The pain was a white-hot explosion in Li Jin's palm. He snatched his hand back from the training stele, his breath catching in his throat. A trickle of blood oozed from his scraped knuckles. The black stone, smooth and cold, remained unmarked. It seemed to mock his weakness.
The glacial wind of Mount Jingwei cut at his face. He pulled his simple linen robe tighter, a garment worn thin by years of fruitless effort. Around him, the other disciples trained. Their movements were fluid, powerful. Ephemeral glimmers of jade-green light danced at their fingertips. They could feel the Lìng Qì, the Spirit-Breath of the mountain.
Li Jin felt nothing. Only the cold of the stone and the fire of his own failure.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. The air was so pure and thin it burned his lungs. He closed his eyes, trying to force the pain away. He pictured the energy, the invisible current that bound every rock, every wind-twisted tree. The Path of the Jade Tiger demanded communion, not brute force.
He pressed his palm against the stele again. This time, he didn't strike. He tried to push, to channel an intention, a fragment of his will. He felt the grain of the granite, the biting cold. But the Breath remained silent. The stone stayed inert. His internal energy was a stagnant lake.
"Still failing, Li Jin?"
The voice was sharp, laced with a contempt that wasn't even thinly veiled. Li Jin didn't need to turn around. He recognized Xiao Lie's arrogant tone. He dropped his hand and faced his rival. Xiao Lie stood with his arms crossed, his fine silk robe hanging perfectly still, as if the wind dared not touch him. An aura of contained power surrounded him.
Xiao Lie smirked, a cruel twist of his lips. "Blood doesn't move stone. Only Lìng Qì can. Perhaps that's too complex a concept for a peasant's son."
Heat flooded Li Jin's face. He clenched his fists, the raw skin on his knuckles screaming in protest. He said nothing. Words were useless against such arrogance. Silence was his only shield.
Xiao Lie let out a short, barking laugh. "Watch and learn." He stepped toward the stele, his expression turning serious. He raised a hand, palm open, not even touching the surface. Intense concentration creased his brow.
A green light, brilliant as polished jade, flared from his palm. It illuminated the black stone, revealing ancient symbols etched within, invisible moments before. A low rumble echoed from deep within the mountain. The stele began to vibrate violently.
The other disciples stopped, their gazes fixed on the display of power. Xiao Lie grimaced with the effort, but a triumphant gleam lit his eyes. With a sharp cry, he thrust the energy forward. The training stele, a one-ton block of solid granite, slid a full meter across the frozen ground, gouging a deep scar in the earth.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of the wind. Xiao Lie lowered his hand, the light fading. He was breathing heavily, but he stood tall, his chin high. He shot a disdainful look at Li Jin.
"That is power. Not your whimpering and bloody hands." He turned on his heel and walked away, rejoining a group of disciples who watched him with open admiration.
Li Jin stared at the displaced stele. It wasn't jealousy he felt, but a hollow, glacial void in his chest. This wasn't just about strength. It was about connection. Xiao Lie spoke to the mountain, and the mountain answered. To Li Jin, it remained mute.
The training session ended with the tolling of the gong. Disciples scattered, their figures swallowed by the mists clinging to the slopes of Mount Jingwei. Li Jin remained alone, his gaze lost on the scar in the earth. The pain in his hand had dulled to a low, throbbing ache.
A familiar presence approached. "Don't listen to him, Jin. Arrogance is a veil over the eyes." It was Wang An, his only true friend at the school. His round, honest face was etched with concern.
Li Jin forced a smile. "Easy for you to say. He moved the stele. I just managed to tear my hand open."
Wang An pressed a small terracotta pot into his hand. "Here. Master Chen's ointment. It'll help it heal." Li Jin accepted with a grateful nod, applying the cool, fragrant balm to his wounds.
"The Threshold Trial is in three days," Wang An murmured, his voice heavy. He didn't need to say more. The Threshold Trial determined which first-year disciples were worthy of continuing their training. Those who failed were sent away from the mountain. Forever.
The trial was deceptively simple. To light a jade lantern with Lìng Qì alone. An act that required a connection, however faint. An act Li Jin was utterly incapable of.
"I know," Li Jin said, his throat tight. Three days. He had three days to do what he hadn't managed in a year. The thought was a bitter joke.
Wang An clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You train harder than anyone. You have the purest heart. The mountain can't stay blind to that. The Jade Tiger rewards perseverance, not just raw talent."
The words were meant to comfort, but they rang hollow. Li Jin had heard them a dozen times. Perseverance had brought him nothing but scars and frustration. A pure heart didn't make stone tremble.
He left the training grounds, leaving Wang An behind. He didn't head back to his cell—a simple straw pallet and a blanket in the common dormitory. He needed solitude. His feet carried him up the winding paths that climbed higher into the mountain's embrace.
Mount Jingwei wasn't just a pile of rock. It was alive. Veins of pale jade snaked through the stone, pulsing with a soft glow that beat in time with an unseen heart. The air thrummed with an energy that was palpable to everyone but him. He felt like a deaf man in a concert hall.
He walked for hours, until the sun began to dip below the peaks, painting the sky in shades of orange and violet. The cold intensified. He finally arrived before a frozen waterfall, a great curtain of ice suspended in time. Behind it, he knew, lay a cave—a dark fissure in the mountainside.
The entrance to the Cave of the Original Breath.
Access was strictly forbidden to any disciple who had not passed the Threshold Trial. It was the school's most sacred place, where the Lìng Qì was at its purest, its most dense. It was said the school's founder had meditated there for forty years before making a pact with the spirit of the White Tiger itself.
Li Jin stood frozen before the entrance. Superstitious fear held him in place. To enter was sacrilege. It was to defy the masters, the traditions, the very spirits. He would be cast out on the spot if he was discovered.
But what did he have left to lose? In three days, he would be cast out anyway. His dream of becoming a disciple of the Jade Tiger would shatter. His promise to his family, to rise above his station, would become just another bitter memory.
A decision formed in his mind, as cold and sharp as a shard of ice. If he was going to fail, he wanted to feel it first. Just once. He wanted to touch the heart of the mountain he'd only ever heard about.
He slipped behind the icefall. The air inside was strangely still, neither warm nor cold. The cave was larger than he had imagined. The walls were not raw rock, but pure, milky green jade. A soft, otherworldly light emanated from the walls themselves, bathing the space in a supernatural glow.
At the center of the cavern was a pool of perfectly clear water. It did not seem to flow or stagnate. It simply was, like a liquid mirror. And at the bottom of the pool rested a single stone, the size of a man's fist. It wasn't jade. It was something older, a stark, milky white that seemed to both absorb and amplify the cave's light.
The Heart of the Mountain. The source of the Spirit-Breath.
Li Jin approached slowly, his own heart hammering against his ribs. The energy in the cave was oppressive, a physical pressure on his skin, like being at the bottom of the ocean. Each breath was a struggle. He could feel the raw power radiating from the stone. It was terrifying. And it was beautiful.
He fell to his knees at the pool's edge. He could see his own reflection in the water: the face of a young man, his features drawn with exhaustion and despair. Was this the end of his journey? One last look at the source of everything he could never possess?
No. He hadn't come here just to look.
Trembling—not from cold, but from a terrifying resolve—he plunged his hand into the icy water. The liquid was denser than normal, almost like cold mercury. He ignored the shock that raced up his arm. His fingers closed around the smooth, white stone at the bottom of the pool.
The instant his skin touched the surface of the Mountain's Heart, the world vanished. The green light of the cave exploded into blinding white. The silence was replaced by a deafening roar that came not from without, but from within his own skull. It was not the sound of any animal. It was the sound of creation itself.
Visions flooded him. Mountains tearing themselves from the earth, rivers carving paths like silver serpents, stars blooming and dying in a timeless night. And at the center of it all, a presence. A consciousness so vast, so ancient, so ferocious it defied comprehension.
Then he saw eyes. Two slitted pupils, burning like molten emeralds, staring at him from the depths of the void. He felt a growl that vibrated through every particle of his being.
The spirit of the White Tiger had finally noticed him.