The ruins of the Scorching Tower, once a symbol of his despair, now felt too small, too safe. The nascent hunger in his core, though quieted by the herb, was a constant reminder that his new path demanded more—a deeper pain, a hotter fire. As if summoned by his resolve, the silhouette of the old master appeared at the crumbling entrance. This time, Usta Mo's back was not so hunched, and his eyes held not the weariness of an old man, but the sharp, assessing glint of a master smith watching his forge.
"You have tasted the hunger," Mo said, his voice deeper and clearer than before. "Now, you will learn to feed it."
He led Bu He away from the ruins, into a part of the forest where the ancient trees grew so close together they formed a living ceiling, a place where no sane person would dare to tread. Behind a curtain of moss-covered rock, hidden from the world, was a door woven from petrified roots. "This is no common cave," Usta Mo said, pushing the root-door open. "It is a Vein-Heart. A scar on the earth where the Leyna of the great Ancestor bleeds most purely. Here, pain is more real, and power is a torment."
The air inside was thick and heavy, carrying the metallic scent of raw blood and charged earth. The walls of the cave did not reflect the light; they seemed to swallow it, pulsing with a faint, crimson glow as if they were alive. Carved into the stone were ancient, agonizing symbols, drawn not with ink, but with the blood and sweat of those who had come before. "The scars of your predecessors," Mo explained. "This is the sanctuary of the forsaken, but only those who can forge their fear into a weapon will leave it alive."
From that day on, time for Bu He became a cycle of torment. Every morning, Usta Mo would force him to strike his bare hands against sand, then sharp-edged rocks, then solid stone walls. The purpose was not to build calluses, but to cultivate agony as fuel. The master taught him the "Leyna Breath," a technique that was less about respiration and more about a journey into the heart of pain itself. With every shattering impact on his knuckles, Bu He would inhale, not air, but the white-hot sensation of the pain itself, drawing it from his broken flesh and into the invisible, nascent Blood Core in his chest.
He was without Qi, but with every agonizing breath, he began to feel the first stirrings of Leyna—a thin, electric vibration in his muscles, a whisper of heat that was entirely his own. When he told his master, the old man simply nodded. "Pain is not your enemy, child. It is the bellows for your furnace. Every blow stokes the fire in your core. The heavens offered you no grace, so you must wrench your power from the earth, from your own flesh and bone."
One night, as a storm raged outside, Bu He lay shivering on the stone floor, his body weak from meager rations. But for the first time, he felt the fire inside him refuse to be extinguished. In his dreams, he heard Usta Mo's voice, a calm anchor in the tempest. "You cannot find anything until you first abandon yourself. The cage the heavens built for you is also a fortress no one else can enter. Your curse is your sanctuary."
The next morning, familiar, hateful voices echoed from outside the cave. The two bullies who had fled had returned, this time with a larger, more confident group. By all rights, he should have been terrified. But instead of hiding, he walked to the entrance of the cave and stood there, waiting, his eyes meeting theirs without a flicker of fear.
"You can scorn me," he said, his voice amplified by the cave's echo. "But you have no idea what is being forged in this pain."
It was not his words, but the unshakable certainty in his eyes that startled them. "Have you gone mad?" one of them sneered, stooping to pick up a rock. But as the stone flew towards him, Bu He took a sharp Leyna Breath, absorbing the sting of the impact, feeding the jolt of pain directly to the fire in his core. Every insult, every taunt, he mentally forged into a seal and pressed it into his very muscles.
His dark, absurd humor became his armor. He threw his head back and laughed, a sound that was half-mad and half-liberated.
"If being without Qi is madness," he roared, his voice cracking with defiance, "then I shall be the Sovereign of this Madness!"
It was a declaration of war. The bullies, enraged by his defiance, charged as one. When the first blow landed on his shoulder, Bu He staggered, pain exploding in his senses. But he didn't fall. Instead, he converted that spike of agony into a burst of Leyna, using it to sweep the first attacker's feet from under him. As the others stared in shock, he was no longer defending. He was a crucible, turning every blow they landed on him into fuel for his own furnace. The fight was short and brutal. One by one, the bullies were left groaning on the ground.
That evening, a bloodied but triumphant Bu He was given a new task by his master: "Leaving a Mark in the Stone." It was more than an exercise. Usta Mo made him carve characters into the cave's solid rock floor with his bare fingertips. "A man who cannot leave a mark on the world is a ghost," the master said. "Your Qi-blessed peers write their names on the wind with celestial energy. You will carve yours into the very bones of the earth."
He worked until his fingers were raw and bleeding, the pain a constant, screaming mantra. But with every scratch he etched into the stone, he was not just writing a character; he was asserting his existence. I am here.
Days passed. Bu He's body was being remade, reforged in the alchemy of pain and Leyna. His muscles were not just hard, but pliant as steel; his eyes held the fire not of a madman, but of a man who had decided to master his own destiny.
Finally, one morning, Bu He stepped to the mouth of the cave. He did not raise his hands to the heavens in prayer. He lowered them to the ground, palms open, feeling the faint, primal pulse of the great, sleeping body beneath him.
"This is my path," he whispered. "And now, I am ready for the real trials."