Tianchen carried the last of the morning water to the kitchen storage. His movements were the same as always. Steady, efficient, unremarkable.
His thoughts were not.
Every cultivator he passed, he analyzed differently now. The way they walked revealed meridian pathways. The casual gestures showed qi flow habits. A senior disciple stretching his arms was actually circulating energy through his shoulder meridians to ease tension from practice.
Eighteen years of observation had given him the what. Three days with the jade slip had given him the why.
"You look different today."
Tianchen turned. Su Ling stood near the kitchen entrance, holding a basket of vegetables. She was sixteen, thin from work, with a face that would've been pretty if exhaustion didn't hang on it like old cloth.
"Different how?" Tianchen asked. "Did I finally achieve enlightenment through water-carrying? I've been trying for years."
She blinked, then a smile tugged at her lips. "I'm serious. Your eyes, maybe. Like you're seeing something the rest of us can't."
"I'm seeing how you're about to drop that basket if you don't shift your grip."
Su Ling adjusted the basket to her other hip, the smile widening slightly. "See? That. You never used to notice things like that."
"I've always noticed. I just didn't say anything." Tianchen tilted his head. "Would you have preferred I spent the last four years giving you vegetable-carrying advice?"
"Maybe." She laughed, brief and surprised, as if she'd forgotten how. Then her expression sobered. "Be careful, Tianchen. Whatever you're planning."
"What makes me look like I'm planning something? Is it the suspicious vegetable expertise?"
"Because I've worked beside you for four years." Her voice dropped. "You don't change. Not your routine, not your expression, not your eyes. Until now."
Tianchen's playful expression faded slightly. He met her gaze, and for a moment, let her see something genuine. "Maybe I just got tired of carrying water."
"Then you picked a dangerous time to get tired." She glanced around to make sure no one was close. "Old Steward Han has been watching you. More than usual. And yesterday, I saw Elder Li Hua talking to the Patriarch. They both looked toward the servants' quarters."
"Well, that's either very good or very bad for me."
"This isn't a joke."
"I know." His tone gentled. "But if I can't joke about it, what's left? Worry? Fear?" He shook his head. "Those don't accomplish much."
Su Ling studied him for a long moment. "Just... be careful. People who stand out don't last long in places like this."
"Then it's fortunate I've spent eighteen years being completely unremarkable."
"Tianchen."
"I'll be careful," he said, and meant it. "I promise."
She held his eyes a moment longer, then nodded and walked past him toward the kitchen. Tianchen watched her go, the playfulness dropping from his expression like a mask set aside.
She was right, of course. He was being watched. The jade slip had been a test. His next move would determine what kind of test it was.
By afternoon, Tianchen had found what he needed.
The old shrine sat a quarter-li beyond the clan's outer walls. Not far enough to be suspicious if someone saw him. Close enough that he could claim he was gathering herbs or disposing of waste if questioned.
The shrine itself was barely standing. Three walls of crumbling stone, a roof that had collapsed decades ago, and a stone altar grown over with moss. No formations protected it. No one maintained it.
According to clan records he'd glimpsed while cleaning the archives, this shrine predated the Li Clan's founding. Some minor earth god, long forgotten. The clan had built around it but never torn it down. Bad luck to destroy holy places, even abandoned ones.
Good luck for Tianchen.
He circled the structure once, checking sight lines. Trees blocked the view from the clan walls. The road passed a hundred paces to the east, but this late in the day, few traveled it.
Private enough.
Tianchen stepped inside what remained of the shrine. Moss softened his footsteps. The altar stone radiated faint coolness, as if remembering winter.
He sat cross-legged on the ground and pulled the jade slip from his robes.
Body Tempering. The foundation of all cultivation. He'd watched hundreds of clan members execute techniques, channel qi, demonstrate their progress. But he'd never seen this first step. No one demonstrated Body Tempering at assessments. It was too basic, too fundamental. Like showing how to breathe.
The manual described it simply. The body contained spiritual energy in dormant state. Every human did, cultivator or not. The difference was awakening it, teaching flesh and bone to recognize what already existed within them.
Not adding power. Revealing it.
Tianchen placed the jade slip beside him and closed his eyes. The breathing technique was specific. Slow, measured, drawing air deep into the lower dantian. Not the lungs. Deeper. Into the space that existed below the navel, where spiritual energy pooled even in mortals.
He breathed.
One breath. Two. Ten. Twenty.
His body felt the same. Sitting on cold stone, legs crossed, back straight. Nothing changed except his awareness. Each breath reached further down, touching something he'd never noticed.
On the thirtieth breath, something responded.
Warmth bloomed in his chest, just below his sternum. Not heat from exertion. Not the warmth of blood flow. This was different. Alive. Aware.
His spiritual energy. Dormant for eighteen years. Waking now.
Tianchen kept his breathing steady. The manual said this part was crucial. The awakened energy would circulate on its own if guided gently. The body knew the pathways. They existed before cultivation, waiting.
The warmth moved. Not flowing like water. More like ice melting, revealing what lay beneath. It crept from his chest downward, following channels he'd never felt but somehow recognized.
His muscles tightened. Not from effort. From change. The energy touched them as it passed, and they responded. Fibers that had carried water buckets for eighteen years suddenly remembered they could be more.
This was Body Tempering. Not striking stones until knuckles bled. Not running until legs gave out. Those were mortal methods. Cultivation was internal. The energy refined from within, strengthening the vessel that contained it.
Tianchen's analytical mind catalogued sensations. The energy moved slower than he'd expected. Each inch of progress left changed tissue behind. Denser. Harder. Not enough to notice externally, but he felt it.
The warmth reached his lower abdomen. Almost to the lower dantian. Just a little further.
Then the sky cracked.
Not literally. But something above him split open with a sound like tearing silk. Tianchen's eyes snapped open.
The air above the shrine shimmered. Wrong colors bled through reality. Purple. Black. Colors that shouldn't exist outside a cultivator's nightmare.
Tianchen stopped breathing. The warmth in his chest froze mid-movement.
The shimmer intensified. Through it, he saw something vast and incomprehensible. Not a face. Not a form. Just presence. Infinite. Absolute.
Watching him.
Heaven.
Heaven had noticed.
The jade slip beside him began to smoke. Not burn. Smoke, like ice meeting flame. The characters inscribed on it glowed red, then white, then colors that hurt to perceive.
Tianchen's meridians screamed. The gentle energy he'd been guiding turned violent. It surged forward on its own, no longer refining. Tearing. Crashing through pathways that weren't ready, ripping instead of flowing.
His muscles didn't strengthen. They convulsed.
Pain exploded through his body.
He tried to stop it. Tried to reverse the circulation. The manual had warned stopping mid-flow was dangerous, but this was worse. This was unbearable.
The shrine's altar cracked down the middle.
The shimmer in the sky pulsed once.
And Tianchen's world became pain. Then lightning. Then Heaven's gaze, weighing whether he should exist.