Kweku learned early that cultivation was not meant for people like him.
In Kobina's Reach, cultivation resources were measured, licensed, and priced far beyond what slum families could afford. Even Ember Realm manuals were locked behind guild seals or corporate patents. The universe, like everything else, charged a fee for improvement.
His family never paid it.
They lived in the lower tiers of the Reach, where gravity fluctuated and infrastructure repairs came only after disasters. Their dwelling clung to the underside of an old transit ring, patched together from scavenged panels and prayer.
Once—long ago—his family had a name.
They didn't speak it anymore.
Kweku's grandmother had been the last to try.
"Names carry attention," she used to say, her voice rough with age and caution. "And attention is dangerous when you're meant to be gone."
She never explained who had wanted them gone.
She didn't need to.
His cultivation began by accident.
He was thirteen when he first felt it—the ache beneath his skin, the quiet pressure behind his eyes. At first, he thought it was hunger. Then illness. Then fear.
It never left.
At night, while the Reach slept and the transit lanes dimmed, Kweku would sit in silence and breathe the way his grandmother had taught him. Not the standard circulation patterns taught in Ember manuals, but something older. Slower.
"Listen first," she had said, pressing two fingers to his chest. "Power comes after."
So he listened.
To the hum of the station.
To the distant churn of engines.
To the quiet space between his own heartbeats.
Something answered.
Not energy.
Memory.
It wasn't like the cultivation stories he'd heard—no sudden breakthroughs, no floods of strength. His progress was measured in endurance. Nights spent holding a breath until his chest burned. Days walking through pressure zones meant to crush untrained bodies.
Every step hurt.
Every advance felt… wrong. As if he were cultivating sideways instead of upward.
By fifteen, he could reinforce his body just enough to work longer shifts. By seventeen, his senses sharpened. By nineteen, the ache in his palms became constant.
He never advanced beyond Ember Realm.
But he reached its peak without realizing it.
There was no ceremony. No acknowledgment.
Just a quiet moment when his breathing steadied, and the ache stopped worsening.
His family noticed.
His mother stopped telling him to quit.
His uncle watched him with wary eyes.
And his grandmother—frail, quiet, nearly gone—smiled once.
"They didn't erase everything," she murmured. "Good."
That was the last clear thing she ever said.
The day she died, men came asking questions.
Not enforcers.
Not cultivators.
Worse.
They asked about lineage. About names. About whether anyone in the household experienced "classification irregularities."
His uncle lied.
The men left.
That night, their dwelling was inspected. Then inspected again. Then quietly marked for future review.
Within a year, his uncle disappeared during a transit job.
Within two, his mother stopped speaking of the past entirely.
And Kweku learned the final rule of his family:
Survive quietly. Cultivate carefully. Never stand out.
He obeyed.
Until the scanners failed.
Until suppression didn't feel right.
Until standing became inevitable.
As he lay on the cold floor of their dwelling that night, staring at the rusted curve of the transit ring above him, Kweku pressed his palms together.
The ache returned—steady, familiar.
He breathed the way he always had.
Slow. Listening.
Somewhere deep inside, something ancient stirred—not urging him to rise, not demanding power.
Only reminding him of a truth his family had carried for generations:
They were not weak because they lacked strength.
They were weak because the universe refused to remember them.
And memory, Kweku was beginning to understand, was a form of cultivation all its own.