Chapter 6 – Tempering in Solitude
The forest was never silent. Even in the deepest hours of night, when shadows stretched like devouring beasts, life whispered. Insects hummed in the underbrush, unseen wings stirred the canopy, and the distant howls of spirit wolves pierced the darkness like ghostly bells.
Lin Feng sat cross-legged beneath a crooked pine, his back pressed against its rough bark. A faint white mist rose from his pores as he slowly circulated the spiritual energy within his meridians. His breath flowed in harmony with the surrounding world—deep inhale, gentle exhale—like waves kissing the shore.
The battle with the Bronze-Scaled River Serpent still lingered in his bones. Every muscle ached, every scar throbbed with the memory of fangs and scales. Yet beneath the pain, there was something new—something alive. His dantian pulsed faintly with a dim spark of qi, fragile yet unyielding.
"Qi Condensation, First Layer…" Lin Feng whispered to himself, his voice hoarse yet filled with an almost disbelieving pride.
He could feel it now: the faint current of energy moving obediently under his will, no longer scattered like drifting sand but beginning to form the smallest stream. It was weak—laughably weak compared to the giants who walked the cultivation world—but to him, it was proof. Proof that he had not died, proof that the heavens had not extinguished the last ember of the Lin Clan.
The night deepened. He guided the stream of qi through his meridians again and again, feeling the blockages where years of mortal frailty had left him hollow. Each cycle cleared a fraction, scraping away the mud so the river might one day flood. Sweat beaded across his brow, his shirt soaked as though he had waded through rain.
By dawn, when the horizon burned with the faint blush of the rising sun, Lin Feng finally opened his eyes. They glimmered with a faint light, not quite human, not yet immortal.
He stood, stretching his sore limbs. The forest smelled different now. Each leaf shimmered with subtle life-force. Each stone held the weight of time. Even the distant river seemed to breathe with its own rhythm.
"So this… is the first step." His lips curled into a faint, bitter smile. "And yet, I am still nothing."
That day, Lin Feng set himself to practice not only cultivation but survival. He stalked through the undergrowth with bare feet, quiet as a shadow. He hunted small beasts—wild hares, scaled lizards, even a young flame-tailed fox. Each kill was clumsy at first, but with every failure, he learned.
From the fox, he salvaged a weak beast core the size of a fingernail. From the hare, he roasted meat that replenished stamina. From the lizard, he discovered that certain scales, when ground into powder, could ease bruises.
He tested how long he could channel qi before exhaustion claimed him. He swung crude wooden spears until his palms blistered. He pressed against boulders until his muscles screamed. He forced himself into rivers until his lungs ached, practicing both breath and will.
Days blurred into one another, and the forest became both training ground and prison.
One afternoon, as he stripped bark from a fallen tree to make kindling, Lin Feng froze. Voices. Rough, arrogant, careless.
"…worthless herbs. The sect won't even take them unless we bring a full sack."
"Quit whining. At least this forest is quiet. No beasts above mid-tier."
"Bah, I'd rather be in Tianyu City. The auction house opens in three days. I heard they'll even have a fragment of a Divine Spear for bidding."
Lin Feng's heart clenched. Auction house. Divine Spear fragment. Tianyu City. Words like seeds planted themselves in his mind, sprouting into questions.
He crept closer, crouching in the bushes. A group of three cultivators, their robes shabby and weapons poorly maintained, trudged through the undergrowth with sacks slung over their backs. Rogue cultivators, by the look of them—mercenaries with no clan or sect backing, scavenging herbs to survive.
Lin Feng's gaze lingered on them, hungry. Not for their lives, but for knowledge. He had lived only within the cage of the Lin Clan, then the ashes of its destruction. The world was vast, filled with auction houses, sects, clans, and treasures. He needed to see it. He needed to know it.
The mercenaries passed without noticing him. Only when their voices faded did Lin Feng exhale the breath he had been holding.
"Tianyu City…" he murmured, eyes narrowing with determination. "So the world moves on, while the Lin Clan lies in ruins. If I am to reclaim what was lost, I must first walk among them."
That night, beneath the stars, Lin Feng sat once more in meditation. The faint spark of qi in his dantian grew steadier, stronger. The forest whispered to him, and he whispered back.
In the stillness, memories of fire and betrayal flickered again. The Wu Clan's emblem glinting on armor, the Ironblade Sect's banners retreating into the night, the Mo Clan's cruelty written in blood. And above them all, the golden-robed figure watching with cold detachment.
Lin Feng clenched his fists.
"One day… I will stand above them all. Mo Clan, Wu Clan, Ironblade Sect, Heavenly Star Sect, even the Heaven's Will itself. I will carve my path through samsara and make the heavens remember the name Lin Feng."
His voice was quiet, but the forest trembled.
Thus began his solitude. Days of hunting, nights of cultivation, mornings of reflection. His body grew leaner, his qi steadier, his will sharper. The boy who had once been the sheltered son of a fallen clan was vanishing. In his place, a cultivator was being forged—hammered by loss, tempered by survival, and sharpened by hate.