Power is pain.
That's a universal truth.
It's not poetic. It's not tragic.
It's just… administration.
You want to be strong?
You pay for it. In limbs, lineage, or love.
And if you can't?
You fake it.
Enter: the Ninefold Lie — a scandalous, heretical, highly profitable industry of "Fake Verse Initiation."
Sounds stupid?
It is.
And yet thousands of nobles, sect heirs, and righteous young masters with disturbingly pretty eyebrows have lined up for it.
Because nothing says "fear me" like branding a Verse rune on your spine with zero actual suffering.
The Process (aka: How to Become a Discount Cultivator in 3 Steps)
Step 1:
Pay an alchemist from the back alleys of the Ironbone District 3 obsidian talons and a bit of your cousin's blood (don't ask).
Step 2:
Inhale a potion made from powdered furnace ash, dyed orange so it looks more "legendary."
Bonus points if it makes your nose bleed mid-scream.
Step 3:
Stand in a fire-lit hall, yell "I feel the flame within me,"
and hope no one in the crowd has actually been in a real Ash Trial.
Boom.
You're now a "Flameborne Adept of the First Verse."
Now go sell that title to a sect or marry into a dynasty. You earned it, fraud king.
Does it work?
If you define "work" as:
Fooling untrained idiots? Hell yeah
Impressing outer sect elders? Hell yeah
Surviving a real Verse confrontation? Fuck nah
Surviving Ishkaros once he finds out you faked it? You are cooked you lil shit
So yes.
Temporarily.
Like duct tape on a collapsing sun.
The Empire That Tried to Institutionalize the Scam:
Say hello to the Crimson Vow Dynasty.
Beautiful armor. Big flags. Terrible decisions.
They once announced an entire "Public Ninefold Academy" — where kids from noble lineages could "study the Verses in safety."
Translation:
"Let's feed our kids a diet of colored smoke and fake suffering so they look powerful while crying less."
How did it go?
Oh, wonderfully.
Until a real Ash Initiate walked into their capital and smiled.
Not spoke. Not fought.
Just smiled.
Three of their high lords fainted on the spot.
One of their divine casters vomited up ink.
Literal ink.
The king renounced his throne.
The academy shut down in six hours.
No fire. No blood.
Just one real Verse survivor showing up with silence in his eyes.
So why does the lie still spread?
Simple.
The truth is terrifying.
No one wants to earn their power.
Not when you can rent the illusion of it with coin and cosmetics.
And maybe...
maybe they don't even care if it's fake anymore.
Maybe the Ninefold Lie is the world's last comfort:
"If everyone's pretending, maybe no one is truly dangerous."
...Right?
But here's the problem:
He's real.
Ishkaros.
The boy you already forgot about because we've been worldbuilding for two chapters while he sits alone in fire.
He didn't scream.
He didn't fake it.
He's not pretending.
And while all of this is happening—
while empires lie and sects deceive and nobles buy their strength—
he's still in there.
Still silent.
Still burning.
Still becoming something that will burn back.