The sky over the Cloud-Mist Sect was not blue; it was a bruised, sickly grey. It had been that way for three thousand years, ever since the sect's founding ancestor had supposedly failed his ascension and burned the very atmosphere with his dying breath.
Han Feng didn't care about the legends. His concern was the bitter cold of the pre-dawn air biting through his thin, threadbare outer-disciple robes.
"One thousand and nine... one thousand and ten..."
Han Feng's voice was a dry rasp. He was currently hanging by one arm from the jagged edge of the Trial-by-Fire Cliff, his fingers bleeding as he performed one-handed pull-ups. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest. His "Dantian"—the spiritual reservoir in his lower abdomen—remained as cold and silent as a tomb.
In this world, if you couldn't sense Qi by the age of sixteen, you were "trash." Han Feng was seventeen.
"Still trying, Junior Brother Han?" A mocking voice drifted from the safety of the cliff's edge.
Han Feng didn't look up. He knew that voice. Li Wei, an inner-disciple who had reached the 3rd Stage of Body Tempering only because his father was the Sect Elder in charge of the pill dispensary.
"The Sect Evaluation is in three days," Li Wei sneered, kicking a loose pebble down toward Han Feng's face. Han Feng flinched as the stone grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. "The 'Trash Cleaning' decree is already signed. You'll be expelled, sent back to that pathetic village of yours to till the dirt. Why keep struggling?"
Han Feng finally pulled himself over the ledge, collapsing onto the frozen earth. He panted, his lungs burning. He didn't look at Li Wei. He looked at his own hands—calloused, scarred, and trembling.
"Because," Han Feng said, his voice low and steady, "the dirt of my village is cleaner than the air you breathe, Li Wei."
Li Wei's face flushed a deep, angry red. "You court death! A mere Mortal-tier ant dares to speak of cleanliness to a cultivator?"
Li Wei stepped forward, his boot heavy with Qi, aiming a kick at Han Feng's ribs. But just as the blow was about to land, a strange, low hum vibrated through the ground. It wasn't the sound of thunder; it was a sound like a heartbeat—ancient, metallic, and incredibly distant.
The shockwave knocked Li Wei off balance. "What... what was that?"
Han Feng felt it too, but for him, the sensation was different. A searing heat ignited in his chest, specifically in the pocket where he kept a piece of junk he'd found in the sect's scrap heap—a rusted, circular piece of iron he used as a whetstone.
The Secret in the Scrap
Later that night, huddled in his drafty shack, Han Feng pulled the object out.
It was a mirror, or at least it had been once. Now, it was a dull, pitted disk of black iron, barely larger than his palm. There was no reflection, only a surface that seemed to swallow the dim light of his tallow candle.
"You've been acting strange lately," Han Feng whispered to the metal.
He picked up a Qi-Gathering Pill—his entire monthly allowance from the sect. It was a pathetic thing, lumpy and grey, filled with more impurities than actual spiritual energy. To a talented disciple, it was a snack; to Han Feng, it was his only hope.
As he moved to swallow it, his hand brushed against the iron disk.
Whoosh.
A sudden, violent suction force erupted from the mirror. The Qi-Gathering Pill was ripped from Han Feng's fingers and slammed into the center of the iron disk.
"No!" Han Feng lunged for it. That pill was his life!
But he froze.
A foul, black smoke began to pour out of the pill as it sat on the mirror. The shack filled with a stench so putrid it smelled like rotting corpses. The grey, lumpy exterior of the pill began to flake away, turning into ash.
Ten seconds later, the smoke dissipated.
Where the low-grade pill had been, there now sat a tiny, crystalline sphere. It was no longer grey; it was a translucent, blinding white. It radiated a fragrance so pure that the frost on Han Feng's window began to melt instantly.
"A... Perfect Grade Pill?" Han Feng gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs.
In the cultivation world, pills were graded by purity. A 50% pure pill was "Standard." An 80% was "High Grade." A 100% pure pill—a Perfect Pill—was a myth. It was said that only the Alchemy Gods of the Upper Realms could concoct such a thing.
Han Feng looked at the "junk" mirror. His hands shook. If the sect elders found out he had an artifact that could strip the impurities out of anything, he wouldn't just be expelled—he would be dissected.
"The Heavens gave me a crippled body," Han Feng whispered, his eyes gleaming with a newfound, terrifying light. "But they gave me the means to fix the world."
Without hesitation, he popped the crystalline pill into his mouth.
The First Breakthrough
The energy didn't just flow; it exploded.
Unlike the jagged, painful Qi of the tainted pills he'd taken before, this energy was like liquid silk. It roared through his 12 meridians, washing away the "spiritual sludge" that had blocked his progress for years.
Han Feng sat in the lotus position. His skin began to glow with a faint, golden hue.
Crack.
The sound echoed in the silent room. It was the sound of a bottleneck breaking.
Body Tempering: Stage 1.
The energy didn't stop. It surged again, fueled by the 100% efficiency of the refined pill.
Crack.
Body Tempering: Stage 2.
His muscles knitted together, becoming denser and more efficient. His bones vibrated, turning as hard as tempered steel. By the time the sun began to peek over the horizon, Han Feng opened his eyes. A shockwave of pure air blew the dust from his floor in a perfect circle.
Body Tempering: Stage 3.
In one night, he had caught up to Li Wei.
Han Feng stood up, his movements fluid and predatory. He looked at the rusted mirror, which had returned to its dull, silent state.
"Three days until the evaluation," Han Feng said, a cold smile playing on his lips. "I think it's time the 'Trash' of the Cloud-Mist Sect started taking out the garbage."