The Spirit Stream Sect celebrated Bai Xiaochun's fourth-place finish with a feast that lasted three days — which Bai Xiaochun mainly used as an excuse to eat more than usual. His Silver Skin metabolism required constant fueling, and the sect's kitchen had never been so busy.

During the celebration, Elder Sun — the instructor who had pushed him up and down mountains and never once smiled — pulled him aside. The old man's face was as stern as ever, but his eyes held something Bai Xiaochun had never seen there before.

'You did well,' Elder Sun said.

'I got fourth place. That's not winning.'

'You came back alive. All twenty-two Spirit Stream disciples who've competed in the Heavenspan Tournament before you came back dead. You came back alive and placed fourth.' Elder Sun's voice cracked, just slightly. 'That is winning.'

Bai Xiaochun didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. It was the first time he'd let a silence be comfortable instead of filling it with complaints.

That night, he sat in his heavily fortified chamber and looked at his cultivation base. Qi Condensation Level Nine — still technically a beginner by any standard. But his body, shaped by the Undying Live Forever Technique, was something more. The Iron Skin and Silver Skin layers had fused into a composite defense that could absorb nearly sixty percent of all incoming damage. His speed, stamina, and recovery were all at levels that should have belonged to a much higher cultivation realm.

'I'm a weird cultivator,' he told the bronze mirror (which he didn't have, but he'd developed the habit of talking to himself). 'But being weird is better than being dead.'

It had become his personal mantra. Not inspiring, perhaps, but accurate.