Power.
That was what the system had given him.
Rowan stayed on the rooftop for several minutes.
His breathing slowly returned to normal. The pain had faded, but his body still felt strange. Every breath seemed deeper than before. Every sound reached him with sharp clarity.
He could hear footsteps in the street below.
He could hear water dripping from a broken roof across the road.
Somewhere inside the house, a mouse moved behind the wall.
Rowan frowned.
He had never noticed how loud the world was.
He placed one hand on the roof and tried to stand.
The tile beneath his palm cracked.
Rowan froze.
He looked down at the broken piece.
He had not used much force.
At least, he did not think he had.
He slowly pulled his hand back.
His fingers were still thin and old. His skin was still covered in lines. Nothing about them looked powerful.
Yet he had damaged the roof as easily as dry bread.
"I need to be careful."
His voice sounded the same, though his breathing was no longer weak.
Rowan stood slowly.
His balance had changed. His body felt lighter, but his strength had grown far beyond what he was used to. Even a simple movement carried too much force.
He took one step.
The tile beneath his foot shifted.
Rowan stopped again.
For the next few minutes, he moved across the roof like a child learning to walk.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He lowered himself onto the ladder and began to climb down.
The old wood creaked beneath his hands.
He forced himself not to grip too hard.
When his feet finally touched the ground, Rowan released a quiet breath.
He had only just stepped into the Essence Gathering Realm, yet even this small step had changed everything.
That could become dangerous.
Not only to others.
To himself as well.
The smell coming from his skin made his next decision easy.
Rowan entered the small washroom at the back of the house.
There was no heated bath. There was only a wooden tub, two buckets of water, and a cracked basin.
He removed his robe and looked down at himself.
Black filth covered most of his body.
It had dried in thick lines across his chest, arms, and back. The smell was worse inside the small room.
Rowan poured cold water over his head.
The water should have made him shake.
It did not.
His body noticed the cold, but it no longer feared it.
He scrubbed his skin until the black filth began to wash away.
The water in the tub quickly turned dark.
Rowan emptied it, filled it again, and continued.
It took three buckets before the water remained clear.
When he finished, he stood before the small bronze mirror hanging on the wall.
An old man looked back at him.
His face was still covered in wrinkles.
His cheeks were still thin.
His hair was still white.
For a moment, disappointment rose inside him.
He had known the system had not restored his youth. The panel had made that clear.
Knowing it and seeing it were different things.
Rowan touched the side of his face.
His skin was old, but the hand touching it no longer shook.
His eyes were also different.
They were clear.
The grey cloud that had covered them for years was gone.
He straightened his back.
The old man in the mirror stood straight as well.
That was enough.
Rowan put on a clean robe and returned to his room.
The broken window allowed cold air to enter, but he barely felt it now.
He sat on the edge of the bed and called for the panel.
It appeared at once.
STATUS PANEL
Name: Rowan Black
Age: 100 years
Current Realm: Essence Gathering 9th Layer
Cultivation Technique: Nine Graves Ascension Technique
Remaining Lifespan: 30 years
Rowan read each line carefully.
There was no list of skills.
No numbers showing how powerful he had become.
The system was as simple as it had always been.
Rowan focused on the words First Grave.
More information entered his mind.
The knowledge was already there, buried inside him. He only needed to think about it.
The First Grave refined the Essence Gathering Realm.
Most cultivators gathered spiritual essence and stored it inside their meridians. As their cultivation rose, the amount of essence inside them increased.
The Nine Graves Ascension Technique worked differently.
It not only gathered essence.
It refined the body that held it.
His meridians would grow wider.
His flesh would become stronger.
His bones would become harder.
Even his blood and organs would slowly change.
The technique would remove every weakness that could be removed within the Essence Gathering Realm.
Rowan closed his eyes.
He followed the circulation path inside his mind.
The spiritual essence within his meridians began to move.
It passed through his chest, down into his abdomen, then spread into his arms and legs.
The first cycle was slow.
The second was easier.
By the third cycle, Rowan could feel spiritual essence entering his body from the air around him.
It was thin.
Very thin.
Duskmoor had almost no spiritual essence compared to the inner parts of the city.
Even so, the technique pulled in everything it could find.
The small amount of essence entered his meridians and was crushed, cleaned, and refined.
Rowan felt a warm pressure spread through his body.
It was not painful.
Not yet.
He continued for several more cycles.
Then he stopped.
The room became quiet.
Rowan opened his eyes.
He felt stronger than before, but the difference was small.
He had only just entered the first layer of Essence Gathering. There was still a long path ahead.
The Nine Graves Ascension Technique could perfect his realm, but it would not happen in a single morning.
He had thirty years.
For a mortal, thirty years was a large part of a lifetime.
For a cultivator, it was not much.
Rowan looked around the room.
The walls were old.
The bed was nearly broken.
The roof leaked whenever it rained.
He had no essence stones.
No pills.
No weapons.
No cultivation books.
For ten years, nearly everything he earned had been spent on cheap medicines for Body Strengthening.
Now he had finally stepped into Essence Gathering, but his understanding of real cultivation was almost nothing.
He knew how to punch.
He knew how to endure pain.
He knew the Black Clan's basic body-strengthening movements.
That was all.
Even a first-layer Essence Gathering cultivator should know combat techniques.
Movement techniques.
Ways to control spiritual essence.
Rowan had none of them.
He was stronger than before, but still untrained.
A child holding a sword was still a child.
A sudden knock came from the front door.
Rowan turned his head.
He heard two people outside.
One was breathing calmly.
The other kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Rowan could even hear the cloth of their robes moving.
His new senses would take time to get used to.
The knock came again.
"Rowan Black!"
The voice was young and impatient.
"Open the door!"
Rowan recognised it.
Lyle Black.
A distant member of the Black Clan.
Lyle was twenty-four years old and had reached the late stage of Body Strengthening. That made him talented by Duskmoor's low standards.
It also made him proud.
Rowan stood.
He allowed Grave Shroud to remain active.
His spiritual essence disappeared from the world.
To anyone else, he still felt like someone at the first layer of the essence gathering realm.
He walked to the front door and opened it.
Two men stood outside.
The first was Lyle.
He wore a clean blue robe with the Black Clan symbol stitched on the chest. A sword hung from his waist.
The second man was older. Rowan knew him as Bram, one of the clan's record keepers.
Bram held a small wooden tablet and a brush.
Both men stared at Rowan.
Lyle took a step back.
Bram's eyes widened as he stared at the faint spiritual pressure surrounding Rowan.
"Essence Gathering..." Bram whispered.
Lyle looked as though he had misheard him.
"What?"
"He broke through," Bram said. "He has entered the first layer of Essence Gathering."
Silence fell between them.
Rowan stood calmly in the doorway.
Grave Shroud covered the true depth of his cultivation. The vast amount of essence inside his meridians had been pressed down until only a weak first-layer aura remained.
To Bram and Lyle, he looked like a man who had broken through only hours earlier.
Neither of them could see that Rowan had already reached the ninth layer.
Lyle stared at him.
"You broke through today?"
"Yes."
"At one hundred years old?"
Rowan gave a small nod.
Lyle's face tightened.
Most people who failed to enter Essence Gathering before the age of forty never succeeded. Their bodies weakened, their blood declined, and their chance of opening their meridians became smaller with every passing year.
Rowan had done it at the very end of his mortal lifespan.
It should have been impossible.
Bram recovered first.
"You must report this to the clan immediately."
Rowan looked at him.
"Why?"
Bram glanced at Lyle before answering.
"Because you are no longer a Body Strengthening cultivator."
His eyes moved toward Rowan's house.
"And this property can no longer be reclaimed after your death. An Essence Gathering cultivator is entitled to clan support, a monthly supply of essence stones, and access to the first floor of the scripture hall."
Lyle's expression darkened.
The house he had expected to receive was no longer within his reach.
Rowan noticed, but said nothing.
For ten years, the clan had treated him like a dying old man.
Now they believed he had entered the first layer of Essence Gathering.
That small difference had already changed the way they looked at him.
Rowan wondered how they would react if they knew the truth.