Cultivation was never mysterious.
That was the first lie the world told children.
The second lie came later, when those same children failed.
From the outside, cultivation appeared distant and profound—spoken of in reverent tones, wrapped in ceremony and abstraction. Sects guarded their manuals as if they were sacred texts. Elders spoke of enlightenment and destiny. Parents told their sons and daughters that effort would be rewarded, that heaven favored diligence.
In truth, the beginning was simple.
Anyone could cultivate.
The body itself was the first vessel, and it did not discriminate. As long as one breathed, as long as blood flowed and bones held together, the body could be tempered. Flesh could be strengthened. Organs could be reinforced. Endurance could be carved out of repetition and pain.
From the age of seven onward, even farmers' children practiced crude breathing techniques while working the fields. Labor itself served as a form of refinement. Soldiers tempered their bodies through drills and hardship. Craftsmen developed strength and control without ever naming it cultivation.
Body Tempering was universal.
It was only when one reached its peak that the truth revealed itself.
Qi did not answer everyone.
The boy knew this long before he stood before the test stone.
He had felt it in the way others spoke. In the way cultivators differentiated themselves from common folk not by strength alone, but by inevitability. Body Tempering Peak was not an achievement—it was a wall. On one side stood effort. On the other stood selection.
Qi Guiding required aptitude.
No amount of discipline could replace it. No amount of suffering could forge it where it did not exist. One either possessed the capacity to draw external qi into the body, to circulate and refine it, or one did not.
The city made no attempt to hide this reality.
In the outer districts, small shops sold cultivation-related items openly, stripped of mystique. Low-grade manuals. Breathing charts. Crude medicinal powders. And, most commonly, aptitude test stones.
They were cheap by cultivation standards and expensive by human ones.
Ten copper coins.
One full day's wage for an ordinary man.
The boy had earned the money slowly.
Not through cultivation, not through favors, but through weapons. Plain blades, farming tools, reinforced spearheads—items that passed quietly from his workshop into the hands of people who never asked questions. Each coin represented restraint. Each coin represented time spent not experimenting, not deviating, not listening to the pressure beneath his skin urging him toward something else.
When he finally held the tenth coin, he did not feel anticipation.
He felt confirmation.
The shop selling the test stone sat between a cheap apothecary and a fortune-teller who had long since stopped pretending accuracy mattered. Its signboard was cracked, its lettering faded from years of sun and dust. No cultivator guarded the entrance. No sect emblem marked it as important.
Inside, the air smelled of chalk and old incense.
The shopkeeper barely looked up as the boy entered. He had seen hundreds like him—young, thin, careful with their steps. Hope disguised as pragmatism. The boy placed the coins on the counter one by one.
The sound was louder than it should have been.
The shopkeeper counted them without touching them, then reached beneath the counter and retrieved a fist-sized stone wrapped in dull cloth. He did not explain how it worked. He did not need to.
Everyone knew.
"Touch it," he said. "Circulate what you can."
The boy nodded.
He took the stone in both hands. It was heavier than it looked, its surface cool and faintly textured, like bone polished by time. Thin, nearly invisible veins ran through it—channels where qi reacted to aptitude.
He closed his eyes.
He did not rush.
He followed the breathing pattern he had practiced for years. Slow inhale. Controlled exhale. Body Tempering circulation refined to its limit. Blood moved. Muscles responded. The internal pathways he had carved through repetition aligned as best they could.
Then he reached outward.
For the first time, deliberately.
Qi was everywhere. That was not metaphor. Even ordinary people felt it indirectly—in weather, in seasons, in places where the air felt heavier or sharper. Cultivators simply reached further.
The boy extended his awareness.
The response was weak.
Not absent. Not empty.
But thin.
The stone remained dull.
A faint flicker appeared near its base, no brighter than dying embers beneath ash. The veins did not glow. They did not pulse. They did not expand.
The boy opened his eyes.
The shopkeeper leaned forward, squinting. He tapped the stone once with a finger, as if encouraging it to be more honest.
"Hm," he said.
That sound carried more weight than any proclamation.
"Barely reactive," the shopkeeper continued. "Lower than low-grade. You'll manage Body Tempering Peak, maybe squeeze it cleaner than most if you're disciplined."
He shrugged.
"But Qi Guiding?" He shook his head. "No chance."
The boy waited.
Sometimes shopkeepers embellished. Sometimes they softened. Sometimes they offered excuses—faulty stones, bad days, incorrect breathing.
This one did not.
"You won't feel it," the man said. "Even if you force it. Qi won't circulate properly. Meridians won't respond. Best case, stagnation. Worst case, internal injury."
He slid the stone back across the counter.
"Don't waste money on manuals," he added, already losing interest. "If you want strength, join the militia. If you want comfort, learn a trade."
The boy nodded once.
He did not argue. There was nothing to argue against.
Outside, the city was unchanged.
People moved through the streets with the same routines, the same concerns. Cultivators passed by occasionally, their presence noticeable not through arrogance, but through certainty. They walked as if the world had already acknowledged their direction.
The boy returned to his workshop.
He cleaned his tools.
He organized finished weapons.
He ate a simple meal without tasting it.
The result did not anger him.
It did not surprise him.
It settled.
Aptitude was selection, not judgment. The heavens did not hate him. They did not favor him. They simply did not see him as relevant.
That was consistent.
Body Tempering Peak was still attainable. His body would still reach its limit. Strength, endurance, resilience—those were guaranteed outcomes of effort. What lay beyond was closed.
Qi would not guide him forward.
For most people, that would have been the end of the path.
For most people, cultivation existed to escape limitation.
The boy did not share that relationship with power.
He stood alone in the workshop as night deepened, the faint pressure behind his eyes returning—not louder, not violent, but patient. The test stone's verdict echoed in his thoughts, not as failure, but as data.
Aptitude insufficient.
Qi circulation denied.
He did not reject the result.
He incorporated it.
If Qi could not be guided, then it would have to be treated differently. Not absorbed. Not circulated. Not refined through accepted channels.
Creation did not begin with permission.
He extinguished the forge and sat in silence, letting the weight of being ordinary settle fully onto his shoulders.
The world had erased his lineage.
Now it had denied him heaven as well.
That was acceptable.
Limits, after all, were only meaningful to those who respected them.