A young boy was lying down on the ground inside a dark cave littered by stalactites and haunted by the dripping sound of water. The boy had broken legs, his walking stick broken in half, and with bones sticking out of his left arm, one could already think that this boy was dead.
"Ha..." The boy breathed weakly.
The boy was still alive. Weak but alive.
"To have beaten me up, despite me avoiding the public..." The boy thought to himself. "What have I done wrong to have deserved this?"
Tears could be seen falling from his eyes, already blurry from all the bruises on his face. He couldn't feel anything down below his waist and was too weak to lift his right arm to help himself up. Despite the thoughts and questions in his head, he already knew what had happened. He already knew why he was beaten and left here to die.
"So their loyalty to my father is only worth 500 pieces of silver." The boy sank into deep thought. "All it took was 500 pieces of silver..."
This boy was dying.
"So this is the end of me, huh?" The boy weakly murmured. "The end of Chen Yi Qiu, the broken."
Staring into the dark ceiling, Yi Qiu gritted his teeth and teared up, mustering the strength to scream one last time.
"If there is a god or demon out there who hears me!" Yi Qiu screamed, blood spilling out of every word; it was clear that he was already choking on his own blood. "If I survive this broken state! If I have the chance to cultivate! I vow to never let myself be taken advantage of again!"
"To never be weak!"
"To take revenge against those who have wronged me!"
"I will do it all!"
"I will be a vengeful apparition! The malevolent avenger!"
Yi Qiu screamed but only half of the time. His blood muffled and gurgled his screaming. leaving it producing gurgling noises. However, these thoughts and the message itself had already been ingrained within his mind, within his heart.
His vision, still facing above the dark ceiling, suddenly got blurrier than before. Yi Qiu felt weak, as if the strength of his body had finally let go. He could feel a short wetness on his back before it turned into a numb cold.
He understood that he was passing away.
A few minutes later. The last breath of life had finally gone away. What was left in the dark cave was a lifeless body, broken and dead.
---
For a few moments, it was deathly still. Just another dead body in a cave, obscured by the darkness. If it weren't for the dripping water from stalactites, one would think that time didn't move. There were no animals, not even a glimpse of light.
"I..." A voice had sounded itself within the cave. "I have awoken..."
Suddenly a bright light appeared above Yi Qiu's body. A blinding white light manifested itself, first without any form, then as more time passed by, it formed into a white spirit—something akin to a ghost.
"A dead child?" The spirit looked down to see Yi Qiu's body, lifeless and bloodied. "But...not fated to die here?"
Confused, the spirit glanced at the dead boy and clearly saw that this dead boy's fate was still flowing, like a small thread being woven by a spider. Normally, people's fates are unique in that everyone can tell what will happen to them based on the thickness and appearance of the threads; thicker and stronger-looking threads mean that this one is destined for greatness. While thinner threads mean that the person was just a side character, not important by one bit.
"You are dead, but you are still writing your own fate?" The spirit grabbed the tiny thread of fate and curiously looked closer to see if it wasn't imagining things. "Curious... Very curious."
The spirit pulled on the small thread and noticed that it was as strong as black iron, unmoving and strong. For comparison, a poorly made, weak dagger made out of black iron is still stronger than the best claymore made out of regular iron. This was how strong the thread of fate was on Yi Qiu.
"I can't seem to pull the fate towards me." The spirit tugging at the thread was very curious now. He pulled and pulled at the thread, yet couldn't even pull a single bit of the boy's future. "If that's the case..."
The spirit pulled out a magical mirror and placed it directly into the thread of fate. The mirror expanded and stood directly in front of the thread, absorbing Yi Qiu's thread of fate. What was peculiar was how the mirror started glowing and shining, changing colors as it kept on reading into the future.
"This is most peculiar," the spirit thought, readying itself to look into the mirror. "This is the first time the mirror glowed in several different colors—huh!?"
As the colors calmed down, the spirit looked into the mirror, into the future fate of this boy. He found that the thin thread of fate that originated from this boy had spread and grown thicker than what the mirror could see! From a single colorless thread of fate, blooming into a fate that was larger than the entire world! Colors moved like waves into a landscape of threads. It was as if the spirit was looking into another world!
The spirit suddenly looked back to the boy. His curiosity now turned into awe. In his time as a spirit, not only was it lonely, but it was also boring. This was a break from that monotonous life, if you could call being a spirit life. He remembered his time being alive.
"I understand now." The spirit closed his eyes and smiled. "You don't die here because I help you."
The spirit understood how this boy's fate was still going despite being dead. He was the key. He was the thin hope of this boy; the black iron thread of fate was him all along. The very fact that this boy died inside the place where this spirit's body died as well was already fated. Yi Qiu's death and his drive awoke the slumbering spirit.
"Maybe it was fated all along." The spirit looked once more at the dead boy's body, lifting it with a wave of his right hand. "In that case, then let's call it as such and have you inherit my whole life's work!"
With his right hand he lifted Yi Qiu's body into the air. With his left, he summoned a golden cauldron engraved with various carvings of animals. From his mouth, a pale flame appeared, and as he blew the flame into the cauldron, the pale flame roared and started to get bigger and bigger until it became suitable enough to heat up the cauldron quickly.
The spirit once again waved with his left hand, and out from his sleeves a shimmering red water gushed out and filled the cauldron and started to cool it from the pale flame's heat. It wasn't long, however, before the cool liquid started to boil, turning into red steam that seemed to seep into the dead boy's orifices.
"The steam will aid in recovering the boy's soul, but this would not be enough," the spirit thought to itself while dropping the boy's body into the cauldron. "Instead, I should refine the body and recall the soul instead. Then I should strengthen both after."
With a thought, materials of various quantities and qualities started to flow out from the left sleeve of the spirit's robe and floated above the cauldron. Nine-color fruits, blood of desolate ice beasts, fire tears, earth cores, and even black iron that the thread was akin to were present at the group of materials above the cauldron.
"Wait. I almost forgot." The spirit stopped for a second and went back to Yi Qiu. With a wave of his finger, he grabbed a small bit of light from the body. The light rested on his finger before he placed it upon his forehead. Immediately Yi Qiu's memories flooded his mind; information that he deemed vital to this refinement was here.
The spirit saw Yi Qiu's life. From his birth and the death of his mother to the fall of his caring father to his failure to awaken his core and eventual hiding and death. He saw his personality, how kind this boy was, how he suffered, and his loss. He saw the determination of this boy and how much he wanted peace and happiness.
"He has the demeanor of a Buddhist monk early on in his life," the spirit muttered as he continued watching the memories. "Oh? What's this?"
The spirit opened another part of his memories and found himself in a different place. This wasn't the world he knew. Tall cubic structures with transparent walls and men dressed in attire too alien and constrictive. The memories led him in front of what seems to be a cubicle filled with papers and books. In front of him was a cubic object that displayed words. It seemed to be a magic mirror of sorts but controlled by a board of miniature buttons.
"Is this his imagination?" The curious spirit asked himself before the next scene played out. He suddenly felt pain in his chest as if he couldn't breathe. He tried calling for help, but not a single voice left his mouth. "This is death?!"
As the spirit realizes this, the memories play back again to his last moments in life.
"So this is the end of me, huh?"
"The end of Yi Qiu, the broken."
"If there is a god or demon out there who hears me!"
"If I survive this broken state! If I have the chance to cultivate! I vow to never let myself be taken advantage of again!"
"To never be weak!"
"To take revenge against those who have wronged me!"
"I will do it all!"
"I will be a vengeful apparition! The malevolent avenger!"
The spirit sensed this wrath and changed his opinion of the boy; this vengeance he seeks has added another option to the body refinement process. A gift from the spirit to Yi Qiu.
"Then it seems that you can fulfill my failures as well." The spirit, already knowing what body to refine, smiled and proceeded to add the necessary materials to the cauldron together with Yi Qiu's body while grabbing his soul. "Yi Qiu, you will be my phantom. Consider this my gift to you, my descendant."
"This will be your second chance! Prove me right and fulfill your destiny!"
The spirit poured his knowledge into Yi Qiu and even gave his life back at the cost of a portion of the spirit's. He fed Yi Qiu's soul a golden pill that was glowing in a mystical way. This made Yi Qiu's small soul burn bright and eventually going from a weakly pale soul to a golden soul, a very good and strong soul!
"I will leave you here for a while to stabilize while I work on your body." The spirit placed his soul on a quickly formed formation that helps it stabilize while he focuses on fixing Yi Qiu's body. "I stored these materials for my own personal use when returning to life. I'm putting my bet on you now boy. Live and help me when you get stronger!"
The Spirit quickly gathered up the materials that weren't necessary and stored them again in his sleeves. What was left above the cauldron were materials that could be grouped into two categories. Those that glowed in white while alternating their brightness and those that glowed a bluish hue.
"You'll be the first to taste the fruits of my labor! The mythical body that I have researched and created!" The spirit announced to the soul. "The Dao Devouring Kunpeng Physique!"