The days following Lucien Cross's departure passed in a relentless, unforgiving blur.
Kaelen secluded himself deep within the hidden valleys that once served as his late master's private training ground — a place few in the Pavilion even knew existed. Jagged cliffs loomed like silent sentinels, and the roar of distant waterfalls echoed among the crags, masking his presence from any prying eyes.
Here, amid the raw wilderness, Kaelen would forge his strength anew.
Before him, the withered, timeworn tablet that his master had once venerated stood proudly. Upon it were inscribed ancient martial Cultivation Technique — the foundation of the Primordial Bodycraft, a cultivation path so archaic and demanding that it had long since fallen out of favor in the modern era of refined Aether techniques.
Kaelen knelt before the tablet, fists pressed against the cold earth.
"Master..." he murmured, the single word laden with a promise. "I will not allow your legacy to fade into dust."
He rose to his feet. The twilight wind howled through the gorge, whipping at his robes, but Kaelen paid it no heed. His hands formed the first seal of the Primordial Bodycraft — a technique that harmonized the human frame with the unshakable power of stone and soil.
The moment he initiated the form, agony lanced through his limbs.
Every muscle, every tendon strained against invisible weights. His bones creaked as if about to shatter, and his blood thundered in his ears. Yet Kaelen clenched his jaw, enduring the searing pain without a sound.
The Primordial Bodycraft was no gentle art. It demanded one to break themselves apart, to tear away all weakness, and be reforged through suffering.
Hours dragged into days.
Kaelen lost track of time as he trained with brutal intensity, pushing past the limits of exhaustion, hunger, and pain. His hands bled from gripping the stone tablet for support; his breath rasped like the bellows of a dying forge.
But each grueling cycle brought subtle transformations.
His skin grew tougher, callused as the bark of ancient trees. His bones, once strained and brittle under the technique's pressure, now pulsed with newfound density. His muscles wove themselves tighter, more compact, thrumming with barely contained power.
And deep within his dantian, the Ouroboros Pendant spun ceaselessly, a silent, faithful engine accelerating his growth at an inhuman pace.
On the twenty-first night, beneath a sky heavy with stars, Kaelen sat cross-legged upon a solitary stone outcropping, his breathing deep and measured. His aura, once turbulent and raw, now condensed into a thin, almost imperceptible shroud around him — the unmistakable sign of a cultivator nearing a breakthrough.
With a slow exhale, he pressed two fingers against the center of his chest.
Boom!
An invisible shockwave rippled outward, stirring dust and debris.
The bottleneck that had constrained him at the Sixth Awakening Stage cracked — and then shattered.
Kaelen's body surged with wild energy, like a dam bursting open. His vision sharpened; every sound, from the whisper of the grass to the flutter of moth wings, grew painfully clear. Power filled his limbs, so dense and refined that it felt like molten iron running through his veins.
He had stepped into the Seventh Awakening Stage — not through the sterile perfection of alchemical pills, but through raw, savage cultivation!
Kaelen opened his eyes, and within them burned a fierce, primal light.
But he knew this was only the first step. Lucien Cross, and the humiliation he sought to inflict, awaited him at the Decennial Grand Trial.
Kaelen rose from his seat, his movements sharp and deliberate, as though every muscle answered to his will with perfect obedience. He wrapped his bloodied fists in fresh cloth, fastened the tattered remains of his robes, and turned his gaze toward the distant mountains where the Mystic Dawn Pavilion stood.
"I still have months," he murmured.
Not merely to consolidate his breakthrough — but to ascend higher, of the Primordial Bodycraft
A technique that would allow him to dominate the battlefield with overwhelming speed and devastating physical force, cleaving through spells and barriers alike with nothing but the strength of his own body.
And once he had mastered it...
Not even Lucien Cross, scion of privilege and prestige, would be able to stand before him.
Kaelen smiled — a thin, cold smile, as merciless as a blade.
"The road ahead is long, but I will carve it with my own hands," he vowed aloud, his voice swallowed by the howling winds.
And with that, he vanished into the night, leaving behind only the faintest echo of his footsteps — the first of many that would one day shake the heavens themselves.