The grand announcement had ended, but its ripples spread through the Li Clan like a shockwave, altering currents and reshaping loyalties in the dark. Within the humble, worn-down quarters of the former main family lineage, the air was thick with a silence more profound than any council hall decree.
Li Kang regarded his son. The boy—no, the young man—stood with a posture that was no longer that of a scorned youth, but of a mountain peak that had just emerged from the mist. It was in the set of his shoulders, the calm depth of his gaze, the way the very spiritual energy in the room seemed to bow subtly toward him. It was an unconscious sovereignty.
"Wei'er," Li Kang began, his voice a low, gravelly thing scraped from the bottom of a well of past regrets and present fears. "The clan sees a prodigy who has overcome adversity. I see a son who has shed a skin he was never meant to wear. What awakened in the Whispering Fangs? This change… it is not of cultivation alone. It is a metamorphosis of the soul. I need to know what I am shielding."
Li Wei met his father's earnest, worried gaze. The weight of his solitary knowledge had been a lonely burden. To share it now felt like opening a floodgate. He spoke not with dramatic flair, but with the quiet intensity of one recounting a fundamental truth.
He described the abyss of despair, the moment his will became a physical force, and the first, cataclysmic crack inside him. "A scripture imprinted itself upon my spirit, Father. The "Primordial Sovereign Scripture". It does not cultivate; it devours. It takes the energy of this world and refines it into something older, something purer—Chaos Qi." He flexed a hand, and the air around it wavered faintly, like heat haze over a desert. "And my body… the 'Stone Body' was a lie. It was dormant, waiting for this specific fuel. Seals broke. One on the source of my physical power, a wellspring that feels… divine. Another on my mind, allowing me to see the architecture of techniques, the flaws in energy flow, the intent behind a gaze."
He finally gave voice to the core revelation. "I was not a cripple. I was a treasure locked in a vault too secure for anyone to open. My 'failure' was the sign of a legacy too grand for this small world to comprehend."
Li Kang listened, his own spirit trembling. Sixteen years of confusion, pity, and helpless rage dissolved in an instant, replaced by a staggering, terrifying clarity. The shattered testing stone, the boy's inhuman perseverance—it all made sense. He had not failed a weak son; he had been the guardian of a dragon's egg. He stepped forward, his calloused hands gripping Li Wei's shoulders, his eyes bright with a painful, fierce pride.
"So, the name 'Wei'… Greatness… It was not our hope. It was your destiny." The moment of paternal wonder passed, and the hardened survivor took over, his face setting into grim lines. "This truth is a weapon that can cut its wielder. It stays between us. Your mother's love is our fortress, but ignorance is her armor. Knowing would only paint a target on her heart."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to chill the very air. "The enemies who broke me, who orchestrated my fall and exile… they are jackals fighting over a single territory. But what you possess…" He shook his head, a real fear in his eyes. "That would draw the gaze of true predators—beings who view entire kingdoms as their hunting grounds. They would not seek to recruit you. They would tear you apart to see what makes you tick. They would bind your soul and mine your memories. They would grind your bones for alchemy. Your existence challenges the very order they uphold."
Li Wei felt the warning settle in his bones, colder than any mountain stream. The danger was no longer just familial politics; it was cosmic.
"Your power is your spear, but secrecy is your shield," his father drilled into him. "You must master it. That aura of ancient weight you now carry—you must learn to sheathe it completely. To the world, you are Li Wei, the late-blooming 8th Stage disciple. Remarkable, but within the bounds of their understanding. You must be a blade of heaven-steel hidden in a scabbard of common wood. Let your enemies dismiss you. Let them see only the reflection they expect."
For the next several hours, Li Kang did not teach combat. He taught dissimulation. He guided Li Wei through a complex method of energy circulation, of inverting his spiritual pressure, of folding the vast, divine ocean of his power into a single, still point deep within his dantian. It was a painstaking process. His Chaos Qi, wild and proud, resisted the confinement. But layer by layer, the overwhelming presence was compressed, hidden, until only a calm, deep reservoir of power remained, its surface unruffled and deceptively placid.
Across the clan compound, in a serene courtyard fragrant with spirit herbs, Li Yue concluded her evening meditation. Yet, her mind was a tempest of recalculation. The brief, shocking pressure she had felt from Li Wei during the announcement refused to fade. It was not mere density, she analyzed, her thoughts as precise as a surgeon's knife. It was… stratification. Layer upon layer of compressed time and power. It felt like a relic from a buried epoch. This changed everything. Li Jin was a straightforward problem—a raging fire she could predict and extinguish. Li Wei was a bottomless well. You could throw a stone in and never hear the splash. My path to victory cannot rely on pre-planned strategies against him. I must be fluid, adaptable. I must observe him in the tournament, find a crack in that impossible calm. He is not just a rival; he is an anomaly that could redefine the meaning of talent in the Three Clans.
In his furnished training hall, Li Jin stood drenched in sweat, his chest heaving. The memory of being driven to his knees by Li Wei's aura was a brand on his psyche. "He is nothing! A lucky scavenger who found a bone of power!" he snarled to the empty room, his voice echoing. The splintered remains of a training dummy lay at his feet. "The tournament… it is my stage. My redemption. I will not just participate; I will transcend." He clutched a high-grade Spirit Gathering Pill, his knuckles white. "I will break through to the 9th Stage. I will be the one the Bai and Yun clans fear. I will make the name Li Jin synonymous with victory, and his… his name will be a forgotten whisper, a footnote of a strange, brief curiosity." His resolve was a brittle, burning thing, fueled entirely by spite and the desperate need to reclaim his shattered pride.
High in the central pagoda, Clan Head Li Tao stood like a sentinel of stone, his gaze sweeping over the lantern-lit paths of the clan he ruled. His thoughts were a dark, swirling vortex. 'The boy is a corruption. An invasive species in the garden I have cultivated. That power he displayed… it is alien. It bears the stench of something primordial and unchained, something that does not belong in the orderly progression of the orthodox path.' His eyes drifted toward the distant, dim lights of Li Kang's home, a flicker of unease crossing his face. 'And the father… I had thought him a broken tool. I was mistaken. He still has a core of steel.' A cold, calculated plan finalized in his mind. The Three-Clans Tournament. The chaos of the arena, the 'accidental' fury of a Bai or Yun prodigy… a tragic loss will be met with solemn understanding. 'It will unite the clan in grief, and the thorn in my side, the dangerous variable, must be permanently removed.' His strange power will be buried with him.
As the moon reached its zenith, Li Wei finally mastered the final nuance of the concealment technique. The last vestige of his sovereign aura vanished, perfectly contained. He looked like any other dedicated disciple—a promising youth, nothing more.
"Remember this feeling," Li Kang said, his voice weary but firm. "This is the face you show the world. You walk a path lined with wolves who believe themselves to be dragons. Do not let them scent the true dragon in their midst until you are ready to open your eyes and show them the color of oblivion.