Lin Fengyi's fingers trembled as he unfolded the letter bearing the seal of the Seven Peaks Academy. A single sentence crushed three years of desperate study: "Insufficient spiritual aptitude for continued enrollment."
Expelled. Just like that.
He crumpled the paper and hurled it across his tiny rented room, where it bounced pathetically off the wall. The landlord would be knocking soon, demanding the rent he couldn't possibly pay now that his academy stipend was gone.
"Insufficient aptitude," Fengyi muttered, pacing the creaking floorboards. "As if talent is all that matters in this damned world."
Through the grimy window, he could see the majestic silhouette of the Seven Peaks against the evening sky. Seven perfect mountains, each housing a different cultivation discipline. He'd sacrificed everything to study sword arts on the Third Peak, selling his family's remaining heirlooms after his parents died, abandoning their crumbling estate to pursue power.
And for what? To be told he lacked the natural gifts required to advance beyond the Copper realm while watching the sect leader's arrogant son, Wei Jinhai, breeze through four realms in half the time with half the effort.
A loud knock rattled his door.
"Young Master Lin?" The landlord's voice carried through the thin wood. "Your rent is three days late. The academy messenger mentioned something about your... situation."
News traveled fast in Yuncheng City. By morning, everyone would know of his disgrace.
"I'll have it tomorrow," Fengyi lied, frantically gathering his few possessions into a worn leather pack. "My stipend was delayed."
"See that it is," the landlord growled, his footsteps receding down the hallway.
Fengyi collapsed onto his bed, hands covering his face. There was nowhere to go except back to his ancestral home, a decaying manor house on the city's outskirts that had been slowly returning to the earth since his parents' deaths. His father, once a respected cultivator himself, had fallen from grace after a mysterious incident that drained his cultivation. He'd died a mere mortal, bitter and broken.
Is that to be my fate too? Fengyi wondered, staring at his calloused palms. A failure before I've even begun?
That night, he slipped away from his lodgings under the cover of darkness, the shame of returning home during daylight hours too much to bear. The path to the Lin family estate wound through overgrown gardens that had once been the envy of lesser nobles. Now, waist-high weeds tugged at his robes as he approached the sagging structure.
The house greeted him with familiar musty air and the creak of rotting wood. Moonlight spilled through holes in the roof, casting strange patterns across the dusty floor. This wasn't a homecoming; it was a surrender.
Fengyi lit a single candle and made his way to his father's study. Perhaps among the old man's scattered scrolls and tomes, he might find some forgotten technique, something that might still salvage his cultivation dreams.
Hours passed as he rummaged through moldering texts. His eyes burned from squinting at faded characters, finding nothing but basic cultivation methods he'd long since mastered and abandoned. In frustration, he slammed his fist against his father's writing desk.
A crack echoed through the room as the ancient wood split beneath his hand. The desk collapsed, revealing a small compartment that had been hidden in its base. Within lay a jade pendant, its surface etched with tiny characters too small to read in the dim light.
"What were you hiding, Father?" Fengyi whispered, lifting the cool stone.
The moment his fingers closed around the pendant, a searing pain shot up his arm. He tried to drop it, but the jade seemed fused to his palm. White-hot agony spread through his meridians as he fell to his knees, a silent scream locked in his throat.
A voice, ancient and cold, echoed inside his mind.
You are unworthy, but you will have to do.
Darkness claimed him.
When Fengyi awoke, dawn light filtered through the broken windows. The pendant lay innocently beside him, no longer burning his flesh. He touched it cautiously, but it remained cool and inert.
Something had changed. He could feel it in the flow of qi through his body: stronger, more responsive than before. When he channeled energy to his fingertips, pale blue light danced across his skin instead of the dull copper glow that had marked him as mediocre.
A translucent panel suddenly appeared before his eyes, visible only to him:
[Sword Spirit Cultivation System activated]
[Host: Lin Fengyi]
[Cultivation Stage: Copper Realm (Peak)]
[Swords Absorbed: 0/10,000]
[Available Skills: None]
[Next Advancement: Defeat and absorb the essence of a sword used by a cultivator of the Iron Realm or higher]
Fengyi blinked, and the panel vanished. He concentrated, and it reappeared.
"Absorb swords?" he murmured, confused.
As if responding to his question, knowledge flowed into his mind. The Sword Spirit Cultivation System would allow him to challenge other cultivators. If he defeated them, he could absorb the essence of their swords, gaining their power and techniques.
Ten thousand swords. That was the path to ultimate power, and perhaps the reason his father had hidden the pendant away.
A hesitant smile formed on Fengyi's face as he pocketed the jade pendant. Perhaps his expulsion was not the end of his journey but the beginning of a different path, one not bound by the rigid traditions of the Seven Peaks.
The sound of horses and men outside shattered his moment of hope. Through a crack in the wall, he saw imperial guards surrounding his home, led by none other than Wei Jinhai, the academy's golden child.
"Search every corner!" Wei shouted. "The spiritual fluctuation came from here. If Lin stole a treasure from the academy before his expulsion, I'll personally see him executed!"
Fengyi's blood ran cold. They had sensed the system's activation, and now they were hunting him.