The pavilion overlooking the Spirit Lake had not changed in three hundred years.
Nova Solis knew this because he'd cleaned it approximately 109,500 times—once every day, without fail, for three centuries.
The same white jade tiles. The same purple wisteria vines crawling up obsessively symmetrical columns. The same stone tea table where the Sect Leader sat, one pale hand propping her chin, legs crossed with imperial laziness.
Luna Ophelia had not aged a day since Nova first arrived at the Black Tide Sect.
Nova, on the other hand, looked like death warmed over.
"Old servant."
Her voice cut through the evening air, soft and distant. Luna didn't look at him as she spoke, her gaze fixed somewhere past the artificial lake, where mist coiled like serpents over black water.
"You've been here how long now? Two hundred years? Three?"
"Three hundred years, Sect Leader." Nova's voice came out dry, like wind through dead leaves. He knelt on one knee before her, his joints protesting with audible cracks. "This servant entered your service when he was ten years old."
"Three hundred." Luna repeated the number absently, as if she'd just remembered an appointment she'd missed. "That's... quite a long time, isn't it?"
Nova said nothing. The answer was self-evident.
"Your lifespan is ending." Luna finally turned to look at him, and there was no malice in her eyes—just a kind of detached curiosity, the way one might observe a wilting flower. "You're what, three hundred and ten now? Most Qi Refining cultivators don't last this long."
Nova's appearance didn't quite match his age. His face, though lined with three centuries of weariness, still held the ghost of handsomeness—strong cheekbones, a well-defined jaw, eyes that hadn't completely lost their clarity. He looked perhaps seventy or eighty years old, distinguished even, if one ignored the trembling in his hands and the way his breathing came shallow and labored.
It was his life force that was failing, not his body. His qi reserves had withered to nearly nothing, like a river reduced to its last trickle before running dry.
"This servant has been... stubborn, Sect Leader."
"Mm." Luna's attention had already drifted back to the lake. "I suppose you have."
A pause stretched between them. Nova felt sweat bead on his forehead despite the cool evening air. Three centuries of service had taught him to read Luna Ophelia's moods, and right now, she seemed... elsewhere. Distracted. Already thinking about whatever cultivation insight she'd return to once this conversation ended.
"Before you go," Luna said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to her, "do you have any regrets? Any... what do mortals call them... final wishes?"
Generous. The word felt foreign when applied to Luna Ophelia.
The Sect Leader of the Black Tide Sect wasn't cruel, exactly. She didn't torture servants for fun or execute disciples on whims. The sect itself, despite its demonic cultivation methods, didn't slaughter innocents or burn villages for resources. They were ruthless to their enemies, yes, but that was the way of the cultivation world.
No, Luna wasn't cruel.
She was simply... absent. Disconnected. As if mortals like Nova existed in a different realm entirely, too far below her notice to really matter.
Still, Nova was three hundred and ten years old, his dantian was as dry as a desert, and his life force was guttering like a candle in a hurricane. If this was his last chance to die with even a shred of dignity...
"This old servant..." Nova's throat worked. "This old servant has served faithfully for three centuries. He has no attachments left in this world, no family to mourn him. But if this servant may be so bold... he has one shameful regret."
"Hmm?" Luna glanced at him, mildly interested. "Go on."
Nova's face warmed with humiliation, but he forced the words out anyway. "This servant... has never known a woman. At his age, facing death, he dares to request... a companion. For his final days."
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then Luna blinked, as if processing something mildly surprising. "Oh. That's... I see."
Her lips curved into a small, bemused smile—not mocking, just vaguely entertained by the unexpectedness of it.
"You've maintained that face all these years, so I suppose it's not completely unreasonable." She tapped her finger against the stone table thoughtfully. "Three hundred years of service, and that's your dying wish? Not cultivation resources, not a technique manual, just... that?"
"..." Nova kept his head bowed, his face burning.
Truthfully, he wasn't sure. But this was a cultivation world, and even at Qi Refining, his body had undergone enough tempering that certain... functions... might still be viable. Maybe. Possibly.
He'd rather die trying than die a virgin.
"Fine." Luna waved her hand absently. "I'll arrange something. One of the outer sect disciples should suffice—someone who won't mind the task." She paused, already standing. "Consider it done."
There was no malice in her voice, no cruel jest. She'd simply accepted the request the way one might agree to water a plant before leaving on a long journey—a small, forgettable task.
Nova's heart skipped a beat. "This servant thanks the Sect Leader for her mercy."
"Mm." Luna was already walking toward the Lotus Palace, her purple robes swirling like smoke. She glanced back briefly. "Oh, and try not to die inside the palace grounds. It's troublesome to clean."
The ice-blue crystalline doors slid shut behind her with a soft whisper.
Nova remained kneeling for a long moment, listening to his own labored breathing.
Three hundred years, he thought bitterly. Three hundred years of this.
The walk back to his servant's quarters took longer than it should have.
Nova's legs felt like lead, each step a negotiation with his failing body. The sun had begun its descent, painting the Black Tide Sect's obsidian towers in shades of blood and shadow.
As he shuffled past the training grounds, a group of outer sect disciples pointed and whispered. Nova heard the words "ancient relic" and "still alive?" followed by laughter.
He kept walking. What was the point of anger now?
Back in his quarters—a room barely larger than a closet, with a sleeping mat and a small altar he'd built himself—Nova collapsed onto the floor and stared at the ceiling.
His mind drifted, as it often did these days, to the beginning.
"System, activate!"
Nova was fifteen years old, still young enough to have hope, still naive enough to believe the world owed him something.
Five years had passed since his parents sold him to the Black Tide Sect. Five years since they'd looked at him with apologetic eyes and explained that his spiritual veins were too poor, that they couldn't afford to feed another mouth, that the sect at least offered him a chance at survival.
He remembered his mother crying. His father refusing to meet his eyes.
He remembered thinking: it's fine. I'm a transmigrator. I'll get my golden finger soon and show them all.
But five years had passed, and nothing had come.
He'd been cleaning the Sect Leader's personal study when he suddenly remembered all the transmigration stories from his previous life. The protagonists always had systems, golden fingers, cheat abilities that descended from the heavens at the perfect moment.
He'd waited five years. Surely his was just... delayed?
"System, activate!" he whispered again, louder this time, his heart hammering with desperate hope.
Nothing.
He tried variations. Different words, different tones, different activation phrases he'd memorized from novels he'd read in his past life.
"System initialization!"
"Menu, open!"
"Status window!"
"Inventory access!"
"Commence golden finger protocol!"
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
The silence was deafening.
Nova remembered sinking to the floor of that study, surrounded by ancient cultivation manuals he couldn't understand, texts on pill refinement and formation arrays that might as well have been gibberish, and feeling something break inside him.
The system wasn't coming.
There was no golden finger.
No old grandfather living in a ring.
No ancient inheritance waiting to be discovered.
Just him. Average, talentless, sold by his own parents because he wasn't worth the rice it took to feed him.
Just Nova Solis, alone.
The memory faded as Nova found himself back at his quarters, the small stone building that sat just outside the Lotus Palace's gardens.
Inside, the space was modest but meticulously organized—a sleeping mat aligned perfectly parallel to the wall, a small altar with incense sticks arranged by height, cleaning supplies stored in obsessively categorized rows.
Three hundred years of accumulated... nothing.
Nova sat on his sleeping mat and waited.
The Sect Leader had promised him a woman. Tonight, supposedly. Someone to ease his final days, to grant him that one sliver of human dignity before death claimed him.
He waited through sunset.
He waited through twilight.
He waited as the moon rose high and cold above the Lotus Palace, its ice-blue petals reflecting silver light like frozen tears.
No one came.
By the time dawn broke, Nova understood.
She'd forgotten.
Or more likely, she'd never intended to follow through in the first place. Just another cruel jest from Luna Ophelia, another reminder that even his dying wishes were meaningless to her.
Nova stood, his joints protesting, and began his morning routine. There was still work to be done after all.
The Lotus Palace didn't clean itself.
Seven days later, Nova stood at the palace entrance, the setting sun painting long shadows across immaculately polished floors.
His entire body ached. The seven days of cleaning had nearly killed him—each surface of the Lotus Palace scrubbed to perfection, each corner swept clean of even the smallest grain of dust, every scroll aligned with geometric precision that would make a mathematician weep.
The ice-blue crystal petals gleamed in the fading light, flawless and cold.
His OCD wouldn't allow anything less, even at death's door.
The palace was perfect. Flawless. Ready for whatever came next.
Nova leaned against a pillar, his breathing labored.
Something nagged at him. Something he was forgetting.
His enhanced memory—that useless gift from his Qi Refining breakthrough two and a half centuries ago—helpfully replayed Luna's words with perfect clarity: "I'll grant you a woman. Consider it done."
Nova's eyes widened.
Seven days.
Seven days of waiting, cleaning, hoping.
And no one had come.
"That bitch," Nova whispered, then immediately clamped his mouth shut, looking around nervously.
But no—that wasn't fair. Luna wasn't cruel. She was just... forgetful. Distracted. To someone who'd lived for over a thousand years and would likely live for thousands more, a promise made to a dying servant was probably less memorable than what she'd eaten for breakfast.
It didn't make it hurt less, but it wasn't personal.
Nothing with Luna ever was.
But Luna was in her palace, deep in seclusion.
And Nova was alone with his realization.
She'd played him. Again. After three hundred years, she'd found one more way to twist the knife, to remind him that he was nothing, that his wishes meant nothing, that even his dying request was just another source of her amusement.
Something hot and terrible rose in Nova's chest.
It wasn't quite rage—he was too tired for rage.
It was something colder. Harder. Three centuries of accumulated done.
His legs moved before his brain caught up.
Nova Solis, three hundred and ten years old, body like dry kindling, cultivation base barely above mortal, walked directly toward Luna Ophelia's private chambers.
He was going to give that woman a piece of his mind.
Even if it killed him.
Actually, especially if it killed him.