The Heavens and the underworld or, as I like to call them, the cat and the mouse.

  The Heavens were always talked about as a place where people become immortalized, for different feats or for ascending through cultivation, and of course our Emperors—may Karma bless their souls and may she extend my emperor’s life by hundreds of years—have their place there kept by their fathers and their fathers-fathers since they are the rulers appointed by the heavens to take care of our worldly affairs.

  If we all have the chance to really get immortalized in the heavens, then you already know for sure yours truly the brightest alchemist this land has ever known has his rightful place there as well where I’ll serve the emperor with all my heart as I do in this world.

  Meanwhile, the underworld takes care of the souls of everyone else. It’s not, as some myths have it, a place of punishment; it’s a place of respite.

  A place where all souls are preserved and cared for eternity or reincarnation if that’s your fate.

  Having said that, the Heavens and the Underworld still, for some reason, compete against each other.

  Why?! What purpose does that serve? It’s a competition that makes absolutely no sense.

  My high-level cultivator friends say that emissaries of both factions visited them on rare occasions and granted them badges.

  Meritorious badges for feats and achievements that they had achieved.

  Here is where it gets interesting and even more convoluted. The feats that you get from the Underworld are usually for delivering them with a substantial number of souls. Yes, you guessed it — killing a substantial number of humans, among other feats of course, but this is very weird, and totally outside the realm of both the Heavens and the Underworld.

  Why would you want to get their souls early? When you eventually get them by doing nothing?

  Meanwhile, the Heavens’ feats are about preserving souls. It’s almost like they intentionally take extraordinary measures to prevent the Underworld from doing its job.

  Who started it all? Even I, with all my knowledge and wisdom, don’t know that. It was probably hundreds of thousands of years before our time.

  Could it possibly be that the heavens started it though? They started giving these feats to preserve souls to obstruct the Underworld’s task, which pushed the Underworld into giving evil feats for delivering them with more souls?

  Hearing the tales I heard, it’s probably exactly what happened, which threw the natural order of things into disarray.

  The Underworld was never meant to be evil. The Heavens was never meant to be their enemy, but here we are. What can any of you do about it except go on with your mundane, boring lives?

  I had to include this in my book on cultivation because it’s certainly an entertaining piece of our history and how our world came to be what it is today.

  The fascinating world of cultivation

  By Zhi Zixin.

  ***

  “That was painful to watch.”

  The duo heard someone say that as soon as Seph was done checking his status screen. They both turned around so fast, ready to fight for the second time in the same night.

  But they saw an extremely ordinary man who looked to be in his forties. He had a black mustache that was well kept, and a small beard that covered only his chin but flowed down to half his neck.

  He was wearing a spotless white closed robe; it looked otherworldly clean, especially for someone this far out from any village, and he also wore a small white hat on his head, like those worn by imperial employees.

  Seph did the first thing that came to his mind and activated his Eye of the Veteran skill.

  Name: Kal The Righteous

  Class: Heavens’ Emissary

  Cultivation stage: Core creation (I)

  Seph raised an eyebrow as he read this information; a look of shock crossed his face, but he relaxed immediately.

  He thought, if the underworld emissary didn’t come to fight me and couldn’t fight me, then there is no way the Heavens emissary has any intention of fighting me either.

  He raised one hand and lowered the whip of Lilith, which made her also relax her guard, even though she looked confused.

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  “Splendid, I see already that we will have a much better experience together than you had with that evil emissary.”

  Seph ignored the comment about the evil emissary, as he didn’t really know who was good and who was evil, after all Karma herself was all out of control and she was causing so much misery while the mortals didn’t even realize that their beloved goddess was the one responsible for all their misery.

  He looked at the emissary expectantly, waiting for him to continue speaking, and the emissary obliged him. “I am here to deliver a similar gift to you, but this one is from the all-good and all-powerful heavens. The gift I carry though is for both of you; the Heavens have declared that both of you deserve it equally.”

  Lilith was surprised now that she finally learned who was in front of them, and she was even more surprised that this time around she was included in the emissary’s message. She thought she had done nothing at all to deserve a badge from the Heavens.

  Seph finally spoke. “Excuse me if I don’t welcome you, as all of you people really seem very shady to me right now. Maybe next time we meet I’ll have made an educated decision on how to deal with all of this.”

  The emissary waved his hand dismissively as he said, “The Heavens are all compassionate and all understanding. Seph, my child; we don’t want any special treatment from you, and we expect nothing from you either. Eventually, you’ll learn that we are the good immortals, not those filthy Underworld dwellers. I see a bright future for you, and I think one day you will eat a peach of immortality from our Peach Orchard, and you will be received in celebration for ascending into the heavenly realm. Just do good, Seph, and you too, Lilith, spread your goodness in the world, my children, and you will make it there.”

  Seph didn’t like the emissary’s words; they were very patronizing, and they steered the listener into The Heavens narrative of the evil Underworld.

  Seph didn’t like it at all. He didn’t like either of them, as one was toying with him, and the other was trying to control him.

  “I am not your child,” Seph said as he clearly looked displeased, and Lilith followed, “Neither am I; did you lose your little son and daughter around here somewhere?” She looked around mockingly.

  The emissary faked a hearty laugh as if he were trying to appease them. “Excuse me, it’s just very hard not to talk the same way we all talk in the Heavens. It’s ingrained in us now. We don’t know how to talk informally to mortals as our existence is above and beyond anything that mortals could imagine.” He ended by looking dreamily at the sky, as if he missed his home.

  The duo didn’t buy his excuse and still thought he was pretentious and insufferable, so they said nothing.

  “So anyway, would you two accept our gift to you?”

  With that, he got out two golden badges that had a gate insignia on each of them and pink tassels hanging under them and offered both of them to Lilith and Seph.

  The duo looked at each other and nodded, then they moved together and took the two badges at the same time.

  “Splendid!” the emissary said as he turned his back on them, and they saw a big golden gate embroidered on the back of his robe; it took the entire upper back, and it looked identical to the one on the badges.

  “You make your village proud, Seph. You make your mother proud.” The emissary followed.

  “Don’t talk about my mother.” Seph angrily replied.

  “Relax, relax. I mean nothing by that.”

  The emissary looked at Lilith as if she were an enigma to him, a secret he couldn’t solve, and said, “As for you, we don’t have a lot of information about you. You have been outside the realm of our jurisdiction for a long time. Frankly speaking, you shouldn’t even be alive, but what a time to be alive, eh? Be careful of the underworld, once they have enough information about you, they will try to sway you to their side with all their persuasion power.”

  Lilith laughed mockingly and said, “Why now do I feel like that warning applies to your side the same as them? Keep your advice to yourself; we are not easily manipulated.”

  “Hmm, we will see what the future holds.” With that, the emissary disappeared in a flash of golden light that lingered in his place after he vanished.

  Seph sighed as he looked at the badge, and then he activated the Eye.

  Appraising…

  Name: Heavens’ badge #1

  Type: Merit

  Quality: Uncommon

  Description: You probably think yourself one of the fancy ones now.

  You got a badge from the heavens.

  You think you are one of the good guys.

  Well, all that could be true, but is it?

  Effect: +5 Constitution (permanent)

  How to achieve: Save the lives of 100 humans.

  The Eye of the Appraiser is mocking me, I swear. Seph thought as he used his yin energy to consume the badge, and it dissolved into little particles of light in his hand before it disappeared.

  Meanwhile, Lilith did the same; he didn’t know if he should tell her how many constitution points, they got.

  After all, every cultivator needed to have a strong feeling of their body, so that they’d get a good feeling for their new gains.

  Seph didn’t need to do that; he had it easy. All he needed to do was check his status screen and figure out what had changed.

  He checked his status screen to see his new gain, as he felt a little refreshed after getting the new constitution points.

  Name: Seph ???

  Class: Undead Buddhist lvl6

  Cultivation Stage: Body Dismantling (IV)

  Lifespan: 18/45 years

  Strength: 57

  Dexterity: 28

  Intelligence: 35

  Wisdom: 20

  Constitution: 33

  Perception: 35

  Luck: 15

  “I don’t know how to feel about all these emissaries.” Lilith broke the silence.

  “I know they are manipulative assholes. I don’t like them.”

  Lilith giggled and said, “Haha, you really say what’s on your mind, don’t you?”

  Seph rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he said, “Yeah, sorry about that. I am just pissed that now they are trying to toy with us. Sometimes I feel like all of this is too much for me. All this cultivation...”

  “I can understand that; you weren’t born into it like me. My father made sure I was trained by the best and had the best set of skills he could find, and the best items. I even have protective gear I haven’t used since I gained the dragon scale armor skill.”

  Seph eyed her spatial ring as he said, “Hmm, now that you say that, maybe I should steal your ring while you sleep.”

  Sun nodded and screeched approvingly at that; stars sparkled in his eyes as he eyed her ring.

  Lilith hid her ring with her other hand as she looked at them in mock anger and said, “Thieves!”

  Baby let out a small puff of fire from her mouth threateningly at Seph and Sun, and Sun needed no more warning as he ran away and jumped onto a close tree.

  “Cough, scaredy cat, cough.” Seph said mockingly, and Sun screeched at him while raising his fist threateningly from atop his tree.

  They spent the rest of the night joking, laughing, talking, and telling tales.

  The emissaries interrupted their respite, but they put them out of their minds fast and enjoyed each other’s company.