Arin spent a single, intense day mastering the Shadow-Weave Steps. He retreated into a quiet, overgrown ravine, fueling the intricate movements with the silent stability of his Marrow-Sealed core.
The technique required the precise manipulation of one's own Qi field to create micro-distortions a subtle bending of light and sound that effectively rendered the user invisible and silent for brief, calculated moments. For a typical early cultivator, this refinement was incredibly difficult.
But Arin's core was not typical. His foundation was complete, unified, and utterly stable, designed by a goddess to contain chaotic power. The clean, predictable flow of his marrow-generated Qi made the Shadow-Weave Steps feel less like a difficult art and more like an instinctive control of his own density and light. He mastered the core principles in hours, not weeks, quickly moving from simple invisibility to fluid, silent bursts of movement. This foundational stability was proving to be a potent accelerator for all mortal techniques.
He returned to the King's Road with renewed confidence, immediately putting the skill to the test. He used the Shadow-Weave Steps to slip past noisy merchant caravans and avoid interaction at minor roadside camps. The technique was perfect a silent glide that exploited the brief confusion of the human eye and ear.
But the real threat lay ahead.
Two days later, the King's Road funnelled into a massive bottleneck: a permanent, fortified checkpoint separating the northern territory from the Central Kingdom provinces. This was the first major jurisdictional boundary Arin had encountered, and it was secured by more than just low-level guards.
A tall, weathered spiritual formation, glowing faintly with restrictive runes, encased the road a detection array designed to spot forged documents and illicit high-grade resources. The air was heavy with the presence of true authority.
The checkpoint was manned by the local Magistrate Guards, identifiable by their heavy, iron-plated armour. Overseeing the process was a single cultivator of immense power: the checkpoint commander, a man in his fifties with a stern face and an aura of absolute competence. Arin sensed his power immediately he was in the late Core-Formation stage, a cultivator whose spiritual sense could penetrate deep into the human body, not just skim the surface.
Arin joined the line of common travellers. He slowed his step, adopting the slow, resigned pace of a man with nothing to hide. His Mark suppressed, his Qi internal, his demeanour was meek.
As he reached the front of the line, passing through the spiritual array, the powerful commander's eyes fixed on him. The man didn't speak; he simply focused his refined spiritual sense, pushing it directly toward Arin's core.
The commander's sense was like an ice pick sharp, focused, and invasive. It sliced through Arin's low-Qi disguise, piercing the layers of superficial suppression. It didn't find the deep, protected reservoir of the Marrow-Sealed core. But it did find the faint, suppressed Bone-Forged density, and the deep, cold, foreign essence of the Mark itself was a primal anomaly that defied the natural order of mortal cultivation.
The commander's eyes widened a fraction, sensing the cold, hard wrongness of Arin's physique a subtle spiritual contradiction that no uncultivated mortal should possess.
"Stop," the commander commanded, his voice sharp and suddenly focused. "You. Labourer. Turn out your bag and answer my questions. Your spiritual signature does not match your caste."
The confrontation was unavoidable. The commander was powerful enough to sense the truth, but too arrogant to realise the extent of the danger he faced.
Arin had planned for this. He needed the defiance to continue his ascent, but he could not afford to kill a government official and bring the full force of the local kingdom down on him.
The commander took a step forward, his hand moving toward the heavy war hammer resting at his waist.
In that half-second, Arin acted. He unleashed the Shadow-Weave Steps to maximum output. His body flickered, not truly vanishing, but shimmering into a brief distortion of light and shadow a trick too subtle for the Commander to track instantly.
He used the momentary misdirection to launch himself forward. He was not aiming for the commander's head or vital points, but for the solar plexus the centre of his mortal stability.
His arm was a projectile of pure, Bone-Forged density. No spiritual energy, no flashy technique just the silent, crushing force of his divinely reinforced fist. The blow landed with a dull, heavy thud the sound of rock hitting steel.
The commander, relying entirely on his external spiritual armour, had underestimated the sheer mortal force of the strike. His Qi defence was useless against the internal shockwave of Arin's Bone-Forged strength. The Core-Formation officer gasped, his spiritual energy instantly disrupted, his consciousness reeling from the raw, physical trauma. He crumpled to his knees, utterly neutralised but alive.
Arin did not stop. He used the residual momentum of the Shadow-Weave Steps, flickered once more, and vanished. The commotion a single, inexplicable strike on their commander created the necessary chaos. Before the Magistrate Guards could draw their weapons or raise the full alarm, Arin was past the spiritual formation, gliding into the thick pine forests bordering the main road.
He had neutralised a high-level cultivator, escaped a powerful spiritual net, and done so without the mess of a killing blow. The necessary defiance was achieved.
The risk was fatal, the action successful, Arin thought, running deep into the cover of the forest. The internal sense of defiance and accomplishment sent a faint, hungry ripple through his Marrow-Sealed core.
He was now past the major checkpoint, but the cost was high. The Magistrate network of the Central Kingdom was officially hunting a silent, high-density anomaly. His next moves would have to be even more cautious, for the road had just become exponentially more dangerous.