The sun of the third day on Star-Lament Peak brought no warmth, only a raw clarity that made the snow shimmer like crushed crystals. I remained seated in the same position; my body was beginning to feel less like flesh and more like a lead statue.
She appeared by my side, gazing toward the horizon where clouds swirled like a white ocean thousands of feet below.
"This place is beautiful, but it is a desert for the living," she said without looking at me. "I have decided we are leaving. Choose a destination, Fallen One. A place where your 'laws' can be put to the test."
I thought of the memory fragments I still held: a diagram of a combustion engine, the periodic table, the feel of a keyboard beneath my fingers. I needed resources, books, and above all, time.
"A kingdom," I said, my voice raspy. "A strong one, where knowledge is not just a privilege of the immortals, but a tool."
She nodded slightly. It was a logical choice; a place of matter and fire. But before we moved, I stood up, facing her with a determination I hadn't felt in four years.
"Teach me," I blurted out. She arched an eyebrow. "Teach me to cultivate. Not to be a god, but to survive long enough to recover what I lost. My world is not dead as long as I remember it, but my memory fades with every decade I spend as a mere mortal."
I'm a bit tired; no one wants to live as a mortal their entire life. Suddenly finding myself in the midst of all these events, it's only fair that I take a step forward as well.
The woman released a breath that froze the air. She stepped closer and, for the first time, placed a hand on my chest, right over my heart. Her touch wasn't cold; it was an absolute absence of sensation.
"I have been observing the 'flow' of your body, Aethel. And it is time you understand the truth of your condition. You possess an advantage that any sect patriarch would envy: your vital flow moves so slowly at a microscopic scale that it goes unnoticed, an effect of the laws of time upon your body. In this world, Qi wears down the body like water wears down stone. However, you are the stone—or rather, the space surrounding your soul. It is as if you are trying to condense the space around you, perhaps laws you mastered before falling that are now intrinsically connected to your origin. This has advantages and disadvantages. One is longevity; cultivators born with their origin in the laws of time have always been a great part of it and learn very slowly. On the other hand, those born with the origin of space face few hurdles. In your case, possessing both affinities, you bear both disadvantages: slow cultivation and meager energy control. It seems you will have a long life, but agonizingly slow progress."
A long life?
"But," she continued, her pressure on my chest increasing, "your disadvantage is your own nature. The Qi of this world flows like lightning, but upon entering you, it turns into molasses. It will take you ten times longer than any genius, or even any idiot, to form a core. What would have taken Joran months will take you years. Your cultivation will be an agony of patience."
"I accept the price," I said without hesitation. "In my world, things worth having were built gram by gram, not through miracles."
"Well, I hope to see where your initiative takes you. Of course, I will assist you with the first step." She smiled. "You are lucky you found me."
The following seven days were hell. She didn't teach me to "feel nature"; she taught me to force entry. She literally shoved Qi into my body while apparently removing other unnecessary things.
"Do not try to be the wind," she told me as I meditated under the pressure of her aura. "Let the Qi crash against you until it has no choice but to seep through your pores."
Following her instructions, I did not seek harmony. I sought friction. I visualized Qi as particles of matter striking a solid surface. Due to the slowness of my spiritual metabolism, I felt every unit of energy like a grain of sand scraping my veins. It was painful, heavy, and terribly slow.
While other cultivators felt a "river" of energy, I felt as though I were pushing a rock wall, inch by inch.
On the sixth day, something changed. In the center of my chest, where the Dantian should be, a pressure point formed. It wasn't a flame, nor a whirlpool. It looked more like a planet with a ring. The Qi I had managed to extract didn't circulate fast enough unless I forced it. It was then I understood that the more I accelerated my Qi's circulation, the less the slowdown impacted my vitality—though it consumed it slightly faster, compacting under the weight of my own soul.
"You did it," she said, observing how my skin took on a strange metallic hue under the sunlight. "The first level of Blood Refinement. It is minuscule, barely a spark of energy, but it is yours. It won't move much from there unless you decide it."
I stood up. For the first time, I felt lighter; my own body didn't weigh on me as much. That heaviness wasn't a burden; it was a foundation.
"We are ready," the woman said, extending her sleeve toward the south. "The Black Iron Kingdom awaits us."
With a flicker of reality, Star-Lament Peak vanished.
The flicker didn't take me to a great capital, but to a brackish cliff where the scent of saltpeter struck with force. We were at the edge of the Black Iron Kingdom, in a coastal village called Ash Port. Here, the sands were black and the sea crashed with an unnatural heaviness against the rocks.
"This is a good place to hide," the woman said, her figure standing out against the dark landscape. "The great powers look toward the summits, not the mud of the coast."
We walked toward a small, abandoned cabin near the pier. The place was thick with dust but offered the privacy needed for what was to come. She stopped at the entrance and looked at me directly.
"You have formed that point in your chest, Aethel. But now comes the truth of your condition. You have an affinity for Space and Time, but you have only inherited their chains. You will live much longer than any mortal, but your progress will be a torture of patience. What takes others days will take you months."
"You already told me that," I replied, but she didn't seem to care about my answer.
My body no longer felt like a burden. For the first time in four years, I felt I had control over my own muscles.
"My help ends here, now that you've achieved the first step into the world of cultivation," she said with a frigid smile. "The first level of Blood Refinement."
"And now? Can't you help me continue cultivating?" I asked, looking toward the village lights.
"Every person must build their own path; if you level up artificially, you will stagnate because you have no foundation. Unfortunately, it's like that for everything: first you must establish a base, and that is something you must do on your own."
And with those words, the air where she stood closed in on itself. I was left alone at the cabin's threshold, the rhythmic sound of black waves crashing against the coast my only companion.
I looked down at my hands. They were still pale, but as I clenched them, I no longer felt that previous disconnection. The Qi, though moving like molasses, responded to my will.
I walked toward the town, Ash Port. Lights were scarce—torches burning some kind of mineral oil that gave off thick smoke. The inhabitants I passed had skin weathered by the sun and calloused hands from working with metal and nets. No one paid me any mind; to them, I was just another traveler seeking refuge at the kingdom's edge.
I reached a small plaza where an old blacksmith worked under a shed, hammering a piece of iron that barely glowed. I stopped to watch. He moved the hammer with a fluid technique.
I only watched for a while before moving on; I had literally been left here with nothing but my farmer's clothes.
I sought out a dark corner near the pier and sat down to meditate. I tried to accelerate the circulation of my Qi, just as I had discovered on the mountain. I felt the heat rise in my chest; the sensation of control was intoxicating.
If my destiny was to cultivate ten times slower, then it seemed I would have to be ten times more precise.
"If time is my chain," I whispered to myself, as the first level of Blood Refinement vibrated within me, "then I will make every second worth a century."
Perhaps a promise, or perhaps a hope—who wouldn't want to live that long? Tomorrow I would look for work. I needed to eat, find a place to stay, and the like.
The next day, I scoured every corner of Ash Port, from the low-level forges reeking of sulfur to the docks where fishermen unloaded creatures with metallic scales. Everywhere I received the same response: a look up and down followed by a gesture of contempt.
"We don't need anyone who can't carry three times their weight," a foreman told me, without even meeting my eyes. "Go bother someone else."
By noon, I gave up. I had no money, no roof, and my farmer's clothes were beginning to fray from the salt. However, I noticed something curious: my stomach wasn't growling. Hunger, much like my vital flow, seemed to have slowed to a distant echo. I could last days, maybe a week, without a bite.
I walked toward the shore, away from the docks, where black rocks met the sea. I sat on a smooth ledge, letting the sun hit me. The heat did not stifle me.
I closed my eyes and began to meditate.
In this silence, without the woman's pressure or the Censor's threat, I could feel my Dantian with greater clarity. It was a small sphere, surrounded by that ring of energy that rotated with the parsimony of a glacier. I remembered what I learned on the mountain: if I forced the rotation, vitality consumed faster, but control increased.
"It seems I truly have plenty of time to practice," I murmured.
I focused on the Qi ring.
Hours passed. The sun dipped below the horizon, tinting the sea a coppery red. Fatigue did not come. It was a strange sensation: being static, yet active.
Suddenly, a noise snapped me out of my trance. It wasn't the sea. It was heavy footsteps on the black sand, followed by the dragging of something metallic.
"Well, well... looks like someone found my resting spot," a raspy voice loaded with irony said.
I opened my eyes. A tall man, his bare torso covered in scars that shimmered with a faint trace of residual energy, watched me. He carried a metallic net over his shoulder, and his eyes were the color of rusted iron.
"I didn't know the rocks had an owner," I replied, without moving from my lotus position.
The man let out a dry laugh and sat on a nearby rock, throwing his net to the ground with a metallic clang.
"In this port, everything has an owner, kid. You either pay with coins, or you pay with strength. And you..." he paused, narrowing his eyes, "you have a strange scent."
"I'm Kaelen," he said, chewing a piece of meat from a creature. "I scavenge scrap from the tide's remains. Old metals, ship parts, whatever the town's smiths will accept for smelting."
"Aethel," I answered without moving.
"Well, Aethel. You don't look like you're from around here, and by the way they were looking at you in town, I'd say you haven't managed so much as a crust of bread. I've been watching you for a while... you haven't even moved to swat the flies. You look like a hunk of meat that forgot it needs to eat."
He looked at my dirty clothes and spat on the ground.
"If you need some coins and don't mind getting wet, I need someone to help recover an anchor. The sea in this area pulls hard. Most of the town boys try to swim and the current flips them; they end up with their heads smashed against the reef. But you... I feel like you could do it."
I looked at him with reluctance. It was physical work, dirty and dangerous, but I had nothing better to do. Regardless, hunger would hit me eventually due to the exertion, so finding work before the week was up was a good thing.
"What needs to be done?" I asked, finally breaking my posture. As I stood, I felt the stiffness in my muscles, but not the pain I should have had after hours on the stone.
"There's an anchor from an old buoy stuck in a crevice, about five meters deep," Kaelen explained, pointing to an area where waves crashed violently. "It's heavy iron. The trick isn't swimming; it's sinking. If you can get down there with this ballast"—he pointed to a stone tied to a rope—"and hook this chain to the iron before the tide drags you away, we're set."
I stepped toward the water's edge. The sea of Ash Port was dark and felt heavy.
"I accept," I said.
I noticed I didn't have that urgent need for a deep breath. Because I had reached the blood refinement realm, my blood seemed better able to endure without oxygen.
I walked into the water carrying the ballast Kaelen gave me. As the cold water covered my knees and then my waist, I felt the brutal push of the tide. The sea did not ignore me; it struck me with force, trying to knock me off balance. I had to dig my feet into the mud and sand, using every ounce of strength to avoid being swept away like a castaway.
"Hold your breath, lad!" Kaelen shouted before I submerged.
Under the water, the struggle was real. It wasn't "magical." The current pushed me with a violence that forced me to cling to the bottom rocks with my fingernails. My movements were slow, hindered by the pressure, but my heart kept beating at that measured pace, giving me those extra seconds of calm that others wouldn't have.
I advanced, crawling along the seabed, feeling the scrape of metallic sediments against my skin. Finally, between two rocks covered in black algae, I saw the gleam of iron.
The iron didn't glow with its own light, but with the reflection of the mineral particles floating in the water. It was a massive piece, an anchor hook from an old signal buoy, wedged deep into a crevice of black coral.
I approached the iron, stretching out the chain I was dragging from the surface. My lungs began to burn slightly, a sign that the need for oxygen was still there. I forced the Qi ring in my chest to spin a bit faster. I felt a sudden heat course through my arms, a heavy force that allowed me to wrap the chain around the anchor.
Just as I was about to secure the hook, the sediment accumulated beneath the iron shifted. It wasn't ordinary sand.
Beneath the iron structure, half-buried, was a stone that caught my eye due to the faint glow it projected. As I accidentally touched it, my Dantian vibrated with a frequency I had never felt before. In that moment, a thought crossed my mind.
Could this be the famous spirit stone?
It was a fragment of a spirit stone, an extremely rare material used only by cultivators.
The current struck me violently, reminding me that my oxygen was running out. With an effort that made my veins vibrate from the friction of the Qi, I hooked the chain to the anchor and, with my other hand, wrenched the small stone from the crevice, tucking it into the pocket of my farmer's pants.
I let go of the stone ballast and surfaced, gasping, gulping down the salty air with force.
"You got it!" Kaelen shouted from the shore, beginning to haul the chain with surprising strength. "I knew you were a living anchor, boy!"
I climbed out of the water with difficulty, feeling the real weight of gravity once more. My skin had that more pronounced metallic tint due to the effort of my blood circulating against the sea's pressure. I sat on the black sand, catching my breath as Kaelen approached.
The man came running, euphoric as he watched the heavy iron anchor emerge from the water, dragged by the winch.
"This iron is worth a good few coins at the city forge," Kaelen said, clapping me on the shoulder. "You did your part, Aethel."
He paused for a second, looking at me with an arched eyebrow.
"You were under for almost four minutes, kid. Incredible."
Kaelen let out a laugh. He reached into his bag and pulled out five heavy copper coins and one iron coin.
"It's more than we agreed; take it as a bonus for not drowning. If you're still alive tomorrow, look for me at pier four. Guys with your endurance are hard to find around here."
He walked away, dragging his prize, leaving me alone with the sound of the sea. Once I was sure he wasn't looking, I pulled out the spirit stone. Holding it, my Qi flow stabilized immediately, as if the stone wanted to be absorbed into me.
The stone was small, about the size of a walnut, but its surface wasn't smooth. It had irregular facets that caught the dying light of the sunset, emitting a pale blue glow that seemed to pulse. Upon contact with my palm, the ring in my Dantian skipped a beat. It wasn't an explosion of energy, but a suction.
"Patience," I reminded myself, clenching my fist. "If I absorb it right here, the glow will give me away."
I stood up carefully. The effort underwater had left a hollow sensation in my veins, but the stone in my pocket seemed to fill that gap just by being near. I walked back to the abandoned cabin, avoiding the main streets of Ash Port. Now that I had coins, I could think about food, but the stone was more important.
Upon arriving, I sat on the dusty floor and pulled out the fragment. In this world, cultivators used these stones to break through bottlenecks or as high-value currency. To me, it was an anomaly.
I placed the stone between my hands and closed my eyes. I forced the rotation of my Qi. This time, the friction wasn't painful. Upon contacting the pure energy of the stone, my slow flow began to "chew" the external energy. It was like tossing heavy logs onto a fire that barely crawled; the fire didn't grow in size, but the heat turned white, intense.
The "planet" in my chest vibrated. The Qi ring became a bit more solid, a bit more defined.
It wasn't a miracle. I didn't level up instantly. But I felt the foundations of my base—the one the woman ordered me to build on my own—grow a bit deeper. Every second of meditation with the stone felt like a year of normal effort.
"Long life and slow progress," I whispered, watching the stone lose its luster and turn into grayish dust between my fingers. "But at least, now I know how to shorten the road."
I sighed with some relief; it seemed I wouldn't have to spend years and years just to cultivate a single level.
I leaned back against the rotted wooden wall. I had no bed, no food yet, but I had five copper coins, one iron coin, and a core that, for the first time, felt sated. The Black Iron Kingdom was a hostile place, but it seemed it held opportunities.
Tomorrow I would look for Kaelen. If a single anchor had given me a spirit stone, the bottom of that dark sea had more to offer someone who knew how to sink. Or so I hoped.