Lin Chen realized he had never held a weapon of his own.
The thought came to him quietly, without urgency, while he was walking along the outer road beyond the city walls. Morning mist still clung to the ground, thin enough to see through but thick enough to blur distance. Farmers were already at work in the fields, their movements steady and unremarkable, repeating tasks learned through years of necessity.
Lin Chen passed them without stopping.
The realization did not trouble him.
But it stayed.
He had fought before.
Not often.
And never with ceremony.
His hands had been enough. His body had been enough. Silence had carried him through moments that might have required steel for others.
But now, the shape of what he intended to become had changed.
A balancer did not merely stand.
A balancer held something.
Lin Chen stopped near a low ridge overlooking the fields and sat on a flat stone worn smooth by time. He rested his hands on his knees and looked at them again.
Empty.
Steady.
Unarmed.
A sword was not just a tool.
It was a declaration.
Not of aggression.
Of finality.
Words could be ignored.
Warnings could be debated.
But a blade resting quietly between parties said:
This discussion has an edge.
Lin Chen understood that instinctively.
He had no interest in ornate weapons.
No desire for spirit-engines or Heaven-forged relics.
Those carried too much history.
Too much alignment.
If he was to sit at the same table as Holy Lands, the sword he placed there could not belong to Heaven, to sect doctrine, or to ancient inheritance.
It had to be his.
The question, then, was not how to make a sword.
It was what kind of sword could exist alongside his Dao.
Lin Chen stood and continued walking.
He entered the city again briefly, not to work, but to observe with new eyes. Weapon shops lined one of the inner streets — blades hanging in neat rows, polished to false sharpness, inscriptions etched deep to compensate for poor material.
He stepped inside one.
The smith looked up, surprised.
"Looking for something specific?" the man asked.
Lin Chen's gaze passed over the weapons slowly.
"No," he said. "I'm learning what not to use."
The smith blinked.
Lin Chen left.
Another shop specialized in cultivator weapons.
Spirit blades pulsed faintly with Qi. Talismans were embedded along their spines. Each sword hummed with borrowed strength.
Lin Chen stood at the threshold and did not step inside.
None of these would do.
They required Qi.
They demanded alignment.
They would resist silence.
He walked further, beyond the city's inner districts, until the buildings thinned and workshops replaced shops. Here, smiths worked on tools rather than weapons — plows, nails, hinges, knives meant for use rather than display.
Lin Chen stopped before a forge where an old man hammered a blade meant for cutting reeds.
The metal rang dull and honest.
"Your steel is simple," Lin Chen said.
The old man glanced up. "It works."
"Where do you get it?"
The man wiped sweat from his brow. "Old ore. Poor veins. No Qi worth mentioning."
Lin Chen nodded.
That, at least, was promising.
Still, something was missing.
Steel alone was not enough.
A sword meant to sit before Holy Lands could not be forged from convenience.
It had to be shaped by intent.
That night, Lin Chen returned to his room and sat by the window again.
The city slept.
Beyond it, the roads stretched into darkness.
Further still lay the forest.
The Qi-depleted forest.
The place that did not respond.
The place that did not remember.
Lin Chen closed his eyes.
Inside him, the Dao Heart responded.
Not eagerly.
Not reluctantly.
It resonated.
That forest had rejected alignment.
Not violently.
Not aggressively.
It simply had no use for it.
Just like him.
Lin Chen understood then why the thought would not leave him.
A sword forged in abundance would always answer abundance.
A sword forged in alignment would always seek alignment.
But a sword forged where Qi thinned, where Heaven's voice faded, where silence remained intact—
Such a sword might exist without asking permission.
The next day, Lin Chen prepared to leave the city.
Not dramatically.
Not permanently.
He returned his borrowed work clothes. Paid for his room. Thanked the innkeeper without explanation.
No one stopped him.
No one asked why.
Outside the gates, the road waited.
Lin Chen stepped onto it and turned west.
Toward the forest.
As he walked, he thought of materials.
Not lists.
Not recipes.
Possibilities.
Wood that endured without growth.
Metal that persisted without refinement.
Stone that remained unchanged beneath pressure.
He did not know what he would find.
That uncertainty felt correct.
By midday, the land grew quieter.
Fields gave way to scrub. Roads narrowed. Travelers thinned until Lin Chen walked alone again.
The air changed subtly.
Not thinner yet.
Just… less eager.
He stopped once to drink water and looked ahead.
The forest line was visible now — dark, uneven, indifferent.
The same forest where Qi unraveled.
The same forest where alignment weakened.
The same forest where his Dao had remained untouched.
Lin Chen felt no fear.
No anticipation.
Only direction.
He realized something else as he walked.
This was not about finding materials.
It was about finding permission.
Not from Heaven.
Not from the world.
From the Dao he had chosen.
Lin Chen reached the forest edge by evening.
The canopy loomed overhead, branches interlocking in quiet refusal of symmetry. Light dimmed quickly beneath it, swallowed by leaves that did not bother reflecting it back.
He stopped at the boundary.
Not because the forest demanded it.
Because the moment deserved acknowledgment.
"I need a sword," Lin Chen said softly.
The forest did not answer.
But it did not reject the words either.
He stepped forward.
Qi thinned immediately.
Alignment loosened.
The familiar indifference returned.
And within that indifference—
Lin Chen felt something subtle.
Not guidance.
Not invitation.
But compatibility.
As the forest closed around him again, Lin Chen understood:
If answers existed anywhere, they would not be in places of abundance.
They would be here.
Where nothing demanded meaning.
Where existence did not argue.
Where silence could be shaped.
Lin Chen walked deeper into the forest.
The decision settled fully inside him.
The next time he left—
He would not be empty-handed.