The officiator's voice rang out, amplified by qi. "Begin!"
A gong boomed through the arena, and the air between them shifted—thickening, tightening—as two very different auras unfurled.
Shentu Liang's qi flared first, a controlled surge of heat and herbal fragrance that rolled outward like the opening breath of a grand furnace. Behind him, his assistants rushed forward, placing a jade alchemy furnace on the platform, its lid already steaming with residual heat. His movements were crisp, deliberate, every gesture declaring mastery.
Haotian… didn't move.
For a heartbeat, the crowd murmured. Then he walked forward in the same unhurried pace he'd entered with, eyes skimming the pill furnace before him as if appraising a rock in the road. He set down his own modest cauldron—small, blackened from countless hours of use, one leg slightly bent from some forgotten mishap. It looked almost pitiful next to Shentu Liang's pristine jade artifact.
A ripple of laughter rolled through the stands.
Shentu Liang smirked, already laying out his herbs in a flawless arc, each piece glowing faintly with the ripeness of peak-grade spirit plants. His qi threads wrapped around them, binding their essence with practiced precision.
Haotian's hands moved differently. He didn't lay his herbs in order—he tossed them into his palm, weighed them by feel, and without ceremony, dropped them into the cauldron one by one. The casualness was almost insulting in the face of the ritualistic grace Shentu Liang displayed.
Then the flames began.
Shentu Liang's fire burst forth in a ribbon of gold, perfectly controlled, wrapping the base of his jade furnace in even waves. The scent of rare lotus root and starleaf filled the air, drawing appreciative hums from the audience.
Haotian's fire was… strange. It started as a thin blue spark, barely visible, before it sank into the cauldron like a ghost slipping into water. No flare, no show—just an eerie stillness, as though the flame didn't burn but seeped, drawing the essence out of the herbs without heat.
Up in the Ancestors' box, Yuying leaned forward slightly, her lips curling."…He's not even using pure fire essence," she murmured. Meiyun's eyes narrowed. "No. He's blending it… something between frostflame and true spirit fire. Dangerous if he miscalculates."
Down below, Shentu Liang's smirk deepened. "Let's see how long you can keep that little trick from imploding, boy."
The duel had begun in earnest—and already, the crowd could feel that something unusual was brewing in Haotian's cauldron.
Shentu Liang's rhythm was flawless—until Haotian's cauldron gave a low, resonant thrum that didn't sound like fire at all.
The audience stilled. That vibration wasn't heat expansion or qi backlash—it was harmonic resonance, as though the herbs themselves were humming. The surface of Haotian's cauldron shimmered with faint ripples of frost one moment, only to melt into liquid flame the next.
Shentu Liang's brow furrowed. He adjusted his own fire, subtly tightening his qi control to maintain focus, but the sound persisted. Then came the smell—sweet, cooling, with an undertone of storm ozone.
"…He's not refining a single-element pill," one sect elder muttered from the stands, his eyes narrowing. "He's… layering opposing elements inside the same cauldron?"
"That's impossible without a stabilizing array," another scoffed. "It would implode."
Yet Haotian's cauldron remained perfectly steady. In fact, the herbs inside began releasing their essence faster than Shentu Liang's, the vapors intertwining into shifting bands of color—ice-blue, gold, shadow-black—dancing like a slow aurora.
Shentu Liang felt his own flame flicker. A bead of sweat broke across his brow.He's… pulling qi from the ambient environment without a formation base? How—
The crowd started murmuring, sensing the shift. Haotian still hadn't changed expression. He was just… there, one hand resting lightly on the cauldron lid, his other idly adjusting the heat with barely visible finger movements. His qi flow was so minimal that even seasoned alchemists had trouble tracking it.
Shentu Liang tried to surge his fire to regain dominance—only for a sudden, crisp crack to sound from inside his furnace. His eyes widened. One of his mid-grade herbs had fractured early, essence leaking out before it could fuse with the base compound.
Up in the Ancestors' viewing box, Meiyun hid a smirk behind her fan."…He's deliberately shifting the arena's qi balance, isn't he?"Yuying's eyes glinted. "Mhm. He's making Shentu Liang's flame too honest—too stable. Perfect stability kills flexibility."
Down in the ring, Haotian's "modest" cauldron gave another deep, whale-song-like vibration, and Shentu Liang's hand actually twitched.
The duel was only halfway through, and already the pressure had flipped.
The scent hit first.
Not the expected sharp tang of refined fire pills or the herbal sweetness of vitality blends—this was something deeper, layered. A cool breeze seemed to slip across the arena floor, carrying with it the scent of early spring rain, crisp mountain frost, and the faintest trace of sun-warmed blossoms. It wasn't just aroma—it was presence.
Haotian's cauldron let out a sound like a bell being struck underwater—low, resonant, and oddly soothing. A pale, prismatic mist rose from the lid, shimmering between gold, silver, and black, curling in patterns that made the eye follow them involuntarily.
The crowd stilled, murmurs dying mid-breath.
Shentu Liang's own qi wavered for the first time. He couldn't smell his own concoction anymore—the arena's airflow had been stolen by Haotian's brew. Worse, he could feel something within the mist. It wasn't just refined essence—it was elemental resonance, the kind that harmonized with a cultivator's core.
A young disciple in the front row clutched his chest. "I… I can feel my meridians loosening just breathing it in."An elder's voice shook. "That's not a pill—it's a cultivation catalyst. He's suspending the refinement at a state between liquid and solid essence…"
Up in the Ancestors' box, Meiyun's fan paused mid-wave."…He's fusing the elemental attributes before condensation."Yuying's lips curved in disbelief. "That's not something you do in a duel. That's something you attempt once in a lifetime… if you don't mind dying."
Shentu Liang's fingers tightened on his cauldron lid. His flames guttered—just for an instant, but enough to send a ripple through his concoction. The crowd's focus was no longer on him. They were leaning forward, eyes locked on the soft, dreamlike light spilling from Haotian's side of the ring.
And then—
PING!
The sound was sharp, crystalline, as Haotian lifted the lid. Inside, the liquid essence didn't boil or surge—it floated. Tiny spheres of multi-colored light orbited each other in slow, perfect harmony, each pulsing with elemental qi.
The arena erupted into chaos. Sect leaders stood from their seats. Alchemists shouted over each other. Even the most jaded elders leaned forward like children at story hour.
Shentu Liang's stomach dropped. For the first time in the match, he understood—this wasn't about victory anymore. This was about survival of reputation. And his… was slipping through his fingers.
The moment Shentu Liang realized the crowd had turned, his qi flared hard—too hard. The emerald fire roaring beneath his cauldron surged into an uncontrolled blaze, licking the bronze with angry sparks. His hands flew through seals, layering force upon force, desperate to condense his pill ahead of Haotian.
"Condense—now!" he snarled under his breath, sweat breaking across his brow. The cauldron's lid rattled violently, threatening to blow, but he pressed harder, forcing the reaction toward completion.
From Haotian's side came no rush, no panic—only the quiet, steady hum of a controlled formation. The floating orbs of elemental light in his cauldron began to contract, their colors deepening, their pulse quickening in perfect synchronization. His flame didn't roar; it whispered, precise and unwavering.
The crowd shifted, sensing the difference.
Shentu Liang gritted his teeth, pushing his qi into a brutal sealing technique—an ugly, brute-force method meant to bind the pill's essence in an instant. His cauldron gave a crack, a fine fracture running down its side from the strain.
And then it happened.
Haotian's cauldron released a single, sharp chime, like a drop of water striking crystal. The mist above it collapsed inward, swallowing the light, before bursting upward in a silent bloom of seven colors. When it cleared, a single pill floated in the air—spinning slowly, each rotation releasing a wave of pure elemental resonance that brushed over every cultivator's core like the touch of a master's hand.
Shentu Liang's cauldron burst open with a deafening BANG!—a spray of ash and warped fragments revealing nothing but a lump of scorched residue inside. Gasps rippled through the arena.
The referee didn't even need to speak. The contrast was absolute.
Haotian didn't celebrate. He simply extended his hand, and the pill drifted into his palm as if it belonged there from the start. His expression was calm, almost absent-minded—like a man who had been interrupted from his real work and was already thinking about going back.
Shentu Liang stood frozen, face pale, the whispers of the crowd cutting sharper than any blade. His overreach had cost him everything, and Haotian… hadn't even broken a sweat.
The arena hadn't even settled before the wave hit.
A roar went up—not the polite applause of a sect gathering, but the chaotic, uncontrolled surge of voices from cultivators, merchants, and rogue alchemists all shouting over each other. Some were cheering Haotian's name, others demanding to know who he was, and more than a few scrambling to get closer to him before anyone else claimed his attention.
The moment the referee declared him the victor, a crush of people surged toward his platform.
"Senior, may I—!""Little brother, which sect do you—?!""Name your price for a month's tutelage!"
Haotian froze, expression still halfway in "I want to go home and work" mode, and instinctively stepped back. But that only made the crowd lean in harder. Someone almost tripped over the shattered remains of Shentu Liang's cauldron just to press a calling token into his hand.
From the corner of the stands, the Ancestors were already exchanging looks. Meiyun's lips twitched. "Like moths to a flame…" she murmured.
Yuying's eyes narrowed. "This flame will attract more than moths. Watch the vultures."
They were right. In the higher stands, sect leaders and city officials were locked in low, urgent conversation. Shentu Liang's faction sat in stunned silence, the loss already twisting into anger. Even before he staggered from the arena, messengers were racing toward the city to spin the story their way—blaming "unorthodox methods" and "dishonorable displays."
By nightfall, the streets were buzzing. Taverns and tea houses replayed the duel in vivid, exaggerated detail. Merchants speculated whether Haotian would open his own pill hall. Rival alchemists debated how to dismantle his reputation before it cemented.
Inside the Zhenlong estate, the Ancestors gathered behind closed doors. Wuhen leaned on the table, voice hard. "They'll try to drag his name through the mud before the week ends."
Meiyun considered this with a slow nod. "And the boy will ignore all of it if left alone. He'll go right back to his herbs."
"So," Yuying said, "do we shield him—or let the wolves come and see what happens when they bite something sharper than their teeth?"
No decision was reached that night, but the currents were already shifting. Shentu Liang's loss wasn't just a duel's end—it was a stone thrown into a still pond, and the ripples were racing outward through every hall, sect, and market in the city.
And in the middle of it all, Haotian sat cross-legged in his chamber, turning over an unfinished theory about wind and lightning resonance, blissfully unaware that his quiet life had just been set on fire.
By dawn, the city was a hive of motion. Couriers in sect colors galloped through the streets, scrolls clutched tight; envoys in silks and armor alike arrived at the Zhenlong estate, requesting audience "at the earliest possible hour." Every faction that had witnessed—or heard of—the duel wanted their claim on Haotian before his name solidified in the public mind.
Some came with offers of alliance, veiled in flattery. Others brought invitations wrapped in politeness but heavy with political chains. And behind it all, Shentu Liang's faction began to move with a colder purpose—spreading rumors, arranging meetings with influential city elders, and framing Haotian's victory as nothing more than luck and trickery.
The Ancestors could feel the currents tightening. But when they looked for Haotian, they found him exactly where they expected: shut away, as if none of it mattered.
That night, the estate was quiet. The political mess still churned in the city beyond the walls, but Haotian sat cross-legged in his private courtyard, deep within the Heaven-Sundered Trinity Scripture. His breathing slowed, each inhale drawing in more than air—it pulled something deeper, denser, into his core.
Then—
Thump.
A pulse.
It came from within, deep and resonant, like a drum struck in the marrow of his bones.
The next breath drew another. Stronger.
Thump.Thump.
With each cycle, the pulse grew until the very herbs around him trembled in their pots. Leaves quivered, petals swayed, and the soil itself vibrated.
Far across the estate, every Ancestor's eyes snapped open in unison, their meditation shattered by the sudden wave of force. Without a word, they rose and rushed toward his courtyard.
When they arrived, they saw the air itself warping around Haotian's form. Light bent and shimmered, and the faint outline of his three cultivation cores pulsed through his frame.
"Is he… making a breakthrough?" Wuhen's voice was low, almost disbelieving.
But then the sky answered for him.
Above the estate, clouds began to spiral.
Not the gentle roll of rainclouds—these were dense, roiling masses, twisting into a vortex so quickly that the temperature dropped in seconds.
Meiyun's expression turned sharp. "That's not… ordinary."
A sound like the cracking of a world split the night.
KRRAAACK!
Lightning flared across the sky, jagged and hungry.
Yuying's face drained of color. "Lightning tribulation?! Here? At his stage?!"
The air pressed down hard, a weight that clawed at their very bones. The Ancestors looked at each other—none of them had been prepared for this.
"Prepare the barriers!" Jinhai barked, voice cutting through the rising wind. "If this is what I think it is, the heavens won't show mercy!"
Because this was no ordinary advancement.
The storm gathering above was the kind that erased names from history—or carved them there forever.
The heavens did not wait.
BOOOOOM!
The first bolt ripped through the night like a spear of molten silver, striking Haotian dead-center. The impact shattered the air, sending a concussive wave tearing across the courtyard. The shock ripped tiles from the rooftops, splintered the wood of the cultivation chamber—and then blew the roof clean away.
But in the smoking crater at its heart, Haotian sat exactly as before.
Legs folded. Back straight. Eyes closed.
The arcs of lightning still clinging to him hissed and spat across his skin, but he did not so much as twitch. If anything, his breathing deepened, the rhythm steady—calm in a storm designed to kill.
The sky rumbled again. This time, three bolts descended together, each thicker than a tree trunk. They tore through the clouds with a sound like worlds splitting apart, striking his form with blinding flashes. Stone cracked, the ground caved, and a ring of scorched earth expanded outward.
Yet when the glare faded, he was still there. Unmoving. Unharmed.
Above, the vortex deepened, lightning writhing like dragons in the dark. The heavens seemed to realize that subtlety was wasted here.
The third wave came down in a chain—strike after strike slamming the estate in rapid succession, turning the entire cultivation grounds into a storm-lit inferno.
By now, every soul in the estate was awake. Servants, guards, elders—they stumbled from their quarters to see the impossible: their young scion enduring heaven's wrath as if it were a passing summer rain.
The Ancestors stood at the edge of the courtyard, faces half-lit by the relentless flashes. Even they dared not step closer.
Beyond the estate walls, the city was stirring. Windows lit in the distance. Shouts and horns echoed in the streets as word began to spread:
"Something is happening in the Zhenlong estate!"
Messengers ran barefoot through the night. Innkeepers woke their patrons. Disciples on night watch abandoned their posts to climb higher for a better view.
By the time the fifth wave began to fall, the city of lanterns was awake and watching…
And the heavens had only just begun.
The heavens roared without pause.
Strike after strike fell—each heavier, sharper, faster than the last. What began as blinding white arcs soon swelled in ferocity, every bolt clawing deeper into the marrow of the world.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty. The courtyard was a crater now, rimmed in molten stone and shattered tile. Still, Haotian sat unmoved, as if each thunderous blow were nothing more than the tap of a raindrop.
By the fortieth strike, the clouds had blackened into a writhing abyss, flashes inside them revealing titanic lightning serpents tearing at the seams of the sky.
Fifty. The air grew thin, the heat oppressive.
At the sixtieth, the light shifted—white became crimson. The next bolt fell like a river of blood from the heavens, scorching the earth in a hiss of burning qi.
Seventieth. The crimson deepened into a sickly black lightning, the kind that split the very air with unnatural silence before detonating with a scream that rattled bone.
Eightieth. A rich, violent purple lightning replaced it, carrying the scent of burning ozone and raw divinity. The estate walls glowed in its light.
Ninetieth. The world seemed to stop breathing as the lightning turned gold—pure, unyielding, transcendent. The clouds rolled in unnatural slow motion, pulling their power inward. This was no longer punishment. This was judgment.
Haotian opened his eyes. The Eyes of the Universe flared, galaxies turning in his gaze. He stood in one smooth motion, rolling his shoulders, his stance widening as he half-crouched.
Above, the golden lightning was gathering—spiraling tighter, compressing into a single spear of annihilation.
Haotian bent his knees. Then—
BOOM!
He launched skyward like a meteor, tearing through the air in a column of wind and debris. His right fist pulled back, every muscle in his body coiling, the lightning dancing along his arm as if it knew what was coming.
The heavens screamed. The golden bolt fell.
They met in the air.
The punch landed.
KA—THRAAAAM!!
A light so pure it turned the night to day engulfed the entire city. For a heartbeat, the world was nothing but white. Then—
WHOOOOOM!!
The shockwave erupted, splitting the air in a deafening crack. Lightning spiderwebbed out from the impact point, weaving gold into the very fabric of the sky. The boom was so violent it sent the crowd staggering, hands over ears.
When the glare faded, Haotian was falling. His body was scorched, hair standing straight from the charge, clothes burned away until only tattered shorts clung to him. Every breath came with the faint pop of static discharging from his skin.
Ancestor Yangshen blurred upward, catching him before he struck the ground.
Gasps rippled through the onlookers as they realized what they had seen—not just that Haotian had survived, but that he had met the ninety-ninth strike head-on.
Even some distant sect leaders, watching from high towers, had witnessed the leap. There would be no containing this.
Yangshen landed lightly, setting Haotian down. Elders, servants, guards—everyone crowded close, their expressions swinging between awe and disbelief.
Haotian's chest rose and fell slowly. A faint smile played on his lips. Lightning still danced faintly along his frame, each crackle making his muscles tense.
From the edges of the crowd, the female disciples and attendants began to giggle—eyes lingering far longer than was proper.
The men coughed into their fists, exchanging glances that said the same thing without words: What in the heavens is going to happen next…?
The murmurs and giggles of the courtyard faded into the background as Ancestor Yangshen's voice cut low and firm.
"Enough gawking. Disperse."
There was a weight behind his tone—one that even the most curious onlookers dared not challenge. Slowly, the crowd thinned. Servants retreated. Guards returned to their posts, though their eyes still flicked toward Haotian whenever they thought no one was watching.
Yangshen, Ancestor Jinhai, and Great Matriarch Yuying moved in unison, guiding Haotian toward the secluded inner hall. The air in the chamber was heavy with the scent of old sandalwood and the quiet hum of layered barrier seals. When the last door slid shut, the world outside was cut away.
Yangshen turned first, his expression carved from stone. "Do you understand what you just faced, boy?"
Haotian tilted his head slightly. "A lightning tribulation."
Yuying's eyes narrowed, voice soft but carrying an edge like drawn silk over steel. "Not just a tribulation—the ninety-ninth heavenly strike. That is an execution bolt from the heavens themselves. Even at our peak, not one of us could withstand it without being reduced to ash."
Jinhai folded his arms, the old scars on his hands catching the lamplight. "If that strike had landed on any of us… there would be no body left to bury."
Silence hung in the hall for a moment, the enormity of their words settling between them. Haotian only smiled faintly, unbothered, static still flickering across his skin.
Outside, the consequences were already rippling.
The rumors should have spread like wildfire—yet they died out within a day. No one wanted to be caught whispering about the Zhenlong household now. Fortunately, the sect leaders stationed on the outskirts of the city had been too far to see clearly who had leapt to meet the heavens.
But they had felt it.
The weight.The sheer, unrelenting pressure of that ninety-ninth strike.
And they knew—if someone within Zhenlong's walls could meet that head-on and win, it was political suicide to provoke them. If that person ever decided to erase a sect or dismantle a guild, the survivors would be counted on one hand. No one would dare speak a word in protest.
The Alchemy Guild was perhaps the most shaken of all. Many of its members had gone pale recalling the thunder's echo, and some could swear they'd felt their own life essence tremble.
As for Shentu Liang—he had no choice but to swallow his defeat. His pride was nothing compared to the weight of survival. After that ninety-ninth strike, there was no appetite within the guild to support him in any grudge. Not when the target was someone who had punched the heavens and lived.
Even the thought of it was enough to make lesser cultivators lose sleep.
The heavy scent of sandalwood still clung to the air in the sealed chamber. The barriers hummed faintly, muffling even the distant whispers of the estate. Yangshen stood with his hands clasped behind his back, pacing slowly, while Yuying and Jinhai remained seated, their gazes fixed on the polished floor between them.
"We keep this buried," Yangshen said at last, his voice carrying the quiet finality of an imperial decree. "No records, no formal acknowledgment. The fewer who know, the less danger we invite."
Yuying's eyes were sharp. "And when the inevitable curiosity comes? It already has weight in the city—people will want answers."
"Then they will find none," Jinhai rumbled. "We show them what we want them to see, nothing more."
They began drafting contingency measures—deflection stories, misdirection tactics, plausible explanations that hinted at nothing concrete. The goal was simple: make the truth impossible to confirm without lying outright. But before any plan could fully form, a strange realization began to settle in.
It didn't spread.
No rumors.No political attacks.No whispered challenges from rival sects.
Only silence.
The three ancestors exchanged looks, their years of navigating court intrigue making them deeply suspicious of such quiet. Yuying's fingers tapped the armrest. "This… is not natural."
Jinhai gave a low grunt. "Natural or not, it works in our favor."
Outside their walls, the cautious stirrings of curiosity took the form of visitors—envoys from sects and guilds who came under the guise of courtesy calls. They asked oblique questions, probing for details. All of them had felt that ninety-ninth strike and drawn the same conclusion: to stop such a bolt meant power at least on par with the Emperor Realm.
The obvious question followed: Was there another unknown ancestor in the Zhenlong household?
Yet every attempt to probe, every delicate thread of investigation, turned up nothing. Not a name, not a hint, not a single trace of who had leapt skyward to meet the heavens.
The visitors left empty-handed, their expressions carefully blank, but the message beneath their silence was clear: until the truth revealed itself, no one in their right mind would try to provoke Zhenlong.
Even in the cutthroat politics of cultivation, some mysteries were better left untouched.