The night after the orchard's first blossoms fell was still. Too still.
Tian Shen sat at the base of the lantern tree, eyes closed, knees crossed, palms resting lightly on his thighs. His breathing was slow, deep, and deliberate — but beneath that calm was a storm that had been brewing for months.
For half a year, his cultivation had been pushing against an invisible wall. The bottleneck before the Core Reinforcement Realm was unlike any he had known. It was not simply a matter of refining qi. It was a matter of remaking the self, of fusing body, essence, and will into something unshakable.
He had avoided this moment. Breakthroughs at this level were dangerous — not merely exhausting, but life-threatening. A single misstep could cause qi deviation, rupturing meridians or shattering his dantian entirely. Many who attempted the leap from Core Formation to Core Reinforcement never walked again… or never rose at all.
