Clouded Soul - Fangzhi Jun Profile

Fangzhi Jun

18 at journey’s start, Human

Appearance- above average height, shoulder length black hair, a peaceful expression, clear, grayish eyes, fairly muscled

Personality- Wise beyond his years in some regards, woefully naive in others. Honorable and just. Motivated and driven. Admittedly lustful due to his circumstances growing up and some slightly comical repressed older sister issues, but he's laid back about it and not a gaping pervert.

Aspect- Justice

Affinities- Power, Protection

Overview- Fangzhi Jun, son of wealthy merchant Fangzhi Ping, was born in Shimmering Bay on the island of Little Haven. His mother died in childbirth. Had a much older sister, Fangzhi Mei.

Jun was a happy, curious child who showed a knack for refinement at a young age. As his father dealt in trading alchemical products from the mainland, his talents were nurtured beginning from his fifth birthday. He only practiced for one year, as an unfortunate incident occurred shortly after his sixth birthday. His father sold an elixir to a man named Sasei Li, promising it would help his son with his next advancement. Li is the head of a branch family of a greater clan back in the Emerald Expanse, so he considered himself a very big deal. His son, Sasei Shan, didn't follow the instructions and it resulted in a temporary chi blockage. Li demanded recompense and Ping was quick to offer such, but it wouldn't satisfy him unless the punishment was dramatic.

Since Li's son's advancement was halted, so too will Ping's. Li has his thugs hold down Jun and he, a Clouded Master, delivers a chi strike to Jun’s heart, injecting a sliver of his own chi into it. Against an adult with a trained soul, this would result in a temporary blockage, but on a child it devastates his chi network leaving him one step above a cripple. He can move a little bit, but even crossing his room leaves him short of breath and pain radiates out from his heart at frequent intervals.

Sasei Shan is present for this as well and it might seem at first like he's complicit, but I'd rather do something more interesting than the arrogant young master thing and have him show uncertainty. Will still be an adversary/rival, but it's mostly to please his father until Jun defeats him and breaks those chains.

Curing this would be simple, but only for a refiner equal or above Sasei Li’s level. Thing is, Little Haven only has a few other Clouded Masters and they either keep to themselves or are not in the market of helping others. It would take extremely rare elixirs and medicines to cure otherwise, things that a small island merchant just can’t afford.

This event ruins the life of the Fangzhi family, as Ping loses himself trying to afford a cure for his beloved son. He sails back and forth across the Threefold Kingdom and journeys across Little Haven itself, trying to cash in on his connections left and right wherever he could, but the answer was very simple. They have nowhere near enough money, and every cure and healer he could afford to send back to Little Haven wasn't enough. Ping ruined his business for funding, before eventually selling off their possessions and home to keep trying.

Ping died after several years of this endless scurrying, a broken and exhausted man who only wanted his son to lead a rich and fulfilling life. Jun was nine at the time.

That left Mei to take care of her younger brother, and without any other option, she joined a brothel. Even from a young age, Jun knew what was up. His sister was constantly exhausted, smelled of perfume, and sometimes walked funny. This kind of left some weird imprints on him that leads to him having a thing for older sister type girls, but that's beside the point. All 3 will be older than him, but only the middle girl is actually in her early 20s. It's more of the older sister vibe that does it for him.

For eleven years, Jun was mostly confined to his bed. At first he had the glass pillars to look out to every day, from his window, but when they lost their mansion, he lost that view, too. The only times he left would be during festivals or when Mei wasn't working, where she would take him out on a wheelchair and make sure he had a good time with what little they could afford. This was another thing that added to his understanding of Mei's circumstances, as whenever they were out, some men often cat called her or gave her funny looks.

Throughout his years of bedridden boredom, Jun went through many stages of deeper thought. He had little else to do, so he meditated to sort out his emotions. It took him years to get past his anger and resentment and finally accept what had happened to him, but it gave him great emotional wisdom. He spent a long time dwelling on the nature of fairness, right and wrong, and so on. He developed a fixation on justice during this time and the idea took hold in him that if he could do it all over again he would train and strive for a just world where the strong don't prey upon the weak and the unfortunate are given equal opportunities as everyone else.

His idea of justice is very situational, but it's not focused on revenge. It's proportional justice and he'll mostly focus on making people reap what they've sown. He's not the Punisher, but he's also not a complete do-gooder and will kill if he's left with no other option or if he believes taking a life is the wisest course of action. Part of that is his massive appreciation for life upon being given a second chance at it. He believes life is beautiful and ending one shouldn't be his first resort.

[ Back onto the plot, when Jun is seventeen, his sister falls ill and it's pretty clear she's not going to make it. Sure enough, she doesn’t, and one of her coworkers drops by to tell him. Left with no other option, Jun becomes a beggar on the streets of Shimmering Bay, somehow winding up living in a trash heap in an alley behind his childhood mansion. It’s not much, but it’s a living. His sister’s friends and some of her clients occasionally take pity on him, but most of his days are spent alone and in deep contemplation as they always were, without any hope for the future.

On one rainy and miserable day, Jun witnesses a nicely dressed man pass out in the street. It takes him great effort and causes tremendous pain, but he manages to drag the man back into his shelter to avoid the rain. He’s drunk as hell and has pissed himself, something Jun can empathize with. He awakens shortly after, thanking the kid.

This is Wufei Ren, a tier 5 Immaculate Soul who’s been stuck at that level for a long time, stagnating after enacting a personal revenge that’ll be detailed in his bio. Jun doesn’t believe the man to be a Sage initially, thinking someone so strong has no business in Little Haven, but Ren casually says he can believe what he wants, saying that immortals get bored and need a change of pace from time to time before shifting the conversation to Jun’s issues.

He asks a lot of leading questions about how Jun probably wants vengeance on the guy who did this to him, but is challenged by Jun’s beliefs and his zeal for justice. Kid keeps surprising him as the conversation drags on and Ren keeps seeing a lot of similarities between himself and Jun, and ends up asking what Jun would do with himself if he was cured. Jun’s simple, humble answer gets to Ren. He just wants to live, train, be with a woman, things like that.

Ren senses more to it though and asks what Jun really wants more than anything else. Jun summons up an answer about building an ideal world where no one has to go through what he did, where the weak are looked after and the strong can’t simply go around doing as they wish without fear of retribution. A world where justice is enforced.

Ren argues with him on the nature of justice and how it means many things to many people, how could Jun enforce his justice with that in mind? True justice should be malleable, and he would strive to be as fair and balanced as he could. What about the guy who crippled him? What would your justice do to him? Would you kill him? Jun doesn’t have an answer, only that justice should be a chance for redemption and not solely an act of judgment.

Impressed by the kid’s emotional wisdom, but Ren says he’d have to be a god to make that kind of world. Jun argues others have done it, why not him? Ren, now interested says, hm, why not indeed? And then casually casually heals Jun. It comes so suddenly that it’s incredibly overwhelming and he realizes Ren wasn’t kidding about being a sage. Jun has an emotional moment, thanking the drunken sage and so on.

Ren is intent on leaving it at that and he gets up to walk away, semi-sarcastically wishing him luck on his refinement on the path to godhood. He has a lot of wasted time to make up for, so he better get on it.

Jun, knowing Ren is a sage, pushes his luck and begs to become his disciple. Ren is blindsided by the lack of dignity and gratitude- he just cured his condition and still he asks for more? Jun knows he will never have a better chance in his life to get stronger, and with the help of a sage he believes he could catch up a lot quicker. He’s stubborn and won’t take no for an answer.

Ren has baggage and doesn’t want to be in charge of anyone ever again, but Jun’s persistence whittles him down until he ultimately agrees under very specific conditions- only until his first rank up to Clouded Apprentice, or until either Ren gets bored of this or Jun gives up. Whichever of the three comes first.

Jun proposes if getting bored of training him is possible, then Ren should entertain himself with the process. Make it as hard as he possibly can. Push him to his limit. This gives Ren a slightly nefarious interest, appealing to his nature as a bored immortal. He realizes it might be fun to see what would happen if he tried to push a beginner to the absolute limits of what is possible. Not as a sadistic thing, but curiosity.

He stresses how he will make his life a living hell, and Jun says anything is better than the hell he’d just returned from. Ren is like no kid I am absolutely going to fuck. you. up. If Jun makes it through he’ll have the foundations set for becoming one of the greatest refiners of this era, but he is very confident that he won’t make it through.

Jun accepts, and the two depart. Ren is conflicted on how this all ended up happening, but at least it might do something for his boredom. ]

In the book, we'll get a couple of montage chapters broken into small chunks like day 1, day 6, etc that showcase his insane spartan training while also his deepening bond with the Sage while also revealing some of the basic refinement lore. Ren gives him a ring that makes it so he only needs an hour of sleep a day and accelerates the growth of his body. A running joke during the montage would be a few scattered attempt to ask the sage about sex refinement and Ren being very intent on not being the one to do the birds and the bees for this weirdly repressed cripple. He will manage to get a few words about spiritual marriage out of Ren though, to set that up for the future. Maybe comically alluding to him having some sacred beast wife out there and how the extra power isn't always worth it.

We would follow a year like this which ends in Jun engraving the Justice Aspect into his soul. Ren is deeply proud of the kid and though he won't admit to it, a measure of humanity came back to him throughout their year together. Still, Ren will not train him further. He passes down some wisdom from his own master, in that the greatest teacher a refiner could ask for is the world itself. Go. Make your way in it and impress me further. Have adventures, grow stronger, live the life you missed out on living... and when you ascend to the rank of Clouded Master, return to Shimmering Bay and unleash your justice on Sasei Li.

Ren will have a few parting gifts for him. The first is the marble ceremony where you test for affinities, which will give Jun the goal of picking up Power and Protection despite the path being twice as hard. The second will be something a little fancy and something he shouldn't show anyone- it's an artifact worth a lot more than any other treasure on this shitty island. It'll be some kind of trinket that summons a nice little house with the explanation that any refiner worth their salt will pick up tons and tons of treasures over their adventures, and he'll need a place to put it all and somewhere to sleep on the road.

Jun would point out he made him sleep out in the wilderness for a year but Ren reminds him he was trying to make him quit. Jun retorts that after a point, that wasn't the case. Ren would smirk and blow him off, not sure what you're talking about. They'd share a moment where Jun wants to meet him again, and Ren is coy about it. He only ever goes where his fortune is favorable, so their paths might never cross again. But hey, maybe they will. Good luck, kid.

One last joke would be when he uses the house for the first time, Jun would discover that Ren left him some scrolls pertaining to sexual refinement, spiritual marriage, and some erotic stories.

From this point on, his adventure would really begin and he sets off to explore the rest of Little Haven to get powerful enough to bring justice to Sasei Li, all while earning the love of three unique girls along the way.