Priority

Niu Chang calmed down his thoughts and no longer paid attention to the normal plot that might happen.

"What is it?" Niu Chang asked softly.

His treatment for this teenage girl will not change, even if she somehow revealed the fact she was an heavenly empress, Niu Chang would only feel joy for seeing such unexpected turn of event but then he would lose his interest.

"I… want to ask about something if it is okay with you, savior." Towards the end of her words, the teenage girl's voice became weaker.

"Speak up properly, didn't I already tell you before to not be limited by anything? What are you worrying about speaking with that weak voice? Did you not have any breakfast this morning?"

The girl wanted to reply, but didn't dare to. She could only comment in her heart: "Yes, I don't have any breakfast at all, the last meal I had was last night. But since last night the bandit never let go of me and I was really hungry and tired."

But after considering that not answering Niu Chang was wrong, she could only nod her head.

Knowing his joke was not right for the situation, Niu Chang chose to be oblivious to it and continue talking. "You can eat if you want after this. This bandit hideout should keep food for their own consumption."

But the teenage girl was still silent with submissive posture.

"Ask away your question."

After receiving the permission, the teenage girl followed Niu Chang's advice and tried her best to not look weak.

"Savior, you said to not be limited by anything and restricted by anything. But I don't think I can do such things. If it is only limited to using violence towards my enemies, I still can do it. But when it is about myself, I don't know if I can do it or not."

"Just that? Are you feeling uncomfortable because of such a ridiculous reason?"

Hearing Niu Chang reply and an unchanging tone. The teenage girl felt she was wrong but when she recalled the previous advice, she didn't completely surrender immediately.

This was the reason why Niu Chang lost interest in the first place. She was still holding on to the chain that restricted her freedom of mind.

It was not the chain itself the main problem but because she held it around her body, this chain wouldn't get loose no matter how hard she tried.

Only by ignoring everything she had learned would she be able to let go of this binding chain.

To confront the teaching of good and evil, letting go of the normal way of thinking, and liberating oneself from the secular world could one become a free being.

But someone whose freedom was too high, naturally wouldn't be accepted by society.

They didn't care about any rules and regulations, between them and their goal nothing matters.

To the world they were demons. But for them, the world was too small.

"Yes, I really don't know what to do now, savior. Please give me some guidance."

"It's simple." Niu Chang now felt something good would happen. "Think about the most valuable and important thing that you have right now. It can be your life, your parents, your possessions, anything that you think sacrificing your life for will be worth it."

The teenage girl listened quietly, she then began to think about the thing she treasured the most.

At first she thought it was Niu Chang that she treasured the most. The most important thing in her life.

'Savior is the one who saved me from the hands of the bandit, he also helped me in taking revenge. I also admired him from the bottom of my heart, but… if it is something that I can give my life for… it feels somewhat wrong.'

She raised her head in confusion, she stared at the casual and nonchalant Niu Chang who hung a kind smile on his face.

'Although I really admired the savior and will do anything for him, it's still not enough for me since I still have doubts about his words!'

The teenage girl's heart was in turmoil trying her best to look for the most important thing in her life.

'Wait- in my life? Is it my life that I treasured the most?'

She shook her head, 'after encountering the savior and watching his action. I don't think this life is too important, at least not right now.'

'Then what is it?'

Suddenly she got an inspiration for the answer. 'It's like what the savior said before! The answer is the reason why I feel comfortable even though I really admired the savior from the bottom of my heart but still unable to completely follow his advice.'

Her eyes brightened up and she felt proud of herself. "Savior, I think I know the answer."

She was waiting for Niu Chang to say something, but he didn't say or do anything. So she continued. "It was my heart! The source of my uncomfortable feeling is my heart. My heart feels conflicted when I think about doing something that I have never done before."

"Savior, what do I need to do to solve this problem?" She asked excitedly.

Niu Chang increased his smile power by three points. "The method is simple. What do you do when you find a chain restricting your body?"

"I… unbind them and throw them away?" After slight hesitation she answered.

"Yes, just throw them away."

"But how do I throw my heart away?"

"You confused your physical heart with your mental heart. Since you can't throw it away, you only need to not care about it anymore. The discomfort is that your heart was conflicted with your thought because you care more about your heart instead of our thought."

The teenage girl gets an idea of what Niu Chang said. She then tried to convince herself to ignore the voice of her heart but she ran into a problem.

'The voice of my heart is also what I want. If I want something naturally it comes from my heart. Why is it becoming contradictory now?'

The puzzlement in her mind reflected on her troubled face.

"Savior, I feel contradictions in your words. It's not that I doubt your teaching, but can you help me to enlighten me?"

"Sure, no problem. Listen carefully, we, humans, have something called heart. When this heart says something is good then we tend to accept it and follow it and when the heart says something is bad we tend to hate it and object to it. But we are born with a clean and untainted heart, so who defines which is good and which is bad? Who is right and who is wrong?"

Niu Chang put his hands on his back and raised his head to a perfect angle looking at the sky.

"As a baby naturally you learn from your parents, but from whom did your parents learn about this? They learn from their parents and this continues to be the root of humanity. If so, this root would end up in one point and this one point definition of good and bad naturally the best answer of this question. But, this first human, who gives him the right to define what is good and what is bad?"

"By having a heart that makes us human, if there is no heart we wouldn't be different from plants and animals. But if we choose to be emotionless and detached from any emotions, our hearts will turn cold, at this point even animals would be better than cold-hearted humans."

"Because animals still have the heart of an animal. So when the heart turns cold and no longer different from dead thing, you will be no longer from a rock and a lump of feces."

"So you need to have a delicate balance which only you can know. One of its methods is to place priority in your heart, as long as you put your priority right. The contradictory feeling will no longer be a problem."

"Now tell me, what is the number one priority in your heart?" Niu Chang turned his head and looked at the teenage girl who was in awe.

When Niu Chang realized it, he felt that what he taught was actually the great dao.

'I teach her to not be bothered by anything but also need to maintain her heart from getting cold and dead. If this is not the true way of immortal cultivation what else?'

'The righteous path teaches their disciples about morals and rules behind the gate. But when they encounter treasure of heaven and earth, they would be the one to bare their fangs and reveal their true face. What they taught was the dao of hypocrisy.'

'The demonic path on the other hand teaches their disciples the cold embrace of this world and turns their heart into a cold and dead one. What they taught was the dao of feces, since they are no different from the heartless feces.'

'This… my teaching is good and proper, should I just open a sect and teach others about the great dao of self-sufficient?'

Self-sufficient was the word that came into Niu Chang's mind. Although what he taught to the teenage girl was only the mentality part, not yet the part of techniques and other parts. Niu Chang already could see everything laid down in front of him.

Self-sufficient meant the heart didn't bother with outside temptation but also didn't reject it completely. Since the heart is now already on the correct path, the only problem left naturally is to increase the cultivation level.

What is the source of every conflict? It is the interest of each party.

Cultivation resources were limited, because of this scarcity there was competition. Information, land, materials and people.

But Niu Chang's dao of self-sufficiency didn't bother with any of these resources.

If the disciple didn't have any good potential just made a tailor made cultivation technique that suited them the most. Bottleneck never about the potential of their physical body but about their mind.

As long as they were creative enough to find a way to bypass the bottleneck, naturally there was no need for resources. Only with a strong heart and not narrow-minded thinking, immortality was only about time.

After pondering what Niu Chang's said, the teenage girl finally was able to move on from her problem and walked farther in her thinking. She looked at Niu Chang, the uncomfortable and contradiction in her heart already melted away and replaced with new feeling which she didn't understand.

'I admire the savior so much, he… can become number one priority in my heart at any moment now, but why do I feel something preventing me from doing it?'

'What is this feeling? Instead of prioritizing the savior at the top of my heart, I actually want something else. My heart beats faster when I try to think about it.'

'I… I want to follow the savior… but I also want him to look at me.'

The increased heart rate only disturbed her confused mind. The surge of heat crawled across her face and painted it red.

The feeling of adoration and admiration conflicted directly with the sense of yearning. One was to offer one's life for the other party without wanting anything while the other one was to ask the other party's attention.

After thinking about Niu Chang's character, the teenage girl tried to compromise about her main priority. 'Since the savior told me to increase my strength and after I reach the limit I can ask him for the next step. I don't know what the savior goal is, but if I have enough strength I should be able to help him and stay on his side.'

'But what about the savior's goal?'

The hesitation only appeared for a moment before finally disappearing, the previous weak and timid already learnt her lesson and respectfully asked the question.

"Savior, may I know what your goal is?"

The voice was not submissive or too casual, but respectful. Niu Chang felt the change in temparent from the teenage girl and guessed she already solved her problem.

"I will tell you after you complete what I told you before." Niu Chang said softly, but in his heart he was rather careful. 'No way I will be so open with a stranger, what if she causes a problem and harms me, what if some regressor knows about me and brings more problems.'

Even with his virtually invincible system, Niu Chang didn't forget his roots. Always be careful and steady.

The teenage girl didn't seem sad or depressed, but she smiled instead, a big and bright one on top of that.

'The savior didn't reject me directly! There is a chance for me to follow him!'