The storm had passed, but its memory clung to the mountains like ghosts. The ridges were carved in frost, trees bowed beneath the weight of snow, and the winds still sighed in hollow whispers. In the silence after their baptism, Ling'er, Xue'er, and Baiyun huddled together, feathers ragged but eyes bright.
Haotian stood before them with hands clasped behind his back. His gaze swept over the three, lingering on each in turn — Ling'er's stubborn fire, Xue'er's reckless blaze, Baiyun's calm ice. Alone, they had survived the gale. But survival was not enough.
"The sky," he said, his voice low, cutting through the hush like the edge of a blade, "does not care for individuals. Alone, wings can falter. Together, wings can carve storms. Today, you will learn not to fly as three — but as one."
The hatchlings tilted their heads. Their cries echoed softly, curious, restless.
Haotian raised a finger. Frost chi coiled upward, forming three glowing motes of light. They hovered, circling, then converged into a tight spiral before vanishing in a glittering burst.
"Formation," Haotian said simply.
Without further word, he strode to the cliff's edge once more. The winds had softened since yesterday, no longer violent, but sharp currents still cut across the air like hidden knives. Haotian leapt into the open, landing lightly on a stone pillar rising from the abyss. His aura spread faintly — steady, commanding, unyielding.
"Follow," he ordered.
Ling'er squawked indignantly, Xue'er screeched with excitement, and Baiyun leapt first, wings spreading to catch the morning currents. The other two flapped wildly after it.
The first attempt dissolved in chaos. Xue'er veered upward too fast, breaking formation. Ling'er dove low in clumsy insistence, colliding into Baiyun, sending all three tumbling into a snowbank. Their cries of frustration echoed up the cliff.
Haotian's eyes narrowed. He raised his hand. The frost chi around the ledge surged, coiling into icy birds — spectral falcons that took to the air in perfect spirals. Their wings beat in unison, their arcs precise, their strikes coordinated. They circled above the hatchlings, a flawless dance of predators.
"This," Haotian said, his voice carrying like thunder through the mountains, "is unity. Not three voices. One cry. Not three wings. One storm. Until you learn this, you are nothing more than prey who mistake yourselves for hunters."
The hatchlings froze. The frost-phantoms wheeled above them, their precision undeniable. Instinct screamed within Ling'er, Xue'er, and Baiyun — not envy, not fear, but hunger to match that rhythm.
The training began again.
Over and over, Haotian hurled them from the cliff, his aura shaping gusts and currents to force their paths together. Each time they tried, each time they failed. Xue'er pulled ahead too fast, chasing shadows. Ling'er lagged behind, wings thrashing, stubborn but uncoordinated. Baiyun tried to balance the others, but even its patience fractured when slammed by sudden downdrafts Haotian conjured.
Crash after crash left them sprawled across the snow, feathers askew, talons scraped raw. But each time, they rose again.
Hours passed. The sun climbed high, then dipped lower. Their cries grew sharper, not of helplessness, but of defiance. Slowly, subtly, their rhythm shifted.
On one attempt, Baiyun angled its wings into the wind, slowing just enough for Ling'er to catch up. Xue'er dove recklessly, but this time Ling'er's arc cut across its path, forcing it into alignment. For a heartbeat, all three wings beat in unison.
The air shuddered.
Haotian's eyes narrowed. "Again."
That heartbeat became a breath. That breath stretched into two. By dusk, for the first time, the hatchlings circled the cliff not as three wild chicks, but as a fledgling formation. Xue'er screeched, Ling'er cawed, Baiyun glided silently — yet their cries did not clash. They harmonized, raw and rough, but together.
Haotian leapt from his pillar into their midst, his presence a storm of authority. The hatchlings wavered, nearly breaking apart. He extended his hand, frost chi rippling outward in an arc.
"Strike as one."
The falcons' eyes gleamed. Wings spread wide, they folded into the wind. With a single cry, they dove in unison, talons flashing, carving a path through the current. The air split with frost and sound — clumsy, unrefined, but undeniably united.
When they landed, staggering, exhausted, their small bodies heaved with breath. But their eyes burned with the fire of understanding.
Haotian stepped forward, his shadow falling long across them. He knelt, touching each head with a steady hand.
"You have taken the first step toward becoming more than hunters. You are a storm taking shape. Remember this rhythm. One sky. One cry."
The three falcons cried together, their voices merging into a single echo that rolled across the cliffs and carried into the mountains beyond.
Haotian's gaze followed the sound, sharp and distant. He knew this was only the beginning. Someday, the harmony they forged today would shake heavens and demons alike.
But for now, three small falcons stood unsteady in the snow, wings trembling — and together, they had found their first true formation.
The mountain air had stilled since the day before. No howling gales tore the sky, no snowdrifts raged across the cliffs. Instead, calm frost lay settled over the courtyard once more, soft and untouched. For the first time in days, Haotian called a halt.
"You've done enough," he said simply, eyes steady as the three small falcons blinked at him from their perch. "Today, you rest."
The hatchlings didn't quite understand his words, but they understood his tone. Ling'er puffed its chest as if protesting, Xue'er flapped its wings with a cry of impatience, and Baiyun only tilted its head in silence. Yet when Haotian gestured to the long wooden table near his alchemy stand, all three hopped obediently onto it, talons tapping lightly on the surface.
Haotian settled before the furnace, sleeves drawn back. He placed herbs, minerals, and beast essences onto the stand in neat rows. The furnace hummed to life with a low, resonant thrum, frost chi pulsing faintly around its edges.
The falcons watched with bright sapphire eyes, unblinking, heads tilting whenever a new herb hissed or a mineral cracked within the crucible.
When the first batch condensed into pills, Haotian lifted the lid. A fragrant frost-tinged mist curled outward. Before he could say a word, Xue'er screeched loudly, wings flapping. Ling'er chirped twice in quick demand. Even Baiyun, silent as it was, gave a low, resonant caw.
Haotian arched a brow. "Hungry, are you?"
Instead of giving them pills, he tossed a strip of beast meat across the table. In a flash, three sets of talons snapped forward. Ling'er snatched it first, only for Xue'er to latch onto the other end. The two tumbled across the wood, shrieking and snapping. Baiyun swooped in last, calm as ever, and stole the piece cleanly while the other two wrestled in vain.
Haotian watched, lips curving faintly. "Beasts, through and through."
But as he leaned back, hands clasped behind him, the thought struck. These were not ordinary beasts. They were Frost Falcons — creatures of chi and bloodline, born to carve storms. Food alone would not shape them. He had trained their wings, tested their talons, guided their cries into unity. But their bodies… their very meridians and veins still pulsed with untempered youth.
Perhaps… not meat. Pills.
Haotian's eyes narrowed. He turned back to the furnace, his mind already racing. If he refined pills not just for sustenance, but for chi-tempering, marrow-cleansing, feather-strengthening… then every wingbeat, every cry, every strike would sharpen.
He tapped the table lightly. The hatchlings froze, staring at him.
"Wait a little," he said, voice low but resolute.
The three falcons tilted their heads. Ling'er squawked once in protest, Xue'er ruffled its wings impatiently, Baiyun merely stilled and lowered its head as if in understanding.
Haotian fed the furnace again, his movements steady, precise. Spirit herbs rich with yin essence. Beast cores brimming with frost qi. A sliver of tempered jade to anchor marrow. He layered them in sequence, each step guided not by the manuals of the sect, but by instinct and theory sharpened from his own cultivation path.
The flames danced pale-blue, flickering like ghostly feathers. Haotian channeled his chi through the seals, compressing the mixture. Sweat beaded faintly at his brow, for this was no common refinement — he sought not pills for men, but for beasts, for creatures whose bodies balanced between instinct and bloodline.
Hours passed. The falcons grew restless, hopping along the table, calling out whenever the furnace hissed. Haotian ignored them, his focus absolute.
Finally, as dusk painted the sky, the furnace rang with a crystalline chime. The lid lifted, and within lay three perfectly rounded pills, each faintly translucent, each carrying a sheen of frost that glittered like morning dew upon feathers.
Haotian reached in, holding them up to the fading light. "Frost-Blooded Tempering Pills," he murmured, naming them aloud. "Not just for strength — but to temper marrow, refine chi, and harden wings."
The hatchlings cried at once, as though sensing the gift was meant for them.
Haotian placed the pills down, one before each falcon. "Yours. But eat slowly."
Ling'er lunged first, gulping its pill whole. Xue'er tried to snatch Baiyun's, but Haotian's palm flicked out, tapping it on the beak with a burst of chi that sent it staggering back. "Yours is there," he said firmly. Xue'er grumbled, then ate its own pill with greedy eagerness. Baiyun, calm as ever, lowered its beak and swallowed without haste.
The effect was immediate. Frost light rippled through their feathers, sinking into their small frames. Their eyes glowed faintly sapphire, their breaths deepened, their tiny bodies trembling as marrow and veins surged with new power. Ling'er squawked sharply, wings spreading with sudden bursts of chi. Xue'er screeched and hopped wildly in circles. Baiyun closed its eyes, feathers settling as the energy coursed through it in silence.
Haotian sat back, watching, satisfaction hidden beneath his calm expression.
"Good," he murmured. "Eat. Refine. Grow. These pills will carry you further than raw meat ever could. With these, your wings will not just cut air — they will cut fate."
The falcons called to him, each in their own voice. Ling'er fiery and insistent. Xue'er wild and unrestrained. Baiyun calm and steady. But together, they filled the courtyard with echoes that reached into the night.
Haotian let the sound wash over him, then returned to the furnace, already thinking of the next batch.
The path of hunters had begun. Now, their very blood would follow.
The furnace's glow still pulsed faintly, the scent of refined frost pills lingering in the courtyard air. Haotian sat in silence, sleeves rolled back, his gaze fixed not on the crucible but on the three small falcons perched on the wooden table.
Ling'er stretched its wings impatiently, giving sharp little chirps. Xue'er squawked loudly, hopping in circles, hungry for more. Baiyun sat still, eyes calm and unblinking, its chest rising with steady breath. Their bodies still shimmered faintly with frost chi from the pills he had crafted for them earlier.
Haotian should have gone back to refining. His hand hovered over the herbs arranged before him. Yet a thought snagged in his mind, sharp and insistent, refusing to release.
Frost alone… will this be enough?
The image of their wings in the storm returned to him — Ling'er thrown about, Xue'er reckless, Baiyun steady but limited. He had pushed them through talons, through flight, through formation. But their very marrow, their very bloodline, still carried only one path.
And then, like a spark in the dark, a memory stirred.
A small courtyard in the Zhenlong estate. Rows of herbs glowing faintly under moonlight. Ten varieties — firelotus, frost orchid, storm reed, shadow vine, and others — planted in precise patterns, their essences weaving together in a controlled clash. He had been just a boy then, guided only by stubborn instinct, not by teacher or manual. Yet night after night, breath after breath, he had drawn in the ambient chi of all ten elements.
Pain, imbalance, near-collapse — he remembered them all. His veins had screamed, his marrow had burned. But slowly, patiently, his body adapted. It didn't reject. It absorbed. It harmonized. Until the impossible had become truth: his body could bear them all.
The Ten Elemental Body Physique.
Haotian's eyes narrowed, flicking back to the three falcons. They were staring at him now, Ling'er with restless impatience, Xue'er with wild hunger, Baiyun with quiet patience.
"…What if I gave you the same chance?"
The words were whispered, but they rang like thunder in his chest.
Not through pills. Pills were too crude, too violent. Their fragile veins would burst before the balance was struck. No — it had to be the way he himself had walked. Slowly. Patiently. Through an environment shaped to force harmony.
His lips curved, a rare smile edged with both danger and vision.
"Not frost alone. All ten."
He rose in a single motion, robes brushing across the frost-hardened ground. The falcons cried out as though sensing the shift in his aura. He strode to the corner of the courtyard, where patches of snow had thinned, and knelt. Fingers pressed to the earth, chi flowed outward in delicate streams, sketching the first lines of a formation into the soil.
He would need firelotus seeds. Storm reed roots. Veins of lightning jade. Shards of void stone. A dozen rare herbs and cores of ten elemental affinities. Each planted, each arranged in the precise spiral to draw out clashing chi, to weave contradiction into unity.
The falcons hopped from the table, circling around him curiously, their cries rising as if demanding to know what he was plotting.
Haotian's gaze never left the earth as the sigils flared to life beneath his palm. "When I was younger than you, I slept beneath the war of ten elements every night," he murmured. "It nearly killed me. But it remade me."
His eyes lifted, sharp, alight with conviction.
"If you can endure this… then you will not remain Frost Falcons. You will become sky-sovereigns of ten elements, beasts reborn against heaven's law."
The falcons cawed at once — Ling'er loud and fiery, Xue'er reckless and sharp, Baiyun calm and resolute. Their voices merged, echoing faintly against the courtyard walls, as though they themselves accepted the challenge without understanding it.
Haotian pressed his palm flat. The first layer of the Ten Element Formation lit the ground with faint, multicolored light.
"So be it," he whispered. "Let us build your garden of ten."
The frost winds curled through the courtyard, carrying with them the faint promise of fire, thunder, shadow, and light yet to come.
The furnace glowed faintly, its chi flames dwindling as the last pill condensed. Haotian set the lid aside, his gaze drifting toward the table where three falcons perched, their sapphire eyes unblinking.
Ling'er chirped impatiently, wings twitching. Xue'er squawked and hopped, snapping at the air as though demanding attention. Baiyun, calm as ever, sat still but its breath carried a quiet rhythm, steady as falling snow.
Haotian did not move immediately. His hand lingered over the herbs, but his mind slipped elsewhere. Frost alone will cage them, he thought. If they are to grow beyond the sky, they need more than a single path.
A memory stirred — not of ancestral teachings, but of his own hands in the soil.
The courtyard of his youth in the Zhenlong estate. Small hands planting seeds, arranging herbs not by rote instruction, but by instinct. Firelotus in the east, frost orchids in the north, storm reeds humming in the south, shadow vines trailing the west. At first, it had been a child's curiosity — to see what happened when opposites grew side by side.
But the result was not chaos. It was harmony. The herbs changed the air itself. Fire's heat softened frost's bite. Lightning's sharpness quickened earth's stillness. Light steadied shadow. Time hushed wind. The elements clashed, yet balanced, woven together by the quiet rhythm of the formation he had designed.
And in that garden, Haotian grew.
He had never felt pain. Never strain. Only comfort. The chi fed him, seeped into his marrow, reshaped his body day by day. Until he realized what he had become — the first bearer of the Ten Elemental Body Physique.
The Zhenlong ancestors had marveled. The household had followed. Soldiers and servants alike planted their own gardens, walking the path he had opened. They gained elemental bodies of one, two, sometimes three affinities. An army like no other, born from the method a boy had created.
Haotian's lips curved faintly as his eyes returned to the falcons.
"…Then why not you?"
He rose, the motion smooth, decisive. The falcons called out sharply, sensing his shift in aura. He crossed the courtyard and knelt, palm pressed to the ground. Frost rippled outward, tracing the lines of a formation into the soil.
"I created this path once," he murmured. "From my hands, my instinct, my will. It gave strength to a household and an army. And now… I will create it again, for you."
Ling'er hopped forward, chirping with fiery excitement. Xue'er screeched, wings beating wildly. Baiyun gave a single, quiet caw, steady as stone.
Haotian's gaze sharpened. "If you endure this, you will not be Frost Falcons alone. You will become sovereigns — ten elements carried in wings."
The formation shimmered faintly under his chi. Soon, he would gather the seeds, the herbs, the essences. Firelotus, frost orchid, storm reed, and more — planted in balance, woven into a cradle of contradiction.
The three falcons cried together, their voices merging in the cold air.
Haotian rose, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed on the empty soil that would soon host a miracle.
"The first garden was mine. The second will be yours."
The frost wind stirred, carrying the faint promise of a future where three small falcons might defy heaven as he once had.
The night stretched long and quiet, the moonlight spilling across the frost tiles like silver water. Haotian stood alone in the courtyard, sleeves rolled back, his gaze fixed on the bare earth where he had etched the first sigils hours earlier.
The three falcons perched nearby, restless and curious. Ling'er hopped from stone to stone, pecking at the ground. Xue'er screeched at shadows, wings half-spread. Baiyun simply watched, its sapphire eyes reflecting the glow of Haotian's runes.
Haotian pressed his palm flat to the soil. Chi spread outward in careful streams, tracing the pattern he had envisioned. Not crude lines, but layered runes interwoven like veins, spiraling outward in ten segments. Each rune glowed faintly, not with raw force, but with the subtle resonance of balance.
The herbs will not survive alone, he thought. They must be guided, nourished, their chi refined. Otherwise, their essences clash. With runes, they will convert frost chi into their natural element, feeding the whole garden.
His hands moved in steady rhythm, carving each sigil into place. One to transmute frost into fire. Another to bend frost into earth. A third to redirect frost into wind. Ten in all, each one tuned to an element, each one aligned to form a wheel around the central node.
At the heart of the design lay a hollowed circle — the nest.
Haotian drew in his breath and pressed deeper, weaving the Child Gathering Array below it. Runes spiraled downward, anchoring into the earth. This array would draw the ambient chi of the herbs, condense it, and feed it upward into the nest. Not violent. Not forced. Gentle, constant, like a spring welling from the soil.
The falcons chirped louder now, sensing the shift.
"You will sleep here," Haotian murmured, eyes fixed on the glowing lines. "Eat here. Grow here. This will be your cradle, just as mine once was."
He stepped back, lifting his hand. Frost chi surged outward, filling the courtyard like mist. The runes lit at once, flickering pale, then shifting — frost light bending into red flame, emerald wood, silver lightning, golden light, violet shadow. Ten colors shimmered faintly around the circle, each segment glowing with its own hue.
Haotian began planting.
From his storage ring came a firelotus seed, glowing faintly like a coal. He pressed it into the eastern bed. A frost orchid, delicate as spun glass, settled in the north. Storm reeds hummed faintly as he planted them to the south. Shadow vines curled as they touched the soil of the west.
One by one, he placed them all — earth roots heavy and dark, windgrass light and swaying, light blossoms that shimmered like morning dew, void moss dark as night, time-lilies faint and ephemeral. Each one took root, their essences feeding into the runes, drawn together by the spiral.
And in the north-east segment, where frost and water naturally pooled, he planted nothing. That section he left open, the runes widened to allow the ambient yin chi of water and ice to flow freely. Already, the air there thickened, cold and nourishing.
By the time he finished, the courtyard no longer looked like stone and frost. It had become a living garden. Fire petals glowed faintly in the dark. Storm reeds crackled with sparks. Light blossoms cast a soft glow. Shadow vines curled like watching serpents. The air itself shimmered with contradiction, ten essences interwoven in balance.
At the center, the nest awaited. Haotian shaped it with his own hands — twined branches, frost crystals, and woven strands of chi, sturdy yet soft. A cradle not of grass or twig, but of essence and rune.
He lifted the three falcons gently, one by one, and placed them in the nest. Ling'er squawked indignantly, Xue'er flapped, Baiyun settled immediately. But as the runes flared softly beneath them, their cries quieted. They looked around, sapphire eyes wide as the garden's breath washed over them — warm, cool, sharp, still, all at once.
Haotian stood over them, arms folded, his expression unreadable.
"When I was younger, I made this for myself," he said quietly. "Now, I make it for you. Breathe. Sleep. Let the chi shape you. This is not pain. It is comfort. The elements will cradle you, and in time… they will become you."
The falcons chirped once, weak but resolute, before settling into the nest. Their eyes closed, their small chests rising and falling in rhythm with the garden's new pulse. Already, faint traces of multicolored light shimmered across their feathers.
Haotian turned away, lifting his gaze to the moonlight. His voice was low, almost to himself.
"From this nest will rise three sovereigns of the sky."
The garden breathed around him, alive with ten colors, and the night grew still.