They bound him in black soul-thread rope, the kind that didn't just suppress Qi, it squeezed at the soul.
Lu Tian bit the inside of his cheek to stay conscious as they dragged him through the southern gate of the Crimson Soul Sect. Behind the cracked stone walls, the Sect loomed like a graveyard of ambition. Towers like bone fingers scraped the blood-red sky. Rivers of toxin flowed under bridges carved from spirit beast spines. The air smelled of blood, metal, and incense burned over broken dreams.
This wasn't a place for cultivators.
It was a crucible for monsters.
They threw him into a pen with sixteen others, some moaning, some already dead. No names. No explanation. Just another batch of disposable bodies.
Lu Tian lay still, eyes half-open, watching. Calculating.
He knew what came next. The Sect called it Selection.
A test of value.
Those with clean cores, rare bloodlines, or unusual talents were sent to sect branches to be shaped, or consumed.
The rest became laborers, cauldron fodder, or experimental vessels.
Lu Tian was none of those things.
Not by blood. Not by spirit. Not by fate.
But he had something better.
Memory.
And now, a seed of Abyss Root.
He closed his eyes and touched it, First Mark: Mother's Silence, and for a moment, his soul turned inward.
Pain. Stillness. Echo.
"Power from within," he murmured. "Cultivate by remembering what cannot be forgotten."
He reached deeper. Into the weight of it.
And the Abyss answered.
A thread of energy unfurled. Cold. Personal. Real. It twisted through his veins like black lightning and pooled in his bones.
[Scar-Skill Awakened: Vein of the Unspoken]
•Temporarily nullifies Qi detection for 3 seconds
• Can be stacked with pain
• Costs memory clarity: overuse risks emotional fragmentation
His breath caught.
He had a weapon now. Not a sword. Not a pill.
An advantage.
A scar-skill, born not from elements or spirit beasts, but from grief distilled into will.
He opened his eyes.
The guards returned.
A disciple in red and silver robes stood beside them. Tall, expressionless, with a soul-spear strapped to his back.
Senior Disciple Yang Xu.
A butcher disguised as a scholar. In the novel, he killed eighty-three fellow disciples to "refine loyalty" in his branch. The Sect praised him for "creative thinking."
Yang Xu paced down the line.
He pointed.
"You. Dead meridian. Trash."
"You. Crooked core. Cauldron."
He reached Lu Tian.
Paused.
Frowned.
"Name?"
Lu Tian didn't flinch. "Zhou Bin."
Yang Xu's eyes narrowed.
"Didn't you die?"
"Nearly," Lu Tian rasped. "But I lived."
Yang Xu stared at him.
The pressure of Qi Formation Realm peak came down like a slab of stone.
Lu Tian's ears rang. Vision blurred.
Now.
He triggered the Vein of the Unspoken.
Pain surged. Blood vessels burst behind his eyes. But his Qi signature vanished.
For three seconds, he was nothing.
Yang Xu's gaze slipped. Confused. His expression flickered.
Then he moved on.
"...Stable. Keep him."
Lu Tian collapsed the moment they left.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
His mind swam, not from pain—but from what he'd gotten away with.
He wasn't just hiding now.
He was playing the board.
And soon, he'd start flipping pieces.
Later That Night
They assigned him to the Bone-Wash Hall, a hellhole for outer laborers who cleaned cultivation remains from experimental chambers.
By the time he dragged a half-dissolved core out of a bubbling vat of acid with his bare hands, he'd already memorized every face in the room.
Five workers. Two guards. One supervisor.
One of them. Xie Rong, the supervisor, was important. In the novel, he secretly smuggled cultivation manuals and rare pills to build a private faction of rogue disciples.
Lu Tian remembered the path Xie Rong took to his hidden stash chamber. Chapter 28. Paragraph seven.
He just needed one night alone.
One night to steal something that could buy him real time. A technique. A pill. Even a disguise talisman.
And if things went wrong?
He'd burn a deeper scar. Create another skill.
Because Lu Tian finally understood what kind of cultivator he was becoming.
Not righteous. Not demonic.
He was a scar cultivator.
And his strength would be carved, one trauma at a time.
Night in the Crimson Soul Sect was never quiet. Even the shadows whispered. Somewhere in the distance, a furnace screamed as a beast spirit was ripped from its flesh. Wind didn't blow here; it slithered.
Lu Tian crouched in the corner of the Bone-Wash Hall, fingers blood-cracked from a full day of vat duty. The corpse acid had eaten through two layers of skin. It didn't matter. Pain was memory. Memory was power.
He wasn't trying to rest. He was waiting.
Across the room, Xie Rong was finishing his nightly rounds. One more minute and he'd leave through the east tunnel. Same route every night. Same ritual. The man was careful, but not careful enough to outthink someone who already knew the next page.
As the door creaked shut behind the supervisor, Lu Tian moved. Silent. Precise. Every step calculated.
The tunnel beyond the hall stank of rot and spoiled alchemy. Stone walls pulsed with faint Qi formations, old and half-broken. The Sect had once experimented here—spirit grafts, soul branding, cultivation refactoring. Failed projects now left to decay.
Lu Tian counted thirty-two steps. That was the number from the novel. On the thirty-third, he found it: a hidden door tucked behind a loose section of wall. There was no formation seal, just a bone-lock with a Qi imprint trigger.
He had no Qi to use. No problem.
He reached into his robe and pulled out the broken bone shard he'd saved from the corpse pit. Pressed it to the lock. It clicked once, then cracked open like a dry shell.
Inside: a narrow room. Dust and shadow.
And shelves lined with what the Sect deemed illegal, but still kept.
Manuals, pills, bone-tokens, soul slips.
Lu Tian scanned quickly. Took only what he needed.
A black pill bottle marked with three crimson dots: Soul-Cleansing Elixir. Painful, dangerous, but could force open latent meridian channels.
A scroll wrapped in human-skin binding. Title: Empty Spirit Sutra. Not a high-grade technique, but it emphasized internal clarity over external Qi flow. Perfect for scar-cultivation.
And finally, a soul slip, dark and jagged. He recognized it instantly.
Memory Echo Technique – Lesser Grade.
A rare skill that let one relive a past memory in perfect clarity, once. Used to refine trauma into cultivation fuel. Useless to most. Dangerous to all. For Lu Tian, it was an opportunity.
He grabbed it.
No time to hesitate. Already he could feel the room's ambient Qi reacting to his intrusion. Traps laid not for defense, but alert.
As he turned to leave, the door groaned.
Footsteps outside. Fast.
He shoved everything into his robe and forced his body flat against the back wall. If he had to fight, he would lose.
Pain bloomed in his chest. Panic. Then he made a decision.
He bit into his own tongue, flooding his mouth with blood.
Then triggered the Vein of the Unspoken again.
The world turned cold. His heartbeat dulled. His presence vanished.
The door swung open.
Xie Rong entered, blade drawn, eyes glowing with faint light.
He looked directly at Lu Tian.
And passed over him.
Three seconds. That was all the skill gave.
By the fourth, Lu Tian was already gone. Down the tunnel, up the hall, back into the Bone-Wash room.
He vomited in the corner, blood and bile mixed with raw spiritual backlash. His vision swam.
But he was alive. And he had what he came for.
That night, under a blanket of rags, he held the soul slip in both hands and activated it.
A black flame erupted in his mind.
Then he fell inward.
He was back.
Not in the Sect. Not in the hall.
He was ten years old, hiding in a closet, listening as his uncle sold his sister to pay off his father's gambling debt.
She didn't cry. She smiled.
Said it was fine.
Said he should study hard.
He never saw her again.
He screamed inside the memory. Pounded at the door.
And when he came back to his body, sobbing, clutching his face, something inside him cracked.
The Abyss answered again.
[Abyss Level 1: First Root Formed]
Scar-Skill Gained: Silent Promise
• Increases mental resistance and clarity in life-and-death pressure
• Cannot be removed once activated
• Bonus: +1 insight to memory-type techniques
His hands shook. His heart didn't.
He understood something now. Something terrifying. Something thrilling.
He didn't need to cultivate like the others.
He didn't need Qi. Or rare blood. Or talent.
He needed pain. He needed memory.
He needed the truth of what made him.
And he had an endless well to draw from.
Let the sects refine pills and steal legacies.
Lu Tian would refine himself.
One scar at a time.