The cavern had quieted, but the air remained charged, as if holding its breath. The stone altar at its heart no longer felt inert; it pulsed faintly, like a living heart beneath layers of ancient rock.
Li Wei, pale and shaken, lay pressed against the wall. Wang Jian still braced himself, shivering from the earlier trial. Zhao Min remained unconscious.
Chen Yu approached the altar, not with anticipation, not with fear, but with careful attention. He let his gaze roam over the spiralling grooves, noting the subtle shifts in the stone. Each line now seemed alive, twisting and converging like streams of memory.
It is not enough to exist, he realised. Now it will ask who I am.
The cavern changed without warning. Shadows deepened, stretching along the walls and floor, creeping like ink across silk. Light dimmed, then warped, taking on strange hues—green, amber, violet—as if reality itself had become fluid.
Chen Yu felt a tug at his chest. Not the pressure of the first trial. This was internal, targeting the mind and soul.
The altar had begun the Trial of Self.
Visions appeared—not around him, but inside him. Memories and fears, hopes and doubts, all mingled in his perception. He saw:
His own life reflected back, but distorted.
A path where he never left his studies, forever obscure, alone and forgotten.
Another path where ambition consumed him, raising him to prominence but at the cost of every friend, every truth he valued.
Legends from his studies: Buddha meditating beneath the Bodhi tree, Monkey King defying heaven, ancient immortals wielding authority beyond comprehension. Each spoke, not in words, but in their truths and contradictions.
Chen Yu did not flinch. He did not struggle.
Where others would have panicked, fought, or run, he simply observed.
These are not threats. They are mirrors. To falter is to confuse the reflection with oneself.
Li Wei shrieked as his vision trapped him in endless corridors of greed and jealousy. Each success was hollow; each attempt to escape multiplied the pressure. Wang Jian confronted illusions of responsibility he could never shoulder alone—every choice a dagger twisting in his chest. Zhao Min's mind became a web of unfinished calculations and obsessive control, each thread pulling her into despair.
Chen Yu felt none of this. Instead, he walked through the visions as one might step through a misty grove, attentive, aware, and yet untethered to fear or desire.
He touched the grooves of the altar lightly.
What is the lesson? he thought. Not what I want to see, not what I hope to gain. Only to know myself as I am… without pretension, without ego.
The visions shifted again. This time, they showed him the lineage hidden in his blood—a faint, flickering image of a man kneeling before a primordial altar, surrounded by golden light. It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, a memory older than history, faint yet insistent.
Chen Yu did not recoil. He embraced the awareness, letting it spread, neither forcing it nor fleeing from it. His breath slowed. His mind calmed.
The stone altar responded. The grooves glimmered softly, like ink flowing on water.
Li Wei collapsed entirely, shaking, muttering nonsense. Wang Jian slumped against the wall, beaten not by force but by his own failures. Zhao Min remained unconscious, trapped in the illusion of control she could never master.
Chen Yu opened his eyes. The visions had vanished, leaving him alone in the dimly lit cavern.
Yet he could feel it: something stirring within, ancient and patient. A fragment of the Ancestral Bloodline, long dormant, whispered recognition. It did not awaken fully—this was not yet the time—but it had taken notice.
Chen Yu knelt before the altar. He exhaled slowly. For the first time, he understood fully what it meant to be "chosen" by such a relic. Not through might. Not through cunning. Not through desire. But by understanding, patience, and the willingness to see truth without corruption.
And somewhere, in that silent communion, the first seed of his cultivation path began to form.
The altar had not granted him immortality. It had granted him notice, and in the world of cultivation, that was everything.