Omen walked through the gates of the Seven Elemental Sect in silence.
The grounds stretched wide in front of him, layered in stone platforms, carved bridges, and long stairways that connected different training zones like veins inside a living body.
Stone pillars stood beside modern structures, old runic carvings drawn into polished steel walls that glowed faintly under transparent energy barriers.
Floating platforms moved slowly above the ground, carrying disciples between areas like silent spirit ferries. Holographic banners hovered near buildings, displaying sect rankings, mission boards, and cultivation announcements in glowing blue script.
It was a place where the old world and the new world had fused into one system.
A place built for people who could cultivate.
Not for people like him.
Omen walked through it calmly, hands in his robe pockets and eyes steady, completely ignoring everyone around him.
He felt the spiritual pressure in the air, the faint pull of Qi currents flowing through the ground and structures, but none of it responded to him.
For a moment, the boy considered the library but he didn't move towards it.
After all, he had already been stripped of a proper dantian the day that blasted lightning struck him.
Thus, Omen started walking along the paths of his usual lectures happening in a predefined space.
The main lecture building stood tall, covered in white stone and glass, with elemental symbols carved into its pillars. Spiritual lights hovered near the ceiling, and the air inside felt calm and controlled.
And just as the boy entered, it was almost like the atmosphere inside the classroom had changed.
Whispers started ringing immediately through Omen's head as he became the centre of attention.
And honestly, he didn't even know how these people remembered him so starkly.
"Is that…really him?"
"No way."
"He came back?"
"Why is he even here?"
"Could it be that now he can finally cultivate?"
Omen ignored them all, he walked forward, calm, steady, and sat on one of the back benches alone.
The boy rested his arms on the desk and looked forward, waiting for the lecture to start.
People kept staring at him like he was a ghost that had just walked into their room.
The door slid open again, and this time, the reaction was different.
A pure, respectful silence echoed through the surroundings as a short, bulky man walked in.
He was broad-shouldered with a thick cultivation aura around him.
His eyes scanned the room casually, filled with arrogance like usual.
Almost like he was too used to doing this everyday.
Then he saw Omen, his black hair flicking through the air as his expression froze.
Disbelief flashed across the boy's face as he muttered.
"What the hell…?"
Omen felt it instantly, a kind of invisible pressure pressing down on him.
He tried to act like it didn't affect him but only now realized a major flaw in his plan.
He still hadn't learnt or even properly read the Reverse Cultivation Sutra~
Drake started walking towards him, as Omen's face broke in a mess of sweat and perspiration.
Fear crept inside his body before logic ever could.
All the courage, pride and determination he had built in the last day was completely washed out by the memories of how Drake bullied him, making him tremble in fear.
But before anything happened, an old man entered inside the classroom and stopped everything.
The old man walked to the front and waved his hand as a holographic screen formed in the air behind him.
"For today," the old man said calmly, his voice steady and clear, "we will speak about cultivation itself."
"Not techniques or any kind of power but simply the stages of the paths."
The holographic screen shifted as a human figure appeared.
"Stage One," the old man said, waving his wrinkly but strong hands.
1) Mortal Foundation / (Non-cultivator stage):
Normal humans with a dantian but no active qi flow, usually occurs only till the age of 13, before the attribute ceremony.
2) Meridian's Realm: Element/affinity is bestowed and the Dantian fully transforms. Qi flow also begins and meridians are opened.
Lines of light spread through the figure in the hollowgram as blue veins became highlighted along the figures body.
3) Devouring Qi Realm
Ability to absorb external Qi through th meridians and use it in various martial techniques.
The hall stayed silent as the screen continued changing.
4) Core Formation Realm: ???
5) Spririt Integration Realm: ???
6) Domain Realm: ???
"These realms," the old man stated calmly.
"They are not public knowledge and you will only learn of them after you enter the compulsory military draft starting from next month." Almost everyone's facial expressions scrunched at the mention of the draft.
At the age of 18-19, every young adult had to join the military to get stronger and defend against the ancient cultivators invasion.
It was still a blot in the whole matter of things but still a carefully guarded ones.
The diagrams showed blurred structures and incomplete forms but no one was really interested after the mention of the 'draft'.
"This is where cultivation stops becoming a training," the grey haired man gruffed. "And starts becoming a form of transformation, of evolution itself!"
The lecture continued for a while, as Omen tried to focus.
When the lecture finally ended, the old man dismissed the class and left quickly, ignoring the student cultivators.
The room erupted into noise as the students stood and groups started forming again.
Omen stood quietly and tried walking out of the class when a hand grabbed his collar and slammed him into a wall.
The impact knocked the air out of the white haired boy's lungs as pain shot through the boy's back.
It was Drake.
"You really thought you could come back, huh?" The burly guy growled, slapping him in front of the whole class.
Omen tried to move back, pushing away as he rushed towards the classrooms exit but his body was too slow.
Instantly, standing at the front of the gate was a short boy in blue robes.
It didn't take long for the white haired boy to realis that there was no way he could fight back, the boy had no strength whatsoever in either his arms or legs.
Drake punched Omen in the chest, making the boy feel air getting sucked from the very tracks of his lungs.
The 18 year old boy gagged as pain shot through his whole body.
Another punch hit his face, his vision blurring as he fell to the ground. People gathered and a whole circle formed around them as voices started whispering around them.
Drake kicked him in the ribs again as Omen tried to stand up to no avail.
Slowly, muscles popped out from Drake's arms and neck as he dragged Omen out to the open ground.
The boy in blue robes stepped on his back, pressing him down as Omen's cheeks deepened with shame.
"Look at you," Drake said coldly, spitting on the weak boy's silky, white hair.
"Still pretending like you belong here."
Omen's body trembled, not from pain but pure rage as anger bubbled up inside his heart like a poison.
His mind screamed at him to do something, to atleast move if not defend himself but there was this sense of fear always holding him back.
Omen couldn't fight, he couldn't even lift his head.
That was the worst part.
Not the pain or even the humiliation.
It was the helplessness…the absolute state of weakness that overwhelmed him.
The realization that anger meant nothing without power made something brake inside the boy as Drake pressed harder.
"Say it," the bulky guy said.
Omen gritted his teeth as old memories came crashing back in.
Tears blurred his eyes, not with rage but instead, regret that he hadn't read the Reverse Cultivation Sutra, 'maybe then things would be different…' the boy thought as pain fully consumed his body and mind both.
"Say what you are." Omen shook his head, trying to let himself free when Drake kicked his side again, harder this time.
"Say it!" It was something about the way Drake humiliated Omen that his pride shattered, and in that moment, he was the same little boy who had just lost his dantian and had his dreams crushed.
"I'm…nothing…"
Drake leaned down, smiling. "Louder."
Omen's hands clenched against the ground, his nails digging into the stone.
"I'm nothing…" the boy repeated, as Drake placed his foot on Omen's head, pressing it harder.
The crowd watched as the whole scene unfolded, no one willing to step in and save the boy.
"You don't belong here." Omen's whole being trembled.
"I don't belong here…" Inside him, something snapped.
Not power or anything like that.
No.
It wasn't anything righteous or noble.
Tears mixed with blood on the dry grass beneath him.
His mind screaming internally.
"I will kill you, bastard."
"I'll destroy you and burn this place down—"
But his body stayed still, and broken.
Only a single thought burned louder than the pain inside his mind:
"This world will pay for making me weak."
***