Even with the array's aid, the limit pressed against him, stubborn and unmoving. Li Wei drew a small jade vial from his pouch. Inside lay two Foundation Establishment Elixirs. He had been saving them, reluctant to waste such value, but the barrier before him was narrow and the timing perfect. He tipped one past his lips.
The liquid burned cold as it slid down, then burst through his veins, searing into marrow and channel alike. His bones thrummed with the surge, every line of qi pressing harder, tighter.
The change within him pressed closer each day. His channels thickened, his marrow grew denser, his control steadier. The elixir hammered against the limit, forcing it tighter with each cycle. He pressed harder, breath after breath, until the barrier broke.
The shift came sharp, like stone split under a hammer. Qi surged, bones rang, marrow flooded with new weight. He drew a long breath and opened his eyes. The cave seemed sharper, edges cut in stark relief.
He had crossed into the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment. He had been close already, so the step itself was not vast. But the difference in strength was undeniable, a leap that set him apart from what he had been only days before.
He drew the last traces of the elixir's burn into his marrow and sat still, letting the power settle. When the flow calmed, he pulled the second vial from his pouch and turned it in his hand. Another Foundation Establishment Elixir. Useless now. It could not push him further, not at this stage.
A small irritation. He would sell it, or trade it, or simply keep it until the chance came. Wasteful to hold something that no longer mattered, but he had no choice. The first had done its work. He was mid-stage now. One useless pill was nothing weighed against that gain.
Li Wei brushed dust from his hands, coldly pleased. The array worked. The technique worked. Wherever bodies fell, he would have food for his cultivation.
Li Wei stepped out of the cave. He preferred not to test his new strength inside where debris could choke his refuge. Outside, he stopped cold.
Everything was dead. The grass around the outcrop was grey and brittle, snapping to dust under the faintest touch. Shrubs lay collapsed, branches hollow, leaves curled in on themselves. Insects dotted the ground, husks without colour or motion. A squirrel lay near the rocks, shrivelled and sunken, as if every drop of life had been drawn out of it.
Even the pines at the edge of the outcrop were marked. Their trunks still stood, but the needles had dulled and yellowed in patches, and whole branches sagged as though age had pressed them down in weeks instead of years.
The Desert Soul Technique had bled the land dry. Days of cultivation had stripped everything smaller than a tree. Only the larger forms endured, and even they showed the edge of decay.
Li Wei looked over the ruin, irritation tugging at him. The stones had done their work, the technique had done its work — but the gain from grass and insects was nothing compared to the bones inside. All this destruction for scraps. Worse, anyone who came near the outcrop would see at once that the ground was dead. What should have been a quiet refuge now carried a scar of lifeless earth at its door.
Li Wei considered the ruin outside the cave for a moment longer, then turned back in without another thought. Moving would be pointless. The Desert Soul Technique would carve the same scar wherever he sat, and this outcrop was as safe a refuge as he could hope for. Better to endure the flaw and draw strength from it than waste effort on searching for another hole.
He settled again, the sandstone array at his sides, bones laid in their rows. The cycles began, steady and tireless, qi sinking deeper into his marrow with every breath.
Mid-stage. He had been at the peak of early-stage Foundation Establishment and had crushed three cultivators with ease. Now the barrier was broken, and his strength was greater still. He felt certain that among the disciples thrown into the basin, he stood near the top. Perhaps not untouchable, but close.
The days stretched into months. Li Wei kept to the cave, making no move to engage the other disciples. Silence was safer, and the basin offered no shortage of fuel. He cycled the Desert Soul Technique until it became second nature, the sandstone array always at his sides.
He had resolved to refine even here in the basin. To advance without alchemy was wasteful, and every edge mattered. But refining meant risk, and risk had to be masked. Smoke or scent would draw disciples as surely as blood in the water.
He built carefully. The small slave scraped a vent through the far wall, and Li Wei packed it with layers of wet moss, sand, and fine bone dust until it would bleed smoke into nothing more than faint mist. Charcoal fed the cauldron, burning hot and clean, leaving almost no trace. Hides sealed the cave mouth, and the larger slave kept them pinned. Inside, the air stayed sharp but breathable; outside, no mark betrayed him.
The bones of the three cultivators fed him still, while the weak beasts that tumbled into the basin gave him fresh marrow and cores. All of it passed through the cauldron in silence, refined without trace. Failure meant discovery, and discovery meant death.
Over time, a pattern emerged. About once a month, a beast would crash down from the rim. The crippled or injured were his prey — quick kills, stripped for cores and bone. The strong or unhurt he avoided, measuring their weight and moving on.
Every kill added to his stores, yet one thing still eluded him. The Reaping demanded five cores, and he had gathered them without trouble. But of the fire affinity core he needed most, there was still no sign. Without it, the Cinderbone Elixir could not be brewed. And without that elixir, Bone Fire would remain out of his reach.
He had always wanted Bone Fire. Every real step forward he had made until now came from using it — never his own, always stolen or borrowed. With it, he could refine bone dust into true bone essence, concentrated qi he could consume directly. That was how he had advanced before, and the only reason he had stood equal with stronger foes. To brew the Cinderbone Elixir and ignite Bone Fire for himself would be a turning point beyond measure. It would cut away the slow grind of Desert Soul, letting him strip bones clean and feed on their essence at will.
The beasts that landed crippled or broken were easy prey, but the ones that hit the ground whole — the ones that rose and moved on without faltering — those had to be stronger. He assumed they were the mid-tier demonic beasts, the kind that could shrug off a fall that shattered lesser creatures. Anything like that was beyond him in a straight fight.
So he planned. If a fire beast came down, he would not waste the chance. If it was weak or crippled, the fight would be simple. But if it was a mid-tier, he would need every advantage. He would let it bleed itself on the traps already laid, spikes and snares meant for men but sharp enough to cripple beasts. He would drive it through narrow ground, force it to lash out where its weight betrayed it, and smother it in volleys of stone and bone sand. If that was not enough, he would prepare new pits, rope-triggered drops, deadfalls waiting in silence. Even a beast far stronger than him could still be brought down if it was made to fight the ground itself.
Li Wei set the small slave to work. Before it left, he laid out what he could spare from the pouch — a coil of rope, a few sharpened shards, odds and ends scavenged from the dead. The rest the slave took from the land itself. Branches were cut and driven into the soil as stakes. Stones were hauled and stacked into loose cairns, ready to tumble when disturbed. Shallow pits were dug and covered with brush and dirt. The slave worked tireless, carrying and scraping until each site was set.
Through its impressions, Li Wei marked every change: the weighted branches above narrow trails, the hollowed earth, the rocks balanced on ledges. Step by step, the land around his refuge became sharper, more hostile.
Days passed in silence, broken only by the slave's work and the steady cycle of cultivation. Then the crash came in the heat of the day. Dust boiled up from the basin floor, followed by a grinding roar, more stone than beast.
Li Wei's pulse quickened. At last — a fire beast, it had to be. The sound, the force of the landing, the timing — everything told him this was the one. His chance for the core he needed, the step to Bone Fire. For the first time in weeks, anticipation ran sharp through him.
Li Wei sent Bone Whisper out. The shape below was jagged, heavy, shifting. When he stepped from the cave mouth, he saw why.
The creature was low and broad, a lizard-shaped mass heaped in stone. Pebbles, slabs, and shattered rock clung to its body, bound tight by qi. When it moved, fragments rattled down its sides, only to be pulled back and pressed firm again. A moving cairn.
It had taken the fall badly — one foreleg bent at an ugly angle — but even crippled, its weight made the ground tremble.
Li Wei loosed spikes, volley after volley. Bone struck stone, sparks flying, shards chipping loose, but the armour held. Another barrage, and another. Nothing pierced deep enough.
The beast roared, its qi flaring. The ground beneath it heaved, and jagged spears of earth tore upward. One lanced into a pine at the edge of the clearing, splitting the trunk in half. Another ripped through the soil where Li Wei had stood a moment before, sending a spray of dirt and stone across his face.
The creature slammed its tail down, and a line of spikes surged toward him, each thrust breaking from the ground like a wave. The clearing shook with every impact. Pines toppled, roots ripped free, soil cracking open.
Li Wei darted aside, his own spikes rising to meet theirs, shattering stone against bone. But the beast pressed forward, each step birthing more spears, the clearing itself turned into a weapon.
Li Wei's volleys hammered the beast, spike after spike, but the stone armour soaked every strike. Chips flew, sparks flashed, yet nothing bit deep. The thing's qi held its shell tight, plates dragging loose rock back to seal the gaps as fast as he carved them.
Li Wei's volleys hammered the beast, spike after spike, but the stone armour soaked every strike. Chips flew, sparks flashed, yet nothing bit deep. The thing's qi held its shell tight, plates dragging loose rock back to seal the gaps as fast as he carved them.