The rooster's cry echoed faintly through the mist-drenched hills. A bell tolled three times across the Wind Glaze Sect, signaling the beginning of outer disciple duties.
Lu Zhen sat up slowly in his creaky wooden bed. His joints ached. His breath was short.
The candle had burned out sometime before dawn. The Breathing Scripture lay closed beside his folded legs, the spine smudged with charcoal dust and his own sweat.
He hadn't slept.
He hadn't needed to.
Not when his mind had started computing something new.
> Last night, a breath had shifted. Slight. Invisible. But it followed his will.
That was enough.
Outside, the morning air bit at his skin. The mountain paths were still wet from the night's dew. Around him, disciples rushed past robes in motion, voices low, training weapons slung over shoulders. No one looked at him.
That was fine.
He didn't want attention.
A stern outer sect elder stood at the base of the hill, handing out assignments.
"Lu Zhen," the elder muttered, scanning his tablet. "North quarter. Latrine pits. And beast pens."
Someone behind Lu Zhen snorted. "Perfect job for someone with orange potential."
He didn't react.
He simply bowed his head and left.
The beast pens stank.
Not from rot from unprocessed spirit waste. Dozens of low-level spirit beasts snarled and scratched within wooden cages. Their breath steamed in the cold air. Most outer disciples avoided this place unless they were training combat techniques on captured beasts.
Lu Zhen observed them.
Their movement. Their breathing.
He noted a four-horned lizard that breathed in odd intervals five quick gasps, one long exhale. He made a note of it.
> Unstable qi channels. Might be useful later.
He stepped into the latrine zone. A wide field of trenches and small sealed pits.
Worse than the beast pens. But he said nothing.
He grabbed the shovel and began clearing muck, carrying buckets out toward the compost edge. The sun had barely risen over the ridge, but his robe was already soaked with the stink of labor.
> Step. Scoop. Dump. Step. Scoop. Dump.
Over and over.
But in his mind, the world slowed.
> "Qi flows where breath leads…"
"Breath follows intention…"
"Intention… follows memory?"
He paused.
Not from exhaustion.
He had just caught something. A rhythm.
Each movement of his body matched his breath.
Each breath matched the image he had formed in his mind last night.
A model. A map.
A flicker of warmth rose from the base of his spine.
He dropped the shovel and sat, cross-legged, in the dirt.
The other disciples scoffed as they walked past.
"Look at that idiot. Meditating in a latrine field?"
He ignored them.
He didn't move.
He followed the warmth.
And for a brief moment… something stirred in his dantian.
> Not qi. Not yet.
But space.
And that was enough.
Hours later, when he stood and returned the shovel, the elder didn't even glance at him.
Lu Zhen bowed again.
But this time, his hands didn't tremble.
His back didn't ache.
> I was wrong. The sect isn't a cage. It's a formula.
And every formula has a flaw.
He looked up at the peaks in the distance where the core disciples trained.
> I'll find it.
And I'll split it wide open.
As Lu Zhen returned the shovel to the rack, a few disciples sneered and pointed at the filth splattered on his robe. One even muttered, "From trash job to trash potential."
Lu Zhen didn't blink.
Their words held no weight.
He'd already seen it in their stances, their postures. They didn't even breathe evenly while insulting him.
> Emotion disrupts flow. Flow disrupts breath. And breath disrupts qi.
Fools. All of them. Training with broken patterns and blind faith.
He stepped past them in silence and returned to his quarters.
Inside his wooden room, he lit another candle. Faint light flickered over the old Breathing Scripture, the back now half-covered in strange diagrams, circle models, and rows of slanted marks all drawn in black charcoal.
He unrolled another parchment this one blank and drew something new.
A series of human silhouettes, marked with breath paths. He had watched enough disciples today to begin forming patterns. One boy during sword training, another hauling water, an elder disciplining a junior they all breathed differently.
And yet...
There was a core rhythm behind it.
> Inhale. Stillness. Flow. Output.
Control that… and you control everything they do.
He paused.
The candle's flame quivered. It wasn't wind. It was a draft. One so subtle it only came when the doors of the nearby inner sect training hall opened. He hadn't dared approach during the day.
But now, deep in the night...
He stepped outside.
The training hall of the inner sect was on the mid-slope of Wind Glaze Peak. A place outer disciples weren't even allowed to look at, let alone walk near. But Lu Zhen didn't go in.
He just sat across the path a worn stone bench hidden behind a thick tree.
A place most ignored.
Tonight, the doors of the training hall cracked open slightly. Inside, two silhouettes were dueling, one using Flame Palms, the other using a Rising Spear Style.
Qi lashed the air. Every clash of palm and spear sent light wind rippling through the trees.
Lu Zhen sat like a statue.
Not because he admired the strength.
But because he was memorizing everything.
How the flame-user stepped with his left leg slightly bent.
How the spear-user over-extended on the third jab.
How their breath paused right before a technique landed.
He could feel it building in his mind:
> Technique isn't magic.
It's timing. Calculation. Stored momentum.
His fingers moved slightly as he mimicked the postures with no qi behind them. Just silent mimicry.
Until the flame-user suddenly looked his way.
Lu Zhen ducked back.
Did they see him?
A long second passed.
Then the doors shut again.
He exhaled slowly, wiped the sweat from his brow, and stood.
He would return again tomorrow. And the day after. And every night.
> Every weapon has a pattern.
Every pattern can be broken.
And the first person to do it... doesn't need qi.
Only calculation.
Back in his room, he finally reached beneath his bed, pulled out an old rag-wrapped blade. A wooden practice sword cracked at the handle, chipped near the tip.
He stood in the center of the room and raised it.
Not to swing.
But to test a theory.
And when he slashed, his movements matched what he'd seen moments before. He breathed in sync, counted the shift in his shoulder muscles, the delay in footwork.
Then he paused mid-swing.
> What if... the attack could be saved?
His eyes lit up.
He dropped the sword.
And grabbed a fresh parchment.
The quill scratched faintly over parchment. Lu Zhen sat cross-legged in his dimly lit room, a small candle guttering beside him, shadows playing across the worn floorboards like dancers in slow rhythm.
He didn't blink.
He didn't rush.
Every stroke, every symbol on the parchment had been carved from memory and mimicry.
He had watched ten flame strikes. Twenty-seven spear thrusts. Forty-three footsteps. One hundred and seventeen breaths.
Each one measured.
Each one recorded.
Each one… stored.
On the left side of the parchment, he had drawn a small circle. Labeled it Point One. Then a second. Point Two. And a third. Point Three.
Next to them: arrows. Timing marks. Movement flow. Breath rhythm.
> A technique doesn't have to be powerful to be deadly, he wrote beneath.
It only has to arrive before the enemy expects it.
He stared at it.
A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
"Three Point Art."
Not a real technique yet. Not even recognized by the sect.
But in his mind, it was already built.
A way to 'store' the memory of an attack, using precise muscle memory and breath syncing, then replay that attack later by aligning the same rhythm even from a distance, even while standing still.
It was a trick of illusion. A lie told through form and breath.
But one that could kill.
A knock sounded at the door. Sharp. Three taps.
Lu Zhen rolled the parchment, slipped it beneath the floorboard, and opened the door.
It was Lu Chen, his twin brother.
Dressed in cleaner robes, slightly panting from a run, with a steamed bun in one hand.
"You didn't show up to dinner again," Lu Chen muttered, tossing the bun at him. "And Elder Wu's been watching you since morning. You're making enemies already."
"I'm always making enemies," Lu Zhen replied calmly, catching the bun.
Lu Chen frowned. "Just don't get yourself kicked out, alright? You can be creepy and weird all you want, but at least last until the potential ranking exam next month."
"I will."
"And clean your robe. You smell like you fought a dung beast and lost."
Lu Zhen shut the door without a word.
Then leaned against it for a moment.
> Potential rankings...
Just a formality for most.
But for him?
It was a battlefield.
A chance to show the results of calculation.
A chance to test his Three Point Art.
A chance to strike first in front of the entire outer sect.
He took a bite of the bun and sat down again at the candle.
Three dots stared up at him from the parchment.
> I need more points.
Twelve. No, eighteen.
Enough to rewrite a fight before it even begins.
The flame flickered.
The candle wept.
And Lu Zhen kept writing.
The candle had long since burned out. But Lu Zhen's eyes adjusted easily now.
The wooden floor beneath him had grown familiar every knot, every groove memorized through long hours of stillness. It was here, not in battle, where the first real strikes were forged.
He moved.
Not with force, but form.
He stepped once slowly a left foot forward and a partial twist of the wrist. A ghost of a sword swing, not even powered by qi, just muscle flow. He stopped mid-motion.
Then he returned to his initial stance.
Then did it again. And again.
The same move. Same breath.
> Save it.
Store the momentum in your bones, the memory in your spine.
> One Point.
He repeated the process with a second swing vertical this time.
Then a rising arc to the left.
By the time the moon sat directly overhead, he had practiced three strikes, each over a hundred times. All perfectly mirrored. No variation.
He wasn't cultivating qi.
He was cultivating certainty.
He raised the wooden sword and whispered:
> "Three Point Art."
The room did not change.
There was no glow, no tremble in the air, no breakthrough.
But in his mind...
He felt three points anchor themselves into memory.
Ready.
Waiting.
Invisible blades in invisible sheaths.
Suddenly, something in the silence shifted.
A whisper of breath not his own.
Lu Zhen didn't move. But his hand slowly curled around the wooden sword.
Tap.
A sound came from just outside his window.
Tap. Tap.
A rhythm.
A test?
He waited.
Then it stopped.
When he opened the door, the night wind rushed in. Cold and empty.
Nothing there.
No footprints.
No qi.
> But someone was watching.
> And they understood rhythm.
Lu Zhen closed the door.
Sat back down.
And added a fourth point to his diagram.
Not a strike.
But a pause.
Lu Zhen didn't return to his sleeping mat.
He simply sat there, sword still in hand, gaze fixed on the closed door.
The wind had stopped.
No further sound came.
But in his mind, the presence still lingered not malevolent, but… calculated.
> Someone out there had noticed him.
Not because of power.
But because of precision.
He picked up the quill again and added one final note beneath the diagram:
> Point Four: Delay
A pause placed with purpose is deadlier than motion without meaning.
He set the quill down and breathed in deep, slow rhythm.
Tomorrow, he'd return to the outer sect grounds.
Tomorrow, he'd begin saving new points.
Tomorrow, the whispers would grow louder.
But tonight...
He sat in silence, eyes closed, the soft weight of stored slashes heavy on his shoulders.
No qi.
No strength.
No one watching believed in him.
But soon
They would fear him.