The skies above Dustfall Village were gray and heavy, thick with the residue of spiritual decay. The land stretched endlessly with dying weeds and cracked stone, a place long forgotten by gods and mortals alike. Once, it had been a minor cultivation haven in the Lower World, blessed by a shallow leyline. Now, it barely breathed.
At the edge of the village stood a boy, lean and sun-darkened, fists bloodied from striking a boulder until his bones screamed. His name was Zhen Wuji.
He was fifteen.
"Seventy-four…" His voice was hoarse. He raised his fist again.
BANG.
"Seventy-five…"
Each strike echoed with pain, his arms trembling with exhaustion. The boulder bore the shape of his knuckles—deep imprints layered like rings of tree bark. He gritted his teeth and struck again.
BANG.
"Seventy-six!"
The boulder cracked slightly.
Blood ran down his elbow.
Wuji ignored it.
Inside his chest, there was no Qi. His meridians were unopened, his soul unstirred. In a world ruled by cultivators, he was—by all standards—a cripple.
But he had his body. And a will like cold iron.
He struck again.
The wind carried the scent of rust and ash, remnants of an old battle that had long scarred the land. Villagers whispered that the sky hadn't rained since the Three-Scars Sect took over.
"You again, Wuji?" a voice mocked from behind.
Three boys approached, each wearing tattered brown robes stitched with the emblem of the local Three-Scars outer disciples. They were barely stronger than mortals, but they had Qi — which meant they were lords in Dustfall.
The one in front, Meng Tu, was the village head's son.
"I heard you still try to break stone with your fists. What's the point, huh?" He laughed, kicking dust at Wuji's feet. "You'll never open your meridians. Why not just kneel and join as a servant disciple? You can scrub our floors."
Wuji didn't answer.
He looked up slowly, his eyes clear and calm, but there was a weight to them that made the air seem thicker.
Meng Tu's laughter died slightly.
"I said—" he began.
But Wuji raised his bleeding hand.
He struck the boulder again.
BANG.
A deep crack split through it.
Meng Tu's smile faded.
The third boy leaned closer. "Is that even possible? He doesn't have Qi…"
"Let's teach him a lesson," Meng Tu muttered.
They lunged.
Wuji moved with the instinct of someone who had been beaten many times. He ducked under a wide punch and countered with a jab to the ribs. The second attacker caught his arm, but Wuji twisted, slammed his head into the boy's nose, then tackled the third.
He fought like a beast—no technique, just ruthless resolve. Bones cracked. Screams followed.
When the dust cleared, Wuji was on one knee, panting. Blood dripped from his lip, but the three outer disciples lay groaning in the dirt.
He rose.
He didn't say anything.
Just turned and walked back to the broken boulder.
It was almost night.
Later that evening, Wuji sat alone in his hut, a small wooden room barely the size of a horse stall. On the wall was a cracked portrait of an old man—his grandfather.
"Grandfather," he whispered. "You always said the body is the foundation. Before Qi, before soul… before all things."
He remembered the words well.
"Wuji, the body is our cage and our chariot. Cultivate it, and one day, you will ride it to the heavens."
He didn't understand back then. But now… he did.
His hands were swollen. His joints screamed. But in that pain was something else—resonance.
He sat cross-legged.
He breathed in.
And something… shifted.
Deep in his marrow, a faint light flickered—so dim it was almost nothing.
Then—like a spark catching dry tinder—his bones trembled.
It wasn't Qi.
It wasn't soul force.
It was… density.
Mass.
Power.
Wuji's breath caught. He focused inward. He felt the structure of his own bones—not just the shape, but the force they carried. Every strike he had made, every injury he had endured, had layered pressure on his tissues. Now that pressure condensed. Reforged.
His body was beginning to awaken.
Not by absorbing Qi.
Not by luck.
But by pure, brute tempering.
He laughed.
A rough, raw sound.
So it was true—the body alone could be a Dao.
The next day, as the village stirred, Wuji stood on the training field again. The cracked boulder had split in two overnight. Around him, the villagers began to whisper.
"Did he do that?"
"No way. That boulder's been there for generations..."
The sect noticed.
By midday, a man arrived. He wore a white mask with three red scars carved into it — a low-ranking elder of the Three-Scars Sect.
"You. Zhen Wuji."
Wuji stepped forward.
"You've caused trouble. Beating outer disciples is punishable."
"They attacked me first."
"You're still uninitiated. A mortal. You have no right to raise your hand."
The elder raised his palm.
A wave of Qi formed.
Wuji didn't flinch.
His body tensed.
The elder's strike landed.
And stopped.
Not because Wuji blocked it — but because it rebounded.
A shockwave cracked the dirt under Wuji's feet. The elder took a step back, shocked.
"What…?"
Wuji's body gleamed faintly — a film of pure kinetic resistance surrounded him. His cells were resonating.
It wasn't a technique. It wasn't a spell.
It was force.
"You…" the elder's voice trembled. "You tempered your body to this degree without Qi…"
Wuji said nothing.
Behind him, the villagers stared with wide eyes. Some dropped their baskets. A few fell to their knees.
That night, Dustfall Village changed.
And somewhere deep in the ruined cave beneath the valley — where few dared tread — an ancient formation flickered.
It pulsed with light.
And it called to him.
Far above, hidden from mortal view, in the heavens of the Lower World, the last remnant of an extinct titan race stirred within a sealed realm.
One heartbeat. One pulse.
It matched the rhythm of a human boy's strike.
The world had changed — ever so slightly.
And so the path began.
Zhen Wuji — a mortal with no Qi, no soul force, no talent — had taken the first step toward becoming the embodiment of absolute force.
And the heavens... had felt it.