The village had grown quieter over the past few weeks. Whispers of unease stirred through the elders, while the younger generation trained harder than ever, aware that something loomed on the horizon—even if they couldn't name it.
At the center of the Li Clan compound, within a secluded courtyard, a girl knelt before a shrine of carved stone and hanging moonflowers. Li Xioran's fingers trembled as she replaced the old incense with fresh sticks.
> "Brother... wherever you are, I hope you've found peace. Or strength."
She didn't know why, but her heart had refused to mourn. Despite the clan's declarations and the elder council's silence, she knew he wasn't dead. A single strand of hair braided into a charm at her wrist—one her brother had given her years ago—remained warm to the touch.
Li Xioran wasn't idle. She'd risen early each day, sparred until her limbs shook, and studied ancient Li Clan scrolls under candlelight. Her progress had caught the eye of the elder instructors. One even whispered that her spiritual root had begun to shift—a phenomenon rarely seen without outside influence.
> "The heavens don't forget those they've wronged," she whispered under her breath, echoing her brother's words.
Still, a shadow hung over the clan.
A stranger had recently arrived—an emissary from a minor sect, cloaked in smiles and hollow words. But Li Xioran had noticed his gaze linger too long on the clan's ancestral vault... and even longer on her.
Elsewhere in the Village, in hushed corners of taverns and night markets, rumors flowed like wine. Some said a cultivator had been seen deep in the forests, bearing a strange beast of fire and feathers. Others whispered of cursed tombs reawakening.
By dusk, the village's outer watchfires flickered with unease. Patrols reported strange claw marks on the northern trees—too high for any mundane beast, and pulsing faintly with yin qi. The guards were uneasy, but the elder council dismissed it.
> "It's just forest disturbance. The sect emissaries will handle it."
But not all were convinced.
Li Xioran stood atop a training post that overlooked the edge of the forest. Her instincts screamed that something was wrong. Since the emissary arrived, several of the Li Clan's minor vaults had been quietly moved—relocated under the guise of "security protocol." Yet no one spoke of it openly.
And then there was Elder Zhao Wei, a former combat master once loyal to her father. He had disappeared three days ago after investigating the old ancestral records. His house now stood boarded up.
> "Too many things are being hidden," Li Xioran muttered.
That night, Li Xioran was summoned to the back hall of the main manor. There, she met Elder Shen, a quiet, one-eyed elder once close to her mother. He handed her a sealed letter—its edges burned with defensive formations.
> "This came from outside the clan," he whispered. "I suspect your brother had allies no one knew of."
She took it with trembling hands. Inside, a single sentence burned with jade ink:
> "When the moon rises thrice over the withered tree, follow the flame-marked path. Blood remembers."
She looked up sharply.
> "What does it mean?"
Elder Shen's gaze was grim.
> "It means the past isn't finished with us. And your brother... he may yet shape what comes."
At the Village Edge, that same night, the foreign emissary—who called himself Lu Heng of the Iron Wind Sect—stood on a hill overlooking the village. His jade pendant pulsed faintly, and a voice whispered through it:
> "Still no sign of the tomb's inheritor. Continue to watch the girl. She may lead us to him."
Lu Heng smiled thinly.
> "Of course. And when she does... we'll claim what the Nine Heavens Moon Sect left behind."
With the cryptic message burned into her thoughts, Li Xioran waited until the courtyard was quiet. Cloaking herself in a concealing talisman—one of the few treasures her mother gifted her—she slipped into the inner halls.
The vault she sought was an old one, previously restricted to only a few trusted elders: a secondary archive of the Li Clan's ancestral records and maps. Recently, it had been sealed shut with newly applied formation runes. Too new.
She knelt beside the sigil, studying it. A trace of foreign qi lingered—not Li Clan technique. Her brow furrowed.
> "This formation... it bears the mark of the Iron Wind Sect."
A faint glow flared as she inserted her clan token into the secondary lock. The seal cracked and melted away with a hiss of mist, and she slipped inside.
Dust danced in the pale moonlight filtering through the ceiling vents. Shelves of scrolls and jade slips lined the chamber, but many had been removed. Large empty gaps told the story clearly—someone had come for something specific.
In the corner, she found a pile of scorched papers. Hidden among the remains was a fragment of a map—old, tattered, and charred at the edges. Yet a sigil caught her eye. A familiar crescent moon pattern drawn beside a strange character: 封 — seal.
> "This is... a burial map?" she whispered. "Did Elder Zhao find something linked to my brother?"
A faint sound startled her.
She turned swiftly—blade drawn—but the figure that emerged from the shadows was gaunt, hunched, and shivering. His beard was wild, robes torn and stained with dust.
> "E-Elder Zhao!" she gasped.
The old man looked at her, dazed.
> "You must... warn the clan... they seek the tomb. Not just your brother—but the inheritance... they want to control the entire sect's legacy."
> "Who? The Iron Wind Sect?"
Zhao gripped her arm, trembling.
> "Worse... they're not acting alone. There are traitors within the Li Clan itself."
Li Xioran helped Zhao to a secret chamber beneath the medicinal hall. As he rested, she locked the room and sealed it with her qi. Her heart thundered.
> "I can't trust the elders... not all of them."
She looked at the jade charm on her wrist. Its faint warmth pulsed stronger than before, as if in answer.
> "Brother… I don't know where you are, but I'll protect what you left behind."
Outside, dawn's light began to creep across the horizon, casting long shadows over a village on the verge of upheaval.
You many ask yourself how is the Li clan tied or related to the Nine heavens moon sect. Well, centuries ago, during the fall of the Nine Heavens Moon Sect, several of its surviving disciples scattered across the continent. One of them—a formation master named Yue Zhen—fled wounded and sought shelter with a rising family of cultivators in the eastern frontier.
That family… became the Li Clan.
To repay their aid, Yue Zhen left behind fragments of his knowledge: partial formation texts, moon-elemental cultivation principles, and most importantly, a sealed map etched in spiritual jade—a key to one of the Moon Sect's hidden tombs. Not even the Li Clan elders at the time fully understood what they possessed.
The artifact was passed down, mostly forgotten, catalogued under "Ancient Ruins: Unknown Affiliation." It wasn't until recent decades, when Elder Zhao began reviewing old clan vaults and noticing matching symbols in both Li and Moon Sect relics, that the connection resurfaced.
Elder Zhao suspected the Li Clan might be distant inheritors of Moon Sect remnants. But before he could act, outsiders came sniffing—sect emissaries who did understand the value of that map, and knew exactly what tomb it pointed to.
Later that night, with Elder Zhao resting behind a protective formation, Li Xioran sat beside him, her expression firm.
> "Elder Zhao... you said the map is tied to my brother. And to the Nine Heavens Moon Sect. Why is something that powerful hidden in our clan's vaults?"
Zhao coughed, his voice hoarse but steady.
> "Because your clan was once a sanctuary."
He looked into the dim lantern light, eyes clouded by memory.
>Yue Zhen, he found refuge among the ancestors of the Li Clan."
> "So it's true… we have Moon Sect blood?" Li Xioran whispered.
Zhao nodded.
> "Not direct, perhaps—but we were entrusted with a legacy. Yue Zhen left behind techniques, formation principles... and a map sealed in jade. Most didn't know what it was. Over time, the truth faded. It was filed away under 'miscellaneous relics.' Forgotten—until I matched the Moon Sect's sigils in the ruins with the ones on the map."
He leaned forward.
> "Your brother... the aura around him before he was cast out—it changed. After his dantian broke, I believe something inside him awakened. That inheritance may have chosen him."
Li Xioran clutched the jade charm at her wrist.
> "Then the emissary… Lu Heng... he's after it."
> "Not just him," Zhao said grimly. "There are those in our clan who know what Yue Zhen left. They want power, and they don't care what they desecrate to get it."
Li Xioran stood slowly, eyes blazing.
> "Then I won't let them have it. My brother's still alive—I feel it. And I'll protect what he's earned."
Elder Zhao smiled faintly.
> "Your parents will be proud. You carry more of the Moon Sect's spirit than you know."
Weeks after Li Xuan's exile, Elder Zhao had gone to the spot where the boy had been cast out, supposedly to confirm the finality of his fate. Yet something lingered in that place—a faint echo of moon-aligned qi. It pulsed gently in the air, as though the ground had been marked by a spirit stronger than before. This was not the signature of a crippled youth; it was the aura of awakening.
Days later, the ancient spiritual jade map stored in the clan's inner vaults—untouched and inert for over two hundred years—began to glow. Not brightly, but with a gentle silver shimmer, as though stirred by a distant resonance. Elder Zhao recognized the symbols: they were of the Nine Heavens Moon Sect, the very sect whose techniques Li Xuan had unknowingly begun to mirror.
Then came the reports.
Sect scouts sent to investigate ruins in the deeper forest spoke of sudden, anomalous qi surges—brief flares of pressure, like a cultivator breaking through, then disappearing again. Some said they felt moonlight-like spiritual force brushing the treetops. Others, terrified, refused to return. The rumors were dismissed by most, but Elder Zhao paid attention.
Finally, there was the phoenix.
A traveling spirit beast tamer had passed through the outer villages and told tales of glimpsing a Starling Phoenix flying low through the forests, seemingly bonded to an unseen master. Only a handful of cultivators in the continent's history had ever tamed one—and none from a mere village like theirs. It could only mean one thing.
A theory began to form in elder zhao. Unbelievable one.
Li Xuan was not dead.
If the qi signature, the jade map, and the phoenix were connected... then Li Xuan had awakened something far greater than anyone had imagined. Elder Zhao now believed it had all been triggered the moment his dantian was shattered. That pain, that betrayal—it had awakened a dormant trait long theorized but never proven: the Moonroot Constitution.
Only one with that body, reborn through suffering and spiritual rebirth, could activate the Nine Heavens Moon Sect's inheritance.
And he had done it.
In the days that followed, Li Xioran trained harder than ever. She now spent her nights in quiet meditation before a small shrine hidden behind the training yard—an altar she had built for her brother. At times, while she meditated, her jade charm would pulse faintly with warmth. She didn't understand it, but deep within, she knew. Her brother was alive.
And he was growing stronger.
The jade map's activation had not gone unnoticed. The emissary from the Iron Wind Sect, Lu Heng, had begun to show increasing interest in the clan's forgotten relics. Though he played the role of a patient guest, he had begun pressuring the elders for access to the vaults.
Elder Zhao knew this was no coincidence. Lu Heng and others like him had long hunted remnants of the Moon Sect. If Li Xuan had truly inherited the sect's legacy, then Lu Heng would stop at nothing to claim it—or eliminate him.
But Zhao wasn't alone in his fears. Whispers among the lower elders hinted that certain clansmen had already allied with external sects, hoping to barter pieces of the inheritance for power.
Somewhere in the forest, Li Xuan was busy training his disciple.
And in the village, the storm clouds of ambition and betrayal were already forming.
Outside, a chill wind stirred through the village, rustling banners and ancient trees. Unseen forces were moving again—both from within and beyond.
---