Chapter 2:
The slums of Yanshi were quiet at dawn, but Jin Mu was already awake. Not because he wanted to be, but because he hadn't slept. His body felt… wrong. Or rather, too right. The bruises from yesterday's beating had vanished. His vision was sharper, his hearing unnaturally precise. He could hear the flutter of moth wings behind the cracked window. Smell the rust on the nails embedded in the floorboards.
He sat up slowly, staring at his hands. They trembled — not with fear, but with something else. Energy. Power. Memory.
He stumbled outside, drawn by instinct more than thought. His feet carried him to the edge of the slums, where the ruins of an old temple lay buried beneath vines and ash. The archway was broken, the statues defaced. But something called to him.
He knelt and began tracing symbols into the dirt. He didn't know what they meant. But his fingers did. They moved with purpose, drawing sigils that shimmered faintly before fading.
A voice spoke from the shadows.
"Those symbols… they haven't been seen since the Age of Sundering."
Jin Mu turned sharply. A cloaked figure stepped forward, his face lined with age and sorrow.
"I am Master Zhen," the man said. "And you, boy, are not what you seem."