Damian left the lecture hall with a faint smirk on his face, hands tucked into his sleeves like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Elder Duan knew his father.

  That mattered.

  Not today. Not tomorrow. But one day, when someone decided Damian’s name was inconvenient, when a situation tilted toward bloodshed and “rules” became optional, a connection like that could buy him seconds. A conversation. A warning. Maybe even a small mercy.

  In a world where status decided whether you lived long enough to learn from your mistakes, an ace in the back pocket was never wasted.

  He stored the thought away and kept walking.

  Dusk settled across the sect like a soft blanket. Lanterns flickered to life along the stone paths, warm light cutting through the growing shadows. The campus felt strangely quiet, the kind of quiet that only came when hundreds of people were doing the same thing at once.

  Cultivating.

  Almost every first-year had locked themselves in a room, chasing their first spark of progress like it was the last chance they’d ever get. Damian could picture them clearly: rigid posture, clenched jaws, eyes squeezed shut hard enough to hurt, trying to force Heaven and Earth to acknowledge them.

  His mind refused to settle into that same single-minded calm.

  His technique.

  His plan.

  And the forbidden gift his grandfather had left him.

  As he passed a training field, a sharp rhythm reached his ears—fists striking wood again and again, disciplined and unrelenting. Curious, Damian drifted closer and slipped into the shadows at the edge of the field.

  It was her.

  The girl who had taken the Path of the Eternal Slaughter Body

  She hammered a wooden dummy with bare knuckles, each strike flowing into the next like a violent chant. Sweat soaked her hair to her forehead. Her knuckles were split and bleeding, red streaks smearing the wood.

  And still she didn’t pause.

  No flinch.

  No hesitation.

  Just determination so hard it looked almost stupid.

  Damian watched in silence.

  A true body cultivator, he thought. Elder Zhao would be fighting to recruit her within weeks. Maybe days.

  He lingered long enough to feel the weight of her obsession, then turned away and disappeared into the thickening darkness.

  Back in his room, Damian shut the door and finally let his “first-year smile” die. The easy expression slid off his face like a mask tossed onto the floor.

  From his grandfather’s ring, he pulled out a small jade box.

  It was plain, almost unimpressive, but sealed with multiple layers of restriction talismans—old, worn paper strips packed with faded inscriptions. Whoever had written them had reinforced them again and again until the ink itself looked tired.

  Even without opening it, Damian felt it: a faint warmth in his chest. Subtle. Heavy. Like a sleeping furnace wrapped in silk.

  Carefully, he broke the seals.

  Inside rested a single pill.

  It was deep crimson, almost black at its core, its surface veined with thin golden lines that pulsed faintly, as if circulating blood through something not quite alive. It didn’t glow. It breathed.

  Damian stared at it without blinking.

  The Phoenix Rebirth Pill.

  A treasure so rare that even great clans hesitated to refine it—not because the ingredients were impossible to find, though they bordered on myth, but because of the price demanded in exchange. Every refinement required immense vitality, precise control, and materials harvested from beasts that did not forgive failure.

  This pill did not increase cultivation.

  It did not advance realms.

  It did not strengthen one’s core.

  It was far more precious than that.

  If consumed at the brink of death, it would forcibly reignite the body’s life force—regenerating damaged meridians, restoring shattered organs, knitting bone and flesh back together. Even crippling injuries that would end a cultivator’s path could be reversed, so long as the soul remained intact.

  It was not immortality.

  But it was a second chance.

  Damian’s throat tightened.

  He didn’t take it out. He didn’t even let his fingers hover too close.

  Instead, he resealed the jade box, returned it to the ring, and hid that ring deep beneath his robe. Then he switched to the safer ring—the one with his sister’s artifacts. The one that wouldn’t get him executed if anyone sensed it.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Not yet.

  Tonight was for building something real. Something he could show without dying for it.

  Damian sat cross-legged on the floor in a shirt and sweatpants and opened the Realm of the Sovereign Spirit

  Step One: Form the Soul Seed.

  A spark of spiritual essence within the chest.

  The first foundation of the entire art.

  He closed his eyes. Steadied his breathing. Let his thoughts stretch out, then thin, then quiet.

  One hour passed.

  Nothing.

  Two hours.

  Still nothing.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  When he finally opened his eyes, the moon was high outside his window. Sweat clung to his skin, cooling in patches. His shoulders ached from holding still for so long. His mind felt scraped raw, like he’d been staring into fog until his eyes bled.

  Annoying.

  But expected.

  Soul cultivation was slow. Meticulous. Unforgiving. At least it didn’t punish you for failure the way qi cultivation did. No shattered foundation. No crippled meridians because you rushed like an idiot.

  He dragged himself into the shower, washed off the sweat and frustration, then collapsed into bed.

  Tomorrow would be long.

  Morning came too quickly.

  Footsteps echoed as students hurried toward breakfast, the library, training fields—anywhere that promised progress. Damian washed up, tied his hair back, and stepped outside.

  Groups of first-years crowded the paths, some excited, others exhausted, a few looking already overwhelmed and trying to hide it.

  Damian ignored them all.

  He headed straight for the library.

  Lee was already behind the counter, sipping tea like he hadn’t been asleep since the last century. Calm. Distant. Mild.

  “Morning,” Damian said with a friendly smile.

  Lee returned the gesture with a polite nod, expression unreadable behind thin glasses.

  Damian drifted into the aisles and picked three books:

  Basics of Soul Cultivation

  History of the Founding Great Families

  The Evils and Sins of Cultivators

  Other students filtered in slowly, some yawning, some whispering about their first attempt at meditation as if it was a grand achievement. Without mandatory classes today, the whole sect moved on private schedules, each person chasing their own obsession.

  Damian read for nearly two hours.

  He learned more detail about forming the soul seed—less mystical nonsense, more practical steps and common errors. He gained sharper context for the city’s ruling clans, and he noticed a name that kept appearing in different histories like a stain that wouldn’t wash away.

  The Bloodlord.

  Infamous. Powerful. The kind of figure people used as a cautionary tale and then secretly admired anyway.

  When Damian finished, he put the books back slowly and let his eyes drift toward the counter.

  Lee was still there.

  Still calm.

  No fluctuations in aura. No crack in the mask. No slip of malice.

  Almost too perfect.

  Damian approached.

  “Any meditation advice?” he asked casually.

  Lee chuckled softly. “Ah, well. I’m an elemental cultivator, so my approach might not be especially useful for soul refinement.”

  Lie, Damian thought instantly.

  They talked a few minutes longer—nothing heavy, nothing that could be used against either of them. Lee’s guard was impeccable. He gave Damian nothing.

  When Damian turned to leave, he paused and looked back as if a thought had just occurred to him.

  “Before I go,” he said quietly, voice softer now, “there’s something I’ve never understood.”

  Lee raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Damian smiled faintly. “I never understood why people hate the other side so much. Power is power. The pursuit of strength shouldn’t have boundaries.”

  For the first time, something flickered behind Lee’s eyes.

  Not anger.

  Recognition.

  Amusement.

  Maybe even approval.

  “Interesting perspective,” Lee murmured.

  Damian gave a casual wave and stepped out into the morning sun, warmth brushing his face.

  He hadn’t gained anything tangible yet—no secret technique, no invitation, no sudden breakthrough.

  But he felt marginally better anyway.

  Because the encounter had confirmed something.

  Sorcery wasn’t an entirely separate path like he and his grandfather once believed. It wasn’t a different world. It was a divergence—a branch from the same root.

  Different method.

  Same destination.

  That thought stayed with him as he wandered the sect grounds.

  He wasn’t hungry, so he avoided the cafeteria and drifted instead toward the training fields. Part of it was boredom. Part of it was curiosity.

  And part of it was expectation.

  Sure enough, Elder Zhao was there in all his crude glory. The old body cultivator barked orders like a drill sergeant, voice echoing across the open field.

  “Again! Lower stance! You think flesh grows strong by asking nicely?”

  A group of newly accepted disciples suffered through conditioning—pushups, strikes against reinforced dummies, weighted movement drills. Sweat darkened the ground beneath them.

  Damian’s gaze found a familiar figure.

  The girl.

  She moved like a machine built for violence. Solid posture. Sharp strikes. No hesitation. Even exhausted, she kept pushing like she had something to prove to the world.

  Elder Zhao’s voice snapped again, aimed straight at her.

  “Kimberly! You hesitate, you die! Again!”

  So that was her name.

  No family name announced. That usually meant she wasn’t from a great clan—but the way Zhao watched her said enough. Either she had hidden backing, or her talent was loud enough to speak for itself.

  Zhao kept talking mid-training, voice like gravel.

  “This is the foundation of the Iron Body Qi Technique. Early Foundation Realm. You think it’s crude? You think it’s simple?” He snorted. “What’s the difference between a blunt knife and a sword in a fight?”

  No one answered.

  “The body,” Zhao growled. “Harden it enough, and blades break before you do. Steel against steel. Even elements like earth and thunder lose their bite.”

  Damian watched quietly, a flicker of envy passing through him.

  In another life, he might’ve stood down there. Enduring pain. Refining flesh. Letting obsession do what his dantian couldn’t.

  But body cultivation was rigid. It demanded devotion so absolute it swallowed everything else. Without a rare physique or monstrous talent, it became a long road straight into a wall.

  You needed willpower bordering on madness to keep walking once the wall appeared.

  It wasn’t him.

  His thoughts stalled—not from danger, but from recognition.

  Another familiar face had stepped into the field.

  Tian.

  The shaved-headed brute was unmistakable, built like a moving wall of muscle, moving with all the subtlety of a charging bull. Damian almost laughed.

  Of course it’s him.

  They’d grown up in the same neighborhood. Tian had bullied everyone else.

  With Damian, it had always been different. Not friendship—never that. But Tian had been predictable. Strong body, no finesse, no technique. The kind of kid you could bait into mistakes and punish for it.

  Seeing him here meant only one thing.

  Connections.

  Favors.

  And now… a master.

  The joke wrote itself.

  Damian wasn’t worried. Not yet. For the next few years, Tian would be too busy breaking his own bones under Zhao’s training to be a real threat.

  Still, Damian filed his name away.

  Right next to another.

  Marcus…

  The Immortal Sword’s younger brother.

  Damian clapped his hands together lightly and stood.

  “Sitting here watching them get stronger isn’t doing me any favors,” he muttered.

  If his potential threats were moving forward, he needed to move faster. That meant pushing his plan with Lee. That meant progressing his first technique. That meant accepting a truth he didn’t enjoy.

  Sorcery didn’t give shortcuts.

  No matter the path, he was still trapped at Foundation for now. If he wanted to survive, he needed techniques—real ones—that could keep him alive even if they hurt.

  Pain, at least, was something he could endure.

  With that thought, Damian turned and started back toward his dorm.

  He didn’t get far.

  “Damian.”

  The voice behind him was calm.

  Too calm.

  He stopped.

  When he turned, Lee stood a short distance away, hands folded behind his back, expression mild as ever—as if he’d just happened to be strolling through the training grounds.

  “Do you have a minute?” the librarian asked.

  Damian met his gaze, face unreadable.

  “…Sure,” he said.