The mountains had no mercy.
For days, Xuan walked alone beneath their jagged ridges, his cloak torn by brambles, his boots worn thin. The sun rose and set, cold winds cut his skin, and the only food he found were bitter roots or dried bark chewed until his jaw ached. He drank from streams, his reflection rippling back at him, hollow-eyed, unshaven, but unbroken.
The storms within him did not sleep.
Every step was marked by their restless murmur: poison gnawed at his veins, silence pressed at his skull, fire coiled in his marrow, and threads wound tighter in his blood. His chains clattered faintly inside, a constant warning. He had learned to keep them quiet beneath the woman's roof, but here, under bare sky, they rattled again, demanding blood.
He ignored them.
The world was vast, and he had no destination. But as long as he walked, he lived.
* * * * * * * * *
On the fourth night, something changed.
He crouched by a narrow river, scooping water into his palms. The liquid was cold, sharp against his throat, but when he lowered his head to drink again, he froze.
There was a scent on the air.
It was faint, almost hidden beneath the smell of moss and wet stone, but unmistakable: sharp, fragrant, burning at the edges of his senses. Not blood. Not rot. Something rarer.
He straightened, scanning the trees. The scent clung to the wind, drifting from upstream, and it struck him like a memory of spices long lost in kitchens of the past.
His storms stirred, restless, as if they too hungered for it.
Xuan followed.
* * * * * * * * *
The trail led him into a hidden hollow between ridges.
Moonlight poured into the grove like silver water, illuminating clusters of plants he had never seen before. Flowers bloomed with ember-colored stamens, glowing faintly as though fire lived inside them. Leaves shimmered with violet veins. Roots jutted from the soil like twisted black stone, slick with dew.
The air burned with fragrance, hot and bitter on the tongue even without tasting.
Xuan's eyes narrowed. He had seen sketches once, in half-forgotten sect scrolls. Spirit herbs. Plants that drank the Lein from soil and sky until they pulsed with power.
Rare. Dangerous.
To mortals they were poison. To cultivators, they were storms made flesh.
* * * * * * * * *
He knelt, hand hovering above the nearest flower. The petals pulsed faintly, as though breathing.
His chains quivered. The storms inside him rattled eagerly, tasting what he had not yet consumed.
Without hesitation, Xuan plucked the flower. It was warm in his palm, as though alive.
He brought it to his mouth and chewed.
* * * * * * * * *
Fire.
It erupted the instant it touched his tongue, searing down his throat, ripping through his chest. His veins lit up, glowing faint red beneath his skin as if molten iron replaced blood. He collapsed to one knee, gasping, bile rising.
The storms exploded.
Poison lashed, fire surged, silence screamed, threads coiled into strangling knots. His chains rattled violently, trying to hold the eruption, but the herb's power tore through him like a flood bursting a dam.
Blood spilled from his nose, hot against his lips. His vision blurred. His skull felt as though it would crack.
Hold.
He gritted his teeth, nails digging into his palms until blood ran. He did not crush the storm with brute force. He remembered the roof. The fireflies drifting in the night. The faint sound of humming. The warmth of plain rice gruel.
Balance.
He forced the storms into a circle, guiding them like wolves around a fire. They snapped, snarled, but slowly—reluctantly—they obeyed.
The fire of the herb was dragged inward, consumed, devoured.
Chains tightened, wrapping the raging essence, grinding it down until sparks fused into steel.
* * * * * * * * *
When it ended, Xuan collapsed forward, palms pressed into the dirt. Sweat drenched him, soaking his cloak. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth, staining the soil.
His chest heaved. Every breath was pain. But inside—inside, the storms were different.
Sharper. Heavier.
His chains no longer rattled loosely. They dripped with new weight, darker, thicker, as if each link had been tempered in flame.
He coughed once, spitting blood, then lifted his head to stare at the crushed petals still clinging to his fingers.
"So even storms can learn to taste," he whispered.
* * * * * * * * *
He staggered to his feet, swaying. His body screamed in protest, but his eyes swept the grove. Dozens of spirit herbs glowed in the moonlight, pulsing with untapped power.
A grim smile touched his lips.
This mountain had given him no roof. No garden. No fireflies.
But it had given him flavor.
And he would devour it all.
* * * * * * * * *
The grove became his world.
Xuan returned each night to the same hollow, the flowers glowing like scattered embers across the soil. He slept little, ate less, drank only from the stream that cut through the rocks. Each day, he plucked another herb, testing its power against his storms.
The first nearly broke him.
It was a leaf with veins like violet lightning. He chewed it slowly, but the essence was sharper than the flower—cold, bitter, sinking into his marrow like frost. His storms lashed at once, colliding violently.
His chains rattled, tightening desperately. Poison hissed. Fire burned low. The frost of the herb spread through his blood, threatening to freeze the links of his chains into brittle shards.
He forced them into motion, circling, grinding, binding frost into fire, silence into poison. Hours passed before he could swallow the taste.
When it was over, he collapsed in the dirt, trembling, breath clouding in the night air. His lips were blue, his fingers stiff.
But when he stood, his chains moved slower, heavier. He lashed one outward, testing it against a boulder, and saw frost spread along the stone, cracking it with brittle ease.
A new flavor.
* * * * * * * * *
The days blurred.
Each herb carried its own trial.
A root with black skin filled him with burning acid—he vomited blood until his throat tore, chains rattling wildly, but endured until the poison folded into his veins. When he struck afterward, the chains dripped with venomous mist.
A flower with golden petals nearly stopped his heart—its essence was too pure, too clean, and his corrupted storms rebelled. He felt himself dying, vision narrowing, body convulsing. But in the final moment, he forced the storm to swallow it. When he rose again, his chains gleamed faintly with golden cracks, flickering like lightning before vanishing.
Some herbs were worthless. Their flavor dissolved into warmth that did not bind to his blood. Others nearly killed him.
But each success layered weight upon his storms.
* * * * * * * * *
On the sixth night, he pushed too far.
He consumed a cluster of crimson buds at once, their fragrance sharp as fire and rain together. The power tore through him savagely, his chest splitting with pain, chains rattling louder than thunder.
He fell to his knees, coughing blood. His storms surged beyond control—threads choking, fire devouring marrow, silence pressing against his skull.
He thought it would end there, alone in the dirt, storms ripping him apart from within.
But he remembered the roof. The fireflies. The faint hum by the river.
He forced the storms into a circle again, grinding them against each other, binding chaos into order by sheer will. His body screamed, blood spilling freely from his mouth and nose, but he did not break.
At last, the storms quieted.
When he rose, staggering, the grove around him was torn by his outburst—trees split, rocks shattered, soil scorched.
He raised one hand. Chains burst forth, coiling, and when they struck a boulder it shattered into fragments, flame searing across the cracks.
The flavor of fire had fused into his strikes.
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan sat heavily, chest heaving. His body was broken, but his eyes burned.
He had no teacher. No sect manuals. No roof to guide him.
But the world itself gave flavor, and storms would consume it all.
* * * * * * * * *
On the tenth day, he stood at the grove's edge.
The herbs behind him glowed faintly, many stripped bare, others still untouched. His body bore scars of blood and sweat, his veins aching from too much essence.
But his chains rattled with new weight. When he lashed them, they carried venom, frost, fire. When they coiled, they dragged storms slower, heavier.
He had forged new techniques—not by learning, but by tasting.
He gazed once more at the grove, then turned away.
The mountains stretched before him, endless, merciless. Somewhere beyond, sects moved banners, sharpened swords, whispered his name in fear.
His storms stirred, hungrier than before.
Xuan's lips curved faintly, not into a smile, but into a quiet acceptance.
"So the world offers spices to storms," he murmured.
He walked on.
The grove was behind him. The hunt was ahead.