agonizing rhythm that threatened to swallow her whole. With trembling hands, she undid a section of the floor and took out a bag and overturned it onto the floor, dropping pills everywhere. Xiao Su grabbed one of the pills and forced herself to swallow it before huddling up into a trembling ball while sobbing in pain.

After eight or so minutes, her body finally started to calm down and she began to control her breathing. She sat up and entered a meditative state to calm the rampaging energies in her dantian.

As she cultivated with complete concentration, a shadowy figure appeared within the room from the window. The shadowy figure glared coldly at the sitting Xiao Su for a few minutes before whispering "Fool." In a cold tone. The figure stepped out of the shadows and revealed a young girl with a slender shapely body and an androgynously cool good-looking face clad in a maid outfit.

The maid looked at the blood splotches and spilt pills with disgust. She took out a cloth and quietly began cleaning up the mess. After cleaning up all the blood and returning the pills and bag back to the hidden compartment of the floor, she turned to face the still oblivious Xiao SU. Her face narrowed in distaste as she seriously contemplated ripping off the dirty clothes to rid them of all blood stains. It was a happy thought, but she knew she couldn't disturb Xiao SU while she was recovering, she could only sigh and curse the difficulties of having a stupid master

Xiao Su's generation was called the Golden Generation by the Xiao clan leaders. The Xiao Clan had the ancient ability, an ability passed down to descendants, called [Vigor] and it gave them a large vitality, it took ages for them to tire and their energy would recover much faster than others, making them powerful soldiers. It'd usually be good for three or four clansmen to be born with [Vigor] every ten or so years, but in Xiao Su's time a total of twenty-six children were born with it within a ten-year period, earning them the title of Golden Generation and having much hope for the rise of the Xiao clan placed on them. And supposed to be at the peak of that Golden Generation, was Xiao Su.

Born with the perfect [Vigor] that's told of in the legends of the Xiao clan's founding, [Limitless], she was supposed to be the brightest star and lead the family to new heights. Those weighty expectations, the pressure of being born at the top, the hostility and looming danger of those right beneath you, she tried to meet those and ended up ruining herself.

She'd hit a rut when practicing the human ranked skill she'd gotten from the martial library. It was natural, human skills aren't simple and she was merely seven at the time, in truth she was learning the skill at an alarming rate. However, to the overburdened Xiao Su who was already determined to catch up and surpass those Golden Generations who were older and stronger than her, anytime spent standing still was inexcusable.

To escape this rut, she went to the general library and started practicing a couple origin ranked skills from there, so that she could at least continue to improve until she found a breakthrough point. To her surprise, after she practiced those skills to a proficient level, the rut that had her bogged down broke at the first push. After that it seems she got excited and started absorbing a crazy amount of skills and knowledge from the general library and increasing her strength by leaps and bounds.

When the maid first heard this story, she knew next to nothing about cultivation and yet even that ignorant her couldn't help but retort "Are you an idiot?" to that foolish girl. Sure enough, before she knew it, the girl had amassed a high proficiency in a ludicrous amount of origin skills. She was a genius, that much was evident by her ability to learn so many skills in such a short amount of time, but she was also a hopeless fool. It was a mistake made from too much pressure added with an overly liberal upbringing.

Too many different kinds of qi were in her dantian, too many different body cultivations had been tried with her body, by time complications started to arise, it was too late. The amount of different energies flowing through her body was enough to completely cripple a normal person, it was only because of her so-called [Limitless] ancient ability that she was able to live relatively normally, however it was exactly because of that ancient ability that the symptoms didn't show themselves until such a late stage.

The fool who feared disappointing her clan more than anything was too afraid to come forward with her problem, so she tried to get it fixed secretly, but it was not to be. She was told that to cure it, she'd have to abandon all her current cultivation. For the girl who carried the weight of the top from birth and who was already impatient to grow, it was an impossible choice.

She tried to resolve it herself, she stopped learning skills but continued to absorb techniques and know-how from the countless books in the general library, searching for a way to fix herself. But everything she did only led to breaking herself further, she'd even once regressed from the third stage of the human rank to the second, though she managed to climb back up before anyone noticed.

Now, if she were to get cured it wouldn't end with just losing her current cultivation, her talent and body would be damaged as well, severely limiting her future, so what choice did she have but to keep trudging onward? Without being able to improve her rank and being racked by pain when she used her qi, the looks of expectations slowly turned to disappointment and the respect of her peers turned to disdain, the fool lost herself piece by piece.

The sound of Xiao Su collapsing onto the floor awoke the maid from her thoughts. She'd finished calming her energy and the feeling of comfort and relieve had swept away her consciousness like a tide.

The maid looked delighted with this development, she unceremoniously and joyfully stripped the sleeping girl of the bloody clothes and then, after scrubbing off any blood on her, tossed her into the bed. The maid gently patted the girls head as her face melted and showed a tender expression for a second before returning to its usual cool form. "Truly a foolish master." She said as she left the room.