The sky was the color of poison.
It hung heavy over the mountain peak—a ceiling of swirling, dark green clouds that churned with unspent energy. The air crackled, thick with pressure.
Then, a line of pure silver split the world.
It came from the base of the mountain, a slash of condensed sword intent one hundred feet wide. It tore upward in absolute silence, parting the toxic clouds and bleaching the verdant gloom with its devastating light. The mountain itself seemed to hold its breath.
In the clean wake of the slash, a new light was born.
It swelled from the peak—a towering, thousand-foot-tall apparition of crystalline azure. A Nascent Soul. Its form was humanoid, majestic, and semi-transparent, radiating an aura of immense, tranquil power. It rose to its full, staggering height, clasped its giant hands in a final seal of completion, and then dissolved. It shattered into a billion motes of sapphire light that streamed back into the stone like a reverse waterfall, drinking themselves into the heart of the mountain.
Deep within that heart, in a cavern polished smooth by spiritual pressure, the energy settled.
A man sat cross-legged on the stone floor. He was handsome, with sharp features that spoke of resilience, not vanity. He wore only a simple inner robe of white silk, tied loosely at the waist. The robe was open, revealing a lean torso glistening with the sweat of profound exertion. Old, faint scars—stories from a harder life—crossed his skin.
Before him, hovering at eye level, was a perfect, miniature replica of the giant soul. A child-sized Nascent Soul, glowing with a gentle, intelligent light.
The man—Han Li—formed a simple hand seal with one hand. A faint pull echoed in the chamber. The small soul brightened, then flowed seamlessly into the center of Han Li's forehead, merging back with its source.
Han Li opened his eyes.
They were clear, deep, and held a new, unsettling stillness—the calm of a fathomless lake. He exhaled a long breath he seemed to have held for a century.
"Finally," he said, his voice a low rumble in the quiet. A true smile, rare and unguarded, touched his lips. "The Nascent Soul stage is mine."
He remained seated, letting the reality of his breakthrough settle into his bones. The world felt different. The chaotic hum of ambient spiritual energy was now a distinct, manageable song he could conduct with a thought.
His hand moved to his chest, fingers searching the folds of his inner robe. They emerged holding a small, unassuming object: a palm-sized piece of green jade, worn smooth as sea glass by constant handling. Incised into its surface was a single, stark character: celestial'.
He held it in his palm, his thumb stroking the familiar carving. The cool touch of the jade was an anchor to a distant past.
"To think," he murmured, the words for the ghosts in the cavern. "It started with this. A ' green jade from that senior 's pouch . I posese a high grade celestial ancient sprit root, yet I was a rejection and joke in mortal world . The joke of the cultivation world." His smile turned wry. "A boy in clothes stitched from despair, face smeared with the mud of a forgotten village."
He stood up. His movement was effortless, a testament to the physical and spiritual rebirth he had just undergone. He was a blade freshly tempered.
"Sometimes, the path seems like a dream I borrowed," he confessed to the silence. "From that… to a name that will now be spoken among the elders and patriarchs." He shook his head slightly. "Fate is a strange river. It favors the stubborn raft."
A deep, soul-weary fatigue descended, the inevitable aftermath of such a monumental tribulation. It was a good fatigue.
He moved to a stone platform that served as a bed and sat, closing his eyes not to cultivate, but to rest. To remember. He let the solidity of the present, the weight of his newfound power, gently dissolve.
The cave faded, replaced by the vivid, raw colors of memory.
---
One Hundred and Fifty on Years Earlier
The forest was a living wall of green.
It was dense, damp, and quiet in the way only ancient woods can be—a silence full of small, unseen movements. A boy picked his way through the undergrowth.
He was fifteen, with the fair skin of someone who rarely saw the full sun. His clothes were a quilt of mismatched patches, worn thin at the knees and elbows. Unruly black hair fell into his eyes, which held a watchful, weary intelligence. This was Han Li.
He stopped, tilting his head back to gaze at the slivers of pale sky visible through the tangled canopy. A familiar knot of anxiety tightened in his stomach.
Can I really do this?
Old Zhang's raspy voice played in his mind. 'The Physician will come . Three days from now, at village square. He will select his only hier. Your one chance, boy. Your only chance.' Then the old man's cynical laugh. 'But don't sprout wings yet. Even if you have a root to be one , what good is a dandelion in a field of spirit orchids? He seeks genius, not weed.'
Han Li pushed the doubt down, a practiced motion. "First, the wood," he said aloud, the sound swallowed by the forest. "Then, the dream."
He moved deeper, his small, notched knife making soft thwacks as he broke dead branches into manageable lengths for his shoulder basket. The rhythm of the work was meditative. Find, snap, stack. Survival was a simple, daily equation.
The rhythm shattered.
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the ground, up through the soles of his thin shoes.
Han Li froze mid-reach. Slowly, every muscle tense, he turned.
A wolf stood twenty paces away, watching him.
But it was a wolf as conceived by a nightmare. It stood nearly as tall as Han Li's chest, its body a mass of corded muscle under a coat of grizzled, steel-grey fur. Its muzzle was a trap of yellowed fangs, each longer than Han Li's knife. Worst were its eyes: two pools of faint, phosphorescent green that glowed in the forest shade.
Primordial terror, cold and absolute, seized Han Li. His breath locked in his throat. His limbs turned to stone. His mind shrieked run, but his body refused the command. He was prey, frozen before the hunter.
The beast took a step forward. The earth seemed to tremble under its weight. Another step.
Han Li squeezed his eyes shut. This is how it ends. Not at physician's valley , but as a meal in the deep wood.
The smell of wet fur, earth, and raw meat washed over him. Heat. The wolf was right in front of him.
He waited for the pain.
It didn't come.
A gentle tug on his patched sleeve.
Han Li's eyes flew open. The monstrous wolf was less than an arm's length away. But it wasn't attacking. It held the frayed edge of his sleeve delicately between its teeth, like a mother wolf correcting a pup.
"P-please," Han Li stammered, his voice a dry whisper. "I have… I have to take this home. I have to get to Sunfall Ridge…"
The wolf released his sleeve. It stared at him, its glowing eyes unnervingly intelligent. It seemed to be… assessing him. Then, it deliberately lowered its massive head. It nudged its broad muzzle toward its own back, then looked back at Han Li.
Understanding dawned, wild and improbable. "You… want me to ride?"
The wolf gave a single, slow, unmistakable nod.
Fear and desperate curiosity warred inside Han Li. This was madness. But the beast wasn't trying to eat him. It was asking for help. What kind of help could a starving woodsman offer a spirit beast?
He made a choice. He let his basket of wood slide to the mossy ground, stowing his knife inside. With a trembling breath, he approached the wolf's side. He placed a hand on its fur—coarse and thick—and hauled himself onto its back, clinging to the scruff of its neck.
The world exploded into motion.
The wolf launched forward with a speed that stole Han Li's breath. The forest became a rushing blur of green and brown. They plunged deeper, away from the familiar paths. The canopy thickened, strangling the afternoon light until it felt like dusk at noon. The air grew colder, heavier.
Just as panic began to override curiosity, the wolf skidded to an abrupt halt, sending a spray of damp leaves into the air.
Before them yawned a pit.
It was a raw, jagged hole in the forest floor, about ten feet across. Darkness pooled in its depths, and a faint, damp, earthy smell wafted from it.
Han Li slid off the wolf's back, his legs wobbly. He crept toward the edge, a foolish spark of hope igniting. "What's down there? Gold? A spirit herb?"
He peered over the rim, squinting into the gloom.
His breath caught.
A man lay at the bottom.
He was young—perhaps in his early twenties—but his hair was a shocking, silvery white, fanned out around his head like a fallen halo. He wore dark traveling robes of fine make, now torn and stained. A dark patch of blood spread across his shoulder and chest. He wasn't moving.
"He's alive?" Han Li whispered, more to himself than the wolf.
The beast whined softly, nudging him toward the pit's edge with its muzzle. Its luminous eyes held a clear plea. Help him.
Han Li's mind raced. This was a cultivator, clearly. And he was badly hurt. To go down there was to step into a world of trouble. But the wolf had brought him here for a reason. And the man was still breathing.
He scanned the pit's edge. A thick, woody vine—more like a thin tree root—ran from a sturdy oak nearby down into the pit. It was natural, tough. Perfect.
He pulled out his notched knife. With swift, practiced strokes, he cut a long section of the vine, testing its strength. It was flexible but strong, like braided leather. He tied one end securely around the thick base of the oak tree, making a knot he'd used a thousand times for hauling wood.
The other end he tied around his own waist, pulling it tight. He glanced at the wolf. "Watch the rope."
He began his descent, walking backwards down the steep earth wall, using the vine to control his slide. Loose soil and pebbles trickled down with him. The circle of forest light above grew smaller, the air cooler.
His feet touched the bottom. The silence was deep, broken only by a faint, ragged breath from the white-haired man.
Up close, the injuries were worse. The man's face was pale as moonstone, his lips tinged blue. The blood on his robes was fresh, still slowly spreading. Yet, there was a strange, unblemished quality to his features—an otherworldly handsomeness that seemed untouched by the violence done to his body.
Han Li knelt beside him. He checked for a pulse at the neck—it was there, thready and weak. He noticed a slender jade scroll case clutched loosely in the man's hand, and a peculiar leather pouch at his belt. Cultivator's things.
Leave them, a cautious voice whispered. Just get out.
But the man was dying.
Working quickly, Han Li untied the vine from his own waist. He looped it under the man's arms, fashioning a crude harness, pulling the knot tight against his back. He gave the vine two sharp tugs—the signal.
Above, the wolf gripped the vine in its powerful jaws and began to pull, bracing its paws against the earth.
The unconscious man was heavy, a dead weight. Han Li pushed from below, guiding the body upward, preventing it from scraping against the jagged walls. It was a slow, straining process. Halfway up, the vine snagged on a root. The man's body swung, then dropped several feet with a sickening jerk.
Han Li's heart lurched. "Pull steadily!" he shouted up, though he knew the wolf understood only intent.
The wolf adjusted, its muscles coiling. It pulled again, with more controlled force.
Han Li scrambled up the wall beside the rising body, using roots and rocks as handholds, doing his best to steady the limp form. Dirt filled his nails, his arms burned.
On the fourth attempt, as Han Li heaved with the last of his strength from below, the wolf gave a final, mighty pull. The white-haired man cleared the lip of the pit and slid onto the mossy ground above.
Han Li crawled out after him, collapsing for a moment, chest heaving. He quickly untied the vine from the man, then turned to assess him.
The man was colder now, his breathing shallower. The blood flow had slowed, but that seemed a worse sign.
Water. He needed water.
Han Li grabbed his bamboo water bottle from his discarded basket. It was cheap, plain bamboo, holding little more than a swallow. He uncorked it, cradled the man's head, and gently trickled the last of his water onto the pale, parted lips.
Most of it dribbled down the man's chin. But a little went in.
Nothing happened.
Then, a tremor. A faint, almost imperceptible shudder passed through the man's body. His eyelids fluttered.
Slowly, with immense effort, they opened.
The eyes that looked up at Han Li were a clear, startling gray—like winter mist over a lake. They were dazed, clouded with pain and confusion, but intensely aware. They focused on Han Li's face, then flickered to the worried wolf looming behind him.
The man's lips moved. No sound came out. Then a whisper, airy and fractured. "...Spirit Wolf… brought you…"
He tried to move, winced, and a trickle of fresh blood seeped from his shoulder. His gray eyes locked onto Han Li's with sudden, desperate clarity. His hand, trembling, moved towards the pouch at his belt.
He was trying to giving it to Han Li.
A sound—a dry twig snapping underfoot in the woods nearby.
The wolf's head whipped around. A low, threatening growl built in its throat. Its eyes fixed on the dense foliage to the east.
The white-haired man's eyes widened with alarm. With a final burst of strength, he pressed the jade case into Han Li's hand. His fingers were ice-cold. "Take… run…" he breathed. "They are… coming…"
Then his eyes rolled back, and he went utterly still, unconscious once more.
Panic, cold and sharp, shot through Han Li. He fumbled, untying the leather pouch from the man's belt and shoving both it and the scroll case into his shirt. They felt alien and heavy against his skin.
The wolf snarled loudly now, a sound that ripped through the forest silence. From the direction of the snap, Han Li heard a muffled curse, then the rustle of someone retreating quickly.
They'd been seen.
The wolf nudged Han Li urgently, then crouched.
No time for thought. Han Li vaulted onto its back.
This time, the wolf ran with a speed born of pure urgency. The world became a green-brown streak. They didn't stop until the trees thinned into the familiar woods near his village, and his forgotten basket lay just ahead.
The wolf slowed. Han Li dismounted, legs giving way. He knelt on the moss, gasping.
The great beast looked at him, then back in the direction they'd come. Its luminous eyes held a clear warning. It dipped its massive head once—a final gesture—then turned and vanished into the shadows, silent as a passing thought.
Han Li was alone. The late sun felt weak on his skin. His basket of ordinary firewood sat there, a relic of a life that now seemed distant.
Everything had changed.
The items hidden in his shirt were no longer just objects. They were a trust, given in a moment of dying urgency. The image of those winter-gray eyes, full of pain and warning, was seared into his mind.
They are coming.
He had a secret now. A living, breathing, dangerous secret.
The Immortal Gathering was in three days.
He was no longer just a boy with a dream and a "Mortal" . He was a boy who had touched the world of cultivators, who held a dying man's legacy, and who was now being hunted for it.
He got to his feet, shouldered his basket, and began the walk home. Each step felt measured, cautious. The rustling leaves sounded like footsteps. The shadows held watching eyes.
His simple life was over. A new path had begun—not at the edge of a grave, but at the side of a fallen stranger. His first steps were marked not by theft, but by a burden willingly passed, and a warning that echoed in the silent green forest.