Zareck did not touch the jade slip again.
It lay where he had left it, pristine and calm, its faint glow steady and reassuring. The Hans Flower Technique waited patiently, as if confident it would be chosen.
Instead, Zareck sat at the table, staring at the tattered manual Krab had left behind.
The house felt different now.
Not hostile. Just… aware.
He reached out slowly, half-expecting something to happen the moment his fingers brushed the cracked leather cover. Nothing did. No surge of warmth. No rush of understanding. No guiding imprint pressed gently into his mind.
Just an old book.
"That alone should tell me enough," Zareck muttered.
Clan manuals did not look like this. Cultivation knowledge was preserved in jade, crystal, soul-inscribed plates. Paper rotted. Ink faded. Information was lost.
And yet.
He hesitated only a moment longer before opening it.
The pages creaked softly, as if protesting the act of being disturbed after a long sleep. The ink was dark, sharp, impossibly intact for something that looked centuries old.
The first line hit him like a slap.
Balance is a lie told by the weak to justify stagnation.
Zareck's brows knit together.
He read on.
The body is not meant to be preserved. It is meant to be surpassed.
This was not instruction.
It was condemnation.
The manual wasted no time on pleasantries, no effort to ease the reader into understanding. It spoke with certainty, with disdain for compromise. Where the Hans Flower Technique began by explaining the body's limitations, Thy Image of Zenith began by rejecting them entirely.
Zareck felt his heartbeat quicken as he continued.
According to the manual, the Body Forging Realm was not preparation.
It was a crucible.
Most cultivation methods, the text claimed, were designed for safety. They assumed mediocrity, accounted for failure, and capped growth so that the practitioner could survive their own weakness.
This manual did not.
To reforge the body is to destroy it correctly.
Zareck exhaled slowly.
The method described was brutally simple in concept and horrifying in execution. Rather than gradually increasing the body's tolerance to spiritual energy, the cultivator was instructed to overload themselves deliberately.
Absorb until the flesh tore.
Circulate until bones fractured.
Force energy through channels that did not yet exist, allowing the resulting damage to be repaired not by rest, but by spiritual energy itself.
Break.
Repair.
Repeat.
Again and again.
The manual described this cycle with unsettling clarity, detailing how spiritual energy, when forced beyond safe thresholds, would trigger extreme regenerative responses. Muscle fibers rebuilt thicker. Bones reformed denser. Blood pathways widened to accommodate greater flow.
Survival was not guaranteed.
It was assumed.
Zareck's fingers trembled slightly as he turned the page.
"This is madness," he whispered.
The text did not disagree.
Those who cannot endure this stage should die early, rather than burden the future.
He felt cold.
The Hans Flower Technique emphasized synergy. Muscle, skin, bone, tendon, ligament. Each strengthened in proportion, ensuring no single component outpaced the others. The result was a stable, resilient body capable of long-term cultivation.
Thy Image of Zenith treated the body like raw material.
Muscle was strengthened first, yes, but not for balance. For force output. Tendons were reforged not to prevent injury, but to withstand violent contraction. Bones were shattered repeatedly, rebuilt until their density rivalled forged steel.
And then—
Zareck stopped breathing for a moment.
Eyes.
The manual devoted an entire section to ocular reforging.
It described them as windows.
The eyes are the only part of the body that constantly touches the world without resistance.
Zareck's breath slowed as he read on.
In cultivation, the manual claimed, vision was more than perception. The eyes were uniquely exposed to spiritual phenomena, bathed in light, intent, illusion, killing aura, and heavenly signs. They were conduits, capable of far more than seeing.
Most techniques avoided them out of fear.
This one did not.
The method described drawing spiritual energy through the eyes themselves, allowing them to be reshaped and awakened. Not just to see farther or clearer, but to perceive layers of reality others could not. Flow, intent, distortion, weakness.
The manual spoke of cultivators who could see through formations, resist illusion, or glimpse truths hidden behind false appearances.
But it also spoke of blindness.
Permanent.
Total.
Zareck's throat felt dry.
This was not refinement.
It was a gamble against fate.
And yet… something about it felt ancient. As if the manual was not inventing madness, but restoring a forgotten truth. As though eyes were once meant to do more, before fear taught cultivators to look away.
He turned the page.
The Heart.
Here, the text grew quieter, almost reverent.
The heart, it claimed, was more than a pump. It was the rhythm of the body, the anchor that tied flesh to will. A weak heart could never sustain dominance, no matter how strong the limbs.
The reforging described was brutal, spiritual energy forced through the heart's pathways, compressing and tempering it until it could endure overwhelming circulation without faltering.
A reforged heart did not panic.
It did not hesitate.
It allowed a cultivator to fight longer, harder, closer to death than others could survive.
Zareck placed a hand over his chest without realizing it.
"This isn't forging," he murmured. "It's erasing fear."
The manual did not argue.
Then came the final stage of the Body Forging Realm.
Zareck hesitated before reading further.
The Brain.
Even orthodox techniques treated the mind carefully, strengthening focus and clarity only after years of cultivation. To tamper directly with it was taboo.
Thy Image of Zenith acknowledged no such taboo.
The text did not describe the brain as an organ.
It described it as a throne.
The body obeys. The mind commands. If the throne is fragile, the empire will fall.
The reforging of the brain was not explained in detail.
That alone frightened Zareck more than anything else.
It spoke instead in metaphor and warning. Of threading spiritual energy through thought itself. Of sharpening perception beyond instinct. Of allowing will to imprint directly upon the body without delay.
It promised awareness that bordered on premonition.
Control so precise that energy moved before conscious thought.
And then—
Silence.
The risks were not listed.
They were implied.
Madness.
Loss of self.
Becoming something that could no longer be called human.
Zareck shut the book, heart pounding.
"This is a trap," he said aloud. "It has to be."
No clan would allow this. No family would sacrifice their descendants so casually. A technique that demanded death as payment was not a foundation—it was a culling blade.
And yet.
Krab's face surfaced in his mind.
That sharp clarity in his eyes.
Old Man Krab was a servant. A man who swept halls and carried messages. A man who should not possess ancient cultivation secrets.
But he had never lied.
Not to Zareck.
Zareck opened the book again, slower now.
He searched for exaggeration. For contradiction. For the tell tale signs of a scam meant to entice desperate fools.
He found none. At least none a thirteen year old boy without any real cultivation experience could discover.
The method was extreme, yes, but it was consistent. It did not promise safety. It did not guarantee success. It demanded conviction without mercy.
This was not bait.
It was a challenge.
Zareck leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
The Hans Flower Technique promised a place. A future within the clan. Respect earned slowly, safely.
Thy Image of Zenith promised only one thing.
The chance to stand where balance could never reach.
He laughed softly, the sound hollow.
"So that's the choice," he said. "Bloom quietly… or burn until something survives."
Outside, the cities sun began to lower.
Inside, Zareck Hans sat alone between two paths.
And for the first time in his life, the thought of being ordinary frightened him more than death.