---
Night fell on the Outer Slums, and the sky was a polluted sheet of static gray. Neon signs blinked in alien languages. Machines whirred in the distance, abandoned or half-alive. Kael sat on the roof of the rusted shack, legs crossed, eyes closed.
The air was dead.
No qi. No ley lines. No starbeams. No cultivator would waste a breath trying to gather energy here.
But Kael wasn't most cultivators.
---
> [ Initiating Scan: Ambient Energy Sources ]
...Scanning...
[ Result: No viable natural qi. Traces of decaying radiation, power dust, entropy fragments detected. ]
The corner of Kael's mouth twitched.
> "Entropy fragments…"
He remembered. The forbidden techniques he'd designed. A lost branch of cultivation the Empire had banned, hidden behind death sentences and myth.
Void Cultivation.
Feeding not on life... but on death, decay, and entropy.
---
He focused.
His breathing slowed.
The Void Engine glowed behind his eyelids as ancient scripts lit up — sigils he created in his past life. Patterns that rewrote the basic absorption framework of ordinary cultivation.
He reached—not for energy, but for absence.
And the void answered.
---
A whisper of cold brushed against his spine. Not air. Not qi.
But the remnant of a dead field reactor buried below the slums.
Its energy was wrong. Flickering. Toxic to the body. It would kill any normal cultivator.
Kael opened his palm. Purple veins spidered along his skin.
> [ Caution: Host body unfit for entropy conversion. Risk of neural rupture: 83%. ]
> "Then adjust," Kael muttered. "Filter through seven vortex channels. Anchor to the marrow, not the heart."
> [ Rerouting. Begin conversion... ]
---
Pain flooded him.
His eyes snapped open as black mist coiled around his fingers. His bones screamed. Muscles tore and reformed. His spine felt like it had been dipped in molten lead. He bit down hard, tasting blood.
But he endured.
He always endured.
> [ Entropic Core initialized. Cultivation tier: Void Initiate - Level 1 ]
[ Attributes unlocked: Neural Flexibility +12%, Pain Resistance +30%, Reflex Boost +8% ]
[ Warning: Mutation Potential Detected ]
Kael opened his hand again.
This time, a flicker of true void flame danced in his palm — not fire, but pure, hungry decay.
He stared at it.
Smiled.
---
Suddenly, footsteps sounded below. A faint voice.
> "Hey... I saw light up there."
Kael looked down from the roof. A girl — maybe thirteen — wrapped in rags, eyes wide with awe and fear. Her skin was pale, lips cracked. She held a rusted bowl.
> "You're not... normal, are you?" she whispered.
Kael's eyes glowed dimly.
> "Neither is this place. What's your name?"
> "Elin."
> "Good. You're the first to witness a Sovereign rise from the dirt."
The void flame flickered out.
> "You'll remember that."
---