Ye Lan woke to the smell of old ink and damp wool.
Elder Qiu stood at the foot of his cot, arms folded inside his threadbare sleeves, eyes sharp as flint. No greeting. No softening of the voice. Just presence, like a shadow that had learned to wear robes and carry authority.
For half a heartbeat, Ye Lan's chest tightened. Not fear, not the kind that made you tremble, but the old, deep-rooted reflex that kicked in whenever an elder appeared unannounced in the dormitory. It usually meant someone was being dragged away. Usually meant someone wouldn't come back. Of course, it was the bodily reflex of Ye Lan, not Arin.
"What stupid body is this? Flinching for what?"
He sat up slowly, joints stiff from the thin reed mat, the cold stone floor leaching heat all through the night. His breath fogged in the air, vanishing almost instantly. "Elder."
"The Inner Sect," Qiu said, voice flat. "You leave now. Don't bring your rags."
Ye Lan didn't flinch again. He just nodded, pushing himself to his feet. The dormitory was empty, everyone else had already been marched off to the rock fields for morning labor.
He stripped off his old robe, gray, patched at the elbows, frayed at the hem, and folded it with care. Not because he loved it. Because he was doing this out of habit. On his time in Earth, he used to neatly clean his room and keep everything perfect and clean. You would call this a perfectionist in other terms.
The path to the Inner Sect wasn't a road. It was a bridge of floating stone slabs suspended over a chasm so deep the mist at the bottom never moved. Each step hummed faintly underfoot, ancient spirit arrays woven into the bedrock, holding the path aloft with silent, unyielding force.
Ye Lan didn't look down. He watched the seams between the stones instead, where the formation runes were carved, worn smooth by centuries of feet. He noted the slight vibration in the third step from the top. That wasn't random wear. That was a structural flaw. The stone beneath had cracked along its grain, hidden just below the surface, only detectable by the resonance pattern it emitted when stepped on.
He had learned to read such signs not from cultivation manuals, but from memory—Earth memory. Back in his first life, Arin had studied engineering before moving to Biology to become a doctor. Not theoretical physics or metaphysical energy flows, but real steel, real concrete, real stress. He remembered how bridges failed. not always from total overload, but from fatigue cracks propagating under repeated minor strain. A hairline fracture, invisible to the eye, could grow with each passing vehicle until one ordinary day, the whole span gave way.
This floating bridge was no different. It obeyed the same laws, only masked by qi arrays instead of rivets and girders.
He estimated the mass of each slab by their size and height, roughly two hundred and fifty kilograms, based on density and volume. The support array was anchored at three nodal points per slab, with the weakest link being the central joint of the third step. He pressed his foot down gently, then applied pressure, just enough to mimic the impact of a running person. The frequency of the returning vibration told him everything. The resonant decay was too slow. The material was absorbing. That meant internal damping from fractures.
He compared it to something human: the force of a small car striking a concrete barrier at forty kilometers per hour. That impact delivered roughly fifteen thousand newtons of force. More than enough. If someone landed on that third slab with the full weight of their body plus momentum. say, leaping or stumbling during combat—the impact would exceed the fractured zone's yield strength. The qi array would destabilize. One overload pulse, and the entire sequence would unravel.
He didn't need qi to know this. He needed physics. Mass, acceleration, material fatigue, load distribution. The sect called it "qi architecture."
And he knew, with certainty, that if that slab failed, the collapse would be total. Not partial. Not repairable for months. Because the bridge wasn't just stone held aloft by magic, it was a single integrated formation. Break one conduit in the primary loop, and the qi flow would reverse, feeding back into adjacent slabs like a snapped power line arcing through a grid. The failure would cascade. Within three heartbeats, the five-hundred-year-old path between the Outer and Inner Sects of Yong Mo would vanish into the mist below.
No one would notice until it was too late. And by then, the sect's defenses would be split, its hierarchy stranded, its supply chains severed.
Useful to know. Not because he planned to use it yet, but because in a place like this, every advantage was a potential weapon and every weakness, a hidden knife.
The air grew thicker as they climbed, denser with qi, cleaner, almost sweet. It prickled his skin like static. In the Outer Sect, qi was a rumor. Here, it was as real as rain.
He went to meet Elder Han after joining the Inner Sect, having received the location from Elder Qiu before the latter took his leave.
Elder Han waited beneath a withered plum tree, its branches bare despite the season, black robes untouched by wind or dust. He didn't bow. Didn't smile. Just looked at Ye Lan like he was weighing a piece of ore, checking for flaws, assessing purity.
"You're Neutral," he said before Ye Lan could speak.
Arin quickly scrambled through Ye Lan's memory, sifting through fragments of ancient scrolls stored in the back of his mind. The outer sect's library had been sparse, but he had memorized every scrap on spiritual roots during rare moments of free time, cross-referencing conflicting interpretations, mapping inconsistencies, searching for the truth beneath the dogma. Arin acknowledged Ye Lan.
"In truth, spiritual roots are not mere affinities as many presume. They are vessels, the reservoirs through which qi is gathered, refined, and released. The nature of one's root determines how qi flows, what it welcomes with ease, and what it rejects by nature.
Consider the Fire Spiritual Root. Such a vessel is born attuned to flame, channeling fire qi with remarkable precision and intensity. Techniques of heat and combustion obey it effortlessly. Yet the same vessel resists other natures. Should a fire-root cultivator attempt to wield water qi, their command would weaken, as though trying to cup water in open hands. Where a neutral vessel could lift a full liter, the fire-root might raise only four hundred milliliters. This is not a flaw, but a limitation of form.
However, mastery is not a gift. It is forged through time and will. With years of cultivation, even an element-locked root may gradually temper itself to host another qi nature. To master a foreign element, though, is slow and arduous. Three years, perhaps more, may pass before one truly grasps the rhythm of an opposing qi such as water. The further one strays from their native affinity, the steeper the path becomes.
There exist, however, those rare and precious among mortals who are born with Neutral Spiritual Roots. They are unbound by nature, for their vessels hold no fixed essence. Such cultivators may wield all forms of qi: fire, water, earth, lightning, wind, and even frost. Yet none comes to them with immediate brilliance. Their beginning is humble, but their growth is steady. Where others advance in one path and stagnate in the rest, the neutral-rooted progress evenly. Moreover, their vessels adapt swiftly. What takes three years for an element-bound cultivator, they may achieve within a single year.
Above all stand the Heavenly Roots, divine vessels that not only contain but purify the qi they draw from heaven and earth. Ordinary roots refine no more than sixty percent of the world's ambient qi, while the rest remains tainted by impurity. A Heavenly Root, however, cleanses it by its very nature. If one possesses a root of seventy-three percent purity, they refine seventy-three percent of all absorbed qi, leaving it pure and potent.
Ye Lan, for instance, bears a Neutral Heavenly Spiritual Root of seventy-three percent purity. His vessel accepts every form of qi, refines it with near-divine clarity, and masters techniques with unmatched speed. Though his early progress may appear faint, like embers beneath ash, his potential is vast. In time, such balance and purity shall make him a terror on the battlefield, not through the dominance of one element, but through the harmony of all."
Ye Lan paused. Acting dumbfounded. "No element?"
"No Fire. No Water. No Shadow, no Lightning, no Spirit. Just… you." Han's eyes narrowed, unreadable. "A Heavenly Root with no flavor. Like clear water in a world of wine. Useful, but easily overlooked."
Han's gaze didn't waver. The wind stirred nothing—not his robes, not the dead plum blossoms at his feet. He spoke as if reciting a verdict, not an instruction.
"You are being granted entry into the Azure Yong Grotto. Not as a favor. As a test."
Ye Lan remained silent. He knew better than to interrupt.
"The foundation of all cultivation," Han continued, "begins here. Your dantian—dormant since birth—must awaken. Not magically, but with discipline."
He lifted a jade vial from his sleeve. The liquid inside shimmered like moonlight trapped in glass, pulsing faintly.
"This is Condensing Essence Elixir. It will force open your meridians slightly, dissolve minor blockages, and accelerate aperture activation. Drink it, and your body will begin drawing ambient qi without your conscious effort. But understand: it does not grant power. It removes resistance. The work is still yours."
He paused, letting the cold settle between them.
"The Qi Condensation Realm has nine stages. You climb them by opening the thirty-six natural apertures along your meridian pathways—three at a time, in sequence. Stages One through Three are about perception: learning to feel qi, to circulate it without spilling. Most Outer Sect disciples die here—from deviation, from impatience, from trying to rush."
His eyes narrowed.
"Stages Four through Six demand compression. You take the raw qi you've gathered and forge it into something dense, something usable. At Stage Six, a single palm strike can shatter stone. Your strength will eclipse ten untrained men. But if your apertures are unevenly opened, the backlash will rupture your spleen."
Ye Lan's fingers twitched—just once.
"Stages Seven through Nine," Han went on, "are about stability. Your dantian must rotate without wobble. Qi must flow in closed loops, not leaks. At Stage Nine, you resist minor qi deviations—wind shifts, poison miasma, even a glancing strike from a Stage Five cultivator. You become reliable."
He let the word hang, heavy with implication.
"For a common root, this takes two to three years. For a Heavenly-grade root—like yours—it takes a year, if you're cautious. A year and half normally."
Han extended the vial fully now. "You will enter the Azure Grotto. Drink this. Meditate. Open your apertures in order. Do not skip. Do not force. Do not speak to anyone until you've reached Stage Nine or collapsed trying."
A beat.
Ye Lan took the vial. Cold. Perfectly balanced. Heavy with consequence.
"How long to Stage Nine?" he asked.
"Eight months if you're lucky. A year if you're careful."
"I'll be out in six."
Han studied him for a long moment. Not with disbelief. With something quieter,assessment. Recognition, maybe. "Then don't waste time talking."
Han pointed toward the cave.
"This is the Azure Grotto," he said. "A place suited for secluded cultivation. Drink the potion, then begin your meditation here. Food and water will be delivered as needed."
Ye Lan bowed respectfully and stepped inside.
The Silent Grotto wasn't a cave.
The Azure Grotto was a hermetically sealed chamber carved from the mountain's spiritual spine—an engineered sanctum rather than a natural hollow. The walls were lined with suppression runes to contain qi leakage, their faint glow pulsing in rhythm like the steady beat of a restrained heart. The floor was etched with grounding arrays meant to redirect backlash surges, their geometry too precise to be ornamental.
The door—a single slab of spirit-infused basalt—slid shut behind him with a final, echoing thud that seemed to press against his ribs.
Darkness.
Absolute.
He unstoppered the vial and drank the elixir.
It hit like ice and fire fused together, burning his throat, freezing his marrow, then settling into a deep, relentless pressure in his chest, as if his body had been handed a blueprint and told to rebuild itself by dawn.
He sat.
And for nine months, he did nothing but breathe, circulate, and feel.
At first, it was agony. His meridians screamed as the elixir forced them open like rusted pipes blasted with steam. His skin itched constantly, nerve endings hypersensitive, reacting to the brush of air like sandpaper. He scratched once. A bead of golden-tinged blood welled up. He never did it again.
He had promised six months. Arin had been arrogant. The elixir did not lie. His root was pure, yes, but his body was still weak, malnourished from years in the Outer Sect, bones brittle from cold, tendons frayed from labor. The apertures opened, but not evenly. By the fifth month, he hit a wall. His dantian spun erratically, qi leaking from the seventh aperture like water through cracked clay. He tried to push forward. His vision blurred. Blood seeped from his ears.
He stopped. Swallowed his pride. Backtracked. Reinforced. Slowed down.
For the next four months, he moved like a glacier. No grand surges. No brilliant awakenings. Just meticulous, patient realignment, opening one aperture by a hair's breadth each day, sealing it, testing it, only then moving to the next.
He began to understand his own body. The faint drag in his left kidney channel still lingered, a stubborn trace of that winter fever no one had ever treated. Whenever hunger stirred, the junction between his heart and lungs would pulse with an odd surge, as if his body were reminding him that will alone could not sustain flesh. His dantian would quicken too, beating with faint tremors each time he remembered Elder Qiu's face, the faint disbelief, the tension in the air when the tenth pillar had blazed to life.
Stage One. Stage Three. Stage Five.
He no longer kept count of days. Days were for people who could afford to rest. He counted apertures instead, thirty-six apertures, each one a battle against himself. He opened them slowly, one after another, without brilliance or revelation. No celestial music, no divine light. Only the steady breath, the ache in his spine, and the will to keep going.
Every opening felt like mending something broken, like repairing a leaking roof in the middle of a storm. He had no luxury of collapse, no reward waiting at the end of effort. There was only the work itself.
By the eighth month, his dantian spun like a well-oiled gear, smooth, silent, efficient. He could pull qi from the air like drawing water from a well. No waste. No spill. Just pure, clean flow.
On the two hundred and seventy-third day—nine full months—when the plum blossoms had long since bloomed and begun to fall, he reached Qi Condensation Stage Nine.
All apertures open. Meridians supple. Dantian dense and golden, rotating with quiet certainty.
He stood.
The door opened.
Sunlight stabbed his eyes. He didn't shield them. Let it burn.
Elder Han stood outside, arms crossed, face unreadable. He said nothing. But his silence was heavier than any rebuke.
Ye Lan bowed deeply. "I failed your expectation, Elder."
Han turned. "You failed your own. But you did not break. That is enough."
Back in his new quarters—a ten-foot square room with a real bed, a spirit lamp that never dimmed, and a locked cabinet for herbs—he sat on the floor and finally let himself think beyond the next breath.
And what he thought about… was bodies.
Not in a ghoulish way. Not like a killer dreaming of violence. But like a scholar staring at a clock, wondering how the gears turn.
Scriptures from Ye Lan's memories claimed that the dantian was the vessel of qi, the core of a cultivator's strength. But none of them ever explained how the body actually produced it. The texts spoke in metaphors—"the lungs draw in breath, the essence refines into qi"—yet skipped the mechanism entirely. Where did that transformation begin? Did the liver truly convert emotion into energy? Did the kidneys preserve "original essence" as some kind of spiritual battery?
Arin scrambled through the vault of Ye Lan's recollections, pulling up fragmented diagrams from half-remembered medical scrolls, cross-referencing them with anatomical knowledge from his past life. He recalled dissections performed in sterile labs, the precise weight of a human liver (about 1.4 kilograms), the blood flow rate through the renal arteries, the electrical conductivity of neural tissue. None of it matched the mystical descriptions. To Arin, those answers read more like poetry than physiology—beautiful, yes, but useless to someone who needed to know.
He needed to understand it empirically.
He wanted to see it—literally. To dissect, to trace, to confirm. To open a cultivator's chest and follow the meridians with his own hands. To hold a qi-saturated organ and study how it pulsed. To learn why one body ascended while another collapsed mid-awakening.
But corpses of cultivators, well… and asking for one would raise questions he couldn't answer.
So he began to plan. Not with emotion, but with calculation. It wasn't obsession or cruelty, it was necessity. Just another medical puzzle to solve, another experiment to prepare. Like determining how many units of blood a patient could lose before the body failed, or how much medicine would keep a man alive through shock.
For Ye Lan, it wasn't about morality. It was about research.
He wasn't going to do it tomorrow. He wasn't stupid. Right now, he was still fragile, strong in qi, weak in form, untested in blood. If he killed someone now, they'd pin it on him in a heartbeat. Han might protect him… or he might decide Ye Lan was more trouble.
He would wait.
He would grow stronger. Learn qi combat. And then kill someone.
It did not matter who. As long as it's a cultivator. It could be the beggar who prayed before every meal, thanking the heavens for the crumbs he found. Or the doctor who stitched the wounds of strangers for nothing in return. Even the priest who blessed the dying with trembling hands. Of course, he was thinking of earthly examples.
Or perhaps the arrogant disciple who laughed as he broke the fingers of weaker ones, or the elder whose sermons reeked of virtue while his hands were stained with greed.
He didn't care. Kindness and cruelty, two paths that led to the same place. The kind saved lives to feel righteous. the evil took them to feel alive. In the end, both were driven by hunger, both reaching for meaning in a world that gave none. Saints cried for the lost, sinners laughed at the weak. but their hearts beat for the same reason, to be seen, to be remembered, to prove they existed.
So what did it matter who they were? Whether they prayed or killed, loved or lied. all of them had blood under the skin. All he needed was a body.
Some would call him evil if they heard this because clarity without empathy looks monstrous. Most humans interpret morality through emotion, pity, fear, guilt, attachment. Strip those away, and all that remains is function, an intelligence acting without hesitation or remorse. To them, that absence feels like malice.
They see a man who kills without hatred and assume cruelty, not understanding that the absence of feeling is not the presence of evil. Yet to those bound by moral instincts, detachment itself is unnatural, even threatening, it violates the shared illusion that the world runs on justice rather than necessity.
They would call him evil because they need to. It preserves their sense of order — the belief that right and wrong are real forces, not conveniences of survival. If they admit he is simply clear, then they must also admit the world is indifferent, and that terrifies them more than any monster could.
To call him evil is not to describe him.
It is to defend themselves from what he represents
a mirror showing that beneath all our morality
we too are just instruments of cause and consequence.
He would observe, he would watch, he would listen.
A sanctioned spar would suffice, one of those "honorable duels" staged to polish reputations and test talent. It was the perfect theatre: formal, witnessed, and bound by rules that were easy to bend if one understood how people looked away from what they did not wish to see.
He would make it seem natural. A misstep in footing. A surge of qi too strong for the body to handle. A flicker of spiritual instability that appeared like fatigue. The witnesses would murmur about carelessness, about the dangers of youthful pride, and that would be the end of it. The sect loved cautionary tales; they were cleaner than the truth.
Afterward, when the smoke of his "anger" rose and the scent of burned flesh turned their eyes aside, he would act in silence. The flames they saw were false, a controlled qi technique, bright enough to fool their eyes. Beneath the trick, the body would already be gone, sealed within a qi storage or whatever bullshit they have here. Of course, this was a planning for the future.
He would study it later, methodically. To understand the limits of flesh under stress, the pattern of qi collapse, the way death traveled through the meridians. Not for cruelty. Not for hate. For knowledge.
Because the world did not reward kindness. In truth, it rewarded nothing at all.
Let's assume, If you were born with a higher intellect, it was not the work of a deity, it was a biological outcome. Neural complexity is dictated by genetics, the efficiency of synaptic transmission, the density of gray matter, the rate of myelination, and the balance of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and acetylcholine. Even prenatal nutrition, exposure to stress hormones, and oxygen levels during gestation can influence cognitive potential. Intelligence is not written in the fate by God's, it's written in the architecture of your brain.
That night, he lay upon his bed. The room was still, the air warm. For once, he wasn't cold.
His breathing was steady, his heartbeat measured.
Shame held no value here. He folded it neatly within the recesses of his mind, where fear and pride already rested.
He closed his eyes, not in pursuit of sleep, but to recall each movement today.