The first thing Lin Feng Yi felt was the taste of copper and dry rot. His lungs did not just burn. They felt filled with the weight of two thousand years of dust. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids were stuck fast with a crust of salt and filth. He forced himself to stay perfectly still. In his previous life as a lead strategist for the 2025 Global Recovery Initiative he had learned that the moment you wake up in a bad spot is the most dangerous time. Moving meant making noise. Noise meant death.
He forced his breathing to slow down. He counted the seconds between each shallow inhale. As the fog in his mind cleared memories that were not his own began to bleed through his consciousness. He was in the body of a boy named Xiao Lin who looked to be no older than fifteen. The boy had been a scavenger a bottom dweller in the ruins of the Middle Realm. He had spent his days searching for scraps of Star Jade to trade for a handful of grey flour. It was a miserable life of hunger and filth but it was the only life Xiao Lin had known.
Then a sharper colder memory sliced through the haze. The boy had been hiding. He had crawled into this lightless crawlspace because of the hounds. These were not four legged animals but the two legged kind from the Hesperian Dominion. Lin Feng Yi finally pried his eyes open. Above him a slab of cracked concrete hung precariously held up by rusted rebar that groaned with the weight of the debris above. He recognized the geometry of the pillars and the specific thickness of the insulation on the hanging wires. He was in the basement of the New Century Municipal Library. In his time it had been a landmark of glass and light. Now in the year 4040 it was a tomb buried under thirty feet of irradiated silt.
A heavy vibration shook the floor. It was a rhythmic metallic thud followed by a hiss. Lin Feng Yi felt his skin crawl. That was the sound of a Hesperian Steam Exosuit. The Hesperians were a cruel bunch who shoved leftovers of old world tech into their bodies. They were monsters of brass and ego. A voice boomed from above muffled by layers of stone but still sharp. Find the brat. He saw the crate. No one leaves the sector with knowledge of the Star Jade shipment. If you cannot find him just burn the sub level with the phosphorus spray.
Lin Feng Yi closed his eyes again. He was calculating. The Municipal Library was not just a house for books. It had been a hub for the city geothermal heating grid. If he was in the basement he was less than ten meters away from the primary pressure release valve for the entire district line. Suddenly a shimmer of light appeared in his vision. It was not a hallucination. It looked like golden ink being written by an invisible brush directly onto the air. It was a messy and overwhelming sensation. He felt a surge of hope that was immediately crushed by a wave of terror. He wanted to live but he was so tired of fighting. This was the contradiction of existence. He hated this new world for its cruelty but he loved the fact that he was breathing.
The thumping grew louder. Dust rained down as a heavy boot crushed masonry directly above his head. He had to move. He rolled to his side and his muscles screamed. He crawled out of the small crevice his hands scraping against broken glass and old fossilized paper. He reached a wall where a heavy iron pipe jutted out from the concrete. It was covered in a thick layer of green oxidation but the valve handle was still there shaped like a wheel. In 2025 this pipe carried superheated steam from the earth core. After two thousand years the pressure in these old lines would be astronomical held back only by the ancient alloys.
He grabbed the wheel. It would not budge. He was too weak. His arms were like thin sticks and his vision was swimming. He felt a deep disappointment in this new body. It was a vessel of failure. Above him the sound of a torch cutting through metal shrieked. A circle of orange light appeared on the ceiling. They were cutting their way down. He did not need strength. He needed leverage. He found a long rusted steel strut that had fallen from the ceiling. He wedged the strut into the spokes of the valve wheel. He threw the entire weight of his small battered body against the bar.
Move you stubborn thing he hissed through grit teeth.
The wheel groaned. A flake of rust flew off and hit his cheek drawing blood. He shifted his footing and pressed his back against the wall while pushing with his legs. High above the ceiling segment crashed down. A man stepped into the basement. He was a nightmare of brass and flesh. His left arm was replaced by a massive steam cannon and his eyes were covered by a glowing red visor. The Hesperian scout raised his cannon arm. The red light locked onto Lin Feng Yi. Found you little rat the soldier laughed. The sound was metallic and filtered through a respirator.
Lin Feng Yi felt a spike of pure adrenaline. He gave one final desperate heave against the steel bar. The valve snapped open. For a second there was silence. Then the very earth seemed to scream. A roar like a thousand jet engines exploded from the pipe. Two thousand years of trapped geothermal pressure found its exit. The pipe disintegrated. A massive jet of superheated white vapor blasted upward hitting the ceiling with the force of a tectonic plate. The Hesperian scout did not even have time to scream. The sheer heat stripped the flesh from his bones in a heartbeat and the pressure crumpled his brass armor like a piece of paper.
The entire basement became a white void of noise. Lin Feng Yi had thrown himself behind a heavy concrete pillar. He curled into a ball and covered his ears while praying the ancient foundation would hold. The building groaned. The steam blast melted the rusted rebar and caused the upper floors of the library to collapse. The Hesperian scout was buried under tons of stone and boiling water. Slowly the roar died down to a high pitched whistle. Lin Feng Yi stayed behind the pillar for a long time. His heart was racing. He had killed a Hesperian. A boy with no muscles had killed a knight of the Dominion. He felt a sickening mix of joy for his survival and horror at the violence of it.
The golden calligraphy appeared again dancing with a sense of triumph. It was as if the world itself was acknowledging his choice to fight back. A small crystalline bottle seemed to pull itself out of the air and landed softly on the pile of rubble. Inside was a liquid that looked like liquid starlight. He reached out a trembling hand and grasped the bottle. The glass was cool despite the heat in the room. He knew what he had to do. In this new cruel world knowledge was the only thing that could stand against the madness. He pulled the stopper. The scent of old parchment and fresh rain filled his nostrils. It filled him with a longing so painful he almost wept. He missed his home but he hated the weakness of his past self for letting it fall.
Lin Feng Yi tilted his head back and drank. The liquid hit his tongue and turned into a searing heat that raced down his throat. His vision exploded into a thousand different colors. He saw the blueprints of every building in the Middle Realm. He saw the stars moving in patterns he did not understand. The pain was immense but he did not scream. He focused on his mind. He focused on the idea of order. He felt his connection to the boy Xiao Lin tearing apart and reweaving into something new. There was a conflict in his soul. He wanted to be the hero but he also wanted to just hide and never see the sun again.
He was no longer just a scavenger. He was a Ritualist. As he slumped against the concrete pillar the darkness finally took him. Above the ruins the remaining Hesperian scouts shouted to one another. They were confused by the sudden explosion. They did not know that the boy they were hunting had died in that basement and that a man with the knowledge of a lost era had taken his place. Lin Feng Yi breathed in the cooling air. His heart beat with a steady powerful rhythm. He felt a strange affection for the boy whose body he now inhabited. He would carry Xiao Lin fear and use it to build a world where no one had to hide in the dark anymore.
He slept as the Year 4040 turned its cold uncaring face toward the sun. The Mandate of the Dao had finally returned to the Middle Realm. It was a messy beginning filled with blood and steam but it was a beginning nonetheless. He would have to learn to love the struggle and navigate the messy relationships of a leader who loved his people but had to send them to die for the greater harmony. The journey of four hundred chapters had begun. Every step would be a battle between his human heart and the cold logic of a strategist. He would find friends who would betray him and enemies who would save him. This was the beauty and the terror of the Mandate.
Lin Feng Yi dreamed of a city made of glass and jade. He dreamed of a world where the steam was used to power homes instead of cannons. But even in his dreams he could see the shadows of the Outer Deities waiting in the void. He felt a chill of excitement and fear. The basement was quiet now except for the dripping of water. The boy scavenger was gone. The Ritualist was born. Lin Feng Yi smiled in his sleep a human expression of both malice and hope. The Mandate was his. The world would follow.
He woke up hours later to the sound of shifting rubble. The basement was a wreck. Water dripped from a broken pipe somewhere above and the air was thick with the smell of wet concrete. He felt different. His mind was sharper and his body felt slightly less like it was made of dry twigs. He looked down at his hands. The cuts were still there but they did not throb as much. He tried to stand up but his legs were shaky. He leaned against the pillar and took a deep breath. He had to get out of here before more Hesperians showed up. They would be looking for their missing scout and they would not be happy when they found what was left of him.
He began to climb through the wreckage. Every movement was a struggle. He had to crawl over slabs of concrete and squeeze through tight gaps between twisted metal. His mind was racing with plans. He needed a safe place to hide. He needed food and clean water. He needed to find the other scavengers the ones Xiao Lin had called family. They were a ragtag group of survivors who lived in a series of tunnels near the edge of the ruins. They were not much but they were all he had.
As he reached the surface he saw the sun for the first time in this new world. It was a pale watery thing hanging in a sky that was more grey than blue. The ruins stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see. It was a landscape of bones and rust. He felt a pang of sadness for the world that had been lost. All that beauty all that knowledge gone. But then he felt a spark of determination. He would bring it back. He would build something even better. He started walking toward the edge of the ruins his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of danger. The path ahead was long and dangerous but he was ready. He was Lin Feng Yi and he had the Mandate of the Dao.
The air outside was cold and tasted of ash. He wrapped his thin rags tighter around his chest and kept moving. He remembered the layout of the old city and used it to find the quickest route to the scavenger tunnels. He avoided the main roads where Hesperian patrols were likely to be. Instead he stuck to the narrow alleys and the gutted remains of buildings. He moved like a ghost silent and fast. His new powers were subtle but he could feel them working. He could sense the structural weaknesses in the buildings around him and he knew exactly which walls were safe to lean on and which were about to collapse. It was a strange sensation but he welcomed it.
He finally reached the entrance to the tunnels. It was a hidden hatch buried under a pile of rusted metal. He gave the secret knock and waited. After a long moment the hatch opened and a pair of suspicious eyes peered out. Xiao Lin is that you the voice whispered. Lin Feng Yi nodded and slipped inside. The hatch closed behind him and he was plunged into darkness. He followed the sound of breathing through the tunnels until he reached a small flickering campfire. A group of people were huddled around it their faces thin and dirty. They looked up as he approached their eyes filled with a mix of hope and fear.
Where have you been we thought the hounds got you an old man asked. Lin Feng Yi sat down by the fire and held out his hands to the warmth. I found something he said his voice quiet but firm. I found a way to fight back. The scavengers looked at each other unsure of what to make of his words. They had spent their whole lives running and hiding. The idea of fighting back was alien to them. But as they looked into his eyes they saw something they had never seen before. They saw a leader. And for the first time in a very long time they felt a glimmer of hope.