The stars pulsed in the dark canvas of the sky, their faint light reaching him even through the glare of the moons. Beneath him, rising from the very soil that tasted of ancient stone and buried power, was a vibration. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, like the sound of a spider walking on a strand of silk amplified deep within the earth. The land here was old. Older, perhaps, than the grand histories of the Martial World he dimly recalled. The spiritual paths that wound through it, the invisible currents of energy that shaped the mountains and valleys, followed rules he did not know, did not understand with his shattered mind. But he could feel them.
With ancient instinct of one who had walked through divine flame and searing madness, stared into the abyss and emerged changed, but who had still learned, in the deepest, most humbling moments, to bow before the indifferent, overwhelming power of the heavens. It was a primal attunement, bypassing the broken layers of his being.
His breathing slowed further, finding a rhythm that seemed to align, subtly, with the pulse he felt from the earth. His awareness deepened, sinking below the surface of his own emptiness, reaching for something external, something fundamental.
It wasn't a sudden flash of enlightenment or a mending of his meridians. But presence. The barest flicker of alignment, a connection forged not through strength, but through stillness and receptiveness. It was like the first, careful drop of ink upon a waiting scroll, marking the start of something entirely new. A beginning.
Dao Wei opened his eyes.
Qing Yao was standing in the shadows cast by the ruined wall, a silent, watchful silhouette against the moonlit landscape. She didn't approach him, didn't break the quiet space he had created around himself.
She just watched. Her stillness mirrored his own, but hers was born of caution and observation, not internal struggle. She said nothing about his posture, his quiet breathing, his eyes fixed on the moons and the earth. Instead, when she finally spoke, her voice was low, barely disturbing the wind's soft moan.
"You planning to leave?" she asked, her gaze steady, searching for something in his expression.
Dao Wei didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained on the two red moons for a long moment, absorbing their strange light, feeling the subtle thrum beneath him. Then, his voice calm, measured: "No."
A pause stretched between them, filled only by the wind.
"Not yet."
She nodded, once. A small, sharp motion. That was enough of an answer for her pragmatic mind. Promises here were fragile things; 'not yet' was as solid as anything could be.
Behind her, faintly visible through the doorway of the shack, Qing Chen slept soundly, the misshapen clay bull tucked securely under his arm.
Qing Yao shifted her stance slightly, turning her gaze out over the dark valley with him, her arms folding across her chest. "You should be careful," she said, her tone carrying a practical warning. "People don't like men who act like sages here. They think it's rebellion."
Dao Wei didn't reply. He continued to watch the valley, the mountain, the moons. His silence was not born of ignorance or dismissal. It was calculation. Weighing the truth of her words, measuring the currents of the village, the mountain, the subtle threads he was just beginning to feel.
She exhaled, a quiet sound of understanding or perhaps weary acceptance. "Well. Sleep while you can." Her voice was softer now, less guarded.
She turned and walked away, her footsteps soft on the broken stone, fading back towards the faint light of the huts. She did not look back.
Dao Wei remained beneath the unsettling glow of the red moons for a while longer, feeling the cold earth beneath his palms, listening not just to the wind, but to the slow, hesitant hum of a world not yet ready to trust him, but watching all the same. The stars pulsed, indifferent. In the quiet solitude, his resolve solidified. Tomorrow, he decided, feeling the faint but undeniable current of presence flowing through him, he would begin again.
Qing Yao didn't sleep.
She sat on the roof of the shabby house, knees drawn close to her chest, watching the fractured sky dim and brighten in uneven cycles. The village below was quieter than usual, not because people were calm, but because they were thinking.
Thinking was dangerous.
Since the raid, eyes followed her brother wherever he went. Just curious. Qing Yao knew that look well. Curiosity was always the first step before trouble.
Behind her, the roof creaked softly.
"You're going to fall if you keep sitting like that," Dao Wei said, climbing up beside her with far less grace than his presence suggested.
Qing Yao snorted. "I've lived here my whole life. I know where not to fall."
Dao Wei sat down anyway, legs stretched out, hands braced behind him. For a while, they watched the sky together.
"You're thinking about leaving," Dao Wei said casually.
Qing Yao stiffened. "You make it sound like I'm predictable."
"You are," Dao Wei replied. "Just not simple."
She clicked her tongue, but didn't deny it. "Chen's awakened something rare. People won't leave him alone forever."
Dao Wei nodded. "They won't."
"That's it?" Qing Yao snapped, turning to face him. "No reassurance? No grand plan?"
Dao Wei glanced at her, surprised, then smiled, just a little. "If I gave you a grand plan, you wouldn't believe it. And you'd be right not to."
Qing Yao looked away again.
"There's a herb," she said quietly. "Stoneheart Root. Grows near the Sky-Rending Cliffs. It stabilizes Qi and suppresses elemental backlash."
Dao Wei's brow creased. "That place is dangerous."
"I know."
"Bandits, beasts, unstable terrain—"
"I know," Qing Yao repeated, sharper now. "That's why I'm going."
Dao Wei studied her face. There was fear there. And determination layered on top of it, hardened by years of being the one who didn't get to break.
"You think if you get stronger," Dao Wei said slowly, "you can protect him better."
Qing Yao's jaw tightened. "I don't think. I have to."
Dao Wei exhaled. "You don't need to prove anything."
She laughed bitterly. "Easy for you to say. You walk into fires, and they apologize."
That made him chuckle. A real sound, unguarded. "You should've seen me when I was younger. I got stabbed a lot more."
Qing Yao glanced at him, surprised.
He continued, voice lighter. "Strength isn't about being unafraid. It's about knowing exactly what you're afraid of, and moving anyway."
She stood. "Then don't stop me."
Dao Wei didn't.
The Sky-Rending Cliffs lived up to their name.
Stone pillars jutted upward like broken spears, suspended over a vast chasm where wind screamed endlessly. The earth element here was dense, violent, constantly shifting, one wrong step could send a person falling forever.
Qing Yao moved carefully, breath steady, earth Qi reinforcing her legs as she climbed. The Stoneheart Root grew near the cliff's edge, its pale veins glowing faintly beneath layers of rock.
She reached it.
And the ground betrayed her.
The ledge cracked without warning. Qing Yao slipped, fingers scraping stone as her footing vanished. The world tilted, then fell away.
She screamed.
But she didn't die.
Her body slammed against an invisible barrier and rebounded, tumbling through darkness until everything went still.
She was standing.
Not on stone, she was back in the village. Younger. Smaller. Her parents stood ahead of her, arguing in hushed voices.
"We can't stay," her father said.
"We won't make it," her mother replied.
Qing Yao tried to speak. She couldn't.
The scene shifted. Fire. Screams. Her parents pushing her and Qing Chen into hiding.
Then silence.
She collapsed to her knees, breath ragged. "I wasn't strong enough," she whispered.
"You were a child."
Dao Wei stood beside her. Not glowing. Not distant. Just… there. Dust on his robe. Concern in his eyes.
"This isn't real," Qing Yao said hoarsely.
"No," Dao Wei replied. "But the feeling is."
She clenched her fists. "I hate feeling weak."
Dao Wei crouched in front of her. "Then stop confusing weakness with grief."
Her breath hitched.
"You didn't fail them," he continued gently. "You survived. And then you carried someone else with you. That's not nothing."
Qing Yao's vision blurred. "I'm tired."
"I know," Dao Wei said. "So rest. Just for a moment."
The memory dissolved.
Qing Yao woke gasping at the edge of the cliff, fingers gripping solid stone. The Stoneheart Root lay beside her, intact. Her body felt heavier, but steadier.
Earth Qi flowed through her, not rigid, not forced, anchored.
Back in Ashen Village, Dao Wei stood at the edge of the yard, arms crossed, watching the horizon.
When Qing Yao finally returned, dirt-streaked and exhausted, he raised an eyebrow.
That night, as Qing Yao slept deeply for the first time in years, something beneath her chest pulsed, slow, firm, unyielding.
The silence of the night after they had dinner felt heavier than usual, not with oppression, but with a kind of hushed expectation. The air, still warm from the day, carried the faint scent of stirred dust and the distant murmur of the pond. Dao Wei stepped out from the shadowed lean-to behind the modest house, his steps quiet on the packed earth. The moonlight spilled crimson and silver onto the landscape, illuminating the placid surface of the pond where his cultivation pods floated, like dark, patient eyes on the water.
Dao Wei didn't go to the pods. Instead, he walked a short distance away, finding a patch of ground where the dust was fine and undisturbed. With unhurried grace, he lowered himself, settling cross-legged directly onto the cool earth. His spine was straight, his hands rested on his knees, palms facing down. He closed his eyes.
He began practicing the breathing technique.
In. Out. A slow, steady rhythm that seemed to align with the pulse he felt emanating from the ground beneath him. For hours, nothing outwardly seemed to happen. The moon arced across the sky, the stars remained fixed, and the night birds sang their infrequent songs. He was a statue carved from shadow and moonlight, utterly still, utterly present.
Then, a stir, a deep, internal vibration, as if the very atoms of the earth beneath him were shifting, rearranging themselves in response to his presence. He felt the earth beneath him. Not in metaphor, the way a tired farmer feels the soil's resistance or a scholar feels the weight of history. He felt it in vibration, a low-frequency humming through his bones. He felt it as a presence, vast and ancient, acknowledging his own.
The air around him began to change. It seemed to bend, not against pressure, but around his ribs, his sternum, his head, like a coiled, unseen thing seeking a comfortable place to rest. This was not qi, not the invisible currents of spiritual energy he had learned to manipulate conventionally. This was different. It felt like a fundamental frequency matching his own, creating a sympathetic vibration in the very fabric of reality around him.
And then, the world whispered. It wasn't a sound, not even in his mind. It was a voice felt, a cascade of knowing that originated not from the vastness of the cosmos above, but from the dense, profound depths of the earth below.
The whisper unfolded the nature of cultivation here, so different from the linear progression of realms he vaguely knew of from other lands. In Aratta, cultivation followed the Five-Fold Way, defined not by increasing tiers of power, but by aligning with fundamental Voices, each tied to a different essence, each unlocking not only raw power but profound, altered perception.
The Voice of Bone: The whisper felt solid, enduring, speaking of resilience, of the body as an unbreachable fortress, of strength forged through hardship and structure.
The Voice of Dust: This felt ephemeral, shifting, recounting tales of those who fade into the background, moving unseen, moving like wind through forgotten ruins, existing in the spaces between things.
The Voice of Ember: Faint, perplexing. The whisper here was not of roaring flames or destructive heat, but of something held back, misunderstood. An ember that held potential, patience, and a slow, deep warmth that hints at fierce fire yet chooses stillness.
The Voice of Echo: This voice was calm, nostalgic, a ringing sound that spoke of the past rebounding forward, of memory made tangible, of history hardening into a blade that cuts the present.
The Voice of Wood: Rare, intense. A searing clarity, speaking of pure intent given form, of will made visible, of passion and destruction and creation in equal measure.
These Five Voices corresponded to the Five Elements.
Dao Wei didn't reach for one. The profound resonance swirling around him, the deep hum from the earth, the coiled air, they didn't offer a choice. They responded. They found their match. The world wasn't asking him what he wanted; it was revealing what he already was, or perhaps what he could become.
The Voice of Ember stirred within him. It unfolded like a slow dawn. Dao Wei's body began to glow. It was the faintest luminescence, starting deep within his spine, a core of gentle, spreading warmth. A breath of the same warmth settled in his sternum, expanding with each steady exhale.
The ground beneath him shuddered in a deep, resonant quake that didn't shatter but rearranged. The dust at his feet danced, swirling in intricate, slow patterns around him, caught in an invisible current generated by his stillness. The wind shifted, changing direction subtly, bowing around this quiet point of intense potential.
Back in the small house, both Qing Yao and Qing Chen, deep in the restful oblivion of exhausted sleep, felt it. It wasn't a sound that woke them, but a change in pressure, a subtle distortion in the very air they breathed. They blinked awake almost in unison, their senses immediately on high alert, the instincts of seasoned survivors overriding sleep.
They lay there for a moment, listening, feeling. The air was inexplicably thicker, laden with a sensation that was neither qi nor spiritual pressure, yet felt profoundly powerful. Looking out the small window, Qing Yao noticed something impossibly strange. The sky was clear, the stars bright, the moon high, yet the ambient light outside seemed to dim slightly, as if the sheer presence of something was absorbing photons. A crow perched on a nearby branch let out a single, ragged scream, sharp with apparent terror, then launched itself into the air, flying off into the darkness without any discernible direction.