The mountain nights held a silence unlike any Kaelen had known in life. Crickets throbbed faintly in the distance, wind whispered through the pines, and beyond that, nothing. It was the kind of silence that let secrets breathe.
Kaelen sat in his chamber long past curfew, knees drawn close, serpent faint at his side. The faint glow of spirit lamps traced the edges of his form, but most of the room was drowned in shadow. That was how he preferred it.
On the floor before him lay a bundle of stolen materials—thin shards of jade used for channel calibration, scraps of beast hide from the training yards, and a small vial of stagnant essence he had traded from a desperate outer disciple. Nothing here was precious, but to him, they were raw pieces of a puzzle.
He exhaled, letting his Insight sink into them. Meridian flows, tangled and broken, appeared to his sight as luminous threads. He unraveled them one by one, not imitating but dissecting, molding. The serpent beside him flickered faintly, eyes burning with a quiet intelligence as if it too were watching.
His body ached, head pounding with the strain of bending patterns not meant to be bent. The sect's manuals forbade such practices—tampering with beast patterns without a sanctioned guide was courting corruption. But Kaelen was no ordinary disciple, and this was no ordinary gamble.
Tonight, he sought to forge a weapon. Not a sword or spear, but a technique—something sharp and unseen, meant to slip beneath the eyes of those who mocked him.
A rustle outside drew his attention. Kaelen stilled, hand hovering above the vial of essence. The footsteps passed, a patrol disciple on his rounds. He waited until silence returned, then pressed his palm to the floor.
The jade shards flared faintly as he pushed his Qi through them. The beast hide crackled, releasing a faint, foul smoke. He coughed, eyes watering, but didn't falter.
Inside his Soul Palace, his serpent stirred violently. Its dull coils shifted, molting once more. The faint husk of old scales sloughed away, revealing a sharper glint beneath. Not yet dazzling, not yet fearsome—but sharper. Hungrier.
Kaelen's lips curled faintly. Every failure, every strain carved the path forward. Where others relied on gifted spirit beasts or the sect's sanctioned methods, he was hammering his own edge in the shadows.
The next day, training continued in the sect's open yards. Joren demonstrated advanced control techniques under Master Halvek's watchful eye, his serpent blazing with emerald light. Disciples whispered in awe, every movement a confirmation of his growing legend.
Kaelen, standing at the rear of his own group, kept his expression still. He followed the drills precisely, his serpent faint, almost laughable compared to Joren's dazzling presence. The sneers from some of his peers went unanswered.
But when the instructors called for sparring, Kaelen's serpent moved with a subtle precision. Its strikes were unremarkable to the eye, yet each landed at precisely the point of imbalance in his opponent's form. What seemed like chance was deliberate. What seemed weak carried an undertone of inevitability.
Only Eira, watching from the side, narrowed her eyes. She said nothing, but Kaelen could feel her curiosity pressing against him like a silent blade.
That night, he returned to his chamber and pushed deeper.
The stagnant essence burned like fire in his veins, threatening to warp his channels. His serpent hissed, half in pain, half in exhilaration. Kaelen clenched his jaw, forcing the corrupted flow into patterns he had studied, breaking it down, then weaving it anew.
He saw the stag's channels again, the moment of rupture. He saw how Joren's serpent's coils had pressed, how the beast had faltered. He stole those fragments, reforged them, made them his own.
The serpent in his Soul Palace flared—shedding another layer of its dull husk. This time, the scales that emerged glimmered faint silver, catching light where none should exist.
Kaelen sagged back, chest heaving, sweat running down his brow. His lips curved, blood staining his teeth.
"Slowly," he whispered to himself. "Slowly, I'll carve my own path. And when the time comes, not even their light will see the blade I've forged in the dark."
Far across the mountain, Joren sat in the lantern-lit study of Master Halvek. The elder praised his rapid growth, pressing another jade slip into his hands. But Joren's mind lingered elsewhere.
He remembered the sparring yards, the faint serpent at the edge of his vision. Weak, mocked, barely visible—and yet, something about its movements gnawed at him.
Joren tightened his grip on the jade slip.
He would rise. But he would not allow shadows to breed unchallenged.