The Practical Exam (5)

Yes! Yes!! YES!!!

This was the feeling I was craving! The feeling of absolute dominance! Being above even those who are stronger than me, even those who are smarter than me! Exploiting the one mistake he made throughout his entire campaign in my favor! I'm not sure why he suddenly had some sort of brain malfunction, but... it didn't matter! All that mattered was that I was finally able to assert myself, show that I'm better than him, and truly lay the situation out for what it was! I am the master, and he is the slave! A slave to the information I hold within my grasp...

I let my head down to take a good look at his face. What would it be I wonder: Fear? Despair? Perhaps even a reluctant acceptance!? My eyes met his and I observed every inch of... his... face...

Suddenly, I felt my chest compress.

My breathing drew narrow.

My brain was sent backward.

I could feel the cut on my cheek flare up as the remanence of blood cascaded down.

The ground beneath me seemed to grow jiggly as my legs bobbed along with the waves.

This chill in the air. The glimpse of the future in his eyes. The suddenty of it all. It all resembled that night. The night when the moon turned red and the air smelt of iron. The night everything changed for me. Except this time... I was on the receiving end of it.

Quis walked up to me, and in my benumbed state, softy spoke to me, "... I see now. Spiravit... I guess I have been naive to expect that of you. Alright then, let's see where things go."

No. No, no, no. This was all wrong. I've heard Quis speak, and he is not a surrendering type of person. I've only seen him surrender once, and that was just before a bolt was shot through Pulchra's neck. He wasn't surrendering, he was making sure I didn't run.

He was going to kill me.

My body froze and my lungs refused to move. He drew closer to me, step by step. As he got closer, my thoughts grew more rambunctious than ever before, but then suddenly, as if my brain short-circuited, all of those thoughts disappeared in one moment. The overload of intense thoughts along with my imagining my death in every which way caused my brain to be unable to register anymore. However, as though my brain were being reset, thoughts reappeared. But these thoughts were much different than before. They were organized, emotionless, and full of idea; they were absolutely rational. It was like... like I regained clarity in my head... No, it was like I gained clarity.

'This whole time, I've been trying to best Quis. I've tried to get in his way, pushing my head against his. Why? To prove that I'm better than him? What's the point of that? Isn't the act of that already admitting that he is better than me? This entire time, I've held onto this one piece of evidence against him, yet I've never actually used it, why is that? Quis is competition, so why haven't I pulled the plug and gotten rid of him? Am I so weak that I can't acknowledge my own strength if I don't have someone weaker to compare it to? Am I so weak that all of the hard work and dedication I've put into growing stronger doesn't matter if someone is more talented than me? Is it because I view Quis as an enemy?'

As my mind calmly recited these questions without answers, I could feel my consciousness growing in volume, 'I've accepted that there are those who are more talented than me in every subject, yet why can't I accept the same for Quis? Is it because he started as someone who was worse than me in every way? Why does that matter? If he's more talented than me then it makes sense he would grow stronger. But does this mean I should completely write off becoming better than him?'

The leaves crushed under Quis as he took another step toward me, now only a few meters away from me, 'Is it wrong to have a goal? No, it's not, but it's the purpose behind the goal that proves whether it's worth having that goal in the first place. What was the profit in fighting Quis? Self-satisfaction? Pride? Indulgence? It's not wrong to wish for these things, as everyone does, but the way you go about obtaining them is what matters. The way I've been doing it is simply ineffective. How can I prove I'm better than someone who is stronger than me, smarter than me, and more talented than me? I can't.'

The tension of the air was pulled thin, and the smell of death became more apparent as Quis' look of resolve strengthened, 'But is that a bad thing? Fighting Quis is fighting a losing battle, and I knew that for a while, yet I still did it. How come? It was because, since he arrived in this sect, I've only ever seen Quis as an enemy, as my enemy. But what is the one thing that I've learned in all of Quis' time spent here? When you're faced with a strong enemy you can't beat, surrender. Making your enemy into a friend strengthens the bond. Play to the master's wants, and you'll grow stronger.'

The aura around Quis' body spiked as Genesis Liquid gathered in his balled-up fist, 'I've only ever seen Quis as an enemy, so I've been unable to see him as a master, as someone to leech off of instead of challenging... No, the entire idea of enemies and friends in the first place is the problem. In the world, there are only benefits and deficits. I have no enemies. I have no friends. There is only myself. And that is all that I will ever need.'

I felt a killing aura radiating from Quis as he brought back his fist, but before he threw it at me, I fell onto my knees and kowtowed, "I surrender. I will follow your every order and listen to your every call. Just don't kill me."

'There is no pride in surrendering, but there is even less pride in dying because of your pride. I need not care of the humiliation I may be suffering, because the only suffering I experience is born of my heart from the judgment of others. I don't care about other's thoughts of me, so I won't feel humiliated.'

This change was sudden, but at the same time, it felt like it was a long time coming.

I wasn't completely sure yet. Was this the correct way to think? Would I be able to move forward with these ideas in my head? Could these thoughts not only help me grow stronger but also breed happiness?... Would I ever be the same person as before even if I tried?

...

I took a deep breath.

'At the very least, for now, this change is allowing me to avoid death. And right now, that is all that matters.'

____________________________________________

Quis' POV:

'Well this is interesting.'

Spiravit was a prideful person, I mean an extremely prideful person, to the point of narcissism. He would never back down, not even in the face of death because his personality wouldn't allow it. That was made this situation so peculiar to me. Just before I was about to kill him, I could see him stricken with fear, probably his trauma from the night that I killed Pulchra being exposed. But then I saw his complexion change. It changed from that of fear to reflection.

Reflecting on oneself during your moments before death isn't uncommon and actually happens often when you are given time before you die, but most of the time it's only you regretting the choices you made that led you to that point. But there was not a drop of regret in his eyes, only realization. Instead of his life flashing before his eyes, in the face of death, he awakened. I'm not sure what was going through his mind, what changes he made to his way of thinking, I'm not omniscient after all. But I do know that whatever it was, it caused him to throw away the pride he had been holding so dear.

Normally I would find his words along with his loss of pride as my plan succeeding, but this wasn't right. In my original plan, I was to rip the pride that he so desperately held onto from his hands and leave him devastated, not him choosing to shed himself of his pride. There was a huge difference between the two. One meant that he was left with only devastation in his heart and the other meant he was content and hopeful. One meant he would be easy to control, the other not so much.

So should I still kill him?

That wasn't an easy question to answer. First I had to take a deep dive into what giving up pride means, and use that to assess the pros and cons of killing him, and then make a decision.

So what does giving up your pride mean? Some say that it means you're the "bigger man". You could also say that it means you value morality over your pride. But I believe, that more than anything, no matter how holy you view yourself to be, it stems from the consequences of indulging in your pride not being worth the benefits. What does that mean for Spiravit? It can only mean that he has discovered that his own pride isn't worth all the benefits he loses and all of the tribulations that come from it. Before, he could see any choices that involved others from a view of it being worth it or not, but he was blind to his own flaws getting in the way of his benefits. That was not the case any longer. He has gained a true eye for benefits.

But what does this mean for me? Is it good or bad? Well, like anything else, there are pros and cons to this change in his temperament. The pro is that he is much easier to control like this, but the con is that I can never truly manipulate him, based on his emotions at least. Having a true eye for benefits means that you can see through the fog of emotions and irrationality to see the logical solution, and unsurprisingly, once you can see through emotions, being manipulated becomes a lot less likely.

Right now he was surrendering because I held his life in my hands. My hitting Spiravit was a signal for the cameras to be taken off of me and for my other pawns to make sure no one was observing me and Spiravit by any means necessary. I had the absolute ability to end his life right now, fire the signal for the Wild Beast, and make it seem like a result of that. And he knew it. So he had to surrender at the moment. But once the midterms were over and I even destroyed the evidence he lorded over me before recruiting him into my faction, he would still end up asking me: Where are my benefits?

Spiravit is a special person. He has value, especially now that his main weakness has been fixed somewhat. And he knows that. So if I can't provide benefits then he'll run off to someone who can, and he is by far the person who knows me best which means he'll make for a difficult enemy. So the question boils down to, is it better to kill him here and not have the hassle, or have to provide him what he asks for in turn for his service?

...There was a quote by a great philosopher, not of this world, but mine. She said, "To allow someone even the most tiny amount of control over you, is to give up on controlling them entirely. Never underestimate even the smallest foothold, or it will be the wellspring of your demise."

If I were to let Spiravit live, that would in turn give him something he can lord over me again. And since I would only settle at complete domination... I would have to kill him. It's great that he's had this awakening of his... but it couldn't save him. Maybe if he was smart, and did it a different way, I would have come to a different conclusion.

I activated my Bed Crossbow Bolt Fruit, and as the power rushed into my arms, I readied myself to pull back. But just before I did, I heard leaves crunch and squiggle, demanding my attention. I turned to the source and saw two figures standing, looking at Spiravit kowtowing in front of me.

Iusus gave an awkward expression and said quietly, "I'm sorry... did we interrupt a moment?"