The sun bled across the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and bruised purple. A small crowd had gathered in the dusty clearing at the center of the village. It was a motley crew: a handful of hopeful young villagers, their faces a mixture of desperation and bravado, and a perimeter of curious onlookers. Presiding over the scene were two of the Jade Sword Sect disciples, their jade-colored armor glowing faintly in the twilight. They stood with their arms crossed, radiating an aura of bored superiority. This was a chore to them, a necessary annoyance before they could leave this backwater speck of a village behind.
The test was simple, brutal, and designed to weed out the weak. In the center of the clearing sat a single, massive crate. It was bound with iron straps and filled with raw, unprocessed iron ore destined for the sect's forges. Its purpose was not transport, but assessment.
"The rules are simple," one of the disciples announced, his voice sharp and dismissive. "Lift the crate to your chest. Carry it ten paces to that post and back. Anyone who can do it is hired. The rest of you can go back to tilling your fields."
One by one, the young men from the village tried. The first, a broad-shouldered youth who was the village's best wrestler, managed to rock the crate an inch off the ground before his face turned purple and he collapsed, gasping. The others fared no better. They strained, they grunted, their muscles trembling, but the crate remained stubbornly fixed to the earth. It was a test designed not just for strength, but for a cultivator's strength, even if only a nascent one. The disciples smirked, their contempt for the mortals clear.
Then, a shadow fell over the gathering.
Lian stepped forward. His movements were slow, his shoulders slumped in that practiced, simple-minded posture. He seemed to stumble into the clearing as if by accident, his vacant green eyes blinking in the firelight.
"What's this, now?" the disciple sneered. "The village beast wants to play?"
Lian ignored him. He looked at the crate, then at the post, then back at the crate. His face was a mask of dull confusion, as if trying to solve a complex puzzle with only two pieces. He was playing his part to perfection.
He knelt beside the crate. This was the most delicate part of his performance. He could have lifted this crate, and the wagon it came from, with a single finger. But that was not the goal. The goal was to show just enough strength to be exceptional, but not enough to be impossible. He needed to be a beast, not a demon.
He wrapped his powerful hands around the rough wooden edges. He let out a low, guttural grunt, a sound of pure animal effort. He channeled a minuscule fraction of his Qi, not the chaotic storm, but the deep, grounding power of the mountain, into his arms. He let the muscles in his back and shoulders bunch up, making the strain look real.
With a great, theatrical heave, the crate lifted from the ground.
A collective gasp went through the crowd. The smirks vanished from the faces of the sect disciples, replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise.
Lian's performance was a masterpiece of control. He let his legs tremble slightly. His breath came in ragged pants. He made it look hard. He made it look like the absolute limit of his physical power. He took ten slow, torturous steps to the post, his feet sinking into the dirt under the immense weight. He grunted, turned, and carried it back, dropping it with a heavy THUD that shook the ground and sent up a cloud of dust.
He stood there, panting, sweat he had consciously willed to his brow dripping down his face. He looked at the disciples with his wide, simple eyes, as if seeking approval, like a dog that had successfully fetched a stick.
For a moment, there was silence. The villagers stared in awe. Elder Maeve, watching from the doorway of her hut, allowed a tiny, almost imperceptible smile to touch her lips.
"Well," the lead disciple said, recovering his composure. "It seems we've found our mule." He looked Lian up and down, no longer with contempt, but with the appraising eye of a man who had just found a very strong, if very stupid, tool. "You're hired, wild man. Be at the caravan gates at dawn. And don't be late."
Lian gave a slow, happy-looking nod. The mask was perfect.
Later that night, he slipped away to the Sacred Grove for the last time. He stood before the Spirit Spring, feeling its pure, calming energy. He would miss this place. It had been his first true sanctuary.
"They will not be like the people of the village," a voice said from the shadows. Elder Maeve emerged, her silhouette frail against the moonlight.
"I know," Lian rasped.
"They are killers, Lian," she warned, her voice serious. "They follow a code, but it is a code written in blood. They will see you as less than nothing. A tool to be used and discarded. Do not mistake their discipline for mercy."
"I know," he repeated. His own code was far simpler, and far more ruthless.
"The world you are entering," she said, taking a step closer, "is larger and more treacherous than you can imagine. This caravan is a river that will carry you into a great, stormy sea. Be careful you do not drown."
Lian turned to face her. In the dim, magical light of the grove, he saw the deep, genuine worry in her ancient eyes. She was not just a resource or a negotiating partner. In her own strange, cautious way, she had become the closest thing to a guide he had ever had. For the first time, he felt an emotion that was not hatred, not ambition, not even the cold satisfaction of conquest. It was a flicker of something else, something uncomfortable and unnamed.
He reached into the simple leather pouch at his waist. He still had a few of the original Chaos Fruits, the ones from the Heartwood. He took one out. It pulsed with a gentle, green light in his palm. He held it out to her.
It was an offering. A payment. A farewell.
Maeve looked at the fruit, then back at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and understanding. "This..." she whispered. "This is a power I am too old to wield."
"For the grove," Lian grunted. "Keep it safe."
He did not wait for her reply. He turned and walked away, leaving the glowing fruit and the stunned old woman behind. He did not look back.
The next morning, as the first rays of dawn painted the sky, Lian stood at the caravan gates, a simple sack slung over his shoulder. He was no longer a beast of the forest, or a simple giant of the village.
He was a tiger, wearing the fleece of a sheep, about to join the wolves.