The fire cracked quietly.
Ash drifted like grey snow across the ruined stone, and the chill of the mountain night gnawed at the three disciples who camped at the edge of the broken temple.
Mo Yixuan sat in still meditation, blade across her knees.
Ren Yao kept half an eye open, pretending to rest.
Lin Feng didn't move. He couldn't.
Because the ground beneath him was pulsing.
Not physically — but spiritually.
Something below was calling him, resonating with the warmth in his veins, with the ache in his bones, with the sword wrapped in cloth on his back.
The sword hadn't shone in years.
Now it whispered.
> "Come."
---
Lin Feng rose silently, stepping away from the dim firelight.
He moved through the fractured ruins like smoke, careful not to wake the others. As he passed the blackened remains of ancient stone guardians, his hand brushed a weathered wall — and a soft click echoed beneath his fingers.
Stone shifted.
Dust spilled from the base of the wall as a narrow gap appeared, revealing spiral steps descending into darkness.
He hesitated.
Then stepped through.
---
The stairwell was tight, the air stale with age and Qi-rot.
The further he descended, the heavier his limbs became — not from fatigue, but pressure. It felt like the ruin itself was testing him, weighing his soul, his blood, his bones.
His steps slowed.
Each breath drew fire through his lungs.
Yet he kept moving.
> "Why do I still stand?"
The same question that had shaken the Mirror of Resolve repeated inside him.
And the deeper he went, the more his body began to respond. Not with words — but with pain.
His muscles cramped.
His bones trembled.
Then he saw it.
---
At the bottom of the descent was a circular room — walls covered in ancient characters, cracked and faded. In the center, embedded into the floor, was a stone platform. Upon it lay a coffin of black jade, sealed by seven rusted chains.
The chains pulsed faintly. Each trembled as if holding back something that should not move.
But they weren't what caught his eye.
Next to the coffin lay a corpse — no, a husk. Dry, mummified, long-dead. Yet its body was… intact. Unrotted. The muscles, though dried, were as if carved from divine iron.
And within that husk's chest was a dim crimson gem, barely pulsing.
Lin Feng knelt beside it.
He didn't know why. Only that something inside him reached for it.
And as his fingers brushed the gem—
> "YOUR BODY IS UNFORGED."
The voice wasn't heard — it boomed inside him, like a gong struck against his bones.
Lin Feng screamed silently as every part of him ignited in pain.
> "BONES WITHOUT FOUNDATION. FLESH WITHOUT MARK. YOU CARRY BLOOD THAT FORGETS ITSELF."
> "YOU SEEK STRENGTH? THEN BREAK. THEN BLEED. THEN BUILD."
The gem sank into his palm.
And his body exploded with agony.
---
He collapsed onto the cold stone, limbs twisting.
His skin cracked.
Blood seeped from his pores like ink.
But even as he shook, his mind remained strangely lucid. He could feel the pain as if it were a hammer — shattering him.
Every memory — of being abandoned, scorned, broken — rose with every throb.
> "You are not talented."
> "You are not genius."
> "You are forgotten. And yet…"
> You remain.
He screamed through gritted teeth.
And as his vision blurred — a flash of light burst behind his eyes.
---
On his back, wrapped in worn cloth, the broken sword trembled.
It had lain dormant for years — a shattered piece of junk, too dull to cut wood.
Now it hummed. Faintly. Like a voice remembering how to speak.
The fragments of spirit metal inside the blade began to resonate with the gem in Lin Feng's palm.
And the broken sword pulled toward him — whispering a name it had never spoken before:
> Void.
---
Lin Feng's body stilled.
Then convulsed.
Then— settled.
The pain vanished.
His skin steamed faintly, blood dried, muscles knit tighter. Something inside him had shifted. Not a breakthrough — not in the traditional sense.
But a first step.
A forbidden one.
The body was no longer ordinary.
It had begun to cultivate.
---
Above
Ren Yao snapped awake.
> "Where the hell is Lin Feng?"
Mo Yixuan stood already, blade drawn, eyes sharp.
> "He's below."
> "You can sense him?"
> "No. But the Qi… something changed."
They rushed into the ruin.
But when they arrived at the bottom of the spiral staircase…
The chamber was empty.
No corpse.
No coffin.
No Lin Feng.
Only scattered black feathers and a faint warmth in the air, as if a cocoon had been broken.
---
Deep within the ruin, Lin Feng walked alone — barely conscious, sword dragging behind him, palm still glowing faintly red.
And from the dark sky above, far beyond the mountain ranges, an ancient presence stirred.
> "A thread has been pulled," it whispered. "The Heavens will not ignore it."
---
The first spark of Lin Feng's body cultivation path has awakened.
The broken sword has begun to respond to him — sensing his resolve and pain.
The voice/gem in the ruin may be from a long-dead body cultivator or an ancient entity that once defied the heavens itself.
Mo Yixuan and Ren Yao are now aware Lin Feng is not normal.
A mysterious power far beyond the sect has noticed him.