#mygodddd

In the story, we (along with Xavier) were previously from the Lanxing sect. After Xavier left, we (or MC) were already assigned with the task of bringing him back. We failed for two years.

Then, the beginning of the story itself showed that we were given a new task—similar as the first one, but it was to be done with more urgency.

This is the first reveal or example of us having a low agency; we believe that what we want and need to do are similar. After that, Xavier kept on urging us to admit our "true feelings." Do we really want to go back?

Next, Xavier was also mischievous and quite manipulative throughout the story. Ehem. It went from having us buy shaobing for doubting him, to being purposely vague about Lady Rong... the adorable rabbit, to forcing us to wear amazing clothes and jewelry that we think don't fit us, to faking a whole ass injury just so we would compete in his place. 😭

(he was so annoying... affectionately speaking lmao)

While he was initially smug about our irritation of waiting AND reaction to Lady Rong, he eventually invited us to care for her as well (btw this part was sooooo 😭 he had no business being so hot)

The second example of us having a lack of confidence comes here. We declined because we felt like our hands were for swords, not for softer beings (but hey—Xavier's a good example of how we could be both for swords and rabbits!). Though, having tried it out, Lady Rong became comfortable with us in the end. <3 (I could imagine the rabbit and she must be sooooo fluffy and cute!!!)

That night, Xavier also had the songstress buy clothes for us. The third example of our lack of confidence is here—we believe that we aren't made to wear finer things.

bruh 😭

We end up liking it afterwards, despite how new it felt lol.

Then, regarding the injury he faked...

The entire part seemed to be the climax of the story. I actually liked our character as MC here! I was rooting for them (us?) the entire time. If this was a movie, then I would not be surprised to see this part edited to be the most exhilarating and most incredible.

The entire time, Xavier was assuring us that win or lose, we would still be okay. If we win, the credit is ours and he will treat us to roasted pigeon. If we lost, he would take the credit for that AND treat us to roasted pigeon.

I find this part wonderful and encouraging. After all, it is true: winning or losing is not important. The important thing is doing our best and forging friendships, which was what the Sword Discourse Tournament was about in the first place. As the story had mentioned, nobody cared about differences in our backgrounds. Everyone there to compete was there to celebrate what they loved doing: swordfighting.

Outside of that, with more application to real life, it showed that facing our fears to try will help us trust our skills and ourselves eventually. We wouldn't be trapped in a lower self-esteem or lower amount of self-agency otherwise.

Of course, it's a work in progress to gain confidence. A few rounds of doing our best won't necessarily give us a high opinion of ourselves. What it does, however, is let us believe that we could do things for ourselves and allow us to clarify what we want based on the options we have.

In the end, we realized that we could wear finer clothes, care for fluffy rabbits, and fight in tournaments.

We also revealed our true feelings after some time to ourselves: that we want to follow Xavier and explore the world, instead of being cooped up in the sect where the world is smaller and we would be ordered around. In this sense, we decided what we wanted to do for ourselves. It completely changed how we used to be in the first example—where our wants and needs had no difference, and they didn't matter.

On Xavier:

Interestingly, Xavier's foresight was excellent from the beginning. He probably figured out that Lanxing was not for us, given that we had been banished to the forest to starve after failing the regular trials. It was not the most ideal place to live in, and we only wanted to stay because we did not know where else to go. Therefore, before he left, he arranged a way to make the sect leaders assign us to go to him.

ORRRR maybe he just wanted to explore the world—which he obviously was doing, because he knew a lot of people and went to a lot of places as shown throughout the story—with us.

One line that I found to be repetitive in Xavier's story was "take me with you." This was one of the things he would say on the home page, and also the line we told him upon admitting that we want to follow him throughout the world.

With each other, both Xavier and us/MC were more carefree; more teasing, more friendly, more trusting. They—or we—protected each other well too; both were willing to do all the fighting in the face of enemies.

All in all, I deeply adored the character growth for us/MC in the story. It shows the empowering message that we could grow and be a better, more confident version of ourselves. While this theme has been written long before, it is always nice to read about them. Our self-esteem will always belong and fluctuate with our unique journey of life.

Moreover, it also implies that our bond with Xavier pushes us to grow. He had done different things to expand our perspective and believe in ourselves more. At the same time, he never made us feel like we were beneath him despite being his junior. He always valued what we wanted and treated us like a friend.