A hundred years ago, the Azure Wind Sect stood among the top five powers of the Azure Wind Region. Its sword qi once split clouds. Its disciples once walked with pride. Its ancestor once entered the Crimson Lotus Secret Realm with twenty elders at his back and ambition blazing in his eyes.
He never returned. The elders never returned. The Lotus Realm sealed.
In a single night, the pillar of the sect collapsed, and the wind howled like a funeral hymn.
Lan Qingyun remembered it clearly.
He had been young then barely past Foundation Establishment standing beneath the ancestral hall eaves as lanterns swayed violently and the sect bells rang, not in celebration or breakthrough, but in mourning. The tablets in the ancestral hall cracked one by one. First the elders. Then the Grand Elder. Finally, the Ancestor. The brightest name on the central jade plaque dimmed like a dying ember, and the entire mountain seemed to sigh.
From that day forward, everything changed.
Without its Nascent Soul Ancestor, the sect's standing plummeted. Neighboring powers circled. Trade routes shifted. Allies grew distant. Enemies grew bold. The next sect master, Elder Wei, inherited a fractured throne. He was Peak Golden Core powerful and respected but not invincible.
In the world of cultivation, not being invincible was the same as being vulnerable.
Lan Qingyun cultivated, trained, waited, and believed because he was not of this world. He had awakened in this body one hundred years ago and believed, like every transmigrator in the stories he once read, that something extraordinary would happen. A system. A treasure. A destiny. Something. Anything.
He waited a year, and nothing came, he waited ten, and still nothing.
He waited fifty, and there was only silence.
By seventy, he stopped looking at the sky expectantly. By eighty, he stopped muttering in empty rooms. By ninety, he laughed at himself.
At one hundred, he no longer cared.
He reached Mid Golden Core through patience and discipline through accepting reality instead of arguing with it. He was not a genius. His talent was average. His comprehension moderate. His luck unremarkable.
But he endured, in cultivation, endurance was its own kind of talent.
The decline of the Azure Wind Sect was not sudden, but slow. Like a blade rusting. Like paint peeling. Like pride fading from disciples' eyes.
The spirit fields yielded less each year. The defensive formation flickered during storms. Outer disciples whispered about transferring.
Then came the breaking point.
Junior Brother Lu left first a genius sword cultivator who bowed respectfully in the main hall and announced that the Verdant Mountain Sect had offered him an Elder position.
Elder Wei remained silent for a long time, while Lan Qingyun stood at the side with his hands folded into his sleeves.
Finally, the old master allowed him to go, there was no shouting, no pleading.
After him left Junior Sister Mei, then the twin brothers, then three inner disciples. They took with them the most promising juniors along with manuals, connections, and momentum.
Each time, Elder Wei seemed to age a little more.
One evening, after another departure, the old master sat with Lan Qingyun beneath the pine tree overlooking the valley and asked quietly,
"Do you resent them?"
Lan Qingyun shook his head.
"No", he continued "Because they are pursuing stronger paths?"
The old master looked at him for a long time before asking,
"Then why do you stay?"
Lan Qingyun looked toward the distant mountains, "I choose to stay."
He did not explain that once he had stayed because he believed destiny would descend from the sky, and now he stayed because someone had to.
Years passed, the pine tree grew twisted, elder Wei grew thin.
The Azure Wind Sect shrank until barely fifty young disciples remained most with mediocre aptitude, some with poor foundations, non extraordinary.
The mountain had become too quiet.
In the present day, the training grounds were dusty. Wooden practice swords clashed weakly, and qi fluctuations were thin and unstable.
Lan Qingyun stood watching from the terrace, his long hair tied loosely and his robes simple, his presence steady despite eyes that carried a hundred years of waiting.
He corrected stances. Adjusted breathing methods.
They are not trash talents, he reminded himself, unpolished stones.
Perhaps cracked stones but still stones.
Behind him, Elder Wei approached with a wooden cane, his Golden Core aura flickering like a candle in the wind.
When he spoke, his voice was low. "I have failed."
"Failed to protect the sect ranking. Failed to retain genius disciples. Failed to break through further."
Lan Qingyun lowered his head, "You have not failed, Sect Master."
Both of them understood reality, the old master coughed, and blood touched his lips.
"After I pass… the sect will be yours."
Lan Qingyun was silent, even Golden Core ends.
Elder Wei gripped his sleeve, "Promise me."
"The Azure Wind name will not vanish."
Lan Qingyun bowed deeply, "I swear it will not."
That night, the sky was silent.
Lan Qingyun sat alone in the ancestral hall before the cracked ancestor tablet and reflected on a century of waiting—for opportunity, miracle, or destiny—that never came.
At last, he exhaled, waiting is over.
If destiny will not descend, then I will build my own.
Even if the sect has only fifty mediocre disciples.
Even if neighboring sects mock them, even if the world forgets their former glory.
The Azure Wind Sect will not die quietly
while I still breathe.