The Level One library did not look like a place where destinies were forged. It was a long, low-slung stone hall where the oil lamps flickered with greasy light, never quite pushing the shadows back from the corners. Dust clung to the shelves in uneven patches-some spots wiped clean by desperate fingers, others left to settle in the damp mountain air. The manuals were thin things bound in coarse hemp, spaced with deliberate care that only made the gaps between them more obvious.
Xu Qian stopped just inside the threshold, boots scuffing against grit on the floor. He stayed still, letting the air settle around him, becoming aware of the sharp, cold presence of the steward on duty.
The man did not acknowledge him at first. He continued writing on a jade slip, stone stylus scratching softly-a sound like a persistent insect. It went on long enough that Xu Qian became aware of the uneven rhythm of his own heart. In this place, time was held by the sect like a leash.
"You may take one," the steward said at last, his voice as dry as the stone walls. He did not look up. "Read it where you sit. You may not copy a single stroke. You may not return for another until your status changes. If you try to take what isn't yours, the mountain will swallow you."
Xu Qian inclined his head. "Understood."
The steward's gaze flicked up then-a sharp, measuring look that lingered on Xu Qian's bound shoulder for a heartbeat too long. A mark was scratched into the jade. The sound of it was small, but it felt as final as a tomb door closing.
One choice. One path.
Xu Qian moved through the rows slowly, as if walking a narrow bridge. He was not looking for the grand titles. He was looking for the omissions. The shelves were filled with traps: body conditioning manuals that promised strength but would clearly ruin a man's joints, breath-control sequences that offered speed at the cost of brittle, scarred lungs. The circulation diagrams ended abruptly, the lines stopping exactly where the true answers should have begun.
Nothing taught a man how to open his meridians. Nothing explained how to hold Qi once it moved. The sect assumed its disciples would either fail quietly or already possess the secrets they were not being told.
Near the back, tucked into a shadow where the lamps failed to reach, a narrow shelf held three manuals marked with the jagged sigil of the Edgefall Sword Sect.
Sword-First Conditioning. Edge Reinforcement Sequencing. Foundation Sword Refinement.
Xu Qian's hand hovered over the Reinforcement manual. Speed was tempting-power now, consequences later. He had followed that instinct once before, and the memory lived in his body: the heat, the sudden weakness, the way his own flesh had betrayed him in battle.
He pulled back. His fingers settled instead on the Foundation Sword Refinement Manual. It was thinner than the others, and its opening pages offered no encouragement. They were a litany of cautions: posture limits, breath restrictions, grim descriptions of internal ruptures caused by forcing circulation too soon.
Slower. Narrower.
Xu Qian took it from the shelf. The steward recorded the choice, expression unreadable.
Xu Qian sat at a stone table in the center of the hall. One corner had been repaired with darker, rougher stone that did not quite match the rest. He ran his thumb over the uneven seam before opening the booklet. It did not praise the glory of sword cultivators. It spoke of the grueling repetition of breath, the alignment of the spine, the necessity of learning the weight of the blade before asking it to cut the world.
He read until the oil in the lamps burned low and the shadows began to reclaim the tables. When he finally closed the manual, he felt no revelation-only the realization of his own boundaries.
He returned the manual to the steward and left. No one asked if he was satisfied. Satisfaction was a civilian emotion. The mountain had no use for it.
The outer disciple quarters were quiet that night. Most of the survivors had already learned that sleep was the only advantage the sect did not tax.
Xu Qian sat cross-legged on the cold floor of his room, ignoring the thin straw pallet. His spine was straight, a spear-shaft of bone and intent. He placed his hands exactly where the diagrams indicated-fingers loose, palms neither fully open nor closed. He followed the posture with mechanical focus, knowing that a small deviation tonight would become a crippling flaw a year from now.
He inhaled.
He guided his breath downward, reaching for simple awareness rather than Qi. He traced the jagged path shown in the manual-a suggestion of a map, incomplete and dangerous. When he exhaled, he attempted to nudge the faint warmth in his blood toward his arms. Toward the imagined edge of a blade.
It resisted.
The sensation flickered, slipped, and collapsed inward. His shoulders tightened instinctively, bracing against a phantom blow. His breathing caught in his throat, turning into a ragged hitch.
Xu Qian opened his eyes. He adjusted the tilt of his hips and tried again. The second attempt lasted longer. There was a brief, fragile alignment where his intent and his body seemed to speak the same language. The warmth moved, shallow and weak, but it moved. Then it dispersed.
The third attempt failed before it even began. A cold sweat gathered at his temples. His chest ached with a dull, heavy pressure that warned him of strain.
He stopped. The manual had been explicit: Persistence without correction is merely an invitation to the rot. He remained still until his breathing steadied, staring into the dark. Cultivation was possible, but for him, the gate was shut. He was forcing it with bloodied fingers.
He lay down on the stone and did not try again.
The poison announced its return the next morning-a subtle treachery rather than a sudden collapse. There was a tightness in his chest as he rose, and a faint, rhythmic tremor in his sword-hand that made his fingers feel like lead.
He reported to the hall as instructed. The outer infirmary was a spare, cold place. An attendant checked his pulse twice, his face as blank as a ledger, and passed a jade slip to a runner. Decisions were made elsewhere, in rooms Xu Qian was not allowed to see.
By midday, he was summoned to a narrow chamber. Steward Han Zhi stood near the doorway, his hands folded behind his back, looking at Xu Qian as one might look at a tool that had developed a bothersome crack.
"The residue remains," Han Zhi said. "You delayed treatment to visit the library. A choice made; a price owed."
Xu Qian did not argue. "I followed the rules of the induction."
"That was noted." Han Zhi gestured toward a low platform inside the room. "This pill will remove the rot. The cost of the medicine is yours to carry."
A small clay dish sat on the platform, holding a dull gray pill that smelled of ash and cold metal. Xu Qian swallowed it. Han Zhi did not stay to watch.
The pill dissolved with a sudden, sickening heat-not the violent burn of the initial poisoning, but a grinding, mechanical pressure that seemed to tighten with every breath. The attendant began the count: a slow, forced suppression of his circulation.
Pain rose steadily, then spiked into a white, jagged flash. Xu Qian's vision clouded with gray static. His muscles locked as if bracing for a mountain to fall on him. He did not cry out. He bit his tongue until he tasted copper, focusing only on the rhythm of the attendant's voice.
Minutes stretched into an eternity of sweat and iron. When the pressure finally broke, it left behind a hollow emptiness that felt worse than the pain.
"The poison is neutralized," the attendant said, checking the marks on his slip. "The vessels are clear, but the scraping has left its mark. There will be an inefficiency in your circulation. Minor. Permanent."
Xu Qian nodded, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He rested on the platform until his legs obeyed him. When he finally stepped outside into the thin mountain air, the world felt colder.
That night, he attempted the breathing again. It was worse.
Where the warmth had flickered before, now it dragged as if moving through sand. The circulation paths felt raw, scraped down to the nerves by the gray pill. His body resisted his guidance with a new, stubborn bitterness.
This was the cost. The path had not been erased. It had been narrowed.
Xu Qian lay on his back and watched the ceiling until sleep finally claimed him.
Days passed in a gray blur. He adjusted, shortening his sessions and focusing on the slow, careful mastery of his sword forms rather than the pursuit of power. Others in the training yard boasted of progress, of feeling the "first spark" of Qi. Some pushed too hard and were carried away with injuries that would never heal.
Xu Qian listened to their boasts, but he did not imitate them.
When Han Zhi called him again, the Steward looked over a slate with a bored expression.
"Poison case closed," Han Zhi said. "No compensation for the scarring. No extension of library time. You have what you were given."
"Understood," Xu Qian said.
Han Zhi looked up, his eyes narrowing slightly. "You chose the Foundation path. Most find it too slow to be of use before the first culling."
"Slow is better than broken," Xu Qian replied.
"We shall see." Han Zhi turned away. "Dismissed."
Xu Qian walked out onto the crowded training grounds. He took his place in the rear rank, away from the eyes of the instructors. He raised his sword, feeling the familiar, cold weight of the steel.
He began again.