Chapter 6: The City That Measures Bones
Qingyun City did not welcome geniuses.
It weighed them, priced them, and—if they were found wanting—threw them away.
Lin Qiu learned this within the first hour.
The eastern avenue was a river of silk robes and flying swords. Outer disciples in the colors of the four great sects prowled like wolves, spiritual senses sweeping every new arrival for spiritual roots, bone age, and cultivation base. Street vendors sold "bone-cleansing tea" that smelled like swamp water and "meridian-opening pills" that were mostly chalk. A boy no older than ten was crying because his grade-three spiritual root had been publicly declared "mediocre" by a laughing recruiter.
Su Ling led the way, head high, ignoring the stares. The surviving guards followed, carrying the wounded on makeshift stretchers. The moment they reached the Su family compound—an entire city block of vermilion walls and guardian lions—the gates flew open and fifty armored retainers poured out.
Su Tianhao himself, a broad man with a merchant's smile and a Foundation Establishment cultivator's pressure, knelt in the street before Lin Qiu.
"Young master Lin," he said, voice thick, "my daughter's life is worth more than ten lifetimes of profit. From today, the Su Clan is your blade and your shield."
Lin Qiu felt every eye on the street boring into his back. He pulled Su Tianhao up by the elbow.
"I only want a bath, a meal, and honest answers," he said quietly. "Stand up. I don't like people kneeling."
Su Tianhao's eyes widened, but he obeyed. Su Ling hid a smile.
By noon Lin Qiu had all three.
The bath was a private courtyard pool fed by a minor spirit spring. When he stepped in, the water flashed violet and began to boil gently; the Thunder Monarch's Heart was refining the spring itself. Servants fled screaming that the young master was cooking himself. Lin Qiu just sank to his chin and let the heat scour three weeks of mountain dirt from his bones.
The meal was thirty-six dishes. He ate half and stored the rest as pure qi.
Then came the answers, delivered in a quiet study lined with jade slips.
Su Tianhao laid out four painted scrolls on the table.
"These are the four great sects holding recruitment this cycle."
1. Violet Heaven Palace – lightning, sword, illusions. Ruthless meritocracy. Founded by the only Thunder Monarch to ever ascend in recorded history. Current sect leader: Lei Wujing, peak Core Formation, rumored half-step Nascent Soul. Known for eating disciples who disgrace the sect.
2. Jade Lotus Sect – water, healing, alchemy. All-female inner sect. Gentle reputation, poisonous reality. They collect "failed" geniuses from other sects and turn them into cauldrons.
3. Burning Skyreach Tower – arrays, talismans, puppet arts. Cold. Logical. They rank prospects by mathematical potential and discard anyone below an arbitrary line.
4. Blood Flame Valley – fire, body refining, war. The sect that sends its outer disciples to die in demon beast tides on purpose. Survival rate below thirty percent. Rewards beyond imagination for those who crawl out.
Su Ling tapped the first scroll. "Grandfather's sect. They will want you the most. They will also try hardest to break you."
Lin Qiu traced the nine-petaled lightning flower embroidered on the Violet Heaven banner.
"I expected nothing less."
Su Tianhao produced a golden token. "Preliminary examination begins in three days at the Arena of Ten Thousand Steps. This token registers you as an invited guest of the Su Clan—highest priority lane. No waiting with the ants."
Lin Qiu accepted it. The token was warm, humming faintly with thunder qi.
"One more thing," Su Tianhao said, voice dropping. "There is a rumor. The Violet Heaven Palace prepared a special test this year for anyone claiming thunder inheritance. They call it the Nine Tribulations Pagoda. No one below Foundation Establishment has ever passed the fifth floor. Last cycle, a genius with heavenly lightning root died on the seventh."
Lin Qiu smiled.
"Then I'll make sure to reach the tenth."
Su Ling rolled her eyes. "Arrogant."
"Confident," he corrected.
That night he did not sleep.
Instead he sat cross-legged on the roof of the highest pavilion, letting moonlight and city qi pour into him. The Thunder Monarch's Heart spun faster and faster until the tiles beneath him began to glow violet.
He was trying something he had felt since the pine spirit's trial.
A second star, smaller, silver-white, began to condense beside the violet one.
Pain lanced through his dantian like a spear of ice. Blood leaked from his nose. But he did not stop.
By dawn the second star stabilized—small as a grain of rice, but perfect.
Yin thunder, born from extreme yang.
The Heart had begun to evolve.
Lin Qiu wiped the blood away and grinned at the rising sun.
Three days.
Seventy-two hours to turn a cripple's body into something the heavens themselves would fear.
He stood. Lightning danced between his fingers like eager children.
Below, the city stirred, unaware that its measuring scales were about to shatter.
In the distance, the Arena of Ten Thousand Steps rose like a black mountain against the sky. Each of its steps was carved from tribulation iron, capable of testing bone age, spiritual root, willpower, and killing intent in a single glance.
Fifteen days until the true examination.
Three days until the first scream.
Lin Qiu took one step off the roof and did not fall.
He walked on lightning instead, straight toward the arena town, cloak snapping, violet eyes burning with stormlight.
Behind him, Su Ling watched from her window and felt, for the first time in her life, what it was like to stand in the shadow of someone who would one day make the heavens kneel.
She whispered to the dawn:
"Don't die, Lin Qiu.
The world isn't ready to lose its next monster."
Thunder rumbled in a clear sky, as if in agreement.
To be continued…