The profound silence that followed the revelation of Conceptual Qi was a tangible weight, pressing down with the gravity of cosmic truths. Lin Feng stood unmoving, his gaze turned inward as his mind, sharp and relentlessly analytical, processed the intricate hierarchy laid bare before him. It did not get lost in the awe or the terror; it immediately sought the practical, the structural implication, the rule that governed the system.
His eyes, dark and focused, lifted to meet Elder Lan's. The question he asked was not born of personal anxiety, but of a pure, clinical need to understand the mechanics of the world.
"Master," he began, his voice cutting cleanly through the heavy quiet. "This hierarchy... is it fixed?" He paused, choosing his words with precision. "If a cultivator possesses Mortal Grade Qi, can they, through a lifetime of training and refinement, ever hope to achieve a Paramount Heaven Grade?"
Elder Lan's answer was immediate, a blade of pure, unsoftened truth.
"No." The single syllable was final, leaving no fissure for hope or debate. "The Qi one awakens is the foundation of their path. It is a measure of innate talent, a ceiling placed upon them by fate, bloodline, and the world itself." Her obsidian eyes held his, ensuring he absorbed the absolute nature of this law. "It can be polished, but its fundamental nature cannot be fundamentally altered. A river cannot flow uphill to become a mountain."
She allowed the stark reality to settle, watching him for any sign of disappointment or rebellion. Finding only calm analysis, she continued, her tone shifting from declaration to exposition.
"There are, of course, methods to refine what one has."
Her words were not an offer of hope, but a simple statement of arduous, limited possibility.
"The first is through sheer, relentless cultivation," she began, her tone as dry as ancient parchment. "The brutal, decade-spanning work of compressing and purifying one's Qi, cycle after cycle. This can, with immense and singular focus, allow a cultivator to advance one or two sub-tiers within their innate Grade." A faint, almost imperceptible chill of resignation touched the air. "For a mortal, to rise from 'Turbid' to 'Cleansed' would be a life's crowning achievement, worthy of songs in their dusty village."
"The second is through external treasures," she continued, her gesture conjuring the phantom image of a glowing pill and a pulsing, subterranean vein of light. "A heaven-defying pill, a baptism in a primal spiritual vein. Such fortune, stumbled upon once in ten thousand lives, might allow for a leap of one or two sub-tiers. If one is supremely lucky, blessed by fate itself, perhaps three." The phantoms vanished. "This is the absolute limit of what is possible through external means. The ceiling remains."
She leaned forward, her presence carving the next words into the fabric of reality itself. "However, one can never truly bridge the gap between Grades. A cultivator with Mortal Grade Qi cannot become Earth Grade. The chasm is not one of degree, but ontological. A stone, no matter how polished, cannot become water."
A new, unstable concept shimmered in the air between them—a sphere of energy that flickered, its color wavering between the murk of Mortal Grade and the stability of Earth, never fully committing to either.
"There exists a theoretical... approximation," she conceded, the word tasting faintly of academic contempt. "By using a combination of all methods—a lifetime of cultivation, a trove of priceless treasures, a moment of divine inspiration—a cultivator at the very peak of their Grade, a 'Pure Mortal' or 'Unshakable Earth,' might force a pseudo-breakthrough."
The flickering sphere pulsed erratically. "The result is not a true ascension. It is a 'Quasi-State'. A 'Quasi-Earth' or 'Quasi-Heaven' Grade." Her voice was a clinical dissection of failure. "Their power will be greater than their pure-grade peers, but it will be unstable, inefficient, a constant drain on their spirit, and forever inferior to a true, natural cultivator of that Grade. It is a desperate, flawed imitation. A scream against the immutable laws of heaven."
She let this harsh, unyielding truth hang in the air, its weight pressing down on the very stones of the courtyard. Her gaze was unwavering, a physical anchor to the reality she described.
"This is the natural order," she stated, her voice flat and final. "It is why sects seek disciples with high-grade Qi at birth. It is why the Heavens are considered both just and merciless."
Then, her obsidian eyes sharpened, focusing on him with an intensity that could etch jade.
"You," she said, the word a verdict and a challenge, "now hold a power that stands outside this order. Remember that, when you see how the world looks at you."
The harsh, unyielding truth of the natural order settled between them, a verdict on the entirety of the cultivation world. Lin Feng absorbed it not with despair, but with a cold, analytical clarity. His focus, sharp and relentless, turned inward, then back to the source of all his answers. The most immediate mystery was not the world, but the anomaly he contained.
"Master," he asked, his voice low and steady, cutting through the lingering weight of her lesson. "Tell me more about my Qi."
As the words left his lips, a silent disturbance stirred at their feet. It was not an action of his will, not a conscious command. It was an instinct, a reflex of the power he housed. A single, slender tendril of living shadow detached from the periphery of his own silhouette. It was not solid, not ethereal, but a ribbon of pure, hungry void. It did not slither with malice, but with a childlike, inquisitive curiosity, reaching across the polished stone floor towards the profound stillness of Elder Lan's shadow, as if seeking to understand its counterpart.
The response was instantaneous and absolute.
In the space of a single, suspended heartbeat, the temperature in the pavilion plunged. The very air crystallized. A perfect, razor-thin circle of hoarfrost bloomed on the floor, forming an impassable, frozen moat around the edges of Elder Lan's shadow. It was not an attack, but a statement—a boundary drawn by a sovereign power that tolerated no such familiarity. The silent, glacial command was unequivocal: No.
The inquisitive tendril of nothingness halted its advance. For a fleeting moment, it seemed to contemplate the impossible cold, this absolute denial of its presence. Then, it retreated, flowing back into Lin Feng's shadow as smoothly and silently as it had emerged, leaving no trace of its brief, audacious exploration.
The hoarfrost vanished, the temperature normalized. The entire exchange had lasted less than a breath.
Elder Lan's obsidian eyes narrowed by a fraction, a minute tightening of the skin that was the equivalent of another master gasping in shock. It was the only sign of her surprise, her rapid reassessment of the sentient hunger residing within him. She did not comment on the event directly. To acknowledge the childish, instinctual probing of a nascent power was beneath her dignity; the frost-moat had been answer enough. Instead, she answered the question he had voiced, as if the silent one had never occurred.
"The known Conceptual Qis," she continued, her voice regaining its flat, instructive tone, though a new, sharper edge lay beneath it, "are forces that define existence. The Qi of Creation, from which all things are said to have sprung. The Qi of Time, which governs the flow of all moments." She listed them as one might list distant, untouchable constellations. "These are legends, spoken of in hushed tones by those few who even know to whisper."
She paused, and her gaze upon him became heavier, more intent.
"But your Qi..." she said, and the words were a pronouncement, "...is an anomaly among anomalies."
The stillness of the courtyard seemed to lean in, listening.
"There is no record of its properties. No history of its users. No techniques for its mastery." Each statement was a nail sealing a coffin of conventional understanding. "In all the ancient texts, across all the knowledge passed down from immortal ancestors, it is a void. A blank space where knowledge should be."
Her voice dropped, lower and more confidential, as she unveiled the final piece of the puzzle.
"There is only one known reference," she revealed, "a copy of a fragment from an Immortal Realm text that fell centuries ago. Its knowledge is now a secret guarded by the heads of the top sects and imperial families. A truth kept from the world."
The words lingered, a key turning in a long-locked vault. Elder Lan's gaze was unwavering, the usual frost in her demeanor now replaced by the gravitas of one revealing a celestial secret.
"This text," she continued, her voice low and precise, "is known as the 'Codex of Primordial Truths.' It is a relic from the Immortal Realm, authored ages ago by a power far beyond our current comprehension. Its knowledge was passed down through the ancestors of the top sects and imperial families, a secret guarded for generations. It catalogs the known Conceptual Qis and the apocalyptic powers of those few in history said to have wielded them."
She paused, allowing the weight of such a chronicle to settle. The very air in the courtyard seemed to grow thin, starved of sound and sensation.
"And in the middle of this chronicle of world-ending forces," she said, "there is a single, stark passage. A warning that supersedes all others. It states: 'Should a cultivator encounter a bearer of the following Qis, regardless of realm or preparation, their fate is absolute annihilation.' Not defeat. Not death. Annihilation."
Her fingers traced a phantom shape on the table. "The first entry beneath this warning was written in a neat, scholarly script: 'Qi of Creation.' A formidable, logical entry."
Her hand stilled. "The next four entries... were not."
A profound silence fell, deeper than any before.
"The scribe's hand had faltered," she whispered, the sound like dust settling on a tomb. "The ink was not ink, but blood. And the words, scrawled with increasing desperation and deteriorating penmanship, were the same:"
She did not raise her voice. She simply let the names fall into the silence, one after another, like stones into a bottomless well.
"'Qi of Nothingness.'
'Qi of Nothingness.'
'Qi of Nothingness.'
'Qi of Nothingness.'"
The final name seemed to absorb the very light around them.
"And after that page..." Elder Lan concluded, her obsidian eyes holding his, "...the rest of the codex was blank. As if the act of writing those four words had consumed all the pages that followed, or the scribe's mind had simply... stopped."
The terrifying revelation of the blood-scrawled codex hung in the air, a specter of absolute annihilation. Lin Feng processed it, his mind, as always, seeking the logical framework, the source of the data itself.
"Master," he began, his tone analytical. "This information... it is just passed down by ancestors? A copy of a copy. What if someone needed to know more? Could they not simply go to the Immortal Realm and seek the original text?"
Elder Lan's response was as sharp and final as a guillotine's fall. "The pathway to the Immortal Realm was severed centuries ago." There was no regret in her voice, only the stark recitation of a fundamental, world-altering fact. "What remains here is all that is left."
As her words settled, a sudden, dry amusement struck Lin Feng. It was so potent, so perfectly cliché, that a faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips as he looked down at the frost-laced stones.
'Ah,' he thought, the realization blooming with a strange warmth. 'The absolute cliché of the cultivation world... the cut-off pathway to the immortal realm.'
His internal monologue was a wry, private thing. 'Even after all the novels and manhuas back in my world... this is the first time I'm truly feeling it. The Qi I can truly control. The cultivators. The broken pathway.'
Then, his thoughts sharpened, his perspective crystallizing with a cold, brilliant clarity. 'But... I'm not some third-rate, beaten-up character starting from the bottom. I'm in a top sect. With my mom.' His eyes flicked up, taking in Elder Lan's impassive, flawlessly severe features. '...And a beautiful master.'
This realization did not bring arrogant boasting, but something far more solid: a profound, unshakable sense of his own position and potential. It was a cold, settled certainty that straightened his spine.
He looked back up at Elder Lan, his expression shifting into one of quiet, unspoken pride. He didn't smile. Instead, in a gesture that was deliberately, almost provocatively casual, he raised a hand and ran it through his hair, slicking it back as if preparing for a challenge, even though not a single strand had been out of place.
Elder Lan's obsidian eyes observed this subtle display of preening confidence. A single, tiny twitch, almost invisible, marred the perfect ice of her composure beneath her eye. She did not acknowledge his shift in posture. She did not comment on his vanity.
She simply delivered the final, pivotal piece of information, her voice cutting through his silent self-assurance like a shard of glacial ice.
"And one of the few in this realm who knows this secret..." she said, her gaze pinning him once more, "...is the Emperor."
The serene, frozen silence of Veiled Silence Peak shattered into a hard cut, replaced by the magnificent, echoing cacophony of the Imperial Throne Room.
The vast hall was a sea of richly embroidered robes and anxious faces. Ministers and officials, their ranks a spectrum of courtly power, were not in orderly lines but in clustered, heated debate. The air itself buzzed with their panicked questions, a background hum of unease that rose to the vaulted ceilings.
"Who do we send? A delegation of elders? A single, unassuming emissary?"
"How should we even approach him? With gifts? With threats? We have no precedent for this!"
"What does his very existence mean for the empire's stability? For the succession?"
At the heart of the storm, a bastion of absolute calm, sat the Emperor upon the Dragon Throne. He was a figure of immense, contained power, his presence a weight that anchored the chaotic room. His golden eyes, flecked with fragments of a broken sword, observed the debate without participation, as a mountain observes the weather.
Flanking the throne were two pillars of his reign.
On one side stood a man in stark, functional armor, devoid of ornamentation. He was the Sword of the Empire. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture so still he seemed a statue carved from iron and resolve. His gaze was a naked blade, sweeping over the courtiers with a soldier's contempt for political fretting, seeing only threats and tactical solutions.
On the Emperor's other side stood an elder in heavy, ornate robes of deep blue and silver, his long beard meticulously groomed. He was the Shield of the Empire. His eyes, half-lidded, held the weight of countless stratagems and decades of courtly intrigue, calculating the ripples of this event through the complex web of imperial power.
And slightly behind the throne, positioned with precise deference, stood the Crown Prince. His jade dragon scale armor shimmered faintly in the light. His handsome features were composed, his own golden eyes watching his father and the fractious court with a calm, calculating gaze, assessing not just the crisis, but the pieces being moved upon the celestial board.
The frantic debates of the ministers washed over the Emperor, a distant tide of fear and ambition that could not touch the deep, silent currents of his own thoughts. Seated upon the Dragon Throne, his golden eyes saw not the opulent hall, but the terrifying void of a forgotten truth.
'What manner of being,' the Emperor mused, the memory of his father's hushed, decades-old warning surfacing like a relic from a sunken world, 'even the one who authored that accursed Codex... what did he experience to inscribe such a warning? To write those words in his own blood?'
The questions coiled in his mind, cold and serpentine.
'For even now, with all the resources of an empire, I possess no knowledge of this Qi. No history of its wielders. Not a single legend or fragmented verse. There is... simply... nothing.' The absence was more deafening than any revelation. 'It is as if it was never there. And the scribe... he offered no context, no description. Only the name, repeated like a dying man's curse. It is as if... he knew. That one more word, one further attempt to define it, would have meant the absolute end of him and his entire bloodline.'
His gaze grew more distant, piercing the marble pillars of his throne room to stare at the severed heavens themselves.
'And with the pathway to the Immortal Realm cut... we are blind. We do not know what the true powers there are planning. But during that cataclysm... I felt no gaze from beyond. Not a single, probing intent. No stirring in the higher laws.' A profound curiosity, a strategist facing an unprecedented variable, settled in his spirit. 'It is as if they do not care... or, far more likely, something... or someone... is stopping them from looking.'
Then, with the same finality as a judge's gavel, the Emperor's voice cut through the dissonant symphony. It was not loud, yet it possessed an absolute quality, a resonance that stilled the air in the vast throne room. The cacophony died mid-syllable, plunging the hall into an instant, watchful silence.
"This speculation is pointless," the Emperor stated, his golden gaze sweeping over the assembled nobles, dismissing their fears with glacial calm. "We are not dealing with a mere prodigy to be summoned and assessed. We are acknowledging a phenomenon."
He paused, letting the distinction hang in the air, a fundamental shift in perspective that redefined the entire situation.
"Therefore," he decreed, the words final and unappealable, "Jue Wu himself will go to the Celestial Sword Pavilion. He will extend the invitation."
A collective, sharp intake of breath, a hissed whisper of pure shock, rippled through the court. The name itself was a weapon, a legend spoken in hushed tones. Ministers exchanged wide-eyed, fearful glances. For the Emperor to dispatch his personal Inquisitor, the Silent Observer, for a mere "invitation"... it was unthinkable. This was not diplomacy; it was the gravest possible assessment. The kind that preceded the unmaking of sects and the quiet, permanent disappearance of powerful figures.
At the side of the throne, the Crown Prince's calculating eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, storing this profound decision away for later analysis.
As the echo of the Emperor's decree faded, a change occurred in the space before the dais. The air did not shimmer or tear. It simply thickened and darkened, as if a patch of reality had been drained of light and sound. There was no flash, no thunderclap of arrival. From the coalescing stillness, Jue Wu simply… solidified.
He stood there, a monument of silent authority. His skin was a weathered, dark bronze, like ancient teak, marked by a life of violence. Three parallel, faint silvery scars raked from his right temple down to his jawline. His frame was lean and powerfully built, a coiled spring of sinew and muscle visible even through his simple, matte grey-black robes. But it was his eyes that commanded attention: the sclera were a normal white, but his irises were a pale, milky quartz, almost fully white, making it difficult to distinguish his pupil. They were not blind; they saw too much, and their piercing, unnervingly unfocused gaze seemed to look through the assembled courtiers, through the marble pillars, into the very heart of things.
The air around him grew preternaturally still. The nervous rustle of silk, the faint scuff of a boot—all sound died, swallowed by an absolute silence that emanated from him like a chill. He became a peripheral blur, a man-shaped absence in the court's perception; even those staring directly at him found their gaze wanting to slide away, their minds struggling to hold his image.
Jue Wu did not hesitate. He dropped to one knee in a single, fluid motion, the movement sharp and precise, a soldier's obeisance. His head was bowed, his quartz-like eyes fixed on the floor before the Dragon Throne. He was a weapon, and he knew his place in the imperial arsenal.
The Emperor looked down upon one of his most formidable servants. "You have heard your task," the Emperor stated, his voice flat.
Jue Wu lifted his head just enough to meet his Emperor's gaze. "This one has heard," he said, his voice a low, quiet rasp, the sound of stone grinding on stone deep underground. It was not loud, yet it carried to every corner of the silent throne room, a sound that felt less like a promise and more like a verdict that had already been written.
The Emperor gave a single, slow nod of dismissal.
With that, Jue Wu rose, his form already beginning to dissolve back into the shadows from which he came, the oppressive silence retreating with him. The mission was accepted. The investigation had begun.
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