The room smelled of ash, metal, and something older—like time itself had been burned into the walls.
Jayden sat cross-legged before a black iron cauldron etched with phoenix wings and dragon talons. The scroll given to him by the Flame Widow lay open in front of him, its ink shifting faintly as if alive. Around him, dozens of medicinal herbs, dried spirit roots, beast cores, and powdered minerals were carefully arranged by tier and type.
Lian stood at the doorway, arms crossed. "Are you sure about this?"
Jayden didn't look up. "No."
She stepped inside. "This isn't like forging a 2nd or 3rd-grade pill. This is a god-tier formula. A lost one. People died trying to recreate it. This could kill you."
Jayden touched the diagram on the scroll — the image of a radiant pill suspended between phoenix fire and dragon breath. It was called Heaven's Rebirth Pill, and according to the notes, it could supercharge cultivation by cleansing every impurity in the body and forcibly expanding the soul sea.
Even Shen hadn't spoken of such a pill.
"It's not just about growing stronger," Jayden said softly. "This pill was last used by the ancient sects… before they fell. My father's name is in the same records. If I can refine it… maybe I can unlock more of the past."
"Or burn your soul to ash trying," Lian muttered.
Jayden smiled. "Good thing I like fire."
He spent hours preparing the ingredients. Crushing, grinding, soaking. Channeling chi into each step until the materials shimmered with potential.
At dusk, he lit the Phoenix Flame.
The cauldron roared to life.
A wave of heat swept through the chamber. Unlike any fire he had summoned before, this one sang — not in sound, but in feeling. It moved with purpose. With rhythm. It knew what it was. It knew what it wanted to become.
Jayden exhaled, calming his heart. He began the refining.
First came the common base—Frostcloud Root and Duskflower Petals, meant to stabilize the internal temperature of the pill's core. As they simmered, he fed in the powdered beast core of a Wind Serpent and the essence of Lunar Marrow Vine.
Immediately, the flame pulsed violently.
The cauldron hissed. The contents surged and began to bubble over.
Jayden's mind raced.
"It's reacting too fast—too volatile. Need to cool it. Counterbalance…"
He closed his eyes and focused, recalling the secondary sequence on the scroll.
With a precise breath, he added Driftleaf sap — a rare herb that slows chi diffusion. The reaction eased, and the mixture began to swirl into a glowing orb of liquid energy.
He was close.
Just one final ingredient.
The scroll called it Starblood Resin — forbidden, nearly extinct. He didn't have it. But he had something else.
A single drop of his own blood — chi-rich, awakened, and bound by legacy.
He cut his finger and let a drop fall into the mixture.
The flame shrieked.
The cauldron exploded with light.
Jayden was thrown back across the room. Smoke poured out from the vessel. The walls cracked from the pressure. The air rippled with spiritual pressure so dense it could crush a normal human flat.
Lian burst through the door, blade drawn. "Jayden!"
But he was already standing.
Breathing heavily.
Holding a glowing pill the color of dawn lightning and deep ocean.
It pulsed with so much power it made the air hum.
Jayden blinked. "I… did it."
Lian looked stunned. "That… shouldn't exist."
Jayden smiled faintly. "Yeah. That's what makes it special."
Later that night, as the city quieted and stars poked through the polluted sky, Jayden sat alone under the old rusted bridge, staring at the pill in his hand.
He could feel it calling to him. Not just to consume it—but to understand it.
This wasn't just a tool for strength. It was history. It was legacy. It was a key to something deeper.
And yet… something about it felt incomplete.
He pulled out the scroll again and examined the last passage.
"When the Heir forges the impossible, the heavens shall tremble—but the locks shall not open without sacrifice. What was sealed must be paid for in blood."
He frowned. "Locks?"
Suddenly, a gust of cold wind rushed past him.
And a voice—quiet, raspy, and inhuman—whispered just behind his ear:
"You've woken something."
Jayden spun around.
No one.
Just the night.
Just the shadows.
The next morning, Shen returned from his journey.
Jayden greeted him at the temple gates, scroll and pill in hand.
Shen raised an eyebrow. "You forged the Heaven's Rebirth Pill?"
Jayden nodded. "Using the Phoenix Flame."
Shen didn't speak for a moment. Then he walked forward and placed a hand on Jayden's shoulder.
"You're growing faster than I expected," he said. "Too fast."
Jayden tensed. "You're not proud?"
"I am," Shen replied. "But speed has a price. You've taken a step the martial world hasn't taken in centuries. That pill… it wasn't just forgotten. It was sealed away. Hidden for a reason."
Jayden's pulse quickened. "Why?"
"Because it opens gates," Shen said. "Not just to power. But to memory. The kind that can shatter minds. Drive men mad. Twist their cultivation into something unholy."
Jayden stared at the pill. "Then I won't take it. Not until I'm ready."
Shen smiled.
"Wise."
Then his expression turned serious.
"But the Crimson Fangs know you forged it."
Jayden froze. "How?"
"I don't know. But someone's watching us. And last night, three of our outer disciples were ambushed in the city. Left alive. But barely."
Lian stepped in from the corridor, bloodstains on her sleeve. "They carved a message into the courtyard wall."
She handed Jayden a piece of parchment with a rubbing of the inscription.
It read:
"Return the Pill or Bury the Father."
Jayden's hands trembled.
"Then it's true," he whispered. "They have him."
Shen's voice was cold. "It seems so."
Jayden looked up, eyes burning. "We strike back. Now."
Shen shook his head. "Not yet. We don't walk into a viper's nest just because it's hissing."
Jayden's fists clenched. "You'd wait?"
Shen met his gaze. "I'd prepare. Because when we move… it will not be to rescue. It will be to end them."
That night, Jayden didn't sleep.
He sat in the garden, surrounded by lantern light and whispering wind, the pill still in his hand.
He could feel it again.
The pull.
The voices.
The forgotten power buried inside his bloodline.
The phoenix fire. The dragon breath. The immortal path calling to him.
He looked up at the stars.
"If you're still alive, Dad… I'm coming."
And with a steady breath, Jayden slipped the Heaven's Rebirth Pill into a sealed box, locked it with a chi rune of his own design, and buried it beneath the temple altar.
Not yet.
But soon.