Kaelan wakes from sleep, and the first thing he feels is Li Xueyao's gentle weight resting against his chest. Her breath is slow and warm, her presence soft against the cool morning air. But his mind is not at peace.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the day he will preach the Wizard Way to the world.
It is not fear of violence that troubles him—he has long accepted that both martial artists and Qi Refiners will come at him with blades and wrath. What disturbs him is what will follow.
The Qi Refiner society is built on spirit roots.
Yet among all who possess them, more than forty per cent have five-elemental roots—waste roots—and another thirty per cent have four-elemental roots, low-grade and limited.
For these people, even breaking through to the Qi Refining Realm is a near-impossible task; fewer than one in a hundred succeed.
They are the lowest tier of that world—exploited, pitied, and used as the backbone of its economy.
But after tomorrow, that foundation may crumble.
Once he preaches the Wizard Way, they will learn that power is not limited by the birth of one's spirit root.
That, after awakening the spirit and forming the spirit space, what determines a Wizard's future is not bloodline, but knowledge.
And with knowledge, talent itself can be changed.
The moment they understand that, countless Qi Refiners of low-grade spirit roots will abandon their path for his. The order of the old world will shake.
The Martial world will hate him. The Qi Refiners will fear him.
And the powerful ones—the lords of the sects, the elders of great clans—will seek his death not out of hatred, but necessity.
He stares at the moonlight seeping through the curtains, eyes calm, breath steady.
"But that," he murmurs to himself, "is not my concern."
He closes his eyes again, one arm still around Li Xueyao, and lets the faint hum of mana in his body steady his thoughts.
The world will burn if it must. Tomorrow, he will light the match.
Kaelan is not afraid of the fight to come. His cultivation has already reached the middle stage of the Spiritual Wizard Realm—enough to battle a Divine Qi Refiner on equal footing. If besieged by more than one, he still holds an ace: the world's origin itself, a power that could shatter heavens and silence all opposition.
No, battle does not trouble him.
What weighs on his mind is whether he can make them understand.
The Wizard Way is unlike any path they know. Even now, scepticism festers across the capital and beyond—after he taught his students mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology, their parents and tutors called it blasphemy.
The invention of zero alone sent waves of outrage through scholarly circles.
To them, it all seemed like mortal knowledge, stripped of the grandeur of spiritual cultivation.
They do not see what he is building.
He is laying the foundation—a framework for understanding the laws of the world not through faith or meditation, but through reason. Through knowledge.
Because the Wizard Way cannot rely on blind comprehension. Before a cultivator reaches the Second Stage of Transcendence, they cannot perceive the world's laws directly. So they must learn—use science to pry open the door that others can only knock upon.
And tomorrow, he must make them see this truth clearly enough to follow it.
He exhales slowly, his hand resting on Li Xueyao's back.
After his sermon, the question of how to spread the Wizard Way will come up. Ten acres of land had already been purchased by Chen Qi for this purpose. Yet he remains undecided—should he establish a sect like the martial world, or a school like those from his past life?
He shakes his head inwardly.
To open either, he would need teachers—and in this world, he is the only wizard alive. It will take years to build a system that can stand on its own without him.
For now, he can only preach, plant the seed of a new path, and trust that the flame he lights will one day grow into a sun.
A faint presence stirs outside the chamber—Lin Zian's aura. Kaelan opens his eyes and remembers: he had promised to train with Lin Zian at dawn.
He sighs quietly, glancing at Li Xueyao, still asleep beside him, her breathing calm and even. Reluctantly, he untangles himself from her arms, climbs out of bed, and dresses in silence—duty before rest.
Moments later, he steps out into the cold morning air. Lin Zian stands waiting, sword in hand, bowing respectfully before straightening with anticipation.
They walk side by side to the training ground, where the faint mist of morning still lingers over the practice platforms. On one of them, they face each other in silence.
As always, Lin Zian strikes first. His blade moves in a fluid arc—Seven Light Sword Technique.
He flows through the first three forms in succession, each one faster and heavier than the last, yet none break through Kaelan's calm, effortless defence.
Kaelan steps forward, his own blade moving like a storm uncoiling.
He presses the attack—not to crush, but to force Lin Zian to his limit. His strikes push, provoke, and test every ounce of the young man's will and skill.
Lin Zian grits his teeth, sweat beading down his brow. "Vital Light Cut!" he roars.
A green glow blooms across his blade, flowing into his body.
His strength doubles, spiritual energy surging violently. Kaelan's eyes glint with faint amusement.
The boy truly is touched by fate—his comprehension and instinct for battle are frighteningly sharp.
But still not enough.
Even with doubled strength, Lin Zian's sword is caught mid-swing, deflected with a twist of Kaelan's wrist. His counterstrike lands like thunder—swift, clean, absolute.
Lin Zian's blade flies from his hand, clattering across the platform as he's thrown back, rolling once before landing hard.
"Still not enough," Kaelan murmurs.
By the time Lin Zian rises, panting and bruised, his temporary surge of strength fades, leaving him trembling and defeated again. Yet his eyes burn brighter than before.
A few hours later, Kaelan sits alone in the refining room, the sharp tang of heated metal filling the air. Before him lies a small furnace glowing white-hot.
Two ingots rest nearby—Mysterious Iron and Lightning Iron. He plans to forge his own weapon, one worthy of his current cultivation.
He melts the two metals together, controlling the heat with precise bursts of mana until the molten mass gleams like liquid silver.
Then, with calm focus, he tempers it—folding, hammering, folding again, a thousand times over until the metal sings with layered strength.
Before the blade can cool, Kaelan's fingers dance in the air, tracing lines of light—seals forming in succession. The runes sink into the blade, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
Finally, he plunges the sword into cold water. Steam explodes upward with a hiss, spiritual energy flooding into the metal as it hardens, the seals binding its core.
When the steam clears, the newly forged sword rests in his hands—dark silver, veined faintly with streaks of lightning, humming softly with restrained power.
Kaelan exhales slowly, eyes calm, the faint hiss of cooling metal still hanging in the air. "Not bad," he murmurs, then adds with a faint frown, "but not good either."
With the materials he used, a skilled refiner could have forged a Spiritual Treasure–grade sword. But his own creation, though sturdy and alive with power, falls short—merely a high-grade spiritual instrument, one step below what it could have been.
He studies the blade in his hand. Its surface gleams like dark silver under dim light, threads of lightning flickering faintly across it like veins of living energy.
The weapon hums quietly, resonating with his storm-infused mana, but it lacks the perfect harmony that would have made it a treasure.
Still, imperfection has its own charm.
He leaves the refining chamber and strides toward the training ground, the sword resting lightly in his grip. The royal courtyard lies silent in the morning haze. Snow from the night before still glitters on the edges of the platform.
Kaelan steps onto the open field and swings once.
A spark bursts from the blade's edge, crackling through the air like thunder caught mid-breath.
He smiles faintly. Good response.
He begins to move—each motion measured and fluid, every strike flowing into the next. With each swing, lightning erupts from the blade, dancing across the training ground in bright arcs.
The air trembles with electric tension, his mana surging in rhythm with his breath.
He chose Lightning Iron for a reason. Storms—whether rain, fire, dust, snow, or even elemental storms born of chaos—are never without lightning. It is the pulse within every tempest, the voice of destruction and rebirth.
The sword vibrates as if it understands.
Kaelan swings once more, releasing a wave of dark, storm-laden energy. Lightning crackles within the black wind, illuminating the air in harsh white flashes as the storm wave tears across the training ground.
Snow scatters. The ground trembles. The scent of ozone fills the air.
Kaelan lowers the sword slowly, its edge still crackling with lingering lightning. The air around him smells faintly of ozone and scorched earth.
He exhales—a deep, measured breath—and channels mana through the blade once more, letting the energy settle into his palm.
The storm within the sword quiets, returning to a dim, steady hum.
He closes his eyes for a moment, reviewing every motion, every ripple of mana flow through his meridians.
The sword's weight, its rhythm with his breathing, even the resistance of its lightning-infused edge—all of it settles in his mind like a perfectly drawn pattern.
But he is not finished.
He opens his eyes, the calm darkening into focus. Tomorrow, he reminds himself, they will come to challenge me. I cannot let a single imperfection remain.
He channels another type of energy this time—cold, hollow, and suffocating. Death.
The sword hums lower, the light fading to a pale grey shimmer as death elemental energy gathers along its edge.
He swings once, and a ripple of silence spreads outward.
The wind itself seems to vanish, and where his slash passes, frost forms upon the ground—life momentarily snuffed out from the air.
Unlike the storm's wild pulse, the death element is quiet, patient, and absolute.
He practices again and again, alternating between storm and death, between life's violent surge and the stillness that ends it.
Lightning howls, shadows coil, each swing carving unseen lines through the night air.
Hours blur.
The palace lamps dim one by one, and even the guards keeping watch avoid looking toward the training field where the storm and death dance together in flashes of black light.
By midnight, Kaelan finally stops.
His breathing slows, his body steady but drained, the sword hanging loosely in his hand.
The ground around him is a mosaic of burnt marks, frost, and shallow cracks.
He sits cross-legged on the platform, placing the sword beside him. Closing his eyes, he begins to meditate.
Mana flows through him in long, controlled cycles—refilling what was spent, repairing the fine strain within his meridians. The storm fades from his aura, replaced by calm.
By the time the moon reaches its zenith, Kaelan sits still as stone, wrapped in the faint shimmer of spiritual light, his sword resting quietly across his knees.
Tomorrow, the world will come to challenge him.
Tonight, he prepares to face it.