The news spread through the Mo Clan faster than anyone had expected.
By the following morning, nearly everyone knew that the child who had shattered the Awakening Crystal had also awakened a defective Cosmic Soul.
As he continued through the estate, the conversations around him gradually reached his ears.
"...Did you hear?"
"They say his awakening shattered the crystal."
"I also heard his soul is defective."
"What a pity."
"I thought he might become a genius."
"So did I."
Another voice spoke more softly.
"Maybe Heaven thought it was unfair to give someone such a strange awakening."
The group laughed awkwardly.
They hadn't realised Mo Xuan was only a few steps away.
The laughter stopped immediately.
He continued walking as though nothing had happened.
Only after turning the corner did the smile gradually disappear.
Mo Kang found him sitting alone beside a small pond later that afternoon.
The water reflected drifting clouds overhead, disturbed only by the occasional ripple created by swimming koi.
His son sat quietly with a handful of pebbles beside him.
Every few moments, he tossed one into the water.
Plop.
Another.
Plop.
Neither spoke at first.
Mo Kang simply sat beside him.
That evening, the Clan Head summoned Mo Kang.
The discussion lasted nearly two hours. When Mo Kang finally returned home, exhaustion was written plainly across his face.
The Clan Head had agreed to grant Mo Xuan limited access to the Rune Archive—not the Inner Sanctum, where the Grandmaster scripts were kept, but the Outer Pavilion. It was a privilege earned through Mo Kang's three decades of service to the clan.
The next morning, before sunlight reached the eastern courtyards, Mo Xuan received the news. He reacted far more calmly than his father expected.
His father smiled.
"The Mo Clan earns its wealth through Rune Craft."
"If you cannot cultivate..."
"...perhaps you'll become the finest Rune Scholar our clan has ever produced."
Mo Xuan remained quiet for so long that his father began to worry.
Finally...
A small smile appeared on his face.
"Books don't sound so bad."
He looked toward the window, where the first rays of morning sunlight illuminated the roofs of the Mo Clan Estate.
Far away, beyond the bustling courtyards and training grounds, an old stone building stood in complete silence.
Above its weathered entrance hung a wooden plaque bearing three faded characters:
Rune Archive.
By the time Mo Xuan reached the eastern courtyard, the training grounds were already alive, and voices carried across the estate with remarkable clarity.
Mo Xuan paused briefly outside the courtyard.
For a moment...
He simply watched.
There was no envy in his eyes.
Only curiosity.
One instructor noticed him standing outside.
His expression softened slightly before he walked over.
"Xuan'er."
Mo Xuan bowed respectfully.
"Instructor."
The middle-aged man hesitated before speaking.
"You may watch whenever you wish."
Mo Xuan smiled politely.
"Thank you."
After another few moments, he quietly turned away.
He had already accepted that this path no longer belonged to him.
Instead of heading toward the training grounds, he walked in the opposite direction.
Few members of the clan came this way.
The buildings gradually became older.
The sounds of cultivation disappeared.
Soon, only the rustling of bamboo and the occasional chirping of birds accompanied his footsteps.
At the end of the stone path stood an ancient building.
Its walls had weathered countless years.
Vines climbed across faded stone pillars.
Above the entrance hung a simple wooden plaque.
Rune Archive.
Unlike the bustling training grounds, this place felt timeless.
Quiet.
Almost forgotten.
Mo Xuan pushed the heavy wooden doors open.
A familiar scent greeted him immediately.
Old paper.
Ink.
Ancient wood.
It had become his favourite smell.
An elderly caretaker looked up from behind a desk before smiling.
"You came earlier than usual."
Mo Xuan scratched the back of his head.
"I finished yesterday's books."
The old man chuckled.
"You say that every day."
"And every day I'm telling the truth."
The caretaker laughed heartily before waving him inside.
"Go on."
"Just don't knock over another shelf."
"That only happened once."
"It happened twice."
"...I remember one."
The Outer Pavilion contained thousands of scrolls.
Most disciples considered them unbearably dull.
To Mo Xuan...
They were treasures.
At first, reading had simply filled the emptiness left behind by cultivation.
The physicians had forbidden him from forcing spiritual essence through his damaged Soul Foundation.
The elders no longer expected him to train.
His cousins attended cultivation classes.
His friends gradually grew stronger.
He alone remained behind.
Books had become a way to pass the time.
Nothing more.
But slowly...
Something changed.
Every scroll answered a question.
Every answer created two more.
Before long, he found himself reading not because he had nothing else to do...
But because he genuinely wanted to know more.
His routine rarely changed.
Every morning after breakfast, he arrived at the Archive.
He selected three or four scrolls before settling beside the western window, where sunlight illuminated the pages without being too bright.
He copied unfamiliar runes onto scrap paper.
Compared different interpretations recorded by ancient scholars.
When he encountered something he couldn't understand, he searched for another scroll explaining the same subject from a different perspective.
Sometimes...
One answer required reading five more books.
He never complained.
Knowledge, he had discovered, possessed its own strange attraction.
The more he learned...
The more he realised how little he knew.
One week he devoted himself entirely to Rune Theory. He learned that every rune was more than ink upon paper. It represented an interpretation of Heaven and Earth.
Some runes gathered spiritual essence. Others repelled it.
Some preserved. Some destroyed.
The greatest Runists were said to write formations capable of changing rivers, protecting cities, or sealing ancient beasts beneath mountains.
Mo Xuan found himself captivated.
"Runes..."
He traced a simple character with his finger.
"They're like a language."
Not merely a language spoken between people.
A language spoken...
With the world itself.
The following month, he immersed himself in the history of Cosmic Souls.
Beast Souls.
Weapon Souls.
Elemental Souls.
Concept Souls.
Hybrid Souls.
Variant Souls.
Defective Souls.
Each category possessed its own strengths and weaknesses.
Each evolved differently.
He read every surviving record concerning defective souls.
Some belonged to cultivators whose growth had stalled forever.
Others had died attempting to force breakthroughs.
A handful recovered after obtaining unimaginable heavenly treasures.
Most...
Simply disappeared from history.
He quietly closed the final scroll.
Seasons passed.
Spring gave way to summer.
Summer gradually yielded to autumn.
Outside, young disciples steadily advanced through the first stages of cultivation.
Inside the Archive, another kind of growth quietly unfolded.
Mo Xuan's handwriting became neater.
His memory sharpened.
He no longer needed to reread simple theories.
Entire passages remained clear after seeing them only once.
Even the elderly caretaker began noticing.
"You've changed."
Mo Xuan looked up from his scroll.
"Have I?"
The old man smiled.
One rainy afternoon, thunder rolled across the distant mountains.
Most disciples remained indoors.
The Archive was unusually empty.
Mo Xuan wandered between the towering shelves, reading labels for History, Formation Theory, Ancient Geography, Spirit Beasts, and Artefact Forging.
His gaze wandered without purpose.
He had no particular book in mind.
He simply enjoyed exploring.
Some of the oldest shelves stood untouched for years.
Dust coated their edges.
Several leaned noticeably under the weight of forgotten volumes.
Mo Xuan smiled.
"The older..."
"...the better."
He continued walking toward the deepest corner of the Outer Pavilion.
It was a place even the caretaker rarely visited.
One shelf had partially collapsed long ago.
Broken timber blocked part of the passage.
Most people turned back here.
Mo Xuan didn't.
Carefully stepping over the fallen wood, he squeezed through the narrow opening.
A forgotten corner of the Archive unfolded before him.
Shelves disappeared into the shadows, while dust drifted through narrow beams of afternoon light. Books that no one had touched in decades leaned at precarious angles along the walls.
His heartbeat quickened slightly.
He had always loved discovering forgotten things.
Slowly, his eyes swept across the ancient shelves until something caught his attention.
Half hidden behind a collapsed stack of mouldering scrolls rested a solitary leather-bound book unlike any other in the Archive.
Its cover bore almost no dust.
As though time itself had refused to settle upon it.
Mo Xuan reached toward it.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, something stirred within him.