The world fell silent. The wind held its breath. The only sound was the final, shuddering sigh of the Three-Tailed Spirit Fox as the last spark of life left its body. It lay still, a fallen monument of snow and silver.
Wei An remained frozen, hidden by the brush. His mind screamed at him to run, to get as far away from this place as possible. The cultivators who had slain this magnificent beast would surely be here soon to claim their prize. To be found near the corpse would be to invite disaster.
But his body wouldn't obey. Something was happening inside him.
It started as a faint thrum in his dantian, the spot below his navel where a cultivator's Golden Core was meant to reside. For Wei An, this place had always been a cold, empty void. Now, it was awake. A strange, primal hunger, more intense than any physical starvation he had ever known, radiated from it. It was a deep, resonant pull, an instinct that screamed a single word: devour.
He watched, mesmerized, as something impossible happened. Tiny, shimmering motes of silver-grey light, invisible to a normal eye but blazing in his perception, began to rise from the fox's corpse. They were like ethereal dust motes, each one carrying a fragment of the beast's immense power, its life force, its very essence.
This was Remnant Essence. The spiritual energy left behind in the moments after death.
The hunger in his dantian became an irresistible vortex. Wei An stumbled out of his hiding place, his movements clumsy, his mind a whirlwind of terror and desperate need. He cautiously approached the massive corpse. The closer he got, the stronger the pull became. The silver-grey motes swirled in the air, drawn towards him.
When he was within arm's length, the first mote touched his skin.
Pain. It was a searing, icy fire that shot up his arm and into his meridians. His entire body convulsed. It felt like being torn apart and stitched back together with frozen needles. But beneath the agony was something else. Power. Raw, untamed, chaotic power.
He fell to his knees, gasping, as the motes began to flow into him in a steady stream. The trickle became a river, a torrent of Remnant Essence pouring into the void of his Withering Root. His cursed root, the source of his lifelong misery, was not a void that destroyed, but a vessel that received.
The pain intensified, but the feeling of strength grew with it. The chronic weakness that had plagued his muscles for years was burned away. The dull ache in his bones was replaced by a feeling of profound solidity. His senses exploded. He could hear the frantic beat of a squirrel's heart in a tree a hundred feet away. He could see the intricate patterns on a mosquito's wings.
The flow of essence continued for what felt like an eternity, and then, as the last mote was absorbed, it stopped. The world snapped back into focus. Wei An was on his hands and knees, panting, his body drenched in sweat but thrumming with a vitality he had never imagined possible. He had touched the threshold. He was an Essence Gatherer.
He pushed himself to his feet. He felt… strong. Truly strong.
A twig snapped in the distance.
Voices.
"The trail ends here. It must have fallen nearby."
Wei An's blood ran cold. The cultivators. He looked at the massive, lifeless fox, then at his own hands, which trembled with newfound energy. They would kill him without a second thought. A mortal boy, a nobody from a backwater village, found next to their prize? At best, they would assume he was a thief. At worst, they would sense the lingering chaotic energy on him and brand him a demonic cultivator.
Panic gave way to a cold, sharp clarity. His old life in Grey-Elm was over. The moment he absorbed that essence, he had crossed a line. There was no going back.
Using the agility and speed that now felt as natural as breathing, he turned and fled. He didn't run towards the village, but deeper into the Blackwood Range, towards the danger and the unknown. He was no longer Wei An, the cursed outcast. He was a cultivator.
And his path was paved with the dead.