Chapter 197 – Over the Summit (III)

Chapter 197

Over the Summit (III)

Right.

Of course, of course he’s some proper-right monster. How else would he have ‘fallen’ into my lap?

Ugh, don’t say it like that…

It’s sort of like a curse that’s trying to wrap itself like a present–oh? You’re an Elder? And your System is dependent on having a bunch of really talented kids? Here! Have all of them! All the talented kids!

Will they suck up all your resources? Yes. Will you often feel so inadequate because there’s quite literally nothing you can teach them? Oh, will you ever.

Will–

Aah. I don’t have the energy for this. I’m tired and tapped out, and I just know this kid ain’t going anywhere.

The crowd dispersed soon after, and, before I knew it, I was alone with my thoughts yet again. In fairness, I feel like I’ve been constantly swimming in my head for the past year, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy.

Feeling somewhat bored and having already set aside the night to break through, I left the drafty house and took a walk along the castle’s edge. I could see permafrost just barely scraping up against the topmost edges, and I just had to wonder how people survived winters in this place. Did they just all bundle within the barracks and never leave them?

Probably.

A lot of things about this world confound me, but there are also those anchors that pull me back–the principle of recognizing the familiar.

The struggle, it seems, is the same. As is the divide. Who was born where, in whatever circumstances, seems to determine the outcome of life here as much as it did back on Earth, perhaps even more in some cases.

What if Light had been born a couple of decades earlier? She’d be a grown woman now, if she were even alive, perhaps out there seeking vengeance.

What if Long Tao reincarnated a year earlier than I arrived here?

What if Dai Xiu and Hua just… never ran away?

None of them would be here with me, and I may have had a whole other assortment of kids waiting on my every word. And yet, I feel, if only they’d been born in slightly better circumstances… there’d be no need for me at all.

They’d be in want of nothing.

I stopped at one of the decrepit staircases and slowly made my way up to the wall. The evening was surprisingly clear, with the fog having lifted, offering a fairly vast-encompassing view of the rugged mountains.

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Nature here, too, seemed strangely unconquered. Just as we’d learned to utilize it, so did folk here, but its whims and wiles seem equally… vast.

Haah.

There I go again.

Just… thinking.

It never does me any good, honestly. It always seems to depress me one way or another, and I have to claw my way out of the sewage pipes I’ve built. Alas, there’s no time for it today.

I’m taking a big step, perhaps the biggest I will in my life in this world, and nothing can stand as a distraction.

I’m becoming a proper cultivator, warts and all.

No longer just a husk force-fed a thousand pills… but something that may actually result in a good outcome.