The villagers always said Lin Xuan was cursed.
Children whispered it in the fields when they saw him stumble and cough. Elders shook their heads when his father carried him home on his back after fainting. Even the healers, after poking and prodding his thin frame, declared with certainty:
"This boy has no spiritual root. Even if he studies ten thousand lifetimes, he will never draw in a single breath of Qi."
For a mortal child in Azure Mist Village, such words were a sentence of mediocrity. In a realm where even farmers dreamed their sons might one day enter a sect, tame spirit beasts, or wield talismans, Lin Xuan's fate was sealed as nothing more than a burden.
But Lin Xuan himself never fully accepted it.
That evening, twilight fell heavy over the mountains. The sun's final glow spilled gold over the misty peaks, and shadows stretched long across the earth. The village quieted, smoke from cooking fires rising into the dimming sky.
Lin Xuan walked alone, clutching a small lantern. His father thought he was searching for their missing goat, but his steps had long since strayed from the pastures. His feet moved on their own, carrying him deeper into the forest where the air was damp, heavy with moss and silence.
His breath came ragged. His body was weak—always too weak. Each step seemed to pull at his lungs, but still he pressed on.
Finally, he reached it: the old, broken shrine.
It stood forgotten at the edge of a cliff, its wood rotted and roof half-collapsed. Once, it had been a place of worship for mountain spirits, but no one visited anymore. Weeds choked the stone steps, and only the wind seemed to remember it existed.
Lin Xuan sat on the cold ground before the shrine, clutching his knees to his chest.
"They say without a spiritual root, I can never cultivate," he whispered, voice breaking. "Does that mean… I'll live and die as nothing? Forgotten like this shrine?"
The silence pressed down on him. He felt his chest tighten, a hopeless weight he had carried for as long as he could remember.
Then—something stirred.
A faint glow flickered from beneath the cracked altar. Lin Xuan frowned, blinking against the dusk. He crawled forward, pushing aside weeds and stones, and there—half-buried in the soil—was a shard of jade.
It was no larger than his palm, fractured and dull with age. Yet as his fingers touched it, warmth spread into his hand, up his arm, into his chest.
His eyes widened. For the first time in his life, he felt something flowing within him. Not weakness. Not sickness. But energy—alive, pulsing, vast.
The jade trembled, releasing a faint hum, and light spilled from the cracks. Lin Xuan's heart thundered.
"What… what is this?"
Then the voice came. Not from outside, but from deep within the jade, deep within his blood.
"The Dao does not reject. The heavens only test. Walk the eternal path, or perish beneath it."
The words carved themselves into his mind like fire. His body convulsed, searing pain spreading through his veins. He gasped, dropping to his knees, clutching his chest as if molten metal poured into his blood.
But even as agony consumed him, he did not scream. He bit down hard, blood filling his mouth, and through the haze of pain, laughter broke from his lips.
Because in that instant—he could feel it. Qi.
Something no healer had ever believed possible. Something no villager thought he would touch in his entire life.
His "crippled" body was drinking in the faint spiritual essence from the jade, weaving it into his blood like glowing rivers. Strange markings bloomed across his skin, faint and fleeting like burning constellations, before vanishing beneath his flesh.
It was as though his very veins were being rewritten.
The jade shattered in a burst of light, fragments scattering like falling stars, then sinking into his body. The glow faded. Silence returned.
Lin Xuan collapsed onto the earth, gasping for breath. His whole body trembled, drenched in sweat. Yet his eyes shone brighter than ever before.
For the first time in his life, he felt alive.
The night deepened. A crescent moon rose above the misty cliffs, silver light washing over the shrine. Lin Xuan sat there, dazed, his mind racing.
What had just happened?
He pressed a hand against his chest. His heart beat with strange strength, and when he closed his eyes, he could faintly sense something within: a river of warmth, like a thin thread of golden current flowing through his body.
"Qi… I really can cultivate Qi…" he whispered, trembling.
Hope flared in him, hot and wild. The hopeless boy, the cripple, the burden—had touched what was denied to him all his life.
But with hope came fear.
If word spread, what would the villagers say? What if others sought the jade's power? What if… the heavens themselves sent tribulation?
He remembered the voice, the words etched into his soul: Walk the eternal path, or perish beneath it.
"This… this is only the beginning," Lin Xuan murmured. "The path won't be easy."
The wind stirred, carrying the faint rustle of leaves. He looked up at the shrine, its broken frame silhouetted against the moonlight.
Maybe it was fate that he found the jade here, in a place forgotten by the world.
He rose slowly, legs still weak, and bowed deeply to the shrine.
"Whoever left that jade… whoever's will lingered here… I will not waste this chance."
His eyes burned with determination.
"I, Lin Xuan, cripple of Azure Mist Village, will walk the Path of Cultivation."
Far away, deep within the mountains, thunder rumbled though no storm stirred. A ripple spread through the heavens, faint but real, as if the world itself had taken notice of a small boy's vow.
For in the endless Tianxu Realm, even the smallest spark could one day set the heavens aflame.
And thus, on that quiet night beneath a broken shrine, a forgotten boy took his first step toward immortality.