Morning light spilled across the practice grounds of the Meng estate by Mirror Lake.
In one corner, Liu Qiyue stood with her bow, loosing arrows in steady rhythm. Not far away, Meng Chuan trained alone, his blade moving in swift, unpredictable arcs.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
The blade flashed like falling leaves caught in a storm, swift and elusive.
This was the Falling Leaf Saber, the fastest saber technique available to mortals—subtle, dazzling, and nearly impossible to track with the eye.
At the age of six, Meng Chuan had undergone the clan's test and was found to possess extraordinary talent for fast saber techniques. He loved them for their sheer speed—speed that thrilled his young heart.
After two years of foundational training at home, he entered the Mirror Lake Academy at eight. Its headmaster, Ge Yu, though unremarkable in character, was famed as the fastest blade in all of Dongning Prefecture.
By nine, Meng Chuan had already perfected the foundational saber forms and earned the right to study the advanced Chasing Wind Saber.
At eleven, he mastered it fully, and the headmaster personally passed on his greatest technique: the Falling Leaf Saber.
By thirteen, Meng Chuan had brought this technique to mastery and was admitted into the academy's elite Mountain-and-River Hall—a circle reserved for the top disciples among thousands. Even today, only twenty-two disciples belonged to it.
Now, at fifteen, he was still striving.
"Yet my Falling Leaf Saber remains at mere mastery," Meng Chuan muttered, frowning at his blade. "I've never touched upon its secret essence. Without that, I cannot reach the first great realm of the saber—the Unity of Body, Mind, and Technique."
Every martial art—saber, sword, spear, or otherwise—had stages of comprehension. The first great realm was this Unity, where body, heart, and technique fused into one, unleashing power beyond reason.
The second realm was called Momentum. Just as mountains carried their weight, rivers their flow, and fire its consuming force, so too did a true weapon art bear its own unstoppable momentum. That was a height far beyond ordinary mastery.
Meng Chuan had spent years laying the most solid of foundations. He was already a step away from Unity, but that final step felt like the greatest gulf of all.
"Even across Dongning Prefecture, so few ever reach Unity," he reminded himself. "Only those who do can be called true experts. The rest are merely mediocrities—no matter how much inner strength they have, they're little more than targets before a real master."
According to the manuals, the Falling Leaf Saber contained eighty-one forms. If one perfected every form to the point of transcendence, then, naturally, one would grasp its secret move—the Three Autumn Leaves—and break into Unity.
Naturally.
Meng Chuan almost laughed at the vagueness. For two years he had practiced day and night, but the so-called "natural revelation" never came.
Cultivation for mortals was divided into five stages: Foundation, Inner Refinement, Marrow Cleansing, Shedding the Mortal Body, and the Leakless Realm. To advance from Shedding to Leakless, one's art had to reach Unity. Only by fusing body, mind, and technique could one consolidate the strength of Shedding and take that leap.
In great clans, with endless pills and treasures, reaching Shedding was not difficult. But advancing to Leakless was rare.
Meng Chuan had started Foundation at six.
At nine, he entered Inner Refinement.
At twelve, Marrow Cleansing.
He expected by summer to complete it and step into Shedding. For a core child of a godfiend family, this was considered normal progress. By comparison, someone like Yun Qingping—lazy in cultivation—had only reached Marrow Cleansing at fifteen, despite countless elixirs.
Beyond the five mortal stages lay the godfiend realm. From Leakless to godfiend was like crossing a chasm. In Dongning, centuries passed with only a handful making that leap.
"I swore at Mother's grave," Meng Chuan whispered, gazing at his blade, "that I would become a godfiend, slay the demons, and avenge her death. However hard it is, I cannot stop. I must reach Unity, then Momentum. Only then will I have even a glimmer of hope."
Suddenly—
"Chuan'er." A round figure entered the training yard.
"Father." Meng Chuan turned.
It was Meng Dajiang, his father—owner of the finest tavern in Dongning, the Meng clan's future patriarch, and a formidable cultivator in his own right. Though merely human, he had reached the Leakless Realm and even grasped saber momentum. Yet at forty-seven, his chances of becoming a godfiend were fading.
"Uncle Meng." Liu Qiyue greeted him warmly.
"The demon-slaying festival at Yuyang Palace is coming, isn't it?" Meng Dajiang smiled at Liu Qiyue. "As a divine archer of Lieyang Dao Palace, they'll surely give you a place."
She beamed in response.
Then Meng Dajiang turned to his son. "And you, Chuan'er? Your Mirror Lake Academy only has three slots for disciples at Marrow Cleansing. Can you earn one?"
"I'm not sure," Meng Chuan admitted. "Among the top ten of my stage, the difference isn't great. I might succeed, but I might fail. If I could unlock the secret of Falling Leaf Saber, I'd be confident. But I haven't. Father, do you have any tricks for grasping secret techniques?"
"Haha! Your headmaster is the fastest blade in Dongning—he's taught you what can be taught. As for secrets…" Meng Dajiang chuckled. "Practice more. Perhaps, in time, insight will come."
Meng Chuan sighed inwardly. No shortcuts.
"Don't worry. No one at your age in Dongning has reached Unity. I only did at nineteen," his father said with a grin.
"But the Zhang family patriarch… he reached Unity at thirteen," Meng Chuan said softly.
"That man is the only one in a century to be accepted into Primordial Mountain," Meng Dajiang replied. "It made the Zhang clan one of the Five Godfiend Families. But don't fret. Our ancestor Yu Shan reached Unity at eighteen and still became a godfiend at eighty. Late bloomers bloom all the same."
Meng Chuan knew these stories well. As a child, his parents filled his nights with tales of legendary godfiends. He had listened wide-eyed, dreaming of one day joining their ranks.
"Mother," he thought, "someday I will be one of them."

That afternoon, Meng Chuan hurried to Mirror Lake Academy. It was one of the rare days when the headmaster himself lectured on saber techniques. The lesson lasted an hour.
Still no breakthrough.
As he walked the academy's paths, frustration gnawed at him. For two years he had obsessed over the secret essence of Falling Leaf Saber, nearly to madness, yet Unity remained out of reach.
Passing an open courtyard, he heard angry shouts.
Instructor Ma was berating a group of young students.
"If you aim only for the middling, you'll end up below it! Aim for the highest, and you might at least reach the middle. Do you understand?" Spittle flew from his lips. "If you follow the worst, you'll only grow worse yourselves! Fail to reach Marrow Cleansing, and you'll be useless for life. Even if you do, by twenty you'll be conscripted to fight demons. Sweat now, or bleed later! Half of you won't survive the battlefield. Do you want to die nameless, or return in glory?"
He jabbed a finger at Meng Chuan, who happened to pass by.
"Look there! That's Meng Chuan of the Meng clan. At thirteen he mastered the Falling Leaf Saberand entered Mountain-and-River Hall, taught personally by the headmaster! His mastery came from bitter training every single day. And you? What excuse do you have?"
"Learn from the best—learn from Meng Chuan! Do you hear me?"
The boys shrank under his glare. Instructor Ma, however, cast a friendly smile at Meng Chuan as he passed. Meng Chuan returned the nod, but inside his eyes lit up.
He hurried home at once.

In his study, Meng Chuan repeated the words to himself, heart racing:
"Aim for the highest, reach the middle. Aim for the middle, fall below. If I must learn… then let me learn from the strongest godfiends in history!"
Though the greatest had long since turned to dust, their deeds endured in biographies passed down for generations.
His parents had bought many of these works when he was a boy, reading them aloud to inspire him.
Meng Chuan pulled a volume from the shelf and opened it.
It told of Deng Feng, a godfiend who once dominated an era. Orphaned in the mountains, taught only a single draw-cut before his guardian died, he had nothing but solitude and determination. For twenty years, he practiced only that one technique—drawing his saber a thousand times each hour, four hours a day, ten thousand draws each day.
When at last he descended the mountain, still but at Marrow Cleansing, his single draw felled a Leakless expert. His art had reached the unimaginable. The fabled Primordial Mountain itself had sought him out. From then, he walked the path of the godfiend.
The record was long, filled with his legendary battles, but only one phrase struck Meng Chuan: four hours a day, ten thousand draws, twenty years.
"A true expert could draw ten thousand times in a single hour," Meng Chuan mused. "But he chose to slow down, to draw with intent, storing strength each time, then releasing it. Over and over, every cut carrying his full focus. That's why it took him four hours."
Focused practice. Endless repetition. One move, perfected beyond all limits.
He quickly jotted the thought with his brush, then reached for another biography.
If there was a common thread among these legends, he would find it.
Aim for the highest, and perhaps one might grasp the middle.
He would learn from the strongest who ever lived.
"Uncle Qian!" Meng Chuan called.
"Yes, young master?" came the reply.
"Take two men and buy every godfiend biography in the market. And while you're at it, any family precepts from the great clans. Quickly."
"At once!"