The training hall floor was cold against Eric's cheek. Blood pooled in his mouth, metallic and bitter, as laughter echoed off the wooden walls. His ribs screamed in protest as he pushed himself up on trembling arms.
"Stay down, Chen," Rorick Vaughn sneered, circling him like a predator. His cultivation robes were pristine, unmarked by dirt or sweat. "You're embarrassing yourself. Again."
Eric spat blood onto the floor and forced himself to his feet. His legs shook, but his eyes remained defiant, burning with something that wouldn't die no matter how many times he fell.
"Look at him!" Rorick addressed the other disciples who lined the walls. "Thirteen years old and still at the Third Stage of Body Refinement. My little sister reached Fifth Stage last month, and she's only nine!"
The disciples laughed. Some looked away, uncomfortable but unwilling to intervene. Eric had been the village joke for three years now, ever since it became clear that his cultivation had stalled while everyone else his age surged ahead.
"At least I don't need my father to buy spirit stones for me," Eric said quietly.
Rorick's face flushed crimson. "What did you say?"
"You heard me."
The punch came faster than Eric could track. Rorick had reached Seventh Stage two months ago, and the gap between them was an unbridgeable chasm. Eric's head snapped back, and he crumpled to the floor again. This time, he tasted more than blood—he felt a tooth loosen.
"Enough!"
Master Tobias's voice cut through the hall like a blade. The old cultivator appeared in the doorway, his gray beard braided with silver cultivation rings that marked his status as a Core Formation expert. Even Rorick straightened immediately, bowing his head.
"Vaughn, get out of my sight. If I see you bullying weaker disciples again, your father's donations won't save you from punishment detail."
Rorick shot Eric one last venomous glare before hurrying out, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. The other disciples dispersed quickly, leaving only Eric and Master Tobias in the training hall.
The master approached slowly, his expression unreadable. He'd been teaching cultivation in Greenbrook Village for forty years, and Eric had seen that look before—the one teachers wore when they'd finally given up.
"Stand up, boy."
Eric obeyed, wiping blood from his split lip. His shoulder throbbed where he'd landed, and he was fairly certain he'd bruised a rib, but he met his master's gaze without flinching.
Master Tobias sighed, the sound heavy with disappointment. "Eric, I've watched you train for five years now. You have more determination than any student I've ever taught. You arrive early, stay late, and practice forms until your hands bleed. But determination without progress..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Determination without progress is just stubbornness."
The words hit harder than Rorick's fists.
"I think it's time you considered a different path," Master Tobias continued, his voice gentler now. "Not everyone is meant for cultivation. There's no shame in being a farmer, a craftsman, a merchant. Your family needs support, and you're wasting years chasing something that may never—"
"I'll get stronger," Eric interrupted, his voice hoarse.
"Eric—"
"I have to."
Master Tobias studied him for a long moment, then shook his head. "Go home, boy. Clean yourself up. Think about what I said."
---
The walk home felt longer than usual. Eric kept his head down, avoiding the eyes of villagers who knew him, who'd watched him fail year after year. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the dirt roads of Greenbrook, and the smell of cooking fires reminded him that his family probably hadn't eaten lunch yet. Again.
Their home was small—three rooms in a building that leaned slightly to the left, with a thatched roof that leaked when it rained. His mother was sitting by the window where the light was best, mending a torn shirt that belonged to someone in the merchant quarter. Her needle moved with practiced efficiency, each stitch perfect despite the poor lighting.
She looked up when he entered, and her hands stilled immediately.
"Eric." His mother, Lin, set down her mending and crossed the room in three swift steps. "What happened to your face?"
"It's nothing, Ma."
"That's not nothing—you're bleeding." She grabbed a clean cloth and dipped it in the water basin, her movements quick and familiar. How many times had she done this over the years? How many times had he come home with bruises and blood, another failure to add to the collection?
She dabbed at his split lip with gentle touches that somehow hurt worse than the injury itself. "You have to defend yourself, Eric. Otherwise, how will you ever become a powerful cultivator?"
The question hung in the air between them, heavy and painful.
"Master Tobias said I should quit," Eric said quietly. "He said I should find a different path."
His mother's hand froze mid-motion. The cloth dripped water onto the floor. Eric watched her face carefully, seeing the familiar shift in her expression—that subtle collapse of hope that she tried so hard to hide. He'd memorized every variation of that look over the years.
She'd given up so much for his cultivation dreams. Some nights, he and his sister Wei went to bed with nothing but thin soup because his mother had spent their last coppers on training fees. He'd seen her explain to gossiping neighbors why her son was still at Third Stage while their children soared ahead, watched her face shift as she tried to find excuses that grew thinner with each passing month.
"We'll figure something out," she said finally, resuming her work on his wounds. But her voice lacked conviction.
Eric pulled away gently. "I'm going to look for herbs in the forest. Maybe I can sell some to the apothecary."
"Eric, be careful. Don't go too far—"
But he was already out the door, unable to bear the disappointment in her eyes for another second.
---
The forest beyond Greenbrook was thick with pine and oak, the afternoon light filtering through leaves in dappled patterns. Eric walked without really seeing, his basket hanging empty from his arm as his mind churned with bitter thoughts.
*Weak. Worthless. Waste.*
The words followed him like ghosts. Five years of training, and he had nothing to show for it. Other students broke through to new stages every few months. He'd been stuck at Third Stage Body Refinement for two years, as if his cultivation had hit an invisible wall that wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pushed.
He hated how weak he was. Hated the pitying looks. Hated his mother's forced optimism. Hated himself for being unable to change any of it.
Eric looked up to find his bearings and felt his blood turn to ice.
The trees around him were different—older, twisted, their bark blackened as if by ancient fire. Broken stone pillars jutted from the undergrowth, covered in moss and carved with symbols that had faded to illegibility centuries ago.
The ruins.
"No, no, no..." Eric spun around, trying to retrace his steps, but the forest looked the same in every direction. His heart hammered against his ribs. Everyone in Greenbrook knew to avoid the ruins. Strange beasts dwelled here, and cultivators far stronger than him had died exploring these ancient grounds.
A low growl answered his panic.
Eric turned slowly. Twenty paces away, a beast emerged from behind a collapsed wall. It was roughly the size of a large dog, with matted gray fur, too many teeth, and eyes that glowed with a sickly yellow light. An F-rank Stone Wolf—the weakest type of spirit beast.
For any proper cultivator, even a child at Fifth Stage Body Refinement, this would be a simple fight. A few techniques, maybe a talisman, and the beast would be dead or fleeing.
For Eric, it was a death sentence.
He didn't hesitate. He ran.
The wolf's howl split the air behind him, followed by the thunder of paws on stone. Eric's lungs burned as he crashed through underbrush, his basket flying forgotten into the bushes. He could hear the beast gaining ground, its breath hot and rancid even from several paces back.
*Faster. Move faster.*
A cave entrance appeared ahead, a dark mouth in the hillside half-hidden by vines. Eric dove for it just as claws raked across his shoulder, tearing through his threadbare robe and opening three bleeding lines across his flesh. He screamed but kept moving, scrambling into the darkness.
The cave was narrow, cramped. The wolf snarled behind him, too large to follow easily. Eric crawled deeper, ignoring the rocks that cut his hands and knees, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Behind him, he heard the beast forcing its way into the cave entrance, determined.
The passage opened suddenly into a chamber. Eric tumbled forward onto smooth stone floor, his hands scraping against carved surfaces. He looked up, gasping for breath.
The room was ancient—far older than the ruins outside. The walls were covered in intricate carvings that seemed to writhe in the dim light filtering from the passage behind him. And in the center of the chamber, on a pedestal of black stone, sat a crystal the size of his fist. It pulsed with a faint azure light, like a heartbeat frozen in ice.
Eric staggered toward it, drawn by something he couldn't name. The crystal was beautiful and terrible at once, and looking at it made his eyes water.
A sound behind him—stone scraping on stone.
Eric turned.
The thing that emerged from the shadows wasn't the wolf. It was something else, something that shouldn't exist. A creature of darkness and malice, with too many limbs and a body that seemed to shift and flow like liquid shadow. Its eyes were crimson voids, and where it touched the stone floor, the rock cracked and blackened.
Eric's scream died in his throat. He couldn't move, couldn't think. The creature flowed toward him with horrible speed.
He saw the tail—long, segmented, ending in a blade-like stinger—only for a fraction of a second before it punched through his chest.
The pain was beyond anything Eric had ever imagined. He looked down in disbelief at the dark appendage protruding from his sternum, watched his blood—impossibly red—pour down his robes and pool on the ancient floor. The creature withdrew its tail with a wet sound that echoed in the chamber.
Eric collapsed. His vision darkened at the edges, and his body had stopped responding to his commands. He could feel his life draining away with each weakening heartbeat.
*This is how I die. Weak. Alone. Worthless.*
Then he heard the voice.
It was ancient and vast, resonating not in his ears but in his very bones. It spoke with the weight of mountains, the fury of storms, the patience of epochs.
**"You have been looked down upon. Attacked. Dismissed as nothing."**
Eric's fading consciousness latched onto the words like a drowning man grasping at driftwood.
**"But you shall rise. Accept my gift, and I shall grant you power beyond measure. You will crush all who wronged you. You will stand above all cultivators, past and present. You will become legend."**
The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, from the crystal, from the darkness, from the blood pooling beneath Eric's broken body.
**"Do you accept, child? Do you wish to become my heir?"**
Through the haze of pain and approaching death, Eric understood that this was an offer, a choice. His last choice, probably. He thought of his mother's disappointed face. His sister's worried eyes. Master Tobias's dismissal. Rorick's mocking laughter. Five years of failure and humiliation.
He thought of the word *weak*, which had followed him like a shadow his entire life.
With the last of his strength, Eric coughed blood onto the ancient stone.
"Yes," he whispered, the word barely audible even in the silent chamber.
The world went black.
But in that darkness, something stirred. Something ancient opened its eyes for the first time in ten thousand years.
And the dragon smiled.