Darkness did not fade; it shattered.
Su Meng felt as though his soul had been shoved through a meat grinder and then stitched back together with threads of liquid fire. His first sensation was not sight, but smell—a pungent, overwhelming mixture of wet earth, bitter herbs, and something metallic that smelled like ozone.
His eyes snapped open. He expected to see the underside of a truck or the sterile white ceiling of a hospital morgue. Instead, he saw rafters of rough-hewn cedar, caked in centuries of dust and draped in cobwebs that shimmered with a strange, faint luminescence.
He tried to sit up, and a scream died in his throat. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been shredded and replaced with lead. His lungs burned. As he gasped for air, he realized the air itself was... different. On Earth, breathing was a mechanical necessity, the intake of recycled, smog-choked oxygen. Here, the air felt heavy. It felt thick, as if he were breathing in a fine mist of liquid gold that vibrated against the back of his throat.
Is this... Qi?
The thought hit him like a physical blow. He forced his shaking hands up to his face. They were not his hands. Or rather, they were his, but younger—thinner, scarred by labor, with dirt buried deep under the fingernails. Gone was the uniform of the security guard. In its place were rags of coarse grey hemp, stained with the sweat of a boy who had spent his short life in the dirt.
A flood of memories, violent and chaotic, slammed into his mind.
He wasn't just Su Meng, the failed engineering graduate from District 9. He was Su Meng, a "Level 3 Laborer" of the Iron Mountain Sect. An orphan picked up from a famine-stricken village because he looked sturdy enough to carry buckets. For three years, this "new" Su Meng had lived a life of quiet desperation, bullied by the outer disciples and ignored by the world.
Su Meng clutched his head, his teeth bared in a snarl. "It's the same," he wheezed, his voice raspy and high-pitched. "Even here... just another ant at the bottom of the hill."
But as he sifted through the memories, he saw the difference. On Earth, if a Senator's son killed you, he went to a private island. Here, if a "Young Master" killed you, he did it because he had cultivated his Qi to the point where your life was physically beneath his.
It wasn't a matter of lawyers. It was a matter of density.
Su Meng forced himself to stand. The small wooden shack groaned. It was barely a lean-to, shared with three other boys who were currently out for the morning "water run." He walked to a cracked ceramic bowl filled with stagnant water and looked at his reflection.
The boy in the water was fifteen, with a sharp jawline and eyes that burned with a cold, predatory light that had never belonged to the original owner.
"The books were right," Su Meng whispered, a slow, terrifying smile spreading across his face. "The air... it's alive."
He closed his eyes and tried to do what he had read about in a thousand novels. He tried to "feel" the energy. On Earth, this would have been a mental breakdown. Here, as he focused on his lower abdomen—the Dantian—he felt a faint, flickering warmth. It was like a single ember in a frozen forest.
It was pathetic. It was weak. But it was there. And unlike a bank account, no one could freeze it. No one could tax it. No one could inherit it without doing the work.
"Su Meng! You lazy dog! If the buckets aren't at the South Gate by sunrise, I'll have your skin for a drum!"
The roar came from outside. Su Meng recognized the voice: Steward Feng, a failed cultivator who took out his frustrations on the orphans.
Su Meng stepped out of the shack. The sun was rising over the Iron Mountain, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe. The mountain didn't just sit there; it pierced the clouds like a jagged obsidian sword. Floating palaces drifted around its peak, held up by visible ribbons of blue energy. Thousands of disciples in flowing robes were flying—actually flying—on swords, their trails cutting through the morning mist like shooting stars.
It was a world of gods. And he was standing in the mud.
Steward Feng, a man with a bloated face and a whip tucked into his belt, marched toward him. "Why are you standing there gaping? Move!"
Feng raised a hand to backslap Su Meng—a casual, habitual gesture of dominance.
On Earth, Su Meng would have flinched. He would have apologized. He would have calculated the cost of the medical bill versus the loss of his job.
But as Feng's hand swung, Su Meng didn't see a boss. He saw a man with a lower Qi density than the "Hidden Experts" in the books. He saw a man who relied on a title.
Su Meng didn't block. He simply stepped back half an inch. The hand whistled past his nose, catching only air.
Feng stumbled, his momentum carrying him forward. He blinked, confused. "Did you just... move?"
"The sun is up, Steward," Su Meng said, his voice flat and devoid of the usual stuttering terror. "I'm going to the well."
He didn't wait for a response. He walked toward the heavy iron buckets. Each one weighed forty pounds empty. He hoisted the yoke over his shoulders. The weight was immense, pushing his thin frame into the dirt. On Earth, this would have been "unskilled labor."
Here, Su Meng felt the weight differently. Every step he took, he focused on that tiny ember in his gut. He realized that the "Water Run" wasn't just a chore. It was a test of the "Foundation."
If I can't carry water, I can't carry the Dao, he thought.
As he began the climb up the Thousand Steps, he watched the "Outer Disciples" passing him. They were dressed in fine silks, laughing as they used "Light Body Techniques" to skip up the stairs. They looked at the servants with the same casual disgust Julian Vane had shown at the hotel.
One disciple, a handsome youth with a jade pendant, deliberately bumped into a girl carrying a basket of spirit herbs, sending her sprawling. He didn't stop to help. He just laughed. "Watch where you're going, slave! You almost got dirt on my boots!"
Su Meng watched the girl cry as she tried to gather the ruined herbs. He felt a familiar rage, but this time, it was tempered by a new, cold clarity.
On Earth, that boy would be a CEO. Here, he is a 'Genius.' The faces change, but the system is the same. They think their 'Status' is their strength.
Su Meng gripped the wooden yoke until his knuckles turned white. His muscles screamed. His vision blurred. But he didn't stop. He began to breathe in a specific rhythm—three steps in, three steps out—forcing the heavy, golden air into his lungs, trying to push it down toward that flickering ember.
I am not a servant, he told himself with every agonizing step. I am a predator in training. This mountain is not my prison. It is my whetstone.
By the time he reached the top, his rags were soaked in a mixture of sweat and a dark, foul-smelling oil that was seeping from his pores. He didn't know it yet, but his sheer, obsessive willpower was doing what most disciples needed expensive "Cleansing Pills" to achieve: he was beginning to purge the impurities of his mortal body.
He emptied the buckets into the sect's reservoir. As he turned to head back down for the second of ten trips, he saw a group of wealthy-looking youths gathered around a bulletin board.
"The Sect Assessment is in three months," one whispered. "My father bought me a Grade-2 Qi-Consolidating Pill. I'll definitely break into the Fourth Stage of Body Tempering by then."
"Must be nice," another sighed. "I only have a Grade-1. But at least we aren't like these rats." He gestured toward Su Meng.
Su Meng walked past them, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
Pills, he thought. Wealth. Backers. They are still trying to buy the Heavens.
He looked at his own trembling, bloodied hands. He didn't have a pill. He didn't have a father. He didn't have a Senator.
"Good," Su Meng whispered to the wind. "When I take everything from you, you won't be able to say it was a fluke. It will be because my Fist is heavier than your gold."
As he descended for his second trip, he didn't feel tired. He felt a strange, terrifying hunger. For the first time in two lifetimes, Su Meng wasn't afraid of the future. He was the future.