Lee Jin found the Purple-Throated Moss exactly where Elder Wu had said it would be: a velvety, bruise-colored growth on the damp, shaded north face of a terrace stone. To his Master Herbalism eye, it was a marvel of subtlety. It didn't just absorb residual beast-qi; it metabolized the lethargic, earthy elements, leaving behind trace minerals that could, with careful preparation, slightly stimulate meridian flow.
It was a antidote, yes, but also a lesson. A lesson in cost.
Harvesting it undetected was one thing. Processing it was another. The moss needed to be dried in indirect sunlight, ground with a mortar and pestle he didn't have, and infused in warm—not hot—water. Each step required time, privacy, and tools he lacked. He couldn't just steal a mortar from the medicine hall. That would be an invitation for a beating, or worse.
The solution, as always, came from copying. This time, his target wasn't a martial skill, but a simple, mundane craft. Old Man Peng, who maintained the sect's stone paths, often reshaped small rocks into fillers using a smaller hammer and a tough, flat river stone as an anvil.
[Target: Old Man Peng]
- Skills Detected: Stone-Knapping (Expert), Patience (Master)
[Copying: 'Stone-Knapping (Expert)'...]
The knowledge was surprisingly complex: understanding grain lines in rock, angles of percussion, the precise amount of force to chip versus to powder. It settled into Lee Jin's hands like a new instinct.
That night, down in his ravine, he used a harder river stone to carefully, patiently chip a bowl-like depression into a large, flat rock. It took hours, his arms aching, the night sounds his only company. It was crude, but it was a mortar. He found a smooth, egg-shaped stone for a pestle.
The next night, after his foul broth, he carefully prepared his first batch of moss infusion. The tea it produced was bitter and left a metallic tang on his tongue, but within an hour, a subtle warmth spread through his meridians. The heavy, sluggish feeling that had begun to cling to his qi like mud seemed to lighten, just a fraction.
[Spiritual Contaminants: Reduced by 2%. Qi Circulation Efficiency: +1.5%]
It was a tiny victory, won through observation, theft of a humble skill, and back-breaking labor. It was the essence of his path.
Emboldened, he turned his analytical gaze back to the training grounds. He avoided the inner disciples for now, their skills still locked behind their cultivation. Instead, he focused on the senior outer disciples, those on the cusp of breakthrough. He watched their failed attempts at more advanced techniques, their frustrations. The system highlighted their errors in stark blue.
[Target: Senior Disciple Jiao]
- Attempting: 'Rippling Water Palm'
- Error: Qi release is simultaneous, not sequential. Power dissipates.
[Analysis Complete: Correct form requires wave-like propagation from core to palm.]
Lee Jin didn't copy the Rippling Water Palm; he couldn't, as Jiao hadn't successfully performed it. But he understood the error perfectly. He filed the corrected principle away, another puzzle piece for a technique he might one day acquire.
This new phase of his existence—the meticulous purification, the study of failure—was shattered one afternoon by a hand grabbing the back of his robe as he carried firewood.
He was slammed against the rough-hewn wall of the storehouse. The wood clattered to the ground. Senior Disciple Han's face, twisted with a fresh, personal fury, was inches from his.
"You," Han hissed, his breath smelling of expensive tea. "You think you're clever? You think skulking and making weird teas makes you a cultivator?"
Lee Jin said nothing, his body tense, assessing. Han was angry, but this felt different from past bullying. This was specific.
"Elder Wu spoke to the Sect Master," Han spat. "About 'resourcefulness inthe lower ranks'. About 'observant minds being a sect's true wealth'." Han's grip tightened, cutting off Lee Jin's air. "Now there's talk of a special assessment for 'late-blooming' outer disciples. An assessment that would use resources meant for me and my cohort!"
So that was it. Lee Jin's survival, his subtle progress, had nudged a stone that was now rolling downhill toward Han's ambitions. He was no longer just an eyesore; he was a competitor for scraps.
"Elder Wu sees a curious rat," Han snarled, shoving him again. "I see a disease. And I will cut it out before it infects anything else."
He released Lee Jin with a final, contemptuous shove. "The monthly 'Path-Clearing' duty. The mountain trail to the Blackpeak Supply Outpost. You're assigned. Tomorrow. Alone."
Lee Jin's blood went cold. The Blackpeak trail was long, desolate, and skirted the territory of low-level spirit beasts. "Path-Clearing" was always a team job for a reason. Being sent alone was not a duty; it was a death sentence with plausible deniability. A rockslide, a beast attack—who would question it?
Han leaned in close, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Try your clever little tricks out there, trash. See how far observation gets you when there's only teeth and hunger watching."
He strode away, leaving Lee Jin slumped against the wall, his mind whirling. The hidden game was over. Han had just moved him onto a very public, very dangerous board.
That night, Lee Jin didn't go to the ravine. He sat on his mat, his crude mortar beside him. Fear was a cold knot in his stomach, but beneath it, a sharper, colder resolve was hardening. This was the price of being seen. This was the cost of growth.
He reviewed his stolen arsenal. Silent Moon Fist. Moonlight Step. Falling Petal Stroke. The theoretical understanding of Mist-Cutter Palm and Rippling Water Palm. His Master Herbalism and Stone-Knapping.
It was a jumble of basics and half-understood advanced concepts. It had to be enough.
As dawn broke, he reported to the duty master. He was given a rusty hatchet, a coil of rope, and a single day's worth of bland journey bread. No weapon. No medicine. The message was clear.
The other disciples on duty watched him leave the sect gates with pitying or smug glances. He was a ghost again, but this time, one being marched to its own funeral.
The mountain trail was steep and narrow, carved into cliffsides, shrouded in morning mist. His senses, honed by a lifetime of alertness and months of system-augmented focus, were stretched to their limit. Every shifting rock, every rustle in the grey-green scrub, was a potential threat.
For hours, he worked, clearing minor rockfalls and overgrown branches, his body moving with the efficient, weary rhythm copied from a dozen laborers. He was exhausting himself on purpose. To anyone watching—and he felt sure Han might have arranged for someone to watch from a distance—he would look like a doomed fool, burning his energy on chores.
But it was part of his calculation. He needed to look weak. He needed to draw the threat out.
His system remained passive, detecting nothing but wind and small animals. The silence was more oppressive than any noise.
It was near midday, on a particularly exposed section of trail with a sheer drop on one side, that his patience was rewarded.
The attack didn't come from the forest. It came from above.
A loose section of cliff, subtly undercut by his earlier clearing work, gave way with a groan. Not a natural collapse. The rocks fell in a precise, concentrated cascade—directly toward him.
[Analysis: Trajectory non-random. Kinetic force focused.]
[Recommended Evasion: Forward, under overhang. 87% survival probability.]
Lee Jin didn't hesitate. He threw himself forward in a desperate, lunging version of his modified Moonlight Step. The world became a roaring, dust-choked chaos of falling stone. A fist-sized rock clipped his calf, a searing line of pain. He tumbled, scraping across gravel, coming to a stop pressed against the cliff face under a slight overhang.
The avalanche of stone passed just behind him, crashing down the mountainside in a thunder that slowly faded to echoes.
Silence returned, thick with dust. Lee Jin pushed himself up, his leg screaming. He wasn't dead. The system's calculation had been right.
But the trap had been sprung. And the trapper would come to check his work.
He didn't have to wait long. A figure emerged from the dust-haze further down the trail, walking with casual confidence. It wasn't Han. It was one of Han's lackeys, a hulking outer disciple named Bor with a reputation for brute strength. In his hand was a woodcutter's axe, far sharper than the tool Lee Jin had been given.
Bor stopped, his piggish eyes scanning the fresh scar on the mountainside, then landing on Lee Jin, injured and dust-covered. A slow, ugly smile spread across his face.
"Looks like you had an accident," Bor rumbled. "A shame. The mountain is dangerous."
Lee Jin said nothing. He leaned against the cliff, favoring his bleeding leg, playing the part of the wounded prey perfectly. His heart hammered against his ribs, but his mind was icy, clear. The system overlay flickered over Bor.
[Target: Disciple Bor]
- Skills: Silent Moon Fist (Competent - Power Variant), Mountain-Crushing Grip (Novice), High Pain Threshold.
- Flaw: Slow to change tactics. Relies on overwhelming first strike.]
Bor hefted his axe. "Senior Brother Han sends his regards."
He charged, not with skill, but with terrifying, direct force, the axe raised for a single, crushing blow. It was exactly what the system predicted.
Lee Jin had one move. He couldn't outrun him on a bad leg. He couldn't block an axe.
So he didn't try.
As Bor brought the axe down, Lee Jin used his good leg to push toward him, inside the arc of the swing. It was a move born of the Falling Petal Stroke's understanding of closing distance, and sheer, suicidal recklessness.
The axe head whistled past his back, embedding itself in the gravel where he had just been. Bor grunted in surprise, his body over-committed and now too close.
This was the moment. Lee Jin's right hand shot forward. Not in a punch. His fingers, hardened by months of stone-knapping and creek-side conditioning, formed a stiff, precise blade. He didn't have the qi for a true Mist-Cutter Palm. But he had the principle—the focused, linear projection of force.
He channeled every last drop of his meager, moss-purified qi into a single point at the edge ofhis hand. Not enough to cut the air. Just enough to add a needle's sharpness to his strike.
He didn't aim for Bor's chest or head. He aimed for the soft, vulnerable hollow at the base of his throat, just above the collarbone.
His hand struck like a snake.
THOK.
It was a sickening, wet sound of impacted flesh and cartilage. Bor's eyes bulged in shock, not pain at first, then in sheer, silent agony. The axe slipped from his hands. He clutched his throat, a horrible, wet gurgle escaping his lips as he stumbled back, his face turning purple.
Lee Jin didn't wait. His leg screamed in protest, but he limped forward, snatching up Bor's fallen axe. He stood over the choking disciple, who was now on his knees, drowning in his own broken windpipe.
There was no mercy in Lee Jin's heart. Only a cold, stark truth: this was the world he lived in. A world of traps and teeth. A world where you either adapted or you were cut out.
He raised the axe.
A moment later, it was done. The gurgling stopped. The silence of the mountain returned, heavier now.
Lee Jin stood there, panting, the axe heavy in his hand, the body at his feet. He felt no triumph. No nausea. Only a vast, hollow coldness, and the slow, steady drip of data into his mind.
[Combat Concluded: Lethal Force Applied.]
[Skill Integration: 'Mist-Cutter Palm' principle application successful. Proficiency increased to 'Adept'.]
[Analysis: 'Mountain-Crushing Grip' detected post-mortem. Copy available. Copy? Y/N]
Lee Jin stared at the prompt, glowing over the corpse of the man he had just killed. This was the fruit of his stolen path. Not glory. Not righteousness. A dead man's skill, offered up by a system that only cared about acquisition.
His hand, still holding the bloody axe, trembled. Not from fear, but from the sheer, awful weight of the choice. To become stronger, he had to keep taking. Even from the dead.
In the deafening silence of the cliffside, under a cold, indifferent sky, Lee Jin made his decision.
Yes.