Imitating Junzi, Jun Li held a rounded plate of hardened blood out in front of herself, arcing off the back of her forearm like the chitinous limb of some insect. Under both her gaze and that of Junzi's, dark veins spread through the transparent red surface of the blood, as vascularity began to form in the otherwise homogenous mass.

  Once those veins spread through the mass, the entire plate began to darken to a shade between its previous color and that of the veins. "How interesting…" Junzi commented. "This is the method that came most intuitively to you…? It results in a similar level of reinforcement, but the concept behind it is… divergent. We have very different concepts regarding the nature of Blood…"

  "If this 'Hardblood' stuff becomes more durable when you infuse it with more blood, aren't veins the best way to get that blood where it needs to be?" Grabbing the end of the hardblood disk with her other hand, Jun Li put strength into her fingers and pressed down into the disk, feeling nothing but dull pain in her digits as it held strong.

  "Regardless of the specific method, it is good to see you adapt to a more 'proper' use of our blood." Nodding to himself as he looked on Jun Li's application of his technique, Junzi felt a hand rest on his shoulder.

  Jun Li flinched slightly as the simulacrum suddenly stood behind Junzi, his armored figure looming over the two with an air of severity he hadn't displayed until this point. "...If I may have a moment?"

  His gaze and words were directed at Junzi, who looked back blankly for a moment. "...I see. I suppose I've overstayed somewhat. Please, forgive the discourtesy of my intrusion in this pagoda, I assure you it was not by choice that I infringed on these… sacred, traditional grounds."

  Understanding what had caused the simulacrum to intrude on their conversation, Junzi stood quietly and gestured for the simulacrum to walk alongside him, away from Jun Li. "With regards to… the entrustment of inheritance, should my young charge reach the end of your esteemed master's pagoda…"

  Stepping through a closed door as if it were not even there, Junzi vanished from Jun Li's sight, his voice ceasing to reach her ears entirely, and the simulacrum following behind him, out of the trial's bounds.

  "...the hell?" Jun Li was left sitting alone, looking around the replica of the Alchemist Association demonstration room while wondering if either of the two would return. "...I doubt it… I should probably get a move on with…" Jun Li glanced towards the replica corpse at the end of the room. "...whatever this trial is supposed to be."

  Sitting up rather briskly, Jun Li felt that her injuries had almost entirely healed after having drawn out her time on this floor beyond expectations. Walking over to the replica corpse, Jun Li felt a sensation akin to approaching an open fire wash over her.

  "...Hah…" Feeling her heart suddenly sink, Jun Li knew that some pall of solemnity had been cast over her mind, artificially coercing her mind into focusing on that which she would rather ignore.

  Almost against her will, Jun Li cast her eyes to the body, taking in the details of the man's drab clothing, the overstuffed bag that his body leaned against, the worn cauldron in his lap… All signs of his lesser status, far from what one would expect of a proper alchemist.

  "...What am I supposed to do…? Just stand here and feel miserable about this guy…?" Despite the gloomy scene, the foremost emotion in Jun Li's heart was that of frustration. She had seen this sight before and had hardened her heart to it already. It no longer affected her, not in any way that could impact her ability to live normally.

  'What more could a 'spiritual trial' ask of me…?' Her thoughts answered by nothing but silence, Jun Li was left to stare at the corpse until her eyes grew numb.

  Sighing deeply, Jun Li leaned against the podium near the corpse, resting not out of necessity, but out of resignation. '...Hah… how long has it been… since I sat down like this? I'm not fatigued, or injured, or even cultivating…'

  Stretching her neck and allowing her head to tilt back and tap the podium gently, Jun Li couldn't help but smile a little bit. 'Was it… sitting down and talking to Senior Sister Zhao, back in the Glass Cloud Sect? Maybe it was when I last spoke to Duan Shu…'

  'It feels like a lifetime ago.' The air in her lungs grew stale and bitter as the half-remembered faces of her loved ones transiently passed through her mind. 'My heart's like this after just a few years away… When I get back, will there be enough of me left for my family to recognize?'

  'Even if there was… would I be able to stand among them again?' A pitiful feeling sank over Jun Li, not summoned by the gloom present that brought such feelings to the fore, but dredged up by Jun Li's own drifting mind.

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  'At this rate, by the time I return, my entire identity as a Cultivator will have been painted over by my inheritance… nothing but borrowed blood… I'd never be able to stand proudly in front of anyone from the Glass Cloud Sect, even if I was stronger than any of them…'

  She laughed at herself for a moment. 'And I'd have nothing to teach anyone, certainly! Just follow the road set out in front of you? Get lucky by having an amazing Master and an absurd inheritance?'

  'Sure, I fought hard, I tried my best even when it hurt.' Jun Li's eyes fell to the image of the corpse sitting just an arm's length away. '...But I never decided anything for myself. I just followed the path of least resistance.'

  Jun Li found it almost funny. For her, the 'path of least resistance' wasn't the 'easiest path.' It was the most obvious one, the path she had unwittingly set one foot on already. In her eyes, her escapades in the Earth Dragon's Grave weren't a consequence of her own decisions, but of the careless words of the pair in the town of Lanxiu, who led Jun Li there in the first place.

  To Jun Li, the 'path of least resistance' could lead straight through a solid stone wall; she would still walk it, solely out of an aversion to walking off the path, an aversion towards walking into one of the myriad unknown futures of 'choice, consequence, and responsibility.'

  Better to shut her mind to it, to close her eyes to any other option but the most convenient.

  As she realized this about herself, Jun Li felt her stomach tighten as she looked at the corpse of the man who aspired to become an alchemist. She knew, by his clothing, by the bag filled with medicinal plants, by the well-worn cauldron before him.

  'He wasn't forced into alchemy by circumstances…' After all, what circumstances would warrant becoming an alchemist as a last resort? Such a highly complicated, competitive, expensive, and prestigious career? There was no sick sibling who needed money for medicine, no family that desperately needed uplifting.

  The value stuffed into that man's bag was more than enough to forge a life of normality and dignity.

  Nothing had forced him. And nothing could be considered 'convenient' or 'obvious' about a career in alchemy. Even Jun Li, with her inheritance, could be caught unaware or lacking in alchemical knowledge. For a normal man, lacking some great tutor, fortune, or genius… It could only have been his own decision to embark on that path.

  In that moment, looking at the corpse of a normal man, Jun Li felt gut-wrenching jealousy.

  If she had never awakened to her inheritance, would she have embarked on the path of cultivation? The path of Alchemy?

  No.

  Jun Li knew that intimately, and that knowledge hurt her terribly. 'I can't compare to that… And I'll never be able to. Not with my inheritance.' Like all knowledge, Jun Li could not so easily rid herself of it, and so was stuck with that thorn of truth, radiating pain for as long as it was left unsettled.

  Despite the strength it gave her, Jun Li's inheritance dominated her ego. It represented the sum total of her autonomy as a Cultivator, and by extension, as a human.

  'Because of this…' Jun Li lightly grasped the solidified plate of blood extended from her forearm. '...there's nothing about me I can be proud of…' She bore an almost fatalistic perspective towards her inheritance, gratefully blaming it as the cause for her life's trajectory, down to the most minute detail.

  She had never been so painfully aware of her own perspective on the matter until this point, faced once more with the corpse of the man she had seen at the Alchemist's Association branch.

  Jun Li's vision blurred, and a lump rose in her throat. 'Am I seriously crying…?' Placing her palms over her eyes, she took a deep breath, filling her grief-ached lungs with new air and quickly standing up.

  "Ah, damn it…!" Letting out a huff, Jun Li wiped the half-formed tears from her eyes and swung her arm, liquifying the hardblood plate that had rested there too long, causing it to splatter across the floor.

  Looking down towards the corpse with an expression firmer than anything she had borne in the past week, Jun Li's eyes shone with genuine emotion. "I want to be like you were…! Even if I'm carried along by my inheritance, even if I'm helpless against fate, even if I'm just some vehicle for an old monster to see the world again… I want to decide for myself what path forward I take! Even if it's inconvenient, even if it's inefficient, I want to choose!"

  With those words spoken aloud and her determination solidified, the gloom that surrounded Jun Li cleared, and the room seemed to grow a bit brighter.

  Suddenly feeling she could breathe easier, Jun Li saw the corpse, the podium, and even the walls themselves melt away, fading into a blur of colors and disintegrating, until all that was left was the austere walls of the pagoda's second floor, and the simulacrum at the edge of the room, looking towards her.

  "...Well done. You have passed the first of the pagoda's spiritual trials." Despite his words, the simulacrum seemed far from pleased at seeing Jun Li as she was. 'That was fast… has that old monster done something to strengthen her soul? Is it simply her own talent? Even for the first spiritual trial, to reconcile a significant conflict in one's own spirit over the course of minutes…?'

  "Thank you!" Jun Li brightly accepted the simulacrum's monotone compliment, not spending so much as ten seconds basking in the completion before turning towards the next flight of stairs. "I'm in a good mood, this next floor's a combat one, right?"

  "A… martial trial, yes." The simulacrum didn't expect Jun Li to immediately move to the next floor and quickly made the mental preparations necessary for the next floor's adjustments.

  Now at the stairwell, Jun Li waited only a moment to hear the simulacrum's words before ascending the stairs, speaking aloud along the way. "Good! I'm about done with sitting around…!"