The climb grew crowded as they drifted toward the summit.
From above, Qiren watched the mountain's violet slopes crawl with life—dozens of demon species clinging to the shimmering crystal like ants swarming a sugar mound.
Black, chitin-plated insect types skittered up the ridges, their legs ticking sharply along the faceted stone.
Pale, skin-stretched ones climbed in jerky, strained motions.
Green and red variants scrambled with frantic energy, clawing handholds wherever the crystal softened.
Red and blue hatchlings had it easiest, tearing upward with natural strength, their breath not even misting against the glowing stone.
Those with wings soared past the crawlers, banking upward in smug, effortless climbs. They wove around the jagged spires, taking full advantage of the open air.
Qiren's hawk cut through them like a shadow slicing moonlight.
At first, he assumed they were bound for the peak.
But then—
They stopped.
Every demon, flying or climbing, converged toward a broad indentation carved into the center of the amethyst mountain—like a giant bite taken out of the crystal face.
A fissure.
It stretched from one side of the mountain to the other, glowing faintly from within.
"What…?" Qiren narrowed his eyes.
They weren't heading to the summit at all.
They were funneling into this hollow wound halfway down the mountain.
The hawk angled its wings and rode the current toward it. As they neared, Qiren realized the sheer scale of the opening—the entrance wide enough for ten caravans to pass side by side.
Demons swarmed inside in a frenzy of wings, claws, and snapping jaws.
Qiren was stunned by the sight. Since his rebirth, he hadn't seen this many demons at once.
He cautiously guided the hawk into the fissure.
Instantly, the air changed—cooler, lighter, laced with a faint mineral sweetness. The walls shimmered with throbbing veins of amethyst pulsing like a living heartbeat.
Then the passage widened.
And Qiren froze.
The mountain was hollow.
But not empty.
Far below—so far it made his stomach lurch—a valley glowed with forests of light.
Trees.
But not trees of bark and leaves.
These were crafted from crystal and bone. Their branches shimmered faintly, swaying in a wind that didn't exist.
And instead of leaves—
Parchment rustled.
Hundreds of thousands of sheets, layered like foliage.
Thin pages.
Broad pages.
Some glowing softly.
Some crackling with runes.
Some blank as untouched skin.
A forest of pages.
A library disguised as vegetation.
"What kind of place is this…?" Qiren whispered.
The fledglings didn't hesitate.
They dove, crawled, leapt—clinging to roots jutting like jagged ribs or gliding straight toward the valley floor. Others climbed down the crystalline inner walls with instinctive confidence.
Qiren's hawk circled above the glowing trees, riding the gentle updrafts.
As Qiren stared, something tugged at the base of his spine—
A hum.
A resonance.
A call.
As if every page whispered his name.
The mountain wasn't just hollow.
It was alive.
One of the fledglings swooped down and peeled a half-buried parchment from the dirt. The page chimed—a soft glow of heated metal—before its edges began to smoke. A faint orange flame bloomed across its surface.
The hatchling hugged it to its chest, delighted, and fluttered away.
They're burning the pages… on purpose?
More creatures drifted down, grabbing whatever parchments or hide scraps they could reach—rough animal skin, brittle curls of paper, knotted cords covered in faded blood. Each took the first piece it touched and let it burn.
Not destruction.
Refinement.
Qiren reached a branch, and a long sheet of parchment tugged at his awareness. His Qi leaked instinctively toward it. Instantly, its edges smoldered—a tiny orange flame wriggling to life as if feeding on him.
Below, hatchlings settled into crude meditation poses—spines straight, wings tucked tight. The deeper their focus, the brighter their flames grew. Embers lifted from the parchments and drifted toward their mouths.
Qiren hovered closer, mesmerized.
Then he noticed the ground beneath the burning scraps.
Glowing lines crawled to life.
An array.
Four concentric circles. A hexagon carved around them. Runes half-formed at each point.
Only the top circle was clear enough to read:
Underworld Seal
Another flickered:
Burning Hell
Qiren's pulse quickened.
The language those words were written in wasn't in any script he recognized, yet their meaning slipped effortlessly into his mind.
Demonic syllables…?
His own parchment snapped with heat. Its flames burned sluggishly compared to the others.
Qiren drifted deeper into the valley.
More demons sat in uneven circles and crooked lines, each cultivating atop a growing array. The ground, roots, and crystal walls thrummed with half-lit diagrams responding to their efforts.
A human-faced centipede clung to the wall in a meditative coil, a pristine array forming beneath it.
"Should I start meditating as well?" he muttered. The urge rose in him—a tug, subtle but persistent. But his instincts hissed at him to keep watching a little longer.
Then he noticed movement—
A red skinned fledgling forcing itself too far.
Smoke pulsed from its parchment in frantic bursts. Its formation glowed fully completed, except for Burning Hell—around which a mural of spinning flames manifested, turning real.
The creature trembled.
The parchment disintegrated.
It inhaled one last lungful of smoke—
Crack.
Flames crawled beneath its skin. Wings lengthened unnaturally fast. Claws sharpened. Eyes turned molten.
Aggression radiated off it in palpable waves.
Symbols raced up its limbs. A four-ringed formation bloomed on its back, matching the Unnamed Array on the ground. The formation beneath it ignited, red flames overtaking every line.
The circle on its back flashed.
SHNK—KRAAANG!
Two radiant amethyst chains burst from behind, hooking deep into its back and pinning it in place. It hissed and thrashed, but could barely move.
The valley held it down.
Like the realm was saying: No. Not yet.
Qi surged toward the demon from every direction. Ground. Walls. Air. Even Qiren felt the pull.
"This is… growth acceleration?" he whispered.
His Qi stirred—thin and unstable.
"Is it in the middle stage of Qi Refinement…? Or close to breaking through?"
A hatchling—barely the size of a forearm—gained more Qi and authority from the realm than he did.
If a minor demon gained all this from inhaling too much parchment smoke—
What would happen when his parchment finished burning?
The chained demon below spasmed violently. Madness clouded its eyes. Without the bindings, it would've slaughtered everything near it.
It snarled—a wet, bubbling sound.
Its teeth frothed. Skin flushed a deeper crimson.
"GHRRRKKK—rrraaaghhh!"
Bones cracked. Its abdomen twisted as it consumed every shred of Qi offered to it.
Crack. Crack.
Qiren's eyes widened.
It evolved—skin reddening, limbs lengthening, wings sprouting bony scales. In seconds, it shifted from newborn to juvenile.
"Amazing~" Qiren breathed before he could stop himself.
Qiren guided the hawk lower, circling the glowing valley. From above, the pattern became clear.
This was a massive nursery—meant to help demons cultivate—supplying those chosen by a sigil with its blessings and enough Qi to break through a minor realm.
But not everyone here was cultivating.
Some demons lingered near the edges—perched on crystal roots, hovering just out of array range, eyes tracking those who dared light their parchments. Their movements were patient and predatory at the same time.
Hunters.
Below, a newborn demon swept down on a hatchling halfway through igniting its formation.
The victim barely had time to scream.
It was dragged into the air, its Qi already thinned by the ritual. Two more joined in—then a fourth. Claws tore through flesh. Jaws closed around its head. Its soul was ripped free midair, divided and devoured before the body finished falling.
A faction that fed on souls had turned the mountain into a hunting ground—preying on those at their most vulnerable, right as their potential surfaced.
Qiren exhaled slowly.
So that's the balance.
Grow—or be eaten.
He angled the hawk downward, aiming for a small clearing near the valley floor. As he descended, a demon's gaze locked onto him—not his face, but the hawk. Then his parchment.
Greed flickered.
The moment his talons touched crystal-coated sand, movement exploded beside him.
A red-skinned fledgling lunged straight for the hawk's throat.
Tch!
Pain snapped through their shared link.
Qiren reacted instantly.
A strand of hair cracked between his fingers—supercharged—and he flicked it forward.
"Back off."
The needle pierced the demon's arm mid-lunge.
He slammed his palm into the ground.
The fledgling froze—confusion flashing across its face before panic took hold.
The hawk struck.
Talons pinned it to the crystal sand, bony claws sinking deep.
"Srkerree!!"
It thrashed uselessly, slashing at the hawk's feet, leaving shallow marks where claws met bone.
Qiren didn't linger.
There are opportunistic idiots everywhere.
He scanned the valley again—more demons arriving, more parchments igniting, more hunters circling just outside array lines.
With the constant influx, this place was only going to get more dangerous.
I need to start now.
Before something bigger notices me.
Only then did Qiren sit.
He folded his legs atop the crystal sand, forcing his breathing to steady. His hawk remained nearby, wings half-spread, eyes sharp—standing guard whether it wanted to or not.
Qiren focused inward and fed Qi into the parchment in his hand.
fsshhh—
The ember along the edge brightened instantly, the flame creeping faster. Smoke rolled upward in a slow spiral. He inhaled. The ritual smoke slid into his lungs like velvet—warm, electric, potent. His meridians throbbed in response, lighting up one by one.
Then—
A circle lit beneath him.
Then another.
And another.
The array formed on its own, though this one was slightly different. It didn't just gain another ring—the hexagon twisted and unfolded into a fifth concentric circle, and all but one of the sigils shifted to occupy their own separate layers.
In the first ring remained:
Underworld Seal
The second ignited:
Burning Hell
The third scorched itself into existence:
Infernal Fire
The fourth unfurled in bone-white light:
Key of Bones
The final circle thrummed with cold, blue flame:
Azure Pit
Sub-circles blossomed beneath each:
Underworld Seal → Guide the Soul
Burning Hell → Permit Passage to the Sacred Colors
Infernal Bite → Mandate of Finality
Key of Bones → Release the worth hidden in flesh
And under Azure Pit, an emblem took shape— a rotating sigil of a flame shaped like a howling beast, glowing pure azure.
The ground trembled.
Heat and cold coiled together.
Crystal veins lit in response to him.
Qiren swallowed as the smoke rushed into him, carrying ancient power and meaning he wasn't prepared for.
He felt the valley notice him.
He felt the mountain notice him.
And for a moment—
He felt the realm itself draw a breath.
The array beneath Qiren shuddered—once—twice—then everything turned blue.
WHOOOOSH—
Azure flames erupted from each ring, devouring the previous colors. The valley dimmed under their glow. Even the crystal walls shifted tone, reflecting the cold fire like mirrors of liquid sapphire.
The heat hit him first.
Not on his skin—under it.
Qiren arched, gasping as his bones vibrated.
His height surged—vertebrae stretching, limbs lengthening with painful cracks.
His Qi spiraled wildly, no longer flowing through meridians but burning through them.
"Ah—!?"
The flames crawled up his arms, across his chest, searing straight into his core.
He felt them race inward—
—into his inner sea.
Inside that private world of darkness and thought, the Azure Fire exploded outward, turning the calm shadows of his dark sanctuary into rolling waves of burning light.
"Stop—! Stop—!"
He tried to force it back.
He tried to circulate his Qi.
He tried to shut the gates of his mind.
But the Azure Fire ignored him.
It wanted something.
It found the silver scroll floating in his mind—his heart dropped.
The flames pounced.
FWAAAAA—!
The scroll's edges curled, burned, shrieked without sound.
Characters evaporated.
Lines dissolved into ash.
"No—no, no—!"
He reached for it mentally, but the flames burned through his grasp.
Then they found the cursed berry fragment nestled beside it.
The berry hissed, melting like wax before the flame consumed it whole.
The Azure Fire spread, unstoppable—
across his inner sea,
up his spiritual spine,
over his skull,
setting his entire head ablaze in the mental world.
Qiren screamed—but only inside.
And then—
Everything drowned.
A Vision
An endless horizon.
A boundless ocean.
Every wave, every droplet, every ripple—
on fire.
Azure flames roared across the sea as far as the heavens dared reach.
A storm of blue embers fell like rain.
A titanic heartbeat pulsed beneath the surface, shaking the entire world.
And in the center of the ocean, a silhouette burned brighter than anything else—
humanoid, chained, kneeling in the flames.
Qiren reached for it.
It lifted its head.
Its eyes were the same as his.
Reality returned like a punch.
He tore free from the vision with a violent jolt.
But he wasn't standing anymore.
He was on all fours, back arched, muscles spasming violently. Azure fire licked across his spine and shoulders.
His hair—longer, heavier—writhed like living tendrils.
Wrapped around several demons.
A ribbon of flame draped his back, sliding under his arms. Smoke curled through it, forming ashes that solidified into half-burnt script.
Refinement Qi: 73↑↓
Refinement Realm (Middle Stage / Beginner)
****
Author's Note:
You've made it to Chapter 10 — thank you for reading. If you're enjoying the story, a review or a few Power Stones would help a lot and motivate me to keep the updates steady. I appreciate every bit of support.