In the Murim world, strength decided everything.
It decided lineage, honor, survival—and worth.
Lucien Voss was born without any of it.
As the fourth son of the Voss Family, a respected martial house known for its blade techniques and internal arts, Lucien's existence was an inconvenience no one openly acknowledged. He did not inherit his father's robust physique, nor his brothers' natural affinity for qi. His meridians were narrow. His dantian weak. Even the clan physicians shook their heads with thinly veiled disappointment.
"A body unfit for cultivation" they said.
Lucien listened. He remembered.
At ten years old, he knelt at the edge of the training courtyard, watching his brothers move. Steel flashed beneath the sun as swords carved arcs of killing intent into the air. Qi rippled visibly around them—strong, vibrant, undeniable.
Lucien felt none of it within himself.
When he attempted to circulate qi, it trickled weakly, like water through cracked stone. Pain bloomed in his chest after only moments. His instructor stopped calling on him after the third public failure.
"Do not force what Heaven has denied," the man said, already turning away.
The Murim world was merciless but honest. Weakness had no future.
Lucien learned this lesson the day he was pushed aside by his second brother.
"Out of the way," the boy snapped, not even bothering to look at him.
Lucien stumbled, caught himself, and bowed his head in apology. Around them, servants pretended not to see. Soldier's laughed quietly. No one interfered.
No one ever did.
That night, Lucien sat alone beneath the old cedar tree behind the estate. The scent of earth and iron lingered in the air. His chest still ached from failed cultivation, his palms trembling from exhaustion.
He did not cry.
Instead, he thought.
If power was qi, then he was powerless.If power was muscle, then he was inferior.If power was talent, then Heaven had abandoned him.
But Murim had rules.
And rules could be studied.
Lucien began to observe instead of train.
He noticed how elders argued in private but bowed in public. How his eldest brother's authority came not from strength alone, but from timing and reputation. How sect alliances shifted after rumors spread—rumors that no one could trace to a source.
Strength ruled battles.Information ruled outcomes.
Lucien began reading manuals not meant for him. Not martial techniques—those mocked him—but histories, treaties, clan records, and forgotten doctrines. He memorized bloodlines, grudges, debts older than generations.
While others hardened their bodies, Lucien sharpened something else.
His silence became armor. His weakness became camouflage.
By the time he was twelve, the Voss Family no longer expected anything from him.
And that was when Lucien became dangerous.
He spoke carefully. He asked questions that sounded naïve. He listened far more than he talked. Elders underestimated him. Servants confided in him. Disciples ignored him.
Each slight became a thread.Each secret, a weapon.
Standing once more at the edge of the training courtyard, Lucien watched his brothers clash blades beneath the sun.
They looked like gods.
'But gods were predictable'.
Lucien Voss lowered his gaze, hands folded respectfully, the image of a weak fourth son burned into every watching eye.
Inside his mind, however, a structure was forming—vast, intricate, merciless.
The Murim world believed only fists could shape fate.
Lucien intended to prove them wrong.
'He would not challenge Heaven'.
'He would outthink it'.