The lightning had long since faded, but the storm within Li Yi raged on.
He sat amidst the broken altar, steam rising from his skin, and his breathing slow and controlled. The pulse in his veins no longer felt human—it beat like a war drum from an ancient battlefield, echoing with a rhythm that didn't belong to the Xuan Realm.
His body trembled, but not from fear.
He could feel it now.
Cultivation.
It was beginning.
Even though he had never practiced a single breathing method, never opened a meridian, never channeled a spirit root—energy surged into him like a flood tearing through a crumbling dam.
And this energy wasn't the usual spiritual qi of the Xuan Realm.
It was heavier. Deeper. Primordial.
He gritted his teeth as strange runes carved themselves across his mind. He saw visions—fragmented, burning—of a golden tree with nine roots stretching across the cosmos, and a sword buried in a dying star.
Then, silence.
The pain stopped. The storm calmed.
And Li Yi stood.
Something had changed in his presence. His once-dull eyes now gleamed with intelligence and power. His clothes were ragged, his frame lean, but his spine was straight as a blade. A child no longer stood there.
A cultivator was born.
Far above the clouds, unseen by mortal eyes, a ripple spread across the heavens. Somewhere in the void between worlds, a golden scroll trembled slightly, and a certain name written in faded ink began to glow faintly:
Li Yi — Unregistered Bloodline.
---
Back in the Li Family Estate of the Xuan Realm, high atop Mount Qingyun, the great ancestral bell let out a low chime. Elder Li Cheng, who guarded the family's bloodline records, snapped his eyes open.
"…A fluctuation in the ancestral mark?"
He turned quickly, opening the jade pavilion that housed their bloodline resonance mirror. For generations, the Li Family in the Xuan Realm had served as a branch of the Main Li Clan in the Upper Realm. Their task was simple: rise in strength, support the clan's spread, and never disgrace the name.
And now… the resonance of a lost child? After all these years?
"Which lineage…?" he whispered.
But the mirror clouded, flickering, hiding the child's name. That only meant one thing—the ancestor's seal had been placed on this person. A seal only used on bloodlines of extreme importance.
"…A hidden child… born of the main line?"
His hands trembled.
---
In the forest, Li Yi finally moved. He descended the broken altar and gazed into the east. He didn't know why his parents had never returned, but he knew something now with complete certainty:
They were alive.
And they had left him here for a reason.
"I'll find the truth," he whispered to himself, a cold wind brushing past his face. "I'll rise high enough that no one can ever abandon me again."
He turned toward the horizon, where the nearest cultivation sects lay. His journey was only beginning.
And somewhere far above, in the majestic halls of the Upper Realm's Li Clan, a jade token began to hum.
The heir long thought lost… had awakened.