The mountain panther's body was already cooling.
Feng Yao stood over it in silence, the machete dangling loosely in his hand, coated with drying blood. He wasn't trembling—not with fear, at least. The shake in his limbs came from something deeper.
Exhaustion.
Shock.
And something colder: clarity.
The stories always said your first kill would haunt you. That your soul would carry the weight of death like a chain. But Feng Yao didn't feel heavy.
He felt awake.
Alive.
"You hesitate. You reflect. Good," the Sword System's voice murmured into his mind.
"Those who swing blindly often die quickly. But don't romanticize this either. You killed. And you will kill again."
Yao didn't argue.
He didn't know if he wanted to.
He crouched, dragging the machete across the grass to clean the blade. He didn't know what to do with the corpse—no one in the village would help him butcher it, and he lacked the tools to preserve meat.
So he left it for the scavengers.
He had what he came for.
He returned to the house by sunset, moving slowly, carefully. His legs ached from the terrain, his hands still blistered beneath their bandages.
Uncle Shen had left something on his doorstep again—this time, a satchel of rice and dried sweet potato. He didn't knock. Just left it and walked away, like always.
Yao was grateful.
Even if he didn't say it.
Inside, he collapsed onto the floor mat with a groan and stared up at the rafters. The smell of blood still clung to his clothes.
"You have one system point," the Sword System intoned calmly.
"You may now access the Level 1 Sword System Shop."
Yao blinked.
"Show me."
"Sword System Shop – Level 1"
[Available Purchases]— Edge Pulse (Passive – 1 SP): Increases your cutting power by refining edge alignment. All slashes are 10% sharper.— Ironroot Stance (Passive – 1 SP): Grants +10% stability and balance while wielding a blade. Easier to resist knockback.— Reactive Blade (Active – 1 SP): Once per day, automatically parry a single sword-based strike even without seeing it.— Sword Qi Fragment ×5 (Formless Sword Seed) [1/5 collected] – Reward Only
Note: Additional options unlock at higher system levels.
Yao exhaled slowly.
Each of the abilities made sense. Simple, but useful. Practical. None of them would make him a prodigy overnight—but they were tools. Edges.
And right now, he needed every one.
He hovered mentally over Edge Pulse, considering it. More damage. More threat. He could carve deeper, cut faster.
But Ironroot Stance...
He thought of the panther. How he'd nearly been bowled over by its charge. How shaky his footing was on the uneven slope.
That had nearly cost him everything.
"I choose Ironroot Stance," he said.
"Ironroot Stance acquired.""System Points: 0""Balance adjusted. Host's posture efficiency increased."
He shifted on the mat—and immediately noticed it.
Subtle.
But real.
His center of gravity felt… firmer. Like his body remembered how to anchor itself better.
"You chose stability over strength," the system noted.
"A defensive choice. Interesting."
"Can't swing a sword if I'm on the ground," Yao muttered.
"True."
The system fell silent again, content to watch.
Yao sat with that silence for a while, letting his thoughts catch up to his body. Then, reluctantly, he pulled out the old Iron Skin Manual again and set it beside him.
He flipped it open to the middle section.
Phase Two: Bone ShapingStrike with weighted stones. Walk with sandbags on your limbs. Push until tendons scream. If you can still move at night, you didn't push hard enough._
He looked at his arms.
Bruised.
Cut.
Untrained.
But no longer useless.
"I'll keep training this," he whispered.
"Waste of time," the system said flatly.
"That technique ends at Body Refining Stage 6. It offers no qi cultivation. Its scaling is inefficient. You will plateau."
"I know," he replied. "But it's all I have for now."
A long pause.
Then—curiously—
"Acknowledged."
Far from Stoneshade, deeper in the mountains, a different wind stirred.
A black-feathered bird circled above a cracked spire that jutted from the cliffs like a blade jammed into the earth. Beneath that spire, where the trees grew crooked and the air hummed with spiritual distortion, something old began to shift.
A mark carved in stone—a sigil long faded to dust—flared faintly with crimson light.
It had felt the awakening.
A Sword System had activated.
And somewhere, something stirred from slumber.
Back in Stoneshade, Feng Yao awoke in the middle of the night.
A phantom pain throbbed through his arm—a leftover from the battle. The dreams had been strange. He remembered flashes of swords—thousands of them, raining from the sky—and a voice whispering in a language he didn't know.
He sat up and looked at his hand again.
The hand that had held the machete.
The hand that had ended a life.
It no longer trembled.
He wasn't strong yet.
Not by a long shot.
But he wasn't helpless either.
"Host," the Sword System said as the night wind rolled through the trees,
"Prepare. Growth invites threat. And you have begun to shine."
Three days passed.
The blood had long dried in the forest. The panther's body had been picked clean by scavengers. The only proof the fight had ever happened was the dull ache in Feng Yao's forearm—deep in the bone, where the machete had rebounded during a bad swing.
He kept practicing anyway.
Each morning, he trained until he could no longer lift the blade. Each evening, he limped home, soaked his hands in cold water, and recited the verses from the Iron Skin Manual until his voice gave out.
No one in the village asked questions.
That was the thing about Stoneshade: people stayed quiet. Kept to themselves. Even now, walking through the market square to buy salt or barley, no one looked at him for more than a heartbeat.
He liked it that way.
His strength was still too small to show. And too important to reveal.
"Your posture is improving."
The Sword System's voice interrupted him halfway through his morning strikes.
"Muscle memory is forming. Neural reinforcement is beginning. It is time."
"Time for what?" Yao asked between gasping breaths, sweat dripping from his chin.
"A second quest."
"New Quest Generated"
Quest: Draw the Hidden EdgeObjective: Land a killing strike on a spirit-type beast or construct using a bladed weapon.Minimum Threat: E-ClassReward: +1 System Point, Sword Qi Fragment ×1Bonus Objective: Survive without sustaining a serious wound (+1 SP bonus)Time Limit: None
He paused, lowering the machete.
"Spirit-type?"
"Beasts that possess minimal spiritual essence. Slightly stronger than normal animals. Resistant to brute force. Weaker to refined techniques."
He frowned.
"I don't know how to refine anything. I don't even have qi."
"Then adapt. Technique precedes power. Form precedes flow. Even without qi, you can learn to move like someone who possesses it."
Yao stared at the quest.
Spirit-type beast.
Those weren't common in the woods near the village. And the ones that did appear didn't stay long—they were either hunted by rogue cultivators passing through, or killed by wild packs before they grew dangerous.
He needed to search.
Carefully.
He packed lightly the next morning—only dried bread, two water gourds, and a cloth-wrapped machete. He wore his father's old shoulder cloak to hide the weapon and blend into the woods.
The Sword System offered no guidance this time. No hints. No target. Only quiet observation.
And Feng Yao was starting to understand why.
The system wasn't here to protect him.
It was here to test him.
He searched for hours, climbing higher into the mountain paths until the trees grew twisted and the underbrush choked the trails. Occasionally, he found signs: claw marks too deep for normal beasts, branches snapped at odd angles, dried blood in a spiral pattern.
Then he found the trail.
Cracked stone.
A ring of moss that had been burned away.
The air hummed faintly.
"You've entered a minor spirit zone," the system confirmed.
"Residual qi density is rising. We are close."
The tension in his chest spiked. Every shadow looked sharper. Every sound echoed wrong.
He moved slowly.
And then—
He heard it.
A low clatter of bone against stone.
He turned the corner around a mossy outcrop and froze.
A skeletal deer stood at the center of a glade.
No flesh.
No skin.
Only bones, held together by tendrils of translucent light, faintly pulsing. Empty eye sockets turned toward him with unnatural awareness.
The creature moved jerkily, like a puppet with too many strings—but it moved.
"Target Identified: Spirit Construct – E-Class"
"Quest Activation Confirmed"
"Sword Sense: Engaged"
Yao slowly unwrapped the machete from its cloth, heart pounding. He crouched low behind the bushes, watching it move. It paced in a slow, methodical circle—guarding something?
He saw it then—at the base of a tree: a cracked orb, no larger than a peach, faintly glowing.
"A spirit core?" he whispered.
"Unstable. Cracked. Likely the anchor holding this construct together."
If he could destroy that, maybe he wouldn't have to fight it directly.
He drew a slow breath, crouched, and crept along the edge of the clearing.
Three steps.
Six.
Ten.
The deer's head snapped in his direction.
Too slow.
It charged.
He dove aside as hooves slammed into the earth, gouging deep lines into the dirt. He rolled to his feet and brought the machete up just in time to block—but the impact nearly knocked it from his grip.
It was fast.
And heavy.
The creature leapt again, bones creaking—and this time, Sword Sense screamed a second too late.
One hoof caught his ribs.
Pain burst through his side. He hit the ground hard and coughed blood.
Bonus objective failed.
The machete had flown from his grip.
The deer reared back for the kill.
"You will not survive without acting," the system warned.
"Grab the blade. Focus your entire body. One cut. Do not think. Just cut."
He pushed off the ground, dove for the machete, and—
Time slowed.
Sword Sense surged.
He felt the angle of the deer's next strike. Saw the flash of light gathering in its hooves. But this time, he didn't block.
He sidestepped.
A pivot, low and tight—just like the system had drilled into him over and over.
The strike missed.
Yao surged up with a scream and drove the machete upward—through the spine of the creature's neck. It didn't bleed. But the light that held it together cracked.
The bones fell apart.
Silence returned.
"Quest Complete"
Reward: +1 System PointSword Qi Fragment ×1Bonus: Failed
"System Point Bank: 1""Fragments Collected: 2/5 (Formless Sword Seed)"
Feng Yao slumped against the tree, panting hard.
His ribs burned.
His palms were torn open.
But he'd done it.
"Two fragments now," the system said softly.
"Three more, and you will qualify for the Formless Sword Seed. Then your path can truly begin."
He nodded weakly.
Then, just before he passed out, a quiet message flickered behind his eyes.
"Anomaly detected in host's spiritual marrow."
"Dormant signature… unknown origin."
"Monitoring."