STARTING MY FIRST STORY!
The smell of damp earth and something metallic, almost ferrous, was the first sensation to pierce the fog of unconsciousness. A high-pitched buzz, like a thousand cicadas in chorus, reverberated in his ears, and a throbbing pain pulsed at the back of his head.
Slowly, consciousness seeped in, bringing with it a feeling of crushing weight, as if each limb were trapped in a dense mud swamp. He tried to move, but his muscles responded with agonizing slowness, every fiber protesting with a dull ache. "Hmm... did I leave the window open? It's a holiday today, I'll sleep a little more... Seems like the sun is right in my face." The voice in his mind was his, unmistakable, but the words seemed strangely displaced, an echo of a life that suddenly felt distant and unreal.
He didn't feel the familiar warmth of the sun on his face, but a cold, sticky dampness. The mattress beneath him was hard, lumpy, and the smell of mold and decay was unmistakable. With an effort that drained his last reserves of energy, he managed to open his eyes. The sight that greeted him was not the familiar white ceiling of his apartment, nor the soft glow of the computer screen he spent hours staring at.
Instead, he was looking at what appeared to be the side of a mountain. Rough, mossy rocks rose above him, and a narrow crack high above allowed a pale, diffuse light to filter in, revealing the damp darkness around him. He was in a cave. Or perhaps, in a rock crevice. A wave of icy panic hit him, stronger than the physical pain. His mind, which had previously refused to process the strangeness, now raced at a dizzying speed.
The last thing he remembered was his exhausting work routine at the company: "Checking reports, sending feedback, going to meetings if there were any, making daily calls to clients. And so the Cycle repeats itself daily." He recalled leaving a dinner with colleagues early and, on his way home, the darkness had swallowed him. There were no accidents, no pain, just the void. And now, this. A cold, dark cave, a sore body, and an overwhelming sense of disorientation. "Was I kidnapped?" The question echoed in his mind, absurd and terrifying. He tried to calm himself, taking a deep breath, but the air was dense, heavy, with a coolness that seemed to vibrate with a subtle, almost imperceptible energy.
His body ached, but it wasn't the pain of a serious injury, but of deep exhaustion, as if he had been beaten and thrown from a great height. He tried to sit up, and the pain in his back made him groan. There was a deep cut on his shoulder, and his clothes were torn and stained with dried blood. He dragged himself to a more comfortable position, leaning against the cold cave wall. The faint light coming through the crack revealed more details of his surroundings. There were some loose stones, a small stream that meandered across the cave floor, and the creeping vegetation that clung to the rocks. There were no signs of civilization, nor of other human beings.
Just the wild and unforgiving nature.
He touched his face, feeling the texture of the skin. It was different. Rougher, with some scars he didn't recognize. He ran a hand through his hair. It was long, very long, falling over his shoulders. He, the salaried man of his world, had short, neatly trimmed hair. That wasn't his hand. The skin was paler, the fingers thinner, but with calluses that indicated manual labor. A shiver ran down his spine. This was not a kidnapping.
No, a kidnapping, as terrifying as it was, made sense. This, however, defied all logic. Kidnappers didn't change their victims' bodies. They didn't shorten memories or change hair color. His mind, which had previously been in a panic about being lost, was now consumed by a different kind of terror. The terror of losing himself. Of having his identity stolen by a reality that imposed itself with the force of a tsunami. He wanted to scream, he wanted to refuse to accept it, but the truth was etched into every inch of that skin that didn't belong to him.
It was something much more complex, much more insane. And then, it came. Not as a memory, but as a torrent, an avalanche of sensations and images that overlaid his own. It was as if two video tapes were being played simultaneously in his mind, one of them at an accelerated speed, the other, his own, struggling to keep up. He saw a baby born, small and fragile, in a simple cradle. He saw the parents, unknown faces, but full of love and hope that their son would endure all the darkness of the world, thus being the King of Darkness his name's meaning. The name: Qin Yami. Qin, meaning "King", and Yami, "Darkness". An unusual name, but one the parents seemed to love.
Childhood passed in flashes: games, meals, learning to walk and talk. A simple life, but full of affection.
Then, the darkness. At ten years old, tragedy. Demonic cultivators. Blood. Screams. The parents, fallen. The desperate escape. The rescue by the Azure Mountain Sect. The pain of loss, the impotent rage. The life as a servant disciple, an orphan among many, all with similar stories of loss. The arduous training, the search for strength, the hope for revenge. The mortal-grade cultivation technique, the promise of power. But progress was slow, frustratingly slow. At sixteen, he had barely reached Qi condensation, a basic stage for most cultivators.
His life, Qin Yami's life, was a constant struggle. An incessant search for advancement, always bumping into an invisible ceiling. Until the age of sixteen. The mortal foundation pill, the one that would help him have his impurity cleansed and help him finally get out of stagnation. A treasure for a low-level cultivator like him. The envy of the other disciples. The refusal to hand it over. The brutal beating. The fall from the mountain, the excruciating pain, the darkness again. And then, the awakening. His awakening, in fact, in Qin Yami's body. He was Qin Yami. And Qin Yami had been beaten and thrown from a mountain.
He was in a cultivation world, the Tianlong Continent, a place where strength was the law and weakness was a death sentence. He was not an arrogant protagonist, nor a predestined genius. He was a common man, transmigrated into the body of a mediocre cultivator, injured and alone in a dark cave.
The reality hit him with the force of a lightning bolt. He needed to survive. "SHIT!" Qin Yami's first instinct was that of a modern man: to look for his cell phone that probably came with him, a GPS signal, anything that would connect him to the world he knew. But there was nothing. The cave was primitive, and the world outside, he knew from Qin Yami's memories, was even more so. He was alone. Completely alone in the World. "I don't even know why I created a false hope that it would be with me...After so many memories of another person, I'm in another world...I've always read, but I never imagined I'd be a person in this situation besides the books" He assessed his situation.
Qin Yami's body was injured, but not fatally. The cut on his shoulder needed to be cleaned and bandaged although not serious, he knew that things could change. He was hungry and thirsty. And the cold of the cave was starting to seep into his bones. He needed to get out of there, but where to? Qin Yami's memories were useful, but fragmented. He knew he was in the mountains behind the Azure Mountain Sect, the same place that caused his disgrace, but the exact direction and distance were uncertain.
He dragged himself to the scarce stream that fell between the stones in his view, using the cold water to clean the cut on his shoulder. The pain was sharp, but he ignored it. He tore a piece of his tunic and used it to bandage the wound, improvising a dressing. The thirst was unbearable, and he drank the stream's water without thinking, trying to think it was clear and refreshing. Hunger, however, was a bigger problem. He saw nothing edible in the cave, and the idea of going out to look for food in this strange world. Yes, He had read stories of reincarnation, and others where the Protagonist usually had useful memories, His memories were limited to living an easy life on earth.
What the hell... His thought was conflicting, maybe he was just calmer, due to the fact that even a normal mortal in this world like him was much stronger and mentally stable than a mortal on earth.
"Honestly, I lived a shitty life on earth, like a nobody and now, I'm living a life-or-death situation in this endless cave..." However, his instincts told him something useful, like the fact that he was part of a sect, maybe he could use Qi to recover and get out of this place. In the midst of the darkness that surrounded his vision.
He spent the next few hours trying to understand Qi. Qin Yami's memories were clear about the basic cultivation techniques, nothing surreal or incredible: sitting in meditation, absorbing the Qi from the environment, purifying it and making it run through his body. He sat in a lotus position, closing his eyes and trying to concentrate. It took time, and Qin Yami's frustration was palpable in his memories. It was like trying to hold smoke. The Qi escaped, dispersed before he could even feel it. But he didn't give up. He was a man who had spent years in an office, facing deadlines and demanding bosses. He knew what persistence was. He focused on the subtle sensation he had felt before, that vibrant coolness in the air. He took a deep breath, trying to harmonize his breathing with the environment. And then, after hours of exhaustive concentration, he felt it.
Not as a torrent, but as a distant whisper, a faint, almost imperceptible energy that permeated everything around him. It was the Qi. The vital force of cultivation. A fleeting glimpse, a promise of something bigger "What a bunch of crap I'm trying to believe, this is a pain".
He tried to pull it in, visualizing it as a thread of light entering through his pores. It was a slow and painful process, his body worn out, and most of the Qi he managed to attract dissipated before it even got close to his small Dantian. It was like trying to fill a leaky bucket with an eyedropper. He persisted, feeling the burning in his veins with every failed attempt. He knew Qin Yami's body was weak, his Dantian small and impure, almost nonexistent.
But he needed any help he could get, even if it was a false hope, He needed to cling to something. As night fell, the cave became even colder and darker. Nothing could be seen, not even a reflection of himself in the scarce stream. He had not managed to accumulate a single drop of Qi in his Dantian.
The frustration was immense, but there was also a small flame of hope. He had felt the Qi. He had understood what he needed to do. He wasn't a genius, but he was smart. He knew he needed to learn, adapt, and use his mind to compensate for his current weakness. The real challenge would be to turn that understanding into real progress. He spent the night sleepless, his mind working in overdrive. He reviewed Qin Yami's memories, looking for any useful information. The Azure Mountain Sect, although modest, was a point of reference. There were nearby cities, but he didn't know the distance, nor how to get there without being noticed by some powerful person or even, his sect's assassins. He was a foreigner, and in a world where strength was everything, a weak foreigner was an easy target.
He thought of his previous world, his monotonous but safe life. He had complained about work, traffic, the routine. Now, he would give anything to go back to that life. But there was no going back. He was stuck here. And he needed to fight. Or that's what he wanted to believe... Maybe his positivity was what helped him stay on his feet in this situation.
"I'm going to sleep" At dawn, a pale ray of sun penetrated the crack in the rock, revealing the cave in a clearer light. Qin Yami felt a chill in his stomach. He couldn't put it off anymore. He needed to get out of there. With a painful effort, he got up, every muscle protesting. His right leg was numb, and his shoulder throbbed. But hunger and thirst were more urgent. He began to crawl out of the cave, towards the faint light. The creeping vegetation scratched his legs, and the loose stones under his feet threatened to make him fall. He grabbed the rocks, pulling himself up, step by step. The air outside was fresher, and the smell of pine and wet earth was stronger.
"Argh, This arm...Useless body" His Pain Throbbed, but his spirit of survival was greater.
He was on a steep slope, with tall, dense trees around. The Azure Mountain Sect was somewhere, but he had no idea which direction to go. As he moved, Qin Yami's memories tried to judge a way out. The idea of finding other humans, even if they were simple villagers, was a relief not to be alone. He began to follow the trail that his instinct guided him to go, limping, but with a new sense of purpose. The path was difficult. The trail was narrow and covered with leaves and branches. He heard the rustling of animals in the forest, and the sound of a stream running somewhere. With each step, the pain in his shoulder increased, and exhaustion began to weigh him down. "I hope I don't get eaten by a wolf"
He knew he needed to find something to eat soon, or his strength would abandon him. He remembered the mortal foundation pill. The one that the original Qin Yami had obtained with so much effort, and that led to his disgrace. For a servant disciple like him, who had barely managed to reach the Body Augmentation stage and was struggling to refine Qi, a mortal foundation pill was an invaluable treasure. It promised to cleanse impurities, strengthen the body and open the way for faster cultivation. It was the hope of getting out of stagnation, of maybe one day achieving Qi Refinement more effectively, and who knows, Meridian Opening. But the transmigrated Qin Yami, the man from Earth, looked at the pill in his memories with a bitter sarcasm.
He had read enough xianxias to know that "rare pills" were a cliché. And, for a protagonist, a "mortal" pill was probably the equivalent of a low-cost vitamin supplement in his previous world. It was something simple, yes, valuable for the "broke" like him and the poor servant disciples, but not a real treasure that would change the destiny of a genius. The irony was palpable. He was in a cultivation world, with unimaginable powers, and the "greatest hope" of the original Qin Yami for advancement was a pill that, in other stories, would be discarded as trash.
He laughed, a hoarse, humorless sound. "Of course. A mortal foundation pill. How original."
Feeling he was at his limit, he decided to take a little nap, without strength, He could barely walk. Spotting a long fallen trunk, maybe that was the perfect place, I hope I don't die.
Weak, injured and alone. And worse — empty.
The pill… that fucking pill he had fought so hard to get... was no longer with him. It was the first thing they took. A kick to the stomach, another to the ribs, they pulled the small bag from his side, and he saw — with half-closed eyes covered in blood — the shine of the packaging being ripped off as if it were recyclable garbage.
He didn't even have a chance to consume it.
They stole everything.
They stole his belongings, his hope, his dignity — and, in the end, they still threw him off a cliff as if he wasn't even worth the trouble of burying him.
The world was just silence. And silence, all that remained. Without him realizing it, his being was increasingly becoming his new identity, Qin Yami.
When Qin Yami woke up again, there was no impact, no avalanche of memories again. No memories colliding like blades. Everything was... slow. Empty. As if even his own thoughts were tired of trying to understand what had happened.
He was there. Still at the edge of the cave, wrapped in moss, dust and dried blood. The morning breeze was on his face. "I slept too long, shit".
His eyes were slow to adjust, but he didn't care. Looking didn't change anything. Feeling didn't either. Thinking much less. He was exhausted.
His throat was scratching like sandpaper. His tongue, dry, pasty. His muscles were stiffer than the day before, and his shoulder throbbed with an increasingly deep burning sensation. He had cleaned and tied the wound with strips of his own clothes before, but he could already smell the slight infection starting. Was this how he was going to die? Of tetanus, in a world where people flew, spitting swords and cultivating eternity?
What a joke.
And for an instant, he wanted to laugh. To laugh out loud, until the cave echoed and the world heard him — but he didn't even have the energy for that.
He leaned against the trunk again, his eyes fixed on the beam of light that tore through the gloom and undergrowth. A small, weak, lonely ray, that penetrated from the top of the remaining crack as if mocking him. The sky was up there. And outside, the world. He, however, was just a shard of a human being buried in a mountain.
Time passed without him knowing how long. Minutes? Hours? Maybe a whole day. Maybe two. He didn't even walk straight, it was just a false hope that he was close to getting out.
At some point, he dragged himself to the stream again. The icy water served as a relief, and he drank it desperately, choking and coughing, like an animal. Like a hungry dog. Hunger was a constant pain now. A slow blade that cut from the inside out. He bit roots. He smelled the slime. He tried to chew on leaves stuck between the stones.
Nothing worked.
The taste of earth took over his mouth.
He wanted to get up and leave. To get out of this place, to run, to scream, to demand answers — but he couldn't. Weakness kept him anchored. Each attempt to stand up resulted in more pain, more dizziness. His body was on the verge of collapse. And he knew: if he left now, he would die. Of hunger, of cold, of some wild beast. Or — and this seemed more likely — of disappointment.
Suddenly alone, he remembered the stories he read, this was not how a protagonist was born in a story...They always had a golden finger, he didn't even have a secret system or technique. Let alone a ring or necklace with an old immortal master.
Wait, Qin thought. He then looked at his neck, where since the beginning there had been a strange, ugly necklace, But with a Moon Carved in its worn wood. "Would this be my golden finger?"
It was there. Wrapped around his neck, kept as if it were the last hope in the world... Maybe because he was hopeless, he started to laugh at the cliché possibility he wanted to believe.
"HAHAHAHAHAAAAHA" without realizing it, tears ran down his face. Was this his help?
The reason why Qin Yami was beaten, thrown off a cliff, left for dead, must have been to then, after being humiliated, activate his golden finger.
Excited, he stood up, anchoring himself, and shouted: "Immortal Master, come out" His attempts were in vain, but with a renewed hope, he began to shout things.
"Master, have filial piety" "Let's go" "Help me, benevolent ancestor" ...the sound of an imaginary cricket, occurred in his mind Or maybe it was real, the embarrassing silence.
Nothing happened.
He gritted his teeth, not out of anger, but out of... impotence.
For an instant, he thought of simply throwing the necklace in the stream. To let the current carry it away. To forget that it existed. But he didn't have the courage. It wasn't hope that bound him to that necklace. It was the fear of not having anything else to believe in besides it.
On the second night — or was it the third? — he had a strange dream. He saw himself in the middle of a desert. But it wasn't a common desert. The ground was made of cracked black glass, and the sky was a tapestry of shining eyes. Thousands. All watching him. Judging.
In the center of this desert, a figure emerged. With his back to him. Long, black hair, pale skin. Qin Yami recognized him even before the figure turned his face.
It was him. It was Qin Yami. The old one. The failure.
The other turned slowly, his eyes empty. There was no anger. No pity. Just a look of resignation. And said, in a grave voice: "If you're going to keep my body... then give it meaning. Or die like me.
Qin Yami woke up breathless, sweating coldly. The cut on his shoulder burned. His chest ached.
But there was something new.
A sound.
A real sound.
A scratching of stone against stone. Steps. Slow. Heavy. Coming from the deepest part of the cave.
His eyes widened.
He dragged himself away, his heart pounding. He hid behind a nearby rock formation. The steps were getting closer. A rhythmic sound, that made his chest vibrate with fear.
"Not now. I can barely breathe. Not now, please..."
The sound stopped. Silence. And then, a hiss.
A heavy breath. Fierce. Almost animal.
Something was coming, and it was his certain end.
He stood motionless. For long minutes, They seemed like hours. Time had ceased to make sense. The sound disappeared. No attack. No scream. No chase.
But he didn't move. Because the fear was still there. Not the irrational fear from movies. But the real human fear. The one that sticks in your stomach and paralyzes your legs. The one that says: "If you get up, you die".
Almost motionless. But still alive.
The sound seemed like a delusion now. But he knew it wasn't.
It wasn't safe there, it never was, he was lucky or rather, less unlucky.
He would need to leave. Not because he wanted to. But because staying would be dying.
With his teeth clenched and his hands trembling, he tried to get out of there until he simply fell hard on the ground, He would die. Unbeknownst to him, it had already been 4 days without food and with scarce water, an unwatched wound, the impact of the fall.
Unbeknownst to him, His necklace, perhaps feeling the connection being lost with its owner, really began to glow, and its former wooden shell began to crack, and fall. Until a small silver moon was seen that shone, it suddenly left his neck, its glow began to increase as it floated, and It without delay entered Qin Yami's arm, Forming a tattoo with intricate designs, which indicated a Moon being cut by a blade. It looked like a tribal design.
A warm sensation that started in his stomach and spread like fire through his body. Choking. Sweat ran down his forehead. His muscles contracted. His veins seemed about to explode. It was as if his body was being scraped inside with iron sandpapers.
The process lasted... too long.
"Ahhhhhh" At this point, He who thought he was dead, only felt a agonizing pain.
But he resisted.
And when it was over — he was still the same.
Weak. Injured. Broken. But alive. And something... something inside him seemed cleaner. Not strong. Not powerful. Just... less filthy.
Dreams and memories from when he was fallen returning to his being in a vivid way. The memory, previously confused and feverish, was now crystalline in his purified mind. The black-colored "scratch" man in his "dream," yes, a stick-figure man, did not pull energy from the world to himself with greed. He seemed... motionless. Silent. And yet, the universe around him seemed to bend, to unravel, to rewrite itself.
Qin Yami took a deep breath, an act that sent pangs of pain through his broken body. His body was a map of torment, but his mind... his mind was strangely calm. A lake of still waters after a violent storm. It was in this silence that he finally understood.
The sensation of being scraped by iron sandpapers... was not an attack. It was a cleansing. The silver moon on his arm was not a parasite, it was a tool. The technique of that shadow-man... was not about accumulating power.
It was about subtracting.
His gaze fell on the tattoo on his arm. The tribal designs seemed to move under his skin, the silver moon and the blade united in a silent pact. He raised his trembling hand, the fingers of his other hand tracing the design. It was cold to the touch, like tomb silver, but it vibrated with a latent, calm and deep energy.
"Cut..." he whispered to the stale air around him. The word sounded right. True.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the ruin of his body. Instead of trying to force Qi to circulate through his ruptured meridians, a conclusion he came to with his knowledge as a reader of classic Earth novels, obviously when he was beaten they destroyed his meridians — an act that would be suicidal —, he did something different. He focused on the cold sensation of the tattoo. He didn't try to pull power from it. He just... felt it. He recognized it.
And it responded.
A thin, silver thread of consciousness seemed to extend from the tattoo to the center of his being. It wasn't energy, it wasn't Qi. It was something more fundamental. An echo of the moonlight. With this thread as a guide, Qin Yami plunged into himself. And then, he gathered the fragment of will that remained. All his stubbornness, all his refusal to die, all his pain, he took it and forged it in his mind.
He didn't visualize a war hammer or a crushing fist. He visualized a blade. Thin, sharp, precise. A needle of pure intention.
The "Blade of Will" was born, unstable and weak, but his. Trying to replicate what he saw in his dream of the stick-figure.
His first target was pain. He didn't try to heal the wound, he didn't try to regenerate the bone. He guided his small blade of will to the sharpest point in his body and, with a mental effort that left him drenched in sweat, he cut it.
Not a physical cut. He cut the sensation. He separated the wound from the agony it caused.
There was no golden flash of healing. There was a precise, surgical coldness. The stabbing pain didn't disappear, but it dissolved, becoming a dull, distant ache. An echo. He was still broken, but now the pain was bearable.
He opened his eyes, breathless, his body trembling with mental exhaustion. It was the hardest act he had ever performed in his life. But a weak, bloody smile sprouted on his lips.
He didn't have the power to crush his enemies. He didn't have the energy to stand up and fight. But now, he had a path. An art born of pain and purity. The Art of the Blade that Spins the Moonlight.
"So really, this necklace was my golden finger" HAHAHAHAHAH...Drowsy, He once again, passed out.
The next morning, he got up for the first time without immediately falling.
The pain still existed, but it was bearable.
His step was still wobbly, but he was on his feet.
And with his eyes fixed on the light exit, he took a deep breath.
"Okay."
The voice came out low, hoarse.
"Let's see how long I can last."