Married life did not soften Leng Tian. If anything, it steeled his resolve further.
Now he wasn't only protecting himself. Yuexin's smile, her warmth beside him each dawn, reminded him: Everything I build must outlast me, for her and for what comes after.
Thus, he began recording his crude yet methodical cultivation. With scraps of hide and charred sticks, he wrote the first primitive lines of what would, one day, become legend: The Frost Manual.
It contained only simple instructions at first:
How to breathe as snow falls.
How to circulate soul power slowly, steadily, with patience.
How to embrace frost within veins without forcing more than the body could endure.
"Even if born weak," he whispered while writing, "even if with innate power of one like me, this method… will let them last longer than others."
Night after night, he refined it. Yuexin sat nearby, helping copy when she could, testing small pieces with her branch spirit. To her surprise, even her weak spirit pulsed steadier under his crude techniques.
"Tian," she said one evening, in awe, "you're making a path… a way for others like us."
He shook his head quietly. "Not for me. For our children. For all who come after."
Yuexin smiled faintly. "Then you are building more than yourself. You are building a family."
Legacy Spark
Tian didn't know it, but far in unseen void, the Eternal Ice Spirit Tome glimmered faint letters:
Manual Recorded. Inheritance spark created.
And with that, the Leng Clan's first true spiritual inheritance was born.
🔥 End of Chapter 17