At the eastern edge of the city, near the entrance of Second Elder Wu-Guang's compound, a sudden, blood-curdling scream shattered the peaceful dawn. A young servant girl had dropped her wooden washbasin, splashing soapy water across the cobblestones as she stared in absolute horror at the courtyard entrance.
Lined up neatly on the cold stone steps were three severed heads.
Their dark cloth masks had been stripped away, revealing the pale, blood-drained faces of the professional dark-market assassins sent the previous night. No words were written on the blood-soaked parchment pinned beside them—only a single, dried streak of crimson paint drawn across the wooden lintel.
Yet, the message was louder than a strike of thunder.
Inside the main hall of the compound, Second Elder Wu-Guang sat frozen in his high wooden chair. His face was ghastly white, his bloodshot eyes staring blankly at the floorboards. In a single day, his arrogant son had been reduced to a permanently crippled husk, his political faction within the clan council had been dismantled by Clan Head Wu-Wen's midnight purge, and his secret contract with the Shadow Viper Pavilion had been brutally returned to his front door.
Wu-Guang's hands, resting on the arms of his chair, trembled uncontrollably. The shadow hanging over his head was no longer a sickly, fifteen-year-old cripple whom he could manipulate at will. It was an ancient, ruthless monster—an entity that could wipe out his entire bloodline without blinking an eye.
By the time the morning sun fully broke through the thick cloud cover, casting golden rays across the city walls, Li-Wen was already standing near the southern gates of Azure Mist City.
He wore a simple, durable light-grey traveling robe bound tightly at the waist with a dark leather sash. Tight leather bracers protected his wrists, and slung across his back was a sturdy bamboo container filled with basic alchemical vials, jade jars, and the rare medicinal herbs he had collected from Old Man Chen's Hundred Herbs Hall late the previous evening.
His posture was light, his breathing smooth and rhythmically controlled. To any passing merchant or guard, he looked like nothing more than a quiet, handsome scholar embarking on a long journey. None could suspect that beneath his smooth skin lay five silver-glowing meridians and the awakened soul of a former God Emperor.
"You are truly leaving today?"
A deep, authoritative voice sounded from the shadow of the stone archway.
Clan Head Wu-Wen stepped forward, his long grey hair tied back in a neat martial topknot. His broad face bore visible signs of exhaustion from managing the overnight purge of Wu-Guang's remaining loyalists, but his eyes carried a newfound clarity, warmth, and fatherly pride as he looked upon his son.
Li-Wen paused near the stone milestone, turning his head slightly. "The Wu Clan is secure under your hand now, Father. Wu-Guang is a toothless tiger trapped in his own compound, and the remaining elders have surrendered their military seals to the main hall. Staying in this stagnant environment will only slow down my foundation-building."
Wu-Wen sighed softly, a mixture of reluctance and profound awe swirling in his chest. He reached into his wide inner robes and pulled out a heavy, embroidered velvet pouch along with a long, leather-bound scabbard.
"These are fifty mid-grade Spirit Stones from the central clan treasury," Wu-Wen said, extending his arms. "And this is the Cold-Moon Longsword—a high-grade steel weapon forged from deep-iron that I used during my youth in the military. The Cloud-Piercing Mountains are an untamed wilderness infested with fierce spirit beasts, poisonous mists, and ruthless rogue cultivators. Take them with you."
Li-Wen looked down at the pouch and the gleaming hilt of the sword, but he gently pushed his father's hands back.
"Keep the Spirit Stones to rebuild the clan's inner guards and reward those who stayed loyal to you, Father," Li-Wen said calmly, his golden pupils flashing with quiet, supreme confidence. "As for a mortal steel blade... it will only hinder the fluidity of my movements. And spirit beasts? To my current body, they are not hazards—they are merely raw ingredients waiting to be refined."
Wu-Wen stared at his son in stunned silence for a long moment. Looking into Li-Wen's ancient, tranquil eyes, he realized once again that his son was no longer a child seeking protection. He was an absolute sovereign charting his own destiny.
Wu-Wen let out a hearty, booming laugh that echoed off the stone city walls. "Fair enough! A true dragon should not carry wooden toys! How long will you be gone into the wilderness?"
"A month," Li-Wen replied, turning his gaze toward the towering, emerald-green mountain ranges looming along the northern horizon, their jagged peaks lost in perpetual clouds. "When I return, the regional selection for the Imperial Academy will begin. By then, I will ensure that the name of the Wu Clan echoes across the entire Southern Province."
Without another word, Li-Wen turned and stepped through the massive iron gates. His light-grey robes fluttered softly in the morning mountain breeze as his silhouette gradually vanished down the winding, dirt road leading into the wilderness.
The Cloud-Piercing Mountain Range was an ancient, primeval expanse that spanned over three thousand miles across the northern border of the province.
Towering, ancient trees with trunks as wide as houses reached hundreds of feet into the sky, their dense, interlocking canopies blocking out the midday sun and casting the forest floor into a perpetual twilight. The air here was starkly different from the dusty, artificial atmosphere of Azure Mist City—it was damp, wild, heavy with the scent of rotting pine leaves, and saturated with dense, chaotic environmental Ki.
For ordinary cultivators at the early stages of Ki-Refine, entering the outer perimeter of these primeval woods without a well-equipped hunting party was equivalent to suicide. Low-tier spirit beasts hunted in coordinated packs, hidden bogs concealed deadly flesh-eating leeches, and rogue mercenaries frequented the shadows to ambush lone travelers.
However, as Li-Wen's boots stepped onto the soft, moss-covered soil of the forest, he closed his eyes and let out a long, satisfied breath.
HUMMM—
The internal channels of the Void Sovereign Technique inside his chest automatically vibrated in harmony with the wild environment. His five opened meridians pulsed like silver threads, greedily drawing in the raw, unrefined atmospheric Ki through his skin pores.
"A pure, uncorrupted domain," Li-Wen murmured, opening his eyes as a golden glint flashed across his pupils. "No artificial smoke, no stagnant municipal arrays. This is where I can forge my physical vessel into an absolute killing machine."
He walked at a steady, unhurried pace, deeper into the dark, mist-shrouded valleys. His ears, far more sensitive than any mortal tracker's, picked up every subtle vibration of the wilderness—the rustle of nocturnal insects beneath the damp bark, the distant rush of mountain waterfalls, and the subtle, rhythmically controlled breathing of predators watching from the high canopy.
RUSTLE.
A sharp, violent snapping of twigs sounded from a thicket thirty paces to his left.
The bushes burst open with explosive speed as a massive shadow lunged forward. It was a Blood-Toothed Wolf—a First-Tier Spirit Beast equivalent in raw strength to a human cultivator at the Fourth Stage of Ki-Refine.
The beast stood over six feet tall at the shoulder, its coarse fur a dark, dried-blood crimson. Its eyes glowed with an unholy, feral madness, and its curved, eight-inch fangs dripped with yellow, acidic saliva that hissed upon touching the mossy ground.
The wolf landed heavily on a mossy boulder, its crimson gaze locking instantly onto the solitary, unarmed youth standing in the glade. With a fierce, gut-wrenching roar, it kicked off the stone, its massive claws extended to shred Li-Wen's torso into crimson ribbons.
The kinetic wind generated by the beast's leap blew back Li-Wen's dark hair, exposing his pale, unbothered face.
Li-Wen didn't draw back, nor did he shift his weight into a defensive posture. To his divine perception, the wolf's explosive speed was painfully slow—its trajectory entirely linear, its neck exposed, and its lower flanks wide open.
"An aggressive beast testing its claws," Li-Wen said coolly.
Just as the wolf's razor-sharp claws came within three inches of his chest, Li-Wen's right arm shot out like a striking silver viper.
GRAB!
With terrifying, flawless precision, Li-Wen's bare fingers locked tightly around the Blood-Toothed Wolf's thick, fur-covered neck mid-air.
BOOM!
The sudden, absolute halt of the wolf's massive momentum created a violent kinetic shockwave, blowing away the surrounding fallen leaves in a fifty-foot circle. The ground beneath Li-Wen's leather boots didn't even sink an inch.
The Blood-Toothed Wolf let out a strangled, desperate whimper. Its massive legs thrashed frantically in mid-air as it found itself suspended five feet off the ground, held by a single, slender hand of a fifteen-year-old human boy. It snapped its jaws violently, trying to crush Li-Wen's wrist, but Li-Wen's grip felt like an unyielding clamp of divine celestial iron.
"You have decent blood essence," Li-Wen noted softly, looking into the beast's panicked eyes. "I shall accept it as fuel."
BZZZZZT!
A brilliant, silver-blue aura ignited along Li-Wen's arm. Instead of simply snapping the beast's spine with physical force, Li-Wen activated the sinister, ancient refining mechanism of the Void Sovereign Technique.
SQUEAK—!
The massive wolf shuddered violently in mid-air. Its eyes bulged as its vitality, refined blood essence, and internal spirit Ki were forcibly extracted through its neck, flowing directly into Li-Wen's palm like a torrent of liquid energy.
The beast's muscular frame shriveled at a visible rate. Its dark crimson fur lost its luster, turning ash-grey, and its thick bones dried into brittle husks within five short breaths.
THUD.
Li-Wen casually opened his hand, letting the dried, weightless carcass fall onto the damp leaves where it disintegrated into grey dust.
Inside his lower abdomen, his five silver meridians glowed with blinding intensity. The raw, wild blood energy of the wolf was purified by the divine spark within his soul, converting into pristine, silver Ki that expanded his internal energy sea by a noticeable margin.
"Refining the vital blood essence of wild spirit beasts directly..." Li-Wen checked his own internal circulation, a dark, satisfied smile touching his lips. "With the Void Sovereign Technique, I don't need to waste months meditating over low-grade spirit stones. This mountain range is not a danger zone—it is my personal hunting ground."
As the sun reached its zenith, the light filtering through the dense canopy grew even dimmer. Li-Wen pushed deeper into the inner perimeter of the outer mountains, stepping over massive, ancient roots and navigating treacherous ravines blanketed in purple toxic fog.
Ordinary cultivators would have needed costly Detoxification Pills to traverse these areas, but Li-Wen walked through the poisonous vapor effortlessly. The moment the toxic mist touched his skin, his silver Ki automatically formed a microscopic protective layer, burning the poison into harmless white steam.
By late afternoon, he arrived at a secluded, horseshoe-shaped valley surrounded by towering granite cliffs.
In the center of the valley sat a crystal-clear mountain lake fed by a roaring waterfall. The concentration of environmental Ki here was nearly three times denser than the surrounding forest. Growing along the moist edges of the lake were several rare spirit herbs—most notably three stalks of Iron-Skin Grass and a fifty-year-old Spirit-Ginseng, glowing with a faint, milky-white light.
"A natural spirit spring," Li-Wen said, his eyes scanning the quiet valley. "An ideal location to refine the Foundation-Forging Liquid and break into the Sixth Stage of Ki-Refine."
GROAN—!
Before Li-Wen could step toward the glowing herbs, the serene surface of the mountain lake violently erupted.
A massive pillar of water shot fifty feet into the air, showering the bank with heavy spray. From the depths of the dark water rose a monstrous, serpent-like creature over thirty feet in length. Its body was covered in thick, dark blue scales that shimmered like polished steel, and its head featured a single, blunt horn glowing with pale blue lightning.
It was a Second-Tier Spirit Beast—an Armored River Python, equivalent in power to an Earth-Realm cultivator at the First or Second Stage!
The python opened its wide maw, revealing rows of jagged, translucent teeth, and let out a ear-splitting hiss that reverberated off the granite cliffs. It raised its massive tail, swinging it toward Li-Wen like a falling iron log.
SWOOSH!
The displacement of air was so intense that it flattened the grass along the bank before the tail even arrived.
Li-Wen's eyes narrowed slightly. "A Second-Tier beast guarding a natural treasure... perfect timing."
Instead of dodging backward, Li-Wen stepped forward, his body blurring into a grey streak.
BANG!
The python's massive tail struck the granite shoreline right where Li-Wen had been standing a millisecond prior, shattering the solid rock into thousands of sharp fragments.
Li-Wen reappeared directly above the python's swinging tail. He landed soundlessly on the monster's slippery blue scales, his balance flawless despite the creature's violent thrashing.
"Your scales are tough, but your spirit core is unrefined," Li-Wen said, his voice echoing in the python's ears like an absolute decree.
Li-Wen formed a sword-sign with his right index and middle fingers. The five opened meridians along his spine flared with brilliant silver light as he channeled eighty percent of his internal Ki into his fingertips, compressing it into a needle-thin blade of pure energy.
SWISH!
Li-Wen drove his fingers straight down into the heavy armored scales on the back of the python's neck.
CRACK!
The steel-hard scales, capable of deflecting high-grade iron swords, shattered under the microscopic point of Li-Wen's compressed Ki. His hand plunged four inches deep into the monster's flesh, striking directly at the central nervous nerve bundle along its spine.
"HISSSSSS!"
The Armored River Python thrashed frantically, its massive body thrashing against the water, churning the clear lake into a frothing foam of white and red. It tried to roll over to crush the tiny human beneath its immense weight, but Li-Wen remained rooted to its neck like a mountain peak.
"Absorb!" Li-Wen shouted softly.
BOOM!
A miniature vortex of silver-blue light erupted from Li-Wen's palm, penetrating deep into the python's bloodstream.
Unlike the Blood-Toothed Wolf, the Second-Tier python possessed a vast reservoir of aquatic spirit energy and dense vitality. As the torrents of raw energy surged up Li-Wen's arm, his dark robes ballooned outward from the sheer volume of spiritual power entering his frame.
Inside his body, the Abyssal Bone Rune along his spine hummed in excitement, glowing with a deep, golden radiance. The incoming spirit energy was rapidly filtered, purified, and smashed into his remaining blocked meridians.
CRACK!
The Sixth Meridian inside his left arm shattered its physical blockage!
CRACK!
The Seventh Meridian along his right leg dissolved under the overwhelming pressure of the refined energy!
Li-Wen's aura expanded rapidly. The kinetic shockwave generated by his sudden breakthrough pushed the surrounding lake water three feet away from his feet.
Ki-Refine Stage Six!
Ki-Refine Stage Seven!
In less than ten minutes of intense absorption, Li-Wen had bypassed two entire stages of cultivation, jumping directly into the Late Stages of the Ki-Refine Realm!
The thirty-foot Armored River Python finally ceased its thrashing. Its heavy, metallic scales withered into dull grey flakes, its vast body shrinking until it floated motionless on the lake surface as a lifeless husk.
Li-Wen withdrew his hand, stepping off the carcass and landing gracefully onto the grassy shore.
He took a deep breath, feeling the newly opened Sixth and Seventh Meridians surging with thick, silver Ki that moved at double the speed of before. His physical strength had tripled, his skin possessed a faint, jade-like luster, and his Divine Sense could now cover a hundred-foot radius with absolute clarity.
He walked over to the edge of the lake, gathering the Iron-Skin Grass and the fifty-year-old Spirit-Ginseng with practiced ease, placing them carefully into his bamboo container.
"Seven meridians open..." Li-Wen looked up at the darkening sky, his golden pupils reflecting the first evening stars appearing over the mountain peaks. "With these herbs, I can refine the Foundation-Forging Liquid tonight. By the time I reach the deep core of the Cloud-Piercing Mountains, no mortal in the Ki-Refine Realm will be able to stand before me."
Sitting down cross-legged on a flat granite stone beside the quiet waterfall, Li-Wen closed his eyes and entered a state of deep cultivation, completely immersed in the ancient rhythm of the primeval forest.
See you in next chapter...