Chapter 17: "The Superior Evan of Tomorrow"
(Featuring Emotional Breakthroughs and Surprise Mentor Talks)
You'd think that after dying, like, two dozen times in a row, I'd be curled up in a corner somewhere humming lullabies to myself and rocking gently.
Instead, I was chilling—literally floating—in a glowing golden spiritual-energy bath like I was in a really bougie spa run by an ancient cultivator therapist who also happened to be one of the most terrifyingly powerful people I'd ever met.
Let me explain.
After surviving my final round of "Die Hard: Seven-Year-Old Edition," Asterion finally yanked me out of his weird mental flashback world and let me collapse onto the softest couch I've ever known.
I'm not saying it was heaven, but if heaven had a guest lobby, this couch would be in it.
Then he dunked me into what I can only describe as a soul Jacuzzi.
Golden water.
Floating lotus petals.
Soft humming.
Zero cultivators trying to kill me.
10/10 experience.
Would recommend.
As I sank into the glow, I let out a long sigh. My whole body had that post-battle, post-breakthrough, post-everything jelly feeling.
And not the gross kind of jelly.
The good kind.
Like your muscles just turned into warm pudding.
"Better?" Asterion asked, sitting nearby like a relaxed meditation instructor who could probably split a mountain if someone annoyed him enough.
"Oh yeah," I groaned. "This stuff is amazing. What is it? Spiritual-energy bubble bath?"
"Close enough."
We sat in comfortable silence for a bit.
Well, I sat.
He did that annoying thing where people meditate and don't seem to need gravity or furniture.
Show-off.
Then, before I could stop my brain from flapping its mouth, I said:
"So... traps. Kinda underrated."
Asterion opened one eye.
"Only now you've realized that?"
"Hey, I got there eventually."
"After twenty-seven deaths."
"Details."
He chuckled.
"Yeah, I do get it," I admitted, splashing lazily. "After, you know, being drowned, stabbed, thrown into trees, poisoned, set on fire—bitten. Who bites during an assassination?!"
"One of them had lost his weapon."
"That does not make teeth an acceptable backup!"
Asterion's mouth twitched.
"Apparently he disagreed."
"Anyway."
I floated a little deeper into the bath, watching the golden glow swirl around my fingers.
"What I'm saying is… I finally understand. Traps save lives. I was always thinking, 'just punch the problem!' But now? I see the value of a well-placed tripwire and a spicy surprise talisman."
Asterion nodded.
"Preparation lets the weak fight the strong. Terrain, traps, information, timing. Strength matters, but relying on strength alone is a good way to die to someone smarter than you."
"And let's be honest," I said, raising a hand. "I am very clever."
Asterion looked at me.
I lowered my hand slightly.
"Occasionally."
He kept looking.
"Accidentally?"
"There we are."
I splashed water at him.
He didn't even move.
The water curved around him.
Show-off.
Then I went quiet.
"Also... confidence."
Asterion glanced over.
"I kept dying because I didn't believe I could survive. I hesitated. Panicked. Kept looking for some perfect solution."
I stared at the glowing water.
"But you didn't have one."
"No."
"You were seven. You were scared. You were weaker than both of them."
"Considerably."
"But you still acted."
Asterion's expression shifted.
Not sad.
Not exactly.
Just quieter.
"I didn't believe I was stronger than them, Evan."
I looked at him.
"I believed I had to survive."
That landed differently.
Asterion continued.
"They weren't hunting me because of something I'd done. Their family wanted to weaken mine. Killing a child was simply another way to do it."
I frowned.
"That's messed up."
"Yes."
"You say that way too calmly."
"It happened a very long time ago."
"Still messed up."
"Also yes."
I sank a little deeper into the water.
"So confidence isn't thinking you're going to win."
"No."
"It's knowing you're scared and doing something anyway."
Asterion nodded.
"Exactly."
I floated there for a long moment, letting that settle.
"Think I can borrow some of yours?"
"No."
I stared at him.
"Wow. Inspirational."
"You don't need mine."
His tone softened slightly.
"You're already building your own."
My stomach did this weird flip.
Not fear.
Not nerves.
Something else.
Something suspiciously like hope.
And then my brain—true to form—ruined the moment.
"Okay, but do you have any tips on not accidentally triggering your own traps? Because I feel like I'm one mistimed sneeze away from self-detonation."
Asterion smiled.
"That's what next week is for."
I froze.
"...Next week?"
"Advanced traps."
I groaned and sank beneath the golden water with a bubble-filled sigh.
Great.
Next week I get to blow myself up professionally.
So, after the golden spiritual bath of the immortals—which I'm petitioning to have installed in every high school across America, by the way—things took a turn.
Not a bad turn.
Just…
One of those uh oh, this is about to get real turns.
You know when someone goes quiet for a little too long and suddenly you're like:
Oh no. They're about to say something meaningful, and I am Not Emotionally Ready™.
Asterion had gone silent.
For someone who usually carried himself like nothing in the universe was worth getting worked up over, it was unsettling.
He just sat there, hands resting loosely on his knees, eyes closed.
Then he spoke.
"Evan."
Uh-oh.
"Can we talk about the thing you keep avoiding?"
My stomach dropped.
You know the feeling you get when you realize someone's read your emotional diary even though you never wrote one?
Yeah.
That.
He didn't really need me to answer.
"You've spent a long time comparing yourself to your family."
Oof.
"Your father is strong. Your mother is brilliant. Lena seems to know exactly what she's doing with her life."
He opened his eyes.
"And somewhere along the way, you decided that because you weren't already exceptional, there was no point trying to become exceptional."
The truth hit like a gut punch made of ice.
Because...
Yeah.
I had felt that way.
Still did sometimes.
It wasn't that I didn't want to be someone.
It was just…
Every time I tried, it felt like I was tripping over my own feet while everyone else ran ahead like they were born knowing how to win.
"I thought if I just stayed out of the way," I muttered, "no one would notice I wasn't good enough."
Asterion was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"When I was young, my family wasn't special."
I looked up.
Asterion rarely talked about himself.
"We were cultivators, but ordinary ones. No ancient bloodline. No great clan standing behind us. No inheritance that guaranteed anything."
He glanced toward the golden water.
"And my childhood wasn't easy."
The forest flashed through my mind.
A seven-year-old boy running through rain and mud while people from another family hunted him because killing him would hurt his family.
"I spent years traveling," he continued. "Learning wherever I could. Fighting people stronger than me. Losing. Getting back up. Meeting cultivators who had been given advantages I couldn't have dreamed of."
"So you felt inferior?"
Asterion gave me a dry look.
"I was inferior."
I blinked.
He shrugged.
"At the time."
Okay.
Fair.
"I wasn't born Sect Head, Evan. I didn't wake up one morning as the strongest man in the Heavenly Flame Sect."
His expression became distant.
"I earned that position over a very long time. And when the clans finally acknowledged me, it wasn't because of where I came from."
He tapped his chest.
"It was because of what I had become."
I swallowed.
That sounded...
Way too relevant.
Then he continued.
"My brother struggled with something similar."
"Your brother?"
Asterion nodded.
"We grew up together. Same family. Same starting point."
His expression changed slightly.
"He was capable. Strong, in his own way."
"But?"
Asterion looked at me.
"But I kept moving ahead."
I stayed quiet.
"At first, it was small. I learned faster. Won fights he lost. Reached stages before he did."
His voice was calm, but there was something underneath it now.
"Then I traveled. Became stronger. Came back with accomplishments people talked about."
He looked away.
"And eventually, I became Sect Head."
I could already see where this was going.
"People compared him to you."
"Constantly."
There was no pride in the answer.
"He stopped simply being himself. To many people, he became Asterion's younger brother."
Ouch.
"They'd praise him, then mention me. Criticize him, then mention me. Ask why he hadn't reached my level."
Asterion gave a faint sigh.
"Even his successes were measured against mine."
My chest tightened.
"What did you do?"
"For too long?"
Asterion looked down at his hands.
"Not enough."
That surprised me.
"I thought he understood. Thought that because we were brothers, he knew I respected him."
Asterion's mouth tightened slightly.
"But respect you never express can be difficult for someone else to feel."
I didn't say anything.
"He lived in my shadow for years."
That phrase hit hard.
Asterion continued.
"And I didn't realize how heavy that shadow had become until much later."
I swallowed.
"Did he hate you?"
"No."
Asterion answered immediately.
"That almost made it worse."
He gave a faint smile.
"He loved me. Supported me. Was proud of me."
Then the smile faded.
"And sometimes resented me."
That felt...
Real.
"Both things can exist at once."
I stared at the water.
"Yeah."
"Eventually, I learned to stop expecting him to walk my road."
Asterion looked directly at me.
"He wasn't me."
Then:
"And he never needed to be."
There it was.
"He needed the chance to become himself without constantly wondering whether he measured up to his brother."
Asterion's gaze sharpened slightly.
"So do you."
I didn't say anything.
"You don't need to become Garrick. Or Selene. Or Lena."
Then came the slight smile.
"And becoming me would be impossible, obviously."
I stared.
There he was.
"Was that really necessary?"
"Completely."
I splashed him again.
The water avoided him again.
I was beginning to hate that trick.
Then his expression softened.
"You need to become Evan."
I looked away.
"That's not exactly impressive."
"Not yet."
My head snapped back toward him.
Asterion smiled.
"But that's rather the point, isn't it?"
I couldn't help it.
I laughed.
Then the words settled.
Maybe I didn't have to keep dragging around that old weight of not good enough.
Maybe I didn't have to live in someone else's shadow.
Because I wasn't supposed to become them.
I was building something else.
Something mine.
Asterion leaned back slightly.
"The Evan sitting here today is better than the Evan I met."
"That's a low bar."
"Extremely."
"Wow."
"But tomorrow's Evan should be better than today's."
I looked at him.
"And the day after?"
"Better again."
I smiled.
"The Superior Evan of Tomorrow."
Asterion stared at me for a second.
"That sounds ridiculous."
"It's my motivational title."
"It needs work."
"You're just jealous."
"I'm nearly a thousand years old."
"Exactly. You're past your branding prime."
Asterion laughed.
For once, I didn't argue with the lesson itself.
I just nodded.
Okay, so there I was.
Emotionally raw.
Spiritually lighter.
Freshly crowned as The Superior Evan of Tomorrow.
Pretty cool title, right?
Rolls off the tongue.
Asterion disagrees.
His opinion is wrong.
But before I could get too caught up in my new era of growth and self-belief, Asterion stood and clapped his hands once.
"Good."
I immediately became suspicious.
"Good what?"
"We've dealt with your emotions."
"That sounds ominous."
"Now we're going back to traps."
I stared.
"Right now?"
"Yes."
Then he smiled.
"And explosives."
Okay.
That got my attention.
And that's how I found myself in our shared mental world, standing in the middle of what looked like the most dangerous playground ever invented.
Open fields full of wooden training dummies.
Targets painted with smug faces just begging to be hit.
Wires.
Trigger formations.
Smoke talismans.
Flash talismans.
And—oh yeah—an entire rack of things that looked extremely capable of turning me into modern art.
Asterion tossed me a pouch.
"Catch."
I barely caught it.
Inside were small throwing blades fitted with red-marked talismans.
I turned one over in my hand.
Yep.
Definitely explosive.
"You sure about this?" I asked, very aware that therapy through explosives was not standard medical practice back home.
"Completely."
"You don't seem concerned that I've already killed myself twenty-seven times today."
"Those didn't count."
"THEY COUNTED TO ME."
Asterion ignored that.
"Explosives are useful. Traps are useful. But only if you're not the idiot standing inside your own blast radius."
"...That feels targeted."
"It is."
So we got started.
First, Asterion demonstrated.
No dramatic speech.
No fancy pose.
He simply flicked one of the throwing blades.
BOOM.
One dummy exploded into splinters.
Before the pieces even hit the ground, Asterion sent two more blades in different directions.
The first triggered a wire formation.
A net snapped upward.
The second struck the ground beside it.
Smoke erupted across the field.
Three targets vanished inside it.
Then—
THUD. THUD. THUD.
All three fell.
I stared.
Asterion turned toward me.
"Your turn."
"That's it? No explanation?"
"You were watching."
"I was watching you casually commit war crimes against furniture!"
"Then you should have learned something."
I hate it when he does that.
I grabbed a throwing blade.
Channeled my inner action hero.
Threw.
Missed.
Completely.
It sailed past the target and detonated in the dirt.
BOOM.
The blast threw dust directly into my face.
Asterion covered his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes.
"Are you laughing?"
"No."
"You absolutely are."
"Again."
The second throw hit the target.
Unfortunately, I had thrown it from much too close.
BOOM.
I went flying backward into a bush.
Silence.
Then Asterion's voice:
"Excellent demonstration."
I groaned from inside the leaves.
"Of what?"
"Why distance matters."
"Glad I could contribute to science."
By the fifth attempt, I'd smoked myself out twice, tripped over my own wire, and somehow managed to stick an explosive talisman to the back of my shirt.
Asterion removed that one before it detonated.
Barely.
I pointed at him.
"You waited."
"I knew there was enough time."
"You waited!"
"You'll remember to check yourself now."
He had a point.
I hated that he had a point.
But slowly...
I improved.
Throw.
Move.
Watch.
Think.
Don't stand where the explosion happens.
Very important lesson, that last one.
Eventually, I managed to hit a target, trigger a second trap behind it, roll away before the blast, and use the smoke to hide my movement.
I came up from the roll grinning.
"HA!"
Asterion raised an eyebrow.
"Acceptable."
"Acceptable?! That was awesome!"
"It was adequate."
"You smiled!"
"I did not."
"You did!"
Asterion picked up another explosive blade.
"Would you like to continue arguing?"
I immediately took cover.
"Point taken!"
And soon, we were running across the field.
Well—
I was running across the field.
Asterion mostly walked around like explosions were mildly interesting weather.
I threw smoke talismans.
He corrected my angles.
I triggered traps.
He pointed out the three different ways I'd accidentally left myself open to getting stabbed.
I blew a dummy's head so high into the air that I actually cheered.
Asterion looked up at it.
Then at me.
"You're enjoying this far too much."
"You gave a teenage boy explosives. What did you expect?"
"Better judgment."
"That was your first mistake."
He laughed.
And you know what?
It was fun.
Real, genuine fun.
Yeah, I was still figuring myself out.
Yeah, I still had doubts and fears and the occasional existential crisis.
But right there?
Running around a mental battlefield, learning how not to accidentally vaporize myself while an ancient Sect Head alternated between teaching me and making fun of my terrible aim?
I was having fun.
With someone who believed in me.
And somehow...
That made all the difference.