Drystone woke the next day long before sunrise.
The dirt streets were already full of footsteps, murmurs, and held breaths. The announcement of the test had fallen over the village like a stone into still water; ripples of agitation were still spreading through every home, every hearth, every conversation.
It was rare for anything important to happen there.
What was truly rare was for something important to happen and have anything to do with fate.
Lin Yuan moved through the crowd in a clean robe—or as clean as one could manage in a poor orphanage—with his hair tied back by a plain cord. He carried nothing but a small bundle with a piece of hard bread, a waterskin, and the medallion hanging beneath his clothes.
He was not the only young person in the village heading for the central square.
There were boys his age walking with stiff backs, trying to look confident. There were girls with nervous eyes accompanied by their mothers. Sons of merchants wearing better boots, sons of farmers with rough hands, sons of hunters with broad shoulders and alert eyes.
And then there were the others.
The ones who walked a little apart.
The ones who knew, even before it started, that the world had not favored them.
Orphans. The poor. Children without an important family name. Youths without money for medicine, teachers, or spirit stones. Aspirants who could not afford the luxury of dreaming too high, and yet kept walking anyway.
Lin Yuan was one of them.
He did not lower his gaze.
He never did when too many people were around. He had learned that, in places like Drystone, anyone who looked small ended up becoming small in everyone's eyes.
When he reached the square, the Gray Cloud Sect's recruiters were already there.
They had cleared a wide space in front of the old grain storehouse. At the center they had placed a wooden table, a small gray banner bearing the emblem of a cloud crossed by three lines, and several strange tools: stone plates, opaque crystal spheres, tablets of cheap jade, and a metal disk covered in inscriptions.
To the villagers, it looked almost sacred.
To the recruiters, it was routine.
Lin Yuan stopped at the edge of the square and watched.
Not only the objects, but the way the sect's men moved. The certainty in their hands. The way they looked without truly looking at anyone. The manner in which the entire village gave them room as though they belonged to a different species.
In a way, they did.
Cultivation separated people more than wealth ever could.
A rich merchant still fell ill. A landowner still aged. An official still feared death.
But a cultivator...
A cultivator could shatter stone with a hand, lighten the body, lengthen life, cut through ordinary weapons, dominate common men, and stand above villages, clans, and entire cities.
That was what people said even in Drystone, where such stories arrived incomplete and swollen by fear and ignorance.
For the entire region, the Gray Cloud Sect was the nearest gate to that world.
It was not a great sect compared with the powers of the continent. It might not even appear in the records of the truly important regions. But for a thousand miles around, no one dared challenge it openly.
It controlled routes.
Collected favors.
Decided who could rise and who would keep plowing dirt all their lives.
"Lin Yuan!"
A young voice pulled him from his thoughts.
It was Qiao Ren, son of the owner of the oil shop, a boy two years younger than him and very fond of talking too much.
"I knew you'd come," he said, smiling nervously. "Do you think we have a chance?"
Lin Yuan looked at the group of aspirants, then at the recruiters.
"Some do."
Qiao Ren scratched his cheek.
"You always talk as if you're looking down at everything from above."
"No," Lin Yuan replied. "I just prefer not to lie to myself too early."
The other boy gave a tense little laugh.
"My father says it would already be an honor if even one person from the village gets in."
"Then I hope it's you."
Qiao Ren blinked, startled by the direct answer.
"You mean that?"
"Yes."
"I thought... well, some people say you might do it."
Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.
"Who says that?"
"Old Mei, sometimes. Though she denies it afterward," Qiao Ren confessed, lowering his voice. "She says you weren't born to stay here."
Lin Yuan said nothing.
The square was filling more and more. The recruiters organized the aspirants into lines. A young disciple of the sect, with a narrow face and an impatient expression, walked in front of them, sweeping them with his gaze.
That gaze was not especially insulting, but it was not entirely human either. It seemed to weigh, measure, and classify without effort.
Talent.
Origin.
Usefulness.
Waste.
All at once, Lin Yuan felt how small Drystone truly was.
Not in size, but in reach.
The hills around the village, the well, the wretched market, the orphanage, the blacksmith's shop, the muddy roads, the old storehouse, the dry pastures... all of it, everything that for years had made up his whole world, meant nothing beside the true scale of things.
It was a forgotten corner.
A lost point.
A place so small that perhaps it did not even deserve to appear on the maps the sects kept.
And yet it was everything he had ever known.
The thought struck him with brutal clarity:
If I don't leave now, maybe I never will.
An elder in a gray robe, taller than the others and with his hair bound beneath a dark clasp, stepped forward.
His presence alone was enough to make the murmur die down almost completely.
He did not need to raise his voice much.
"Listen carefully."
The entire square fell still.
"Today, those who have not yet seen eighteen winters will be evaluated. We will examine your body, your spiritual perception, and the quality of your meridians. Not all who are accepted will become inner disciples. Not all who are rejected are worthless. But the sect does not raise just anyone."
His eyes slid over the lines.
"Anyone who causes disorder will be expelled. Anyone who lies will be punished. Anyone who cannot endure a basic test does not deserve to aspire to the path of cultivation."
Lin Yuan watched several boys swallow hard.
The elder gestured.
The disciples began moving the testing tools.
Qiao Ren whispered, "That must be a real elder of the sect."
"Maybe," Lin Yuan said.
"Aren't you nervous?"
Lin Yuan looked at the inscribed disk they had placed in the center.
"Yes."
Qiao Ren looked at him, surprised to hear the truth.
"You don't seem it."
"There's not much use in looking nervous."
The physical evaluation began first.
The youths had to lift a stone the size of a small wheel, carry it a certain distance, and then strike a hardened wooden post. It was a simple test, but a revealing one. It did not measure spiritual power, only coordination, basic strength, endurance, and bodily discipline.
One by one they were called.
Some boys, big and confident, failed quickly because of poor breathing or posture. Others, thin and quiet, surprised everyone by enduring more than expected. One girl with black eyes and a firm jaw held the stone with such steadiness that several adults in the village began to murmur.
Lin Yuan waited for his turn without wasting a single movement.
When they called him, he stepped into the center of the square.
For a moment he felt many eyes on him.
The village's.
The other aspirants'.
The sect disciples'.
Even the elder's.
He stood before the stone.
Breathed once.
Lifted it.
It was heavy, yes, but not impossible. His arms tightened. His shoulders hardened. He walked the required distance without rushing, planting each step carefully. Then he set the stone down, took the testing mallet, and struck the wooden post with clean force, nothing wasted.
It was not the best result.
But it was not a bad one either.
The narrow-faced disciple wrote something on a tablet.
"Passable," he said without emotion.
Lin Yuan returned to his place.
Qiao Ren looked at him as though he had witnessed something impressive.
"It didn't look hard for you."
"It was."
"Then you have a stone face."
Lin Yuan almost smiled.
The test continued.
Little by little, the morning advanced. The sun rose. The square grew warm. Some parents began to hope too much. Others watched their hopes collapse in silence.
Then came the second part.
Spiritual perception.
One by one, the aspirants had to touch an opaque sphere set on a base of dark metal. If there was affinity or even minimal spiritual perception, the sphere would emit a faint glow or react with soft vibrations.
That was where the differences turned crueler.
Some caused no reaction at all.
Others managed only pale flickers.
Two youths from well-off families lit the sphere quite strongly. People murmured their names as though they were already full-fledged disciples.
Lin Yuan watched every reaction carefully.
When at last he was called, he stepped forward in silence.
The sphere was cold to the touch.
He placed his hand on it.
Nothing happened for two full breaths.
Then a weak light, barely more than a grayish mist, appeared beneath the surface.
It was not bright.
It was not impressive.
But it was there.
Enough to make the disciple recording the results look up for the first time.
"Weak perception, but present," he murmured.
The sect elder observed Lin Yuan for a few moments longer than normal before looking away.
Qiao Ren let out a breath when Lin Yuan returned.
"That's good, right?!"
"It's enough to continue," Lin Yuan answered.
And it was true.
Enough.
Not extraordinary.
Not worthy of admiration.
Just enough.
But in a life like his, enough was already more than he had often had.
The sun was nearly at the center of the sky when the evaluations began moving toward their final stage.
That was when Lin Yuan noticed something.
The recruiters were preparing the metal disk covered in inscriptions and several needles as fine as hair.
There was solemnity in that movement.
It was not a loud or flashy test.
It was more decisive.
More dangerous.
The elder spoke again.
"The final evaluation will measure meridians and spiritual foundation. Here it is determined who can truly walk the path of cultivation and who cannot."
The entire square fell silent.
Lin Yuan felt the air grow heavier.
Up to that point, he had passed.
He had not shone, but neither had he failed.
And yet something inside him tightened.
For no clear reason.
An unease.
A shadow of foreboding.
Instinctively, he put a hand to his chest.
The medallion rested motionless beneath the cloth.
Cold.
Silent.
As always.
But for the first time since he could remember, Lin Yuan felt that the old worthless disk seemed heavier than usual.
As if it were waiting for something.
As if it knew the result of that final test was about to split his life in two.