Immortal Paladin

Elder Zhu Bo stroked his chin and asked a question that took most of the hall off guard.

“So,” he said, “what are your hobbies?”

His voice echoed, lazy yet somehow authoritative, like he wasn’t asking a room full of children pretending to be adults.

I already had a few guesses why he asked.

The soul couldn’t be seen. It couldn’t be touched. It wasn’t physical or material. Yet it was eternal, something everyone believed existed even without evidence. The “shape of the soul” we perceived was only an imagery, something that emerged naturally upon reaching the Fifth Realm, Soul Recognition.

So the question about hobbies must have been connected to understanding the self.

Of course it was.

If recognizing the soul was recognizing yourself, then knowing what you actually liked mattered.

The disciples around me didn’t take it well.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Why do we need hobbies? Waste of time.”

“We should be cultivating!”

Most of them were absolutely lying. I could tell by their tones alone. Unless “eating snacks” and “complaining” counted as cultivation, they weren’t fooling anyone.

Some whispered bragged loudly about how they spent every moment cultivating, focusing on “what truly matters.” It was so pretentious I felt second-hand embarrassment. They sounded less like cultivators and more like those fitness influencers bragging they “only eat boiled chicken breast.”

Huh? Wait… What was a fitness influencer again? That was odd…

Elder Zhu Bo cleared his throat in an exaggerated cough.

“Let me rephrase,” he said patiently. “A hobby is something you do during leisure. Something recreational. Something you appreciate. Something that brings you joy. Now, who here has a hobby?”

An internal disciple raised his hand. “Does… collecting swords count?”

“Yes,” Elder Zhu Bo answered. “That is a hobby.”

Hands went up everywhere.

More than half the class raised their hands. Some lifted them shyly, others confidently, and a few did it with the expression of someone confessing a crime. A stubborn minority kept their arms crossed, insisting they had no hobbies and that cultivation was everything.

“Lower your hands,” Elder Zhu Bo said, nodding thoughtfully. “Now listen carefully. For the sake of your future growth, I want each of you to stop your current hobbies for a while. Explore new interests. Try new forms of leisure. Expand your interactions and your connections.”

His tone was firm now.

“To understand your soul,” he continued, “you must first broaden what you know of yourself.”

I… didn’t get it.

Nothing in any manual or lecture I’d studied mentioned “interaction” or “connection.” Back on the False Earth, while stuck inside Wen Yuhan’s body, I achieved Soul Recognition by brute-forcing it, pressuring myself with Destiny-Seeking Eyes, and surviving a tribulation shaped like a giant fireball falling on my head.

It wasn’t enlightenment. It was desperation that brought it out of me.

Of course, I did know myself well enough, and I was confident as a person. But I could never shake the feeling that my understanding of the Soul Recognition realm was incomplete.

Even now, I had no clue what the shape of my soul truly meant. A cross. Why a cross? What relevance did it hold for me? How did it connect to my path?

I could make imperfect souls already, something I did by instinct through the Longevity Method and my experiences in Meng Po’s world, but I didn’t understand the process at all.

My understanding was shallow and forced.

So maybe Elder Zhu Bo had a point.

He clapped his hands once, drawing all attention back to him.

“Now then,” he said, “before we proceed further, you must know this… Soul Recognition is divided into three stages: the First, Second, and Third Dimension.”

The entire lecture hall quieted.

Elder Zhu Bo smiled, proud and slightly intimidating.

“If you wish to reach the peak of soul mastery, you must understand all three.”

Right now, I was still at the First Dimension of Soul Recognition. I kept suppressing my realm and holding myself back deliberately, because I wanted room to learn. If I advanced too fast without understanding it deeply, I’d end up with a foundation full of holes. That was one realm I refused to brute-force again.

Elder Zhu Bo tapped the board with a piece of chalk.

“The First Dimension,” he said, “is the entrant stage of Soul Recognition. At this level, the soul is perceived as a straight line, a single vector with only length. This means your soul can only move along one path, forward or backward.”

Disciples murmured. A few nodded. A few looked lost.

“At this minor realm,” the old bull continued, “your techniques gain a boost in efficiency and output. It is not dramatic, but noticeable. A straight soul is focused, unbranching, and forward-moving.”

My mind drifted back to Meng Po’s world and what my ‘main body’ did there.

He learned the Longevity Path. Challenged the Six Paths. Created the Six Souls.

I remembered almost nothing clearly. It was like looking through frost-covered glass. But I did know one thing: when we were created, we were imperfect. We weren’t separate people, but fragments of a whole that hadn’t been whole for a long time.

Only after living… after fighting… after suffering… after loving… Only then did we begin to become something resembling a true soul.

The “True Self” finally began weaving us together during the end of the Civil War. We were close to full unification, reaching a level of stability that ought to fix what was broken. Until the main body vanished.

Ever since then, something subtle had been unraveling. Each of the Six Souls felt heavier. More independent. More strained. If the True Self faltered… so would all of us.

It was a worrying thought. One I tried not to think about too much.

I raised my hand.

“Elder Zhu Bo,” I said. “May I ask something?”

“You may,” he replied.

I spoke clearly, “Is it possible for someone to… not have a soul? If someone didn’t have one, what would that mean?”

The room fell silent. A few disciples stared at me like I asked whether the sun could be eaten.

Zhu Bo’s brows pinched together. His expression turned slow, careful, as though he were choosing each word with care.

“A ‘soul’…” he began, “…is more of an ‘idea’ than anything else.”

That answer alone already felt like a warning.

He continued, “Some scholars claim it can be perceived at its truest essence. Others treat it as an energy body. Some sects believe it is a divine spark. Some say it is memory, emotion, or identity. There are countless theories, each conflicting, each supported by evidence. But in truth, the soul is, above all, belief. It is the ‘belief’ that something of you exists beyond flesh. Something that persists.”

He gestured calmly.

“And belief is universal. People, beasts, ghosts, places, even lifeless objects! They can be said to possess ‘souls’ depending on who believes in them. Without belief, the meaning vanishes.”

He gave me a long, pointed look.

“But to claim someone has no soul… is to claim they have no existence.”

He left it there. He didn’t answer the core of my question. Instead, he avoided it entirely.

But that answer still struck something in me.

Faith was worship freely given.

Belief was something innate, personal, and internal.

No book ever phrased it that way.

And… it worried me.

Because the True Self had once doubted if he even had a soul. After Meng Po’s world, he thought he was hollow. Soulless. Created, not born.

Even recently, those thoughts returned.

He kept forgetting: The Six Souls weren’t pieces of him. They were him! All of us together were the whole. I wished someone told him that, or that he asked… However, knowing myself, he probably put up a brave front.

If I had to choose, the problem came from Divine Possession. Every time the True Self possessed another, he left the main body… empty. 

It wasn’t surprising he grew insecure.

Maybe Zhu Bo knew something I didn’t. Or maybe he simply refused to discuss such a dangerous philosophical point with a lecture hall full of impressionable students.

Either way, he moved on.

“Now,” Elder Zhu Bo said, striking the board again, “let us continue. Beyond the First Dimension lies the Second Dimension, and then the Third Dimension.”

Chatter died instantly.

“The Second Dimension adds breadth to the soul. The Third adds depth. Only by mastering all three can you approach the threshold of true soul evolution.”

I wondered if the shape of my soul would still be that of a cross. The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. Maybe all Six Souls were truly “Da Wei,” but the opposite could also be true that each one of us had become something different. The idea lingered in the back of my mind like a dull ache.

Zhu Bo continued his lecture with slow and steady confidence.

“Listen well,” he said while tapping the board. “Soul Symbology is meaningless if one refuses to understand oneself. Interpreting the ‘imagery’ of the Soul requires hard-earned research from various fields. However, with my aid, we can shorten the process and gain quicker results.”

I took notes, listened carefully, and answered when he called my name. It felt almost normal, like an academy class, except the disciples treated every question as if their lives depended on it. Some shouted answers with enough force to make their faces turn red. Others glared around as if rivals hid behind every seat. The competitiveness was honestly unhealthy.

After a while, Zhu Bo placed his brush down. “I will give all of you a task,” he announced. “By next lecture, I expect results.” The hall went silent as he added, “Form groups of six and create a recreational presentation. Dance, song, poem, painting, and anything that reflects your understanding of yourselves.”

I almost groaned. A group project? Wonderful.

I raised my hand. “Elder Zhu, will there be… something we can earn from this?”

He nodded. “The top three groups will receive points.”

My interest died on the spot. Points were good, but not enough to make me dance on stage. Zhu Bo dismissed us and left the room, leaving everyone to scramble. Internal disciples immediately pulled external disciples into neat little groups. I stayed still. Joining whichever group lacked a member seemed fine. If I ended up alone, I could present something by myself. I wasn’t picky.

A group from the Beast Court gestured for me to join them, but once I noticed their numbers would become uneven, I politely declined. “You’ll be more comfortable working with people you already know,” I said. They didn’t argue.

I waited until the noise settled. Then a woman in white robes approached me. She looked much older than everyone else, with long blue hair tied behind her back and a calm, almost fragile smile. “D-do you not have a group?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Would… would you like to join me?” she asked again, voice soft.

Before agreeing, I asked, “Name? Age? Realm? Gender? Spiritual root? Favorite color?” A simple character check.

She hesitated only in her speech, not in her honesty. “Ding Cai… four thousand three hundred twenty-seven… Soul Recognition… female… muddled spiritual root… and blue.”

She didn’t lie. She only stuttered a little. Her spiritual root was horrible, yet she still reached Soul Recognition. It was impressive, but not as much as her age. When it was my turn, I lied smoothly. “Da Boqi, five hundred years old, Soul Recognition realm, male, yin-yang spiritual root, green.”

Ding Cai’s eyes widened. “A l-legendary spiritual root… and s-so young too. That’s… amazing…”

Well, for a beast, I was young. I barely reached her waist. As for her age, she was ancient for a human cultivator stuck at the Fifth Realm. By my calculations, Soul Realm added anywhere between 1,216 to over 5,000 years of lifespan. She had lived long enough to see eras shift.

“We’re a team then,” I said and cupped my fist.

She returned the gesture with shaky hands. “I-I will do my best.”

I told Ding Cai we would meet again next lecture and cupped my fist. “I’ll go ahead. I still have a few more classes today.”

“S-see you next time…” she replied with a shy nod.

With the points we earned yesterday, I had enough to afford three lectures in total, such as Soul Symbology, Martial Mastery, and Dao Spell Enlightenment. It was a sustainable course load for the long run, assuming nothing tried to kill me in between.

Martial Mastery was held in the training grounds and was surprisingly decent. The lecturer wasn’t some legendary figure, only a master-level martial artist, but he had a steady mind and a solid grasp on theory. He demonstrated footwork patterns, explained their weaknesses, and even corrected a few disciples who tried to show off. The class wasn’t flashy, but it was practical. I liked it.

Dao Spell Enlightenment, however, was a completely different beast. I took it because the name sounded cool, and disciples kept boasting how “easy” it was. Easy my ass. The lecturer was a prick, and she targeted external disciples like a starving wolf. Her questions were absurd, her tone sharp, and she acted as if we were dragging down the entire Heavenly Academy just by breathing her air.

After ten minutes, I realized the naming of the course was a scam. It wasn’t about enlightenment. It was just a general subject about spell usage across different cultivator systems. Something I could’ve read in a book for free. I should’ve chosen Mystical Formation Arrays or Spirits & Mysteries instead. Considering how she treated us external disciples, half the room would likely drop the course by next class.

Her gaze eventually locked on me. I could feel the malice dripping from her stare. “You,” she said, pointing with the tip of her brush, “Da Boqi. Since you are clearly confident enough to remain in this classroom, answer this. Explain how the generalization of spells came to be and list the necessary prerequisites for a spell inspiration.”

Generalization of spells? That wasn’t even a real thing. And judging from her smug smile, she knew it.

I kept my face blank even though irritation churned inside me. I’d seen the difference between internal disciples and everyone else. Internal disciples probably studied spell theory as soon as they touched the Second Realm. Meanwhile, disciples outside relied on whatever scraps their sects allowed them to learn from weapon swings, techniques bought with saved points, and vague scrolls written a long time ago.

“I’ll answer that,” I said calmly. “First, there is no such thing as ‘generalization of spells.’ Whoever strung those words together is an idiot.”

The disciples around me sucked in cold breaths. Even internal disciples straightened up. The lecturer’s smile twitched, but she didn’t lash out, probably because she knew she had made the term up. Sabotaging an external disciple in front of everyone? Yeah, very dignified of her.

I continued before she could twist my words. “As for spell inspiration, it’s just a fancy way of saying ‘inventing a spell.’ The required foundation is simple enough. One, a theoretical framework, such as formations, elements, energies, or whatever system you model your spells on. Two, feasibility. Can it be done under your cultivation, your resources, and your limitations? And three, enlightenment. Without it, you won’t find the gap where a new spell can exist.”

I didn’t even need to think hard for that one. I had lived through Nongmin’s mind before, and the experience helped more than I liked to admit. Some memories were blurry, but the important ones stuck.

The lecturer’s expression tightened. Her fake confidence melted into something much less composed.

She shut her mouth and snapped her brush shut. “Da Boqi,” she said through stiff lips, “meet me in my study after class.”

Oh great. Exactly what I needed.