The wind clawed at the hut's wooden walls, slipping through cracks, sharp and cold enough to bite. Tian Qiren barely felt it.
His eyes were locked on the floor where Mo Xuan had scratched something into the wood. It wasn't a seal. Not a circle. It looked like a tower — narrow, seven tiers tall, with each level marked rough and deliberate.
"Seven steps," Mo Xuan said. He didn't look up. "That's what they teach you in the sect halls. What you're told to bow to. The bones of cultivation."
He tapped the bottom of the spire with the blunt end of his knife.
"Qi Root. The first step. You find your thread — or it finds you. Doesn't matter. What matters is that you open your dantian, let your body learn to hold qi. That's when the journey begins."
He etched another line above it.
"Thread Forging. This is where you stop being a regular person. You bind your soul to the Mandate — flame, stone, wind, whatever. You do what your path demands. Some burn. Some dream. Some bleed. Doesn't matter. You either endure, or you don't."
The old man carved slower now, more careful. Like the wood was remembering something it didn't want to.
"Core Kindling. Liquid core first, then solid. Power starts here. Real power. But the ones who reach this? Most don't last long after."
Qiren didn't speak. Just listened, jaw tight.
Mo Xuan glanced at him, then kept going.
"Mandate Awakening." He paused. "That moment your thread speaks back. You get a vision. A name. A sign. Some feel joy. Others go mad. That's when the sects start paying attention. That's when Heaven starts keeping score."
Qiren felt a knot twist in his chest.
That was where he'd failed.
Twice.
The old man's hand hovered over the fifth tier, not touching it yet.
"Ascendant Vein," he said finally. "That's when your soul starts pulling away from your body. Your qi does more than live in you — it becomes you. People call it false immortality. It's not. It's just the point where your humanity starts to slip."
Qiren gave a short, bitter laugh. It sounded wrong in the quiet.
Mo Xuan didn't react.
He tapped the sixth mark.
"Heaven-Bound. That's the stage they write poems about. You walk through the veil. Your steps echo across realms. You see your past lives. You cast shadows that whisper. People at this stage… they forget what it's like to bleed."
And then he stopped.
Qiren waited.
But Mo Xuan said nothing.
After a moment, he drew the last tier. Not clean like the others. It was crooked. The lines didn't line up. Like it didn't belong.
"Thread Crown," Mo Xuan said. His voice was low. "The last step, or so they say. The Mandate doesn't just guide you anymore. It uses you. You become its vessel. The will of the thread. The voice. The sword."
He dropped the knife. Let it clatter against the wood.
"But even that," he said, "isn't the truth."
Qiren blinked. "What do you mean?"
Mo Xuan didn't answer right away.
Instead, he stood. Rolled up his sleeve. Held out his right hand.
At first, Qiren saw nothing but scars — old ones. Jagged. Faded. But as the torchlight shifted, something else came into view.
A mark. Not a burn, not ink. Something darker than either. A shape that looked like it didn't want to be seen. Eight lines. Twisted.
Qiren leaned in, throat dry.
"You… reached Thread Crown?"
Mo Xuan let out a sound. A laugh — bitter and quiet.
"No," he said. "I walked past it."
Qiren stared. "That's not possible. There's no eighth stage."
"There wasn't," Mo Xuan said. "Not anymore. The heavens erased it. Pretended it never existed."
Outside, the wind picked up, howling harder.
Inside, Qiren sat frozen.
"So what am I?" he asked. "Some mistake? Something that's not supposed to exist?"
Mo Xuan looked down at him for a long time.
"No," he said. "You're not a mistake."
"You're something that never had the chance to exist… until now."
He turned away. Let the sleeve fall back over his arm.
"And the world?" he added quietly. "It should be afraid of that."