Early sunlight shone through the glazed rooftops of the Green Cloud Sect as disciples set to work — exercising in the courtyards, washing spirit herbs, or carrying water up the long stone stairways.
Li Tian was, as usual, among them. Today, though, felt different.
The buckets he carried were no longer acutely heavy. His stride was steadier, his breathing easier. The strain that used to knot itself in his shoulders after a few minutes no longer happened. Even climbing the slope up to the spring, he walked in quiet ease, as if his body had remembered how to breathe in the mountain air.
As he reached the pool, he paused, setting the buckets down carefully. The face staring back at him was much the same — plain features, ordinary eyes, a trace of tiredness — but his skin had a flush to it, his back straightening itself of course.
He knelt down at the water and washed his hands. The surface of the water broke and his reflection disintegrated into shards of morning light.
".Am I dreaming?" he breathed.
He looked at his palm — pale calluses from training, small scars from work — and slowly curled it. The accustomed pain in his fingers was now a far memory.
It wasn't spectacular. No holy aura, no sudden surge of strength. But something had moved silently within him.
Having filled his buckets, Li Tian started going down the path. Along the way, two other outer disciples passed him, talking loudly.
Hello, Li Tian," the latter jeered with a grin. "Still carrying water, ah? Three years and you have not even achieved the first level. Maybe you will go higher on your next life!"
The other laughed.
Li Tian said nothing. He merely shifted the grip of his hand on the buckets and went on walking, the corners of his mouth peaceful. Their words no longer hurt like before. For the first time, he didn't feel small when he heard them — only detached, as if the noise of the world had receded far away.
He finished in silence, had his breakfast, and returned to the small clearing behind his hut. There, he resumed his usual exercise in breathing and stances.
Again, his Qi flowed in the gentle rhythm that had been worked out the night before. Each breath guided it naturally; each movement of his limbs synchronized with its silent flow.
He performed slow blows with a wooden sword, practicing the forms the sect required outer disciples to learn by memory. In normal times, he would tire himself half through, his breathing ragged. But now his motions flowed from one form, and then another, unremitting and fluid.
Sweat burst along his brow, yet his breathing remained unaffected.
Hours afterwards, when finally he was still, his heart thudded steadily. There was a lingering warmth in his limbs — not fatigue, but life.
It was strange. There was no burst of strength, and yet his control over his body had increased a bit, as if each muscle had learned the trick of movement with less waste.
He sat beneath a pine tree, listening to the wind sweep through its needles.
It's small," he thought to himself, "but real."
Later, when he returned to his hut, the same two disciples passed him by for the second time. One of them glanced at him and slightly raised his eyebrow.
"Hey… was he always this steady on his feet?"
The other shook his shoulders. "Probably just getting used to doing chores. Nevertheless, three years and no breakthrough — he's just a servant in training robes."
They vanished around the bend, laughter resounding along the path.
Li Tian didn't see. He had already closed his door, lit his candle, and taken out the stone from its position.
The carvings glowed faintly in the candle light, and for a brief moment he could have sworn that he detected new details he had not noticed before — finer lines, laid hidden beneath others, like veins beneath the skin.
He traced them with his finger, feeling the familiar coolness.
This time, he did not reach for power or wisdom. He simply sat and watched. The silence in the stone was like his own breathing, slow and steady.
It no longer felt foreign.
It felt. bonded.
As the candle flickered to nothing, Li Tian's mouth rose in a small smile.
Tomorrow, he would rise earlier. There was no need.
The path ahead of him was long — and he had just begun it.